Government Operations Committee on March 8th, 2016

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you.

I want to say that I support the $1 million for activities and for implementation of the strategy to prevent the further arrival of human smuggling vessels. I think it is well managed, and the special adviser is doing a fantastic job.

I'd like to go back to the question raised by Mr. Ayoub concerning the Public Service Commission. He spoke of the opportunity for public servants of running for office.

I'd like to draw a parallel with the provincial public service. I have colleagues who are provincial elected representatives. When the time comes for them to leave political life, it will probably be too late, but the their status as public servants has been maintained. However, paragraph 3.21 of page 72 of your report states: “A public servant ceases to be an employee of the public service on the day on which they are elected in a federal, provincial or territorial election“.

Why be as uncompromising toward someone who would like to return to their position after having been in politics?

[Christine Donoghue]

That is a valid question and I thank you for asking it.

That is the legislative framework that was given to us by Parliament when that act was adopted. That was the context for that decision.

Allow me to give you some of the rationale behind this. Take the general career path of a public servant. When he asks for leave, the maximum that is granted is often five years. It may be a question of equity. We have often wondered how best to manage this. The matter does not arise if someone is elected at the municipal level, but only if he is elected at the federal or provincial level. The reason for that is probably that those are terms that more or less comply with the same standards as for any other type of leave granted to public servants.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Very well.

In 2006, I had to resign my position when I was elected to a minority government. At that time, I would have liked to keep my status with regard to that position which I liked very much. Today, I have turned the page and moved on to something else. But I wanted to mention it.

To give people the opportunity of running for office, perhaps you could grant them the status referred to as “indeterminate”, which would be an important asset for a public servant.

I'd like to go back to the Privy Council Office.

I would like to come back to the process regarding the appointment of senators.

Can you enlighten me in that regard?

You said that you were seeking an additional $200,000 for the Senate, but you spoke about costs of $5.4 million over the next six years.

Could you tell me more about those costs? Will the recommendations in this report be made public?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for that question.

I apologize for any confusion. I was attempting to answer the other member's question about going forward how much money we would be spending. It's probably a little confusing because you don't have those figures before you. I know what those are, and as Karen explained, they're not in any of the estimates documents before you right now. But I can assure the committee, whenever I come to the committee and I know that these are going to be before you, I will always share those with you so you can have as big a picture as possible.

What I don't have with me today is the specific breakdown of the $1.5 million that we would spend in the next fiscal year, the one that will start in about three weeks. I know we'll be seeking that in supplementary estimates. We'll be seeking over six years $5.4 million, and in the next fiscal year we'll be seeking funding of $1.5 million as part of that $5.4 million.

If it's the will of the committee, I'm very happy to provide a breakdown of how we would propose to spend that money.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

My understanding, as you said, is that this $5.4 million over six years is to cover the expenses of the appointees, Canadians who have been appointed to make recommendations, as well as creating a group of civil servants who will provide support. Do you have any idea of how many FTEs will actually be created for this kind of secretariat, this new structure?

[Michelle Doucet]

It's my understanding and I believe it's four additional FTEs who will be hired to support the work of the committee over the next five years. You can appreciate that in the first couple of years of the work, because it's a whole new process, they'll be pretty busy with that. Then as they get better at it and more efficient and regularize it, the workload will be less onerous.

It's four new public servants at PCO to do this work, plus the technology support, and then of course the fees for the committee members' participation.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Yes. It's a process that was already ongoing without this structure, but now this is a new structure and this certainly is reflected in those costs.

To get back to beyond the border, is it correct to say that you have the mandate to coordinate the overall operation of the government? Can you be a little more specific on your role in the implementation of the initial agreement and the pre-clearance agreement that was signed in March 2015? I have reason to believe that this is why you are seeking additional funding.

