Government Operations Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2020

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to respond to Mrs. Vignola's remarks. Yes, the motion may have made sense this summer, when the provinces, Quebec and all of Canada weren't in the middle of a second wave, but now they are. I would like the opposition members to agree at least on which committees they want to be on and have examine these issues.

As members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, we have a responsibility associated with PSPC and the Treasury Board. However, the way the motion was written, it relates mainly to the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada.

As my fellow member Mr. MacKinnon explained so well, PSPC is responsible for procuring supplies such as personal protective equipment, once—and only once—the Public Health Agency of Canada has notified PSPC that the equipment is needed. That is why we are reluctant to support this motion.

This is also a matter of principle. A motion with very similar wording was put forward last week, and the honourable member Mr. Green already voted in favour of it. Our party did not support it because we understand how hard the people who have to produce this information—many of whom live in my riding—must work to fulfill this request. They helped us come through the first wave, and now, we are going to thank them by piling even more work on in the midst of the second wave.

This summer, the pandemic lost a bit of steam, but we knew the second wave was coming. Now the opposition is choosing to request information, which I fully understand. That is their duty. They can do that. We are in the grip of the second wave of the pandemic and the crisis continues, so I ask you: is now really the time to call for a sweeping audit to obtain all these documents?

I have never seen a company or a not-for-profit organization perform an audit in the middle of its fiscal year. There will be plenty of time to request this information. Actually, it has already been requested, with the House adopting a motion to that effect. Because of the opposition, employees of the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada, who are working tirelessly here, in Gatineau, in Hull and in Aylmer, will have to stop everything because the opposition is calling for an audit at the height of the crisis. I have never seen that, Mr. Chair.

I respect the committee and I respected the House's decision. I am not trying to go on as long as I can. I just want to reiterate what was said last week about the member for Calgary Nose Hill's motion. You heard that a number of key stakeholders had concerns about how the motion adopted by the House was written. That is on you now, and I hope you explain that to your constituents when you go back to your ridings.

Mr. Green said he likes to post on social media. It is on him now to explain why he is asking for this when he knows full well that the House has already requested the information and that it will be going to the Standing Committee on Health.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

Mr. Green is next. Mr. McCauley is after Mr. Green, then Mr. Kusmierczyk, followed by Mr. Jowhari.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

This is good, Mr. Chair. In conflict resolution you want to escalate the issues to really get at the heart of the matter. I feel like that's exactly what we're doing.

In previous filibusters, the Liberal government made an intent that WE was the sticking point and they didn't want to be held accountable for the WE scandal. Okay, we have other committees working on WE, and I can appreciate why a focused effort on that.... I know that other members of this committee have been on the ethics committee and will continue to go down that rabbit hole. That's fine.

I have heard in the comments, Mr. Chair, the insinuation that I am playing a game of Go Fish. I can share with you that the beautiful thing.... I talked about this last time. It's almost as if my friends from the Liberal Party, from the government, have a case of amnesia where somehow they think that these conversations we've had in the past are simply forgotten. The eye in the sky doesn't lie, Mr. Chair. Yes, this will make for good social media content because of all the bluster that came out of government, like the pleas that they're absolutely not going to support this and how dare we hold this government accountable.

I would like to read into the record, Mr. Chair, that, in fact, in a more reasonable time—perhaps a less partisan time and a time when some of my colleagues would have actually been interested in making sure that we do hold government accountable in a way that supersedes our partisan nature—this motion passed. This motion passed unanimously. For all the pearl-clutching that's happening in this committee, the question was put on the motion as amended, and the amendment came from my friends on the Liberal side, the government.

I was negotiating in good faith with them. We accepted the amendment. I repeat, the yeas in favour were from Ziad Aboultaif, Kelly Block, Francis Drouin, Matthew Green, Majid Jowhari, Irek Kusmierczyk, Steven MacKinnon, Kelly McCauley, Julie Vignola and Patrick Weiler. It was unanimous to demand documents for up until the date that I've only just amended slightly.

This work was set to come back to committee a week after the Liberal government cut and ran on a prorogation that I thought was really centred on WE. What is becoming clear is that it's not just about WE. It's about the lack of ability to be accountable for anything, Mr. Chair.

Here are the facts. We had 11 national emergency strategic warehouses in nine locations. Sometime in the last year, in the lead-up to this pandemic, a decision was made to dispose of critical life-saving PPE, N95 masks, gowns and gloves in the millions. The only reason we know about that is that the person who was supposed to throw them out didn't get the contract and went down and took some pictures. That's the only reason we have any idea about this, in terms of the “open by default” Liberal government.

