Evidence of meeting #180 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 departments.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Acquisitions Program, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Not the way we're tackling this issue. In fact, we are trying to mitigate risks to costs.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Acquisitions Program, Department of Public Works and Government Services
That's right.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you very much. We thought that we didn't have questions, but now we have plenty of questions suddenly.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
We have just completed the greening of government strategy and the real estate is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. I was looking at the departmental plans, where you have stated that you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower operating costs and energy consumption of federal buildings. We think that PSPC is doing a good job, but what we found a little strange is that when there are conferences, 500 people go to Vancouver or whatever. How are you trying to modernize the way public servants travel for business, because that's another contributing factor to greenhouse gas emissions?
Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services
This has been a longstanding question around the technology available basically to avoid travel when you can. Can you attend or participate in meetings virtually, versus hopping on a plane and travelling?
There has been significant work, I think, to upgrade the facilities to allow virtual conferencing. That said, there is still travel required and there's some work being done to modernize the government's travel system itself, which is the tool we use to book our travel where necessary. That system needs some work. That will not result in greening; that will just be a better travel system for public servants to use when they travel.
One of the priority areas for us with the travel system is that, frankly, it is not very helpful for people who have accessibility issues. We need to do some work on that front, so there's a two-fold issue there.
Where we can, we encourage our employees to participate virtually rather than hopping on a plane.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Okay.
The second question I have is regarding procurement. I think your departmental plans say that you may have some risks because of a shortage of experience procurement officers. How is the e-procurement strategy working to mitigate those risks?
Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The e-procurement system is a really important system for the department and for the whole of government. This is a contract that is under way with Infosys as a prime contractor. It's basically to put an off-the-shelf tool in the hands of public servants to allow them to do the basic end of procurement themselves. It will require less expertise for the more basic transactions once it's up and running.
That lets us save our resources—our procurement experts—for the more complicated procurements, like the one Mr. Fillion was just talking about. That's where the real value add for procurement experts is. That's the goal of that system.
It will also give the government much better data on its procurement. When this is all said and done, we'll have much better data on our procurement initiatives, which will help for better decision-making.
The final piece I'll add is that we do work with the Treasury Board Secretariat, as well as National Defence to a certain extent, because that is where the big procurement expertise is required—a strategy to bring people in, train them, get them certified to the extent they need to be and share resources where we have to.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
That segues into the national shipbuilding strategy and to the procurement. You're talking about e-procurement relieving the expertise to go and do the big purchases.
How has this strategy worked, and what is the impact of this strategy on the three major shipbuilding partners?
Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The shipbuilding strategy is now at a stage where you have certainty on the east coast in terms of what is being built. You have AOPS 1 through 8 all being delivered and planned as we speak, and then they will transition into building the surface combatants. They have a nice long run of ships they can predictably deliver, and they can manage their workforce accordingly.
On the west coast, you have VSY, who will be building 16 vessels, as per an announcement a couple of weeks back. That's the new announcement. That, again, gives them some certainty, and also repetition—in terms of building the same ship in a repeated fashion—let's them learn more easily and drives some efficiencies. Again, they have a nice long run ahead of them.
The third piece of that is that, when you look at the age, in particular of the Coast Guard's fleet, there is additional capacity needed in terms of delivering ships for the Coast Guard beyond what those two yards can do, so the government made an announcement about adding a third yard to the program.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I have a couple more on ships. I'll stick with ships.
The new AOPS 7 and 8 are going to be for the Coast Guard; therefore, a new design. Is it going to be a radical change in the design, or is it more just de-weaponizing it? How much more cost will be added by the design changes?
Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I can't give you a firm answer on your costs yet. Those discussions are ongoing. But the logic behind the AOPS for Coast Guard is minimal design changes, because the value there is around delivering ships to the Coast Guard quickly. If you were to do a major design overhaul, I think you would have questions about schedules.
Those discussions are ongoing, but we're not anticipating significant design changes.
Conservative
Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services
That's the value of the AOPS to Coast Guard: it ships quickly.
Conservative
Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services
A start date...? We're in a phase right now, Mr. Chair, of working on finalizing the design over the next three to four years. We're hoping to start to build in early 2025.
Was that right, André? You can—
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Acquisitions Program, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It's earlier than that—three to four years from February 2019 in design, and then start of construction after that.
Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Sorry, I misread my notes. They say “early 2020”, not “early 2025”, so there you go.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Let's go with early 2020.
I want to follow up Ms. Ratansi's comment about the greening government strategy. I mentioned that PSPC is the only one I've been able to find in the entire government that actually has a plan on the greening of government in the departmental plan. So, well done, PSPC.
Do we have new delivery dates, please, for the joint supply ships—the first one and the second one—and do we have updated costs?
