Government Operations Committee on March 22nd, 2011

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

Mr. Holder, go ahead. You have eight minutes.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Madam President, I'd like to thank you and your colleagues for your service, as you indicated that the commission is coming to the end of its seven-year mandate. What's clear to me is that you provided very important information and constant feedback to Parliament. I want to acknowledge you and your colleagues, because that information is important to us. Thank you very sincerely for that.

I have a few observations and a couple of questions.

You noted that your special report to Parliament, “Merit and non-partisanship under the Public Service Employment Act (2003)”, was tabled in Parliament earlier today. I look forward to reading that report, which will give me an opportunity to get some better insights. I'm going to reference in a question or two some of the report from 2009-2010, just so you know. I look forward to going through that in some detail.

What you indicated in terms of the mandate of the PSC is that it is the guardian of merit and non-partisanship in the federal public service. I could not agree more. I think it's absolutely essential to show respect for Parliament and the offices held by our civil service. You also noted in your 2009-2010 report to Parliament that the essential elements of the act are now in place, and I give you and your colleagues kudos for doing that.

You indicate that your report focuses on three issues that need some attention: to improve the effectiveness of the staffing system, to enhance the approach for safeguarding the non-partisanship of the public service, and to strengthen the governance of the operation of the commission. Again, in all those areas I agree.

My question comes from this. You confirmed the ongoing need for “...some centralized services to assist deputy heads and managers in assuming their roles...”. You talked about some of the services, which include an electronic recruitment system and several national recruitment programs to foster greater efficiencies and improvements, and you said that a “...delegated system needs to be balanced with centralized support functions.”

You've identified that as a need. What progress has been made in that regard to ensure that this objective, which I think is very important in streamlining those efficiencies, comes into play?

[Maria Barrados]

The reason for the comment in the report was that when we started out in 2005, there was an expectation that everything would be completely delegated and that the central services that had been provided by the commission would actually just slowly fade away. That's turned out not to be the case.

What we've actually realized is that the decision-making and the hiring can be decentralized, but it is important that administratively we maintain some central supports. This is not unlike other results from things, such as the administrative services review that is being conducted by the government. There are efficiencies to be achieved in that back office area, so you centralize those. That's the background for the comment and observation.

Now, we were always responding to the needs in the department, so we never completely got rid of things. We realized that we needed to maintain those and do them well. We have gone through a process of reform. We have the electronic recruitment system working. We got initial Treasury Board money for that, and now it's being paid for by the departments. We have a committee of departmental people who guide the development of that system. We are making progress in that and we are continuing to make improvements in it. This means that when you apply to the Government of Canada website, that's electronic, and everything behind it is becoming electronic.

We've also made good progress in making changes to our big recruitment programs. We go out to universities and we have been working with the departments and improving how we do that. We are also doing things in that program to try to be much more up front with people in describing what is required and what we need; we actually are trying to get a smaller number of applicants so that we can come down to the number we recruit much more easily. That's good progress.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you for that.

One of the questions, Madam Barrados, is the calibre of the individual we're recruiting. You just mentioned in your last comment about going to the universities. Have you noticed a higher number of university graduates being brought into the public service since implementing the PSEA?

[Maria Barrados]

This is another area in which we've made some really good progress. I've always been worried about people coming indirectly into the public service, because there's a tendency then to hire people who are often local. It tends to advantage people in Ottawa. It tends to advantage people who have connections. It tends not to be to an advantage to people from Saskatchewan, for example, where I grew up.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

I love Saskatchewan.

[Maria Barrados]

It's a great place, but they don't have the same advantage, so we have been working with the Clerk of the Privy Council and their renewal objective to ensure that we had more direct hiring into the public service, and we've accomplished that. There has been a significant increase.

Being the optimist, but being cautious at the same time, I'm hoping that as we go into an environment where the hiring is going to be slower, we will continue on with those good practices that we have put in place.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

You're a cautious optimist; that almost sounds a bit like a Conservative. That's very interesting.

I have a question, if I can, please.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Non-partisan.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Maria Barrados]

Absolutely.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

She said “absolutely”. That's very good.

You did make reference, Madam Barrados, in your testimony that the commission has gone from full-time commissioners to part-time members. It made me wonder, as I heard you say that, what the advantages and the rationale are for deciding to proceed in that manner.

[Maria Barrados]

Originally the commission had three full-time members. I think they were deputy level, so they were three very senior people. You had to have the staff to support those three very senior people, and it was during the time that the commission was actually making all the executive appointments in the Government of Canada.

We have gone to a delegated model. We have delegated that appointment decision to deputy heads. I think that's the right model, so I'm very comfortable with that model. It means the work of the commission has changed to doing the oversight of the system, so you don't have to have these full-time people sitting there on these individual appointments. The commission that we've now evolved to is a commission of part-time members—David Zussman and Manon Vennat—who do the policy, the regulations, and any exclusions, and they approve the reports to Parliament. They have a different function. It's not necessary to have a full-time commission.

