Government Operations committee  No, that's not something we looked at directly in our report, but I have a suspicion that it may be something that will come up in our drop-off study, which is a study where I have a higher proportion of visible minorities applying, and then by the time we go through the screenin

Government Operations committee  Yes. In regard to some of your preamble, I can quickly make a couple of comments. Under the new legislation the Public Service Commission is the only part of government that can give permission for people to be candidates for federal, provincial, and now municipal elections. And

Government Operations committee  It would be very helpful. It's part of what happened under the new Public Service Employment Act. There was new responsibility for protecting non-partisanship for the Public Service Commission. So we're into a new area, and it's part of exercising this new area and looking at wha

Government Operations committee  I'll ask Mary Clennett to expand on that because she's responsible for audits. When the auditors go and look in the files, they expect to see the material there. The way you posed me the question, is it anywhere in the department some place, I can't be sure because we expect it

Government Operations committee  I don't think we lack for rules. I think we have plenty of rules. You'll notice that I'm not recommending more rules. We have lots of rules. I think we see here sloppiness, and I think we haven't had enough oversight in changing the Public Service Commission. Having the new inter

Government Operations committee  I haven't set any goals, but if you asked me to set a goal, I'd say I expect it to be 100%. These are transactions that involve people's careers, pay, and other important factors within the public service. So I'm looking for 100%. As part of the change in the new Public Service

Government Operations committee  Thank you. I'm happy to come back to the committee at any time, and I'm prepared to come on short notice, to talk about any of these issues, so just keep me on your list if you want to follow up with something. If I'm not available, my staff would certainly be available to you.

Government Operations committee  In the investigation we dealt with all the people who had comments to make on the transaction itself. So we dealt with exempt staff, with deputies, with departmental officials. What we had is pressure from exempt staff and action taken by bureaucrats, so we had to look at the bur

Government Operations committee  We came close enough to be concerned about them and to revoke those appointments.

Government Operations committee  The way the system is currently set up...what we did was investigate those appointments, and we revoked the appointments. All the players knew of our concerns, and I feel satisfied that we've done enough about those two particular cases. I am not satisfied that we've dealt with i

Government Operations committee  I didn't answer the other questions.

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much for your comments, Ms. Thibault. I am going to ask Linda to help me with the technical questions regarding EX positions that require bilingualism. It is possible that people are being appointed to acting positions who do not meet all the requirements of the

Government Operations committee  That's right, or it's how we pose the questions or do the screening. If those things are occurring, we have to remove them. With respect to targets, the government had a target of bringing in one in five visible minorities. This was a catch-up target. We've seen an increase, bu

Government Operations committee  In terms of the backlog in training, I'm no longer responsible for training. The Public Service Commission was at one time; it is now the Canada School of Public Service. I understand there is quite a backlog. I'm not sure exactly—

Government Operations committee  It's pretty close. But there are alternatives. You can get training through the Canada School, but your department can also send people out to private schools. If I can't get people in my own organization through the Canada School, I send them to private schools or have in-hou