Public Accounts Committee on June 12th, 2018

[Michael Wernick]

I think that's all set out in the chronology in the Auditor General's chapter, so I would probably get it wrong by at least a few months, but the project envisaged centralization in the pay centre and envisaged a high degree of automation, so there was an anticipation that there would be reduced staffing levels at the end of the project implementation. They were starting to disappear on us. They were an older community to start with. Many of them did not want to move to Miramichi and accept employment there.

I think what's not really caught in context in the chronology is that we were kind of between two canoes, between, on the one hand, a system that wasn't very good and its people were leaving, and on the other hand jumping into the canoe of the new system, which obviously did not go well. There wasn't really a lot of opportunity to pause and delay, because the pay clerks were basically disappearing.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

When the decision was made to go ahead, to get the pay system going, was there ever any advice given to the minister that there was nothing to go back to—that having let go 700 payroll professionals, the other system does not exist any more and we don't have anybody to manage it, so now we need to be going into this new system?

[Michael Wernick]

I think that goes to Ms. Raitt's question. I don't know what specific advice was given to Treasury Board ministers. This was never seen as a matter for full cabinet. It was a project being supervised by Treasury Board ministers. You could ask former Treasury Board ministers and secretaries what advice they were given at different times. The Auditor General had access to all of that, to all of that advice, and set out as best he could the chronology as he understood it.

I think it's important to remind people from time to time—there's absolutely no comfort in this—that there was an Auditor General's chapter on the pay system around 2008 that said it was falling apart around our ears and it was a matter of great urgency to replace it, so it's understandable that the government of the day took on a pay modernization project.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

I guess my point in asking you that is, was there a system to go back to?

[Michael Wernick]

No. There was no system, period. It was cardboard cards and manual record-keeping. It was a world in which people waited months, when they moved from department to department, to have their pay.

Almost everything you've seen under the Phoenix label happened in the pre-Phoenix world. It was a terrible, terrible pay environment, and there was no system. It was a reasonable thing for the previous government to do. It was the advice of senior public servants to get a 21st-century pay system in place. Obviously, we failed to do it.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you.

In our experience here at the public accounts committee with respect to transformational technology, we've had some challenges. Certainly Phoenix, as you mention, was one. We've noticed that Shared Services is something else that has had its challenges.

It has come up quite a few times now that when we're changing technology, it's as if the system is not geared for it. We had the deputy minister of the Treasury Board here a few months ago, and I asked her that question, as to whether we had the capacity or if that was the main challenge within the public service when it comes to technology. She agreed that it was a major challenge that we have. What is your response to that?

[Michael Wernick]

That's a big topic. I have quick comments, and I'm happy to come back on this if you want. Big IT projects have high risk in the private sector, in universities, and elsewhere. They're hard. “Hard things are hard”, as they say.

The current government has tried to apply the lessons from Goss Gilroy right away and to make some strides on that. You will see in the budget implementation act, which is days away from being passed, stronger legal authorities for the chief information officer at the Treasury Board to direct departments and impose standards and for the role to have real teeth instead of being just an advisory role. I think that's a very positive development.

We established out of some funding from the last budget the Canadian Digital Service. Minister Brison is a great champion of the migration to digital services, and there are many stories I could tell you about progress on that.

I can say on the Phoenix thing that this is where I do agree with the Auditor General's first report: there isn't really any option of restarting. We have to move forward. If we don't deal with the underlying complexity of the classification system and the thousands of payrolls and we just go back to the same vendor community, we will get the same answer.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

With respect to your annual report, I welcome your comment that you've made this report and that no committee has asked you to appear. Certainly I will suggest that this committee ask you to appear, maybe on an annual basis, to look at the report.

Given the fact that we deal with deputy ministers all the time and that after the Auditor General's reports we call in the deputy ministers and ask them for their recommendations or ask them why the management system has not been perfect in certain situations, I will make sure, Mr. Chair, that we ask the Clerk of the Privy Council to appear before us to show us his report so that we can ask questions on the public service and how we can improve it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lefebvre. We will discuss that at a later date.

