Evidence of meeting #53 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aws.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
I'm very sorry. I'm not aware of Fortinet's role in this particular piece of work.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
5:10 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
At the very initial stages of work, we were engaged with a partner. Then that partner was no longer involved in the work and we contracted directly with the Government of Canada.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
5:10 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
It was just in terms of the simplicity. Being able to contract directly and work directly with AWS was just what was needed for the project. The partner was a company called Dalian.
5:15 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
All right. Thank you.
Are you still billing for the work on ArriveCAN, or is it finished?
5:15 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
No, it's not finished.
In a normal course of work, in terms of engaging the cloud, you'll often see a heavier amount of the need for those advisory services at the beginning of a mandate, just to get things up and running as you build.
In terms of the cloud utility, the app is still functional today. It's still running on AWS infrastructure, and it continues to run on AWS infrastructure, but the billing for that is based on its actual usage. It's based on the volume of users using the app and the activity of those services.
5:15 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
I'm sorry. I missed something in the interpretation there.
5:15 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
How long will ArriveCAN user data be kept, and how will it be kept?
5:15 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
It's preserved until the Government of Canada does something else with it. It remains there until the Government of Canada either moves the data, deletes the data....
5:15 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
The work you are currently billing for has to do with the use of the app, and that's on top of the $4.2 million or so. Is that correct?
5:15 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
I apologize. I'm not quite sure I'm getting the gist of your question in interpretation.
The majority of the billing at the front end of the contract, under the framework agreement, would be related to advisory services. The advantage of using cloud is that you can scale up or scale down, depending on the level of your use.
In the case of anything that has peaks and valleys in demand, you're paying only for what you use. You're able to scale up to a level that's quite high without having to procure servers on your own.
Before the cloud, basically what we had was, if you were the government—
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
5:15 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
I'm sorry.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
That's okay. I know once you get on a roll there.... I am going to go to Mr. Green for two and a half minutes.
I apologize, Ms. Foster. The thing I hate most about being chair is having to cut people off.
5:15 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
Maybe I'll get back to it.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Ms. Foster, when a contract like this is procured—I understand that $4.29 million had been utilized—what would be the top-end threshold before you would have to go back and renegotiate?
5:15 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
All of that is really managed by the customer in terms of how they procure. We follow the Government of Canada's procurement process, or we work with the customer to follow their process.
I didn't bring those figures with me. I would like to have the opportunity to correct this if I get it wrong, but I believe that for a utility compute the initial threshold is $4.5 million. Then, I believe, for statements of work, there are different streams for advisory services, but I believe it's $500,000 per service.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
The government, I think, assumed that this was going to be used perhaps more than it was in terms of downloads and actual usage, given the amount of money that has been invested into this product and its storage.
Are you suggesting that you just reached the max threshold of your procurement and then stopped in coincidence with the amount of usage?
5:15 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
There would be timelines associated with that number. I think it depends on when the project was initiated and concluded, or it's on a per annum basis. I can't speak to the government's procurement process—
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Earlier in my last round, you probably heard some frustration in terms of whether or not we selected the right representative from Amazon to answer these questions. We're here after the House has risen. Everybody's ostensibly done for the year. We're here trying to get to the heart of the matter, and yet you're unable to provide what I consider to be very basic information to this committee for the good and welfare of our report.
Is there somebody else within the company who might be better suited to being invited back to this committee, who might have some of the answers to the questions we're asking?
5:15 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
It depends on the question you're asking. Some of the disclosures you're asking for would really be up to a customer to provide you with. As a service provider, we wouldn't disclose customer information.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You would be directed to provide that through the House of Commons, through our parliamentary privileges.