Government Operations Committee on March 22nd, 2011

[Maria Barrados]

In regard to the consultants and contingency workers, I don't want to leave the impression that it is wrong to have contingency workers or consultants. I think every large organization needs some consultants and some contingency workers. The issue has always been that this should not be the way to enter into the permanent public service. We want to make sure that the permanent public service doesn't give unfair advantage to anybody. If you have been working in an organization for a long period of time, you tend to know the people and you tend to know the work, so you have an advantage over somebody who has not had that opportunity. That is our issue.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

It could be politically driven and politically influenced as well.

You're talking about a public service that goes through a different process and then consultants and temporary staff who come through a different process. It's quite possible that this could be politicized, correct?

[Maria Barrados]

The consulting is through contracting. I think this committee has also had a preoccupation with contracts and the monitoring of contracts, which is not my area of responsibility.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Fair enough.

I have a few very brief questions.

In paragraph 4.58, with regard to non-partisan staffing, there are political-exempt staff. Over the past two years, which of the political-exempt staff from ministerial offices have taken advantage of coming into the public service? Do you have any idea?

[Maria Barrados]

I do.

We have seen a significant reduction in that. With the Federal Accountability Act, the priority right that political-exempt staff had was removed, and now the political staffers have to compete for the jobs as do any other public servants. They have the advantage of being in internal processes. We used to have on average about 50, and we're now down to about 17 who've come into the public service, so this has been an improvement.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Perfect. That's good.

I found paragraph 4.36 a little disconcerting. It talks about employees who may be guilty of committing fraud and who have the ability to move to different departments. How widespread is that abuse?

[Maria Barrados]

It's not that widespread, but it has occurred, and it's been really annoying.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

What are you doing about it?

[Maria Barrados]

I'm tied by the statute, and I'm asking for a statutory change so that if somebody is being investigated for fraud, they can't move.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

How much time do I have?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You have about half a minute.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Can you ask the half-minute question?

[A voice]

I'll wait until the next round. It's too long.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Ratansi.

I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Cannan now for five minutes.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Barrados, and to your lean, efficient team--made up of you and two part-timers, I think you said. That's very efficient. We thank you for your special report and for being here today.

As one of the members who is new to the committee, I've found it interesting to learn more about your role over the last seven years. In the last few years, one of the things for all of us has been the advent of social networking, specifically Facebook, and how that has really played a role in all our lives. I have three daughters, and they enjoy using the Internet for communication, as so many of us who have children know.

Could you elaborate, from a non-political perspective, on how that's changed during your seven years as commissioner?

[Maria Barrados]

It has had quite an impact. We've made some observations that during the period of time that we've had this commission in place, there have been some significant changes.

We now have a public service that has been basically renewing itself. You have over 50% of the public service that has had less than 10 years of experience in the public service. You have a lot of new public servants, and many of them use these new social media. It's become a concern for us in terms of how we maintain that non-partisan public service and maintain that distinction between the public and the private.

In another case that we investigated, a young individual who was working in the Privy Council Office--this is the bureaucratic office supporting the Prime Minister--had started work by saying he was politically active, and nobody took him aside and said, “You're now a public servant working in the Privy Council Office. Be very careful. You have private political rights, but be careful of how you exercise them publicly”.

He put a picture on his Facebook of a particular political leader that he was very fond of, who wasn't in the government in power. The Facebook got sent to friends, and then it got sent to friends, and all of a sudden something that was private--he was quite free to have those private views--became quite public. Of course, there was a great deal of embarrassment.

He was actually then called to task for this. He immediately took the Facebook page down. We investigated it. Obviously it was wrong for him to have made public something that was acceptable in private, but many of our young people are so comfortable with the social networking that they don't realize and aren't really sensitive to how something that is okay in private is not okay in public. It worries me--the commission--in terms of how we maintain that very non-partisan public service. What I tell all the people in the public service is that they have to always maintain a public position such that any government in power will feel comfortable with for their advice and support.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

That's very interesting, and those are wise words of counsel. I wasn't aware of that, so I appreciate your enlightening the committee on it.

I'll move to one other area. The university and college in my riding is always trying to find good practical work experience. One of my daughters is looking at going to Australia for a year, a co-op exchange, and they say it's more about the experience than the education. I think sometimes that's probably the truth, but the experience is very important.

The federal government has a student work experience program in co-op education. Maybe you could elaborate on how that program has been very successful over the last few years.

[Maria Barrados]

Yes, we do. In fact, the government has put some additional money into that for the last couple of years as part of the economic action plan.

We have, on average, about 10,000 young people who come and get mostly summer employment. We also have about 3,000 co-op students who come into the public service. The federal student work experience program is one of those central programs that the Public Service Commission has run and continues to run, so students have fair access through that. We get a lot of applications--over 70,000--for about 9,000 positions.

The real advantage for young people on this one is that if they come into that program and they finish their studies, they can actually be bridged into the public service, which means they can get a job in the public service through a process that assures that they are qualified for their job because they've come in through a competitive process.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that information.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Go ahead, Madame Bourgeois, for five minutes.

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

Mr. Chair, if I may, I will share my time with my colleague.

Mrs. Barrados, I find point 2 on page 33 of your report highly interesting. In my opinion, you deserve some praise for that, since you did not shy away from taking a stand. Under the heading “Appointment by Governor in Council”, you said that the current regime allows the Governor in Council to appoint deputy heads and special advisers to ministers.

You recommend eliminating the Governor in Council's ability to appoint a special adviser to a minister. According to your rationale, the clause in the current regime does not limit the number of people that could be appointed. Furthermore, ministers already have the ability to appoint their own staff members, including their executive assistant.

That brings me back to my earlier question, to which you responded that out of approximately 3,000 appointments, you had the authority to investigate about 400, if I understood correctly. Roughly 2,600 appointments were not subject to the act. Could those fall under this category of appointments by the Governor in Council?

[Maria Barrados]

I did not make myself clear.

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

Please, try again, then, so it is very clear for everyone.

[Maria Barrados]

Those 400 positions are senior appointments in the public service. The PSC is not responsible for those 400 appointments.

I think we need another mechanism to oversee those 400 appointments. I did not make any observations or comments in relation to the 2,600 appointments, because that is not part of the Public Service Commission's mandate. Our focus, however, is the operation of the public service.

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

You would admit, Mrs. Barrados, this is nevertheless problematic. As I understand it, approximately 2,600 appointments are not subject to any oversight.