Government Operations committee  I said there were three...I have no issue with using Shared Services Canada as a service. I believe that Statistics Canada needs to have meaningful control over its informatics infrastructure. It needs to be able to make the decision that it requires a piece of infrastructure to

Government Operations committee  Statistics Canada will struggle to get things done, one way or the other, no matter what the impediments are. We've never yet come to a point where we were simply unable to find a solution, even though it cost us more money, delayed major projects, and idled project teams. All of

Government Operations committee  The one major piece was with respect to the dissemination, the website infrastructure that was required. I met very early with Liseanne Forand, and again with Ron Parker after he was appointed, to say that the census was a mission-critical project for the Government of Canada. It

Government Operations committee  Two days before my resignation, I received a letter from the Prime Minister reiterating his commitment to the independence of Statistics Canada, and it really didn't go any further than that. The Clerk of the Privy Council wrote me a letter essentially stating his disagreement wi

Government Operations committee  He wrote back indicating that he disagreed with the arguments I was advancing in the letter.

Government Operations committee  The only specific in it, which provoked me to respond, was a claim that Shared Services Canada had fully and properly supported the 2016 census of population—which really wasn't true—to which I responded. On the other points, I simply said we'll have to agree to disagree.

Government Operations committee  The census one was not Shared Services Canada's fault, nor actually was it Statistics Canada's. It resulted from a bug in the commercial database software, which brought the website down. The website, after we turned it on initially, was operating very slowly. We determined tha

Government Operations committee  If you look at the governance arrangements for Shared Services Canada, nothing actually establishes any obligation on the part of Shared Services Canada to provide any specific service or volume of service to Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada transferred its resources and wa

Government Operations committee  A group was set up. It was specifically not to deal with those strategic issues. They were set aside. It was to deal with immediate operational crises, essentially, to find solutions that would allow, for example, the census to go forward and meet its full commitments and that wo

Government Operations committee  Absolutely not. Well, the census was generally a success, but there was one major project in which we had made commitments to improve the web service of Statistics Canada in time for the 2016 census. Because of repeated failures to deliver in a timely way on the infrastructure ne

Government Operations committee  It was a letter. It was written and sent at the beginning of August.

Government Operations committee  I did.

Government Operations committee  What I stated are the points that I made in my introductory comments. I said that the relationship between Shared Services Canada and Statistics Canada was inconsistent with the internationally recognized principle of official independence of national statistical offices, which t

Government Operations committee  The question was in what way is Statistics Canada unique, and how does independence have an impact on whether Statistics Canada should or should not be part of the Shared Services Canada initiative? The notion of independence for national statistics offices is established intern

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have a very brief opening statement just to establish what I might be able to contribute to the work of the committee. On August 3, 2016, as chief statistician of Canada, I wrote to the Prime Minister to inform him of three major concerns