Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My message today is simple and hopefully clear. We believe one of the fundamental requirements for securing Canada's place in a competitive world is to ensure that our citizens have the right skills for success. In our submission the citizens we focus on are public servants.
In a recent speech at the Dalhousie University School of Public Administration, the Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Lynch, said the following:
Public service is about values, and it is about accomplishment. We must emphasize excellence, leadership and teamwork in everything we do. Canadians should expect nothing less than excellence in their public service, and we should accept nothing less from ourselves.
As well, the 2006 Report on Plans and Priorities for the Treasury Board of Canada, tabled in Parliament by the Honourable John Baird, states that Canadians:
...will expect that the government will address productivity and competitiveness challenges first by setting a standard of management excellence for itself--to lead the drive for excellence through its own actions.
Mr. Chairman, this is precisely what our submission is about. We do not, however, underestimate the enormity of the challenge. We know that the Government of Canada is the largest and most complex organization in Canada. It is responsible for the country's largest workforce, some 450,000 employees, and it purchases more goods and services than almost any other institution in Canada. Moreover, the policies and programs of the government have an enormous effect on the lives and prosperity of individual Canadians, on the development of the communities in which we live, and on the economic success of Canada in a highly competitive world. It is imperative, therefore, that the government of the day be well served by its employees and that those employees be equipped with the right skills to contribute to the future success of Canada.
There will always be significant challenges in managing an organization as large and as complex as the federal government, with employees and operations spread from coast to coast to coast and around the world. One way to meet these challenges is to ensure that sufficient funding is provided to offer the appropriate education, training, and accreditation to public servants. Educating, training, and certifying public servants can be effective tools in promoting and achieving sound, transparent, and accountable government that contributes to the social and economic development of our country.
Equipping public servants with the skill sets necessary to help them succeed, and in turn helping Canadians succeed, is only one part of the equation. We believe it is equally important that the values and ethics guiding public servants in the work they do be reinforced. Values and ethics should be taught, reinforced, and observed every day. This will help public servants perform their work in an appropriate environment and in addition serve to reinforce public faith in government.
We therefore believe that there is a direct link between the quality of public service and the social and economic success of Canada and of individual Canadians in a highly competitive world. As you consider your advice to the Minister of Finance for Budget 2007, we hope you will recommend that sufficient financial resources be available so that public servants receive the training and certification they require to ensure that Canadians receive the best service possible from their government, that the government receives value for the money it spends, and that a culture of accountability is cultivated in the Government of Canada.
Thank you.