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I call the meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 34 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. The committee is meeting today from 4:33 p.m. until 6:33 p.m. today to hear from the Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada and officials on the subject matter of the main estimates 2021-22 and the departmental plan 2021-22.
During the last 30 minutes of the meeting, we will go in camera to consider our report on the Nuctech security equipment contract study.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants at this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen are not permitted.
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For those people who are participating in the committee room, please note that masks are required unless seated and when physical distancing is not possible.
I will now invite the minister to make her opening statement.
Please go ahead, Minister.
Thank you. I am pleased to appear before you to discuss our requests for funding in the main estimates for 2021‑2022, as well as the departmental plan 2021‑2022 for Public Services and Procurement Canada.
With me today are deputy minister Bill Matthews, associate deputy minister Michael Vandergrift, and chief financial officer Wojo Zielonka.
[English]
As the department that acts as a central service provider to other government departments, PSPC is responsible for a multi-faceted and broad mandate.
Mr. Chair, as you know, PSPC continues to play a pivotal role in fighting the pandemic. Our goal right now is to get as many COVID-19 vaccines into the country as soon as possible. Thanks to a diverse portfolio of vaccines that we began building as soon as vaccine candidates showed promise, we are making progress.
As of today, more than 28 million doses of Health Canada authorized vaccines have arrived in Canada. The provinces and territories have administered more than 24 million doses. More than 66% of all Canadian adults have received at least one dose. In fact, as of today, Canada leads the G20 in terms of percentage of the population with at least one dose of vaccine. I continue to push our suppliers for more vaccine doses to be delivered earlier than scheduled.
Members may also be aware that we are already planning for the future, having established a contract with Pfizer for doses in 2022 and 2023, with options to extend into 2024. The agreement provides us with 65 million doses with access to up to 120 million more.
[Translation]
All of this is the result of teamwork across the Government of Canada, work that will continue until the pandemic is behind us.
At the same time, as outlined in this year's departmental plan, PSPC, Public Services and Procurement Canada, will continue to deliver on the government's other commitments, such as promoting diversity and inclusion, addressing climate change, and stimulating the economy.
One of our top priorities remains the implementation of the National Shipbuilding Strategy. We are making significant progress. However, shipbuilding is a complex business, and we must continuously improve.
We continue to deliver ships to the Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Navy. In the process, we are growing Canada's shipbuilding industry, which contributes $1.4 billion to the country's gross domestic product and sustains approximately 12,000 jobs each year.
We will continue to work with National Defence, the Canadian Coast Guard and industry to renew Canada's federal fleet of combat and non-combat ships.
[English]
As outlined in our plan, we are taking new approaches to federal procurement. We plan to grow participation from businesses led by indigenous peoples, Black and racialized Canadians, women, LGBTQ2 Canadians and other underrepresented groups, building on successful pilots and enhanced outreach efforts to these business communities. This is a priority for me personally.
Our modernization efforts also include moving forward with a new and innovative cloud-based electronic procurement solution. The solution called CanadaBuys allows businesses, big and small, to bid more easily on tender opportunities and manage contracts and orders for goods and services from the government. I can tell you that we have already been using CanadaBuys for procurements related to COVID-19, such as gowns and cloth masks.
These are only a few of our priorities for 2021-22. To achieve these bold undertakings and support the government's work, PSPC is requesting over $4.4 billion in the 2021-22 main estimates. This represents a net increase of $443 million over last year's main estimates.
[Translation]
Of that amount, $285 million is for real property repairs and maintenance, which will help us protect asset integrity; continue advancements in sustainability, carbon neutrality, and accessibility, in addition to protecting the health and safety of public servants during and after the pandemic.
[English]
This has been an unprecedented time in Canada's history, but we can now see a way out of this pandemic. As we continue to support Canada's response to COVID-19, my department will keep working to provide the other essential services that Canadians expect from us.
In closing, I look forward to working with my fellow parliamentarians and our dedicated public servants to move these plans forward.
I would like to thank profusely our interpreters for their incredibly hard work not only today but throughout the past year during the pandemic.
Thank you. Merci. Meegwetch.
:
Thank you, that's great.
As I said, we appreciate all the time that you and your team have made for us over the last year.
