One federal website to rule them all? Maybe not
The federal government is pulling an about-face on plans to bring all of its various agency and departmental websites under the canada. ca domain name.
The concept for the massive website modernization project is being quietly scaled back after suffering from delays and a ballooning budget. The government had intended to combine all of its 90 disparate department and agency websites under the domain.
While 10 departments are already under the canada.ca name, the government is now prioritizing the relocation of four high web traffic departments — Canada Revenue Agency, Health Canada, Environment Canada and Immigration and Citizenship Canada — to Canada.ca by year’s end. The rest of the departments and agencies will be able to switch over if they choose to, or they can modernize their own websites and maintain their current internet addresses.
The move comes as Scott Brison, the president of Treasury Board of Canada, announced Tuesday morning the creation of the Canadian Digital Service, which will be responsible for improving the government’s digital services.
“As I have often said, in this world you’re either digital or you’re dead. We can’t be a Blockbuster government serving a Netflix citizenry!” Brison said in a blog post announcing the new service.
The service at the moment consists of 14 tech-savvy government workers who will be housed within Treasury Board. The department says further hiring is expected.
It will have a $25.5-million budget, spread over three years.
The specific modernization projects the service will take on have not been announced, though the departments not moving to canada.ca can work with the service to update their presence online.
Originally, those departments were supposed to have moved under the canada.ca banner by the end of this year. Once migrated, the government expected to save money and become more efficient through streamlining the technological needs of dozens of departments and agencies by placing all of their information, forms and services on one easy-to-remember website.
But that plan was hampered by turbulence from the start, said Jean-Luc Ferland, a spokesman for Brison.
“The 2012 plan to migrate all government web content to the canada.ca platform under-delivered from the beginning in part due to poor project management, planning and underfunding from the outset by the previous Conservative government,” Ferland said.
He said the canada.ca portal will still account for 70 per cent of the government’s web traffic.
“We are refocusing project funds where they can make the biggest impact to improve Canadians’ online experiences. Because we are focusing on Canadians’ online experience, all institutions, whether migrating or not, will adopt a usercentric approach to improve their web content, and ensure materials are easy to find under common themes in a way that is intuitive.”
However, the refocusing of project funds comes after millions have already been poured into the canada.ca boondoggle by both the Conservatives and the Liberals.
Departments have had to spend millions to get their information off of their old websites and onto canada.ca. Initially budgeted to cost $1.45 million, a contract was awarded to technology firm Adobe Corp. to handle the management of the federal government website. The cost of that contract has risen to more than $14.9 million as optional years have been added.
Federal departments have also spent $19.8 million more to get ready for the switch to canada.ca. For most of those departments, that switch may not happen.
In some cases, the extra costs incurred by departments to prepare for the canada.ca conversion were strenuous. Parks Canada hired additional staff to prepare for the switchover.
According to a document obtained by the Citizen under the Access to Information Act from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, that department expected a budget shortfall of $579,000 in 2014-15 and an additional $1.3 million in 201516 due to costs associated with getting ready to switch its old website over to the new canada.ca website.
Spending estimates for 2016-17 in the document were redacted by the government.
The push to consolidate all sites on Canada.ca cost the federal government one of its top bureaucrats, who said he resigned from his position specifically because he believed the move to a single unified website could hamper the ability of individual departments to disseminate timely information to Canadians.
Wayne Smith, formerly chief statistician with Statistics Canada, abruptly quit last September, accusing the federal government of hobbling his agency’s independence.
Smith has told the Citizen that of particular concern to him was the mandate to see all content on Canada.ca, which would include
Statistics Canada reports and research, published by employees at Service Canada, the department responsible for Canada.ca, and not Statistics Canada employees.
He also said the massive project had become a financial albatross for many departments, which have been ordered to build the costs of the web-renewal initiative into their annual budgets.