Government Operations Committee on Oct. 24th, 2022

[Michele Girash]

We did submit to the committee our written submission to the evaluation of the access to information legislation last year.

You can find in there some information from round tables we held with our members, who are the junior ATIP officers to Ms. Carr's senior ATIP officers. Repeatedly, they talked about having temporary help agency workers in their workplaces who were there because there were so many vacancies and because the volume of work was so great that they couldn't keep up. Yet if you look at—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. I have to interrupt, but I have some good news. We're going to go to four minutes and four minutes, and then two and two to finish.

I understand that the Conservatives are up next, but they're giving their time to Mr. Johns, so I'll give Mr. Johns four more.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you.

[Michele Girash]

Four more minutes? That's great.

If you look at the tenders for ATIP officer temporary help agency work, you will see tenders for two, three and four years. This is not temporary help agency work. This is work that indicates that the staffing envelope for that work or the staffing in place for those departments is not sufficient to meet demand.

Yet our members also tell us that they could, as Ms. Carr has said, make more money in the private sector, and if they went to the private sector, they could also pick and choose the files they work on, so they wouldn't have the difficult files that an ATIP officer often has to work on.

We're ending up with mixed workplaces, with public sector workers and temp agency workers working side by side. We're ending up with inefficient processes for access to information processing, and we're ending up with pay discrepancies. None of this is serving the public or serving what that legislation is meant to do.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

When departmental decisions are made about contracting out, are there any obligations to consult with public sector unions, or an attempt to fill positions with public service workers first? If so, can you share how that's actually playing out in practice?

Mr. McCarthy.

[Liam McCarthy]

There are really only obligations around if people are losing their jobs, essentially, if people are being displaced. As you probably heard on our new-found expertise around ATIPs and such, that's how we try to find out a lot of that information about all of the other things that could be coming up, and what have you.

There isn't enough information that flows with regard to contracting out, and the people who deliver the frontline work and the unions who represent them aren't able to give their valuable opinion on those issues. Then we end up with disasters like Phoenix, accordingly.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

PSAC members have identified reducing contracting out and privatization as a key priority in the current round of bargaining right now. PSAC's website notes:

Our bargaining teams are putting forward new contract language calling on Treasury Board to use existing employees or hire and train new employees before contracting jobs out, share information and consult with PSAC prior to using contractors, and review the use of temporary staffing agencies.

Has Treasury Board been receptive to those proposals? If not, where do you think its resistance stems from?

[Liam McCarthy]

Frankly, it stems from the culture I spoke to earlier of preferring contracting out. The real challenge at the bargaining table is that you have contracting out problems at both ends.

At one end, for example, our cleaners would make a bit more nominally, but when you contract it out, they're having to pay for the profit margin, and then they find all of the problems that are associated with contractors who want to deliver as little as possible for as much as possible. There's not always an agreement as to what the contract said, so there's a lot of expensive work that goes with that.

At the other end, as Jennifer was saying, there are many discrepancies that Treasury Board hasn't been amenable to, where it has to contract out, because, for example, we can't hire power engineers for many of the plants at military bases, so it ends up contracting out for much more. The answer is, clearly, to make sure that at a minimum, these jobs reflect market realities, and we bring that kind of data to the table.

It shouldn't be a problem in the first place. We should, as a large employer with a lot of capacity, be able to deliver these kinds of things effectively and internally.

[Jennifer Carr]

If you'll allow me to interject—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, but the time is up for Mr. Johns.

We'll go to Mrs. Vignola for two minutes, and then back to Mr. Johns for two minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have another question for Mr. McCarthy and Ms. Carr, but I would ask Ms. Carr to go first.

Currently, when the government wants to hire, it finds itself competing with private recruitment firms, in a way. What's more, the government retains private recruitment firms who are charging an arm and a leg. The recruitment of contract employees takes place via two different ways: the recruitment firm and the direct hire of future contract employees.

What would the government gain by taking control and having its own firm or specialized government unit for recruitment? That way, private firms would be recruiting for private companies, rather than for the government.

[Jennifer Carr]

Basically, it's a power dynamic shift. Temporary agencies were that. They were hiring for three- to six-month contracts. They weren't hiring for long-term duration contracts.

