Government Operations Committee on March 12th, 2015

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

I apologize for interrupting you, Mr. Lakroni.

The figures are interesting, but can you explain to us why that increase in volume leads to an increase in unplanned expenditures? If there is a server in a room that can process a certain number of transactions, why does an increase in those transactions lead to higher costs? Do other servers and software have to be bought? Are additional software licenses required? Do bank fees change and become proportional to the number of transactions? Please explain how that works.

[Alex Lakroni]

There are two components to that $17.5 million. The first is the increase in bank fees for card use, and it comes to$16.2 million. The second is the increase in postage, which represents $1.3 million. When we add the increase in bank fees and in postage, we see that $1.3 million plus $16.2 million equals $17.5 million.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

If I understand correctly, 90% of the cost increase that was not planned goes directly to the banks. That's what you are saying.

[Alex Lakroni]

That's in exchange for services we receive from the banks.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Brahmi.

Next for the Conservatives, Wai Young. You have five minutes, please, Ms. Young.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I have just a quick question because I'm new to this committee. Do the Liberals also have a chance to ask questions?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Yes, they do, but it's your turn now.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I see.

All right. I may be sharing my time, if I have time at the end, with my colleague here, Mr. Kerr.

The cyber-attack was a big issue for Canadians. They were quite concerned about Canadian data, etc., so I wanted to ask Shared Services this. How can we be assured that another attack would not occur? What steps have you taken in these new systems? I was happy to hear about this security centre, which is 24-7, and all the different things that you've done to put that into place and to provide those kinds of services for all the different departments, but can you give us a more in-depth understanding of how we can be assured as Canadians that this attack will not recur?

[Kevin Radford]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.

With respect to the National Research Council and the incident that occurred there, I will try to explain just very briefly. I've talked already about the capability around our security operations centre, but maybe we can reach back a couple of years to when we had a cyber-incident that happened at Treasury Board and at the Department of Finance. The Department of Finance and the Treasury Board were able to continue working because they were on the secure networks of the government. We were able to basically cut off their access to the Internet and they could carry on with business.

With the National Research Council it was much different. They were working outside the government networks. There were many distributed sites across the country and they had varied Internet connections at all of these different sites. The strategy was around the containment of that particular security incident. We worked very closely with the National Research Council in developing that particular plan. Obviously, we had to try to minimize the impact on their operations, so it wasn't as simple as Finance and Treasury Board and allowing them to continue to work. We had to work with them around the containment and to make sure we protected ourselves from the particular incident.

The first order of business was obviously to protect the rest of government from this particular threat. Using the security operations centre and our capable folks who work within Shared Services Canada we were able to do that, as a first instance.

Going forward, the entire program of Shared Services Canada is around upgrading as per the 2010 Auditor General's report on the state of IT infrastructure. By building new data centres we are building in security by design. By reducing the 50 wide-area networks and contracting with our supply chain integrity under national security exceptions, so we know of country of origin, etc., all of this is to put security by design into our new networks as we go forward.

On the issue around the National Research Council and the expense that was associated with it, the nature of that particular threat meant we actually had to physically replace all of the equipment, all of the networks, etc. This was a very sophisticated act as has been discussed in the media, and this necessitated a complete replacement. We couldn't just clean it and use it again. It required a complete, new infrastructure.

In nine or ten short weeks, again working closely with the Treasury Board, working with our security partners, leveraging the new data centres at Gatineau, we were actually able to create a brand new infrastructure working with the vendors' and the telcos' brand new wide-area networks, and create a green environment from which NRC can now operate. We are working closely now with NRC, National Research Council, to migrate their workloads from the contaminated site that's been contained, scrubbing that data and moving that into the new infrastructure.

That's just one example of what Shared Services Canada and the creation of Shared Services Canada can do with respect to security.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I'm particularly interested in the cost savings for this new data consolidation that you're talking about.

[Kevin Radford]

Again, I will turn that to my colleague Manon, with respect to overall savings of the transformation plan. I will say that SSC was created through appropriations. We actually took people and we took the resources and the contracts and we used them to form the basis of our resource base. Going forward, we're leveraging those resources by optimizing contracts, etc., in order to invest and build the new data centres that we're creating.

It's being funded, self-funded, if you will, from within. That's how we're leveraging savings to invest in our future and to create the secure infrastructure that our partners and Canadians deserve.

With respect to specifics around dollar value, I'll turn to my colleague Manon.

[Manon Fillion]

Thank you.

For data centres specifically, there is no official savings book for the full initiative, but savings will occur with the closure of the more than 485 data centres that we are closing. We're going to migrate all the workload to the five to seven data centres. At the end of the transformation in 2020, it's going to cost less for the Government of Canada to operate the data centres, with all the data centres we had prior to SSC creation and then after. We're still working on the implementation plan for migrating the data. As Monsieur Radford mentioned, we already have three data centres up and running, and we already have started the migration. The savings that are happening during the transformation are reinvested to build this new IT infrastructure.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I happen to know that when I talk to my constituents back home in Vancouver, and we're a bit of an IT hub back there, they are completely shocked that the government has so many different email systems and different data centres. It's almost like, “what do you mean it hasn't happened yet?” So my kudos to you for obviously a job well done in giving our government the savings and efficiencies and the security that we need.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Ms. Young, and thank you for the very informative five-minute session that was.

I'm going to call it here and make a judgment call as the chair. We need a few minutes to do the votes on the supplementary (C) estimates and it's going to take a few minutes to get through them all.

We've had an equal number of rounds and if it's the will of the committee, I think we should thank our panels from Public Works and Government Services, and Shared Services Canada, and dismiss them, and the committee can carry on with the votes on the estimates.

Thank you so much, and I apologize for keeping you waiting longer than you planned on being here, but it was a very worthwhile exercise, Mr. Lakroni, Mr. Radford, and your teams. Thank you.

I don't think we need to suspend the meeting. I'm going to go right into the votes on the supplementary estimates, but let me say at first I'm very proud of the committee in one sense, in that we made a commitment that we would do a more thorough and robust examination of the estimates, and under this group of supplementary estimates that were referred to this committee, we have examined $730 million out of a total of $733 million that was sent to our committee, so even though it may seem like a hurried process, we are doing our job as a committee of government operations and estimates. I'm quite proud of us there.

The process, as you know, colleagues, is that we will vote as a committee to approve each individual vote, and then I will need a motion to report to the House of Commons the intention and the will of the committee.

So let me begin if everyone's ready.

CANADIAN TRANSPORTATION ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION AND SAFETY BOARD

Vote 1c—Program expenditures..........$301,000

(Vote 1c agreed to on division)

PRIVY COUNCIL

Vote 1c—Program expenditures..........$2,232,365

(Vote 1c agreed to on division)

PUBLIC WORKS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Vote 1c—Operating expenditures..........$49,789,150

(Vote 1c agreed to on division)

SHARED SERVICES CANADA

Vote 1c—Operating expenditures..........$5,733,840

Vote 5c—Capital expenditures..........$28,551,260

(Votes 1c and 5c agreed to on division)

THE SENATE

Vote 1c—Program expenditures..........$900,000

(Vote 1c agreed to on division)

TREASURY BOARD SECRETARIAT

Vote 20c—Public service insurance..........$246,132,199

Vote 30c—Paylist requirements..........$400,000,000

(Votes 20c and 30c agreed to on division)

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Shall the chair report the supplementary estimates (C) 2014-15 to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I believe our business then is concluded. Unless there is any further business to raise, we will adjourn the meeting.

The meeting is adjourned.