Government Operations Committee on Feb. 25th, 2019

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I have a couple of points before we commence.

I have spoken with Mr. Shea on this matter; I have not spoken with Mr. Borbey. If the committee is willing to have the comments of both the Privy Council Office and the Public Service Commission taken as read and appended to the evidence, that would allow us to go directly into questions. All of the opening comments would still be part of the official record. It would just save us about 10 or 20 minutes of opening time. Is there a willingness from the committee to do so?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

[See appendix—Remarks by Matthew Shea]

[See appendix—Remarks by Patrick Borbey]

Thank you very much.

The second comment will be a personal one, colleagues, more than anything else. We have, as you can see, representatives from the Privy Council Office before us today. Unless anyone on this committee has been deaf, dumb and blind, you will know that the Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Wernick, made a very public appearance before the justice committee last week. There are probably many questions that members would like to ask Mr. Wernick and perhaps officials of the Privy Council Office, but I would remind all members that we are here to discuss the estimates. I would appreciate it if all committee members recognize that and keep their comments to the officials based on the estimates that have been provided.

There will be, I'm sure, infinite opportunities to ask questions of other officials from the Privy Council Office on separate matters on separate dates and times. For the purposes of this meeting, I would ask you to please confine your comments to the issue at hand.

With that, since we seem to have a consensus, we will go directly into questions.

We will start with Monsieur Drouin for seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I had hoped to have the witnesses read their comments, but I have them here, so I shall read them as we go along.

My first question is actually for Mr. Borbey. As you know, I always ask about millennials and access to public service jobs.

I'm not going to ask you a question. I'm just going to comment on an issue that is very apparent. I have the email here. It's with regard to criteria and how folks apply for jobs. One issue that arises from this is that if you forget, for instance, to mention in your application that you have a college degree, a high school diploma or a university degree, you will automatically be disqualified. I won't mention the agency or department concerned, but departments will say “I'm sorry, but too bad, so sad. You must now re-apply, but by the way, it's not open so we'll have to take your application into consideration” even though it may not be the truthful application that's standing. It's just been an honest mistake by the proponent.

That particular issue is one of the things you may want to look up and consult on with your colleagues. It's just a comment. I'm not going to be hard on millennials; you've known my lines of questioning for a long time.

My first question will be for the PCO. I know that the PCO provides non-partisan advice to the Prime Minister's Office and also consults with departments. I'm wondering about some of the issues that have been coming up and how PCO has been able to provide this non-partisan advice. How do you ensure there is a separate gate between PCO and PMO? How do you provide that confidence? Does it date back a long time ago in since your existence? How do you assure Canadians that yes, there is a separate body that does provide non-partisan advice from PCO to PMO?

[Marian Campbell Jarvis, Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy, Privy Council Office]

With respect to non-partisan advice, the gate is very much there. In fact, I think it's in part because there is the Privy Council Office and there is the Prime Minister's Office. Our role at the Privy Council Office is to coordinate across government departments to ensure, for example, that we have that broad policy evidence base—whether it's scientific evidence based or economic evidence based—or that a full gender-based analysis has been undertaken. We do legal analysis when that's appropriate. It's about pulling together all of that information together, including from Statistics Canada, and the evidence base from program evaluation, legislation, etc. All of that comes together, and that is reflective of the public policy advice that the public service provides through the Privy Council Office.

As for the Prime Minister's Office, it has its perspective and provides advice from the evidence it gathers.

There are very much two gates, personified through the Clerk of the Privy Council, who has three roles: head of the public service, secretary to the cabinet, and deputy minister to the Prime Minister. It's through him that our advice is provided to the prime minister.

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

Okay, in that same line of questioning, on page 10 of the 2017-18 DRR, there is a statement that the PCO provided procedural support to make six Senate appointments. What does that look like?

[Matthew Shea, Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office]

Our role in the Senate appointments is really administrative. We help to pull together the nominees and bring them to the decision-makers. Ultimately, we're just playing an administrative role in the Senate appointment process. We're not exercising any type of political role.

The one thing that I'd point you to and that I'd add to my colleague's response is the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector. This is really the playbook by which all public servants work, and that's absolutely the case at the PCO. This is something that you hear very often. You talk about the line between political and non-partisan advice. We provide fearless advice, and then we faithfully implement whatever decision the government of the day makes. Whether that's the current government or the previous government, that's always been the approach that the public service has taken.

If you look in the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector, there are avenues for resolution. If people ever don't feel that that's being done in their organization, there are avenues that they can turn to in that type of situation.

