Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will answer the many aspects of this question. First, I do not have any information with me concerning the business volume on the federal government's request for proposals system. I therefore cannot answer the question, unfortunately. However, I can make a clarification.

Public Accounts committee  We are constantly talking with Ms. Corinne Charette. The chief information officers meet every month. These discussions happen more and more frequently. Has the situation been explained in detail? I believe things will become clearer as we gather information, as Ms. Corinne Charette and Ms. d'Auray said today, in the interest of gaining a better picture of how these pressures affect government as a whole.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very pleased to have this opportunity to appear before this committee with Mr. John Rath-Wilson, Chief Operating Officer, to discuss the Auditor General's report on aging information technology systems and her recommendations. Let me begin by saying that after thorough analysis, PWGSC accepts all of the Auditor General's recommendations related to the management of risk associated with aging information technology systems.

Government Operations committee  Thank you, yes. Again, thank you for the invitation. I think the more we actually spend time understanding the rationale or the vision behind what we are doing, the better informed we're all going to be. The bottom line at the end of the day is that the Government of Canada is a leading country still in information technology.

Government Operations committee  Perfect. No problem.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. When I reflect on the information Madame Corinne Charette has provided, first I want to reiterate the fundamental difference Madame Sheila Fraser stated in terms of the two types of information technology projects. The type of information we have in terms of our targets or our performance indicators....

Government Operations committee  Thank you.

Government Operations committee  That's a very good question. We were getting bombarded with a lot of requests to renew various parts of contracts and to try to help departments to figure out how to modernize their network. HRSDC came to us a couple of years ago. They told us they were in 450 locations across Canada and they wanted to modernize.

Government Operations committee  When we broker a service with a department, we use a financial mechanism called a “revolving fund” for the Government of Canada. There are minimal full-costing policy charges for the contract management.

Government Operations committee  We have a group in Public Works and Government Services Canada called Service Transitions and Major Projects. The group is headed by a director general. We have a number of highly experienced public servants from Public Works in HRSDC coming to help us. We also have third-party contracted professional services to help us with research, putting documents together, and all that.

Government Operations committee  We are using the Government of Canada mechanisms that we have in place today, such as Task-Based Informatics Professional Services (TBIPS), which is a pre-qualified set of 150 to 200 suppliers. We ask for a service and we get the best candidates from there.

Government Operations committee  We have reduced the burn rate and the slow-down of that project until we hit the next milestone, which is beyond the analysis of the feedback from the industry.

Government Operations committee  I don't have those exact numbers with me today. I can definitely forward them to you.

Government Operations committee  Certainly.

Government Operations committee  First of all, a network deployment is usually something that takes up to two or three years. This is something that requires a lot of labour in terms of putting it in place. GENS is not about creating a brand-new network; GENS is about modernizing the aging network components in each department in a timely manner.