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Ryan Turnbull

Replying to Alex Ruff (Conservative)
“Madam Speaker, my question to the member, and he seems to be fairly informed, has two parts. First, the only reason CRA was able to issue this contract to a company other than Commissionaires was that Veterans Affairs removed the right of first refusal to Commissionaires, a policy that has been in place since 1945. The government refused to answer a question about that when I asked during question period. Maybe the member now knows why. Second, I just want to clarify that, during his statement, the member said, I believe, that Allied Universal has maybe 12 Canadian veterans currently employed by the company. I point out that Commissionaires has over 4,000 Canadian veterans. Which one does he think would actually provide more employment opportunity, especially for older Canadian veterans?”

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Madam Speaker, just to correct the record, I said that, of the 60 security guards hired through that particular contract, 33 of them were former commissionaires while 12 of those served in uniform previously. Not all commissionaires served in uniform, apparently, from what I have been told. That is just to clarify for the member opposite what I said, to be factually correct. As to the member’s question about the procurement process, I think we would probably all agree that competition within procurement is a positive thing. A best value approach is probably the best way to evaluate procurement contracts. I will note that, within the buy Canadian policy, we have defined Canadian companies as not being determined by ownership criteria, but rather by the number of employment opportunities in Canada. This particular organization has 10,000 employees in Canada, so it did qualify under those criteria. Members need to understand that the best value of this contract was weighed between a number of different factors, and this is the decision the CRA made. It stands by that decision. Even though I know it is hard for us and members opposite to accept that decision, it was the one determined to be in the best value, which is a balance of all the different criteria, as I mentioned, of quality, risk, employment and other factors within that procurement process.