Government Operations Committee on June 16th, 2020

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, because of the ongoing discussions, I'm not able to answer the member's questions without getting into detail that frankly could compromise our position.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Okay. Based on the terms of the purchase order, in which usually you take some conditions before you place an order, whether you have the upper hand or not—and I know that in this case we don't have the upper hand—what did you negotiate in terms of a defective product? Would you be able to tell us?

[Bill Matthews]

Normally in standard government contracts when you have a defective product, you have an obligation or an option to actually get a product in your hand that meets your requirements. If that fails, then you're on to other options. That's just a generic Government of Canada contract approach.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Yes, but do you have the same approach for overseas supplies such as the defective N95s?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, the terms would depend on the contract in question. There's a variety—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

It would be nice, Mr. Matthews.... I did ask who the suppliers are, whether it's a Canadian supplier who is a distributor or whether you're dealing directly with China. Would you be able to advise us on whether you did it through a Canadian distributor or whether you are dealing directly with factories in—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Whatever answer you have, Mr. Matthews, I would ask once again that you supply that answer in writing as quickly as possible to our clerk.

Now we'll go to Mr. Kusmierczyk, I believe, for five minutes, please.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'll go back to the PCO with a couple of questions. My colleagues have done a really nice job of asking some really good questions here, but there are just a couple that I have left over.

In terms of the communications and marketing that were budgeted, how does the federal government communicate with Canadians who don't have access to the Internet and don't have access to digital marketing and whatnot? I'm just curious.

[Ken MacKillop]

That's an excellent question because it raises the very good point that paid advertising is only one way we communicate with Canadians.

In using the paid advertising, we do use.... For instance, early on, the Public Health Agency of Canada had a mail-out that we sent to all Canadians. We also use what we call “loudaphones”, or billboards that you would see when driving down the highway. We still use bus billboards as well, believe it or not. It's a campaign, and we try to get as many Canadians as we can, including indigenous Canadians who may be up north and may not have access to the Internet like others do.

Obviously, how you target your specific campaign will depend on what you're trying to get across, but in this particular case, both the public health messaging on the safety and security of Canadians and the finance messaging were of interest to most, if not all, Canadians, so we used a variety of methods.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

So there really was a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach for getting the information out.

[Ken MacKillop]

Absolutely.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Excellent.

I have a question for PSPC regarding the budgeted amount for Phoenix. When I look at the numbers, I see a tremendous reduction in cases. They're down 64%, from 384,000 to 137,000 pay transactions. Why are these additional funds required if the workload is going down?

[Les Linklater]

While we have made significant progress, there does remain a great deal of work to be done.

As I mentioned in response to an earlier question, we have been receiving funding on an annual basis. The funding in the estimates will allow us to maintain our staff and advance our efforts, while ensuring that we can speed up the technological enhancements and fixes that the system requires and continue to work with departments and agencies on the timeliness and accuracy of the HR information that's entered into the systems that then manifests in pay action.

We have made significant progress, but with the 50% reduction in the backlog, we still need to continue to pursue and double down on our efforts to continue that progress.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much.

I am going to bounce around a bit here with my questions. As I said, my colleagues have asked most of the questions that I had coming in here.

Regarding the $500 million that was set aside for PPE, do we have an estimate of how much more PPE we will need to procure?

[Bill Matthews]

That's a very important question, but it's better asked of colleagues at Health Canada and the Public Health Agency who know the modelling and what might be coming. I can share with the chair that the goods in reserves are going up across the country, but can I say when we will be done? I cannot. I'm sorry.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay. So this is an ongoing process, then, and you're constantly re-evaluating. As you said, the modelling changes, I imagine.

[Bill Matthews]

It depends on what comes next, and we foresee ourselves being in this business for a while.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

How does our spending compare with that of other similar countries? Is it even a valid comparison to look at what other countries are doing, or should we simply focus on what the demand is here?

[Bill Matthews]

Again, that's better asked of colleagues at Health Canada. We're just executing here. Health Canada and the Public Health Agency may have a better sense of comparators and whether they're meaningful. I'm afraid I can't offer anything useful on that question.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay. Thank you very much.

I'll yield the rest of my time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to two-and-a-half-minute interventions, starting with Monsieur Barsalou-Duval.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Privy Council Office officials.

According to a March 26 article, the Trudeau government announced $30 million in advertising expenditures to counter COVID-19. On March 26, Canada was going through the most intense period of the pandemic.

Why is $48.7 million now being requested through supplementary estimates A 2020-2021? What is more important now than in March?

Does the budget need to be bigger now than it was back then?

[Ken MacKillop]

Mr. Chair, as mentioned earlier, the unprecedented nature of COVID-19, with both the economic side and the public health imperative, has meant that we need to give information to Canadians as widely as we can.

To give you an example, in 2009-10, when we last saw the economic impact with the crisis and then H1N1, the government spent about $136 million in advertising that year. We're seeing that, this year, the government is likely to spend about $120 million in advertising by the end of 2020-21.

As we know, the crisis is not over. The Public Health $30 million that went out early on was forecasted to get the news to Canadians. I think at the time, March 26, we were getting into the “stay home, stay safe” time—

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

I have to interrupt you because I need time to ask you a second question. I'm not convinced by the explanations you've given me, but I'm going to move on to the next question.

The Government of Quebec announced that almost all of the amounts had been invested in local media. For its part, your government said something similar, namely that the bulk would be allocated to Canadian media.

When I open the local newspaper, every week I see two or three pages full of advertising from the Quebec government, but I can't find any advertising from the federal government.

Where did the money go? Did it all go to Google and Facebook? When are we going to find out how the money was allocated?

And with all of this, how do you make sure the information gets through?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

That's a decent question, Mr. Barsalou-Duval, but unfortunately we have no time for the answer.

I would ask that the response be given in writing as quickly as possible to our clerk.

We will go to our final intervention, two and a half minutes, with Mr. Green.