Government Operations committee  It is a huge amount, Mr. Chair. There's honestly nothing I could compare it to in terms of the experience we've had, if you look at the variety of the goods that were acquired for the Public Health Agency of Canada for eventual use by provinces and territories—because that's wher

Government Operations committee  Certainly, Mr. Chair. As we evolved our purchasing to go with new suppliers, we also realized that, frankly, the best approach was to go directly to the manufacturers while we waited for the domestic industries to come online. There were a lot of efforts in terms of on-the-grou

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I think there are two points. That is definitely quick. When we were looking to realize contracts, number one, we realized that when there was an opportunity we had to jump on it very quickly or it was gone. An important part of the contract was also when they could fi

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. We are in the process of eliminating the backlog within the time frame that is in the mandate letter, which is one year, maybe 15 months. There's still work to do on the backlog. I think we are on track, and we continue to update our approaches to au

Government Operations committee  There are a couple of points here, Mr. Chair. Number one, I think years ago it was far more common where employees would get no pay. We've worked very hard to make those cases a priority, and they're quite rare now. That's not to say there isn't the odd one; there certainly is.

Government Operations committee  Yes, Mr. Chair, in terms of addressing the backlog, we absolutely still have a priority setting. Obviously, if there's a case where an employee has received no or little pay, that's an urgent one. We've also recently put the emphasis on people approaching maternity leave or pater

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, the member's question was around whether there is still a priority-setting exercise in terms of addressing urgent cases versus less urgent cases. There absolutely is. Obviously, employees who receive zero or little pay would be high on that list. We would also put an e

Government Operations committee  In terms of resolving these cases, as mentioned earlier in the member's question, we are on track to resolve the backlog, as previously indicated. I can't speak to this case in particular, but we do have the priority setting in place to allow us to address the most urgent cases

Government Operations committee  I'd have to get back to the member in writing with an actual list of the number in surplus, but we're happy to do that. I think there is an ongoing assessment because a lot of questions are being asked about the future of work and what kind of space the federal government will n

Government Operations committee  There are two kinds of avenues there. One is through Canada Lands, which would develop. The other is through the CMHC program that has been mentioned. The main job for PSPC in this area is to identify surplus properties and then to make sure all are consulted on what might be d

Government Operations committee  There's a lot in there, Mr. Chair. We will absolutely get a list of surplus properties. It hasn't been determined who they're going to yet, so maybe it would be helpful if we could give a list of surplus properties that have also been disposed of, looking backward just to get a

Health committee  This was done at a time when you were seeing things like emergency rooms overrun, with lack of space being an issue. You saw the cruise ship in New York Harbor, and we did notice that other countries were taking steps to put in place plans for mobile hospital units or health unit

Health committee  In this case, PSPC actually used its own funding to acquire these, so in part of the estimates last year, PSPC was given additional money voted by Parliament where there was a need for procurement—because we are in direct contact with suppliers and are noticing shortages—to go ah

Health committee  Based on assessments, there are not a lot of companies in this business. We had two who have done these types of things before, often through efforts with the military in Afghanistan, as well as for the U .S. military, so we found two suppliers who were well experienced in these

Health committee  The contract had a couple of elements, Mr. Chair. Number one is the design, as I mentioned, and number two is to actually procure the equipment necessary to establish these things should they be needed, because, again, you have to have these on hand in advance of any request. As