Government Operations Committee on Oct. 21st, 2025

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll go to Mr. Gill and then back to Miss Sudds.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

With respect to the policies and procedures, are the rules clear enough for the folks who are doing the work, or are they buried in legal jargon and open to interpretation?

[Alexander Jeglic]

That's a fair question.

I would say that, even though we did assess that the contractual terms did exist, the way that they were portrayed in the contractual documents made for a bit of a difficult interpretation. Some of the terms existed in solicitation, so they had to be ported into the contract, and they wouldn't be as transparent as one would hope. As a result, I think I can answer your question by saying that it does put a high level of onus on the individual who's managing or administering the contract to be able to discern what all of the rights and obligations are that flow from the contract.

I will take one opportunity in liberality here to say that we saw in our annual report that the number one issue from government purchasers was a lack of training. That was their number one concern. When you extrapolate your question knowing that that's a concern, absolutely. Did the term exist to give them certain rights to enforce under the contract? Yes. Would the average employee who was managing that project know that? Perhaps not. The question is, why not?

The fact that number one is training tells me that there is an importance in understanding the rules but also, again, the complexity of the rules. Were the rules written in plain language, so that at first blush you would understand what they meant, or would they require legal interpretation? If legal interpretation is needed, then it's too complex, because you cannot write in a method that requires a legal background to understand a clause within a contract that should be available to all Canadians to bid on.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

Are they getting the training necessary to understand these contracts in plain language? How is that training going so far?

[Alexander Jeglic]

I certainly can't answer in terms of whether they are receiving the requisite training. I can say that the response provided to us would indicate that they are not. I will also say that our office takes training incredibly seriously. We offer departments the opportunity both to have departmental meetings to help demystify our mandate, but also to have us walk through what we do in these types of reviews, what we’re looking for, the importance of our recommendations, and that top 10 list, to make sure they're not making the mistakes that are often identified to our office.

If they're not aware of these issues, then obviously they're not looking for them, and I think the beauty in our work is that we're bringing forward many of the issues that are common. If it becomes common and you understand how you're to approach the issue and what outcomes look like that are successful, then all of a sudden your job becomes easier.

To answer your question, I can't speak on whether they're getting the training, but from what we're hearing, it appears that the answer would be no.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

That's sad to hear.

The other question I have is this: Is there a hotline or reporting system for staff in the various procurement fields that you cover or review, to enable them to blow the whistle on something that doesn't smell right. If so, does anyone actually listen?

[Alexander Jeglic]

Depending on the nature of the concern that's being highlighted, there are a number of resources that exist for whistle-blowers, but if someone is identifying something of a procurement nature, then absolutely, our office is not a bad entry point to that preliminary conversation.

If it turns out to be something of an illegal nature, then obviously we would forward that concern to the RCMP. As soon as it becomes procurement-related, I would suggest we're absolutely open and available, and we have an intake team that answers phone calls promptly, within 24 hours.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

Over the past few years, how often have people come to you with those concerns? Have you seen an uptick, the same number or none at all?

[Alexander Jeglic]

I just want to perhaps nuance the question where you mentioned whistle-blowing purposes. When I highlighted in my opening remarks that we received 670 cases, some of those cases could include elements of identification of potential wrongdoing, and I would say that is a significant uptick.

When I began in 2018-19, we were at approximately 330 or 350 cases. Now we're at 670, so that's a pretty significant volume increase, and across all of our mandate areas we're seeing an increased need for our services. That's a good thing. More people know our office exists. We have 33 employees, but I would suggest most of the federal procurement landscape now knows we exist. When I started, I don't think that was true.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

How often or how—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That's our time, I'm afraid.

Ms. Sudds, please go ahead.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, again, for being here with us. A few questions are coming to mind at this point. One was building on the discussion about OSIC, or the Office of Supplier Integrity and Compliance. It's my understanding that it has a role as a compliance specialist, so with that in mind, what is the authority it has versus yours to take action against suppliers that could be of concern?

[Alexander Jeglic]

I don't want to speak to its mandate, but what I can do is centralize our role in terms of supplier activities. In terms of supplier activities, our role is relatively limited. Where we have contact with suppliers is if a supplier comes to us to lodge a complaint about a singular contract that has been issued. All of a sudden, we have a direct, formal interaction with that supplier, and it is providing information about what it believes was not done appropriately by the government department.

Our other context is in procurement practice reviews such as this, where we're reviewing the practices of the departments, not the practices of the individual suppliers. That's what makes bait and switch a little unique in the sense that it's actually a practice of the supplier that starts the issue, so it's the actions of that supplier that would cause the inappropriate replacement of that resource.

What we also looked at in this review was whether there were available mechanisms for the departments to mitigate this risk. What we found was that, yes, there were. Through the contractual provisions I finished touching on in my previous answer, we did find there were provisions, albeit embedded sometimes within the solicitation that was carried forward into the contract, to give the governmental resources some of the tools to identify the problems. We don't then look into the specific activities of the suppliers in these procurement practice reviews.

If you wanted a better understanding of the mandate of the other office, I think you'd be better placed to ask them, because I don't want to mis-characterize what their responsibilities are.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata, ON]

Yes, that's totally fair. It's good to try to get my head around the difference too, so I appreciate that.

Going back, there were the five fundamental challenges that you shared through this work, and you also acknowledged that PSPC has implemented the vendor performance management aspect, which started with contracts it is administering while also doing the work concurrently to develop the strategy of how that can be rolled out to other departments.

