Government Operations Committee on June 15th, 2006

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

On the recruitment side there's advertising and promotion of openings. With the change in how it's structured, did that not get downloaded to the departments or into their budgets for them to do, or do you still do the overall advertising and promotion of openings?

[Maria Barrados]

We do it for the corporate programs. So there's the student program, as I was saying, the post-secondary recruitment, and we run the job system, the www.jobs.gc.ca system, which is for the whole government.

The big change in what has occurred was under the previous legislation departments were obliged to come to the Public Service Commission, so it was obligatory; we had to do it. Under the new system, it's discretionary. What we're finding is our workload hasn't dropped off. I had expected the workload would drop off. We had actually laid off close to 90 employees in anticipation of this shift to reallocate it to auditors, because when I came I had no auditors, so I have to rebuild the audit group and I have to rebuild my corporate services to line up with that. And it hasn't quite happened, so these people are very busy.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

From a financial point of view--

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I think you're just about done. Thank you.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'm going to have to get a clock, because I swear my time--

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Eight minutes.

Mr. Bains.

I've been particularly lenient with most.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for your lenience.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have a quick follow-up to the line of questioning. You indicated that departments still are coming to you and that you anticipated there'd be a reduction in work. What's the reason for that? They've been given authority, they have a framework to work within, and they understand the processes. They should be experts in this, because this is an area of their jurisdiction. The new legislation empowers them, and yet they still come to you. So what's the reason for that?

[Maria Barrados]

They in fact don't have the expertise in running the processes. The decision-making is with the department. So what happened before is, for example, the executive appointments were all made by the commission, so we made the appointments. Now what's happening is we may run the processes for them but it's the department that is going to be making the appointment. In the work that goes through in working the process properly, people are still coming very much to us.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Again, in terms of the audit component--I know the questions were asked before as well--I just want a clarification. You indicate that there are two components, the audit--and we'll talk about the Canadian Space Agency--and then after you complete the audit there's a notion of compliance as well, saying, look, if 48% are not based on merit, therefore you have to correct that system. Then you indicated that you might even revoke positions. Have you done that thus far into your mandate?

[Maria Barrados]

Yes.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Okay.

For example, there have been managers who have made those decisions, they've hired people. Have those certain individuals in management been revoked?

[Maria Barrados]

The way the act is structured, we can revoke the appointment, but we cannot revoke the manager. If the appointment is incorrectly done, we can revoke the appointment. We have, and we do. This goes back to what my costs are: all the decisions of the Public Service Commission are subject to judicial review--and I'm in court quite a bit.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Are you able to indicate the number of individuals who have been revoked? Are you able to disclose that?

[Maria Barrados]

Yes, I can disclose that. I don't know the number right off the top of my head, but maybe I could come back to the committee and give you the numbers.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Going back to the line of questioning my colleague was asking with respect to hiring practices for visible minorities, you've indicated that there have been more applications yet fewer jobs. This is basically the trend that you've seen, according to your data. Can you indicate, of the jobs that have been offered, are they more at the entry level or senior level? Do you have that kind of statistical data breakdown of the types of jobs and where the visible minorities are being placed? Is it more at the entry level or at the senior level in terms of the various job opportunities that are presented to them?

[Maria Barrados]

We know we have a problem at the senior level, in that they're not sufficiently represented. The high volumes in the numbers we have are below the executive level for all appointments. The number of the appointments at the executive level are running at six hundred a year, whereas below they're running at thousands and thousands and thousands.

So I don't know whether you have much in terms of the different kinds of groups.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

The argument was previously made that people aren't applying; I've heard that many, many times. You want society to be reflected in the public sector, but people aren't applying. That was the common response received. Now that people are applying, what are some of the obstacles they're facing? I know you haven't conducted an audit, you're just working on a report, but based on that report.... First of all, have you set a deadline for this report, for this particular analysis?

[Maria Barrados]

We would like to do that, not for the annual report that's coming, because that's now being written, but for the one after that.

Some things are obvious. There is a lack of understanding of how to fill in the applications. It's a technical process in government; government people say they require the following and they expect somebody to respond against each one of them. If you don't respond against one of them you're not going to be screened in.

A lot of the screening is done automatically. We're going to the system, so it's not a person intervening; the screening is an automatic process. So that's obviously one area we have to look at.

I want to see where the drop-off is taking place, because that explains.... I think there are different explanations. If you have people not filling in the application forms, one of the looks we had showed a number of people were not Canadian citizens, and we give preference to Canadian citizens. This takes out the numbers. So we really have to do the work on this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

We're down for five minutes now, and you've hit your five-minute mark.

Madame St-Hilaire.

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Ms. Barrados.

Are you responsible for staffing at the Department of National Defence?

[Maria Barrados]

We are only responsible for civilian employees.

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

If I understand correctly, the problems that we have heard about recently concerning the use of French at the Department of National Defence for the last 30 years do not fall strictly under your purview. Are we to assume that you could not simply revoke staffing authority?

[Maria Barrados]

No, that is not what should be understood. If I recall correctly, the problem is more widespread among military employees. We are only responsible for appointments and the staffing of civilian members. In such cases, language is one criterion that must be met in order to obtain a position. The level of language proficiency required for the position is therefore one factor in assessing candidates.

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Have you ever cancelled a delegation?