Government Operations Committee on June 20th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Would you read it to us, please?

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Certainly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

You need only read it in one language.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

That's what I intended to do, using Ms. Thibault's original motion as a guide. I want to be clear that I don't doubt that Ms. Thibault is acting in good faith. We have worked together on several occasions and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to work with her. She is a frank and honest person.

The second paragraph of Ms. Thibault's motion begins as follows:

That the government should make a commitment [...]

My proposed amendment would replace the rest of the paragraph with the following:

in the National Capital Region, starting now, to divide federal Public Service, government agency and Crown corporation jobs between Ottawa, and Gatineau, primarily departments, departmental corporations or other bodies referred to in the Bank of Canada Act, the Broadcasting Act, the Canada Council for the Arts Act, the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development Act, the International Development Research Centre Act, the National Defence Act, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act and the Telefilm Canada Act, or in any schedule to the Financial Administration Act, to meet a standard whereby at least 25 per cent of positions are located on the Quebec side of the National Capital Region, as agreed to in 1984 by the federal cabinet, primarily by purchasing or leasing real estate through a competitive public call for tender process;

The next paragraph of Ms. Thibault's motion begins with the following:

That starting in 2007, the government report annually to the House on progress achieved [...]

With my amendment, I'm proposing that the following be added, after the words “progress achieved“:

by preparing an annual statistical summary of all public sector positions in the National Capital Region, including their locations and any movement of those positions in the previous fiscal year, which shall be laid before the House of Commons and made available to the public through a posting on the Government of Canada website, within four months after the end of each fiscal year, and by taking the necessary steps to ensure as soon as practicable as positions are filled in the public service, and in any case not later than December 31, 2010, that the 25/75 standard is implemented and respected.

Let me explain, Madam Chair, the rationale behind my proposed amendment.

First, let me say that I believe Ms. Thibault is acting in good faith with a view to attaining the 75/25 standard. However, we're not necessarily going to re-invent the wheel just because some new MPs were elected in January 2006. Last week, during a debate in the House, I was accused of becoming interested in this issue only lately, whereas that is not true. That's why I've listed the different acts that should be used for the purpose of calculating the numbers. Hear me out, Madam Chair.

When the Minister of Public Works and Government Services appears before the committee, when his parliamentary secretary fields questions in the House, when PWGSC employees refer to the 75:25 policy, they all maintain that the proportion is currently 77 per cent on the Ontario side, and 23 per cent on the Quebec side.

If we include only those departments and agencies that report to Treasury Board, the figures would probably be quite good. However, the federal government's original policy makes no reference to agencies or departments that report to Treasury Board. Rather, it refers to federal government jobs in the National Capital Region. To come up with some fair numbers, we need to take into account not only the departments that report to Treasury board, but all jobs that, directly or indirectly, report to the Government of Canada.

For example, PWGSC does not account for all Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporations jobs. Yet, CMHC does report to the federal government. However, it's not included in the calculations because as an employer, CMHC is not subject to Treasury Board.

The same holds true for Canada Post. No one is about to argue that Canada Post does not report to the Government of Canada. I could give you scores of other similar examples.

We must be very careful about how we interpret the laws mentioned in this motion. These laws also happen to be cited in motion M-316 that I presented during the previous Parliament.

We're not saying that CMHC should relocate 25 per cent of its workforce to Gatineau, just like we're not saying that the Parliament of Canada, the Senate or the House of Commons should relocate. We're saying that these institutions must be taken into account when calculating the numbers.

In response to the objection raised earlier by my colleague Mr. Kramp, if we calculate the number this way and come up with a ratio of 80:20, the missing 5 per cent of jobs doesn't necessarily have to come from Crown corporations which are not necessarily controlled by the government. Rather, they are independent agencies. However, if we need to make up this 5 per cent, the Government of Canada, which controls jobs through Treasury Board and PWGSC, could step in and transfer 5 per cent of the jobs to the Quebec side.

The big picture will show that the sharing within the national capital region is actually 25%-75%, but of course I do not suggest that employees from the Parliament of Canada, whether it be the House or whether it be the Senate, be moved to the Quebec side. What I'm saying is that all of these entities that are direct or indirect to the Government of Canada have to be considered in the mathematical calculation to arrive at the number of employees or jobs that should be split in the national capital region, and then the government, within the department or agencies that it controls, can make the different switches to accommodate this 75%-25% share.

