Government Operations committee  I think you're talking about the funds in Budget 2016. These funds have been allocated to strengthen the Government of Canada's network perimeter and its ability to analyze the vulnerability of IT systems. Another initiative is anticipated, namely, investments in identity managem

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I think we'll have to look at a number of factors when studying the thresholds. At the heart of it, you want to get to the risk associated with the acquisition of those goods and services. Monetary thresholds are one kind of indirect proxy for assessing that, but not t

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, for us the efficiency issues arise through.... Because it is centralized, all the orders come in to a pretty small group of individuals and team members to deal with. They cannot deal with that volume of transactions on as a timely a basis as when it would be on a dist

Government Operations committee  Mr. Duplantie will take the question, Mr. Chair.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, it may be the case—for example in remote locations within Canada—that Shared Services may not have feet on the ground to provide the service that a partner would require. That's another type of example we would look at.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, the special circumstances around the House of Commons—Parliament, the agents of Parliament, and the judiciary—revolve more around the separation of the levels of government than the responsibilities. That's quite a different situation. In terms of a department, the in

Government Operations committee  The intent is to provide the scope for the minister to come to judgments in truly exceptional circumstances. For me the suggestions around Statistics Canada are the normal course of business.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, to me this is a practical acknowledgement of the needs of our customers and a spot where we can improve the efficiency of delivery to our customers. It's not at all intended to take away from the enterprise approach but to address the circumstances in which the enterpr

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, thanks for the question. There absolutely are, and that's part of establishing the framework that we need to have in place. We need to look at the grouping of the various commodities to assess the scope for the discounting associated with bulk buys. That's one factor

Government Operations committee  I'm going to check with Mr. Duplantie. I'm not 100% sure on that one, Mr. Chair.

Government Operations committee  I think the starting point we have is the model that Public Services and Procurement Canada had when they were responsible for these procurements. I don't know if every single department has the delegated authority, but to me it makes sense to have an approach or a framework that

Government Operations committee  That would be the model that I would expect.

Government Operations committee  I expect this to be a conversation with the departments. There will be a standard set of goods and services—for example, keyboards, mice, USB keys, and printers—that would apply to the departments and that we would suggest to them and have a discussion around. There might be othe

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  They will use the standing offer supply arrangements available to them and access the vendors directly; they will not need to go through SSC to execute on the acquisition itself.