Evidence of meeting #22 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was contract.
A recording is available from Parliament.
General Manager, Public Works and Government Services Canada, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
I will give you a few examples. We provide information on small and medium-sized businesses. Quality inspections are carried out with respect to cleaning and other projects. I think there are 28 in all.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Could you submit a copy of that report to the committee, please?
General Manager, Public Works and Government Services Canada, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
The performance report?
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Yes, so we can see your overall performance under that contract.
Do you also have to submit a quarterly report on third-party service providers to PWGSC, as is required for other contracts of that size?
General Manager, Public Works and Government Services Canada, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
No, but we have taken the initiative of giving PWGSC general information, so that it has an idea of how many small and medium-sized businesses, and contractors we use.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
But you do not tell PWGSC who you are giving the contracts to.
General Manager, Public Works and Government Services Canada, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
No, but it has access to that information through its ongoing verification procedure.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
The current review will look at specifying who the contracts are awarded to.
General Manager, Public Works and Government Services Canada, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
Yes.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Very well.
Earlier, the officials from PWGSC explained how you award your contracts.
Do you have any pre-existing contracts with certain suppliers, quotas you have to meet for some of them?
General Manager, Public Works and Government Services Canada, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
No. We have service contracts for certain projects, as mentioned earlier. We have a lot of three-year service contracts, but we do not have any contracts where we are required to give a contractor a certain amount.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
When PWGSC awarded the contract, did a fairness monitor oversee the contracting process?
General Manager, Public Works and Government Services Canada, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
There was one on PWGSC's end.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
I would like you to submit a copy of that report to the committee.
Is it your company's practice to use a fairness monitor when awarding contracts?
President, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
I suppose that would be me.
The one thing maybe I should point out is that we are extensively audited, not only internally by the quality control group that I have reporting to me, but our parent company, SNC-Lavalin, also has a series of audit groups, both internally and externally, that audit us. I sometimes feel we're performing this entire contract for the benefit of the auditing fraternity rather than... But there is a great deal of oversight, both internally and externally, on this.
General Manager, Public Works and Government Services Canada, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
Only to certain aspects, not necessarily everything. For third parties, they are still a public company. In terms of what goes on internally, that is not the case, but we conduct audits that we must show them.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
From your understanding, would you say that your contract will be renewed?
President, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
I think that probably should have been asked of Public Works, but we certainly hope... We're extremely proud of our relationship with Public Works. We think this is a very good contract, we think they're administering it well and carefully, and we're really proud of the work we've done.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
If the department renewed the contract or, on the contrary, if it decided not to, how many months would it have to make the transition?
President, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
Regardless of our owners, all our contracts have termination for various rights from the owner. I believe in the case of this one—and I'm not even sure—it would depend on the reasons for doing it, but termination for convenience is available to the department if they decide to go in a different direction.
Justin Sharp Senior Vice-President, Facility Management, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
Madam, the other way maybe to answer your question is that they require a one year's advance preparation--
Senior Vice-President, Facility Management, SNC Lavalin Operations and Maintenance (O & M)
--to exercise or not to exercise.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Are you a member of the Real Property Institute of Canada?