What did that tell us? It led us to understand and to discover that, in fact, out of the 11 locations, the Liberal government made a decision to close down three in the lead-up to COVID. Three critical national emergency strategic stockpile locations housing and storing millions of PPE items that they let expire.

I thought I was being a mensch by making it 10 years. Here's why: It's been my experience as a New Democrat that the Liberals and Conservatives spend all their time pointing the finger at one another, so I said let the truth shine through. Let's make it 10 years, to ensure that both parties would be held accountable—I don't want to say “exposed”—for the state of the absolute incompetence and mismanagement of the national emergency strategic stockpile.

Two million pieces of critical PPE, N95 masks, were thrown out of the Regina location. Two remaining locations with critical PPE were shuttered. We have no idea how many were thrown out then.

We also know it to be true that on the procurement side—which, by the way, this committee is responsible for—of the 11 million initial N95s that were brought in, something like nine million were unusable. Again, there has been incompetence and mismanagement of procurement.

I warned at that time that we were heading into a second wave and that we better damn well make sure that the national emergency strategic stockpile was going to be replenished and was going to be managed in a meaningful way. Here we are, having unanimous consent from the Liberal side. All of them supported this in the first wave because, I believe, at that point in time they understood how critically important it was to get to the truth.

My question is this: What did they find out? What information did the parliamentary secretary have access to? Recall that this report should have been mostly done. Despite all of this recent pearl-clutching about burdening our staff, this work has been done. I'm only asking for a few months more, and to give them an extra month to do it.

These two things can't simultaneously be true. We can't both be burdening staff and having all the other committees asking them the same questions. Here's why, Mr. Chair. If all the other committees are asking the same questions, then this work should already be done and it should be no problem to report to this committee.

I tried to be conciliatory in my opening remarks. I tried to move beyond this absolutely asinine filibuster. We're probably going to sit in here now until 8:30 or nine o'clock, but I'll put on the record right now, Mr. Chair, that I'm here on my own. My family is back home. I don't have to get back for bedtime now, so I'm ready to dig in on this. We amended this motion in a reasonable, good-faith way, a motion that was unanimously passed—unanimously.

Here's the thing: There may have been a time, Mr. Chair, when people could say something in one committee and it would be buried in Hansard and people would forget about it. But we are savvy now, Mr. Chair, in opposition. We are savvy. I have the ability to pull the quotes from the last time we moved this motion, clip it from ParlVU and put it almost side by side with the things being said now so Canadians can see how the congruency in leadership and accountability is missing. That's the truth.

I know it behooves the parliamentary secretary to come here and fight the good fight with the whips on the line and everybody else, but people are watching and they're not buying it anymore. This isn't about WE. All the other excuses they had about all the other things we listed—I moved beyond those. All I want is the very simple acknowledgement that what was supported prior to prorogation was in the welfare of this committee, to find oversight and to find some kind of accountability of this government in this absolutely historic, unprecedented pandemic. Yet they don't want any accountability. It's as though it's their birthright to come in here and govern on majorities and shut down information, critical information, that Canadians deserve to know.

I don't know who's watching this tonight, Mr. Chair, but I can tell you this: I am very comfortable in this seat and I will continue to dig for the truth. We have three roles in opposition, despite what our Liberal friends in government would have us believe. Rolling over and just doing whatever they want is not our job, actually. We need to pry into this, and to poke and prod this government to do the right thing at every step along the way. We need to be a check and balance to this government's unprecedented expenditures, and, quite frankly, to all the missteps that are related to allegations of corruption. Third is to be the government in waiting. That's the role of the opposition. This idea that somehow on this committee we're just going to hold hands and do whatever the Liberals want to do, and, if not, we're just going to bog this down.... That's fine. You know what? I have some great books here for reference, some excellent books on getting to the heart of matters and demanding documents. We'll just continue to do that. It's not bogging down the process, because this is work that should have already been done.

A couple of things have come from this. One, it's not WE. It's not the WE scandal. I've set that aside. That excuse is off the table. Two, this should have already been done, substantially completed way back when. Three, they unanimously voted on this, to recap. Four, this is the new normal, whether we like it or not. For them to continue to move the goal post on the national emergency strategic stockpile.... Somebody made decisions to throw that stuff out. If I understand correctly, it might even be the case that the person is not even there anymore. Why is that? These are questions we deserve to have answered.

I'm just going to put folks on notice that this isn't going away. This isn't something you can wish away. We will get to the bottom of this at some point. Let's just hope it's before the government decides to slink back to the Governor General for the call of the next snap election or whatever else it is they have up their sleeves.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

Go ahead, Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Mr. Green and Ms. Vignola for some very good points.

