Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance
Issue 8 - Evidence - March 4, 2014
OTTAWA, Tuesday, March 4, 2014
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 9:30 a.m. to study the Supplementary Estimates (C) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014.
Senator Joseph A. Day (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, this morning we will continue our study of the Supplementary Estimates (C) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014.
Today will be the final meeting regarding the Supplementary Estimates (C).
[English]
From Shared Services Canada, we welcome Benoît Long, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Transformation, Service Strategy and Design; Peter Bruce, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Projects and Client Relationships; and Micheline Saurette, Director General, Finance and DCFO Services.
Senator L. Smith: What does that mean, chair?
The Chair: Could you help us with that?
Micheline Saurette, Director General, Finance and DCFO Services, Shared Services Canada: Deputy Chief Financial Officer.
The Chair: Of course it is. Once you know, it's so easy.
From Citizenship and Immigration Canada, we welcome Tony Matson, Assistant Deputy Minister/Chief Financial Officer — that's ADMCFO; Catrina Tapley, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy; and Paul Armstrong, Director General, Centralized Processing Region. We'll have to ask you about that in due course.
I understand each department has brief opening remarks. We have set aside approximately an hour; we may go over a little bit, depending on honourable senators' questions and your answers, but the session is roughly an hour. Who would like to begin?
Benoît Long, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Transformation, Service Strategy and Design, Shared Services Canada: I can begin.
Shared Services Canada is pleased to appear before this committee to outline how the Supplementary Estimates (C) appropriations the department is seeking will be put to work for the benefit of Canadians.
[Translation]
I would like to begin by introducing the officials who are with me today: Peter Bruce, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Projects and Client Relationships Branch; and Micheline Saurette, Deputy Chief Financial Officer.
As you know, Shared Services Canada was created to standardize, consolidate and streamline the Government of Canada's information technology, or IT, services to transform the Government of Canada's costly, outdated and often incompatible systems.
[English]
We have been tasked with creating a more modern, reliable, secure and cost-effective IT infrastructure by reducing inefficiencies and duplication and by leveraging economies of scale.
Effective April 2, 2013, SSC was also mandated to centralize the procurement of workplace technology devices. This includes both hardware — printers, laptops and other peripheral devices — and software, such as operating systems and security software. The Government of Canada spends about $660 million annually on hardware, software and support for workplace technology devices. Purchasing is currently managed in a decentralized way, department by department. This leads to duplication of effort, reduced purchasing power and weakened security across government systems.
Through Shared Services Canada's Supplementary Estimates (C) request, we are requesting spending authority up to $102 million for the centralized purchasing of software for the personal workstations of federal employees. This amount represents the appropriation being transferred from other departments to Shared Services Canada, given the new mandate we have been given to centralize procurement related to workplace technology devices. As such, it is funded within the existing fiscal framework, and departmental reference levels are being reduced accordingly. Centralization will result in net savings of $2.08 million as per Budget 2013.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, Shared Services Canada's Supplementary Estimates (C) request includes net transfers of $88.5 million from partnering organizations.
This is made up of $51.6 million in adjustments from the departments and agencies we serve related to the creation of Shared Services Canada. The balance is composed of transfers of $36.9 million from these organizations to provide incremental IT infrastructure services for particular projects and initiatives.
[English]
Let me provide a brief breakdown of both of these amounts. To support costs related to creating Shared Services Canada, we will receive transfers from five departments amounting to $51.6 million. These transfers also include adjustments for items such as telephony and a call centre.
To be precise, we will receive funding from the following departments to replace revenue from the creation of Shared Services Canada: $39.7 million from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, $6.6 million from the Canada Revenue Agency, $5.2 million from National Defence, and $100,000 from Canadian Heritage. As part of Supplementary Estimates (C), Shared Services Canada will also transfer $200,000 to Citizenship and Immigration Canada for connectivity fees for missions abroad.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, the remaining transfer of $36.9 million requested through the Supplementary Estimates (C) will allow Shared Services Canada to provide additional infrastructure services to support our partners' key projects and initiatives.
For example:
Of the $30.9 million being transferred from Canada Border Services Agency, $20.9 million will support the Agency's Infrastructure Platform initiative, which ensures CBSA has a sound information technology infrastructure that houses and protects IT assets, while $10 million is earmarked to enhance its mainframe capacity to support border initiatives.
The $2.7 million in funds being transferred from National Defence will be put towards installing the necessary IT infrastructure at its new Carling Campus Headquarters.
[English]
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will transfer $2.5 million to Shared Services Canada to help implement the Safe Food for Canadians Action Plan to strengthen food safety for Canadians. Finally, the transfer of $800,000 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will be used to advance the Government of Canada's Beyond the Border Initiative for enhanced security around the perimeter while expediting legitimate cross-border trade and travel between our two countries.
[Translation]
The new funds and transfers being requested will strengthen our organization's ability to support Canada's Cyber Security Strategy. They will enable us to establish an IT infrastructure for the Government of Canada that is secure, reliable and centralized.
[English]
We look forward to answering your questions regarding these initiatives or any other aspects of Shared Services Canada's Supplementary Estimates (C) request.
The Chair: Thank you. I want to let honourable senators know that in the English version of Supplementary Estimates (C), I was trying to follow Mr. Long's numbers. They are at page II-47. The reason for the difficulty in following the numbers is that I noticed that, under vote 15c, you've got a number of different departments — this is for operating expenditures for a number of different departments combined together. You were giving the figures separately.
Mr. Long: Yes, because some of these are inflows, outflows and transfers between departments. That's why they are being captured in two different places.
The Chair: National Defence appears in both operating and capital?
Mr. Long: Yes.
The Chair: Once we realize that, we're less confused than we were trying to follow your numbers.
Let's go on now to the next presentation from Mr. Matson.
[Translation]
Tony Matson, Assistant Deputy Minister/Chief Financial Officer, Citizenship and Immigration Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Tony Matson, and I am an Assistant Deputy Minister and the Chief Financial Officer at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
I'm pleased to be here to present our Department's Supplementary Estimates (C) for fiscal year 2013-14.
[English]
I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce my colleagues, Catrina Tapley, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy; and Paul Armstrong, Director General, Centralized Processing Region.
