That is an accurate statement that IM/IT at National Defence is delivered through service providers that are in a federated governance construct. Let me explain what that is essentially.
As the chief information officer, I'm the functional authority for all IM/IT in the department. I don't necessarily have to own it to authoritatively control it. The army, navy, air force, and chief military personnel provide IT services on wings, bases, and garrisons across the country. They do so, however, under a policy construct that my group authoritatively controls.
Although we're not centrally owned, we are centrally operated, so to speak. We are centrally governed and regionally delivered. We do a lot of centralized governance in order to make sure that our investments are prudent and of value to Canadians.
The concept of cyber introduces a reality that we all have to work in collaboration. My stakeholders, my partners, and service delivery across the department have been directed by the chief of the defence staff to line up behind Commodore Feltham and his team to make sure we provide the cyber service delivery and service assurance needed to run the business of defence. The reality is that our operations in defence are very good as is. At this time, there is no direction for me to centralize or take ownership of all IM/IT equities inside the department. In fact, we're finding that strong governance and authoritative control are providing the outcomes and outputs that we need.