Government Operations Committee on May 18th, 2017

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, sir. I understand that.

I just want to make clear an interesting parallel. Do you remember the election of 1984 when Turner said to Mulroney that he had no choice but to confirm those nominations?

Mulroney then told him—and that's when Mulroney won the election—that, yes, he did have a choice.

I know that you know perfectly well what I'm talking about.

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

I was hardly born in 1984.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I wasn't born.

Minister, what I'm getting to here is that the process of firing 700 people was perhaps started by us, but the 250 people who were fired between February and April are part of those 700 people. Your government should have stopped that, just like Harper did after the election when he said that we would postpone the firing of those 250 people and postpone the launching of the system because it wasn't ready and we needed those experts.

Your government decided, at the same time as it launched the Phoenix system, to fire those 250 people, so that their problems are on your back, not on ours. That's the reality, and Canadians need to understand that. When you say—because it's your third excuse in a year—that the problem is caused by a lack of employees.... You fired 250 people. You should at least confirm that to your colleagues.

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

Let's be very clear that not maintaining a legacy system and the removal of 700 pay experts was a mistake of the previous government that enfeebled the implementation of the new system. Let's also be clear that—in fact, even as late as Monday of this week—we have appealed across the public service to current and past public servants with pay experience, the pertinent experience we need so that they can show up and help right now.

Currently, we're appealing to people to come in for overtime to work to help address this, and we're also appealing to past public servants. This situation is one that our Prime Minister and our government consider to be our responsibility to fix. We're the government, and we are working to fix this. This is a terrible situation.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Minister.

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

And it's one, I can tell you, that going forward will have a huge impact on how our government, and I believe future governments, consider any enterprise-wide IT implementation.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Minister. Your time is up.

You have five minutes, Mr. Peterson. Thank you.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Madam Vice-Chair, and thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here.

Mr. Clarke alluded to the 1984 election, and my guess is that you were probably cheering for Mr. Mulroney in that election, but we won't hold that against you.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

It was back when the Conservatives were a Progressive Conservative Party.

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

I might have even been putting in lawn signs.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

In any event, I want to just continue on Phoenix and let you elaborate on the points you were trying to make.

My friend, Mr. Weir, I don't think realized you were answering some of the questions because he kept asking them as if you weren't speaking. I want to give you just a chance again so that we can have your answers in the transcript. I know it's hard for the great people who are working on making these transcripts to actually record two people speaking at once. It's almost impossible. If you can elaborate on some of the answers you were trying to give at that point, it would be great, just so we can get them on the record.

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

Again, I've been a member of these committees over a period of almost 20 years since I was first elected in June 1997, so I know parliamentary committees well and have great respect for the work they do.

We, as a government, take our responsibility to fix Phoenix. This is an unacceptable situation and this is one that, as a minister, I have been engaged in.... This is my second time, but I have dealt with intractable and challenging issues as a minister. My previous department was Public Works, the predecessor to Public Services and Procurement Canada, when I was in Paul Martin's cabinet. This is one of the most complicated and challenging operational problems I have seen.

The pay system for the Government of Canada, by the way, is the biggest pay system in Canada. For instance, for any company that does something similar no one would have had the same scale, which is important to realize. Beyond that, in the approach to it—and we accept our responsibility to fix this—you need to have the human resources and you need to maintain the legacy systems, when you're implementing a new IT system. We are working closely...and in fact Yaprak is helping chair a working group with the public service unions, on this, that meets regularly. We are working with and appealing to public servants because we need more people. We need more people with pay expertise to help us on this, because there is a human resource issue. Even this week we sent out another appeal, and in fact we've reached out to the people currently working and retirees with PSAC and PIPSC, the unions representing public servants, to get what we need.

It's taking, and will take, more financial resources to fix, far more than the money saved by laying off people prior to the implementation. We need to make those investments, but let me be very clear that this operationally is one of the toughest challenges I have seen in both my private sector and government experience.

Let me ask Yaprak if she has anything to add on there as a public servant who's been around almost as long as Ralph Goodale.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

That's a long time.

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

I meant that positively.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

I don't have anything, Minister.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

The question's too long to fit in the 30 seconds I have left, but I just do want to thank you, as the minister of your department, and the staff who are here, for your commitment to solving this problem. All members of this committee, essentially, just want this problem solved, so thank you for your commitment to that.

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

Thank you for—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

While you commended Yaprak, you forgot to say that she received the Public Policy Forum award. Yes, she has done a fantastic job. Congratulations.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

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

I have had the privilege of working with some exceptional public servants, and I do so on a daily basis with Treasury Board. Yaprak's story, someone who comes here from Turkey at the age of 22, becomes a student in Canada, and serves this country as a public servant, speaks not just to the excellence of our public service but the importance of new Canadians in shaping a better Canada.

The speech she gave in Toronto a few weeks ago I would commend to all members as one that really does reflect the passion for Canada that the people who choose Canada bring to this country. As modern-day nation builders, I thought their contributions were summed up in a very poignant way by Yaprak at that time.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Mr. McCauley, you have five minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Welcome back.

First, Mr. Brison, there's an old saying about never asking a lady her age, and I think you may have partially violated that by comparing her age to Mr. Goodale's length of service so please be more careful.