These estimates include new appropriations, transfers to and from other government departments, and statutory adjustments that total a net decrease of $2.3 million. The most significant allocation is $35.5 million in additional funding to meet our obligations under the requirements of the Canada-Québec accord on immigration. As you know, this accord gives the Government of Quebec exclusive responsibility for immigration reception and integration services in return for financial compensation from the Government of Canada.
CIC's supplementary estimates also include an allocation of $3.9 million to support immigration to official language minority communities as part of the Roadmap for Canada's Official Languages. Most of this funding — $2.3 million — will be invested in promotion and recruitment activities in Canada and abroad, primarily through expanding the frequency and number of locations of existing events such as the Destination Canada Job Fair.
Through these successful job fairs we help to connect French-speaking or bilingual skilled workers with employers across Canada. Not only does this help ensure our immigration system is supporting Canada's economic growth, it also helps to sustain and strengthen minority francophone communities across the country.
These estimates include $806,000 worth of write-offs on outstanding immigration loans. CIC issues these loans to individuals and families who wish to immigrate to Canada, have few financial resources and cannot access traditional lending institutions. In accordance with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and regulations, these loans are issued primarily to government-assisted refugees. Recipients can obtain loans for the following reasons: Transportation, admissibility, settlement and the right of permanent residence fee.
Although the global repayment record is 91 per cent for these loans, the figure of $806,000 comprises approximately 1,925 loans that were deemed uncollectible. Treasury Board and parliamentary authority is required for the write-off of immigrant loans when further collection expenses are not justifiable for small outstanding amounts, or when the debt cannot be collected because the debtor cannot be reached, no longer resides in Canada, declares bankruptcy or is deceased.
The final increases in the Supplementary Estimates (C) are transfers of about $300,000 each from Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and Shared Services Canada that are connected to staff realignments at missions abroad.
These supplementary estimates also include a number of funding decreases. More than $20 million will be reduced due to "available authorities," existing funding available from Main Estimates.
The total of these estimates will be reduced by more than $18.5 million through statutory adjustments, mostly thanks to a decrease in the estimated return of application fees.
Also, Citizenship and Immigration is transferring a total of about $4.2 million to Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development for costs associated with the transfer of the International Experience Canada program from DFATD to CIC. As well, CIC is transferring about $100,000 to the Canada Border Services Agency to reimburse for costs associated with the redeployment of CBSA staff at missions abroad in support of our mandate.
The remainder of the items in Citizenship and Immigration Canada's Supplementary Estimates (C) for fiscal year 2013-14 are technical adjustments — internal transfers that result in no net increases or decreases.
As I mentioned at the beginning of my opening remarks, all of these items together represent a net decrease of $2.3 million. As a result, CIC's authorities to date for 2013-14 show an overall decrease to about $1.7 billion.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, I would now be happy to answer any questions you or other committee members may have about any part of these supplementary estimates.
Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll go on to the list of senators who have indicated an interest in posing questions or making comments. Depending on whether the question is common to each of you, you may take an opportunity to answer or it may be directed to one of the departments or the other. I'll begin with the deputy chair of the committee, Senator Smith from Montreal.
Senator L. Smith: Mr. Long, this is more of a macro-question. In terms of the role of Shared Services Canada, would you define what the role is from an operational and strategic perspective? Who makes the decisions on the types of equipment and software going in? Is it you folks, and is it based on the plan that you've made or do you get the information from the department and you just execute? What is the role of shared services so we can have clarity?
Mr. Long: I'm quite happy to answer this one.
The mandate of the department is really to manage the entire IT infrastructure for 43 departments and so, as per our legislation, the president and through the minister, of course, has the legislative authority to establish what that infrastructure would be, and to basically consolidate and standardize that infrastructure across the departments.
Today, or in the past, all of that equipment, all of that work was being done by the department in silos and that level of diversity and complexity was the mandate of the department to reduce and support the achievement of savings, to enhance security, as well as to improve services.
When it comes to the decisions around how and what to buy, as a department we have our own procurement authorities, which means that we can establish the requirements through our partnerships with departments as well as with consultations with the industry. Once we have established the requirements, we launch procurements. Through the procurements, we award contracts. We either buy equipment or services and, through that process, our goal is to simplify and standardize those services across departments.
Senator L. Smith: One of the reasons I'm asking the question is, having worked in industry most of my career, what I always noticed in running businesses is that the IT people would come and say, "We have these systems that are not connected, we have these systems that are dysfunctional." There are all sorts of problems, even after many years of spending big bucks. From a strategic perspective, you're managing 43 departments. That's a huge operation. How do you get the consistency? That leads to this question: What type of measurement system are you using to determine how successful you are in your role?
Mr. Long: These are very good questions. From the perspective of how big it is, there's no question that we are of very significant scale. We are one of the few national governments that have centralized IT infrastructure the way this has been done. The advantages of course are numerous. Like I mentioned, it allows us to set a standard and to fundamentally reduce that level of diversity that used to exist where many types of equipment would be used to do the same type of functions. It allows us to leverage opportunities that exist across departments through leveraging computer equipment in a way that's much more adept for economies of scale, as well as to improve security around what type of equipment we buy but also how we actually manage it. We have some realizations and objectives that we have set out for going forward from a long-term perspective.
In terms of measures, we have been providing the government and meeting objectives the government laid out for us from a savings perspective in the first two or three years that we have been in operation. That includes improving security. This is allowing us, at this point, to manage security across those 43 departments. There used to be no real visibility across these departments about incidents from a system or security perspective and today we have that visibility. We're able to see the entire operations at the infrastructure level for the government, so that gives us significant insight, as well as some metrics around savings or security, as well as services to our partners.
Our goal over time is to be able to measure and continue to monitor the service standards that we deliver our services to, with our partners, to ensure that we meet the highest possible levels of service that we can bring to our partners, as we enable them to support Canadians directly.
Senator Buth: Thank you very much for your opening comments. I'm going to continue along the same lines as Senator Smith.
You made a comment that you are already showing the savings and efficiencies. What are those savings and where could we see those?
Mr. Long: They may not be in the Main Estimates, per se, but I can provide them. If you recall, the government went through a strategic review of various departments, and our contribution, after a couple of months of being in existence, was to provide up to 10 per cent savings immediately. We describe that as basically our ability, at a very early stage, to consolidate contracts, to find efficiencies in how we purchase, what we purchase, and that 10 per cent of our operating budgets were already committed to that in the first few months after we were created.
