Evidence of meeting #122 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was phoenix.
A video is available from Parliament.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I will repeat what I just said. We saw it as collecting good information to make good decisions, and not as a lot of effort.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
That's very strange.
Mr. Vandergrift, we haven't replaced Lisa Campbell as the assistant deputy minister for defence and marine procurement yet, have we?
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
No, not yet.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Not yet.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Does her absence have anything to do with the added delays of the shipbuilding? Will we have a replacement before we move forward, or will the new person be involved in the final decision?
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We have opened the process to fill the position, inside and outside of government. We did interviews just last week, so we will be able to announce in the near future the successful candidate. That person will be involved in the project. Delays don't have anything to do with Ms. Campbell's not being here.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The team is fully working on the evaluation, I can assure you, at as fast a speed as they can.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I want to follow up on Mr. Blaikie's questions about government advertising, because there is some money in the estimates for it.
In this committee we studied the advertising, and the committee put forward a recommendation to push money away from Facebook and Twitter, etc., back into community newspapers.
Part of the reason for that is that witnesses we had from the government stated very clearly that they had no metric for measuring success for advertising over social media sites. Their comment was, “No, we don't measure success apart from a click-through rate”. Part of the other concern, which we also had, of course, was access to the analytics from the Facebook sites or the government advertising.
Considering that the unanimous report put forward is to re-evaluate and push the money back to local newspapers rather than put it solely on social media, has your department received direction from the government to move forward in that way?
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
You may not know that the role of PSPC is really to manage that fund and the advertising campaign. The policy really originates in Treasury Board. PCO is also involved in the advertising fund.
We are working on the current policy, which indicates that digital media and platforms are the primary means of interacting with the public, but there are multiple channels still being used to meet the diverse needs of the public. That is what we are working on.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
There's money in the estimates for audits for defence contracts, a small amount. What exactly are you looking at or auditing with that money? Is there money going forward for these very large contracts coming up with both Irving and Seaspan and potentially a fighter jet builder?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
These are funds in the supplementary estimates in front of you that continue a program that was started in 2012. That was a five-year program. There were evaluations done and a decision made to continue that program.
It funds a group of auditors who look primarily at sole-source contracts, particularly in the defence space, where these exist primarily. They look through the books of the contract, and they look through the books of what the company has done to determine whether the profit levels are appropriate to what was originally agreed to at the time of the contract being entered into. Yes, it is something that's used for large sole-source contracts, and we do that to determine whether the profit is appropriate to what was originally agreed to at the time of entering into the contract itself.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
One of the issues that the PBO has had for the shipbuilding for Irving is access to the costs. I believe that a lot is on a cost-plus basis with that contract. Are we going to ramp up or—I know it's not a sole source—are we going to put in resources to audit those numbers to ensure that taxpayers are not being taken advantage of?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We will be looking for sure at a contract of that size to ensure that it is appropriately managed.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Yes, so it's not just sole-source contracts. You will have resources put aside for this as well?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
For these types of large shipbuilding contracts, that's something we'd be looking at for sure.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay. Sorry, just to clarify, you're saying “will be looking”: is that “will be doing for sure” or “we will review” about doing that? I'm just looking for a commitment that it will get done.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes, we will be looking at these types of large contracts for sure.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You're not answering my question. “Looking at” is not committing that it will be done. Will we be putting resources to oversight?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes. This program is used for those large defence—
Conservative
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
—contracts like the shipbuilding ones. Absolutely, yes.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
When I'm sitting at home and I tell my wife that “I'll be looking at doing the dishes,” you know full well that I won't be doing them. There's a big difference between looking at and actually doing.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
No, no. These types of contracts are exactly the ones that this program is intended to look at.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay. I just wanted to confirm because you said sole source—
