Finance committee  I think, as you just said, that public servants, including those working from home, are able to deliver these programs seamlessly. I don't know what the basis of your statement is that we don't have the capacity within the public service to reach out to those charitable organizat

Finance committee  Absolutely. I think this pandemic, for everybody, has certainly added just a little bit more pressure. Working from home and still having to be very productive and deliver programs, without an opportunity to walk walking down the hall or down a flight of stairs to talk to your co

Finance committee  Yes, thank you. I can do nothing but agree with you. When you look at the timing and everything else about this, it is extremely unusual.

Finance committee  You are no more perplexed than I am, Mr. Cumming, for sure. It is very perplexing. As for how this whole thing transpired from the creation in April to the announcement in June, as I said, here we are three months later, and still with really no concrete program in place out th

Finance committee  It's never too late to make it right. Hopefully, this will be done right and done by federal public sector workers.

Finance committee  I agree.

Finance committee  Yes, certainly the appearance of that is there, along with, of course, labour standards. If I work more than 100 hours, I'm going to get $1,000; if I work any more hours than that but less than 200, that is all I'm going to get. As I said in my statement, it's a little bit ironic

Finance committee  Nobody is disputing that students need help at this time. They need assistance. I think everyone agrees with that. I think this money, including the $43.5 million, could have been much better put towards students, including paying students for work and providing them with not onl

Finance committee  No. Normally the procurement system doesn't allow for that. Normally it's a very labour-intensive process that you have to go through for any kind of contracting out. There are requests for proposals and all that. This was somewhat unusual, for sure.

Finance committee  What I would turn my mind to is this. For any organization, if you say that's the only organization capable of doing this, and then you have to provide $43.5 million to ensure that this organization is able to deliver that program, that's what I think needs to be questioned.

Finance committee  There was no consultation at all. I've checked with our members at ESDC. As far as I know, none of our members, anyway, were consulted either.

Finance committee  I would have to say absolutely yes, for sure, without a question.

Finance committee  That's exactly the point here. This was decided in April; it was announced in June, and here we are in mid-July and there's still no real, true program. As I said, that's unfortunate. If the public service had been asked in April whether they could do this, I think the answer wou

Finance committee  Certainly, from time to time it probably would be advantageous for the government and for those non-profits to do such work. The oversight of that work still has to be maintained within the public service. I would suggest that what you're saying should be the exception rather tha

Finance committee  Of the things you just listed, Mr. Cooper, I can't see any of those not being able to be performed within the federal public service.