Government Operations Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Thompson for six minutes.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

My initial questions are really open to all witnesses. Please feel free to provide the perspective from your own departments.

The first point is around special expertise. What sort of special expertise does outsourcing let the government access when they don't have in-house expertise? What is it that really defines that special expertise, in relation to what exists within government departments?

It's open to all witnesses.

[Emilio Franco]

Perhaps I'll start, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the question.

I would say there's a broad range of expertise that the Government of Canada needs in order to deliver on its programs and services. It's not to say that that expertise may not reside in government, but in many cases that expertise either needs to be complemented or supported, or is only available for particular activities, and that needs to be augmented or supplemented.

Perhaps I would turn to my colleagues in PSPC or SSC to speak to specific areas of expertise that they are seeking as part of their own program activities.

[Kim Steele, Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Information Officer, Digital Services, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Perhaps I can speak for PSPC.

As the chief information officer, I support a portfolio of over 300 applications, many of which are mission-critical. Some reside on legacy technology, so finding expertise to continue to support these applications can be challenging, particularly nowadays with the mobility that's taking place in the workforce. If I need, very specifically, a coder who has expertise in the COBOL programming language, which is old, that's a scenario where we will often have to go out and look for that expertise in the private sector. That's one example.

[Patrice Nadeau]

Maybe I can add to that from Shared Services.

As my colleague from the Treasury Board was saying, it's a combination of both. It's the specialized expertise but also just the incremental capacity that we need. The nature of our business right now means that the demand exceeds capacity. In addition to our own workforce, we do need to increase our capacity to deliver on all of the projects, especially when we adopt new technology as part of our network modernization initiatives right now, which we've actually posted on our website.

Adoption of the cloud is fairly new for the government. This is where we would probably also need extra capacity and expertise. We're deploying software-defined networking. We're adopting zero-trust architecture. Those are actually new technologies, new ways of doing things for us. Specialized expertise to complement our own capacity is required.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

Could each department respond to how outsourcing helps meet unexpected fluctuations and life events, COVID in particular?

Do we want to start with Public Works and Government Services?

[Kim Steele]

Sure. Again, I'm responsible for the digital portfolio within PSPC.

Often, as Patrice mentioned, we are looking at innovation, new technologies. Sometimes those become projects. In kicking off or launching a new application, we often require expertise for a limited period of time. We will bring in consultants to work with our staff to get the initiative launched. We work with those consultants to ensure that the knowledge transfer and expertise remain in-house. When the project is over, it falls back on the public servants, the staff within my organization, to maintain that application going forward.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

Would Treasury Board like to respond?

[Emilio Franco]

Thank you.

As our area of responsibility is procurement policy, we do not actually do procurement ourselves, in my organization, so perhaps I'll move to Patrice to provide a more fulsome response.

[Patrice Nadeau]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, it's very similar to what my colleague from PSPC said. Obviously, we're running a large portfolio of projects here at Shared Services Canada. The ability to grow fast is very often important. This is done by leveraging professional services in a number of cases. Very often, we have a start date, end date and clear deliverables. Those are perfect opportunities to augment our capacity by leveraging private sector resources.

You mentioned COVID. That's also a good example. When we need to respond to a crisis and to a surge of demand, for us it's absolutely critical that we have in place contracts, so that we can tap into those resources fast and for a short period of time. It allows us to help our existing staff with this increased demand.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

I'll zone in on Public Works and Government Services for this question.

Many recent budgets have included funding for system stabilization. Was that the case a decade ago? If not, why not?

[Kim Steele]

Thank you for the question.

I wasn't here a decade ago in this particular role. However, ongoing investment in maintaining technology is something that needs to occur on a regular basis. With the rapid evolution of technological change, we need to continue to invest in keeping our applications and systems up to date and current, in order to ensure that we address security threats, as an example.

Unfortunately, sometimes it can be challenging to maintain those systems and keep them up to date. When that happens, we fall behind, so additional investments may be required. The best practice is to maintain our applications and continue ongoing investments in ensuring that the systems are maintained, stable, current and up to date.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Steele.

We'll now go to Ms. Vignola for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here and for making the effort to give your speeches partly in French, which is greatly appreciated.

I will turn to Ms. Royds, who I think is better able to answer my questions.

