Evidence of meeting #35 for Public Accounts in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Mr. Chair, she's doing indirectly what you said we can't do directly. Generally speaking, that's not allowed in the House.
Conservative
Liberal
Kristina Tesser Derksen Liberal Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's certainly not my intention to annoy or irritate my honourable colleague, whom I respect very much. I think, though, it's genuinely interesting what this article talks about.
I was talking about Mr. Groen being quoted in the article. Mr. Groen said that there was one old age security legacy system, but there were “interfaces with lots of other systems as well," so one would need to shift from a different screen to a different screen.
Many of us work in front of technology. We all have it in front of us right now. You have one document on one screen, but you want to pull up another document and you want to reference the two, so you have two screens in front of you that you're trying to shift through. It sounds to me like that it's not very intuitive and quite cumbersome and time consuming.
The programming language this article discussed, COBOL, was devised for mainframes going way back. I'm not going to talk about all that because it's going back to 1959. It was already something called an “occult tongue”. Again, my lack of IT knowledge is showing. I apologize.
Liberal
Kristina Tesser Derksen Liberal Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON
Thank you. I'll pass it along to Mr. McKinnon in a minute.
We all remember Y2K. That bug was referenced in this article as well. It says, “institutions with older computers panicked about [that] in the late 1990s. Canada wasn't alone in running into [this technology] wall when the pandemic hit older social-welfare computer systems in 2020.”
The pandemic seems to make an appearance in all of these cases.
Getting back to pensions and unemployment benefits, the article notes that these are “among many federal services delivered with computer systems held together by masking tape and chanting”. In other words, some of this stuff has been “forgotten”.
Antiquated knowledge is problematic because, once again, it's delaying the delivery of the service to the people who need it the most. As Mr. Lemire has said repeatedly, seniors in Quebec and all across Canada have found delays in the payments of their benefits.
The article says, “The previous attempt to update the OAS system would have seen it integrated into the Canada Pension Plan system, which [was a] more youthful [system] but still old enough to vote. Efforts to migrate millions of data points about OAS recipients”—who are at the heart of what we're discussing today—“and their payment histories ended in failure,” according to Mr. Groen, “because the pension system couldn't handle it.”
It continues, “The obsolescence of [those] critical systems became a crisis when the economy crashed”, and I'm not going to take us through that debacle. “The result was the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, the CERB, which bypassed the mess because it was delivered largely through the more modern income-tax system.”
Therefore, we have an example of one more modern system that was using more recent technology—more user-friendly, more accessible—that was delivered successfully. However, these very crucial benefits that should have been going to seniors and folks on EI were being delayed because the technology was held together by what the article calls “masking tape and chanting”.
I'll go back to Ms. Charette's memo from May 2022, which my friend wants produced. The article referenced that the memo “told the prime minister [of the time] that with benefits-delivery modernization in disarray, there was 'an upcoming decision regarding leadership for [the] project.'” That's public knowledge in the article.
The article goes on to say that the decision was to turn to the person the government put in charge of CERB back in 2020: Cliff Groen. Cliff Groen, whom I mentioned in my motion that failed, became the person in charge of this. At the time, the article states that Mr. Groen was working alongside a “technical lead”—John Ostrander—who brought the information technology knowledge to the issue.
The article goes on to say, “Before the CERB assignment, [Mr.] Groen had had increasingly senior jobs at Service Canada starting [back] in 2006.” I think I recall this. It's important to talk about Mr. Groen because I mentioned him in my motion, and he could end up coming before this committee.
Mr. Groen was even quoted in this article. He said, “I have really extensive experience and knowledge of these programs”. Those were programs the government was trying to put in place at the time. He added that his experience and knowledge was “probably more than anyone [else] at the senior level”. We're talking about someone who has extensive knowledge and expertise.
The article questioned whether that was a strength, and said it would depend on whom you ask. The article stated another person's opinion. A senior vice-president of government relations and policy for a tech lobby group called Technation argued that there would be “no reason why people who are [really] familiar with particular programs would be the best people to replace the computers that run them.” There's a presumption there that it might not actually result in the outcome that the program anticipated.
