Speaking Notes for the Honourable Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Minister responsible for Shared Services Canada

To the
ITAC Event on Agile Government
October 18, 2017
Ottawa 

Check against delivery

Hello everyone.

I am pleased to be here today.

First, I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered this afternoon on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people. I pay respect to their elders past and present, and extend that respect to all other Indigenous people present here today.

I would like to thank the Information Technology Association of Canada, and your President, Robert Watson, for inviting me to speak to you today.

Today’s conference is a welcome opportunity for us to have a constructive dialogue on agile government—an issue that is central to the success of the two departments I now have the privilege of leading—Public Services and Procurement Canada and Shared Services Canada.

But, it is also central to the success of our government as a whole.

That’s why I encourage you to continue engaging with myself, Minister Brison and my Parliamentary Secretary, Steve MacKinnon, who will be here later this afternoon to participate in the closing panel.

These are important conversations and we are here to listen to your ideas on how we can continue to make our policies and practices more agile, modern, inclusive and efficient.

The Prime Minister has given me a clear mandate to modernize procurement, as reflected in the mandate letter I received a couple weeks ago.

It’s an ambitious mandate, but one that will allow for a procurement process that is simpler, that encourages greater competition and inclusiveness, and that supports our economic policy goals, including innovation, as well as green and social procurement.

I want to personally assure you that I am committed to making the Government more responsive, flexible and attuned to the needs of citizens.

I also understand that, to succeed, we can’t do it alone.

We must work closely with our stakeholders and partners.

This includes the members, like you, of the Information and Communications Technologies sector, which contributes $71 billion to the Canadian economy.

More importantly, a sector that supports Canadian businesses by helping them be agile and competitive in today’s global market.

I want to particularly underscore the important role you play in supporting the execution of government operations.

This includes the important work underway to build a modern, secure and reliable IT platform for the digital delivery of programs and services to Canadians.

This is one of the most critical and complex transformations in the Government of Canada.

It will ensure we can continually adapt to today’s increasingly complex and interconnected world.

Let’s be clear though—we have faced some difficult challenges and we still have much to do.

However, we have learned important lessons and are making steady and important progress.

Today, I would like to update you on that progress.

In particular, I would like to focus on work underway to bring federal procurement firmly into the 21st century.

Clearly, government procurement needs to be simpler and less burdensome.

Instead of large, rigid, and detailed specifications, we need more agile procurements.

Since my appointment, one theme that keeps appearing is the importance of early, frequent, and collaborative engagement between the Government and industry.

This is the foundation to plan and execute a successful procurement process—especially for critical IT solutions that can change rapidly with the times.

Proactive engagement helps us to review and refine the requirements to greater reflect market realities.

This, in turn, helps us to better identify additional efficiencies and savings for Canadians.

I am pleased to see the incredible level of public and private sector engagement that already exists today.

More than ever, our government engages stakeholders early and often, especially during the pre-planning stages of procurement projects.

We are now providing bidders with a second opportunity to comply with some mandatory requirements, thereby increasing competition and achieving better value.

At Public Services and Procurement Canada, we have used this approach for a number of procurement projects already. And we now have a policy letting suppliers know how this will be done.

Over the past several months, Shared Services Canada has been proactively engaging with vendors through a collaborative procurement process.

These contracts will be in place soon. They will offer agile and flexible computing power for government services and applications for citizens.

And, I would like to thank all vendors who participated in this process designed to involve the ICT sector early and regularly.

We will also consult the industry on workplaces of the future.

This fall, officials from Shared Services Canada, working with the Treasury Board Secretariat, began consultations with industry leaders and researchers in digital communications and other fields, to seek input on digital communications technologies expected after 2020.

It is this kind of future planning and thinking we need to ensure that the Government’s services and operations evolve with the times.

Clearly, these examples of engagement should be the norm, not the exception.

Our government’s strong partnership with ITAC is a great example of what we can achieve together.

ITAC has been instrumental in the development of the collaborative procurement process developed by Shared Services Canada.

ITAC has also been an active participant in SSC’s Procurement Benchmarks Advisory Committee as well as Public Services and Procurement Canada’s Supplier Advisory Committee.

We value your contribution and look forward to continued collaboration and consultation across various stakeholder groups.

These consultations are not just an exercise in engaging just for the sake of it.

We are reviewing our policies, processes and tools to identify gaps and move forward with the modernization agenda in a concerted manner.

We are developing new tools to dramatically simplify and reduce the cost of bidding on government contracts.

We have also been reviewing our contract terms and conditions to make sure we share risk more fairly and make our contracts easier to understand and manage.

We want to continue our discussions with you to better align our contractual terms and conditions with your commercial offerings.

We also understand the importance of good data collection and performance management.

Which is why Shared Services Canada created a new Vendor Management Office this past April.

This office works closely with vendors throughout the entire lifecycle of contracts.

This allows both the Government and suppliers to be more proactive in addressing issues that may come up during the course of a contract.

