Finance committee  Thank you. Bonjour, monsieur le président. My name is Nicholas Trudel. I'm the Director General of the Specialized Services Sector within Public Services and Procurement Canada. I've been responsible for the seized property management directorate, which I will refer to as SPMD,

Finance committee  Our collaboration is primarily in Ontario. We work very closely with the OPP in the province of Ontario. I believe B.C. is the second most active jurisdiction for case volumes.

Finance committee  Generally, our services are provided to law enforcement where there is a criminal accusation, so they've got an accused. There are provisions under the Criminal Code—I'm not an expert in them—for abandoned property or property without an identifiable owner. That generally would b

Finance committee  There is a sharing regime in the regulations of the Seized Property Management Act that allows for sharing with provinces. If a local police force does the majority of the work, they get the lion's share of the proceeds. Many provinces, particularly in the west from Ontario to th

Public Accounts committee  We promote transfers first, before sales. The transfer percentage is low because one department has to need a surplus asset from another department. Most departments make full use of their assets before disposing of them, so they are very used. Often, to reduce their costs and to

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. Possibly there's a disincentive to transfer, and I acknowledge that. We've started to work with the RCMP on a first proof of concept on how we would donate. We started with a set of 400 first aid kits that could no longer be used because of partial expiry. We issue

Public Accounts committee  That particular vehicle I couldn't speak to, but I could speak to the sale of nearly new vehicles, which does happen. There are a number of reasons that these sales might occur. A typical example would be that Transport Canada has test vehicles, to test for emissions and road saf

Public Accounts committee  Not all vehicles meet the requirements of their programs. There are specific vehicles that they buy for specific purposes.

Public Accounts committee  I couldn't say.

Public Accounts committee  Assets are intended to have a positive net worth, so it's not a garbage bin. The assets sent to us are intended for sale and should have a positive net worth. They should be safe for sale, so we don't handle firearms or—

Public Accounts committee  We do a fair amount of promotion of the transfer program, and with the Auditor General's results, we have pledged to redouble those efforts. Moreover, the Government of Canada is a very large enterprise across the entire country, and there is a large cost in holding and storing

Public Accounts committee  First off, there's a difference between the accounting value and the market value of what's purchased. We get 100,000, 90,000 site visits every month, and we have nearly 100,000 registered users. We believe we have a liquid market. When we post an asset, we feel that's a fair opp

Public Accounts committee  Generally, no; we use the gcsurplus.ca website, not Kijiji. It's similar to Kijiji, but it's not Kijiji. The in-person auctions don't occur for the federal government. A decade or more ago, people would come to a site and make closed-envelope bids in blind bidding. That's how i

Public Accounts committee  No, we turn our inventory over quickly. We had 29,000 transactions last year. These are busy places. Assets come in and out quite quickly.

Public Accounts committee  No, there are conflict of interest guidelines, so I myself have never purchased anything, and the closer one is to the operation of GCSurplus, the more one is restricted. Also, the folks who handle the assets, who physically deal with them, aren't involved in determining the wi