Government Operations Committee on Oct. 7th, 2010

[Maria Barrados]

We didn't go down to the individual case studies, but we certainly did ask people why they used these services. We have a chart in which we indicate the reasons that were given and what their relationship was with the length of the contracts. That's on page 38. The reasons were employee leave, pending staffing, staff shortage, workload increases. The workload increases were the ones particularly associated with the longer contracts. These are also associated with the operational and technical services.

From my point of view, whenever you have such a longer-term relationship, I think it should come through the staffing system. There's enough flexibility in the staffing system. Parliament set us a bunch of rules, so it's a parliamentary decision how the staffing system should work, and I think people should be coming through the staffing system for those longer things.

If there is a workload increase, this is a decision that is taken by managers. You should be able to plan it; you should staff accordingly. The staffing system does allow term employment, so you can hire somebody for one, two, three years. You don't have to have everybody working permanently.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I agree with you and I am curious as to why that's not happening. I'm wondering whether there are underlying reasons for this. There seems to be.....

Well, let me ask this. Is there any impression you have that managers are hiring people with the intent to—let's use a crude term here—“test-drive” the employee for a period of time, and then, if it works out, bring them in to permanent employment? Is there any possibility that this type of activity is happening?

[Maria Barrados]

I think so, because we see two things. We see a continuous relationship—people will be temporary help, then go on to casual, and go on to temporary help, and then we see one-fifth of them coming into the permanent public service, which is a pretty high number given that you probably have retirees in here as well who don't really want to come into the public service.

The reason that this one particularly bothers me is that it is in the national capital region. The complaints I get all the time are from people outside of this region who want access to government jobs, and if you have this system of employment, you are actually denying access to many Canadians to government jobs.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I'm running out of time, I guess, but I was going to go into the difference between the national capital region and the outlying areas. It seems to be, over the last number of years, that staff shortages have been the significant reason—almost the number one reason, but a close number two—for the rationale for bringing people into these temporary help services. Is there any indication, with the changes in the employment across the country, that...? Have you seen any reduction of the turnover in employment in the regions outside the national capital region? Has there been a reduction in people leaving for other jobs?

[Maria Barrados]

We have always had lower turnover in the regions than we have in the national capital region. We have had some slowing down of some of the turnover.

We don't have a retention problem in the Government of Canada. Turnover in the Government in Canada is public servants going from one department to the next. They're very attractive jobs; it's a good place to work.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Warkentin.

Mr. Martin, you'll have eight minutes, please.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madame Barrados, it seems to me that our worst fears are realized, in a sense, in that we asked you a year ago to investigate further what seemed to be an explosion in the use of temporary help services. You've confirmed and measured those concerns for us here.

One thing that strikes me is that it seems—I think it's reasonable, to answer Chris's question—that one of the reasons they are using these services is that it's simply a cost factor. It's surely cheaper, in most cases, to take on a temporary worker, for whom you don't pay any benefits and there are no pension obligations or legacy costs—all of those things that employers hate these days and that they can bypass.

What concerns me is that they can also bypass all the checks and balances that were put in place when the Public Service Commission was created. The very reason that the commission was created was to be able to ensure the integrity of the hiring process, the impartiality, and do away with nepotism. All of those checks and balances are out the window, if a disproportionate amount of the hiring is done in this way.

You raise another good point. It also rather undermines the notion of a national area of selection. We only just achieved this, that all jobs will be posted nationwide, but if they're bypassing all of that as well, it seems to be a case of one step forward and two steps backward.

You use some very strong language here. You say that your study found “improper uses of temporary help contracting”. Could you expand on that? In whose context is it improper, or is it an actual violation of the Public Service Employment Act?

[Maria Barrados]

In the work we did—we are not the contract auditors for the Government of Canada—we didn't look for technical compliance with contracts. What we looked for was the consequence of this kind of contracting and what the impact was for the Public Service Employment Act.

The use of “improper” and “circumventing” regarding the Public Service Employment Act was because we found employees who were there for a long time—many more than a year. Now that's been shortened. There are some new regulations, so it's 48 weeks plus 24 weeks. That's still a long time that you have people coming in this way.

The other thing we found was an ongoing relationship. You had people working as temporary help, and then being casual, and then coming back. Now, the way the system's working, that's not supposed to be happening.

We didn't look at the contracting part of it, but we looked at the consequence of it. The consequence of it is that you have an ongoing relationship through a contracting mechanism, and it should be an employment mechanism. So that's why we used the language.

