Government Operations Committee on Nov. 9th, 2017

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I'm actually glad your committee is looking at new approaches to digital government, and it's something on which I'd like to have a longer conversation with you sometime. Canada's government is not the first government.... I'm not going to be partisan on this. Governments around the world have struggled with IT transformation.

The worst U.S. digital IT disaster was on October 1, 2013, when the Obama administration brought in Obamacare and 4.7 million Americans tried to register on the website healthcare.gov. Only six of them—six Americans—succeeded in registering.

It was the worst government IT failure in U.S. government history, but it was also the best thing that ever happened to U.S. digital government, because what the government did was reprioritize digital government. They started something called the government digital services unit, 18F.

We've recently created the Canadian version, the CDS. It basically takes a totally different approach to digital government, including in procurement and project management. That's something I would really like to drill down on with this committee sometime, because all parties and members of Parliament ought to be aware of some of the changes that other countries have gone through. That's something your committee may want to study. We're learning a great deal about what happened in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and even Estonia, for instance. My Treasury Board secretary has actually been there recently to observe what they've done. They're leaders globally in digital—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We'll have to—

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I love that file though.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'll take this opportunity, quite frankly, to give a little shout-out to Minister Brison.

As I've told many members of this committee before, Mr. Murphy, who gave the presentation on agile, contacted me several months ago. After speaking with him for just a few moments, it became clear to me that this is something any government would be wise to pursue. To his credit, Minister Brison—when I went to see him about this and suggested that perhaps he might want to pass this along to his deputies so that we could get some witnesses in front of us—took this initiative on. We've had Mr. Murphy here, and I think agile is happening, so Mr. Minister, on behalf of everyone who was involved in the IT transformation thing, good on you. I say that in a non-partisan manner, because I think it's going to benefit everybody around this table.

With that—probably the last time you'll get a shout-out from me, Minister—we'll go to Mr. McCauley for seven minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Welcome back, Minister. I'll let you know that Mr. Pagan took your glory earlier, about arranging the Excel. He said it was all on him, against your best wishes.

I want to get away from the partisan points and back to the estimates. Under CBSA, there's $1.6 million for funding to build capacity to address drug-impaired driving, and there's a similar line for the RCMP.

When will that money be rolled out? We have legalization barrelling down on us very fast. Regardless of where you sit on the legalization-decriminalization question, there is a lot of concern about impaired driving: how it's actually detected, whether we're able to detect impairment versus merely blood level. How fast is this money going out? Is it sufficient money? Why is there so much to CBSA and comparatively little to the RCMP compared with the CBSA?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Three organizations will share about $20 million to increase law enforcement capacity to address the issue—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's about $6 million, then. Where's the other $14 million?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

The $20 million, I'm informed, goes to Public Safety Canada, RCMP, and CBSA. These monies will be used to address the issue of drug-impaired driving.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Public Safety Canada, I assume, is education, but this is actual enforcement.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

That's right. It's for both. It's a horizontal initiative that involves education but also enforcement, making sure that they have the tools, including the technology required.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm specifically asking about the $5 million for the RCMP. How fast are we going to get this out the door? It's barrelling down on us pretty fast. Again, this is a non-partisan thing.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Absolutely.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's a true safety thing.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I agree, it's very important. In terms of specifically when this will be implemented, that will be a question that my colleague, Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale, would be able to answer.

In terms of the funding, as it moves forward, we approve the funding to RCMP, CBSA, and Public Safety Canada. Brian may have more granularity on that.

[Brian Pagan]

Thank you, Minister.

With respect to the public safety portion, training is a big component of the requirement. They're also procuring equipment for police forces across the country. They're looking at increasing the number of standardized field sobriety screening devices.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Is that under the $14 million?

[Brian Pagan]

Yes.

They're going to be procuring 3,300 oral screening devices.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

As we're short of time, can you provide that to the committee?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Yes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Throughout the estimates, regarding funding for adapting to the impacts of climate change, there is $2.5 million in the Department of Health.... It's spread throughout.

How are we measuring the metrics of adapting to the impacts of climate change so that we know this money is going to actual public good rather than waste? What kinds of metrics do we have to measure it?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

It's a very important question. Increasingly, because of the effects of climate change, the increase in the severity and frequency of weather patterns as a result of climate change, we see communities across Canada being impacted. It has an impact on indigenous communities, for which we're responsible. It has an impact on infrastructure projects, community emergency planning—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

How are we measuring the success of the money we're spending, though?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

In terms of measuring—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's adapting to the impacts. How are we spending the money to adapt to the impacts? That's what I'm asking. How are we measuring the success?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

It's an important question, but in terms of.... The idea with adaptation is not simply to respond to the crises when they occur. It's actually preparing for the crises, including preparing infrastructure in advance to be able to withstand these crises.

We have a results agenda as a government, but Kelly, some of this is qualitative as well. In terms of measuring a specific result around increased climate resiliency of infrastructure, some of it is quantitative, in terms of indicators, and some of it requires research.

There's a material lab at Dalhousie University in which we invested that is doing research now on—