Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 12th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Williams, I can appreciate where you're coming from. I'm just shaking my head up here listening to this testimony.

This is a major dispute. We're talking millions and millions of dollars. He's answered the question as well as he could.

Do you have anything to add, Mr. Bélair?

[Raymond Bélair]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I think we're going to move on.

Colleagues, we're going to adjourn here in 15 minutes and go in camera. I'm going to come back to you, Mr. Williams.

I'm going to give everyone three minutes. Ms. Ratansi, Mr. Williams, Mr. Laforest, and Mr. Christopherson will all have three minutes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Goodfellow, do you have the request for proposals submitted by Royal LePage in your possession?

[Richard Goodfellow]

No, ma'am, I don't.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Could we have it made available to the committee, please? I want the documentation.

[Ellen Stensholt, Senior General Counsel, Legal Services, Public Works and Government Services Canada]

That depends. We would exclude from it commercially confidential information, such as bid unit prices. You're asking for their proposal. They would have put in individual unit prices. That is close to sacred information to a commercial entity. We can release the total bid price, but not the individual unit prices. We simply don't ever release that. It's an exemption from the Access to Information Act. It's exempt under the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act. That's just not produceable.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay.

The RFP asked for two things: the administration, and then there was a third-party component to it. I'm an auditor and an accountant by trade, so if I don't see these things and I'm hearing things—we've been sitting for two days of testimony and we're not getting any responses. I'd like to see what they did respond.

If there's a conflict between what Mr. Bélair understands the contract said—I looked at page 240 of the RFP. “Ceiling Rates for Third Party Services” clearly states that you have to quote the third-party services. If you claim that was not part of the RFP and there is a confusion, I want to know. And if he quoted zero, then we need to know why Royal LePage quoted zero.

[Ellen Stensholt]

Frankly, Mr. Bélair is in a better position to answer why he quoted and bid in a certain way. We simply accept the bid as it comes in.

With respect to the confidentiality, I want to add something. When our whole bidding process is reviewed, for example, at the Canadian International Trade Tribunal or before a court, the way this confidential information is handled is it's given only to the counsel for the complainant for the party, and they have to sign an undertaking that they won't give that information to anybody. The undertaking is backed up with penal consequence. It is truly a serious matter to commercial entities.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay. If it is a serious matter, could you please blank out whatever you have to blank out and provide it to us? At least we will know what we're looking at.

[Ellen Stensholt]

Of course.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Bélair, you have been responding to the questions, saying you were not bidding on property management, but it says clearly in the RFP—I am really concerned as to how you could bid on a contract and say this was not part of it. Why is the Government of Canada responsible for millions of dollars in charges?

[Raymond Bélair]

Property management fees are charged directly to transferees and reimbursed from their own personal dollars.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Sorry, that is the answer you've been giving, and I don't want that answer. The problem is that it says so in the contract.

I want to know, why did you quote zero? If you quoted zero, then you shouldn't have charged it. It is fraud. If you don't remember, it's on page 240 of the RFP.

Since my time is up, I can't ask anyone any questions, but I certainly don't want the answer that you've given in that book.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Do you have any brief comment, Mr. Bélair?

[Raymond Bélair]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Ratansi.

We go back to either Mr. Williams or the Conservative members for three minutes.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Bélair, I'm still back at this issue based on the RFP of 9,000 moves, because that's what it said. You said okay, we're prepared to provide that free of charge and it's not a problem?

[Raymond Bélair]

When we prepared the bid, we looked at the total cost to the Crown, and based on the RFP—based on the policies, based on the contract—we determined that property management did not cost the Crown anything.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Campbell, he says it's not going to cost the Crown anything, and you stated in whatever page it was that these services were bid zero. Mr. Bélair is stating that these property management fees are to be paid from the personalized envelope.

Now I want your absolute assurance that this is totally and completely unambiguous and clear in the contract that a figure was requested to provide these property management services, for which the government was going to pay. Therefore, for the employee, for the military personnel, if they decided to rent out their house, the government was going to pay the tab for the rental management, and the RFP required the bidders to put in a cost for that service. Am I correct?

[Ronnie Campbell]

There are two things, Mr. Chairman. Yes, the bidders were asked to bid a price for those services, even though those particular services were to be paid out of the personalized amount of the individuals. Our understanding was that this was a ceiling price, which would protect the individual members, in terms of the prices they would be charged.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I have some confusion in my mind. So the personnel were to pay something themselves?

[Ronnie Campbell]

There was a personalized amount for each individual, but in each of the cases there was a ceiling price bid. That was the limit the individual would be expected to pay.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

And the bid was zero?

[Ronnie Campbell]

That's right.