Government Operations Committee on Nov. 18th, 2020

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Can you explain why this contract didn't have any security requirements?

[Scott Harris]

At the time, under the contract security policy, as I mentioned earlier.... The review process is done to determine what type of information this equipment handles, whether it's secure personal or protected or classified information, and whether it's connected to a government network in any way so as to introduce risk in that space.

X-ray detection equipment in the port of entry environment does not do any of those things. It is a supplementary tool that is used by staff. It is not connected to our networks and it does not hold classified or secure information and therefore does not trigger under the procurement policy the need for the enhanced security requirements that we are now talking about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

We will now go to Mr. Green for six minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have found this committee to be intriguing. Of course, it's a little bit of a departure from some of our previous conversations. It seems as though one of the themes we've had throughout OGGO has been PSPC's reliance on Deloitte. Can you please just refresh my memory as to exactly what Deloitte's role was in their report?

[Dan Danagher]

Mr. Chair, that's probably more of a question for Global Affairs Canada. It was my choice to go to Deloitte for this review. My view—and I think you would understand this—is that I wanted this review done outside of my department by people who weren't involved in the original decision to assess the technical security requirements. I have to say, I have really good people. I have engineers who are really seized with security. They applied the paradigm of the policies that were in place, and in the public service often policies have the weight of gold. What Deloitte did was to give us a recommendation that would help us break that paradigm. That was their role.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Is this a case of an emperor who wears no clothes? I feel like we ought to have the mechanisms within our public service to be able to provide that, without prejudice, and sometimes maybe even counter to policy, although I know it's not your job to make policy recommendations. It just strikes me that we have Deloitte now reporting back, and I'm wondering where the gap is between our public service and their ability, and maybe even within other departments.

We hear, through you Mr. Chair, Liberals love to use the language of whole-of-government approach, but where was procurement on this? Why do we not have checks and balances in place within procurement to ensure that these needs are met?

[Dan Danagher]

If I could, Mr. Chair, I'll respond on behalf of Global Affairs on this one.

Global Affairs does have a procurement team, so we have some insight into procurement here, although this was done by PSPC on our behalf. Employees often don't feel empowered to challenge policy—I'm saying this as a public servant of almost 40 years—especially at the levels where these decisions and these reviews are made, and they, again, do yeoman's work. They're bright people, hard-working people, and they apply what they apply at the time. They follow the paradigm that is dictated often by policy, and they did a great job of applying the policy.

What we were able to do with the Deloitte report and our subsequent conversations with the CSE and others, is to say that there's a different way to look at this equipment. We're going to be buying this for 10 to 15 years. We need to future-proof this against future threats, which we cannot anticipate right now. We need to look at this differently, not at the present with the policies that exist, but looking forward. Deloitte helped us do that.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I appreciate the support for staff, and I believe that to be true. I appreciate your candour, but respectfully, what strikes me is that we don't have within the national security framework a whole-of-government approach across all departments, a substantive whistleblower framework through which people who believe our national security could potentially be at risk—contrary to the lack sometimes of collective wisdom that we have as legislatures—would be able to contact our security establishment or the RCMP or the CBSA, or have some kind of way to draw a red flag to say that, contrary to public policy, this needs greater scrutiny when it comes to national security. We're not talking about staplers, and we're not talking about printers or papers. We're talking about our national security and diplomats all around the world.

I'll leave with these last two questions. I think they're important ones because we want to move forward and we want to make sure that we do the right thing in this committee.

When will the Deloitte report be made public? What are the next steps for procurement of this equipment?

[Dan Danagher]

It's a final draft right now. We're moving to make it final by the end of the week or early next week, and we can share it with the committee at that time. I'll be happy to do so.

As for what we're doing moving forward, we're already in conversations with public servants in procurement about a replacement standing offer for our X-ray equipment and the metal-detection equipment that we have, the walk-through equipment we have around the world, so that process is starting. We're starting by changing the technical specifications so that they won't be published widely going forward. Those are two really important steps that we're taking.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Just to be clear, it was PSPC that did the procurement on your behalf. Is that what I heard in one of your earlier answers?

[Dan Danagher]

Correct, and they're very important partners for us.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Then would somebody from PSPC maybe answer the question about why we needed to bring Deloitte in to report back on this, versus having a check and balance in place internal to our government?

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

The Deloitte review.... My understanding is that they took a look at the security posture of Global Affairs' missions and the equipment they would need within there, and not specifically on the procurement process.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Did anybody in your department raise a red flag to you as a senior manager, saying maybe this isn't right?

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

With regard to what, pardon me?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

With regard to a potential national security threat, did any of your very learned procurement folks say that we should probably look at this more closely?

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

When we received the request from Global Affairs and it had no security implications, nobody raised it. I know there were conversations between Global Affairs and our procurement folks, but at the time the view was that there was no need for security—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Not an email, not a passing, “Hmm, maybe we should look at this”—

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Ieraci, and thank you, Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I think I have two more minutes coming up later on in the night. We'll go back to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Indeed. You can follow through with that.

We have now finished our first round and will go to our second round.

Mr. Paul-Hus, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The witnesses here today are from the Department of Public Works and Government Services; the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development; and the Communications Security Establishment.

When this issue was raised, which ministers were informed and when?

For example, at the Department of Foreign Affairs, when was Minister Champagne informed of the issue?

[Dan Danagher]

I don't know exactly when my minister was informed, but it would be on or around the days just after the award of the standing offer. I think he was publicly questioned about it at the time and made pretty quick statements that he was instructing the department to conduct a review.

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

Mr. Ieraci, at Public Works, was the minister informed at the same time?

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

I can't tell you exactly when the minister was informed. However, once the information was released and Minister Champagne had discussed it, over the summer, I believe that she was informed.