Thank you very much. And I want to reiterate that it will be a real pleasure to discuss this and to look at any possible changes, but again, this is not the result of three months of work, this is the result of work since 1994.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I have a bit of a concern. We passed the motion of Mr. Warkentin, essentially removing the word “jobs” and replacing it with the word “real estate”. I'm going to ask the people how this motion now comes in after

the word “federal”. The word “jobs” has been replaced. Perhaps the research officers could explain how that works, because I'm not really following the logic behind this very well.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Madam Chair, the experts may well propose an amendment to my amendment. The reference in my amendment is to “jobs”, not “real estate”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I understand, but the amendment has already been adopted.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

In that case, my amendment would amend Mr. Warkentin's motion which has already been adopted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Yes, Ms. Thibault.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Could someone read the text of the amendment as adopted, to give us an idea of where Mr. Proulx's amendment might be inserted?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Bibiane Ouellette]

I'll read the text in English.

“That the government should make a commitment starting now to divide federal public service, government agency and Crown corporation real estate between Ottawa and Gatineau.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

The text of the motion that the committee has just adopted.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

No, that's not at all in line with the gist of my motion. We'd like to withdraw it, because it no longer makes any sense.

[The Clerk]

Yes, but Mr. Proulx's amendment rectifies the problem.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

On a point of order, Madam Chair.

Could someone explains this calmly to us? We want to grasp the implications of adopting Mr. Warkentin's amendment, as well as the implications of possibly adopting my amendment to Ms. Thibault's original motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Would someone like to venture an explanation? Ms. Nash.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I would like to move a motion of reconsideration of the previous motion.

I'll tell you why. I was given amendments to the motion, which I was told were Mr. Warkentin's amendments, and that's what I thought I was voting on. But when you read what we voted on, those are not the amendments I have. So I was voting on something that is different from what we actually voted on. I don't believe the actual amendment was read before the vote, and I think that's where the confusion lies. What I voted in support of is what I have in writing, which is not what you just read.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Go ahead, Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'm new to this, but I think there's a solution that all around the table can find. Can we move to table this until the next meeting and have a discussion? This is not in French. It's not fair to them. It's not fair to the English.... Oh, this you do have in French, okay.

There are a number of amendments. We have a meeting on Thursday, and I think we can get a solution.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

You know what? I think we could, if we have unanimous consent, agree to set aside whatever has been done and then sit down and actually work out proper wording. I think we voted, and we didn't realize the impact.

If you're all in favour, then we'll move forward with some of these amendments and we will debate them, but we need unanimous consent for that.

Madame Ratansi wants to speak, and then Mr. Bonin and Monsieur Nadeau.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Madame Chair, I was surprised that Madame Nash has an amendment that came from the Conservative side. And I don't even have anything in writing, so I couldn't figure out what we were voting on. And that's why, when we don't have anything in writing, we are being blindsided. So I guess Madame Nash was blindsided in voting for something that she didn't even know about until she read the amendment.

So I think in fairness, I would agree that we should revisit everything and see where we can come to a consensus, because all of us are hopefully working in good faith trying to figure out what it is that we are really trying to do. Is it real estate? Is it jobs? What is it ? It is a little hairy-scary at the moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Would you allow Madame Nash to explain where her motion comes from? Does it come from the Conservatives, or was she thinking that she was voting on something else completely?

Madame Nash.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

The changes I was given were from the Conservatives, and they said that they were going to move these changes. But ultimately, that was amended to become something quite different, and it was moved from jobs to real estate. I think that when we voted, there was no reading of the motion, and that's where the confusion comes from.

I support the recommendation to set aside what was adopted earlier and sit down and with goodwill work out language everyone can agree with. I think with such a big group sitting around the table, it's difficult to develop specific wording.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

We'll go to you, Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Yes, in discussions before the meeting I did mention that I wanted to see if we couldn't change the last sentence in this second paragraph, and we would remove the “without exception”, and then Ms. Nash and I had some discussion as to whether it should be jobs or real estate. So I made the change of real estate, in terms of unions and stuff.