Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 21st, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I will now turn the floor over to—

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

I just have a very small question, Mr. Chair, if you would allow it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

No. There will be more opportunities. I'm afraid we are over the time.

I know that members are eager to ask questions even after the time that's allotted. I do like to hear the full responses from witnesses, but I don't allow questions after the time has elapsed.

I know you'll be up again, Ms. Khalid, or you could share some time with one of your colleagues and get an opportunity to follow up.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to continue in the same vein as before.

The director-general of the department has come up a number of times. Who did that individual report to at the time, in 2020? Which deputy minister did they report to? I have the organizational chart in front of me, and I'd like a very specific answer.

[Michael Mills]

Thank you for the question.

The assistant deputy minister of procurement is responsible for—

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

So that's Mr. Laporte's predecessor.

[Dominic Laporte]

Yes.

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

Do you know if Mr. Laporte's predecessor was aware that the director-general had called into question the Canada Border Services Agency's procurement decisions?

[Michael Mills]

Thank you for your question.

No, I'm not aware that these issues were raised to the ADM level.

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

Isn't a director-general required to report to the assistant deputy minister? Is something getting lost in the shuffle? The chain of command is well established.

[Michael Mills]

As mentioned before, the department provides advice on potential procurement strategies. They advise the client department. The client department makes the decision of whether to accept that advice or to take another approach. In certain cases, it's not uncommon for departments not to take our advice and to kind of prefer another approach—

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

Okay. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but my speaking time is limited.

The Auditor General confirmed that the task authorizations were signed by the department responsible for the procurement processes. However, those authorizations, which were co-signed by Public Services and Procurement Canada, didn't meet preset standards. Why did you agree to co-sign task authorizations or contracts that didn't follow the processes in place?

[Michael Mills]

As we mentioned before, we've made changes to our system to try to strengthen this. We acknowledge that it was not proper practice to have task authorizations that were too general and did not specify clearly the activities that would be undertaken.

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

You say that you've made changes. Have people lost their jobs? After all, some very serious errors were made. They had only one task, but they didn't complete it.

[Dominic Laporte]

No one has lost their job. Guidelines were sent out on December 4. As I mentioned, checklists have been established. Keep in mind that our procurement officers don't work on only one contract. As Mr. Mills said, ultimately, the client decides whether or not to take our advice.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to return now to the interesting timeline that exists between the challenge brought forward by Public Services and Procurement Canada and the date on which the contract was signed. We've heard in prior answers to my questions that May 2020 is when the evidence suggests that paragraph 1.51 was met with regard to this finding:

We found that Public Services and Procurement Canada, as the government’s central purchasing and contracting authority, challenged the Canada Border Services Agency for proposing and using non‑competitive processes for ArriveCAN and recommended various alternatives.

That was in May 2020. The app was launched on April 29, 2020. Within that period of time, just to clarify the facts, which of these events, including the contract date, took place first? This is for the Auditor General.

[Karen Hogan]

The email we're referring to was in May 2020. The first contract was awarded to GC Strategies under a non-competitive process on April 8, 2020. Then the application was launched on April 29.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

To PSPC, when you mounted that challenge in regard to non-competitive processes, your last answer was that you were not aware of any red flags presented to the department by the person who is the executive director of the business applications services directorate. Is that correct?

[Michael Mills]

As has been previously released, there were multiple contracts with GC Strategies, not just one. This may have been in relation to one of the later contracts, not the initial contact in April.

[Karen Hogan]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I should have finished. There was a second contract awarded to GC Strategies on June 29, 2020.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Was the email in relation to the larger contract, the $20-million contract?

[Karen Hogan]

It was related to, obviously, the second one, the one that was issued on June 29. It was, again, a non-competitive contract. There were three non-competitive contracts issued to GC Strategies before the competitive process took place.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

It was the larger one.

[Karen Hogan]

Yes.