Government Operations Committee on May 8th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting 10 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

Colleagues, before we start, I would like to go over the schedule for committee meetings next week, as approved by the whips of all parties.

Next week, on Monday, May 11, we will be meeting from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. That's eastern time, of course.

On Friday, May 15, we will be meeting from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., again eastern time.

Colleagues, I would like to take five minutes at the end of today's meeting to talk about the witnesses we will be inviting to appear after May 15.

I have a couple of general comments that I think everyone is familiar with.

When speaking, wait until you are recognized. Speak slowly and clearly. If you are speaking in English, ensure that you are on the English channel. Conversely, if you're speaking in French, make sure you're on the French channel.

To the President of the Treasury Board, if you're planning to alternate between languages, just make sure you are switching the interpretation channel to the language in which you will be speaking. Also, we would ask you to please pause briefly between switching languages so that our interpreters will be able to make the necessary adjustments.

With that, colleagues, I would invite the President of the Treasury Board to make a brief opening statement.

Welcome, Mr. Duclos....

You might have to unmute your mike, Minister.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, President of the Treasury Board]

That's bizarre. It should be working. That is very strange.

Can you hear me?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Yes.

[Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you.

Mr. Lukiwski, thank you for reminding me of the technologically appropriate steps. I will try to be as well behaved as I can and switch, as you said, from English to French as I move from one language to the other in my brief presentation.

Thank you for inviting me to be with you today. It's always a great privilege to be with your committee by whatever means it may be.

Joining me by virtual means today from the Treasury Board Secretariat are: Nancy Chahwan, the chief human resources officer for the Government of Canada; Francis Bilodeau, acting chief information officer for the Government of Canada; Marcia Santiago, executive director, expenditure strategies and estimates; and Kathleen Owens, assistant comptroller general, acquired services and assets. They will be with me to provide you with the most accurate information possible.

I would like to speak briefly about the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as it relates to public servants working remotely.

As you're well aware, the Government of Canada has directed its employees to work from home, whenever possible, to protect their health and safety and comply with public health advice. This has meant a large-scale shift of the workforce to home offices and makeshift offices in dining rooms and at kitchen islands in homes across our country.

Regardless of where they work, however, federal employees are continuing to be productive in their efforts to provide Canadians with the government services they depend on every day and to provide critical services and the many new measures quickly developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Public servants at Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada, for example, have rolled out services and such benefits as the Canada emergency response benefit and the Canada emergency wage subsidy. As of May 5, there were more than 7.5 million applicants and 10.7 million processed applications for the Canada emergency response benefit alone.

At Global Affairs Canada, public servants have worked to bring 20,000 Canadians home safely from locations all around the world. Canada's Armed Forces has sent its members to help out at hard-hit long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario.

Like private citizens, employees and owners of businesses across the country, public servants are contributing their skills and know-how to the fight against COVID-19. And since mid-March, a large portion of these public servants, including those supporting critical services, have been working remotely whenever and wherever possible. A critical service is one that, if disrupted, would result in a high or very high degree of injury to the health, safety, security or economic well-being of Canadians, or to the effective functioning of the Government of Canada.

Departments have identified their critical services and we continue to work with them to ensure the alignment of resources under established business-continuity planning processes.

Of course, sometimes delivering services through working remotely simply is not feasible. For these employees, departments are ensuring that proper protocols are being followed, including the provision and the use of personal protective equipment, proper cleaning practices and other measures.

For the most part, though, working from home has become the new normal for many public servants who are carrying out their duties during the pandemic.

As noted, a great many public servants are working hard to develop and deliver support to Canadians, including a host of new emergency measures.

While many public servants already have the necessary tools to do this, some require additional equipment, such as laptops, tablets, and monitors, as well as specific accommodations to allow them to do their work. Requests for equipment are being considered on a case-by-case basis, giving priority to those employees who are delivering critical services and those for whom the employer has a duty to accommodate.

With respect to using the government Internet network, the Treasury Board Secretariat, Shared Services Canada and departmental chief information officers have worked together to maximize and expand Internet bandwidth to support remote work and prioritize network access for critical operations. Our guidance to departments has recommended that anyone not supporting critical operations, service and program delivery should limit their use of the network....

I am sorry for this delay. Thank you for your patience.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Perhaps, Mr. Minister, since you seem to be having some difficulty in aligning English to French, I would suggest that you just speak normally and put your interpretation device to “floor” or “off”. If you just pause briefly between switching from English to French, even though you don't have to switch channels, our interpreters should be able to keep up.

[Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you for your guidance.

Thank you for your recommendation. I will try to translate into French what I have here in English.

