Government Operations Committee on June 3rd, 2014

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

I'll offer an opportunity to answer my previous question about the interplay between regulation versus policy in implementing the standard. But also, since we're about to wrap up, I'll request an opportunity, if you could, to summarize in a very succinct or pointed way how we as a committee should communicate to the House through the use of our report? We will submit a report to the House, obviously, on our findings concerning this agency or program. If you could just summarize what you would like us to recommend in terms of changes, that would be very helpful to our report generation process.

Mr. Morel, if you can start.

[Gilles Morel]

I think the CGSB has been a valuable instrument or tool for our industry for many years. I think the recommendation should be to continue to support it at the level it is right now and continue to support, I guess, the internal search to find efficiencies. There are still a few efficiencies, but I think industry and the participants are very supportive of the process and would like it to continue the way it is.

[Peter Boag]

I would add a couple of things to what Gilles has said.

I think the other important point is that not only is it a valuable organization for our industry, but it provides a considerable degree of value to Canadians more broadly as consumers of our products, to ensure they have confidence when they go to the pump or, if it's a commercial customer, to the card lock, or if it's the agricultural community. It ensures that the product they're buying is fit for purpose in all the conditions where they're going to use it. I think that's the big value. We're the deliverers and we're part of that value chain, but ultimately the real value of the work of the CGSB accrues to Canadians more broadly.

The other thing that I think would be important to communicate is that the model the CGSB has in terms of this very broad and balanced approach that involves multiple stakeholders—all the way from producers, through government regulators, through consumers—is a very important part of its success and must continue.

[Michel Comtois]

I'd like to bring the committee back to my gear and gearbox thing. We need to.... At least from a QPL standpoint, I would suggest that efforts should be put into engaging that gear properly.

Public Works writes their own purchasing specs for furniture. There is a national standard. Why does Public Works need to write a technical document and have some little.... You can see that 98% of it is the same thing as the national standard, but then you have to go through it with a fine-tooth comb to find out what's different from the national standard when it comes to what Public Works is doing.

Then the feedback we get from Public Works is that they're overwhelmed and they don't have the resources. The resources are there. Use them.

But then when you look at the CGSB, it's.... You're not efficient. You don't have the proper expertise. It's the egg before the chicken and the chicken before the egg. The gearbox won't use the gear because the gear is missing a few teeth. Where do you start to get that process back to where it should be? The idea is good. Again, it brings you back to the image of how they threw out the baby with the dirty water.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Just to be clear, the national standard you were referring is produced by whom?

[Michel Comtois]

The CGSB.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Understood.

[Michel Comtois]

Public Works, when they buy furniture, for instance, or laser printer cartridges, or gloves, don't use that standard across the board. We should allow the CGSB to make themselves known. A lot of people don't know about the CGSB. They don't know the programs and their benefits, so they will not spec out what exists. Nobody is going to spec out that gear if they don't know the gear that is there.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

I understand.

Philippe?

[Philippe Dauphin]

From the point of view of the standard that we use for the certification scheme for non-destructive testing technologists, I would not change anything structurally in the way CGSB operates.

There are a couple of tweaks that could be made, however. One is to allow industry to participate more fully in the development or updating of standards, so that's cost-effective manners for collaborative technologies and better knowledge across government departments, as Mr. Comtois said, because the technologists that are certified by our program get called upon, or there's a demand for them, based on regulations in other departments.

[Randy Jenkins]

In the DFO situation, I think as we move more to third-party suppliers of services, it is all the more important to have a body such as the CGSB to provide that standard oversight and a bit of independence from the program, and to allow us to develop a national qualification type of program so that each region is not off doing their own thing.

It's a global marketplace, as somebody alluded to earlier. Whether they're from the U.S. or from Canada, I think that as long as people are delivering a program that meets the standards we've established and they're qualified to deliver the program, that's good value to Canadians, and everybody's treated equally.

Thanks.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. Byrne.

Before adjourning the meeting, I would like to ask Mr. Dauphin a question.

You set standards for the materials used in pipeline construction, but do you do the same thing for materials used in building bridges, for example, concrete?

[Philippe Dauphin]

We do not develop standards but we do participate in national and international committees as technical experts in standards development. The standards developed by organizations such as the ASTM and the NIST in the U.S. are based on consensus. They are based on the consensus of a committee of technical experts who can come from Canada, the U.S., Europe and so on. Our researchers take part in these committees as technical experts.

Our activities are limited to pipeline materials, whether it is for reviewing corrosion and the performance of steels used in making pipes, materials to make vehicles lighter, or materials for the next generation of nuclear reactors, generation IV. Experts in corrosion or the mechanical properties of materials participate in various national and international committees. The CanmetMATERIALS laboratory does not develop any Canadian standards.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

But you do participate in developing standards.

In the case of concrete, would it be Transport Canada who would be more in charge of participating in developing these standards?

[Philippe Dauphin]

I cannot tell you who develops these standards, but I know our lab does not do that. We study ceramic materials used for their sharpness or their shock resistance, and the steel, aluminum, magnesium, titanium and zirconium used in nuclear reactors. We mostly study metals.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Before doing business with any given company, in most cases the government requires that the company meet certain standards. Mr. Comtois seemed to give the opposite example, of government bodies who do not require some businesses meet standards in order to do business with them.

[Michel Comtois]

There are two things to remember. The government requires that businesses meet 98% of national standards. Instead of reviewing the information, it has decided to set up a self-declaration process according to which businesses simply have to provide a document certifying that they meet the standards. However, there is no monitoring process.

I have been working in this field for 25 years and I can tell you that we need something to be put in place here.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Is it your role as a lab? In order for businesses to be certified, they have to pass lab tests and you administer this kind of test. You yourself are certified to administer these tests.

[Michel Comtois]

We do not provide certification. We provide test reports based on national standards. In principle, this should be the responsibility of the CGSB and its QPL program. The CGSB officer should be reviewing the documents to ensure that everything is in order.

There was a time when PWGSC took care of this. People at the department then complained that their workloads were too heavy but did not want to subcontract the information processing work to the CGSB. PWGSC is now trying to find ways to make its own life easier.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you all for your testimony.

This brings us to the end of our meeting. I will see the committee members next Thursday.

Thank you all for coming here to be with us this morning. This helps us continue our study on the Canadian General Standards Board.

(The meeting is adjourned.)