Evidence of meeting #20 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Chief Executive and Co-owner, SPI Consultants
I'll address the first one, because it was one of mine.
I said the system is a good system. It's not perfect, and there are improvements that could be made to it. I didn't say it wasn't good.
12:45 p.m.
Secretary-Treasurer and Co-owner, The AIM Group Inc.
We've always said it was an efficient and effective system. It was developed over time and over an evolution as we changed it and modified it and fixed it up, and that was the process we were expecting to go through again. Anything needs to be adjusted and changed.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
But technically there are 70 to 80 real suppliers on that list at the present time?
12:45 p.m.
Secretary-Treasurer and Co-owner, The AIM Group Inc.
There are 143 suppliers on the list. The majority of the business is supplied by probably 35 to 40 suppliers.
12:45 p.m.
Chief Executive and Co-owner, SPI Consultants
In January of this year, there were 81 suppliers who actually supplied. One of those had a zero against it, so there were 80 suppliers.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm glad to have the opportunity to respond to my colleague. I'm grateful he brought up who created that office.
I was not complaining about the creation of the office. I was drawing attention to the fact that government claims to put emphasis by keeping this office and helping small businesses, yet it acts in a way that removes small business from conducting any business.
So maybe it was a confusing point, but--
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Diane Marleau
Please, if you have any questions of our presenters, you can always carry on your fight with the government later.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga—Erindale, ON
My comments are that the city of Mississauga and our country have a lot of small and medium-sized businesses and our economy depends on them. It's really important that we take very seriously what the businesses here today tell us.
I am sure the committee is very grateful for your presence here today. I hope the government and the House of Commons pay attention to proceedings of this committee. I hope things will change so a healthy working relationship comes out of it that maintains vibrant small and medium-sized businesses in our country.
Thank you all for coming. I don't have any questions.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Diane Marleau
Thank you.
I might add a few points, because I know a little bit about it. I want to ask two questions.
When you go to a smaller pool of suppliers and you push the price down and somebody wins the bid, is there a propensity afterwards for the price to increase when there has to be additional work done, so that the original price does not become the end price? Does that occur?
The other challenge is that the upper echelons often don't listen to what the people who are doing the work are doing. There often is a disconnect between the top and the middle. Do you have any comments on how to remedy that particular point, and on the first point, is that occurring within your industry with some contracts?
12:50 p.m.
Secretary-Treasurer and Co-owner, The AIM Group Inc.
I definitely would agree that the propensity is for the prices to go higher. I explained what we feared in our system with respect to the standing offer on the renewal.
We did a fair amount of research into the reverse-auction process, which was an integral part of this proposal. It's been pulled from the bid, but they talk about retaliatory pricing. They also talk about the fact that any time there's an opportunity where you're not buying exactly what's specified in the document, if you're buying something outside the specifications, that's when you really slam it to the buyer. That sort of thing would definitely have a propensity to do that.
12:50 p.m.
President, FREDAL Solutions
In our sector of photocopiers, it's impossible, because the prices are there. There's a freeze, and it's impossible.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
James Moore Conservative Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC
I wanted to make a quick statement on behalf of the government.
The exchange here has been very good. I wanted to thank all of you for taking the time to come to committee, prepare yourselves, and give us such substantive information. I wanted to reaffirm to each of you and to the industries and the hundreds and perhaps thousands of employees you're speaking on behalf of who couldn't be here today that our government and Minister Fortier are absolutely committed to getting the best value for taxpayers' dollars.
We are also listening to repeated Auditor General's reports that have said the federal government can find substantive savings in the way we procure on behalf of Canadian taxpayers.
It's important to put all this within a context and a framework. Working backwards successively through public works ministers, Scott Brison, the previous minister, was a very capable, very smart man who came into the public works department under circumstances we all know about, which arrested his ability to deal with procurement reform because of the circumstances within the department. It was no fault of his.
Prior to that Don Boudria was the public works minister. He was replaced by Mr. Brison after the Boulay affair. And prior to that Alfonso Gagliano was the Minister of Public Works, and we know what he did in the department.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
James Moore Conservative Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC
My point is that this issue of procurement reform--
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
James Moore Conservative Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC
Prior to that we had the esteemed chairman.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
James Moore Conservative Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC
Of course we did, but my point is it's been a long time.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
James Moore Conservative Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC
Yes, she did.
The point is that this issue of procurement reform has been on the back burner for a very long time. We're going to do our consultations and we're going to get this right.
There is real consternation regarding the way the consultations happened earlier in the spring. We listened. We backed off, and now we're going to re-engage and we are going to get it done right. We did precisely what responsible government should do. We're going to find savings for taxpayers. We're going to make it work for everybody, and there you are.
