Government Operations Committee on Nov. 27th, 2014

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Butt must address the chair and witnesses, not the committee members.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Ms. Day.

I usually allow questions to be put directly to the witness, unless the discussion becomes too heated or disrespectful, in which case I ask the member to address the witness through me. I have always been a bit flexible in that regard.

So I will allow Mr. Butt to continue.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Shared Services Canada, you detailed the $18.1 million of new funding and you've broken it down into four different categories. I'd just like a little more information on each of them, and that will probably fill my five minutes.

On the $10.8 million for Statistics Canada, $5.1 million for weather services, $1.8 million for CRA, and the $400,000 for the new express entry initiative, can you give me a little more detail on each of those, and what specifically those items are?

[Elizabeth Tromp]

Yes, thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chair.

The first you asked about is the census of population 2016. That, of course, is Statistics Canada's largest statistical program. It collects data to permit recalibration of population estimates and to provide information on socio-economic characteristics. The role of Shared Services Canada in that will be to ensure that the IT infrastructure and telecommunication services required to support the census are delivered in accordance with Statistics Canada requirements. As well, Shared Services Canada will support the agency's e-mail data centre, networks, and telecommunications infrastructure in that regard.

Moving on, there is the $5.1 million for the revitalization of Canada's weather services. This is to renew their supercomputing solution at Environment Canada, to provide supercomputing capacity for the weather services. Again, the role of Shared Services Canada is to be responsible for the procurement process for that next generation of supercomputing infrastructure.

The next one is related to the enhancements to the non-compliance audit program and the CRA funding, I believe, which is to offset our costs of providing core information technology services in relation to those initiatives.

Similarly, on the budget implementation bill, it is to provide the information technology infrastructure and telephony activities in support for measures that were in those budget implementation acts.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you.

You have 30 seconds left if you'd like to ask another question.

I would remind everyone that point of order discussions are not deducted from committee members' time.

Mr. Byrne, you may go ahead for five minutes.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Chair, thanks very much.

Departments have a mandate to try and consolidate digital communications and electronic communications between departments. I understand there are 42 client departments and agencies. What is the anticipated timeframe to accomplish getting all 42 departments and agencies under one umbrella within this initiative?

[Elizabeth Tromp]

Thank you very much for the question. I'll ask my colleague, Mr. Bruce, to respond.

[Peter Bruce, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Projects and Client Relationships, Shared Services Canada]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chair.

The plan for all of our transformation program is from now until 2020, so it is a long-term plan to consolidate. You asked most specifically about networks.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Bruce, you've answered my question. It's approximately six years out before we complete that. Would this transformation, the consolidation, moderately improve security of the federal government systems, significantly improve the security of the Government of Canada systems, or how would you describe it?

[Peter Bruce]

Thank you again for that question, Mr. Chair.

Actually, this will significantly improve the security posture of the Government of Canada. I'd like to talk about two aspects of that. One, managing a diverse set of over 50 silo networks currently provides a lot of access points that would have to be monitored and additional vulnerability, so being able to manage one network that gives us that capacity to secure the perimeter and better monitor the traffic in that environment.

The second piece of that I'd like to talk about is that we have actually been improving the cybersecurity profile of the Government of Canada, so we have essentially created a cyber operation centre with the capacity to prevent, detect, respond, and recover from cyber incidents.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Bruce.

Is the current environment of cybersecurity a dangerous one? Would you categorize it as that?

[Peter Bruce]

Absolutely.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

May I ask, Mr. Chair, why we're taking six years to do this? If the security environment is very serious, if it's very significant that we have identified issues and problems, that a solution would be to consolidate security systems' digital communications within the Government of Canada, given the fact that we have a whole host and range of new threats emerging all the time, my question for the witness is, why take six years to do this when Canadians' privacy and interests are very vulnerable?

[Peter Bruce]

Thank you again for the question, Mr. Chair.

Six years is for the full transformation. Obviously, there will be benefits that won't be realized until the end of the transformation process, but establishment of our security operation centre was an absolute priority. We went from having a capacity to monitor a couple of departments 24/7 and some not at all, to the capacity to monitor all 43 partners—the 43rd partner is Shared Services Canada—24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We are taking this seriously and we're actually accelerating that aspect of the transformation plan.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Bruce, nobody here has any doubt about that whatsoever, that you're taking it seriously. What I am concerned about, however, is that if a threat is serious and significant and we have a solution in mind, is it a budgetary issue? Why is there a six-year delay in completing this? There's nobody here doubting whatsoever that progress has been made, but the question I pose to you and to the department is, why six years? Is it a budgetary issue? Is it an issue of will? What is it?

[Peter Bruce]

The transformation plan that has been created as part of the way Shared Services Canada was created and is executing, is essentially a self-funded transformation plan. Essentially, the appropriations were transferred from all 43 partners through Shared Services Canada. There was a consolidation dividend. There was a standardization dividend, and we're using that funding essentially to re-engineer the networks, the data centres, the cybersecurity, and the e-mail systems of the Government of Canada. In that process we are doing as much as we can early to improve security. Obviously, there's always a possibility to do more with more money, but that's the structure that Shared Services Canada is going to work with.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Given that the Government of Canada has lapsed security funding, significant amounts of security funding, what you've indicated to the committee is that if you had additional resources you may be able to speed this process up. Would you be able to outline for the committee any particular plans or requests you've made for additional resources to be able to speed this up that you have not been allocated?

[Peter Bruce]

Thank you again for the question, Mr. Chair.

I can't provide any details of specific requests that we've made around additional security, obviously. We do look at analytics on what is going on and can provide recommendations and advice. So far, we are working within our allocated finances.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

It's a question left to the minister, isn't it, Mr. Bruce?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

I have to cut you off there. It is Mr. O'Connor's turn. He has five minutes.

[Gordon O'Connor, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, CPC]

Mr. Lakroni, I have a question about the estimates before I go on to other things.

In your experience how does a minister get involved with estimates, at what stages, or do they attend all estimates? What's the typical actions of a minister with respect to estimates?

[Alex Lakroni]

It depends, Mr. Chair, on the minister. The tendency is that the minister attends the main estimates with the deputy, but it depends on the minister. Some ministers attend other appearances such as supplementary estimates, but usually it's the main estimates.

[Gordon O'Connor]

Thank you.

I think I have a question in for property. What's the current situation with respect to DND's acquisition of property in Nepean? Where is it? I started it seven years ago and I'm still waiting to see somebody walk through the door.

[Pierre-Marc Mongeau]

Are you referring to the Carling campus, in Nepean?

[Gordon O'Connor]

Yes.