Public Accounts Committee on June 1st, 2010

[Sheila Fraser]

I am reassured, Mr. Chairman, because the government stated it agreed with me and several departments have investment plans.

However, I think Mr. Dion raises a very good point, which is that we are living in an era of budget cutbacks. Even though budgets will remain the same, salary increases, as well as other expenditures, will have to be paid, so the question is, will the government maintain its level of investment in IT systems?

The report clearly reflects the fact that departments have indicated in their plans that the money available is not enough for them to meet their objectives. So there is a funding shortfall. The RCMP identified this funding shortfall as one of five risks. I believe it is a serious problem, and we absolutely need a strategy to clearly identify where money must be invested, and where that money will come from.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Perhaps Ms. d'Auray would also like to answer, given that the Treasury Board will certainly be given a great deal of responsibility in light of these priorities.

[Michelle d'Auray]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That is why I said that we agreed with the Auditor General. I think that if you do not have, as you mentioned, this feeling of urgency, it is because the priorities have been identified in most of the essential systems. The investment plans have been identified by the departments and Ms. Fraser has noted this. All that is missing is really the establishment of priorities for a government-wide plan. The departments have all done this. If you put all of this together, this may look staggering.

What is important for us, and this is where we agree with Ms. Fraser, is that we need to have an overall vision. If we were to invest in everything, we may not be making the best possible or necessary investments. So we have to make choices. We have to set priorities. What Ms. Fraser told us, and this is something that we agree with, is that we need to have this capacity for planning. If we go too quickly, for example, if we declare an emergency and proceed too quickly, we may spend a great deal of money without necessarily having set the right priorities and the best mechanisms for making such investments.

Yes, investments in this sector may be very expensive. So we want to take the time that we need. We want to set the right priorities to ensure that the investments are made in the right places according to a reasonable and doable timeline. Even though you may think that this takes time, in order to do this properly, we need to take the time that it takes because the investments are very significant.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci, monsieur Dion.

Mr. Dreeshen, five minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to everyone for being here today.

First, to the Auditor General, you mentioned in your report that at this point in time what you saw was a funding shortfall of $2 billion. But you also indicated that this has been an ongoing problem over the last 10 years. Here it was in 2009, but did you get any information as to what it was 10 years ago, what the shortfall of funding would have been at that time, or five years ago? This isn't something that has just happened in the last little while. In your surveys, when you're asking questions as to what the history has been as far as shortfalls....

We know that money has been coming in and that it's being spent continually, so I'm curious whether you have any information in that regard.

[Sheila Fraser]

No, Chair, this is not something that we looked at, and this is not something the office has done in the past, so we wouldn't have that information.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you.

Ms. Bethel, you mentioned the costs that were incurred or the problems that were incurred when EI for the self-employed was put in. For that and any other new programs, does your department have the ability to inform what the costs will be for any new IT implementation for new programs? How does that get to the departments, and how is that put into their budgets?

[Gini Bethell]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Basically, what we look at first and foremost is if the investments made in technology are aligned to the priorities of the department. We start with that.

When there is a direction set in the Speech from the Throne or the budget, one of the first things we look at, working in concert with our program branches, is what the specific requirements are going to be compared with what we currently have available. Then as we go through and identify the requirements, we start to cost out what is required, whether it's any kind of upgrade, code development, people skills, etc. At the end of that assessment, we have a budget that we put in place, in terms of being able to deliver on that particular requirement. It goes back through the governance process in the department to ensure that it is, again, aligned, and that it has scrutiny in terms of what the assessment results were.

If we receive the support from what we call our portfolio management committee that the deputy chairs, then we actually go and develop a detailed implementation plan to address those requirements.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

So there's a recognition, then, that new programs indicate new costs and, because you know there are going to be new programs, of course, that could well be part of the reason why you recognize that the upgrades are going to be required in the future as well.

[Gini Bethell]

Yes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you.

Thirdly, in Treasury Board's plan, I'm wondering if there's something to coordinate and provide direction to departments for a coordinated approach to prioritization, so that the IT systems that are most critical be done first and the interests and priorities of taxpayers can be taken into account.

I wonder if you could explain how you go through that particular process.

[Michelle d'Auray]

Thank you.

I would ask Madame Charette to speak to that.

[Corinne Charette]

Well, that is going to be in fact a very important exercise, and one we're going to have to address as a community with great care. Once we have conducted our survey and we have responses from every department individually on their mission-critical systems and how they prioritize them and the potential range of investments, when we aggregate that, we're going to have to have a portfolio view of the entire government mission-critical systems and all of these relative priorities. And we will approach it in consultation with our stakeholders in support of their specific missions. We will come up with a few alternatives, which of course will be widely shared and discussed by deputy ministers and so on until we can come up with a collective view of how priorities might be addressed that we would put forward to the government for decision purposes.

But it's going to involve individual analysis by departments, a consolidation exercise by the CIOB and the Treasury Board, consideration of prioritization mechanisms, and a few proposals to finally find a list of priorities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dreeshen.

Before we adjourn, there are two matters that shouldn't take very long that I just want to handle. The first item is the report of the steering committee. That's been circulated. As you know, this Thursday we do have the hearing on electronic health records. But I want to point out that next Wednesday, June 9, we have a scheduled tour of the Parliament Buildings. That's to prepare us for the hearing that is scheduled for June 15, rehabilitating the Parliament Buildings. Those minutes have been circulated.

One other issue is that the steering committee is recommending that we write to the secretary of the Treasury Board to request a copy of the instructions provided to deputy ministers and departmental legal counsel regarding the Auditor General's right of access to information. That issue apparently was resolved, and....

Madame d'Auray.

[Michelle d'Auray]

Mr. Chair, I have a copy with me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You have a copy with you!

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

At any rate, since it is the agenda, we will vote on the minutes and then it will probably be satisfied very quickly.

The minutes have been circulated. The chair would entertain a motion for their approval.

So moved by Mr. Shipley.

All in favour?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The last issue, and this is just for tabling, is that I believe Madame Faille has a notice of motion she's going to table. But that is for notice only. That won't be discussed or debated.

Do you want to speak to it for 30 seconds, Madame Faille?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I just wanted to read the motion. I tabled it with the clerk earlier, given that we are working on the computer systems. The text of my motion is as follows:

That the House of Commons Committee on Public Accounts, in light of the significant risks to IT in the coming years and the need to be proactive, as well as the lack of feasibility studies on future IT projects, mandate the Parliamentary Budget Officer to review the costs, expenditures and detailed estimates of government spending in information technology and report back by November 30, 2010.

I think that we could discuss this motion at the next meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Madame Faille.

As I indicated, that notice is for notice only to start the 48-hour clock. It's not to be debated or discussed at this meeting at this point in time.

To conclude, I want to thank very much all the witnesses. We did have a large number of witnesses and we went over the two hours, but that was explainable.

I want to thank you for your tremendous work and for coming here today. I want to wish you all the best in the future. IT is a very important issue for the Government of Canada. It's extremely important. We just want to thank you and wish you all the best.

We will certainly be following up each of the departments that had recommendations, which I believe includes everyone except CRA, and that did file an action plan. We will be following up on these action plans very carefully.

What I am going to do, colleagues, is suspend for three minutes. At the end of the suspension, we're going to call the meeting back to order. It's going to be an informal session with our visiting members of Parliament and our visiting auditor from the country of Mali.

I know that some of you might have other commitments, but for those of you who are able to stay, I invite and urge you to stay.

This meeting is adjourned.