Government Operations Committee on March 12th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

It is 8:45 a.m., so I will call this meeting to order.

Minister Murray, thank you for being with us today. My understanding is that you will have an opening statement. If you could do that, Madam—you know the drill, you've been here enough times—we'll follow your opening statement with questions from our committee members.

Perhaps to start, you can introduce those who are sitting with you at the head table and then commence your statement.

Thank you.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Minister of Digital Government]

I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to be here today to discuss the Shared Services Canada 2019-20 supplementary estimates (B). I'm going to be speaking in both languages. There are earpieces for anyone who might need them.

I am pleased to be joined today by officials from Shared Services Canada, namely Sarah Paquet, executive vice-president, Denis Bombardier, chief financial officer, and Raj Thuppal, senior assistant deputy minister.

Also joining me today are officials from the Treasury Board Secretariat. We have Karen Cahill, assistant secretary and CFO, and Francis Bilodeau, acting chief information officer of Canada. After my remarks, of course, my officials and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Permit me to start by providing the committee with an overview of my mandate, our challenges and the organizations in the portfolio.

Good government in the 21st century means providing quality digital services that are secure, easy and accurate.

Canadians have growing expectations to receive services and interact with government digitally.

Aging IT systems and infrastructure make it hard to implement policy changes, cost taxpayers more every year to maintain and make service to the public an ongoing challenge. The main barriers to changing this reality are not uniquely technological or financial. They also require us to revisit service models, processes, rules, sunk costs and organizational structures and cultures that were largely established in a previous, slower-moving technological era.

We've seen government IT projects that haven't gone so well because of the old way of working.

My challenge will be making the changes to how we work in government. We will need to look at our structures, incentives and culture and to break down silos to ensure we can more easily develop and adopt digital so that we can better serve Canadians.

As members of Parliament, we've seen our constituency staff help constituents navigate government processes that weren't always easy to understand. I know we'd all like to make it easier.

There's much to be done, but much is already under way to update our existing systems. We're modernizing the government's data centres, replacing old systems, and shifting data to the cloud or consolidating into more reliable and secure facilities. We're rolling out more digital tools, so public servants can improve their service to Canadians. We're updating and replacing some of the applications that provide critical services to Canadians, so that we can count on them in the long term.

We will soon reach an important milestone, when the new policy on service and digital takes effect. This policy will consolidate policies and directives across government to provide a single playbook that will guide our work.

Our Prime Minister understands how important it is for government to be open, accessible and provide Canadians with services that are as easy to use as those that the private sector offers. Think about being on your couch with your phone and booking travel to an exotic location—maybe a few months from now—or depositing a cheque. As Canada's first dedicated Minister of Digital Government, I'm honoured to take on this challenge and lead the teams at Shared Services Canada, the office of the CIO and the Canadian Digital Service on our government's digital transformation journey.

I'll now provide the committee with a brief overview of the organizations, Mr. Chair.

First is the CIO. There are over 20,000 employees working in IT and information management across the Government of Canada.

The office of the chief information officer provides them with leadership and direction. By setting policy and priorities, it enables departments to build capacity and helps them with project management and oversight.

Part of this support includes the digital operations strategic plan, which sets out how the Government of Canada manages technology and technological change within government. This change includes things such as Canada Revenue Agency's “Auto-fill my return”, which saves Canadians time by filling in parts of their tax forms for them or automatically enrolling more than half of seniors in old age security pension and guaranteed income supplements so they don't lose out on them just through neglecting to apply.

The strategic plan will also promote a more open government by providing open access to government data so that businesses can innovate and NGOs can address more challenges.

The plan sets out a digital-first and digitally enabled government that is there to serve Canadians anytime, anywhere.

However, let me emphasize that this means “digital always”, but not “digital only”, because services will still be provided in person or by phone to those who want them that way.

Second, the Canadian Digital Service provides direct, hands-on help to federal departments. It helps them develop services for the public that are faster, simpler and more secure. For example, CDS has created Notify, a system that lets any federal department more easily send email and text updates to Canadians about their service transactions with government, updates that might previously have been sent by mail or not at all.

I'm pleased to report that 12 departments, including Shared Services Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency, are already using this new service.

CDS has worked with the RCMP to develop a system that makes it easier for Canadians and businesses to report a cybercrime, and CDS is working with Employment and Social Development Canada to improve the experience for Canadians with disabilities when they apply for Canada pension plan disability benefits. These are just a few of many examples.

More specifically, CDS is introducing proven ways of designing services that put Canadians at the centre of our work. This means meeting directly with individuals and businesses to understand their needs, and continuously testing new or changed services with them.

CDS works very closely with “Digital Academy”, part of the Canada School of Public Service, to bring digital literacy and digital culture to federal employees at all levels and across all departments.

Finally, our digital transformation would not be possible without reliable and secure networks, devices and computer applications—in other words, IT infrastructure—provided by Shared Services Canada.

For Shared Services Canada to maintain our IT infrastructure, it needs the proper resources. The delivery of critical programs and services to Canadians relies on SSC's success.

Like many countries, this country is confronted with aging IT systems and applications. Our number one priority is to build a secure and reliable network, one that connects our computers, mobile phones and digital devices, and provides faster and easier access to any message or data on the Internet or within that network. Our secure network will support these critical services.

Modern networks are secure networks, protecting infrastructure from the vulnerabilities and ensuring the safety and security of Canadians' information. They will connect seamlessly to the cloud and to the new enterprise data centres. To date, over 250 old, outdated data centres have been closed and consolidated into four modern data centres.

We have set up a service to provide departments with access to commercial cloud and computer services. So far we have over 40 accounts available with various providers, and more are planned.

