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.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Nobody knows. We have all these officials who make decisions that impact people's lives and nobody knows who makes decisions about when the government's going to relax the rules.
11:45 a.m.
Acting Vice President, Health Security and Regional Operations, Public Health Agency of Canada
For the Public Health Agency, I think the key issue was the dependency on the implementation of the OIC. Things had to be decided. In the context of this, the IT component would have been with CBSA.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Every department has an org chart with titles and with names. There are a lot of words going on, but who normally has the authority to decide to relax rules or processes?
11:45 a.m.
Acting Vice President, Health Security and Regional Operations, Public Health Agency of Canada
Do you mean with respect to the testing or the contracting?
11:45 a.m.
Acting Vice President, Health Security and Regional Operations, Public Health Agency of Canada
We were providing CBSA with the advice on what we needed in the application, and they were running the process.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Who would have the authority to suspend normal processes or relax rules?
11:45 a.m.
Acting Vice President, Health Security and Regional Operations, Public Health Agency of Canada
It would have been done through the governance of the DGs and the ADMs at the time. We would have to go back and take a look.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
I'll move on.
Regarding the 10,000 erroneous quarantine orders, was that a specific event? Was there one glitch that created all of that, or were those 10,000 wrongful quarantine notices given out cumulatively over time?
11:45 a.m.
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
That was a specific event that was identified on June 28 and resolved on July 20.
It was a specific event in the app. It was an error that was identified and rectified. The Public Health Agency was involved in addressing that with—
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
It was one specific event.
Did you brief the minister that this event happened?
11:45 a.m.
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
I was not present at that time, so I can't actually speak to what briefing took place, but we can take that away.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I'm sorry. That was open-ended.
Are you going to get back to the committee? When you say “take it back”, are you implying you're going to come back to us with an answer on that, as to whether the minister was briefed?
Ms. Jeffrey, I will remind you that you're here representing PHAC. I know the questions are “you”, but the committee hopes you're responding for PHAC.
I heard you say you'll come back to us. Are you going to provide us with an answer to that question?
11:50 a.m.
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
I'm not aware of what briefing was done at that time, but I take note of the request and I will go back to see if there's evidence of what briefing took place at that time.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you. We will look forward to that answer. I appreciate it.
Mr. Scheer, you still have two minutes left.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Have the 10,000 individuals been notified? Have the travellers who were ordered to quarantine been notified that they were wrongfully ordered to quarantine?
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Who made the decision to pursue a non-competitive approach in all of this?
11:50 a.m.
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
That decision would have been taken by the Public Health Agency to take advantage of the contracting vehicle that was set up by PSPC.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Which individuals would have said, “We're going to pursue this approach”?
11:50 a.m.
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
I'll turn to Martin for who signed the authority.
11:50 a.m.
Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
That would have been directors general and executive directors within our program branch within the Public Health Agency.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
11:50 a.m.
Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
I don't have those with me at the time, but I can endeavour to get that.