National Defence Committee on Feb. 28th, 2024

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

Also, you made reference to the ombudsman, earlier.

To follow up on that, the procurement ombudsman indicated that, during a procurement practice review of the Department of National Defence, there were 40 randomly chosen contracts from 2019 to 2022 to review. Alarmingly, of the 40, two of them were not able to have performance review analysis done on them because DND had lost the paperwork. Similarly, of the 36 files reviewed, DND was unable to provide individual evaluation forms in nine files. In six of the files, the consensus evaluation was missing.

Is it commonplace, in your experience, to have incomplete documentation on a quarter of the bids?

[June Winger]

It's a very unfortunate situation that we're in. The contract inspectors are the very members I represent and they routinely come to me and tell me that they are overworked and undermanned. It's impossible to keep up any of those inspections or the oversight they're required to do.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

On incomplete documentation, Ms. Carr, would you...?

[Jennifer Carr]

I can only go from my experience.

Some of that documentation is coming from the contractor. There's no one to enforce contractors bringing those documents forward. You know, how did they spend their money? That is part of the oversight we're missing. It's lack of transparency and oversight being done by contractors, who are basically in charge of every aspect of what they are doing.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Excellent.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Mr. Collins, you have six minutes.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to both the president and vice-president.

I worked for many years at the municipal level and would often meet with unions to talk about who owns the work, in terms of what their members' expectations were. We oftentimes had to go through a collective bargaining process, so it was important for me to understand the lines in the sand they had, in terms of who owns the work and where there was some discretion for the municipality to provide private or contracted services.

Can I ask both unions, respectively, where you draw the line in the sand, in terms of what work belongs to your members and where there's some discretion for the government to contract out? I would say that, in the municipal sector, if we're building a bridge.... We don't employ people who build bridges. We have engineers on staff, but they're not engineers who design bridges, so we would have to, by the nature of the work we're undertaking, contract almost all of that out, except for the project management component.

All of that being said, I'm wondering where your line in the sand is, in terms of providing the government some discretion to naturally contract some of the work out while respecting the rights you've enjoyed for decades with your respective unions.

[Jennifer Carr]

Thank you for the question.

I think the lines are very clear for me. We don't have experts who build planes. We don't have people who are designing military equipment. That is definitely something contracted out. However, once it hits our base and our formation, it is our job and responsibility to maintain that equipment so we can provide a strong, secure and engaged defence posturing.

I also need to clarify that short-term help in the Department of Defence is never short term. When I talk about the snake eating its tail and overreliance, it has to do with the fact that.... At what point do we have an analysis to say, “This is a long-term need and we should bring this expertise in-house, in order to fulfill that mandate and not be overreliant on contractors”?

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Before I go to President Winger, can I ask what “short term” is, in your mind?

[Jennifer Carr]

Again, short term would be two years.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

President Winger, I ask that same question.

[June Winger]

I have to say I'm in agreement with Jennifer.

I think there certainly is an opportunity for contractors to work at National Defence. We have some very short-term, specialized work that requires the expertise of a contractor.

In my job at National Defence in the counterterrorism centre, we worked with contractors all the time, but we still had our regular, ongoing staff. When it's predictable and when you can see that it's going to be ongoing work, why wouldn't you build that up inside the public service? It just makes good sense.

It's kind of hard to answer such a broad question when it's very situational.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

For sure.

When I started politics, it was in the mid 1990s, and it was in the midst of the “common sense revolution”, for those who lived in the province of Ontario. That language is back again, of course in a different form and at a different level of government. The mindset at the time, if you recall, was to privatize everything: “The private sector knows best”. Of course, that led to a great disruption in the workforce. There were all kinds of protests at Queen's Park at that time. It led to morale issues. That line of thought, in terms of public-private partnerships, was the be all and end all, and it went to other levels of government. The federal government adopted that at the time, as well as municipalities. It caused tremendous harm to morale, and it also hit us in terms of costs. I think you've alluded to some of those issues today.

I caught your note on the value-for-money audits that most would want to go through before deciding whether or not they were going to gravitate to the private sector. It's better to know that it's cheaper and that the work is going to be done in a way that conforms with all the policies you have as an organization.

Can you speak to some of the harms that occur when you don't perform value-for-money audits first, prior to contracting out, and some of the morale issues that your members face when those decisions are made without explanation?

[Jennifer Carr]

Let's talk about morale because you heard my numbers. You almost have a 60% contractor-run organization. We talk about Defence and its mandate, and it needs to be able to have operational readiness and to be prepared at any time. I'm going to use an example of medical services.

Our armed forces need to have access to medical care. However, that in itself has been contracted out long-term to Calian. Those services that our members are relying on are less transparent. They are paying market rates to the contractors, plus Calian, the overhead, which makes our employees feel less valued.

We talked about the pandemic. During the pandemic, our members received zero pandemic pay. Provinces and territories gave pandemic pay to frontline workers. However, Calian provided lots of bonuses to work for the Department of National Defence during the pandemic, and also bonuses for working over Christmas and other holidays. When you talk about morale, basically, the employer is saying “I value a contractor more than you as a public servant”, and that has detrimental affects. That is across the board in research, engineering and IT work. I give you Calian as the biggest example.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

I'd like to thank all of the witnesses for being here today. I'm very grateful to them.

Ms. Winger, I can't help but to seize the opportunity you've given us to talk about non-public funds workers. I'd like to hear what the other witnesses have to say on the matter.

At the military base in Saint-Jean, where I'm from, kinesiologists sometimes earn half the wages that they would earn in the public system, in Quebec for example. As a result, there is a staffing shortfall of 48% among kinesiologists, and they are the ones who train recruits.

It is the same at Canex stores. The wages there are really quite precarious. Moreover, full-time positions aren't available to avoid having to give benefits to the people who work there.

I'd like for you to comment on the fact that this actually creates internal labour shortages, as Ms. Carr mentioned, which can lead to the need, over the long term, to contract out.

Although subcontracting isn't the issue here, by not recognizing these employees as public servants, won't we end up in a situation where we need to contract out?

I'd appreciate it if you could both answer the question.

[Jennifer Carr]

Again, from that perspective, Defence team members are super proud of the work they do. They know their mission, and they know that a service member on the other side is counting on them.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'm sorry. Excuse me, Ms. Carr.

[Jennifer Carr]

I'm sorry. You have the bells sounding.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

When the bells start ringing, technically, I have to suspend the meeting unless I have unanimous consent not to.

[Jennifer Carr]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

It is 5:40.

Do you want 15 minutes? Is that fair? We'll suspend at 5:55.

Thank you. Please continue.

[Jennifer Carr]

I can continue, thank you.

I've lost my rhythm. At Defence we always have to pivot very quickly.

I think we can bring that morale back, but it has to take a serious look at the staffing practices. What is more important to the department? Is it to have staff who are stable and secure and who are valued for the work they do, or is it really about how easy it is to get somebody in, to have a buddy and offer that job to a buddy because we have a contract that we can instantly just hire them.

I think we need to have a serious look at the morale at Defence. We're basically being run by contractors, with 60% being contracted out.

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

Ms. Winger, do you have anything to add?