Government Operations Committee on June 18th, 2009

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

So, what are you going to do?

[Maria Barrados]

Our intention is to establish a rigorous methodology, to try to establish the number of people and the type of work involved, and to determine whether it really contravenes the act. Basically, it is going to be a question of determining whether the type of work and the type of worker are being used appropriately.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Ms. Barrados, as president of the Public Service Commission of Canada, you have created a website through which officials can find staff. The matter has been raised because a reporter wrote in the paper that the government's requests for staff from private firms were excessive.

The situation you are describing is extremely serious. What can be done? You have created a website that allows people to find staff and you are sure that it has very precise parameters. Can we, as a committee, tell the government that it has to stop calling on private agencies as a way to finding staff? Can we instead say that it must choose this website, that I believe costs $7 million per year, and that can make sure that the Public Service Employment Act is observed?

[Maria Barrados]

There are two different things. There are companies that do research in order to find people for positions, “headhunters”, if you will. This task does not affect that. Rather than going to firms who look for people to fill positions, we list all the positions on the website.

Our task here affects the agencies that provide the government with temporary workers, based on a contract. It is reasonable to go to certain people for short-term employment, for a truly temporary position. But the problem that we raised—it also came up in the questions from the committee—is to find out whether the people from these agencies are considered as public servants in indeterminate positions. Do they have the same responsibilities in the government as full-time public servants. As Mr. Ste-Marie said, is this a way to get into the public service?

We have been told that some people from agencies of this kind work in a temporary position for a certain amount of time and then enter the public service.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Does the website you established allow the hiring of temporary or casual staff?

[Maria Barrados]

Under the act, casual positions are completely excluded. The idea is to simplify the process and give managers more flexibility, thereby letting them meet their requirements more quickly. Our website is not used for casual positions. It could be, but currently, it is not.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Merci.

Mr. Warkentin, you have eight minutes.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Barrados, for being here this morning. It's our intention that this be our last committee meeting and we're glad we get to finish on a good note.

I appreciate your report, but there are some questions I have in a number of different areas. I want to start with the temporary workforce issues you talked about.

We've talked about the indeterminate hires before. In terms of the indeterminate or short-term hires, are you finding differences from one department to another? Are there certain departments that are finding it necessary these days to bring on a temporary workforce?

[Maria Barrados]

I don't have all the numbers here, but perhaps Mr. Ste-Marie has more detail at hand.

My recollection is that, yes, there is difference. The differences are very much a function of the nature of the workforce that is in the department and their immediate needs.

Do you have more information on that?

[Jean Ste-Marie]

I don't have the figures, but we definitely know there are departments that use more of these temporary workers than others.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I don't have any information or data that will back up my scenario, but I'm going to provide a scenario and ask how you feel departments should change their practice for the better.

A couple of years ago, we had a major issue as it pertained to the number of passport applications that were coming in. I know the department hired many people. I don't know how many of those were temporary people, but I suspect that included in that hiring effort were some people who came in on a temporary basis. I know right now HRSDC is bringing in many people. They're trying to find people both within their organization, within government, but also outside of government to address increases in EI applications.

In these two examples, government and the departments have had to bring people in from the outside, and I'm just hypothesizing here, but possibly some of them are indeterminate. If that's the case, and if in both cases they believe this will be a shorter term and not a super long-term scenario, what would be the better alternative if they are trying to address short-term concerns within their departments?

[Maria Barrados]

I don't have any objection to using temporary workers, so I don't want to give the impression that temporary workers are necessarily bad. When you look over time, governments have tended to function with a permanent workforce of 86% to 88%, depending on the time and circumstances. That's pretty standard for organizations. There's always a group that is not part of the permanent workforce, and that's probably how you have to operate. I don't object to temporary workers.

In the case of the two examples you cite, we have advocated consistently that departments do some human resource planning. Human resource planning is more than saying they think they might need some people. They need to really do an estimate, given what their business needs are, to set in motion the hiring of people.

In the case of Passport, they estimated how many people they needed and had an understanding of what the flow of people through their organization was, and many permanent hires were made. That was the decision on how to go ahead. They worked with the commission, and we worked with them to do it.

In the case of EI, which is going on now, the department is making that assessment. If it is really a short-term requirement, there is no problem with hiring temporary workers. I have a problem with it if this is the way you recruit. Members of this committee and others tell me you really want to give all Canadians a chance to enter the public service. Well, you're not going to do it by hiring through your temporary workforce.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I don't want to speak to the motive of different departmental officials, but is it your assessment that bringing in temporary workers was used as a recruiting tool?

[Maria Barrados]

My sense is that we are in the process of going through a very large change with the expectation of how departments are managed. We are still very much in a transition. Many managers are looking for some way to solve their problems of today, right now, and they go as fast as they can. They may meet short-term needs, but they are not meeting organizational long-term needs, which is not healthy for the public service.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

You've identified some concerns that our committee feels are important to pursue as well, so we appreciate your efforts on that.

On the language training issue, I heard about the $1 million from my colleague and it just jumped out at me.

As far as the organization that retained a copy of that test goes, has any penalty been levied? Have you tried to get some restitution from that organization for having used a test that was not theirs?

[Maria Barrados]

I'm getting a little embarrassed about the million dollars.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

If it had been $900,000 it would have been different.

[Maria Barrados]

The last time we changed the test completely was in the eighties. We have gone through this whole new change of the test, so once we've made the investment it should last quite a long time. If I run it over a longer period of time I think it's a reasonable expense--certainly as we did the last time. But if I keep losing tests and have to replace them all the time, it will be a very big expense for me. I certainly don't want to lose those tests.

As far as the school is concerned, it's a private institution. There are many private schools. It's not for me to say what school people go to or not, but we have told all departments that any student who goes there for reading and writing must come to the commission for testing. They will be subjected to a test that is only at the commission.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

So there have been no sanctions against that organization for having used something that wasn't theirs, with the exception of what the students will have to undertake in testing.

[Maria Barrados]

I think if you asked the school, they would say that their business has been very badly hurt.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Just so we understand exactly what these tests looks like, I imagine they're multiple-choice tests several pages long. You say there are four permanent tests. Is each question weighted the same? Are they similar in difficulty? Is there a certain combination of questions that make up a test, with different ratings or weightings?

[Maria Barrados]

There is one test, and we are assessing the different standards that the employer has. It's level A, B, or C in terms of proficiency. Level A is the weakest, despite what you may think, while C is the strongest. There is one test, and the scoring will put you at level A, B, or C, which makes this whole thing very complex. You will have questions of different levels of difficulty, and you would be expected to get a certain number of them at one level of difficulty, at level A. It gets increasingly difficult as you go up.

There has been some weighting put on the test. It's not one for one. We are sure that when you get a particular score, it fairly reflects the level we're looking for. Then the additional thing we have put on is that if you do very well, if you get close to 100%, we do exempt people.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Is there any way the test could be constructed—and I think you spoke to the automated possibility of it—in a less expensive way than simply a million dollars? Having a bank of questions, and then just feeding those into a different combination of eight or nine different ones?

[Maria Barrados]

The expense is in the technicality of getting the right questions that assess each one of those levels. We use them at such high volumes. Close to 70,000 of these we do in one year, the reading and the writing—and in both languages. It has to be done in English and in French, and there's a comparable level of complexity. I make sure that when you pass, when you do a test with 80 questions, we get it right as to whether you're level A, B, or C.