So that amounted to up to $150 million savings permanently. Since then we've also launched a new service through a contract that we signed with Bell and CGI for email. That's one of our key mandates. Out of that service, we expect to save $50 million permanently, every year forever. As well in Budget 2013, the government committed us to achieving savings in the order of $2.1 million for software consolidation.
As you can imagine, with every department buying their own stuff in their own way, when we start looking at negotiating a contract with a single entity or company, we're able to achieve some savings but also to come up with better contracts, better ways of managing debt. Those are the first three areas of savings we have been able to identify.
Senator Buth: My understanding is that your program is meant to consolidate email, servers and —
Mr. Long: Data centres, yes. And telecommunications services; so that would be the networks and phones.
Senator Buth: You clearly have an idea of what the end point is in terms of that integration. Where are you along that continuum in terms of implementation?
Mr. Long: Initially, after we were created, one of the early requests from the government was to establish a plan, which we have developed, a high-level plan over the next seven years — six and a half now. The idea is basically to move from a situation where we have 485 data centres today, so we are going to move to seven data centres. Over the course of those seven years, we will consolidate all of the equipment as well as the facilities into very few facilities in the future. On the telecommunications side, we have 50 networks across 43 departments today, and our goal is to consolidate all of those networks into a single network. Through the efforts of my colleague, Mr. Bruce, we have consolidated email into a single service; so we went from 63 email services to a single one. We are continuing in that vein.
When it comes to the consolidation of workplace technology devices — desktops, if you wish, which is another area of our mandate now — our expectation is we will be able to centralize and consolidate the procurements, and that's the authority we have been given, and to help the departments to manage that equipment much better.
Those are the objectives that we have laid out. It's going to take us quite a number of years. It's a combination of the complexity as well as the scale.
Senator Buth: My next question relates to writing off of the loans. There are 1,925 loans for a total of $826 million. Over how many years would those loans cover? How long have they been outstanding?
Mr. Matson: My understanding is that the average duration of the loans is approximately four years, but I can get you more precise information. It varies from recipient to recipient, of course, but I think the average is somewhere around four years that a loan is in existence.
We issue approximately 10 to $11 million worth of loans every year, and we actually get paid back approximately the same amount. We have about a 91 per cent repayment rate. Every year we have about $40 million in total outstanding loans at any time, and it's pretty consistent from year to year; and then we typically write off a small amount every year. The amount of $806,000 this year is approximately 2 per cent of the overall outstanding balance.
Senator Buth: You do that on an annual basis, so we would expect to see this?
Mr. Matson: This would be a recurring event. We constantly review the status of our outstanding loans. As with any organization, there are typically a number of loans that are not recoverable, and we recognize that and write those off, with parliamentary authority and approval.
Senator Buth: My other question relates to the Canada-Quebec Accord on immigration, where the federal government is supporting Quebec providing the service specifically for immigration to Quebec. Does the federal government provide that service in other provinces alone or with the provinces?
Mr. Matson: I think I'll defer that question to Catrina.
Catrina Tapley, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Citizenship and Immigration Canada: The short answer to your question, Mr. Chairman, would be no. The Canada-Quebec Accord is unique with the province of Quebec. It has been in existence since 1991, I believe. The accord devolved responsibility for immigration and for settlement for immigrants in the province of Quebec to the province; and the federal government compensates the province based on a formula.
What we see here is the payment from the federal government to Quebec to compensate for those services, and its increase is tied to two factors. It is tied to the overall rate of federal government spending. The second part is tied to the level of non-francophone immigration in Quebec. And so that amount can never decrease. The floor is reset every year, so it rises based on those two factors.
Senator Buth: That's for non-francophone immigration?
Ms. Tapley: That's correct. There was a base amount, and the amount goes up every year depending on those two factors: The overall rate of government spending, and the second is there's a second level to compensate Quebec for the number of non-francophone immigrants that it attracts or brings in.
Senator Buth: Why? What is the rationale behind that?
Ms. Tapley: That's a very good question. As I understand — and this is now reading back through some history on this — it is to provide additional dollars to Quebec to help compensate for the extra expense of non-francophone immigrants.
The idea was the francization of Quebec and to continue to build those communities; so when the Government of Quebec was bringing in immigrants who were not fluent in French that there would be an extra expense because most of the settlement infrastructure for immigrants would be in French.
Senator Buth: Is there a standard here that ensures that what happens to an immigrant coming into Canada is the same in Quebec versus Manitoba?
Ms. Tapley: Thank you, senator, for that question. That answer is a little more complicated. What we've discovered under the accord recently, when we did an evaluation of the accord two years ago, was there was a clause that neither party had used to look at the comparability of services between what was happening in Quebec and what was happening in the rest of Canada.
With the Government of Quebec we have embarked on a study to look at the comparability of services between those two jurisdictions. So the study is nearly complete. I think both parties have discovered a lot about the other services.
But the money is provided to Quebec in the form of a grant, and as such there is no special reporting requirement on the part of the Government of Quebec to report back on how those funds are used.
The Chair: I presume that New Brunswick, being the only officially bilingual province in Canada, gets double compensation so it can train immigrants in both official languages.
Ms. Tapley: Well, there is not a special arrangement outside of the province of Quebec. But under the recently announced Roadmap for Canada's Official Languages 2013-2018: Education, Immigration, Communities, New Brunswick does receive an additional amount to help recognize its special status with regard to the francophone minority.
The Chair: I am pleased to hear that. That may encourage other provinces to become officially bilingual. That would help, too.
Senator Callbeck: Thank you all for being here this morning.
I want to start with Shared Services. First, I have a couple of questions on your comments. You said that, as of April 1, 2013, your mandate is to centralize the procurement of technological devices, and the government spends about $660 million a year on that. How much do you expect in savings from that?
Mr. Long: The assessment has been that we are able to save about $2.1 million this year. Next year, going forward, the expectation is that we will save $8.7 million.
Senator Callbeck: I am asking in particular on that $660 million.
