Evidence of meeting #33 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
The government does not support the amendment. In terms of contracts with senior members of government, their contracts are already negotiated annually. Negotiating was to be contained in these contracts. It would unduly constrain how the government manages and limits its ability to respond effectively to changing priorities. That is one issue. The government has to have that ability.
This clause is not, in effect, a tool of increasing accountability. Performance agreements are agreements between the deputy minister and the Clerk of the Privy Council. They are not mechanisms to ensure political accountability. They represent the personal contribution of an individual to departmental priorities.
Rather than ensuring a level of political accountability for the federal strategy's implementation, what this clause would do is politicize the performance contracts of senior public servants. It's important to note that performance agreements and subsequent evaluations are confidential. It's a very important point for the committee to consider. There would be no way to know if the provisions for meeting the applicable targets in this strategy were included or met, because of the confidentiality of the agreements.
I'd also like to reiterate that obligating the ministers responsible for crown corporations to prepare and table in Parliament a sustainable development strategy is inappropriate and unnecessary. Crown corporations will have vastly different capacities to prepare these strategies from a logistical and financial perspective.
I'd like to reiterate my concern here, which would obviously also pertain to the amendments proposed here that would further obligate crown corporations in terms of senior official performance agreements.
I think the real salient point is the confidentiality of those agreements. How could you determine if the person has met those targets and obligations if the agreements are confidential? It wouldn't be possible.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
If the parliamentary secretary doesn't want my amendment, that's fine. I'm just trying to understand. Does the original language stand, and then he wishes to change the words “National” to...? Are we going back to performance-based contracts, or are we trying to get rid of this altogether? I haven't quite understood.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
You may not be looking at.... My understanding is that we were talking about performance-based agreements.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Are you against the whole clause or just performance-based agreements?
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
I am just curious as to why you then want to amend to “Federal Sustainable Development Strategies” if you're against the whole clause.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
If the clause stood, we would have amended it to read “Federal”, but we don't agree with the clause.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Yes. We clearly can have a difference of opinion in terms of the witness testimony we heard regarding the accountability mechanism required, so that department officials are able to ensure the to and fro between the minister and the politicians making the promises and what they are actually able to deliver. We heard from various witnesses that this was an acceptable avenue, to assure both the public servant that promises were being made with their inclusion and the elected official that their department heads were also agreeing to the steps that the politician was making in public.
I appreciate the parliamentary secretary's point, and difference of opinion is fine, but when I and others have repeatedly asked what accountability anybody has held on the file of sustainability over the last dozen years, the Auditor General herself and the Commissioner of the Environment himself were unable to find any case of anyone feeling any repercussion whatsoever.
So we're trying to go to the root of this and say that at the moment of contract, the sustainability clauses are included in that contract, so that when we go and look at the performance of the government and of the various departments and crown corporations, the two line up. Wouldn't that be a nice day?
There have been very few mechanisms proposed by anybody to this point to achieve that. So while there may be discomfort, or it's a different approach to arriving at this, it's very difficult to look at this bill with any serious option of hope if we're using the same mechanisms that have failed us in the past. We need to find ways that the words actually match the actions and that the promises made by the elected officials are in some sort of convergence with the plans of those meant to carry out those promises, and that those are the people who are included in this performance contract clause.
Difference of opinion is fine, but it's unfortunate. I think we could arrive at some consensus here.
Liberal
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I was just wondering whether the committee had heard evidence in relation to the percentage of senior management who would be on performance-based contracts. It seems to me that all this would do is in essence change contracts to not be performance-based, at least so far as fitting into the criteria of the legislation goes.
I sympathize, and I understand exactly what Mr. Cullen is saying, but the reality is that holding those individuals to account on the basis of that, because of the confidential nature of their contract, seems, quite frankly, very difficult if not impossible to do.
