Government Operations Committee on Feb. 27th, 2019

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

I recognize that there's more flexibility being built in. I guess what I'm disagreeing with is the notion that somehow, to have a flexible policy, you can have no discrimination between the severity of offences at all. Nor do I think it's obvious that in the case of a serious offence the 10-year penalty would be inappropriate. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

It seems to me that part of the interest in modifying the policy is a concern for jobs, trying to maintain jobs within the Canadian economy and shield workers from wrongdoings of corporate executives. I'm kind of interested to know why, if the changes to the integrity regime that are happening now would provide the government a mechanism for shielding workers from the consequences of decisions of corporate executives—and you can tell me if I'm wrong about this—the government would then feel it needs to take ulterior paths to do that; for instance, pressuring the former attorney general to abandon criminal charges.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Blaikie, you're completely out of time. One of your colleagues may want to take up that question further with the minister.

We're going to Mr. Peterson now.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for being with us again.

Welcome, Mr. Matthews, and congratulations on your new role.

Thank you, Minister, for taking the time.

I want to talk about the integrity regime a little bit, too.

You mentioned that when you first became the minister, around July 2017, there were already steps under way. You elaborated on the groundwork that had already been done, and in your earlier statement you referred to July 2015. Was that a mistake? Did you mean July 2017?

[Carla Qualtrough]

No. The integrity regime was initially put in place in July of 2015.

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

Okay.

[Carla Qualtrough]

Through this ongoing industry engagement, there was a desire for further consultation before any changes were made to the integrity regime. Then we decided to have the consultation in the fall of 2017.

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

Okay. That clarifies it for me. That was my misunderstanding, and I apologize.

I understand that the public was consulted in two separate phases, or twice, if you will. Why was there the need for the secondary outreach?

[Carla Qualtrough]

Again, in the spirit of consulting with the public, we consulted on any changes that the public thought there should be. We published a report on what we heard in terms of what those changes could be. We then went away and drafted a new ineligibility and suspension policy. Then the second consultation was putting that out for comment by the public to get any further feedback and to see if it reflected or addressed any concerns or potential betterment of the policy.

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

Do you foresee that being an ongoing outreach process?

[Carla Qualtrough]

I suspect it will be, yes.

[Bill Matthews]

If I could add this, Mr. Chair, in the regular cycle for government policy, typically once you have a mature policy, you're reviewing it every five years, unless something pops up. This is still a relatively new policy by government standards. Fairly frequent reviews of policy, at the two- or three-year marks, are quite common.

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

When do we expect all this to be finally put in place?

[Carla Qualtrough]

As I said, we're reviewing the feedback we got on the draft policy. I would say in a month-ish, we will finalize the final policy.

Would that be accurate, about four to six weeks?

[Bill Matthews]

Yes.

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

What discretion would a minister—you, in this particular case—have under this regime when it comes to suspensions for specific companies? Would there be case-by-case input by the minister of the day, or is this all going to be done at arm's length?

[Carla Qualtrough]

There is the position of the registrar of ineligibility and suspension—I might have reversed those two; it's either suspension and ineligibility or ineligibility and suspension—to whom I've delegated complete authority to make these decisions. The minister does not sign off on debarment decisions in this regime. It's completely independent.

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

Okay. That administrative official would be the one signing off.

[Carla Qualtrough]

Yes.

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

Okay. Thank you for that.

I think you're asking for $2.6 million. What was it? I'm sorry, I may have the number wrong.

Is that going to be sufficient? Will that money be sufficient to get it across the finish line, so to speak?

[Carla Qualtrough]

It's $2.8 million. That's our estimation, yes.

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

Okay. Thank you for that.

I'm going to move along to a different topic now.

I want to talk a little bit about the federal laboratories. I think budget 2018 provided more than $2.8 million in funding to the new federal labs.

[Carla Qualtrough]

It's billion.

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

It's billion? I'm sorry. That's right. I got my number wrong. That $2.8 billion will do a lot more than $2.8 million for sure.

How is PSPC partnering with the science department? Who actually carries out the work? Are public servants doing the work or are third parties doing some of the research and science work?

[Carla Qualtrough]

The big picture here is that when we came into government we encountered a situation where our science infrastructure was dilapidated. That's probably a kind word to put to it. It was very much in need of significant investment, both in terms of the structural infrastructure, the buildings themselves, and in terms of the equipment our scientists were using. There was a lot of duplication. There was a lot of isolation, and departments weren't necessarily capitalizing on what other departments were doing in science.

We set about this journey—the Minister of Science was the lead—to get back into the business of science, but to also take a more strategic approach to how we manage the buildings and the infrastructure which enable the science that we ask of our scientists. We now actually have an ADM who is responsible.

Which of you wants to...? Bill? Everybody is involved in this.

[Bill Matthews]

Everyone wants to talk about science.

Thank you. I have just a couple of thoughts.

This is about science, but it's largely about collaboration inside the federal government first, with science communities making sure that we get value for money by partnering on the IT front, which Paul probably wants to weigh in on, and on the financial front, the equipment front, laboratories.... It was really about bringing together the science community to make sure that we get good value for money with this investment. It is really a collaborative exercise. It's science first, enabled by some real property investments such as labs, and that's where PSPC comes in at the end of the day, in building whatever it is that is needed to enable the science community.

Paul, you may want to weigh in.