Government Operations Committee on May 2nd, 2013

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

That is correct.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Ninety seconds.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Under plans and priorities, you state, “Demand for certain staffing and assessment services is declining as the public service gets smaller and departments become more self-reliant, with stronger staffing systems and enhanced human resources...capacity.”

How have you managed through the recent federal public service downsizing? Do you have enough resources to administer the increased number of surplus employees?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Thank you for the question.

So yes, as you observe in the first part of your question, the rate of staffing overall in government is declining, and departments over the last seven years, since the new act was put into place, have been continually increasing their own departmental capacity. Those two things in combination have resulted in a decline in demand for our staffing services, which are based on cost recovery.

That did allow us some flexibility. It does still present some budget challenges for us, I should say, because you lose the revenue.

Having said that, we were able to deploy some of those persons to work on the priority administration program. Right now, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, with the number of persons laid off or declared surplus, there is a great demand for the priority system, which is the system that we use. It's a centrally managed system, and persons in that system have a right to be redeployed to jobs for which they are qualified.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You're right on time there, Dan. Thank you.

Next is Mr. Denis Blanchette for the NDP.

You have five minutes.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to our guests.

Ms. Robinson, let's pursue the same topic. We are in the process of paring down our public service, which changes your role in a way. Although you will be less busy recruiting, you will have to transfer or train many people.

Could you tell us what the impact of these new demands is on your organization? More people need your services. You must advise organizations that may be having a hard time fulfilling their duties because they are losing people. You are also losing staff members and part of your budget. How do you work in this climate? What type of pressure is your organization currently experiencing in order to fulfill its mandate?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Thank you very much for your questions.

We started planning for changes two years ago. We started a process to reallocate our budgets and our staff to make sure we had everything we needed for the system to work during the downsizing process and to support the workforce adjustment policy.

As a result, we had to reallocate some of our resources. In fact, we invested $2 million from the policy side to ensure the priority system is working well. It isn't easy, but we are still carrying on with the process.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Precisely, the process of setting priorities must be exerting a great deal of pressure on your organization. Many more people needed to be reshuffled in the public service. A lot of people decided to leave because they were no longer able to work in that climate. You must be feeling the pressure and it must take longer to process redeployment cases.

What is actually happening in your organization? How do you manage to keep your head above water?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Thank you very much for the question.

We have made some changes to the priority system. Overall, the system is working better than before. That is helping the situation and slightly taking the pressure off our resources.

I will ask Ms. Laurendeau to give you a brief overview of the changes that have been made to help with those activities.

[Hélène Laurendeau, Senior Vice-President, Policy Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada]

As Ms. Robinson said, we made changes to the priority system in January 2012. We made a series of technological updates to the system to improve the processing of files, the placement and the assessment of people who should be placed as priority persons.

We have increased our capacity with several series of automated sessions. For instance, in January 2012, we allowed our employees to directly obtain a notice instead of doing things manually. In June 2012, we also added the option for the system to send the assessment results directly to priority persons. That is another activity that had to be done manually in the past.

In November, we launched a portal enabling the priority persons to update their resumés themselves and to monitor the available jobs. In the next few months, we are planning to add a sort of granularity for mobility codes. In other words, people will be able to better code the types of jobs they would be available and qualified for.

With the automated system, we managed to keep a certain level for standard services. Clearly, a number of services are still provided by people, but the system allows us to be much more effective.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

You may have increased your efficiency, but priority requests have piled up on your desks. I am sure you must keep statistics about the time you need to reassign people. Has that increased a lot?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

Placing people takes more or less the same time. We reassigned 956 people last year, for a total of about 2,900. We continue to act as the requests come in, given that we must also always have positions available so that we can place people. Our efficiency rate in placing people has not decreased.

We also worked very hard in partnership with the departments to make sure that they understood their obligations in terms of increasing the efficiency of the system.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

That concludes your time, Denis. Thank you.

Next for the Conservatives, Mr. Jacques Gourde.

Mr. Gourde, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to our witnesses for being here.

My question goes to Mr. Dion.

The commissioner's office has been in existence since 2007. Have you worked there since 2007?

[Mario Dion]

No, I started right at the beginning of 2010. Before that, I had no links with the office at all.

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

Okay.

After the six years that the commissioner's office has been in existence, do you have proposals or advice for members of the public service or the general public who may be aware of wrongdoings or irregularities and who may wish to make you aware of the them? What would be the procedure?

If you have suggestions, we would like to hear them.

[Mario Dion]

At the moment, there are 375,000 public servants at the federal level. We try to reach them through our website. That is our vehicle of choice because it is everywhere and it does not cost very much. We also try to reach them through events, meetings and gatherings, which can sometimes bring together hundreds, if not one or two thousand public sector employees. We go with our kiosk, our brochures, and so on.

Next year, we are also going to try to provide online access to anyone who wants to get information on a possible disclosure or who wants to make one. We have to make it easier to do. We have a toll-free number and a whole range of ways to get in touch with us. We have the ability to respond to the calls that we receive in 24 hours at most. I think that we have what we need.

Whistleblowing is very difficult. It takes courage and confidence. Whistleblowing is risky. In the public-sector culture, it is always risky to disclose wrongdoing. People have to be sure that information is going to be treated confidentially and that, to the extent possible, the complaint is going to be looked at quickly.

The commissioner's office is committed to ensuring confidentiality and to dealing with complaints as quickly as possible, professionally, and with a high level of service. This is an act of faith. There will be more and more situations in which whistleblowers will be able to see that we have been up to the task.

For example, the last report that we submitted two weeks ago involved people in a very difficult situation at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. They saw that they could trust us. The Public Service Alliance of Canada also stated that the very difficult situation at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal had been dealt with appropriately throughout.

I think that word of mouth and the passage of time are going to help us a lot in winning the trust we need.

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

Are there things that can be done to protect people who are afraid and who would like to take action? You mentioned confidentiality. Can you offer more than that?

[Mario Dion]

Yes. The main thrust of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act is to provide that protection. If someone makes a disclosure and, as a result, he suffers reprisals, he is protected.

First, committing acts of reprisal against someone for making a disclosure is a criminal act. Section 42 of the act provides for serious penalties for anyone doing so.

Secondly, under the act, a special tribunal is established that may order the reinstatement of an employee who has been dismissed because of a disclosure and to provide financial compensation or punitive damages. The act guarantees that protection. We must make that known and we must make it work.

That is why I have sent three cases to the tribunal and it is why we are conducting seven investigations into reprisals. There will probably be a referral to the tribunal for sanctions to be imposed.

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

Thank you very much, sir.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you very much, Jacques.

Thank you, Monsieur Dion.

Next, for the Liberals, is John McCallum.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Dion, how do you know that the doubling of your number of cases is due to greater awareness of your office rather than simply more wrongdoing?