Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 20th, 2024

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I would say that not only was there a failure.... It's not acceptable that they weren't tracked, but the total cost is not acceptable. Initial estimates of $80,000 ballooning to $60 million with single-source contracts, and two guys in a basement being paid $20 million—these are failures. The minister failed.

[Heather Jeffrey]

The contracts that were put in place were administered by the department—

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Let me just be very clear, Ms. Jeffrey. If this is a failure, who is accountable for departmental failures? Is the minister responsible for what goes on in the department?

[Heather Jeffrey]

As the deputy head of the organization, I am responsible.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Who does the deputy head report to?

[Heather Jeffrey]

The deputy head reports to the Clerk of the Privy Council and to the minister, depending on the subject and the authority that's being delegated.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

It's to the minister, and the authority and responsibilities are delegated from the minister. This is the minister's failure, and that's what's been evidenced in the reporting by the Auditor General.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You're spot on. Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

I'll turn now to Mr. Chen.

You have the floor for six minutes, please.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The emergency orders required the Public Health Agency of Canada to collect contact and health information from travellers entering Canada through the CBSA. We learned from the Auditor General that the report issued indicated that some resources who worked on subcontracts lacked the appropriate security clearance.

As the Public Health Agency, I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

[Heather Jeffrey]

The specific contracts that were put in place were from the Canada Border Services Agency. A number of resources needed to be replaced, given the length of the pandemic. The security and privacy considerations related to the data that was collected were reviewed through numerous assessments, including from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. The report was that the measures complied with privacy and were necessary and proportional to the tasks that needed to be implemented.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

In the Auditor General's report in 2021, it stated that the quality of information collected as well as how quickly it was collected improved over time with the ArriveCAN app.

Understanding the urgency within the context of the global pandemic, would you agree that the process of transferring from a manual to digital base to collect contact and health information was needed?

[Heather Jeffrey]

The process of digitizing the information being collected was necessary to have a functional border and to facilitate the transit of critical services, people and goods. For example, in the initial days with paper processing, it could take up to 14 days for data to be transferred and processed. That data was critical to informing the day-to-day border measures, public health measures, and to providing data to our provincial and territorial counterparts for the administration of public health.

With the digitization of this data flow and the app, that amount of time decreased to 48 hours, on average. Without the app, it would have been impossible to manage the increase that we saw from May 2020, where we had about 1,000 travellers a day, to January 2023, where we were able to manage 50,000 travellers a day with a processing time that dropped from seven minutes per traveller to two minutes—a really important difference at both air and land borders.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Could you enlighten us in respect to the move from manual paper-based to digital?

A lot of digitization has happened across government. Is this something PHAC had considered along with CBSA, to bring the manual paper-based information online or to an app for collection, prior to the pandemic?

[Heather Jeffrey]

I believe my CBSA counterparts have commented on this.

A digital border is very important for the flow of people and goods in a modern economy. CBSA had indeed been considering the need to move to further digital processing at the border. With the layering of public health measures and the importance of the border in delaying the entry of variants and monitoring the flow of travellers and of COVID-19 into Canada, it was really critical that those submissions be done in a digital way. There was a very clear public health rationale for the need to move quickly in the development of the app. By the end, we had 60.3 million digital submissions before measures—

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

My understanding around the time frame was that there were 47 days between the pandemic being declared and the launch of the ArriveCAN app.

Has your department ever had to turn around a project this quickly with respect to going from manual to digital-based?

[Heather Jeffrey]

This was an unprecedented time. The speed of the response was really critical, given the speed at which the virus moves and the need to facilitate essential travel.

The Public Health Agency of Canada did not have the expertise to develop an app of this nature. For this reason, it asked the Canada Border Services Agency to work on the development of the application while the Public Health Agency focused on the analysis of the measures that needed to be put in place, the implementation of the Quarantine Act and the orders in council that really stood up the requirements needed to operate at the border. It was a collaborative partnership. We worked very closely together in the governance of those arrangements.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Given everything that's happened, the discussion that we are having today and the report from the Auditor General, what do you think is the biggest lesson PHAC has learned from this experience that will help it move forward and perhaps give Canadians some reassurance that the issues and recommendations identified by the AG are being taken seriously?

[Heather Jeffrey]

It is clear that while this was an emergency that pointed to the need for us to rapidly develop tools that we did not have, having in place the necessary governance with clear roles, responsibilities, accountabilities, project budgets and gating would have been essential to ensuring that there was adequate oversight of the development of this application from the outset.

As a result, we have put in place specific measures in our planning for future emergencies and pandemics to ensure that this is a standard operating procedure. We are also taking measures to make sure that we have the appropriate tools, standard operating procedures and emergency responses that will allow us to train and ensure our personnel are able to deploy what were a wide range of new measures and tools that were required for COVID-19 in a more expedient way and to adapt them to future crises.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today for another session of interesting questions following the Auditor General's report.

Ms. Jeffrey, several times during your testimony and in response to my colleague's questions, you cited the urgency of the pandemic as justification for acting quickly. I have here contracts between Health Canada and GC Strategies that were awarded non‑competitively in January 2019. This totals $104,000. Normally, a procurement process must be followed above a certain amount.

Can we get some details on the types of contracts that the Public Health Agency of Canada signed with GC Strategies? Why did GC Startegies get these contracts?

[Heather Jeffrey]

Thank you for your question.

I can assure you that there was no contract between the Public Health Agency of Canada and GC Strategies.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

You are confirming that for me. Okay.

Mr. Krumins, what can you tell us about some potential contracts between GC Strategies and Treasury Board when you were there?

[Martin Krumins, Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada]

I'm not aware of any contracts that the Public Health Agency of Canada has entered into. I don't have details of contracts that they would have had with other departments or agencies.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

So you have no recollection of your time at Treasury Board.

[Martin Krumins]

No.

When I was at the Treasury Board Secretariat, I was in the program sector presenting TB submissions to Treasury Board ministers. I was not responsible for app development or contracting at that time.