Government Operations Committee on June 3rd, 2024

[Arianne Reza]

I would agree with that statement. We have to make sure that.... This currently is two to three days for employees. There is enough space currently for the two to three. In terms of four months, it will be ambitious.

I've had discussions with TBS in terms of making sure that the fall ramp-up is to the best of our ability, understanding that there will be some exceptions. There are some major buildings here in the national capital region that are under construction, so automatically we'll have to look at swing space.

I would add another point. We talk about physical fit-up, but that fit-up has to be like the room here. There has to be tech in place. There have to be screens in place. We're working very closely with Shared Services Canada to make sure it is a holistic office.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

When we're talking about an office building in downtown Ottawa, people have one vision of what that looks like in terms of bringing employees back to work.

In the area I represent, we're talking about federal government offices in rural communities in all sorts of different situations. Some of them are in very old buildings, and the employer is being asked to make these buildings ready to receive employees who have been working remotely. We're hearing concerns from those employees that the space is not going to meet their needs, that it's not going to be appropriate for the tasks they're asked to perform.

Are there concerns in smaller communities that when we're dealing with older buildings and smaller buildings, four months is not going to be adequate to meet people's needs?

[Arianne Reza]

Similar to the concerns here in the national capital region, absolutely. There are two tracks. It's looking at it in the various regions to see how best to optimize it so that the employee has an office to go to, that it's ready, that it's in place. Otherwise, there has to be some understanding of timelines.

In terms of the region, there is another area that I find interesting. Do we centralize it if there's a hub? Do we continue with decentralizing in rural areas? It's really looking at the best possible support for the employee and for service delivery.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

We've heard a variety of opinions on the net benefits of this directive. I haven't seen any sort of empirical evidence of the benefits that we're trying to secure as a government. Can you provide to the committee what empirical analysis has been done around things like productivity, satisfaction and those kinds of things? It seems to me that if a lot of the workforce is upset about the directive, and they're coming back to the workplace and being squeezed into these offices in the next four months, we'll actually have a less productive workforce in the public service than we had before.

First, what's the empirical evidence, and second, what's the plan for managing that dynamic?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid there's no time for an answer.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I just have a way of ending with a question.

I'll let it linger.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Okay. We'll get back to you.

Mrs. Block, you have five minutes, please.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Reza, I'll circle back to the subject of my questions in my first round of questioning. What I'm really grappling with is this: How do we reconcile the fact that PSPC, you yourself as the deputy minister and the ombudsman appear to completely disagree with what can be termed as "robust justification" when it comes to contracting? As I stated earlier, the ombudsman found that the answers to the seven Treasury Board questions were insufficient.

Who was the contracting officer you referenced in the memo to the minister who appeared satisfied with the answers to those seven Treasury Board questions?

[Arianne Reza]

Thank you very much.

I think it is important to note that PSPC and the deputy, myself, have accepted all the recommendations of the procurement ombudsman. I don't want there to be a sense that there's light.... I think that's important, because we welcome that kind of sunlight on our practices to make sure we have rigour.

We have submitted to the committee the names of all the procurement officers.

I'll turn to you, if you have anything else to add.

[Dominic Laporte]

Thank you.

If I may, we've learned a lot from this report. I would say that the challenge function being played right now by our contracting officers is much, much greater. The OPO made that very clear, that there was a challenge function to play. On future sole source, we've learned from the OPO. We're also learning and are tweaking the process accordingly.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

You've accepted the recommendations, and going forward you're going to look towards implementing them, but I do sense that there's a bit of a disagreement between what the ombudsman found in this particular case, this particular contract, and what you yourself believe to have been robust justification for why McKinsey was the only contractor that would have been able to hold the exclusive rights to this contract.

What mechanisms are in place for PSPC to push back on, say, another department's justification? If you don't believe they've provided robust justification, what are the mechanisms in place to push back on that?

[Arianne Reza]

Thank you very much for the question.

In fact, in the example you just cited, the procurement officer did push back. They actually drilled down on those seven questions and asked for additional information. That's an example.

There's an opportunity to advise their manager and supervisor that they don't agree with the client. There's an opportunity with some of the new rules that have been put in place by Treasury Board to emphasize the role of the manager in the client department. As I'm sure the committee is seized with, there are roles and responsibilities for both procurement as the contracting authority and the client. In terms of understanding better and making sure it's clear of the escalation around it and what is actually a way to document the rigour, I think I have learned a lot in the last year and a half in this area around the rigour of the documentation.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much. I appreciate the fact that you are taking this to heart and have been learning much around the rigour that needs to be applied.

I do have one last question. Will you provide the committee with a copy of the seven Treasury Board questions, the answers that were provided to justify this particular contract and the further justification that was sought by the contracting officer?

