Evidence of meeting #42 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was students.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ian Shugart  Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet, Privy Council Office
Daniel Lapointe  President, Focus OSBL Consulting Service, As an Individual
Joshua Mandryk  Labour and Class Actions Lawyer, Goldblatt Partners LLP, As an Individual
Chris Aylward  National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Mr. Aylward, I reluctantly hate to interrupt again, but just bring your mike down a little. Let's give that a try.

The difficulty of the virtual meetings is that the people in the booths have to be able to hear extremely clearly, and if it's crackling, that's a problem.

Try now. Sorry about that.

12:20 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

Thank you. No problem.

My apologies, especially to the interpreters in the booth.

Students may actually end up making even less than $10 an hour. The grant will be calculated using 100-hour thresholds and will be rounded down. Students need to work a full 100 hours to get any money at all. If they work more than 100 hours, but less than 200, they are providing free labour for the additional hours. It is also ironic that the federal government has brought in regulations under the Canada Labour Code to restrict the use of unpaid internships, yet it is expecting students to work unpaid hours under the student service grant program.

Paying students to carry out volunteer work means that they are no longer volunteers. Simply calling them volunteers will not protect the government or the organizations employing them from violating provincial labour standards. PSAC agrees that students need support during this very difficult time. What they don’t need is a program that shortchanges them for their labour.

The government could have organized the program to pay students to work for non-profit agencies and charities, carrying out duties that volunteers could not do, or to perform work that would not be done due to a shortage of volunteers. They could have been paid at least minimum wage for their work, but ideally a wage more closely aligned to the type of work they would be performing, and they could be paid for all their work. For that matter, why introduce a grant program that emphasizes volunteer experience as opposed to job experience? The government could have taken immediate action to bolster existing summer student employment programs, including the federal student work experience program.

Finally—and let me conclude—if the government had either used existing programs or asked the public service to set up a new student work and payment plan, it would have avoided the conflict of interest issues that have come to light since the WE Charity announcement, and it would have been able to deliver both pay and work experience to students.

Thank you.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Thank you very much to all three witnesses.

I believe you have Mr. Howie West with you, who is a work reorganization officer in the national program section, if there are any questions that need to be transferred to him.

Our questioner list is Mr. Cooper, Ms. Dzerowicz, Mr. Fortin and Mr. Julian.

Mr. Cooper, you're up.

July 21st, 2020 / 12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I'm going to direct my questions to Mr. Aylward.

Just so I understand, putting aside design flaws with the Canada student service grant, it's your position that the public service could have administered this program in a timely manner. Do I understand you correctly in that regard?

12:25 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

Yes, Mr. Cooper, absolutely.

I mean, the public service right now administers hundreds of grants, everything from agriculture to scientific research. Certainly, I think we demonstrated very clearly at the outset of this pandemic that we were able to adapt very quickly, as I said, as with the Canada emergency response benefit and how quickly we were able to get that out the door.

I think the public service has proven itself very capable and accountable, and certainly would absolutely have been able to administer this program.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Consistent with that, the public service already administers a wide variety of programs targeted at youth. Is that not correct?

12:25 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

Yes, it is, absolutely. There are a number of programs for students, and for youth as well, as you pointed out, that are administered within the federal public service.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

That would include matching youth with not-for-profits. Obviously, the Canada summer jobs program comes to mind.

12:25 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

Yes, exactly, and I made reference to that in my statement.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

What do you say in response to Ms. Wernick's testimony from the other day, in which she said, “The pandemic was also impacting the capacity of the department [meaning ESDC] to provide any form of direct delivery.”

What do you say in response to that?

12:25 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

I'm not too sure what the basis of that statement may have been. I'm not privy to that.

All I can say is that we have demonstrated throughout this pandemic that the public service certainly is very capable of producing programs and has been able to benefit Canadians in times like this. As I said, I'm very confident that within the public service, this new student service grant would have been administered with very little complexity to it, and certainly with transparency and ease. Again, I just want to reiterate about the accountability of doing it within the public service.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

In terms of testimony from Mr. Shugart earlier today, he cited reasons for going to a third party and claimed that only WE supposedly had the ability to provide what he characterized as “the full range of services” under the program, including social media, matching database information and connecting with not-for-profits across Canada.

Do you have anything to say in response to that?

12:30 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

Of the things you just listed, Mr. Cooper, I can't see any of those not being able to be performed within the federal public service.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Okay, and why do you say that?

12:30 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

Because they already are. They are already administering such things as the ones you just announced.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Okay.

Isn't it the case that the public civil service has actually provided, as you noted, a rapid response to a number of COVID-related procurement projects, and did so with open competition?

12:30 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

Absolutely.

We certainly did a very quick turnaround, as I said, on CERB, and the emergency wage subsidy as well. Those two programs were delivered by federal public sectors, seamlessly, I believe.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

I'm looking at another program, at Innovation, Science and Economic Development. A request for proposals was issued in respect of the economic impact of the pandemic. Proposals were issued, with a closing date of six days; 20 companies submitted bids, and within a few days the winner was announced.

There are many examples, are there not?

12:30 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

Again, I can't comment specifically on what you just read.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Okay, that's fair enough, but would you say...? I think it's significant; you note that it's three months later and we still don't have a program.

12:30 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

Yes, which is obviously.... The only people that is detrimental to, of course, are the students who are relying on this program.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

I want to turn a little bit now to contribution agreements. Would you say, in your experience, that it would be normal for a contribution agreement of this size, dealing with large amounts of money, to be administered to do this without any kind of competitive process?

12:30 p.m.

National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Chris Aylward

Well, as I said, when the Prime Minister announced that WE Charity was the only organization capable, and then you look and realize that $43.5 million was being given to WE to ensure that they were able to administer the program, one would have to question that, absolutely.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

And you know—

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Michael, could you raise your mike a little bit for the interpreters? That's better.