Government Operations Committee on March 20th, 2018

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

I want to come back to the question of the $16 million that's been allocated to find a replacement for Phoenix, working with experts and with the public sector unions.

What does that process look like over the next year? Has it started? What's the first step?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I'll ask Les to give some more details, but from our perspective at PSPC, we are focused 100% on stabilizing the current system, the thinking being that in parallel to that process, Treasury Board Secretariat is beginning the process of finding out what the next system would and could look like.

You'll have to remember that this was procured eight or 10 years ago, and even if the system were functioning perfectly, we might be starting discussions about what comes next.

[Les Linklater]

As you can appreciate with the announcement in the budget of the funding, Treasury Board is now organizing themselves to complete the review of what a future system could look like. These are very initial days. They are looking at appointing a senior lead within Treasury Board Secretariat to coordinate as the employer across the offices of the comptroller general and the chief human resources officer, and the chief information officer, all located at Treasury Board.

The view would be to then work with unions, the private sector, practitioners who are actually using the pay system now, to bring to bear the various perspectives that are out there to pull together an outline—

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

At this point it seems to me it's a pretty vague plan in its early stages.

How do you get to a $16-million budgetary commitment for this year without having a more specific plan on how you intend to move forward? Is that $16 million for staff? Is it $16 million for an office? Is it $16 million for paper? How do you get to $16 million without really knowing who you're even going to meet with yet?

[Les Linklater]

It would include all of the above. I would suggest that from the Department of Finance perspective, in assembling the budget they're probably looking at this as a bit of a drawdown, so that Treasury Board knows within what sort of envelope they're able to operate and draw down monies as they incur costs.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Okay, but there's no real budget for the project as such or spending plan?

[Les Linklater]

Those questions should probably be directed to Treasury Board Secretariat.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Okay.

The next question I want to ask on the Phoenix file has to do with the money in the supplementary estimates to pay public sector unions the dues that are owed to them. Of course, I presume it's an advance and that it is going to be recovered from employees at some point, but I also understand that at the moment, part of the problem is that we can't actually say what a particular employee owes in dues and we don't have the confidence to say what they owe.

What process is happening right now, and what does that process look like, in order to arrive at a point at which the government can say with confidence—not just in themselves, but that employees can have confidence—that they'll know for each employee what union dues are owed?

We've heard a lot of stories in which employees are approached—and I know there was a recent announcement about this in terms of recovery of emergency pay, but it has been a persistent problem with Phoenix—and are told: “You owe us this much money. Give it to us now”, and in fact, “We're going to take it off your cheque, and if that means your whole cheque is gone, so be it: we want our money back.”

Are we going to live a similar nightmare? Are federal employees going to live a similar nightmare with their union dues, when government decides it wants this money back?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I would say a couple things.

First of all, one of the significant benefits of what we're calling our “pod approach” is that we are looking at the whole individual in terms of making them whole. We're not just looking at one particular type of transaction for everybody. We're ensuring that when we look at Carla Qualtrough, we address all of Carla Qualtrough's transactions. That will allow us to have an accurate understanding of both what we owe Carla and what Carla owes us.

We can get to a point where that is accurate. The challenge is when we've been doing things transaction by transaction. That was an attempt that was agreed upon with unions, and that was the approach we took in the beginning, which meant that you never had a sense of the bigger picture with respect to an individual.

Les, I don't know if you could elaborate.

[Les Linklater]

Certainly. With—

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Are we at a point, then, where government effectively needs to conduct an audit of each individual employee to double-check the work of the payroll system? Is that being performed in a systematic way, or is it just kind of on a complaint basis? Is it the case that the most urgent cases are getting addressed and that you do a complete audit as part of that, but that eventually we're going to have to work through and audit each individual employee?

[Les Linklater]

We are aware that over time, once we get to a point of stability in the system, we will need to offer some sort of file review to employees so that they can understand their pay stubs and see that they're getting what they are entitled to, and so that if there are any anomalies, we are able to address them.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I know that in some cases with my own constituents who work for the federal government, one of the things we've heard sometimes is, “Oh well, we demanded a lump sum back because the employee wasn't in touch with us in order to talk about a repayment plan.”

In my view, given everything that has happened around Phoenix, if the federal government sees that an extraordinary sum of money is owed by an employee, whether it's $3,000, $5,000, $10,000, or $20,000, it seems to me wrong as a starting point to think that an employee could afford to absorb the maximum amount of that off their paycheck and that they could just get through a few pay periods without any money.

Can you commit to having the department proactively contact people who owe money in order to establish a payment plan instead of putting the onus on the employee, who may not even know that they owe the money before it shows up on their pay stub?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

That's exactly where we're headed. I'll get Les to give the details of that.