[Michelle Doucet]

As I said, the beyond the border action plan was announced in late December 2011 by the then prime minister and the then president of the United States, and I suspect the member is fairly acquainted with it. The role of PCO since that time has been to, as I said, coordinate the efforts of the department. What did that mean in the first couple of years? There were a number of initiatives that needed cabinet approval, that needed policy cover. What we saw were multiple departments coming before cabinet on one topic. They needed somebody to organize and coordinate that, so PCO played that role. It couldn't do it within its existing framework because the existing framework's role is to play a challenge function in proposals that come in to us, and that's what the existing PCO staff did. We built this new function that could play the coordinating role of all of the various departments involved. Those would include Public Safety, the RCMP, the then citizenship and immigration, now the Department of Immigration and Refugees, and the CBSA. The span of initiatives included cargo security, trusted traders, cross-border travellers, and—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Madam Doucet, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you off. I apologize for that but we're about a minute and a half over time. Perhaps in your subsequent answers to other committee members, you might be able to incorporate some of the answer you were providing to Monsieur Blaney.

Mr. Weir, please, for seven minutes.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I would indeed like to pick up on a question posed by my colleague. I might have missed the answer.

Will the recommendations of the independent advisory board for Senate appointments be made public?

[Michelle Doucet]

The recommendations of the advisory board will be made to the Prime Minister for his consideration, and the decision is the prerogative of the Prime Minister.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

It would be up to the Prime Minister to make the recommendations public or not.

[Michelle Doucet]

That's my understanding.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay. In terms of the cost of the advisory board, the figure you've provided and explained of $5.4 million, that would be a contribution through the Privy Council Office. Will there be any other government departments, or perhaps the Senate itself, providing any funding in support of this body?

[Michelle Doucet]

I can't speak for the Senate. It is my understanding that any costs that are incurred by other departments with respect to Senate appointments would be absorbed within their existing budgets, and the only expenses that I could foresee would be security clearances. I think that would be easily absorbed into the security agency's ongoing work in security clearances.

This is really a new function for the public service. Up until the government's announcement of this function, this was not done within the public service. We really had an administrative role around coordinating security clearances and making sure that the paperwork was transmitted. This is very much a new function. It will be housed out of PCO and I don't anticipate that other departments will come in with other requests.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

PCO is seeking just over $700,000 for professional and special services, and I wonder if this is for consultants. Could you elaborate on what that money will pay for?

[Michelle Doucet]

I'm going to let Karen answer that question for you.

[Karen Cahill]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

No, that's not just for consultants. That category has multiple items, such as training, hospitality, and of course, professional services, but not just to hire consultants.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Is this specific $700,000 mostly for training? Is it mostly for hospitality? Can you give us some sense?

[Karen Cahill]

You will understand, Mr. Chair, that what we have at this moment...we're still in the fiscal year. The fiscal year has not closed, so unfortunately, we will have to wait for the tabling of the public accounts to finalize this number and have a better understanding of the items that are involved.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I have a question about the economic action plan. Now that this initiative is coming to an end, looking back, could you speak to what public service, if any, it served, and how the success of the program might be evaluated?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question. The economic action plan grew out of the global economic crisis in 2009, as you're probably aware.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Sorry, just to clarify, I'm not asking about the whole economic action plan. I'm asking about the initiatives to advertise it.

[Michelle Doucet]

Yes. The government was getting feedback that people didn't know where to go to get information. We were hearing that loud and clear. It was a profound glimpse of the obvious idea to put it all in one place. My understanding is that the site was accessed by a lot by people. The government saw that it was successful and looked for ways to leverage that success within the rubric of the communications policy of the Government of Canada.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thanks very much.

I have a question for the Public Service Commission about the hiring of veterans.

My colleague asked some very specific questions about the 94 veterans as a proportion of applicants or total public servants and I appreciate that those figures are coming, but I'd ask a more general question. It strikes me that's not a very large number of veterans in the context of the whole public service or in the context of the total number of veterans. Would you share that assessment and could you speak to it a bit?