We'll come back to Mr. McCauley, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I want to get back to what I was alluding to earlier about public trust and the confidence that Canadians and public servants can have about other major programs going on within the government.

Has there been any discussion about project audits, or changes to how we're doing things, to prevent another Phoenix issue?

[Michael Wernick]

I think I can say yes. Project management is a very specific skill. It's teachable and credentiable. We have been putting a great deal of effort, led by the comptroller general's shop at Treasury Board, into building project management capacities in the public service.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Have there been changes since the whole Phoenix thing blew up? Can you give us quick details of that and tell us what projects you might be looking at?

[Michael Wernick]

I can rattle off a few examples. It's probably a question to put to the secretariat of the Treasury Board about specific projects that come across their transom. I have a role in personnel, and I recommended to the Prime Minister that the comptroller general, who has real depth and expertise in costing and project management, go to the Department of National Defence because it was getting a whack of money in the new defence policy. He's now very involved in the implementation of the defence policy, sitting in the defence department. That's an example of how things have moved forward.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Who is that, exactly, when you say he's sitting in the defence department?

[Michael Wernick]

Bill Matthews is the senior associate deputy minister. He came directly from the role of comptroller general of Canada and knows a lot about costing—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm glad you brought that up, because this leads to my next question.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer put out a report last year on the costs of the combat surface vessels, about $60 billion. One issue he had was that despite being granted the powers under the parliamentary act to access the RFPs and other costings, he was blocked by the bureaucrats from accessing this information, to the point where he had to go to the States to access American costs to bring back here to extrapolate. We brought it up repeatedly.

Again, here we have, perhaps, in the Phoenix case, a bureaucrat ignoring the rules, blocking the PBO from delivering a proper study on what could eventually be an $80-billion project. Might this be of concern to you? In the past with Phoenix, we've seen the bureaucrats blocking information to ministers; now they're blocking the PBO.

[Michael Wernick]

I think that gives me the chance to point out the multiple lines of oversight. The Auditor General of Canada and the Parliamentary Budget Officer are often crossing into each other's swim lanes. We also have the Commissioner of Official Languages, the Privacy Commissioner, the Information Commissioner, the Commissioner of Lobbying, and the Integrity Commissioner—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right, but I'm asking specifically on this issue of the PBO not being able to access information, Mr. Wernick.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Let him finish.

Please continue.

[Michael Wernick]

If I could, there are eight officers of Parliament constantly asking for information, analysis, and research. We thought that there was duplication and overlap between the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor General, and that has been clarified. You will have seen that the budget act from last year put the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer on a statutory basis for the first time in its existence. It used to be a creature of the Library of Parliament; now it is independent. It has statutory authorities. It will be costing political platforms next year, and so on. We have strengthened the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right, and I'm not criticizing that. I'm glad the government strengthened it. My specific question is, as we've seen with the Phoenix issue—and I've read through it for two and a half years—we've constantly had bureaucrats blocking information to the minister, not serving public servants or taxpayers or government well. I'm asking about oversight for other major projects.

Here we have one at $60 billion to $80 billion. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, who has the right to access that information, is being stymied not by the minister but by bureaucrats, perhaps the same types of bureaucrats who were not truthful or forthcoming on Phoenix issues. I'm wondering if this is a culture issue within our public service. Is this a rogue issue? It's a concern. Here we have a very large project dwarfing Phoenix cost-wise, where we have a bureaucrat denying the Parliamentary Budget Officer access to something. It goes to public trust and trust as parliamentarians in our system when they can't access what should rightfully be theirs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

Go ahead, Mr. Wernick.

[Michael Wernick]

I have no specific information on that case. I think there is room for legitimate debate and discussion with the officers of Parliament on their questions and the way in which data and information is presented and packaged. They're often asking for analysis and research, not just data.

The Auditor General does not have unconditional access to anything he or she asks for. The Supreme Court was very clear on that point. Cabinet confidence matters, and part of my job is to defend cabinet confidence.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That would be for the Parliamentary Budget Officer, not the Auditor General, though, but I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, McCauley.

We'll now go to Mr. Chen.