On the whole issue of back office transformation, enterprise-wide solutions are difficult, whether you're in a big company with a lot of divisions or in a government. The challenges at Shared Services that occurred under the previous government are not unique, so I'm not being partisan. These are difficult files. Because we at Treasury Board are a central agency that works across departments and agencies, as part of our mandate we work to establish good governance around these things, but it is not easy when you're trying to implement and procure enterprise-wide, particularly IT solutions.
All government procurement is murky; government IT solutions are murkier. I'd say defence procurement is probably the toughest file, but it's always a challenge. It's one we're engaged in very actively, because modernizing back office support and transforming the back office and IT solutions is not an option; it's something we have to do as a government to modernize and improve the services we provide to Canadians and the value we provide through those services for taxpayers.
We have to do this. It is a challenge the previous government faced; it's a challenge every government faces in managing this. Treasury Board is at the centre of it, and we take it very seriously, but it does take investments.