Government Operations Committee on Nov. 26th, 2009

[John Rath-Wilson]

Thank you for the question.

In fact, the departments are engaged throughout the process. The consultations we've been talking about mostly at this committee are external-based consultations, where we've consulted with industry. As we go through the process of eliciting requirements for a particular contract, we have engaged in very deep consultation with departments within the federal family. Internally, the development of the statement of requirements has been a consultative process. This includes our colleagues at Treasury Board as well as the departments who have expressed an interest in using this service once it's mature.

So my answer would be that we do consult with departments in putting together their statement of requirements.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

How many departments have expressed an interest to date?

[John Rath-Wilson]

We started with a family of five departments. I'm going to ask my colleague, Christine Payant, to go into more detail on the departments themselves. If you have further questions on the process for the consultations, she'll be able to answer you there as well.

[Christine Payant, Director General, Product Management, Information Technology Services Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Thank you very much.

First of all, on the process to select, and in the end--

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

I'm sorry, could I go back to how many departments to date have expressed an interest in GENS?

[Christine Payant]

A number of departments have expressed interest. There are three departments whose contracts are currently at the stage at which they would be in a position to use the GENS service once the solicitation process is complete. Those departments are Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and Public Works and Government Services Canada. Other departments as well have expressed interest in GENS, but it will depend on the timing and their specific requirements. There would potentially be additional departments beyond those three.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

At this point in time you have no commitment beyond those three departments you've mentioned.

[Christine Payant]

That's correct.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

There is a possibility that it will be limited to those three, and that's it.

[Christine Payant]

That could be.

Other contracts within the telecommunications area may expire in the future, contracts in which other departments are using telecommunication services from other existing contracts. It's an optional service, so departments could opt to choose a portion of the GENS service to replace their expiring contracts in the future.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

How many of the 124 contracts are involved with the three departments that have indicated an interest?

[Christine Payant]

Let me clarify. There aren't 124 contracts; a number of different contracts across the Government of Canada support telecommunication services, and there are 124 departments that could potentially use those contracts.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

You're referring to the networks.

[Christine Payant]

I'm referring to the networks, yes, exactly, but there are not 124 separate contracts.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

No, but of the 124 networks, how many are taken up by the three departments?

[Christine Payant]

There would probably be just those three departments, so three networks would essentially cover those three departments.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

That's of the 124.

[Christine Payant]

That's correct.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

What's the cost, again, for the implementation and what you're doing in terms of the design and the work on the GENS itself? What's the cost to date?

[Christine Payant]

The cost to date, which we provided in our response to committee, shows $1.2 million over three fiscal years. That is the cost to develop and prepare the requirements for the GENS initiative.

The work happened over a period of three years. It involved working with our primary partner department, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, to gather the specifications and requirements. It also included an extensive consultation process with industry, through which we sought input and feedback on the GENS approach and made some adjustments. It included also the process of posting our draft solicitation of interest and qualification for feedback from industry. It's was a very lengthy, very structured process.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

I have a concluding question, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Could you keep it for a later time, please?

Mr. Nadeau, the floor is yours.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon to you all.

On October 20, during your previous appearance before the committee, a document on large projects was handed out to us by Maurice Chénier. In response to a question, Mr. Chénier said that the next step of the Government Enterprise Network Services was to develop the solicitation of interest. According to this document, you are not in the process of preparing that.

What are some of the industry's comments on that process?

[John Rath-Wilson]

Thank you for the question.

I would ask Christine, who is more familiar with this content, to respond to the question.

[Christine Payant]

Thank you.

Eleven companies shared with us their comments on the draft that was sent regarding the MERX service. They underscored certain things that they are asking us to consider as part of the next stages of GENS.

Let me summarize the feedback that we've received from industry in that draft solicitation process.

The majority of industry commented that the GENS approach was sound and that they were interested in our proceeding with the next phase. There were comments on the professional services component of GENS, and they felt that we needed to clarify and to remove professional services. This was a point that small and medium-sized enterprises were quite interested in and had brought to our attention. Other industry responses indicated that they wanted the process to be clear and they wanted more opportunity to essentially provide input into the next steps.

We received 11 responses. We've taken those responses into consideration and we've made significant adjustments in our approach. Those were documented in our response and essentially provided to--