As I mentioned earlier, we are enabling an agile, connected and high-performing workforce with Microsoft's Office 365 suite of collaboration tools. Already we have six departments adopting email and other digital communication applications. Other departments yet again are preparing to make the most of this cloud-based software.

We know that hundreds of older software applications that deliver vital services to Canadians are the most vulnerable. We are working actively with departments to help them identify those that are most at risk and to determine how to update or replace them.

Key to achieving this renewal is putting in place standards that support common approaches to IT services that all departments can use.

I'll now turn to the SSC supplementary estimates (B). We are providing funds in the amount of $0.8 million to the Treasury Board Secretariat for their application modernization program to help speed up old software in the cloud and enterprise data centres. With the approval of supplementary estimates (B), Shared Services Canada's reference levels for 2019-20 will decrease by $10.7 million to $2,243.7 million.

In terms of new funding, Shared Services Canada is seeking $23 million, of which $10.2 million is to support new full-time equivalents; $4.7 million is for the Centre for Plant Health in Sidney, British Columbia; $3 million is for the implementation of the Canada Border Services Agency's assessment and revenue management project; $2.8 million is to support the enhanced passenger protect program; $1.7 million is required to support PSPC in stabilizing the Government of Canada's pay system; and $0.6 million is to support the RCMP in establishing the national cybercrime coordination unit.

That's all been a bit of a mouthful.

Mr. Chair, my officials and I want to thank you again for your invitation and for your interest in these matters.

I'll be pleased now to take questions from the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll start with a six-minute round of interventions with Mr. Aboultaif.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Good morning, Minister. Thanks for appearing today before committee along with your team.

I was interested to hear about your vision. In your speech, you recognized that government IT projects have not gone as well in the past because of our old way of working and due to the aging government IT systems. You wrote, “A group of very well-meaning people in one department work on an application over several years and then we implement and the system struggles.” It's a very strong statement. I think it speaks a lot to what's going on and to the status quo of our system.

In that case, it leads me to ask you, Minister, if you would support a study by this committee to look further into the aging government IT system and accept recommendations on how we can improve services for all Canadians. Would you accept a study?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Yes.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

You do...?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I, of course, honour this committee's ability to make its own decisions as to what it wants to study. Anything that is decided by the committee, I will, of course, be very happy to provide the information for and share the data that's needed for the committee to do its work.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you. In that case, would you be willing to appear before this committee to give us your thoughts on the issue and talk further about your vision?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

When an invitation is presented to me, historically I have been happy to attend. We will have to, of course, make that decision at the time the invitation is extended.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Chair, in that case, I have a motion to move. I would be happy to table it, if that's possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Are you going to be tabling a motion, or are you going to be reading a motion into the record, sir?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I'm going to be tabling a motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

That's fine.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I'll read the motion.

You have a copy of it, I believe.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Paul Cardegna]

Did you give notice of this?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Yes, you have notice. It was February 21.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Let us check for that first, please.

Mr. Aboultaif, yes, we have the motion in front of us. I would ask that, while we are having it distributed, you read it into the record, please.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

The motion reads:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee undertake a study of no less than two meetings on the aging technology systems of the Government of Canada including but not limited to systems which deliver programs such as Netfile, employment insurance and old age security and that the committee witness list include the Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, the Minister of National Revenue and the Minister of Digital Government, and that the committee report its findings to the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, as you would know, procedurally we're now into debate.

Mr. Aboultaif, you've provided your motion to the committee members. The floor is yours, sir.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Based on the speech of the minister and being the shadow minister for digital government, I had the opportunity to meet with some members of the department, as well as with the stakeholders, learning that we are falling behind on this. This is, of course, not a partisan issue. It will never be because this is about how we modernize and how we digitize our government further. Compared to similar economies in the world, we are really behind. We don't know where we can go in the next 10 to 15 years to be able to fully modernize, not just for now but for the future. Digital is not just now but always.

Therefore, a study of such will help all of us. It will help the minister, will help us and will help our colleagues across the borderline to be able to understand what's going on and to have the proper assessments, especially in departments like old age security, employment, CRA and others. I think it's very critical for us to do that, and I think that such a study will do no harm. Rather, it would help a lot to improve, and as I said, make the awareness more public to our House of Commons and to all the stakeholders.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We do have a speakers list. Next on the list I have Mr. Drouin.

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

Mr. Chair, we're not necessarily against this. I'm just wondering how we're going to proceed as a committee. We've already had a subcommittee. We've adopted a report. We would ask Mr. Aboultaif kindly if he can postpone and maybe we can discuss when we want to do this, because my understanding is that we already had a plan up until June, so I'm just wondering what the timeline is on this.

I know that the minister is here, and it's great to present motions, but we've had discussions with your colleagues in the past, specifically about the work plan, so now we come up with this and we're blindsided essentially. We're not necessarily against it, but can we have the chance to discuss this and then vote on this later? I know that it's up to the member, but we would appreciate the collaboration on this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Drouin, thank you.

As you correctly pointed out, and as the minister has also correctly pointed out, it's a matter of this committee to determine its own agenda. We have a motion in front of us. We have several ways in which we could proceed. One would be off-line conversations. If you're asking Mr. Aboultaif to park this for the moment, that's fine, but that decision would rest with Mr. Aboultaif.

I will turn it back to you, sir.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

The motion has been on notice since February 21. I think it is very important at the outset to be able to have this study in front of us and in front of the House of Commons. We want to make sure that we get this motion passed. Then we can talk about timelines because, at the end of the day, we need this. I think it's very important, and I believe that, if we look around, we know that this is critical to do. I hope that we will be able to agree, for the sake of the benefit of it, to decide on it today and to move forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Green.