Evidence of meeting #14 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cybersecurity.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
I will ask the official from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Scott Jones, to elaborate on that.
I would say that the monitoring and the very effective Government of Canada perimeter within which all of our secure government activities are placed and take place have resulted in a remarkable absence of real cyber-incidents over the past time period during COVID when so much activity is happening.
Scott, do you have something to add?
Scott Jones Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Communications Security Establishment
Yes. Thank you, Minister.
In general what we've done is that we've worked with commercial partners and with cyber-centres from around the world to take down anything that is impersonating the Government of Canada to try to dupe Canadians into taking some sort of online action. We've taken down hundreds of websites or malicious indicators, but we've also taught the commercial sector what the official CERB site, for example, looks like, so that they know and can recognize it and can take the malicious sites down on their own as well. That way they protect all Canadians quickly.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Could you tell us how many victims there were before these sites were detected by your services?
Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Communications Security Establishment
Unfortunately, because we look for the malicious activity, we don't look towards Canadians. The CSE Act precludes us from looking towards Canadians. We don't have a count of victims. We have to turn to our colleagues at the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, if a Canadian has reported it.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Are there any teleworking public service employees whose computer systems have been targeted by a cyber attack?
Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Communications Security Establishment
In general, the Government of Canada is targeted with approximately two billion malicious activities per day. A lot of that is purely reconnaissance, looking for any vulnerable service, but we're able to take action and we block those with our colleagues at Shared Services.
Yes, there continue to be attempts to target Government of Canada users. The extreme majority of those, greater than 99%, are blocked before any public servant even sees them.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Among the 1% of cyber attacks that remain, have there been any consequences either on government data or on the personal data of Quebeckers and Canadians?
Conservative
Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Communications Security Establishment
We have seen no breach of any government systems since the beginning of this event.
Conservative
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I certainly appreciate having the opportunity to hear from the honourable minister today.
As you know, constituency offices across the country have been absolutely inundated with calls for every single government announcement, particularly as it relates to EI benefits and CERB, and certainly for small businesses it's the same, so I can appreciate the Herculean effort it must take to provide responses throughout the public service.
We've been hearing, though, from many people that they've had problems with the processing of their EI and CERB applications and cannot get in touch with an agent from the CRA or Service Canada. A constituent in my riding, Shannon Cooper, applied for EI leave on March 19 and is still waiting to receive her first payment. She has needed to call Service Canada to help sort out problems with her application. One of the biggest challenges she's facing is that when she's finally able to talk with an agent on the phone, her call gets dropped and the agent doesn't call her back. This has happened multiple times. She's now gone with close to 70 days without pay.
Given the IT infrastructure challenges that certainly all of government is facing, are you aware of this issue of calls being dropped by call centres?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Minister, before you attempt an answer, I would just remind Mr. Green to, again, try to keep his questions focused on the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. That is the frame of reference.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. Chair, respectfully, CERB applications are in direct response to COVID, and it's a very important question.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
It is an important question. I appreciate that. I'm just trying to make sure the precision of the question is there.
Please go ahead.
NDP
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Thanks for that question.
Of course, because serving Canadians quickly, effectively and securely is a high priority for our government, I always regret to hear that somebody is having a challenge having an interaction with our government.
I can say that, through the work of the public servants of Canada to very quickly ramp up the capability to work from home, and even call centre employees who are working from home in some cases, it has been a unique circumstance. Given the millions of Canadians who have needed the government's help and the millions and millions who have received that help, I'm very proud of the work that has been done, but we will never stop trying to improve our systems and the infrastructure and the secure tools that are needed.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I can appreciate that, and I would expect that and hope that, certainly from the government's perspective. However, in order to basically address these challenges that you're faced with, understanding that it's probably a function of old technology—and I'll let you comment on that in a moment—do you know exactly what percentage of calls are getting dropped? What type of evidence are you using to help improve the systems of IT?
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Thank you for that question. I'm going to ask Paul Glover to answer.
President, Shared Services Canada
Thank you, Minister, and thank you, Chair, for the member's question.
Absolutely, we are aware of these issues and I'm pleased to report that the situation is improving each and every day. The number of calls that were being directed to ESDC and CRA by Canadians were literally unprecedented, so steps have been taken to improve the system's ability to handle the number of calls that are coming at it and route them quickly and properly through to agents.
We have been tracking the number of calls. It has improved quite substantially, and the number of calls being dropped now is very few.
NDP
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
There were none. No calls were dropped yesterday. Is that your assertion?
President, Shared Services Canada
With all respect, it would depend on the definition of “dropped”. There are busy signals where, because there is a limit to the technology and the number of calls, or how long the system knows an average call will take for somebody to be placed on hold, it gives them a busy signal, so they don't even get in. If we don't include those types of calls, for calls that entered the system and then were routed through, I'm not aware of any dropped calls in the last number of days.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Just to close it out, in terms of the improvement you've identified, I'm very happy to hear that. I think our constituency offices might have a different anecdotal perspective.
Could you just give us a sense of, when this unprecedented wave happened for dropped calls until now, what it would have been at its peak?