Question Period Notes
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In accordance with the Access to Information Act, the government proactively publishes the package of question period notes that were prepared by a government institution for the minister and that were in use on the last sitting day in June and December.
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Digital sovereignty refers to the Government of Canada’s ability to exercise autonomy over its digital assets and services, ensuring it can manage and protect its digital systems, data and information regardless of where technologies are developed, hosted, or supported. This protects national security, supports economic competitiveness and enables the Government of Canada to operate independently while reducing the risks of foreign interference in the digital age.
It includes:
• Data sovereignty: Ensuring data complies with national laws and remains under the jurisdiction and control of the country
• Operational sovereignty: Retaining control over how digital services are deployed and preventing reliance on, or interference from, foreign entities
• Technological sovereignty: Maintaining the ability to make independent decisions about technology without being overly dependent on monopolistic or foreign controlled vendors
Digital sovereignty is defined as the ability to exercise autonomy over digital infrastructure, data and intellectual property, as well as critical technologies. This protects national security, supports economic competitive and allows a country to operate independently and reduce the risks of foreign interference in the digital age. It includes:
• Data sovereignty: Ensuring data complies with national laws and remains under the jurisdiction and control of the country
• Operational sovereignty: Retaining control over how digital services are deployed and preventing reliance on, or interference from, foreign entities
• Technological sovereignty: Maintaining the ability to make independent decisions about technology without being overly dependent on monopolistic or foreigncontrolled vendors
• In this report, the Auditor General found the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) contact centres failed to consistently provide callers with accurate and timely information.
• The report highlighted deficiencies in the management of the Hosted Contact Centre Service platform (HCCS) provided through a contract with Shared Services Canada (SSC).
• On October 21, 2025, the Auditor General tabled a report on the cyber security of federal networks and systems. It found the government “had tools in place to defend” its networks and its cyber security plan was “sound and comprehensive.”
• However, the report raised concerns about delays to key projects to improve the visibility of cyber events and coordinate the response to incidents. It highlighted shortcomings in the management of equipment and noted that certain small departments and agencies (SDA) were not using Shared Services Canada’s (SSC) cyber security services.
In this report, the Auditor General found the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) contact centres failed to consistently provide callers with accurate and timely information.
The report highlighted deficiencies in the management of the Hosted Contact Centre Service (HCCS) platform provided through a contract with Shared Services Canada (SSC).
The Supplementary Estimates (A) 2021-2022 for Shared Services Canada will be tabled in the month of May 2021 and is the first Supplementary Estimate this fiscal year.
Supplementary Estimates present information on additional spending requirements that were either not sufficiently developed in time for inclusion in the Main Estimates, or have been subsequently adjusted to account for developments in programs and services.
Shared Services Canada’s customer departments continue to manage most of their applications. These customer department applications are often aging and require constant maintenance. Shared Services Canada is working with customer departments to identify risks and mitigate service disruptions. Shared Services Canada is driving hosting renewal (with migration to its enterprise data centres and/or to be hosted within the Cloud) while customer departments are responsible for their application modernization plans.
Critical applications for delivering services to Canadians are sometimes hosted in aging legacy data centres, depend on older coding languages, and run on legacy information technology infrastructure that requires significant maintenance. For these reasons, Shared Services Canada’s is supporting the Government of Canada in assessing, prioritizing and ensuring the health and stability of these critical applications.
Shared Services Canada plays a key role supporting public servants who require accessible technology through the Accessibility, Accommodations and Adaptive Computer Technology program. This program assists Public Service employees with disabilities, injuries or ergonomic requirements with their integration into the workplace, providing access to systems, programs, information, computers and other resources.
The Supplementary Estimates (A) 2019–2020 will be tabled in Parliament on December 5, 2019. Shared Services Canada is seeking additional funding through these Supplementary Estimates.