Government Operations Committee on Nov. 27th, 2012

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

In your report you talk about Mr. Cohen's commission of inquiry on the decline of sockeye salmon coming from British Columbia. It's good to see that extensive report. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on which way you look at it, it is an issue with no silver bullet or quick fix. It's a complex solution.

I just want to know how this additional $300,000 request compares to the estimate and what the final cost of the inquiry is.

[Marc Bélisle, Executive Director, Finance and Corporate Planning Division, Privy Council Office]

Thank you for your question.

As you know, the $300,000 that we are asking for is not for new money. It is a re-profiling from last year's surplus, which was about $1.6 million. In total, the Cohen commission has always mentioned there would be around $26.4 million in their total budget. Taking into consideration all of their actuals at this point, and this forecast, they are going to be remaining within that same envelope.

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

What controls do you have in place once a prime minister initiates an inquiry? Do you have much control over the timeline and cost, or do you basically have to let due process unfold?

[Michelle Doucet]

Perhaps I will speak to the timeline, and then Mr. Bélisle can speak to the cost controls.

On the timeline, Privy Council Office itself does not drive that. It's the head of every commission of inquiry who drives that, so in this case, Justice Cohen. Privy Council Office really doesn't have much say in that. Our role is to support the creation and back-office running of commissions of inquiry, which is where the second part of your question comes in.

Mr. Bélisle.

[Marc Bélisle]

All of the financial controls that we normally have in place for the PCO are also there for the commission, to make sure that all the proper authorities are in place before any payments are made. It's left to the liberty of the commissioner to decide what he needs to be able to operate, but these are done within the confinements and the rules and regulations of government.

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

It's important to stress that it's an independent and thorough investigation. Thanks.

Going to the RCC, the Regulatory Cooperation Council, I know that Minister Ritz recently made the wise decision to defer and go for further consultation on the food processing for container size. Will that affect your budget at all? Is that $2.1 million that you have in there just for the departmental...or would each department, like agriculture, have a separate budget for their consultation process?

[Michelle Doucet]

The work that Minister Ritz will do will be supported by his department and its funding structure.

The funding for the RCC that is being transferred to the Privy Council Office in these estimates is to specifically support the secretariat function and the folks at the PCO who are doing that work. They have about 16 folks over there who are supporting all of the coordination across government, the relationship with the working groups that I talked about earlier, the relationship with the multiplicity of stakeholders across the country, and obviously the relationship with our American counterparts.

So the money that the PCO is requesting in these supplementary estimates (B) is to support the work of the Privy Council Office's secretariat. The work that departments are doing in support of the initiative is done within their appropriations.

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

As a member of the executive of the Canada-U.S. committee, I've been to a session in Oregon and last summer in Atlantic City, and what I've seen is there's been great cooperation between the CBSA and the Department of Homeland Security.

From your administration's perspective, how do you see us moving forward? Are we on time? Is it working as well as we had hoped, and what stage are we at as far as implementing the harmonization regulations is concerned?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

A very brief answer, please, Ms. Doucet.

[Michelle Doucet]

Again, Mr. Maloney would be better placed to give you a progress report on that, but my understanding, from conversations with him and with the ADMs who support him, is that work is going very well, that it is on track, and that significant progress has been made to further both action plans.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Cannan. That concludes your five minutes.

Jean-François Larose, for five minutes, please.

[Jean-François Larose, NDP, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Do you have a target, as far as savings are concerned, in connection with the transformation you are making?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question.

I can talk about the PCO.

I can speak about workforce adjustment in terms of impacts on employees, if the committee would like me to do that.

[Jean-François Larose, NDP, Repentigny, QC]

Sure.

[Michelle Doucet]

As we said earlier, Budget 2012 has a three-year timeframe. The primary tool for achieving a smaller workforce, which is what we're doing at the Privy Council Office in order to achieve those savings, is to use the workforce adjustment policy and directives. That policy has a 16-month implementation tail. There are other methods of finding reductions—not staffing after folks leave, eliminating vacant and funded positions. Our primary tool these days is to implement WFA. That's being implemented over a staggered timeframe. It will likely take us until March 31, 2014, to have the final picture. The best way to keep track of the actual spending, in terms of impact on appropriations, will be through the quarterly reports, which will show the reductions once employees have left PCO.

