Evidence of meeting #44 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 problem.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
As I said in our brief, since program review, professionals haven't been hired.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
My other question is this. From what I understand, there seems to be a problem with the non-professional public service as well. Is there no way to get non-professional public servants and turn them into professionals?
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Well, there is the learning agenda.
I started out as an engineering and science technologist and worked my way up through a master's degree in university within the system. There is hope, as I said to your colleague, but it has to be strategic.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
What are the numbers on that? Do you have an uptake on it? Are people interested in joining the public service so that they can move up?
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Due to the lack of resources, I think there's an inability for people to do it, because it's across the board, whether it be training in language or whether it be training to advance through the system.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
There's a lack of resources in that capacity as well, to increase knowledge.
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Yes, there's absolutely a lack of resources.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
It's not only the infrastructure and equipment.
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
I mentioned in the brief that there is an absolute lack of resources for self-improvement or professional development.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
My last question is this, if I may, Madam Chair.
I think you said in your brief that you represent about 50,000 members. What's the breakdown in terms of rural and non-rural?
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Did you say non-rural to rural?
Liberal
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
It's a very good question. I don't have those numbers, but I can get them for you.
To scope it out, what are you interested in?
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I would imagine most of the professional staff are in urban centres.
It refers back to one of the questions you answered earlier, when you said it's hard to track people in rural areas because of the crumbling infrastructure. I think that's the term you used.
But I would say that once people in rural areas get jobs in the public service, it would probably be an area where they would want to stay. If the public service is working and its infrastructure is crumbling, it means everybody else's is crumbling too, doesn't it?
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Well, that's not necessarily so.
I'm going to give you the worst-case scenario. We have an energy lab in Devon, Alberta, and you know what's happening in Alberta. We have highly trained professionals who work in energy and look at innovative techniques, but there's the oil patch.
We have a lot of laboratories all over this country that employ administrative as well as senior professionals and highly trained and highly qualified people who work with universities, I might add.
But when they're in Alberta or Saskatchewan, for example, the mining industry right now is going crazy. If you have a lab in Saskatchewan, people are offered a $40,000 increase to go down the road.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
But they don't get all the benefits. No, I'm just—
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
It's a good debate. I'd like to enter into it at another time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Diane Marleau
My impression is there's a lot of cooperation among universities and mining on research, and I think answers are going to come from there.
Mr. Warkentin.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
I'm going to split my time with Mr. Albrecht. I'll let him lead off, and then I have a couple of questions for you.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
First of all, thank you.
I notice there are good recommendations on page 11, with the exception of the fourth bullet, which wasn't really a recommendation, but it described a problem. You indicated a willingness to work with us to find recommendations, and that's good.
I'd like to ask a question in regard to witnesses who were before us. They mentioned two policies that could possibly address your last recommendation in terms of incentives to retain older workers.
Would you agree with me that the incentives outlined in terms of this workforce adjustment policy would allow people to have a few days off per week and work the rest of the time to retain the institutional memory?
On the Budget 2007 incentives to allow people to receive pension benefits while simultaneously continuing to work, would that address some of the critical shortages you've identified?
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Right now in the federal public service there are people who are in a position where they can retire, but they are staying and taking on a mentoring role. It's a very powerful tool that the government should be using.
On how to get them to stay and mentor, I've had people in senior positions say they're only working for peanuts. But they like their jobs, they like what they do, and they like the values in the public service so much that they stay to pass it on.
We need to identify ways, no matter what they are, to make sure those people stay around.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Mr. Poilievre and I have discussed this to some degree over the last number of weeks. As he's identified, this could be a possible problem.
Madam Barrados came before our committee and testified that there in fact doesn't seem to be a problem and we aren't facing any type of demographic shift.
I think the problem is that we want to have some type of an understanding today of the demographic shift that might happen if in fact the retirement levels or the possible retirement levels happen now.
Are you saying the government has things under control? Is it your assessment that it has? Is this something that you feel is going to be a major problem without major policy shifts or major changes?
Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
I think the government has a problem, I think it needs to be addressed, and I think the hiring of professionals needs to be addressed long-term, not just through terms and sunsets and these other programs that are basically band-aids. The problem has been building since the early 1990s, and I think it's time the government needs to look at it.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Again, the testimony we heard before was that the federal government is receiving significant numbers of applications, far more than they'll ever need, including professionals.
I actually had a side conversation with Madame Barrados with regard to engineers. She showed me the numbers. It's really staggering to see the number of engineers applying for these positions. Really, we're talking about 100 to one--100 applications to the one job. It's substantial.
I'm just not sure. I'm confused. I'm hearing one thing from you and totally another thing from her. She seems to have the information to back up her position. You seem to have some information to back up your position. I guess the question is, in your opinion, is this a major problem that we're going to face shortly?