Government Operations Committee on July 23rd, 2020

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

The private sector...?

[Bill Matthews]

Absolutely. There is the private sector, industry associations, other levels of government, and this would be a backstop for a short-term supply in the event that they're unable to do so through those means.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to our second round, which will be five-minute interventions.

We will begin with Mrs. Block, for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today.

I would just build on my colleague's questioning previous to mine. I certainly hope this contingency reserve is going to be managed better than the NESS. I want to ask some questions around the prioritization of the contracts we enter into. Does the department have any guidelines to prioritize contracting with PPE manufacturers?

[Bill Matthews]

I'm assuming this is grounded in when we're sole-sourcing. When there's a competition, obviously, there's a competition based on requirements, and the contract is awarded to the winning bid. When we were in sole source, we were looking at some key criteria: established supply chains, ability to deliver quickly at volume, and already in the business. Speedy delivery was absolutely first and foremost, as well as quality assurance.

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

Thank you.

I'm wondering, did they include contracting from countries that had the same values that we do here in Canada, or with strong human rights records such as South Korea or Taiwan?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, before we enter into a contract with a company of any sort, a check is done against its track record to ensure we are not entering into contracts with companies with values that may not comply with ours. That process still holds, regardless of whether we're sole-sourcing or running a competition.

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

Thank you.

I'm sure everyone has seen the horrific videos of Uighur Muslims being led onto trains blindfolded and chained together. I'm also sure that the department is aware of the New York Times article from July 19, which reported that at least 17 companies in China are using forced Uighur labour to manufacture PPE. Can the department tell this committee if any of the PPE we have purchased has been manufactured by forced labour?

[Bill Matthews]

We have no direct link, Mr. Chair, in terms of being aware of that, so we're not aware of any of those issues.

It might be interesting, Mr. Chair, if the member will indulge us.... There is an ethical apparel policy that the government has. It might be worth Ms. Reza spending two minutes on that policy for background for the committee.

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

Instead of hearing that, I'd like to follow up by saying I'm really shocked that the department doesn't know if forced labour is being used to produce PPE for Canadians. I'm sure we would all agree that Canadians deserve to know if their government is financially supporting forced labour. I would expect the department to make that a priority, given the reports we are seeing in the news. Sure, if you want to follow up with your protocol, great, but I think it's shocking that we don't know.

[Bill Matthews]

If I could clarify, Mr. Chair, we have checked with the contractors we deal with, and we are not aware of any link there. We have proactively checked and have not found anything.

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

I appreciate that.

Can you tell me what precautions have been put in place to ensure this won't happen? What sorts of things are in place already to ensure we don't end up procuring from a company using forced labour?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, this is where I'd like to turn to my colleague Ms. Reza to talk about the ethical apparel policy, because it is fundamental to this question.

Arianne, do you want to chime in? I suspect the member is looking for a quick answer, because she's running out of time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have about 30 seconds or less, if that's at all possible.

[Arianne Reza]

I'll be speedy.

Since 2018, we have introduced the policy on ethical procurement of apparel, which requires all bidders responding to our competitions to self-certify that between them and their first-tier suppliers they comply with human rights and labour standards. In addition, we've been working on changing our code of conduct for procurement to ensure that these matters of concern are also identified and our suppliers understand the code of conduct we expect them to adhere to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to our next five-minute intervention; it comes from Mr. Drouin.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for joining us. In some cases, this is their fourth time appearing before the committee, so I want to say how much I appreciate their time, especially in July.

Being a member from the national capital region, I'm fortunate to represent many members of the public service. Clearly, the Phoenix pay system came up again during the last election. I'd like to know where things stand and how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted the situation.

The signing of collective agreements sometimes created backlogs because the people working with Phoenix had to input the data. Do you anticipate the same problems this time around?

[Bill Matthews]

Phoenix is a really interesting story during COVID, in that the work continued remotely, largely uninterrupted, some really good work. I will turn to my colleague Gini in a moment to get into details, but the queue has continued to drop. The backlog is now down to 301,000 in total, which is a really good improvement, and it continues to drop.

The member touched on the importance of collective agreements, because historically, when collective agreements are signed, there is a large retroactive piece that creates a lot of transactions, which effectively impacts the ability to get to the backlog. One of our areas of focus has been to find a more efficient way to deal with the additional transactions created by a collective agreement being reached.

Gini, do you want to give a quick update on statistics, and how we now deal with collective agreements?

[Gini Bethell, Assistant Deputy Minister, HR-to-Pay Program Office, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Yes, thank you.

As far as collective agreements go, we've acquired specialized capacity to support their implementation. We anticipate the work on the 2014 agreements to be complete by the end of the year. Right now, we're beginning to look at the 2018 agreements. We also put new systems in place to streamline the process, so that less work has to be done manually. That's why we think it will be possible to finish the work on the collective agreement provisions sooner than in the past.

Of course, when the time came to deal with the 2014 agreements, in 2016-17, we were in full crisis mode with the system. The technological advancements we've made, the specialized resources we've added and the level of co-operation we've established with Treasury Board are really going to help our joint planning to implement the measures in the collective agreements.

As Mr. Matthews mentioned, we've been able to keep all the work going to handle pay system transactions during the pandemic, same as before. We've even made progress on our backlog and transaction objectives.

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

Thank you, Ms. Bethell.

My next question has to do with public servants returning to work. I live on the Ontario side of the river, whereas, my fellow member Mr. MacKinnon represents many public servants who live on the Quebec side.

Mr. Matthews, I believe you brought up the reopening plan and the challenges it creates on both sides of the river. Could you or one of your officials tell us about the return to work plan for public servants?

[Bill Matthews]

This may be a good time for Mr. Déry to finish answering the question that was asked previously.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Respond within about 15 seconds, if that's possible.

[Bill Matthews]

Good luck!

[Stéphan Déry]

I can try.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We are working with the bylaws of the municipality to ensure that we're adopting.... As an example, in Ottawa, you have to wear a mask. There's signage at the front of all of our buildings in Ottawa indicating to people that they have to wear a mask when they are in common areas. We've increased the cleaning. We're in constant communication with both cities, Ottawa and Gatineau, and across the country also.

We have instituted a dashboard to ensure that all of our facilities, either leased or owned, are meeting the criteria, and ensuring they are meeting the province...but also ensuring the quality of space and the safety of employees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much. I appreciate your economy of words on that.

We will now go to Mr. McCauley for five minutes.