[Les Linklater]

Certainly. We have been working with the unions very closely on this issue. It is having an impact on employees to their detriment. We are looking at providing maximum flexibility to individuals who may owe the government money, and as I said, we are looking at how we can best accomplish that through flexible repayment programs and plans, but only after we've been able to take the sum of the employee's file and reconcile all of the outstanding transactions.

We will be giving maximum flexibility and not asking for all of the money back at a certain time. We will deal with the individual circumstances of the employees.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We go now to Mr. Peterson for seven minutes.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Minister, for being here. Thank you, everyone else, for being here, too. It's always appreciated.

I think I just want to echo what Mr. McCauley referred to. This clearly is a non-partisan issue. We all have federal employees in our ridings, some obviously more than others. I appreciate the efforts that are being taken by your department and the department's appreciation of the gravity of the situation. I think I speak for every member of Parliament when I say that the sooner the solution arises, the better, obviously. It looks to me like we're heading down the right path now, and I appreciate everybody's efforts and redoubling of efforts to get this resolution at least on the horizon as we work towards it. I do applaud your efforts on that. There's much to be done, still, of course.

I just want to change channels here a little bit. You may know, Minister—and I'm sure you do—that our committee has been looking at procurement in general and specifically at the engagement of small and medium-sized enterprises, women-led enterprises, the procurement strategy for aboriginal persons, and these types of programs. They are, I think, part of the procurement modernization that the government is striving towards.

I noticed in the budget that your department received, I think, $192 million for the e-procurement tool. I just wonder if you could elaborate on what that is and what role you see that playing in this general procurement modernization process that we're undergoing.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I am particularly excited about our e-procurement initiative, and certainly it will be a foundational part of our overall modernization of procurement for the Government of Canada.

As you all know, you've studied it, our procurement processes can be clunky; they can be waterfall and they can tend to lack innovation. We want to move to a world-class system that draws on best practices around the world; that allows for innovation; that allows for better and easier access; and that's not so burdensome, particularly on our SMEs. We don't need people spending all their time filling out applications; we need them growing their businesses. We are removing any unnecessary barriers that we are imposing as a government, while respecting of course that we have to adhere to principles of transparency and accountability. E-procurement will form a big part of this particular initiative, the idea being that right now we have this incredibly burdensome paper process. We are moving to a process whereby businesses can apply online for contracts; submit their applications, their bids, what have you, for contracts with the Government of Canada. We need to make sure that this is accessible; that this doesn't preclude companies and businesses—especially small businesses—from applying. We see this as a foundational tool toward our vision of a modern, agile procurement process for the Government of Canada.

Michael or Marie?

[Marie Lemay, Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

We've been hearing from suppliers about the complexity of the document; the opportunities are hard to find. We want to expand the supplier base and not create a group of people who are used to our system to be able to bid on government contracts.

It also takes a long time, and it's not uniform across government. To add to what the minister said, the system will allow us to look at our processes and be able to be uniform and simplify them. Currently, we're looking at contracts to see how we can simplify them. We're taking some lessons from the Goss Gilroy report and looking at our processes, making sure they're done properly as we're going to automate this procurement system. We see it as a bit of an Amazon-type approach, where you go in and do your bidding.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

During our study, I think it's fair to say, we've heard from groups of people who don't necessarily feel they're currently able to engage with the procurement process.

Do you see this e-procurement tool as improving their ability to engage in the procurement process, as opposed to adding another obstacle to it?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Oh yes, absolutely. That's one of the driving factors for going to e-procurement, so that businesses, companies, individuals who normally wouldn't either see themselves in our process, or who in some way face a barrier to their participating, that those barriers are removed and companies see themselves as potential contractors with the Government of Canada.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

On the procurement modernization line of questioning here, I know in your mandate letter you were mandated to ensure prompt payment of contractors and sub-contractors who do business with your department. We did hear during our study that timely payment was a concern that a lot of service providers had when it came to dealing with the government. In fact, it served as a barrier for people, so they didn't bother to bid on some of the work they could have done.

What progress has been made on this front?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

In January, we announced that we would be engaging with industry and experts to work toward the creation of federal prompt payment legislation. We know that this is really important for industry and leadership; you've heard it as well. We've engaged Bruce Reynolds and Sharon Vogel to lend their expertise to this process, and they're in the process of consulting with industry to provide some recommendations for us that will then form the basis of a federal legislative regime around prompt payment in the federal jurisdiction. I think we've made good progress; I think it's very exciting and it's been very well received from industry. These experts were the ones who led the process in Ontario, and industry is very supportive.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I was going to turn to the estimates because obviously there are a lot of numbers here. I haven't talked about estimates yet, and this is the estimates process; I feel bad for disregarding them.

I want to go again on this...

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Hurry up.