Government Operations Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2022

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I think you've answered my question. It's not you personally, Mr. Franco, but it does not appear that there's any real oversight for the $16 billion or $17 billion. Who knows what it was last year? If it was $16.7 billion two years ago, maybe its trajectory is up to $18 billion.

There's not a lot of oversight. As a parliamentarian, I have to say that I'm incredibly concerned that Treasury Board's role is, “Well, we just write the rules and the departments look after it.” Then, when you go to the departments, they kind of give a shrug as well.

Again, that's not you specifically. I think it's our system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

We'll now go to Mr. Housefather for five minutes.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to come back to a subject that Ms. Vignola brought up in her first line of questioning, because I think we need to clarify a little bit. Ms. Vignola was talking about the idea of people, usually women, who were working in the same jobs as others who were civil servants and then were being terminated and rehired, spending their entire careers without getting benefits. Both of the answers then revolved around how to prevent employee-employer relationships, and it didn't sound like we were getting to the point that Ms. Vignola was making about protecting the little person.

The employee-employer relationship protects the government from not being the employer, but it doesn't protect the little person who is allegedly being forced to do a job and then labour laws are not being complied with properly. I don't think there is such an issue in the federal government, so I want to give the opportunity to everybody to come back and clarify.

Ms. Royds, let's say we hired someone, not outsourced someone, to be a civil servant. The federal government would not simply terminate someone before the 12 months of their continuous protection would apply under the Canada Labour Code, because that person would normally be under collective agreements and would be fairly treated. We would not simply be summarily dismissing people and bringing them back willy-nilly or we would have multiple union issues in every department. Is that correct?

[Mollie Royds]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

While I'm not a representative of our human resources branch, I can speak to the fact that in our hiring practices we do abide by our human resources policies, which are, of course, established by the chief human resources officer. We do have those policies in place that govern the way we hire employees as well as their employee benefits.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

To Treasury Board and Mr. Franco, obviously it's defined in law what a contractor is and what an outsourcer is. It's defined in the Public Service Employment Act. It's defined by CRA rulings. It's defined in the Canada Labour Code. There are all kinds of tests you would need to meet to be a contractor. You can't simply be doing exactly the same job as the civil servant day in and day out and then be considered to be a contractor.

Can you talk to us a little bit about the tests that exist to ensure that there is not an employer-employee relationship being developed between the government and the employee of the contractor before we determine that somebody is indeed a contractor?

[Emilio Franco]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

There is a legal test for whether or not a contractor is an employer or an employee. There are four parts to that test, I believe, in Canada. It speaks to such elements as the use of tools, risk of opportunity, risk of loss and a few other considerations. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't want to expand on that too heavily, but there is a framework under which we can determine whether or not there is a risk of an employer-employee relationship.

Part of the training that procurement professionals receive is to help them identify what those criteria are to make sure they're mitigating them in their contracts. As I mentioned, in our policy we do have a requirement that the business owners or the individuals across government engaged in hiring outside resources are aware of these risks and are taking steps to manage them.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Again, it's not only about risks. Let's come back to the little person hired by the contractor. We also have policies related to the ethical treatment by contractors of their employees. We don't just enter into contracts with people and say, “You don't have to respect the Canada Labour Code and you don't have to respect provincial employment law.”

Could you talk to us about how the government screens contractors to ensure that work done for the government reflects the ethical expectations of Canadians and follows the law with respect to the people they employ or hire?

I don't know whether that would be for you, Mr. Franco, or Ms. Royds.

[Emilio Franco]

I'll start with the answer.

As you highlighted, there are two elements that Public Services and Procurement Canada is responsible for: namely, the code of conduct for procurement and the integrity regime, which goes into greater detail in terms of your question.

From a procurement policy perspective, the Government of Canada's procurement policy highlights that procurement should seek to obtain socio-economic and best-value outcomes. “Best value” does not necessarily mean the lowest price. It also considers the broader socio-economic value that a contract may be obtaining. The Government of Canada has a number of programs to help ensure that the contracts, in many cases, are meeting similar requirements as may be the case for public servants.

For example, Employment and Social Development Canada's labour program has the federal contractors program, which has a requirement that suppliers to the Government of Canada with a resident workforce of more than 100 people, or a million dollars, put in place employment equity obligations. This is a program we have.

In a number of cases, while it may not be prescribed by law, contracting officers also put requirements in their contracts that contractors must abide by, which may cover a number of the legal obligations we have within Canada, such as official languages—the requirement to provide services to the public in both official languages.

