Evidence of meeting #106 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.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
, A very important step, a normal step in the case of an information technology project or new IT system being put into place, is that final sign-off. Well, in this particular instance, we couldn't find the documentation of that final sign-off.
In the end, the only thing you can say is that because the project executives believed that the system was ready to launch, the system was launched, and there was no further identification of anybody else who needed to give that approval.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Do you believe those three executives believed it was ready to launch?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I certainly don't believe that anybody would have launched this system if they really knew the mess it was going to end up being. I think they should have identified and known the size of that problem, with the issues that were known to them.
But, again, there would be nothing to indicate that they intentionally did that. I think if they had the hindsight to know what was going to happen, they would not have made the decision to launch the system. But, again, that's looking at it in hindsight.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The public service has about 270,000 employees and several thousand executives. It is a massive organization, the biggest employer in Canada. Yes, problems are natural because of the huge numbers involved. Projects do fail.
Coming to Phoenix, fundamentally we can relate two issues that caused this problem, and this was executed by three people. First, the project went ahead with just $155 million, against the requirement of $274 million. When you start a project this way, there is no way the project can come out as a success. Second, hundreds of compensation advisers were fired before the new system was fully functional and implemented.
These are the two fundamental reasons, I believe, that led to the massive failure of this project. How many people were responsible? Three, maybe four, and maybe an additional deputy minister.
If this project failed basically due to three executives, and maybe one more, and due to two fundamental reasons, is it fair to tar the entire public service in the same manner?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
My comments are not about the public servants themselves. My comments are about the fact that I believe there is a culture problem that contributed to this. Again, yes, I agree with you on the two fundamental decision points that were the most obvious, that people could have identified that this was not going to work.
Yes, we talk about the senior executives, but the cultural problem, again, was that there was no oversight. There were other people who were aware of the problem. Again, the Treasury Board Secretariat decided to commission the Gartner report. There were departments that were saying this was not ready to work. The department originally planned to do four internal audits, and didn't do them. All of those things meant that there were other places where this problem could have been identified, but it wasn't. So I don't think you can just say that it was isolated to only two issues and three people.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Okay, I got it.
The Canadian public service is considered to be the best in the world, or if not the best, at least one of the top two or three best public services in the world. How can it be the best in the world if we say it's broken?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Again, it isn't the public service that I'm trying to say is broken. It's that we are making them operate in a culture that can cause these types of incomprehensible failures. I certainly believe that our civil servants—the people who work here—are second to none, but we also have to realize that something like Phoenix is going to tarnish that reputation.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
You mentioned that there have been frequent changes at the deputy minister level. In regard to Phoenix, we have found that there were three deputy ministers in a span of seven years. I'm talking from memory here, but I believe the Clerk of the Privy Council said that the median term of a deputy minister is about five years. Do you have data to say that in general there are frequent changes in deputy ministers?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Again, what I said in the message is that I think the short tenure of deputy ministers contributes to these types of problems. Yes, you can look at an average, but an average can cover up a lot of issues, but when you look at Public Services and Procurement Canada now, with the current deputy, that means there have been four deputies in, let's say, a seven-, eight-, or even extend it out to a 10-year period. It's a short period of time. The deputy minister who was in place at the time of the decision had only been in that position for one year.
Yes, we can use averages to say, “Well, look, the problem isn't as big as he's saying”, but the problem is significant when you look at that department. You had both the Secretary of the Treasury Board and the deputy minister of PSPC here the other day, and both of them were saying, and rightly so, that they weren't there when the problem happened.
If I look at the last four auditors general, for example, that goes back through my predecessor, Sheila Fraser. Before her it was Denis Desautels, and before him it was Ken Dye. Four people take you back 40 years.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
I think our time is up. I've spoken to some of our vice-chairs, and we want to leave a few minutes for committee business so that we can plan how we will draft a report from what we've heard.
Again, I thank you for coming and wish you a very good summer.
Madam Mendès mentioned that she has received letters or Facebook messages from public servants. I can tell you that since we started doing this, we have also been receiving letters from good public servants, unquestionably, who also recognize that there is a culture that needs to be repaired.
I like the way you formatted it, that this is not at all an attack on our public servants. This is the place where they work and the culture in which they operate, and we need to ask how we can help improve that culture. From some of what we've been hearing, I can tell you that the public servants are the ones cheering us on and saying that we can indeed improve it.
You have been honourable in your reports to Parliament in your audits, and I am hoping that through this committee and through government ops and other committees, it can be addressed.
We thank you for your attendance here today. We will now suspend for a few moments and ask people to leave, because this will go in camera and we will discuss drafting a report.
Thank you, and we'll suspend.
[Proceedings continue in camera]