Government Operations Committee on Oct. 30th, 2025

[Francis Trudel]

What I would add is that there is a sequence in how the hiring process is done. Merit comes first, and when merit is established, we ensure that we have the representation on employment equity issues as well, as the legislation requires.

This is a good way to ensure that merit is never compromised for other criteria, but diversity and inclusion are obviously a very important component of the fabric that we want to create in the public service, but never at the expense of meritorious candidates.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Just as a follow-up, I know that a number of years ago there was a pilot project that had been instilled within various departments that proposed name-blind résumés.

Where is that project? Is that something that has become policy now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Answer very quickly, sir.

[Francis Trudel]

It hasn't become policy, but it has become good practice. We see this in multiple departments where deputy ministers are delegated further staffing. We see this as a good practice, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Ms. Khalid.

Thank you for joining us today. I promise we'll get you out on time, but before you go, I'm going to leave with a couple of things. We have about three minutes.

Minister Ali, when one of your predecessors, Scott Brison, was in this role, he committed to providing the PBO, this committee and publicly a breakdown of all saving reductions as well as effect on services.

Will you be able to do the same for us?

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton—Chinguacousy Park, ON]

I will provide you with the information as soon as possible...we have finalized that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Matthews and I chatted about this before. There was an issue brought forward and presented to your top executives in your department over a year and a half ago about federal money being used for infrastructure projects that are employing illegal labourers. It goes a bit to Ms. Reza's comment about the contractors not being aware of the subcontractors. This is an issue that the government is aware of and the contractors are aware of.

I wonder if you can get back to us in writing—and Mr. Matthews and I can certainly follow up—about what the government is going to do to stop this practice. It's had a year and half. The documents have been provided showing this problem.

What is the federal government going to do to ensure that taxpayers' money is not being used on federal projects that are employing illegal and trafficked labour?

You're welcome to get back to us because you only have about two minutes before Mr. Lightbound perhaps gets into an issue with his spouse.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton—Chinguacousy Park, ON]

Chair, if you would allow me, the secretary can—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Lightbound, if you have to leave because you have a flight to catch, please do so. Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Matthews. I'm not looking for an immediate decision, but it's just for how we can address this issue.

[Bill Matthews]

It's a really important issue that the chair has raised both here and off-line. There are a couple of things.

The projects the chair highlighted for TBS to look into were federally funded infrastructure projects being delivered by other levels of government. The agreements we have with provinces and municipalities always say that they must respect the law.

What I have done since this information was raised is I have raised it with my provincial counterparts to make sure they were aware of the issue. I have also raised it with the leadership of the infrastructure team federally, as well as with a few other departments.

Seeing the chair raise this again does make me realize that a number of those people have changed jobs since I raised it the first time. I will commit to coming back—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I appreciate that, Mr. Matthews. I'm sorry to cut you off.

I'm looking for what we can do as a federal government. We have processes that prohibit the federal government from contracting with companies that are using forced labour out of the Xinjiang province. We hold those companies accountable. We are aware from Ms. Reza about the issues with subcontractors.

I'm not looking for a policy answer right now, but perhaps in writing we can get what we can do or what will be done to ensure that our provincial and municipal partners are following ethical hiring and that taxpayer money is not being used to support human trafficking, cartels or illegal workers.

Thanks very much.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton—Chinguacousy Park, ON]

Thank you, Chair. This is really important.

We want to ensure that provinces or any departments follow the guidelines and rules that are in place. They should not be doing the wrong thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Minister, what I'm stating is that the rules that are in place, as you're stating, are not adequate. The government has known for over a year and half. What can we do to change this?

We have rules set up to ensure that the government is not buying from contractors who are subcontracting—it's two levels—for forced labour. What are we going to do to prevent this issue?

Again, we're not looking for an answer right now. Perhaps you can get back to the committee, because it's an important issue to prevent human trafficking.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton—Chinguacousy Park, ON]

No, this is great. This is unacceptable, so we'll come back with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I sincerely appreciate everyone's time today.