Watching my Liberal colleagues talk about this, it's kind of like Queen Gertrude with “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” from Shakespeare.

There are a couple of things I want to bring up. It's quite funny to hear the Liberal side talk about there being so many other committees studying this. I want to hearken back to the 42nd Parliament, where we had five different committees studying greening the government and the Liberal majority on this committee insisted that we needed to have another one, despite so many overarching concerns we needed to look at. It's funny that they would justify five or six overlapping committees at one time, but now they're in abject opposition to doing the same.

I want to bring up a couple of other points. We hear again and again from the government side, “Oh, pandemic. We can't do anything. The pandemic.” Just last week, we saw Kevin Lamoureux justify corruption because of a pandemic. We can't look at ethics because we're in a pandemic. Now we're hearing from the Liberals that we can't look at incompetence that has hurt Canadians, blatant incompetence that has punished Canadians, because of a pandemic: “We have to do it for the safety of the public service. We can't bring them in and force them to work. We can't take them away from needed stuff.” It's as if it's Patty Hajdu herself sitting there flipping through her emails to find this information. There are over 120,000 public servants working in Ottawa. I'm sure we can find the resources to get this information.

I was looking at the PBO's study on the 699. Do you know how many people from the Public Health Agency are taking the 699, which is paid time off without work? Six in the entire department are not available for work, six out of the entire department. We had the people. We had the resources to get this done.

The public accounts are coming out next month. We have all the resources to comb through all the government's spending records to publish the public accounts safely. The other general work is still getting done safely. We can get this stuff done safely as well.

We should look at this. We have the resources. There's no reason in the world we can't get this done. I'm with Mr. Green. This is not an issue that's going to go away, so we either sit here and allow the will of the committee to proceed, or we get to a point where every single meeting is just going to be Liberals filibustering and blocking our ability to help Canadians.

I want to thank Mr. Green for being so forceful on this, and Ms. Vignola for her remarks. I would just say to my Liberal colleagues, let this go ahead as we agreed before prorogation. A lot of it has probably already been done. Let's get the work done. We have the assets. We have the ability to easily get this done. We owe it to Canadians so we do not have a repeat of this down the road, whether it's in one month, one year or two years.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

We now have Mr. Kusmierczyk. After Mr. Kusmierczyk, we have Mr. Jowhari and Ms. Vignola.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to start by picking up on a comment that Mr. Green made very early in his comments. Mr. Chair, I think you made the same comments as well, about how we got off to a really good start at the beginning of this committee meeting. There seemed to be a really good spirit of collaboration. Right off the get-go, we passed a motion that had six items on it, and we passed it unanimously. I think it demonstrates our commitment to working together on this committee to get real work done.

I know that my colleague Mr. Green also in previous meetings put forward.... I know we are prepared. There are 12 motions on the table. We are prepared to support 12 of 13 motions. On our part, there is a real willingness to work together, to collaborate and to get important work done in this committee.

I've been clear, pretty much since the beginning of this committee's work, that where you're going to see push-back from me is where I see motions that are asking for the proliferation of committees, for the production of papers and the duplication of work without a clear and well-defined value added. That's where you're going to see me push back. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves, ready to support motions, whether by colleagues on this side of the aisle or by my esteemed colleagues on the other side of the aisle. The motions have to meet a certain standard. Again, where you're going to see me push back is when I see proliferation of committees, production of papers and duplication of work and I don't see a clear value added.

I guess where I may differ a little from the approach of my colleagues is that I do believe we are in a crisis. I believe it's the greatest health and economic crisis we have faced in our country, period. I do believe, with every fibre of my being, that this requires an all-hands-on-deck approach. It requires that we are laser-focused, and it requires us to make choices: Where do we want our attention to be focused?

My colleague mentioned that there are hundreds of thousands of public servants in the government, and that it's okay if just a few of them focus their attention on fetching emails and documents from 10 years ago. My argument is quite the opposite: We need every single pair of eyes, hands and brains, all that human capital, all those resources, all that attention focused on addressing and solving this issue and helping Canadians and our country get through this crisis. We need all hands on deck focused on this.

I want my colleagues to know that for me, there is a really high standard that I set, a high bar in terms of what motions will pass. Specifically, it's based on where we need to put our resources.

On this particular issue, we had members of PHAC and other government agencies in front of this committee in May, answering many of these very questions. May 15 was actually when we had a meeting on this exact issue, the national emergency strategic stockpile. We had folks—officials, vice-presidents, executive directors—from PHAC and Public Works. I remember one of the points that Mr. Green made at that meeting, which stuck with me. He highlighted the fact that a Senate committee in 2008 underscored and highlighted and concluded that the previous Conservative government had severely underfunded and mismanaged the NESS.

