Government Operations Committee on Feb. 5th, 2009

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Further to that, I'm just wondering about the overall impact of the strategic review on your various human resources agencies. I think there are half a dozen. On the funding of that, I'm wondering where you see the allocation, where we're going, and certainly what that has done in terms of overall implications for the increase.

[Alister Smith]

As you know, there was a strategic review undertaken of all the HR agencies, and the results were reported in the budget, in annex 3. This is not directly tied to the strategic review.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Okay.

I'm not sure exactly who I would speak to on this particular issue, but a little earlier you mentioned pay equity, and litigation for that. Where are we specifically on that at this stage? Do you see ongoing expenses and expenditures required? This is obviously a question as to where we are legally, but I also want to know what contingencies you have prepared for down the road.

[Alister Smith]

May I defer to my colleague, Hélène Laurendeau, on that question?

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

By all means, yes.

[Hélène Laurendeau]

With respect to the pay equity litigation, we have about six complaints in the books. One of them, fairly significant, was the object of tentative settlement as part of the bargaining process, but we're still waiting for confirmation from the Human Rights Commission that there is an acceptance of the withdrawal of the complaint from the Public Service Alliance of Canada. That was one of the major complaints we had in the books. Pending the results of that, we should be in a position to move on and probably withdraw the judicial review application that the employer had put against the referral to investigate. We are hoping to be able to wrap this up in the coming weeks.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

So you don't anticipate further requests or financial needs in this area?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

For that particular complaint, no. But as I said, we have a few smaller complaints on the books that deserve our attention, but they are not as far-reaching, in terms of implication, as that particular one.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Okay.

I notice in the supplementaries here that there has been no question as to the foreseeability of changes to collective agreements that you have incurred. There is now, obviously, going to be an anticipation of some changes. I just want to return for a moment to the RCMP.

How much do you expect to save overall with the rollback or the cutback on RCMP rank and file amendments?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

It's particularly difficult to put a price on the actual savings, as you call them, because we do an annual review of forecasts of the overall expenditures on compensation through the compensation plan for the entire public administration. So depending on what was planned or foreseen, since it's constantly revised, given the known expenditure against the forecast expenditure, we couldn't just give you one figure that would encompass all the savings.

What I can tell you, however, is that a 1% increase of the payroll, that includes the RCMP and everybody--the 350,000 people--could amount to.... I'm always confused between French and English.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Millions ou milliards.

[Hélène Laurendeau]

It's $330 million. Sorry about that. I get confused between millions and billions in French--not in reality, though!

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Yes, okay.

I take it you will not see that kind of saving in areas where there is protection of collective bargaining, except for what is agreed to. Those kinds of rollbacks will not simply materialize in thin air--unless there's agreement.

[Hélène Laurendeau]

I couldn't speculate on what you call “rollbacks”, but one thing that's clear is that we always do planning, including for compensation decisions that are collectively bargained, and that planning goes up and down depending on the direction of the economy and the direction of the government. So I don't think it would be fair to say that because an organization is unionized, there wouldn't necessarily be those ups and downs. It's just the vehicle by which we derive the compensation decision that is different.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you for this.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Madam Bourgeois, for an opening round.

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

Thank you very much. My first question is for Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith, earlier you talked about the causes of the increase in the agency's budget, but I believe I missed one or two. You mentioned reclassification activities, disputes, transfers. Are there any others?

[Alister Smith]

Yes, there was. Public service modernization and public service renewal activities are one component. A second component is classification reform activities for the Government of Canada in 2008-09. Third is the pay equity litigation support. Fourth was the campaign to be launched in fiscal year 2008-09 under the government's advertising program. Finally, the amount of $374,000, a small amount, was transferred to the agency from other departments and agencies to support the work of the National Managers' Community Secretariat, which it hosts.

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

That's fine, thank you. I simply wanted to make sure I had a clear understanding.

The Human Resources Management Agency really deals with the modernization of the public service, Ms. Laurendeau. That means that it handles staff hiring and the replacement of employees who retire. Is that correct?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

To be more precise, the organization responsible for hiring is the Public Service Commission. Renewal planning, that is to say for the needs of the public service and the strategies for attracting and retaining personnel, is a responsibility that falls in large part to the Human Resources Management Agency and, to a lesser degree, to the Treasury Board Secretariat.

If you want to know which organization is concerned with hiring, it's the Public Service Commission.

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

The agency that recruits new employees is the Public Service Commission.

[Hélène Laurendeau]

These are the departments that have delegated hiring authority, but the source of that authority is the Public Service Employment Act. So it's the Public Service Commission that oversees that.

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

I ask you the question because the CBC recently reported on a problem the Public Service Commission is having in recruiting staff. Other, independent agencies are given commissions to the tune of $55 million. I don't know whether you saw that news item, which was on television and in the newspapers for two days.

How can you explain why you're requesting funding to modernize the public service when you're also giving funds to independent businesses outside the government?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

If I correctly understand your question, you're talking about the use of personnel agencies.

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

That's correct.