Finance Committee on June 14th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

If you could summarize, it would give our committee members time to have an exchange with your panel. I'd ask if you could move more quickly on your presentation and give Madam Bannon a chance to conclude.

[John Gordon]

Okay.

I just want to say that in addition to the terms and conditions of employment that I spoke about earlier, which were concluded in 2000, the PSAC has concluded two collective agreements with the CRA, one negotiated without strike action and the other following several days of strike action.

It is not my intention to use this forum to bargain with the employer, but I will make two points.

Well, I won't make those two points. You have them in the brief. I'm going to allow Betty Bannon to go from here.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

It's much appreciated. We'll go to Madam Bannon to conclude.

[Betty Bannon, National President, Union of Taxation Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada]

I want to start by saying that I am a CRA employee and have been employed for 34 years with Revenue Canada, CCRA, and the CRA, and I can say I've witnessed the good, the bad, and the ugly with the department and the agency as a front-line worker and as the national president of the union. In fact, one of the members around this table, I used to call Minister.

It may surprise you, but I can say that our relationship under the CRA structure is mostly good, and certainly better than when we were a department of the government. That said, the most important area where the CRA has failed to live up to its employer-of-choice model is in the area of staffing and staffing recourse. That is the bad, and in the given time available, that's what I'll focus on.

Under subsection 54(1) of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency Act, the agency must develop a program governing staffing, including an appointment process and employee recourse when the process goes wrong. The act further states that no collective agreement may deal with staffing.

Unfortunately, the CRA staffing directives fall far short of providing transparency in appointments and do not provide any real recourse. Our experience has exposed a number of problems that I should like to table this afternoon.

From our experience to date, I can say that the CRA has refused to implement some of the findings of the independent third party reviewers, the ITPRs, and indeed denies that reviewers can make binding orders in contravention of its own directives. When an ITPR interprets a directive in a way that expands employees' right, the employer amends the directive to limit that right once again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Could I ask you to move to a conclusion, because we're not going to have time for an exchange or for other panel members unless we do that now. I'll give you a minute or two to round up, but we won't have time, because you're going to be using up about 12 to 13 minutes, by my estimate. Please move to a conclusion so that we can have enough time.

[Betty Bannon]

May I ask how much time we have in total?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

My committee staff tells me you were asked to prepare an introductory statement only of two to three minutes. We've gone over eight and half minutes now. That's why I'm asking you to move to a conclusion, and I would appreciate it if you did.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm curious. The last one was an hour, and these are only half an hour. Is there a reason for the difference?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

No, not at all. That was the way we set up the meeting.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I understand how it was set up; I was just looking for the why. Is there a rationale why one group got an hour and two groups got a half hour? No?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

There was no particular rationale. We didn't have confirmation until a late date.

[Betty Bannon]

We were advised that it was 4:30 to 5:30, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

That's quite true, but if we use all the time for presentation, madam, we won't have time for the committee members to ask you questions. That's all I'm trying to get across.

We have a copy of your presentation. Certainly our committee members will be reading it, and are, I believe, reading it now. But I'd invite you to move to a conclusion, because I want to make sure there's time for you to have questions.

[Betty Bannon]

Okay. As you can see in the brief, we've outlined three or four other things the staffing regime does not cover. Our main objective is to table a recommendation to you. In our view, the staffing and staffing recourse needs to be included in the collective bargaining process so that the interests of the CRA workforce as well as the of employer are addressed.

This would require a change to the act, and I would urge the committee to take a close look at making one, in order that we can work with the CRA and bargain a staffing regime that will be both fair and effective to all parties.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thanks very much, Madam Bannon.

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada wants to make an introductory statement of two or three minutes?

[Michèle Demers, President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada]

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Proceed.

[Michèle Demers]

Thank you.

I am Michèle Demers. I am the President of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada and I represent some 10,000 to 10,500 professionals in Canada's Revenue Agency.

Today I am accompanied by Mr. Réal Lamarche, who is the president of the audit group and other professional groups in the agency, as well as Mr. Michel Charette, who is the negotiator for the Professional Institute.

I will be brief, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to share with you the fact that, as president, and as vice-president before 2005, I have heard a cry of distress from both the employees and management of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada regarding the procedures for staffing and recourse.

This agency has awarded itself very high marks in the report it made to you. Now we entirely disagree with it on this point. I agree with Ms. Bannon and John Gordon who say that the most crying need in human resource management that must be satisfied is the whole issue of staffing and recourse.

Let me give the floor to Mr. Lamarche, who will continue our presentation.

