Government Operations Committee on March 7th, 2017

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'll follow up with Treasury Board.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Weir, you have seven minutes, please.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you.

I appreciated the responses from Shared Services about IT support for the RCMP, but it's not just the RCMP. The memo that I mentioned also highlighted an 11-hour outage that not only downed the BlackBerrys of all RCMP officers, it also prevented about 240 other police forces from accessing the Canadian Police Information Centre.

Since we have the Canadian Police Association on Parliament Hill today, I want to ask what Shared Services is doing, either through these supplementary estimates or otherwise, to ensure that there is going to be proper IT infrastructure, not just for the RCMP but for all the other police forces that ultimately depend on the federal system.

[Graham Barr]

Shared Services Canada is using funding that we received through budget 2016. We received $384 million over two years. It was $234 million for 2016-17, and the balance of $151 million in 2017-18.

We're using that funding to address the most immediate pressures with respect to our aging infrastructure, so our networks and data centres that have been determined to be mission critical by departments and that are also at the end of their useful life, which is typically a five-year period.

Since we received the money from budget 2016, we have been reinstating maintenance contracts that had previously expired because we had limited funds to renew them. We've been upgrading networks and servers that support mission-critical programs like the ones the member mentioned with respect to policing services. We've been replacing firewalls. We plan to replace all of our end-of-life firewalls, as well as replace out-of-date telephony equipment. A specific example relevant to police work is in remote detachments in western Canada. We have been replacing their telephony equipment so that 911 services function as they should in those regions.

Throughout 2016, we have been procuring a lot of this new infrastructure. We have started rolling out some of it, and we plan to do more in 2017-18.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Based on all of that, would you feel confident that this problem won't be repeated, that we won't have another incident where police forces across the country lose access to the database of criminal records for many hours?

[Graham Barr]

The Government of Canada's IT infrastructure is certainly more secure than it was before Shared Services Canada was created. Before the creation of Shared Services Canada, the government's approach to protecting its networks and data was fragmented, covered by a patchwork of firewalls of varying effectiveness. No one single organization had a single perspective on the security posture.

Today, at Shared Services Canada, we have a security operations centre that monitors systems 24-7, 365. We've instituted a supply chain integrity process that I believe we've talked to this committee about before. We've invoked the national security exception to ensure security, but despite all the best preventions, cyber-threats and other flaws in computer systems are continually evolving and becoming more sophisticated and more customized. No organization is immune to a cyber-attack or a computer failure.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Was this outage the result of a cyber-attack or a computer failure?

[Graham Barr]

It was the result of a computer failure, yes.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

That's my sense, but thank you for that.

Ms. Ratansi often reminds our committee of her background as an accountant. Now, of course, I didn't have enough personality to be an accountant, so I had to be an economist. Despite that, I feel that Ms. Ratansi and I are actually on the same page in asking PCO about the extent of its budget increase, and I feel like the response that we both received was that PCO has been asked to take on some additional functions.

I'd like to ask whether those functions are actually appropriate to PCO. Mr. Gourde, and I think, Mr. Whalen have already asked a little about why the electoral reform spending was done through PCO rather than through the Minister of Democratic Institutions. One could also ask whether the Minister of Youth's functions are properly done through PCO. I'm just curious to hear your take on whether those additional functions actually make sense for PCO as an organization.

[Serge Dupont]

What I would say is that the scope of the functions residing in PCO has evolved over time. In some cases, prime ministers wanted to bring into PCO special secretariats or special functions to look at different priorities, and PCO has evolved over time in response to those priorities of different prime ministers and different governments. It is perfectly within the prerogative of a prime minister to organize the machinery of government as per the allocation of responsibilities that the prime minister sees. That is one of his prerogatives as the head of the government, and we as PCO then endeavour to meet that need.

What is not happening here, and where there could be an issue, is where you would have duplication, for example, where we'd be doing something that is also done in another part of government. It's not the case. We're bolstering intergovernmental affairs, because in serving the Prime Minister as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Minister of Youth, and so forth, those are perfectly legitimate functions to be in PCO if that is the choice of the Prime Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Ayoub, you have seven minutes.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions will be addressed to Mr. Barr's team.

The departmental performance report of Public Services and Government Procurement Canada, which is under the management of Minister Foote, provides dates, several topics, and the status of programs. According to what I can see, things are on the right track in most cases. In addition, there are dates marking the beginning and the end of things, which allows us to understand that projects are long-term and not limited to 2015-2016.

For instance, I see that the program to welcome Syrian refugees was rolled out and is now complete. That is on page 13 of the report. It refers to 25,000 Syrian refugees.

What are the plans for 2017? Will the next report, the 2016-2017 report, include another line on the reception of Syrian refugees, or will that topic not be raised in the report?

[Graham Barr]

No, our report on plans and priorities, or “departmental plan”, as I believe it will be called for 2016-17, will not have a specific line for the Syrian refugee project.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I see. There will not be any, despite the fact that we know that we continue to receive refugees?

[Graham Barr]

Shared Services Canada will continue to support, but it won't be highlighted in our plan for 2016-17.

The support that we have provided to the welcoming of Syrian refugees, setting up the welcome centres, providing telephony equipment, Internet connectivity, etc., will continue on an ongoing basis as long as the need is there.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Indeed, we see in the report that there were several investments to improve IT in order to accelerate or facilitate the arrival of these refugees. Consequently, you can guarantee that those investments were not made in vain, and that they continue to be made. That is what I understand. Thank you.

On page 29 of that same report, you talk about linguistic management and related services. This refers to the delivery of translation services. There is an end date: March 2017. We are now in March 2017. Was a situation report prepared? It says that things are on the right track; however, March 2017 seems to be the end of the exercise. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I believe that such services are offered on a continuous basis and will continue to be offered over the years to come. There is no end date regarding the improvement of linguistic services or the delivery of translation services.

[Graham Barr]

Just as a point of clarification, is the member looking at the departmental performance report for Shared Services Canada?

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I'm referring to the 2015-2016 Departmental Performance Report.

[Graham Barr]

From Shared Services Canada?

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

The one from Public Services and Government Procurement Canada.

[Graham Barr]

Okay. That's not our department. I'm here representing Shared Services Canada. We are in the same portfolio, under Minister Foote, but Public Services and Procurement Canada is a separate department. I'm not equipped to talk about their departmental performance report today.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Sorry.

[Graham Barr]

I believe they are appearing on Thursday.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Fine. I had several questions about the Public Services and Government Procurement Canada report, but I will move to another topic.

Let's talk about specific projects.

Shared Services Canada asked for $64 million which were re-profiled to supplementary estimates (C) in the amount of $870,000.

Can you tell us a bit about what you are going to do with that money?

[Samantha Hazen]

Yes. Thank you for the question.

In our supplementary estimates (C), we are asking to re-profile $64.2 million. That money is for two specific projects. The first one is $52 million in regard to funding for the Carling campus project that I spoke about in my opening remarks. We're moving some funding to the next fiscal year, 2017-18, as well as the next subsequent fiscal year, 2018-19.

The other item that comprises the $64.2 million is a re-profile of funds in regard to budget 2016 funding we received on the cyber and IT security front, in order to augment our security measures for our IT infrastructure across the Government of Canada. That is an amount of $12.2 million that we will be moving to the next fiscal year.