As much as I'd love to read emails and documentation and spend hours talking about how the Conservative government mismanaged the national emergency strategic stockpile, let's save that for another day and focus on the work in front of us. Let's focus on the crisis at hand. Enough of the political stuff; we need to focus on this crisis. We need full attention. We can't afford to lose even a handful of public servants being distracted from the work they need to do.

What I will highlight from Mr. Green's testimony is that when we had the officials here in May—I remember really appreciating this—he asked them what we were doing now to ensure proper supplies and what the plan was for the next wave. Keep in mind that this was in May, and Mr. Green was asking them some very fine questions: “What are we doing to prepare for the second wave?” That was very prescient.

I would rather have us focus our attention—because other committees are looking at this work—not on what happened in the last 10 years but on what we are doing now and what we are doing next. That would be a much more appropriate use of our time and resources.

I want to go on the record here to simply state where I have trouble with this particular motion. It's simply that I want to make sure that all our resources and attention are focused on the crisis at hand.

Thank you very much, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

Mr. Jowhari is next, followed by Ms. Vignola.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm one of the lucky ones who were here when we initially passed this motion. I'm blessed that I'm here to actually talk on this new motion.

As Ms. Vignola mentioned, this is a great opportunity for us to look at the process. But the process is not just the process that happened as result of COVID-19. When we look at the strategic stockpile of PPE inventory, there are many dimensions when you look at inventory management. You look at how much of the stock you need; how you replenish it; how you decide what type of stock you need and what the reorder point is; where the locations are where you're going to stockpile; what the mechanism is for receiving orders from the provinces; how you determine the priority. These stockpiles are strategic stockpiles. They are not there to satisfy all of the demands.

There are many aspects to evaluating this. To the extent that the documents that might be available during this short period, especially during COVID-19, in terms of how much of it was disposed of.... I don't think these documents are actually going to shed a complete light onto how the consolidation of these centres came about, who made that decision, how we decided on what type of stockpile we needed and what combination we needed: Do we need surgical masks, do we need level three masks or do we need gloves? All those decisions needed to be made. I'm not sure whether we have that data.

Also, other committees, for instance the health committee, and the motion that was passed in the House, are generating these documents. When you look at the end-to-end process, I don't think the end-to-end process is only over the three months. It was over many, many years that these decisions were made. We need to wait until those documents are tabled to be able to see to what extent those documents that are being generated—or, as said, are nearly ready to be handed in to the other committees—put us in a position to be able to answer some of these key questions.

The level of the stockpile is only one element. There's the decision-making: How do we monitor it? How do we control it? All of those may or may not be answered in the documents that are being prepared.

My suggestion is to wait for these documents that other committees are asking for to be tabled. Let's review those documents, and then ask the fundamental question that everybody is asking, from all sides of the House. Whether it's the Conservatives, the NDP, the Bloc, the Liberals, the Greens or the independents, we are all asking the same question. The fundamental question is, how do we make sure that this doesn't happen again? Let's see what process was followed and where we can make those improvements.

We also need to make sure that we ask for documents in an appropriate time frame. Right now, we are in the middle of wave two. The questions that are being asked, or the questions that we're trying to get the answer to, are most probably being addressed right now because we are going through wave two. We are saying now, based on wave one, that we have some ideas of what PPE we need. Based on the surges in various provinces, we also need to look at which provinces, which territories. Based on the needs from various regions, as the cases are going up, how do we look at strategizing or how do we look at prioritizing where these supplies are going to go?

Some of the answers that may come in this report may or may not be relevant to what we are doing right now, because we are learning, and we are learning every day. There are provinces and territories that we thought had beaten COVID, and now we are moving into lockdown situations. The prioritization now is going to change. The strategic stockpile is going to change, and the decision-making is going to change.

Let's focus on making sure that we use the lessons learned from the first wave and address the immediate need, which is the second wave, making sure that all the organizations that needed to benefit from the stockpiles get the support they need. Hopefully, when this thing is over, this will be a great motion to study, because we have the previous 10 years; we have wave one; we have wave two, and hopefully we'll beat this on wave two, so we don't have to go to wave three.

We will have a benchmark: How did we do? How did we react? That's going to be a much better time for us to leverage all the lessons learned, and also optimize the generation of all of these documents. The fact that only six members of the Public Health Agency are on 699 leave right now itself tells you how busy they are. Why are they busy? They're focusing on the people. They're focusing on you and me. They're focusing on our community. They're focusing on elders. They're focusing on children at school, and they're doing everything in their power to make sure that those supplies are ready.

