44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 3, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/3/22 12:20:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in my experience, having worked for three years for a professional association responsible for this, not the Payroll Association but HR professionals, what people typically do is hire more compensation advisers.
I will admit that, at the time when Phoenix was being rolled out in its first phase, there were not enough compensation advisers, because one wants to work out all the kinks. It is like running an update to something, like an old Microsoft update for Windows 95. There are always errors that are going to happen, so before one makes it live and gives it to everyone, there is a small group of people to test it on. There are Treasury Board documents that show that this test did not happen with the Phoenix pay system. The minister at the time knew that a rollout of phase 2 would pose a disaster for those who would be caught up in the system.
It is an easy thing to do: do all the due diligence at the beginning, even if it means paying more for compensation advisers.
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Mr. Speaker, I am really quite pleased with the member's endorsement of the fact that, during the Standing Orders debate, I made the suggestion that Friday be a debate day, so I am going to take that as an endorsement of that particular recommendation I was making.
I will go back to the point about the government's legislative agenda, because that is really what we are talking about today, when the opposition moves yet another concurrence motion. Does the Conservative Party have any sense in terms of a commitment to pass Bill C-21, or could we anticipate that there are going to be many speakers on that particular bill? Are the Conservatives prepared to see that bill ultimately pass?
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- Jun/3/22 12:21:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot divine what my House leader is thinking, nor what the members on my side of the House may want to speak on, because I am sure that on Monday, when the government table-dropped this legislation, many of our constituents did not even know such a thing was coming and were not expecting its contents.
Over the summer months, I would hope that we will collect our emails, collect information that we get from constituents who are affected by this, and then reflect that back in the House, so that we can inform the government on what it is actually doing and the impacts it will have on the two million legal firearm owners.
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- Jun/3/22 12:22:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Calgary Shepard for the amazing job he is doing. I know that he represents his folks well.
He mentioned the Phoenix pay system fiasco. I was just wondering if he can tell us a little more about how that has affected his constituents.
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- Jun/3/22 12:23:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. I have been to his riding. As in his riding, in my riding we have a lot of lawful firearm owners who want to abide by all the rules set out by the government. They understand that it is a privilege, and they have had a lot of difficulty over the last 20 or 30 years with ever-changing rules and expectations that keep being set higher and higher.
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- Jun/3/22 12:23:31 p.m.
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The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé on a point of order.
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- Jun/3/22 12:23:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for the unanimous consent of the House to present the petition I planned to table today.
People from Berthier—Maskinongé made a special trip to Parliament Hill for this reason.
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- Jun/3/22 12:24:02 p.m.
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All those opposed to the hon. member moving the motion will please say nay.
I hear none. The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.
The motion is carried.
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- Jun/3/22 12:24:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking every single one of my colleagues for their kindness.
I rise today to present petition e-3748 regarding shoreline protection. I sponsored this petition, which is backed by a series of resolutions of support from various municipal councils and RCMs in my riding. I will share these resolutions of support with the minister in the coming days.
This petition, which was signed by 809 people, was started by Mr. Grégoire, of Saint‑Ignace‑de‑Loyola, who travelled to Ottawa with several mayors from Berthier—Maskinongé to deliver it.
The petitioners are calling on the federal government to implement a shoreline protection program for the St. Lawrence River and take the necessary steps to counter erosion and safeguard the environment, for example, by regulating the maximum speed of vessels based on vessel type and by creating and maintaining shoreline protection works.
I remind the House that the federal government cancelled the shoreline protection program in 1997, divesting itself of the responsibility. Since then, municipalities along the river and their residents have been abandoned as erosion has become an ever-growing concern. Our small municipalities along the river should not have to take on the federal government's responsibilities. They are now forced to carry out costly emergency repairs without any support.
In signing this petition, the people of Berthier—Maskinongé are building on the work started by the people of Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, with the support of their member of Parliament.
I am very proud to continue this work. It is high time that the federal government took serious action to protect the St. Laurence River shoreline. We are tired of the government's complacency and neglect.