What has happened now is that we are using them for multi-years, so they are not subject to the same equity, diversity and inclusion, bilingualism, and other things that the federal government should be supporting, because those are the base requirements of being a federal public servant. You want to make sure that you have the best and the brightest, but what is happening is, and I'll take the northern nurse situation—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Ms. Carr, I apologize. We're out of time again. It's a very short session.

I apologize, as well, as it was supposed to be Mr. Jowhari before the two of you.

I'm going to Mr. Jowhari for four minutes.

You can finish it up.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

That's no problem. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses.

I could follow up on the same theme around the public service's staffing process taking too long and our ability to hire the talent that we need in a relatively short period. In previous testimonies in previous committees, when we heard about the length of time it takes to hire internal staff, it was anywhere from six months to almost a year to get through the process to get the right talent. With the advance of technology, especially in IT and how fast it's evolving, I'm not sure whether the experience you had six months or a year ago that went into the application might be as relevant.

I'd like to hear from both of you. I'll start with Madam Carr.

What do you think about reform? What type of reform in the hiring process do we need to look at? What other reform can we put into the types of IT outsourcing that we're looking at?

If each one of the panellists could cover at least about a minute and a half on it, then it will be my four minutes.

Thank you.

[Jennifer Carr]

I'm going to hand that off to my VP, Eva Henshaw. She's been working with the chief information officer.

Go ahead, Eva.

[Eva Henshaw]

Thank you.

One of the reforms we were looking at that I think would benefit the public service is.... Currently we're looking out for people to apply and they apply for a position. If they're successful after six months of going through the process, they go into these pools. When they're actually contacted to see if they're interested in a position that has come up, unfortunately they've found work somewhere else, because the process has taken so long.

I think around the reform we need to start looking at pools of skill sets instead of having pools for specific job descriptions. If these pools of skill sets are opened up to the public, they will have a better view of what's available out there, knowing that those skill sets are there. People would be able to update those skill sets in reality, at a moment's notice, so that it's always up-to-date. Then the information will be there for the public service to better fulfill those positions that are required.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

It almost looks like the pool of IT resources that are out there. When we look at outsourcing, we could apply the same concept to this pool of in-house resources and expand it.

[Eva Henshaw]

Yes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you for that clarification.

Mr. McCarthy.

[Liam McCarthy]

Yes, there are definitely improvements that can be made.

I'll pass the question over to Howie.

[Howie West]

We have a central organization in the federal government that is responsible for the oversight of staffing. That's the Public Service Commission. Part of the problem with the time it takes to staff is that the Public Service Commission at this point tends to play an oversight role. That oversight role is one in which they're trying to find new IT solutions.

The whole staffing process involves a lot of different people. All of those people are very busy with other work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. I have to cut you off there, as our time is up.

Like before, if you wish to submit anything in writing, please do so.

Next is Mr. Johns for two minutes, and then we will let our witnesses go.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Just to finish this, I want to make sure that we thank you for your service. Really and truly the unsung heros of the pandemic were public servants. They delivered services. They came to work through COVID and made sure that they took care of Canadians. I can't say enough to all of you and all of your members about that incredible contribution. It's historic. It doesn't go without being recognized. We know you're dealing with the fallout later, with passports and these things. I do appreciate your being there.

What can you see as the risks to the Canadian public that arise from increasing reliance on outsourcing?

I'll go to you, Ms. Girash, for 30 seconds, and then I'll go to Ms. Carr or Mr. McCarthy.

[Michele Girash]

I think the risk is that the government underwrites the risk. If a private contractor fails, as we saw at the beginning of the pandemic when Carillion failed in the U.K., the government picks up the pieces. The government underwrites that risk.

We have an example—I think it was cited in the first day of testimony here—from our military base workers whose work was contracted out. Facility maintenance and yard maintenance was contracted out. The base needed to do central training exercises, as they do on an ongoing basis. The private contractor failed. The fields and the outside area were not taken care of. It was not safe for the military members to go in and do their exercises.

I should say that our members submitted a business case contrasting their ability with the private contractor. It was still contracted out. The base commander then ordered the public sector workers to do the work. They didn't have the expertise anymore and they didn't have the equipment.

This is a simple lawn maintenance example. Imagine it's something else, like something at an airport or something that is critical to Canada's safety and security. It's a big risk.

[Jennifer Carr]

From my workers, I just [Inaudible—Editor] health care workers—