Government Operations Committee on March 8th, 2016

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here with us to answer our questions. I'm going to begin with you, Ms. Doucet.

You provided an overview of the mandate of the Privy Council Office and of the type or work you do, but could you give me a bit more information on how the internal services of your office operate? How do you function internally?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm delighted to talk about that, because as the ADM of corporate services, I am uniquely positioned to do so. As we said before, our main function at the Privy Council Office is to provide advice and support and coordination. We do that for fairly senior level decision-makers—the Prime Minister and his portfolio and the Clerk of the Privy Council.

We take an approach that we want those folks to focus on their work, on their day job, and that we support them on a corporate services basis completely. My colleague who runs the secretariat that I just discussed, the business transformation renewal secretariat, doesn't have to worry about looking after the mechanics of her human resources staffing or her budgets or any of her other corporate responsibilities, because my folks do that for her.

We have one-stop shopping in corporate services at the Privy Council Office. It includes all of the internal services that you would normally think of: finance—Karen is the head of my finance group—contracting, building facilities management, human resources, access to information and privacy, parliamentary returns for PCO. It also includes things you might not necessarily think about, such as passports and visas for people going on trips, security operations—security is really important at the Privy Council Office, and there is a workforce dedicated to doing it. In our legal services group we have lawyers, like other departments, but we also have a dedicated group that works on something called cabinet confidences. We include that in our internal services. Then finally, of course, there would be communication services and what I would call the senior level management oversight for the department, including the audit group, the audit division, and the clerk's office.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

I am going to put another question to Ms. Donoghue about her organization.

In your introduction you talked about the fact that a public servant who wants to run for political office must ask for permission, and this is true whether they intend to run at the federal, provincial or municipal level.

Today is International Women's Day. Since it is difficult to recruit women into the political arena, is there a plan in place to encourage them to get involved in politics? Is there something that deters them from doing so? What is the plan for employees with regard to their potential will and freedom to run for political office? How does that play out?

[Christine Donoghue]

First, I must say that the commission recognizes the right of Canadians, whether they are public servants or not, to participate in political activities. It recognizes that that is a fundamental right. However, we must ensure a balance to preserve another fundamental principle, that of non-partisanship in the public service.

When a public servant wants to run for office, at whatever level of government, that person must obtain the permission of the commission to do so. The reason for that is that we need to see what the impact of that initiative would be on preserving non-partisanship. It is very rare that permission is not granted. When we grant a permission, it comes with conditions that are often discussed with the employer of the potential candidate so as to define how that person will reintegrate their position if not elected. We take into consideration the nature of the position involved and its visibility.

Basically, the purpose is not to restrict the capacity of a public servant to run for office, quite the opposite. We have to make sure that if the person is not elected, he or she will be able to reintegrate their positions without adversely affecting the perception of the impartiality of the public service. Generally, when someone is elected, especially at the federal and provincial levels, the law requires that they resign from the public service because they will be accepting another full time job.

There are no particular provisions applying to different kinds of persons. Everyone is treated the same way. There is no different treatment, whether it is a man or a woman or in consideration of any other circumstance.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Are the rules very—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'm sorry, but we'll have to cut it off there. We're going to Mr. Weir in a three-minute round, and after that, we'll go back to a seven-minute round and there will be enough time for four more questions, if my clock is correct.

Mr. Weir, you have three minutes, so if you could, keep the questions as precise as possible.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Sure.

PCO is asking for $200,000 to set up an advisory board for Senate appointments. I wonder if you could provide some information about how much this board is going to cost going forward.

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question.

Going forward, we will be seeking $1.5 million in 2016-17. Maybe I'll ask Karen to explain how that will manifest itself in the estimates process.

[Karen Cahill]

Certainly. When the Senate appointments TB submission went to the Treasury Board, it was too late to add the information in our main estimates, so you will not have seen the $1.5 million for 2016-17 in the PCO's main estimates, which were tabled on February 26.

