Government Operations Committee on Nov. 28th, 2022

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

Thank you very much. Two and a half minutes is so little time.

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada found that managers had the authority to amend contracts after they were signed and that the cost of those contracts exploded, potentially increasing them by 65% to 115% over the original amount. That's surprising for services. In construction, given the cost of materials, I could understand it, but services are another matter.

You realize that, in order to get the contract, subcontractors will bid much lower than the actual costs, only to turn around and say that, in the end, it's going to cost them more for whatever reason.

Have you seen that happening, and how widespread do you think it is? Also, do you feel Canada should have its own commission of inquiry to shed light on these practices that are ethically questionable, to say the least?

[Crystal Warner]

I haven't given that much consideration, but that sounds pretty great. I think we'd have a lot to consider there in a positive way.

My job is to represent and advocate for my members, support collective bargaining and rally. I was never a contracts expert, but in working on some of these things with Service Canada over the last few years, I've certainly had a front-row seat to watch exactly what you describe: Initially these contracts come in with low offers, and then they double—or even triple, actually, in the case of Quantum—over time.

The government increased the usage of contracts because initially it's easy. However, they lose staff. People can't afford $19 an hour in Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto with no benefits. There's no retention with these workers, and that's probably what a good amount of the resources go into in these contracts.

That's an excellent, interesting idea. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That's our time.

Go ahead, Mr. Johns.

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

Has the Canada Employment and Immigration Union or PSAC engaged with the government about ending the contracting out of 1-800-O-Canada? If so, can you describe what efforts have been made and what the government's response has been to date, please?

[Crystal Warner]

As your colleague mentioned, we've had a website up for a few years in our attempt to raise awareness. We had letter-writing campaigns to members of Parliament urging them to end the contracting out.

We were surprised, actually, by the numbers. I think we got a few thousand responses from Canadians in the first couple of days of our campaign, and they were shocked. They were like, “What do you mean this is contracted out? What do you mean these aren't public sector workers answering these calls?”

In July 2021, the PSAC national president wrote to Minister Hussen and Minister Gould respectively, urging them to meet with us to discuss the contracting out of 1-800-O-Canada. A year later, we received a response from the senior associate deputy minister of ESDC, who, instead of addressing our concerns, requested that we remove the campaign website.

On August 16, 2022, I met with Minister Gould in Toronto to discuss the passport delays at Service Canada. I took the opportunity to discuss this campaign, and I was promised that she would look into this topic and get back to me. That was three months ago. We are hoping for a follow-up from the minister on this topic. We're really hoping that decisions are made to end the contracting out.

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

The federal government also outsources various core functions and business practices, such as when Veterans Affairs Canada contracts out veterans' rehabilitation services and the Canada Revenue Agency hires third party call centre agents. We talked about that.

As someone involved in the labour movement, are you able to speak about whether you see outsourcing as a growing trend and a threat to the quality of the public services Canadians receive?

[Crystal Warner]

Yes, we absolutely do.

ESDC was audited a number of years ago regarding the integrity of the workers doing employment insurance and regarding privacy and these kinds of things. A certain level of scrutiny of values and ethics is instilled in every second of every day that an employee is working directly for the government.

We're seeing these contracts double and triple in size. We're seeing emergency services like CERB be contracted out. Long-standing, important services like the ones at Veterans Affairs Canada and the CRA are also being contracted out.

It's devaluing and diminishing public services to Canadians and future Canadians. We are incredibly concerned. It's why you've seen PSAC and other unions dedicate so many of their resources to trying to end this. As I said earlier, we are public sector workers first, so we are doing this for Canadians and for the interests of our members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks very much. I let you run over your time because I got tired of interrupting you.

We have time for two more five-minute sessions.

Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Ms. Warner, for your appearance here this morning.

Can you speak about the IT staffing needs your members are fulfilling? Are they fulfilling all of the needs of the departments where they work, or is that being subcontracted out?

[Crystal Warner]

Again, I don't represent those workers, so I'd be remiss to speak too much about those issues. That would be for their union to address.

What I can talk about, though, is the impact that has on the members working in the federal public sector who are relying on in-house IT services. I represent workers in all of the departments who fall under CEIU at PSAC and work in access to information, for example. Sometimes, when IT staff are asked to do things, they're being asked to look at very sensitive, classified information and have access to that information. When we're seeing that work get contracted out, we raise an alarm because what scrutiny are those companies under? What scrutiny have they had? What kind of accountability and transparency do they have to the public or internally to the department?

