Public Accounts Committee on April 30th, 2024

[Shawn Tupper]

It's because we disagree with the original court position.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Who suffers?

[Shawn Tupper]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the difficulty of what—

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Mr. Tupper, who suffers?

[Shawn Tupper]

It's the participants—the members of communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Desjarlais, that is your time, I'm afraid.

I'm going now to Mr. Melillo.

You have the floor. I understand you're going to be splitting your time with Mr. Nater. Would you like me to split you halfway, or are you going to turn it over to him?

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I'll turn it over to him.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That's fine. I wanted to be sure we're clear.

It's over to you for five minutes.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, again, to the witnesses for being here and taking part in such an important discussion.

I want to come back to the negotiations of these important funding agreements.

The Auditor General's report, Mr. Tupper, mentioned that many communities did not feel engaged, that the negotiations were not true negotiations, and that the federal government was coming to the table with predetermined funding allocations.

Why is this happening? It seems that your department is not negotiating, necessarily, in good faith.

[Shawn Tupper]

Mr. Chair, I think there is a question of practice, which isn't a great answer, in the sense that we have done it in the past that way, and we continue to do it in the present that way. One of the efforts that we are trying to pursue in the department is that concentration of expertise and programming in one single place. Our desire is indeed to expand the kind of work we do to be able to engage more directly and consistently with communities, to not rely on just the cycles of how these agreements work, but rather to make sure we have a much more consistent engagement with communities. Therefore, between funding decisions we learn what the needs of communities are, and that gets reflected in the next round of discussions. That, I think, is something that will allow us to say that we are actually engaging in a better way with community leadership.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I understand. Have you taken any specific, concrete measures in that regard that you can point to?

[Shawn Tupper]

We started with, as I say, bringing the entirety of my indigenous activities within the department together. That has been translated into some of our regional organizations so that I have people on the ground now. They will be more accessible to community leadership, and that is a really important part—that people are present and it's not a fly-in-fly-out sort of relationship.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that. I'll move on to another topic, with limited time as I'm sure you can appreciate.

Mr. Tupper, I'll stick with you, though. The report also found that equitable funding is not defined by Public Safety Canada, and there was “not an approach to allocate funds equitably to program recipients.” We've heard that a bit already. Can you speak to why equitable funding does not have a specific definition, and what the department is doing to rectify that?

[Shawn Tupper]

On the latter part of the question, Mr. Chair, next month, as we engage with our partners in this, that has to be a part of it. As we collectively look at the Auditor General's report and understand the kinds of actions that we need to address the recommendations that have been made, that will be a part of the conversation. That equity is something that we share in terms of who the funders are and how we work with communities.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Okay, I appreciate that, Mr. Tupper. I have just one more quick question before I turn the floor over to Mr. Nater. Public Safety Canada, according to the Auditor General's report, does not keep an accurate listing of the community tripartite agreements. Do you have any response to that?

[Shawn Tupper]

May I turn to you, Chris?

[Chris Moran]

You may. Thank you.

I'd like to add a point about the equitable distribution, and part of the challenge with that is that the program does serve two very different types of policing—one being self-administered, and one being the community tripartite agreement. The sizes of those self-administered services are quite different. We have some that are quite small and some that are very large by policing standards, which creates challenges.

With respect to a single list, we use a database for program delivery, and it is true that there may not have been one single Excel spreadsheet, for example, with a listing, but it is not accurate that we do not know where that funding is going and who gets it.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you for that. Unfortunately, I have to stop you there, because I did promise Mr. Nater some of my time, so I'll turn the floor over to him.

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

Thank you, Chair. Hopefully we can deal with this very quickly. I would like to move the motion that I have on notice from last week.

That, in relation to the committee’s ongoing work on government contracting and further to the information provided by the Treasury Board Secretariat on April 12, 2024, the committee order:

(a) the production of copies of the 140 conflict of interest declarations filed in the 2022-23 fiscal year and the 162 conflict of interest declarations filed in the 2023-24 fiscal year concerning public servants employed in the core public administration who were involved in contractual relationships with the Government of Canada;

(b) the production of copies of any conflict of interest declarations filed in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 fiscal years by persons employed by the federal government, including Crown corporations, but outside of the core public administration, who were involved in contractual relationships with the Government of Canada; and

(c) the production of records that detail all payments made in respect of the contractual relationships disclosed in the declarations referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b), provided that

(d) the names and contact information of the public servants may be redacted;

(e) for greater certainty, no redactions shall be applied to the names of contracting entities or the value of the contractual relationship disclosed, including, where multiple relationships are disclosed, the value of each contractual relationship disclosed; and

(f) these documents, with only the redactions authorized by paragraph (d), shall be deposited with the clerk of the committee, in both official languages,

(i) in the case of the documents referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b), within 21 days of the adoption of this order, and

(ii) in the case of documents referred to in paragraph (c), within 35 days of the adoption of this order.

Chair, I would just briefly comment that the article we saw in La Presse today just gives us further motivation for this information. It's been provided to us in a spreadsheet with just the sheer numbers. This is simply getting more information from the Treasury Board Secretariat with the appropriate redactions. I think it is incumbent on us to do this, and hopefully we can get consensus around the table to pass this quickly today.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I was going to ask you, Mr. Nater, if there is any chance that you have consensus from your colleagues around the table. First and foremost, I have to seek unanimous consent to continue for 15 minutes.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

The meeting will be adjourned in one second.

I want to thank our witnesses for coming in today, all of you. I appreciate it. I understand that there will be some information forthcoming. That can be sent to the committee clerk.

For subcommittee members, I have a reminder that we will be meeting back here right after the votes.

This meeting is adjourned.