Evidence of meeting #158 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 system.
A video is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Acquisitions Program, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The costing was re-baselined as part of “Strong, Secure, Engaged” last year.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
When will we see updated costing, please, on the frigates?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Acquisitions Program, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The frigates budget was re-baselined as part of “Strong, Secure, Engaged” last year, when the government announced the acquisition of 15 surface combatants. There has been some work done as part of that costing to take into account the uncertainty of which design would be selected.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
So SSE already covers all this: the uncertainties, the delays and everything else.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Acquisitions Program, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The costing that was done by National Defence in preparation for “Strong, Secure, Engaged” does account for uncertainty, not knowing yet which design is to be selected, and also the fact that some of these designs, even independent—
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Acquisitions Program, Department of Public Works and Government Services
All right. I'll stop here; otherwise my microphone will be disconnected.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
We never seem to have enough time.
My understanding is that there are no more questions coming from the government side.
Mr. Drouin, am I wrong? Apparently, I am wrong.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I have just one question, Mr. Chair. Then I will give the time to Mrs. Mendès. I have five minutes.
My question is for Mr. Vandergrift.
I want to go back to the whole issue with the CSC RFP and the PBO. Is there any evidence that you could show to us, any correspondence between the government and the PBO where we could see that we've tried to share this information, that we've requested some information or we've attempted to communicate with the PBO?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I could table with the committee, if the clerk and the chair so wish, copies of a letter from the deputy minister of National Defence to the Parliamentary Budget Officer dated November 22, 2018, offering to make available the RFP for the Canadian surface combatant and offering to work out the arrangements for making that available to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Great. Thank you.
That's my Christmas gift. I'm done, and I'll wish you all a happy holiday.
December 6th, 2018 / 5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, again, for your patience.
I'm going to pick up on Mr. Blaikie's question about the CRA model, because we love to learn from best practices, or at least I do.
First, I consider the pod system a best practice. I do think that whoever came up with this idea deserves a lot of credit. I, personally, come from the community sector. We tend to be very versatile. We do a lot of things at the same time and learn about a lot of things. I believe that flexibility and complementarity in the way you execute tasks are an excellent way of working, generally speaking. Perhaps eventually taking this pod system to a permanent model for the human resources department would not be a bad idea. That's my two cents there.
On the CRA system.... And I didn't know; I heard it for the first time. If this is a good system and if it's working for them, is it something that you would consider looking at in the studies of future pay systems?
Mr. Linklater, go ahead.
Associate Deputy Minister, Human Resources-to-Pay Stabilization, Department of Public Works and Government Services
First of all, in terms of the pod model, that's an innovation that came from the floor in Miramichi. The staff, along with unions, suggested that we move to the entire employee pay file model, and I'm happy to pass along your words of congratulations. Thank you.
In terms of the next-generation system announced in budget 2018, I think we need to be clear that the lead for assessing options rests with the Treasury Board Secretariat. While we do work very closely with them on stabilization efforts and providing our lessons learned, the actual scoping of options is being led by the chief information officer at Treasury Board Secretariat.
I wouldn't be in a position to offer a view as to the suitability of the CRA system going forward. I do know that it does integrate their finance and HR systems. It runs on SAP software, and it's been about 20 years in the making.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
Okay. Still, going back to the current system, you have 46 of the 99 government departments at the pay centre. With regard to the ones that kept their own pay counsellors but that do interact with Phoenix because they're still using Phoenix, do you know what their level of satisfaction is in terms of their employees being paid properly, on time and the right amounts?
Is there a difference between those that kept their own pay counsellors and those that were sent to Miramichi?
Associate Deputy Minister, Human Resources-to-Pay Stabilization, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We do know that the number of outstanding or long-standing pay transactions for departments and agencies not served by the pay centre is considerably lower than that for those that are served by the pay centre. That said, they continue.... Those not served by the pay centre do interface with Phoenix, whether it's direct entry, web-based or however. They do have issues with technology and linkages with their HR systems. Remember, there are still more than 30 HR systems feeding into Phoenix, so maintaining those interfaces and ensuring data integrity remains a challenge.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
To follow up on Mr. Drouin's comment.... I apologize. My understanding from your comments was that DND had submitted the RFP, but the intent is that DND will submit it.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
That's right. It's working out the arrangements of how to do so.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Thanks very much for clarifying that. We've been asking for a long time now. I hope that DND does follow through.
I want to get back to the comment about when we'll actually start cutting steel.
Mr. Fillion, I think you said that we expect to have contracts signed by early 2019. Is that correct? When do you think we'll have it chosen?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Acquisitions Program, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Let me go back again to where we are at with the solicitation process for the Canadian surface combatant. As I said, in October we did announce the preferred bidder, which triggered what we call the conditions precedent phase. We are negotiating with the preferred bidder on intellectual property so that we can build, maintain and engineer the ship in the future. We are—
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Acquisitions Program, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Assuming that all goes well as we continue with the negotiations this month, we can be in a position potentially early next year to have a contracted award for the design of the ship. Obviously, the outcome of the award is conditional on the negotiations. If the negotiations turn out to be unsuccessful, then we would go to the second bidder.