Government Operations Committee on April 3rd, 2008

[Marc O'Sullivan]

Thank you for the question, Madam Chair.

The Clerk of the Privy Council just yesterday issued his fifteenth report to the Prime Minister on the state of the public service, and the notions advanced in that report, which also includes the report of the Prime Minister's advisory committee--Mr. Mazankowski and Mr. Tellier chair that committee for the Prime Minister--on the public service. Basically the approach set out by the clerk in that report I think is relevant to all the HR challenges facing the government, notably in the HR community.

The emphasis is basically on four elements, which are general in nature, but if you just give me a minute, you will see the link to the specific problems for the pay community.

First of all, the first approach is integrated business planning. In the past, as a result of insufficient planning, departments were not even in a position to know what their HR needs were going to be next year, two years, three years down the road. So the clerk has challenged all deputy ministers to ensure that every department has an integrated business plan that makes the direct link between their priorities in terms of what the department does, to the HR needs of the department, to ensure they have the right people in the right jobs to get things done and to identify exactly what their needs are. Marilyn gave the example in PCO. I'm pretty sure that for every single department they're going to identify in their HR group some specific needs that need to be addressed. Now, it's just a plan, a first step, but you have to have that plan in order to be able to address it thereafter.

The second element is recruitment. Because of the churn right now in the public service and because of the demographic pressures on the public service, the emphasis is on recruitment to make sure we're bringing in the people. This won't solve the problems immediately, but it's a necessary step to ensure that the problems can be solved, if only two or three years down the road. So there is an emphasis on recruitment, and once again, the Clerk of the Privy Council challenged all deputy ministers to ensure that they focus on the recruitment needs of the department and that they don't just rely on the Public Service Commission, but that departments take the responsibility for recruitment within their departments personally.

The clerk has challenged deputy ministers personally, along with their senior management teams, to go to job fairs at universities, to actively recruit within universities. He likes to use the example of how Bill Gates personally calls the top students at some of the key engineering faculties in North America to invite them to come to work at Microsoft. Now, if Bill Gates can find the time to make those phone calls, then senior executives in the government should find time to participate in job fairs at universities and colleges.

The third element is development. Okay, it's one thing to bring in new staff, but then you have to ensure the development, especially because of the demographic challenge. We have a real need to be able to bring people up to speed rapidly. The HR field is a very specialized field and compensation is a very specialized field. It takes at least two years to get the person trained to do the first aspects of the job. It takes three to five years to get them fully trained, and so the emphasis is on development. Once again, as part of the integrated HR plan, deputies are expected to identify not only their recruitment needs, but then to say, “What steps are being taken to ensure the development of those employees as quickly as possible?”

The fourth element set out in this report is the enabling infrastructures to ensure that we have within government essential HR functions that are controlled either by the Public Service Commission or with a public service agency--Treasury Board Secretariat or the Canada School of Public Service--to ensure that those services are as efficient as possible. Notably, on the issue of compensation, there is a notion that our colleagues at Public Works are working very hard at modernizing the whole pay system, which is antiquated, and they would be the first to say so, that this needs to be modernized. I know they are working extremely hard at doing that.

So those four elements, which apply to all elements of HR within government, I think are relevant to the specific issue of the compensation community. And this is not just PWGSC's problem; it's every single department. HR groups have to ensure that, because of the churn, the compensation trail follows the employees in an efficient way. In order to do so, the departments have to clearly identify what their needs are and provide for them through recruitment and development.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you very much.

There's one other point they need to look at, and that's retention in the pay and benefits section, because they're having a hard time keeping those employees they've trained.

[Marc O'Sullivan]

Yes, the churn is enormous.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Bains.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I want to echo the comments of my colleague and thank you for coming on such short notice.

I want to speak regarding the priorities you outline in your opening remarks on the estimates as well, and I want clarification on the specific matter I'm currently working on, which is—I've written to the clerk about this as well—the “NAFTA-gate” issue that has emerged. As we all know, that's a very serious issue. There were these leaks, verbal and a memo, that came out and really compromised our position vis-à-vis the U.S. Trust was breached and damage was done, and many Americans and Canadians are concerned about this. So I was asked to write about this, or I felt I was compelled to write about this, to the clerk to get further clarification, knowing that he is currently looking into the investigation.

