Public Accounts Committee on April 22nd, 2010

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Okay.

Has your analysis shown that one reason we're having so much difficulty in this is that there is a technical problem with hardware, software, equipment, and so on, or is this an input and/or a political problem, or is it specifically a management problem? Where do the problems lie?

[Sheila Fraser]

I think there are problems at a number of levels. At the actual management of the initiative, we've seen there are just basic management problems. In many provinces, it is difficult even to know what has been spent to date on this initiative. The planning has not been as good as it could have been in certain provinces.

But I think there's a more fundamental issue, which is that this is a significant change in the medical system. Many of us have only to think of doctors' offices where you walk in and there are huge filing cabinets full of paper. This would mean changing all of that. So it does require a very significant portion of change management. There are a number of factors like that, which have to be considered and dealt with to make sure this is successful.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kramp.

Monsieur Plamondon, vous avez cinq minutes.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Thank you for being here, Ms. Fraser.

I have a question about a document I requested from the Library of Parliament. I was surprised at the answer and it confirmed, following up on the question by our government colleague and your answers, there is a mess at Public Works and Government Services Canada. I asked the Library to tell me what investments had been made to improve Parliament Hill since 1980 in various buildings: Centre Block, East Block, West Block, Confederation Block, the Justice Building and the Wellington Building. I also asked it to tell me what the annual maintenance costs have been for those buildings since 1980. I asked that the figures be broken down by year, preferably, if possible. I also added that I would like to know how much has been spent to improve the computer system in the parliamentary precinct since 1980. This is what the Library said:

"According to Public Works and Government Services Canada, because of the complexity and scope of this request, the best option for the requester [referring to me] for getting an answer would be to make an access to information request."

I was extremely surprised. I was skimming through a document from Public Works entitled Building on a Solid Foundation, written two or three years ago, which lays out projects that could take 25 years to complete. So how can there be projects spread out over 25 years when they can't tell me the amount of the maintenance costs for a building, year by year? That information has to be filed. There must be an annual budget for each building. There also has to be a budget for improvements. The slowness of the exterior renovation work on the East Block was why I asked for that information. The workers had not finished putting up the scaffolding. It took months to do that. So I decided something wasn't right. Is there an estimate and what will it cost?

In the circumstances, would it be possible for you to get these kinds of documents? Do you have in hand, for example, information concerning the maintenance on each building and the work done each year? It shocked me, so I have not written to the Access to Information Commission. I made that request a year ago.

[Sheila Fraser]

In fact, there is a division at Public Works that specifically handles Parliament Hill and it is given certain budgets. So I am sure that if you asked what the budget is for this year, they could tell you. But when you go back 15 or 20 years, the way information is retained in the government, it is extremely difficult to find it.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

It isn't on computer.

[Sheila Fraser]

That is probably why you got that answer.

We could look at what information we have received, but I think we started to take an interest in it maybe five years ago. We didn't go back further. I think there were some compilations about the condition of the buildings and renovation projects.

In any event, we could see what information we were able to get from the department and perhaps encourage them to provide you with what they have.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Thank you.

I will give my colleague the floor.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I have another question concerning chapter 2, which is about human resources. I have a comment and a concern to express about what is written at pages 18 and 19. You say that Parliament needs information to allow it to play its oversight role and review the law in terms of human resources. At page 18, you recommend that there be reporting. We have noticed that Treasury Board has been slow in producing its annual reports. We know that all departments submit an annual report to Parliament about human resources issues. But Treasury Board is slow in doing it.

The recommendation made to Treasury Board is to inform Parliament with greater speed. Treasury Board accepts the recommendation and will act on it, and I quote part of its response, that will do it by "providing more timely information". First, it worries me quite a bit when they talk about "more timely", when it comes to speed. Second, it says at page 17 that there is a problem with measurement indicators. It is all very well to have reports, but if there are no indicators that allow us to evaluate expectations or objectives, that seems problematic to me. Unless I am not understanding this whole thing, that is the aspect that concerns me.

So Treasury Board is prepared to provide us with speedier annual reports, but in a "more timely" manner. I would like to get an idea of what that means in terms of timelines. As well, does it call for a recommendation that specifies that there be clear indicators so the objectives can be evaluated?

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, absolutely.

Mr. Chair, information about performance and achieving objectives absolutely has to be improved. This is particularly important since there has to be a legislative review in one year. How will Parliament be able to determine whether the legislative changes have had the desired effects if you have no appropriate information about performance? The recommendation in paragraph 2.72 says:

The PSMA Legislative Review Team should ensure that information provided to support the legislative review will allow the report by the President of the Treasury Board to provide meaningful information to Parliament on the extent to which the expectations of the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Public Service Employment Act have been met ...