Can you share your thoughts about that initial effort and the impact this can have or the direction of the strategy to roll this out to others?

[Alexander Jeglic]

Absolutely. The moment in time at which I answer this question is really important. The moment in time now is one of optimism in the sense that progress has been made. The pilot project is real. It's been stood up and there are implementation measures to take it to that next step.

Currently, it's still not...in terms of having impact. The total scores that are being allocated to suppliers are not having impacts on subsequent processes. When it's fully stood up and active, then it will have that positive impact of truly having both an incentive and a disincentive for good and poor performance respectively.

I will say that our office has been closely tracking this because we're anticipating being the dispute resolution body associated with the vendor performance being put forward by the department. That being said, that's still a pilot within a singular department. If you sit outside the department and you're procuring for Parks, as an example, using your own authorities, you wouldn't be able to leverage the benefits that VPM has within PSPC. I understand, obviously, that you have to start somewhere, and PSPC is probably the best department to start with.

The reason I started in the cheeky way of saying that it's a moment in time is that we've been tracking this issue for seven years. It will be so disappointing to me if, upon the completion of my mandate, we haven't gotten to a government-wide vendor performance management framework. I refuse to take my foot off the pedal in calling for this, because we're still at that pilot stage.

While I am optimistic and we're making positive strides, it's appeared in mandate letters before, and that accountability sometimes has gone missing. The reason I talk about it as much as I do is to bring that accountability forward.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata, ON]

Amazing. I appreciate the importance, and I'm certainly glad to see that the work is under way now.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

Ms. Gaudreau.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's really relevant that you're here today, Mr. Jeglic.

We don't want what happened to reoccur.

I was elected as a member of Parliament and came to the House in 2019, and this started in 2020. Since we are among friends, I can name them all: ArriveCAN, McKinsey & Company and GCStrategies.

As a result of these incidents, when I go back home, my somewhat disillusioned constituents tell me that some people look for loopholes and always manage to find them. That makes me angry. I am ashamed, I am embarrassed, but what I am hearing today reassures me.

You've been the procurement ombud for seven years, and you've been looking for a bigger budget for four years. I'm correcting the information given earlier.

During election campaigns, people often say that whatever happens, nothing changes. I'm sick of hearing that, and that's why I carry on and why I ran for a third term. At the same time, I would really like to see a glimmer of hope.

I don't know what happened prior to 2019, but I believe there are potential changes in sight. At least, I hope so, because I see that people on the ground have lost trust.

No doubt there will be other scandals. I wonder if we have enough rules to follow right now to avoid another scandal. I'm talking about now, before the reform and the defence investment agency are put in place.

Do we have what it takes?

[Alexander Jeglic]

The people you're referring to are right. Every year, they see the same things happening. We're not talking about just one year. It's been the same for 10 years, or even 20 years.

Personally, I'm an optimist. That's why we prepared training on the foundational changes required. It creates optimism.

I think this is an important time. If we don't change course to make the necessary changes, in five or 10 years things will be just the same.

I really believe there is an opportunity right now to make changes that will have a positive impact on the process, not just in defence but in other mandates as well. That's why I'm optimistic. I know that some people want to fix things. That said, we also need the political will to put these changes forward and ensure that the adjustments are actually made.

Change is needed. As I showed in my report, transparency is in order. Depending on whether the changes lead to negative or positive outcomes, we will have to recalibrate. It's not always going to be positive. There will be negative outcomes. It's inevitable. We have to know how to adjust and bring something positive.

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

Thank you, Mr. Jeglic. By the way, your French is excellent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

We go to a very short round with Mr. Patzer.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Thank you.

I want to finish up on my last round that I have with you, because I was getting to the point around whether there are loopholes, per se. You finished by saying it's not just that there's one contractor who's doing it; there are multiple who are doing it, which is the point I'm getting at. They know they can do it, and they know they can get away with it. Even if it's not to the point of overt fraud, they obviously know they can do it and get away with it. Recommendation two here seems like a good starting point to try to, hopefully, end this practice, but what recourse is there to recoup costs? What is being done to penalize these people to make sure they don't do it again?

[Alexander Jeglic]

Again, I just want to make clear that, once the change was made—the policy decision by the department to update the MLUAs to reflect that we're no longer evaluating the individual resource—the risk of this occurring, moving forward, has changed. Therefore, they've effectively eliminated the risk moving forward.

In the universe before that change was made, this was a risk. This is now the second report our office has written that's highlighted that this is happening with a high level of frequency, that the 41% you rightly point to has a consequence, whether it be in terms of the integrity of the procurement process or the financial repercussions to the Government of Canada in paying more for a resource that doesn't have the attributes they're paying for.

In terms of what recourse is available, if the finding is negative and there are implications, there have been instances in which suppliers have been banned from participating in federal procurement and legal proceedings initiated to try to recapture some of those funds. Again, I'm not best positioned to tell you the status of those processes, but I can certainly say that those have been reported publicly, so I think you should be able to get answers to those questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks very much, as always. You've shown once again why we consider you such a great friend of OGGO and the purchasing department.

Do you mind if I just ask you a couple of quick questions to follow up?

You spoke about a need for more resources. Are you able or willing to share how much more you require? You don't need to do it now, but perhaps in writing.

[Alexander Jeglic]

Sure. I could absolutely put that in writing, and I would appreciate that opportunity.