I am to a large extent highlighting the areas that all members have talked about, and that I think are important to me and to my constituents: whether it's the process, whether it's the stockpile, whether it's the oversight, whether it's the history, whether it's how we managed during wave one or how we are going to manage during wave two. Therefore, my ask or my recommendation is, let's keep the focus on Canadians. Let's make sure that the stockpiles we have, whether it's the gowns or the masks that we've acquired and the internal capacity we've built, are getting to Canadians.

Partnering with other departments, whether it's working with PHAC, PSPC or ISED, let's make the investment. Let's focus on those as the government's number one priority. As a committee, we have six great motions. I'm looking forward to the next motion that Mr. Green is going to put to debate.

Mr. Chair, thank you very much for the time. I would ask all members to consider prioritizing the focus on Canadians rather than the production of documents.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

Are you growing your moustache for Movember?

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Good for you.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

As you know, I had a statement in the House where I said, since it is Movember, to grow a mo and support a bro. I can't see that far, but I'm hoping that you're growing a mo as well. Thank you very much for noticing, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

It takes months for mine to grow.

Ms. Vignola, go ahead.

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

I will keep it brief.

Yes, the bar is high and it should stay that way where a motion is concerned. The bar must be high not only when the waters are calm and the sailing is smooth; it must be high in all weather.

My fellow members said that similar motions had been put forward on other committees. I am trying to understand why the information needs to be produced a second, third or fourth time when it will have already been produced once for another committee. Can the documents not simply be forwarded? If not, I would like to know why. Surely, the process is flawed.

I have one last thing to say before requesting a vote, assuming it is up to me to do so.

I want us all to ask ourselves why we are here. Are we here to make fun little videos to post on our Facebook pages or on YouTube? No, we are here for Canadians. It's true that we are in the midst of the second wave and that we have to purchase supplies, but we must make sure that the same mistakes aren't repeated. Now more than ever, we must make sure that people are protected. This isn't the time to make video clips for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and the rest of social media. We are here to serve the people, not to take statements out of context in preparation for a possible election the people do not want.

I move that we vote, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Vignola.

I'm looking around and I do not see any more hands up for debate. I will therefore follow through with the question.

Mr. Clerk.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The question is on the motion by Mr. Green in his name. I will call the roll now.

Mr. Chair, the results are five yeas, five nays. It will be incumbent upon you to exercise your casting vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

I vote yes.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I'm just looking at the clock. It is basically 5:30 at this point.

Mr. Green, do you wish to continue with your motion?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I do. My concern is that if I don't, I might not find another time for it. However, I'll dispense with my comments. It is before you. I could read it out, if it is for the good and welfare of the committee, and we could go around the circle again, but I would like to save this committee as much time as possible on the back end.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, Mr. MacKinnon has asked that Mr. Green read the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Green, would you read the motion, please?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'd be happy to. It reads:

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 documents from Public Service and Procurement Canada (PSPC) containing the following disaggregated data related to businesses owned by under-represented groups (black, indigenous, women, and persons with disabilities) who have engaged with PSPC with regard to the federal government's response to COVID-19: (a) (i) how many companies from under-represented groups have secured contracts with PSPC, (ii) the value of these contracts, (iii) the number of businesses from under-represented groups screened and approved as credited vendors, (iv) number and value of set aside contracts for these businesses, (v) the number of sub-contracts entered into; (b), that the committee send for all papers and records, in unredacted form, from Employment and Social Development Canada (“ESDC”) relating to the Federal Contractors Program, and in particular: (i) all current, signed Agreements to Implement Employment Equity (“Agreements”); (ii) the most current list of contractors covered by said Agreements; (iii) the most current compliance documentation furnished by each contractor covered by an Agreement, including the goalsetting report, achievement table, workforce analysis, revised goals for remaining gaps in representation, and any explanatory material; (iv) the most current documentation of ESDC's compliance assessment for each contractor covered by an Agreement; (v) the most recent Limited Eligibility to Bid List; (vi) all documentation filed in an appeal of a finding of noncompliance by a contractor to the Minister; (vii) all documentation connected to an independent review of an appeal; (viii) any documentation internal to ESDC assessing or evaluating the Federal Contractors Program; that the committee receive these documents, papers and records no later than Tuesday, December 1, 2020; 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; and that these documents be posted on the committee's web page.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

Mr. Green, you had indicated that you're comfortable with just presenting the motion and trying to further time. Thank you.

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