Public Accounts Committee on Sept. 28th, 2009

[Robert Fonberg]

Since I've been in this organization I've been struck that this is a complex business. We will never be perfect, but we will strive for perfection. Our intent is to obviously and very seriously get better on an ongoing basis.

We welcome the Auditor General's report. We certainly welcome the committee's interest. Although my colleagues may kill me--and they have the ability to do so--we'd be happy to come back here on a regular basis to explain what kind of progress we're actually making.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Fonberg. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you and the 90,000 men and women who work under you, both civilian and military, for the job they do for Canadians. You have a very difficult department. I listened to the testimony this afternoon, and I'm glad you're on that side of the table and I'm on this side of the table.

Again, I want to thank you very much and thank all the witnesses.

We'll suspend for a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I call the meeting back to order.

The final part of the meeting is to deal with two motions that Madam Faille has presented to the committee. She has given the proper notice. If she so wishes, we can deal with them this afternoon.

Is that your pleasure, Madam Faille?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I would like to thank the chair. Many of you know that I worked on the famous audio cassettes that we did not receive until recently. I am pleased to hear the Department of Public Works and Government Services admit that there were errors in the documents that were provided to you. So I hope that you enjoyed reading these recordings and that you were able to take advantage of the work done.

However, the two motions that I am tabling today seek to dig a little bit deeper into the research done on the changes being made currently to procurement in general. The response we received from the department is not dated. I don't know whether the clerk obtained the exact date of this document, but the one accompanying the audio cassettes implied that there were advantages in going forward with the new modus operandi of Public Works and Government Services Canada.

That piqued my curiosity so much that I consulted the draft contract on MERX to look at the call for tenders that they are referring to here. I have a number of concerns. For now, I would just ask that the department provide justifications. It also promised the committee that it would provide a business case, which we have not yet received. Can the chair request once again that this document be sent to us?

During my research and follow-up on other committee files, I remembered that I had collaborated on studies on large computer projects. The department promised to provide us with business cases on March 10, 2009. I am referring to a letter dated March 3. May of us were absent at that time. I'm sorry that Mr. Kramp is not here today, because he could confirm this request.

In this letter dated March 3, the department pledged to provide us with a business case on the Shared Services Initiative by March 2009. Given that this concerns the same thing, the notice of motion seeks simply to emphasize the importance of obtaining more information on this new approach. This concerns my first motion.

Do you want to deal with both motions, given that they are fairly similar?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Which is number one and which is number two? Can we give them an order here?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I did not submit them in order because they deal with two different things. The first motion calls on the department to justify the use of service procurement and the Government Enterprise Network Services (GENS). The other motion concerns the draft contract, that is the Request for Statement of Interest and Qualifications for this contract.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Let's start with the one dealing with the pros and cons of the initiative first.

I take it you're moving that motion. I will read it for the record.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I am tabling this motion, which is further to correspondence with Public Works and Government Services Canada and a commitment made by it. According to my discussions with the clerk, you asked all the departments referred to in the memo to provide you with business cases.

Can we repeat the request to Public Works and Government Services Canada to obtain this document, given that the department had promised to get it to us?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

The one motion we're going to deal with is the following:

That the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts call upon PWGSC to provide it with all departmental policies relating to service procurement and an analysis of the pros and cons of Government Enterprise Network Services (GENS).

It's now 5:12. I'll entertain seven or eight interventions. I'd like to keep them to a minute.

Mr. Shipley, I believe you have an intervention.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

On the first motion in which you request the departmental policies, is that related to your cost-benefit study? Is it the one that was agreed to that we don't have? I just want clarification. There are two separate motions, but you mentioned the cost-benefit analysis for March when you were talking about the first motion on all briefs and presentations.

I think I understand that the motion the chair has right now on departmental policies is the one on which you want to get further presentations to supply the cost-benefit studies. Is that correct?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Yes, that's right. The correspondence we received during the summer along with the CDs and the audio cassettes mentions the use of a new service procurement approach within Public Works and Government Services Canada. I would like to find out the pros and cons of this new approach.

I don't know whether it was during the summer, but probably not. The government published a Request for Statement of Interest on MERX for the GENS contract. This will be the first time this approach is used. Given what we heard on the audio cassettes, I would like to receive an analysis of the pros and cons of this procurement method.

