Government Operations Committee on Dec. 8th, 2022

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Ms. Vignola, it's over to you for six minutes. Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My first questions will be for you, Mr. Ossowski. Thank you for appearing as an individual before the committee today.

Last November, federal officials told the committee that a contract for the accessibility of the ArriveCAN app was awarded under a national security exception.

Why would a department use a national security exception to award an accessibility contract?

[John Ossowski]

I think officials from the department, as I see on your website, have provided an answer to that.

Quite simply, during COVID what Public Services and Procurement Canada did was say that during the RFP stage, you could be exempt from the national security requirements but that before you could begin any work or get any task authorizations, the clearances had to be satisfied.

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

Is it customary to request a national security exception for accessibility, whether in a pandemic or not?

[John Ossowski]

It isn't for accessibility reasons. I think it was really because of COVID and the staff's availability to actually do the clearance part of the process.

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

Thank you.

To your knowledge, how does the department determine the security clearance of a subcontractor? Does a subcontractor automatically have to have security clearance? If so, how is it determined?

[John Ossowski]

I think you are better placed to ask that question of Public Services and Procurement Canada. It's in charge of the security clearance program for contractors.

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

Okay.

There was $4 million for hosting the app for about 18 months.

In your experience, is that cost normal, low or high?

[John Ossowski]

I have no reference point for what's reasonable. I think we had incredible value for money, given the context we were operating in and the need that it satisfied. For me, I think it was exceptional value for money, but I have no reference point because we've never done anything like this before.

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

Are you able to compare pre-pandemic and pandemic application development costs?

[John Ossowski]

Before the pandemic—and I mentioned this in my opening remarks with respect to the Border Five colleagues of Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom—we were all looking at how we could better deal with managing risk, given the environment in which volumes of travellers and goods were increasing and the velocity was increasing. We were all looking at—and it's a very fundamental concept—pushing the border out, getting as much data as we could in advance so that we could reduce the interaction time of officers with travellers. Ultimately, it would help officers make better decisions about who should be coming into the country or what should be coming into the country. We were looking at it from that lens.

When the pandemic hit, I had a very capable IT team, and it saw this need from the call from the Public Health Agency. We put this together, as I said, in a very quick and dirty way at first, but eventually it became a very sophisticated program that reduced the traveller interaction time with officers and provided incredibly timely and real-time information to officers to help them make better decisions and provide data to the provincial health care authorities. These authorities wanted to know where these people were coming from, whether they had a quarantine program and whether they were going to be managed appropriately.

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

We have received documents related to ArriveCAN, but they date back to 2017, which is three years before the pandemic.

How is it that three years before the pandemic, contracts were awarded in connection with what would eventually become ArriveCAN?

[John Ossowski]

Mr. Chair, I think that's a question for the department.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Manji, I'm also going to ask you about the cost of hosting the app.

In your own experience, does $4 million represent a low, normal or high cost for hosting data for an application like ArriveCAN over 18 months?

[Zain Manji]

That is on the medium-to-high end of the spectrum.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Ms. Vignola.

Now we have Mr. Johns for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

There was some unfinished business at the last meeting that I want to get out of the way, if I could, Mr. Chair.

I apologize to our witnesses. I need to move forward with a motion that I brought forward, and I want to explain to the committee why I am moving it.

You know that the government continues to procure supplies for the health care system, and I believe it's prudent that we ask how we can support a resilient domestic industry to provide essential supplies like personal protective equipment. We've just just passed supplementary estimates (B) that included about $136 million in proposed spending for supplies for the health care system—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, but when you're done with that, could you read your motion into the record, please?

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

I will, absolutely.

At the beginning of the pandemic, our country didn't have enough supply of personal protective equipment, and we struggled to procure supplies during a time of high global demand. The government encouraged Canadian industries to help meet the need for these products, and many small and medium-sized enterprises began producing PPE.

These businesses invested in setting up shop, creating innovative products like more breathable and sustainable masks and respirators, and employing Canadians. Sadly, many of these businesses have since shut down or are at risk of closing because the government awarded contracts to multinationals instead of supporting this emerging domestic industry.

I'll give you an example. Dave Brimacombe, who owns Wayward Distillery in Courtenay in my riding, is a retired veteran who works very hard. He donated $75,000 of PPE hand sanitizer to local health workers and to first responders. He donated that. Later a subcontractor through Loblaws contracted him to provide it. Then Canada started bringing in a foreign supply of hand sanitizer, and it flooded the market and drove the cost down. Then the Loblaws supplier suddenly cancelled the contract after they had asked him to scale up. He ended up eating the $400,000 on his own after he came to the rescue of Canadians.

I think it's in our national interest to ensure that we have a resilient PPE industry here. We know that new variants of COVID-19 still remain a threat and we must be prepared for future pandemics. If Canada does not prepare its own PPE industry, there's a risk that it will disappear. We need to ensure that we're prepared for national security.

I believe it would be a good use of this committee's time to hear from domestic PPE manufacturers about the state of the industry and the barriers they faced in the federal procurement process. I believe this committee could do some valuable and timely work making recommendations on how procurement practices can better support this important domestic industry.

I'm going to read the motion. The motion is:

That pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study on the role of federal procurement in fostering a resilient domestic personal protective equipment industry; that the committee have no less than three meetings to hear from witnesses; that the committee request testimony from the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, any relevant government officials, and industry representatives; that the committee report its recommendations to the House and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, it request that the government table a detailed response to the report.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

This is debatable. Does anyone wish comment on it, or is there general support for this motion?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

It's consensus or call the question, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

If we have consensus, we will consider it passed.

(Motion agreed to)

Mr. Johns, you have a minute and 20 seconds.

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

Thanks so much, committee. I really appreciate it, colleagues.

Mr. Ossowski, first I want to thank you for your service to Canada. I don't think public servants got enough credit, especially through COVID and the number of hours that you put in to protect Canadians.

You've heard about GC Strategies and the commission and that these folks were making $1.3 to $2.7 million. You as a public servant didn't earn anything near that. These are contractors who don't even specialize in tech.

Can you share your feelings of how you see, sense and understand the outrage of Canadians when they learn of subcontractors who are doing this kind of volume of business with these grotesque margins?