Government Operations Committee on Feb. 6th, 2023

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

No one has approached me with the name of Dominic Barton at all. I can only speak for myself.

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

Okay. It seems odd for someone to name-drop another individual unless they thought it was going to get them past the doorman.

I have one more question.

Dominic Barton is reported in public accounts as having been paid $150,000 by Global Affairs for other services while he was also ambassador to China. What was he paid for?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Really, I would have no knowledge of such a transaction.

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

Is that something the department would have records on?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

The deputy is saying that it would be the Global Affairs department.

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

Okay. It would be necessary to get that information from the minister responsible for Global Affairs. Is that right?

[Paul Thompson]

Yes.

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

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That's our time.

We're going to finish up with Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For full disclosure, my background is management consulting. The question I'm about to ask is intended to demystify a number of terminologies that have been used and thrown around. Then it will lead into a question.

Mr. Thompson, we talked about a number of concepts, such as benchmarking, analytics and data, and I'll throw KPI in there as well. The way I understand how things work is that when an organization is going through a transformation with the intention of improving its processes and policies, it will look at jurisdictions and at the data that exists. Then that data is compared with the data that's gathered within the organization. It compares it, and then it can run analytics. Those data are usually gathered around key performance indicators. Then transformation road maps are developed.

Is my understanding of how we've used the terminology of benchmark, data and analytics correct in the context of the last hour and a half that we've been talking?

[Paul Thompson]

That's a very accurate description of the work.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

I really want to get to the question and the purpose of the “why”. Are you, as a public servant, expected to have the benchmark data that exists in other jurisdictions or to be an expert, or is anybody within your department expected to be an expert in having that benchmark data?

[Paul Thompson]

As I mentioned, when we're undertaking a business transformation, whether it's PSPC or another department, the Treasury Board policy on project management encourages independent reviews and perspectives. Benchmarking is one tool that brings credibility and precision to a business transformation plan.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

That's perfect.

You talked specifically about McKinsey having nine benchmarking tools. PSPC itself went through a transformation around payments in improving their process, etc. I believe that your department might have used one of those benchmarking tools.

Would anyone within your department have the expertise to develop that data, aside from the base data you're gathering from your department?

[Paul Thompson]

We would have good information on our own operations, but we wouldn't have the basis to compare it with peer organizations. If we were comparing the pay centre to private sector or public sector pay operations, or if we're comparing our pension operation to pension plans, etc., what these companies do is bring in an analytical framework for doing just that.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Perfect: Thank you for that.

Therefore there is a need, a justifiable need, to bring in external resources. I'm talking more broadly than McKinsey or other consulting firms. There is a need, and there is a reasonable why.

Let's talk about the data and the fact that the privacy of the data is protected.

During the time when the benchmarking exercise was done for your department, were you at any time aware of whether the specific data being benchmarked was specific to a given client, or was it a pool of data that had been normalized or anonymized and therefore was a pool of data that was used without any reference to a specific client?

[Paul Thompson]

Typically the benchmarking reports that I've seen have anonymized data. The data will refer to “an insurance company” or “a comparable country”. Occasionally when there is publicly sourced information as part of the benchmarking, there will be a more clearly identified company, but a lot of the information gathered is proprietary and commercially confidential. As a result, it's often protected.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Therefore, is it fair to assume that for the data that's being gathered by doing benchmarking for the Government of Canada, specifically to PSPC, there's a highly unlikely opportunity for it to be identified as the Government of Canada's data in other benchmarking exercises?

[Paul Thompson]

I believe that to be correct, with the possible exception of publicly available information that any of these companies or anybody else could use.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Absolutely. I mean, the number of employees that the Government of Canada has is publicly available, but if we're talking about the performance of a procurement process or how long it takes, etc., that might not be publicly available.

I'm 13 seconds over. Thank you very much for your indulgence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari. Thank you for joining us.

Before we go, I'm going to invoke the chairman's prerogative. I have just a couple of things.

Several questions were asked that you were going to get back to us on. As well, we've been asked to send for documents. As the will of committee, we'll set a date of Friday the 17th at noon for these documents.

Is that agreed?

That's agreed. Thank you.

On the chairman's prerogative, I've been dealing with the procurement ombudsman for seven years as part of this committee. If you read his annual reports and you meet with him, you'll see repeatedly that his recommendations are not actually put into force.

Minister, will you guarantee that the recommendations he puts in on this issue are put into force and not just pushed aside like his other recommendations over the years?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have met with the procurement ombudsman and had a very full discussion with him and was very impressed by what he has to offer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Will you be accepting and implementing all of his recommendations?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Obviously we'll look at them very, very closely. I cannot commit to immediately accepting all recommendations, but I feel sure that they will be very carefully considered.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

The reason I ask is that you emphasize that as one of the actions—