Evidence of meeting #13 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was job.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Thank you.
I would also like to know if the language requirements in French and English are at same level of competency for bilingual people, for instance. I have heard about people going to French training in Saint-Jean several times. I've heard it's very difficult to be at a French competency level, depending on the level they're supposed to acquire. But I've told to people that it is not the same for English, and I'm just curious about your understanding of that. Is it the same level of proficiency of communication?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
First, on where we stand on the comparison of cost effectiveness, I think we're pretty close to the experience in the United States. I think the Australians are faster than we are, but they—
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
Yes, on time to hire. But they have a more decentralized approach to what they've done. I think if you make comparisons with countries like India, you will find they're completely on a different scale. We're talking about years.
The EU, for example, was taking a long time and came to us to learn how to do it, and is actually putting systems in place that are like ours.
Conservative
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
On the language question, I have a group of specialists in the psychology assessment centre who assure me that the level of language proficiency, whether for English or French, at the CBC level is the same. So the language competency required for English or French at a B level is the same.
Conservative
NDP
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you.
I hope you don't mind my asking a question based on a short conversation we had before the meeting. At that time you said that in the case of the appointment of any officer of Parliament, if there weren't consensus among the parties, it would be bad for the office. I didn't have time before to ask you why. What do you mean by it being bad for the office?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
I can only talk about my own experience and my views of the Public Service Commission. I've been appointed through a parliamentary process. I was nominated by the Prime Minister. I believe it was Prime Minister Chrétien at the time and, subsequently, Prime Minister Martin, because I was interim. It's very complicated. I finally got a vote and full support of all the parties.
In my job, I think it's really important for me to have the support of all parties, because I have work to do. I need to be able to have relationships with both sides of the House and, certainly, I've been in my position long enough that the sides and the seats have changed. So it's a good thing that I had good a relationship with the opposition at one time, because it became the government.
That's the nature of the comment I made, that for me to do my job it's really important that I have the support of all members of the House.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
So in your case the first time was with Mr. Chrétien and the majority government then, but you still had the support of all parties.
Liberal
Liberal
NDP
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to the guests for coming in.
Going over your remarks, I see a lot of very positive language. You say that managers are doing a better job, overall merit is being respected, management of staffing continues to improve, and you see positive trends in hiring strategies, and that there's better support and improved HR capacity.
Can you give us a sense of the timeline, because I note a trend over time that things are getting better. Are there periods of time when things have shown a really marked improvement and times when things have slowed down? In your seven years, what's been the trend, if you could describe it more?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
There was a big change in the legislation in November 2003, probably the largest change we'd seen for about 30 years, with the Public Service Employment Act. It came into force piece by piece. So it didn't come into force all at once. It came fully into force in December 2005.
So my comments dating from that period of December 2005—beginning on January 1, 2006, if you like—are in regard to how all of those changes were put into place and the kinds of progress we've been making. And we are making progress. I feel there is responsiveness on the part of the public service and that there are real improvements, as I've outlined. I also go on to say, of course, that I'd like to see further improvements. But there are real improvements.
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
It's a pretty good story. You mentioned that compared with the public service in other countries--to the extent that you're able to make those comparisons--it's actually a pretty good story here.
Where I see a chasm is when you talk about 25% of people within the public service not feeling that the system is fair. Could you explain that difference, that perception, that chasm? It's a pretty good public service, at least from a fairness and equity point of view, and yet there is not a perception that things are fair.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
This is a preoccupation. We've spent some time looking at that. We asked people if they think the staffing processes they were involved in were fair. People who haven't won a competition tend to be more likely to think it wasn't fair than the people who won. That is probably not a surprise. But you would want people, even if they didn't win, to feel they had been in a fair process. Some people who didn't win say it was fair.
In an effort to try to be more efficient, people are doing a lot of collective processes. For example, we had 3,000 postings on the job website. But there were actually many more jobs, because one posting leads to more jobs. And people are quite frustrated with that: They find that they're not sure what is happening, that it's taking a long time, and they're worried about how fairly they are treated. So we have to do better in providing information.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
Information to people seems to be a factor. Sometimes they're not getting the information on how things are going and where they are in a process. People outside the government are not complaining as much as people in the government.
There are a number of things we're looking at. We'll do some more work to see if we can make improvements.
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
When we talk about hiring and being hired for new positions, it speaks to the issue of managing a career path within a large organization. In a large organization that's not growing, it can become especially frustrating not to get those promotions. If you think of the organization as pyramidal in shape, over time that pyramid has to be maintained. Otherwise, if it inverts it's too expensive and overly top heavy.
Are there things that the public service is doing better with respect to providing people with opportunities? Maybe this could be done through a series of lateral moves that keep jobs interesting and keep people motivated and give them learning opportunities—even though they aren't being promoted all the time. Are HR practices being put in place to satisfy some of those needs that people have in the public service?
