Government Operations Committee on May 15th, 2007

[Mike Hawkes]

Yes, it does, Madam Chair. It appears in the Public Accounts statements, where there is a balance sheet for the Government of Canada. It will describe the crude value of the assets and the accumulated depreciation. It's very high-level; it's done for illustration purposes.

As you know from the appearance and discussion you had at this committee before, the government is examining a full move to accrual-based expenditure management and accrual-based budgeting, and through different work studies they're doing, they plan to propose to the government, through the Treasury Board, how to proceed to implement that project.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you. I will take a look at the information.

I have a final question for Ms. Meredith. This committee is quite concerned about human resources. We have discussed the issue and we have heard witnesses as well.

Could you provide the committee with an outline of the department's action plan for human resources?

[Daphne Meredith]

You've perhaps heard about some of our plans related to compensation, because that's been a particular challenge in the area of human resources management in our department. We have approached that problem with vigour over the last year, and we have reduced the problem significantly. In fact, at this point in time we have reduced it to, I think, some 300 cases of people who.... Everybody's getting a paycheque.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Yes, we did hear some witnesses. Even the minister said that the pay problem had almost been settled. But that isn't quite what I meant by my question. I was wondering about management and about how difficult it will be to recruit future employees.

Do you have an action plan with some type of quantifiable objectives?

[Daphne Meredith]

Yes, we do. As I think many departments in government are doing, we are linking, obviously, our human resources plan to our business plan so we can project our business ahead and try to make sure we have the people in place to meet our needs. I've talked a bit about what we're trying to do in the area of translation, knowing that this is an area of significant shortage and of great concern to us in the future.

What we are doing is going branch by branch to identify the types of skills we need, because they may not be the same in the future, in all cases, as they have been in the past. For example, with respect to real property, we want to augment our strategic management skills, if you like, so we are in a better position to manage our real estate holdings and to manage office accommodation as opposed to manning them with trades people. So we are changing our skill mix in that area.

In the case of procurement, I mentioned earlier that we're moving from being order takers for other departments, simply drawing up contracts in response to their needs, to looking more strategically at sources of supply and at organizing supply. That takes a new mix of skills as well. We would bring in, perhaps, economists and those with market expertise to augment the skills we have in that area.

So we're going through it branch by branch, identifying our needs at all levels, and drawing up an aggressive recruitment strategy for the fall--especially drawing from colleges and universities--based on the numbers we need, the skills we need, and who we're actually going to send out to these colleges and universities to try to attract people to our department.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Would it be possible for you to give us a copy of these plans you're working on? We are doing a study on the challenges faced by government in hiring. It would help us if you could supply us with some of this.

[Daphne Meredith]

I'd be happy to do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Yes, Ms. Bourgeois.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Madam Chair, we must let Ms. Meredith know that Ms. Barrados appeared before our committee and told us that she could not foresee any problems in attracting prospective employees to work in the public service in the next few years.

Ms. Jauvin, who has been in her position since September 2006, also appeared before the committee. I asked her if she had a management plan for the public service. We have an agency, a commission and a school. But their website has no such action plan.

Do you have a plan? If so, will you help these people by making it available to them?

[Daphne Meredith]

Yes. We have shared, for example, our fall recruitment strategy with the Clerk of the Privy Council, who then shares it with the other agencies involved. I should say we've shared our strategy. We still have to get the numbers and get the details worked out.

In that regard, I personally am a member of a committee of university champions that has been set up So for example, I'm the champion for recruitment at Queen's University. Other deputies or associates would be champions at other universities; we have them across Canada, of course. And that will then allow us to be a focal point to work with the president of the university, I suppose, to ensure that we're communicating our need or we're approaching their students at the right time of year and that we're ready to engage students and compete with other comrades in doing so. Because it's an active market out there, we want to ensure the best chances that we get the best students.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Madam Chair, would you ask them to table all of these plans?

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

We can ask Ms. Meredith and the other departments if they have any plans.

Madam Nash is our last questioner.

Madam Nash, please.

