Government Operations Committee on March 24th, 2021

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

Would it be possible to get a breakdown of the office accommodation costs for Public Services and Procurement Canada employees who provide pension services under the Public Service Superannuation Act, the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act?

[Bill Matthews]

I can answer that question, Madam Minister, if you agree.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Matthews, apparently we have lost the minister temporarily. Please do so while we try to reconnect with the minister.

Thank you.

[Bill Matthews]

Okay.

The majority of the $9.2 million is for the public service superannuation plan. It does cover all the pension funds—the RCMP, the Reserve and National Defence as well—but I believe—let's call it 70%—relates to the public service plan, but we can give you that breakdown in an answer to a follow-up question if you want the exact numbers.

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

Thank you.

I will come back to the question of ships.

I recently received a letter regarding the Amundsen, an aging scientific icebreaker that really needs to be replaced.

Chantier Davie has been promised a contract for six icebreakers, so I would like to know the status of the negotiations so that they can finally begin building those icebreakers, which our scientists need.

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, I'm still not seeing the minister, so with your blessing I will carry on, unless you want to pause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Certainly. We'd appreciate that. We're attempting to get her to log back in, but while we're doing that, we would appreciate your answering those questions as well as possible.

Thank you.

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Concerning the Coast Guard's fleet and icebreakers, the member is quite right. The fleet is aging, and we are having ongoing discussions with the navy about medium icebreakers, as well as about refitting some other ones, so the discussions are ongoing. Unfortunately I can't offer specifics in terms of when contracts might be forthcoming.

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

I imagine that also includes the Diefenbaker, the seventh icebreaker we are really looking forward to.

What percentage of Public Services and Procurement Canada's processes used an agile approach in 2019-20?

Do you expect that percentage to change in 2020-21?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, can the member clarify whether she is talking about the use of the agile approach as it relates to procurement processes in general or—

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

Yes, I am talking about procurement.

[Bill Matthews]

Okay. I expect that percentage to increase. It's an approach that we really like. It can't be applied to every competition, but we would like to use it more often.

Perhaps my colleague Mr. Ieraci could elaborate.

[Lorenzo Ieraci, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Minister.

The agile approach to procurement is primarily used in the IT field, when we buy computer systems or other items. We have started using this approach, which has been used regularly in the private sector for the past few years. We continue to train our procurement officers to be able to use the agile approach more frequently in the future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Vignola. I appreciate that. I gave you a little extra time because of the breakdown.

I see we have the minister. She is just reconnecting, and we're just about to go to Mr. Green for six minutes, and I think we'll start.

Minister, can you just say a word or two, just to make certain we have you hooked up?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

My sincere apologies for that. I don't know what happened, but I'm back now and ready to answer any more questions you might have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much, Minister.

Mr. Green, you have six minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm going to start off by setting my politics aside for a moment. I just want to have a human moment if that's possible, heading into this third wave and after what has been a very long year, and say that I do appreciate that the minister continues to come back.

I feel that in this committee it is often the case that things become fairly confrontational. I want to just acknowledge that and I want to acknowledge that it is not personal when things become confrontational. There is a general feeling that I've been having about the way we do this work. We have limited time, and it sometimes feels like—and this is an “I” statement—the questions we're asking are not being adequately answered and sometimes it feels like witnesses and testimony to this committee seek to run the clock out in ways that don't provide us with the fullness of answers we're trying to actually get.

I want to go on the record to say that, Mr. Chair, because I know your job is tough and I know that we're all under a lot of pressure, but I want to note that I think the minister, in this particular role and in this particular crisis, has made an exemplary effort to continue to come back to this committee and even to avail herself, after the technical difficulties. I want to just say that with my first one and a half minutes.

With that being said, I need to pick up where we left off, which was a disconnect, quite frankly, between the honourable minister, through you, Mr. Chair, and her ADM, so I will ask the question to the honourable minister.

When you do procurement, do you include, domestically, taxes in your estimation of costs?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

My understanding is that the PBO report contained a number of points that we are going to now take a look at moving forward. Our costing is based on Treasury Board policy.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Does the Treasury Board policy include in its estimates the provincial sales tax?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

That is a question I will ask my deputy minister, his having worked at Treasury Board and leading these procurements within the department [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I may be dated here, as I'm drawing back on some previous experience. I think some of the taxes exist. We all know that. When you do contracts, you often do...the base amount plus the tax, so we know it's there.

I think, for some reason, some of the confusion is because, when departments are figuring out what vote to charge, the taxes are charged off to a different vote.

I think that's—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Through you, Mr. Chair, there's no confusion. I've had members from the Department of National Defence before us, and we've had the Parliamentary Budget Officer before us to talk about this stuff, and they are not including the tax. That is what the PBO's report says. There's a material non-disclosure in the estimates that is almost a $20-million difference, $30 million almost, in some of the cost estimates, of which some of them are including tax.

We had the minister suggest, and I think quite rightly, that she was taking the Parliament Budget Officer's estimate into account, and yet when you took the answer, sir, through you, Mr. Chair, you said that was not the case, that you were going to go with the Department of National Defence.

We're talking about line items, but on the surface combat shipbuilding program that started off at $26 billion, we're now looking down the barrel of $82 billion—capital, big B. In all the pressures we have here across services and investments in Canadians, we're going to spend $82 billion on warships in the middle of COVID, a program that could be, as identified by the PBO, sought for $26 billion or such.

I recognize the investments in local industry, but I mean, for that much we should have a nationalized manufacturing section. That's enough for us to build our own ships at that point, so I'm wondering why the Irving family and others get this kind of blank cheque for $80 billion.

I will put that back to you. If the PBO is right and that cost goes to $80 billion, who is responsible, your department or the Department of National Defence?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I will start by saying that I want to take your point that we do need to ensure very keen oversight of this build. We need to make sure that we are spending appropriately. We need to be very conscientious about Canadian taxpayer money, in particular on the point about taxes, because that is a very important and fair question.

I'm going to ask the CFO of our department to come back to you with some specific information rather than continue to provide the same answer I have until now.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you; I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister.

Minister, we appreciate the fact that you have come back with us and that you're sticking with us. Hopefully you can stay with us a little bit longer. We do appreciate your coming back on after the breakdown of your communication.

I'm seeing you nodding your head, so I'm assuming that's a yes.