Public Accounts Committee on May 13th, 2008

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Look, we are trying to identify the company's activities, Mr. Chairman.

[Hugh MacPhie]

I would say this. In general terms, over any given year, our billings from the federal government would be in the order of magnitude of roughly a third. Again, I apologize I don't have a more precise answer to your question, sir, because I am speculating somewhat on that.

Perhaps the simple answer to your question is that 90% of MacPhie & Company's business is not related to the federal government. We serve firms in telecommunications, in engineering, in all kinds of different areas. So it's not just--

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I'd like to defer now to Mr. Lussier, thank you.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You have three and a half minutes, Mr. Lussier.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I really like figures. I see in the Globe and Mail that the contract you signed on March 2, 2007 was of a value of $98,580. A few minutes ago the Treasury Board Secretariat told us that there was a threshold limit, the $25,000 limit, but a second limit was also mentioned.

Mr. Chairman, for the record, he mentioned another limit of $100,000. I would have liked to have asked the following question. Why is there another limit, set at $100,000? Your contract was worth $98,580, so slightly under the $100,000 limit and your final bill was $122,000. How much of a surcharge would be authorized by the government? Ten per cent, 20% or 50%?

[Hugh MacPhie]

With the greatest--

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Point of order, Mr. Williams.

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

You can't expect an individual in the private sector to tell us what the government policy is. That question should have been addressed to Mr. Wouters or to Mr. Wright. But it's certainly not a question to ask a private individual.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I'll let the witness answer if he knows. If he doesn't, it's quite understandable that he doesn't know the government contracting procedures, because they are very complicated. If he has any knowledge, he can answer it, and then we'll move on.

[Hugh MacPhie]

I will admit that in areas of communications, we're very competent. In areas of writing speeches, we do quite well. In areas of strategic planning, I am very comfortable that should people from Quebec engage us, I'd be delighted. When it comes to knowledge of the guidelines of Treasury Board and of the government, I can't profess to that being the expertise of my business.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

You have no idea how much of a surcharge would be authorized for government contracts?

[Hugh MacPhie]

With all due respect, this is not.... I would be hazarding a guess, and I don't believe it would be appropriate for me to hazard a guess before this committee today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Don't be guessing.

It's really not within his domain, Mr. Lussier.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I was a private sector engineer and signed contracts with the federal government in the past. In every government contract there is a clause stating that a 10% surcharge will not be approved.

Ms. Mintz, have you ever seen the 10% clause with respect to contract surcharges?

[Sara Beth Mintz]

I recall at the time, being a lawyer, that I read the documentation before executing the contract, as I do with any piece of paper I sign, but at this point I do not recall seeing that in there. It may be there, but I can't recall.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Earlier on, Mr. Poilievre calculated that you provided over 800 hours of work to draft the government document. How many hours did you work in total?

[Hugh MacPhie]

I will answer that for the honourable member, if you give me a moment.

With respect specifically to Budget 2007, I personally worked roughly 390 hours. My colleague Mr. Tambeau worked roughly 420 hours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci, Monsieur Lussier.

Thank you, Mr. MacPhie.

Before we go to Mr. Sweet, I want to point out to the members that there are sandwiches at the back of the room; please avail yourselves if you so wish.

Mr. Sweet, you have seven minutes.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MacPhie just confirmed—and for their benefit, because they weren't in the room before with the two deputy ministers—the figure that was public.

What actually disturbs me here, Mr. Chairman, is that when the requests that the Liberal Party asked for were ATIPed, they actually knew this number, and it was not even part of their line of questioning. That's a real concern for me today, because there seems to be a notion that if somebody has been politically active, then even though their credentials are substantial, they can't be involved in public service.

I would like to ask Sara.... Maybe before that I need to also disclose that, as you heard Sara say in one of her comments, she returned to Dundas. She is a friend and has been a constituent of mine.

Sara, you had alluded to your credentials and everything at the beginning. You roughly spent about 400 hours in your work, calculating what you said for the two months, in your budget development. You're a lawyer, and that works out to me to be less than maybe $100 per hour. I would think you probably took a substantial hit, wanting to serve the Canadian government on this. Is that correct?

[Sara Beth Mintz]

Thank you for the question.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, I did accept this at great sacrifice professionally. There were offers in lucrative private practice that I could have accepted at that time, and I was in the development of talks with them when the call came in.

I trust that you are aware that I have three degrees. I have a political degree, a business degree, and a law degree. That allows me to have a unique set of skills, which I feel I brought to the table. Along with that I did have two and a half years of serving the public in government over a seven-year period prior to this work on the budget.

I was very honoured to be asked, and I was aware that I would be doing this at a lower rate than I could expect in the fair-market value of my work in the legal profession or in any other tasks that I was going to be doing.

What I'd like to point out, since you raised the issue of my taking a financial hit to do this job, is that the $24,900 awarded under the contract did not take into account the various expenses that I had to incur to come to Ottawa and do this work.

I had to find furnished accommodations in Ottawa for the two months, at about $5,500. I had to travel back and forth for various meetings, all at my own personal expense, for another approximately $900. I had to keep my apartment in Toronto, which was $1,800. I had a 416 cell phone, and there were many other various little expenses.

When you add this all up, the net result of my work was approximately $16,000 over that course. I was proud to do it because I was excited to have this opportunity to use all of my skills to serve this public, to serve the Canadian people.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

In fact the hit was a lot greater than what I estimated on my paper, because generally speaking, a lawyer not only bills an hourly fee, but they also bill expenses over and above that. All of that was included, and you had to pay for every one of your own expenses, as you mentioned.

[Sara Beth Mintz]

Yes.

At present I practice at a downtown Toronto law firm. My hourly rate is $275 plus GST and disbursements. Those disbursements would include any expenses in relation to the work performed for the client. For instance, if there were an examination for discovery in Winnipeg and I had to fly to Winnipeg and stay at a hotel or accommodations in Winnipeg, then all of that would be billed back to the client.

In this case I was happy to do it at personal expense with that knowledge, because it was such a wonderful and unique opportunity and I was proud to serve the Canadian people.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Deputy Minister Rob Wright said—in speaking of both Mr. MacPhie and you—that you delivered good-quality work, that your contract was extraordinarily modest, and that the entire team worked very hard. He in fact named you specifically.

Did you work side by side with Mr. MacPhie on every process? I'm asking that for a reason.

We went through the amount of work that was done--over 400 pages of documentation that had to be developed, all aspects of the budget communication, to make sure the 30 million people in Canada understood what was happening. And the budget was over $200 billion.

Did you work right beside Mr. MacPhie?

[Sara Beth Mintz]

In the course of my work I had many interactions with Mr. MacPhie. I think we all, as a team, worked incredibly hard. There were often 16-hour days. We worked six or seven days a week. In my opinion, the work Mr. MacPhie did was extraordinary.