Government Operations Committee on Nov. 29th, 2016

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I think it was a mistake to lay them off, because I think they would have been invaluable in assisting the employees who were hired in Miramichi. Some of them took retirement. Others went on to other jobs in the public service. If you're going to look at—

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

You're saying, though, that their workplace should have been maintained in the national capital region rather than trying to relocate everything to Miramichi?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

What I'm saying is that it wasn't wrong to locate the pay centre in Miramichi any more than it was wrong to locate the pension centre in Shediac, New Brunswick.

The reality is that if you're going to put in place a more advanced payroll system, you should be able to realize savings. Whether or not the necessity of laying them off would have been today, tomorrow or next week, the reality is we needed that expert advice, I think, to enable us to realize the vision the previous government had when it said we needed to replace the payroll system.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

If you had seen the Gartner report in January, would you have delayed the implementation of Phoenix?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

From what I'm told, we had dealt with the issues raised in the Gartner report.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

It doesn't seem so.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Well, I'm told we had, and that in fact both S.i. Systems and all the work that had been done up to that point did not suggest in any way, shape, or form that we should not proceed.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay. In the $50 million that we talked about, about $6 million is going to IBM for additional monitoring. IBM designed the Phoenix system. What kind of responsibility does it bear, and at some point should it not be reimbursing the Government of Canada?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

We've been working very closely with IBM. What they're being asked to do now is outside the initial contract. It's additional work that—

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

In terms of the additional contract, what kind of requirements were there on IBM? What kind of recourse do Canadian taxpayers have for this product that clearly didn't work and wasn't tested very effectively?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I think it's fair to say that Phoenix as a system, while there are issues, as with any system, you're going to find things that you're going to have to deal with and try to find a way to better a system. We're working very closely with IBM. No system is perfect.

I think the employees recognize they're working closely with the system. Like anything else, they make recommendations on how to do things better—

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Are we going to seek any compensation from IBM?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'm sorry, Mr. Weir, I'm going to have to cut you off. We're a little over time now. I was going to have to interrupt the minister in any event.

Minister, once again, thank you for being with us today. Regardless, this has been a difficult issue for everyone, both the government and most particularly the employees. I know I can say on behalf of all our committee, regardless of sometimes heated discourse, our desire is to see this problem fixed permanently.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Good luck to all of you and your officials in getting that done.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We will suspend for a few moments, while we get ready for our next set of witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I think we will begin.

Welcome to all of our witnesses, again. Thank you all for being here.

I notice we have a new addition to the witness table. Welcome, Mr. Barr.

Mr. Parker, if you have an opening statement, I would ask you to deliver it now, and then we'll go into our round of questioning.

[Ron Parker]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've already gone through who I'm accompanied by, including Mr. Barr, who is the director general for strategic policy, planning, and reporting.

I'd like to provide an update on the measures Shared Services Canada, known as SSC, has taken to improve information technology, or IT, services and upgrade IT infrastructure for the Government of Canada.

SSC's mandate is clear. It is to deliver the IT infrastructure backbone for the programs and services that Canadians get from the government daily. When you cross the border or when you apply for social benefits, SSC is there and providing reliable and secure systems connecting Canadians to their government. SSC is also there to assist in national initiatives, such as making a home for Syrian refugees and responding to emergencies by providing increased IT capacity.

I want to point out that, first and foremost, Shared Services Canada has a duty to address the IT issues of its clients. That includes helping them ensure they can deliver programs and services to Canadians, to the extent our resources allow.

The customer service delivery model we're using focuses on service excellence for customers and Canadians built on easy, secure, digital access to programs and services. SSC works with our customers to understand their business requirements and to help bring those requirements to life within SSC through careful planning and then delivery.

I would like to note that there's been an improvement in customer satisfaction to 2.91 in October, up from 2.79 in December last year, when we started to conduct surveys. This may not sound like a large improvement, but it takes a lot to move an average that is calculated over 42 customers. There is obviously still a lot to do, an enormous amount to do.

SSC employees make every effort to serve clients. Our employees are inspiring. They are committed to providing quality service to clients, regularly working evenings and weekends. They strive to ensure the stability of the Government of Canada's IT infrastructure, not only on an urgent basis, but also every day through ongoing monitoring and maintenance.

The skills and talents of SSC employees are in demand. They have lots of choices about where they work. There are frustrations. Change can be destabilizing, but they have chosen to make their contribution by helping to secure the future of the IT infrastructure that is so critical to the service delivery to Canadians, and we need to continuously recognize this.

Now, I'd like to talk to you about the IT transformation program.

Since the program's creation in 2013, the technology landscape and environment have changed considerably.

The need for the enterprise approach outlined in the Treasury Board IT strategy is clear. There is an enormous growth in the demand for digital services, and the scope of the need for IT infrastructure could not be dealt with by departments working in silos. The need for consistent and system-wide cyber and IT security has come to the forefront. Along with the overall economies of scale, these are all considerations.

The revision of the IT transformation plan is based on the lessons learned in project design and service delivery. It also benefits from the advice we've received from wide-ranging consultations with SSC employees, customers, industry, departments, and Canadians, all this fall. We were pleased to receive over 780 submissions to the consultations.

SSC works with the Treasury Board Secretariat to ensure the consistency of the Government of Canada Information Technology Strategic Plan 2016-2020.

The revised plan will be comprehensive. It will include detailed implementation strategies and revised timelines. The revised plan will focus on core business improvements in the areas of service management, financial management, and project management, as well as in cyber and IT security. We will also enhance our people strategy.

This plan will not represent an end to transformation. Given the change of pace in the IT industry, it needs to have a three-year focus and to adapt to the continuous change in the IT landscape. Improvements must be continued so that Canadians remain well served.

SSC will provide the committee with its revised IT transformation plan once it's totally finalized. The revisions will be based on SSC's fall 2016 consultations with its partners, the IT industry, and Canadians, on the Treasury Board contracted independent review by the IT consulting firm, Gartner, and its assembled expert panel, and on any subsequent cabinet decisions, as I mentioned when we were here in May.

The current infrastructure is made up of data centres, networks, storage devices, and servers, all of which SCC inherited when the department was created. This infrastructure will be upgraded through transformation projects. In the meantime, the systems need to be maintained and kept up to date, a job that accounts for a large share of SCC's daily workload on behalf of its clients.

SSC received more than $460 million in budget 2016 to strengthen cybersecurity protection and upgrade out-of-date mission critical infrastructure. This investment reduces the risk of breakdown of the existing infrastructure, reduces the cybersecurity vulnerability of aging systems, and keeps important services running for the benefit of all Canadians.

I'd also like to take a moment to address specific issues related to Statistics Canada.

Shared Services Canada and Statistics Canada are working together on modernizing the IT services Statistics Canada relies on to deliver its programs to Canadians.

The chief statistician and I have a joint commitment to continue to modernize Statistics Canada's IT infrastructure to meet their business needs while respecting the confidentiality and integrity of their operations.

I want to be very clear. SSC's enterprise data centres provide the data security required by Statistics Canada. Employees working at the data centre serving Statistics Canada are secret cleared and take an oath to meet the requirements of the Statistics Canada Act. They are subject to the same legal remedies as any Statistics Canada employee.

In addition, SSC and Statistics Canada have worked together very closely over the last eight weeks to specify Statistics Canada's requirements for the next 12 months and map these to additional infrastructure requirements. The most pressing needs will be met by the end of February 2017, with work continuing to meet all of the identified business needs in the following months.

Thank you. My colleagues and I would be pleased to answer your questions.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll begin our questioning with Monsieur Drouin, for seven minutes, please.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here today.

Normally, I would have questions for the Shared Services Canada representatives, but out of respect for my colleagues in the national capital region, I must inquire about the Phoenix situation. As you know, many of our constituents work in the public service, so we are particularly concerned about this issue.

Ms. Lemay, the last time we met with you was in the summer. We were on the other side of the room and it was a bit warmer out. I had asked you about the backlog. When you said those cases would be resolved by October 31, I asked you whether that was a conservative estimate. You said it was, and you assured us that you would respect the deadline.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around all this. What happened? The cases in the backlog related to Phoenix were already known. Those cases were on the radar, even those originating from the old system. Did the department understand the source of those cases or not? How did you arrive at October 31 as the deadline for resolving those 80,000 cases?

[Marie Lemay]

Thank you for your question.

As you saw, at that time, we were very optimistic about meeting the October 31 deadline. The planning relied on estimates of how long it took to resolve certain cases. What became quite clear was how complex the files in the backlog were. In fact, 82% of the outstanding cases were related to transactions predating Phoenix, some even going back several years. So we are talking about old transactions. What happens is that, whenever a case is opened, there are more transactions associated with the case, meaning these are very complex transactions, very complex cases. Ultimately, what took the longest was assigning teams of experts to deal exclusively with that, in Miramichi and at the satellite offices, in order to be able to resolve these outstanding cases.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I'm going to pick up on what my colleagues said. In September, the minister repeated that she had every reason to believe that the situation would be resolved. I imagine your team told her that was still the case.

It was quite obvious that the target would not be met. In August, some 60,000 cases were still outstanding. To my mind, it was quite clear that you weren't anywhere close to meeting the target.

[Marie Lemay]

It wasn't quite so obvious to us. In fact, it wasn't at all obvious. We had taken the stance that, if we realized we weren't going to meet the target, we would say so immediately.

You probably kept up with our technical briefings. We had plotted out a timeline, and we were sticking to those targets up until almost the middle of October, if I'm not mistaken. That's when we began to veer off course. That's when it became clear.

It's important to keep in mind that we did many key things over the summer. We set up satellite offices and call centres. We had to hire more than 200 staff. We made a huge number of technical enhancements. We established all sorts of methods to communicate with employees. There's a list of 30 or so actions we took to make things better and to give employees access to the application.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I completely agree with you, but shouldn't the minister have said, in early September, that the department might not be able to meet the October 31 deadline?

I want to ask Mr. Liddy about the Gartner report. Was that shared with Madam Lemay? Why was it not shared with the minister's office? If we go back to February when the advice was given to move ahead, if that Gartner report had been there, “By the way, Minister, we have the Gartner report that says there might be some issues...”, I don't know if the minister would have reacted the same way if she had had that particular report in her hands. Why was that not shared?