We'll actually still get you out on time, Minister Lightbound.

We'll suspend for about one minute so we can say goodbye to the ministers. Then we'll keep the officials around for another 40 minutes.

We are suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, everyone, for your patience. We are back in session.

We will now start with six-minute rounds.

We'll go over to you, Mrs. Block, for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to our departmental officials who are staying with us for another 40 minutes.

I would like to correct the record from my earlier questioning of Treasury Board. I will note that it was Natural Resources that spent $670,000 to KPMG for advice on consulting, but it was also the former president of the Treasury Board, Minister Anand, who issued new guidelines and announced plans to refocus government spending. That plan followed budget 2023's proposal to reduce consulting, professional services and travel spending. The government targeted a $500-million reduction in spending for 2023-24, with $350 million aimed at outsourcing and contractors. They had set a long-term goal of $15 billion in savings over five years. That was also announced.

I just wanted to get that on the record. Obviously, I was wrong about the $700,000 that was spent. It was not the Treasury Board.

I do have some questions for you, Ms. Reza.

It was mentioned when the ministers were here that the Auditor General released a report on CRA call centres and found that there were issues with how Shared Services Canada managed the contract.

I guess my question is for Shared Services Canada.

What were the processes used to verify the invoice amounts?

[Scott Jones, President, Shared Services Canada]

Thank you for the question and the opportunity to clarify the contract. There have been a lot of misunderstandings that have been perpetuated.

First of all, the contract that was established in 2013 had a total value of $190 million for a 10-year contract. That is maintained. It will be amended to extend the contract length to allow departments more time to migrate, often to maintain services for Canadians.

The invoices were verified prior to entry into service. We verified how it is measured. Every month that the invoices come in, Shared Services Canada goes through them.

My colleague, Scott Davis, our chief financial officer, can provide detailed statements of every line verification that goes through, month by month.

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

The Auditor General said that there was no policy documented or followed. How do you explain that? Is she telling the truth?

[Scott Jones]

I'm not exactly sure what part of the report you're referring to. I've read through it multiple times. What we had in place was a system of verifying, every month, every line-by-line billing, and we matched it up with the projected usage by the Canada Revenue Agency, Economic and Social Development Canada, ourselves and any of the other 13 call centres that are using it as of now.

What we need to demonstrate to the Auditor General is all of the documentation where this is done with rigour. That is something we've invited the Auditor General back in for, to be able to walk through that in detail. They said that they are going to come in and audit our verification processes, and we look forward to that.

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

We'll definitely look for the section in the report that she presented last week to confirm where that information is coming from.

Who signed off on the invoices? Who does that in your department? Shared Services is across almost all departments of the Government of Canada. Who signs off on these kinds of invoices?

[Scott Davis, Assistant Deputy Minister, Chief Financial Officer, Shared Services Canada]

Thank you for the question.

The invoices are signed off on the program side through the service delivery arm. It's done on a very transactional basis. In order to give the vendor a line of sight on what our planned growth within the contract is, each one of the departments that uses this capability gave us a forecast. We use that as a safeguard against when we receive the invoices.

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

Thank you.

The Auditor General's report also stated that Shared Services Canada never pursued service credits or contract penalties for a contract that ballooned to nearly four times its original value. Can you comment on that?

[Scott Jones]

Just to clarify, the contract did not balloon. The contract is actually at its originally established value in 2013, when it was originally approved by the minister and then went for the authorities to do this.

What the Auditor General was talking about in the report was that the contract had a minimum revenue guarantee for the vendor because of the government's significant requirements for infrastructure investments. This was a minimum revenue so that the vendor could recoup their investment in significant infrastructure. In this case, it was for multiple data centres, multiple dedicated infrastructures to the Government of Canada and all of the associated functionality that we needed, because this was not shared infrastructure. This was before the cloud was available. It was dedicated infrastructure that they had to build before the service was entered into.

The original contract value was $190 million, and that was the authority that was sought. The authorities given to us—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much. That's past your time.

Ms. Sudds, go ahead, please, for six minutes.