Government Operations Committee on March 10th, 2016

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Can you tell us anything about what the policy will be?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

What have we done?

[George Da Pont]

In terms of the fair wages policy, under this contract and any other contract we enter into, anyone building in Canada has to comply with all federal and provincial legislation and meet all the existing requirements—

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

On complying with labour legislation, isn't it a fair wages policy? It used to be that if you wanted to bid on a federal construction project, you had to pay certain wage rates for different trades. The Conservatives eliminated that good policy. The new government has talked about bringing back some version of it. Will this be done?

[George Da Pont]

And that's what I was explaining. At the moment that's the situation. There are no longer those provisions in contracts. I think the government is looking at the issue.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

So we're not sure whether it will be applied to the new Champlain Bridge.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

It may very well be, and a fair wages policy is part of the mandate letter. I guess we're not sure whether or not it's going to happen with this particular procurement, but it's certainly something that we're committed to do.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, Minister.

We'll go now to Mr. Whalen.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

There is a point of order. I believe it's Mr. Grewal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'm sorry.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

But I may jump in if he shares his time with me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Grewal, you may concede any unused time you wish.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister and your staff for coming today. We really appreciate it.

My question was going to be on the national shipbuilding procurement strategy, but my hon. colleague has had a detailed discussion on that, so I'll move on.

A lot of people in my riding, especially during the campaign, talked about Canada Post. A lot of these people work for Canada Post. A number of people were concerned about door-to-door delivery. The issue of an independent task force review of Canada Post has come up quite often in question period and in the media. Can you please update us on what's going on in that process?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

We are determined to get this right and that means making sure that we find the right individuals to lead the task force. We know that there has been substantial work done in the past on Canada Post. Under the previous government, there was a five-point plan. We need to access all of the information that Canada Post has used in making its decisions. We want to have a more independent review than was done by Canada Post itself, but we also want access to information that Canada Post has gathered.

We want to hire the right individuals to make up the task force. These people will do the legwork to collect this research and determine whether or not there are other business lines that Canada Post can be engaged in. We need a consultation process with Canadians, but it would be very time-consuming for the committee to do this itself. For this reason, we'd like to have an independent task force undertake that work, co-operating with the secretariat out of the department. They would be able to provide you with all the information you need, if you think this is an appropriate exercise for the committee to undertake.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

Throughout the campaign we talked about the shortage of affordable housing. I have the privilege of sitting on the finance committee, and we just went through pre-budget consultations. A lot of organizations across the country came and spoke about the importance of affordable housing.

Your mandate letter said that you're working with the Minister of Infrastructure on an inventory of all federally owned real estate, with a view to seeing what can be converted to affordable housing. I think this is a great use of government resources. Can you please give the committee an update on that process?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Interestingly enough, I attended a session on homelessness last night. Part of the discussion was on the availability of existing federal buildings and how we could make them available, instead of selling them for the maximum dollar, as was previously done. From this government's perspective, we have to have more of a social conscience. We need to recognize that there could be other uses for that property. In fact, what I said last night at this meeting was that anyone who's aware of excess federal government property should feel free to get in touch with the department. We can look at possible uses of that property, rather than trying to sell it off. A number of departments might have property that could be made available for social housing.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

You mentioned today the rehabilitation of the Sir John A. Macdonald Building and the Wellington Building. The key point I noted was that they're on time and on budget, which is very important. In the spirit of accountability and transparency, I would just ask that if these things change, you let the committee know so we can update Canadians if the budget changes. I worked in finance and I know that budgets can come and go, so I would request that you please update the committee if the numbers change.

I will now cede the remainder of my time to my colleague.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

If I could speak to that one point, that is certainly what we have committed to do in terms of being open and transparent with respect to procurement to take the mystery out of it and to make sure that Canadians know exactly what is happening. It's the same with members of Parliament: we want you to know where we are. We want you to know if costs go up, as well. It's one thing to be on time and on budget, which is really good, but things do happen and we want to make sure that you're aware when they do.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Whalen, you have about two minutes.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much.

Just continuing along the line of questions regarding Canada Post, I have to say that in addition to issues about housing for seniors, questions about Canada Post were probably the second most frequent ones I had during the campaign. Every street had someone who was being affected by the reductions in service. Indeed, in the dying days of the campaign, Canada Post shut down door-to-door mail delivery in a couple of ridings in the country—St. John's East, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, and Charlottetown—only days before the Prime Minister stated that this practice should cease. Indeed, many of the complaints were from people who had legitimate concerns about the location of mailboxes.

I have a couple of questions on that. First, I didn't see anything in the estimates allocating any additional funding or allotments towards the task force. Is this being done under existing estimates or will it be in the next budget?

Second, will the task force reach out to Canadians who made complaints and find out if Canada Post, in response, kept pushing forward with bad ideas or if took those complaints seriously and addressed them properly rather than simply using them as an opportunity to punish the people of my riding?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Well, if they did it in your riding, they did it in mine too.

The cost of the task force will be covered by the department, as will be the secretariat out of the department. That's why you don't see additional requests for money. We will ask the task force to look at every possible decision made by Canada Post, and whether or not they responded to the complaints they received. That's all part and parcel of doing a complete independent review of Canada Post. Again, on a go-forward basis, they will make sure that if there are outstanding issues, those issues are addressed.

One of the issues we recognize, of course, is that Canada Post is an arm's-length corporation. In its operations, it does what it does because it has to be self-sustainable, and it will continue to have to be self-sustainable. At the same time, it delivers a service to Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and we want to make sure that this service will continue to be delivered. What that service will be will depend on what Canada Post can afford, because there will not be any money forthcoming from the government, as it is an arm's-length crown corporation. At the same time, we're expecting that the task force in its independent review will look at other avenues of business that could possibly be explored that will enable Canada Post to have more revenue to carry out its responsibility to deliver mail, or whatever else it intends to do or can do with the finances available to it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, Minister.

We're now going to a five-minute round, starting with Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm going to give the first 30 seconds to my colleague here.