Government Operations Committee on Oct. 20th, 2009

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Once you had moved to the Secure Channel program and the Auditor General of Canada had made her recommendations, I am wondering whether you learned about these mistakes.

[Maurice Chénier]

Thank you for your question.

Yes, undoubtedly. The importance of learning in these large projects is to have a good repertory so it can be referred to at any time.

Madam Fraser has really focused on four elements. First, have good governance.

If we look at what we're doing now with Madame Charette and her multi-project management framework, we now involve multiple departments with good governance. We're not alone at the table making decisions.

Second, make sure that you have the organizational capacity. Don't take on something that you will figure out later is harder than you thought it would be to manage and for which you don't have the right skills or people. In my own organization, I have created a body of knowledge, which is major projects, and we now have certified project managers.

Third, Madam Fraser said to make sure that you do good business analysis and set good business requirements and that you apply them going forward. We are applying that, Madame Bourgeois, as part of our best practice in the ongoing improvement mandate for managing IT projects. I am a certified project expert myself.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

In fact, the Auditor General focused on four elements, and in particular on the business case. In your presentation, you said twice that you are going to eliminate excessive costs, that you are going to achieve savings.

Have you reached those conclusions from the business case? Could you provided the business case to the committee clerk?

[Maurice Chénier]

Thank you, Ms. Bourgeois.

We have done consultations and surveyed the industry to give ourselves demarcation lines regarding the benefits and potential savings if the networks are consolidated. I think we all agree that we are all on the same wavelength, that 124 networks in the Canadian public service is a lot, and that in the long term the costs are excessive.

We therefore did research into private sector enterprises and other institutions. That gave us savings margins, for example 10 to 15%, 20 to 25%. We also consolidated and modernized our wireless services. We have achieved savings of 40 to 50%. So we have some indicators for determining, once GENS is in place, whether each department will be able to comply and whether the operating costs are really going to be better than what we have today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Gourde, you have the floor.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Madam Chair, I would like to thank the witnesses for coming today.

You may have started to answer my question. What are the objectives and benefits of the Government Enterprise Network Services initiative?

[Maurice Chénier]

Thank you.

The Government of Canada is powered more and more by IT. For four years in a row we have been number one in online service delivery. Our government service is something to be really proud of. We have more and more information technology delivering government services.

The actual advantage and benefit and the reason behind a government enterprise network service is that we're in 2009 and we do not need 124 networks any more. We can deliver our government programs with fewer networks and enable better security, because 124 networks could easily be 124 interesting back doors. We need to improve the modernization of those aging telecommunication services in every department.

The goal is to create shared capacity so that 100 departments are not doing all the work, year by year, without taking advantage of central or decentralized expertise to modernize our computer systems, particularly when it comes to networking, to ensure that all our departments are well connected, so that electronic services can be delivered to Canadians and businesses.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you.

How will Public Works and Government Services Canada make sure that adequate control is retained over the management of Government Enterprise Network Services and control is not handed to the private sector?

[Maurice Chénier]

Thank you.

My role as chief executive officer at Public Works and Government Services Canada is also the role of service manager. My role with an initiative such as Government Enterprise Network Services is that when departments have confirmed that it makes sense, the price is good, the quality is worth it, and they come to u...I ensure that I keep the industry compliant in terms of quality, delivery performance, and actual agility in deploying the service. I am the one who monitors contractual performance on a monthly basis. I am the one, unfortunately sometimes, who has to negotiate penalties and actually has to hold accountable our suppliers in ensuring that they deliver the service that meets the service-level requirements of every department.

So my role is that of service manager, and I report on a monthly basis, with very rigid discipline on performance. All the contracts we have in GENS will definitely fall into that category, and with our multi-vendor approach we will mitigate putting all our eggs in one basket.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

What are the next steps in this process?

[Maurice Chénier]

As I mentioned a little earlier in my presentation, the dialogue with the private sector, with small and medium enterprises, has started. We are aware that small and medium enterprises are the infrastructure and the backbone of our economy in a number of provinces.

We have received pages and pages of very worthwhile comments. After we distributed our draft documents, in August, the analysis is not yet complete. The next step is to finish the analysis, check with Corinne Charette to make sure there is a good synergy so that we can go ahead, reconfirm our partnership with HRSDC, publish the results of the analysis, and implement our approach in the following months, to be able to deliver the operational needs of our first client, HRSDC, which has urgent needs, by the end of 2010 or mid-2011.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

What has been the industry response to the consultations on Government Enterprise Network Services?

