Government Operations Committee on Nov. 25th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

We'll go to the work plan for the committee's study. On Monday we had a meeting and you wanted to make some changes on the work plan for the committee's study of the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysts made those changes and a revised version was distributed to the committee members yesterday.

Does the committee wish to adopt the revised work plan?

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

I would like to speak, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Paul-Hus, go ahead.

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

I thank Ms. Deraspe for her work.

I'd like to adjust the meeting blocks to make sure everything is in order.

First, currently a two-hour meeting is scheduled with the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor General. We would like to have two separate meetings.

We would like a separate meeting with the minister, followed by three meetings with public servants and the directors responsible for three things: vaccine distribution, personal protective equipment and the national stockpile. So we should have four meetings.

With respect to meetings with public servants on cybersecurity, we agree.

The sixth meeting is about health. Depending on our meeting with Public Services and Procurement Canada, we will determine whether to recall the public servants responsible for vaccine distribution and personal protective equipment.

For the other meetings, we can wait until later to see where we are at.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

I'm not seeing any hands up. Mr. Clerk, is there anyone who also would like to intervene in the discussion?

Before I do that, I would ask the analyst, Raphaëlle, if she might want to comment on anything.

We'll wait for Raphaëlle for a bit if there's any other discussion.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Paul Cardegna]

Nobody else in the room has indicated an interest in intervening, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

Raphaëlle, do you have anything you might want to add to that?

[Raphaëlle Deraspe, Committee Researcher]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The only question I have is whether the committee wants to have a revised work plan based on Mr. Paul-Hus's suggestions. We can prepare that and circulate it this week.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you for that, Raphaëlle. I know that a number of members in the past have said they'd like to see a paper document in front of them. My belief is that people would like to see another revised version of this before we say yes or no to it. Is that what I'm seeing? Is everyone okay with that?

Thank you very much, Raphaëlle.

[The Clerk]

I think Mr. Kusmierczyk would like to intervene, Mr. Chair.

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

I'm sorry about that, Mr. Chair.

I'm interested here in the 12th meeting. It was scratched out in Raphaëlle's new version. This is the one where we're hearing from a number of businesses on e-commerce, software and digital media. Knowing how incredibly important that's going to be to the way we conduct our business in government—how we communicate, how we conduct meetings and whatnot—I'm just wondering if the committee would be interested in including that as a conversation and actually listening to private sector companies. Maybe this would give us a sense of where things may be going and where we might be able to improve some of the services we offer.

I'm wondering if that might not be something that would be a valuable discussion. I'm just putting that out there and floating that idea there. It just seems like a really good opportunity for us to get a sense of what may be coming down the pike from some of these companies and some of the experts in that field.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Kusmierczyk. Is there any discussion on that?

[The Clerk]

Mr. Paul-Hus would like to intervene, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Monsieur Paul-Hus, go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I said earlier, the first big block of work has been established. I'm not against the idea of doing other things.

On the other hand, this motion currently seeks to assess government procurement in the event of a pandemic. So the idea of starting to look at other business opportunities is not directly related to the motion, if I understand my colleague's objective.

[The Clerk]

Ms. Vignola would like to intervene, Mr. Chair.

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

In the work plan Ms. Deraspe sent us, the fifth meeting is about cybersecurity. Is it necessary? Since we have just had one, we would essentially be asking the same questions after all. We've been focusing a lot on that.

However, the twelfth meeting with e-commerce, software and digital media experts has been scratched out. It could be very worthwhile, however, especially in relation to the questions Mr. Lloyd asked about Canadian companies and their presence in our government markets.

To sum up, we could scratch out the fifth meeting and keep the twelfth. Would you agree?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Clerk, it looks like you have somebody who wants to ask a question.

[The Clerk]

Mr. McCauley and Mr. Drouin, in that order, have indicated an interest in speaking, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm going to half-agree with Ms. Vignola. Let's get rid of the fifth meeting, and then for the 12th meeting, Mr. Kusmierczyk has good points. It looks interesting, but I think it's probably better for INDU to look at it, rather than us, especially if we're looking at government procurement around COVID and such things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

Mr. Drouin.

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

Mr. Chair, I'll have to disagree with my colleagues on the 12th one. I think it was just labelled wrong.

We are studying procurement, and I think there are valid questions our committee can ask on how they modernized their procurement practices and reached out to potential consumers in a COVID-19 world, so I'll stand firm. I want to see those witnesses appear before our committee. It does relate to procurement of Canada if there are lessons learned from them that we can apply to our procurement practices within PSPC or with SSC, whichever one you choose.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Perhaps, Mr. Chair, Mr. Lloyd's small businesses can come and provide testimony on the electronic procurement issues that were raised there.