Government Operations Committee on Feb. 1st, 2012

[Michel Rodrigue]

You would have to repeat it.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Corbett said that information technology professionals might have difficulty finding employment outside the public service, but I do not understand why that would be the case. These are senior professionals who are in as much demand in the private sector as in the public service.

[Michel Rodrigue]

The other side of the coin is to ask why we would get rid of qualified people if they are then going to get private sector jobs selling their services back to us. That's chasing our tail. There are no savings in that.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I'm afraid we have to move on.

Next for the Liberals is Mr. John McCallum, for five minutes.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have one quick point of order before I ask my questions. I understand the bells will be ringing at a quarter past, so are we going to somehow deal with Mr. Wallace's motion?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I understand from Mr. Wallace that he doesn't plan to move his motion today, so it's not an issue.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Is he withdrawing it, or might it come back?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

It's on the order paper as a served notice.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

It's on the order paper. You should know the rules.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

It's up to Mr. Wallace if he moves it or not. He has given an indication that he does't intend to move it today.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay, thank you.

Turning to the subject at hand, I was struck by your comment, Mr. Corbett, about the importance of one job in a small community. It brought me back to 2005 when we were doing an expenditure review. I remember a huge argument in caucus about whether one job would be located in Newfoundland, or some other part of Atlantic Canada.

From your description it sounds as if you're going from 308 to 20. It's virtually inevitable that the job losses will be disproportionately in small communities, unless perhaps they set up one or more of the 20 in small communities. That's my first question.

When we were doing this we had job losses just through attrition. Do you know if there's a possibility of that, or will there be straight firing of people?

[Gary Corbett]

I think there will be some job losses through attrition. That is inevitable, given the demographic. But I don't think the government can meet its targets with attrition only. We've been on the record as saying that.

As far as the 320 to 20, it could be described simplistically that there will be more losers than winners. If you're going from 320 to 20, there are 300 that will really lose something. If that is in smaller communities, which we suspect it will be, since that's where these data centres are, it's going to represent an impact to that local economy and it's going to be felt.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I think this subject has come up before, but I really cannot understand how this project could generate savings in the current cycle to eliminate the deficit over the next three years. You're talking about a project with a lifespan of maybe 20 years, and obviously you have to make some up-front investments before you reap the savings. I can accept that if this is done sensibly and intelligently it could ultimately generate savings for Canadian taxpayers. But is there any way these savings could conceivably materialize in the next three years?

[Ryan Campbell]

I think the fear is that there will be too much of an emphasis on saving money quickly and that job cuts will be made indiscriminately. The ultimate result will be a dysfunctional Shared Services Canada. We would like as much information as possible about how this is going to happen and how savings can be achieved at the front end of this project, based on the Pricewaterhouse report, which is the bulk of the information we've been given. It seems as if there are costs up front and potential savings at the back end. If there are going to be savings at the front end, we are very concerned about how these savings are going to be realized.

[Gary Corbett]

For us, in looking at where this is going and at our participation thus far, we're not comfortable in seeing that those savings will be achieved.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I guess what you're saying is that technically, it's still possible to have savings in the early years if they just fire a whole bunch of people quickly. I think that's what I heard you say.

[Ryan Campbell]

That is speculation at this point. They're in control of how the money gets spent.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay.

Finally, and maybe drawing on the experience of Australia or other experiences, if they do try to get quick savings in the early years, I think you're saying that this could lead down a bad path. Drawing on those other countries' experiences, can you describe why or in what way the path would be dysfunctional?

[Gary Corbett]

First of all, any savings in the early years would certainly be more likely to be achieved at the cost of labour. You used the term “firing”. I suggest that this shouldn't happen or couldn't happen. You can't just take an organization and choose to fire a whole lot of people. If you could do it--I mean, there is legislation and regulations around this--it just throws the system. You're already on a pathway to trying to achieve something with the recommendations, then all of a sudden you have all of this resistance, because you're firing people, as you put it, haphazardly. I suggest that this would push out, well beyond your planning, if you have a plan, the ability to achieve the end result. It makes your plan longer. You just can't work with a workforce like that. You just can't make those decisions just like that without some kind of response or reaction.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

John, that concludes your time.

Thank you very much, Mr. Corbett.

Mr. Wallace and Ms. Block will be sharing five minutes. Please keep it concise, because it's difficult to split a five-minute segment.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'm only going to be a minute, and I'll give the rest to Ms. Block.

First of all, I really appreciate your coming today. I know that it was very short notice, since we had our meeting on Monday on what we were going to do today. I do appreciate that.

We have had the opportunity to look at your website. You post most things in terms of meetings you have--I'm assuming that it's for your members, to make sure that they're well informed. Being in the IT business, I guess it's good to post things on there so that people have access to that.

If I heard you correctly, your organization, your union, does agree that in the information technology area, we could be doing a better job in terms of delivering service to constituents or Canadians or Parliament or the function of government. Based on the auditor's report, you agree that it's appropriate for the government to look at ways to be more efficient and effective and that IT can play a big role in that. Is that correct?

[Gary Corbett]

Absolutely, and we want to help with that in terms of identifying, from our membership, how we can find efficiencies.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

In response to a question from the NDP, you indicated that it would have been nice to have had the Pricewaterhouse report in advance. The concept there, in my view, was to see if it's even feasible. They went and looked at it. I think we can learn from mistakes they made in Australia.

I think there are large Canadian organizations that have gone through a very similar approach, such as banks--the Royal Bank, for example. I think the leadership at Shared Services Canada actually was the leader in the consolidation of shared services at the Royal Bank.

I think the concern I'm hearing is that you don't think you've been involved in the discussions thus far. I just want to make sure that I have this right. I've been told that you had an opportunity to discuss the labour-management consultation framework, the draft terms of reference for the labour-management consultation committees, the interim staffing policy, the list of employees, and the group community framework. To me, and you can tell me why I'm wrong, that sounds as if we have engaged the union. You may not agree with everything that's happening thus far, but to be fair, they have been engaged since early September in the consultation piece on this particular item. Would you not agree?

[Gary Corbett]

No, I wouldn't agree.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Tell me why.