Evidence of meeting #76 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fraud.
A video is available from Parliament.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Do you think Canada's provinces should have associations like those?
You just made an important point.
Considering what happened in Quebec, we might do well to have a professional association.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Please be very quick. We're a minute over the time already. It's easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
Go ahead, Ms. Nycholat.
10:35 a.m.
Vice-President, Procurement, Defence Construction Canada
Do I feel that it would be a good idea for the procurement community to have a certification or licensing body? Yes, I think it would be a good idea.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks for the good audit, but I do see a bit of weakness in there. You didn't answer the question when asked what fees you charged. I know the fees vary depending on the type of contract, but you have the awarded amount of the contracts annually. The amount of fees you received may be based on the approximate working of the fees to the amount of total contracts. You mentioned the fees may be anywhere between 5% and 10%, but that is not where I want to go now.
First, I did look at the report, and you also mentioned that your workforce is changing. Now it must be around 850 people. I did look at your website under the diversity of the workforce. It mentions that the team consists of engineers, engineering technicians and technologists, environmental scientists, experienced tradespeople. That is not the diversity the government mentions. You also mentioned finance, specialists in finance, human resources, information technology, communications, and that is not the diversity the government means. What do you understand by diversity, and how diverse is your workforce?
10:35 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Defence Construction Canada
I can take that one.
I will mention, only because I just received the letter this week, that DCC has just been awarded by the responsible minister recognition for the best diversity in all small crown corporations in the country. What you are reading are our professional categories and skill sets we offer. Of course, whether you're an engineer, an environmental scientist, or a procurement officer, you can still be diverse, from any background, any cultural situation.
10:35 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Defence Construction Canada
We put a very high priority, I can assure you, on diversity and inclusion. We exceed all of the targets and expectations in all of the categories. Women, minorities—you know them; I don't have to list them all. We don't rest on that. We are taking actions all the time in our recruitment—
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Could you kindly send a report on your diversity, how many women, people with disabilities, visible minorities?
10:35 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Defence Construction Canada
We'd be very happy to. We're measured against the public sector as a whole, and also against the construction sector we operate in. I can assure you that against the overall construction sector in Canada we are so far beyond in all the diversity measurements. Against the public sector, it depends on the category. On women, on indigenous peoples, on visible minorities, we exceed. One area—but we still do well—is disability, for example. On a construction site, there are accessibility issues, but we still have a high percentage of people with disabilities.
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Thank you.
Auditor General, maybe whenever we do crown corporations and government departments, whenever there's something related to the workforce, maybe have a small mention in the report on the diversity achievement. That's just a thought.
Another thing, when you deal with a government department, do you deal directly with the clients, or do you deal with another set of people in procurement?
10:40 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Defence Construction Canada
I'll let Mélinda answer that.
10:40 a.m.
Vice-President, Procurement, Defence Construction Canada
We deal directly with the Department of National Defence—
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
No. My question is, do you deal directly with the client within the department, or do you deal with another set of people in procurement within that department?
10:40 a.m.
Vice-President, Procurement, Defence Construction Canada
We do the procurement, so within the client department of the Department of National Defence, we work directly with the people who oversee the infrastructure and environment. Therefore, it would be the ADM for infrastructure and environment.
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Okay, let me go to a specific example.
You mentioned consolidation of data centres from about 40 to six. If I'm not wrong, your client there is Shared Services, which in turn has a lot of consultants on its payroll. The end client is not Shared Services, but maybe somebody else. Do we have one procurement level within the government department and that level deals with you as another procurement level?
10:40 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Defence Construction Canada
No, I can assure you. The people Mélinda Nycholat is referring to are the project directors within our client partner groups. We are the procurement authority, so they don't duplicate it with their own procurement people.
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
10:40 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Defence Construction Canada
We have an MOU in place with all of our client partners. Shared Services Canada is responsible for creating the data centre because it's their decision as to how to meet their mandate. They give us their requirements. We take those requirements, develop the procurement approach for them—
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
[Inaudible—Editor] Shared Services itself has a lot of outside contractors. With the few seconds I have left, I will ask you, what are the fees you charge, on average?
10:40 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Defence Construction Canada
The fees charged? Well, it's our annual revenue, so when you see $90 million in annual revenue, that's the fees that we've charged for the year. Our revenue is our fees.
10:40 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Defence Construction Canada
We measure that as a KPI. Our overall cost to service delivery is 10%, roughly. It varies, so 10.4%, 9.8%.... We're always driving it, but we break it down. For example, construction service delivery is 4.3% for last year. Procurement is 0.9%, meaning that one cent of every dollar—I'm just rounding by 0.10—is the cost to our clients, on average, of a procurement. It's four-point-something cents for every dollar for construction. We measure every service—
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
No, no, Mr. Arya.
We'll now go to Mr. Saini, please.
Welcome to our committee, Raj.