Minister, as I'm sure you've seen for yourself, when talking about vaccines, there is no shortage of opinions, whether informed or otherwise. We've heard random questions and baseless speculation thrown in an often desperate search for conspiracy, without considering the knock-on effect that these doubts may raise. We've all seen reporting of vaccine hesitancy, vaccine shopping and many—without credentials, I might add—questioning the science and how we secure our data. When we look for medical advice from politicians rather than licensed and expert medical officials, I'd say we're heading down a dangerous road.
Minister, if Canadians have questions regarding vaccines and what's right for their loved ones and themselves, whom should they speak to and which data should we use as a base?
To date, 28.4 million doses of vaccine have been distributed to the provinces and territories; 24.1 million doses have been administered and two-thirds, or 66%, of eligible Canadians have received at least one dose. As of today, Canada is first among G20 countries for the percentage of the population that has received at least one dose of vaccine.
You'll recall when I appeared before the committee before, I mentioned that we would see a rapid increase in the importation of vaccine to this country, and that has in fact happened. Through our negotiations, we have accelerated 28 million doses of vaccines to earlier periods in this year. This now allows us to accelerate the distribution of doses to provinces and territories.
Our work is not done. By the end of June, there will be enough vaccine for all Canadians who wish to receive it to have at least one dose, with second doses under way. By the end of September, if not sooner, all Canadians who wish to have two doses of the vaccine will certainly be able to.
Thank you, Minister and senior officials, for being with us today.
I sense that you can guess that my questions relate to Canada's National Shipbuilding Strategy. As part of that strategy, you expect to accept delivery of the second Arctic offshore patrol ship, or AOPS, in 2021‑2022. The first AOPS was delivered in July 2020 and is expected to be commissioned this summer, in 2021.
You expect to sign a strategic partnership agreement with a third shipyard in the spring of 2021, which should be the Davie shipyard, in theory. Spring normally ends around June 21. How are the negotiations to include Davie as a third partner going?
I want to welcome the minister back. I would like to get an overview from the minister.
She's been before us multiple times, and certainly, she has been on the hot seat at this committee on multiple occasions. I'm hoping to get a couple of figures and a couple of summaries out in a more amicable way, perhaps.
Regarding total purchases, could you give us an overview in terms of vaccine delivery, total delivery to date, and the overall confirmed purchases for delivery of the COVID vaccines of all variations?
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That's okay. That will suffice. I just wanted the numbers. That's very ambitious, and I know you've touted having the most diverse portfolio in the world.
Through you, Mr. Chair, the minister will recall on numerous occasions that we've been back and forth about the TRIPS waiver and about the government's accessing COVAX. There are reports today coming out of the CBC touting that although we are investing more dollars into COVAX, what countries are actually asking for are vaccines.
I'm wondering if the minister has given consideration to our surplus. The minister will recall there was some, I will say, politically constructed partisan hesitancy put out there with regard to AstraZeneca.
What considerations has the minister given, in terms of the fact that we are well above what our requirement would be for these vaccines? We're going to have a surplus.
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The World Health Organization's director-general reiterated the long-running concerns that western nations are vaccinating their people at really high rates. He said, “Of the 1.8 billion vaccines administered globally, just 0.4% have been administered in low-income countries.” He stated, “This is ethically, epidemiologically and economically unacceptable.”
You'll note that there's been an ongoing conversation exchanged through you, Mr. Chair, with the honourable minister on TRIPS, and, of course, I continue to talk about what I believe to be the value of having a patent waiver on vaccines. That also goes to other critical elements of PPE and medical supports as they relate to our response internationally.
Through you, Mr. Chair, I wonder if the honourable minister can tell us, notwithstanding all of the shifts within the Biden administration, whether there has been a shift in the cabinet's position to at some point come out and provide the TRIPS waiver for not just vaccines but for all critical medical related to COVID.
I'm talking about Michel Octeau, who owns Tango Communication Marketing, as well as Alexandre Brault, who is the son of Jean Brault. These names, if you do a little Google search, Madam Minister, will take you back some 20 years in time, to the time of the sponsorship scandal. These were people who were very involved in the Liberal Party of Canada, in a scandalous program that almost wiped out the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2006 election.
Now, what I want to understand is how a company owned by individuals connected to the sponsorship scandal was able to so easily gain access to a contract and receive $81 million in advance from the Government of Canada for masks and equipment that were completely unusable because of their poor quality. I already know that the Government of Canada has filed a lawsuit. It's mind-boggling to see the details of this case and how Canadian taxpayers have been had by this organization.
