Evidence of meeting #105 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was phoenix.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Thank you for coming.
Ms. Lemay, in your opening statement, it is mentioned there are “multiple points of failure”. Do you think that part of changing the workplace culture would be to have consequences for poor performance in the public service? Aside from the three executives, what about others who were responsible at other levels? There must be some sort of accountability and consequence. What can be done better in the future?
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
That's a very good question.
Again, when you assess the different executives, we do have a system to manage performance. Maybe I can let my colleague speak to the system. We have the tools that we have. It's going to sound like I'm going back to the same thing, but part of our action plan is to look at what we do for enterprise-wide projects. To me, there should be clear accountability and authority for an enterprise-wide project, which might be different from a project that is a PSPC project, for example.
By setting those roles, responsibilities, accountabilities, and authorities right in the beginning, you're able to then keep people very accountable for what they do or don't do. We have a system where, when everything goes well, it's fine, but when things don't go well.... We have to really make sure that we get those roles, responsibility, clarity, and oversight at the beginning. Spending that time will pay at the end, and we'll be able to really do a good at job managing that.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I appreciate the question around accountability. It's important and fundamental, and I'll answer it on a going-forward basis, if I may.
I think there may well be opportunities to improve the accountability regime of the Government of Canada on a going-forward basis. One of them is to look at the number of layers of executives and whether or not that number of layers facilitates the effective flow of information.
Second and perhaps fundamentally, we do need to look at the capacity of the Government of Canada for removals. The barriers for cause right now are very, very high. It may be appropriate to look at legislative change to facilitate more rapid removal of executives who have failed to perform. There also may be an opportunity to look at the potential to recover any performance pay, or in particular, pay at risk that may have been granted in error. In other words, if gross mismanagement or other very serious discrepancies are discovered, after due process, it may be appropriate to recover those.
The government has put those in place for Governor in Council appointments on a going-forward basis, and they may well be applicable to the public service as well. I think that's an important dialogue, because I think this does raise fundamental issues of accountability around information flow and consequence.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Thank you. I'm just so disappointed that there doesn't seem to be any accountability. It seems like people are just shuffled.
My next question is for Mr. Ferguson.
In your statement, you mention that they did not appreciate the seriousness of the problem. How can we change this type of thinking or culture?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Again, I think there are two aspects to it. As you mention in your question, there's the cultural aspect, but then there's also the procedural aspect. I think the underappreciation of the problems got through too many people, partly because there was not oversight built into the project. All of the decisions and all of the information went through the executives who were responsible for that project. As soon as they did not appreciate the seriousness and the accumulation of the risks, there was no other mechanism for anybody else within the project's hierarchy to identify that problem.
I think there's the structure—and the deputy has talked about the need for there to be appropriate governance structures in these complex, multi-departmental projects to make sure there other ways of identifying when that happens—but there's also the cultural side of it. I think the cultural side of it, again, in this case was that there were many people outside of the decision process, the formal decision hierarchy, in this project.
There were many people who became aware of the significance of the problems, but they didn't find a way of stepping in and slowing down or changing the project. There needs to be the formal ways of doing it, but then there also needs to be informal ways as well. If people outside of the project see something that is not working well, there needs to be informal ways for those people to speak up as well.
Conservative
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Ms. Lemay, briefly, in your PSPC management action plan from the fall of 2017, there are about three or four items there that are due now. Have you met those goals? Some are due in April 2018 or early 2018. Are we up to date on those goals?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
If I could answer, yes we are. We have completed the root cause analysis. We did post, in the fall, a number of—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I'm sorry, I'm just going to interrupt due to my short time. Are there any outstanding that are from the due dates of April or early 2018, or are we on track?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
No, they aren't. Where they're marked ongoing, they are still ongoing.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
Ms. Lemay, you actually testified that IBM delayed the original testing to allow for further testing and ensure further due diligence. IBM testified in the Senate, yes, they delayed it because the system wasn't ready. Then we end up with, according to Mr. Sorenson, the Gartner report, which is very clearly saying it's not ready. There was a meeting of all the directors general of HR saying it's not ready. We had the CFOs all stating all the problems that they knew from the testing: not ready. This was coming out before you were here; I'll admit that. I guess we should give you a DeLorean and Doc Brown to send you back to the future to answer some of the questions, because we keep asking about stuff, and you weren't here.
