Government Operations Committee on Feb. 8th, 2023

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

Thank you, Minister.

Ms. Thompson you have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister.

I'm going to circle back to Ms. Luelo to answer the previous question on IT as a significant portion of federal outsourcing. Why is that? Also, why isn't the work done internally?

[Catherine Luelo, Deputy Minister, Chief Information Officer of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Thank you for the question.

I've had a chance to present at OGGO before. This is just a reminder that I'm 18 months into government, so I'm prefacing some of my comments with that backdrop.

I think it's relevant in the sense that what we're experiencing inside government with IT outsourcing is a very normal practice from my background working for large Canadian organizations. We are taking advantage of outsourcing because we have a 30% vacancy rate in our digital cadre of employees. On a baseline of about 28,000 positions, we have difficulty staffing those roles. That is not just a government phenomenon; that is a Canadian phenomenon right now. There is a significant talent pool gap in Canada, so all organizations are competing for the same employee base and that becomes very competitive as you get more experienced resources.

We stood up a digital talent group within the office of the chief information officer in the spring of last year to absolutely take advantage of bringing more people into the public service.

I would share with this committee that we did a job posting for cybersecurity experts across Canada a number of weeks ago. We got 1,600 applicants. We are working through those right now.

One of the challenges we have is the length of onboarding, to be completely direct. That's something we are working on with our OCHRO colleagues. It's difficult when you're looking for talent in a very hot market to take upwards of 100 to 200 days to bring them in, as they'll get scooped up by four additional offers by the time you do that. That is on our radar screen.

The public service that is currently delivering IT would like nothing more than to have more colleagues, and we are challenged in finding them in the Canadian marketplace right now. It is difficult to bring people in from other jurisdictions because of some of the security requirements we have specifically related to those working on our technology.

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

Thank you. I appreciate the explanation. I'm going to stay with the officials for the next question, which is on the specifics of the safeguards that exist in the procurement process to ensure it's fair, open and transparent.

Could you speak about that and about what external checks are in place within the system and which people are involved in the procurement process? Is it from start to finish? Is there a continuity in that process? Then perhaps you could speak in depth to the transparency and how we maintain the integrity of the process.

[Roch Huppé, Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Thank you for the question.

This is a great question. I will start off by saying, as a premise, that the procurement process is probably one of the activities in the government today for which we have a set of processes and controls that are what I would consider very mature. We have a very impressive control framework around these activities that start and include what I'll call documentation, which is legislation, regulation, our policies and very detailed supply manuals that are available to everyone and are made public and available in a very transparent fashion.

We have a very professional workforce in the procurement community, which is governed by a learning curriculum of mandatory training they need to go through. Training is also mandatory for managers who manage these contracts, who are the clients of these contracts, to make sure the work gets performed and so on, and they're accountable in that process.

I have to say that the controls are also based on the premise of delegation. Everyone is accountable within the process, and it varies. In departments, for example, delegation instruments exist that will prescribe who has the authority to approve which types of contracts, whether competitive or non-competitive, different types of goods and so on.

From a disclosure perspective—and the minister alluded to it—we have proactive disclosure under which all contracts over $10,000 need to be disclosed.. The minister also indicated that we're piloting new sets of information that needs to be disclosed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid I have to cut you off there, Mr. Huppé. Our time is up. Perhaps you can finish in the next round.

Mrs. Vignola, go ahead for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much.

Ms. Fortier, The Senate report in France mentioned that it was a fairly common practice not to distinguish between a document published by the government and a document prepared by McKinsey, because one logo is simply being replaced by another.

Is that also the case in Canada?

[Mona Fortier]

I don't have a specific answer to that question, but I can tell you that every department contracting work includes in the contract a number of clauses that will enable them to verify what the company worked on and produced, and also check that it has complied with the clauses of the contract. The department in question would have to be asked to confirm whether the company did indeed meet the requirements of the standing offer.

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

The Treasury Board is also responsible for a number of policies and regulations.

We've been told, and I believe that you also confirmed this in one of your responses during the round of questions, that the procurement process was very long and burdensome, and involved a lot of rules.

Is there no way that the process could be improved to make it more effective while remaining equally stringent to ensure that the people hired by the government are ethical and professional?

[Mona Fortier]

Firstly, public servants whose tasks are covered by current policies are always reviewing them. They do so with a view to openness and transparency. They also assure the integrity of the process.

The study being carried out by the committee today will doubtless provide us with recommendations to improve the process. I would nevertheless tell you that in view of the rigorous controls we established in the procurement management directive and through other tools at our disposal, we have what is needed to further the government's work.

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

Thank you.

I have a final question.

Have you had the opportunity to read the Century Initiative?

[Mona Fortier]

No.

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

All right.

I would suggest that you read it, because it contains all kinds of things that we've heard about in the answers given during the round of questions.

[Mona Fortier]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Mr. Johns, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you.

Minister, Accenture got just over five million dollars' worth of contracts in 2011. In 2015, it got $15 million. It tripled under the Conservatives. It went up to $55 million in 2021.

Deloitte went from $28 million to $173 million in a decade. Ernst & Young went from $5 million to $28 million. KPMG went from $4 million to $34 million. McKinsey went from $642,000 to $32 million. PricewaterhouseCoopers went from $9 million.... It went up 452% under the Conservatives and then doubled under your government to $93 million.

Do you think this is normal?

[Mona Fortier]

I mentioned it earlier and I'm going to repeat it. Over the past decade, the percentage of government expenditures for professional services has remained relatively consistent with the size of the public service.

With our ambitious agenda, we have been working very hard to make sure we develop the programs and services—

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

I would say it's the ambitious agenda of these six companies. They have been working really hard. It has gone up tenfold in 10 years. I just want to highlight that.

I'm going to get to Ms. Luelo—who was talking about hiring new workers, which is so important—and the challenge she's raised.

I guess my question to the minister is this: Will you consider expanding the budgets of these units that need help, especially the Canadian digital service, so more of this IT work can be done in-house and the results can be owned by the public?

[Mona Fortier]

Again, for the IT initiative, I'm going to let Catherine share why we are working as much with external services...and then our public servants who are making sure that we're bringing forward our digital transformation.

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

I think she explained why. It's because of the challenge.

Will you fund to meet the challenge, so that it's in-house?

[Mona Fortier]

We are—

Go ahead. Maybe explain how it is.

[Catherine Luelo]

I think we can't execute on the resources. The resources don't exist and we can't bring them in fast enough. That's the issue we need to solve.

I'm not convinced it's a matter of moving money to fund more positions. That's likely part of it. I think it's really important to note that we are operating in a technical environment in the government that.... If you've been around for 40 years, you're part of the fact that we have an aging technology environment.

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

Ms. Luelo, I get it. It's really difficult to find these talented people. What are we going to do to recruit them? I want to understand what the plan is.

Right now, you're still getting the work done. You're using expensive consultants. Some of them are outsourcing subconsultants. They are making money by actually hiring the subconsultants. They aren't even tech people, as we saw with GC Strategies. This is just unbelievable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid that is our time. Perhaps if you have an answer, you could provide it in writing to the committee.

Mr. Johns, thanks.

Mrs. Kusie, we'll go over to you for five minutes, please.