Government Operations Committee on April 30th, 2013

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Because I think the dollar estimates of numbers of ships was made in 2010, and I think costs might have changed since then. I think it would be useful if you could provide information to the committee on the anticipated number of ships and inflation assumptions.

[Michelle d'Auray]

Mr. Chair, I think we have put out that material publicly, so I will provide you what we have put forward in that regard.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay.

Madame Forand, do you have a business plan, and if so, could you share it with us? I think earlier you were talking about a transformation plan that you are still working on. So I wonder if, either in terms of the transformation plan or a business plan, you would be able to share it with us when it's ready.

[Liseanne Forand]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As I recall, I think we provided our integrated business plan for the past year, 2012-13, to the committee—

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Oh, okay.

[Liseanne Forand]

—and we will be renewing or updating that business plan for the department's business for 2013-14. We should have that integrated business plan for 2013-14 by June of this year.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

I think you've dropped from two programs to one program in your program alignment. If that is correct, it does make it a little bit more difficult for us to know what's going on. Is that the case?

[Liseanne Forand]

No. We have had a single program from the beginning.

Again, a little bit like my answer before about the vote-netted revenue, we had to go to Treasury Board within three months of the establishment for our program alignment architecture. That was done very quickly, and at that time we had identified a single program.

We do have a date with Treasury Board to go back on our program alignment architecture, going forward. We're doing the work with respect to that now. Now that we know a little bit more about the business, and we know a little bit more about the work we have to do, we're going to be taking another look at that and going back to Treasury Board with that next fall.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

I think in the budget implementation bill, PWGSC was given new authorities to do business with other levels of government, outside the federal government. I wonder if you could explain a little bit what that implies. Does that mean you'll need more money, or maybe you'll make money?

[Michelle d'Auray]

Thank you for the question.

What we have in the budget implementation act is a streamlining of the ability, which was already in the public works act, to provide services to the provinces and territories or other levels of government, but we have to do it every single time, for every single request. This makes it a lot more streamlined for provinces, territories, and municipalities that want to, if I can put it this way, piggyback or take advantage of the purchasing power of the Government of Canada. It's going to be more a savings for them—to be able to benefit from our purchasing power—than it is an earned revenue for us or an increased savings for the federal government. But it is to create an opportunity, if those other levels of government wish to take advantage of our purchasing power.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Madam d'Auray.

Thank you, John.

Next, for the Conservatives, we have Bernard Trottier.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to direct my questions to Madame Forand of Shared Services Canada.

As you know, we've been a big supporter of this whole initiative to streamline the way things are done in the federal government, especially the notion of removing some of the redundancies and some of the operational inefficiencies that are created by these silos.

You alluded to it earlier about the data centre consolidation. Obviously, it's something that has a pretty big impact when it comes to cost, going from 300 data centres down to 20. There are obviously some benefits when it comes to environmental things, when it comes to cooling expenses, and also when it comes to security.

Above and beyond the cost savings, could you explain what this means in terms of data security and removing points of vulnerability when it comes to data centres?

[Liseanne Forand]

Thank you for that question. It's a very important topic, the question of IT security.

I mentioned earlier that complexity and diversity drive costs. I think it's true that complexity and diversity are not necessarily the friends of IT security either. So we are looking to simplify things and standardize things as much as possible. We know that will also increase the security posture of the Government of Canada with respect to data centres.

But I think the most important element and the most important factor that will contribute to an increased security and enhanced security posture for the Government of Canada is the fact that we're going to be building security in from the outset. So all of our networks and all of our data centres were built one by one by individual departments, and they built them for their own security purposes, but not necessarily in any interconnected way or with any plan. Some of these started being built 40 years ago. Some of our data centres are 30 or 40 years old. At that point, I don't think IT security was where it is today, in terms of a priority, because the world hadn't evolved as it has.

So we will be building for the future, building security in from the outset. On that, we're working very closely with Communications Security Establishment Canada and its expertise, in terms of what's needed. So we're confident that the final configuration, the data centres themselves and the networks between them, will demonstrate greatly enhanced IT security.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Now, I mentioned the environmental benefits. I don't know if people appreciate to what extent big data centres actually generate a lot of heat and what cooling expenses are associated with that. Have you quantified the green benefits of data centre consolidation?

