Evidence of meeting #27 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was offices.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Only in Ottawa.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
It is only in Ottawa, and I suspect that there may be reasons, reasons we've heard about.
Do you know offhand if you pay the same as the other federal agencies and departments?
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Okay, so you would have similar pay. What we've heard is that there are other crown corporations or different agencies that may have the ability to hire.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
We're not in that category.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Diane Marleau
As a follow-up to your question, I'm going to ask whether you still have some employees who are having difficulty receiving their paycheques because of this high turnover among the compensation advisers? I know that in 2005-06 there were some major challenges within Canada Revenue Agency in paying their employees, especially indeterminate or contract employees, on time. I'm wondering whether you have been able to correct that adequately by now.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the pay is 100%, 100% of the time. We pay 43,000 people at different points in time. Some we start; some we stop. Some we start and stop many times. If someone is on a compressed work week, it generates a certain set of pay transactions. If someone is on leave without pay, it generates another set of pay transactions. Pay, I think, is a complex area, absolutely, but it is done within prescribed rules. There's not a lot of latitude. The rules are laid out, and you need to follow those rules.
I think we've managed to win the battle in terms of the issues we had when we were putting in place our two compensation centres. It was a difficult cultural transition for everybody involved. I can tell you that the number of complaints I get personally has been significantly reduced. If I get one every two weeks now, that's big. There was a point in time when I was getting quite a lot more than that, and we would attack them one by one. You needed to go through each individual's pay file, look at it, find out what the issue was, and bring the corrective action.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Diane Marleau
Do you think some of your challenge came about because of the centralization of the pay functions in Ottawa and Winnipeg? I would think that Ottawa would be the biggest problem, because that's where the highest turnover is.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
You're bang on. It's absolutely true for both questions. In Winnipeg, the market for pay advisers is much more stable. In fact, I haven't done a study on this, but I would guess that CRA is probably the biggest hirer of pay advisers in Winnipeg. In Ottawa we're one of a number of organizations, including PWGSC, that have a significant pay presence.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Diane Marleau
I remember, at the time of the centralization, bringing up the argument that it might not be the best move to centralize your pay function in Ottawa because of the high turnover and the high cost of training. Obviously some decisions were made anyway, and we've had this major problem. As you know, we made a report public last week very much addressing that issue, because it does cause an awful lot of heartache when you have a contract employee who works for three weeks and can't get paid for three months.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes, it's unacceptable.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Diane Marleau
It's unacceptable, and I think everybody around the table agrees with that. But your challenges are great.
May I make a suggestion that you consider relocating your centralized Ottawa office. You might keep your pay advisers a bit longer.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Diane Marleau
It could be Sudbury, or anywhere else but Ottawa. At the time, they took them out of all parts of Canada and were going to centralize them just in Ottawa, and then they chose to do this in Winnipeg and Ottawa. But there were people in Atlantic Canada and all over the country who either lost their jobs or were transferred to other jobs, or to Ottawa and Winnipeg, at the time the decision was made.
Now I will go with Mr. Brown.
Conservative
Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON
Thank you, Ms. Marleau.
If I could expand a little bit on what Mr. Angus was getting at, do you have any rough estimates of how many of your employees are outside of the major hubs of Toronto and Ottawa?
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Oh, my gosh. Sudbury is a very large operation, but I'm not sure of the overall numbers.
Do we have the numbers by office with us?
Claude Bourget Director General, Human Resources Transformation and Corporate Management Directorate, Canada Revenue Agency
Not here, but we'll get them.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Sudbury is a pretty large operation. My guess it would be 1,500, 1,600, or 1,800 full-time employees, depending on the point of year.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
In Sudbury, yes.
Conservative
Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON
Overall in Ontario, do you think that half would be outside of Ottawa and Toronto?
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I'd have to look at the numbers; I really don't know.
Our four big offices are in Toronto. We have a pretty large office in Hamilton as well. And the Ottawa office--the tax services office, not the headquarters--is a fair size. We also have significant numbers at the Ottawa technology centre.
Honestly, I'd have to get the numbers for you.
Conservative
Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON
I ask this because when I'm thinking of geography, I'm not just thinking of east, west, and central Canada. I'm curious about what efforts have been made to move the CRA into small towns, the towns under the 200,000 mark. Maybe you could touch upon some of your agency's efforts there.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
We have not opened new offices in years, with the exception of the offices we inherited and agreed to keep open when there was the harmonized sales tax with three of the four Atlantic provinces.
Many of our offices are in smaller locations. We have an office in Prince George, B.C., and in Penticton, which is not a city with a million residents. We have an office in Red Deer and in Lethbridge, Alberta; in Brandon, Manitoba; in London, St. Catharines, Windsor, and Thunder Bay; lots in Quebec, including Jonquière, Shawinigan, and small locations like Rouyn-Noranda; in Bathurst and Moncton, New Brunswick; and in Sydney, Nova Scotia. So we do have a mix of offices in smaller location as well as larger locations.
