Evidence of meeting #27 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
How many people in Shared Services Canada had full access to the unredacted report and at what levels are they?
President, Shared Services Canada
I would not be able to estimate off the top of my head how many people—
Conservative
President, Shared Services Canada
Again, I know that I'd speak about this with about five to six members of my immediate team. I would have to consult with them in terms of the number, but all would be—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Excuse me, Mr. Glover and Mr. McCauley. I apologize for interrupting. The bells are ringing at this point in time, and procedurally we need to have unanimous consent to proceed.
Because the bells are ringing for 30 minutes, and Mr. McCauley has a minute and 45 seconds left and then we have Mr. MacKinnon for five minutes, I would therefore suggest that we continue until Mr. MacKinnon finishes and then suspend for the vote. Do we have unanimous consent for that? I'm seeing thumbs-up.
Thank you very much.
I'm sorry for interrupting. I apologize.
Mr. McCauley, you have the floor.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Mr. Glover, if it's only a handful of your team, at what level are those employees, please? Are they at the deputy minister level, the ADM level...? What levels, please?
President, Shared Services Canada
Those would be at the assistant deputy minister level, with one exception at the director general level.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay. You consider it proper that an ADM would have access to this information, but members of Parliament requesting this information should not receive it.
President, Shared Services Canada
The members of my staff who have seen this report are subject to protect the information around national security and confidential business information to the same standard that I am, so I am confident that they are—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
How many people know the data centre locations? You've redacted out the data centre locations for security reasons. How many people know where those locations are? I imagine it's quite a few.
President, Shared Services Canada
I would imagine that it's quite a few as well, yes, and the people who work in them, the people who support them, have all been appropriately security cleared and bonded for confidentiality.
However, yes, given the size and the nature of them, there are a few.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Members of Parliament cannot be trusted with that, but I assume that someone who has done drywall at the place knows where the location is and is trusted with that information—wonderful.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
One of the items you redacted out on page 78 comments on how the location is an “empty” building, yet you've redacted it out. What is so special about an empty building that you would redact that out from parliamentarians to read...?
President, Shared Services Canada
Mr. Chair, just to be clear on the drywall comment, the people, the trades, in there would not know the purpose of that building. They would be under strict orders—
Conservative
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
—and other people building a data centre wouldn't know that it's a data centre. I find that hard to believe.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you, Mr. McCauley, and thank you, Mr. Glover.
We'll now go to Mr. MacKinnon for five minutes.
Liberal
Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today and for their service to Canada.
I want to take a moment to do a brief history lesson. Shared Services Canada was a creation, of course, of the Harper government, one that famously booked savings to create a phony deficit and under-resourced the organization such that it didn't have the people, the equipment or the dollars required to carry out the job it was given, which was fundamentally to provide the IT infrastructure and backbone for the Government of Canada.
I find it intriguing that now, some five years later or so, we are questioning the president of Shared Services Canada on the very attempts to correct that state of affairs, or at least one very important element of his attempts to correct that state of affairs, and insisting that he divulge confidential information in a public setting in order to do so.
Would Mr. McCauley or Ms. Harder or Madam Vignola insist that we divulge the codes for a fighter jet mission? Would they insist that we divulge passwords for critical infrastructure?