Mr. Long: At Shared Services Canada, when we inherit a mandate like we did in the context of devices, we follow the same path we did when we looked at data centres and networks. We first do a deep-dive of how the government spends the money, and how we are organized to manage and support the software, the hardware and the services that surround those devices. We then come back with a business case to establish what we think we are spending today and how to spend less money over time.
Our goal this year is to complete the business case, present that to the government and then establish the long-term strategy forward for technology devices. We are still in the process of building a plan in order to get to the long-term strategy.
But the government immediately asked us to save money right away by standardizing software, particularly, and that is what we are doing.
Senator Callbeck: But right now you do not have any forecasts on the purchase of that equipment — that $660 million a year — and whether you will be able to save 10, 20 or 25 per cent on that through the purchase power you will have?
Mr. Long: You are right: We do not have a definite plan, but our expectation is that there will be savings. If you look at the current hardware catalog the government uses to purchase those devices that a user would be familiar with, we have dozens and dozens of models of existing equipment that are almost identical. There is some value to some of that diversity, but most of it really needs to be reduced and simplified.
Our experience has been fairly straightforward, and it is not only ours, but that of the provinces and also of federal governments in other countries. When you reduce that diversity, you narrow the scope of services and save money. You will also ensure that services are acceptable, if not improved; and generally they are improved.
Senator Callbeck: I wondered if you had an estimate, but you do not.
Mr. Long: We do not have an estimate.
Senator Callbeck: Okay. You will manage 43 departments, I think you say. How many do you have agreements with now?
Mr. Long: Sorry, it gets complicated. Regarding data centres, telecommunications services and email, we are supporting 43 departments, but in the transfer of the authorities for procurement on workplace technology devices, the government decided to give us the authority over 95 departments. That is 43 plus the smaller agencies and departments that are part of Schedules I, I.1 and II of the Financial Administration Act.
Senator Callbeck: So for these 43 departments, then, how many agreements have you got; how many departments have an agreement with you?
Mr. Long: I would use a different word than "agreement," perhaps. The legislation gives us the full authority to manage all of those services that are provided under our legislation, which means that the departments have no option to use or purchase equipment or services outside of SSC.
That means we do not necessarily have an agreement with them. We have a relationship view between ourselves and our partners about how we do what we do. Generally, though, they are not agreements in the same sense you would expect a vendor or customer relationship to be.
We are mandated; they have no choice. So we work with them to establish the best possible environment and infrastructure they need to support their services to Canadians. In that sense, we do what we do because we inherited all of their operations in that context: the people, the money and the authorities.
Senator Callbeck: So who decides on the amount of money that is going out? I notice in the Supplementary Estimates (C) there were four departments to which money was being transferred.
Mr. Long: When we were created, there was an initial appropriation that was done from every budget of every department. A carve-out took place from those budgets, including the people — as I mentioned, the authorities — but on the financial side, certainly the budgets. That has been our appropriated base since then.
The adjustments you are seeing are simply because it was a complex operation; it is one of the largest machinery-of- government changes ever. So you are seeing echoes, if you wish, of that original creation set. The adjustments are still taking place between departments. It is a cleanup of the original appropriations from two years ago.
In the approximate context of the new mandate that the government gave Shared Services Canada around technology devices, $102 million will be carved out of every department and moved into the base budget of Shared Services Canada.
Senator Callbeck: What is the total amount of money to date that is going to Shared Services?
Mr. Long: I will let my colleague answer that.
Ms. Saurette: At this time we are looking at envelope of around $2 billion after these supplementary estimates, if you factor in the revenue of $321 million. That is the gross. If you are looking at the net without the revenue, we are sitting at $1.7 billion in terms of budgeted appropriations, if you will.
Senator Callbeck: Is that $2 billion or $1.7 billion just from the 43 departments, or does that involve the 95 in the procurement?
Ms. Saurette: The amount appropriated is mostly from those 43 departments. It does contain adjustments, as my colleague Benoit was referring to. The $321 million that we have in revenue is made up from the partners — the 43 departments — for various services for which we would be charging them. It is also composed of other optional services for which we would be invoicing various departments, including partner departments. It gets quite complicated.
You must understand also that the revenue is associated with the original creation of Shared Services Canada. Not only was an amount appropriated to us — so it was a vote transferred through the estimates — but there was also an amount that was deemed to be chargeable to departments in situations such as when we are looking at a portion being attributable to the EI or CPP account for systems and various mandated services that we are providing.
I hope I am not confusing you too much.
Peter Bruce, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Projects and Client Relationships, Shared Services Canada: An example might be helpful in terms of understanding the revenue. The RCMP number is the biggest one in terms of revenues that are coming in. What happens with the RCMP is that they provide support and policing services to municipalities and provinces across the country. For that, they receive revenue. We provide the information and communications technology infrastructure for the RCMP, so part of the revenue they get for providing those police services has to come to us so that we can provide the underlying technology that they need to provide those services.
That is a pretty concrete example of where we would get revenue, and it is actually the largest number in our supplementary estimates.
Senator Callbeck: I think the idea makes a lot of sense, but I'm trying to get a handle on savings here. There's over $2 billion going into this. You talk about a saving this year of $208 million or something like that.
Mr. Long: No. We've already committed almost $208 million to the government in savings. That's about 14 per cent from all the savings and the expenditure that we have on IT. Our experience, as well as the ones in other governments across the world, is that the order of magnitude of what we're trying to do has been in the 15 per cent to 25 per cent range.
Senator Callbeck: Rather than take up more time here, could you provide the committee with a list of the savings in every year, let's say since it was started and over a 10-year period, so we will know exactly each year how much?
Mr. Long: Of course, we'd be happy to do that.
Senator Tkachuk: Thank you, witnesses. I am a little concerned when people say they will be centralizing to save money. The question of procurement is a complicated one for a large organization like the government.
When you say that you will save money on devices like computers, obviously you mean phones, iPads, laptops, all of that, when you centralize that, how will that work? If I'm working in a department somewhere in Saskatoon and I need to buy a computer, I could maybe go down to Future Shop and pick one up with a purchase order. What would I do now?
Mr. Long: The idea behind the department partially was to be able to aggregate. When we buy we can use our purchasing power to negotiate better pricing and better volume discounts with vendors. When I mentioned "centralize" think of it instead of buying a computer at a time, or 10 or 15, we may buy 1,000 all at once. The vendors who are eligible and able to supply us that equipment will get a bigger order, which means, like every other business or every other organization in the world, we can actually get better pricing.
