Government Operations Committee on June 10th, 2022

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Okay. What I will do is just ask my officials if they have anything specifically that they wish to add.

[Sony Perron]

I would say that, from a Shared Services Canada perspective, we appreciate the time the committee is spending trying to understand the complexity of our operations and what we are doing, so it's always a pleasure to appear in front of you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much, and we look forward to the written response to that question.

We'll now go to Mr. Johns for two and a half minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair

Thank you, Minister, for being here again.

The Auditor General's spring reports found persistent challenges to implementing gender-based analysis plus since 2015. Specifically, it found that the Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat didn't share information with Women and Gender Equality Canada that would help it to monitor progress on implementation over time.

Is any of the funding requested by the Privy Council Office intended to support improving the implementation of gender-based analysis plus?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Again, Mr. Johns, I don't believe that this is my file, but I'm happy to have my team follow up with you after this and provide an answer to that.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you. I look forward to that.

Shared Services Canada is requesting $60.7 million for network modernization. Would any of this funding support greening government strategy initiatives with respect to SSC's data centres or operations?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

I'm pleased you have asked that question, because in terms of the greening government strategy and the opportunities at SSC, we do have opportunities here and we are taking those opportunities seriously. We know that we, as a government, want to show leadership in this regard, and we are willing and able to do that.

I'm happy to talk about other things that we are doing in PSPC with respect to the greening government strategy, but I will hand it over to my officials to give a specific answer with respect to the dollar value.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

A quick answer please, because I do have one more question.

[Sony Perron]

The $60 million and, I would say, all of the budget at SSC is taking into consideration opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are going towards certification for our data centre, eliminating legacy infrastructure that is not using energy efficiently. I don't know if Patrice Nadeau, our ADM of networks, can add specific examples under the $60 million that can produce the result the MP is asking for.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Minister, earlier this week I wrote to you about the review of federal vaccine mandates, which has been under way since March. Some of my constituents are postal workers who have been placed on leave because of the mandates at Canada Post, and they're eager to return to work. We know the Americans lifted a number of mandates today. Can you please advise us of the status of the review and when a decision will finally be communicated to the public and to postal workers?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

Unfortunately, two and a half minutes go by very quickly. It is an excellent question, but I would ask the minister to provide an answer to that in writing. We have to move on.

We'll now go to Mr. Lobb for five minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The first question I have is in regard to licences for software, etc. Are there licences we're paying for on an annual basis for software we don't even use?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you for the question, MP Lobb. I will have to pass that to my officials.

[Sony Perron]

This is an exercise we need to do on an ongoing basis. Some licences have been procured at a certain time, and they may not be the ones we need anymore. We have to keep hygiene around the using of a licence. I think it's an excellent question. Part of managing a complex IT infrastructure is really making sure we are using what we have procured. We revamp our arrangement with the vendor if we don't need these licences any more.

Maybe Mr. Nadeau will have specific examples in his area of where he's keeping this under control.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'll just add, if Mr. Nadeau is going to answer this question, that in addition to the meetings I get in regard to the cloud, I also have a large number of meetings with vendors who believe there are other providers out there whom the government is paying for licences for software that isn't being used and never has been used.

Mr. Nadeau, we know it's happening. Can you tell us if this is widespread and approximately how many dollars per year the government is spending on licences for software we don't use?

[Patrice Nadeau, Assistant Deputy Minister, Networks and Security Services, Shared Services Canada]

In terms of the wide use of that, I don't think so. It is difficult for me to answer, but from a network point of view, this is minimum.

Sometimes, what can happen is that there are multiple options as part of a software package, so we might not be taking advantage of every single option that we pay for. However, whatever the licence is for, specifically, that would be consumed.

In terms of answering on behalf of the GoC, unfortunately, I'm not in a position to do that.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Is there a way you can track this so that, for example, this committee will be satisfied knowing a certain percentage?

We'll take your word for it, but is there a way that you or your staff track it, so that we could have the knowledge that this isn't a widespread problem?

[Patrice Nadeau]

We could probably track it by department. Unfortunately, we do not have.... Many of those licences would be consumed by various federal departments. At that point, we would purchase the use of those licences on their behalf. We would have to go back to the various departments.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Do you know roughly how many Microsoft licences we have that use the Teams and 365? How many do we have, approximately, in the Government of Canada?

[Sony Perron]

I will take this one, Mr. Chair.

We have a multi-year arrangement with Microsoft for an enterprise licence that gives us, if I remember well, 400,000 licences for the whole public service. We don't have licences by department. We manage this on behalf of the government.

It's a 10-year agreement with Microsoft that has allowed us to roll out Teams but also a series of other elements, including email, to all of the public service. It's a common service, with core basic services for all of the GoC.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

How many did you mention that you have?

[Sony Perron]

If I remember well, it's 400,000 that we have. I could come back on the specific number. I don't have the agreement in front of me.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'm probably running out of time here, but help the committee understand. When you go from, say, Webex or Zoom to Microsoft Teams—in Parliament, we use Zoom—how does that happen?

If you're using Webex, you move to Teams, or you had Teams and you move to Zoom, how does that happen behind the scenes with Shared Services?

[Sony Perron]

I'm not sure I understand the question about movement. Is it the technical side or the selection of the vendor?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I think, historically, Webex was used and then during COVID, it switched to Teams.

I'm not asking it on behalf of Cisco. I'm not doing that. I'm just asking how that happens.