Evidence of meeting #41 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.
Director General, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Public Works and Government Services
In terms of the value of the subcontracting, we are not putting a hard limit on that. That's determined based more on the evaluation. The more Canadian content you have, the higher points you will get.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
If I could add—
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I have another question. I'm sorry.
Has PSPC defined the threshold in writing for what we were just talking about?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
You could be disqualified as a Canadian supplier if, for most of your activities, it was realized that you were subcontracting, so you're no longer driving those Canadian activities. For example, the supplier is outsourcing 75%—
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It's part of the policy, and it's going to define—
Conservative
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes, you could find that as part—
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
If you can hand that in, that would be great. That would be wonderful.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
There's no specific threshold, though.
Conservative
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
In terms of the subcontractor compliance, it's going to be on the supply chain. It's going to be incumbent on the main contractor to ensure that subcontractors are keeping all the evidence required for the self-attestation.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
How many resources will it take to properly monitor compliance?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We are launching the policy. There's a group.... Primarily, we're going to be relying on self-attestation.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Okay.
In any procurement so far, has the government paid more in order to meet buy Canadian requirements?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I'm not able to comment on that. We have limited numbers of procurements so far.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Has PSPC calculated the average cost premium associated with applying this policy?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Nine contracts have been awarded, so we don't have a large sample that will allow us to calculate that at this time.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Do you have a formal audit framework for buy Canadian compliance?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We do have a compliance framework that has been developed. We involved our audit group as part of that, and yes, it's a very comprehensive, detailed audit.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
However, a lot of it is self-attestation. That's what I understood from your answers.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
No, there's much more. It starts with a self-attestation, but at any time we can request information to—
Conservative
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
They're going to be risk-based.