Government Operations Committee on June 8th, 2006

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you, that's all for me.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Earlier we talked about acquisitions and about responsibility for leasing and purchases. I asked you a question about those purchases, and you answered with regard to what I call regional fairness.

Mr. Fortier, in the National Capital Region, do you have a healthy concern to transfer, not to Gatineau, but to the Quebec side, leases that in all fairness, are its due? When a department or an organization that wishes to acquire new premises, whether or not all its staff are in the same building, are you concerned about having this reality respected and about giving the Quebec Outaouais what in all fairness, is it's due?

[Michael Fortier]

There's a policy on the percentage per square foot or square metre of commercial space in the greater Ottawa area. That rule, which has been around for more than 20 years, is called the 75-25 rule, and I believe it was the Liberals who introduced it in the early 1980s. All my predecessors have tried to stick to that rule, but in the past few years, the ratio has unfortunately slipped to 77-23, which has caused an imbalance in the real estate market.

My objective is to restore the ratio to 75-25. Since several millions of square feet are involved, moving the needle from 23 to 25 represents a few hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, we shouldn't just give up.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

In other words, when a new initiative is introduced, a museum or something else, your department, under the new leadership, will do a more serious job of examining the possibility of restoring that balance. That's a commitment.

[Michael Fortier]

If it's a museum, I'm not sure. I'm talking about buildings that house government employees. That's the rule. I probably misunderstood your question. I thought that's what you were referring to.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

No, I said a museum because the question was asked about a museum. That's an example that I was giving.

[Michael Fortier]

As regards—

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I now turn the floor over to Mr. Moore.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you. I thought it was interesting to hear the remarks by Mr. Bonin, who was attacking the—

[Raymond Bonin, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Did you feel concerned?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

No, I just found your intervention interesting, because you pointed to me.

In my nearly five and a half years years as a member of Parliament, I've never unfairly attacked the integrity of any individual. As a matter of fact, during the whole sponsorship process in the House of Commons, I never attacked the integrity of Ralph Goodale when he was the public works minister, nor Mr. Valeri, nor Mr. Brison; it was all, of course, on the issue itself. I've never given anybody the Gwyn Morgan treatment, if you can put it that way.

My question to the minister is with regard to the sponsorship scandal itself. We saw in the courtroom what happened with Mr. Guité, and I think what my constituents--and everyone's--are interested in is the recovery of funds with regard to the sponsorship program. What is that process? Where are we, in terms of recovering taxpayers' money?

[Michael Fortier]

I will respond to this, and then perhaps Mr. Marshall can give you more details.

A number of civil suits are currently before the courts in the province of Quebec. We're seeking, all told, very near $60 million; we have already recovered, I believe, north of $5 million. If I'm wrong, I'll be corrected. It is our government's and this department's intention--because we're quarterbacking these lawsuits--to recover as much as we can, given the colossal amount that was misspent in the context of the sponsorship scandal.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Recently the federal government expanded the number of people as well.

[Michael Fortier]

Correct. That's a good comment. We have indeed instituted additional suits against other people and companies that participated in the sponsorship scandal, so the total number of individuals, including companies, currently being sued by the federal government would be.... Does somebody know that number?

It's 30.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I think Mr. Albrecht had a question, so I'll cede my time.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you.

Minister Fortier, thank you for being here.

Obviously we're all concerned about green policies that will not affect our environment negatively. However, those policies should be based on science, not folklore.

I became aware recently of a brochure that disparages polyvinyl chloride as a building material for pipes--plastics. How can we be sure that this kind of...?

I think it's important, not just for--well, especially for.... We talked about aging of our infrastructure; it's been shown to be one that has a high lifespan. Could you comment on that?

[Michael Fortier]

I will let Tim give you more specs on this, but we have teams of architects and engineers within Public Works who advise us on all sorts of infrastructure projects that we undertake for clients on the Hill. A good example is the restoration of the library. I would invite all of you to go and visit the library. You all had the good fortune of seeing it beforehand; I didn't. I have only seen the restoration work, but it's amazing, and I've seen pictures of what it looked like in the past.

They use whatever products they believe are appropriate in the context of those renovation undertakings. In terms of the greening aspect, whether we own a building or we are a large lessee, if the building will undergo a significant retrofit, we are always involved in the background--obviously as an owner, but even as a lessee--just to make sure it's done in accordance with our standards.

With respect to this particular material, I don't know if Tim wants to comment.

[Tim McGrath]

Actually, a mistake was made by the real property branch when we identified that particular product as being hazardous. We've since reviewed it and have been in contact with the representation made by the plastics association. We have since removed it from our technical document; it is an acceptable product.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I'm going to use my prerogative as chair to ask you a couple of questions. I'm going to do that based on my past experience.

I noticed with Bill C-2 that you're going to put down some rules on contracting and so on; that's great. Have you considered the challenge of the subcontractors who get involved? Sometimes there are three or four, and they subcontract out. Have you considered the challenge that occurs when they don't follow the rules? I tried to address that; I'm not sure I was particularly successful at it, but it's a very difficult area.

The other one I wanted to bring forward is that when I was Minister of Public Works, I was responsible for the privatization of the Queen's Printer. There was an awful lot of competition on the printing front. My experience since then is that while we've privatized the Queen's Printer, the departments have now gone holus bolus into printing from within. I don't know if there's anything you can do about this or even whether it continues, but it was ongoing at one point.

[Michael Fortier]

I'll let the deputy answer your second question. I can answer the first.

I think what we need to do in the first instance is we need to have the right infrastructure in order to have the right terms and covenants in our contracts with the primes. I applaud you for having tried to go to the subcontractors, but my humble opinion this morning is that we have an issue with the primes.

Let's deal with those guys first. Let's have fair and open and transparent rules so that the prime folks understand what they're getting into--the terms, the conditions, what have you. Then, perhaps naively, I think the subcontractors who also have access to the terms and conditions of a particular contract--particularly if they're fair, open, transparent, and written in plain English on MERX--will find it'll simplify their lives as they tag on with the prime. My focus in the near term is to make sure that our initial step, our initial foray, will be to improve the way we do business with the folks on the first line.

[David Marshall]

Madam Chair, the initial program to privatize the Queen's Printer was, in my opinion, a very successful one, in that you now had a private company using its efficiency to provide the government's needs.

In the initial years was there was a privilege or preference given to the Queen's Printer to make sure it was given a certain amount of volume in order for it to be efficient. Since then the whole printing industry has undergone drastic change. There are very-high-speed copiers and printers; you don't normally have to go out for print jobs as departments had to do in the past.

The whole industry structure has changed; departments have been using their own copiers and so on to do some of that work, but now it's coming full circle again, because we're finding that while we're getting good prices on printers through our volume buying, there are now companies willing to provide what we call managed printing services, meaning we can reduce the number of printers we need by almost 30%. It keeps evolving, and we're trying to keep up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

That's a particular interest of mine, basically.

Mr. Alghabra.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Madame Chair, and thank you, Minister.

I just want to make a comment, and then I have a question. I come from the private sector, and I know how sometimes you may have very specific requirements for certain products or services. What you can do is to make sure that your RFP meets the requirements you're looking for, and when that happens, you'll be surprised by the number of other offers you can get; not only do you get other offers, but you can also incentivize the original suppliers that you thought had the best solution to give you a better deal.

So I'm still wondering if there is an opportunity here for us to go through this exercise to ensure that we're doing the right thing. We probably are doing the right thing, but why not go through an open RFP process?

[Michael Fortier]

Is that your comment or your question?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

That's my comment.