Evidence of meeting #85 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 contract.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Again, Mr. Mills, I'm sorry. Can you answer the question here?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
—but it's not a single contract for $54 million to build the app. It's—
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Again, can we answer the question? The $54 million obviously sums up the work that was done on ArriveCAN. The question wasn't for a regurgitation of process.
You looked at the various contracts. Did you say, “Yes, that's value for money. It looks good”, or did you do what your job is supposed to be and ask questions about this not achieving value for money?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
At the beginning of the endeavour to build the ArriveCAN app, we were not aware that there would be 46 contracts leveraged to undertake all the work necessary—internally to adjust systems, and to design and deploy the app on many platforms. That analysis was not done at the beginning, because we were not aware and—
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
We established at the beginning that the minister was incurious about this and unengaged with the process. At any point, did anyone in your department or in her office or she herself say, “Hey, we have a job to do, which is to achieve value for money, not just put a rubber stamp on everything”? Did anyone at any point say, “This is not achieving value for money, guys”?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Chair, I cannot speak for everyone in our department in terms of who was analyzing the overall value for money.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you. I'm afraid that is our time.
Mr. Sousa, please go ahead.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to be sharing my time with my colleague Mr. Kuzmierczyk.
I have a couple of very quick questions.
Do you think Phoenix was good value for money?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I cannot—
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
That's okay. I don't think any of us do either. That was obviously a big piece that I think went through badly.
The Botler contract was a fixed-rate contract. Is that correct? I think it was at $350,000 or something like that.
Do you know, Ms. Chan?
Supply Specialist, Professional Services Procurement Directorate, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Thank you for the question.
You're speaking about the task authorization, which is not a contract.
Liberal
Supply Specialist, Professional Services Procurement Directorate, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It was part of—
Liberal
Supply Specialist, Professional Services Procurement Directorate, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The per diem rates were fixed.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Okay.
Mr. Mills, how many contracts are you dealing with annually?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We do 10,000 contractual activities a year.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
How many of those contracts is the minister aware of?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It's in the tens. Probably less than a hundred would require ministerial approval.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
The minister normally would not be part of the decision-making process. Is that correct?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
That is correct. In the case of ArriveCAN, of the 31 contracts that we put in place, I believe only three actually required executive approval. The rest were within the actual—
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
This is a service contract being provided by IT professionals who are not available to us in the bureaucracy and in the public service. I'm very interested and curious as to why members opposite now want to inflate the bureaucracy with many more people and put them on the payroll when they want small government.
When you look at a contract.... With construction, for example, you have building contractors and the trades and the sub-trades. You have a project manager and a construction manager. None of them are employed by government, but you do provide a contract basis to enable them to work. Everyone's making cuts in between, including those who are working union-paid jobs to provide those services.
Is this similar in this case?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Chair, I would say it's very parallel, in the sense that these IT projects generally are to build a system or a tool and then leave it behind. It would be very similar to engaging an architect and an engineering firm to design a building and then engaging a prime contractor to actually build that building.