Their opinion was, for example, “If ESDC is mandated to deliver the service, then they are the subject-matter expert,” but “They're not necessarily the expert at managing that project, nor should they be.”
It goes on to say, “ESDC's programs are big...but the Canadian government is not the first to overhaul the way it delivers large social benefits.” The article does point out some comparable examples.
I'm a big fan of comparing what we do in Canada with what other nations may have done. Of course, we always have to put a specific Canadian lens on everything we do because we are a unique country, with citizens who have expectations that might be different from those in other, comparator nations. I still think it's a good idea to make comparisons in order to see how other people are doing things successfully, so we compare against them.
The article I read—I'm summarizing here—thought the same thing. One senior adviser who was interviewed “pointed out that the Ukrainian government has rapidly expanded an app”—we all use apps on our phones, as they're quite handy—“for its citizens to access documents and services since the Russian invasion in February 2022.” You have, here, something that was calamitous for the people of Ukraine. Times were very tough, and still are. At the time of the Russian invasion in 2022, they were able to use an app that expanded their ability to access government services. This is in a time of war. I think that's really intriguing and quite inspiring.
At the end of 2021, there were 15 digital documents and 12 services in that app. The article notes, “The additions have included tools for reporting the destruction of your home and seeking government support as a result, and for finding internally displaced people.” There's also a chatbot the app uses. It “takes information on the movements of Russian forces.” It's really incredible how, even at a time of military conflict, we are utilizing technology to keep people safe and to make it as convenient as possible for them to make sure the government knows what it is they need.
This senior adviser said, regarding the Ukrainian example, that all of this was outsourced: “It was all done by industry, in concert with the subject-matter experts”, who are really important and “know how they need the service to be delivered to Ukrainian citizens.” This is very important.
I mentioned we have to look at everything through a uniquely Canadian lens because our needs are different. The article notes, “The Canadian government's plans include [lots of] outsourcing.”
I'm wrapping up the summary here, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the indulgence.
In August 2022—this is referenced in the article—“ESDC announced it had hired Deloitte”, which was a Technation member. You may remember that, earlier on, I mentioned Technation occupying a large space within technology consulting to handle the onboarding of the old age security system. “This contract alone”, at the time of the article's writing, was “worth nearly $194 million.” That's a “monster” contract, especially “by IT-world standards.” The article mentions the senior adviser saying that they heard from one of their members that “if you were a commercial company, in most cases you would not undertake a project more than $10 million at a time, simply because of the risk for both sides”.
The article notes, “OAS is a monster program, delivering more than $60 billion a year to seven million people.” This is a tremendous program, and it affects the lives of many Canadians.
The article says the modernized benefits system is being built on a private sector platform called Cúram. I'm sure my friend Mr. Lemire is very familiar with this. He has brought it up before. Again, it informs his motion to a great extent. The article explains that “It's formerly an IBM product, but was part of IBM's spinout of health-related offerings in 2022.” At the time of the article's writing, Cúram belonged to a company called Merative, which was owned by a U.S. private equity firm called Francisco Partners. It notes, “IBM worked on Phoenix, as well, albeit as contractors customizing software that came from Oracle.”
We're getting a sense, in this article, of the web of hands involved in the development of this technology and in the rollout of these systems
I mentioned Mr. Cliff Groen in my initial motion. This is what the article says:
Groen knows about Phoenix.
“The root issues and causes of the Phoenix problems are very complex and I don't think it'd be fair and appropriate to lay that at the feet of just the technology solution,” he said.
Anyway, Curam is unrelated to the PeopleSoft software underlying Phoenix.... [At the time of this article], Curam [was] working successfully in 19 other jurisdictions, and the government has learned from the project management failures that led to the Phoenix catastrophe....
These are the words of Mr. Groen.
Cúram is, though, the software that the Ontario provincial government had chosen for an overhaul of its social benefits programs in the early 2000s, and that had gone badly—I will note. There was a provincial politician at the time, who was—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Ms. Tesser, pardon me. You still have the floor. I'm going to just nudge you back to relevance on the amendment.
