Government Operations Committee on May 26th, 2021

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, I've been informed the interpretation is working. You may just want to ask if the committee wishes for Madame Vignola to repeat her comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Certainly, I will ask the committee.

Is there consent for Ms. Vignola to at least repeat her comment?

Ms. Vignola, would you just quickly repeat your comment?

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

How can we be sure that the money will be spent properly if there is no deployment plan? We are talking about several hundreds of millions of dollars that are spent annually.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Vignola. That's a great question. If Mr. Glover or the minister can respond to the committee in writing, that would be greatly appreciated, unless Mr. Green wants to follow up with that question in his time frame.

We'll now go to two and a half minutes with Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you for the indulgence. I will allow that to come back in writing.

I'd like to know a little bit more about what steps the department has taken to expand the interoperability and to ensure the government does not become overly dependent on one particular IT company.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I interpret interoperability to mean that we move past the era of siloed departments, where a department would be putting together its own application for providing a service that may be the same type of service that another department provides in a different context. We're trying to do what—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm sorry. To be clear, it's not so much on the service. It's on the actual IT side so that the different technical aspects can work together rather than having, basically, a monopoly or a monopolized IT service.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

We're working at that on both levels. For example, Sign In Canada would be a way that a person only needs to sign in and authenticate themselves once, rather than every time they are interacting with the government.

With respect to the infrastructure side of that, I'll turn it over to either Mr. Brouillard or Mr. Glover to answer the question about interoperability of equipment.

[Paul Glover]

Very briefly, we are attempting to increase the number that are truly open. We talked about targeted, where it's competed amongst. We have also been increasing the open, pure open, where we are agnostic to the technology that comes back. There have been quite a few areas where we have moved 100% off of Cisco. Wi-Fi used to be completely Cisco. It is now predominantly HPE and Extreme networks.

Remote access was predominantly Cisco. That is now a service we get mostly through Bell, along with a few other providers. In-building we've added Extreme networks, Ruckus and Juniper. We are trying to expand the opportunities very deliberately to allow for that interoperability.

I would say that we are guided by the best practice, which is not to have too many vendors but to have a balance so that we are not reliant on one vendor. However, too many vendors create interoperability problems even when they claim to be interoperable. Maintaining that interoperability as they do upgrades and as the systems evolve over time tends to be a very real challenge. We want to make sure we are never reliant on one. We are deliberate in trying to expand, but we don't want to go to huge numbers either. We try to find a balance dependent upon the technology and who the leaders are in that marketplace.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Glover.

Thank you, Mr. Green.

We will now go to Mr. Paul-Hus, for five minutes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, Minister.

I know the questions can sometimes be complicated because they are technical, but I have a fairly simple one for you.

I would like to know whether you agree that Huawei is a threat to Canada's telecommunications infrastructure.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

That's a question that our defence minister and public safety minister are investigating, as we make a determination with respect to aspects of Huawei's future service.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

I know that for several years we have been told that a report is expected. At the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, we have even received answers already from the security services. According to the 2020-2021 Departmental Plan for Shared Services Canada, you are responsible for modernizing telecommunications and you are going to eliminate all landlines except for essential services.

On that point, Minister, can you confirm today that the department will not purchase Huawei equipment to replace the telephone equipment, whether through Public Services and Procurement Canada or otherwise?

Can you make that commitment to me today?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

What I will commit to is taking the security of our IT systems, networks and the information stored extremely seriously. I'm not going to comment on a specific company, but we do have a process in place to ensure that the goods and services that we buy are as safe from cybersecurity threats as possible. We also work very closely with the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. SSC and the chief information officer are key partners in that centre.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I see that you are reading your notes. I do not need that. I will move on to the other questions.

You should know, but do you actually know that there is infrastructure in northern Canada right now that uses Huawei?

Have you been briefed on this?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

No, I haven't been briefed on that. At SSC, we are being very careful that the security of Canadians' data is not compromised.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Right.

I am telling you that in 2019, Huawei announced that it would partner with ICE Wireless and Iristel to provide high-speed Internet access to 20 Arctic communities and 70 rural and remote regions in Quebec by 2025. This will affect about 200,000 people who live in those areas.

Is this also information that you did not have? Did you know this, yes or no?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

We have no partnerships or contracts with Huawei.

I'm happy to have Deputy Glover speak more about plans in that regard.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

You are telling me that the government has no agreement with Huawei.

Do you know whether Huawei has deployed its network in northern Canada with ICE Wireless?

The Government of Canada had to give authorization for the deployment. Are you aware of that or not?

[Paul Glover]

Mr. Chair, I'll continue the minister's answer.

Through our supply chain integrity, on behalf of the government and the purchasing we are doing, there is no Huawei in our systems. With respect to other external providers, who may be providing services outside of what I procure for the government, we are unable to comment further. Within the government systems, there's none.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Glover.

The minister is not aware at all of how that is happening.

Can you tell us whether Huawei is going to be excluded from the process for purchasing the equipment for installing the new Government of Canada telecommunications systems, yes or no?

[Paul Glover]

Very briefly, we would use our supply chain integrity process, when vetting all providers who would bid on our equipment. We would not make a predetermined decision. We would look at the supply chain integrity of every vendor we work with, and that would drive the outcome of any and all procurements.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

Thank you, Mr. Glover.

We will now go to Mr. Kusmierczyk for five minutes.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. It's always wonderful to see you at committee.

I wanted to turn the discussion to the future of work, and Shared Services obviously is very much a future-focused organization. How did COVID-19, in your opinion, change the priorities and the goals that SSC had in terms of supporting their public servants to work from home?