Government Operations Committee on Dec. 12th, 2024

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

How many companies have been paid but have not completed the work that the government was paying them to complete?

[Arianne Reza]

Again, I'm going to go back to the issue of the seven cases where we found fraud in terms of overbilling for time as the anchor of what we have on our radar as we speak.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

Just quickly, Mrs. Kusie was asking for the name of.... You mentioned subcontractor sources. She was asking for the level above that you're negotiating with. Can you provide those to the committee within 21 days, as requested? Thanks.

We'll go to Mr. Sousa, please.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much.

Hi, guys. Can you provide an overview of the key responsibilities—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I'm just trying to be nice. I'm just trying to lighten it up a little bit.

Ms. Reza, can you provide an overview of the key responsibilities and functions of the office of supplier integrity and compliance and how it collaborates with other departments and agencies to uphold the integrity of the federal procurement processes?

[Arianne Reza]

I will start, and then I will turn to Madame Poulin, who is on the line with us.

OSIC is a relatively new office, established in early June. Its intent is to broaden what we had initially in place around our capacity to suspend and debar suppliers. Right now, we have the latitude to look at where there are proceeds of terrorism, money laundering or human trafficking—a whole slew of different areas that we can now look at in terms of what's happening in the federal procurement system.

We are now encouraging all client departments to write to us, contact us, when they suspect fraud or when they've sent something to the RCMP. It is our intent to look at the federal procurement system as a whole and identify areas where we can suspend and then potentially debar suppliers. This is a much broadened scope. It's relatively new, so we're building those muscles. We don't necessarily need a client department to tell us there's a problem. It is our first line of defence.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

What limitations did your department face in addressing supplier misconduct and ensuring the integrity of the procurement system under the previous government's integrity framework?

[Arianne Reza]

Ms. Poulin, I'll turn to you to answer the question. Thank you.

[Catherine Poulin, Assistant Deputy Minister, Departmental Oversight Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Thank you for the question.

As the deputy mentioned, we received further authorities back in June 2024. One of the main improvements to the ineligibility and suspension policy is that we can now act without charges or convictions. This is a very important achievement, because the risk that those suppliers pose to the federal procurement system is not necessarily at the time of charges or convictions. This is a very important achievement and change.

Another point about the office of supplier integrity and compliance is that we are building data analytics capacity in order to detect more rapidly a situation that we might face.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you for that.

Can you explain, then, the process of declaring a supplier ineligible or suspended from a federal contract?

[Catherine Poulin]

Within the office of supplier integrity and compliance, I hold the title of registrar of ineligibility and suspension. In order for me to make decisions, because I'm the decision-maker under that policy, I have a great team of experts, who look at multiple sources of information to establish if that supplier could pose a risk to the federal government.

If we find something, we send a notice of intent to suspend that supplier, and we give them 10 days to reply to us, because I need to offer fair and due process to suppliers. They have 10 days to come back to me and say why they should not be suspended. If I do not receive a response, or if the response does not change the initial assessment, we declare that supplier suspended or ineligible, depending on the case.

Once that determination has been made, the name of the supplier will be posted on the web in order for other people to see that this supplier is suspended or debarred from federal procurement.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you for that.

How does OSIC address concerns related to human trafficking, forced labour or other serious offences in the supply chain?

[Catherine Poulin]

The policy is the main tool that we are using. In the revised ineligibility and suspension policy, we have added triggers in order for us to start the work in relation to human trafficking and other environmental and social triggers.

That gives us the ability, when we find instances of human trafficking, to start a dialogue with the supplier. We will go through a massive source of information, and if we find something, we can then ask the supplier to provide us with answers about that, which was not possible before OSIC was launched. Again, at the risk of repeating myself, we were only able to act under charges by law enforcement or a conviction in a tribunal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much, both of you.

I appreciate your levity, Mr. Sousa.

Mrs. Vignola, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Page, year after year, the Department of National Defence has trouble spending the money it's allocated. Is it the same this year, to your knowledge?

[Simon Page]

The numbers are managed by the client departments. These figures are currently managed by the Department of National Defence and, if you want a precise answer, you should ask the Minister of National Defence.

What I can tell you is that, at the moment, a number of major contracts are related to shipbuilding and aerospace; these are contracts worth several million dollars, even several billion dollars. Lately, many contracts are related to land-based activities and technology. It's important to understand that these are contracts with long maturities.

Earlier, I was asked about the F-35 aircraft. The money is distributed according to the sequence of acquisition and support required. So there are no large amounts showing up immediately in the Department of National Defence's statements of account, but the figures will increase over the next few years.

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

If I understand correctly, we can expect our armed forces to have all the equipment they need or will need. The warehouses will fill up in the coming months, if not years, in terms of ammunition, boots, helmets and clothing.

[Simon Page]

Once again, this is a question that should be put to the Department of National Defence. They know what the forces need in terms of equipment, for example. It's this department that will determine what they need and what they have at the moment. For our part, we consider all their needs before awarding contracts. I'd like to think we do it pretty efficiently.

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

Thank you.

As for the contracts, in fact—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid that is our time.

Mr. Boulerice, go ahead, please, sir.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Benay, I'd like to come back to the pay system. Everyone was very traumatized by the Phoenix system, which cost Canadian taxpayers a lot of money and created a lot of problems for federal public service employees.

Now, new expenses are being generated for something called Dayforce. We're all very concerned. Tens of thousands of Canadian government employees are very worried because they've been traumatized by the Phoenix experience.

What have you learned from Phoenix, and what are you doing differently to make sure it doesn't happen again?

[Alex Benay]

I think we could spend an hour talking about the lessons learned from Phoenix, unfortunately.

I'll mention two of them anyway.

Firstly, we're going to proceed gradually, not in a big bang. We're not going to set up a system for 400,000 employees all at once. Instead, we're going to proceed one department at a time, and adapt according to all the lessons learned as the project progresses.

Secondly, we have adopted an integrated transparency approach. The aim of this approach is to provide the public with as much information as possible. All information related to our committee meetings, systems architecture, third-party reports and data reports will be made available to the public. In fact, they already are. Every quarter, we publish an online update with all the documents. We organize briefings for the media and all government officials. I think this is one of the first times we've put out a call to all Canadian government employees to give them updates.

From our side, if we're missing something, we want to know about it.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Are you going to take into consideration simple items like overtime, sick leave and parental leave? These are elements that were not taken into account by Phoenix, which put thousands of people through hell.