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

Again—just to ensure that appointments are done in a fair and non-partisan way—what type of advice does the PCO give? I know we've gone through about 10,000 applications, but we'd say 10% of GIC appointments were done in 2017-18. What advice does the PCO give to elected officials or government in terms of those applications?

[Matthew Shea]

There are different types of GIC appointments, whether it's the Senate or the leadership positions, so it really varies. I mentioned the Senate where we really have more of an administrative function, kind of bringing things together, helping with onboarding and that sort of thing.

When it comes to the other types of leadership positions, we actually do take more of an active role, so we'll work with individual departments. Depending on the position being staffed, there are other ministers who are ultimately responsible, so it's not uncommon that there would be members of the PCO, the other department, and also the Prime Minister's Office or the minister's office of that other department who are part of the selection board. We give our non-partisan advice, but ultimately, decisions are made by those who have that authority. In many cases, that's ministers of individual departments.

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

That's great, thank you.

I thought, Mr. Borbey, I wouldn't fall on you, but you are here today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Unfortunately, although he may be here—

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

Am I already out of time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

—you are completely out of time.

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

Time is on your side, my friend.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Time is precious, Mr. Drouin.

Mr. McCauley, you have seven minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Welcome back to almost everyone, I guess.

Mr. Shea, I just want to start with you. The last time you were with us, I think we were talking about some of the vote 40 funds, particularly around the leadership debate. There are a couple of things that I want to ask you about that.

There is $438,000 allocated so far, and about $300,000 withheld. What has the $438,000 gone toward? Why the withheld amount?

Here's the second part of the question. I saw in a report today that the government has announced, I guess, a director for the leadership debates. It's $200,000 a year when you add in the benefits and everything. I think $5.5 million was the overall budget. When are we actually going to see a breakdown of what we're getting for that $5.5 million? I'll be honest—and I'm not looking at you specifically, but I will ask if you have a breakdown. I'm aghast, and I think the average taxpayer would be aghast and find it very difficult that we are spending $5.5 million to do two debates when we're not providing the cameras and we're not providing this and that. I'm just trying to figure out when we're going to see what makes up that $5.5 million. What have you spent so far? Why is $300,000 withheld?

[Matthew Shea]

Thanks for your question, Mr. McCauley. I'm always pleased to answer as best as I can.

This is a unique situation for me, in that I'm not the chief financial officer for the Leaders’ Debates Commission. The way it was formed, as you know, is that we did the Treasury Board submission to bring the funding in. It is Minister Gould who is actually the minister accountable to Parliament. However, it's an independent department. It was created that way to ensure its independence.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

The vote 40 lies in your department, though.

[Matthew Shea]

For the vote 40 piece, however—the supplementary estimates that were just tabled—the $438,000 was for a new department. The deputy head is actually the debates commissioner, so he is the best person to ask these questions.

Having said that, I have worked with him in anticipation that there may be questions, and I'm happy to give you a bit of a breakdown. As I told the procedure and House Affairs committee last week.... I appeared with Minister Gould and we did talk about the expenditures, because PROC is the committee that is overseeing that.

About $900,000 of the total spending of the $5.5 million will be for salaries, and the remainder will be for operational expenditures, divided up between communication services, advertising, and professional services. It's anticipated there will be some type of contract to put on the two debates.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

The $438,000 that has been spent so far, allocated to vote 40, that's under your department, is it not?

[Matthew Shea]

The $400,000 that was already allocated was spent at PCO at the direction of the Debates Commission. Just from a timing perspective, the department had not been created. Those are start-up costs and informatics costs. Those are accommodation costs to actually set-up an office.

As I mentioned to the committee last week, the debates commissioner has made it a point to try to minimize costs. Consequently, from an accommodation perspective, we showed him existing space and he tried to minimize the costs, but there are start-up costs, as there were for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do you know why $300,000 of the vote 40 money that had been approved has been withheld?

[Matthew Shea]

Because it's under cost. We're spending less than was anticipated this fiscal year. I would suggest that's a good news story.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I want to get back to what we spoke about last time you were here, about the mandate tracker. I think it's under PCO's control, so to speak. It's actually in your departmental results that PCO will continue with the Prime Minister and cabinet to track the status of mandate letter commitments in communicating results through the mandate tracker.

There are six different levels: completed, fully met, completed modified, actions taken, etc. Who's deciding what goes where on the mandate tracker?

[Rodney Ghali, Assistant Secretary, Impact and innovation Unit, Privy Council Office]

I'll handle that question. In terms of how the mandate tracker is evaluating progress across the 430-something mandate letter commitments, that's done in consultation with the relevant departments, the minister, and officials who feed into the overall government picture.