Government Operations Committee on March 4th, 2022

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

I understand that the Department of National Defence manages the needs, but the contracts are awarded from your department. Are you in the process of awarding contracts of that kind in the near future?

[Simon Page]

At the moment, no work is being done on contracts for modernizing and updating the radar system in the north.

However, as I have just mentioned, in 2021, we awarded a long-term contract for the maintenance and operation of the radar stations.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you.

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

The buzzer just went off, so no.

Thank you very much, Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

We'll now go to Mrs. Thompson for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to the witnesses.

I want to just touch on this omicron wave.

Clearly, so many people across the country are looking for rapid tests to keep themselves healthy and prevent further infection from the virus. PSPC played a key role in ensuring that there were enough tests to go around. Would you mind giving us an overview of the work that was done by your team to ensure there were sufficient tests available throughout Canada?

[Paul Thompson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.

Indeed, this was a full-on project for the department, an around-the-clock effort to look at every single available supplier. I mentioned the global numbers earlier—the 530 million rapid tests that were purchased, the 264 million that were shipped. This involved establishing contractual relationships with at least 15 suppliers that we now have—a range of global suppliers. As well, we're proud to say that we've worked with some domestic companies, Artron being one that's already provided over six million rapid tests domestically. Other companies, like BTNX, which is an importer, were doing important work within Canada in terms of labelling and finishing the product.

We were making efforts to have a domestic component to the extent possible, but really this was an effort to make sure that we had an abundance of supply from all available sources. It required not only the contracts, but also some logistic support. It's not only that they were manufactured, but there was such global competitive pressure in place that just getting access to airports and planes was a huge challenge. That was a big part, just on the logistics of the arrival, the warehousing and the delivery to the provinces.

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

I'm going to switch to Centre Block. The rehabilitation project, of course, is incredibly significant for all Canadians. We hold the parliamentary buildings in high regard.

Could you please provide us with an update on the ongoing work on the Centre Block project? Some PSPC officials recently appeared at different committees mentioning that the project is on budget and on time. Is that still the case?

[Paul Thompson]

Yes, Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.

This is a project that we're very proud of. It's the largest, most complex heritage project ever undertaken in Canada. It's not only restoration, but it's bringing the building up to modern standards—the building systems, the seismic standards, the security posture of the building, making it green and accessible. These are very high standards relative to the nature of the building when it was constructed.

We're very pleased with the progress, the planning around it. As members know, there's a whole domino effect on the planning, of identifying swing space, moving, and then moving facilities back in. That's been a big part of it.

There's been $4.2 billion in work provided to date as part of this project. Right now on the Centre Block, I believe there are 400 workers in place. As the long-term plans unfold, we would see, I believe, a peak of 1,500 workers as part of that project, so it's a source of employment for some high-skilled trades and other workers as part of the rehabilitation.

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

To switch yet again, in the supplementary estimates you have allocated $21.6 million to continue supporting the e-procurement solution project. Can you provide us with the purpose of this funding and what new features will be added to make it more user-friendly?

[Paul Thompson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for this question.

As I noted briefly earlier, this is a project we're very proud of—it's over five years, and $197 million is the budget for it. It was announced in budget 2018. We do have a phased rollout over the coming months for this project. It will provide a cloud-based and much more user-friendly tool, which we think will make it much easier for small and medium-sized businesses to do business with the government. It will make it far less complex and reduce the burden that has been associated with procurements in the past.

It has other important features as well in terms of accessibility, so persons with disabilities will have a much easier time interacting, compared with the current platforms. It will meet the highest standards of IT accessibility as part of the project.

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

Do I still have time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Yes.

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

Perfect.

PSPC has been tasked with ensuring that indigenous businesses represent at least 5% of procurement.

How have you been working to meet this target? What programs have been working and what challenges have you faced?

[Paul Thompson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for this question.

As I mentioned earlier in the answer on supplier diversity, this is an area where we've made considerable progress through lots of engagement with indigenous business owners across the country. We have two types of engagement. One is generally across our entire procurement footprint to make indigenous businesses aware of the opportunities, and then we've been leaning in specifically on individual contracts where we think there are big opportunities.

One would be the north warning system sustainment project. This would be an example of where we've done special outreach and have translated procurement documents into indigenous languages and tried to make efforts to attract indigenous businesses into the procurement. There are specific efforts on individual contracts, and then there are across-the-board efforts to work with indigenous business associations to make them generally more aware of the opportunities.

We're optimistic with respect to PSPC's own procurement that we will meet the 5% target and exceed it when it comes into effect in the coming fiscal year.

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

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I did give you a little extra time.

We're now going into our third and final round.

We will start off with five minutes with Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Time flies, doesn't it?

I want to follow up on a question from my colleague Mr. Gourde. Because of translation, I didn't quite hear the answer.

Since the December notice about how we may proceed with the jet fighters, we've had the Russian invasion. Have you or PSPC received any direction to change that December notice and go straight to an award of the jet fighter contract, or is this renegotiation still on the table?

[Paul Thompson]

As I noted in my earlier answer, this is a procurement that is subject to rigorous governance and there's review. It's going through the governance process—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Has PSPC received any direction since the invasion to proceed directly to awarding the contract, or is there a chance of it being delayed for up to a year as we continue negotiations still on the table?

[Paul Thompson]

We are still in the final steps of that process of evaluating the options from the previous step I mentioned before. There's no further update that—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

There hasn't been. Great.

What changes has PSPC made to ensure that the Government of Canada is not buying any goods made by forced labour or slave labour? We discussed this a couple of years ago and we had very, very flimsy—and I'll be generous using that term—oversight to ensure we're not buying goods made in Xinjiang and by forced labour. What has changed since then to ensure this is not happening?

[Paul Thompson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for this question.

This is a very active area of activity in the department as we strengthen our efforts. There is a code of conduct that has been strengthened, which lays out very clearly the expectations of all suppliers in this area. In the fall, we—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Are we auditing them at all? My understanding was that it was self-attestation.