Government Operations Committee on June 19th, 2025

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

You'll get to know me, Mr. Chair. Whenever the interpretation isn't working, I wave my hand.

Don't be shy, interpreters. You're doing an excellent job. You can let me know when the remarks are inaudible. This goes for both languages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

One of the items that we need to finish off from last time is the report on the consul general's residence in New York. I seek consent that we re-establish the study, that the evidence received last session be deemed to have been received in this session and that instruction be given to our analysts to write the report so that we can actually get a report written and submitted to the House.

We'll have no more witnesses and no more time on it. It's just so that we can get it to the analysts to have it written so that we can report it to the House.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Obviously, I was not a member of this committee the last time around. I would suggest that we have work to get to. We have more emerging and pressing issues that are coming to light now. My preference—I don't want to speak for my colleagues—is that we focus on the future and move forward with more pressing issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Madame.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

It's so important to avoid ignoring and abandoning the work done in the past. I'm new to this committee. If we can get a picture of the situation, something tangible…. In my opinion, this is done in every committee. I know that you, the analysts, are doing a wonderful job. We want to keep you busy this summer.

Mr. Chair, I think that we need a clear picture of the situation and of what has happened. We'll be looking to the future as of September.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

Go ahead, Ms. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will just add to the conversation that, as you've noted, we would not be inviting any more witnesses. The testimony is there. I think the analysts might not mind having a report to work on over the summer so that it could be presented to us in the fall. The length of time that it takes to review a report and adopt it I don't think would preclude our getting to other important business.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Ms. Jansen.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I think it's really disrespectful to Canadian taxpayers to spend all this time and money on a study and then not finalize it with a report. I think taxpayers would appreciate seeing an end result to the money that they've put into it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Well, I was hoping we could do it with unanimous consent, but we don't have unanimous consent. We can do it through a regular motion now or we can vote on it when get back in September and do it that way.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Chair, I move that we bring forward the work on the consul general's condominium, that testimony, with the intention of doing a report and presenting it to the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Ms. Jansen has a point. It's to get it started, to give directions to the analysts to start writing the report so that at least we can have it written over the summer.

Are we okay with that, colleagues?

We can go to a vote on it, Clerk.

We have a tie. I vote yes.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 5; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

I have another one, which is on the indigenous procurement. If you recall, or if you participated, we had many indigenous witnesses. Some elders and experts joined the meeting but were not able to participate. If you recall, we lost several because of Zoom issues, technical issues.

I'm hoping to get UC to re-establish that study so we can hear from the indigenous witnesses. We had someone from Yukon, I recall, and some were from, I think, McGill, or from Montreal.

For one of them, we tried three separate times to have him Zoom in, and three times we had technical issues, so I'm hoping we can have UC to re-establish those meetings, or that study, to continue that so we can hear from indigenous witnesses and experts who could not join because of our IT issues.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and congratulations on your election as chair.

As a new member to this committee, I'm not familiar with the proceedings before Parliament was prorogued. Were there a number of meetings set for this particular study?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

First of all, congratulations to you, but allow me to express my disappointment that you were not following OGGO religiously, as the public does.

There had been some meetings set aside, and then that time had to be extended a lot because of the continuing IT issues. We would set a meeting aside and people would join in, and then we could not get the interpretation because of IT issues.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Do we have an estimate on how many meetings we would like on this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I think it was three witnesses—so one or two.

We'd hear from the missing witnesses, and then you'd have time over the summer to review it. We're not saying to do it tomorrow or during the summer, but come September. It'll give you time over the summer to take a look at it, but it's to hear from those witnesses. We can commit to hearing from the ones we missed out on because of IT.

Go ahead, Ms. Sudds.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata, ON]

Again, I was not on this committee previously, but I do seem to recall there was an indigenous procurement report tabled in the House in December. Am I right in assuming that it stemmed from this committee?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It was not us.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It was a report regarding the House motion that was more around some fraud issues, but it wasn't from the study itself.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata, ON]

It appears to me, as I was just looking on the site, that there was a report tabled in December that came out of this committee.

I think the clerk is agreeing. I'm not crazy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

There was the following, which was that the committee report to the House its recommendation that companies that engaged in fraud be barred from accessing contracts, and that a response be provided. That was more regarding fraud and not from the extended report.

[Vince Gasparro, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

What was the report, more broadly? I apologize.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It was about indigenous procurement, largely around.... Some of it was on the fraud; some came out of the Dalian and Coradix issue; some was on companies that were purporting to be indigenous but were not; and some was on PSPC's inability to actually honour the commitment of delivering business to indigenous set-asides.

If we want, we can make it around hearing from those indigenous.... We'll extend it to hear from the indigenous witnesses who could not participate and go from there. I'm not looking to do anything immediately, but just to re-establish it for September.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata, ON]

Could I ask or suggest that perhaps the clerk could draft a briefing of what has been done to date and what's being asked to move forward, to build on, so that we can make an informed decision?