Government Operations Committee on March 22nd, 2007

[Maria Barrados]

I am preoccupied with that issue. What we see is that for the numbers of people who apply through the corporate programs--those big programs, those big numbers I showed you--we have very good representation for visible minorities. Whenever we run a special program, we get very good numbers of applications and take-up and jobs being given.

We don't see the same progress when you have all the individual ad hoc kinds of decisions, so we have to do better, as a system, to focus on meeting those corporate objectives. We are now undertaking a specific study to see if there are barriers in how we phrase questions or how we screen people. We want to make sure we don't have something that's institutionalized. We want to try to reduce those, because overall the representation isn't good enough.

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

Can you suggest anything a little more specific? I'm just thinking about my neck of the woods, our newcomer community in downtown Toronto. Is there something in particular that we should maybe be looking at in our community to encourage people to get certain kinds of credentials, or is it too vague at this point?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You can give a quick response, Ms. Barrados, just to finish the time.

[Maria Barrados]

I think the biggest issue is that people have to know how to actually apply through the systems. Once you start automating, you really do have to go through and systematically answer each of the questions clearly and directly. I have a worry that may not be happening if there are language barriers or if they're not understanding those things. We're trying to provide the support so people will not have that as a barrier.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll have Mr. Simard.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for being here this afternoon. I'm sorry I missed your presentation. If I ask you questions that you've already answered, please disregard them, because I'll just look at the Hansard. I don't want my colleagues to have to go through it twice--not that it's not interesting.

I'd just like to know--and probably it's the obvious question--what you are doing to prepare yourselves for this. Have you identified the qualifications you'll be needing over the next 10 to 15 years? We may be talking about tradespeople, for instance. In a hot market, the plumbers and the electricians may be difficult to obtain. What are you doing about that?

Are you also, given the huge number of people you'll have to replace later on, doing anything with the schools and universities in terms of getting people ready there as well?

[Maria Barrados]

I'll be brief, because we have touched on some of these issues.

I don't see a problem with supply or interest in the public service. We do, though, have to do better in terms of planning, in response to your question about anticipating needs. We do have a pool of people out there, but we have to get more specific in what our planning needs are so that we can anticipate them better.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

That might change over time, as well.

[Maria Barrados]

Of course.

Once you reach a certain age, you've seen cycles. I've gone through a point at which we had a surfeit of people to do accounting and auditing. It was very easy to get them. Now we're very short. So these things do come and go.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Are there departments in which it is easier to find replacements and others in which it is more difficult? I would think the foreign service might be something to which there are a lot of applications, while maybe in other departments it is a little bit tougher. Or is the challenge in replacing our workers going to be right across the board?

[Maria Barrados]

In our experience, we have very little problem with entry and junior-level positions. We do have some difficulties in some of the professional groups and some of the more senior groups. For example, it is very difficult to recruit medical doctors. There are other areas of specialty in which there are difficulties, and then, really, you have to go into a job search kind of mode.

We are currently short of human resource specialists. This is not an area where there's difficulty finding people, but we have to get ourselves organized, bring the people in, and train them into the public service.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Do you anticipate any challenges in staffing designated bilingual positions?

[Maria Barrados]

The challenge for those positions remains the same. We have a pool of bilingual people, but nearly 60% of positions are unilingual. The challenge starts when unilingual people enter the public service and want to secure a more senior position that requires them to be bilingual. The challenge remains, and I think this will continue to be the case.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Do you offer any incentives for people to stay in their positions for a longer period of time? Is that currently being done? If not, do you intend to do so?

[Maria Barrados]

I don't believe that departures are a serious problem. There are fewer of them in the public service than in other organizations. People tend to enter the public service and make their careers there.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

You referred to a personnel shortage in the human resources sector. Do you encourage people in that field not to retire at 53 or 55 and to stay on longer?

[Maria Barrados]

We have that kind of option, but we've decided not to use it. If we start making changes to pensions, we'll have to do it for everyone. We can't do it for just one group. We often talk about departure-related problems. But we're not talking about people who leave the Government of Canada here, but rather about people who move from one department to another. Within the public service, there are a lot of areas of activity, departments and opportunities for changing positions. This is a very big advantage.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Generally speaking, you don't seem concerned by the fact that a large number of people will be leaving the public service. You seem to be in control of the situation.

[Maria Barrados]

No, not exactly. We have the necessary potential, including a pool of people who can enter the public service. However, my concern is related to the way we manage the issue. If we don't do it, there will be a crisis, because the change will come at a speed we have not seen to date, and that has to be well managed. Ms. Thibault asked us whether we had a planning system that was rigorous enough to do so. In my opinion, that isn't yet the case.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you, Mr. Simard.

Now, Mr. Albrecht.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming today.

From the presentation we've heard, and the backup material, it seems that the looming crisis might not be a crisis. You said you don't like to use that word, and I was glad to hear that.

I want to follow up briefly on your comments about specific segments of the public service that present challenges. On page 4 of your remarks you referenced a requirement for the human resource compensation and benefits advisers, indicating there were 6,000 applications and 652 who met the requirements. How many people were needed in that specific recruitment effort? We have 652 who met the requirements and we needed...?

[Maria Barrados]

One hundred.

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

One hundred.

Even though that particular sector was identified as a problem, in my way of thinking there really isn't a huge problem in finding qualified applicants for these positions.

[Maria Barrados]

The real problem there was.... A number of members around this committe have heard complaints at various times about not having their pay properly handled. There was this question about shortage, shortage, shortage and how we were dealing with it.

When we got ourselves organized and then got the people in to train them.... I mean, we're doing that now. But we should have anticipated that. We shouldn't have waited until we had this sense of a problem.