Ms. Royds, in recent years, we have heard about situations where mainly women were used as contract workers in the public service for their entire career. However, when it came time for them to get permanent status, to have the same social and retirement benefits as permanent public employees, they were laid off temporarily for two, three, four weeks. Then they were rehired to do exactly the same work.

The result is that even if they spend their lives in the public service doing the same job as a public servant, they never get the same benefits.

On the one hand, why did this practice exist?

On the other, does it still exist now?

[Mollie Royds]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chair.

I can speak to this from the perspective of the role of the common service provider as PSPC, where we support other government departments in their work when they require outsourcing in order to achieve certain types of work. For instance, if they are looking for particular specialized skills, as well as in relation to special—

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

Excuse me for interrupting.

I am talking mainly about women who spent their lives in the public service, but without the title of public servant, because they were on contract. When it came time to get a permanent position, they were laid off. At the end of their working lives, they ended up without any of a public servant’s benefits, when in fact they worked as one their entire lives.

Is this still happening now?

[Mollie Royds]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chair.

In that particular instance, it would be important for me to outline that we have policies in place to mitigate against the instances of what would be called an “employer-employee relationship”. We have particular policies in place to ensure that when we put contracts in place and bring in outsourced resources, we're doing so for a specific task or deliverable or a specific solution.

That, again, is to mitigate against the exact instance of what could be considered an employee-employer relationship, whereby someone would take on a role, like a public servant, as an employee of Canada. We have the policies and procedures in place to—

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

Thank you.

[Mollie Royds]

—ensure that we mitigate and assess risks.

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

Since when has this policy that you mentioned been in place?

Can you assure me that, right now, there are no women on contract—I say women, because they are mostly women—doing exactly the same job as the full-time public servant working beside them, but without the pension and benefits?

Can you assure me that no contract worker runs the ongoing risk of being laid off for two or three weeks the moment she could get a permanent position, only to be rehired to do exactly the same job?

Can you assure me that this practice is no longer in place?

[Mollie Royds]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chair.

As I indicated, we have the policy and procedures in place to mitigate against the risks of such an employee-employer relationship.

I have my colleague from the Treasury Board Secretariat, which would be the owner of the policy for the Government of Canada. As indicated, we're a common service provider. We support the work of particular government departments to put in place their procurements.

However, to speak to the broader policy, my colleague might be better placed to provide the background that was being sought.

[Emilio Franco]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The position of the Government of Canada in ensuring that measures are taken to avoid employer-employee relationships has been a matter of policy for quite some time, both in our previous procurement policy, which was the contracting policy, and now reinforced in our new directive on the management of procurement, which came into effect in May of this year.

The new directive specifically requires that both contracting officials and departmental officials responsible for engaging in contracts are aware of the risks of creating employer-employee relationships and that they're taking measures prior to and during the performance of a contract to avoid those risks occurring. It includes terms and conditions in contracts to make sure that the nature of the arrangement in place is very clear to the recipients of those contracts and that those conditions protect the government in the case of an employer-employee relationship being created.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Franco.

We'll now go to Mr. Johns for six minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Natural Resources is currently outsourcing two full-time senior ATIP consultant resources. They've invited suppliers to bid on the one-year contract, with three one-year options to extend. The estimated value of the contract is $3.75 million.

Based on that estimate, the contract would work out to about $469,000 per year for an ATIP consultant. I'll hazard a guess that this is well above what an ATIP officer would be paid as a public service employee, and I'm imagining that a significant amount of the contract will go to the firm awarded the contract and not the person actually doing the work.

What are the policies around contract renewal? For example, do companies have an automatic right to exercise an option to renew? Also, is a contract for up to four years, potentially, addressing a short-term staffing shortage?

Maybe someone from PSPC or the Treasury Board can answer.

[Emilio Franco]

Perhaps I'll start.

When a government contract goes out to tender, it is required to outline the full scope of the requirement, including, as you mentioned, option years. It is not a requirement to exercise those option years, but they are available to mitigate risk for the government in the event that there is a need to no longer continue the services or to address other matters that may arise in the contract.

Without getting into the specifics, because I have not seen the contract or the requirement you mentioned, there may be a number of provisions in the contract that expand the scope or require additional resources, which may increase the overall value of the contract. Without getting into the specifics of the contract or seeing the details, I wouldn't be able to particularly answer that question, but perhaps I'll turn to Mollie to expand on it.