Government Operations Committee on April 19th, 2016

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I will get straight back to the main estimates, I want to talk a little about the $400 million decrease that results from the elimination of the accumulated severance. I want to come at it from two different angles. One, what was the policy rationale and will this save the government money over time? I guess the second aspect of the question is, when we removed these severance payments, was there any analysis done to ensure that it didn't disproportionally disadvantage certain groups? Was the GBA-plus analysis done with respect to eliminating severance payouts? If so, what did it say about whether or not different groups—women or indigenous people, or lower paid employees, or people from diverse backgrounds—would be more or less disadvantaged by the elimination of these severance benefits?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

It's an important question because it represents a very significant figure. In fact, there's a $400-million reduction in paylist requirements—that's part of Treasury Board vote 30—which returns the vote to historic reference levels related to immediate settlements related to the elimination of accumulated severance, and this is nearly complete.

This was, in part, a result of negotiations. These were parts of negotiations with the public sector on this. I'm going to ask Yaprak to intervene on this, but it is part of a negotiated process. We are striking and restoring a culture of respect for our public service, and we are negotiating with them on an ongoing basis now. This is a result of a previous negotiation that had occurred under the previous government, and I'll ask Yaprak to intervene.

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

The policy rationale for this was that the federal government was one of the very rare employers that provided severance payments to those people who decided to quit or to retire. A normal understanding of severance is that if you're let go, there's a severance package that you are given. In the federal public service you accumulated for every year you worked, a certain amount of days, and it added up. After 35 years you would have so many weeks of severance pay even when you were retiring. At that time, the government proposed to unions, and this was negotiated with the core public service, to discontinue the accumulation. However, everybody who had accumulated severance had options either to leave it invested in the government, so they could take it out when they retired, or they were allowed to cash out whatever weeks they had. If you had already accumulated 20 weeks of severance, that was cashed out. This was a public service-wide initiative, and it didn't particularly affect any one group more than others.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Maybe I'll follow up. If that practice is now being eliminated such that people won't be able to bank the severance, then that's a change in policy in terms of whether or not individual workers have that entitlement. Was GBA-plus analysis done by the government independent of the negotiation to determine whether or not that type of a policy decision would have a gender-differential effect? Were women more likely to accumulate more or less severance? What did the data-driven analysis say?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

I will get you the details. I don't know what was done. I wasn't in my job at that time. It would have been about six years ago. But, overall, the public service is 54% female, so in terms of whether it had an impact on women more than men, I'm sure that it must have been looked at. Given the fact that nothing was being taken away, the discontinuations happened from negotiated agreements going forward, so none of the existing entitlements were taken away.

We will follow up with the committee.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

It's just one of those things. It's a government policy to have all policies evaluated on this criterion. Yet, sometimes when you look to see what the results of that evaluation were, or even the underlying data that led to the policy decision, it's very difficult to find the result of that GBA-plus analysis. We'd like to start seeing that if we could.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

We'll get back to you. Six years ago Yaprak wasn't there in her job, and I was sitting where Mr. Weir is sitting right now.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

So we'll have to get back to you.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

In terms of oversight, when we look at the main estimates for 2016-17, just under $50 million has been set aside for decision-making support and oversight. This is table III, I guess, on page II–271.

What type of oversight are we talking about here? Is this the type of oversight where we're saying, okay, we're paying a transfer out to a province, and this is making sure that the province is compliant? Is this money that's back-end decision-making support on the financing side? What type of oversight are we talking about?

The mandate letter talks about finding out whether or not the budgetary expenses are meeting their objectives. Is this money that is dedicated toward determining whether or not objectives are being met? If not, are we likely to see in estimates (A), (B), or (C), or work that happens over the course of this mandate, a line item for money towards measuring statistically the outcomes associated with programming implementation?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Treasury Board is very much in the wheelhouse of establishing metrics with departments and agencies and measuring milestones and results. This is something we can do better, and we want to do better, and we will do better, in working closely with departments.

In government, typically we focus 90% of the effort on getting a policy right, and we assume that the results will just happen. The reality is that if you get the policy right, that may represent about 10% of success, but the 90% is actually execution. We know that at Treasury Board. These kinds of investments are designed to increase our capacity to deliver results, working with departments and agencies.

We are committed, and our Prime Minister is very committed, to ensuring that all the investments made by government, and particularly new investments consistent with our mandate letters as ministers, will be honoured and that we will deliver results. Treasury Board is central to that. These are the kinds of investments required to actually do this sort of analysis and put in place the kind of results-focused milestones and structures to ensure results.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We're now down to a five-minute round. We'll go to Monsieur Blaney.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to welcome the minister for his second appearance before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

I would also mention, Mr. Chair, that we intend to support the requests pertaining to the main estimates.

Mr. Minister, when you last appeared before the committee, you indicated that you were implementing a new pay system for federal public servants. You said at that time that everything was fine in the best of all worlds. You are now preparing to implement the second phase of the Phoenix pay system.

We have learned that public servants are not receiving their pay, specifically Canadian Coast Guard employees, who return from several weeks or months on assignments abroad for Canada only to discover in horror that their pay has not been deposited.

Can you reassure us that the errors that occurred during phase one have been corrected and will not recur in the second phase?

One has to feel for federal public servants, especially those on lengthy assignments abroad who are without income for some time.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Blaney. I appreciate your question.

Two years ago, the previous government started implementing this pay system. The federal government's pay system is over 40 years old, so it has to be replaced. The new Phoenix pay system will ensure that new laws, policies, and collective agreements are implemented within the required time periods and that employees receive their pay on time and without errors.

When an integrated solution such as this new program is implemented, there are always problems, whether in government or in the private sector.

It was the previous government that decided to create this program, and we agree that it is important. There are, however, problems at this time, and we are working with the departments and agencies to correct them.

Perhaps Mr. Baltacioglu has something to add.

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

We certainly agree on the implementation of the new system, but can you reassure us that for those who have been negatively impacted, the situation has been corrected?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

Yes, sir.

As the minister suggested, this is an enterprise-wide initiative. It is a complicated thing to get rid of a very old system and bring all of the public service to a new system.

Before the next phase of departments are brought onboard to the new system, Public Services and Procurement Canada, which is the responsible department, is checking with every department and identifying the areas that we have problems with. We are feeding into them and alerting them if we are running into problems. If they feel we're not ready, they will delay. If they feel that 99% of it is going to work, then we will go forward.

As implementation phases evolve, we're taking it as well as we can.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Blaney, I'm informed that there are support measures, and there's emergency pay for those affected by these glitches. If you, as a member of Parliament, or if any of you hear anything, this is something that we want feedback on.

When I was minister of public works over 10 years ago, we dealt with enterprise-wide—

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

I was working in that department at that time, Minister.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Was I a pretty good fellow to work with at that time? Did we pay you on time?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

The issue there, and I'm not being partisan, exists with every government and every major business when they're doing enterprise-wide solutions, and it is so frustrating. I still have some level of PTSD related to my last experience in enterprise-wide computer solutions, or IT solutions, and we still deal with it now.

We want to become better as a procurer of enterprise-wide solutions. We have a ways to go, as do most governments, but there are other governments from which I think we can learn.

This is an area of significant challenge, and I appreciate your raising it today, Mr. Blaney.

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

We are counting on you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

In an attempt to alleviate your stress levels, Minister, we'll go over to the other side, to Monsieur Drouin.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

No, no. I enjoy hearing from Mr. Blaney.

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

I was just on the verge of beginning.