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.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
It is therefore common for retirees not to be allowed to contract directly with the federal government.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
But that is what you just said; you said that it was common practice.
As an Individual
No, what I said was that the retiree would incur a penalty on his pension.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
But when they are contracted by another firm, there is no penalty. It is a way out of paying the penalty.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Fine.
Mr. McEvoy, with regard to limited tendering, the report states that Nortec's name appears in 12 of the 15 bids you reviewed and that each time the company automatically declined the invitation to tender. This had the effect of reducing the number of bidders, potentially skewing the bid to favour a smaller number of companies. It meant that fewer companies were in the running to bid.
In your opinion, is this usually the way things happen? I imagine that you carry out other checks.
Associate Partner, KPMG
I think CAC had a bit of a unique situation, in that they used their skills registration system to do these limited tenders. You were able to search this system under key words and get a certain number of bidders to send the RFP to.
What we were trying to say with the Nortec situation was, why would you continue sending these tenders to a company that was not regularly bidding with regard to these contracts that were going out under the NCPC; would you not look for other potential bidders to send the RFP to? They were only sending them to three or four in each situation.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
It is a bit like a shelf company. When on 12 out of 12 occasions a company declines an invitation to tender—and I imagine that these are companies interested in winning contracts—one cannot help but think that it is a way of skewing the process in favour of other companies. That is the impression the report gives.
Associate Partner, KPMG
I can't speak to the logic as to why they put in a “no bidder” in each instance. There may have been a business reason at the time. But I'd ask why you would continue to send, with regard to this one client, requests to this company that continually provided no bid letters? Why not try to expand the group of those you were sending the RFPs to?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you, Mr. Laforest and Mr. McEvoy.
Mr. Poilievre, you have eight minutes.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Mr. McEvoy, I have here on page 35 of your audit an e-mail from Mr. Koziol, who is a project manager, to Mr. Brazeau, who was at Consulting and Audit Canada. It says: “Attached is an SOW”—is that a statement of work?—“for a senior procurement specialist. This is for a one-year period with a one-year option. The preferred organization is Abotech; the preferred contractor is Michael Onischuk.”
This e-mail was written on September 13, 2002. Had Abotech won the bid at this point?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Okay. Had Mr. Onischuk won any bids for a contract at that point?
Conservative
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
He had not. Okay.
If Mr. Koziol had already indicated that the preferred contractor was Michael Onischuk, why would he, on behalf of the RCMP, have to pay Consulting and Audit Canada 15% and then pay Mr. Smith's company an additional percentage in order to ultimately engage Mr. Onischuk, which was his original plan, according to this e-mail?
Associate Partner, KPMG
My understanding of the history was that there were contracts that were initially done through RCMP procurement. They were not happy with the process as it was flowing. As the supply arrangements ran out, they did some bridging contracts. Then they were no longer willing to provide these short-notice contracts to the NCPC, so I believe Mr. Crupi tried to find another avenue under which to get the suppliers on board.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
But is there any legitimate reason why, given that Mr. Onischuk was already more or less selected as the eventual winner of the contract to do the work involved, that we had to pay Mr. Brazeau's organization and Mr. Smith's company in order to get to Mr. Onischuk?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
That's the way it transpired.
Mr. Smith indicates that he was paid to find someone to do the work. But this e-mail indicates that person had already been found. Is that correct?
Conservative
Associate Partner, KPMG
In this process, Mr. Smith would have received an RFP from Consulting and Audit Canada. He would have proposed Mr. Onischuk, written a proposal, and then provided the administrative function of submitting invoices and paying Mr. Onischuk. So he allowed Mr. Onischuk to go under Abotech to circumvent the former public servant processes we spoke to earlier.