Evidence of meeting #34 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was contract.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Royal LePage
Yes, I will send them to the clerk, as per the chair's instructions.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
I have a second request. Could we please, through the committee, have a copy of the kit you have mentioned that is given to people who benefit from your services?
I'm very intrigued. I want to learn from your writers how you do it, because nobody else in the real estate business gets any business from these people who are moving around the country. I want to see how you can do it by writing a kit, by supplying a kit. I'm very anxious to see what this is all about. And I congratulate your company, because somebody did a fantastic job.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you, Mr. Proulx.
Mr. Christopherson, go ahead, please, very briefly.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Auditor General, you've made the statement that you still don't believe this is fair and equitable. Would you recommend or would it be your opinion that a re-tendering is the only way to redress that? Or are you satisfied that if we fix it moving forward here, that's sufficient, in terms of the public interest?
January 29th, 2007 / 5:50 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I maintain our conclusion that this was not a fair and equitable process, but as I said earlier, I think there are many factors that have to be considered when deciding whether to go for a new bid or not. Mr. Marshall indicated several of those. I think, honestly, it's up to the committee then, perhaps with more information, to make a recommendation.
NDP
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
That's not sufficient, I'm afraid, to help us. You understand this better than we do. You raised it with us. I find it difficult to have you say that it's not fair and equitable and then equivocate.
I realize the decision to recommend is ours, but at some point I'd like to hear what you think, whether or not the seriousness is such that we should. We've heard that, yes, mistakes were made--not that big. We're hearing the contrary.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Fundamentally, if you look at this abstraction of the current bidders and all the rest of it, I think in any bidding process potential suppliers have to be given accurate data. Do we know if there are potential suppliers who didn't even bid because of the incorrect data? That raises as much of a concern in my mind as the fact that maybe for one bidder the points would have changed if the evaluation had been done differently.
I guess at the end of the day, yes, there's a question of costs. And I would assume that Public Works probably has a good idea how much those costs are. But how do you ensure that a process is fair and equitable unless you go through a new process?
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Chair, at the end of my comments, because of one more.... We haven't gone into this yet, so I'd ask you to bear with me, but I am going to ask you to consider my request that we go in camera to hear what that dollar figure is. I can appreciate that at some point that's going to be a big influence, and we need to know what it is. I'd like to hear more than just a descriptor. I'll leave that with you and make the request at the end.
To the ministry and Treasury Board, paragraph 5.19 on page 7 of the Auditor General's original report says--and we got into this earlier with the weighting--that only 25% was on price proposal, 75% on technical merit.
Now, further, on page 23, paragraph 5.103, it says, and I'm quoting now: “Despite the focus on quality of life as the main reason for the program”--that being the integrated relocation program, the one we've been talking about--“we've found that neither Treasury Board Secretariat nor the departments have developed performance measures to demonstrate whether the program's objectives are being met.”
If this is 75% of the final mark, if you will, and quality of life is key to all of this, with the Auditor General saying you don't have a proper measurement, how can you conclude where to put merit points on the technical side when you don't seem to have a mechanism for establishing that?
Executive Director, Labour Relations and Compensation Operations, Treasury Board Secretariat
I think the question is probably for both Public Works and for TBS.
On the TBS side, we felt we did have a way to measure the performance of the IRP. One of the things we looked at, as I said before.... Because this is a national joint council policy, we worked with the national joint council with bargaining agents. We did meet. We did discuss this. We monitored the relocation-related grievances, which, as we've said, went down significantly with the inception of this program. So from that perspective, we did have that, and it was with the national joint council that we determined that the quality of service is going to be paramount to the success of that.
That was, I'm sure, an influence in the 75% and 25%.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Now, would the Auditor General have been apprised of that information?
Executive Director, Labour Relations and Compensation Operations, Treasury Board Secretariat
I would guess yes.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Well, we'll find out.
Madam Auditor General, did you know about that? Obviously, you still printed this.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Yes, but a decrease in grievances is not a sufficient performance measure for a program. We explain it much more, actually, within the fact that we would have expected more performance measures around the quality of the program than simply that.
Executive Director, Labour Relations and Compensation Operations, Treasury Board Secretariat
I think it's important for us to point out that we agreed fully with the Auditor General's recommendations that we put in place a more formal performance measurement program, including a survey that had been previously designed, and we hope to be able to launch that within the coming months.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'm going to come to my question, but you know, you really do reach the point where it's yes, it's just this one little one, and it wouldn't be anything and wouldn't change the outcome, and here's another little one, and another little one. We've got so many things here.
That's why, Chair, I'm now going to request that we go in camera to hear the dollar figure that staff are advising it would cost the government if we were to cancel this contract and re-tender.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Christopherson.
Mr. Marshall can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that when he was asked the question earlier by a previous member he indicated he was reluctant to give that, because he considered it confidential commercial information.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
I realize what you said, Mr. Christopherson.
I'd like to hear the views of the committee and perhaps let the committee decide whether or not we should go in camera to hear this. Perhaps I'm going to hear from Mr. Marshall first, though.
Do you have any thoughts, Mr. Marshall?