Evidence of meeting #101 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was contracts.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
It was mentioned that PHAC as a business owner was focused on deliverables. What is meant by PHAC being a business owner, and how did that impact deliverables?
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
As the business owner, the Public Health Agency laid out the public health requirements for the apps. The Public Health Agency was responsible for making sure the appropriate privacy protections were in place, making sure there was legal and other broad policy coordination taking place. We had to define the priorities for the app. We were responsible for maintaining the public health data storage and use, and for providing support to Canadians using the app via Service Canada.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Can you take us back to the time when this app was being developed? Do you remember what the overarching feeling of the department was? What were you trying to accomplish?
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
In March 2020 you'll recall there were border measures being put in place around the world. Canadians were having trouble moving abroad. There was a need to find ways to speed up the implementation of public health measures at the border. The overriding importance at the time was placed on making sure that we had multi-layered public health measures in place. The border was one of the points at which that was administered.
Because of the need to ask additional questions and to have information on travellers' travel history and health, extra time was needed by border services officers to ask these questions. This resulted in significant delays at the border, and as we worked to try to find ways to streamline the entry of critical services, goods and people into Canada, it was very important that we move as quickly as possible to have a digital application that would allow us both to facilitate that necessary travel and at the same time have the information we needed to model the behaviour of the virus and the different pressures on epidemiology and public health that we were going to face to inform future measures.
There was tremendous time pressure, and it was an all-hands-on-deck time, when everyone was working as fast as we could to implement the operations.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Do you think the creation of this app would have been handled differently if it weren't in the midst of a global pandemic?
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
There's no question that we have very detailed and—as the Auditor General mentioned—considerable overlay of structures around procurement. We have IT project gating under the Treasury Board.
While many of these requirements were waived given the necessity for the speed of an emergency response, it is also true that we were required to document those measures. The Auditor General has pointed to the lack of documentation in this regard, and that is something that we have now reinforced in our training policies and procedures, including in our emergency standard operating procedures and pandemic preparedness planning, to ensure that this does not happen again.
This was the first time in the agency's history that we had faced a global pandemic. Our processes and procedures have been continually evolving after every crisis, and this one produced quite a number of lessons in terms of our governance and our documentation.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much. That is time.
We'll turn now to Mr. Barrett.
You have the floor for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Public Health gave a non-competitive professional services contract to KPMG and, on that, the Auditor General said, “We found no documentation of the initial communications or the reasons why the agency did not consider or select other eligible contractors to carry out the work.”
Is that correct, Ms. Hogan?
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
Yes. You've quoted part of my report.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Ms. Jeffrey, how much was that contract for?
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
The original contract was issued by PSPC as one of the seven companies that were available under the COVID emergency professional services. The total amount that was contracted with KPMG through the three different contracts was $4.5 million.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I'd like just the date, please. When was it completed?
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
I'm going to turn to Martin Krumins to talk about the dates.
Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
The initial contract or task authorization through PSPC was awarded and signed on September 29, 2020, for a value of $518,000.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
What was the benefit that taxpayers got from this contract?
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
The role of KPMG in this contract was really to do the work to assess the industry impacts and the traveller journey using the app, so the app had to be deployed in an airport environment, working with air services and the aerospace industry. They were looking at the process maps, at the journey maps, at the rollout and other implementation around the app—
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Did this contribute to the—at least—$60-million price tag, this contract?
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
No. The $59 million associated with the contract was related to the development of the app and its technology, so these were—
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Additional costs.
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
—part of support services related to border measures that included a wide variety of different measures at the border.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Additional costs...?
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
Yes, these are additional costs related to the implementation of border measures.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
The Auditor General said there was “no documentation” found on the initial communications on this contract, so who called who?
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
The contract has a sole-source justification on file that identifies the expertise of the vendor in aerospace services and in administering public health and health projects at the municipal, provincial and local levels—
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Are there documents to support their selection?