Evidence of meeting #22 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was privacy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. A majority of them went to other jobs. A very small minority—
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I hope they went to a job. How about transfers, or basically going to another place in the Government of Canada?
4:50 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
That's my understanding, that a majority did that. A very small minority retired.
4:50 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
No, it's not helpful.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
And members would agree it's not helpful when you pass on your problem to somebody else.
4:50 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
No, we're all competing for the same employees. It's not helpful at all.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I understand that. We have a problem. We throw money at it, we increase levels, and we start raising salary levels and start attracting people away from other people down the hall. People talk.
This is a serious, serious problem.
4:50 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It is.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
We've seen that in virtually every department I've ever looked at. The Auditor General warned us of that a long time ago, when I was on the government operations committee.
We need information commissioners, privacy commissioners, and other officers of Parliament to start talking to each other, because within that group they know exactly what's going on. If Canadians ever needed you to speak up about how to get a stable public service.... We need some inspiration as well as your efforts to try to clean up messes.
This is a very serious problem, and I throw out the challenge to you to communicate with the other officers of Parliament--very esteemed people who are taking care of significant responsibilities. You know each other well, and you could do a great service to Canada by giving us some ideas on how to establish a public service that can grow within departments. There's something wrong here--if it can happen.
Just to finish this terrible speech, when the Auditor General came up with this, the idea was that people weren't hiring anymore; they were bringing people on contract because they could get the person at the desk quicker than by hiring a full-time person and going through the whole process. So we allowed that to happen.
I'm afraid we've fixed that problem, but now we have this other problem, and it's just shuffling the decks on the ship. It's just as bad and just as damaging to everybody who's trying to meet targets.
What do you think?
4:50 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It's a challenge to manage in this environment, but I don't quite know what the solution is. I believe the Public Service Commission is looking at this issue. I don't want to comment on what one can do with the present legislation and structures, because I don't think I have enough knowledge on what causes the phenomenon. But I certainly know, as you said, that we suffer from the phenomenon.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Yes. I think we do.
I don't have anybody else on the list. Is there someone else? Otherwise we will close off this session and spend the last part of our meeting looking at where we are on the estimates. We'll talk about the estimates in camera, as we did with Mr. Marleau's estimates.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I'd like to see if we can have that in a camera-equipped room and have it televised.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
That's to deal with his quick fixes, right? You understand it's not the estimates.
4:55 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Excuse me, Mr. Chair, are we dismissed?
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Yes.
We'll suspend to deal with the rest of our business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]