Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on May 16th, 2006

[Maria Barrados]

This is included in current legislation, as far as the commission goes. In my opinion, this is a good idea because this would give people doing the work the opportunity to speak to parliamentarians and see if things are operating the way they want them to.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Could you tell us what impact Bill C-2 will have on the role of the Public Service Commission of Canada? Could your position — not you, but rather your position — and the Public Service Commission as an institution lose their shine and their importance if we implement Bill C-2?

[Maria Barrados]

No. In my opinion, there is a change regarding people coming from a minister's office, and I agree with that. My suggestions are improvements. I am suggesting that a parallel approach be adopted for all offices providing support to Parliament.

The other changes are somewhat technical and may have an impact, but I cannot say that it would be an important impact. It would greatly affect the commission and me.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you. I have no other questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Barrados. It's nice to see you again. I want to thank you for these very helpful recommendations.

To date, virtually all of the witnesses have come with well-crafted and thoughtful amendments, many of which I think will find their way into the bill. It's good that we've made an adequate amount of time to hear from so many witnesses who wanted to come speak to the committee, since we have benefited greatly from them.

I would like to start with some specifics that I want to understand clearly. Are you saying that currently with the parliamentary budget officer within the Library of Parliament, the staff of the library, the Senate, or the House of Commons may not be able to apply to fill that very job without the amendment you're recommending as necessary?

[Maria Barrados]

It is with respect to the manner of working and the ability for staff to move. So it's the ability for public servants to move into these offices and be able to return to the public service. So we have used provisions under the old Pubic Service Employment Act to allow this. We wanted to move that forward under the new regime, and I was advised that I couldn't do it without legislative change. Given the opportunity that we're discussing—the budget office—I thought I would put the element forward because it will impact on this budget office as well.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I'm certainly glad you did. That's sort of an unforeseen consequence. I'm glad you stumbled across it, however you did, or whoever advised you of it, That in itself is very helpful.

As for the protection or production of working papers and draft audits, etc., I don't fully understand the arguments made by you and the Auditor General that those shouldn't be available, especially after the final audit is complete. Why should we not have access to the draft or the process that got them to the final audit? If it's a little like a mathematical equation—you get one mark for getting the right answer and another mark for the equation, or the steps you took on the way. What's the rationale for not wanting that divulged?

[Maria Barrados]

The process of doing an audit, and the way we do the investigations, is very different from a judicial kind of proceeding in which you have rules of evidence and you have an open process and you have ways to assess that evidence.

What you do in an audit and in these investigations is collect as much information as you possibly can. So you have a lot of conversations with a lot of people. Some of it is right, some of it is not right, some of it is misleading, and some of it is on the mark. The whole audit process is to take that information and focus on what it is you want. So you'll say, I heard all these things, but they're not really relevant to my inquiry. You focus on what you want, and then you go through a process of confirmation.

So if you release all that paper and all that process, what you're doing is putting out a lot of information that may not be true and that doesn't give any protection to the people who might be named or the systems or the organizations that might be named. They would have no recourse to that; it would just be out there. The auditors and investigators would have a problem continuing their work, because people are going to be very careful--they now think of a world in which everything they say to the auditor might just end up out there--when in fact what you want is full disclosure and openness to the auditors. Then I would have a problem as the head of an organization, because it would mean that I would have to explain and stand behind all the papers. And of course, my whole process is set up to only stand behind the final results.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Well, that's very well argued. I see your point, anyway.

The third point is about the ministerial exempt staff. I'm pleased to see that Bill C-2 will be taking steps to address that. I know that a lot of people in the public service are probably disappointed when they work their whole careers to get to the EX level, and then there's an opportunity about to open and it is filled by some lateral transfer from a minister's office. So I'm glad to see that end.

Can you give us an indication, first of all, of the origin of that practice? When did it come into effect, and roughly how many people might there be out there who are occupying existing positions that they may have gotten through that process? Is there any way of knowing?

[Maria Barrados]

The numbers are not that large. We did a study and looked at the last 11 years, and about 243 had come in over 11 years.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I didn't think you'd be able to answer with that degree of accuracy. Wow.

[Maria Barrados]

Well, we're building up our statistical capacity.

The other part of that is that there's a very small number who come into the EXs. They tend to be coming into the senior program, the senior professional ranks. They tend to stay; half of them tend to stay in the same departments.

We can ensure that they are qualified, but there is a perception that it compromises non-partisanship. It's a perception, and I think it's an important perception. I have no problem with the alternative proposition.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Which is?

[Maria Barrados]

Which is to allow staff from minister's offices to compete in internal competitions.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Right, so it would be merit based and they would compete in open--

[Maria Barrados]

Merit-based competitions.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

And what's the process for one year?

[Maria Barrados]

They'd have the right to compete in internal competitions for one year.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

After they leave the minister's office.

[Maria Barrados]

That's right.

Now, your other question was what is the origin of this. I had the lawyers look at that, and it goes back quite a way.

Mr. Arseneault, maybe you can explain. It goes back to the 1920s.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

No kidding? I was hoping we could blame the old Tories. Were they Tories in the 1920s?

[Maria Barrados]

It goes back to the 1920s, when there was some kind of privilege given for coming into the public service. I'm not sure who was in the government at that time, but the actual wording of priority entitlements came in the 1960s.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're out of time, and there goes the bell.

Monsieur Petit.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Barrados. I have three very simple questions to ask you.

First, you are asking us to adopt an amendment so that clause 146 of the bill will state that the President of the Public Service Commission of Canada is on a par with the Auditor General of Canada, the Official Languages Commissioner, etc. You are asking us to add the President of the Public Service Commission to the list. I want to know your reasons so I will ask you why.

Second, you mentioned from the outset that you try to ensure that the public service is impartial. As far as I know, in any public service, many public servants are members of political parties and unions. But, I don't think that they shed their partisanship when they go to work in the morning. They live with it; it's part of their reality. So, I am trying to understand how you could say that the system must be impartial. I know that you are talking only about work, since many people, during the course of the day, are both members of a union and a political party, work in the evening or in the day as the case may be, and are perhaps more partisan than political supporters themselves.

How do you reconcile your job with what is being proposed in Bill C-2? How could this bill resolve this problem? Given what you've seen in the bill, can you prove that it is strong enough to do away with the partisanship that we carry with us every morning when we go to work because we belong to a union or a political party, etc., and we work eight hours for the government, hours that don't really belong to us as such?