Government Operations Committee on May 26th, 2021

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Obviously we can ask questions through you, Mr. Chair, but the minister can refer particular questions specifically to the deputy. Obviously the minister has repeatedly said she's not involved in particular and specific procurements. I'm wondering about the reason the minister keeps being interrupted.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

I will ask the minister to answer her question.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

To answer the question about sole-source contracting, SSC follows Treasury Board policies on that matter.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay, so ultimately it's the Treasury Board that signs off on it, then?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Treasury Board Secretariat sets the polices, and they're followed by all the departments.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you. I'm so glad you were able to provide that insight.

I'm also wondering, then, about this matter. What we know is that granting sole-source contracts actually racks up the price, and ultimately this price is laid at the feet of taxpayers. Does that concern you at all, in terms of making sure you're getting the best deal possible for the Canadian taxpayer?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I am utterly committed to getting effective transformation at the best possible cost to the taxpayers, Ms. Harder. Every day we are thinking about how we can approach this very complex task of updating and modernizing infrastructure and connectivity, which was really in bad shape in 2016. We've invested billions since then as a government, yet we're not finished the updating that's required. We are working very hard to bring our infrastructure into the 21st century.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

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

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister. It's good to see you. Thank you for the great work that you and your department have been doing over the last while, especially during the pandemic, getting the information that many Canadians need in a rapid way.

I'm going to continue the line of questioning that my colleague Mr. MacKinnon started. You started talking about the CDS, the Canadian Digital Service. In budget 2021, you were asking for about $88 million for Canadian Digital Service over four years to continue to design and deliver digital government services. You touched on one of them, the benefit finder.

Can you provide us with some examples of projects that have already been done, saying what specifically some of the projects are that are planned to benefit from that $88 million?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thanks for that question.

At the heart, what we're trying to do is to improve the experience Canadians have when they do a transaction or receive a service from the Government of Canada.

There are many ways that we're thinking about what this goal is going to take and what we can do and how CDS's talents can be applied to it. My goal is that there will be no more need to have paper and PDFs and faxes to do a transaction with the Government of Canada. This is one of a number of changes I'd like to see.

A project that CDS is working on is called “Notify”. That is a solution whereby departments use an API, which is a platform. It can be used right across government to very quickly and easily email or text updates to Canadians. We've already used it now millions of time. The ministry of health has been using it to update people with health information on COVID, but it's potentially a tool that all departments can use for something like 5¢ or 6¢ per communication. Rather than using mail or call centres to which people have to call in and wait online to get an update on their transaction, they can be notified in a timely way.

That's just one of the projects that CDS is leading on.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Great.

I just want to compliment you also on budget.gc.ca. I think that portal proved to be extremely beneficial during the budget consultation after the budget. It pointed the user right into the measures. There are 288 measures highlighted. They point to the amount, to the department and to the timing. I found that very beneficial. Most of my constituents in Richmond Hill are now avid users of budget.gc.ca.

You talked about the fact that we are now interfacing with a lot more Canadians. Canadians are using these applications. With the use of applications comes the sharing of data and with the sharing of data, specifically personal data, naturally comes the protection of this personal information. What measures are our government—especially your department—taking to ensure that we respect that privacy, ensure that their data is protected and also make sure that when we need disaggregated data, we have access to it?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thanks for that question.

I think one of the things that we have learned from the pandemic situation is that we can move quickly, but also we recognize that cyber-attacks are becoming more sophisticated, so we have to continually update. That's exactly what we're doing. We take the cybersecurity of our IT systems incredibly seriously.

For example, one initiative is called the secure cloud enablement and defence project. As we move work into the cloud to be more cost-efficient and to utilize the data faster, we need to make sure that the connecting points between the departments and the cloud services are secure as well. That's what the SCED project is about.

In this budget 2021, we're also committing $456.3 million over five years to Shared Services Canada and the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, so that they can continue to work to keep Canadians' information secure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister and Mr. Jowhari.

We'll now go to Ms. Vignola for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Glover, earlier you said that 98% of contracts had been awarded following a competitive process and that 2%, representing $4.8 million, had not been. On May 11, we learned that Cisco had received an untendered contract for $5 million.

I do not understand how 2% of the contracts could have a value of $4.8 million, but a single contract awarded on May 11 be worth $5 million. Can you explain this?

Does the network development and renewal plan exist or does it depend on Cisco's financial needs?

Those are my two questions.

[Paul Glover]

Thank you for those questions.

I would like to first reiterate that we do not work with Cisco on requirements. We work with departments on the requirements and that is based on their operational needs. We do consult with industry—all industries—to see what technologies they have available that can best meet the requirements, but it starts with the department, their requirements and their operational needs.

With respect to the $100 million that seems to be floating around, I can assure the member that there are no specific plans in my department. We're seeing that same chatter on social media and other places. Frankly, right now what we are moving forward that equates to that number is an IT refresh to replace outdated technology. That is not targeted just at network.

We do have 90 million dollars' worth of procurement that we are looking to advance at this time. That is targeted at things like outdated Windows and Linux servers and upgrades to the mainframes. It is quite a comprehensive IT refresh program. That is based on the urgent needs of end-of-life technology that exists. That is really the major procurement that comes anywhere close. That will not go to one organization. That will go to many different vendors.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Vignola and Mr. Glover.

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

What is being done to properly determine how the money will be spent if there is no plan?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Two and a half minutes go by very quickly.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, that question didn't come through translated in the last 30 seconds of Ms. Vignola's intervention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Okay.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I don't know what happened there, but had I heard the question I might have offered an answer in part of my section of the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

Mr. Clerk, can we just check with translation? Mr. Green was correct. I did not hear any translation while Ms. Vignola was speaking.

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

I will check with our technicians.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Let it go on the record I am an ardent defender of the francophone language here in the House of Commons.

With that being said, if we can find out about the translation, and at the appropriate time I would like to hear what her last question was.