Evidence of meeting #39 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was digital.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Policy Advisor, Canadian Digital Service, Treasury Board Secretariat
I will say, having built things on weekends.... As Prof. Clarke said, it's easier to build what it might look like, but it's hard to know what it would look like to run that, and to run the infrastructure for it, at scale.
Deputy Minister, International Trade, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
I would agree with my colleagues. This is not something you take lightly.
Having said that, in the instance of ArriveCAN, and with all due respect to Prof. Clarke, I think it's an example of the government being very nimble and agile, and able to do something that was very effective in a short period of time.
You have to take some risks. I'm not saying, “Put the app into production if somebody shows up and says it can do X”, but you should definitely look at it and think about the various considerations that have been articulated so far.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you.
Is it fair to conclude that $250,000 might be a fair, agile response to the front end of an application, but not necessarily to the tune that we need to be able to run a digital platform with the level of security and data we need?
Just say yes or no.
Deputy Minister, Chief Information Officer of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, I think it's the difference between a prototype and a working system.
Conservative
Conservative
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Stewart, Ms. Luelo and Mr. Boots.
If the bilingualism requirement had been waived, as recommended in the Carleton University brief, would we have been able to hire more people? Would more people have wanted to work for the Government of Canada to develop this app? Would it really have made things easier?
Deputy Minister, Chief Information Officer of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
The answer is no.
There is a fundamental lack of talent in Canada right now. There are not enough people to fill the roles. I don't subscribe to the idea that, if we'd removed that criterion, we would be in a different place on ArriveCAN.
Part of how we are thinking about this.... I speak with the CIO community. I'm the functional leader of that community in government. This is a topic we speak about often. We envision a world where we bring people in who are, perhaps, unilingual—either French or English—and provide a forum for them to be trained in both official languages.
I agree with your theory that this is what will make the best technology for Canadians. I'm a firm believer that the workforce that builds digital for Canada needs to look Canadian. That includes both official languages.
Deputy Minister, International Trade, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
I would say the opposite. Since there is a lack of qualified workers to develop technologies, we need to set up education programs in both official languages so that the government can be better equipped in this field.
Senior Policy Advisor, Canadian Digital Service, Treasury Board Secretariat
For my part, I agree with Ms. Luelo. I would add one point, however. Management positions require a certain level of bilingualism. I would recommend giving people access to positions in the public service where they would have advancement opportunities without becoming managers. This would lead to increased technical capacity within the public service without losing the very important values related to official bilingualism.
Conservative
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Ms. Luelo, you indicated in response to another question that you were comfortable that security protocols were met for ArriveCAN despite the velocity of the project.
This week, the Auditor General released a report concerning findings about the government's ability to prevent, detect and respond to cyber-attacks. The report found that departments are “confused on cybersecurity roles”, that “cloud guardrails [were not] monitored consistently across all contracts” and that “contract security clauses were unclear and not standardized.”
Can you comment on this report by the Auditor General and what the Treasury Board will be doing to urgently address security vulnerabilities and ensure Canadians' personal information is protected?
Deputy Minister, Chief Information Officer of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes. We welcomed the Auditor General's report.
We are at the very beginning of our migration to cloud as an organization. The findings in the auditor's report would be consistent with my experience, having done this in other large Canadian organizations, where at the beginning you have a strong set of controls but the organization needs to adapt to make sure those controls are consistently applied.
We have taken action already to work with the different departments to ensure there is a clarity of roles and responsibilities. You will note that we have published an update to the GC cybersecurity event management plan. That's actually been in the works for about nine months. There was an update posted late last week, so that is a work in progress for us and will continue to be a work in progress.
Monitoring is going to be a very large part of ensuring that we have good controls in place that are in all cases being followed.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Thank you.
Ms. Clarke, in a brief to this committee you noted that the U.K.'s early spend control policies are a success and recommended that Canada adopt similar policies. Can you describe the differences between current Canadian policies and those the U.K. has implemented with success?
Also, you recommended improving the extent and quality of public disclosed IT procurement data. Maybe you could talk about Canada's transparency around procurement and compare that to other countries.
Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, As an Individual
Yes. Thanks. That's a good question.
The U.K. is far ahead of the Government of Canada in introducing a lot of modern design practices, bringing in technology talent and also instituting hard carrots and sticks for departments to be smart about how they procure and manage technology.
One of the things they did early on was institute spend controls in order to shrink the size of contracts. In the brief, we explain why that's important: because when contracts are small, it's easier to pivot from vendors that aren't performing well. It also forces vendors to produce something early so you can test it with users to see if it actually makes sense and works.
They saved an incredible amount of money in that jurisdiction, and that's why they rose to the top of all the global rankings of digital government. Their model of thinking about how to build digital capacity has been largely recreated around the world, including in Canada. The Canadian Digital Service is built out of that model.
We can look to the U.K. for examples—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm afraid I have to cut you off there, Professor Clarke, but maybe you can provide us with some written information.
Mr. Johns, thanks very much.
Mrs. Kusie, you have five minutes, please.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Thank you very much for being here today.
Mr. Stewart, was Gerald Butts implicated at any time?
Deputy Minister, International Trade, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
No, not to my knowledge.
Conservative
Deputy Minister, International Trade, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Not to my direct knowledge, although as chief of staff to the Prime Minister, she may have been briefed at some point.
Conservative