So I see what you're aiming for, and I can understand why witnesses would say that. But how do you get around the fact that it's confidential? Indeed, the cumbersome part of the contract may not fit in with the Auditor General's report or other reports to show whether or not they're accountable. I see it as very cumbersome as far as the management goes, and quite frankly impossible as far as fulfilling the confidentiality part of the agreement goes.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Nobody answered my question about the percentage of senior management that would be under performance-based contracts.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Geoff Regan
I took it as a matter of debate. I don't know if there's anyone here who is able to answer, but if someone else on the committee wishes to answer, they could speak in debate and offer whatever answer they may wish. But Mr. McGuinty is next in line and has the floor now.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Mr. Chair, on that specific question, my understanding is that these performance-based contracts are signed exclusively with deputy ministers and associate deputy ministers in line departments. I don't think they extend to presidents and CEOs of crown corporations, because their contracts usually are negotiated with their boards of directors who hire and appoint them and set the terms and conditions.
What's interesting in the position put forward by Mr. Warawa is that if in fact that is the consistent position of a government, what he's put forward would mean that every single item in the Accountability Act that is about to drive up or is supposed to be driving up government accountability cannot find its way into a performance-based contract.
Look, performance-based contracts with the Government of Canada, negotiated between the clerk and deputy ministers, have a whole series of essential elements in them: everything from person years that are filled, to budgeting, to parliamentary relations, to the estimates process, and on and on it goes. My understanding is that they are fairly generic between a clerk and over 28 line department deputies and the associates that underpin them. You may be talking about 40 or 50 contracts. I don't know why the fact that a performance-based contract isn't disclosable ought not to mean that the notion of including provisions for meeting targets referred to in the national sustainable development strategy can't form part of the contract.
There are many elements in a performance-based contract right now, negotiated between the deputy minister and the clerk, that are not disclosable. But I'm sure that contract is rife with all kinds of measurables, all kinds of targets that we'll never know about. So I don't understand the logic or the argument here. The fact that they already have contracts with terms and conditions that stipulate targets in one form or another, which aren't releasable—we can't compel their release—ought not to mean that this committee and Parliament can't ask those deputies to take on more confidential targets, which happen to flow directly from the national sustainable development strategy.
I don't understand the logic, Mr. Chair.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
First, to Mr. Jean, because I think it's the easiest to answer, the assumption from the testimony of witnesses, as Mr. McGuinty has outlined, is that virtually all assistant deputy ministers go through some contract agreement.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Yes, outlining the various categories we hear about.
Second--this is in terms of Mr. Warawa's point, and I would hope he would reconsider--there is an insinuation, perhaps, of politicizing what does and doesn't happen under that contract by parliamentarians. There's no insinuation of that, because we knew these were confidential between the people who are drawing up the contract. There is nothing in this clause that says you then, therefore, must make it public, and in making it public, you can then drag a deputy minister here and burn their feet.
If we're doing all this work on accountability with respect to sustainable measures, I don't know why we wouldn't also ask that this be included. It makes some logic. I'm not sure what the ideological point of difference is. We do this on all sorts of things. If we're trying to putting a green lens on what it is that government does, then the application of this to the contract itself is one of the places where the civil service would understand it being a serious moment when contracts are negotiated in the future.
Maybe the position is being worked out in our midst, I don't know. But there's no attempt at politicization of the bureaucracy in this. This is just asking that it be included. We're looking for any measure we can find, and there are very few at our disposal.
Liberal
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Yes. I'm not hung up on the difference between what I've got here, “performance agreements of senior officials”, and “performance-based contracts of the Government of Canada”. That's not the point of debate. The point of debate is whether there's that kind of accountability at all.
I guess we can vote on this amendment. I don't think it changes anything substantial between “performance-based contracts” and “performance agreements of senior”. I think we should just vote on it.
Liberal
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Geoff Regan
Are we ready for the vote?
I can see what's going to come here.
Those in favour of Mr. Godfrey's amendment L-18, so signify.
It's a tie vote, five to five.
Some of you who have seen tie votes in the House, which I've seen, will know that when that happens, as in committee, the Speaker, or in this case the chair, does not decide on the basis of his own opinion, but in keeping with procedure. The procedure would be to maintain the status quo. In other words, the chair votes to maintain the status quo.
So if we were talking about whether a clause that is already in the bill should stay in it, the chair would vote for the clause. If we're talking about an amendment that would change what already exists, the chair must vote against.
So the motion is defeated.
(Amendment negatived)