Evidence of meeting #87 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 shared.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Has there been any advice provided to the minister on what the scope of the delegated authority under proposed section 9.1 should be at this point?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Planning, Finance and Information Technology, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
No, not at this time.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Okay.
How much time do I have left? I have another question.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Oh, well.
Thank you very much. It was very enlightening. I'm sure my colleagues will get to my remaining questions in the next 53 minutes.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Thanks, gentlemen.
Mr. Parker, welcome back for the 20th or 30th time.
Do you think the changes you were talking about regarding keyboards, and so on, will be rolled out to every department throughout the government, or will this just be a matter of, as requested by Service Canada, or as requested by Natural Resources Canada? Is it going to be a blanket exemption?
It seems silly to do it just for some. It's not going to increase your efficiency if only half of them are doing it.
President, Shared Services Canada
I think the starting point we have is the model that Public Services and Procurement Canada had when they were responsible for these procurements. I don't know if every single department has the delegated authority, but to me it makes sense to have an approach or a framework that applies to all customers.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
Will you develop, then, a list of suggested low-value items that you'll push off to those departments? We mentioned keyboards, but what else? Will you give them a whole set of things and say, “This is it; goodbye”?
President, Shared Services Canada
I expect this to be a conversation with the departments. There will be a standard set of goods and services—for example, keyboards, mice, USB keys, and printers—that would apply to the departments and that we would suggest to them and have a discussion around. There might be other types of goods and services that a particular department would be interested in as well. That's part of the development experience that we still have to go through.
Conservative
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
Will they still use your existing supply chain and your procurement system?
President, Shared Services Canada
They will use the standing offer supply arrangements available to them and access the vendors directly; they will not need to go through SSC to execute on the acquisition itself.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
Do you expect this is going to save you a lot of time, or free up people to do other procurement work?
President, Shared Services Canada
That's the intent. There are 24,000 transactions of $25,000 or less, which is an immense volume. There were no incremental personnel provided when these responsibilities were transferred to Shared Services Canada, so it's quite a crushing load for the folks who are in this field.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Do you expect that in the conversation an item may come up from a department saying, “We want to start purchasing this on our own”, and that you will say, “No, that has to stay with us” for security or other reasons, or is the intent just to push as many regular items off to them as possible?
President, Shared Services Canada
I expect it would be the regular items. We engage in conversations with departments on an ongoing basis, and if there is a particular good or service that they require, we would initiate a conversation with them to begin an acquisition process, if it isn't already available through a supply arrangement.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Has this idea been in the works for a bit, or are we starting from scratch here?
President, Shared Services Canada
Mr. Chair, the thinking behind this dates back into 2015.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You're pretty well prepared, then, for rolling out, once this passes, are you?
President, Shared Services Canada
The actual thinking around the legislation goes back for.... The precise framework is still to be determined department by department. We have to engage with the individual departments to make sure that their needs are understood and covered by any recommended delegations.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
Mr. Thangaraj or Mr. Parker, clause 114 talks about “in exceptional circumstances”, but Mr. Thangaraj, you were referring to keyboard purchases. I understand, but I'm trying to understand how a keyboard would be an exceptional circumstance. Is the intent to take advantage of the new section 7 and the exception—?
