Evidence of meeting #12 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was procurement.
A video is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Absolutely.
What I'm concerned about is the notion of accountability.
There were a lot of failures. I'd like to know what measures were put in place further to the report of the Auditor General of Canada to ensure accountability.
It's important for all 41 million Canadians know what the agency will do with their money.
Liberal
Joël Lightbound Liberal Louis-Hébert, QC
I absolutely agree with you. That's fundamental. I'd be happy to come back to the committee to tell you more about it.
The agency is still in its infancy, and its CEO will be in place in mid-November.
When it comes to procurement, whether in defence or in other areas, it's essential to have a high degree of transparency.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.
Minister, I'm pleased to hear you'd be happy to come back. We have an opening on Tuesday. We'll schedule you in for two hours.
Mrs. Block, go ahead, please, for five minutes.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, Minister and departmental officials, for joining us yet again.
Minister, last year, the deputy minister confirmed that PSPC had identified “a number of instances of individual subcontractors fraudulently billing the Government of Canada”, and said the department is “seeking restitution to the Crown”.
Can you confirm whether PSPC is still pursuing restitution agreements with those suppliers?
Liberal
Joël Lightbound Liberal Louis-Hébert, QC
As far as I know, that's still ongoing. I'll let the deputy minister answer that.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes, at that time, we had to recover approximately $4.5 million. We've recovered $4.1 million of it. For the remainder, we are now in court actions to follow up.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
To confirm that I heard you correctly, you said you needed to recover $4.5 million and you've recovered $4.1 million.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
That's correct. The remaining $400,000 we are pursuing through court actions.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Thank you.
How many suppliers did that involve?
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
As you'll recall, this was about subcontractors, so there were a number of suppliers and departments. We discovered that with the new tools we had in terms of doing some data mining and looking at payments. We had also discovered there were approximately nine cases where this was identified. There were about three subcontractors who were overbilling across several contracts.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Can you provide that documentation to the committee?
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We certainly can. We have provided the list that was updated, but we can see what we can do to provide it to you. There is some updated information that is publicly available on our website in terms of our integrity work.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Can you confirm whether any of the suppliers involved in these fraudulent billing cases continue to hold active government contracts today?
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Catherine is the ADM responsible for oversight, so she'll have the up-to-date information.
Catherine Poulin Assistant Deputy Minister, Departmental Oversight Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I need to clarify one aspect before answering your question.
We need to remember that the fraudulent overbilling occurred by individual subcontractors. The security clearances of those individual subcontractors have been revoked, and they can no longer work on those contracts.
They were hired by multiple prime contractors. Those prime contractors were sometimes not aware of the overbilling, but they accepted to reimburse us, because it was their responsibility under their contract with us.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Am I to understand that these subcontractors could be subcontracted by suppliers that actually have security clearances, and there would be no way for PSPC to catch that?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Departmental Oversight Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I'm not sure if I understood your question correctly.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
My understanding is that those subcontractors who have been identified no longer have any capacity to work for the Government of Canada.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
More importantly, why does PSPC negotiate restitution with suppliers who have been found to have engaged in fraudulent billing instead of issuing direct demands for repayment or referring the cases for prosecution?
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We actually use all of those tools.
The key here is that suppliers were maybe unaware, and they were not involved in this overbilling. They had hired someone who was involved in overbilling. We have the capacity to identify what percentage of restitution is sought, but we do use the whole suite, depending on the various cases that are in front of us.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Given that the House of Commons directed the government to retrieve fraudulent sums related to ArriveCAN, what is the status regarding the collection of fraudulent funds from ArriveCAN?
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We're aware of the House motion. There are two elements to the House motion. One was to seek restitution or recovery of funds for some of the GC Strategies contracts in the last 10 years. The second piece was to pass a ban to render GC ineligible.
On the first element, that was based on the view of individual departments of whether they had received—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm sorry, but we are past our time. Maybe you can get back to the committee with a written response.
Mr. Watchorn, welcome to OGGO. Go ahead, please, for five minutes.
Liberal
Tim Watchorn Liberal Les Pays-d'en-Haut, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank my colleague from Nipissing—Timiskaming, who is giving me the opportunity to sit on this committee for the first time.
Mr. Chair, I also have the great pleasure and honour of sitting on the Standing Committee on National Defence. I'd therefore like to focus on defence-related issues.
My question is for all the witnesses.
In the work of the Standing Committee on National Defence, a large majority of witnesses spoke positively about the Defence Investment Agency. They said that it would make it possible to get all the equipment our soldiers need on time and on budget. So that's a good step forward.
As you know, defence spending has become an increasingly important priority for our government. It said it wanted to spend a lot more on defence.
I'd like to know how we're going to ensure that defence funding is spent here in Canada and not abroad.
I'll let the witnesses who wish to answer my question answer.