[Maurice Chénier]

The response has been generally positive. We have had a lot of response from the industry. Themes and trends have been conveyed to us very clearly.

So we had extremely clear themes and trends that came from the consultation.

First of all, the actual consultation highlighted that the telecommunication industry is not a highly fragmented industry. You don't have 200 players that have made huge capital investments in laying down fibre optics from coast to coast; there are really only about four or five in Canada.

The industry told us that the ability to converge those services is indeed ready. I'll use a good example. At home, each one of us, including me, does not need a cable for the Internet any more. I don't need a cable for my telephone and I don't need a cable for my alarm system. Now all the companies offer one service called Internet protocol convergence. The consultation also told us to be careful not to bundle professional services into this, so we have made initial changes to that.

There are still some concerns that we're analyzing. There are some residual pieces in the package of GENS that could be looked at separately; it may not be core to GENS, and this is the analysis we're doing.

Generally speaking, the feedback we have received has been supportive. We have confirmed that the way we were asking to consume the service is the way they can offer that, and that we were not asking for something special that could lead to the industry delivering something just for us that is usually more expensive.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We will go to Mr. Thibeault, for eight minutes.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today. I want to thank you for your opening statements. It really helped me understand what you were going to be speaking to and focus a bit on my questioning.

You talked a bit initially about how you're replacing old software. These are positive things. Bringing in state-of-the-art equipment is positive. The Auditor General also brought forward, as you've outlined here--and you're guiding yourselves by these criteria--good governance, sufficient organizational capacity, effective project management, and strong analysis leading to sound business cases. Again, all of these are positive.

The Auditor General also brought forward the fact that large IT projects aren't always as successful as smaller projects. Has PW considered the concerns of the Auditor General when looking at large IT projects in a design like GENS?

[Maurice Chénier]

Definitely, and with permission, I will use two examples.

The first example is GENS. I want to be very clear: GENS will not commit $1 billion of government funds up front, where we go to Treasury Board to receive authorization to spend it right away. GENS is going to start small, with HRSDC. It's going to set the marker for more departments to come on board if the GENS results give us those price and performance markers, which we don't really have until we test the market.

I will refer to the second aspect in terms of my example about sizeable chunks and how we mitigate that. I have a lot of admiration for my colleague, Madame Renée Jolicoeur. We have worked together for many years, and we have learned the hard way sometimes. The pension modernization project, as an example, has been broken into multiple releases, and I believe we are in our fourth or fifth release right now. It's in production and it's on time. It is a large, complex project. It has been managed in chewable releases of software pieces, which so far is hitting the mark in terms of making sure we have checkpoints before we go to bigger commitments.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Okay.

If I understand what you're saying, then, it's starting off with HRSDC. It's going to be a small project. Other departments then have the option to jump in if they feel it's going to benefit their department. Is that correct?

[Maurice Chénier]

Yes.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

So what will be the determining factor for the department to decide if they're going to jump in or not?

[Maurice Chénier]

The determining factors are these: they're at the end of the life cycle of their network, and maybe there is no replacement vehicle in place; the cost of operation for their network will be x dollars; and their security exposure will be x percent. Once they analyze all those parameters, they come see to me at Public Works and Government Services Canada, and I will say that we have a series of procurement vehicles in place that can help them mitigate that and converge the networks. If our offer is below the mark in terms of where they are in running their network, that is definitely where the business case and a letter of intention will follow, with commitment from that department to work with us on a project-by-project basis.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

So one department jumps on and the next one jumps on because they see the benefits, and then down the road we don't necessarily know that problem A is coming at us from this angle. Will that limit the departments from then changing and going back? Will it become almost proprietary, so that once you're in GENS you're stuck with GENS forever, and you can never change if you realize you need something different?

[Maurice Chénier]

First of all, a network deployment is usually something that takes up to two or three years. This is something that requires a lot of labour in terms of putting it in place. GENS is not about creating a brand-new network; GENS is about modernizing the aging network components in each department in a timely manner. HRSDC is an example. They're coming on board with GENS, but only with one component on GENS—the wide area network, not the other component. They will stay with other suppliers until they see the benefit of GENS. They will not be locked into one supplier or multiple suppliers in GENS.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

One more question.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

I'll make it a very quick question.

I just wanted to flag one thing you were speaking about in your opening statements, that the long-term goal of GENS is to rationalize the 124 separate government networks into fewer. So 123 networks is fewer. Do you have any idea of the number you're looking at?