Liberal
Kristina Tesser Derksen Liberal Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON
Okay. Thank you. It was a long article, Mr. Chair, and I'm trying to give a fair summary here.
I'll talk quickly about the key lesson from Phoenix. Mr. Groen had said that there was a “need for clear and narrow accountability paired with high-level involvement from other affected departments” and that we had to move forward in small steps. There's a bureaucracy involved here, and small steps ultimately mean more time is being eaten up, again, in the delivery of these services to people who need them most.
Ultimately, accountability for the program rested with Mr. Groen within the bureaucracy. He said that himself in this article. There were other departments that were “closely involved” but “deciding whether to push the button or wait” was not a group decision; it was his.
Groen said that unlike with Phoenix, there was not meant to be any “big bang”, when the old system would be turned off and everybody would start using the new one, “Not even for the first tranche of work” in the old age security system.
The article says, compared to Canada pensions and EI, old age security is “a simple benefits program”. In general, when you reach the age of 65, you get monthly payments for the rest of your life. I know this, Mr. Chair, because my parents are both well over the age of 65, and until my father's death just last February, he was collecting old age security; my mother continues to. They rely on it very heavily.
However, even old age security was “being sliced into thin pieces for the changeover.” In June 2022, Mr. Groen said that they were “going to start by using the new system to process applications from people who get OAS-like benefits from certain other countries, with which Canada has agreements to coordinate coverage.” We have agreements with a number of countries to coordinate coverage.
If that slice were to work, then in the spring of 2024, the plan had been that Service Canada would “start testing the new system for all OAS applications.” Mr. Groen went on to say that essentially he'd be taking “a swivel-chair approach, in which clients’ applications will be received, and then our agents will process those applications both in the new system, but also in the old system”. That may seem counterintuitive to efficiency, but he was the expert at the time. If that were to work, “the real changeover” would have happened in December 2024.
The article says that the old OAS system, those COBOL things we were referring to, would remain as a backup.
Mr. Groen said in this article that they were not going to be turning off the old system “until the entire program is successfully delivered and proven and it operates”. They had rollback plans that hopefully would never be needed, but if they did need to use them, they could “roll back onto the existing system.”
At the time of the writing of the article, the federal budget of the day appeared to give Mr. Groen's efforts a vote of confidence. It had boosted ESDC's funding by almost $124 million, if I'm not mistaken, and that was to be “over seven years to finish the job” with the old age security. That would be before taking on the Canada pension plan and then EI after that.
Mr. Groen was quoted as saying that the systems were working “adequately” at that time. However, he did acknowledge that they were “fragile”, that they would “only get worse without action” and that he could “not accept any risk of failure in the delivery” of those programs to Canadians.
That was my impression of the article, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate your giving me the time to summarize it, because it gives me a more fulsome understanding of the historical context in which we are working. I thank my friend, Mr. Lemire, for bringing it up, because it summarizes what happened in years previous. I know there were serious concerns with the Phoenix system, and that was referenced at length within this article as well.
It's interesting to take that historical perspective and compare it against what we are dealing with now. Hindsight is 20/20, and of course if folks at the time had had a crystal ball, they might have graded themselves with an “A” in the anticipated trajectory of the program. As it was said in the article numerous times, failure was not an option, because any failure, delay or setback in the changeover of the system would ultimately be borne by real living people. We're not talking about numbers and statistics. We're talking about real people, like my mom and dad, who were collecting and relying on their old age security benefits.
The article really brings to bear—as I called it in the last meeting—the “noble” intention of my colleague, Mr. Lemire, in bringing this motion forward to address the needs of the recipients of these benefits.
Many of us around this table.... Let's be honest, we're all paid very well for the work we do. I don't think many of us have to worry about not being able to afford groceries on our next trip to the grocery store. Not many of us need to worry about being able to afford rent next month or scraping together payments for medications and things like that. There are people who do. There are a lot of people who do. Although there are many steps we are taking to ensure that they are taken care of and they're not falling through the cracks, something as basic as being able to count on their old age security each month is absolutely crucial to their ability to plan.
