Government Operations Committee on June 12th, 2024

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

I just wanted to ask if this motion is in order, by the clerk.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It is.

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

Then I just wanted to ask for a suspension, so that my team and I can have a conversation about this. It's the first time we're seeing this.

Today, we were looking at the modernization and the red tape reduction study. This is not really related to that. It came out of left field, so I just wanted to have an opportunity to actually look at it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We can suspend for two or three minutes.

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

Five minutes would be great.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It will be two or three minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We are back in.

Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I perked up when I saw this motion. Even though I'm not a member of this committee, I have a real interest in where this motion could go. Where it could go is toward the issue of housing. There's been a tremendous amount of discussion about the use of federal buildings for housing.

In that regard, in my community of Surrey there's been an awful lot of work done with the rapid housing initiative. It basically involves taking an existing building and repurposing it for living units. It's been particularly good for low-income people or people who are just unhomed, if you will. If this motion is adopted and the study goes ahead, I hope you look at the overall strategy for that. With the rapid housing initiative itself, something like $14 million was invested in Surrey to make this happen. Dozens and dozens of units resulted from that.

The other thing is a caution. It's very tempting to say, well, the government owns these buildings; it owns all this land, and we have a housing shortage in Canada. There's no doubt about that, although in my community they're building like crazy. A caution here is to not necessarily say that a piece of property or a building will be suitable for housing when you're looking at the overall urban development aspects of it. In our community, there are pieces of federal land that are out in the countryside. Yes, you could go in there, and you could probably build 300 townhomes on one, but they would be a long, long way from public transit. They would force people to use motor vehicles to get around. That works against some of the community development aspects that I think we should be aiming for when we look at an overall and very comprehensive 360-degree housing strategy.

The other piece of that, of course, then goes to the issue of municipal zoning. Especially in British Columbia, we have not only municipal zoning but also the agricultural land reserve, which means to say that if you have a piece of farmland, you can't just flip that over and build houses or a warehouse or anything else.

These are all the kinds of considerations we need to look at if indeed the intention of a motion like this is to go forward and talk about housing. The disposition of public property for something that on the surface looks really good could turn out to be pretty messy when it got down to the local level, just simply because of these factors that have to be thought about as we go forward with something like that.

That's it, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll go to Mrs. Vignola and then Mr. Kusmierczyk.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll speak briefly to the motion. I don't think it's a bad idea. On the contrary, it's a good one in the sense that the committee's mandate includes following up on the real estate assets of the Government of Canada.

That said, right now we have a slew of studies that we have to report on. The reports are either very preliminary or not even started. We should probably finish something, five years into it. Obviously, we've just completed our report on the changeover of the public service health care plan from Sun Life to Canada Life, and that's great. We still have a lot to do, though, including reports for the studies on McKinsey consulting contracts, the national shipbuilding strategy, the ArriveCAN app, regulations and diversity in procurement. As I said, we have a whole slew of studies to complete.

I'm tempted to say yes to the motion, but not right now. I say that amiably, since as everyone here can attest, I try to avoid confrontation. Let's aim for this fall or, even better, January, so that we can finish at least one or two more studies. That will take a load off our shoulders.

I really need to know that real estate is being used for a good purpose. There is talk of converting some buildings into housing. We need to ensure that provincial and territorial laws and regulations will apply to that housing, not laws and regulations that do not exist at the federal level.

I agree with this motion, but, given the importance of the proposed study and the fact that we already have several on the table, I would suggest that we complete a few studies to lighten our burden. Later, during the next parliamentary session, let's conduct a thorough, appropriate and professional analysis of federal real estate assets and all that entails, including how they are managed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mr. Kusmierczyk, and then we have Mr. Bachrach.

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

Thank you very much.

As is often the case, I agree wholeheartedly with what Madame Vignola has stated. She is the voice of reason, oftentimes, on this committee.

