Public Accounts Committee on March 6th, 2024

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Auditor General.

On the question of how we monitor and how we conduct oversight, we heard yesterday from Mr. Richard that, indeed, the cuts done to the public service by the Harper government, of which Pierre Poilievre was a member, hurt their ability to conduct financial oversight.

I would ask this of Mr. Huppé of the Treasury Board. Given that the Conservatives have voted consistently against salary adjustments for the federal public service—pretending that they are for additional oversight but voting against it— what difficulties has this caused in hiring and retaining the kind of financial talent we need?

[Roch Huppé]

First of all, when departments introduce proposals for reductions, they have to understand the impact and how they are going to implement them, and they have to understand how they're going to minimize impacts on the delivery of their programs.

On your aspect of recruiting people, that has been a problem in different communities. I think you heard Catherine Luelo, the previous CIO, mention at this committee or at OGGO how difficult that was. We have the same problems in the financial management world, for example, as in procurement. It's not only the lack of funding. It's sometimes a lack of availability of these people. For example, in Canada, we don't produce enough CPAs, to be fair, so I have a problem in recruiting and retaining.

Again I come back to the fact that departments have a budget they have to live within, and they have to make decisions on how they will deliver their programs efficiently within the set budget.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. That is time.

We're now in our third and final round.

Mrs. Block, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My questions will be directed to our comptroller general.

I'm sure you're aware that two public servants have recently been suspended without pay by different departments, allegedly for their role in the arrive scam app. As mentioned by my colleague, your department now employs one of the principal players in the ArriveCAN saga: Mr. Minh Doan. He is the chief technology officer, a position that we understand wasn't posted. I'm not really sure how he got into that position if it wasn't posted.

Has your department been contacted by the CBSA with any suggestion of wrongdoing by Mr. Doan or any suggestion that he should be suspended without pay?

[Roch Huppé]

Up to this point, the department has not been contacted with the suspicion of any wrongdoing on the part of Mr. Doan or the notion that he should be suspended for something at this point. The investigation is still ongoing, but at this point, there were no incriminating findings against Mr. Doan.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

In previous testimony, we heard that President O'Gorman contacted the deputy ministers of other departments with some allegations regarding employees within their departments. Are you aware if the deputy minister has received any communication from President O'Gorman regarding the allegations of Mr. Doan and the ArriveCAN app?

[Roch Huppé]

I'll let Mr. Rochon correct me here.

To my knowledge, the secretary of CBSA did communicate with our department. We were advised that up to that moment—it was not me personally—there was no incriminating evidence of any wrongdoing against Mr. Doan. As I said, the investigation is still ongoing, but to my knowledge, that was indeed communicated to someone.

[Dominic Rochon]

I'll just confirm that I started my position on February 12, and as I came in, I did have a quick conversation with the outgoing secretary, who confirmed with me that he had not received any incriminating information regarding Mr. Doan. I do not believe that the new secretary, Catherine Blewett, has had any conversations on the topic as of yet.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

What sorts of reprisals would an executive-level member of the Treasury Board receive if they were found to have deleted thousands of emails related to access to information requests and multiple ongoing investigations? I know that you've already answered a hypothetical question, which I think was based on facts around testimony given at the government operations and estimates committee. What type of reprisals would be in place for someone who has deleted close to 30,000 emails?

[Roch Huppé]

I'm not an HR expert or a labour relations expert. Based on my experience of what I've seen, if malfeasance happened and information was genuinely discarded to hide something, for example, it could go to dismissal for sure.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Notwithstanding the complexity of procurement, as we've heard today, and the pandemic, which we know is not an excuse for the glaring mismanagement that was identified by the Auditor General, I would have to believe that your hopefulness about what will be found and what will be done, and your comment that individuals should not give you “too much crap” about what is being found but give you “crap” if you don't “fix it”.... What are you doing to fix it? Have you determined a time by which it will be fixed? How are you monitoring the situation?

[Roch Huppé]

I would like to clarify. If there's an audit and something major is found, you should take crap for it, honestly. What I meant to say is that audits are instruments that allow us to find weaknesses, and we should respect that and take the measures to deal with it.

The department has a plan. We know of the plan, obviously. It was published. Some actions have already been taken. Now we need to monitor to make sure that these actions will actually work.

