Evidence of meeting #42 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was numbers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Louise Thibault Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
The efforts made and the amounts invested, the human cost and the financial cost should serve some purpose.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
I agree. I'm currently talking with the deputy ministers to determine why they don't use these programs. Some ministers use them a lot; for example, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade uses the program for its entry-level recruitment. The situation has to improve, and I'm asking some questions.
Ultimately, the managers want to have control. They no doubt have their reasons, good or bad, but this won't enable us to plan and have an organizational approach.
Bloc
Louise Thibault Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Do I have any time left? I don't have any more.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Merci, Madame Thibault.
For possibly the final question, Ms. Nash.
NDP
Peggy Nash NDP Parkdale—High Park, ON
This is the finale. Thank you.
I have two brief questions.
Going back to the issue about recruiting people of colour to ensure we don't have barriers that prevent people from succeeding in public service jobs, can you tell us how you're going to go about this? We talked about this when you were here the last time. Given the demographic changes that are happening, not only in the public service but in the country, the growing numbers of new Canadians, and our desire to be as barrier-free as possible in hiring, what's going to be your plan of action here?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
We did what we've been calling a drop-off study, which we actually released and put out on our website. That study showed that we had this very high rate of applications from visible minorities, and we had a disproportionate number of hires. There was quite a dramatic drop in those. We didn't see that drop for the other groups. We didn't see it for women, we didn't see it for aboriginals, and we didn't see it for the disabled.
We are now actually taking samples from that and are looking at each stage of the recruitment process and the screening process, to see where it is that they're dropping off and why. We've taken care of some of the obvious questions, like whether they're Canadian or not. That didn't make a big impact. Now we're looking at whether it is occurring in the electronic screening part of it. Is it occurring in terms of their qualifications? Are they just not qualified? Or is it occurring at the interview? A lot of this is actually going on in the electronic screening phase, which suggests to me that we may have an institutional barrier, but we don't have a bias that somebody wilfully has put into the systems.
So we're doing that, and this is again something we're hoping will be done by the fall. As an organization we have a responsibility under the Employment Equity Act to identify barriers and then to remove those barriers, so I need a better handle on what exactly the barriers are.
NDP
Peggy Nash NDP Parkdale—High Park, ON
So you think there should at least be the identification of the barriers by the fall, so that you can address them.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
That's right.
The other thing we're doing is asking people to do surveys as they're applying, on how they found that application experience as well. We hope to be able to get some indications there as well on what the issues are. If that doesn't tell us, then we're going to start following through specific cases.
NDP
Peggy Nash NDP Parkdale—High Park, ON
Great. I can volunteer some people in my community.
Can I just ask one quick last question? I'm just struggling a bit to understand, from the attachments, how many casual and temporary employees there are in the total core federal public service. Is it the chart on attachment 1, at the top, that tells us that?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
Yes, it does. The last two columns give you the numbers. The casuals are the ones in white. In the last two, I have two columns. The reason I have the two columns is that the Canada Border Services Agency was in for one time, and another time it was out. It will give an idea of growth when that's not really the intention. The last column is the total, so you have 6,800 casual and 13,800 who are the terms. The permanent workforce is in burgundy.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you, Ms. Nash.
I'd like to thank our witnesses for coming today. As always, your comments are most insightful and will help in our deliberations.
I'd also like to extend my thanks for the courtesies extended by my colleagues at the table here today.
Thank you very kindly. The meeting is over.