What PCO will do, in future supplementary estimates for 2016-17, is present the $1.5 million for Senate appointments. Ongoing, it will be in our main estimates.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Will that be the full cost of the advisory board?

[Michelle Doucet]

Perhaps I will just talk about... I've just given you one year of information. Maybe I could be a bit more helpful.

The total funding that the PCO will be seeking for the next six fiscal years will be $5.4 million, and thereafter it will be $700,000 ongoing. What is this going to be used for? It's going to be used, really, for two things.

One is for the board itself, the honourable Canadians who have let their names stand to do this work. We have some permanent federal members, and then, as you know, there will be members named for every province. We are paying a fairly modest per diem to do this work, but we are paying them to do it, as well as paying their travel expenses when they need to come together to have conversations. We will, however, take advantage of technology whenever possible to keep expenses to a minimum.

There is the cost of standing up the board, which is something that you see in the $200,000 in these estimates—standing up that committee to fill the most immediate vacancies.

As I said, we're looking for money over six fiscal years, and that's based on the projection of vacancies in the Senate based on age of retirement. If you do the analysis on that, you have a kind of immediate work plan.

The second portion of the money will be used to pay for the public servants who will support this and act as a secretariat. We'll be absorbing some of that cost ourselves and have been already, but it will mean more work, because prior to this, PCO really didn't have a very big role in the appointment of senators. This is a new functionality for us, supporting the work of the committee and the technology required to support it as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

I offer my apologies to the committee; I missed Mr. McCauley in the five-minute round.

I can pretend I was like Speaker Regan and say that you were heckling and so I cut you out of a question, but that just wouldn't be fair.

We'll go back to Mr. McCauley for a five-minute question-and-answer period, and then we'll get into the final seven-minute round.

Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you.

You mentioned $800,000 for the border implementation team to secure the border. I'm curious against what and whom you would secure the U.S. border. Do we not spend billions already on another department to secure us against invasion from the U.S.?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair, and I am grateful for it.

Maybe what I'll do is take a step back. I believe it was in February 2011 that Canada and the United States announced they were going to work together to establish a new long-term partnership to accelerate the legitimate flow of people and goods between both countries, while strengthening security and economic competitiveness. The plan for that was crystallized later on that year, in December 2011.

When we talk about the border, the border is a complicated place. We have people going back and forth for business and for pleasure and leisure all the time. Both governments are interested in finding ways to facilitate legitimate trade and the legitimate flow of business. Each country is driven by its own unique considerations, one of which is security.

The plan was quite a complicated one, and it involved on both sides of the border a multi-departmental approach to implementing it, including the modernization of complicated IT systems.

The work has been ongoing since late 2011. That work has been housed in Canada at the Privy Council Office because of our unique bird's-eye perspective and our ability to pull together all of the departments. It has come along well and has matured. We are seeking funding in these estimates and going over two years. We'll be in a position over the next year to synchronize the review of the work done to figure out a way forward.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you.

You have $1 million for the wind-down of Canada's economic action plan. I know it was much maligned over the years for the spending.

On what are you going to spend $1 million on winding it down when it's basically ended, and we have a commitment from the new government that there will be zero partisan advertising? Could you explain what $1 million is going to buy us when we've basically turned it off? What value do Canadians receive from this $1-million plan?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question.

The economic action plan was a one-stop shopping website where the priorities of the government were put so Canadians could go to one place to see what was going on with the government.

I've spoken about the winding down of it subsequent to the election. As you know, the election occurred in October, which meant this program operated up until the election, which is to say the first six months of the government's fiscal year. The funds would be required to support the work public servants did in accordance with the communications policy of the Government of Canada. Subsequent to that, they had to do the archiving and the winding down of it.

That is not as easy as it sounds, but it certainly wouldn't take the entire $1 million. If you pro-rate the $1 million, you can imagine that if the work were being done over the first six months of the fiscal year, you'd need half of it to support the work of the public servants working on it then.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. McCauley, you may want to save that for the final seven-minute round as we're out of time. I'm sorry.

