Okay.
Evidence of meeting #113 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cbsa.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #113 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cbsa.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
I can add a bit of—
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I get the impression that people don't want to go too far down the road of being critical of the procurement process, and I don't want to press you, but it seems like a clear problem to me that big companies, names that Canadians recognize, didn't even think to bid on this critical project, yet we went to GC Strategies and to Dalian, to these two-person shops that did no work and subcontracted it, with all of the attendant problems.
4:50 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
I'd be happy to share a couple of quick things for your consideration and the consideration of this committee.
AWS would not have been in a contract like this as it is not the kind of work that we do; however, there are two factors that I think the committee may want to take note of. One is the continued underinvestment in improving the digital skills of the public service. That is a long-term systemic problem. Whether or not public servants could build this could be part of the answer, but, in addition, you also don't have procurement officials who understand how to procure these systems properly, design the projects and manage the projects. It's not just hiring builders; it's also hiring a public service and building a public service that has far stronger digital skills than you have today.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Yes, and just to comment on that, the government's position seems to have been that they're not capable of performing a general contracting function for going out and finding the talent to build an app, which is why they contracted to companies that then subcontracted most of the work.
It's clearly a broken system that the government put it out to companies that simply went on LinkedIn. They found people and subcontracted it. I don't know if it's interference or if it's a lack of digital skills or something else, but clearly the system is badly broken.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you, Mr. Genuis. That is your time.
Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor for five minutes, please.
April 9th, 2024 / 4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I thank the witnesses for being here today.
With regard to that theme, I appreciate, Ms. Foster, your comments regarding the civil service and that there's clearly a lack of capacity there. It's a long-standing problem that has been exacerbated at different points by the cutting of the civil service and certainly alienating people who could contribute to the expertise in this area. I appreciate that, and I think that's probably something that this committee is going to be recommending in the future. I've seen it in other committees, but it's definitely something to be recommended.
I can say that I have a son working for Amazon, and I'd love to bring him back from Seattle to work here in Canada.
Let's go back to the questions that were being asked earlier about the AWS platform. Can you talk to us, Mr. Markou, about the cybersecurity aspects of the AWS platform?
4:55 p.m.
Head of Professional Services, Canada Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
Specific to our work on ArriveCAN, a significant component of it related to security. Security, in the case of the federal government, is defined by the government in terms of the security controls, guardrails, authority to operate and audit criteria. Our work was to configure AWS to comply with all of those regulations and to ensure that CBSA was able to pass those audit checks and requirements throughout the whole process.
As part of our engagement, a minimum of 15% of anything we do we is dictated as being security-related. In this case, it was a far higher ratio than that, just given that we were configuring systems to contain things like vaccine credentials, passport credentials, personal identification, automated purging and destruction of data, and a post-retention period. I would say that the bulk of our work was related to security to meet Government of Canada requirements.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Thank you very much for reminding us that, indeed, it was during a period of high emergency, a critical period. No one knew what was going to happen next as far as the health crisis, the pandemic preparedness and so on. That's why the expertise that your companies were able to provide was critical for us.
4:55 p.m.
Head of Professional Services, Canada Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
Thank you.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
That being said, we are where we are today because there was the Auditor General's report and the grave concerns that she had with regard to the value for money. Well, it was not so much about the value for money because it's an enduring application, but it was certainly about the lack of documentation around the contracting and subcontracting that went on.
Have any of you spoken to the RCMP regarding the ArriveCAN app?
4:55 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
No, we have not been contacted.
4:55 p.m.
Head of Professional Services, Canada Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
I have not been contacted.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
That's excellent.
Have any of you spoken to anyone else looking at the issue, like the Auditor General?
4:55 p.m.
Head of Professional Services, Canada Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
No, I have not.
4:55 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
The Auditor General did reach out to us to verify the number in her report. That is the extent of our communication with the Auditor General.
4:55 p.m.
Managing Partner, Markets & Industry, BDO Canada
We received advance notice from the Auditor General that we would be named in the report. We received advance notice from the ombudsman about the ombudsman's report as well. That was the extent of communication.
4:55 p.m.
Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada Inc.
We received advance notice from the Auditor General that we would be named in the report, and we were given the dollar value.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
That's very good. Thank you for that.
If you're asked, will you co-operate with the ongoing investigations into the ArriveCAN application?
4:55 p.m.
Director, Global Artificial Intelligence and Canada Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
We've continued to co-operate with all inquiries.