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

I'm back to the real estate. I want to verify that I understood an earlier comment.

Is it correct that the government sets aside in general about $200 million a year as an investment strategy in real estate property, and that we have a real estate repair bill of about $3.5 billion overall, and that if we doubled that amount to $400 million a year it would get us on track to achieve our responsibilities with that investment? Is that correct?

[Tim McGrath]

Certainly funding is one part of it.

The capacity to spend it is another part of it. So we've had, as other government departments have had, capacity issues in our ability to spend the money. Now, $400 million is a lot of money to spend on an annual basis, and as a result, we look to partners in the private sector to help us spend that type of money.

It's also around the efficiency of spending. The private sector could certainly spend it more effectively than we can. They tend to use a thinner layer of management to carry out the activity, so the value of the spend you get from a private sector person doing it is greater than through the public sector, and that's part of the issue we have in terms of resourcing. And through the outsourcing of our property management activity, for example, we've actually saved significant amounts of money by allowing the private sector, where they've developed capacity and expertise, to deliver services. Now we're finding that in other parts they can do it as well.

So we're hoping that will be part of our HR strategy, quite frankly, being able to partner with the private sector in delivery of more of the services for the real property branch.

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

Is part of the problem with the ability to spend the money allocated the limited amount of swing space to house people while renovations are taking place?

[Tim McGrath]

Certainly it has been a challenge for us in the past number of years. As we've had a pocket of swing space develop, the government would grow, and in order to respond to that need we would have to fill it. There has been very little tolerance for Public Works to carry any type of swing space. Any time we do, we wind up in the papers and we get criticized for government waste. So it's sort of a chicken-and-egg thing. Either we have the swing space and we get criticized for carrying it or we have it and we're able to carry out our programs, but as soon as we get it, government seems to take it on as quickly as we have it.

Part of the challenge we have is the amount of swing space available to us and the tolerance to carry the swing space.

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

How much of that $200 million a year is earmarked for environmental retrofitting, with the new plans that the federal government has for energy efficiency in government buildings?

[Tim McGrath]

We work all of the environmental and sustainable development strategies into our day-to-day operations, so we've adopted the BOMA go green plus program at Public Works and Government Services. We're doing the assessment of all of the buildings. Previous to that we had the sustainable development strategy, so many of the greening initiatives are already part of the way we deliver our services.

More recently we've adopted for our large-lease transactions the LEED gold standard for our leases and for our new buildings, so we don't really separate it as a separate funding pot any longer. There are initiatives that are put forward by the government. We try to access those dollars. Contaminated site cleanup, for example: we access that specific pot of money. But for the most part we've included it in our day-to-day planning.

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

So with the renovation of West Block, presumably there won't be radiators on in June, and other initiatives will be incorporated into that.

[Tim McGrath]

Yes, that's the central heating and cooling plant. If you see that big smokestack, it's called the Cliff Street Central Heating Plant. We would like to undertake a retrofit of that asset as well for meeting energy reduction targets and greenhouse gas reductions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thanks very much.

I will allow one short question, and then we'll allow our guests to go. Someone wanted to ask one short question.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Yes, I have a little bit of a blue sky question for you.

Going back to the questions I had before about the cost, the $200 million a year that you've actually been allocated to look after these buildings, is it conceivable or possible or is there any reason why you couldn't take $200 million one year and go and borrow $2 billion and leverage it up in the capital markets? Now, at prime rates it's going to cost you $100 million a year in interest and you have an annual allocation of $200 million. In other words, you're arranging a mortgage. When you take a mortgage of $2 billion to go and make most of the basic repairs, and it's costing you $100 million a year in interest charges, and you're getting a $200 million annual allocation, why the heck wouldn't you do that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I'd love to hear the answer to that.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

You know, the loan is secured by assets.

[Daphne Meredith]

I think the Department of Finance would probably be best suited to answer the question, so I'm going to duck it. The Department of Finance would be the best party to answer it, because your question has to do with how we generate the resources to carry out our program. I think probably, in general, we rely on taxpayers as opposed to--