Government Operations Committee on Nov. 29th, 2016

[Marie Lemay]

What we've said all along, and you've heard the minister say—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I've heard her say a lot of things that turned out to be—

[Marie Lemay]

We will keep them open as long as we need to. We will make sure that we have—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. Assume it's all perfect, that we have a steady state and we have everyone's T4s, no backlog. Do we close the satellite offices, or is the intent to keep them running forever?

[Marie Lemay]

The model we are developing.... We are talking and meeting with the unions and the departments to make sure that we have looked at all the issues and that all our assumptions are right, and we'll be able to see, in time, what we need and whether we need more bodies or not.

We are not excluding anything, but we haven't cast the die on that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

So you don't have a time yet. Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We have Mr. Weir for seven minutes, please.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

When the minister was asked about executive compensation, she indicated that it was the responsibility of the deputy minister. One of the concerns about the Phoenix pay system is that its implementation may have been rushed in order to meet an artificial deadline to allow senior executives to qualify for performance bonuses. Can you tell us whether any of those bonuses have been paid, or whether Phoenix executives have accrued bonuses that may be paid out at a later date?

[Marie Lemay]

First, I would like to...I was going to say “debunk the myth”. There was no speed target for executives to implement Phoenix so they could get their bonus, so that is not the case.

In terms of the performance pay, we have assessed all the executives at PSPC. Some of the performance pay for executives will be on hold until we have the evaluations that I talked about, and we will assess accordingly. Others will get their performance pay.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay.

When you say “on hold”, that doesn't mean they are not receiving the bonus; it just means a delay.

[Marie Lemay]

I said “on hold” for performance pay until we have the evaluation and can assess accordingly.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay.

I have a question on Shared Services. Our committee heard from Wayne Smith, the former chief statistician, who resigned in protest of what he saw as major problems in the arrangement between your organization and his. I wonder if you could give us your take on his resignation.

[Ron Parker]

We met with Mr. Smith quite a few times between December 2015 and April of this year, and we discussed the issues that he raised. We did work through the operational and other issues to that point. There were no technical or operational issues that were left on the table. Yes, there was a lot of work still to do, but the point of principle that Mr. Smith raised, in terms of the overall situation he believed he was in, was not something that we particularly focused on, as that is really an operation of government set of issues outside my purview.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I take the point that you've been given a mandate to provide IT services to Statistics Canada, but Mr. Smith makes the point that there are some entities within government, such as Parliament itself, that have been deemed so independent that they need to have their own IT and shouldn't rely on Shared Services. Do you think he has a point with respect to Statistics Canada?

[Ron Parker]

Those decisions are the purview of the Prime Minister, in terms of the machinery of government. To a large extent, the decisions revolve around the different jurisdictions of the executive level of government versus Parliament versus the judiciary, so they respect the division of accountability throughout the Westminster system. Similarly, parliamentary entities such as the Auditor General follow that type of process.

Just to come back.... Who is an SSC customer is fundamentally decided through the orders in council.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

If we take it as a given that the decision was made, is it important for Shared Services to have a monopoly on the IT services for Statistics Canada, or would it be legitimate to say Shared Services will do what it can, but if Statistics Canada needs something more or something different to fulfill its mandate it can go to other suppliers of IT services?

[Ron Parker]

The government has decided to go with an enterprise approach for the reasons I noted in my opening statement. Those are the foundational factors that I believe led to the conclusions of who should be covered and the nature of the services, mandatory or not.

If there are special requirements that one of our customers has, we will work closely with that customer to develop a service level agreement related to that, with the appropriate charges to make sure we can deliver those services.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I did also want to ask the Department of Public Services and Procurement whether any effort is going to be made to recoup money from IBM, given the problems that are now apparent with the Phoenix pay system, and specifically with the inadequate testing of it before it went live.

[Marie Lemay]

With the contract with IBM right now, it is correcting any defects that could have happened as part of warranty. We have no reason to sue IBM right now.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

So you're satisfied with IBM's design and testing the Phoenix system?

[Marie Lemay]

It has provided what it was asked to provide, and it is correcting when it's not working from that point of view.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

So you see the problems as lying within the government of Canada, not IBM.

[Marie Lemay]

The problem will end up being, I believe, multiple points of failure. I don't think you can point to one problem.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Is IBM one of the points of failure? Should it have some accountability for that?

[Marie Lemay]

As I said, the way the contract was set up, IBM has delivered and is actually respecting its warranty and correcting defects if they come up.