[Liseanne Forand]

We've certainly, by this point, done a full inventory of our costs in terms of heating and cooling, and in particular, power and cooling. One of the things, in fact, that you notice when you walk into some of our larger data centres is that there's so much room left, and they're only two-thirds full. That's because we've run out of power and cooling capacity for that space. There's lots of floor space, but there's not enough power to do it.

A big objective of this initiative is to be much more efficient with respect to cooling. Just by reducing the number of data centres, by situating them where we can optimally get the best arrangements in terms of power costs and that sort of thing, we anticipate significant savings in that area as part of the whole process. With the requirement for storage and data management increasing, not just in the Government of Canada but all across the private and public sectors, that may generate actual savings or it may be a case us doing much more with the same amount of money.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

The bulk of the estimates for Shared Services Canada is around IT services. There is this other collection of services, internal services. It's a bit cats and dogs, if you will pardon the expression, but it includes things like legal services, HR, real property services, material services, acquisition services, and travel. Can you describe your progress in providing consolidated shared services in those areas?

[Liseanne Forand]

Thank you for that. I'll think of your cats and dogs when I think of Madam Rallis and what she's responsible for going forward.

It's true that a lot of different services are provided under that. When Shared Services Canada was established, we made a commitment to ourselves, as well as to the government, in terms of the savings that we could achieve. We were going to develop the leanest possible corporate services model in the Government of Canada.

We have done that, and we are leveraging things like automation. For example, we are one of the departments in the pilot for electronically available ATIP services, for example. Wherever we have been able to, we have partnered with other departments. We've partnered with Public Works, in fact, for the financial system and with Agriculture Canada for our HR system.

We're really looking to maintain a very lean posture, but to nonetheless provide all of the internal services to our staff that they require. They're located all across the country, including in the north, and so we've leveraged technology, virtual management, and virtual team kinds of processes in order to be able to do that.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Bernard.

Linda Duncan has asked for the floor and then Peter Braid, and then that will pretty well wrap us up for today.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

I have one follow-up question, which follows very well on that of my colleague Mr. Trottier, who always asks excellent questions.

Speaking of cost savings from electricity, you're probably aware—or you may not all be aware—that our committee has been doing an intensive review of energy efficiency and of how much attention the federal government is giving to the potential cost savings. In your report on plans and priorities under just about every other category you talk about how you're going to save money for the government. I find it puzzling that there's absolutely zero mention of the potential monumental cost savings from energy efficiency.

I'm wondering if you could speak to that and whether or not Public Works has been making recommendations to the government on how they could further bring down their deficit by making a greater upfront and more expedited investment in energy efficiency—rather than reducing the employment numbers—and thereby in the long term saving money for taxpayers.

[Michelle d'Auray]

Thank you for the question. I assume it's directed to Public Works.

I believe the committee has asked for and has received, or will receive shortly, some fairly detailed information on what steps and what types of initiatives we have taken to address some of your questions on energy efficiency, on the buildings and on the kind of work we have done to address some of those specific questions.

As for your more specific questions today, I would ask Mr. McBain to address those.

[John McBain]

Thank you for the question.

As you know, when we appeared before this committee on this particular topic as well, we consider this to be an integral part of our business and so it is built into what we do. As the deputy indicated, we have provided a list of numbers in terms of projects that include energy efficiency as part of them, so that is part of the detailed information that is coming to the committee.

When we appeared, I spoke to the energy savings that the branch for the department has been able to realize since 2005, representing a 17% reduction in our costs.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Perhaps I can just interject here, Mr. McBain.

You've actually given us great testimony. My question is to your report on plans and priorities and your budget. While in every other category you're showing where you can have cost savings by cutting this, that, and the other, there's absolutely no mention in here....

You talk about reducing the environmental footprint, but there's no mention whatsoever in the report on plans and priorities about money that could be saved to taxpayers by putting greater attention to this. I'm just puzzled as to why that's not mentioned there, where it comes up in every other category.

[John McBain]

It hasn't been highlighted specifically—that's clear, and you're quite right—but it is built into some of our initiatives, such as the workplace 2.0 initiative, which will reduce our footprint and therefore ultimately result in lower energy consumption and lower energy cost.