We've run into many problems when these services are contracted out because it puts private information at risk. We're often raising the flag because when that work gets contracted out, it impacts the entire department and all of the administration staff, who are my members.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

You will have seen the work of some committees and some media reports regarding the ArriveCAN application. That work was not done in-house, and the app cost in excess of $54 million for its development, implementation and ongoing maintenance.

What we learned was that in the RFP process, some potential vendors were advised that the requisite security clearance for working on the system would be waived if they had an application in process. Someone who had applied for top-secret security clearance but had not yet received it was able to work on an app that dealt with Canadians' personal, biometric, health and, of course, passport information. Obviously this raises a lot of concerns about the integrity of that application. It also shines a light, perhaps, on the government's practices and its lack of care and concern for the privacy of Canadians.

I'm not sure whether you're able to speak to this specific example, but can you, for example, speak to the requirements in place for your members when they have to deal with information like this about Canadians and folks seeking services from those departments?

[Crystal Warner]

Absolutely. That's very worrisome considering that our members get security checks that include things like a credit check, credit audit, backgrounder and criminal record check—all of those things. In addition to that, there are the hours and hours of values and ethics training they're obligated to take and the oaths they have to swear. It's very concerning to us when this information.... We worry when one of our members is asked to take a physical file home. We triple lock it and send them in a car. We do that to protect our members and the integrity of the information.

This is very concerning to us. It's one of the questions we always ask in labour management meetings when we find out that this kind of work is being contracted out, because we have serious reservations and concerns about whether those same standards are being held to, and they're not.

In employment insurance, checks are done to make sure the folks who are administering these services are not related to people they work near or to people they are serving as clients. There is an extremely high level of scrutiny and accountability when these services are in-house, which doesn't exist when services are being contracted out.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have 18 seconds.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Without giving any specifics, have you filed any grievances on behalf of your members with respect to outsourcing?

[Crystal Warner]

Yes.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

We have Ms. Thompson for five minutes.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Ms. Warner. It's been a very informative hour.

I have to begin with a shout-out to IRCC and Service Canada workers, on whom my constituency office in St. John's East leans. They're absolutely phenomenal.

I have two perspectives as someone who worked on the front line during COVID. I absolutely understand both the challenge of trying to access services and the quick move away from any type of in-person support. Certainly, as an MP, I know of the ongoing challenges from the disruption of COVID and know of the labour realities, with the significant hiring during the summer and the flow of work. It really is to be commended, so thank you for that.

The question I'd like to start with is about unexpected times and COVID. I don't know whether we're post-COVID, but given our new reality, is there a role for outsourcing in times of extreme work fluctuations, which I believe we've seen over the last three years?

[Crystal Warner]

We have a tangible example because of the situation we've found ourselves in over the last couple of years. When we saw the government was moving to outsource CERB, for example, we could not for the life of us understand why they were doing that.

People who come to work for ESDC are lifers. These are people who start there and work their way up the ranks. You often find people who have worked across various business lines at ESDC. Many of them at some point would have worked in a call centre and on the front end. They have the ability and capacity—because they've worked in EI, CPP or OAS—to answer questions and do the service delivery, so the department is incredibly flexible.

When CERB happened, we had enough folks to pull some from less critical services and put them on a hotline and in direct service. We were able to successfully argue with the government that they didn't need the contract. I think they ended up keeping it for only a few months because of the pressure we applied and the volunteers who came from other business lines when we asked them to sub in.

In my experience, I haven't seen a need for it, because I've seen the internal flexibility to address those one-offs.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

I want to change to another topic.

Shared Services Canada told this committee that its strategy includes reducing the barriers to entry for small and medium-sized enterprises and companies run by women, Black and indigenous people, persons of colour and other under-represented groups. Are these efforts making an improvement?

[Crystal Warner]

Do you mean companies that are contracted out?

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Shared Services Canada told this committee that strategies include reducing barriers to entry for people.

[Crystal Warner]

We have seen it at ESDC in particular, and maybe less so in the immigration departments. Some really interesting strategies have been used at ESDC to employ racialized workers and Black workers in particular. As to initiatives they did, last year, for the first time, they spoke with Black sororities and fraternities to do direct recruitment campaigns and were able to get 500 new employees in Service Canada as a result of those efforts. We've also been working jointly, as I mentioned, with the joint employment equity committees.

There has been some improvement, but what we really want to see is more representation in upper-level positions. At CEIU, 78% of my membership identifies as women, and we are the most racially diverse union in the federal public sector. Unfortunately, the majority of my members are in entry-level government positions.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Do I have time for another question, Chair?