In addition, we are asking employees to use their government-supplied mobile devices, whenever possible, to send and receive emails, in line with security requirements. We are also asking that, whenever possible, they connect to the network during off-peak hours and for short durations to get what they need.

To support continued and necessary collaborations within and across teams, we're also asking employees to use public cloud services, such as Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts and Slack, for unclassified work, and to use the BBM Enterprise application to secure messages for up to Protected B work.

In addition, we are working with thousands of public servants at home to support them with the safe custody and control of sensitive and classified information.

We also understand that working remotely, especially with long periods of sheltering-in-place, can be hard on our employees' mental and physical well-being, like for all other citizens of this country and others who are telecommuting in the current conditions. So we have connected them with specialized mental health services, and we are encouraging them to do things to remain productive and, more importantly, healthy—common sense things like setting a suitable schedule, staying connected, even if only by virtual means, with colleagues and loved ones, and making time for self-care—getting enough sleep, eating healthy, and exercising regularly. These are public health guidelines.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Minister, I'm sorry to interrupt, and I do apologize. I know we were having some technical difficulties, but we also have a limited time frame in which to work, so I'm going to have to ask you to conclude. We will go directly to questions.

Colleagues, the minister has to leave at noon. It appears we will not be able to get a full two rounds in, but we will go as far as we can.

In our first six-minute round of questions, we'll start with Mrs. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Chair, I would like to start by recognizing and thanking our public servants, both those who are working remotely and those who are continuing to head into the office or the parliamentary precinct. As the minister pointed out and as we've all experienced, working remotely has its own set of challenges that we are trying to overcome every day.

Minister, I would like to ask you a question with regard to the responsibility that Treasury Board Secretariat has in overseeing government contracts. Does TBS provide guidelines for government contracts on, for example, sole-sourcing?

[Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, MP Block, and I'm sorry for having taken a bit more time than anticipated because of the technological adjustments that I had to learn and apply. I think it's a good idea, indeed, to move to questions. Thank you for doing that.

On the guidance and the guidelines regarding procurement, yes, Treasury Board has a set of guidelines that have been provided, both before the crisis and during the crisis, to maintain the integrity of the procurement system.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

You mentioned that there were guidelines both before COVID and now during COVID. Could you tell us of any additional oversight measures that the comptroller general has implemented to ensure adequate internal controls for COVID spending?

[Jean-Yves Duclos]

That's a very good and important question. For the benefit of all members of Parliament on the committee, I would turn to Madam Owens, who is assistant comptroller general. I think she's on the call.

[Kathleen Owens, Assistant Comptroller General, Acquired Services and Assets Sector, Office of the Comptroller General, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Yes, I am. Thank you very much for the question.

With respect to emergency contracting, there are already controls within the policy.

First of all, the emergency limits are temporary for COVID-19, so there is a time limit to these exceptional emergency contracts. Also, reporting to the Treasury Board Secretariat is required within 60 days on the use of the emergency contracts.

In addition, you talked generally about the comptroller general. He has asked all CFOs and departments across town to track their COVID-19 expenditures and report back to him so that the spending can be tracked centrally.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

I note that the minister referenced that definitely these guidelines apply to the contracts awarded by PSPC, and I'm wondering if that stands true for contracts awarded for PPE.

[Kathleen Owens]

Yes. For any contract using emergency authorities, the same rules apply regardless.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

We were advised yesterday during a briefing that one company in particular was awarded a contract now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, but that it's actually a 10-year contract. Can you tell me how that fits in with the emergency limits you've just described for us?

[Kathleen Owens]

I think you'd have to ask the PSPC about the specifics of that contract, but the emergency limits refer not to the duration of the contract but to the value of the contract.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

All right. I will definitely be asking that question of PSPC when they appear before committee again.

I'd like to turn to the $4.4 billion promised by the government for protecting health and safety, and more specifically to the $2 billion for personal protective equipment and supplies. Can you tell us if the contracts that have been struck, according to the guidelines and measures that have been put in place and the emergency limits, allow for prepayment?

[Kathleen Owens]

Again, the specifics of each contract are something you'd have to ask the contracting organization, which is likely PSPC in this case.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Okay, but do your guidelines allow for the prepayment of contracts, regardless of—

[Kathleen Owens]

Advance payments are allowed within financial management policy, generally, subject to certain conditions.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

What would those conditions be?

[Kathleen Owens]

I am not an expert in the financial rules around them, but in general, advance payments are for receipt of goods or services within the upcoming year. They can't cross fiscal years.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Are you familiar with any limits on how much can be prepaid?

[Kathleen Owens]

It has to be within the value of the contract. I can check with my financial management colleagues and get back to you on those specifics.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I would appreciate that.

Can you tell us—