Evidence of meeting #14 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 buildings.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Gavin Liddy  Associate Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada
Marie Lemay  Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada
Ron Parker  President, Shared Services Canada
John Glowacki Jr.  Chief Operating Officer, Shared Services Canada
Kevin Radford  Assistant Deputy Minister, Real Property, Public Services and Procurement Canada
Lisa Campbell  Assistant Deputy Minister, Acquisitions Branch, Public Services and Procurement Canada

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Judy Foote Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL

Oh, absolutely. If we identify asbestos in a building, we couldn't in good conscience rest knowing that we have employees working in that environment, or visitors to those buildings being exposed to that. Where buildings are leased, we'll have to work with the owners of those buildings to deal with the issue.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski

Mr. Grewal, I believe it will be Madam Ratansi, rather than Madam Shanahan.

Three minutes, please.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON

I was listening to the questioning about Canada Post and was quite amused by the fact that somebody talked about cost. We had the CEO, Deepak Chopra, before committee, who told us that he hadn't done any consulting. Had he done the consulting and not taken the route he did, I guess all of us as parliamentarians wouldn't be in this position where we have to call a task force to stop this nonsense and start consulting with Canadians. I am so glad that you announced last week a two-stage process for the review of Canada Post. Now, I know that the first phase is the independent task force, and in the second phase you are asking the committee to...with the consultation process. Could you outline the role of this committee? How would you like to see it proceed?

4:25 p.m.

Liberal

Judy Foote Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL

We have what I think is a very competent task force of very independent-minded individuals who I am pleased took on this task. They are being asked to prepare a report based on surveys and some consultation that they will do. They will be looking at best practices. They will look at what's happening internationally.

The report of the task force itself will be presented to me as minister. I will then ask the committee to consult Canadians about it. I think that as a parliamentary committee you're in a better position to do so. You will determine where you go and whom you consult with. The the reality is that we want this task force report, because even though we're hoping that the task force will uncover every conceivable line of business that Canada Post could be in, there's a lot of work that has to go into this. They're supported by a secretariat in PSPC, which is working with them.

The work that the task force will be involved in over the next four months will be really comprehensive. It's not the type of work, I would think, that the committee would have the time to prepare or get involved in. The idea is for the committee—if you see fit to do so—to really get out there, consult with Canadians, and find out what they have to say.

The task force report will be available online. It will be available for Canadians to see. As you carry out your work, Canadians will react to that task force report, but I would think that as a committee you will also be looking to Canadians to get their say on how Canada post should go forward and the types of services it should provide at reasonable cost, bearing in mind that Canada Post must remain self-sustaining.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski

Minister, thank you for your appearance here once again. You are excused.

We'll suspend for about two minutes while we have the other witnesses come forward, both from Public Services and Procurement Canada and Shared Services Canada.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski

Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I think we'll begin.

Before we proceed into direct questioning, we do have some new witnesses appearing with us today.

Madame Lemay, I would ask you to please introduce those of your colleagues who have joined us at the table, and then Mr. Parker, I'll ask you to do the same.

4:30 p.m.

Marie Lemay Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have with me Mr. Gavin Liddy, our associate deputy minister; and Ms. Julie Charron, our chief financial officer. I also have with me Mr. Kevin Radford, assistant deputy minister at the real property branch; Ms. Lisa Campbell, assistant deputy minister at the acquisitions branch; and Mr. Rob Wright, assistant deputy minister at the parliamentary precinct branch.

He is somebody you probably already know.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski

Thank you very much, Madame Lemay.

Mr. Parker, you have officials joining us as well.

4:30 p.m.

Ron Parker President, Shared Services Canada

I have here Mr. Glowacki, the chief operating officer; Alain Duplantie, our senior ADM of corporate services and chief financial officer; and Mr. Graham Barr, our director general of strategic policy, planning and reporting.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, I think we're going to start afresh with another seven-minute round. That would ensure that every party member around this table will have at least one opportunity for questioning. That said, we will start the first seven-minute round intervention with Monsieur Drouin.

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all the witnesses for being here. We appreciate it.

To the witnesses from Shared Services Canada, you guys have been in front of the committee a lot in the past month. We know that the previous government removed savings before consolidation was even done. We understand that. If you had to start over, what would you change? I guess you'd tell me not to remove the savings before they're realised.

4:30 p.m.

President, Shared Services Canada

Ron Parker

In terms of lessons learned, first, I would go back and think about the culture change that's implied in bringing 43 departments together and the personnel from those departments and the plan for that. There were 43 different ways of doing things and 43 different ways of processing service requests. The focus should really be on what the plan is and how to bring people together as quickly as possible to get a unified service.

Second, I would establish the benchmarks from where we started a lot more clearly, in terms of knowing what asset base we were inheriting and what service levels. All of that is typically done when a task is outsourced. In this case, it's an outsourcing to Shared Services Canada. That's one thing that we heard was done in Ontario, for example, that has really helped them measure their progress and understand what they were working with.