Generally what has happened is we've had a multiplicity of ways of buying. Usually when you buy one at a time, or little bits and pieces at a time, you do not get the best possible deal.
Senator Tkachuk: I want you to help me through the process. When you say you're going to buy 1,000 computers, you don't really mean you're going to buy 1,000 computers and put them in a warehouse somewhere?
Mr. Long: No.
Senator Tkachuk: What exactly do you mean by that?
Mr. Long: I will give you an example of servers. Servers are the computers that go into the data centre. Today we have 52 different supply agreements or ways by which various departments have been able to buy servers. Today Shared Services Canada buys all the servers, but we're still buying them through those 52 different instruments. Our goal is to simplify the number of ways that we buy to maybe 10 ways of buying. Then the number of vendors will actually be qualified. The vendors will actually provide us with the equipment when we say we want to buy servers, for example, instead of buying them every day we'll buy them every three months, perhaps and say, "Well, we'll buy 2,000," because we need 2,000, not because we want to store them.
For the first time ever the government, through us, has visibility on what it needs and when it is needed. That allows us to plan much more smartly and to actually link, if you wish, our need with the supply much more closely.
Senator Tkachuk: I have one more practical example. I need a phone. What is the process for the purchase of that phone? How would you save money on that phone?
Mr. Long: Today some of these purchases are done through the individual departments. We may very well keep some ability by individuals in the department to purchase that equipment if it's a single phone that needs to be fixed or replaced because it broken. Generally, we've been able to look at how we provide people with phones and then create a smarter way.
Senator Tkachuk: I'm working, so how do I get a phone?
Mr. Long: There would be somebody in the department whose job it is to receive your request and they may receive a phone that's already available because we bought 1,000 or 100 yesterday.
Senator Tkachuk: You do buy a whole bunch of phones, then.
Mr. Long: We don't have a whole warehouse of phones.
Senator Tkachuk: No, but you buy them and then the supplier has to deliver that to wherever you want; is that how it works?
Mr. Long: Sometimes it's directly to where it needs to be sent or it will be sent to a contact, or someone in the department who works for us, whose job it is to receive the phone and go and give you the phone. Generally, we establish a process by which a particular phone or a device will be delivered to individuals in the department.
Senator Tkachuk: How do you do it now?
Mr. Long: That's pretty much how we do it now.
Senator Tkachuk: How did you do it before? What happened?
Mr. Long: We basically are doing a similar process to what we have inherited because we haven't had a chance yet to change all of the procurement processes.
Senator Tkachuk: If you're still doing it the same way, what is the new way you're going to do it so that you're going to save all this money?
Mr. Long: The new way is really, as I say, to aggregate, bring together all of the requests in a bigger purchase so we can actually get bigger discounts.
Senator Tkachuk: I'm still a little confused when you've got all these departments and all these people requiring different equipment all at different times. I can see you going to Apple or to Windows or some kind of company and saying, "We're going to buy all your stuff." I think that would be a bad idea because now you don't have any competition. In Saskatoon, David can then go and pick up an Apple computer on authority from a purchase order, or whatever, and he would get a basic price for it. That would make sense to me but I'm not sure if that's what you're trying to do. I don't understand how you're going to save all this money when you don't know the future. You don't know what you're going to do.
Mr. Long: Perhaps I can give you a different example. What you're describing is the case where a single case has to be replaced. I'm trying to explain that we will have a process by which a single phone could be replaced, but we're also looking at how we would actually replace it. We have over 600,000 phone lines in the Government of Canada. We are going to reduce the number of phone lines across the provinces. We will start the project. We will actually convert a lot of the phones to a new type of phone, from analogue to digital, because we have a lot of old phones. Instead of doing one at a time, we will have a program by which we're going to massively change a number of phones, perhaps even 100,000 phones, at which point it gives us a chance to negotiate better pricing for that large-scale deployment.
We're actually talking about two different things. As far as the break and fix, it's the situation where someone needs one phone versus buying a lot of phones and changing a lot of phones. We are a department that can actually do both. That requires us to create projects, at which point we are touching every department in the government.
[Translation]
Senator Bellemare: I have questions about both presentations. I will start with Citizenship and Immigration Canada. On page 221 of the Supplementary Estimates (C), we see that there is a grant for the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.
Thus far, the institute has received no funding. Now, according to the Supplementary Estimates (C), it will receive approximately $1,059,000. Can you tell us about this program?
Mr. Matson: That is a good question, one that I can answer.
[English]
There was an agreement that was reached with the Canadian Institute of Citizenship in 2006, I believe. Essentially, under the agreement the federal government agreed to match dollar-for-dollar funds that were raised by the organization for the delivery of their mandate, essentially promoting citizenship across Canada. Up until next fiscal year, we had earmarked some $10 million that we would provide funding. As long as they generated funding we would match dollar for dollar. We have contributed to that organization over the past number of years as per that agreement.
This year's amount represents our matching obligations to their fundraising efforts this year. We will essentially match what they are able to raise. That will support the delivery of their mandates.
If I recall correctly, of the $10 million that we originally set aside to provide for them up until next year, they would still have some $4.1 million left to access. I believe next year is the last year of the existing agreement.
[Translation]
Senator Bellemare: What is this institute's mandate?
[English]
Mr. Matson: I would like to defer that question to Ms. Tapley.
Ms. Tapley: The Institute for Canadian Citizenship is headed by Her Excellency Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul. This was an institute that the Governor General created when she left office. Their mandate is quite simply to promote Canadian citizenship. They have done a number of things which we feel have been particularly helpful. Recently we did an evaluation on citizenship promotion, which included some of the work of this group, and we are pleased with the efforts there.
First they have run a number of enhanced citizenship ceremonies. They take the time beforehand to come in and set up. They use a number of high-profile Canadian volunteers, and they begin to talk about what it means to be a Canadian citizen and to be able to relate stories of immigrants from before they came to Canada and what it means to be a citizen and to be in the country.
The second part that the former Governor General has been very keen on is getting new Canadians into Canada's cultural institutions and parks. So the institute has been very effective in terms of persuading Parks Canada and a number of other cultural institutions to offer free passes to Canadians for a year. At your citizenship ceremony, you get a cultural pass for a year, and you are encouraged to explore parks, explore our museums and national historic sites. It is free of charge for a year.
