Government Operations Committee on June 7th, 2021

[Cindy Evans]

Mr. Chair, I would like to clarify that each of the requests for assistance that are received are assessed to determine context, and also the need to determine how we distribute scarcity of supply. There were requests for assistance that were based on longer-term stockpiling, which would not have been addressed at the front end and would have been distributed across a time frame.

I would also like to add that those statistics that are being quoted would not include items that were distributed through the bulk procurement, where 80% of the product, in significant quantities, was moved to the provinces and territories. They're somewhat limited in terms of their reflection of the context—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Bulk procurement happened only after these requests were made.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

We've finished our first round.

We will now go to the second round, starting with Mr. Paul-Hus for five minutes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Evans, the Office of the Auditor General's report is quite direct and clear. The agency was egregious in its degree of non-compliance, as problems had been pointed out in 2010 and, in 2013, it was noted that they had still not been resolved. We talk a lot about money here; we talk about money all the time. But I think a problem that goes beyond money is at play. There is a problem in terms of competence.

Was the agency shaken up by the report? Findings were made, so will the agency take charge of those problems going forward?

[Cindy Evans]

Mr. Chair, we thank the Office of the Auditor General for their report, and we've acknowledged that the agency was not as prepared as it could have been.

We will be working forward, in response to the performance audit, to have a longer-term strategic plan for the national emergency strategic stockpile. It will be focusing on areas that include life-cycle management—

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Ms. Evans, I understand your answer, but it is one that is polite and properly framed. I just want to know whether your agency has acknowledged the findings and whether it has started to respond accordingly.

In any event, I will move on to my next question, as I don't have much time.

Mr. Mills, the report from the Office of the Auditor General mentioned advance payments totalling $618 million, an amount that was determined through audits of companies. I would like the committee to receive, within a week, a list of all the companies that benefited from advance payment contracts, including the amounts.

Can you send that list to our committee?

[Michael Mills]

Mr. Chair, I'll take it back to see if we can provide the list of all those that have received advance payments. It's something we could follow up with.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

When you say you will get back to us on this, should we understand that you will provide us with the list?

[Michael Mills]

Yes, we will compile a list of those that have received advance payments.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I would like you to specify the company names and the amounts.

Thank you, Mr. Mills.

Mr. Chair, as all the members know, I put forward a motion within the time frame prescribed by the committee. I would like to move the following motion:

That, in the context of its study of the government's response to the COVID‑19 Pandemic and pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), the committee send for the following documents to be provided by the government: all briefing notes, memorandums for information, memorandums for decision, and documents related to the final contracts (including: letters of intent, requests for proposals, departmental justifications for non-competitive bid processes, contract numbers and solicitation numbers and final contracts) signed on behalf of the government with suppliers of personal protective equipment, testing equipment and vaccines between Friday, May 15, 2020 and Monday, May 31, 2021;

that the documents be submitted electronically to the clerk of the committee in both official languages no later than noon ET on Friday, August 13, 2021;

that the documents be published publicly on the committee's website by Wednesday, August 18, 2021; and that departments tasked with gathering and releasing the following documents do their assessment and vetting as would be done through the access to information process.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

The motion is on the table. Is there any debate?

Mr. MacKinnon, I see that your hand is up.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank Mr. Mills, Ms. Evans and Mr. Dorion for their testimony. I suspect they are done for the day.

Concerning the issue raised by my colleague Mr. Paul‑Hus, we have seen, since the beginning of this pandemic, the amazing contributions of public servants, the Public Health Agency's employees, and of their counterparts from the provinces, territories and first nations communities. Procurement officers have also worked day and night—and I have seen this—with suppliers from around the world.

I will not go over the Auditor General's entire testimony, but I think she just confirmed that the grade she gives to Public Services and Procurement Canada's employees concerning the supply of personal protective equipment is not just a passing grade. She takes her hat off to them for the balance they have been able to strike by providing personal protection equipment to Canadians, through the Public Health Agency and health professionals.

Let's summarize the facts, Mr. Chair. We have seen the Government of Canada acquire 2.7 billion pieces of personal protective equipment and redistribute them throughout the health care system. We called on Canadian industry, which has demonstrated its ingenuity. We have seen distilleries and breweries temporarily transform their factories to manufacture disinfectants or alcohol–based products, as well as companies such as 3M Canada and Medicom literally develop new ways to manufacture personal protective equipment, such as N95 masks.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but do you mind if I interrupt Mr. MacKinnon? I apologize.

In light of not using up our witnesses' time, I'm wondering if perhaps Mr. MacKinnon and Mr. Drouin could share with us if they intend to filibuster the motion to stop it. If so, perhaps we could move to adjourn the debate and allow the witnesses and everyone else to proceed with their days and leave.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

This being a point of order, we cannot—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I recognize that it's not a regular point of order, but it's out of respect for everyone's time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I respect your comments, but the reality is that if the committee decides at some point that it would prefer to adjourn the debate on this motion to another time, that needs to be put forward by someone from the floor.

Mr. MacKinnon.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

If Mr. MacKinnon put forward that motion, I'm sure we would support it, if that's the case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

Mr. MacKinnon.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Chair, I am very happy to propose that we adjourn the debate on the motion, provided that I can participate in the debate again and be allowed to speak once the debate resumes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. MacKinnon, just for clarification, are you moving to suspend the debate on the motion at this time?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Do I have unanimous consent for that? Thumbs-up?

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you very much.

I will thank you, Mr. MacKinnon, and we'll continue.

I want to thank the witnesses for bearing with us as we went through this.

We will now move to Mr. Jowhari for five minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Once again, welcome to the witnesses.

I found the AG's testimony, as well as yours, quite informative.

Mr. Mills, in her statement, the Auditor General noted that the various departments appear to have taken away lessons learned from the past projects and have introduced agile procurement practices.

Can you specifically share with us what that means in terms of your department? What actual action has been taken by your department to be able to benefit from those lessons learned?

[Michael Mills]

Mr. Chair, I think that some of the things we've learned and have had to work with are how we leverage our systems, like our new electronic procurement system, which we've been able to use to our advantage to move quickly through procurements and to engage the market in a different area. This is a platform that we think will enable us to engage with industry in a different way than we did in the past.

Some of the other issues or approaches we've learned about are that we did a call to action early on and engaged industry, and it created a platform for industry to come back to us and propose different ways in which we could meet the challenge of Canadians. Some of the lessons learned there will be that earlier on in the process, rather than trying to fully define what we think is a requirement, there may be new ways to engage industry to work together to figure out what the requirements could be or how industry could better respond to the needs of government.

Those would be two ways that we would look at being able to move in a more agile and more timely fashion to meet the needs of Canadians and government departments going forward.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

It was quite interesting that you mentioned the industry.

Based on the table that was provided to us by the Library of Parliament—I'm looking at “Medical Supplies Ordered and Received by the Government of Canada”—it looks like we've ordered to the tune of 2.7 billion. This target was set to be delivered by the 31st of March 2022. As I'm looking at the percentage of what's been delivered, aside from gloves which were mentioned earlier, and probably N95s and some medical ventilators, the rest of them are almost all here and have almost all been delivered. That target, when I look at the date, puts us 10 months ahead of schedule for having these supplies received.

Can you share with us what percentage of these are from non-industry-based suppliers or manufacturers in Canada?