These are things we would put in place through contract, all of which are permitted through our policy framework and encouraged as the kinds of things to consider in how we conduct our procurements.

Mollie can speak to PSPC's area of responsibility.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Franco.

We'll now go to Mr. Lobb for five minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks very much.

I'll give you one example, and perhaps you folks can help me understand it.

I'm not picking on this company. It's just because this is a big number: According to the numbers I have, in the 2021-22 fiscal year, Brookfield Global Integrated Solutions did over a billion dollars in business with the federal government. Over $200 million of that was in professional services. That's a substantial number. That's a nice piece of business Brookfield has with the federal government.

On the professional services side of things, if I wanted to find out what those contracts were for, how much those contracts were bid on, and how much they came in at, how would I? Is that readily available? How can the public find out whether there's value there?

Can anybody answer that for me?

[Emilio Franco]

I'll speak on a broad basis. I believe the contract with Brookfield is a PSPC-managed contract. Mollie may have specifics on it.

The majority of procurements are conducted in a fair, open and transparent way, which means that the initial requirement is posted for public competition on the Buyandsell platform, now the CanadaBuys platform. They are made publicly available, which is the first indication about what kinds of services are being sought under contract. The contract would be required to detail what services are expected to be provided.

As I previously mentioned, once a contract is awarded, if the contract is above $10,000, that information is made publicly available through our proactive disclosure website on the Open Government website, with any subsequent amendments issued against that contract.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Ms. Royds, go ahead.

[Mollie Royds]

Thanks for the question.

There was reference made to a specific contract requirement that PSPC manages. The particular one in question is one we manage on behalf of a client department, which is National Defence. It relates to the relocation services associated with specific requirements for the Canadian Armed Forces.

Obviously, I don't have the information directly in front of me, Mr. Chair, but I believe that is the particular professional service.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'm sorry. Did you say it was for relocation services?

[Mollie Royds]

Potentially. I'm afraid that without the information in front of me—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Right. That's fair enough.

[Mollie Royds]

That is one of the larger requirements we manage with that particular supplier.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

It's probably not $211 million a year, though, for relocation services. I hope it isn't.

[Mollie Royds]

I can't speak to the specifics. I can say that we turn to these consultants to provide us with mission-critical services that are provided to the government and to our specific client departments.

If there's a more specific question, I could offer to come back with information.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Are you saying that these contracts are all publicly available for Joe Smith down the street to look at and even for a member of Parliament to look at, or is that not the case?

[Emilio Franco]

Thank you for the question.

What we call the resulting contracts.... When a procurement is made publicly available for competition, the solicitation that's issued includes a copy of the contract. That's how the public can see what the potential contract will likely look like.

As we mentioned, once the contract is awarded, information regarding the contract is made publicly available on proactive disclosure, but the specific contract and its minutes themselves are not. Typically, that information is considered commercially confidential information under the Access to Information Act. It can be called upon. There may be a provision of some information if requested through the ATIP process, should the public be interested in a particular contract.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I have one last question before my time runs out.

The last number of years have seen record government expenditures. I'm not trying to make this political. Is there a point at which the senior public service members, such as you, go to ministers or to the government and say, “You know, at this point, it might be time to take a look at what we're doing here; maybe take a break and find out if we're getting value for dollars here”?

It seems to me, as Kelly McCauley was saying, that a lot of this stuff seems to be getting out of control. If you add up Deloitte, KPMG and all these companies, it's way over $100 million a year for them as well. I looked up Iron Mountain. It's $14 million a year, every year.

Is there a point at which we need to go back and say that enough is enough and that we need to take a look at whether we're getting value for all these contracts and find out which ones are not mission-critical, as you might want to say?

[Emilio Franco]

Thank you for the question.

I would make two points. One is that, of course, the Department of Finance is responsible for funding decisions, but broadly, as was previously highlighted at this committee, TBS is engaging in a strategic review. I don't have the details regarding that review or the areas of inquiry, but the government's expenses are something that Treasury Board is currently looking into.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Franco.

We'll now go to Mr. Kusmierczyk for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm not exactly sure who can answer this question for me. We have about 500 public sector nurses in Canada who travel to remote and isolated indigenous communities to provide vital health care services. I know that we also hire externally to deliver some of those temporary health care measures in Canada, specifically in northern communities and isolated communities.

What advantage does this provide in terms of being able to deliver those critical services in hard-to-reach communities?