Government Operations Committee on Dec. 10th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Speaking of time, that is ours.

Ms. Blaney, go ahead, please.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

All right.

I'm going to ask you two questions at once so that I can give you as much time to respond as possible.

First of all, I love how you've laid out the funding increases so that you actually have time to catch up to yourself enough to do it well. I think that's a really great and honest way of doing it.

You talked about the one-time funding and wanting to hire permanently, and if you have people switching it up all the time from temporary positions, quite frankly, that's just what happens; they move towards a permanent position.

What does that mean for your expertise development and doing the job as proficiently as possible?

You also talked about not having enough resources to do those follow-up reviews, which I think are really important. Some of the situations we're looking at right now in this committee happened because there wasn't a process for ongoing accountability until it all became a huge mess and a crisis.

I'm wondering if you could address those two issues in the context of your increased ask.

[Alexander Jeglic]

Thank you. I'll speak to the second question first.

It would pain me to stop doing the follow-up reviews. You used the word “accountability”, and that's really what the follow-up reviews bring. The challenge is that there's nothing mandatory in my legislation that requires me to do the follow-ups. However, I am required to review complaints, I am required to do systemic reviews when reasonable grounds exist and I do have to offer ADR services.

Unfortunately, in the prioritization, that would be one of the first things to go. As someone who speaks about accountability, it would be incredibly awkward for me to come before the committee and not be able to speak with confidence and say that recommendations have or have not been successfully implemented. That's what the follow-up reviews are meant to do.

The first part of your question is about training and resources and the shifting of the part-time or temporary resources. Training is a significant part of our office, and everyone sees that as a necessary component of their time at our office. We want to see them grow within our office. We see that there's an increased sophistication in work, and they are excited by that as well, so they fully buy into the training component.

We hadn't experienced significant turnover until the workload became onerous, and then it became a work-life balance issue. Even though people really enjoy the work, there are other places where they can also enjoy the work and have a better work-life balance. Training, obviously, is important. The world of procurement is constantly changing, so we need to be able to stay current with the issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, sir. I apologize, but we're out of time.

Mrs. Kusie, go ahead, please.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much. I will pass my time over to Mr. Genuis. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, sir.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mrs. Kusie, for your generosity.

Could you update us on your work on indigenous procurement in general and the timelines for that? When are we going to be able to hear back from you on it in general?

[Alexander Jeglic]

The motion was passed in September. However—and I hate to answer this way—we have not yet secured funding to launch an indigenous procurement practice review.

We have been tracking, obviously, the developments within the committee. We have been doing background research. We have not yet established reasonable grounds.

There are two components that will still need to happen before we can officially announce any action: First we would need to establish reasonable grounds, and second, we would need to secure funding, and neither of those has been completed as of yet.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay.

Help me understand the “reasonable grounds” piece. There's been so much that is explosive that's come out of this discussion, including the resignation of a cabinet minister. Is it sort of in process, or are there other things you need to see in order to demonstrate reasonable grounds?

[Alexander Jeglic]

We also understand that the Auditor General is looking at indigenous procurement, and, as we'd seen in both McKinsey and ArriveCAN, we both did complementary reviews.

Part of the process is to identify what lines of inquiry the Auditor General will be looking at, because we have four that we're currently looking at, and we want to make sure that we offer insights in areas that are not duplicative of what the OAG is going to perform.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay.

Do you have any perspective or sense of when that process can be completed? How can we help you ensure that the funding is secured?

[Alexander Jeglic]

From the funding perspective, obviously my preference is to have the funding request accepted to enable us to stop asking for one-time funding, because it just brings us back to all of the issues that we've seen, but if that doesn't happen, then we will have to revert back to the one-time funding.

There is a meeting scheduled between me and the CFO on, I believe, the 17th of December, at which point I'm going to raise the funding question for indigenous procurement. I'd happily report back on the outcome of that meeting.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

If it goes well, are we talking about getting a report by spring of next year, or by fall?

[Alexander Jeglic]

Mr. Chair, the reports are typically one year in duration.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

To make sure we don't run out of time, I want to move my motion now, with one further change, following discussion that will hopefully make this go very smoothly.

I move:

That the committee invite the following witnesses to appear in relation to potential abuse of the indigenous procurement rules involving Canadian Health Care Agency: Canadian Health Care Agency, Sharon Umana, Jessica Sultan, Melanie Reid, [Garry Hartle] and Pearl Chilton. Further, that the committee authorize the chair to summon representatives of the Canadian Health Care Agency if they do not agree to appear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Ms. Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I have no problem with that.

I wouldn't mind doing a friendly amendment to add, at the end, “and that the committee hear from these witnesses in a meeting scheduled during the regular sitting hours of the House of Commons.”

I will forward that and I am open to discussion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I think I see agreement on that. It's for when the House resumes. Will we do that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have about 30 seconds left, Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you again for your work.

The time I have left will be on the issue of referral to the RCMP.

We heard earlier that Mr. Hartle identified some issues. He wanted those things referred to the RCMP. That didn't happen.

What can you tell us about when there is criminality involved in procurement and there should be a referral to the RCMP? How should that be managed?

[Alexander Jeglic]

From our perspective, the moment we see an issue of criminality, it is referred to the RCMP. To date, the only conversations we've had with the RCMP are in relation to the ArriveCAN review.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. Kusmierczyk is next.

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

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much, Mr. Jeglic, for being here today, and for always bringing insightful testimony to the work of this committee.

You mentioned that your caseload is increasing. It's also increasing in complexity. What's driving that increase, as you see it?

[Alexander Jeglic]

Predominantly, it's awareness of the existence of our office and the services we provide. That's partly due to the enhanced spotlight given to the office by our reviews of ArriveCAN and McKinsey.

It's also due to sustained outreach. We do town hall meetings. I'll actually be jumping into a town hall meeting with Atlantic Canada at one o'clock today. I guess I'm already six minutes late for my town hall.

Part of that outreach is making sure that federal suppliers are aware of our services. Equally, we speak to federal departments, making them aware of how they could use our services. It's incredibly important for them to understand as well that our goal is to make the federal system work better for everyone. That includes departments. We're a resource for them as well, so we do departmental meetings. Again, I just did one last week. These are opportunities to speak directly to buyers and hear the issues they're experiencing first-hand. They can also bring issues to our attention that could give rise to a systemic review or a dispute resolution mediation process.