Invitation to a public service digital revolution?
Scott Jones, President of Shared Services Canada (SSC), spoke about the future of digital government earlier this year at the 6th annual Government Innovation Week by the Public Sector Network. / SCREENSHOT
To generate interest in Government Innovation Week 2026, the Public Sector Network circulated highlights of an interview given by Scott Jones, President of Shared Services Canada (SSC), at the event in February this year.
Generally, this is standard promotional fare. Jones’ predecessors have been featured at every Government Innovation Week since SSC was created in 2011. At the time, his comments were also typical of those made by past SSC presidents.
In retrospect, however, the themes he hit on this time have taken on heightened interest and importance for federal departments and digital service vendors in parallel with the big bet — political and financial — Prime Minister Mark Carney has made on the federal bureaucracy’s capacity to finally get digital services delivery and AI right.
The Public Sector Network framed it as a statement of values that SSC is looking for in vendors:
Honesty and specialization matter — Don’t claim to be good at everything. Government leaders value transparency about your expertise and where you can deliver the most impact.
Challenge outdated thinking — A true partner can respectfully point out if a request or solution is rooted in old approaches. One vendor he remembers even chose not to bid because the government’s request was outdated — demonstrating ethics and integrity.
Align with the public service ethos — Understand the goals, culture, and responsibilities of public service. Vendors who demonstrate accountability, ownership and a willingness to share responsibility for outcomes earn long-term trust.
Own successes and failures — Government leaders respect vendors who acknowledge mistakes, course-correct, and actively work toward solutions rather than making excuses. This ownership differentiates a supplier from a partner.
Carney and his team have cultivated an impatience with failure to deliver results into perhaps the governing aspect of his prime ministerial persona. It has been made known publicly, privately through selective media leaks, directly with departmental deputies and through the mandate given to his chosen Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Sabia, whose reputation as a demanding leader is well known across Ottawa.
In this new, far more urgent context, Jones’ remarks look less like digital boilerplate and more like a somewhat understated invitation to a digital revolution.
Indeed, pairing SSC’s public transition note for the incoming government with the Prime Minister's vaulting ambitions suggests that big things are in the offing.
Naturally, the Agency transition note highlights its progress against its mandates in respect of Hosting, Connectivity, Digital Services, and Government-wide priorities, as well as new ambitions like modernizing and delivering applications for departments, which could indicate an expanded mandate for SSC.
It argues that through consolidation and standardization — shifting from a fragmented, decentralized system to a unified enterprise approach — it has already achieved “tangible results:” lower costs, better reliability, and stronger security.
But the note also acknowledges there is “significant room to do better.” And SCC’s diagnosis of what is holding it back is also standard for departments and agencies: insufficient funding and inadequate mandate.
For instance, it says that its base budget has “remained at approximately $1.5 billion since 2017,” adding that “the financial situation is becoming more and more challenging due to inflationary pressures from suppliers, new technologies [most notably AI], increasing consumption and rapidly evolving cyber threats.”
The government responded to this by allocating at least $1.4 billion to drive the building of a sovereign public AI infrastructure, boost quantum computing and strengthen defence-related research. The budget also enabled AI investment via the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
As to insufficient mandate, the SCC transition note highlights that “who must, can and could potentially leverage SSC’s services is a complex question,” further elaborating that “each department and agency remains responsible for their own applications and data.”
Here, too, Carney has suggested a solution through an election pledge to create an Office of Digital Transformation (ODI) with a mandate to coordinate the adoption of digital services and AI across government, to modernize operations and deliver services more efficiently. Though we are still waiting for the office to be set up, it is abundantly clear that the age of fragmented federal IT procurement and adoption is rapidly coming to an end.
Which brings us back to Jones’ 2025 interview. If there is a through line in the themes outlined above, it would be partnership and shared risk-taking. But in the currently balkanized federal IT environment, this is a mere exhortation to adopt a set of shared values.
But assuming that the ODI is established soon and, reading the political and bureaucratic tea leaves here, that SSC itself becomes the ODI, with a centralized mandate on all things digital, then what were once exhortations become government-wide directives, backed by a very demanding, results-driven Prime Minister. They become expectations that the head of the ODI will have all the authority needed to focus the attention of vendors.
One way or another, big change is coming to federal IT services and procurement. In 2025, the SCC president made a statement of values that now appears to have been an invitation to a revolution. The question for IT vendors is whether they are prepared to send an RSVP or be left behind.
