Government Operations Committee on Feb. 8th, 2022

[Alexander Jeglic]

I think they're both fair and good questions.

In terms of responsiveness from the department, the department is certainly well aware—when I say “department”, I mean Public Services and Procurement Canada—of the need to simplify. You heard me mention e-procurement. There are other initiatives under way that are designed to simplify the terms and conditions of contracts, reduce legalese, and make sure reference points outside of existing contracts by SACC clauses are embedded within contracts. There are several initiatives by the department. They are receptive to our feedback.

In terms of the speed of change—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do you believe there's the political will to make this happen? What needs to happen to get this done? We've been talking about it for years. I know you've been pushing for it for years. I read it in your reports, and when Mr. Rabinovitch was doing it, it was very clear.

What are we missing that we cannot get this basic issue tackled for Canadians and small businesses?

[Alexander Jeglic]

Right. I think there is another opportunity in time. We've transitioned out of the Treasury Board contracting policy, so I think there is a moment in time when there can be significant change. I'm quite anxiously waiting to see what that new universe looks like.

I mentioned e-procurement. That could potentially be a game-changer. Again, I'm not here to offer a positive or negative opinion of it. It is just something that possibly could make the system much more simple and straightforward.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

On page 4, you talk about how your office “has also watched with interest the level of transparency surrounding emergency procurement, and plans to continue to monitor this issue.” You say that “if issues persist”, this is an area that might require a review.

What issues are you referring to specifically when you say “if issues persist”?

[Alexander Jeglic]

What we were looking for was transparent disclosure of contracts associated with COVID procurement. Like everyone else, we were looking to find disclosures associated with contract values, names of suppliers, etc., and we weren't coming up with much information.

As a result, we were trying to identify when that information might become available. We did launch, as I mentioned, a KDS piece on emergency procurement, and we subsequently launched one on the national security exception. As I'm sure you are well aware, both of those invocations then have implications on transparency.

It's not to say that we feel like our job is done by launching knowledge-deepening and sharing pieces. It's an issue that we continue to track through environmental scanning, and if need be, we can and likely will include it as part of one of our systemic reviews.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I think my 10 minutes are up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I was going to say that 10 minutes goes by very fast.

Thank you, Mr. Jeglic.

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

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to Mr. Jeglic and all the witnesses who are here today.

I'm going to focus a little bit on efficient and effective procurement. Efficient and effective procurement is dependent on the quality and diversity of proposals submitted. In the 2018 report “Procurement practice review: Review of bid solicitation processes”, item five indicates that communication with bidders has been a problem.

In your experience reviewing procurement processes, how long was this a problem prior to the 2018 report?

[Alexander Jeglic]

If you look at the top-10 list of issues that we publish on a yearly basis, you'll see that communication.... It comes in two forms. One is during a live solicitation process. There's the question and answer period where suppliers have the right to ask questions of the contracting authority and get answers so they can prepare a response of bids. At times, the answers they receive are either not responsive or not timely, and that has an impact on their ability to provide a response of bids.

The second aspect of communication is also something that we see in terms of regret letters and debriefs. The quality of information varies greatly. Some departments do an excellent job providing debriefs that are really fulsome and give suppliers a real opportunity to improve bids in subsequent processes. But there are other circumstances where departments may not provide such detailed information and therefore leave suppliers relatively unsatisfied with their involvement in the process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Bains, I apologize. Your five minutes are not up; however, we are having some major interpretation problems with our interpreters. I feel I'm going to have to cancel the meeting here today out of fairness to our interpreters.

We can hopefully get the witnesses back at another time. Also, I would suggest, committee members, that you all put your questions in writing and submit them to the clerk. We can then submit those to Mr. Jeglic. He can share them with his witnesses to see if we can get written answers that we would then share with you. The clerk, the analysts and I will work at another way to hopefully get the ombudsman back.

With that said, I would like to thank Mr. Jeglic and Mr. Rabinovitch, who were the two who actually spoke, but also the other eight who are here participating. I'm not going to go through all your names, because I'm certain I'll mess them up, but I look forward to your responses to the written questions.

To our interpreters, thank you very much for bearing with us in this situation. Unfortunately, we had to go to cellphones, and it just didn't work out the way we would like it to. To the technicians, thank you for being here, as well as to the clerk and the analysts for staying with us.

With that said, I call the meeting adjourned.