Shared Services Canada's $398 million contract with Bell Canada to consolidate the federal government's 63 email systems into a single system has faced significant delays, disappointing SSC. The project was supposed to start transitioning departments in March 2014 but has yet to begin. SSC blames Bell for missing deadlines but will not provide specifics. The delay raises concerns about potential lack of transparency and outsourcing expertise currently existing within the public service. There are also questions about how the private sector will handle sensitive government information and whether the needs of Canadians are being prioritized over corporate profits.

1. 25THE HILLTIMES, MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2014
BY RACHEL AIELLO
Shared Services Canada’s email con-
solidation program, slated to begin in
March has still yet to get underway and
the government’s new mega-IT depart-
ment says it’s because Bell, contracted to
undertake the initiative, has been slow to
the draw.
“Bell has not yet been able to meet
the committed project deadlines,”said
Ted Francis, the media relations manager
at SSC, in an email response to The Hill
Times questions about the setback.
“SSC is very disappointed by these un-
acceptable delays,”Mr. Francis wrote.
The EmailTransformation Initiative
(ETI) is intended to convert the 63 current
government email systems into just one.
The first phase, transitioning 15 per cent
of federal departments was scheduled to
begin in March 2014, however, as of now
the consolidation has yet to begin. Shared
Services Canada has adjusted its schedule
to begin the email migration“in the coming
months,”said Public Affairs Director at
SSC, Stephanie Richardson, in an email to
The Hill Times, which was later clarified by
Mr. Francis to be in 2015. Shared Services
Canada had originally forecasted to com-
pete the ETI by March 2015.
“Time is savings,”reads a Shared Ser-
vices Canada status update presentation
given by CEO Grant Westcott to the Infor-
mationTechnology Infrastructure Roundta-
ble.The slideshow presentation given June
11 also makes note that it was going to be
a“challenging year ahead.”
The SSC would not elaborate further
on the specific reason(s) for the delay to
the nearly $400-million contract negotiated
last year.
The EmailTransformation Initiative
(ETI) contract was awarded on June 25,
2013, to Bell Canada and CGI Information
Systems to deliver the new email service.
The seven-year deal was inked at $398-mil-
lion, or $56-million a year.
The Hill Times asked Bell Canada for
comment on the contract delays, but a
media spokesperson for the major telecom-
munications company said Bell doesn’t
comment on its customer contracts.
At the time the contract was awarded,
Shared Services Canada said it would
save the government $50-million a year,
once the consolidation was completed in
2015-16.
The ETI is part of the plans enacted in
2011 under the newly created federal body
Shared Services Canada, implemented to
consolidate the Government of Canada’s
(GOC) IT networks, systems and person-
nel, in contribution to the Conservative
government’s aims of a balanced budget.
Shared Services Canada reports to
Parliament through the Minister of Public
Works and Government Services, Diane
Finley (Haldimand-Norfolk, Ont.).The de-
partment is mandated to deliver email and
telecommunication services like Wi-Fi and
telephones to the staff within 43 federal
departments.The department is also re-
sponsible for maintaining data centres, and
purchasing any workplace technological
devices, as well as providing cyber and IT
security services. Shared Services Canada
has also actively sought out industry part-
nerships to help fulfill its mandate.
Private-sector industry engagement has
been championed as the avenue for“sav-
ings,” “security,”and“better service”when it
comes to transforming the Government of
Canada’s (GOC) IT infrastructure. Shared
Services Canada has plans to continue
holding industry roundtables and lobby
days throughout 2014-15, including four
“industry days,”130 vendor“one-on-one
meetings”and 44 departmental workshops.
Ms. Finley, in her address to the Canadi-
an GovernmentTechnology Event (GTEC)
in October 2013 cited the email consolida-
tion initiative as a good example of their
partnership with private industry.
“After government partners mapped out
key requirements, SSC invited all potential
suppliers and stakeholders to discuss those
requirements. We wanted to know what the
private sector had to say and make sure
our expectations were based on the best
that technology could deliver,”she said.
Shared Services Canada ‘disappointed’
with Bell’s email contract delay
The EmailTransformation Initiative is intended to convert the 63 current government email systems
into just one. But Shared Services Canada is‘very disappointed by these unacceptable delays.’
SHARED SERVICES CANADA
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Continued on page 30

2. THE HILLTIMES, MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 201430
Fresh off the contentious hearing on
the future of television regulation, the
Canadian Radio-television andTelecom-
munications Commission jumped back into
the fire last week with a hearing on the
wireless market that focused on whether
changes are needed to the wholesale mar-
ket to improve competition.
