Evidence of meeting #5 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 transformation.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you.
If I may, Mr. Chair, I'll share the rest of my time with Mr. Chandra Arya.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Thank you.
As the MP for Nepean, which is in Ottawa, I know a bit about Shared Services Canada, because I keep hearing about it from my constituents. Some are union leaders. Some are employees. Some are contractors. Trust me, this is the single biggest disaster as far as they're concerned.
I know you're new and one of the understatements you made is that the complexity of the challenges has caused some delays, and some procurements are taking longer than planned. You also said that the capacity of industry to meet your requirements varies, and that you have important funding pressures arising. This is after four or five years of being under implementation.
Now in 2016 you want to have a conversation about what is called the pace of implementation, the transformation and schedule, and the cost of the plan.
Mr. Messina, you say your strategic plan will be ready at the end of March. Was there not a strategic plan before Shared Services Canada was established?
9:10 a.m.
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
There was no official version of a strategic plan in place. There was a draft version that had been circulated, and it was around in 2013. The strategic plan was not in place before.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
You have wasted billions of dollars. How many billions of dollars have we spent until now?
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
How many billions of dollars have we spent until now? We implemented Shared Services Canada without a strategic plan.
9:10 a.m.
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
I can answer that in general. The Shared Services Canada budget was about $2 billion per year. The government spends about $5 billion in IT every year, but I don't know exactly how much was spent in terms of the context of your question.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
No. From my conversations with my constituents, it appears as though the Auditor General submitted a report in 2010 and 2011. Somebody saw a folder lying somewhere, and they said, “Oh, yes, this is a good idea. It will give us good media coverage. Let's implement it without a strategic plan.”
I know, Mr. Parker, you are new here, but the things I hear are bad. I was told that one guy was recently recruited without an interview, just based on his resumé. He walked in there and nobody told him what was expected of him.
9:10 a.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
I think in terms of the priorities, the priorities for Shared Services Canada were laid out at the outset to bring 63 email systems down to one, to bring 50 networks down to one consolidated network, and to rationalize the data centres across Canada.
The mission has been clear.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Mr. Parker, I understand. The priorities are a very simple, eye-catching thing—consolidate everything—but the implementation went ahead without a plan.
9:10 a.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
Shared Services was stood up in 2011. Initially it took until about the fall of 2013 to develop the plan. Since that time, the focus has been on the implementation of the plan.
That's the context for the Auditor General's review as well. Effectively it was in the second year of a seven-year plan at the outset, and that's why it's beneficial to have the Auditor General's observations at this juncture.
We have the time to make course corrections, take those comments on board, and make the improvements that are necessary to achieve the mission with Shared Services.
It's a complex task. It's a difficult task. You understand that.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
I absolutely understand that it's a complex task. That's the good reason this should have been considered before we went ahead and started spending money on this.
Now, I don't know. Will it make sense to shut down everything and restart the whole process?
9:15 a.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
Personally, I don't think that would be a very good plan.
We have the opportunity at this juncture to take stock. We take stock regularly and make course corrections. As I said, we're going to listen to a lot of people. We're looking at the assumptions underlying the original plan, checking them against the reality, and incorporating those revisions into a plan.
We'll be bringing that out in the fall of this year and subjecting it to public scrutiny and discussion. I think that's the way you build the robust plan.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much.
Let's make sure as a committee here that we have our cellphones off and also try to direct our questions through the chair and then likewise on the answers.
Mr. Poilievre, please. You have seven minutes.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
In paragraph 4.26 the Auditor General found, “A service catalogue is a central source of information about the IT services delivered by a service provider, including pricing.”
Can Mr. Parker explain how pricing is determined, and who pays the price for a given service provided to a client within the system?
9:15 a.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
Absolutely. I'll make a few remarks and then ask Madame Fillion to explain the methodology that's being put in place.
The pricing methodology is going to be based fundamentally off of the core level of service provided at the time that Shared Services was stood up, with the base appropriation that Shared Services received. Beyond that, we're looking for pricing to be based on new incremental types of services, growth in demand, those types of variables.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Sorry. I think you're missing my question.
Let's say Shared Services provides networking services A, B, C to client number one. Does client number one actually pay for those services, or does it come out of the allocation to Shared Services Canada?
9:15 a.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
Mr. Chair, the answer is that if client X received A, B, C at the time Shared Services was stood up, then client X continues to receive A, B, C out of our appropriation.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Out of your appropriation. Then it no longer comes out of the appropriation of the department—
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
—because prior to Shared Services, every department paid for its own IT. Now the cost is transferred to a central budget, presumably passed in the estimates allocated to Treasury Board Secretariat. Is that correct?
9:15 a.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
Mr. Chair, the initial appropriation for Shared Services Canada—
9:15 a.m.
President, Shared Services Canada
The ongoing appropriation is approved every year.