Government Operations Committee on March 10th, 2016

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Is that a totally new initiative for Shared Services Canada, or are you engaged in some biometric screening already?

[Graham Barr]

Our role is to provide the IT infrastructure for it.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

[Inaudible--Editor] bought an IT infrastructure for it already, or is this a new item?

[Graham Barr]

It's not new. It's incremental.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay.

I guess another thing in the estimates I was interested in was the $5 million to remediate contaminated federal government sites. I'm just looking for some information on how many sites there might be, how contaminated they might be, and what the risk might be to public health?

[George Da Pont]

I'll turn the details over again to my colleague Kevin Radford, but this is part of a long-standing program to remediate many contaminated sites across the country, and they vary from very large sites with significant problems to small sites throughout the country. A lot of the information is posted on websites, as to where the sites are and what's being cleaned up.

The funding for this happens on a regular basis in tranches of two or three years, usually. That's the way the funding has been going. The sites have been rated in terms of risk, and obviously the sites with the greatest risk are addressed first.

Kevin.

[Kevin Radford]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.

I don't have much to add. Suffice it to say that there is a list, as my colleague George has mentioned, of decontaminated sites.

I will mention, though, that these decontaminated sites are part of our optional services that we provide to other departments. If the decontaminated site is on an air force base, it's part of National Defence. It's quite probable they could come to us and ask for our expertise, or if it's a property that's owned or run by another department, it's part of that suite of services that we offer. We bill those departments for our services.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you.

Shared Services Canada is also seeking funding to help with the implementation of the government's response to the Syrian refugee crisis. There's no doubt that the government response to that crisis is a big initiative that has costs associated with it. I'm just wondering if you can zero in on the role that Shared Services Canada would play in that.

[Ron Parker]

Mr. Chair, I'm happy to.

Our role is principally to supply the support tools necessary for the public service employees engaged in the initiative, such as mobile telephony and mobile laptops, and to help make sure the servers that support the initiative and the screening of the refugees are up and running on a very high availability basis. It's those types of services that we're providing through the funds we're requesting from Parliament in the supplementary estimates (C).

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Mr. Parker.

The final seven-minute round goes to Madame Ratansi.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

As I have been listening to your presentations and your responses, I am glad you are taking your role of due diligence and the minister's mandate very seriously and consulting so that we have the right answers.

The first thing I'd like are a few examples of how you are modernizing procurement and how are you making it simple. Everybody knows that government is a mammoth body. Sometimes they feel like it's an elephant that can't move. I come from Africa. Elephants move pretty fast, so I think they're being maligned for nothing.

Number one, could you just give me an example of how we simplify things? Then I'll ask the other questions.

[George Da Pont]

I can give you several examples, and the general point you made is exactly the feedback that we've gotten from consultations with a very large number of companies, most of which are small and medium-sized companies, that do business with the Government of Canada. They've made the same point that you've made. It's complicated. It's difficult. It's more expensive than it needs to be.

We have worked with what we now call the “supplier advisory committee” and they've given us a list of quite a number of things they'd like to see as improvements to the procurement process. Some of them are under way and some of them are major initiatives that we need to tackle.

I'll give you an example. I think one of the number one things we heard was that the systems that we use when businesses go online to see what opportunities there might be, or to actually put bids in, are overly complicated. They're really archaic, they're old, and there are about 40-odd different systems that are used right now. One of our biggest initiatives is that we're looking at putting in place as quickly as we can what we call an “e-procurement package”, so we will have one system. It's off the shelf. It's proven. It's user-friendly and I think it will be one big simple improvement in companies' ability both to find opportunities and to put in bids. We've accelerated that project and we intend to have the system roll out in 2017-18.

If I go to the other end, we are looking at correcting a series of chronic administrative issues or problems. If someone puts in a bid and somehow a page gets lost—a minor administrative thing—they're rejected. We're looking at putting in place a series of those administrative fixes so that as long as it doesn't affect, obviously, the critical points and are not changing the bid in any way or affecting price or content, they can repair that.

Another significant refinement will be our initiative to simplify our contracts, which are very complicated and often out of proportion to the value of the actual expenditure. Obviously, if you're replacing the Champlain Bridge, a multi-billion dollar project, you would expect a big, complicated contract. Of course you would. But ours are overly complicated, so we're looking at an initiative to simplify our contracting and are aiming at the same rough timeframe of 2017-18 for that. So those are three specific examples.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

That's good. I'm sure all of us as MPs have small and medium-sized enterprises in our ridings. Do you have any idea how many small enterprises have succeeded in bidding?

I remember my days from 2004 to 2011 when I was on this committee and addressed the same problems. Has there been any solution? We have too many small businesses telling us that they cannot get government contracts. If you don't have figures in front of you, that's okay. You can supply those to us.

[George Da Pont]

I actually do have figures in front of me and I think it's 80%. Eighty per cent of the contracts basically do go to small and medium-sized businesses, so they are very successful in an aggregate sense. Now that's 80% of the contracts. That's not 80% of the value of procurement. I want to make sure that this distinction is recognized.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I quite concur with you, because I do not think that the small and medium-sized enterprises have the capacity to bid on large contracts.

[George Da Pont]

Yes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

We have been talking about Canada Post and how consultation is taking place and we get people who want the service and Canada Post employees who are talking about new ways of doing business. So my next question is, have you any idea when the task force is going out there to consult and get answers?

[George Da Pont]

I really can't add anything to the comments the minister has already made on Canada Post.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay, fair enough.

My third question is this. I see that PWGS is transferring $19.6 million and $4.4 million to the Canada Revenue Agency and the Communications Security Establishment respectively for underutilization of the rent. I can see that you have a large real property database. How do you decide which stock will go to social housing, and what are some of the challenges that you will face when you transfer stock to social housing? Are there any buildings containing asbestos? Who will be responsible for those costs when the stock is converted to social housing?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Da Pont, we only have about 20 seconds.

[George Da Pont]

Then I'll give you a 20-second answer. I think you've already flagged in your question that some of the significant challenges are that many of these properties might well need investments, repairs, and conversions to be suitable for social housing. That really would be the biggest challenge when the opportunities are there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, sir.

We're down to our last two five-minute question and answer sessions. Then we'll excuse our witnesses as we go into voting on supplementary (C)s.

The first five-minute question and answer period is for Monsieur Blaney.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is about replacing the visitors' centre at Vimy.

The veterans have reached an agreement with what was formerly Public Works and Government Services Canada so that a new visitors' centre will be built for the 150th anniversary of Canada and the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The present centre is run-down and completely inadequate.

I was wondering if it is possible to have an update on that.

Can you confirm that the visitors' centre at Vimy will be operational on June 9, 2017?

[George Da Pont]

Again, thank you for the question. Actually, I received an update on that a few weeks ago, and at that time it was on schedule.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Okay. Is it possible to get the pricing, because I believe there's a partner, the Vimy Foundation. Is that correct?