There's also a plan being developed internally at TBS to make sure we have a good handle as to whether there is a larger problem here that we need to deal with. Although the rules have not been pointed to in the audit as a problem, is there something that we owe it to ourselves to take a look at? Is there guidance we need to implement, to do more of? Is there training we need to do differently to make sure our people who have these authorities...? As I said, when you sign off on something, it comes with an accountability, sadly.

Our job is to make sure that people have the tools and instruments to discharge those accountabilities. We have to make sure to look at our own processes and also make sure we're providing tools to the people discharging their accountabilities.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

I'll turn now to Ms. Khalid, who is joining us virtually.

You have the floor for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

In some of the testimony we've heard today, a concern has been raised about the procurement process in which smaller vendors have a difficult time participating. A team of two people, from all accounts we've heard with respect to GC Strategies, was able to take $100 million from our government, starting in 2011 under the Harper government. They moved on to change their name and continue to take dollars from our government through the procurement process. Either they were the most brilliant company in Canada and the world, or something went wrong here.

I would really appreciate hearing from TBS to help us understand how that process works and how this was allowed to happen without ministerial oversight.

[Emilio Franco]

I think it's important to speak to the fact that we encourage small business to do business with the Government of Canada. What's important is that if a business is doing business with the government, it is operating ethically, operating in accordance with the rules and getting contracts in a fair, open and transparent way.

When we look at the history, the majority of contracts with this company were competitive. We need to look at the relationship that exists in a particular circumstance and what resulted in the awarding of various contracts, which the Auditor General and the procurement ombud have looked into.

Broadly, though, I would say it's important that the rules we have in place exist to ensure that the companies we do business with are good companies. The majority of them are good companies that are providing valuable services to government and to Canadians. It's also about ensuring that as part of that network of suppliers to the Government of Canada there are small and medium-sized businesses, minority-owned businesses and businesses from disadvantaged and equity-seeking groups that are able to participate in the government procurement process and able to manage that balance between a set of rules that does make it difficult and a process that allows and encourages the participation of small and medium-sized businesses. It's about making sure that if that balance is not right, we make efforts to correct that.

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

Thanks very much, Mr. Franco. I really appreciate that you brought up that whole procurement process.

I have some significant concerns about disinformation and how it's impacting our public service and how we do things within our country. The fact is that the majority of it is a fair, equitable process in which there is a lot of accountability and transparency.

Can you reflect on how all of the disinformation on our public service that is being pumped out by the Conservatives is impacting our public service right now with respect to the procurement process?

[Roch Huppé]

Honestly, I'm not going to comment on that, to be fair.

What I can say is that, sadly, when there's a finding of this nature through an audit, it does shake up the system, and that's normal. As I said earlier, a lot of people do a fantastic job, and they've built a great reputation, but when something like this is found, we need to shake the system up. We also need to make sure we go above and beyond to make sure we can rebuild that trust in our process and our controls.

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

I appreciate your saying that, because as we continue, there is a continuing diminishing of trust within our public institutions. When something like this happens, it goes to the crux of that trust and shatters it.

I hope we can work together with TBS, and that all of our government departments can ensure that we spend taxpayer dollars in a responsible fashion.

With respect to how your department operates—and I'm sure you have reflections on many other departments as well—how important is it that we fund departments properly, so they are able to conduct the public service we require them to?

I know the Conservatives have always voted against increasing funding for our public service, but can you help us understand why that's important?

[Roch Huppé]

Obviously, financial resources are important if you're going to deliver on programs, but, as I said before, departments are allocated a budget, and they have to make decisions as to how they're going to utilize these resources to deliver their programs in the most effective way. They have to distribute that funding in such a way that they're going to have the right controls in place and have sound foundations. Again, I come from the world of internal services, and I always consider it important to make sure these activities are well funded, because they become your foundation. If your foundation starts to crack, you will have issues.

I come back to the fact that departments are accountable for managing the funding provided to them and for making the best decisions possible with respect to how they're going to utilize financial resources. Financial resources, like human resources or anything else, are key to a department's ability to deliver on what they need to deliver on.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you now have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Rochon, I have a quick question for you. Hypothetically, how long does an employee's deleted email stay in the cloud, and is it possible to recover it from there?

[Dominic Rochon]

Normally, we should be able to recover it for quite some time.

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

How much time are you talking about, specifically?

[Dominic Rochon]

I don't have a specific answer for you, because it depends on the server and the cloud.

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

In this case, we're talking about the Canada Border Services Agency, whose IT structure we are familiar with. Hypothetically speaking, how long after an email is deleted can it be recovered?