Government Operations Committee on June 7th, 2021

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Definitely, and I think the recommendation on improving digital infrastructure is one we'll hear for all aspects of not only the response to the pandemic, but also how we're going to deliver services to Canadians in an ongoing manner in a modern world.

One of the takeaways I have from the report is the assumed value added or increased resiliency of a more iterative approach to procurement. Are there demonstrated timeline improvements or is there better deliverables management when it comes to contracts agreed to and products delivered?

[Karen Hogan]

Do you mean based on what we saw in this report on the responsiveness? What we saw here during procurement is that Public Services and Procurement Canada accepted risks. One of them was invoking the national security exception, which means that a procurement can happen without a competitive process. That should not typically be an approach, but that's happening in a crisis. The second was making advance payments, which, as we talked about previously, is not something you should normally do in a procurement process.

I think these were unique to dealing with a situation. Traditional procurement approaches are likely the best, depending on the circumstances, going forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan and Mr. Weiler.

We'll now go to Ms. Vignola for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Hogan, we just talked about the ability of the Public Health Agency of Canada, or PHAC, to quickly meet needs and the fact that, in the beginning, warehouses were used only in emergency situations and were not being used to supply the provinces and territories based on demand.

Lessons have been learned from the COVID‑19 pandemic. The process related to that pandemic is drawing to its end, or at least that's what we hope. Is PHAC now better able to meet urgent needs, but especially to plan better and get better organized?

[Karen Hogan]

You are talking about Public Services and Procurement Canada's supply stream. Is that correct?

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

That's correct.

[Karen Hogan]

You are asking me whether the department is now better prepared to deal with an emergency situation. However, you should put this question to its officials.

We rather look at the way the department reacted and changed its process to meet very important immediate needs in a highly competitive market. The department definitely should have learned some lessons from that. However, you should put the question to the department to find out how it should change the process going forward.

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

As Auditor General, you are our Cerberus, our watchdog—though far be it for me to compare you to an animal.

Cassandra is another mythical character who predicted misfortune, but whom no one believed. When I read your reports and hear you talk, I sometimes feel like I detect some disappointment, as certain problems should have been resolved a long time ago.

I know that you have issued a number of recommendations. However, if you could make one recommendation to Public Services and Procurement Canada that would help us never be caught with our pants down again, and you were sure they would listen, what would that recommendation be?

[Karen Hogan]

I don't know whether my recommendation was only for Public Services and Procurement Canada. I think it was for the federal government as a whole. My recommendation would be to recognize the need and usefulness of investing in what we don't see.

For example, I am thinking of an IT system that supports an important program involving the stockpiling of equipment, such as masks, in the national stockpile or of resolving long–standing issues with the shortage of health care professionals in indigenous communities. Those are all invisible problems that should be resolved, and the government is aware of them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan. If you feel there's more you can add to that answer, please, by all means submit it in writing to the clerk. We would be happy to give that to members.

We'll now go to Mr. Green for two and a half minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Noting in the questions and the follow-up.... Based on the letter that has been provided, and based on the abysmal response, through you, Mr. Chair, Ms. Hogan noted that they did not analyze the distribution of equipment in each of the agency's warehouses because it had already been analyzed as part of the agency's internal audits and other reports it had commissioned.

Mr. Chair, through you, is Ms. Hogan satisfied—knowing the failure of their response in the surge capacity—based on her audit, that the internal reports of the agency and the reports it had commissioned were actually valuable and successful?

[Karen Hogan]

Well, I haven't looked at all of them. I have looked at a few of them. I'm satisfied that they provided valuable recommendations. I am not satisfied that action was not taken. I don't believe that I need to make recommendations for departments to keep acting on things they already know they should act on. I believe they should act on them.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, the department made the decision to shutter three of the nine national emergency facilities; it stated that it could save a couple hundred thousand dollars. Now we're hearing that the government has been forced to outsource for surge capacity and warehousing.

Would Ms. Hogan care to comment on how that decision and subsequent need for surge capacity weighed in in her audit? Is it something that she noted? Is it something that she recommended for them to bring back in-house and to actually have the adequate supply on hand for surge capacity?

[Karen Hogan]

One of the recommendations we made is that they need to develop a comprehensive plan about the national emergency strategic stockpile, and I think that includes many things. That includes determining the thresholds of certain types of equipment that should be in place, making sure they have a system to support that so that they have good-quality data. It also would include, then, making an assessment of where equipment should be and where it should be stored, in order to have a quick and easy distribution across the country when needed. Those are all things that should be part of that comprehensive plan.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, through you, respectfully, they had that. They had nine of them, and they made the decision to shut down three and throw out millions of critical PPE on the eve of a global pandemic. Decisions were made and policies were in place. They were just.... Somebody made the decision to shutter those warehouses. I'd like to find out who it was.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Green. That's a great question.

Ms. Hogan, if you could send that answer to the committee in writing, it would be appreciated.

[Karen Hogan]

I believe he should ask the department that question. I think that's theirs to provide.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan.

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

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Ms. Hogan, welcome back. It's good to have you here once again.

I have a few questions for you with regard to the procurement of personal protective equipment.

I know that hundreds of millions, billions actually, of dollars have been spent to procure equipment and supplies over the course of the pandemic, and I know that it's been done at a tremendous speed, as is acknowledged in your report. One of the other things you acknowledge is that officials didn't necessarily have the time to do thorough background checks or research because of the speed at which they were moving.

I'm wondering if you can shed light on whether or not you and your team looked at the procurement of equipment in terms of what type of labour was involved in producing the equipment. When we're bringing materials over from places like China, of course, we know there is a history of human rights atrocities. We know there is often forced labour being used in order to produce equipment or supplies.

Did you find any of this in your research?

[Karen Hogan]

In the contracts that we looked at, we did look at what mechanisms they put in place. Normally there are many checks and balances, as I mentioned earlier, that help reduce the risk around a procurement: ethical ones, integrity ones and financial viability; there's a risk assessment.

Not all of them were done in these instances. We were able to look at the ones that were done. We did not look at the ethical, because it was not one of the measures that was addressed in some of the contracts we reviewed.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Why was ethical done away with? That seems like an interesting category to kind of throw to the wayside. Is there any light you can shed on why that decision was made by the department?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm not sure. I'll ask Mr. Duvnjak if he would like to add to that, or you should ask the department when they appear next.

Milan, I don't know if you'd like to jump in.

[Milan Duvnjak]

I'll add that we did not focus on who actually produced the equipment. Given the nature of the exceptional circumstances and the urgency, we left that decision for the procurement folks. We focused on the process in place that we could audit. As Ms. Hogan mentioned, this is a good question for the department.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay, so no light can be shed as to why that category of the risk assessment seems to have been scrapped. Ethics wasn't given any regard.

[Karen Hogan]

We can't. I think you'd have to ask the department.