The Big 3—Bell,Telus, and Rogers—un-
surprisingly oppose new measures, argu-
ing that the commission should reject the
Competition Bureau’s independent finding
that there are competition concerns along
with the smaller players and consumer
groups that support new regulations. In-
stead, they argue that Canadians can trust
that the market is already competitive and
that reforms would reduce investment and
harm the quality of the networks.
If that message evokes a sense of déjà
vu, perhaps that is because it is seemingly
always a matter of trust when it comes to
Canadian wireless services.
Trust us, said the Canadian Wireless
Telecommunications Commission in 2000,
when concerns were raised about market-
place competition.“The Canadian wireless
market has been competitive from the
outset,”assured the industry association.
Trust us, said Rogers Wireless Com-
munications in 2004 as it made the case
for merging with Microcell and reducing
the number of major wireless competitors
from four to three.The merger would leave
Canada with only one GSM provider, but
it will not substantially lessen or prevent
competition, the company claimed.
Trust us, said the wireless carriers in
2006 as the then-new Conservative govern-
ment acquiesced to telecom lobbying by
introducing a new policy direction for
the CRTC to rely on market forces to the
maximum extent feasible.The directive has
been invoked each time the CRTC consid-
ers new regulatory measures.
Trust us, said the wireless carriers in
2007 when the government began consid-
ering a spectrum set-aside to allow for new
entrants into the marketplace.Telus main-
tained that there is no need for a set-aside
in“vigorously competitive”market, while
Rogers characterized the new entrants as
“all-time corporate welfare bums.”
Trust us, said the wireless providers in 2008
when the government considered rules such as
tower sharing and domestic roaming agree-
ments alongside the new entrant spectrum
set-aside.The companies argued that there was
no need for the policy measures, which it said
were contrary to reliance on market forces. In
2014, the CRTC concluded that Rogers had for
years included unfair clauses in their domestic
roaming agreements.
Trust us, said Bell in 2010 when it argued
against relaxing foreign investment restric-
tions in the telecommunications market.The
company claimed that there was no problem
accessing foreign capital and no need for
reforms based on“ill-defined problems.”
Trust us, said the wireless carriers,
when concerns about unfair marketing
were raised. In 2010, the CRTC settled a
major do-not-call case against Bell, with the
company agreeing to pay $1.3-million over
unauthorized telemarketing calls from inde-
pendent providers selling Bell services.
Trust us, said the CWTA as provinces
began in 2011 to introduce enforceable
consumer protection codes for wireless
services. A non-binding code of conduct
is sufficient, it argued. By 2013, the CRTC
had created a national wireless code in
response to consumer frustration with
lengthy contracts and locked phones.
Trust us, said the wireless carriers, when
eyebrows were raised over advertising claims.
In 2010, the Competition Bureau brought an
action against Rogers over its advertising
which led to a federal court ruling that ordered
the company to pay $500,000 in penalties
over the failure to perform adequate testing to
substantiate its claims. Meanwhile, Bell paid a
$10-million penalty to the Competition Bureau
for misleading advertising in 2011.
Trust us, said the wireless companies
when privacy advocates raised fears about
the collection and use of customer infor-
mation. In 2013, the Privacy Commissioner
of Canada experienced a major increase
in complaints, largely attributed to Bell’s
customer monitoring and profiling habits.
For years, the Big 3 have used the same
message to consistently oppose new mea-
sures aimed at fostering greater competi-
tion. With Canadian wireless prices still
among the highest in the G7, Canadian
consumers hope they can trust the govern-
ment and CRTC to take action.
Michael Geist holds the Canada Re-
search Chair in Internet and E-commerce
Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty
of Law. He can be reached at mgeist@uot-
tawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.
The Hill Times
“We followed up with one-on-one meet-
ings…Then we invited interested firms to
pre-qualify for the competitive process.
Four teams did, led by Bell, Dell, Hewlett
Packard and IBM. SSC and its partners in
government worked closely with all four, to
clarify technical and operational require-
ments—cutting down the opportunity for
confusion and unpleasant surprises.”
However, Debi Daviau, president of the
Professional Institute of the Public Service of
Canada (PIPSC), said she isn’t so sure that
SSC was effective in mitigating surprises to
all parties affected by the contracting out of
the ETI. PIPSC has previously raised concerns
with the outsourcing of the new email system,
because of the job losses incurred by their
members, and the cost to Canadian taxpayers.
“Our number one concern is the lack of
transparency, they had every opportunity to
do this the right way, engage the people, the
employees who are going to have to make
this thing a reality but they didn’t,”she said
in an interview with The Hill Times.
“Now they seem to be on this trend
towards contracting out pieces of it to com-
panies who are concerned with their bottom
line and not necessarily with protection of
data or service levels in government.”
She said they had initially supported
and advocated for the ETI, and that it could
have been done for less by current public
servants employed by SSC.
