Government Operations Committee on June 2nd, 2021

[Bill Matthews]

PSPC first identified the need and worked—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Who at PSPC—

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

We'll now go to Mr. Kusmierczyk for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Matthews, the Auditor General's report focused on reviewing pandemic activity. In particular, it looked at the procurement of personal protective equipment or PPE, how your department responded to time frames, the scale of the competition that was out there and the needs of the provincial and territorial governments. The Auditor General report states that when faced “with the pressures created by the pandemic, the agency took action.”

Mr. Matthews, can you comment on the findings of the Auditor General's report? How do you think you have identified and responded to the challenges, both today and also into the future?

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you for the question, Chair.

There are a couple of things. Number one is that incredibly valuable work was done by the Auditor General. We take the findings very seriously. I think there's acknowledgement that the department had to take risks. The supply situation was well understood. In order to properly supply Canadians with PPE, there was a need to take a risk.

I think the Auditor General also identified helpful recommendations for us for the next time. Frankly, we hadn't been through an experience like this. While you have manuals, there's nothing like a real, live exercise, frankly, to better understand where improvements can be made.

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

Mr. Matthews, by the end of 2020, according to the report, the federal government purchased $7 billion in PPE and medical devices. I can't even fathom what that number means. Can you put that into perspective, maybe looking at past purchases and whatnot? That is a huge amount.

[Bill Matthews]

It is a huge amount, Mr. Chair. There's honestly nothing I could compare it to in terms of the experience we've had, if you look at the variety of the goods that were acquired for the Public Health Agency of Canada for eventual use by provinces and territories—because that's where they went—and understanding the volumes and the need to put in place contracts that would continue to deliver over time. This was not one delivery and done. This was a delivery and then ongoing deliveries, which was a critical aspect.

Maybe the context is if you look at the warehouse space that had to be leased to properly store these goods that were coming in for the provinces and territories. It is a really interesting indication, just in terms of how the Public Health Agency stepped up in terms of what needed to be ordered, obviously with support from PSPC.

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

That last point is a great point. Could you unpack that a little bit for me?

How did the federal government or the department adapt in terms of storing, distributing and tracking this enormous deluge of PPE and medical devices? Can you give us a bit of a glimpse into how the department pivoted or adapted to that?

[Bill Matthews]

Certainly, Mr. Chair.

As we evolved our purchasing to go with new suppliers, we also realized that, frankly, the best approach was to go directly to the manufacturers while we waited for the domestic industries to come online. There were a lot of efforts in terms of on-the-ground logistics in China. We rented a warehouse, chartered planes and then made sure, through our client, PHAC, that there was adequate storage space and logistics in Canada to ensure the goods were delivered as needed.

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

One of the parts of the report that caught my eye was the average number of calendar days to procure and deliver equipment to PHAC. I note, for example, that for N95 masks, the total number of days was 105. This was the average number of days from the requisition to contract signature all the way to delivery. That's 105 for N95 masks. For test swabs, which were in demand, it was 24 days.

Can you put that into perspective for us as well, in terms of delivery times from requisition?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, I think there are two points. That is definitely quick. When we were looking to realize contracts, number one, we realized that when there was an opportunity we had to jump on it very quickly or it was gone. An important part of the contract was also when they could first start delivering, so getting that accelerated delivery timeline. A year out, frankly, wasn't useful to us. We wanted a quick first delivery. Those delivery timelines, when you consider that many of the goods were coming from overseas, were quite fantastic.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Kusmierczyk, you have five seconds.

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

I'll yield. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Ms. Vignola for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

I'm going to talk about Phoenix. On the departmental side, PSPC expects to spend less in 2023‑2024 than in 2021‑2022, in part due to the end of funding to stabilize payroll operations and bring down the backlog of payroll issues. PSPC has reduced the number of financial transactions in excess of its normal workload from a peak of 384,000 in January to 104,000 in February 2021, which is very good.

PSPC also awarded six contracts between March 2019 and January 2021 to acquire a next-generation human resources and payroll solution.

When will the backlog of payroll issues, so the backlog of money we owe people, be completely eliminated?

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you for the question.

We are in the process of eliminating the backlog within the time frame that is in the mandate letter, which is one year, maybe 15 months.

There's still work to do on the backlog. I think we are on track, and we continue to update our approaches to automate where we can and drive efficiencies so we can properly continue to make progress that is being done on the backlog.

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

Thank you.

In the past two weeks, I have seen situations reoccur where government employees are simply not being paid. I am forced to say that all of the cases are women, unfortunately. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but these employees don't know why they didn't get a notice that their pay would be withheld. They also did not get anything stating that they owed money and that that is why they would not be paid. They were completely in the dark. One of them went more than seven weeks without receiving a single penny.

Why are such situations happening again?

[Bill Matthews]

There are a couple of points here, Mr. Chair.

Number one, I think years ago it was far more common where employees would get no pay. We've worked very hard to make those cases a priority, and they're quite rare now. That's not to say there isn't the odd one; there certainly is. Then, as we deal with overpayments, because we don't want to surprise people, we have a regime in place where, before we start collecting any overpayments, we make sure the employee has received three correct pays consecutively before that collection regime kicks in.

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

Are there still level 1, 2, 3, and 4 codes to explain case processing speeds, with level 1 being urgent cases, as I was told, and level 4 being non-urgent problems?

Does this still exist?

[Bill Matthews]

Yes, Mr. Chair, in terms of addressing the backlog, we absolutely still have a priority setting. Obviously, if there's a case where an employee has received no or little pay, that's an urgent one. We've also recently put the emphasis on people approaching maternity leave or paternity leave, or people who have a disability. We have a series of cases there on severity, so we do a triage.

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

I can't hear the interpretation.

It's okay now.

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, the member's question was around whether there is still a priority-setting exercise in terms of addressing urgent cases versus less urgent cases. There absolutely is. Obviously, employees who receive zero or little pay would be high on that list. We would also put an emphasis on employees who are on maternity leave, paternity leave or disability. There is, absolutely, a triage in terms of how we address cases to make sure that the most urgent are addressed on a priority basis.

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

There are retired people who are owed large amounts of money. In my riding, there is a woman—another case involving a woman—who is waiting on up to $40,000 in wages. I understand that she is no longer in the workforce. Her case is not considered a priority. This would affect retirement plans.

When will these cases be processed?

[Bill Matthews]

In terms of resolving these cases, as mentioned earlier in the member's question, we are on track to resolve the backlog, as previously indicated.

I can't speak to this case in particular, but we do have the priority setting in place to allow us to address the most urgent cases in a timely fashion as best we can. We'll continue to work through, using that triage system to address the cases in a priority fashion, but I can't speak to this case, obviously.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Matthews.

Ms. Vignola, I gave you a little extra time because of the translation issue to make sure we got the answer.

We'll now go to Mr. Green for five minutes.