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Matt Horwood12min

Speaker 1

00:00

Deputy Minister for procurement and Kirk Albert, Acting Director of Special Investigations and internal disclosure. Juvenile Mercier, la committee Democrat, I would like

Speaker 2

00:10

to thank the committee for this opportunity to continue the discussion on the important issues around government contracting, public

Speaker 1

00:16

service and procurement. Canada, or psbc, is the federal government's central purchasing agent, and as such, procures goods services on behalf of other departments and agencies when the value of their requirements are beyond their own contracting authority. Psbc is therefore responsible for the majority of federal contracting, but this is a collaborative relationship between departments and agencies who are responsible for identifying what needs to be done, how it can be done, and when it should be done. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of each department and agency to decide whether to seek expertise outside the government. Instead of doing so by working in house to sumanis delegate the SPAC Giselle travail, the voter committee as the Associate

Speaker 2

00:59

Deputy Minister of PSPC, I welcome the work of this committee, as well as the findings of the Auditor General, the procurement Ombud and others. This work demonstrates that we at PSPC have work to do to further ensure that the procurement of IT and business consulting services are open, fair and transparent, and that processes are effectively administered.

Speaker 1

01:23

Psbc is working with TBS to strengthen procurement and here are some of what we've been doing, implementing a government wide requirement the departments explore if internal resources can be used to perform the work required prior to initiating procurement processes. New Treasury Board directive on the management of procurement to ensure managers are clear on their roles and responsibility in connecting with government contracting, communicating with departments on how we are strengthening procurement instruments, having a more robust challenge function on procurements and implementing new mandatory procedures to ensure all contracting authorities retain contractual decisions on files, particularly for professional services contracts SPACs and Pilar Ponce les UTD PSPC

Unknown Speaker

02:09

is working to rethink the tools we use for procurement. We are working to move beyond national master standing offers. In the

Speaker 2

02:20

interim, we are taking steps to change how these non competitive national master standing offers are administered. This includes making sure that justifications are on file and a challenge function is exercised whenever any federal department or agency wants to use these non competitive instruments,

Speaker 1

02:43

and PSPC has created a new net dedicated position of Chief contract quality assurance and records compliance. This new function will ensure that critical elements of decision making throughout the procurement process are properly documented. It will also focus on actively monitoring compliance with procurement policies, procedures and best practices to further safeguard the integrity of the federal procurement PSPC launched the new Office of supplier integrity and compliance this spring, which has allowed the government to better respond to misconduct and wrongdoing. Convey levoisier la President SPAC Safia, Mr. Chair. As you can see, PSPC is working

Speaker 2

03:21

hard to advance work, to modernize procurement, to make it simpler, faster and digitally driven. The focus for all of us is on driving value. For

Speaker 1

03:30

competition, departments need IT services or professional services. We want to ensure that they have procurement processes that deliver the most capable resources at the best value. We are implementing actions to respond to the results of audits and reviews of procurement in order to improve procurement and ensure value for money for Canadians. Thank you, Marcy,

Unknown Speaker

03:51

thank you. Mr. Mills, we'll start with Mr. Barrett for six minutes.

Speaker 3

03:56

Please. Clara Visser, the government contractor recently charged for committing $250,000 in fraud under your watch. Can you tell us what the name of her company is and for which projects she worked?

Unknown Speaker

04:20

Merci beaucoup, volatile. Don't judge. Thank you very

Speaker 2

04:23

much for your question. I do not have that information at my disposal in terms of what the name of the company is or what contracts were used.

Speaker 3

04:36

So you you don't know. No one, none of, none of the, none of the witnesses here today know the name of her company or the projects that she worked on.

Speaker 4

04:51

Madame Viswa, I secured, she secured various contracts.

Speaker 2

04:59

I. These private contractors various federal government departments and agencies, but the details of those contracts are not information that I have with me today

Unknown Speaker

05:14

is that information that you'll undertake to provide to the

Speaker 4

05:17

committee in writing? Yes, we can look into our files.