We think it is important that greater effort be made to provide parliamentarians with better information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci beaucoup, Madame Beaudin.

Mr. Young, five minutes.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here today.

Two key principles of the Canada Health Act are portability and accessibility, and the eHealth system is designed to address those and implement those. Of course, the goal is to make the records available anywhere, at any time, so if a Canadian travelling from Ontario to the west is skiing and has an accident, they can get their health care, and their health care records would be readily available. That's the dream. But we've had a huge problem in Ontario when it abandoned its own rules for procurement and hired consultants. We were hiring consultants and hundreds of millions of dollars were wasted, and then the director, who is a very good gentleman, decided to let somebody else take over in August. Dr. Alan Hudson is no longer there. So it's leaderless; it's a rudderless ship right now.

But I understand that from the federal government viewpoint, Infoway is to set national priorities, national direction, and national standards, so I wanted to get your view on how well Infoway has done with regard to its leadership and coordination role.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

Members may recall that we did a specific audit on Infoway, which was tabled last November. Our report was generally a positive report. We found that Infoway was managed well, that they had established what they call the “blueprint”, or the overall architecture, for these electronic health records, that they were assessing the projects well before they agreed for funding.

We did have a couple of recommendations. One recommendation was that they needed to get better assurance that the provinces were actually conforming to the blueprint and that there needed to be better information provided on progress. But overall our report was a favourable report.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

With regard to systems, we all know about the ill-fated long-gun registry. It was supposed to cost $2 million, I think, when the idea was first conceived, and it got up to somewhere around $2 billion. It was a black hole for money. But I think all large organizations have these problems, both in the private sector and in the public. You buy a system, and then you need customized software, and then you need updates. So they're ongoing--your software and hardware. And then there are huge training costs. As new people are hired, they have to be trained and retrained when there are upgrades, so the organizational commitment to the system becomes huge. There's a useful life and then systems become obsolete because somebody has a newer and better system. So you reach a point where you should have a new system despite the capital cost because the operations could be so much better and cheaper and the public could be better served. This is the struggle that all large organizations have.

My concern is on the $2 billion figure you mentioned for three departments. Is that a figure you had time to develop yourself in the AG's office, or are those figures estimated costs for systems for those three departments? Did they actually come from the departments?

[Sheila Fraser]

Those numbers, Chair, actually come from the department, and that is the cost they are unable to fund out of their current appropriations.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Okay, because I think automatically it's incumbent upon us to question those costs and to look to see if there's a better way or a cheaper way, etc.

[Sheila Fraser]

Absolutely.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

On the other hand, I'm concerned when I hear talk about government-wide solutions even to risk management. Wouldn't you have any concern, if there was a government-wide policy on purchasing or on risk management, that we end up putting too many eggs in one basket? If there was a software program or a system that was bought from a private sector company that wasn't the best or was expensive to operate or was prone to failure, we might have implemented it too widely in various departments and the mistake in going with that company or that organization or that equipment would end up being far bigger than it needed to be. My experience in the private sector is that sometimes you're better to let departments buy their own computers and software because they understand their front-line needs better.

[Sheila Fraser]

Certainly, Chair, we are not recommending in any way that there be some overall government purchase of equipment that would apply to all departments. In fact many of these systems are developed in-house rather than being purchased. The systems are quite unique. And I would agree that each department has to determine what is the most appropriate for their operations.

What we are trying to get at in this audit is that there needs to be an overall assessment of what the state of IT is and the planning going forward as to how this renewal is going to occur.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Did you have a chance to look at the Canadian passport office? With the amount of security required in those documents, the complexity of those documents, they're now producing passports in two weeks. It's a tremendous record, and the other departments or agencies might be able to learn from what the Canadian passport agency has done.

[Sheila Fraser]

If memory serves me right, we looked at the passport office three times. We did a follow-up just before the last phase of the western hemisphere travel initiative came in and actually gave them a very favourable report. It said they had made very good progress and had addressed many of the issues that had occurred when the initiative first came in and had actually, in many ways, revamped the way they do things in their operations. So that was a good news story.

And if my memory serves me right, I believe the committee had a hearing on that report--

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We did.

[Sheila Fraser]

--and again, it was very favourable to the passport office.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Young.

Mr. Christopherson, five minutes.