Government Operations Committee on May 11th, 2017

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I didn't hear what benefit we got for the $13-million increase. You spent more money but—

[Marie Lemay]

In the fall we had a lot more translation being done.

[Marty Muldoon]

We had a 30% increase in volume.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

But your target for this year is less than the actual from last year—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

—and you're spending more money to do it.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We now go to Mr. Whalen, for seven minutes.

That will bring us closer to 10:30, and Mr. McCauley has a brief question, which I will allow.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Parker, it's good to see that the IT plan that was tabled back in October now seems to be in operation. Could you confirm where you are with the Government of Canada information technology strategic plan 2016-2020?

[Ron Parker]

I believe you might be referring to the strategy developed by the Treasury Board Secretariat. Could you restate the title of document?

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Yes, it's the strategic plan 2016-2020. Under that document there are a number of things on the government website that suggest they are in process. It lays out a number of different strategy goals and policy directives. It also says that the government is in the process of developing IT service portfolios and catalogues, which is something we'd asked you about in previous meetings.

Where is SSC, for instance, on developing the service portfolios and catalogues?

[Ron Parker]

We've accomplished a lot under those categories. Much of it was flagged in the context of the Auditor General's report. We've put all of the services that we offer into the catalogue along with service level expectations, so there's material progress on that front.

As well, we're renewing our business arrangements with our customers. In that context, there are service level expectations embedded in those documents as well. If the customers require or would like, we are putting annexes into those business arrangements to deal with service level expectations that may be different from the standards.

We've also rolled out a service management strategy, a very elaborate and comprehensive strategy, for working with our customers on the account management side, to understand what's coming in terms of their planning and their future demands. As well, we've established a service management branch, which is responsible for coordinating the implementation of the departmental plans, in co-operation and conjunction with the actual service lines.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Great.

When I look at the estimates, the table for Shared Services Canada actually does program and purpose breakdowns. It's unclear, though, when we look at these documents how much of the money in each category goes towards maintaining current service, and how much of it is going to transferring and transforming departments into enterprise-wide solutions, which is for cloud computing solutions, both of which are principles under the new government-wide strategic plan.

Could you give us some sense of how much time and effort is being spent on managing the systems as they exist, and how much time and effort is being spent transitioning different departments off their legacy systems to enterprise-wide systems?

[Ron Parker]

The vast majority of the funding that we receive is allocated to sustaining the current systems. Over the years, we have reallocated from transformation activities to enable the sustainment of the legacy systems, given the state that they were in at our creation.

I don't have the precise numbers, but we do have the split between what I would call the ongoing sustainment of the existing system versus how much we are investing in modernization projects.

Madam Chair, I would be happy to provide that information.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

That would be wonderful to see. It would give us just a sense of it so that we can have the confidence—and so Canadians can have the confidence—that we're devoting sufficient resources both to managing the services they receive and also to modernizing government, which is one of your goals and one of the principles laid out in the strategic plan.

Another one is moving to cloud computing. At the same time, we see that one of the strategic goals is security. Will there be a preference for creating our own cloud within our data centres so that services will be delivered within our own private cloud, or is the preference toward accessing a more public cloud with cloud services offered by third parties?

[Ron Parker]

Madam Chair, Mr. Glowacki will respond to this question.

[John Glowacki Jr., Chief Operating Officer, Shared Services Canada]

Thank you for the question.

Madam Chair, this is a complex environment. There is not a simple, clean answer, and it's quite dependent on the demand, on the needs of our customers.

Our initial foray into the cloud space is in the unclassified space. It's a convenient place for us to learn. It does not put the government's information at risk.

We need to look at these on a case-by-case basis, and that's what we intend to do. We will always look at it with this being the baseline: what is it for the government to do it for itself and then what are the options available to us? In certain cases, the sensitivity of the information drives us to say that we need to do this in-house to protect it. In other cases, such as the Library and Archives Canada example, where we're trying to promote Canadian culture, that's a very good environment to put on the cloud. We want the Googles and the Microsofts of the world to put this all over the planet, because it helps to promote the culture. In other cases, we have to be a bit more concerned about privacy or protection of intellectual property, etc., so we have to take a look.

You end up with a hybrid and a spectrum of offerings, and that's what we intend to become experts at, becoming brokers of services.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

We appreciate that this is a fluid environment. It's good to hear that you're growing some expertise in-house. Do you have any major contractors we should be aware of that you're currently using and that vet and provide or train your in-house IT folks in access to cloud services? Are there any major contracts with those types of outsourced organizations?

[John Glowacki Jr.]

We do not rely on any outsourcers to tell us how to do this. We do rely on various advisers. I don't want to start picking out specific companies. It would sound like we're promoting them. You could go to the typical third party industry analysts. We go to them for advice. We also take a look at what other countries have done, and for those of us with private sector experience, what we have done and what we've seen other companies do as well.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Parker mentioned his management plan and service levels. Have you also established those for the cloud services we're acquiring? Are those service levels more or less stringent than the internal ones?

[John Glowacki Jr.]

That would be contingent on what those providers do. Inherently, you're buying something that's relatively a commodity service, and it's dependent on them using their service levels, as opposed to us trying to skew them to something else.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McCauley, you have a brief one minute.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm letting you off the hook.

This is to enter notice of a motion that the meeting of June 15, 2017, be dedicated to develop a work plan for the committee's study of the government's procurement process, which includes the vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard, the national shipbuilding procurement strategy, and the proposed acquisition of 18 Boeing Super Hornet fighter jets.

Thank you for your indulgence.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much.

The meeting is suspended. We'll go in camera to discuss committee business.

The witnesses are excused. Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]