The other part of these phenomena is that I think individual managers were not doing this to work around the system; they were looking to meet their short-term ends and needs. The consequence is that we have a compromise to the system.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

What ratio of these temporary workers is hired through an agency? I'm a little concerned that the employer-employee relationship for some of these workers is actually with an agency—“Kelly Girls” or something. You're not really working for the federal government, you're working for Kelly Girls, and Kelly Girls is billing the government $50 an hour and paying you $12.

[Maria Barrados]

In this study, the $300 million in contracts that we look at is all through agencies.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

It is all through agencies?

[Maria Barrados]

All through agencies.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

What is the employment relationship, then? I mean, are you working for the federal government or are you working for the agency and being farmed out to the federal government?

[Maria Barrados]

You're working for the agency. But the manner in which they're working suggests they're working for the federal government, and that's the problem.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That gets into a legal issue, really.

[Maria Barrados]

We didn't go there. There is a study by the Conference Board of the private sector in the United States, which in fact went there and said that it raises all kinds of employment issues.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I know. In my own industry, the building industry, this is getting to be a huge problem, with the use of labour brokers. A company will lay off all of their full-time employees and go to a labour broker, with a crew of 20 workers. Essentially, they direct them. All the tests of an employer-employee relationship are there: they tell them what time to come to work, they tell them what work to do, they tell them when to go home. But really, the relationship is with this broker.

So there is a legal grey area of who you're really working for, who your loyalty is to, and what legal protection you have, too.

You've really helped us to identify a real rat's nest here that deserves the attention of this committee. I hope some recommendations will come from this committee to deal with it.

With the last minute I have, let me talk about the political impartiality that Madam Coady talked about. I think we're very fortunate in this country that we have a professional civil service that's not tainted by political bias or leanings, but there seems to be a paranoia on the part of the government that there are Liberals lurking under every desk, sabotaging the work of the government. I think that's probably where this issue keeps surfacing.

I'm wondering what the Public Service Commission can do to dispel that myth and to ratify or confirm, once and for all, that there's no industrial sabotage going on by closet Liberals throughout the public service; that they're not trying to throw a spanner into the gears.

[Maria Barrados]

We have a very professional public service. The Public Service Commission has been charged with protecting its non-partisan nature for over 100 years. I took exception to the comments in the Privacy Commissioner's report, because I didn't think they fairly reflected what we did. We are vigilant about it. Our responsibility is for the public service, so our responsibility is not for non-public servants, and our responsibility ends when somebody leaves the public service.

I think the other consideration that is part of the world we live in is because of the charter of rights. The Supreme Court said that public servants do have political rights and have rights to express political views. It makes the work of the Public Service Commission more challenging, because we have to weigh when expression is appropriate as individual rights and comments, of whatever political affiliation, and when it's inappropriate and compromises the non-partisan nature of the public service.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But putting up a lawn sign during an election campaign wouldn't constitute an indication of bias, would it?

[Maria Barrados]

It depends on who you are. I think it would be inappropriate for me to have a lawn sign.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Your time is up, Mr. Martin.

We're going to now move on to Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Coady was suggesting a moment ago that you might be a closet Liberal. I want you to know that I think she's just trying to flatter you in order to get some preference for the rest of this meeting. I'm not going to do that, I want to assure you.

Madam Barrados, thank you very much for coming today with your colleagues. One of the concerns I've been hearing lately from people in relation to staffing in the public service is about the time it takes just to get fingerprinting done for someone who is applying. We've had people who actually have been selected for a job told that they have a two-month period in which they can complete the process and then told that they won't get their fingerprinting done for 120 days.

To what degree have you heard of this problem, when there are background checks required—which isn't the case for every job, I guess, but for many—being a reason for delay?

You talk about the 23 weeks it takes on average to hire people now, which is unbelievable. Is this part of the problem?

[Maria Barrados]

Without a doubt, the 23 weeks is inappropriate and is far too long and is not necessary.

I've had a lot of complaints and issues raised to me as to problems with the process. Two that have been raised the most have been the length of time it takes to do language testing and the length of time it takes to do security clearances.

Language testing is my responsibility. We fixed it. Now the complaints I get are, “Well, I'm not really ready to do my language test yet.”

Security clearance is not my responsibility. I've raised, at every opportunity I get, the question of doing something about this. It has to be triaged, in that there are different levels of security; not everybody needs the same level. But it is an issue that has been raised.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Have you seen any staffing or resource issue at Citizenship and Immigration, where now we're seeing that it is taking 228 days to have a permanent residence card renewed, when the norm before was 60 days? That is an incredible increase, and I'm wondering whether you've noted it.

[Maria Barrados]

No, I don't have any information on that.