Government Operations committee  We do a full investigation. What my office needs and is getting—so I have no reason to make any kind of complaint—is the ability to maintain the capacity to do these investigations and to continue making its reports to Parliament. It is very important that we maintain the link wi

Government Operations committee  The Public Service Employment Act has a definition of merit. As most of you probably know, this act was put in force in 2005. There is actually a statutory evaluation of that forthcoming. It will probably come to this committee. That piece of legislation says merit has two eleme

Government Operations committee  Yes. From looking overall at all of the audits this year, we're saying that in about 30% of the cases we really can't tell whether merit was met or not. It's small proportion, or only 5%. We can tell from the files that in terms of one of the essential requirements, merit wasn't

Government Operations committee  The act provides for two ways of putting somebody in a job. It can either be by recruiting them from outside, or by promoting someone to a higher or different level in the public service. They allow these positions to be advertised, meaning that the job post is put on the jobs we

Government Operations committee  Thank you. During the last Parliament, there was a motion by this committee asking us to do a study of temporary work in the public service, which we did. Elizabeth Murphy-Walsh was responsible for that study. The result of the study showed some interesting things. First, it is

Government Operations committee  We are now in a situation where we are experiencing a significant change in the public service. Right now, I think we have managed it. We have hired employees to compensate for the departures. But for the future, we think that we must pay much more attention to planning to avoid

Government Operations committee  My term ended on May 20, but has been extended until December 31 or until a replacement is found. The president of the public service is an appointment that has to be made with parliamentary support. We'll follow a process whereby a nomination is made by the Prime Minister. It

Government Operations committee  I think I'm okay, except I have a bad cold. My husband has a different view. For other members of the committee, one of the ideas I had as I was retiring was to spend some time working with the Mongolian government on their public service reform. This is a project supported by C

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee. I am here with Hélène Laurendeau, Senior Vice-President, Policy Branch, and Elizabeth Murphy-Walsh, Vice-President, Audit and Data Services Branch. We are here to discuss the Public Service Commission's 2010-2011 Annu

Government Operations committee  No, that is not the intent, as Mr. Arseneault told you. The way in which that section is presently written is too restrictive. For example, if we want to ask the president of the Public Service Commission to work as a member of the public appointments committee, it is not possibl

Government Operations committee  It depends. Commissioners are paid by the day, for the time they work. My salary is the same as a judge's. Perhaps I should explain the section better. There is just some overlap in the legislation.

Government Operations committee  One of the commissioners is retired. The other has a position at a university.

Government Operations committee  Thank you.

Government Operations committee  I think we should take a careful look at the experience with the integrity commissioner and that whole whistle-blowing legislation. There was an effort to spread it out to the crown corporations. I started my career in a crown corporation, and it was not an organization that was

Government Operations committee  --public servants. We can order corrective measures that go up to taking the person out of the public service, so we have a lot of power. I don't have any power, though, to do anything in terms of that Governor in Council level. I think that one is more open to me in terms of--