Did anyone give you a briefing when the names of Michel Octeau and Alexandre Brault, son of Jean Brault, came up for consideration?
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Madam Minister, with all due respect, don't read your lines to me. I don't want to hear about vaccine contracts, I'm not talking to you about that.
We're talking about an equipment purchase file and an $81-million cash advance, which Canada will likely lose. First, the Government of Canada took a year to file a lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court. I have an email here from the Prime Minister's office, from an employee, a middle manager, indicating that there was a problem. This email is from May 2020, which is over a year ago. It was already known that there was a problem.
I know you were coming into the position in November 2019 and the pandemic happened shortly thereafter.
Did anyone tell you about Mr. Octeau or Mr. Brault? Did no one warn you to be careful?
Jean Brault went to jail back in the day for wheeling and dealing in government contracts. Someone should have sounded the alarm.
Did anyone sound the alarm?
Thank you, Madam Minister, for being here.
I want to start off by saying that I loved hearing the great news that Canada is leading the G20 countries with respect to first doses. For me, that was new information, and I'm really happy to hear that. Thank you to you and your team for protecting us all across the country.
I want to touch upon vaccines and PPE, but vaccines in particular. We know that this is a preoccupation of Canadians. With respect to those that have been distributed to the provinces and territories, can you tell us how many have been distributed and any milestones in relation to that?
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Thank you so much for welcoming me and for the question.
I want to say that we are about to hit a very important milestone of 30 million vaccines distributed to provinces and territories. We're at 28.4 million doses at the current time, and we are expecting 2.4 million doses of vaccine next week from Pfizer. The week after, we will receive 2.4 million vaccines from Pfizer and at least 1.5 million doses from Moderna.
In addition to the very important milestone that we reached today, which is two-thirds of all eligible Canadians receiving at least one dose and being first in the G20 for the percentage of the population with at least one dose, we are on our way to hitting 30 million doses distributed to provinces and territories. As I said, well over 40 million doses will be distributed to the provinces and territories before the end of June.
We are accelerating our deliveries into Canada every single week. That is the reason we are first in the G20 for the percentage of the population with at least one dose. It is my priority. It is our government's priority, and we will not stop until all Canadians have access to vaccines.
On page 4 of the departmental plan, where it talks about the purchase of goods and services, you referenced this in your previous answers on the national shipbuilding strategy. On page 4, it talks about working “with government departments and industry” for “Canada's federal fleet of combat and non-combat vessels”. You've touted some of the economic benefits, but you'll recall that there's a pretty big disconnect between what DND says the cost is going to be and what our Parliamentary Budget Officer says the cost is going to be.
Through you, Mr. Chair, will the honourable minister take responsibility should there be an inevitability that this project balloons to the potential of it being an $80-billion project rather than what is estimated to be a $50-billion to $60-billion project? In short, will the minister take responsibility should there be cost overruns, given the variance between what her ADM said as it relates to taxes and the different formulas and what our Parliamentary Budget Officer said?
Minister, I also have the departmental plan and I've read through from 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22. Interestingly enough, you may or may not be aware of this, but the plan actually says that for goals for women and indigenous businesses, it's TBD. I have that document right here. It says, “TBD”, to be determined. In other words, there are actually no goals set.
Minister, you're actually misleading the committee right now by saying there are big goals and that you are achieving them. There are none. I have the documents right in front of me. How do you explain that?
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Thank you so much for the question.
I am very committed to diversifying the federal supply chain for LGBTQ+ and additional diversified and racialized minorities. It's extremely important that minority groups in our country have access to federal supply chains.
I spoke just now about the minimum 5% of federal contracts floor that we have in my mandate letter as a target that we are seeking for indigenous peoples. In addition to that, and in direct response to your question, I have met with indigenous businesses, women-led indigenous businesses, Black-owned and -managed businesses and many other racialized communities to seek their feedback on how we can do better to diversify federal supply chains.
In particular, with the Black-led and Black-managed businesses with whom I met, we heard of the importance of diversification in federal supply chains. What we did in response was to launch pilot projects, which were procurements directed specifically at Black-owned and Black-led businesses, so that we could begin the very important process of gathering data relating to the supplier community and what we should be doing better from a procurement standpoint.
