Evidence of meeting #55 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 contracts.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
I'm talking about ministers or ministers' staff. Did you have any conversation about this?
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
With no ministers or ministers' staff?
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Your wife was running the company, and I believe even your children were partners in it. Is that correct?
5:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Sir, you can realize that the women in 2007 have professional employment. My wife has a master's degree, sir.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Well, that's good. So you never had any ownership in Abotech? Is that what you're saying?
5:15 p.m.
As an Individual
No, sir, please don't put any words in my mouth. I said that when I became a public servant, sir, in 2003, for the Department of Public Works, at that moment, before becoming a public servant, the company was sold.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
5:15 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
I'd like to follow up where Mr. Roy was, in part, just before we leave this, and Mr. Sweet was there too, this whole business of the competitive process being rigged. And we're hearing just anecdotal evidence that this is going on elsewhere.
I guess I'll go to you, Mr. Marshall. How far are you able to go in satisfying us that we don't have a major system-wide problem of former staff people who are working for the government who ought not to be because they're going through this circumventing process?
5:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Public Works and Government Services Canada
Mr. Christopherson, when we became aware from Mr. Brazeau that other people are doing this as well, we asked KPMG to look at all contracts by all CAC staff over I think it was a three-year period. What they found was that there were examples of contracts being put in place for convenience, let's call it, in that sense, but not nearly to the same degree and not nearly as egregious as was being conducted by Mr. Brazeau. So we did take actions. We sanctioned staff, and so on.
But in terms of whether this is going on across the government, because departments do have delegated authority up to $2 million to do services contracts, is it going on in other departments? It would be very hard to detect, because the contracts are in the name of a company and you don't know necessarily who the individual is who is doing the work. So I guess it would simply be a case of getting the Treasury Board to reaffirm that this is not an acceptable practice.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Yes, and I'm not sure that “reaffirm” is going to be enough.
I think it's something, Chair, that we need to make note of, and at the very least we should be sending some correspondence. We're so busy in terms of our agenda for the next while, but we ought not leave this alone, because the rigging is one thing, and then, potentially, people who are excluded from contracts being given work through this roundabout way. If it's there, it needs to be stopped and we need to find out about it. So that's another area we need to go into.
Mr. McEvoy, you used the word “flawed”. I think this has been mentioned before. This is contract number 560-3107, and it's this business of Abotech, on a scoring, winning way above. Would you just break that down again? In your own words, what has happened here? Why do you say it was flawed in terms of the scoring for Abotech?
5:20 p.m.
Associate Partner, KPMG
When you look at the technical scoring that was awarded to the Abotech resource for their criteria that were issued in the RFP, he received scores that exceeded or were in the same range as the other proposed resources from other companies, and did not have nearly the experience of the other proposed resources from other companies.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Brazeau has said that he may not necessarily have been the one, even though his notes were on there. Aside from who the author of the notes was and why they're there.... You used the word “flawed”; it sounds to me as though “fraud” would be closer, to give somebody that many points. The one thing is a discretionary error; the other looks like a deliberate attempt to bump up their numbers so that they'd win the contract.
May 7th, 2007 / 5:20 p.m.
Associate Partner, KPMG
I can't speak to the person's intentions, Mr. Christopherson. I'm just speaking to what I saw.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Okay, and I don't want you to go there. I phrased it wrong; I apologize.
What was done in terms of bumping up those numbers? What I'm trying to achieve here is the severity of how wrong that is. For instance, they got 89 out of 90, and 109 out of 110 overall—that's almost perfect—and you're telling us that in many of those categories they should have got almost zero.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
So somebody is trying to corrupt the process of that file.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
It was rigged, to use the deputy minister's word, in favour of Abotech.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You don't have any knowledge as to why it was being done, based on your analysis; you just know that it was done. But you did find handwritten notes from Mr. Brazeau on the documents.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. Brazeau, do you recall this one? I know you don't have the document in front of you.
5:20 p.m.
As an Individual
No, I don't. I had the opportunity to see it once before and I gave the same answer that I gave to you. I'm not sure I was the one who scored it. You have to realize that I was managing over 1,000 contracts at that time.