My observation about recommending change is that the act is still structured such that it could revert back to full-time participation of the members of the commission. I think that would not be helpful, because it would then be interfering with those activities that are now fully delegated, and I don't think we should turn the clock back.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Holder, you've run out of time at a perfect opportunity for me to jump in.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Regan for five minutes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Barrados and gentlemen, thank you for coming today and joining us.

First of all, I don't know if you've been working over the past few months on more audits. Last year you did a number of audits of various departments, boards, and agencies, and in October of last year you mentioned recurring themes that “appear consistently across the organizations audited”.

First you mention that “A number of reports recommended that organizations need to improve their quality control practices; these practices should be designed to monitor appointments to ensure they are complete and compliant with the PSEA and allow for corrective actions as required”.

I should slow down for the interpreters. I'm sorry about that.

The second point was that “Appointment processes should be completely, accurately and reliably documented to demonstrate that they are based on merit”, and the report then goes on about merit criteria and so forth.

Then you say that “Several audit reports found poor rationales used for selecting non-advertised processes that did not link to the values of the PSEA...”, etc.

Have you done further audits since then, and are you still finding the same thing?

[Maria Barrados]

We are continuing to do audits. I think it's an important part of the delegation system and the manner that we're overseeing that delegation system. We will have another set of audits ready for October.

This is a slow process in terms of getting departments and agencies to change the practices. We, on our side, have provided more guidance, and we're in the process of being very clear on what we expect in those non-advertised processes. We worry a lot about those non-advertised processes. We are doing things like giving departments checklists and saying, “Look, this is the kind of stuff we want to see in your documents”. We are going to be pushing harder on asking whether this was a matter of documentation or whether this was really a poor process and this appointment should not have been made. When we say there's poor documentation, you're not really sure whether it's just administrative sloppiness or whether it should not have been made, and we're going to be pushing harder on that.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

By the way, I should mention that my mother was born in Glenbush, Saskatchewan, which may no longer be on the map, but it was once a thriving metropolis.

In your report, you talk about the politicization of public services, which is something that's happening in various countries. Can you give the committee some concrete examples of this phenomenon in the Canadian context?

[Maria Barrados]

I'm reluctant to give concrete examples of things that I haven't examined in detail. When you look at things in more detail, you realize that it maybe isn't quite what it appears.

The comment is based on how the appointments are made in the senior positions. When you look at all the work that's been done on what is politicization of a public service and the bureaucracy, politicization means that there is a control over the appointment processes, meaning that there are politically oriented appointments.

In Canada, we have managed to maintain a strong public service commission that has guarded the core public service. I am saying that there are some questions about the senior leadership of the public service. That's why I'm making the comments about senior appointments.

I don't have anything more to add about specific senior appointments and the questions that are asked in the House and that you see in the papers. I just know that you have no way of getting assurance that these appointments are looked at systematically on a regular basis and made in a way that you're comfortable with.

The other comment and debate has to do with the tension that public servants experience in having to respond to elected officials. That's their role, so the public servants have to respond whoever is the government of the day, but are they too responsive?

Some of the questions that we have looked at are examples such as the big cheques. Were public servants involved with the big cheques? We did an investigation, and they were not. We found that they were not, but those are the kinds of questions that are asked when scholars are asking questions about politicization.

I think there's always a tension. You always have to have the discussion, and I think there always has to be a champion for the public service. I'm not sure how many strong voices there are for the public service. That's why this commission thought it was important to make these comments and observations.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Regan.

Go ahead, Mr. Vincent.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On page 17 of your report to the House, it says and I quote:

4.46 Overall, the approach in the current Act seeks to address the concerns raised in Osborne by creating a “fine balance” between the individual rights of employees and the public interest in imposing reasonable limitations on those rights in the name of a non-partisan public service.

It goes on to say:

4.47 Operationalizing that balance and the broader vision of a non-partisan public service reflected in the Preamble and Part 7 of the PSEA has been a priority for the PSC.

A bit further on, the report states:

4.51 There is always a tension between the non-partisanship of a professional public service and the need for a public service to respond effectively and loyally to the direction of elected officials. In the Westminster tradition, we expect a clear demarcation between the political and public service spheres. However, politicization of the public service has become a growing phenomenon in many countries in recent years.

Could you give the committee some concrete examples of that phenomenon within the federal public service?

[Maria Barrados]

As I already mentioned, we do not have many concrete examples, except for the investigations we conducted, and those appear in our annual reports. They were investigations we initiated further to complaints.We received complaints calling into question certain activities.

However, the commission does not have the authority to audit senior appointments, for example. We do get questions about that, but we do not have a mechanism authorizing us to check whether the rules were followed. We have specific examples of issues involving ministerial staff. What public servants could and could not do had not been made clear and was not well understood.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I would say we have seen numerous examples in the past year of people receiving patronage appointments after working for the government party. These people ended up in key positions. Is there anything to suggest that the political sphere is beginning to penetrate the public service, despite the fact that you have no authority to investigate whether the appointment was truly in the interest of the public service or merely to reward a political supporter. Should you have more power to criticize that state of affairs?