Government Operations Committee on Nov. 5th, 2009

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Was it preferential treatment in the sense that they weren't qualified or just in the way the process worked and how they ended up being hired?

[Maria Barrados]

There was preferential treatment in the way the process worked.

So the next question is, are they really qualified to do the job? That was my comment about how we are continuing to do work there and we run a process that we call investigations, because that has to follow due process and legal fairness, where everybody gets a chance to be fully heard in the process. We will assess whether these people are in fact qualified for the jobs.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Do you have a number on how many people would be involved in that?

[Maria Barrados]

I can give you the number in a minute. I have a big sheet with a lot of numbers and I don't want to give you the wrong number.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

You also say that the Immigration and Refugee Board disagreed with some of your findings. Is that what they disagreed with and is that why you're doing further investigations?

[Maria Barrados]

To answer your first question, we had problems with 33 of the processes from a sample of 54. There are 33 processes that we are looking at to see if we need to do further examination.

We made a number of observations in that audit, including observations about inappropriate and poor planning and failure to provide enough HR support, and we said that improvements were needed in some of the monitoring. The IRB accepted those recommendations. They did not accept our conclusion that there was preferential treatment in the appointments of some of the people, particularly the EXs and the former GICs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much.

I've just asked the Conservative bench if they want to ask questions and they don't.

So, Monsieur Dorion, you wanted to ask a brief question, is that right?

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Yes, I would be delighted.

Ms. Barrados, on page 34 of your annual report is a tabled titled "Number of employees exempted under the Public Service Official Languages Exclusion Approval Order". My understanding is that a large number of positions are opened each year but require the incumbent to be bilingual. However, even in respect of those positions for which bilingualism is required, an order is applied so that some of the people recruited can be exempted from the requirement to know the other language. I have every reason to believe that the vast majority of these people who do not know the other language are Anglophones. We saw a short while ago that approximately 85% of Francophone recruits are bilingual, compared with only 22% of Anglophones.

In the four years you discuss in that report, that is, 2005 to 2009, the number of exemptions granted was a bit higher each year. It went from 14.1% to 15.4% the next year, then 15.6% and finally 18.7%. There is absolutely nothing spectacular about the growth from one year to the next. However, the rise from 14.1% to 18.7% is quite significant. You state in your report that exempted employees have two years to learn the other language, usually French. You also state that as a result of this increase, you have taken measures to ensure compliance with the order. From what I can see, it means that at the end of those two years, the people have to show that they have learned French. There may be some Francophones in the opposite situation, but there cannot be many of them.

Is there not a big difference between someone who speaks his or her second language at the time of hiring and someone who is going to learn because he or she is being forced to do so, who has two years to do it and who will probably succeed by taking a test? A person who is bilingual when he or she is hired may have life experience that made it possible to learn and appreciate the other language. On the other hand, a person who does not know the other language, French in this instance, when he or she is hired may be content doing what it takes to pass the test and may never utter another word of French.

With that in mind, does increasing the number of exemptions entail a significant risk?

[Maria Barrados]

I am going to try to answer all those questions.

You have to read the two columns together. The second one, which is titled "Non-imperative appointments (% of bilingual positions)", shows a decrease in the proportion of non-imperative appointments. Previously, it was 11% and it is now 7%.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

There are not very many non-imperative positions. For example, last year, there were 2,160 out of 30,000 positions.

[Maria Barrados]

We are talking here about employees who do not meet the requirements at the time of appointment. That is the proportion of non-imperative appointments. There are fewer non-imperative appointments, but among those people, there are more who do not meet the language requirements. There are people who hold non-mperative positions but meet the language requirements. The other table shows that the proportion meeting the language requirements in non-imperative appointments has improved.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Theoretically, in other words after two years, the people meet the requirements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Your time is up. Thank you.

[Maria Barrados]

They meet the requirements of the test, but as far as knowing whether they are ready to use the other language, that's a different story. It bears noting that some Francophones also have trouble with English.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

We have a proud tradition in Canada of a public service that is independent, has integrity, and is generally non-partisan. Our concern has been this political creep that's coming in while we have been teaching the world what the divisions are between public servants and parliamentarians. A lot of countries don't have it and that leads to a lot of unpleasant stuff happening.

We appreciate the work you are doing. We would like you to be more vigilant so that reports in the media about people being asked to do analytical work that is really more partisan than analytical do not come through.

With that, I would like to give you an opportunity to make your closing remarks. Then we will suspend the meeting for a few seconds.

Thank you.

Please go ahead, Madam Barrados.

[Maria Barrados]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before the committee.

I took careful note of the questions on non-partisanship. It is an area in which I have some preoccupations, and we are carrying out further investigations to try to make recommendations specifically on what should be done.

We do have guidance that we give to public servants.

Our main protection is still the hiring and making sure that hiring is non-partisan.

We regulate the process whereby public servants can be active politically and we continue to do that.

The area where I see the greatest risk--and I am having difficulty defining it--is the area of appropriate conduct. I can assure the committee that we would look very closely at any specific instances that involve public servants.

I'd like to thank the members for their questions.

Merci beaucoup.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Committee members, the meeting is suspended for about 30 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I have distributed the steering committee report to you. Your steering committee met and discussed future business, so that is the report. It is just for information purposes.

You also have before you the notice of motion that was presented by Ms. Hall Findlay on Tuesday, November 3.

Ms. Hall Findlay, would you like to speak to the motion?

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I don't know that I need to speak for a long time. I think it speaks for itself.

It refers to information that the minister said he had provided to the Parliamentary Budget Office in hard copy. Acting on the basis that the hard copy has to be printed from an electronic format, we asked to have the information in electronic format.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Is there any discussion?

Go ahead, Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Chair, I'll just bring forward a friendly amendment.

Just for the information of members, it doesn't all originate from electronic copies. Some of these are photocopies. That's specifically what brings me to my friendly amendment, which I hope will be a friendly amendment. Following the wording “November 9, 2009, a copy of all documents”, the amendment would add “while respecting all applicable provisions outlined in the Privacy Act...”.

Simply put, we recommend to the minister that yes, everything come to this committee, with the exception of that information on those documents that should be whited out, such as the small-town mayors' phone numbers. In some cases, they actually have put in their own home phone numbers. They were told that this information would be kept in confidence.

There's also the other provision as it relates to confidential commercial information that may have been included in those documents. These are applications that include a lot of private information, including signatures, names, and addresses--those types of things that really are of no interest to us as a committee. It's outlined within the Privacy Act that this information should not be distributed.

So I just make that amendment there because actually the budget officer receives all of the information with it intact, but I think that once it comes to our committee we can't be assured of the same type of confidentiality just because it's distributed to all our offices and our office staff see all of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I just want to correct you, Mr. Warkentin. I was talking to Madam Barrados about this and it has been communicated to me that the Privacy Act does not apply to the committee. The parliamentary committee has the right to get every bit of information without having it expunged or removed.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I understand that. Then we'd have to figure out a system by which it would stay within the committee and not be distributed to our offices.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

As procedural stuff, that is a responsibility of each parliamentarian. You have taken an oath and you need to ensure that you maintain it, that you do not ever divulge that information. So that really is in the confines of the committee.

Since I have told you what the process is for privacy, I'll go to Madam Martha Hall Findlay, then Madam Bourgeois, and then Mr. Duncan.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Could I just make one last comment? I actually don't want to extend this. If we get a sense that we're going to fail, we actually have flights that are leaving, the snow is starting to fall, and people have concerns as it relates to getting onto the flights, so I don't want to start an argument--