What do we put in place to ensure we don't have another situation like this where...? In the summer of 2015, the red flags recognized that wasn't ready, so IBM delayed their testing. The rollout was delayed. We knew back then that it wasn't ready. Also we got into changing government, changing people. All these warning signs were there. We all knew, yet the minister wasn't briefed, apparently. We heard in testimony that PSPC got Gartner well in time, but apparently never passed it on to the minister.
What have we done to change that? Also, how did the minister at the time—and I know they've changed—not know everything that was going on with this? All the signs were there. We all knew.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Just on that one, we testified here before. I said that before. There was one briefing made on February 18 to the minister, from what we gather in terms of the documents. You could see the documents. It was ready to go. She was not asked for.... I think we can make that document available for you.
Your point is a very important one about different groups bringing issues and those issues not somehow being heard. I think that's what—I don't want to put words in his mouth—the Auditor General is referring to in terms of “What are we doing about it?”
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Be very brief, because I have a couple of other questions.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Again, the way we set up big projects is to make sure that there is independent advice directly to the DM. In my case, any big project I'll set up, I'll have a direct advice, not all the governance going through the same process, and make sure that, if it's enterprise-wide at the beginning, there's a proper oversight and governance set up with rules and responsibility, where people can bring those issues and they can have different channels.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Let me ask you this. You've obviously read Mr. Ferguson's report. Do you agree with his findings?
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I don't want to put you on the spot, or Mr. Ferguson or Mr. Wernick, but we heard very different testimony the other day about the seriousness of the culture that allows something like this to happen.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I agree with the recommendation, and we're acting on the recommendation. I told you also about the culture. I do agree with the clerk. We do have a world-class public service. This doesn't mean that we have a broken public service.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I'd also tell you about some of the things that we're doing at PSPC. I think we do need to really work hard to create a culture where it's safe to bring issues, and we have to have different mechanisms for that. We have to be able to create the environment, but we have to have the different processes. It's not a one-size-fits-all. Different people need different ways to bring issues up. It's going to be a constant reminder. You can't just say it and walk away. You have to walk the talk, and it has to be sustained.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Mr. Ferguson, in light of the comments that were made by Mr. Wernick, how do we get to some of these cultural issues that you've warned us about, whether an addition of services or a Phoenix-type thing, where you painted a very clear picture, a very scary picture? We've heard testimony that some of these issues exist. Then we have maybe someone from a different part saying, it's not as bad as that. We have an incredible public service—we recognize that—but we do have an issue. It almost feels that your report is going to reject it.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
The message that I delivered was about the necessity to look to the culture and what needs to be changed and effected in the culture. I think we heard from the deputy minister today that they are doing some things within that department to try to identify where there could have been some cultural factors. I think we heard from the secretary as well about the need for departments to follow policies—the substance of the policies not just the check box.
For me what's important is that this dialogue starts and that each institution within the government starts to look at the cultural aspects. Are there cultural things within their environment that could be getting in their way?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Mr. McCauley.
Mr. Samson, welcome to our committee. You have five minutes.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Thank you very much.
I'm a substitute member, so I don't have the whole context. Rather, I will focus my energies on two parts, the problem that arose at the outset and the changes that we should now see concretely on the ground.
The problem seems clear to me: the project is put forward, we ask how much it will cost, we're told that we only have 55% of the money, so we reduce functionality and pilot projects.
I have worked in a technology system like this in Nova Scotia before in a context of change. I have several years of experience. I know that if the project that I have in mind or that is proposed will not be presented the way it was designed, it's a problem. To build a house, the foundation must be firm. I am amazed that it was determined that it was acceptable for the project not to proceed as planned and to remove pieces of it when it is a major change that affects all of Canada. This is a problem.
From my 30 years of experience in administration, it seems impossible to me that three people under the deputy minister's responsibility could make such a decision. That's impossible. These people need to talk to the deputy minister. If I were minister of the department in question today, I would also like the deputy minister to tell me about the problem and possible solutions. It is almost incredible that this could happen. If a major project is designed and employees do not notify the manager that there is a problem, it is highly problematic.
That's the first part of my comment. You can clarify that, if you want.
You also mentioned that change takes place at three levels: practice, culture, and transformation. Can you give me an example of the measures you have implemented to date for each of these aspects, so as to give us hope that it will work better?