Evidence of meeting #11 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transformation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
I see.
You reduced the number. Currently there are three...
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
It was one of those data centres you suggested we visit?
4:25 p.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
I suggest you visit one of the old data centres and one of the new ones.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Very well.
You say that in the fall you will have what we might call a “roadmap”. You will have a better idea of the scope of the work that remains to be done. That means that when you talked about lessons learned, about “benchmarking”, you had rushed ahead headlong, without necessarily having a good idea of the challenges to be met? Is that really what you are telling us today?
4:25 p.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
We have a better grasp of the current situation. As for lessons learned, I will say that if we had proceeded otherwise in the beginning, things would have been different.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
You seemed to say that there will be a roadmap in the fall. If you are here today, finally, it is because our predecessors on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates were not convinced that Shared Services Canada would be able to meet its commitment to complete the transformation of services by 2020, as you have confirmed, nor to generate the promised savings, if it continues to operate as it has since it was created.
Mr. Parker, will you be able to come back in the fall with financial objectives and a time frame for reaching your objectives?
4:25 p.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
The plan will be ready. We have to discuss it with the minister and perhaps with the cabinet. I am not sure what I can say at this point, Mr. Blaney.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
As a member also on public accounts—I remember we met before—we were struck by the challenges and the ongoing challenges of this program. I recall we had a good discussion about how we need to figure out what went wrong, but we also want to make sure things go right going down the road. That's why we're here today, and I'm happy to be on this committee.
One thing that came out during the Auditor General's report, and during our meeting, was this planned savings of $56 million that was removed from your budget and the impact that had on the continued operations. Mr. Parker, you mentioned a number of times that what would have been better would have been to be properly funded right from the get-go.
Can you talk to us a little about that? How did that underfunding affect your mission?
4:25 p.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
In terms of the $56 million, that has arisen because the email project hasn't gone as quickly as was planned. The $56 million was removed from our reference levels without achieving the savings. That meant we've had to reprioritize activities within the department across the transformation projects themselves, and reduce the scale of the transformation projects, or the amount of expenditure we make on operations. We've had to rebalance to take that into account.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Okay. I can only imagine when you're planning a massive operation, such as you were, that planned savings would be nice, although that's not the entire purpose of this transformation. We can see there are new demands on IT services, and I think the cyber-threat one is certainly a point well taken. We have to make sure we have the resources to meet those demands.
Getting back to the nitty-gritty of the money, how were you able to deal with your partners regarding the cost of services when you weren't able to provide the services? I'm thinking about the issues around transfer pricing and delivering the services.
4:30 p.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
I would say the biggest impact has been on the transformation plan itself. The amount of spending that has occurred over the period of time versus what was planned has been less. Most of the impact has come on that side.
In terms of clients, it hasn't shown up in pricing to them because we established a threshold of service, we're providing that threshold level of service to them, and we're looking to recover for services over and above that threshold. It hasn't affected the clients in terms of the services, other than there was some reduction in our ability to maintain the equipment at a level we would have otherwise liked.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Yet there are problems with client satisfaction, and that's something that needs to be addressed in the future.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Can you talk to us just a little more about how that looks? You have to present a bill at some point. Are people happy to pay that bill if they haven't gotten the services that they expected?
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
On consumer satisfaction, Mr. Parker, it probably takes a fair length of time to give a proper response, but you only have probably less than 30 seconds, if you could give a very succinct answer.
Ms. Shanahan, perhaps that answer could come in the next round.
4:30 p.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
It has affected customer service satisfaction levels, but I don't think the finances are the main issue there.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
We'll go to a very short three-minute round.
Mr. Weir, over to you.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
I'm just going to ask about procurement through Shared Services. Is it being done exclusively with the purpose of minimizing cost, or is there also an attempt to develop IT suppliers in Canada?
4:30 p.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
It isn't done solely to minimize costs. We're working closely with industry associations. We have an IT infrastructure round table that we get together with regularly and go through our procurement processes. It's a very collaborative process. We bring our plans to them as early as we can and look to them to provide us with the intelligence and the market savvy that we need to address the market and come into it the right way. We iterate with them on our requirements so that when a procurement goes out, it's well specified, and there's going to be a real market availability that we can tap into.
We are discussing with the round table the socio-economic element support for small and medium-sized businesses. That's a big thing, an important item on our agenda that we're looking to develop.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
How would you characterize the trade-off between developing the industry here, supporting the Canadian industry, versus getting the best value for money?
4:35 p.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
I take very seriously the responsibility to respect taxpayers' dollars. and at the same time, the need to develop industry. Industry tells us their value added is not to just sell commodities but to bring the advice and the packaging services that go with the devices. That's very much the nature of the relationship.
4:35 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, Shared Services Canada
If I could add, we do support the building Canada program. We're actually advising on potential changes to improve it. There is a limitation that they bang into, where a small company may develop something, and at the end of that development, they now have to go in and compete with the multinationals of the world. That's a bridge that needs to be built, and we're actually advising to help improve that.