Evidence of meeting #48 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was contracts.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Jordan, do you have the salary for the average IT worker? I think it's $76,000.
Yes, I believe it's $76,000 a year.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
To calculate the difference between the cost of a public servant and a contractor, we have to multiply $1,500 by 37.5 hours by 52 weeks.
I imagine there are no public servants who earn $1,500 an hour.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
You talked, Ms. Carr, about nurses working alongside their colleagues, private sector nurses, who are getting paid three times as much. We're hearing about the nurse shortage, doctor shortage and health care worker shortage in the public sector. Can you speak about how many nurses the public sector has lost to the private sector and how critical it is to immediately put a stop to it, given the health crisis we're in?
President, The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
I can't say numbers. I can say that with Indigenous Services Canada in Manitoba, we have a 60% vacancy rate at the moment for nurses, and overall, it's about a 50% vacancy rate for Indigenous Services Canada. It's highly alarming the number of vacancies we have that are not being staffed. When they are staffed, it's agency workers who are making, like I said, a good three and a half, if not more, plus bonuses, plus travel, plus they get their paycheques on time, which is, again, a big draw.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Can you speak about how serious the threat is to our universal public health care system?
President, The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
It's basically privatizing the federal care that we give to our members in remote and isolated communities and first nations. It is a crisis.
It is of its own volition too, because we are not recognizing the value that these public servants bring to the table and meeting the compensation. For example, federal nurses and federal medical professionals did not receive any hazard pay over the COVID crisis, where their counterparts were getting bonuses.
NDP
President, The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
One thing is that we have to fix the Phoenix pay system. It's still a boondoggle, in my mind.
We need to be able to pay fair wages. We're not looking for abundance and to be the best paid, but we need to have fair compensation.
We need to have recognition that it should be the government's goal to rely on hiring good public service professionals to do these jobs on behalf of Canadians. The reliance should not be on going outside all the time because it just creates a vicious circle.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you very much, Ms. Carr, for joining us.
Mr. McAuley, it's always a pleasure.
I'll excuse the two of you. Thank you again for joining us. We appreciate the input.
I have some housekeeping items that we'll go over, hopefully, very quickly.
On the first, I'll seek unanimous consent or the will of the committee. The GC Strategies documents that arrived were, I believe, missing some of the documents, which were the invoices we asked for. CBSA provided them, but GC Strategies didn't. I'm going to ask for the will of the committee to have the chair write to them to have them provide it to us. It will be the same way as before: We will get the unredacted versions. The redacted ones would be posted publicly once they go through the proper process.
Are we fine with that?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Perfect.
We received some late documents on the Governor General's travel expenditures. You would have seen them. They would have come to you from DND, RCMP and Global Affairs. It wasn't much. I'm looking for the will of the committee to publish them like we published the other big bulk.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Perfect.
The last one is the letter, which everyone saw, that came from McKinsey making two requests, which were the production of papers on a rolling basis and wanting to discuss confidentiality protections. As the chair, I will just opine quickly that I believe the motion was very clear on what the will of the committee was on that. However, I will seek guidance from the committee on whether we should stick to the five weeks as we requested or allow them rolling document production as they have them available, and whether we wish to discuss allowing them confidentiality protections. Again, that was not what the motion was calling for.
Mr. Housefather, go ahead.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thanks.
I have two things. First, I think rolling production is fine provided they provide them by the deadline. Rolling production is actually better, so they can translate stuff along the way.
Conservative
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I understand, but rolling is good. I think the deadline is the deadline.
On the second part, I've mentioned this before. I think there is a fair expectation of any private concern of confidentiality with respect to information that could be in documents that we have not seen. There could be trade secret protections or all kinds of things. I think this committee should undertake to review the documents carefully and to reasonably consider any request that they make. We will not guarantee any such request, but we should take them seriously because that's only fair.
I wouldn't make any promises, but I would say that, if they make a list of things that they want the committee to consider, we would consider them. I think it would be fair, Mr. Chair, to give you the power to discuss that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
That is one option. We can, through the committee, write to them asking more specifically what they're asking for and have them get back to us. Again, I'll leave it up to the committee.
Mrs. Kusie.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
I can understand what Mr. Housefather is saying. I don't mind your idea of asking for more specification as to what they could potentially be referring to, but I have two thoughts.
The first is that the purpose of the study and the letter as brought forward by the majority of members of this committee was to bring to light and to have transparency as to the full work of McKinsey so that we could better understand and evaluate their role in concert with our government.
Secondly, which I guess builds upon the first, is that I don't, and I don't think any of my colleagues on this side of the table would, accept any type of attempt to hide information from this committee or not be completely transparent where there is not a very good reason that warrants not sharing that information with us.
I'm open to Mr. Housefather's suggestion of a list of what that might include, but I'm skeptical. I will say that up front. I think it would have to be very good reasoning, and if I may say, Mr. Chair, this is not the first time that McKinsey has done this. On page 59 of When McKinsey Comes to Town a consultant group, Missouri Health Care for All, also had questions about McKinsey. The group wrote that they could not know if McKinsey had any conflicts of interest because they didn't know who all of their current clients were.
It seems to me as though they have a history of not wanting to be forthright with their client information. As I said, if there are legitimate concerns, like the safety of individuals or true national security interests, I'm open to evaluating that, but certainly not anything that this committee, as a body of the people, should have full access to for the purpose of our study.
Thank you.
Conservative
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I will be brief. Stop me if I forget. You never know.
We asked GC Strategies to provide us documents. The company had concerns over confidentiality. It told us that the complete documents were not available online and that only redacted documents were available, in order to protect people’s personal information.
Why not do the same thing with McKinsey & Company?
All the information would be visible, but the documents available online would not contain personal information. It would be the same practice with McKinsey as with GC Strategies.
The public would have access to the important information but not to personal information.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I will go to you in a moment. I think perhaps for issues of conflict of interest, if there are things like that, it should be public. I will go to Mr. Housefather, but before I go to you again I will interrupt. If perhaps the committee wishes, there seems to be a bit of a will, we can contact McKinsey and we can ask them for more specifics and have them get back to us by next Monday's meeting. At least we can decide then, but go ahead, Mr. Housefather.