The creation of Shared Services Canada (SSC) was a transformative event for the Government of Canada’s (GC) information technology (IT) landscape. At the onset, SSC was given an ambitious mandate to modernize and consolidate the GC’s IT infrastructure. Today, 7,100 SSC employees support the technology needs of over 200,000 federal public servants and handle about 600,000 requests and 100,000 incidents per year. SSC takes an enterprise approach that builds upon other GC programs such as the Cloud First Adoption Strategy, and the Directive on Automated Decision-Making for the responsible use of artificial intelligence.
A decade later, SSC has steadily marched towards its goal of building modern, reliable, and secure digital platforms that meet the needs of Canadians, today and tomorrow. Although influential events such as the GC’s move to the cloud and most recently, the Covid 19 pandemic challenge us to adapt and change, the goal of delivering modern digital tools to our partners remains firmly fixed in our sights.