Government Operations Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

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

My questions deal with public servants and the political process. You state in your report that neutrality of the public service is a cornerstone of Canada's parliamentary system. You say there needs to be a balance in the public service between democratic participation and non-partisanship. You state that under the new rules, under the new Public Service Employment Act, there has been only one election, so we don't have a long history to guide us. You express concerns about the unmonitored movement of public servants to and from ministers' offices.

Because we received the Public Service Commission report only as we entered the committee meeting this morning, we haven't had a chance to read it and understand fully what you are referring to. You mention that there were two investigations of improper staffing by public servants. You talk about appointments to “phantom” positions that were later revoked. Then you talk about the need to monitor this through legislation or policy.

Can you describe more fully, taking into account that we haven't had time to read the report, the actual situations that were the subject of investigations?

[Maria Barrados]

Yes. In regard to some of your preamble, I can quickly make a couple of comments.

Under the new legislation the Public Service Commission is the only part of government that can give permission for people to be candidates for federal, provincial, and now municipal elections. And with all the municipal elections coming up, we've been very busy with that process. We've already had one court case that has reminded us of what kinds of processes we have to follow. So it's actually a big area--giving permission to be a candidate.

We're very much driven by the Osborne decision in the early nineties that said public servants have some rights to be politically active. It's an issue of balancing those rights either to be a candidate in an election or to be active in an election campaign. It has a lot to do with the kind of job you're doing and the profile of that job.

Your question on the phantom positions issue relates much more to the conduct of public servants, and a cornerstone for the Public Service Commission is that there should not be any political interference in staffing. The reason the Public Service Commission was created the way it was, without the direction of a minister--so out from underneath a minister--yet holding executive authority, was so that you would not have ministerial direction on appointments.

In this case, we saw two individuals who had come to the commission and made the inquiry of whether they had priority access to jobs in the public service under the ministerial priority, because they were public servants who had gone to work in a minister's office. Now, the way you can come back into the public service under the existing legislation, until Bill C-2 comes in, is that you can say, “I am working for a minister's office in an exempt staff position. I can come in through the priority system.” And I do have reports on the priority system.

The priority system means you are in a queue. If you are ministerial priority, you're behind people who've been declared surplus. You have to have a job that meets your skills, and you have to be qualified. If you want to go to an executive position, you would have to come to the Public Service Commission...because I think this is sort of risky, and I have a pretty clear standard on how that's to apply.

These two individuals could have gone through that priority system. But what was done instead was that from their positions in the minister's office, they had department officials create for them what we call “special assignment positions”. These positions can be created by a deputy minister. They're there for people who are end-of-career or in transition. The idea is that you have some flexibility in the system, both in terms of classification and pay.

These positions were created for these individuals sitting in exempt staff to allow them to not have to go through the priority system but directly into a public service job. The positions were created. They never occupied those positions. They never carried out any of the tasks of those positions.

Our conclusion was that these weren't real positions for these people, because there was no work done; hence, the term “phantom positions”. We felt this was not correct use of the staffing system. It certainly had all the appearance of political interference, if not absolute perception of political involvement. Hence, we revoked those positions.

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

The positions were phantom positions, but the people were not phantom people. I'm wondering if you can tell us who those two individuals are.

[Maria Barrados]

I can't because of the privacy of the individuals. I had some discussions with the Privacy Commissioner on what was appropriate.

My point is that I believe we have dealt with the two individuals. They had those positions revoked. I've had discussions with the deputy ministers involved. So I believe we have dealt with those cases and there's nothing to be gained by naming the individuals.

But the cases are very important for me in terms of the general point. As I said, in the past eleven years we've had a hundred people flowing back and forth like this. We've already had some in this government--and it's something we've seen in the way ministers' offices are staffed.

So I felt it was not in the public interest for me to have further discussions with the Privacy Commissioner to reveal the names. I think the point is being made that we have a bit of a gap in the system in terms of where we monitor.

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

Can you tell us which ministers were involved?

[Maria Barrados]

Yes. They're named in the report--Health Canada and Public Works and Government Services.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

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

Since my time is up, I'll have to wait until the next round. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Alghabra.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for coming here. Good to see you again, Madame Barrados.

I'm interested in the issue of foreign credentials. I think the previous government and the current government have certainly recognized, and the whole nation has recognized, that we have a big gap, or that we have not been able to manage new immigrants with foreign credentials or give them recognition for their accreditation. In your report, in your audit, in your examination, have you seen a procedure or a pattern, or any kind of indication of how foreign credential applicants are examined or given the opportunities?