[Arianne Reza]

Certainly. I thought it had been, but I will be happy to confirm.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Kusmierczyk, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much once again for being with us in front of a committee. You've always been ready to come here, to testify, to provide insights and to answer questions. I want to say thank you for the tremendous work you do.

I want to talk a little bit about the translation bureau and some of the funding that has been allocated for it and how we are boosting the bureau's work. Specifically, knowing that this month of June is DeafBlind Awareness Month, I want to ask what types of additional services we are implementing to ensure access to information to Canadians who are deaf, deaf-blind and deafened.

[Arianne Reza]

I'll start, and then I'll turn to Dominic.

One of the things that's key and I think is helpful for this committee to be aware of is that every day we see increasing demands for the services of the translation bureau, not only in the written form but with our interpreters, as well as providing service to all Canadians. For example, we're now working on making sure that, for our meetings, we have translation available in both English and French for the deaf community. We're looking at more and more access along these lines, so I'm glad you raised it.

I would also note that demand keeps going up for all of the services. While we received $35 million from the budget, we are continuing to look at how best to allocate it. A real example for this committee to consider is that, in 2020, four years ago, we spent about $20 million a year on translation costs for the Senate and the House of Commons. We're going to be at $50 million this year, and we absorb that internally, so it's very important that we're able to provide services to people who need it for the interpretation and the translation.

On interpretation, I'm going to turn to Dominic, who is now the ADM of procurement. He used to be the CEO of the translation bureau.

[Dominic Laporte]

A lot of new safety measures have been put in place for language interpreters, as you know, in the room. Over the last three to four years, new measures have been put in place. The translation bureau is also looking at increasing capacity and taking a lot of steps to increase the capacity for interpretation.

You spoke also about sign language interpreters. This is oftentimes, I would say, a hidden gem that we're not necessarily aware of, the translation that PSPC does on a day-to-day basis. We provide sign language interpretation for those who are deaf, who cannot necessarily hear, and government employees when we have a conference. Of course, there is also the need to make sure that we're able to train a new generation of sign interpreters, and additional funding could be used for that. Also, we've been liaising with the chief accessibility officer of Canada to make sure that the needs are properly understood.

Again, I would say that there's a lot of training and recruitment with university scholarships. Those are some of the examples of things that will be done with the new funding.

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

That's wonderful. I do appreciate the answer.

Maybe you're able to provide the committee, perhaps in a written response, a picture for us of, let's say, the last five years or the last three years and how the demand for translation services has increased. That would be in terms of the volume of requests, pages, and things like that. That would help our committee and our work as well, too, if you can provide that for us. Just paint a picture of this increase in demand for translation services.

I want to change gears and talk about greenhouse gas emissions. PSPC reduced greenhouse gas emissions, as I understand it, by 59.9%. It's interesting that Mexico just elected its first woman president and first climate scientist. This is President Claudia Scheinbaum, who was a co-author of one of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. Here in Canada, we have a leader of the opposition, the Conservative opposition, who doesn't even believe in climate change and doesn't believe in action on climate change.

I just wanted to ask you what PSPC is doing to help us fight climate change, if you can paint a picture for us on that.

[Arianne Reza]

Certainly. As you know, PSPC is the real property owner of the Government of Canada. There are other custodian departments, but we are among the largest. We have a responsibility for greening government operations. We spoke earlier about the return to the office and what that looks like in terms of our carbon reduction and what we're doing here, for example, in the parliamentary precinct with the ESAP. There is a lot, and PSPC is quarterbacking that and has seen a lot of building reductions and, at the same time, is looking at new building materials.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks very much.

Mrs. Vignola, please go ahead for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have a lot of questions.

We've discussed the contract modernization initiative and how to simplify the system. My main concern, however, is about adapting to the realities of small and medium-sized businesses, SMEs.

SMEs may employ few employees, sometimes just one or two, who can provide real services. They aren't just down in their basement recruiting people. However, red tape occupies incalculable numbers of working hours.

How do you adjust to the situations of SMEs in the context of this initiative?

[Arianne Reza]

Thank you.

We often ask ourselves that question. We're in the process of examining the rules, their implications, how to make requests and related policy. It's a very difficult situation because it becomes an administrative burden. You have to find a way to modernize the system and lighten that load.

You may have heard about the new electronic procurement system. It's a very useful system because suppliers will need to enter their data only once. They'll also be able to make changes to their information. Right now, they have to start over from scratch when they want to edit it.

You've previously heard about the issues associated with system security. Security is guaranteed in 99.9% of cases. The problem is that the information isn't in the right file. We want to correct those types of issues.

Mr. Laporte may have something to add.

[Dominic Laporte]

Thank you.

Yes, I'd like to add a few details.