Government Operations Committee on March 29th, 2010

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you Ms. Hassard and Ms. Meredith, for being with us today. As you know, it is important. We have many questions for you.

I'd like to start with a question of checks and balances. We had the announcement of the departmental budgetary freeze a few weeks ago. Immediately subsequent to that we had a very high-profile use of the Challenger jet, with the finance minister going down to Toronto. Then we had the Minister of National Defence, who wanted to use the Challenger to go from Ottawa to Vancouver at a time when there were ample flights available. That's at a cost of $100,000 for the Challenger as opposed to a few hundred dollars to go by regular airline.

I'm wondering, in that kind of situation, where it's kind of a flagrant contradiction to what has just been announced and certainly fuels a public perception that perhaps the government has two standards, how within the Treasury Board or the Privy Council Office the system kicks in to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

[Daphne Meredith]

In relation to the freeze announced in the budget on operating budgets, it is a freeze on operating budgets, not on individual line items within operating budgets. That's the approach that was chosen, so looking at individual expenditures within that is not really particularly relevant to the way that the freeze has been applied.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

So what you're saying is there isn't really a system of checks and balances, as long as the overall budget... Whether or not that money is being effectively used isn't so much a concern as sticking to the freeze itself.

[Daphne Meredith]

I think, Madam Chair, the main control point for the freeze was on departmental budgets. They're accountable for their use and for their control. Then from a system point of view we want to ensure that they do remain within their operating budgets. That's what was frozen. But we're not freezing every line item within each budget. They're to be accountable for the use of those funds and making the choices within them.

[Patricia Hassard]

Madam Chairman, could I just add one thought there? I don't want to leave the impression that there are no checks and balances on the use of the Challenger jets. I think we should undertake to provide you with that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

So there is a protocol?

[Patricia Hassard]

It's not one within my purview, but I think we shouldn't leave the impression that there's none. We need to provide that information to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Is that something that you will be providing the committee?

Okay, thanks.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you for that, because it's obviously a public concern; a $100,000 joyride is unwarranted. It's something that I think certainly raises the hackles of people in my constituency, so it would be important to know what the process is.

I would like to move on to the whole issue of what's being cut and what's being increased. One of my colleagues mentioned the PCO increase.

There's also been a marked increase in the budget for prisons. We know that if we put money into crime prevention we actually save money at the end of the line. The normal rule of thumb is that a dollar invested in crime prevention saves about six dollars in policing costs, in court costs, and prison costs later on.

So I'm wondering, around the government's move forward to increase the prison budget, is there, within either the Treasury Board or the Privy Council Office, a vehicle to evaluate whether that's the best use of public funds or whether that money should go to address the cutbacks that we've seen in crime prevention budgets?

[Daphne Meredith]

I think, Madam Chair, the budgets of individual departments are voted by Parliament. They're brought here, and ultimately are the purview of Parliament. They therefore are things on which you can have a view.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Warkentin on a point of order.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Madam Chair, I think it's important that we keep to the topic at hand. We've invited witnesses with a clear description of the types of questions we would be asking, as it relates to their departments and their responsibilities. It's unfair for the witnesses to be asked questions that have limited...or that have nothing to do with their respective responsibilities.

There's always been a practice in committees, especially when we have members of the civil service before us, that we don't ask them to comment on decisions that are left under the purview of other responsibilities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I thank you for your intervention.

I'm sure the witnesses are well aware of what the discussion is. It's the impact of the freeze on departmental budgets. We are here, really, listening to the demographics and on how the freeze on departmental budgets will impact the demographics.

If you could focus on that area, it would be well worth our while, because that's what we are studying.

There's a shift in demographic change, and that's the attrition. All of the questions and the presentations really deal with what's going on in that department.

I know you're asking for cuts in different departments, but that's really not the purview here. The Treasury Board Secretariat is the chief human resource officer, not the minister of Treasury Board. So perhaps you could guide your questions accordingly.

Thank you.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Madam Chair, I hope you're adding time to my questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Oh, yes, I stopped the clock.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you very much.

No, I was responding to the presentation itself, so it was perfectly in order, as you're well aware.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Fair enough.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you.

The next item I'd like to move to is the feedback loop. There was some reference earlier to a scorecard. The question is the evaluation of services. Certainly as a member of Parliament—I've been now for nearly six years a member of Parliament—I've seen some service deterioration in terms of response time in areas such as employment insurance and citizenship and immigration. It's not because the public servants aren't working very hard, it's because sometimes cuts or freezes have an impact on service quality.

So I'm wondering if a feedback loop exists there to ensure that services don't degrade further through the process of the freeze. There was mention of a scorecard. I'm not sure who's doing the evaluating.

Could you comment a bit more on that, please?

[Daphne Meredith]

I'd like to comment in terms of the scorecard or the means of measuring performance when it comes to HR management, which is my purview.

You've made reference to employment insurance. There are other issues that would be more the purview of Service Canada, and I won't answer to those specifically. But in the area of human resource management, over the past several years we've developed, we think, quite a good way of measuring departmental performance when it comes to values and ethics, as well as on people management. We use surveys and other broad data on staffing times and whatnot to get a good, although grainy, picture of how departments are doing and a basis on which we can compare one to the other and, in a sense, get a measure of the leadership and management of those departments.

So we're very much in that world of measuring performance on human resources issues.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you.

Just to clarify, are these surveys to recipients?

[Daphne Meredith]

Well, we undertook in 2008 a public service employee survey of all public service employees. We asked them a range of questions that related to their engagement in the workplace, to leadership and to values and ethics and other issues, which other organizations had been using as well, to corroborate this performance on HR management.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You can ask just a very brief question.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Visible minorities, or people who speak other languages or who speak an additional language besides English and French, are under-represented.

Is there any way to make sure that the freeze will not have any impact on the recruiting of new Canadians so that they can be a part of the renewal of the public service?

[Daphne Meredith]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

That is a good question.

Indeed, right now about 10% of the public service would be considered visible minorities, as one employment equity group. That would be about 2% under a comparable measure of workforce availability. We recognize that there is a gap in our terms, which is an issue for us.

The good news is that we are recruiting at higher levels from that category, upwards of 18%. We have some measurement issues between us in the public service and the Public Service Commission. The president of the commission might say it's above 20%, while our data shows above 18%. At any rate, the main point is that with the accelerated recruitment from that community, we expect to see an increase in the representation of visible minorities in the public service.

The main point is that we're continuing to hire. Just because there is a freeze in operating budgets doesn't mean we'll stop hiring. In fact, we know it's absolutely important that we continue to hire. We can't expect to renew the public service if we don't hire. We absolutely need to do so, especially in view of all the attrition now going on.