Government Operations Committee on Nov. 17th, 2022

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

That is the former president of the Canada Border Services Agency.

[Rob Stewart]

That is correct.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

It was the president of the Canada Border Services Agency who would have been the person responsible, or the person who would have delegated authority for the contracting of the app, or was that all done by Shared Services Canada?

[Rob Stewart]

No, CBSA would have employed—and I believe they did employ—the services of Public Services and Procurement Canada, which has standing offers for the provision of services. They would have said, “This is what we need.” They would have gone to the PSPC department and had them prepare a contract for those services.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Okay.

Were you aware of any communication traffic with respect to ArriveCAN or its vendor prior to your official briefing?

[Rob Stewart]

No.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Can you clarify who would have approved the ArriveCAN app as the tool that the minister had desired?

[Rob Stewart]

The president of CBSA, and CBSA as an organization, would have chosen and developed ArriveCAN as the tool. The minister had approval of the launch of the tool.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Minister Blair had approval of the launch, but CBSA had the authority for the development and contracting. It was just for the minister to sign off on its implementation.

[Rob Stewart]

That's correct.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Are you aware of the consultations with any other vendors?

Ms. Luelo, perhaps you could speak to that process on the selection of an organization like GC Strategies when other companies had the in-house capabilities to deal with it, instead of subcontracting it out. Are you aware of the process that was undertaken in this case?

[Catherine Luelo]

I am not aware of any additional context around this, but it would not be abnormal in a situation where you're time-constrained, as we were on this, to do the procurement the way CBSA did the procurement.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Okay.

Typically, would it be standing offers that would be used to select vendors like GC Strategies, or past practice, or a familiarity with the vendor?

[Catherine Luelo]

Standing offers are the typical vehicle that we use for that, but I think, again, in extraordinary circumstances there are options to do sole-sourcing and processes to be followed around that.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Okay.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Kusmierczyk, go ahead for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

March 2020 was an extraordinary time for this country. We heard last week from the CBSA, when they were here in front of the committee, that the app was developed in a month, in 30 days. We heard that for the app itself, the systems and the back-end systems were quite complex, in the sense that it needed to facilitate data sharing among many agencies and organizations; it needed to safeguard privacy, which was absolutely paramount; and it needed to be accessible for Canadians across all platforms. We heard that there were 30 million submissions of this app. We also learned that 97% of those submissions went through without a hitch, without any glitches. We also learned, obviously, that this app was able to accommodate 80 orders in council, 80 changes.

I have a question for Ms. Luelo.

Has Canada, in your understanding, ever developed an app for a system of this complexity and scale in 30 days? In your extensive experience working in the private sector, even in the private sector would you say that this was an accomplishment?

[Catherine Luelo]

I was at an airline when this happened, so I vividly remember the extraordinary times. This, to me, is a very good example of exactly what the private sector would do in a set of circumstances like this. I think that the CBSA team, the Government of Canada team, should be incredibly proud of the fact that they were able to develop and deploy this for Canadians at a very difficult time.

My hope, as we unpack the lessons that we need to learn around this, is that it does not put us into a spot where we become less risk-adverse than we are today as a system, because for us to do good digital work for the government we need to be able to move more quickly than we do today. I would offer that 65% of the digital systems for the Government of Canada are in poor health and we need to have a greater ability to work with partners, move more quickly and take some risks, and I think this is a very genuine example of a good accomplishment. As with any fast-moving digital projects that happened in my prior experience, and I've had wins and losses, there were always lessons at the end, but this is a good example of some of the best practices that do get used in building digital tools in tight timelines.

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

That's terrific.

Again, going back to your experience, both now in the private sector and in the public sector, can you speak to the particular challenges that government IT faces that perhaps the private sector does not face?

[Catherine Luelo]

I get asked that question quite often. I think there are a few things that I would highlight for the committee here.

One is that the thing the Government of Canada has going for it is the mission work, which is incredibly impactful for technology professionals. There's nothing that beats what we get to do every day. The 18,000-plus technology employees who serve this country, that's why they're doing what they're doing.

I think the consistent challenge that we have with the private sector right now is that there's a significant talent gap in this country and everyone is trying to digitize at the same time. A quick look at Stats Canada's data shows that year-over-year growth for software engineers is 115%. Those people don't exist, and that's just one example. So I think just the general constraint of talent in Canada is a consistent problem.

I think one of the unique issues that I observed within government is that it is a long process to attract, hire and get people into the system. We've stood up a digital talent and leadership team within the office of the chief information officer to specifically address some of those systemic issues and are finding great collaboration with our colleagues in OCRO to assist with that.

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

Thank you.

I want to go back to ArriveCAN.

You mentioned the fact that one of your principal roles is to develop policies that help prevent cyber-events. We've heard in previous testimony in front of this committee that the Government of Canada faces billions of cyber-threats on a regular basis.

I want to ask you this. Does a project like ArriveCAN, a project of this scale and scope, a project that was stood up so quickly, elevate the risk for cyber-attacks or cyber-events, and is that why we had to pay such careful attention to make sure that it was cybersecure?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have time for a 30-second answer.

[Catherine Luelo]

Yes. There is a set of standards we use for cybersecurity, and they were well followed in this example. Because of the way this application was developed and the use of cloud technology, we had comfort that even though they moved with velocity, they moved with security and safety.

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

Thank you for that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks very much.

Mrs. Vignola, go ahead for six minutes, please.