Evidence of meeting #121 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 pco.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
That's correct. Yes, it's a centre for expertise.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
So you will reach out to experts and to consultants on different issues, depending on the department. Is that...?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
We will if it's appropriate, but it's also a matter of building expertise at PCO that can benefit the rest of the government.
Liberal
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
I can't tell you the exact mix of FTEs they have, but I know they have a mix of different types of FTEs that are really aimed at providing that policy advice on new and innovative approaches to achieve outcomes.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
Okay, for my personal education, I would really like to understand what this Impact Canada means. I get the general high-level objective of it, but in terms of what PCO is doing, I'd like to understand in a much more concrete way what your office is providing to the departments in terms of the medium and long-terms objectives of Impact Canada.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
It's looking at what are the different ways we can achieve objectives through innovative approaches that may not have been used in any government or may not have been used in the Government of Canada before. The advantage of having that in a centralized place—
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
—is as you can appreciate each department may use it here or there. We centrally benefit from all that experience, keep that corporate memory, and can share it with other departments.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
It's in its infancy right now so we only have a couple on the go, but as that grows that expertise becomes that much more valuable.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
I'm trying to maybe make links here that don't exist, but would that eventually have some capability with agile Canada or the agile government objectives of creating that institutional memory so that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past, Phoenix being the larger one but not the only one.
Is this something that would eventually be part of the impact Canada initiative, or not at all and this is strictly on innovation?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
Mr. Chair, I don't know the answer to that question. I can say that corporate memory is important for learning from each one of these new innovative approaches. As you can appreciate, when you experiment, there will be learnings from that.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
So that will be centrally kept and shared with other departments so we can benefit from those learnings.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
I don't see the equivalence between smart cities, for example, and Phoenix. There's no equivalent there because it's not the same thing, but Smart Cities is going to give us some sort of knowledge of what cities can do to improve services to citizens. Would also Phoenix if we go to an Agile government perspective would it be possible to keep that corporate memory to learn from that? I'm really trying to make links here that are perhaps a bit above what your scope is.
In terms of the money we're investing in creating this centralized functions, which I think is very necessary, how would that benefit governance in the future? That ultimately would be my question.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
I think the secretariat is more of a program design. It's not so much about keeping a central memory of something like Phoenix or one of those. I don't want to speak for another department. However, there have been studies commissioned as I believe has been reported in the media on Phoenix that help encapsulate those lessons learned for future projects ?
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
And Shared Services and all the other ones that may have failed meanwhile.
Thank you very much.
The last one I wanted to address was the natural resources department, as you mentioned, on the impact Canada initiative again. Have they started using your secretariat for studies on innovative technologies? Has it been part of their process at Natural Resources Canada, because you mentioned that ?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
Natural Resources Canada is working very closely with our team on clean tech work.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
Ultimately any questions about what they are actually going to do and how that unfolds is up to NRCan.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
However, I can tell you that we're working closely with them. I know we're working with a number of other departments that are getting close to being able to put something forth, but that one is public knowledge, so I can mention it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
We have Mr. Kelly for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to continue where my colleague left off on the India trip.
Does the Prime Minister's office not have a tour team?