Government Operations Committee on June 19th, 2020

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Just out of courtesy to my committee, I'll read out the motion. Then I will relinquish my time so that members have the ability to question the witnesses who have signed on today.

The motion is as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), the committee send for documents from Public Service and Procurement Canada (PSPC) containing the following disaggregated data related to businesses owned by under-represented groups (Black, indigenous, women, and persons with disabilities) who have engaged with PSPC with regard to the federal government’s response to COVID-19: (a) (i) how many companies from underrepresented groups have secured contracts with PSPC, (ii) the value of these contracts, (iii) the number of businesses from under represented groups screened and approved as credited vendors, (iv) number and value of set aside contracts for these businesses, (v) the number of sub-contracts entered into; (b), the committee requests from Employment and Social Development Canada (“ESDC”) the production of all papers and records, in unredacted form, relating to the Federal Contractors Program, and in particular: (i) all current, signed Agreements to Implement Employment Equity (“Agreements”); (ii) the most current list of contractors covered by said Agreements; (iii) the most current compliance documentation furnished by each contractor covered by an Agreement, including the goal-setting report, achievement table, workforce analysis, revised goals for remaining gaps in representation, and any explanatory material; (iv) the most current documentation of ESDC’s compliance assessment for each contractor covered by an Agreement; (v) the most recent Limited Eligibility to Bid List; (vi) all documentation filed in an appeal of a finding of non-compliance by a contractor to the Minister; (vii) all documentation connected to an independent review of an appeal; (viii) any documentation internal to ESDC assessing or evaluating the Federal Contractors Program; and that the committee receive these documents, papers and records no later than Monday, August 31, 2020.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Mr. Green.

Colleagues, those of you who wish to speak to this motion can do so by indicating to me and/or Paul either by raising your hand virtually or giving a quick intervention.

Did you have a hand up, Mr. Drouin?

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

I would like to put a question to my colleague. It has to do with the fourth line of his motion.

I'll read it in English, so that it's easier for my colleague. When you're saying, “who have engaged with PSPC”, we would wonder if you just want the information on COVID-19 or broader than COVID-19 and all previous information, because I think it would be valuable for us as a committee to have that.

As with all other motions that have been presented, we would like to present a friendly amendment right at the end, after “and that the committee receive these documents”.

I propose to add “and that the departments tasked with gathering and releasing the following documents do their assessment and vetting as would be done through the access to information process”.

I would like to thank Kelly Block for those words, because they are her words. I'm just quoting them from a previous motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Do we have further speakers to the motion? I'm seeing none.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, on the comments, am I able to reply to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Absolutely, Mr. Green. I'll certainly let you say your piece. All I was going to suggest is that if we have no speakers after you, my question is whether Mr. Drouin actually would be moving that amendment, but go ahead, Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

As we've heard before, particularly in the first segment, my concern is that if I make it overly broad, it's going to get lost in the ether. As it relates to COVID and the tremendous amount of procurement dollars that have gone out the door, particularly under the guise of GBA+, I suggest that we keep this report interim to COVID, because it's a very short period of time and I expect the turnaround to be the same, notwithstanding that in a few weeks, based on the testimony of the witnesses, I might get a report or a response back that they're going to need 800 years or something like that. We'll go ahead and keep it for this time period, and then my hope is that with this committee we can begin to dig into a fulsome response on how this rolls out more generally.

As it relates to the amendment, I'll also just put that out of the way to say that I support the amendment with caution, because I do think that as a committee we need to have a deeper conversation around the balance between client confidentiality as it relates to cabinet privilege versus that of parliamentary privilege and our ability to access information. I'm always very wary about that, but for the purpose of this motion, I'll concede that point on the amendment and hope that at a future date we can bring back witnesses as we have today, and experts on constitutional jurisprudence, to really dig down into what could be considered cabinet confidentiality.

Mr. Chair, as you know, one tactic could be just to run every report on an agenda by cabinet and claim that it has solicitor privilege, and it would just be lost in the ether forever. Accepting that, I look forward to moving forward with this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

Again, just for clarification, I want to go back to Mr. Drouin and ask if he is moving the amendment that he has read.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes, Mr. Chair. I will forgo the suggestion that I made with regard to COVID-19.