How does it compare to the TBITS and other procurement methods?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

I want to ask two questions. First, how does this fit into the original Auditor General's study? I don't see the connection there. Second, I believe this is refers more to ongoing works, which should be in government operations and not in our committee.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I didn't understand all the questions.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

The first question is how this fits into the original Auditor General's study, because that's really what we're dealing with in public accounts.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

The committee's work sought to obtain the audio cassettes and find out whether the department had done all the cost-effectiveness analyses required by the Auditor General. Given that we are trying to determine whether the department did all the preliminary work and if it has honoured the commitments it made, we need to find out where it is at concerning the issue of contracts. This information would round out the information obtained during the summer, especially the testimony given by people from Treasury Board. We noted that these people had no idea how much money was saved thanks to these contracts.

As part of the studies we carried out, there was a follow-up concerning the Secure Channel file as well as other files. I referred earlier to other correspondence. There is a link with what will happen concerning the GENS contract, and I think that we need information or at least an analysis of the pros and cons relating to the use of this type of procurement method. This arises from the most recent study by the Auditor General on computer services.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Then wouldn't that be more an issue for the government operations committee?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Chair, would you allow me to speak? We are currently debating a question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Go ahead, Madam Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

In fact, given that we were the ones who went over the entire content of the audio cassettes and who experienced difficulty obtaining the information concerning the GENS contract and who also ensured that the matter was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, and also given what is occurring right now and the acceleration of the procedures seeking to establish this mechanism, I think that we must examine it and receive information on what is going on. I think that the committee decides on its own business. In any case, all this is linked to the recommendations made by the Auditor General over the past 15 years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Young.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I see the two motions as being very similar. They relate to the issue we discussed before. My concern is with any matters relating to agreements made in the civil service with private sector companies or individuals who are willing to share their knowledge, ideas, inventions, and methods with government in all the ministries. If we do anything in this committee or any other to undermine those relationships whereby Canadians generously share their knowledge and abilities with the federal government to help the government do better...they want the government to succeed, do better, and be better.

Let's say we make an agreement and say, “Please come in and tell us everything you know about this. We promise to keep it private; we won't give out your commercial secrets.” If this committee then does something to undermine those agreements and betrays a trust with those individuals, it could have huge ramifications for government in the big picture over the long period. And this is in every ministry. If Canadians--individuals and corporations--won't come in to share that knowledge and it's not available to us, that's a huge backward step.

So I share that concern with the committee. I'm on record as expressing this concern before. I want to go on the record as expressing it again today with regard to this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Weston.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think that in general, we tend to support a proposal that is very important for a colleague and that does not have too many adverse effects for the government or other committee members. However, I do not fully understand the relevance of these two motions. In addition, I would like to know whether we are able to cooperate with the other committee, that is, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. If it is true that these questions are more within the other committee's purview, I think that we should cooperate with it and stop debating these questions here.

Mr. Chair, if these issues do indeed raise legal problems, I think it would be better to ensure that we clearly understand them before going to a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Perhaps I can make a few comments, if I may. I thought of these two motions, and it has always been my position as chair that the job of this committee--and I've said this before--is to deal with the issues related to the expenditure of public funds. Relevancy always comes into issue in a lot of questions and a lot of motions. My position has generally been to allow members to pursue their own line of questioning and, if there's a doubt, to give the benefit of the doubt to the particular member.

On these two motions, or one of them at least....

The first reads:

That the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts call upon PWGSC to provide it with all departmental policies relating to service procurement and an analysis of the pros and cons of Government Enterprise Network Services (GENS).

It's my view as chair that I'll give the benefit of the doubt to Madam Faille, as it relates to chapter 3, “Contracting for Professional Services”.

The second one, Madam Faille, is:

That the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts ask PWGSC to provide it with all industry briefs and presentations regarding the Request for Statement of Interest and Qualifications EN869-09126/K posted in July 2009 concerning the Government Enterprise Network Services initiative.

That is only two months. I really think this goes beyond the relevancy of the chapter that we're doing. The public accounts committee generally follows the performance reports of the Auditor General. We're in no way precluded from embarking on our own studies and our own work; however, the problem in that regard is that we don't have an investigative staff and it works better when we follow the work of the Office of the Auditor General.

On the second issue, regarding the posting of a statement of interest and qualifications, I just don't think that's relevant, and I'm going to rule it out of order. You have a number of options available to you. You can put a question on the order paper. You can, which has been suggested, refer the matter to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. You could present a motion to this committee that we study the Government Enterprise Network Services, the GENS, and then we would maybe look at that issue if the committee, as a body, decided to study it. Of course, another option available to you is that you could write individually or ask the committee to write to the Auditor General asking that her office embark upon a study on the expenditure and management of the Government Enterprise Network Services initiative.

By and large, I just feel it's irrelevant. Unless I'm overruled by this committee, I'm prepared to rule the second motion out of order because it's beyond what we're dealing with in this committee.

Having said that, are there any other interventions on the first motion?