Evidence of meeting #8 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pco.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
We're here to discuss the main estimates, not to have public servants on trial. This is completely contrary to what we've come here to do this afternoon.
I would ask the chair to direct the member to please direct questions that pertain to the estimates—or close to that, at least.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you for this point of order.
I will again remind you that we are discussing supplementary estimates (B) and the Departmental Performance Report, which cover a number of topics, as we saw during Ms. Forand's presentation. I will continue to monitor questions and ensure that they relate to the two topics we are studying.
Mr. Martin's time is up.
Ms. Ablonczy, you have the floor.
Conservative
Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you very much.
Thank you for an interesting path of questions today. I too want to ask about the e-mail system, but in a different respect.
As you know, you've taken on a responsibility to amalgamate about 63 government e-mail systems into one for greater efficiency and cost saving. I note in your report that you say that's going well.
I had the rather interesting experience of being around during the formation of the global case management system, where we heard year after year that it was going well. In fact it was not going at all. You had to keep dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into this thing. I guess it's going now.
So how is it really going? Can I have your comment on that? Is it on time? Is it on budget? Are we going to have a reprise of these rather bad experiences of the past?
President, Shared Services Canada
Thank you for the question.
I think there's no question that there are a number of examples in the past of IT projects that have not performed as they had been intended, or indeed as expected. As an organization that has been created to transform IT—we know there are a lot of big IT projects in our future—we took the question of addressing the risks inherent in large IT projects very, very seriously. We've just done a theoretical perspective, and we've done a literature review, to try to identify the things that contribute to the failure of large IT projects. That has informed all of our planning and execution up until now.
More practically, I would say, we began to do things differently through the procurement process. Rather than dream up a request for proposals all on our own and put it out to the marketplace to see what happened, we instead engaged with a broad cross-section of industry, anyone who had an interest in it. Over 50 companies participated in an information day with us, and then we qualified a number of companies on the basis of their experience. They just had to identify that they had experience in delivering large-scale e-mail systems to over 100,000 users, in both official languages, and a few other requirements.
Once we had four companies that had qualified, on the basis of their experience alone, then we spent three months building our RFP with them and getting to know the requirements and what works and what doesn't. Each one of the companies would go away—
Conservative
Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
RFP?
I know what that is, but some people might not.
President, Shared Services Canada
That's right.
We did that, and it was in a collaborative way, and then we had the four—
Conservative
President, Shared Services Canada
That's a request for proposals. I'm sorry.
We had the initial information engagement session and then we had the qualification period. Then we refined the requirements in collaboration with the four companies. This was just to make sure—because we've never purchased an e-mail system before—that we knew what some of the issues and problems and challenges might be, while maintaining our own need for such things as security. For example, data sovereignty was a very important piece for us to work through on this process. It is essential for the Government of Canada that data from the government's e-mail system be in Canada at all times. The data centres had to be in Canada. The information, in motion and at rest, had to be in Canada at all times. That was one of the requirements we had, and we had a number of other security requirements.
Once we had refined our requirements, then we did post the request for proposals, and we gave the companies a month to six weeks to complete it. Based on that, we had four compliant bids, which, again, is a really good success for a large RFP such as this one. In the end, the proposal put forward by Bell and CGI was the winning proposal.
That was the procurement process, and of course we are working very closely with the contractors, step by step, toe to toe, as we go forward in putting this in place.
I will mention, for example, in governance, I meet with my counterpart, the president of Bell Business Solutions, at least every three months, if not more frequently, to verify all of the time issues, the cost issues, and to make sure the project stays on track. Only at our level can we agree to any changes in the project plan that has been put in place.
We are working very, very closely with the contractor. They know this is an important project for us. We've made it very clear to them. They know it's a very important project to them, as a result, because it's very public.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
I will have to interrupt, as your time is up.
Mrs. Day, you have the floor. You have five minutes.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you, Ms. Forand, for being here with us.
During your presentation, you mentioned savings of $75 million. Are these net savings?
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you.
You said we would be going from 485 data centres down to seven. I have a small concern about that. Data is already being lost after 30 days. If we go from 485 centres, where it is difficult to lose data, to seven centres, where data is easily lost, do we not risk seeing even more data destroyed?
President, Shared Services Canada
Thank you for the question.
The 485 data centres we currently have are spread out here and there. There are some very small centres and about twenty that are large. They are all fairly old. They are, on average, 15 to 20 years old. Some are even 40 years old. Most are located in office buildings. No buildings were created to stock the data from these centres.
Members of the committee may be familiar with how modern current data centres are. You can see, based on pictures, that large data centres belonging to Google or Yahoo, for example, are extremely modern. We are moving toward a similar model. A building created specifically for this purpose is extremely safe and provides good protection in terms of power and air conditioning, among other things.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
In other words, we are eliminating outdated facilities.
NDP
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Bell has obtained a contract. Can you tell us what the total value of this contract is?
NDP
President, Shared Services Canada
Its total value is $398 million over seven years.
President, Shared Services Canada
In terms of the e-mails that will be handled through the system that will be implemented, there will be two levels. One of the two will provide security up to what we call “Protected B,” within the Government of Canada. The other, which is separate and created by Bell and CGI, will protect e-mails at the “Secret” level.