[Maria Barrados]

No, that's not something we looked at directly in our report, but I have a suspicion that it may be something that will come up in our drop-off study, which is a study where I have a higher proportion of visible minorities applying, and then by the time we go through the screening, they're not getting the appointments. It will be one of the issues that we would look at in that process.

The way the system is set up, the requirements for a job--what the credentials are, what the language requirements are--are set by management; they are not set by the commission. Our job is to make sure, then, that this is properly applied. So I don't really have a responsibility in terms of foreign credentialing and equivalency unless I am asked by management to give advice.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Typically, and correct me if I'm wrong, if a scope of a job is posted or outlined, usually it mentions the level of education that is necessary, but it doesn't say if it's domestic or foreign. Do you think it would be prudent to have some type of procedure or any kind of recommendation on how to deal with an applicant with foreign credentials who may, on paper, seem to be appropriate for the job but is not given the time or the consideration they deserve?

[Maria Barrados]

I know there's an issue with professional credentials, and we're not involved in that. Medicine is an example. You raise the area of equivalency for things like secondary education or post-secondary education. There, in fact, I have the psychology assessment centre that does get involved in some of that equivalency. Perhaps Mr. Lemaire can speak to some of that.

[Donald Lemaire, Vice-President, Services Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada]

Usually when you do submit your...we ask for your post-secondary requirement. There is a pretty straightforward way to see the equivalency, if it's a university degree or a college degree. Our challenge now, and we're working on it, is when we do automated...the process screening. We discovered, for example, to use our local example, that our system didn't pick up CEGEP as a college.

We have to be aware when we do those automated selection processes that we have good translations and equivalents, and that's what we're paying attention to now to make sure that our automated processes do capture those equivalences. From a general perspective, this is not a major concern. If an individual raises it, identifies that it is equivalent to a post-secondary education, and that's the requirement, then it's pretty straightforward to assess that equivalency, which is not in the very specialized...as the president mentioned, doctors or lawyers. That is quite different.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

When you say it's not a major concern, do you mean you don't think that people who have foreign credentials are treated differently from those with local credentials? Is that what you mean when you say it's not a major concern? Or is it that not too many people apply with foreign credentials?

[Maria Barrados]

It's our job to apply these things. I don't think we're in a position to really give an opinion as to whether sufficient work has been done on that equivalency, because that's not our area.

I don't have an opinion on whether we should be giving status to medical doctors trained in some other countries, for example.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Again, I'm not referring to professionals, because that is a designation looked after by the professional associations. I'm more concerned about the economists, the political scientists, the other types of jobs in the public service.

[Donald Lemaire]

We didn't get any indication that there was.

[Maria Barrados]

I read all my letters, and I haven't heard that there is really an issue. We have run into some things as we're trying to automate. But if there's any specific area where there has been a problem, I would be happy to hear about it and look at our systems to make sure we're not unfairly screening out people.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Do I have time for one more question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

A short one, yes.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

In the amount of time left, when you say “improve HR planning”, can you elaborate on that please? What do you mean exactly by that?

[Maria Barrados]

What we're looking for is something that's integrated with the business planning in departments, and that's sort of looking forward. Based on the demographics, based on what you know and the pattern of your people's movement, we would expect that hiring processes are put in place before you actually need the person. In our acting executive audit, we use as an example Statistics Canada. They never use acting positions. The reason they don't use acting positions is because they do a very good job of planning. They know what the turnover is, they do the pre-qualification, they know who their executive-ready people are, so when there's an opening they're screened, they're ready to go, and they're put in the job.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

Mr. Albrecht.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses who have come again today.

Before I get to my question, I have two comments I'd like to make along the line of timing. I find it unfortunate that we're expected to come and discuss this report with any degree of intelligence when it was placed on our desks as we arrived. I was wondering what the rationale is for having witnesses take up their morning prior to the committee being given at least a few minutes to talk about it.

The second comment I'd like to make is regarding the phantom positions. I think there's something to be said for the principle of deterrence. It would seem to me that at some point this committee and the Canadian public needs to have some names mentioned that will make sure this practice is stopped at this point.

My question relates to the national area of selection. I'm wondering if you could describe that briefly for me and also identify what types of positions you are describing at officer level. Who does that include? Is it deputy ministers, ADMs, and so on? At what level is this criteria put into place?