Evidence of meeting #166 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 jobs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Scarborough—Agincourt, Lib.
How are you going about attracting the physically challenged populations and indigenous communities?
President, Public Service Commission
I mentioned that there are two programs we created with the Treasury Board Secretariat over the last number of years for students, which specifically targeted those populations, and those programs are open right now. We're hoping to increase the number. We reported on the numbers from last year. We want to increase that number.
We're also looking at our outreach work that we do at the Public Service Commission, specifically targeting indigenous communities or groups of communities and going directly to the communities, not just the post-secondary institutions but actually to the communities. For persons with disabilities, there are a lot of community groups with which we need to also create better relationships.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Mr. McCauley, you have five minutes, please.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Thank you.
In your pilot program in Quebec—maybe it was at McGill University—there were 32 on-the-spot conditional job offers. What do you term as “conditional”? What are you doing there that we're not doing regularly but takes us 197 days? This goes back to Mr. Page's comments. I used to be an HR manager. If you're not hiring instantly, you're losing the best person. What's conditional, and what are we doing there that we can't just do the rest of the...?
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
We are actually bringing the hiring manager to meet with the candidate at career fairs.
What's conditional about them is that in some instances they need to meet the language requirements. That language testing needs to occur in one of our centres—and security clearances as well.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
So, if we're making a conditional offer on the spot, how long is it taking to get those people hired? Is it the 55 days' assessment, two-week security...?
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
They're actually assessed at the career fair. It's just to get them booked on a language assessment for reading, writing or....
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
Usually once we have a candidate identified we try to schedule a test within 10 days.
Conservative
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
For security clearance it depends on which level, so it could be....
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
A ballpark figure. Again, we're not hiring the head of CSIS, but the regular person.
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
I've seen it done anywhere from a couple of days to a month.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay, the worst-case scenario is a month.
We're getting them through language and top security clearance in a month and a half. What Mr. Borbey was saying earlier was that it takes 55 days just for an assessment.
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
Yes.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
How is this possible? I can't in any way figure out how it can take that long.
There's nothing really special about public servants. We're all very important, as you, as anyone else.
Seriously, how does it take 55 days for an assessment, when we're assessing on the spot? Is the average hirer just not available for 55 days to assess?
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
It's a combination of things. It can be that managers staff in a sequence, in the sense that they start developing their tools once they have their candidate. That takes time. It could be candidate availability as well. If the candidate has applied and is screened in, but is not available to come to the assessment, then we have to wait until that person is available. It has to be within—
Conservative
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
Yes, we have it at York University and we've done it in Moncton.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Do you do it in non-university locations, as at hiring fair?
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
Not that I know of, no. Not yet.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
You were chatting earlier about the breakdown. This government, the previous government and the government before it have done a very good job of making sure that the public service reflects the diversity of the workforce. For example, in the Library of Parliament, 55% of the public servants are women. Is that broken down? Maybe women are overrepresented there, but they are under-represented at the executive levels. Therefore, we need to focus on that and not on overall....
You mentioned earlier that you'll open up the process and prioritize women, but are we doing the priority in the wrong area? Do we need to prioritize the executive level, to make those the first hires, as opposed to...?
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Does that go for indigenous and disabled people as well?
President, Public Service Commission
Yes. Certainly there are some gaps at the executive level in our employment equity groups.
For women, the gap has been narrowed. It's down to about 0.5% between—