“It’s unfortunate, because we’ve always
believed that we have all the expertise in
house, currently on salary with shared ser-
vices to achieve this sort of standardization
of email and other products and it would
cost the government nothing, but they’re
paying hundreds of millions of dollars to
put money in the pocket of industry to
while they have expertise in house, on staff
to achieve the same thing.”
Given security concerns PIPSC feels stan-
dardization needs to be done by those who
have government security clearance and un-
derstand the mandate of serving Canadians.
“Anything that goes to the private sector
then becomes part of the public domain, so
when you think about the kinds of sensitive
information that government works with,
peoples personal data for example… you
wouldn’t want that stuff floating around and
in the wrong hands,”said Ms. Daviau.
According to SSC’s Report on Plans
and Priorities (RPP) for fiscal year 2014-15,
tabled in the House of Commons on March
6, 2014, the SCC had planned to implement
the“four waves”of the ETI to be completed
by the end of the fiscal year.This includes
migrating 63 different email systems, over
600,000 mailboxes and more than 370,000
users to the new“enterprise email solution,”
and training them on how to use it.The
procurement timeline on solidifying this
contract with Bell has been boasted by the
government as being reduced from the origi-
nal estimation of 18 months, to 12 months.
In addition to the email transformation,
SSC has other consolidation plans that
coincide with the overall modernization of
the GOC IT infrastructure, including provid-
ing a“centralized”and“secure network,”an
emphasis underscored by rising concerns of
cyber-threats, as seen with the National Re-
search Council breach this July, an agency
under SSC’s science and national security
portfolio, amid reports of partner organiza-
tions raising concerns about overlapping
jurisdiction and oversight.
Part of centralizing the network, the
GOC’s web presence will be streamlined
over the next four years to merge the
around 1,500 individual websites into one
main site under Canada.ca, organized by
major themes and focused on“top tasks
for which the public uses GOC websites,”
said Kathleen Martin, a media relations
spokesperson at Employment and Social
Development Canada (ESDC).
“The Government of Canada is taking
a collaborative approach on Canada.ca,
using the award-winning Web Experience
Toolkit (WET).This open source software
was created by the Government of Canada
in 2009 to build more innovative websites
that are accessible, usable, interoperable,
mobile friendly and multilingual,”she said,
in an email to The Hill Times
Ms. Martin said that they are not con-
cerned about cyber security in the transition to
Canada.ca, saying,“the Government of Canada
is ensuring cyber security due-diligence.”
Establishing a secure platform and play-
ing a key role in preventing cyber threats
and unwarranted intrusions to government
networks has been a key focus since the
departments initiation in 2011, said SSC.
“SSC plays a key role in protecting and
securing the integrity of the government’s net-
works and information through cyber security
incident management, improved response and
recovery activities, and a suite of information
security services,”said Mr. Francis.
SSC has also begun to provide Wi-Fi
services to public servants across federal
departments, with the goal of 80 per cent of
government employees having Wi-Fi access
by 2020.Within the National Capital Region,
Combat Networks currently provides this
service, but outside of the NCR, Bell provides
the equipment, engineering and installation.
Also part of SSC’s plans for the fiscal year
includes a“BlackBerry 10” rollout, replacing
all federal employees discontinued versions
(Bold, Curve, andTorch) to current models (Q5,
Q10, Z10, Z30), said Ms. Richardson.
Shared Services Canada also has plans
to switch 295,000 landline telephones to
VoIP, or telephone calls made via an inter-
net connection, which Ms. Martin said is
estimated to save on average $16 per unit,
per month. SSC has also said it’s found
savings in it’s telephone costs already this
year, after it was first reported by The Ot-
tawa Citizen that the federal government,
predominately SSC incurred $300,000
in late phone bill fees since 2012, with
$250,000 being owed to Bell Mobility.
“To eliminate cellphone late fees, SSC
took action to consolidate billing down
from 75,000 individual phone bills per
month, and ensure that nearly 99 per cent
of all phone bills are paid on time. We have
reduced telephone cost by $57-million in
this year alone,”said Mr. Martin.
raiello@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times
Canadian wireless
market: it’s always
been a matter of trust
Shared Services
Canada‘disappointed’
with Bell’s email
contract delayWith Canadian wireless prices still among the
highest in the G7, Canadian consumers hope they
can trust the government and CRTC to take action.
DIGITAL WORLD CANADIAN WIRELESS SHARED SERVICES
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Continued from page 25
MICHAEL GEIST
The CRTC, headed by chair Jean-Pierre Blais, is
fresh off its contentious hearings on the future
of television and regulation and jumped back
into the fire last week with a hearing on the wire-
less market. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright