Question Period Note: Modernize Information Technology Infrastructure

The Government of Canada is working to make the public service more agile and efficient through improvements to workplace technology, including the implementation of digital collaboration tools and elimination of outdated technology.

• Shared Services Canada will continue to modernize the Government of Canada Information Technology infrastructure, to provide a platform to support the delivery of digital government to Canadians.

• Shared Services Canada is expanding the digital communications tools and services available to the Government of Canada.

• In that regard, Shared Services Canada will modernize end-of-life landline voice services into Voice over Internet Protocol (or VoIP), as well as email and digital communications, to improve service reliability and greater functionality.

• Shared Services Canada will provide client departments with access to Office 365, thus modernizing the suite of tools they rely on to deliver timely and citizen-centered services to Canadians.

• These projects will provide modern tools to Government of Canada employees to better serve Canadians in today’s digital environment.

If pressed on Workplace Modernization:

• Shared Services Canada works closely with departments to ensure that aging technology is replaced on an ongoing and cyclical basis.

• Shared Services Canada’s Information Technology Refresh Program keeps current infrastructure assets up to date, through hardware and software updates and identifies assets that need upgrading or replacing.

• In an effort to keep pace with the rapidly changing information technology environment, in January 2019 Shared Services Canada created a Chief Technology Officer Branch. The Branch’s mandate is to ensure that federal programs for Canadians benefit from the latest available digital technologies.

• The Digital Communications Program, which included the Email Transformation Initiative, has been revamped to become the Government of Canada Digital Communications and Collaboration Platform in order to better provide public servants with improved access to digital communications tools.

In order to modernize Shared Services Canada’s information technology infrastructure, the Department is working on improving and modernizing information technology and digital communications tools, all of which require strong network connectivity, security, and information management. This Digital Communications and Collaboration Platform, along with the Workplace Communication Services initiative, are important parts of Shared Services Canada’s efforts to consolidate and modernize the government’s telecommunications infrastructure.

Steps that are being taken to modernize telecommunications within the Government of Canada include the email migration initiative, the adoption of Microsoft’s cloud-based Office 365 service, and a shift from traditional landline telephones to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology and mobile services.

Email migration focused on shifting the email service for 23 departments to the “Your Email Service” platform, a project that led to the recognition of a greater need for collaboration tools and digital services beyond email.

Office 365 will meet the government’s mandate of accessibility needs and of becoming an increasingly digital government by providing seamless communications, increased collaboration and a better user experience.

Voice over IP telephone services are replacing end-of-life traditional landline services in order to minimize outages as well as challenges with obsolete technology and hardware.

These projects will provide government employees with access to the digital tools required to better serve Canadians in the modern digital environment, while also meeting government-wide initiatives, such as Workplace 2.0 and Blueprint 2020, that aim to modernize the work environment by making use of new technologies to improve networking, productivity, mobility, and collaboration.

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