Marc Brouillard

Chief Technology Officer, Government of Canada

Sommelier, 2004
Computer Science, 1995

Marc Brouillard was always enthralled with technology. As a teenager, he tried to absorb all the information about computers he could find. He taught himself BASIC, and although he didn’t fully comprehend what could be done with programming languages at that time, he sensed that technology would be at the heart of his future endeavours.

Brouillard, one of Algonquin College’s 2021 Alumni of Distinction, is bringing that passion for computing to his work with the Government of Canada, where he is Chief Technology Officer and was Acting Chief Information Officer with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Brouillard’s tasks in these positions encompass nothing less than the digital transformation of the federal government.

As part of the Senior IT Leadership in the Government of Canada, it falls to him, his team and departments all across government to address the legacy and technical debt of its IT systems. “We have many,” he says, “and many are older than me. The joke we use is that the OAS system now qualifies for Old Age Security because it’s so old. Many legacy systems that are still healthy and well-maintained but not as responsive as we would like need refreshing.”

Older systems often function in isolation due to incompatible technologies. This is a huge barrier to cooperation and efficiencies and something that over time must be transformed. One means of achieving this is a move to cloud-based services, which Brouillard is leading. One of the surprising outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic is that instead of hindering this shift, it hastened it.

“In March 2020, the Government had just signed the Microsoft Office 365 contract and were just starting that migration. The pandemic accelerated that dramatically and now I think almost every department is on some form of cloud-based Office 365, at least for collaboration tools like Teams. Some of the email systems are in transition but we will be fully cloud-based for the Office productivity tools.”

Brouillard looks back fondly at the solid education in technology he received in the Computer Science program as part of the Class of 1995. (Out of personal interest, he would return to the College almost a decade later for the Sommelier program.) He says he came out of the computing program with a good grasp of multiple technologies and an understanding of the evolution and pace of technological change.

“Algonquin also opened my eyes to business systems and how those systems could be used to solve business problems and add business value,” he says. But the biggest influence, he says, was the co-op program. He was able to secure a placement in the government and gain exposure to real-world experience. “The fact is I was hired out of co-op before I finished the program. I finished the program at night. That has to be the No. 1 thing that influenced the start of my career.”

Brouillard subsequently moved to the private sector, applying his skills for 13 years at Montage IT Services, a division of MTS/Allstream, then working as vice-president of business development for an eCommerce services startup.

In all of his roles in government and industry, cyber security has been a personal and professional priority. He says he has always understood the critical importance of cyber security to business systems, and that awareness was heightened when he returned to government service. A widely publicized hack of Treasury Board took place in 2011. Brouillard was initially hired on a contract to move a Government data centre but after the hack it became his role to rebuild it.

“The hack was a critical wake-up call for all of us,” he says. “Security was instilled in the architecture of the new data centre from its inception. Our job was to protect the data of Canadians from criminals who can make unlimited attacks on our systems. We have to block them all. Luckily there’s a lot of sophistication in the government. In this instance, we have the Canadian Cyber Security Centre, which is a tremendous asset to understanding and protecting our network.”

Brouillard had no plans beyond the one-year contract when he took the assignment. But nine months into the term, he was asked if he was interested in becoming deputy CIO of the department. His experience with the team had been very positive – “I got a lot of exposure to senior management and really liked the way they operated and brought decisions to bear” – and he didn’t hesitate to sign on.

“Since then, I’ve had great opportunities and great people to work with and it’s been a fascinating journey. I’ve always said I’ll be here until it’s not exciting anymore.”

While systems architecture and cyber security are two of his professional priorities, Brouillard notes there is a third priority that is of equal importance. Improving service to Canadians, which he says is really the purpose of government, is one of the concerns that motivates him every day. He says IT professionals need to be the stewards of the needs of users, making systems that are user-friendly, user-centric and designed with each iteration to be a better digital experience.

“That’s something we in the profession haven’t paid enough attention to historically,” he says. “We do a lot around cyber, we do a lot around architecture and performance. If we forget the user and don’t make systems that are designed to be user-friendly and user-efficient, we have a significant risk of missing the mark.

“We have to live up to these standards and meet the users’ expectations. This is something I think is the future: focusing on building simple systems, simple business rules, all of it focused on making it intuitive and easy to use.”