Public Accounts Committee on May 27th, 2015

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Sorry to cut you off, Mr. Normand, but quite frankly, if you're going to try to explain to me master data management, I don't have that long. We don't have a week. I have five minutes.

The bottom line is, I just read to you, sir, and I've asked you to look at it. Clearly, it says, “The Agency”, —you, CBSA—“changed a key component in favour of a new solution”—new solution, not an old solution; this is the Auditor General's report, sir, that I'm reading to you—“that has caused Citizenship and Immigration Canada to revisit the components it is building.”

If you changed your mind on something and told Citizenship and Immigration you had changed your mind, and they had to go back and do something else, did that not cause a delay?

[Louis-Paul Normand]

We'll have the business case on master data management and we'll take into consideration the impact on Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and if that impact prevents the successful business case from being realized, it will be factored in there. The decision for master data management has not been made. We have not impacted anyone at this point, not Citizenship and Immigration Canada, nobody.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Ferguson, could you help me with this paragraph, because maybe I'm just confused.

[Michael Ferguson]

I guess when you look at that whole paragraph in terms of project deliverables, it goes through, as you said, what was happening in terms of.... I think the issue is really around the project deliverables, identifying what the project was intended to do, and the milestones, and I think probably in the process of identifying what some of those project deliverables and milestones would be, that would have had an impact on the other organizations that were involved.

Again, the particular part of what was identified as being an important part of this project was having the master data management. But when they were through the process of identifying what the deliverables were going to be and what those milestones were going to be, I think some of the changes in that process caused an impact, in this particular case, on Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you. The time has expired. Sorry.

Moving along, it's over to Vice-Chair Carmichael. You, sir, have the floor.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I'm good either side of that.

Welcome to our witnesses today.

Mr. Ferguson, I'd like to start, if I may, with you.

Specifically, in your opening remarks you commented on some of the deficiencies that your office found within the agency, and we've heard today about the complexity of this massive project, a significant investment by taxpayers in the agency, and specifically directed at IT investments. I'd like to direct you to paragraph 5.12 on page 3, where you talk about a project portfolio management framework—the agency had designed a strong project portfolio management framework, granted, according to your comments—and how this framework has not been fully utilized.

When we look at the size of the investment, could you comment specifically on whether the project portfolio management framework is going to give the government and taxpayers confidence that we have the tools and management structure in place to do the job that's necessary in developing this important technology?

[Michael Ferguson]

What we've identified, essentially, is that, again, they have designed a strong project portfolio management framework, so, as I've said before, we were happy with the fact that the framework existed.

Over the course of the next number of paragraphs, we talk about many of the aspects of that framework, such as governance structure in paragraph 5.17 and their investment planning in paragraph 5.21. Then we talk a bit about enterprise architecture and the risk profile. Again, they have a number of different components to that framework which we found were good.

However, I think that in order to have the level of confidence you were talking about—and it is a billion-dollar portfolio of projects—what's important is to make sure that the framework is fully implemented and is used. The first step is there, and it's an important step to have the framework, but then what's really important is to make sure that framework is being followed. Some of the things, such as making sure that all of the information going to committee is rigorous and agrees with all of the supporting documentation so that the committee has the information, I think are a good example of that.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Weber, as we look at this report, clearly the Auditor General's office has identified some of the weaknesses within the system, but you have the structure in place. Could you expand on and talk about some of the benefits and how the CBSA is going to go forward to ensure that if we take the product portfolio management framework forward, identifying some of these deficiencies, we can have confidence that you are going to deliver on fulfilling those challenges?

[Caroline Weber]

Absolutely, and thank you very much for the question.

We did recognize a number of years ago that we needed to improve with regard to IT project management, so we put in place this framework and started implementing it. I can tell you that our IT projects are being delivered on time now and on budget, so the framework that we put in place has achieved that.

In addition to some of the issues that the AG has identified, benefits realization was part of our framework as well, but we hadn't implemented it yet, so we are following through on that plan. We've had the benefits realization discussions at our technology and innovation project committee—I don't think I have the title of that committee right, because we use acronyms all the time—and we are moving forward. There are people mobilized to look at benefits management and benefits realization.

