Government Operations Committee on Nov. 25th, 2020

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

Perhaps I could make one more recommendation. There's an issue with equivalency clauses in some of these RFPs. We're hearing lots about that. If we're trying to be open and transparent in procurement and trying to minimize that risk, I would say have a great look at the equivalency clause. I know it's causing a lot of issues within the industry.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

Ms. Vignola, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

The departmental plan indicates that you have many outdated systems. We've been talking about this for a while now.

Are any departments particularly bearing the brunt of these obsolete systems? If yes, which ones?

Are they open to replacing these systems or do you see any obstacles?

[Marc Brouillard]

Thank you for the question.

Indeed, some departments have technologies that are much more at risk. As you can imagine, they are the departments with the largest and oldest infrastructures, such as Employment and Social Development Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency. These are large-scale departments that have had huge operational systems in place for decades.

In recent budgets, funds have been allocated specifically to modernize these systems. We're working closely with the departments to support the transformation, which is very complex. It's not enough to just replace one part. It's always about making sure that the integration continues to work, among other things.

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

Thank you.

We're setting up voice over Internet systems right now. At one of my former school boards, I saw how complex it can be to set up systems like that and standardize them across a network. So I know that it won't get done overnight.

Be that as it may, which companies specifically have you approached to set up these voice over Internet networks?

[Marc Brouillard]

I will ask Mr. Glover to answer that question. In particular, he will be able to tell you about the collaborative tools we have introduced, and how we've greatly accelerated their implementation over the past few months.

[Paul Glover]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the member's question.

We will be happy to reply in writing with the fullest number of qualified vendors we are using. We take a number of approaches, from what we call “workload migration factories” to some procurement vehicles for new, off-the-shelf tools that departments can use to provide that.

Ultimately, when it comes to voice, as you were expounding, voice over Internet, VoIP, we are working with companies like Telus and Bell for the technologies that they have. We will provide you a full list in writing.

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

Thank you.

With respect to the organizational tools for IT service management, exactly which ones are currently being used?

Which departments use them, in particular?

[Paul Glover]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the member's questions.

In response, we are in the process of rolling out a new ITSM tool that we hope will be the enterprise tool for service management, service desk. Again, there is a plethora of different systems in different departments. Rather than attempting to take time with the list of all the different systems in all the departments, we'll come back with the enterprise tool we are rolling out and the list by department.

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

Will we have one organizational tool for all departments or one tool per department, as is currently the case?

Will we have some consistency at some point in time?

Listening to you, I have the impression that the lack of consistency is making the modernization process more complex. Will these tools be more uniform?

[Paul Glover]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for her question.

I will answer quickly. Yes, we have undertaken an approach. The goal is to create a standards-based approach.

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

When setting up the tools, what are the two or three main obstacles you encounter?

[Paul Glover]

Perhaps Mr. Brouillard can complete my answer.

In my case, the first obstacle is culture.

It's that fear of change that I think we see. People like what they have and they prefer that we just continue to allow them to do that. I often speak in analogies. There's too much customization. Everybody gets a custom suit, rather than being willing to go in and buy one off the rack that mostly fits. They're attached to their custom suits. We have to break that culture down.

For us to work, we want to work at speed at scale. That requires standardization. That requires departments to let go a little bit. It also requires us to actually make it work. Our track record in the past hasn't been the best. We've had some significant challenges, but I think we've shown through the pandemic and others that by simplifying, by standardizing, we can move at speed at scale, and there are real benefits.

I do feel that we are breaking down the cultural resistance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Glover.

Thank you, Ms. Vignola.

We will now go to Mr. Green, for six minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm hearing some conflicting lines of questioning that I would like to get clarity on.

Earlier, Mr. Lloyd suggested that there were sole-source procurements that were happening. You had asked for specificity, so I'll just put to you the question. How many sole-source contracts have you utilized for the transition to this modernization through your department, Mr. Glover?

[Paul Glover]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, the answer for modernization would be zero. We would—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Broadly, because I don't want to get caught in the semantics, how often does your department use sole-source procurement?

[Paul Glover]

When it is an operational requirement because of urgency, a break fix, and we have to go in and replace like for like...and even then, oftentimes we will try to compete that amongst pre-qualified vendors.

We know that's happening because we have a history and so much gear. For example, I know everybody is talking about a particular network vendor, Cisco. We have a lot of their equipment. People would like us to open that up. Moving forward, we will. That's the member's question about equivalency and the problem there. When a piece of Cisco gear breaks and we aren't on one of the new, modern networks, we have to make sure that we can plug in something that works. We had a network outage for 35 minutes this week. A lot of people were very upset with that. We don't have time.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That will suffice. I do appreciate it. I know the anecdotal stuff. It definitely bodes well, but I'm on a six-minute round.

I was really excited.... I will share with you that as a critic for national revenue I put to the minister responsible the dire need to automate tax returns. Much to my joy and pleasure, it's been taken up by this government. Of course, we heard the minister talk about this.

What's the timeline to allow folks who are on a fixed income, who have predictable tax returns, to have that system in place where they can access and not be interrupted in their other OAS/GIS supports?

[Marc Brouillard]

As you know, the planning for that has just begun. I think it's a little premature to provide any time estimates. But what I will say is that it's being actively looked at and that planning for where that can go is ongoing.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

So there's no end in sight. It's just an announcement. It's very early stages. There's no idea, based on other projects, what it might take to transfer that over.

[Marc Brouillard]

No. One of the things we want to make sure of is that we're using the opportunity to do research-based, user-centric design to fully understand what is required to meet the needs of those users. There was work that was done up to last March between the Canadian Digital Service and the CRA to start looking at how that can help support Canadians who need this service.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'll put to you that if you don't file your taxes, CRA knows or at least estimates to the cent, to the dollar amount, how much you owe. Maybe that's an oversimplification, but it seems there are avenues through which that can be expedited. I want to just go on the record to say that I hope that that's a priority within your department. If there need to be extra resources to do that, I think that particularly in these uncertain times, it would be key.

One of the other issues that I had is the issue of access to information. I myself have put in requests for documents, to be told, maybe anecdotally as well, that they could be in a dusty accountant's box in a basement somewhere in paper form.

I'm wondering, through you, Mr. Chair.... We heard about the forward-facing programs for modernization. How long will it take for us to get the past information digitized so that when people put information requests that are retroactive, they can get that in a timely manner?

[Paul Glover]

Maybe I'll start and then turn it over to Marc.

I would just like to say, as a deputy head for Shared Services, that we never stopped with ATIP. We understand the importance of it, the nature of our work and the procurement that we are doing, and that there would be interest. We never stopped with ATIP through the pandemic.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm just not sure if that's a place that's going to get a lot of attention. For those departments that might be in a position where they are under a little bit more scrutiny, it seems like their response to ATIPs is painfully slow, non-uniform and in some points, I would suggest, obstructive.

I'm wondering, when we're talking about service standards, how is it that the Minister of Digital Government and her staff, yourselves included, are going to ensure that there is a service standard-level approach to all ATIPs across all departments?