Evidence of meeting #51 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bdc.
A video is available from Parliament.
President of the Treasury Board
I would inform you that Minister Jaczek is the one responsible for the regime, and she would be best placed to answer.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Minister, you're a minister of the Crown. I'm asking you to have opinions on these things, not just tell me what the law says.
Is an integrity regime that allows a company like McKinsey to be approved a functioning integrity regime in your considered opinion?
President of the Treasury Board
My considered opinion is the fact that we will be reviewing the integrity regime—as we are going through many reviews right now—to make sure that the government is accountable for the work we are doing for Canadians.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Is that part of your review, the quality of the integrity regime?
February 8th, 2023 / 5:40 p.m.
President of the Treasury Board
I understand that we are currently.... I'm sorry. Minister Jaczek is best placed, of course, to be asked directly. I understand that we are always reviewing the policies that we have, and we can—
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Oh, so there's no specific review going on of the integrity regime.
President of the Treasury Board
I can tell you that there is some work being done to make sure we have a strong integrity regime in place.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Okay, so you won't tell me if you think McKinsey is an ethical company and you are not prepared to say whether the integrity regime is working. It seems to me that it's fairly obvious. This is a company that advised paying bonuses to pharmacists on the basis of overdoses. I don't think it takes a moral philosopher to understand that's wrong and unethical.
President of the Treasury Board
I would like to come back to the fact that, as the President of the Treasury Board, there is a directive for procurement management.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
It sounds like you're just here to follow processes and instructions, not to evaluate the ethics and morality of this company.
Do you think you have a responsibility, as a minister of the Crown, to make ethical and moral judgments, or do you think you just have a responsibility to implement existing policy frameworks?
President of the Treasury Board
I have a responsibility to make sure we have the right directives in place. We have laws in place, and I'm following them.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Right. Are the existing directives working then?
President of the Treasury Board
Currently, as we know, I've been asked to review the directive on procurement management, and we will do that. I understand that we have some letters that were sent to departments to make sure we can receive that information—
Conservative
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Can I just ask one more unrelated question, Minister?
You've talked about how the growth and contracting out has been proportionate to the growth in the public service. The reality is, though, we have seen both dramatic growth in the public service and dramatic growth in contracting out and a decline in the quality of services. In a way you would think those things would be inversely related—if you saw more public servants, you'd see less contracting out and vice versa—but you're presiding over dramatic growth in spending in all areas, as well as a decline in the quality of services.
How do you justify that there is dramatic growth in the public service and in contracting out and a decline in services at the same time?
President of the Treasury Board
As you know, our government has set a very ambitious agenda in infrastructure in protecting the environment with climate change being real. We also are making sure that—
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Minister, my question is not about climate change. It's about quality of service.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm sorry, Mr. Genuis. We are already past time.
If you could, just wrap up briefly, Minister.
Conservative
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you so much, Madam President, for your excellent responses to some tough questioning.
I want to allow you the opportunity to respond again to an earlier question. You were describing the integrity regime, specifically as the integrity regime related to addressing companies that had been found guilty of wrongdoing abroad. You were beginning to talk about the integrity regime that is currently in place and also how it relates to McKinsey being ineligible for contracts or being eligible for contracts.
I'm wondering if you might be able to repeat the response you were providing for the committee but were interrupted multiple egregious times as you were trying to provide that response.
President of the Treasury Board
Thank you for that.
I think I've been pretty clear that, since 2015, the previous government introduced the regime to ensure that government does business only with ethical suppliers in Canada and abroad. PSPC is the one that runs the regime on behalf of the government. I believe that Minister Jaczek did have a chance to share her views and approach on Monday.
PSPC determines whether a supplier is ineligible to do business with the government. As I said earlier, some offences lead to automatic ineligibility while others lead to a case-by-case review. Just so everybody knows, this is applied for procurements that are over $10,000.
The integrity regime is also applied across government and through agreements between PSPC and other federal departments and agencies. There are three parts. Surely Minister Jaczek shared that with you, but the three parts are the ineligibility and suspension policy, the integrity directives and the integrity provisions.
There is currently work that is done to make sure the integrity regime is updated. I believe Minister Jaczek will probably bring forward some views about enhancing or strengthening the integrity regime.
I hope that answers your question.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
That's perfect. Thank you very much, Madam President.
I want to turn to our TBS officials.
Since 2015, we've seen 60,000 full-time employees hired for the public service, and we've invested an additional $20 billion into our public service since 2015. I know that one of my colleagues likes to paint the picture that we are investing in consultants to the detriment of investments in the public service, but I would say that the numbers show that it's quite the opposite: hiring 60,000 full-time employees in the public service and a $20-billion additional spend since 2015.
My question is for the officials. Some are suggesting that outsourcing is out of control. What do the numbers show from your vantage point?
Deputy Minister, Chief Information Officer of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I'll speak to that from a technology perspective.
I think your point that there has been investment in the public service resonates with me, for sure.
Part of what we're focused on from a digital government perspective is ensuring that the tools we provide all public servants are modern and that we provide the opportunity for Canadians to be able to use them and serve themselves as they see fit, in a digital way. Passports are an example. This summer we'd like to provide a more digital experience, end to end, for Canadians.
The numbers that you share resonate. We also can't tackle, certainly in the technology space, the amount of work without having some augmentation.
I'll leave my comments there.