Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 29th, 2024

[Monia Lahaie]

Yes.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

This is my second question, and hopefully it's fairly brief.

In a written response to another question I asked the last time the Treasury Board Secretariat was before us, the Treasury Board wrote that GC Strategies had a $47,324 contract for informatics services. Can you confirm that work was actually done for that $47,324 contract with GC Strategies?

[Monia Lahaie]

My colleagues will be here next week appearing on the topic of ArriveCAN. That would be a good place to ask the question.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Could you commit to providing us a written response in the meantime?

[Monia Lahaie]

Could I do so in the meantime?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I mean as soon as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

It might well be redundant, but I take your point.

Mr. Viersen, you have the floor for three and half minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I am just wondering if the Department of Finance could provide in written form how much carbon tax or carbon pricing has been collected over the last four years and break that out into four yearly increments.

Also, how much has been paid out, through that same program, to individuals, businesses, and first nations and indigenous communities across the country? I would love to see a breakdown of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I would like to get acknowledgement from the witnesses.

Was that directed to Finance?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Yes, it was for the Department of Finance.

[Evelyn Dancey]

It's been acknowledged.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I want to pick up where my colleague left off about Export Development Canada and the Accenture company. Export Development Canada, as its name suggests, is about facilitating Canadians' desire to export their products around the world. Is that correct?

[Mairead Lavery]

That is correct.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

One interesting thing is that part of the CEBA rollout by Accenture was that they were getting....

First of all, could you clarify that it was a sole-source contract for Accenture? Is that correct?

[Mairead Lavery]

It was.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Is that normal for this kind of thing?

[Mairead Lavery]

There were different components to the contract, which I guess no one anticipated at the start. Once we started with them, it was imperative to continue with them because the program had to stay operational for the participants.

I would say that over time, with a profile of three years, often you could perhaps look at different options, but during the period when CEBA was in operation, we didn't have that option.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

You said there were 31 contracts with this company. Were all of them sole-sourced?

[Mairead Lavery]

Yes.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Was it under a special emergency recommendation that they were sole-sourced or was this just a regular practice?

[Mairead Lavery]

At the time—this was in April 2020—we were asked to administer the program and get it up and running as quickly as possible to support the companies that needed the facilities. That's when we sole-sourced it. We had an arrangement with Accenture, which was supporting EDC for other matters. That meant we were able to avoid what would have been a six- to eight-month RFP procurement cycle to get the funding into the hands of companies that needed it at that point in time.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I didn't quite catch that. Was that done under the general emergencies of COVID or was that just done in general?

[Mairead Lavery]

The CEBA program for EDC was a directive, and then it was under ministerial authorization.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Okay.

There have been reports that—