Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 6th, 2017

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

You still have a minute.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Great.

Let's move to on another one: how about you, Deputy Commissioner?

[D/Commr Gilles Michaud]

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, this exercise has been very informative for us as to what Canadians expect of us in terms of being accountable and transparent on what we do with the money invested in these specific projects. Hence, this approach for us, when you ask what type of shift this will provoke in us, is to take this and apply it across all the federal policing programs.

So it's not just limited to this but is also about learning from this experience and applying it across the board.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Very good. Thank you.

How much time do I have left?

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

You have 30 seconds.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Do you know what? I think Mr. Brown will go on longer than 30 seconds, so I'll give him a little time to marinate his thinking and come back to it in my next round.

Thank you all very much.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Ms. Shanahan, you have seven minutes.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses who are here with us today. I'll tell you that the thing that struck me, when I was going through the material, was that this was quite a daunting initiative. I'm wondering in how many other areas of government you would have such a wide sweep of an initiative, where you're trying to change something fundamental, horizontally, across such a number of organizations.

So I get it. It's not easy to do. Everyone is in their silos, and then you have to come horizontally. That costing has to be solved. I don't know who can speak to me about that, but I'd like to hear a little bit more about that.

I am also concerned about performance indicators. Perhaps I can do so by talking about a specific example and directing my question to the Canada Border Services Agency on the single window initiative. My riding is Châteauguay—Lacolle, and Lacolle is a pretty big border crossing; I'm just saying. I deal with a lot of vegetable exporters. If those trucks are sitting at the border, that lettuce is rotting, and that's not good for business.

I would like to hear more about your consultation process, because we did deal with some problems in the last year. We got some movement, but I think it will help with constructing performance indicators if that consultation process is improved.

Mr. Bolduc.

[Martin Bolduc, Vice-President, Programs Branch, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you for the question.

In fact, yes, Lacolle is a fairly significant, large border crossing. In terms of our strategy to onboard more traders, in fact we meet with our border consultative committee twice a year, usually in the spring and the fall. At our last meeting, we engaged in asking them to provide us with their best advice on how we can make this appealing. With the single window, we sort of approached it like the movie Field of Dreams: build it and they will come.

Well, it doesn't work that way. We thought we had something very beneficial for traders, but again, if we were not able to present the incentive and the benefit for them, that led to us getting minimal membership. That discussion led to a lot of interest on the part of traders. At the end of the day, what will give the trading community the ability to do it will be to send us electronically all their documents and permits and certificates that they need and to give the CBSA the ability to connect with the departments that are responsible for those goods and be able to confirm and facilitate and expedite the movement of those shipments at the border.

You're right, if you have perishable goods, having them at the border for a few hours delays the time when they get to the main warehouse from where they're distributed to our grocery stores. We are mindful of that and the need to change the approach. Usually in government we have a habit of telling industry, “This is what you need”. Well, we're changing that and in fact leveraging industry to tell us what they need.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

If I may, I think that's the key. There needs to be more of a consultation. If you can build on that, maybe in the action plan going forward, I think that will be very helpful to us. I did want to ask you about the estimated total costs of the IT investments as well that the traders have to make, that the companies themselves have to make. Have you costed that out?

[Martin Bolduc]

It varies from company to company. It depends on the IT modifications they need to make. I'd say most of the larger importers have a way to communicate with us. But again, when we last met with the membership, they told us that accounting for the IT investment at the end of the day, they would be able to make savings, but it would mean fewer human resources...managing permits and certificates, paper copies, and also expediting the movement of those shipments at the border.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

So there is some kind of a cost-benefit analysis being done, then.

[Martin Bolduc]

When you're dealing with businesses, if they don't get a return on the investment, usually they won't go for it.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

That's right: you won't get the uptake. Who can address the question of the costing?

Mr. Brown.

[Malcolm Brown]

I can helpfully point you in the direction of the Treasury Board Secretariat, which I think is coming on Tuesday.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

It's Wednesday.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Malcolm Brown]

Yes, kerplunk.

Seriously, this is one of the challenges in managing these kinds of approaches. You asked if there were any other examples, but we can't actually think of one that's as big as this. This really was the first time trying to do something that crossed so many departments; and to be frank, some of us were involved in it and it took a lot of time just talking to people—a single window initiative, for example. It was extraordinary how many different players were involved. The role of the Treasury Board Secretariat in establishing these kinds of standards or guidelines for us is essential. They are involved in our deliberations about thinking through how we would frankly report both horizontally and vertically. It's not straightforward, so it's going to be a challenge, and I don't think we will get it right. It will be better, but I'm not sure it's going to be perfect the first time we take a stab at it.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Thank you very much.

Allow me to suspend for two minutes for some technical issues. We'll be right back.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I apologize.

We will go back to the five-minute round.

Mr. Jeneroux, you have the floor.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of you for being here today.

We know that we've been able to place RCMP officers on coast guard vessels, we have new screening devices at airports, and we have extensive information-sharing programs, but based on what the Auditor General has said we have zero idea if any of this is working. I want to take the approach from our ever-changing relationship with our U.S. counterparts. I'll open this up to everybody.

Do we have any knowledge if the U.S. has set performance indicators and if they are meeting those? Where they've done the work, do we have the opportunity to benefit from it?

Just before I open it up I'll draw your attention to back when this was started. In 2011 there was an article in the National Post that indicated, from the reference of one senior official, that “Canadian officials said they were reassured that implementation of the action plan will be run from the White House.” Is that an indication that we have the expectation that they would set the bar for a lot of these and that we would then react to it? Do you have any more insight on possibly why that was said?

[Malcolm Brown]

I'll start on the general response.

I believe, and I just confirmed this with Jill, that the U.S. doesn't have a similar horizontal reporting tool or device. You'd have to evaluate it silo by silo, and I don't think anyone has, at least that I'm aware of, but I'll let my colleagues drill it down.

[John Ossowski]

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of anything on the customs or border protection side that's equivalent to this.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Drilling down a bit more, if we set these performance indicators as the Auditor General has suggested, is there any impact on our U.S. counterparts that we should be aware of?

Again, I'm opening it up to everybody. Has this occurred to anybody?