Government Operations Committee on July 28th, 2016

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Well, we can fix the problems we learn about, hopefully.

I'll share the rest of my time with Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

About two minutes.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

There's one thing I wanted to clarify. When the departmental officials were here my interpretation of what they said is that you sounded the alarm, but by that point it was too late, that too much had already been rolled out. Is that fair? You said something different. You said you told them not to, but then they still went ahead with it.

[Debi Daviau]

I'm going to refer to Donna on this, because the PSAC was in this much earlier than we were, back in 2011, as we were starting to move over, saying, “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.” Certainly, after wave one happened, that was the point at which we realized everything they'd been telling us up to that point was untrue.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Are you saying that what they said is inaccurate, that there was time to turn it around?

[Donna Lackie]

I'm not going to say whether they had time to turn it around, but they had time to slow it down and be much more respectful on their timelines and much more reasonable in their rollout of the training programs. The problem was we didn't have the human resources to support what they were trying to do, so we were just asking for time.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay, thank you.

[Debi Daviau]

The same with us: fix the problems first, then go to wave two.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

My other question has to do with what we do moving forward. We've had a lot of discussion about why the program was broken, and this and that. I asked the officials a question. I said, do you need more resources? What resources do you need? That was followed up by some of my colleagues. We were told that the minister had already said “Use all the resources you need in order to get this problem fixed as quickly as possible.”

Can you offer a suggestion as to what more, on top of that statement—which seems carte blanche to do anything you want—can be done?

[Debi Daviau]

After the fact? I mean, they needed to plan better and to do better training, and all of these things, and I think they still need to do those things, but—

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

My question is, how do we get the money into the bank accounts of the people who deserve it faster than what they're proposing?

[Debi Daviau]

I know it sounds ridiculous, but seriously, somebody has to have the authority to whip out a chequebook and cut cheques manually. Clearly, the system isn't working. If I'm a manager and I have employee A, and I know employee A isn't being paid, and I know approximately what employee A gets paid, I should have the authority to get them a cheque, and I don't. So that's the problem.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That's a good answer. Thank you.

[Donna Lackie]

May I add to that? I think there needs to be a national apology to those 2,700 people out there who have 30-plus years' experience as compensation advisers, who can walk in tomorrow, some 2,700 people, and help solve this problem from a resource perspective, for their dismissals.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Fair enough, but you did say that you'd been begging them to come back, and they're reluctant to do that.

[Donna Lackie]

But it shouldn't come from me.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I know. Okay, fair enough. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I only have two others on my list for questions, although I suspect that Mr. Weir may want to have ask another question.

I have Mr. Shields on my list, but Mr. McCauley, do I understand you're taking the question?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Sorry, I don't have a question, but I do have a motion that I would like to put forward.

As Mr. Whalen says, “That given the conflicting information being presented to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, that the committee shall conduct a full study of the Phoenix pay system; that the Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada appear before the committee no later than August 5, 2016; and that the meeting be televised.”

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

From a procedural standpoint, Mr. McCauley, I'm going to have to rule that out of order. I'll tell you why, and I'll tell you what needs to be done.

We had already defeated a motion calling for the minister to come on August 5. If your motion merely said to rescind the earlier decision, that would be ruled in order, but your motion now is substantively the same as the original motion that was defeated. From a procedural standpoint, that is out of order.

If you wish to reword your motion to rescind the earlier vote, we can vote on that and see how the committee deals with it. But simply to bring forward the motion as you've worded makes it out of order, in my opinion.

Mr. Weir.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Perhaps to expedite things, it strikes me that we do have a motion on the Order Paper that I presented but have not yet discussed, which does not tie the minister's appearance to a deadline of August 5. I wonder if we could perhaps consider that motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Well, Mr. McCauley has the floor right now, so the motion—

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'll certainly take it under advisement. However, your motion dealt with the minister appearing, representatives from the union appearing, which we have now, and also I believe employees. Again, I'm strictly talking from a procedural perspective.

Mr. Ayoub first, then we'll go back to Mr. McCauley.