Government Operations Committee on June 7th, 2021

[Michael Mills]

I'm not aware that we were under contract for that disposal.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Would your department be responsible for contracting out people for instances of disposal, or is that something that Ms. Evans would have directed in her purview or that would have been in her predecessor's purview in her department?

[Michael Mills]

In that specific case, I would have to get you the details of what involvement, if any, there was of PSPC, but—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, if it's the case, I would ask, through you, Mr. Chair, that both of them provide a response to see which companies were contracted for the disposal of the whatever remaining expired PPE at the other two locations. They don't even have to give us the locations, although I'm sure they could be found. I ask that they bring it back in writing within the next two weeks so that we can have the ability to review it.

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Green, thank you for that.

If the witnesses would be able to provide an answer to his question, it would be greatly appreciated.

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

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, witnesses.

Mr. Mills, can you walk me through the breakdown, again, of how much we've provided to the SNC consortium, for lack of a better word, for the mobile health unit being held on reserve? Was it $64 million? Did I hear that right?

[Michael Mills]

It's just under $64 million, yes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

What is that for? I know there are some design fees, but what else is that broken down into? The last I looked, I think.... When we looked at the main estimates, I think it was $26 million cash that was advanced to them to purchase items. What's in that $64 million?

[Michael Mills]

It's both design and development costs. It's also for the purchase of the equipment of a complete unit, which is a 100 bed MHU, as well as equipment and supplies to go into that. In this case, we ordered additional supplies that could be used across different units.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay.

I mentioned that the supplementary estimates just came out, and there's $659 million for added costs, etc., with regard to the purchasing of the mobile health units. Now it's not all for SNC for the mobile health units, but do you know how much of that $659 million is for those mobile health units?

[Michael Mills]

I do not have the specific number of how much is provisioned for additional task authorizations.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

How much more money are we going to be spending on this SNC sole-source consortium for these unused hospitals?

[Michael Mills]

Again, I don't have—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

The reason I ask is that the third wave is over and 70% of adults have been vaccinated. Are we still pushing money toward this project when it's been clear from day one that it wasn't needed?

[Michael Mills]

Mr. Chair, the purchasing of the MHUs was certainly to have the capacity to add to provincial and territorial responses to COVID. We're not the.... The pandemic is not complete. Two are deployed, and two may be deployed.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I recognize that, Mr. Mills, but no province has asked for it, and the military didn't ask for them. Public Health did not ask for them. The public health minister did not ask for them. Someone in PSPC on their own created a need and an urgent need, which was used to justify a $150-million sole-source contract. It was so urgent that not one of them has been used.

I'm sorry that I'm putting you in a difficult spot, but you understand my concern. This is taxpayers' money. It seems to be an urgent need created out of thin air for something that it turns out wasn't urgently needed, and it wasn't requested by any health ministers across the country or any health officials, it appears.

We'd certainly like to get to the bottom of how much more this is going to cost taxpayers.

[Michael Mills]

I would note that two of the units are actually up and running and were deployed for the third wave in Ontario. The whole intent of having—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

The two from SNC or from the other company?

[Michael Mills]

Two were from Weatherhaven, and again, there are two different—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right, but I'm talking specifically about SNC-Lavalin, the consortium.

[Michael Mills]

To clarify, there are two different design types. It's not just a consortium. One is a free-standing external application, which is the Weatherhaven one. The other one is—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm not talking about the Weatherhaven one, but specifically the money towards SNC.

[Michael Mills]

—SNC, which is set for an internal location. We previously had a request from one province that considered an internal application, which that would have been used for.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Was that request from the province before or after the sole-source contract was given to SNC?

[Michael Mills]

The requests from provinces were after.

As we mentioned before, the department leaned forward, procured these, given the long lead times to acquire the material, and put in place MHUs as an anticipatory procurement for the needs of the provinces and territories. Again, looking around the world, many jurisdictions were setting up temporary hospitals and putting this capacity in place to respond to the pandemic.