Third, I think there's also the importance of people. We need to keep the staff engaged and have the space and time to invest in the training, the tools, and the processes that will jump-start the transformation overall.

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Talk to me about the financial structure you have with the department's clients. How does that work? What happens if SSC doesn't deliver a service on time with a department? How does the financial structure work?

4:30 p.m.

President, Shared Services Canada

Ron Parker

We have a combined financial structure. We have a base appropriation. The initial base was determined back when the department was set up in the 2009-10 fiscal year to benchmark. The departments were asked how much they were spending on these IT services. When Shared Services was stood up, that amount of funding was transferred to it to provide the services at that level at that time. Since then, there's been very strong growth in demand. Storage is growing at 50% a year. Bandwidth demand, we forecast, is growing about 30% this year. The number of videoconferencing minutes is up enormously, by millions of minutes. We are evolving the costing structure we have in a cost management model to take into account the fact that this demand is stronger than forecast. To provide those services, there's a fee for service above a baseline level. That's the direction we're going in, overall.

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

You've spoken about demand, and we know that technology changes quickly in this world. How are you ensuring that in your contracts, and in your RFPs, you're adapting the innovation piece in the contracts to ensure that when we contract out to a company today, we can allow innovation within that contract. How are structuring that?

4:35 p.m.

John Glowacki Jr. Chief Operating Officer, Shared Services Canada

That's something we're looking at in future contracts. I would say most of the contracts we have right now tend to be a bit more traditional, such as a telephone service. That's a key point, and oftentimes it's missed, because there's an expectation that, for instance, we'll want telephony from a certain company, but we won't put in that extra piece for innovation. From my experience, you absolutely have to set some money aside, because it costs something. It's important that we always have a line that says that not only externally, but also internally, we'll have money for labs—we call them sandboxes, and development spaces, etc.—to be able to have the man hours and allow the contractors to come in. Part of this doesn't even involve money. It involves terms of conditions to say, in the case of the RFP, that when you put your response on the table, we will also allow you to put in value-adds, and we will assess those in addition to the rest of the responses. You'll have apples to apples among all the responses, but you will also get this opportunity to say, “Oh, there's some value-add features that we hadn't anticipated“, despite all the collaboration we do in our procurement process to be able to say, “Oh, here's something even better“.

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

You and I had a conversation the last time about procurement. I just want to make sure that it's your belief that SSC is putting in the right checks and balances within the requirements to ensure that there's fair competition in the vendor community. When you're procuring, do you think you have the right or fair checks and balances in there?

4:35 p.m.

Chief Operating Officer, Shared Services Canada

John Glowacki Jr.

Yes. We're maturing the organization, but I absolutely believe that we have the right checks and balances. Competition wins: you always do better with competition. Once in a while you need to sole source, but to the extent you can promote competition, it's absolutely worth it. That's the sum of my experience.

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

How does it work if a vendor feels that they haven't been properly treated? What's the process within SSC? Normally we would go to PWGSC if it were a defence contract, but now that it reports up to Mr. Parker, how do you ensure the vendor community feels they're being treated fairly?

4:35 p.m.

President, Shared Services Canada

Ron Parker

We have a number of channels to work with the vendor community. We have a an IT round table that we meet regularly with to go through the issues and the approach to procurement. There are a number of subcommittees from that group looking at different issues related to procurement. Innovation was one of the issues. Those concerns come up directly through those channels.

As well, we have an open door in meeting with the vendor community, whether with individual vendors or associations. Of course, it's outside of a particular procurement process, but we're all ears and are working with the community directly to have a very collaborative procurement process. That's the other element. As we go through the procurements, they're structured in a way that allows a dialogue with them. It's a parallel process to what Public Services and Procurement uses, in that sense. It's iterative with industry to drive even the RFP requirements. There's should be no surprises through that process.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski

Mr. Blaney, you have seven minutes.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Parker, welcome back to the committee.

When you met with us only a few weeks ago, you explained that the migration of all the departments to IT shared services was an ambitious program. If my memory serves me correctly, you said there were three major areas, consisting of emails, telephone systems and systems.

4:40 p.m.

President, Shared Services Canada

Ron Parker

We discussed the email services, the communication networks, and the migration of work to the new data centres.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC

Yes, and much work needs to be done in that last area. We are currently preparing to visit the data centres.

During your previous appearance, you mentioned that the major migration was significantly delayed, and that you may be able to update us on the situation in the fall. Do you have any additional information to provide today? When do think you can give an assessment to the committee?

You have financial resources, and I must emphasize the potential savings aspect, since the consolidation is supposed to generate economies of scale. I would like to hear how you plan to generate the anticipated savings, even if it is difficult. I would also like information on the timeline for that.

4:40 p.m.

President, Shared Services Canada

Ron Parker

We are still working on the project and making progress. However, unfortunately, I am not yet able to give you more details. An external review of the proposals will be completed by the fall, and then we will make a plan. The plan will likely be submitted to the minister and cabinet. We must take that into consideration.