We'll go to the final seven-minute round and we'll start with Mr. Grewal.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of you for your testimony today.

My question is for Ms. Doucet.

What are the macro level challenges facing your organization in anticipating the delivery of your mandate?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question.

Mr. Chair, I suspect when I respond that my colleagues to the right will nod their heads.

Ms. Donoghue described the launch of the new website for the Public Service Commission last April. I would tell you that for folks in my position across government, probably their biggest preoccupation is technology. Technology evolves rapidly. It is a critical tool for all of us.

I talked earlier about how doing technology in government is different from doing it in the private sector, because they operate in a different value system. Candidly, the private sector folks are not necessarily going to be preoccupied with official languages and with accessibility the way the Government of Canada will be.

I'll obviously just speak for PCO, but I suspect it's similar in other departments. We have two portions in technology. One is the everyday run, making sure that the systems in which everybody does their work are up and operating, and that they are operating safely, because we're a pretty target-rich environment for cybersecurity, for the bad guys who are out there. We have to make sure we have the right kinds of firewalls that protect the folks who are working within that, but at the same time that they don't stymie their work. That's the day-to-day operations. Involved in the day-to-day operations is being able to do maintenance and patching and finding windows of opportunity when we can do that, and not disturbing the workflow.

Then, of course, the second piece is innovation. If the clerk of the public service wants to reach out to universities for post-secondary recruitment, and he wants to do Google Hangouts, if he came to me right now and said, “Michelle, I need you to make this happen for me”, I would say “Okay”. The money that we're seeking in these supplementary estimates is to begin to support us to do that.

I spoke earlier about live streaming. Right now we are supported in that by contract help. I want to be able to build the capacity within the Privy Council Office to have that embedded, to be able to respond in a nimble and agile way to Canadians who want to use technology to connect with their government.

I would say technology in being able to move in a safe but nimble way is probably my biggest preoccupation these days.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Does it make the government more efficient, your office more efficient with the investment in technology and innovation?

[Michelle Doucet]

For sure. As you know, we are the secretariat to cabinet. There's cabinet and the various cabinet committees. Ministers can't always be in Ottawa for cabinet committee meetings, and sometimes they want to call in. I've talked about the Internet, but let me talk about telecommunications. If you have a minister in another part of the world and the Prime Minister wants to speak with him or her, or there needs to be a meeting of a subcommittee on whatever topic, ministers need to be able to call in safely and securely. We have worked very hard over the last year with critical government partners such as PSPC and Shared Services Canada—a great partner—to put that in place. We are now a bit victims of our own success because now ministers are asking whether we can do secure video conferencing which requires lots of bandwidth and a different set-up altogether.

But these are the times in which we live, and in terms of creating better government, it creates more effective government.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

According to the departmental performance report, you guys did a review after the incident that occurred in Ottawa. What recommendations have you guys implemented from that review process and what specific changes, after the action review, have actually taken place?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question.

One of the things we did, which is something that we will always do to keep our security posture current, is that we worked across the government to make sure that business continuity plans were updated, streamlined, and linked to revised critical functionality. October 22 was a wake-up call in that regard.

At PCO we built our emergency response plans. We rebuilt them, and we reviewed them and the communications protocols. Awareness and training were enhanced. When an alarm went off a couple of weeks ago, the first question I asked myself was, “What is this? Is this a fire, or is this an earthquake, or is this a shooter?”

I wouldn't have thought to do that on October 22, but now as a result of that training, you have a different security protocol. In the event of an earthquake how you behave is different from how you behave in the event of a shooter. It's important to have education and awareness on that.

From a communications perspective, PCO has clarified its information exchange processes with other emergency response providers in making sure we're linked with the public safety operation centre and Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Treasury Board Secretariat is the employer of the public service and has an important role in any events like that.

We made physical improvements, but security considerations preclude me from going into the details on those. Some of them are perhaps evident and some less evident.

I think I'll stop at that.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

We're just about out of time. Perhaps one of your colleagues can follow up with a question if you have one.

Monsieur Blaney, for seven minutes.