Government Operations Committee on April 17th, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

The regional councils, where are they--Toronto, Montreal? Am I correct in saying that this is where the problem comes in, that it's always the big cities?

[Nicole Jauvin]

I can tell you that I went to Saint John, for the one in New Brunswick. I went to Charlottetown, for P.E.I. In Nova Scotia, it was Halifax. But they don't necessarily meet in the same place all the time. Sometimes it's Moncton—

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

No, but they do have councils that are usually in the capitals in the regions. That's what you call regional councils.

[Nicole Jauvin]

They come from across the region, though. It depends; some of them will always meet in the capital due to cost issues, but others, when they're all over the place in the region, will meet elsewhere on purpose, to make sure that the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I ask that because it's important that you get that flavour from out in the regions--and not that they tell you what you want to hear, but that you get what's real out there. Often in the public service they tend to tell you what you want to hear. You don't really get the real picture.

[Nicole Jauvin]

They don't always tell me what I want to hear, I can tell you that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

You'll understand that I'm quite taken with all these issues. It drives me crazy.

And you didn't really answer my question a while ago. I'm going to come back at you on that.

[Nicole Jauvin]

Which one was it, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

It was the one about who coordinates. Who decides what's best and how it goes, or does everybody just follow one way, and if that doesn't work you go the other way? If Passport Canada could open an office for what.... You're just going to let Service Canada do what's already available there, but they're going to have to hire your people. Who coordinates? Who thinks what's best for the region and the people you're serving--or is that not part of the thought process?

[Nicole Jauvin]

It absolutely is part of the process. I am not up to date on how they're doing things currently, but I happened to be in that portfolio for several years, and I am aware that in those days Service Canada was not on its own. I would just extrapolate that something similar is happening now. You had representatives of all departments that were interested in offering services through Service Canada, and they had an interest in making sure that the level of service stayed the same.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

But it's not. There are some services that Service Canada can offer; there are others it cannot. That's my question. If you just say that Service Canada is at the end of everything, then it is.

I'm going to let you talk to somebody else, and that's Mr. Albrecht.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. Did you use my time as well?

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

If I feel like it I will. You be nice to me or I'll cut you off.

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

I'll try hard.

We've certainly had a wide range of opinions on the potential crisis or there not being a crisis. I was glad to hear you say today that there could be one, but it's being well managed so it's under control.

I would like to pick up on the question of tradespeople and skilled workers. When PSAC was here they were very concerned that unless we had a specific apprenticeship program for our own skilled trades we would face a critical shortage in this area.

On your comment that once people are in the public service they generally stay there, it seems to me it would make sense that if we were training these people in the apprenticeship program for skilled trades positions, we might have a better chance of retaining them and mitigating this problem of a shortage in that field.

I'm just wondering if you could respond to that.

[Nicole Jauvin]

From what I'm aware of, these skills are specific and specialized—

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

It seems strange to me that with the hundreds of buildings the Government of Canada owns and manages, we wouldn't need a significant number of plumbers, electricians, and those kinds of people. So I'm having difficulty understanding why that number is so small. Maybe you could help me with that.

[Nicole Jauvin]

I will have to come back to you on that, because it's not something that has been on my radar screen. But if PSAC says it is, then I think I'd better put it on my radar screen.

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

That's my recollection of what—

[Nicole Jauvin]

I can undertake to look at that and give you the numbers and a proper response. How's that?

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

Thank you.

I think it's true for all companies that concern about the potential loss of institutional memory has been raised at different times. I'm wondering if you have considered or are recommending any initiatives or incentives to delay retirement or have this phase-in concept of retirement. Someone could have the benefit of retiring in stages. That would not only give them the benefit of slowly easing out of the workforce; it would also give the new employee the benefit of a mentor relationship. Is that being explored and expanded?

[Nicole Jauvin]

We absolutely know that it's important to have this knowledge transfer happen. We need to make sure we know in which areas we need it more than others. It also means getting a sense from people as to when they plan to retire. We haven't traditionally asked people that. Most managers would not necessarily sit down with their employee and ask--not that you could be bound by the answer. But we're starting to get a better sense of that.

I don't think we have all the tools we need to do proper knowledge transfer. We have a classification system that doesn't necessarily allow us to bring in someone to shadow, for example. We can't necessarily bring in people once they've retired. It's very difficult. We don't want double-dipping, so you can't really bring them in. We need more tools. You've put your finger on something that's a preoccupation.

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

I was thinking more in terms of letting someone go from five days a week to three days a week--some arrangement like that where the person would still be accessible to the new employee and some days actually be there at the same time.

I have one other question relating to the visible minorities. I think all of us are eager to have adequate and equal representation of visible minorities. You mentioned that 8.1%, I believe, is the current employment statistic. The other part to keep in mind is that not only do we have to look at the number of people who are applying for those positions from visible minorities, but also how many of those people are qualified applicants. Do you have any figures on what the percentages would be in terms of qualified visible minorities applying versus the actual employment statistic?

[Nicole Jauvin]

That was the preoccupation of Madame Barrados. We know that there are many more people who apply—

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

And are qualified.

[Nicole Jauvin]

—and are qualified. As the PSC puts it, there's a drop-off rate. We know that it's actually quite significant.