When I came before the committee on April 30, I said we had just begun to implement workforce adjustment at the Privy Council Office. At that time I told the committee we had given 139 employees notices that their jobs might be affected. I also said to the committee at that time that we estimated having to declare surplus somewhere between 90 to 100 employees, but I put a strong caveat around those numbers to allow a change as a result of the normal coming and going of folks and retirement, combined with the fact that we have financial targets to achieve as opposed to programs to cut.

We now know that this target number looks more like 84 positions at Privy Council, the department specifically. My understanding is that there are another 16 positions in the other entities that make up the PCO portfolio, for a total of 98 positions to be declared surplus across the PCO portfolio. Now I'm in a position where I can tell you specifically what that means at the Privy Council Office. We obviously took workforce adjustment very seriously. We put in place new measures to ensure that employees who were affected by this were treated fairly, with great respect, and that there was the utmost transparency in the process.

The first thing we did is we established a new union-management workforce adjustment committee, which I chair. We meet every two weeks. We have a very open and frank dialogue with our union colleagues. We also established an ADM-level oversight committee to control all new staffing at the Privy Council Office to ensure that folks who are impacted by workforce adjustment get the priority to which they are entitled. We established an ADM champion for the alternation program, which is a way for folks who aren't affected and want to leave the government to ask to be picked instead, and then the folks who don't want to leave can stay.

[Jean-François Larose, NDP, Repentigny, QC]

When are you going to announce the savings that will have been achieved?

[Michelle Doucet]

In June, we issued the first wave of our opting letters to employees: 66 employees at the Privy Council Office got opting letters to tell them that the process had begun and that they had 120 days to choose among the three options in the opting letters. That process has now run its course for that first wave. I can tell you that 10 of those 66 folks have decided to pick option A: stay for another year and see if they can get a job through their priority status. The remaining 52 employees are either taking a transitional support measure or they're taking an education package and either leaving the government now or being put on a priority list for the next two years.

As a result of those 66 letters, I can tell you that of those 66 folks, 40 have already left the Privy Council Office, some for jobs elsewhere in the public service as a result of the alternation program of which I spoke earlier, and some with the transitional support measures I spoke of. The remainder goes—

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I have to interrupt you there, I'm afraid. Thank you very much.

I think that answered most of your question, Jean-François. Perhaps if there is any further information you need, you could do it by writing a letter to the PCO.

I want to thank our witnesses from the Privy Council Office and the Transportation Safety Board for speaking to the supplementary estimates (B) today.

We're going to thank you for your presence and ask you to step away now while we actually put the question on the votes on our supplementary estimates to the committee. Thank you very much for your testimony and your information.

Ladies and gentlemen, while the witnesses are leaving, there are two items we could speak about briefly.

Treasury Board would like the meeting of December 11 to be an in camera meeting. I agree that perhaps it would be more productive, given that they're going to bring back the report on the different modelling of how the estimates are structured. I think it would be useful to do that as a free in camera meeting.

Are we agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Another matter is regarding the meeting of December 13 with Public Works and the renovations of the parliamentary precinct. They would like to move that meeting to December 6 because there is some concern that we may not be here on December 13.

Mike, do you have any thoughts on that?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

We put two meetings aside to look at the P3 report, right? We might be able to do that in one meeting, and if not, technically, I think we could push that. Who knows what the schedule will be like on December 13. I would like to hear from them. I know we would like to hear from them.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

In other words, we would like to hear about the progress made and the renovations to the government buildings in the parliamentary precinct. There is probably a 50-50 chance we will get to hear it on December 13. If we're serious and want to make sure we're going to get it, it would be on December 6.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'm happy with December 6.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Are there any feelings from the opposition?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.