[Réal Lamarche, President, Audit, Financial and Scientific Group, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada]

Good afternoon.

My presentation will deal with two specific points: staffing and recourse. Section 54 of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency Act deals with appointments and the recourse that employees can have. The Professional Institute alleges that the agency did not fulfil this commitment. The agency set up a system that turned out to be a fiasco. This system even compels managers to find other solutions than the current procedure. The agency's selection process is not universal. In the Ottawa region, only 1 per cent of competitions were carried out following the procedures implemented by the agency. This system is a source of frustration.

An internal review by the agency shows that 75 per cent of employees believe that the selection process needs improvement, because it is neither fair nor transparent.

The system should be quicker and more efficient, which is not the case. For instance, let me mention two competitions held in Montreal and Toronto in order to staff the positions that the agency needs. These competitions began 8 or 10 months ago, and no appointments have been made up to now.

The cost of implementing this system is enormous, astronomical. We evaluate it at $50 million.

Now for the recourse part, I'll switch to English.

The Professional Institute is rightfully concerned with the recourse process put in place by the agency. In our view, recourse must be provided in a manner allowing for the cancellation or modification of the staffing action. Any recourse system that has any backbone must be consistent with the principle of natural justice, the most important principle being the right to representation.

Another concern often raised by our members and representatives is the disclosure of information, which occurs inconsistently and on a largely untimely basis.

After six years of our raising issues related to disclosure, we do recognize that CRA has finally agreed to show some opening in principle, which may lead to improved methods for the disclosure of information. Time will tell whether the principle will be followed by an equally open practice. You will understand and pardon our skepticism, given the agency's overall record on recourse.

Our conclusion is that the Professional Institute calls upon Parliament to direct the Canada Revenue Agency to meet its obligations under section 54.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you for your presentation.

Mr. Pacetti, you have five minutes.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, witnesses.

I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Savage.

My question is relatively easy, and I want to start at the end. If we approve this review, will your ability to negotiate with the agency be hindered? Is there any problem?

Ms. Bannon, you referred to perhaps amending section 54, and I haven't really read it, so I'm not sure. I understand there are growing pains and there have been some problems with CRA when it went from Revenue Canada to become an agency, and then the Canada Border Services Agency was split off. But is that the mechanics, or is that really going to affect us in terms of giving consent for the review to go ahead as is, or for the agency to continue as is?

I guess my question would be to all three groups, Ms. Bannon, Mr. Gordon, and Madame Demers.

[Betty Bannon]

If you leave it the way it is and not amend it, we'll be able to bargain staffing. I mean, we will continue to meet with the CRA and do our best to convince them to change the staffing regime to include this, and so on. The act specifically states it will not be part of the bargaining process. If the act is changed to make it part of the process, you still can't force them to bargain. You can go to the table with it, and they may very well say no. But at least during the bargaining process, there are ways and means to exert pressure on the employer to maybe make them think longer and harder that changes are required for their staffing regime.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Gordon, you were saying that most of the problems are like growing pains. Did I understand that correctly? It's just issues: that had it been Revenue Canada, you would have had the same issues. Or am I misunderstanding that?

[John Gordon]

When it was Revenue Canada, it came directly under the Treasury Board. When we negotiated a collective agreement, it was with Treasury Board. When they changed over to the agency, the first thing we had to do.... It was a brand-new organization and had to go through a certification process involving the Public Service Staff Relations Board, and that slowed down the process. More importantly, even though we managed to get an agreement in place—and we had this legal definition by the board and our position on it, which was a collective agreement—they said it was the terms and conditions of employment. That's not the essence.

The problem is that the CCRA tends to link itself far too directly, even though they've been separate agencies, with the Treasury Board. So they send their people to the negotiating table with us, and the problem there is they have no mandate. Each time we've negotiated collective agreements with them in the past, it's had to involve the president of the PSAC meeting with the commissioner and other officials to conclude a collective agreement, because they don't seem to want to give the mandate to the people they put at the table. We believe that's where the agreement should be started and finished, without having to go into a discussion between the head of the agency and the head of the union. So these are the problems created by the changes.

In terms of the classification review, that was well under way, but once they divided the Canada Border Services Agency, or took the customs offices out and put them in the border services, they stopped the process. These are the types of things that get started, get stopped, and it's very difficult to get them started again. So we'd like to see some sense of stability, in order to get them to work out all the wrinkles of being a new agency.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

So by okaying the five-year review, it will add stability and be okay with your group. Is that correct?