Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates: June 3, 2024

2024 to 2025 Main Estimates for Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), its portfolio, and Shared Services Canada (SSC)

Date: June 3, 2024 12:00 to 1:00 pm ET

Location: In person

Opening statements

Arianne Reza
Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada

Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO)

Main Estimates 2024 – 2025

June 3, 2024

Check against delivery

Opening

Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss Public Services and Procurement Canada’s Main Estimates for fiscal year 2024–2025.

Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on the traditional, unceded territories of the Anishinaabe Algonquin People.

Today, I am joined by:

• Associate Deputy Minister Alex Benay
• Assistant Deputy Minister Simon Page
• Assistant Deputy Minister Catherine Poulin
• Assistant Deputy Minister Dominic Laporte
• Chief Financial Officer Wojo Zielonka

Mr. Chair, PSPC has a wide-ranging mandate related to government procurements, managing government buildings, administering pay and pensions for the public service, and more.

In order to support these activities, PSPC is requesting a net amount of $4.8 billion through these Main Estimates. This is a net increase of $449 million from the previous year.

Main Estimates Breakdown and Priorities

The majority of that amount, more than $3.3 billion, will be spent on property and infrastructure activities including major rehabilitation projects across the country.

$767.9 million is for Payments and Accounting initiatives which include supporting the Government of Canada’s pay administration program.

PSPC remains dedicated to achieving pay stabilization and eliminating the backlog of pay issues. And as this Committee has heard, we are also making real progress on the Next Generation Human Resources and Pay system.

Procurement

Mr. Chair, $181.7 million is being sought for running important procurements. This includes our work with key partners to advance the National Shipbuilding Strategy and other key defence procurements.

It also includes our continued work to modernize the federal procurement system, with a focus on increasing the participation of small and medium sized businesses, as well as suppliers from under-represented groups—including Indigenous businesses.

The current focus is to ensure that 5% of the value of federal contracts are awarded to Indigenous businesses. Indigenous Services Canada is the federal department responsible for the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business and has determined that the Government on the whole is exceeding the target.

Mr. Chair, PSPC is looking at ways to increase rigor within federal procurement, particularly for professional services.

As you are aware, PSPC leads on more complex and higher risk procurements using its commodity expertise and skilled workforce.

Moreover, PSPC establishes government-wide procurement vehicles and strategies in order to enable efficiencies in departments.

We’ve made several improvements to our processes and procedures based on recent reports from the Procurement Ombud and the Auditor General, as well as our own internal reviews—particularly when it comes to implementing better record keeping and transparency to advance process controls.

The new Office of Supplier Integrity and Compliance is now in effect as of May 31st, which will help us better respond to supplier misconduct and unethical behaviour.

As for detecting cases of fraud, PSPC continues to refine and expand the use of our tools, including data analytics.

As has been raised, we have already referred several cases of fraudulent overbilling to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in 2022, 2023 and 2024 and a number of other internal investigations are still underway.

While those investigations are ongoing, I can tell you that they will also be referred to the RCMP where appropriate, as more information is uncovered.

I will also note that, as part of the Refocusing of Government Spending initiative, for this fiscal year, the planned spending reduction for PSPC will be $148.2 million.

Mr. Chair, the department has many other priorities stemming from Budget 2024.

That includes leading on the new Public Lands for Homes Plan, for which my departmental officials are now working out the details.

Budget 2024 also featured proposed funds to support Laboratories Canada and Parliamentary Precinct projects, as well as new funds to move forward on a new pay and human resources (HR) system and expand the Translation Bureau’s capacity.

Closing

Mr. Chair, we are pleased to answer your questions about the work underway at PSPC and our Main Estimates.

Thank you.