Government Operations Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2017

[Kathleen Fox]

If we are requested to do so or if we believe that there's a substantial Canadian interest in doing so. For example, we did an investigation in open waters off Brazil when a sail-training vessel capsized and there were 40 Canadian students on board—that kind of thing.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I don't mean to be critical, but there's a substantial Canadian interest in those two Air Canada ones, which had a fair number of Canadians on them. Why would we not participate as we're allowed to under the act? I'm not being critical. I'm just curious why that is. Is it a lack of resources, or do we not have the trained staff to do it?

[Kathleen Fox]

I'll get Mr. Laporte to clarify.

[Jean Laporte, Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board]

We do have the capacity, and we are actively engaged. However, we have to respect international protocols and conventions.

In a country like the U.S., there is a robust investigation capacity in which we have confidence, and we work with them all the time.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay, that's fair enough.

That answers my question, thanks.

[Kathleen Fox]

If I may just add to that, if there's a U.S. carrier that has an accident in Canada, we would normally lead the investigation, and then they would assist.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's fair enough.

Mr. Laporte answered that you have confidence in their ability. That's fine.

If something like that were to happen here, do we have trained investigative staff, trained on those types of planes, who would qualify to do such an investigation?

[Kathleen Fox]

Absolutely.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Good.

I just want to get back to your website with your watch-list.

Despite what happened in Lac-Mégantic a couple of years ago, you still have it listed on your watch-list as transportation of flammable liquids by rail. We've had some changes with double-hulled tankers and Bill C-49. Why specifically is it still on the watch-list? What's Transport Canada not doing that we should be doing to get this issue off the watch-list?

[Kathleen Fox]

With respect to the transportation of flammable liquids, the TSB made five recommendations as a result of the Lac-Mégantic investigation. Only one of those has been addressed in a fully satisfactory fashion, and that's with respect to emergency response assistance plans. There are still four outstanding recommendations that are—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

What are they? Do you know off the top of your head?

[Kathleen Fox]

Yes.

With respect to improved tank-car standards, they have introduced some new standards, but there is a phased-in process over a period of years. There are still, what we call CPC-1232 tank cars that are carrying crude oil, as an example. It is going to take time before the new tank-car standards are fully phased in.

Second, with respect to Transport Canada oversight, we have a recommendation on that. Transport Canada has taken steps, and they are progressing, but we want to see that they are effective. We also have other recommendations with respect to prevention of runaways, as an example.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Not to be alarmist—and this is not a partisan issue because it's a safety issue, and it was an issue under our government and also under the current government—but it sounds like Transport Canada has a long way to go, or a lot of issues to address with safety, both in rail and in air.

[Kathleen Fox]

With respect to rail, there's no doubt that a lot of actions have been taken since Lac-Mégantic, but there's still more to be done. That's why we continue to track our recommendations until they're fully implemented.

With respect to aviation, the overall safety performance in this country has been very good. The accident rate has been decreasing over the last 10 years, but there are a number of outstanding risks for which we believe more action can be taken—those are illustrated on our watch-list—and with respect to the issue of the length of time it's taking to implement those recommendations.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's quite concerning.

Thank you very much for the information. It's very useful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Drouin, you have five minutes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank the witnesses for being here this morning. I really appreciate it.

My first question is for PCO and it's with regard to the secret network being built. Mr. McCauley asked whether there will be extra costs moving forward on this. You can probably understand why we're asking these questions, and obviously, IT has not had a good name over the past few years with email transformation. I don't need to explain that as I know you're well aware of this.

How is PCO managing that secret network transition? Are you working in collaboration with Shared Services?

[Kami Ramcharan]

We work in collaboration with the Communications Security Establishment . They are going to be hosting the top secret network for a number of departments. In the past, our top secret network was built and designed and housed within PCO, so it wasn't transferred to Shared Services Canada. Shared Services Canada has a mandate to provide up to secret, while the Communications Security Establishment has a responsibility for providing top secret. Last year, we were transitioning our cabling and all of our infrastructure so it could be taken on board, stood up, by the Communications Security Establishment, and this year and ongoing we have the ongoing costs. The number of licences we need, the number of work stations we need, all that drives the costs associated with this.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I want to go back to what Ms. Shanahan said on why we're doing this and what this will allow your department to do. I know on the cabinet side they might be able to get rid of their cabinet documents and finally have a secure network. I'm speaking of greening government and whatnot. Are these some of the objectives you're trying to reach as well?

[Kami Ramcharan]

Yes, exactly. There are two things and they're both about hardening the security posture for PCO. The top secret network will provide us with a stable, secure system. When you have systems in different departments that you're responsible for, sometimes you can't have a common, enterprise-wide approach in addressing your security needs, your patching needs, in order to understand what your most immediate threats are. The fact that the Communications Security Establishment is doing this on our behalf means that we can rely on their expertise to help support that.

On the e-cabinet side, this is a project we're doing in conjunction with Shared Services Canada. It allows us to have the opportunity to make improvements constantly and consistently, to make sure the information we're protecting is secured on a regular basis so that they can do that across the system and use their infrastructure across the system for departments to access those secret documents.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Borbey, welcome back to our committee. I hope you've been settling well into your new role. The last time, I think, the questions I went into were about how the Public Service Commission can drive hiring of young people and get youth involved. According to the last statistics I've seen, the average age was 37 years old, which is alarming. It will create a big corporate memory gap in the bureaucracy, which is something that nobody wants.

You were speaking with Ms. Shanahan about some of the ideas, but I'm curious to find out more. You mentioned opening up to the broader base to ensure that we can hire people.

[Patrick Borbey]

Clearly, encouraging managers across the public service to open their processes to all Canadians rather than leaving them closed to the public service would automatically allow more diverse candidates and young people to apply. I think it's part of our role to socialize that type of message when we're working with managers. We want to show them that there are options, that there are effective and efficient ways of creating pools they can draw on instead of looking at the staffing of a position on a unique basis. Sometimes people complain about how long it takes to staff. Well, if you're trying to staff one job, it might take a long time, but if you're accessing a pool, it can take much less time before you have somebody in place.

Revamping our student programs was an important initiative. I've been looking at statistics, and about 20% of our indeterminate hires are former students, and this is something I want to look at. Can we actually do better than that? I think we should be getting more of these students. If they spend time with us and they have a good experience, can we follow through? For example, managers have the authority to give a conditional letter of offer to a student who is returning to school. Upon successful graduation and meeting security and other requirements, that person could actually be hired back into the public service on an ongoing basis. If, at the end of the day, it was a good hire for a summer job or a co-op term, maybe it's a good hire for the longer term as well. There are ways of facilitating the work of managers that will have a positive impact on students.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Shipley, you have five minutes, please.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to follow up on what Mr. Drouin said in terms of access. You're in the business of hiring, obviously, everybody except for the Transportation Safety Board, it seems. You had mentioned opening it up to all Canadians. It surprises me that it actually isn't available now and that you wouldn't have access to a pool. Are you talking about actually helping to develop a pool so that you would have that pool in place earlier?