Government Operations committee  I would just like to correct the record that we did act in June.

Government Operations committee  We did actually react before July. In June, we announced the setting up of satellite offices. The first satellite office I believe was set up on July 4, or July 1, and we had to recruit. In July, it was not easy to recruit old compensation advisers who had been let go. Bringing

Government Operations committee  I can assure you that all future major projects are looked at differently. We look at the governance. We spend more time at the beginning of a project than we ever did before, to make sure that it is set up properly. We know people change. It has to be set up so that no matter w

Government Operations committee  If we look at the comparison with shipbuilding, it is also a major, complex project, but that's where the comparison ends. On shipbuilding, we have governance at several levels, including minister, deputy ministers, ADMs, and DGs, and we have three departments—

Government Operations committee  I have to get back to you on that specific point, but I can assure you that in the case of shipbuilding, there are at least three departments involved on each decision, and central agencies are on board. A program such as shipbuilding is again a very long-term program, and cost a

Government Operations committee  I will tell you again, at the beginning of the project, we spend a lot of time setting the governance and the oversight properly, and then making sure that the leadership is engaged on the large projects.

Government Operations committee  There are a couple of very significant differences between Queensland and us. One was raised. It's not the same size. It's not the same scope. They did not let people go, so they started with a full contingency of people and started adding right away. Also, in my understanding o

Government Operations committee  Unfortunately, we are not in a position to answer that, because neither Mr. Linklater nor I were there at the time.

Government Operations committee  You raise a very important point. As I said at the beginning, there were in fact two projects at the outset; the purpose of one was to modernize the system used by 101 departments and federal organizations, and the other was a consolidation project. A comparison with Australia,

Government Operations committee  There was actually a small number of executives working on the Phoenix implementation. When I look back, that shows how we underestimated the whole project. There were two senior executives who reported directly to the DM and had the overall decision-making authority. Those execu

Government Operations committee  One is still with the government; the other one is not.

Government Operations committee  The first thing is that it has to come from the top. It's about what we say but also walking the talk. You can ask my colleagues. You can ask our employees. I absolutely promote an environment in which we have discussions. At every meeting, whether it's my management meeting...we

Government Operations committee  There are three things. First of all, we will make sure that whatever policy directives are in place will be totally respected. We're doing a lot of work in response to the Auditor General's report in terms of identifying if a project is a government-wide project. Once we know it

Government Operations committee  As we said, at the time, we had all underestimated the complexity of this project. We should very clearly have defined the involvement, role and responsibilities of everyone concerned right from the outset. This became very clear with the Goss Gilroy Inc. report. Today, Mr. Link

Government Operations committee  I think we have to admit that we have been in catch-up mode from the beginning of the implementation of Phoenix. If we could start over, everyone's roles and responsibilities would be made very clear, as well as the nature of the data. We are more hopeful; the departments are inc