Public Accounts Committee on June 11th, 2009

[Brian Goodman]

Certainly, the process is working a lot better than it did when I started as chairperson. There's no question about that.

I think it's also only fair to say that when there's transition from any government to another government, or even within the same government, there's a hiatus in appointments. Ministers are appointed. They engage staff. There's always a delay in appointments when there's a change in government, and that's very important to recognize.

Unfortunately, of course, this was happening at a time when we were receiving an increased intake of cases--of refugee cases and appeal cases--detention reviews, and admissibility hearings.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

The additional cases are still there and there are even more.

[Brian Goodman]

Absolutely. Yes.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I have another question. A little earlier, I mentioned the appointment criteria, that is, skills, abilities and personal suitability.

Do you feel that those criteria are adequate to choose members who will play important roles? Is there not something that should be added? That is why I said that there seems to be a political side to your work.

[Brian Goodman]

Certainly those are general criteria, but we have nine competencies that we test for in both the written test and the interview. They're specific behavioural competencies that are tested by way of either a written test or questions; for example, self-control, organizational skills, and analytical abilities, all the things one would expect a good decision-maker to have. Every candidate has to receive a passing grade on every one of the competencies--not a majority of them, but every one of them. Then there are suitability criteria in addition to that.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

My question can also be directed to Mr. Lynch.

Why are there such high rates of turnover and long delays in filling positions in the public service? It seems to me that some positions are even at the CEO level. Are these problems with the process not creating insecurity, gaps and major costs? Why is it not possible to get this process right?

[Kevin Lynch]

You raise two things. I appreciate the question about the public service per se. The biggest driver in retirement from the public service is demographics. I've focused for the last three and a half years on the issue of renewal, because we have an aging public service. We have to increase our recruitment, we have to increase our development, and we have to increase our training because large numbers are going to leave, not because they're unhappy but because they're actually reaching the end of a 30- to 35-year career in the public service of Canada. That's in a sense a consequence of not having hired people through parts of the 1990s, and it's something we're going to have to deal with, and we have undertaken on the part of the public service a number of measures to increase recruitment—more development and what have you.

So I very much share your concern about the issue of losing our people, but we're losing them largely because of demographics and the aging population in general and in the public service in particular.

I'll turn to Mr. Goodman more explicitly, but you raised two issues on the boards. We now have given guidance on terms of reappointment. We have introduced—and Mr. Goodman went through it—a very elaborate process for selection: establishing the criteria that are needed, the selection process, the written exams and testing. That's best practice in any kind of public sector organization.

My understanding is that, since 2006, 128 appointments and 65 reappointments have been made to the IRB, and the board now stands at 84% of its full complement. So again, I think the pace of appointing has picked up and I think that's the direction we all want it to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci beaucoup, M. Desnoyers.

Mr. Shipley, you have five minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you so much, witnesses, for coming.

I'd like to follow up on that and ask a question of the Auditor General. In terms of the comments that were just made by Mr. Lynch and in terms of the appointments that have been made, do you see some of the changes that have been going on since the audit has finished as being progressive steps?

[Richard Flageole]

Mr. Chair, I would see this as progress for sure, but I think we're raising two key issues on the chapter: the timeliness of appointment and communication with people. Again, those are improvements, but I haven't seen anything there talking about communication with people getting appointments—that's a key one—and again the main thing would be to make sure those appointments are going to be done on a timely basis.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I think, as my colleague mentioned the other day, one of the organizations that was in actually had worked and accomplished communications. I can tell you that is always a challenge. I can say that, even as elected people, I think one of our largest challenges is communication. I think all of us encourage the improvement in that.

I'd like to just ask Mr. Goodman this. In your statement you said:

In my capacity as Chair of the SAB, I recommend to the Minister only those candidates who are qualified, based on these competencies, to be considered for appointment to the IRB. The selection process is transparent and merit-based.

How are you ensuring this is done?

[Brian Goodman]

I'm ensuring that this is done by chairing the selection advisory board, by being present at meetings of the selection advisory board where we do the initial screening of the candidates. For example, it may interest you to know that we're in the middle of a campaign now where we're considering a very large number of candidates. In the June 2008 recruitment campaign, we received 540 applications--540 applications. Of those, a number of candidates were found to be qualified and were recommended to the minister to be added to the list that already existed of qualified candidates.

In March 2009 another recruitment campaign was launched. These are public recruitment campaigns, notices in the major dailies of the major cities. More than 760 applications have been received--766. We've already started to screen the first batch for suitability and we're about to screen the rest of them. Those that pass the suitability screening will then go on to write the written test.

I also sit on a number of interview panels. I don't sit on every one because, as you can see with those numbers, I'd be doing nothing but that. I can tell you without a doubt that certainly, from my perspective, the process has been entirely merit-based and non-partisan, because there has to be consensus in the interview panel. Every interview panel consists of me or one of my designates, so a deputy chairperson, either another senior GIC or a senior public servant, for example, our senior general counsel. It consists of one of the persons from outside the board, whose names I gave you, jointly appointed by me and the minister and by a human resources consultant who is an expert in behavioural event interviews. We have to reach a consensus on the mark to be assigned for each competency, so for each of the five competencies that are tested in the interview. Then the references are provided by the consultant to each member who was on the interview panel.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Is that a new process?