I think that we're not alone in the Government of Canada. There is no excuse for that, given the size and the importance of what we're doing, but I think it's something that we've been struggling with across the government in terms of making sure that even if we have an idea of what the IT system is going to do—and many of ours are replacements of legacy systems to improve security, not always to generate savings—we haven't always quantified that. Our task before us is to operationalize the savings that have been previously identified or the benefits that have been previously identified.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

You have five seconds. You can say thank you.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

There you go. Well done.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

All right. Moving right along, we'll go over to Madam Jones.

Ma'am, you now have the floor.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here today to answer questions on chapter 5 of the report.

I'm going to go back to paragraph 5.37 for a moment. I don't feel that we had clarity with regard to the questions that were asked by my colleague Mr. Allen.

It's quite evident on page 12 of the report that with regard to the project delay, it was the result of a difference of opinion between the Canada Border Services Agency and Citizenship and Immigration Canada with regard to critical function. It did result in a three-month delay and an additional cost of $2.3 million because the agency had to extend a vendor contract.

I would like to know what the critical function was, and why did it take three months and $2.3 million to resolve this within the department. What was the difference of opinion that wasn't seen until it got to this stage?

[Caroline Weber]

I will turn to my colleague.

[Louis-Paul Normand]

Thank you for the question.

The replacement of that system is actually twofold. One is within the CBSA's control, and it's the lookout database that we talked about earlier. The other aspect is for our officers in the ports of entry to use GCMS, the global case management system, deployed and managed by CIC. In this case, we are using what's called FOSS right now. When you scan your passport it goes to the database called FOSS, and that's what we're decommissioning. FOSS is currently doing the two systems.

We had to agree as to what would be done in GCMS, so in the CIC system, and what had to be done and developed by CBSA. It's not an incremental cost, in that if we hadn't done it—in this case we decided to do it—then CIC would have had to do it.

The disagreement had to do with who was to do it, not the cause of an overrun. The $2.3 million was the licence for the FOSS vendor, the legacy vendor. The decision would have been to carry it on anyway because of the rollout plan that we deployed. In other words, there was no way that we would have been able to turn off FOSS as a back-up system in December 2013 as originally planned.

It was not really an incremental cost.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

It's stated here that you had known about the aging system since 2008. You knew it had to be changed.

In September when you launched the project, why did you not project that there was going to be a problem then? Why was this cost not incorporated at that time?

[Louis-Paul Normand]

It's difficult to explain what the delays were. I was not around at the time.

There are a lot of moving parts in FOSS. It's a complex project. There are over 19 systems that FOSS interacts with to get the information we should be looking for at the border. In addition to the other transformation projects at the agency, and the fact that this one is internally funded—not funded through Treasury Board—it became a matter of can we live a little longer with the old one.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Paragraph 5.22 states, “The Treasury Board Policy on Investment Planning—Assets and Acquired Services requires that the Agency update the Investment Plan every three years, or when a significant change occurs.”

Since 2011, the Canada Border Services Agency has had significant change occur, yet its investment plan has not been updated. Why is the Canada Border Services Agency not following the Treasury Board requirements, especially when over $1 billion has been invested into the agency itself?

[Caroline Weber]

I may turn to Chris to answer this. I believe we did generate our next plan in 2013-14, 2014-15.

Anyway, I'll let Chris speak to this.

[Chris Bucar, A/Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Director General Resource Management, Canada Border Services Agency]

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question.

CBSA agrees with the audit findings and acknowledges that material changes should have been reflected in the update of the investment plan to Treasury Board. Going forward, the agency will review and update future investment plans if similar circumstances arise, as required by Treasury Board.

I would like to reiterate that the agency's investment plan and annual IT plan have been approved. They were submitted to Treasury Board and approved on April 23, 2015.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Well it was obviously a violation of Treasury Board policy.

Auditor General, I'd like to ask whether you know of other departments in other audits you've been doing where this Treasury Board requirement has not been met. I know it's outlined clearly here. I'm not sure if it has been in other reports.

[Michael Ferguson]

It wasn't something that we looked at. This was just looking at CBSA. We didn't extend the audit to look at other organizations because of the scope of this audit.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you.

Sorry, the time has expired.

Mr. Hayes, you have the floor, sir.