In your third priority, you indicate that it's to support management and accountability of government. Now, would that investigation fall under this particular priority in terms of the internal investigation that's taking place with regard to these diplomatic leaks and the verbal leaks?

[Marilyn MacPherson]

I would say so. I don't think it was anticipated, but certainly from accountability and good management it would seem to fit there.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

So in terms of the budget line items, is there any budget ever allocated for a particular issue of this nature, or which budget line item would this go under in terms of the cost of investigation and the resources it would require? Which particular main estimate line item would this be allocated under? I was trying to understand that. I wasn't sure exactly where that would come from.

[Marilyn MacPherson]

Let me think....

Probably, as an organization, it would be under security and intelligence. From a program activity, it's probably advice to the Prime Minister.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

I know that part of the investigation now has been outsourced to BMCI, a company that's currently helping out with this investigation. Is that outsourcing common practice in these types of investigations from the Privy Council Office?

[Marilyn MacPherson]

I'm not familiar. This is the only investigation I have seen since my arrival at PCO, so I'm not aware.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

According to you, do you think BMCI was asked to investigate because of the nature of the investigation? Because it includes the PMO as well, is that why it was outsourced?

[Marilyn MacPherson]

I have no idea. I'm sorry, I don't know the answer.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Are you aware if this contract was sole-sourced, or was there a competitive bid for this contract with respect to the investigation?

[Marilyn MacPherson]

I would have to check. I don't know the details of the contract.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Okay, not a problem. So if you don't know the details, you're not aware of any criteria for this investigation or its outsourcing, or why they were outsourced, and so forth. There's nothing that you are aware of presently.

[Marilyn MacPherson]

No, I'm sorry, I haven't seen the contract.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

I just want clarification, because from hearing your remarks this morning, I feel that the priority that you indicated of government accountability.... I wanted to know in terms of the priorities you've outlined specifically with regard to this investigation, does it fit into the priorities of the PCO? Obviously, you've indicated it does.

Second, I wanted to get an understanding of the budgets that are allocated for investigations of this nature. Do you have an idea of the amount this is costing the PCO, or anything along those lines, any idea of the total allocation for this particular initiative?

[Marilyn MacPherson]

I don't know what the actual cost of the investigation would be. I doubt if it would be significant enough to make a difference on the budget or the estimates.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Any idea of the timeline of this investigation?

[Marilyn MacPherson]

I'm sorry, I don't know. I believe there is a date when the Prime Minister was expecting a report back from the clerk, but I would have to check and find out whether in fact that's been declared or not. I don't know.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

Madame Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Like my colleagues, I would like to thank you for being here on such short notice. It's also a pleasure for us to welcome you in the same circumstances.

My colleague talked about public appointments. I previously sat on the Citizenship and Immigration Committee. As parliamentarians, we made many recommendations concerning appointments. It is part of committee practice to welcome the new board members or the chair on a regular basis.

You aren't unaware that there was a crisis last year. If you hadn't come here to talk about your role as an impartial and professional board and about the appointment process management role, as well as your concern to ensure that the process is conducted in a non-partisan manner, I might not have asked you any questions on the subject.

I find it hard to understand how you can approve a process that was non-partisan and how, following the only report that Mr. Harrison prepared on immigration, you dismissed out of hand the non-partisanship of the board member selection committee, a process in which the community got involved, that is to say the Barreau, the various groups concerned with immigration and the academics. Last year, a crisis led one chair and a selection panel to resign. The people from the community are still making submissions, and opinions have been expressed by parliamentarians.

You're resisting all that by putting in place the new process enabling a representative of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, in fact the minister, to sit on the selection panel. How do you view the participation of the minister's office in the process of selecting immigration board members? How do you explain that decision?

[Marc O'Sullivan]

I'd like to draw a distinction between the selection process and the appointment process. The minister has the authority to recommend board appointments to cabinet. So these are appointments made by the governor in council, on recommendation by the minister.

Mr. Jean-Guy Fleury established the selection process, which could be called the prequalification process. That process consisted of a written exam and interviews. A list of qualified persons was established, which was submitted to the minister for review. The minister selected from that list the persons to be recommended for an appointment by the governor in council. The Harrison Report examined that process.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Which, incidentally, was rejected by parliamentarians.