Government Operations Committee on March 12th, 2020

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I would tend to agree with the importance of such a study, but I would also suggest that, from a process perspective, given the purported non-partisan nature, this would have come up in an earlier work plan discussion. I'm wondering if it is amenable to the mover to either include in this motion an acknowledgement that this would be dealt with after the prioritized work that we've already agreed on, or consider having it subsequently deferred to a committee, at which time we would prioritize the work plan. What I want to stay away from, Mr. Chair, is getting into the ad hoc moments where we're putting this stuff in and then changing previously agreed-upon work plans.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

I have Mr. McCauley on the list as well.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Green kind of stole my commentary. I don't think there's anything in here that says we have to do it immediately. We can vote, approve and then do it much later, after red tape and the mains. The supplementary (A)s will be up after that, so further down the road.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. MacKinnon.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

If my honourable colleague agrees, could we ask the subcommittee to deal with this motion? Then we would discuss it in committee. As my colleague said, we are not necessarily against it, but we want to do it in an orderly fashion.

Mr. Aboultaif, it would be a good idea to set the motion aside for today and come back to it after we discuss it at the subcommittee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, from a procedural standpoint, we have two options here. Number one, we have a motion in front of us. We can vote on that motion right now. Two, we can adjourn the debate on the motion if it is so moved, which would allow discussions to occur off-line. That's strictly up to this committee. If someone wants to perhaps move a motion for one option or another, we can deal with that.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I would therefore move the adjournment of the debate.

(Motion agreed to)

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I have another question.

Minister, in your message at the outset, in the departmental results report, the DRR, you mentioned the fact that your department equipped Environment and Climate Change Canada, ECCC, with a new application that provides Canadians with weather information and alerts in real time.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

As a point of privilege, I'm just curious as to the time now. We've now eaten into the hour that the minister is here.

Does he still now get his time back? That would have been five minutes for sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

That's correct. We stopped the clock, actually, when the motion was made and debate started. From a procedural standpoint, yes, he still has time. I've given him two more minutes, Mr. Green.

You have two minutes, sir.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Minister, sorry about all this.

Can you explain the point of this? In today's age we have smart phones with weather apps built into them. The private sector has already built these applications and tested them. Why is the government wasting taxpayers' money on things that already exist, and then boasting about it as an accomplishment?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you very much for that question.

Open data is a movement by which data collected by government is available to the private sector and citizens in order to be able to create businesses, grow the economy or solve problems in society. The example that you provided is an app by Environment and Climate Change Canada. I mentioned that because we are a leader in the open data and open government movement by which we make data available so it can be used productively by the public and businesses to serve Canadians.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

We're trying to solve a problem here, Minister.

We have to stop competing with the private sector in one way or another. We have resources available to us. We can allocate them to be used somewhere else. What we're doing here is doing things the same old-fashioned way, which is basically continuing to do what we shouldn't be doing and what you stated in your speech. I would really like you to look at that. Basically, put resources where they need to be and not just in cases like this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Before we have a response, Madam Minister, we'll move on to another question.

If there are answers you have yet to provide because of limited time, I would ask you to please to supply those answers, through the clerk, at your earliest opportunity.

We'll now go to Monsieur Drouin for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for taking the time to appear before this committee, along with the staff provided to us if we obviously have questions and we want more details.

One issue I noticed over the past 10 years was when Shared Services was created. It was created under PSPC, or reporting under PSPC. Now, this year, or last year technically, we've put the IT branch from Treasury Board and SSC together. How is that relationship? What does this mean in terms of governance for Canadians and for the IT community, which also often has to deal with delivering services for Canadians?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thanks for that question.

The point of having a stand-alone Minister of Digital Government is to recognize how important it is that we are able to serve Canadians with the means that they expect. Today, that means on a phone as well as other channels and also to be able to do it quickly, securely and effectively. Bringing together different parts of IT and digital is the point of Shared Services Canada, the Canadian Digital Service and the CIO branch working together under a stand-alone ministry.

I'm finding that each group has incredible dedication and competency in their own part of this. The fact that we now meet together and explore how Shared Services Canada, for example, is helping facilitate the delivery of policies and strategies that are put out by the CIO branch and how the Canadian Digital Service is doing some practical, on-the-ground implementation of improvements is strengthening our government's ability to move more quickly in this digital transformation.

I would like to say that Canada is actually not as much of a laggard as the previous member had mentioned. We are actually leading in a number of ways on this kind of transformation. I'm proud of the work that the public servants in Canada have been doing. It's challenging to change a culture where every department had its own authorities, its own silos and its own ability to do its own thing, when what we're trying to do is to work more collaboratively and integrate some of the work that's being done digitally across government as a platform to be able to modernize.

I'm very encouraged by the progress that's being made, but this integration is critical to take a next step for that.

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

Words that we often hear are “open government”. We hear this in the IT community. We hear this with government. What does that mean and how does it support the mandate of government?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I'm going to have a quick response to that and then turn it over to our CIO, Francis Bilodeau, to add.

Open government is the concept that if government works closely with the public through civil society and individuals in the public, we have a better engagement between government and the public. We have better accountability and transparency. We're utilizing the ideas and the objectives of members of the public. A bit more than that, open data also means that we provide data, as I was mentioning before, that government has collected for its own use. This is data that does not create any vulnerability on a privacy or a security level. The private sector or businesses can then utilize that data and turn it into a business where they can supply services to Canadians and make money from it. Open data is very good for the economy, but it's also good for the trust between citizens and their government to have that sharing.

Francis, can you add to that?

[Francis Bilodeau, Acting Chief Information Officer of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat]

I think the minister said it quite eloquently.

Essentially, open government is about broader collaboration between the government, civil societies and Canadians. It includes elements of open information. Work has been done, for example, under the access to information regime to have more proactive publication. It includes elements of open data. Within my organization, for example, we have the open government portal, which pushes out a lot of information, such as a lot of geospatial information, which can then be reused by either civil society or the private sector for their own needs. It leverages ongoing collaboration with civil society through, for example, the multistakeholder forum that we've established, which brings civil society actors into the government to work with us on specific initiatives.

Some of the key tools we have are the open government portal, which is managed within the office of the CIO. Then, on a regular basis, we develop open government national action plans. We developed the fourth action plan and now are developing the fifth.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to you, Ms. Vignola. You have six minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

I was looking at the estimates. I'm trying to understand all this. I saw that your goal was to transform and streamline IT services, modernize the 485 data centres by consolidating them into seven centres, to move from 50 networks to a single one and to consolidate the 63 email systems into one, all while providing cost-recovery technology services and so on.

I have a few questions and I would appreciate quick answers.

When were the 485 data centres created?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

The data centre program is very important.

It is very important that we improve that network. We have already transformed over one-third—

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Yes, but—

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I will pass it over to Madam Paquet to answer further.

[Sarah Paquet, Executive Vice-President, Shared Services Canada]

With respect to the data centres that were transferred to Shared Services Canada when they were created, in 2011, there are now 720 of them. They existed before SSC was created.