I did send the text to the clerk, who now has it, so yes, I would move an amendment related to the vetting of documents.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Are there any other speakers to the amendment? We are now on the amendment.

All right, seeing no other speakers, Paul, I'll turn it over to you to do a vote by roll call for the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0)

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0)

Thank you.

I thank Mr. Green for ceding the rest of his speaking time so we can continue with our examination of the witnesses before us.

We will now go to a five-minute round of questioning, starting with Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks.

Mr. Holman, has the government responded in any way to your proposal?

[Sean Holman]

Other than through the statement that was made by the Treasury Board president, it hasn't. However, this has been, in a lot of ways, the history of freedom of information in this country. As an example, when the Canadian Bar Association was advocating for freedom of information in the seventies, they received very little communication from the government. I think there needs to be more communication from the government and a more inclusive process through which we can derive more information from them, ironically.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I agree. It's funny. We sit here, we talk to bureaucrats, we ask them stuff and it's, like, “We'll get back to you on whether or not we'll get back to you.”

You mentioned we were 57th out of 127 countries in the world for access to information. Where are we on whistle-blower protection?

[Sean Holman]

That's a good question. I'm not sure if there is actually a comparable measurement for whistle-blowing legislation. My colleague Allan Cutler would be better positioned to answer that question. What I do know is that there has been a substantive criticism of how out of step we are with international norms. There's actually a list of essentially 20 requirements that whistle-blowing laws internationally should hit, and we're not hitting those requirements.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I was at a whistle-blower conference down in the States, and it's remarkable. They are light years ahead of us. I think their whistle-blower protection goes back to the Revolutionary War. They were very, very critical of their own. I feel like we're back in the Stone Age on protecting whistle-blowers in our country.

[Sean Holman]

It's very true. That speaks to the built-in secrecy that is inherent in our system of government. When you have government's primary decision-making body's, cabinet's, business being conducted under a shroud of confidentiality, that has an effect on the overall culture of government. It's really important that this committee, as some of you have suggested, take a look into that issue, because it was a very live discussion when freedom of information was being discussed in the 1970s. In fact, it actually came up when the Privy Council Office conducted a study of that very issue by D.F. Wall.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's interesting. You mentioned our whistle-blower report that we put through. We actually had a motion to invite Scott Brison, before he fled under the Irving cloud, to come back. He actually refused to come back. Hopefully, we can get Minister Duclos to come back, and we can jump-start the process.

I'm at about the three-minute mark, and I have a motion I'd like to introduce. If we can suspend for a moment, I'll introduce my motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You can go ahead with your motion as we speak, Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Great. When we talk about openness, I'm seeking information from the Treasury Board regarding the 699 line. I don't have the motion written in front of me, but it has been distributed. I'm fine to go right to discussion or a vote on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I believe all committee members, as Mr. McCauley said, have received his motion. Mr. Drouin would like to speak to it.

Mr. Drouin, please go ahead.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I have just a few questions for Mr. McCauley. I know he's asked for that particular information in the past. I think he's asked twice. Once was to the PBO, probably a few weeks ago. He asked to produce that information, and it is on the record that the PBO, yes, he would provide that particular information. I'm trying to get a sense of the rationale of his motion, given that the PBO has already committed to providing that information.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

In the first meeting, we asked about its existence, what it was. At the last meeting, when we asked Mr. Purves if he would provide the information, he committed to only getting back to us. He refused to actually commit to tabling the information. I'm asking the PBO to provide it to us.

There are a couple of great points in this tabulation. It will really show that we are lacking a short-term disability plan for our public servants. Because it's also across the country, it might provide us a greater insight into how the lack of affordable child care affects the broader workplace.

There is a lot of great information that would be available. We could not get the commitment from Treasury Board, when it was here, to actually present the information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Ms. Vignola.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

As a new member, I am not familiar with all the terms. Can you tell me what exactly “code 699 data set” means?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's a payroll line. It's posted on the Treasury Board website. There are five different areas for COVID-related absences for the public service. If you're sick because of COVID, it goes here. If you are unable to work, because there are no computers, it goes here. It's just a different tracking of COVID-related absences.