The other is that I think Her Excellency has been instrumental in persuading VIA Rail to offer a significant reduction for rail travel for a year as well.
The third part of the mandate of the institution is really to promote the concept of active citizenship. She works heavily with the private sector and has had good fund-raising efforts last year of over $1 million. That has been our matching, and the role, too, of the private sector and the third sector in helping to promote active citizenship for newcomers as well. That, in a nutshell, is the mandate of the organization.
[Translation]
Senator Bellemare: My second question is for Shared Services Canada. Does your agency play a role in delivering services through Service Canada? We know that Shared Services Canada has been able to identify economies of scale in its acquisitions. However, do you play a role in delivering services through Service Canada? If so, what is that role?
Mr. Long: We support Service Canada, as we do all other departments. We manage and provide support for all IT systems. Data centres, which are essentially the locations where all of the servers are grouped together, are now managed by Shared Services Canada. We are responsible for employment systems, pension benefit programs, all of those systems, as well as the infrastructure and the equipment that support those systems.
The departments are still responsible for software and the actual systems that deliver services. We offer support to each department, including Service Canada.
Senator Bellemare: Does having centralized support like employment insurance has, for example improve service for the public? Does it make the service less personalized? Does it make it easier for someone to access a real person as opposed to a machine?
Mr. Long: Service Canada and its agents still provide services directly to the public. We provide services to Service Canada. We do not interact with the public directly and we do not deliver services directly to the public. By making networks more efficient and increasing capacity, we are significantly improving the services that Service Canada can use to deliver its services. We directly impact each department's ability to offer services.
Senator Bellemare: My last question is for both departments, regarding border services. Shared Services Canada is asking for $30 million to support the Infrastructure Platform initiative and to increase mainframe capacity supporting border initiatives. It is all very technical, but will it have an impact on border services?
Mr. Long: Yes, a significant one. Border services need stronger, faster computers. Our role is to ensure that they get those computers, that new equipment, because it will improve the services delivered by the department. In this case, there will be a direct impact.
The Chair: From Manitoba, Senator Chaput.
Senator Chaput: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is a follow-up to those asked by Senator Bellemare, and it is for Mr. Long, from Shared Services Canada. I want to ask about the transfer from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and how it related to food safety in Canada.
I want to be able to understand, so perhaps it would help if you could provide a concrete example of the role Shared Services Canada plays in the action plan to ensure food safety in Canada. What, specifically, do you do on that front?
Mr. Long: My colleague Mr. Bruce will respond to that question.
Mr. Bruce: Thank you for your question. I used to be the vice-president of information management and information technology at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, so I am well versed in its IT needs.
When the agency launched a program to improve its food safety action plan, it was a large-scale project worth $40 million. The envelope included a system to create licences for food production companies.
We provide the IT infrastructure needed to make those applications work and to carry out the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's mandate. Our cost is $2.47 million of that $40 million investment. As Mr. Long said, it really is about providing telecommunications infrastructure and data processing.
Senator Chaput: Infrastructure is the only thing you provide?
Mr. Bruce: Exactly.
Senator Chaput: You work in partnership to develop programs, and we know that there are a lot of issues in Canada, and elsewhere, regarding food safety. Do you create the programs?
Mr. Bruce: The CFIA creates the programs and works on the infrastructure that we provide.
Senator Chaput: The programs are created by the CFIA, but you provide the infrastructure. You work in partnership, then?
Mr. Matson: Yes.
Senator Chaput: In the past, the CFIA did everything created the programs and purchased infrastructure?
Mr. Bruce: Exactly. They invested in their own infrastructure, as did our 43 other partners. Our consolidation efforts have resulted in savings and better service.
Senator Chaput: That is why you are saying that there have been savings in terms of infrastructure procurement? If so, is that the only type of savings?
Mr. Bruce: Yes. I do not want to say that we have a simple mandate, but it is simplified by the fact that we do not have to manage all of the applications that support the programs. We simply provide telecommunications infrastructure, data processing and email, and we are starting to provide workplace technology services.
Senator Chaput: You do not assess any programs. The CFIA provides you with the programs.
Has the number of employees at Shared Service Canada increased since last year?
Mr. Long: The number of employees transferred to the department in 2011, after the initial wave sent by the Governor-in-Council, created our base, and that is the number of employees we have today. I do not believe that the number of employees has increased.
Senator Chaput: About how many are there?
Ms. Saurette: Last year, we had 5,895 employees. The numbers can be found in the department's performance report. In 2012-13, we had planned on 6,700 employees. We ended the year with 5,895. The variance is mainly due to our plan to reduce the number of employees by about 250 full-time equivalents, in keeping with our deficit reduction action plan, the Budget 2012 savings.
Where are we now? We are planning to have fewer than 6,000 people by the end of the fiscal year. That is our target now. The results will be available in our year-end performance report.
Senator Chaput: When you say 6,000 employees, are those permanent positions, or does that include contract workers?
Ms. Saurette: Contract workers are not included in that number. However, to answer your question, yes, we use a lot of term employees. As Mr. Long said, we know that we will save money in the short term. Some of that money will come from the salary envelope.
To manage human resources and the impact of these future cuts, we are trying to manage our human resources envelope by using term employees as much as possible, casual employees. We are trying to stay as flexible as possible on our side so that we can manage attrition in the future without having an impact on our employees.
Senator Chaput: When you say "term employees," is that not the same as "contract employees"?
Ms. Saurette: No.
Senator Chaput: And if you hire contract workers, where is that line in your budget?
Ms. Saurette: Those would be contracts, basically.
Senator Chaput: Is that what it would be called?
Ms. Saurette: Or professional services, or employees hired through agencies, but they are not government employees.
Senator Chaput: My next question is for Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Do you know the average amount of loans granted to immigrants? About how many loans are granted per year? And what percentage of those loans could be write-offs?
Mr. Matson: I can answer that question easily.
[English]
The average amount of the loans at any time is between $2,000 and $3,000, closer to $3,000. The maximum amount of the loan is $10,000, but those are very few and far between. In terms of the amount annually that we give out, it's approximately $10 million to $11 million annually.
