National Defence Committee on Nov. 30th, 2023

[Serge Tremblay]

When a member of the Canadian Armed Forces accepts one of our houses, what they have in mind is the smallest layout that will meet their needs at the time they take possession of the house.

Obviously, families evolve and grow. It's like the shoe example I gave. Eventually, size 10 doesn't fit anymore, and now you need size 12. What do we do then? We have options in the portfolio of units available to us, especially in Ottawa. The problem is that other people have needs too. It's hard to strike a balance when we're figuring out which units go to which people.

I'm well aware of the example you mentioned. I'll reiterate what I said about priority one compared to priority two. In this example, the unit in question is priority two, because the family does have a solution. It's not ideal for them, but some people have nothing and are looking for a house. We have to meet the needs of newly arriving people first, then we can find options for priority two people.

I should point out that occupants are also responsible for thinking about their future situation, because we can't do that for them. As their situation evolves, they have to consider the changes they need to make in their lives to adapt to their new reality.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Let's take that a little further and look at the example of the member who already has a child but wants to have more in the next two or three years. Can that member tell you they're going to need an additional room in two years and get a unit with an extra bedroom right away rather than moving later or ending up in a situation where their needs aren't met?

[Serge Tremblay]

At this point, I'd have to say no. I was just going to say that we have 11,600 units, but about 10,000 of them are occupied. As you can imagine, we're moving a lot of pieces around the board, and it's very hard to predict how the game will go. Also, just because people want a family doesn't mean they'll get one. It would be kind of unrealistic for us to try to manage a situation so far in the future, especially at this point, given the existing pressures and needs that are hard to meet.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have 30 seconds, but I'm sure you're happy to donate them to Ms. Mathyssen.

Thank you.

You have four minutes and 29 seconds.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'll take them.

I want to go back to the conversation we were having about BGRS. We've gone over the issues of the hack and what that breach caused for members.

It's my understanding that this was only the latest issue with that contract. In fact, the RCMP had been on contract with the same company for relocation services and had repeated issues with BGRS, and that led them to bring those relocation services back in-house.

Could you tell the committee what analysis was done on whether to end the contract? Why was it chosen after all of these issues and with all of that history from the RCMP as well? Why would DND then chose to retender and renegotiate that contract as opposed to doing what the RCMP did, which was to bring it in-house?

[BGen Virginia Tattersall]

Thank you very much for the question.

I'll simply say that we have outsourced this service since approximately 1998, which means that we have almost 23 years plus of a contracted service. That means that both the resources and the knowledge and the ability to bring that back in-house and deliver that support to members do not exist.

Furthermore, what I would indicate to you is that perhaps it's a bit of a myth to think that we could deliver the same scale of services that we currently receive from that company. I'll explain it this way. Currently, that company operates extended hours for us to cover off both coasts of Canada as well as the fact that we have members who need services OUTCAN. It offers an email response within a certain period of time. It will respond and process transactions over the weekend.

For our military members, while I realize we use the phrase that we are “24/7/365”, that does not translate—particularly given our current personnel shortages—to our being able to provide that same service wherein a member could expect that they could walk in at seven in the morning and see someone to ask their questions to, or whether they could send an email in the evening and expect within a period of time to get a reply or that they would have transactions processed over the weekend. That's simply not feasible.

We are retendering the contract with the understanding that there need to be improvements to it, but we're also looking internally at how we can better bridge the understanding of our members to the benefits and perhaps better enable them to be able to have that dialogue with the service provider about what their benefits are, and also, then, speaking specifically, can we leverage generative AI as a tool to be able to provide sort of benefits adviser to say to you, “Okay, here's what you should ask of BGRS specifically.” There's an aspect of this that also goes back onto the members to understand what are their benefits and what they are intending to do so that BGRS can provide them their correct service.

Thank you for the question.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

You're talking about AI providing services now that humans normally would. That's dangerous, I would suggest, and we've certainly seen that backfire at Veterans Affairs, but I digress.

I would also argue that those complaints have been happening for pretty much the entire time the contract has been in use. One would argue that if you're going to say that you've had this long-standing contract, you would also want to re-establish or relook at, or review, all of those complaints as well and take them into account.

I would also like to know if you could file with this committee what the cost of that contract was and what we're looking at paying into the future.

Thank you.

[BGen Virginia Tattersall]

Mr. Chair, for a couple of things, first and foremost, let me reassure you that what I was not proposing by my comment about generative AI was in any way or shape to say that now that member would actually talk to this and get services in terms of “here's your benefit and we'll pay you this amount”.

What I was referring to was that our policies are very detailed. They can be difficult to understand at times and, much like I use Google to get an answer to help me inform myself before I have a discussion, that was not what my proposal was. My apologies if I misled you.

With respect to the contract, I can certainly provide you the costs of the contract that we have currently. What I obviously cannot provide you is the cost of the contract that in fact we're still in the request for proposal phase for: We haven't actually settled on or selected who the next contractor will be. Unfortunately, I can't provide you specific costs for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

Because it's not well known that I'm a warm and generous chair and as Ms. Gallant was jumping up and down and wishing to ask a very short question, please go ahead, Ms. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

With respect to Brookfield, the hack was reported to me on October 5. The hack had been in progress. Nobody was able to reach Brookfield for two weeks before that. It was in the news around October 20. My question is, for military contractors, what is the required timeline within which a contractor is required to advise the military that they have been hacked?

[BGen Virginia Tattersall]

Mr. Chair, I can't specifically give you that time frame, but what I would like to reiterate for the members of the committee is the fact that this data breach was worldwide at Sirva, and has impacted them around the world in addition to specifically Sirva Canada and BGRS.

I cannot give you a time frame as to how much. Did they have 10 hours? Did they have 24 hours? I'm sorry. I'm not able to provide that response to you at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you to you all for staying with us.

Before I gavel this to an end, in my riding, there is a large college of 25,000 students. Of course, they have really difficult housing issues. They entered into a pretty innovative public-private partnership. I'm curious if there is any structural impediment to the military, or the military housing service, to entering into a significant public-private partnership to address this need, because, as I listen to the testimony, we'll just be back here next year and the year after that. Is that at all realistic?

[Rob Chambers]

Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.

It really does depend on the details. In our case, the minister is empowered, through the National Defence Act and the Federal Real Property and Federal Immovables Act, to hold real property for the purposes of the Defence mandate. There are constraints that pop up as a result of that on potential public-private partnerships, but even so, the details matter, so there are some flexibilities there.

We're focusing our energy on working with partners like Canada Lands Company and potentially with Public Services and Procurement Canada, which have commercial authorities that would allow them to more easily enter into those sorts of arrangements on our behalf. I would say there are possibilities. We are actively looking at them. I certainly hope we're not back here next year having the same conversation.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you for that.

Both the university and the college have entered into public-private partnerships, and it's alleviating a housing crisis, but it's by no means the end all.

On that note, thank you very much for your presence here and for your patience. We appreciate your contributions to this study.

The meeting is adjourned.