It also allows us to identify and acknowledge vendors for their service excellence and encourage strong contract performance.

Procurement also needs to be about more than just buying goods and services.

Modernized procurement practices can help us move forward on our economic policy goals and deliver better and more innovative services to Canadians.

This is a key part of my mandate that will continue to play a key role in our modernization process.

Today, Canadian values, and very much our government’s values, are, more than ever, for openness, transparency, respect, and inclusion.

Procurement can play a major role in translating these values into tangible results.

This requires a change in culture and attitude.

When undertaking a competitive procurement process, we want a process that allows for an increase in the diversity of bidders that is reflective of Canadians.

Our diversity is our strength.

I fundamentally agree with that statement.

That’s why my mandate underscores the importance of greater vendor diversity through increased accessibility of our procurement system to Canadian businesses owned or led by women, Indigenous Peoples, persons with disabilities and other visible minorities.

It not only reflects a better representation of Canada, it also creates better competition and a stronger procurement process in the end.

For example, our current Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business is designed to increase Indigenous business development and participation in federal government contracting, largely by allowing government contract opportunities to be set aside for qualified Indigenous businesses.

We are also working with the Treasury Board Secretariat on a framework for social procurement, which is about leveraging our purchases to get additional social and environmental benefits from these purchases.

This framework will include a government-wide strategy for approving, implementing and managing programs that leverage procurement for social objectives.

We are also developing, with Treasury Board Secretariat, a policy to make sure accessibility is considered in all its procurement.

Beyond our policy work, we can point to concrete examples of how our procurement practices reflect social and economic objectives.

This includes the work underway in Borden, Ontario, to build one of the Government’s new state-of-the-art enterprise data centres. Work will be completed next month.

This project, made possible by a public-private partnership, is a key element of the Government’s transformation of IT infrastructure.

It will provide better value, improve service and increase security.

What’s more, the new facility will meet international green-building standards.

As such, this investment will benefit Canadians in multiple ways:

• It will increase the Government’s cyber security.

• It will contribute to the economy through the creation of infrastructure and construction jobs.

• And it will lead to a cleaner environment.

This type of social procurement requires us to strike the appropriate balance between value for money and our greater social objectives.

It’s the right thing to do. And Canada is, and must continue to be, a leader.

Our government also understands the importance of simplifying our procurement processes and practices.

We acknowledge that the standard approach for competitive procurements can sometimes be too lengthy and not cost effective.

In one of my first acts as Minister of Public Services and Procurement, I was pleased to announce the award of a contract in record time to improve the Government's Open by Default portal.

Working with my cabinet colleague, the President of the Treasury Board, we used a simplified procurement process that saw qualified businesses present their ideas to a panel of evaluators—something like what you’d see on an episode of Dragon’s Den.

We were able to complete this competitive procurement in just two months and we awarded the contract only two hours after completing the interview process.

By accelerating the process, we increased value for taxpayers and decreased the burden for small businesses.

At the same time, we made sure to respect the principles of openness, fairness and transparency.

We did this as a pilot project, but it’s clear that this simplified process could be adapted and extended to other procurement processes in the future.

We are also simplifying, facilitating and accelerating the Government’s purchase of some of the most common information technology assets, such as printers, scanners and keyboards.

This change was part of the last federal budget.

As Minister responsible for Shared Services Canada, I have the delegated authority to allow departments to purchase these goods directly from suppliers.

Meanwhile, Shared Services Canada will manage the standing offers, as well as ensure only trusted equipment and software are used on government systems.

These are just some of our efforts to make procurement simpler and less burdensome.

Public Services and Procurement Canada has launched a pilot electronic bid submission process, which allows suppliers to submit their bid electronically using ePost Connect for specific tenders.

Looking to the future, we are working towards a new e-procurement solution that will leverage cloud-based solutions to make it faster and easier for suppliers to bid and sell, and for buyers to buy.

Today, our federal procurements represent close to $25 billion in transactions annually. And the volume increases every year.

So, it’s vital that we continue to explore options to expedite our overall government processes.

As vendors, I hope you find that these innovative initiatives are making it easier to do business with the Government.

We are committed to supporting you so we can continue to benefit from your experience and know-how in better serving Canadians.

If a topic has dominated today’s discussion, it’s that the status quo is no longer acceptable.

That is why the Government is moving forward and is implementing a comprehensive and ambitious program to modernize procurement.

We are innovating and trying new approaches.

They will not all be successful.

But, to stay relevant and productive in today’s fast-paced environment, we must find new ways to serve Canadians.

I would like to thank all our participants today for their invaluable feedback and ideas.

It will help us to refine our vision to make government work better and to make it easier to work with government.

We look forward to continued collaboration with all ITAC’s members.

Innovation, technology and a solid working partnership between government and Canada’s leading-edge businesses are vital to our country’s future success. 

Working together, I am confident that we will continue to build on a solid foundation of achievements.  

Thank you.