Thank you.
My name is Shannon Bittman, and I'm a vice-president at the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee this morning.
The institute represents almost 60,000 professional employees of the federal public service. These are the people who provide a wide range of vital functions to the Canadian public--scientific research, food inspection, tax audits, and more.
Our economy appears to be once again on the brink of a recession. Canadians are faced with massive unemployment, low levels of corporate investment despite low interest rates and tax breaks, and general market insecurity. Our message today is that the solution does not lie in further tax breaks for corporate Canada or heedless cuts to the federal public service.
A swift and sustained recovery from the recent global financial crisis has been, and still is, heavily dependent on the retention of core public servants for the provision of critical government services. Public service job cuts are not the answer to increasing government revenues, and will only add risk to an already fragile economic recovery.
Furthermore, labour cuts will only produce marginal, short-term gains and not the long-term, sustainable efficiencies that the government is looking for. Use of such overly simplistic strategies as cutting through attrition, or making indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts of 5% or 10% as mandated by the deficit reduction action plan, will leave serious labour shortages in areas of much-needed expertise. In fact, departments such as Environment Canada are already having trouble fulfilling their mandate of ensuring the health and safety of Canadians. Just as troubling is the fact that Canada is falling behind other OECD countries in its ability to conduct scientific research. These reductions will only serve to make Canada even less competitive with these countries in today's global and knowledge-based economy.
It is the institute's position that instead of cutting public service jobs, the government has the opportunity to achieve the efficiencies and savings it is looking for by reducing its reliance on outsourced contracts. As we have outlined in our written brief, research has shown an average gap of 350% between an initial bid price and the final tab paid by the government for third party delivery. This government has shown a growing dependency on outsourcing since 2005, with costs rising from $600 million in 2005-06 to over $1.2 billion in the 2009-10 fiscal year.
The institute would also like to voice its concern regarding the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, which was commissioned by this government, detailing an implementation strategy for the new federal department Shared Services Canada. This report, which we have submitted as evidence to the committee, sets out a series of recommendations, including one to outsource 54% of the government's workforce to third parties in the private sector.
Ultimately, this government needs to refocus its attention away from arbitrary budget cuts and address ballooning outsourcing costs if they hope to achieve sustainable reductions in costs over the longer term.
Our government needs to be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the nineties during the last round of unilateral public service cuts. A lack of proper succession planning then left major gaps in the senior ranks of many federal departments. These consequences are still being felt today.
The Public Service Commission's 2010-11 annual report also shows a troubling trend of shrinking numbers of young people within the public service. It is critical that the public service remains an attractive employment option. Recruitment and retention of employees aged 35 or less will have a high impact on the quality of future service delivery to all Canadians.
Canada's current troubled economic state causes us to ask questions about the government's desire to shrink the public administration and the services it provides. There's been much discussion regarding the government's ability to remain flexible should we sink into another recession and stimulus is required. Such flexibility will thus require retention of those who actually deliver stimulus—public service employees.
The recent workforce adjustment announced at the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency--