Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 20th, 2024

[Heather Jeffrey]

Yes. The orders in council drove the changes to the app.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. That is your time.

Finally, to close it out, Ms. Bradford, you have the floor for up to five minutes, please.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is a question for the Auditor General.

You determined that the government did not obtain the best value for money in procuring the ArriveCAN application. What factors did you consider in coming to this conclusion?

[Karen Hogan]

There were many factors. I think I will list just three quickly.

First was the continued reliance on an external vendor over time, when that is more costly than having the public service do some of the work. We would have expected something to transition at some point to the public service.

The second was that many of the contracts we saw with GC Strategies and some of the other vendors consistently required the highest level of IT experience, with that experience being 10 years or more, when there was never a good justification for why that was always the level of experience needed. You would normally expect in a development project to see many different layers and levels of IT experience being needed.

Finally, I would point to contract extensions. There were multiple that we saw for which the dollar value was increased and very few instances for which deliverables were expanded.

All of those contributed, among other factors, to why we believe the government did not get the best value for money and, ultimately, paid too much for the ArriveCAN application.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Did you look into any other comparable projects in other jurisdictions?

[Karen Hogan]

No, we didn't set out to look at what other countries may have done when it came to similar types of apps to control their border measures. Border measures were very different in different countries or may have changed at different times. We felt that it was important to focus on what the public service here was doing.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Getting back to the fact that they continued to use outside sources when perhaps they could have migrated to internal employees to reduce the costs and get better value for money—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a point of order, Chair

I wanted to review the record before raising this. This is a very important meeting we're having with the Auditor General.

Ms. Khalid, during one of her points of order or so-called interventions, referred to it as a “sham” meeting. I think that's unparliamentary language. I'm not sure why she considers this important meeting a sham.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I'm more than happy to comment on that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

No. I would like to get back to Ms. Bradford.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I'm more than happy to comment on this, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

No, I do not need a comment.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

You and I both know, Mr. Chair, that this meeting could have happened last week and not during a constituency week.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That is probably not true, Ms. Khalid, since the report just came down.

I'd like to get back to Ms. Bradford. If government members have an issue with coming in on a recess week, they can speak to their whip and seek reassignment.

Ms. Bradford, you have the floor. I'll give you extra time. You have up to three minutes, please.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

How might the government reduce the reliance on external resources in a relatively short period of time while a project is ongoing?

[Karen Hogan]

Is that directed to me?

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Yes, I was continuing my questioning with you.

[Karen Hogan]

Here we were looking at the whole time between the development and the launch of the ArriveCAN app, which was in early 2020, all the way to January 2023. That's a few years' time.

The assessment that was done by the Public Health Agency and the Canada Border Services Agency at the beginning was that they didn't have the skills or the capacity at that time to do it. I would have eventually expected to see a transition in order to reduce that long-term reliance on an external vendor with aspects like maintenance of the application.

What I think is missing here fundamentally in many of the IT contracts that we see in the public service is that acknowledgement that there needs to be a transfer of knowledge or skills at some point. That isn't there. Over-reliance on a third party is created when the public service isn't looking to help transition and upskill the public service itself.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Finally, can you point to examples of best practices of a government increasing internal capacity for an ongoing outsourced project?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm not sure that I could speak to a best practice.

I think that it was very reasonable at the beginning of the pandemic to recognize that there was surge capacity that was needed. There was so much going on, if we put ourselves back to early 2020, that it was reasonable to go to a third-party vendor, especially if the skills didn't exist. However, over the course of a few years, I would have then expected to see a rebalancing of those efforts between the public service and the contractor.

I believe Mr. Hayes would like to add something, Mr. Chair, if you would allow him a few minutes.

[Andrew Hayes, Deputy Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General]

Thank you.

The example I would give is not our own. It's one from the chief information officer who was departing the public service, I believe, and has now returned. She appeared before the committee in December talking about the importance of relying on external resources for transformation purposes, but that is not a long-term solution. Ultimately, the public service needs to then take over on the transformation.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Bradford, you have 30 more seconds.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I've finished my questions, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Ms. Hogan and your officials from the Office of the Auditor General, and Ms. Jeffrey and your officials from the Public Health Agency of Canada, thank you for your testimony today and for participating in this study. I appreciate your coming in on a week when the House is recessed and making yourselves available to the committee. The committee will be meeting again tomorrow.

I will address one issue. Parliament and committees can meet only so often during the course of the week because we allow virtual Parliament, which was a decision by Parliament. This allows members to Zoom in, like they did today, during recess weeks. It also means that my time is limited when Parliament sits, because I need to seek resources that often are not available, it seems, to opposition-led committees but often are to government-led committees. I'll leave it for others to decide why that is.

I chose to call the meeting today. I think it's been a productive meeting. Not only did we get through all our witnesses in the time we had. We also passed a motion that will feed into another joint study that this committee is looking at. We are meeting tomorrow. If members are concerned about not having enough meetings, I can schedule another one. I don't think that's necessary, though.

I will say that I often hear from members that this committee is doing both too little and too much: Go faster, but at the same time go slower.

On that, I adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much.