Your third question was related to the write-offs each year.
Senator Chaput: Yes.
Mr. Matson: This year, for example, we will be writing off $806,000. That's 2 per cent of the annual outstanding amount, which is $40 million a year.
Senator Chaput: Is that the trend?
[Translation]
Is it about the same every year?
[English]
Mr. Matson: Yes. It's stable from year to year. We have approximately the same amount each year of around $40 million. We issue approximately $10 million to $11 million in loans each year, and we actually recover from clients 91 per cent or approximately $10 million per year, so it's stable from year to year.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: How do immigrants go about reimbursing their loans?
[English]
Mr. Matson: I'm not really very familiar with exactly how they do it, but my understanding from the stats I have seen is that they are very motivated to pay back their loans. They are appreciative to be in Canada. These are mostly refugees.
I believe they obtain employment through some means and eventually pay pack the loans, but I'm not sure exactly through what means most of them are able to pay back the loans.
Senator Oh: Actually, my question has been asked by Senator Buth and you, but I would say that you are doing much better than the Big Five.
The Chair: Citizenship and Immigration Canada, we voted an amount to be paid back to immigrants who were on the waiting list, and the government had given your department money in order to process their applications, which never got processed. There was a lot of money. Is that all cleaned up now? Can we assume you won't be back asking for more funds from us?
Mr. Matson: That's a very safe assumption, Mr. Chair. I believe you're referring to the refund of fees for federal skilled workers as of 2007 or 2008. I believe anybody who applied before then, we were going to clear out the backlogs and essentially refund the fees to those applicants.
The original proposal was that we would require approximately $130 million to refund those fees over a period of three to four years, starting in 2012-13. That profile has changed slightly, so you will see in these estimates we've revised our forecast for the current year. We originally anticipated repaying a certain amount this year, but we now believe that that will be repaid next year, so we have reduced the ask this year.
The overall amount over four years is approximately the same, but the amount we have asked for this year has been reduced, but those funds have been re-profiled to next year. So within the original amount that was approved, $130 million, that should be more than enough to refund those fees over the next two to three years, so we should not be coming back.
The Chair: Senator Gerstein is the expert on re-profiling here.
We can expect to see that in Main Estimates or Supplementary Estimates (A) for next year?
Mr. Matson: There should be an item which would be the other side of the entry, which would be the re-profile to next year, so it will likely be in (A) or (B).
The Chair: We look forward to seeing that.
Do you have something to add?
Ms. Tapley: If I may, Mr. Chair. In Economic Action Plan 2014, the government announced its intention to eliminate the federal Immigrant Investor Program and the Entrepreneur Program.
These are programs that have not served Canada well and, frankly, have not resulted in many benefits to Canada. So the government will be pursuing through the Budget Implementation Act the same approach that it did with federal skilled workers, so indeed this committee may see a second request. It will be for a different group of applications.
The Chair: Before I go to round two, how do you account for the money that you receive? Do you put it into some sort of a trust fund or does it go into general revenue? How is it handled?
Mr. Matson: Yes, for the investors program we receive revenues for the fee applications and that goes into general revenues for the government, but it's a deferred revenue. We don't actually recognize that revenue until we start to process the fees, and as we process the fees it's a recognized revenue.
In terms of the amount that we would be asking from them for investment purposes under that program, that money is transferred to the provinces very quickly and then it's obviously repaid at the end of the initiative.
The Chair: So does the money that you are at the stage of recognizing — because you're processing at the federal level — come in as a revenue that reduces your ask to Parliament for appropriation, a revenue item that is not accounted for here but in fact is money spent by your department?
Mr. Matson: The fees we collect for that program go into general revenues for the government and then we are appropriated funding to deliver on our side of the equation.
The Chair: So you do come to Parliament and ask for appropriation. Shared Services Canada appears not to ask for an appropriation for the $320 million revenue that you receive; that's statutory. I don't see it in these Supplementary Estimates (C).
Ms. Saurette: No. Unfortunately, because of the wisdom of how we go about voting estimates, the only adjustments to revenue that you will see are in the Main Estimates. If there is anything in terms of adjusting revenues, either to diminish or increase, it would not appear in the supplementary estimates. I believe, however, the amount that was appearing in the Main Estimates to be very close to the $321 million that I referred to, so Main Estimates accounted for most of it.
The Chair: Thank you. That clarifies it. I have a number of honourable senators on the second round. I would like to finish this up in the next five minutes or so and I would ask you to keep your questions succinct. If you need a long answer and you wish to undertake to provide us with a written answer with any background material, that's certainly acceptable and it will be circulated to all members of the committee.
Senator L. Smith: For Shared Services Canada, according to the supplementary estimates 2013-14, Shared Services Canada total proposed authority for 2013-14 are 1,688, I guess 1.6 billion. In comparison to Shared Services, Canada's Departmental Performance Report 2012-13, total planning spending for 2013-14 and 2014-15 is 1.4 billion and 1.313 billion respectively. What is the difference between the total planned spending of $1.4 billion in 2013-14 and the total proposed authorities of $1.7 billion for 2013-14? Was that quick enough?
The Chair: I understood that.
Senator L. Smith: Actually, I did not think of it.
Ms. Saurette: If I may, senator, it is a very complex reconciliation, so we would like to get back to you with the details of that.
The Chair: That would be fine. Send it to the clerk and it will be circulated.
Senator Buth: My question is for Shared Services Canada. I've gone through one of these exercises when I was with the Manitoba government and being an employee at that time, always felt that we lost some of our local autonomy and our ability to get things done quickly because we no longer had people within our own departments.
Do you provide any support in terms of the help desk or who does that? Second, do you ask your clients, which are the departments, how satisfied they are with the services they're getting from you?
Mr. Long: On the first question, you have to remember that all of our employees who were moved from the individual departments are still sitting in the departments so they're very much sitting side by side with the people they used to work with. They're now reporting to a different department. On the second question, I will suggest my colleague can answer that question better.
Mr. Bruce: With regard to the help desk?
Mr. Long: About the customer satisfaction.
Mr. Bruce: But the help desks are also still with the departments in terms of the primary line, but if it's an infrastructure problem it will come to us.