Speaker 3

05:24

Okay, so to be to be very clear, the name of the prime contractors, the name of her company, and the name of the projects that she worked on, is the information that we're looking for. And of course, your department will have those, those records. So you said that you'll see what you're able to provide. Of course, PSPC is able to provide the name of prime subcontractors in the contract that they work on correct

Speaker 3

05:51

it's, I must say, it's disappointing that you've come to the Government Operations Committee today not equipped with information that's, of course, in the public interest, and of course would be questions that that we would ask. It doesn't speak to transparency. We found ourselves, you know, in this place, only by virtue of of answers being demanded by by conservatives at committee. So are you able to tell us how many more cases of fraud, aside from Miss Visser, have been reported to the RCMP, The number of cases

Unknown Speaker

06:27

Unknown Speaker

06:40

that includes Miss Visser, merciful.

Unknown Speaker

06:43

Thank you very much for the question that does not include Miss

Speaker 2

06:52

Visser that took place in fiscal year 2022 23 so that was the first case of fraudulent over billing that we referred to the RCMP. But in 2023 24 we referred three further cases to the RCMP, and those are the three cases that were announced by the minister in March. And

Speaker 3

07:09

in addition to ms Visser, is there a number greater than zero of cases that were referred to the RCMP before the spring? Yes

Unknown Speaker

07:21

or no? Please. Sanjay, me,

Speaker 3

07:25

other than Miss Vissers were referred to the RCMP before this year. So there were three this year, Miss Visser in a previous fiscal year. How many others in addition to that? A number colonel, no other case. So the first

Speaker 2

07:38

trial referred to the RCMP for fraudulent over billing. Was the case of Canadian advisor, and after that, subsequently, we referred three further cases to the RCMP in 2023 24

Speaker 3

07:53

Sorry, I'm a little more. CP contacted PSPC regarding criminal investigations into consultants that were not referred to them by you so investigations that they initiated on their own or were initiated by complaints from from other other sources.

Unknown Speaker

08:10

Thank you. To my knowledge, has not contacted us

Unknown Speaker

08:19

in regard to the files you mentioned in your

Speaker 3

08:24

question, how much money is suspected by your department as being given out to fraudsters or having been the subject of fraud? So you say there's three other cases. What's the total value of of the suspected

Unknown Speaker

08:41

fraud? Question. It would be very difficult

Speaker 2

08:47

for me to estimate a total sum in regard to this fraud, because the very nature of fraud is to resist detection, to be secretive. Therefore, without looking through the cases one by one, it would be very difficult. I know there are international organizations who say that fraud might represent between 0.5 to 5% of spending in certain government entities, but it would be entirely speculation on my part to try to give you an exact sum departments,

Speaker 3

09:22

which departments are affected by the cases that have been referred to?

Speaker 4

09:27

The RCMP question. First of all,

Speaker 2

09:32

I would say that no department is entirely safe from this type of fraud. I think 36 departments

Speaker 3

09:41

fix sorry, Chair. Okay, I'm looking for the specifics of what I say that you say there's 36 Can you provide the list of the 36 to the committee? And the minister said that the cases were totaled around $5 million is that? Is that the right number I used

Speaker 4

09:58

to donate to me approximately. Is just, yes, that is approximate estimates. It's

Speaker 3

10:02

$5 million I'm sure that there's, I'm sure that there's information to support that. Can you provide that, right, that in writing to the committee, the estimate that's been compiled? I mean, initially you said it'd be difficult, the minister found it less difficult those that information was gathered for him by you and your colleagues. So I'd like to get specifics on that. It's about $5 million you see, it's across it's across 36 departments, so I'd like a list of the departments and the estimates that correlate to each department. Are you able to do that for us? Please, we

Unknown Speaker

10:29

will consult our files to see what we can do,

Unknown Speaker

10:32

and we will commit to send on the information as much as possible. Thank

Speaker 4

10:39

you very much. Just a reminder, I'm sure you're aware that this committee has passed a motion we require any requested responses within a three week period. Mr. Joari, please, floor is yours for six minutes.

Speaker 5

10:51

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good to be back. And I'd like to move that we resume debate on Mr. Green's motion regarding summer meetings and like to go on The list for hours.

Speaker 4

12:38

Thanks for your patience. Everyone normally would go right to a vote on this. However, in consultation, I'm ruling, sir.

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