Evidence of meeting #58 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 census.
A video is available from Parliament.
Former Chief Statistician of Canada, As an Individual
That was my understanding.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Monsieur Drouin, you have seven minutes. Go ahead, please.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank you, Mr. Smith, for coming here.
I'm just trying to understand the rationale for saying that Statistics Canada is no longer independent or that the infrastructure is not part of Statistics Canada. When you look at the industry, you see a movement towards infrastructure as a service, a platform as a service, or software as a service. For instance, the Office of the Auditor General is now an SSC responsibility. I would have a hard time saying that the Auditor General is no longer independent because of IT issues. I'm just trying to understand why it is that you say this.
Former Chief Statistician of Canada, As an Individual
I think that if the Auditor General is participating now, it is no doubt on a voluntary basis, which means he still has control over what happens and whether that relationship continues, and he can withdraw. If that situation existed in Statistics Canada.... I presume the Auditor General holds the budget. I presume that he is engaging with Shared Services Canada on a voluntary basis and is able if he so chooses to either withdraw, go to a third party, or deliver the services to himself. If I had had that arrangement with Shared Services Canada and Statistics Canada, I would have had no problem.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Okay, so Statistics Canada, for instance, is responsible for its own applications, I assume, as are most departmental organizations.
Former Chief Statistician of Canada, As an Individual
We are, but an application can't be separated from the hardware it runs on. I can write a beautiful application, which I have done in the case of this new website. If I can't get the hardware to run it on, it's useless. It's a wasted investment. It's money down the drain.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I'm not here to defend Shared Services Canada, but just try to understand. If we go back to a pre-Shared Services world, there must have been IT issues within Statistics Canada, and I can point to other IT issues within other departments.
Former Chief Statistician of Canada, As an Individual
Clearly there were. There were significant hacks of some government departments, but one of the things that kept Statistics Canada safe, that Shared Services Canada and other government-wide initiatives have forced us out of, was that we isolated our major networks. The networks on which we operate, where all the confidential data is held, were isolated. There was no connection to the Internet.
Moving toward Shared Services forces us to create those connections, which introduces the possibility of penetration in a way that wasn't there before.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Okay. The idea of shared services isn't new. It was there before. It just wasn't mandatory.
I just want to go back to pre-retirement date or pre-resignation date. What happened? How many meetings did you have with Shared Services before this? Did you interact with...? You said you met with Mr. Parker.
Former Chief Statistician of Canada, As an Individual
I don't know the exact number. I had three or four meetings with Mr. Parker in various contexts. My chief information officer met with him on a regular basis over the course of the summer, trying to resolve these immediate operational issues and not making a lot of progress. In the period between the time I wrote to the Prime Minister and my resignation, there was no meaningful discussion of any strategic issues. They were all tactical and operational issues.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Okay. Did you know about the operations prior to Shared Services? Did you understand how Statistics Canada worked?
Former Chief Statistician of Canada, As an Individual
Yes, I was there for 35 years.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Okay. Were there any predetermined or service-level agreements within Statistics Canada?
Former Chief Statistician of Canada, As an Individual
We had introduced some types of service-level agreements but they were less critical. Statistics Canada works in project teams. It doesn't work in its hierarchy. When we're building something and we're running a large program, each area is represented on the project team. Each area knows what is expected of it. Each area is accountable for delivering that, and if somebody fails, it creates a problem situation that has to be quickly addressed.
Generally speaking, because we're all working towards a very clear set of common objectives, there is very little opportunity for the kind of head-butting that can go on between two organizations that aren't linked either by a strong service-level agreement that lays out very clearly what people are supposed to provide—when and how and at what cost—or by that kind of common culture.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
If you worked there for 35 years, tell me this: did they have an inventory of what was working or of all of their hardware and of what needed to be fixed in the next five or ten years?
Former Chief Statistician of Canada, As an Individual
Well, we did, but one part of my mandate, in my tenure, was a complete consolidation of our informatics infrastructure under one management.
It had been very decentralized. We knew what was there, but it was not particularly efficient. We had already taken steps to consolidate that informatics infrastructure prior to the arrival of Shared Services Canada, and we had already harvested a 10% efficiency from the informatics resources through this consolidation.
At the time Shared Services came on, I think they noted that we were probably one of the best prepared departments, because we knew exactly where everything was and had it controlled centrally.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
For the census, you said you needed more hardware, more infrastructure, and that essentially the census was successful. Is that right?
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
So Shared Services understood that this was mission-critical and they successfully did something with Statistics Canada?
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I'm just trying to understand. We did a bit of this study prior to the summer break. We've spoken to a few stakeholders, including former CIOs, and I can bet that if I had other CIOs here, some of them would still be very frustrated. But why resign?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
It's a difficult question, Mr. Smith, but you have only a very short window to answer.
Former Chief Statistician of Canada, As an Individual
It really goes to there being a culture of official statistics that says that if the independence of the organization is fundamentally compromised, you have to take whatever course of action you think will produce results.
Having taken every step short of resignation, I thought I would try the ultimate measure and resign and call public attention to the concerns I have. That was essentially the logic. I felt that I had reached the end of any possibility of finding a solution inside of government.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith, once again I offer my apologies for your truncated appearance here, but unfortunately, because of the circumstances, it is what it is.
Colleagues, we will be having a vote in about ten minutes that should take a little more than ten minutes, which would put us back here probably around 5:15, leaving us about the amount of time I would need to go over a report from our subcommittee on future agenda items.
We will now excuse our witness.
Thank you once again for your testimony. Mr. Smith, I would ask you one final question, however. If there are other questions that members of the committee have, would you allow them to correspond with you directly and would you then commit to giving a written response to the committee?