In particular, we are launching, and indeed have launched, the e-procurement system. That is going to allow us, through electronic means, to gather data about the suppliers that are applying for federal contracts. Once we have that data and spread that system across government, we will be able to have the race-based and gender-based data that we need to evaluate our performance.
In short, diversifying the federal supply chain is an extremely important issue for me personally and for our government. In that regard, we have led targeted procurements to the indigenous business community, as well as to the Black business community, but our work is not done. We have more road to travel to meet the minimum mandatory 5% floor for indigenous businesses, which is contained in my still valid 2019 mandate letter. We will keep walking down the road of diversification in federal supply chains to ensure that the Canadian economy represents the demographics of this country.
Thank you.
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Thank you for the question.
At that time, we realized that the usual suppliers could not provide the goods in the required time. So we had to find other companies to help us.
[English]
At that time, again, there were many new companies popping up. Our traditional supply chains weren't working. Eventually, we got to a place where manufacturing was in Canada, but we used Buyandsell, and were very much looking for rapidity, so who came in first was very important, as well as a quick assessment of whether they could deliver or not. Rapidity was the key feature here.
I'm going to talk about Phoenix. On the departmental side, PSPC expects to spend less in 2023‑2024 than in 2021‑2022, in part due to the end of funding to stabilize payroll operations and bring down the backlog of payroll issues. PSPC has reduced the number of financial transactions in excess of its normal workload from a peak of 384,000 in January to 104,000 in February 2021, which is very good.
PSPC also awarded six contracts between March 2019 and January 2021 to acquire a next-generation human resources and payroll solution.
When will the backlog of payroll issues, so the backlog of money we owe people, be completely eliminated?
I appreciate the opportunity to take a trip down memory lane. Back when I was a city councillor here in Hamilton, we led an ambitious program to look at surplus city lands that we could provide to social housing and affordable housing providers.
I see on page 31, “PSPC will continue working with partners on the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation...led Federal Lands Initiative...which makes surplus federal real property available for re-purposing for affordable housing.” It states that they have “a target of 4,000 new or renovated housing units” and that they contributed, in 2020, “15 properties to the FLI to be assessed by CMHC for suitability for affordable housing, for a total of 75 since the inception of the program in 2018.”
I was excited originally, and then I got into the details and saw that over 10 years they were looking at $200 million to be used to subsidize these transfers of lands. I'm left with some pretty significant questions here. I think in my short time of four years as a city councillor, I delivered maybe half a dozen properties or so over to social housing here in Hamilton, yet across the country this seems to be a bit of a drop in the bucket.
To begin, I just want to ask the ADM, Mr. Matthews, how many properties are being slated for the transfer to the FLI.
First of all, how many surplus properties are there? Let's start there.
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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 need, so that list may grow as the future evolves.
When we do identify a property as surplus, though, it doesn't go right to social housing. There is, obviously, some consultation that has to take place, which takes a fair amount of time to ensure that there is no indigenous interest, etc. I think it frequently surprises people just how long that process takes.
The other point I should mention is suitability, which the member already touched on. It is quite a process that it goes through.
I'll wrap up quickly here.
The other point is that when we are disposing through the Canada Lands Company, the Canada Lands Company also redevelops property and dedicates a certain percentage—and I'm going from memory here—10%, for affordable housing as well. That's another lever the federal government can use in terms of building that program.
:
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 sense, but we will split the current list by geography.
I think it might also be useful for members if we were to include just the key steps in the disposal process, just so members can appreciate why it takes time to go through this process.
As for the $200 million, just by way of example, in the most recent one involving Canada Lands, we offered up some funding to basically remediate some environmental issues on the property as part of the transfer, but there are other examples as well.
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With that, we have come to the end of our questioning.
I want to thank Mr. Matthews, Mr. Vandergrift and Mr. Zielonka for being with us today.
I appreciate your coming back to our meetings when we ask you to be here. You are free to go.
That said, the public portion of our meeting is now complete. We will proceed to the in camera portion.
When I suspend the meeting, technical staff will end this part of the Zoom. Therefore, every member will need to log off and then log back in using the Zoom identification and passcode sent to you by the clerk.
With that, I will suspend temporarily.
[Proceedings continue in camera]