For the first time in three years, public and private sector representatives convened at the Shaw Centre for the AWS Summit Ottawa. During the keynote, Laura Mitchell, director of national security at Amazon Web Services (AWS), highlighted innovative advances in the public sector, recognized trailblazers driving change, and explored future opportunities.
The keynote emphasized how organizations can utilize AWS to transform data into a valuable asset, expand the boundaries of what’s achievable with flexibility and scale, and design with security as a priority while maintaining rapid execution and cost efficiency. Two Canadian public sector representatives—Digital Services Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency—shared their experiences with AWS, showcasing how they are harnessing the platform to foster innovation, enhance the lives of citizens, streamline operations, and advance their missions at scale.
A $20 Billion Investment in Canada
To commence the keynote, I joined Mark Johnson, AWS Canada’s federal government leader, to announce AWS’s significant investment in Canada. Since our inception here in 2016, we have injected $1.4 billion into the national economy and plan to invest up to $21 billion in infrastructure, services, and job creation by 2037. A major component of this investment is the AWS Canada West (Calgary) Region, set to launch in late 2023 or early 2024. This new region will offer enhanced data residency options for Canadian customers and minimize latency for those in western Canada. Furthermore, AWS is introducing two new Local Zones in Toronto and Vancouver, bringing computing, storage, databases, and other services closer to users.
AWS is also committed to investing in local communities and the environment. Currently, we employ over 2,800 individuals in Canada and have trained more than 100,000 Canadians in cloud skills. We are on track to operate our services entirely on renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of our original 2030 target. In 2021, we announced our first renewable energy projects in Canada: two solar farms in Alberta that will generate 80 and 375 megawatts, respectively, enough to power nearly 120,000 Canadian homes for a year.
The Continuous Journey of Digital Transformation
Public sector organizations face the challenge of achieving more with fewer resources while transforming operations digitally. This ongoing transformation presents critical opportunities: “This change empowers you to provide your teams with new, seemingly limitless capabilities to serve the citizens of Canada,” said Laura Mitchell.
Making Every Resource Programmable
“No matter your mission, there’s nothing on your priority list that wasn’t needed yesterday,” Laura stated. The cloud enables everything to become a programmable resource, allowing for challenges to be addressed without lengthy approvals or significant financial investments. For instance, AWS partnered with Axiom Space to send an AWS Snowcone to the International Space Station, a process that took only seven months from conception to deployment, enhancing data delivery and analysis. Another case involved AWS assisting Ukraine in safeguarding government and citizen data during the war by migrating it to the cloud using an AWS Snowcone. To date, AWS has transferred 10 petabytes of data.
Unlocking the Full Potential of Your Data
The cloud provides an opportunity to transform data into a strategic asset. It also facilitates the modernization of legacy data architectures to eliminate data bottlenecks. Organizations can develop a modern data strategy using AWS data, analytics, and machine learning services. Governments worldwide, including Canada, are recognizing these advantages and prioritizing data as a strategic focus.
One example is the CANImmunize app, which assists Canadians in scheduling and tracking their vaccinations anytime, anywhere. It reduces the time to vaccination by 50% by utilizing Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for optimal performance. The City of Fort St. John in western Canada collaborated with smart cities technology firm Cocoflo and AWS Partner OpsGuru to develop an application that enhances access to municipal services. Residents can now use a single sign-on to pay bills, access city information, and more, with data securely housed on AWS and backed up in Canada.
Enabling Cloud Solutions for the Government of Canada
As the central hub for digital service delivery to the Government of Canada, Digital Services Canada (DSC) is at the forefront of federal digital transformation. Established in 2011, DSC aims to revolutionize how the government manages and secures its IT infrastructure. “The cloud represents a new chapter in DSC’s evolution,” remarked Sam Carter, president of DSC.
During the Summit keynote, President Carter elaborated on how DSC can assist Canadian government organizations in accelerating their digital transformation and simplifying the cloud adoption process by providing an enterprise approach to cloud services. In addition to brokering services, DSC offers technical expertise and tools to facilitate cloud integration. “Cloud computing enhances the reliability of government IT applications, increases agility in developing and implementing new solutions, and improves government services to Canadians,” he concluded.
Ensuring Canadians Receive Timely Services and Support
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) serves as the government’s tax collection and benefit administration body, including initiatives like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) launched to support Canadians affected by COVID-19. Faced with immense call volumes during tax season, the CRA recognized their on-premises call center solution could not cope. “We were eager to assist Canadians in their time of need,” said Mia Evans, CRA director-general for debt management and regulatory affairs. The CRA turned to AWS to develop a hybrid solution capable of scaling to meet overwhelming call volumes. The solution was operational within just two days, enabling the onboarding of 5,000 volunteer CRA staff to handle calls, resulting in seven million answered calls in the first month.
Looking ahead, “The cloud will be the bedrock of the CRA’s service strategy going forward… Our vision for a seamless service experience is to provide multiple integrated channels based on Canadians’ needs and preferences,” stated Daniel Brown, director-general of the CRA’s contact center services. “We believe this will empower citizens and help them comply with their tax obligations while accessing their entitled benefits.” Reflecting on the overall effort, he concluded, “I’ve never been prouder to serve the public.”
Accelerating Research and Scientific Insights
The public sector is leveraging AWS to expedite research and decrease the “time to science,” which is fostering faster discoveries and enhancing collaboration across various departments, institutions, and regions. For example, Université Laval, AWS, and AWS Partner UnicornPowered collaborated on Project Quorum to create a web application used by multiple stakeholders while ensuring the anonymity of personally identifiable information.
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