We are starting a process of measuring client satisfaction. We have just initiated that as something that we feel will be an important part of how we continue to improve and refine our services because we were created not only to save money and improve security but also to improve services.
Senator Buth: Thank you very much.
Senator Tkachuk: I think I've got all the stuff done for Service Canada, but while I was preparing for questions I overheard an answer to a question where you talked about Adrienne Clarkson's institute. The government gives them money. If they raise money, it's a matching grant. Is that what it is? Does every Governor General have one of these?
Mr. Matson: That's a good question, Mr. Chair. I don't know the answer.
Senator Tkachuk: It's an important question. How did this happen? If you are a Governor General, do you set something up for yourself for after the fact? What was the process for the institute? How did this take place?
The Chair: If you have any information back at your ministry —
Senator Tkachuk: I would appreciate that, and what other Governors General have done. Do they have institutes, et cetera, where they get federal government money?
Mr. Matson: We would be happy to investigate that and return to the committee.
The Chair: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Bellemare: My question is for Shared Services Canada. When you came here last year, we talked about risk management, and it is clear that when just one type of software is in use, the risk can be higher, especially when it comes to emails.
Do you have some sense of the cost of managing risks associated with using a single type of software?
Mr. Long: It is difficult to estimate the cost of managing risk because, in our organization, each branch manages its own risks based on its functions. Unlike what was done in the past to manage incidents in the systems, now, whether they are related to infrastructure or software in each department, we review the incidents across all departments every week. First, that gives us visibility we did not have before, and second, we can identify breakdowns because the equipment was not replaced often enough, for example, or because of the way the systems were rolled out.
Before, each department managed these incidents, but now it is happening across departments. When incidents happen, we can figure out why and address it across several departments at once.
The risk is significantly lower with centralized infrastructure management.
Senator Bellemare: So the risks are significant, which means they can have a significant impact, but the likelihood is lower.
Mr. Long: Exactly.
[English]
Senator Callbeck: There are a couple of questions on the supplementary estimates on page II-14. The first one is with regard to the 250,000 that Shared Services Canada is paying to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. We're used to seeing it the other way around, the money has gone to Shared Services Canada. But in this case it's coming to Citizenship and Immigration. That's one question. The other one has to do with the International Experience Canada, which is a youth program, and my understanding is that this was taken over by Citizenship and Immigration in 2013. Yet Citizenship and Immigration Canada is transferring I think $4.3 million to Foreign Affairs. I'm just wondering why.
Mr. Matson: I can respond to both those questions. The funding being transferred from Shared Services Canada to us this year is related to our network changes internationally. We have agreements with DFATD, which supports us with our accommodation requirements. We change our network for service delivery purposes. That would result in a change in our IT requirements and our telephony support for those people in the field.
That used to be something we had an agreement with DFATD to manage, and now it has been referred to Shared Services Canada. Since our network has been reduced, those costs have been technically reduced, so they will be sharing with us some of the funding for that.
With respect to International Experience Canada, we recently assumed responsibility for that program. It's a vote net revenue program, which means our department receives the fees, and we are allowed to spend up to a certain amount based on those fees. That responsibility used to be with DFATD. In the original configuration, when they received the fees, they had given us money to do our part of the processing, which was to process the applications. Now that we receive the fees, we're transferring the money they gave us back to them, because we get the fees now to cover it. We are giving them back the money they originally gave to us.
That's about $3 million worth, and then there's about $1 million of funding annually. It's $1 million this year and probably $1.7 million next year that we will be providing to them to provide us support for our responsibility for that program now.
Senator Callbeck: What kind of support?
Mr. Matson: For our locally engaged staff overseas, they provide us with accommodations and various consular services. It is generally support for our staff overseas and they're responsible for that.
[Translation]
Senator Mockler: There was something Shared Services said earlier that I would like to come back to.
[English]
Do we still have some systems that are analog versus digital? If so, could you provide us with information as to where those analog systems would be — in which provinces and territories?
Second, what additional workplace technology software? We all know that software is an ongoing thing — not to say every 48 hours but at least every month. Can you provide us with the type of software we need in order to integrate those services with Shared Services Canada?
Mr. Long: Let me start with the first question. We have analog systems in every province. We manage 3,580 buildings where there will be communications services that, over time, require upgrades. Without getting too technical, we have 1,000-plus old systems that are literally technologies from the 1970s that need to be replaced.
We have over 200,000 lines; we call them Centrex lines, but they are analog lines. They need to be replaced because the phone and the line connected together cost us $31 a month. We're going to replace them with digital technology that will cost us $15 a month for the phone and the replacement.
So those savings are very significant. Those are part of the savings we have already committed to the government, so to speak. But we do find them everywhere, in every province, and in many buildings that we support already.
Senator Mockler: Could you provide us with a map of Canada where it's analog versus digital?
Mr. Long: I will undertake to do my best to create that map.
The Chair: We thought you would have that on your wall.
Mr. Long: I have a different one on the wall; it's one with our data centres and all the buildings.
I will quickly answer the second question on the software. The vast majority of software that people use on their desktops today in the Government of Canada is Microsoft software. You're familiar with Office or Outlook for email. That's about 80 per cent of all the software.
The next biggest one is Adobe, and it's to read PDF documents. After that, it falls; we have hundreds, if not thousands, of different pieces of software on all the desktops across the Government of Canada. By reducing that number, it lowers the costs that we spend and it reduces the maintenance and support we have to provide.
Senator Chaput: This is a question for Shared Services.
I'm in Health Canada. You've purchased the computer I use there. I've put in the programs. There's a problem with the computer. Does the group purchasing that you do include maintenance services?
Mr. Long: Yes.
Senator Chaput: It does? Good. Thank you. And who is called?
Mr. Long: That's a very good question. As my colleague Mr. Bruce indicated, it would depend on the nature of the incident. If the incident is because of the machine or the services that we support, then the call may come to us. If it is around the software that runs on that machine, it may go back to the department.
The Chair: Shared Services Canada has almost 7,000 employees from all over the various government departments — 47 of the 97 departments. That's a huge management job. We will have to get into that on another occasion. Unfortunately, we have run out of time. But it must be a horrendous task to manage that number of employees spread out over those many locations.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the work you do is also very important to us, and keep up the good work, all of you. On behalf of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, we thank you for being here.
(The committee adjourned.)