Evidence of meeting #102 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.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
During the years of the government's COVID response, there were executives within the department of PSPC who did receive performance pay. That pay has been published on the website, and it's available to—
Conservative
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Chair, I would not be able to speak to her individual case—
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Will you provide to the committee details of who received bonuses and in what quantum, please, within 14 days?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We have already provided information on the performance pay that is paid by our department. It is publicly available on the website. We'll provide the links for that information.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I'm afraid that is your time, Mr. Brock.
I recognize the response that it is publicly available. I will appreciate getting those links from you forthwith. Thank you.
Ms. Bradford, you have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Returning to Ms. Poulin, thank you for clarifying your responsibilities and how the oversight works in your department. You did mention that you have the authority to take action to recover funds if you feel that you've been overcharged for something. Will you be doing that in this particular case?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Departmental Oversight Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We will have to interact with CBSA to see if they need help in completing the work. One of the points I mentioned is that in order to do so, we need to finalize analysis that will demonstrate that we have been—talking about the government—overcharged or overbilled. We need to quantify that amount. It will be important to be able to prove that those events have occurred and to associate a number with it.
Recognizing that CBSA has the invoices and time sheets, it will be for us to see if they require help in order to complete that work and, upon completion, to share best practices and how they can recover those funds from their contracts.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Are you confident that they do have the invoices and time sheets to be able to track that?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Departmental Oversight Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
My understanding is that when you manage a contract, you have access to the invoices and the time sheets associated with the contract.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Are you currently working with them on that? Is that process under way?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Departmental Oversight Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I think there's a lot of process under way within CBSA. At this moment, we are not providing support in that specific area of the work.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Mills, clearly there are security considerations to be taken into account when the government contracts with the private sector to work on behalf of the government. What does PSPC do to ensure that the contractors and subcontractors have valid security clearances on file prior to starting any work? How does that process work?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Thank you for the question.
I'll turn to Catherine Poulin to answer it. She is actually responsible for this.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Departmental Oversight Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.
As I mentioned previously, the responsibility for the contract security program falls under my authority, and we're doing many things to make sure that this is occurring.
First, we're working with the client departments to identify their needs in terms of security for the specific contracts they want to put forward. It's super important to identify this at the outset, at the beginning of the work, to properly identify the security requirements of the contract that will be issued.
Once this is established, between a discussion with the client and with the procurement authority, we are starting by doing the security clearance of an organization. In order to contract with the government when there are security requirements, you need to hold a designated security clearance for your organization. We're looking at many aspects. We are looking at key senior officials and we're also asking the supplier to identify a chief security officer. Once they get that security clearance for their organization, we can start clearing the employees who will work under those contracts. An employee can only be cleared up to the level of an organization. If the organization has a “secret” clearance, we cannot clear the employees up to “top secret” clearance, for example.
Then, we work with procurement authorities to make sure that we include in the contracts the proper security clause to monitor the security requirement throughout the life of the contract. It's important to know that those security clauses also need to be put in the subcontractor contracts. If the prime contractor is using a subcontractor as part of his work, the subcontracting contracts need to have the same clauses as the prime contractor clause.
Finally, in doing the work—let's assume that the contract has been awarded and there are security requirements—it will be the responsibility of the contractor to make sure that the resources working under that contract have the proper security clearances to work on that contract and, if they add resources during the management of the contract, that those people also have the proper security clearances. It's how we make sure that security requirements are taken care of.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
The security certificates for the subcontractors who carried out the work on ArriveCAN weren't properly kept with the appropriate file, which is an issue for both PSPC and CBSA. Has that been addressed? Also, can you confirm that every subcontractor who worked on this file did in fact have the appropriate security clearance?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Departmental Oversight Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
As mentioned in the Auditor General's report, there's a greater need for documentation, so we're working in partnership with clients and procurement to make sure that the contracts with those security clauses will be shared with us moving forward. This will allow us to make sure that the final version of the contract has the proper security clearances.
Also, to your second question, I think it was noted—and I don't remember if it's in the AG report or the OPO report—that a subcontractor may have used uncleared resources. It was put to our attention in the beginning of January that some resources of the subcontractor did not have the proper security clearances. We take such allegations very seriously, and we are looking into the security compliance of all the parties involved within those allegations at this time.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
That is our time for today.
I want to thank you, Ms. Hogan, and your team for being here yet again today.
I want to also thank you, Mr. Mills, and your team for being here today as well as answering some questions.
I believe that's it for today. I don't think I will have any opposition to adjourn this meeting. We can all get back to work.
Thank you very much.
This meeting is adjourned.