Government Operations Committee on Nov. 25th, 2020

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

Excuse me, Madam Minister, but here is my question: given that the Supreme Court has declared that the Access to Information Act is quasi-constitutional legislation—it is a priority for Canada— is it currently one of your priorities to find a solution so that people can do their jobs, in that area in particular?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Absolutely, it's for providing the equipment so that they can do their jobs, whatever their jobs may be in serving Canadians.

I can ask Paul Glover to give you more detail, if you would like, on where we are now in terms of having the tools, equipment and network—

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

Thank you, Ms. Murray.

Perhaps you could send me a report on it.

I'd like to ask you another question, but I know time is limited.

Last week, our committee learned that the Government of Canada is signing agreements with Chinese-controlled companies such as Nuctech.

Could you please tell me whether or not your department has approved standing offers with companies linked to the Chinese communist regime or other dictatorships around the world?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

We have clear standards for our procurement.

I will pass it to the officials to answer that specific question.

[Paul Glover]

Mr. Chair, I will start with the answer to that.

At Shared Services, we have what the minister referred to earlier as supply chain integrity as part of any procurement process. It is not just the vendor that is selected, but all of the parts that they use, right back through.

We work with the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. Along the way, as we are doing those procurements, we refer all of the bidders to them for their assessment, so that we have confidence when we make a final procurement decision that it complies with their expertise and their direction with respect to security and the integrity of our operations.

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

Last week, we were very surprised to learn that the departments were not talking to each other. Foreign Affairs had not seen fit to request a security check on Nuctech's equipment. When it comes to acquiring computer equipment of all kinds, are you significantly concerned about the equipment that could come from China or other countries with dictatorial regimes?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

As Paul mentioned, we do have supply chain protection processes.

For a particular example, I'll put it over to Paul to answer.

[Paul Glover]

Thank you, Minister, and Mr. Chair.

To respond directly to the member's question, Shared Services is responsible for enterprise IT procurement. We have confidence that anything that is plugged into or connected to core networks, systems and data centres is procured through our infrastructure and our processes. If there are things that are happening, they would be on the periphery and not directly connected to any of our critical data centres or networks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

You have 30 seconds.

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

I'll end by saying that you mentioned contracts with U.S. companies. We received a complaint from the Council of Canadian Innovators that no preference was being given to procuring computer equipment made by Canadian companies.

Can you explain why?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Over 80% of our procurement is from Canadian firms. We need to have cost-effective procurement, and we do our very best, at the same time, to satisfy other objectives, like Canadian-first as well as diversity in our procurement.

Paul, do you have anything you'd like to add to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time for further additions.

Mr. Jowhari, you have five minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to start by welcoming the minister and the officials, and I thank them for the great work they've been doing, especially during this difficult time.

Minister, you and I have had a number of conversations around digital government and digital transformation, as you know. I consider digital government a key enabler, especially during the economic recovery. I was quite interested when you mentioned in your opening remarks that you're leading the government's digital transformation and that you'll be working with your ministerial colleagues to design and deliver the services that Canadians expect in the digital era, which is great.

Can you outline some tangible initiatives and results that Canadians should expect as a result of this plan?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to talk about it, because I'm quite excited about it.

Not only is my vision an enterprise approach to person-centred service—which means all the departments coordinating, which, as we've heard, is important for security and other reasons—but it is about the public. It's about Canadians, and it's about secure, reliable and easy-to-use services from any device so that public servants can provide better one-on-one service for those who don't use or have devices.

There are some very specific things that I have heard are very frustrating to Canadians, and I'm aiming that we can help transform how they experience their transactions with the Government of Canada. My vision includes no more having to use paper forms and faxes, but being able to do it digitally. It includes no more confusing and hard-to-find government benefits and services, but a digital way of finding out in a centralized way what you're potentially eligible for. It includes no more having to call and sit on hold to get an update on your transaction.

After all, you can order something from Amazon and you'll get a text telling you exactly where it's at and when you're going to get it at your door. We can aim for that as the Government of Canada. There will be no more complicated log-ins with credentials that are easily forgotten or different credentials for every department. There will also be potentially automatic tax filing for simple returns for as many Canadians as possible, partly so that those who leave benefits on the table because they didn't file their taxes can get the benefits. Two billion dollars don't get collected by those with the lowest incomes, surely because they weren't able to get through a complicated tax form.

That's the small package. I am aiming that we can have some tangible forward movement on those things over the coming 12 months, so I'll be pitching to my colleagues to work together on that.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

You know I would be remiss if I didn't ask about Phoenix and NextGen. As you know, I've been following that initiative for a very long time. Can you provide the committee with an update on the progress of NextGen? I know you touched on it in your opening remarks, and you kind of passed it on to Shared Services, but can you expand on that, please?

Thank you.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

First, I want to say that it is so important that we can pay our public servants accurately and on time. In fact, the work being done in PSPC on Phoenix has meant a major, 68% reduction in the backlog of transactions, so congratulations there.

NextGen is a separate initiative, and really we are being guided by lessons learned from the past, and we are taking the time to get it right. We're using a digital approach, which means applying digital principles, and things are going well.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

You said you passed it on to Shared Services Canada. Can you expand on that?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

The early part of the NextGen process was to have the three gates to determine who would potentially be qualified suppliers to work with the Government of Canada to do an HR-to-pay, a full system. That was under the auspices of the Treasury Board Secretariat. The Treasury Board Secretariat is not so much a ministry that operates major IT-based activities, whereas Shared Services is, so at a certain point it seemed appropriate.

That point came about when, through exploration and consultation, the wide field of potential vendors had been narrowed down to three. Right now, we have three vendors that are qualified to work with the Government of Canada. We are very engaged in an exploratory process with one lead vendor, SAP, working with one of our departments, the heritage department, to test the different requirements that public servants have for HR-to-pay in the heritage department. That exploration will lead to a pilot to see if SAP can satisfy and supply HR-to-pay.

We're doing this in sprints. We're checking out, we're learning, then we're doing the next thing, and we'll continue in order to have a successful outcome.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister. I appreciate that.

That ends our questions for this round. I appreciate the minister attending and coming to visit with us today. We will look forward to seeing her again on Monday evening.

We appreciate your time and efforts.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I can't wait.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

We're going to suspend briefly, for about two or three minutes, while we bring in a new witness, and then we'll be right back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

We will now resume the meeting and continue with our questioning.

We'll go to the first round of the second session of questioning.

We will start with Mr. Lloyd, for six minutes.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming in today.

Since I took on this position, a number of stakeholders have reached out to me with a deep concern about government decisions to sole-source IT contracts to American-based companies.

Why is the government concentrating its significant annual information technology spending on a small cluster of mostly American-based IT companies?

[Paul Glover]

There are two parts to that question. I'll try to be brief to allow you follow-ups, because I suspect you might want to do that.

The first is that, as an enterprise service provider, we need enterprise-grade solutions. Microsoft is the vendor in this space, and we have set up a large relationship with them for things such as Office 365 and Teams. IBM and Unisys are the mainframe vendors; we have specific relationships with them, and it moves like that. The same is true, frankly, with networks. Most networks around the planet run on Cisco and Cisco gear.

As one of the members, MP MacKinnon, pointed out earlier, when Shared Services was created we didn't even know what was given to us. We had to inventory all that stuff. As we've done that and as we try to fix it when it breaks, it's important that we replace it like for like so we know it works.