Government Operations Committee on Nov. 28th, 2017

[Les Linklater]

We'd be happy to follow up in writing, but essentially we are able to run internal reports related to underpayments and overpayments. That provides us with a bit of an indication as to where there may be problems. As we process transactions as well, overpayments and underpayments may come to our attention, and employees may report them to us through the contact centre as well.

When there is a discovery, particularly of an overpayment, we do take action to make the correction and adjust the T4 so that the actual T4 reflects appropriate earnings for that individual and the overpayment is addressed.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Will the recipient be able to understand that clearly?

[Les Linklater]

Yes, we will ensure that. Building on our experience with tax season last year, we've already begun working with Treasury Board and CRA to make sure we have good public-facing communications around these issues.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have about 30 seconds.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Well, prompt payment: can Ms. Lemay talk to me about that?

[Marie Lemay]

One of the measures that we have put in place is a 14-point action plan that we've developed in working with the industry. One that we've had in place since June is that we now post payments of more than $100,000 to contractors. The subcontractors can look at it and know that the primes have been paid and they can follow up on them. There is ongoing discussion with the industry on this issue, and we're looking to do other measures. We have the 14-point plan on our website.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

We may have to do more than moral suasion, in other words. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We have Mr. McCauley for seven minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Parker, can you update us very quickly on any new satisfaction results that you have for Shared Services, please?

[Ron Parker, President, Shared Services Canada]

Sure. Thank you for the question.

All of these improvements I'm going to talk about are attributable to the dedication and professionalism of our employees.

I'm very pleased to say that since December 2015, our customer satisfaction index has steadily increased over the last number of months from 2.79 to 3.43 in October. Along the way, we've had three five-out-of-fives from individual departments in terms of the level of the index. This is a really great summary measure, and I appreciate it.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Campbell, you talked about the CSC, and at end of the month I think we're going to RFP. We saw the PBO report stating that every single month that this program is delayed is going to cost taxpayers an extra quarter of a billion dollars. How much, from the time we get started, is this going to cost us all together when you use the PBO's numbers?

[Lisa Campbell]

Thank you for the question.

I'm pleased to talk about the Canadian Surface Combatant. It is the largest, most complex—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Sorry, I know all that. It's a very specific question. The PBO says a quarter of a billion taxpayer dollars is going to be wasted every month that we delay starting the project. How long will it be before we start, and how much, using the PBO's numbers, is it going to cost the taxpayers, please?

[Lisa Campbell]

To answer the question, there are a number of factors that feed into that, including which design is ultimately selected. We still forecast starting steel construction in early 2020, so that has not changed. Granting extensions at industry's request, quite frankly, is to make sure that we get good, strong bids for Canada to choose from and best value.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do you think we'll have a contract awarded by then?

[Lisa Campbell]

The bids close on November 30, which is the end of this week. We expect to finish the evaluation in 2018 and start awarding contracts for the design work—as you know, under the shipbuilding strategy, it's design and then build—to start as soon as possible. We do sense the urgency and share that with industry. We do want to press ahead.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

We're into several billions, unfortunately.

Ms. Lemay, in July a year and a half ago we sat in this exact room, and I think I sat in this exact seat when I asked about the T4 issues and what we were going to do for T4s. We were told we were taking a whole-of-government approach to this one, and we know it turned into an absolute disaster. There were 70,000 to 80,000 incorrect T4s.

What assurances can we have that we're not going to repeat this? A year and a half ago we asked, and we were told that a whole-of-government approach would fix it. It was a disaster. What are we doing this year for the T4s to ensure we don't repeat it?

[Marie Lemay]

We will build on what we learned last year. The fact that we had a high number of amended T4s doesn't.... We're still going to have them. We know this from the overpayments and underpayments. We know that. It's about how we address it. What we have put in place with CRA is that they do an automatic sort without people having to resubmit. Those are the processes we had put in place. We're going to build on those.

I understand that the number is a high number, but I wouldn't judge.... We have to bring it down, but how we address that situation is more important, I think.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right. How are you doing that?

[Marie Lemay]

As I said, with the unions and CRA we developed a process last year whereby people were able to not have to resubmit and the amended T4s were automatically reassessed. We're doing the same thing this year. We're going to get the information out more widely to employees as well.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks.

Very quickly, we heard recently that there's a training program set out for Phoenix. It's a big controversy that it's not mandatory. Why at this point, after two years, is the training for Phoenix not mandatory?

We've heard an off-the-cuff comment about “Well, I don't control the other departments”, but we hear so much that it's a whole-of-government approach. We've heard from the beginning that Treasury Board didn't communicate with PSPC and PSPC didn't communicate with anyone else. Here we have an opportunity, but it looks like we're dropping it again. Why is the training not mandatory?

[Marie Lemay]

I believe the employer actually issued a note yesterday saying that the training is now mandatory.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Why does it take two years to make the training mandatory?

[Marie Lemay]

It's a whole-of-government approach. We are learning.