Government Operations Committee on Nov. 6th, 2018

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Could you read it into the record?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Sure. It is:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates undertake a study of the federal government's defence procurement process and; that the study consist of no less than 10 meetings; and that the study begin no later than Friday, November 30, 2018.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

Mr. McCauley, I'm sorry for interrupting. Before you begin—and obviously we're into debate now on your motion, and you can speak as long as you wish—I will mention that I will try to accommodate anyone else who wants to get on the speakers list. Mr. Nicholson has indicated that he would like to speak to this.

Do we have anyone else?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'll defer to Mr. Nicholson.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Nicholson, go ahead.

[Rob Nicholson, Niagara Falls, CPC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses here today for their testimony. I'm pleased to be here as recently appointed shadow minister for public services and procurement.

I'd like to address the motion that's been put forward by my colleague Kelly McCauley. The motion requests that this committee undertake a study of the federal government's defence procurement process.

I think, Mr. Chair, that this is simply a good idea. I think it would present an opportunity for the committee to address what I think—and I think most Canadians would agree with me—is an urgent need in the Canadian Armed Forces.

I appreciate the study that you're doing on greening and I certainly appreciated the witness testimony here. That said, it has been studied quite a bit over the last number of years. Conversely, a non-partisan study on cleaning up the extremely cumbersome procurement process gives an opportunity to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates to work in tandem to address the needs of the Canadian Armed Forces and the security of all Canadians at the same time.

Mr. Chair, the burdensome procurement process, as you know, is not something new; it has been around for years. I have been told by a number of officials, for instance in the Department of National Defence, that this can and should be a top priority. As procurement ombudsman Alexander Jeglic noted, the present process is complicated, time-consuming, and bureaucratic, with far too many overlapping procurement rules.

One suggestion was to implement training for every bureaucrat. I unreservedly agree with that recommendation, as they are in the best position to simplify the process and make it accessible.

Getting feedback from those who bid on contracts, I think, is also of key importance for this improvement. I've heard time and again, particularly from small businesses, that the administrative process is too burdensome. I'm sure all my colleagues have heard this from small businesses that have wanted to be part of this process.

Colleagues, I think we have the opportunity to make a real difference with this study, to streamline the process. Naming a decision-maker for timeline approval alone would make a tremendous difference. It shouldn't take years to see the construction of a single Arctic patrol ship and select a preferred designer. Our allies are able to deliver these projects in less than two years. I think we should certainly look at the processes of our allies, such as Belgium and Australia, within this study.

It should be noted that the scope of the study would not encompass decisions made; it would rather focus on restructuring the process for maximum efficiency. We need to do better, and if we commit to working together, we can do better.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for your time. I look forward to further discussion on this matter. I hope it is something that will have the support of everyone here. I think it is very timely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, Mr. Nicholson.

I have two people on my speakers list, Mr. McCauley—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You're fine?

Then, Mr. Peterson.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I move that the debate be now adjourned.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

That motion is in order. We'll have an immediate vote on it.

(Motion agreed to)

Mr. McCauley, we left off with you. You have seven minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks for bearing with us, folks.

I have questions, and feel free, everyone, to jump in.

We have, I think, four departments, represented here. Who is in charge ultimately for the greening of government? We've seen issues such as the Phoenix problem. We've seen in defence procurement that we have different fingers in the pot and nothing is getting done. We have failure after failure.

Who's in charge? Who does oversight of the whole process?

[Nick Xenos]

I can start.

The overall strategy and the coordination and implementation of the strategy is led by Treasury Board Secretariat, but each department of course has accountability and makes the decisions for its own real properties.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

What's the follow-up from Treasury Board, then, to ensure that these goals are being set and being met, etc.?

The reason I ask is that I want to follow up on Ms. Gelfand's comment about accountability. I sat here and listened to everyone say that they're doing this and that. I sat there and have read through your departmental plans for Environment, Treasury Board, and PSPC, and PSPC is the only one that actually has set a goal on these issues. There's one single line item in all of the departmental plans, but not one in Environment about greening the government, which I find quite shocking. There's nothing in Treasury Board. There's one line item in PSPC: reduce greenhouse gases from the buildings by 17% from the previous year, which is great because we know it's the highest GHG emitter.

I question, however, who is in charge of the process, if we don't even have our own department of environment setting goals in this matter.

[Nick Xenos]

The way we show progress is that every year on the Open Government website.... The centre for greening government has a website—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm sorry, I'm going to interrupt.

Yes, but this is after the fact. If our own departmental plans, which are issued at the same time as the estimates and the budget, come out saying, “This is our goal for the year”, and they haven't set a single goal, what's the point, if the only accountability is a year later, asking whether we met our goals? “Oh, well, we actually didn't set any goals”—apart from PSPC.

That's what I want to get to. We have four different departments here, but who is actually ensuring that this stuff gets done? If you leave it to departments, it's clear that it won't get done. That's clear from Ms. Gelfand's comment about accountability.

[Nick Xenos]

Every year what we do is issue how each department is doing. We're very specific: how each department has progressed to the 40% and 80% goals. That is publicly disclosed on the website. We can send you the link afterwards.

We know, then, how each department is doing and we track that, and not just at the end of the year, but that's when we officially get the submissions. But, of course—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do you look at their goals in advance, though?

[Nick Xenos]

Well, the goals in advance are 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050, and so—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

This is not shown in any departmental plans.

[Nick Xenos]

Do you mean in departmental sustainable government strategies, or—?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I mean the departmental plans that are issued for every department, saying where they're spending their money and what results they expect to achieve with that money.

[Nick Xenos]

Every department reports in their departmental sustainable development strategy—this is goal number two of the federal sustainable development strategy. Right now we've achieved a 28% reduction, so we're well on our way to the 40%. As I said, we report on that annually.

Also, I chair an interdepartmental committee at a senior level, an ADM level. We work with departments to see what the upcoming issues are and what lessons we can share.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm short on time, so I'm just going to interrupt.

I think that if you're leading this interdepartmental committee, you should maybe suggest that they read their departmental plans and get back to the committee about why we don't actually have any goals set in the departmental plans, apart from PSPC's.

Do we know how many people are working on greening in government across all the departments and how much we're spending on the process?

Again, this gets back to what Ms. Gelfand was saying, in that we don't seem to have a lot of accountability. We have this great aspirational goal, which I think we all support, but we don't seem to have the accountability of getting either a bang for our buck or ensuring that people are doing what they should be doing for greening in government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Do you want to direct your question to an individual, Mr. McCauley?