Public Accounts Committee on June 14th, 2018

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

We'll now move to Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I have two areas. I don't know if I'll have enough time, but I see that we have time on the clock. I'm hoping colleagues will agree that if we have residual questions we'll use that time to do that, but I only have two right now, assuming I get satisfactory answers.

The first thing I want to do is to point out to colleagues and everyone that this Auditor General is constantly looking at individual reports and trying to extrapolate from that government-wide problems, which, if addressed on a government-wide basis, would help us to avoid these kinds of things.

I'd just like to point out that it wasn't that long ago, colleagues, that Mr. Ferguson was here telling us that in his view, what government needs to do is to “do service well”. By that, he meant to measure the impact on the citizens who are affected, and to ask whether they are getting the service and whether they are getting the value. In this case, that constituency would be the people who work here, and I just want to point out that the deputy has mentioned a couple of times that one of the things they did wrong was to measure internally how well we moved from one desk to another or from one step to another while losing sight of the holistic overview.

As we go about looking at the Auditor General's sweeping remarks about overall government, let's understand that his track record is pretty good in terms of recognizing areas that are problematic across the board. This is just a prime example of getting yourself lost in the details and forgetting what it is all about. It is all about making sure that the people who work for this government get paid in a timely fashion and in an accurate fashion, and that got lost.

Next week, when we visit the other issue that the Auditor General has raised, I would hope we keep in mind that his track record on these kinds of things is very good.

I'm just a simple guy from Hamilton, and I have trouble understanding how it is that the departments went ahead without doing the test. To me, it was like somebody putting on a major play and saying, “Meh, dress rehearsal, shmess rehearsal. We don't need to worry about that. Let's just go straight to it.” Speaking from the report, the Auditor General says:

We also found that Public Services and Procurement Canada did not test Phoenix as a whole system before implementation and did not know whether it would operate as intended....

A pilot would have allowed the Department to determine if the system would work in a real setting without affecting pay that was still being processed by the old pay system....

This pilot was the Department’s chance to test a final, live version of Phoenix before implementation.

Here's the punch line:

The pilot could have allowed the Department to detect problems that would have shown that the system was not ready.

It's just a common sense point of view, and I'll start with you, deputy. How could it be that a test to see if it works was deemed to be something superfluous and was set aside in whatever other interest, budget or otherwise? How could that final test, as one of the checks and balances, ever be just brushed away by someone making responsible decisions? How could that be, deputy?

[Marie Lemay]

My understanding is that they had mitigation measures for that, too, but clearly it was not a good decision.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I remain underwhelmed, Madam.

Mr. Wallace, the Treasury Board Secretariat is there to provide a sort of backstop, the overview of what the ministries are doing to make sure that they're adhering to policies. I have to believe that at some point it appears on one of your dashboards or checklists, or somewhere, whether they did an actual test, especially when it's a system. I would imagine that National Defence does a whole lot of tests before they implement systems. Help me understand how the Treasury Board Secretariat missed this as well.

[Peter Wallace]

To go back to your earlier analogy, they actually edited the play first. I think we need to understand the depth of the dysfunction and challenge associated with that. You are absolutely right that Treasury Board does have a challenge function and an oversight function. The Auditor General is absolutely correct that this was followed in form rather than substance. The reality is that the boxes were checked but the values were not lived. The reality is that we work with human beings, and the reality is that we need to be absolutely on top of that.

The lessons learned here are not only about additional steps, barriers, layers, supporting requirements, and all of those things. They are fundamentally about the way we work as a system, and the relationship of Treasury Board in ensuring that at the start of projects, in the middle, through the green-lighting, and through the stage gates, for the elements that are put in there, appropriately, the values are actually lived.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Wallace.

Every once in a while we just get a few questions from the table as we write this report, but we have used the dress rehearsal analogy here. Is it possible, Ms. Lemay, that maybe there is no use having a dress rehearsal if it's obvious to everyone that it's not ready to go? Is that a possibility?

If they postpone a pilot project, it doesn't mean they've completely cancelled the pilot project. If they have postponed a pilot project, we wouldn't assume that there would never be a pilot project. However, there may have been a number of reasons for cancelling that pilot project in June of 2015, and one may have been that they knew it wasn't ready to go. With the pilot project, that's possible.

[Marie Lemay]

With the pilot project, I'm assuming it's that or the time. It's one or the other, right? My understanding is that in doing the pilot project plus the other things, there was a time constraint. Again, we go back to the launch with the compensation advisers who were leaving, so that was part of the time frame they were looking at.

My understanding, too, is that they had these conversations with IBM and others about how to go about this, and that was the decision that was made.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Exactly when did you come into your position?

[Marie Lemay]

It was April 11.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

On April 11, when you came into that position, were you given a transition binder? Did you have a new transition binder of the sort they give to most deputy ministers or ministers?

[Marie Lemay]

I did.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Did the briefing binder contain the Gartner report?

[Marie Lemay]

Not to my recollection. We didn't even have the Gartner report until I found out about it when we were here, I think, at committee. The binder is really big, though, and I'd have to go back. My recollection is that the Gartner report was not in there, but I could confirm that if you want.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

When did the government order the Gartner report?

[Marie Lemay]

It was the Treasury Board that ordered the Gartner report. I believe it was January or December, or was it before Christmas?

[Sandra Hassan, Assistant Deputy Minister, Compensation and Labour Relations Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

There was a public service management committee meeting during which Phoenix was discussed. Further to that discussion, the former secretary of the Treasury Board hired them, and that report was provided to the Treasury Board in January of 2016 and communicated to PSPC.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You say you ordered a new report and you had a new minister coming in, yet she is not aware of whether or not she had the Gartner report. Isn't that odd?

The Gartner report was there to help determine whether the system was ready, and Gartner said it might not be ready to launch. Is that right?

[Sandra Hassan]

Gartner did in fact state that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We aren't sure if it was in the transition binder, yet the launch took place.

[Marie Lemay]

I would say it's 99.9% no, the report was not in the transition binder—my transition binder—because we didn't see it, but I'd have to go back to be absolutely sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

A government-requested report says there are going to be big problems here, a new minister comes in and gets a briefing, and then the department moves ahead with a launch, that—

[Marie Lemay]

We need to get the dates straight here, and whether you're talking about my transition binder or the minister's transition binder. I came in April.

The Gartner report was requested by the Treasury Board. PSPC did their own report through the gating processes, and that's the S.i. report you heard about. That report said that considering everything, it was ready to go.

Treasury Board decided to order a specific report, the Gartner report. I'm not sure what the genesis of this was, but there was probably some reason to do it. It was delivered to Treasury Board. It was shared with PSPC, if I remember correctly, in January. I'd have to go back to that date.... I'm told it was January 29. It was also communicated by the comptroller general to the associate deputy at PSPC.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

As a point of clarification on the Gartner report, yes, at OGGO committee it was confirmed that it was given to the deputy minister on January 29 and only given to the minister in the summer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, that seems odd.

We'll have Ms. Yip, please, and then Mr. McCauley.