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Mr. Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the report stage and third reading stage of Bill C-19, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures.
Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the respective stages of the said bill.
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- Jun/3/22 12:27:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House to speak.
Today, I would like to talk about agile procurement processes.
Before I get into the substance of the debate, I would like to say, first of all, that the Auditor General's role is extremely important. Anyone who wants can show appreciation for that role, where time, energy, human ingenuity and, I am sure, robust discussions happen so that Canadians can know that there is a proper value-for-money auditing of government programs and services.
We know that, as a country, we have tremendous difficulty when it comes to procurement. Part of that is institutional and part of it, I would say, has to do with a lack of leadership. It is a difficult task, and the Auditor General comes to this place and tables a report to make the system better. The government accepts the recommendations, but it is not about just saying “We accept them.” It is about whether or not the recommendations get the proper scrutiny or the political pressure to actually see those recommendations implemented.
For anyone in this place to rise and say that we should not be discussing things like agile procurement processes, given the failures of the government to effect the change that is necessary so that we can move past the process issues, I think, is not ideal. We should be talking about these things, because they cost billions of dollars, and when they fail, they fail Canadians.
The Phoenix payroll system, some people might say, was brought in by the previous government. Those processes were brought in, but the ultimate decision to initiate, overruling the advice given by IBM and others to this government that the system was not prepared and that there would be problems with the system, lies fully on the government's decision to start it.
Now, I am not going to relitigate that whole issue, but it does point out a very recent example where Canadians were hurt hard. We had public servants who, in effect, were unable to give the proper information to CRA and who were unable to feed their families or pay their mortgages. If any members in this place try to diminish today's debate on concurrence, that is on them. They are trying to avoid the accountability and the expertise brought forward by the Auditor General.
When the Auditor General says that she is “frustrated” about things like veterans wait-lists, when she and her office have made repetitive recommendations, accepted by government, but have not seen the subsequent improvements, I can understand how frustrating it is. We make recommendations to the government on a regular basis, and it does not accept any of them. The Liberals actually say things like, “We have nothing to learn”, yet they ultimately have to do it, such as the decision on Huawei. It was this side of the House that said that the government needs to stand with our allies in saying “no way” to Huawei, yet the government did not listen.
Now, getting back to agile procurement, for those who are not necessarily familiar with the term, let me bring out what the Auditor General had to say: “We found that the way in which procurement teams collaborated with private sector suppliers on proposed IT solutions needed improvement.” Suppliers reported that they “should regularly confirm that their procurement activities support the business need.” I will sum it up by saying that agile, versus the status quo, is bringing industry in early and developing ongoing understanding and objectives.
This subject reminds of a story right out of a book called The Death of Common Sense by a lawyer from New York. He gave the example of a public servant in New York in the late seventies and early eighties. This person was told he needed to put in place a procurement process for a new bridge. The gentleman at the time said, “Let's bring in industry.” He brought in industry, asked how they would do this and then was very quiet.
Some of the larger firms said they would do the traditional process and laid out what that would be, which was at great cost to the taxpayer and was a very lengthy process. One of the participants said they would not do any of that. They said they would build the bridge by using the natural characteristics of the route, which would save on time and money and get the bridge built much faster. The error the public servant made, after bringing the bridge developer back in a second time, was giving the contract directly to that person.
That bridge was built two years ahead of schedule at half the cost. Why? It is because rather than coming in with a prescriptive approach, wherein the government thought it had the perfect solution, and saying to industry to build a big bridge that would cost millions of dollars, go way over budget and take extra time, someone simply asked, “How would you do this?”
Now, the public servant was ultimately fired. Yes, he was fired, because he did not follow the procurement rules at the time. There is a great saying from the book The Peter Principle: The first to go in any organization are the hyper-competent and the hyper-incompetent. If someone is terrible at what they do, they are gone. If someone is incredible at what they do, they are gone.
That is the example I would like to put forward today because agile procurement takes a very similar approach. For example, instead of government saying what it thinks, we should go to industry, bring them in early and hear the proposals. That is not what the government is doing.