[Brian Goodman]

That's the new process that was implemented in July 2007.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I think maybe part of the issue is that it has become more complex. We've opened it up, quite honestly, so it isn't just partisan politics of appointments. I'm hearing that you're allowing the general public, actually, who feel they're qualified, to put in...so there's a huge screening process. I think some are quite honestly struggling to deal with that transparency in terms of the selection of people we have. That isn't how it always was in the past. Obviously, there are all kinds of examples of why it had to be changed.

Now we have a second complicating factor, the numbers. In the past year, 2008, there was a total of 36,000 claims, compared to 30,000 in 2007 and 23,000 in 2006. Why are these higher? Are there just more people wanting to get into Canada?

[Brian Goodman]

First of all, of course, we have no control over the number of claims. These claims are referred to us by either Citizenship and Immigration Canada or the Canada Border Services Agency, so they're “within Canada” claims. They either claim at the border or they claim at an airport, or they claim after coming in over the border and attending at an inland office.

Yes, there are more people who want to claim refugee status in Canada.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

It's a great country.

[Brian Goodman]

It's a great country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We'll end it on that.

Thank you very much, Mr. Shipley.

Mr. Christopherson, five minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To begin, I'll come back to Mr. Lynch. One of the reasons for my attitude today is contained not only in the findings of the report but also in the statement from the Assistant Auditor General. I'm quoting from today's statement:

The government's response to our recommendations in the report gives little assurance or definite undertakings as to how it intends to address the concerns that we raised.

Overall, there was unsatisfactory progress since our previous audits, with some issues having first been raised as long ago as 1997.

At some point in this hearing we're going to talk about the fact that this whole area of appointments has been problematic for a long time. The 1997 report spoke specifically, and it's on page 34 of the report—this is from 1997. Listen to it. It almost sounds like it could be word for word in this report, I say to colleagues:

The government should improve its practices for appointing Board members, in order to ensure that the Immigration and Refugee Board has a sufficient number of experienced decision makers available when they are needed.

That was 1997. It was repeated in audits of 2000 and 2005, and here we are again and it's still a problem. In fact it's such a problem that we have the Assistant Auditor General saying, talking about the IRB, “This is very serious.” Those are the words, straight up, and auditors don't normally talk that bluntly, I'll tell you.

To the report itself, on page 31, 2.102:

The high number of Board member vacancies at the IRB had a significant impact on the Board’s capacity to process cases on a timely basis. The inventory of unresolved cases has reached an exceptionally high level.

I'm sure that every member here can share experiences of people coming in front of us—most of whom are going to be Canadian citizens at some point—in tears. They're in tears because they don't know what to do. It's been years, they've laid down roots, started businesses, started families, and they know that every day the mail could bring a notice that they have to go. This backlog thing is not just an exercise in numbers. This is about people, people who are going to be Canadians.

When I look at the chart, exhibit 2.5 on page 31, Mr. Lynch, I can see—and I say this to my government because I don't very often—that right at the time the current government took power, because that's what the chart says, we began to have increasing unprocessed claims, to the point now where the number is practically off the chart.

How could you not have seen it? How could they not? They knew what the intake was. We've heard from Mr. Goodman that it's lack of decision-makers and it's increased cases. Your office would have the capacity to know that. Why did they not act on it?

[Kevin Lynch]

You raise two issues. I want to come back to the second one in a minute, which is that no progress has been made. I actually don't believe that to be the case. I'd like to return with some facts because it's an important point, and I think we should deal with it in facts, if I may.

On the IRB, I think Mr. Goodman talked about it. There have been difficulties in actually kind of filling those positions. There had been changes in the process proposed, I believe in 2004. In 2006, the current government came in and still saw some difficulties with the selection process—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If I can, Mr. Lynch, up until then the numbers were going down, sir. You're talking to me about a history where things seem to be, and I'm talking about from 2006 on, where the numbers start going like this again.

[Kevin Lynch]

If I can, I'll just kind of finish. In 2006, again, the government had concerns with the pace of appointments, and there were recommendations made from the secretariat of the Public Appointments Commission to actually set up the selection board Mr. Goodman referred to, to make it much more rigorous, to hold national competitions to invite people to apply. We're now up to 84% of the positions filled.

Again, the government decided to put in a new process that's much more rigorous. I think we've had time to kind of learn how to do that.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

When will the numbers start to go down, then?

[Kevin Lynch]

As Mr. Goodman pointed out, there are two elements to the processing. One is the number of claimants and the complexity of the cases as well that claimants bring forward. In a sense, that's something that is driven by other people's decisions. The other side of it is actually getting qualified candidates appointed and trained. That's what Mr. Goodman was talking about.