Evidence of meeting #30 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was test.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
These are jobs that last less than 90 days; is it possible to structure the students' work so that their time in the public service is constructive and fits in with their studies?
Acting Vice-President, Audit, Evaluations and Studies Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada
It is not a 90-day program. It is not the one for casual employees, it is actually a different program, one designed solely for high school or university students. There are two aspects to it. There is an employment program open to a good number of summer students. Then, those whom we hire could eventually become public servants, hence the importance of the program.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
You use this program for recruiting purposes and it allows you to find people who are interested in making a career in the public service. The experience they gain over one or more summers may induce them to stay.
Do you know what percentage of those students stays in the public service? Do you know if it is 25%, 50% or 75%?
Acting Vice-President, Audit, Evaluations and Studies Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada
I do not have the figures at hand, but I know that there are quite a lot of them. I think it is one third, or about 36%.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
Are these jobs all across Canada, or are most of them in the national capital region?
Acting Vice-President, Audit, Evaluations and Studies Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada
All across the country.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
This is a truly national program. In the audit, there were also observations about the way in which these people come into the public service. That gave rise to a number of negative comments from us. The hiring process for these people has to be improved.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
Do the students get access to this program through the Internet? Do schools promote it, or do students have to find out about it for themselves?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
Students can apply for jobs through the website. The program has expanded each year. This year, the government has invested more money in the program and other study programs. We are expecting a total increase of 1,000 students this year.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
Thank you.
Madam Barrados, I wanted to ask a couple of questions, having been invited by colleagues to take a round here.
I should say there's nothing like a public hanging to focus the attention of the people—not that we want to do a public hanging.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
No, we don't. We are all good guys.
But I did want to toggle through a couple of these problematic issues just to inquire from you if there is some tangible progress toward a resolution or improvement.
One is the use of temporary workers or casuals. I realize that's a more complex subject, both in terms of hiring people and the use of private firms to wholesale that operation.
The language school issue is still troubling. Can I ask you if that language school is still teaching and testing public servants?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
The language school is still teaching, but it is not testing public servants. All the public servants who go to Nec Plus Ultra as a language school must come to the Public Service Commission to be tested. They cannot even be tested in their own departments.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
I suppose you can't stop somebody from doing business out there, and I suppose in fairness—and I realize we have immunity in here—it's possible that it was not the policy of the language school to do bad things, that maybe somebody in the language school did something bad, but I don't want to allege something I can't be certain of. The impact was certainly negative and potentially costly, but it would disturb me if it were business as usual out there after this huge hiccup in process. Anyway, as I say, people carry on and do business out there as best they can using the skills they've got, but I wouldn't want to see the federal government doing business with this particular school.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
Could I make a suggestion? The Canada School of the Public Service does certify some language schools and this process of certification has been fairly limited. This language school is not certified, nor is there a requirement that public servants get sent only to certified language schools. So it's an area you might want to explore.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
Okay, that's a good suggestion. There may be something there.
The issue of overclassification, if it were organized on a large basis, could result in a massive theft from the taxpayer in terms of overpayment of our normally great working expert public service. I think members have some reservations about that. However, I know you've referred the matter once or more than once to the new office that looks at classification matters. But can you say there's progress? The problem has been identified. Has anybody quantified it, and is there a mechanism in place that will lead to progress?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
What we have done for you is confirm that the problem that was identified in the work Jim Lahey did four years ago still exists and the trends are still going in the same direction. So the problem has not gone away. That's what we've done for you in the work we've done. We have not done anything to address the problem, because it's not really the responsibility of the commission, but I think we have taken it as far as we can. It is an issue. The Government of Canada had attempted to do a major reform of its classification system and did not see that through. So we actually do have a classification system that is in bits and pieces.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
I think members around the table would all agree we don't want to see this overclassification turn into a pandemic, because it could involve a lot of money, which hasn't been quantified yet, although the early report may have made an attempt to quantify it.
Anyway, maybe members would want to take up one or more of these issues in the fall with a view to shining the light very intensely, and maybe there's a deputy minister or two out there who might want to take note about my references to the public event. Should there be an egregious case of sloppiness or non-compliance, someone's got to carry the can on this, and I think it's the deputy ministers or the ministers.
So I'll leave it there. Do you have a comment on that? Am I being too aggressive? Maybe.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
I wouldn't make that kind of judgment, Mr. Chair.
The way the system is set up, the deputy ministers are directly accountable to the Public Service Commission on staffing matters, so on staffing matters there are no ministers involved, and that's the design of the process. My annual report, which we're scheduling to table at the beginning of October, will be accompanied by a number of audits, and I can tell you now that in some of those cases, in those audits, we are going to be putting conditions on the authorities we have given to deputy ministers because we are not satisfied with performance. So there will be some specific areas the committee may want to look at.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
That's great. We'll look forward to some progress there.
I don't have any other indications of desire to intervene on these....
I'm sorry, is this your motion?
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Ms. Barrados, I just want to make sure that I understand. You may tell me that I keep harping on this, but it is a pet topic of mine. My question is about the private firms.
You told me that there were two kinds of private firms. Could you provide this committee with a document explaining the difference—if there is one—between the private firms you mention in your report and the ones that reporters focused on last year? They said that contracts of more than $100 million had been awarded to private firms just to find casual workers.
I had our chair clarify what the terms casual and indeterminate mean in your language. For me, they do not mean quite the same thing. Have the same terms been used in the reports? You have a website where officials and employers are supposed to find staff. Perhaps it does not work for casuals, but it is still a lot of money, and people ought to be able to make decisions.
Why can they not use a website, if it is possible, instead of going outside government operations and spending more than $100 million to find casual employees for specific needs? We know that you have criticized everything about positions filled by casuals. We have to get this clear.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
I am going to ask Donald to help me with the clarification, but I can certainly explain to the committee the distinction I made.
The figure of $300 million is a reference in the temporary workforce report. It is based on the contracts. It is a way to have people in government positions for, hopefully, a short time. These are contract workers, employed by private companies; they are not public servants.
The other type of firm conducts research to find people for the public service instead of using websites for experts or senior officials.