I agree wholeheartedly. We have a slew of studies that we've begun. We keep adding to those studies. We have hardly finalized a single one. That's the challenge. Our average is quite low in terms of the ones we've completed. Canada Post comes to mind, and there is shipbuilding, McKinsey, ArriveCAN, outsourcing, red tape, diversity in procurement outsourcing. There are probably a dozen more that we've started and haven't finished.

I would focus our efforts on the tasks at hand. Let's complete those studies before we open up a completely new front. I think it's important.

Picking up on what my colleague also stated, on the issue of housing and the issue of looking at office holdings and converting them into housing, for example, the HUMA committee has already done two studies. I think they're on their third housing study in the last year. The HUMA committee completed a study on the financialization of housing, in which they looked at housing from a number of different perspectives. They had 29 witnesses and 41 briefs studying the housing issue. They're conducting right now, as we speak, a federal housing investment study, looking at all the ways the federal government can make investments and change policy to maximize housing. If you're talking about housing, HUMA is the place to talk about federal surplus lands and converting that into housing. It really belongs in the HUMA committee. It doesn't belong here.

In terms of the work of PSPC, as I understand it, PSPC and Treasury Board are working on looking at inventory of public land holdings and working on a management plan or a strategic plan.

With regard to moving this motion today, again, I wholeheartedly agree with what Madame Vignola has stated: It is premature. For that reason, I move that we adjourn debate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll do a recorded vote, colleagues.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

Ms. Vignola, please go ahead.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have a motion.

If you haven't already received it, you should be receiving it shortly.

It reads as follows:

That, with regard to the study on federal government consulting contracts awarded to McKinsey & Company, the following persons and organizations be invited to appear: Kevin D'Entremont and Gregory Vainberg of McKinsey & Company; the Deputy Minister of Public Services and Procurement; the Deputy Minister of the Treasury Board Secretariat; the President of the School of Public Service (or the head of learning and/or training program development); the Privy Council Office (the person responsible for policy and/or corporate culture within the public service); and the Canada Infrastructure Bank, provided that no more than four two-hour meetings, when the House of Commons returns in September 2024, be held for this study.

You will note that the motion is very similar to the one proposed by our colleague Stephanie Kusie on Monday. It is very similar, but more specific and detailed. As I said earlier, my goal is to move the study on McKinsey and other consultants forward, without dragging it out and without having a whole host of witnesses who may not be able to answer our questions. The goal of paring down the list of witnesses is to get answers to our questions, and I'm sure there are many.

That is the motion I am proposing so that we can proceed with our study on McKinsey and consultants in general.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Ms. Vignola.

I assume, because a lot of the more disagreeable things from the other motion have been taken out, that you have talked to the others, so I appreciate that.

Do you wish to speak to this, or is it something we just get to vote on right away?

Mr. Bachrach, did you want to speak to it?

(Motion agreed to)

Mr. Bachrach.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I wonder if we might just have a brief conversation about which studies we intend to fully complete and table reports for. I can speak to the study we brought forward on rural postal service. I would very much like to see a report tabled in the House with recommendations.

I'm not sure, but it seems like some of the other studies are more open-ended and have continued for many months. I understand that this committee doesn't necessarily produce reports for every study, so I'm just curious, because I would like to pick up the postal service study. You and I had a sidebar conversation about holding one more meeting. I think we've explored some of the different facets.

We're short of the number of hours of hearings that we had intended in the original motion. However, in my view, we could proceed then to a draft report, table it in the House of Commons and move on.

There aren't any other studies that I'm attached to following that process for, but perhaps there are other members who are attached. If we can identify two or three reports that, as a committee, we want to see tabled, let's do that and have a shared understanding that the other studies will remain open. Perhaps we'll be talking about McKinsey next March. Who knows?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

The intent was to have an hour with the PBO and a second hour to discuss the motion we had put forward regarding indigenous procurement.

Maybe, if it's fine with everyone, I will chat with the analyst, and we'll try to get a progress report on each of the studies to see if there is something we can push forward and finish quickly. I'm not sure there is. Why don't we get a progress report? We can chat about it on Monday.

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

That sounds good. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, if there's nothing else, we'll adjourn.

Thanks, everyone.