Evidence of meeting #162 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pco.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Conservative
4 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Chair, thank you very much.
What I'd like to do is tie up the PCO and the PSC, because the PCO in its 2017-18 departmental results talked about the demographic changes facing the leadership.
Before I forget, Mr. Chair, at the three minutes' mark I'd like to give the rest of my time to Mr. McLeod.
They talked about the challenges facing leadership, and the PSC had indicated that nearly a quarter of its public service are going to retire. If they're retiring and there is a framework that PCO has developed, I'm trying to figure out how you're working together to ensure that we do have the right diversity. The diversity is lacking. People tell me they do not see themselves.... Young millennials are facing challenges and cannot wait eight months, so they go away somewhere else. So, you're not competitive in the marketplace. Yet, PCO had a plan, which it called the new direction in staffing. How are you working together to ensure that the gap is reduced, that you have enough indigenous peoples in higher positions...deputy ministers and the order in council appointments, etc.? Perhaps you could just help me out.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
I have three minutes only and then my time goes to Mr. McLeod.
4:05 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
The new direction in staffing is the Public Service Commission's strategy. Clearly, we work with our colleagues at PCO. The Clerk of the Privy Council is the head of the public service, so we work under the overall umbrella in the mandate for renewal of the public service, but the PSC has its own mandate and, of course, reports directly to Parliament on that mandate.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
Do you want to talk about diversity, or....
4:05 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
We can go back to that. It was 169 days I was reporting, and we're going to continue working on this.
You're putting your finger on an important issue. We want to accelerate, we want to have hiring work done more efficiently, but not to the detriment of making sure we get quality hires and also contribute to the diversity of the public service, which in some cases may mean we take a little bit more time because we'd have to go fish in pools that we traditionally haven't gone to.
I have to say that when I look at the application rates—and I talked about this before—we have a very healthy level of applications from persons who identify themselves as visible minorities, whether they're students or people who are applying through our post-secondary recruitment program or general applications. We also have a dominance of women, and it shows in the proportion of women in the public service. We have no problems attracting qualified candidates from those two groups.
You're right that for persons with disabilities, it is a challenge, and also for indigenous people. Some of it's related to the reluctance to self-identify, and some of it's related to our inability to properly—
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
I'm afraid I'm going to have to interrupt now.
I will not dock you any time, but Madam Ratansi had asked that Mr. McLeod be given two minutes, and you've got just slightly under two minutes, if you could take over—
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be quick.
My question is for the PCO, and it's regarding the mandate letters. I think we're all excited to see that the mandate letters came out and were all public and that we could track them on different areas, including the economy, the middle class and advancing reconciliation. They were publicly available and were to apply to all parts of Canada.
I'm assuming you have every department's strategy to deal with indigenous governments, indigenous issues. I'm assuming that you're tracking different parts of the country with different mechanisms.
I want to ask you how you're tracking the north and, more specifically, the Northwest Territories, because Stats Canada doesn't do a lot of the research in the north. They don't do housing statistics. They don't track real estate. They don't track gasoline prices. They don't track property tax. They don't track medical statistics like they do in other parts of the country.
How does the north fit in this big piece of mandate letter tracking, and how do I know, as an MP, where we stand when it comes to the different areas?
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Unfortunately, you only have time for about a 30 second response.
4:05 p.m.
Assistant Secretary, Impact and innovation Unit, Privy Council Office
I think what you're asking is a really important question. Your question is based on how government makes its best decisions based on the evidence and data it has at its disposal.
What we have done as a department, in conjunction with a number of other departments like Treasury Board Secretariat and Stats Canada, is that over the last year we have put together what we're calling a “framework” for a data strategy for the federal government. It's recognizing that there are issues like the ones highlighting, the data gaps in the north, that could be viewed as impediments to making good policy and developing good programmatic responses to that.
What we're going to be seeing over the next several months is every government department and agency developing its own data strategy that, once in place, will help us better gather the right information, help us share the right information across departments and agencies, and address some of the gaps you're pointing to—
4:10 p.m.
Assistant Secretary, Impact and innovation Unit, Privy Council Office
—so that as we move forward, we can better inform our decisions.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Mr. McCauley, you have five minutes, please.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Just quickly, Mr. Shea, though you may not be the right person to ask, who puts together the departmental results for PCO?
The reason I ask is that I'm looking at yours, and in every single item for results achieved it says “target not applicable”. So, I'm thinking, how can we possibly measure a department when your targets are showing as not applicable? That follows up on your departmental plans where three out of every four targets show that previous year numbers are not available.
4:10 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
If you had a specific example you wanted to talk about, we could certainly go into it.
February 25th, 2019 / 4:10 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
What I think—
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You may not be the right person. If you're not, then let me know and we can perhaps save the question for Minister Philpott if we get her in at committee. I'm just curious because every single target shows target not applicable for your departmental results for last year.
4:10 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
For many of them, it would be the fact that.... I'm looking right now at page 22, and we have the commissions of inquiry. It's not applicable in 2015-16, because we didn't have a commission of inquiry—
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
If we ask what PCO achieved last year, your target is not applicable. I'm just curious about who puts that together.