Particularly in the case of seniors who really value their independence and their ability to budget effectively and have certainty, that certainty gives them the ability to be more independent in their daily lives. Something that we or someone might consider to be a hiccup in the delay of delivery of these services can be absolutely catastrophic to folks who are in vulnerable positions and who are living sometimes day to day, or month to month, and rely on this money to come into their account in a timely manner.
I will end this segment of my discussion by going back to where I started, which was saying that I commend my colleague for his concern. I commend him for bringing the issue forward. I also commend him for his willingness and his capacity to work with us on the numerous amendments that we're bringing forward.
However, underpinning all of that, Mr. Chair, is the fact I keep coming back to: If we're going to get real work done on this committee, we have to be doing it in a realistic way. The motion that was originally presented by our colleague Mr. Lemire was in theory perhaps sensible—
Conservative
Liberal
Kristina Tesser Derksen Liberal Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm sorry. I've lost track of the amendments.
It's a production of documents, essentially, that we are referring to. The third amendment, just for my own purposes, was removing all references to the Privy Council and Prime Minister's Office with a subamendment.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
No, that passed. It's adding “as well as the briefing note prepared by Janice Charette, Clerk of the Privy Council, dated Friday, May 27, 2022, for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau”.
Liberal
Kristina Tesser Derksen Liberal Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON
Of course, Mr. Chair. I apologize.
That is inevitably what led us to talk about the article, which I summarized just a few moments ago.
The article refers to that memo, which I believe is the same memo that Mr. Lemire is referring to. I believe that the article was prepared by the Canadian Press, if I'm not mistaken, which is a reputable news agency, and by a reputable journalist, who had basically summarized the essence of the memo. I summarized a great deal of it in my article—
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.
It was The Logic.
Liberal
Kristina Tesser Derksen Liberal Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON
Thank you very much.
I'm not sure what purpose would be behind requesting the production of the memo if it's already known where the information would lead us. The news services were summarizing it years ago.
I will yield the floor now, Mr. Chair. I wouldn't mind being put back on the list for the next round of speakers, but I will allow other colleagues, if they wish to weigh in on either the article that I've summarized or the purpose of making a request for such a document when it's not likely to bear out.
I know Mr. Lemire has mentioned that he believes the government has something to hide.
Liberal
Kristina Tesser Derksen Liberal Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON
I respectfully disagree. If I felt that there was something to hide, I certainly wouldn't be summarizing on the record an article that was quite critical of the government and actually references the memo that Mr. Lemire had mentioned.
Liberal
Kristina Tesser Derksen Liberal Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON
I don't want to use the word “conspiracy” because that connotes something that might be a little out in left field.
Liberal
Kristina Tesser Derksen Liberal Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON
However, I want to make sure that we are careful when we say that such-and-such has something to hide, because people watching this or who may read a summary of this meeting could potentially be misled. It's certainly not incumbent on me to tell folks what to think about what they're reading about in transcripts, but it is incumbent upon me and, I think, upon all of us to make sure that folks are well informed and are receiving information that's based in reality and on facts.
I would have to respectfully disagree quite strongly with the submission that the government is trying to hide something. The submission that the only way to come to a resolution among all these colleagues around the table is to produce some random document that's already been referenced in news articles.... I'm not sure that's getting us to where we want to be. I think it also risks having us spend a lot of time talking about something that might not necessarily yield something that's useful for all of us.
Again, I said I was going to yield the floor, so I yield the floor, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you.
Just before I turn to Mr. Lemire....
Ms. Khalid, welcome back. I wasn't sure when you came in if you were waving to say hello or if you were waving to speak, so I thought I'd better clarify that.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I was waving to add my name to the list, just in case.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I'm glad I checked. I'd hate to be brought before the Speaker again.
Monsieur Lemire, you have the floor.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I gather from this masterful, almost Castro-worthy demonstration, that it was indeed a very obvious waste of time. Those who respect people's intelligence don't put on that kind of performance, although there was an interesting interpretation that a $900-million contract is a massive contract. Now it's up to $6.6 billion, which is why we're asking for documents and evidence.
For me, the question remains: What does the government have to hide now, since it has clearly been showing that it's in panic mode for several minutes and hours now?
Mr. Chair, I would ask that we move to a vote.
