Government Operations Committee on May 7th, 2013

[David Olsen]

What we have at present, and what we've had, at least in rights disputes—grievance adjudications—since 1967 is a Cadillac dispute resolution process. That is free to the parties, and it involves, for the most part, full-blown hearings before adjudicators.

I think in order to address the backlog we have to be smarter and more efficient in terms of the services we provide. Not every case needs a Cadillac dispute resolution process. For one-day suspensions, for example, that took place a number of years ago and where the disciplinary notation for which is now off the employee's file...it's hard to justify putting the resources into a full-blown hearing on a one-day suspension, or for many minor grievances regarding the application of a collective agreement. I think this is why we're very interested in looking at expedited arbitration, grouping cases and so on, and looking, as Sylvie described with Corrections, for representative cases as opposed to having to go on every case.

I think the private sector, the federal private sector, is moving in that direction. I think the whole grievance and arbitration sector in all jurisdictions has moved to, where possible, expedited arbitration or other forms of addressing these questions. There's also an increased use of mediation to avoid the cost of full-blown hearings.

I think that's very much what we're looking to.

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

Those are excellent initiatives.

I've served in a union and I've been in management, so I understand the challenges. I think that's a great idea, taking the private sector ideas into the public sector.

In your opening comments you talked about reviewing wages and benefits in the public sector, and that you'll be looking at the private sector later this year. Do you have any idea when that report will be tabled?

[Guy Lalonde]

We're going to be launching the job matching process in the private sector at the end of June. That's going to be our call to the private sector to participate. The first cut will be organizations. There are some 80 organizations across the country that we've identified that employ 5,000 employees, so that will be the first cut.

Obviously, we have resource challenges. We're managing the program with the limited funding we have, but certainly in June we'll be launching for the larger organizations of the private sector.

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

That's the launch. When will it wrap up?

[Guy Lalonde]

I would think, if all goes well in the private sector, by the end of the calendar year or the beginning of the new year we should have some findings. Our objective is not to publish a report but to publish data. So as soon as we have sufficient data to protect the confidentiality of the respondents, even though we don't have a full set, we will start publishing the data. We will start making it available.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

Thank you very much.

Just before we proceed with our next round of questions, I want to inform the committee—I'll take the prerogative as the chair—that we have our guests with us until no later than 12 noon. We had a bit of a staggered start, so I would suggest that we keep our guests until 12 noon at the latest. That will allow two more rounds of questions, one for the NDP and one for Conservatives. At that time we will suspend very briefly, allow our guests to leave, and then come back in public to deal with our votes on the estimates. Do I have the consent of the committee to do that?

[An hon. member]

Yes.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

Excellent.

We will now proceed with our next round of questioning with Madam Duncan.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll share my time with Mr. Ravignat.

There's been a lot of controversy, gentlemen and ladies, about new competency proposals and the potential for the Treasury Board sitting in on some of those discussions. I'm concerned that this may violate the PSLR act, subsection 150(2), unless the union is also consulted and agrees to that kind of a process. Can you speak to that? Is that going to be impacting your work in any way?

[David Olsen]

I don't think this will impact on the work of this board. From what little I know about it and from what I've read in the media, my understanding is that it relates to Canada Post, the CBC...and there was one other organization. In any event, those organizations are not subject to the Public Service Labour Relations Act. All of those organizations fall under the Canada Labour Code, part I, for their labour relations.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you for that clarification.

I have a quick question. Where you refer matters to mediation, does the board then impose that determination by order so that it's binding?

[David Olsen]

I'll ask Ms. Guilbert to address that.

[Sylvie Guilbert]

Mediation under our regime is always up to the parties, and the parties are free to determine the resolution for themselves. The orders that are issued by the board are after hearings. We do have methodologies for the parties to make sure that a deal that has been struck between them can be enforced.

I would refrain from answering that question directly, because there are some pending issues at the board that have not been decided yet on that very issue.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Could I just ask the chair if we could make sure we receive those appendices that were mentioned in the presentation, which we haven't seen yet?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

The appendices that were mentioned earlier. Yes.

Monsieur Ravignat.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

You were talking about how most cases are going to the public service tribunal, but that there have been cases in which the tribunal has referred certain policy issues to you. Can you tell me more about what those policy issues are, and what advice you have provided with regard to those issues, if any?

[Sylvie Guilbert]

The board has issued one decision to date that applies to the workforce adjustment. It is a policy determination. Four questions were asked of the adjudicator by the parties on consent. Those answers were provided to the parties, mainly dealing with the issue of alternation, which is a system that is found within the workforce adjustment policy.

Again, I would refer you to those decisions, as they do speak for themselves.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Would it be possible for you to provide those decisions to our committee?

[Sylvie Guilbert]

Absolutely.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Given that you do know, and you are witnessing here, what was the main concern with regard to all parties?

[Sylvie Guilbert]

Bear with me, I'm going on memory here, but the main questions that were being asked were about the role of the Treasury Board as opposed to the departments in providing alternation services.

Again, I'd rather refer you to the question, but to answer the question that has been asked of us, the finding on that particular question was that the Treasury Board has a role to play in alternation. The other questions were incidental to the role played by Treasury Board.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Does that have any relationship with Treasury Board's decision to get involved in the crown corporations' collective bargaining process?

[Sylvie Guilbert]

The question should be asked to Treasury Board.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Okay.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Ravignat.

Our final questioner today is Mr. Trottier.