Evidence of meeting #178 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 information.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Maybe Mr. Purves has the answer, because you don't. What will the cost be?
It was publicized. The government even announced it, so it's not.... You bargained in public by announcing it. It was in the Ottawa Citizen. You increased the wage offer from 0.75%. I'm not criticizing the wage offer. I'm just asking a simple question: What will the costs be in wages and in benefits? You've moved it from 0.75% to 1.5%. What will the cost be?
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Well, we have not concluded the collective bargaining. We are pleased to say that it is going well and that it has been a good-faith bargaining process. We have over 30,000 public servants whose agents have—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You don't know. Is it something, perhaps, that you can get back to the committee with?
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
—tentative agreements with our government, and beyond that, I'm not free to divulge details of the collective bargaining.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
The Phoenix offer to address a lot of the issues—the public service has suffered under Phoenix—I think was three to five vacation days. What will be the cost of that, please?
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
I'll see whether we have.... Well, actually, we don't have a conclusion to those negotiations either, so what we have is 146,000 public servants—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I realize that most, with the exception of PSAC, which has not—
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
—and tentative agreements not all yet ratified, but what I will say is that no public servant should be having to go without proper pay and—
Liberal
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
—but you would have had to come up with a cost when you made the offer.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Order. Just a minute, please.
I won't be docking any time for this.
Number one, we simply can't both have witnesses and questioners speaking at the same time. I have been listening carefully. Mr. McCauley has asked a couple of direct questions.
Minister, I think it would be beneficial to this committee if we get direct answers, as opposed to corollaries in response to the question that's posed. Mr. McCauley, if I am hearing correctly and if I recall correctly, has asked a couple of specific questions about what the costs would be of the contracts that have already been announced—just what would the costs be—and if the costs are not available to you at this point in time, I think this committee would appreciate a written answer so that this committee has the information it has been asking for.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
With that, we'll go back to Mr. McCauley.
You have about a minute left, sir.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I'll rephrase the Phoenix question.
Obviously when you made the offer, Treasury Board would have had to come up with costs. You would not throw out an offer to 320,000 public servants without having a cost in mind. On the offer that was made to the public service unions, what was the cost behind the compensation for them enduring the Phoenix problems?
Peter Wallace Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you very much. It is a very important question, and we do take it very seriously.
There are two impediments to providing the information to you at this point and the reason why we will provide the information to you in writing. The first is that while the agreements are tentative, they are not yet ratified. It is because they are not yet ratified that they have no legal status. It has been the common practice—
Conservative
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
—of all governments to hold off final communication, including pricing, until the agreements are fully ratified. That's with those with whom we have reached tentative agreements.
Secondly, we remain in negotiation and, frankly, that information may have commercial value relative to other bargaining agents, so we will maintain our negotiation position private for the moment.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
But you went public with the offer, so in back-of-a-napkin calculations, it's about $800 million. Surely the government put some numbers together before you made that offer.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
No, the back of this number calculation—and I'll ask Mr. Purves to add to this as well—may not be fully accurate, because there will be a combination of costs to the government, including backfill days—
Conservative
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
—and a variety of other things. Obviously that information is of direct proprietorial and commercial value to the Government of Canada as it continues to negotiate with bargaining agents. Also, the agreements themselves are not yet concluded and, while recommended by the bargaining agents to their members, have not yet been ratified by either the members or the government or Treasury Board.
Is there anything you want to add to that, Glenn?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Mr. Blaikie, you have five minutes, please.