The government has been criticized as being too prescriptive and not necessarily taking advantage of the new technologies. This might shock some Liberal, NDP and Bloc members, but the government is not always a leader when it comes to new technology. We need to talk to the experts, and unfortunately the experts are in industry most of the time. They understand the technology and what it can and cannot do. Unfortunately, even when IBM said to the government not to press start on the Phoenix pay system, the government ignored the advice.
This report is incredibly complex. It is important for us to acknowledge that we need to move from the current procurement process to the agile process laid out in this report. I invite Canadians to go to the Auditor General's website. It is the first report of the latest batch. I would ask Canadians to take a look at it to see the contrasting approach. I really do hope the government will draw upon it.
I am a big believer in Canadian industry. I am a big believer in the notion that we can reinvent government, especially when it comes to procurement processes. However, we need a government that embraces change.
The government, with its so-called deliverology, has not delivered when it comes to procurement. I certainly hope it listens to our Auditor General. It may not listen to me, and that is okay and I understand it. Sometimes I do not want to listen to myself either. However, it is so fundamentally important that we start to address these processes, because procurement is one of the things that hold our government back.
While I am on my feet, I move:
That the debate be now adjourned.
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- Jun/3/22 12:38:10 p.m.
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If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
The House leader of the official opposition.
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- Jun/3/22 12:38:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would ask for a recorded division.
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- Jun/3/22 12:38:38 p.m.
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- Jun/3/22 1:22:18 p.m.
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I declare the motion lost.
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Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts. After question period, we were supposed to actually be debating Bill C-21, and now we have a few minutes left of the government legislation. That legislation was important. It would make it illegal to transfer, sell or purchase handguns. That is something really important to Canadians. At a time when Canadians want this legislature to work in a co-operative fashion, why is the Conservative Party trying to filibuster legislation of such importance that the minister was here today to present it and to have that debate take place. Why wait until the last few minutes?
I would be interested in hearing why the Conservative Party does not feel this is an important issue.
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- Jun/3/22 1:23:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I said during my speech that we should be taking the Auditor General very seriously. Although there were recommendations the government said it would agree to, it has not followed through on all of them. We need to do a better job with procurement in this country.
The interesting thing is that this member just voted against my motion to end debate, so we are continuing to debate the thing that he is upset about because we are not supposed to be debating it anymore. This is the House of Commons, and the member knows the rules. He can put forward motions and have them accepted or rejected. I just did that. He voted against it. He wants to continue debate, apparently.
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- Jun/3/22 1:24:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thought that was a really great speech given by my colleague from British Columbia.
Going through the Auditor General's report here, I find it quite fascinating that there is one line that reads:
Also, lack of engagement with key stakeholders in governance mechanisms can lead to problems that are costly and time consuming to solve after contracts are awarded.
I think that has been an emerging theme across multiple Auditor General reports that we are seeing in committee. I am wondering if the member has any comments toward that issue.
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- Jun/3/22 1:24:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have said before that the procurement system in this country has not worked well. It is something that is a challenge to us. We must do better. I would point out that the PACP report states that the Office of the Auditor General found that ESDC:
had not established a clear governance structure for the Benefits Delivery Modernization program. In 2019, an independent review found unclear accountabilities and gaps in the program’s formal processes for decision making. In response, the department developed a draft governance framework but by the end of [the] audit period, it was still not formalized—even though the department had selected and awarded a pilot contract to a supplier for the program’s core technology in December 2019.
The government says that it accepts all recommendations by the Auditor General, yet does not take action. This report is an important road map for a better way to handle procurement, particularly by using agile procurement processes.
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- Jun/3/22 1:26:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is another point in the findings portion of this report. I think it is really interesting to note that the federal organizations rolled out agile procurement without sufficient training for staff or engagement with key stakeholders.
We heard the member talk about how the organization told the government to not hit the start button on the program, yet here we are. That engagement with stakeholders would have been extremely important. It would have prevented the whole disaster with the Phoenix pay system here. I am wondering if the member wants to elaborate further on that.
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