Government Operations Committee on Jan. 30th, 2023

[Jennifer Carr]

Yes, I think we'd have to go and actually look at where those investments have happened. Definitely from the start we want to make sure that the government fully engages us with any kind of review of where public services are delivered.

We are facing a technological change right now and we need to make sure that the government engages with its workforce around the rapid changes of the government in the workplace. We also need to be more transparent to Canadians. Definitely at the last strategic review that happened, when we are talking about a large public service, that led to across-the-board cuts, and when we look at where hiring is done, we need to determine whether it has been done in a strategic way to meet certain objectives. I would say the overreliance on IT consultants is leading to what we call a shadow public service, which is just eroding our capacity to deliver on behalf of Canadians.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, President Carr. I can tell you that all of us around the table here are taking your comments to heart. We want to look very seriously at outsourcing and how we can improve the system and strengthen the system's accountability and transparency around our outsourcing processes.

You point out the growth, obviously, as a concern in terms of outsourcing, but can you describe situations where outsourcing makes sense, where some of the skills and expertise that are provided by these outside companies really do complement the work of our excellent federal public service?

[Jennifer Carr]

Yes, I'll echo Professor Clarke's message on this, which is that there are times when we do need to contract out services, again, with surge capacity or for a special purpose. Unfortunately, what I feel happens is that we contract out the whole project instead of the piece where we bring people in to help amplify or to provide that piece that the public service is missing and share that talent or that expertise with our internal people, making sure that the in-house capacity is leveraged as well.

What we tend to do is then leave those contracts in place for the whole project, when those [Technical difficulty—Editor] and building that in-house capacity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Can I interrupt for a sec? You froze for a second. Would you mind repeating the answer, Ms. Carr?

[Jennifer Carr]

Okay, where should I begin?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

The last 30 seconds.

[Jennifer Carr]

What I was saying was that, when we contract out, what happens is that instead of transferring that knowledge in-house and leveraging the contract to find the deficiencies and improve and upskill the government workers, that piece usually leaves with the contract and leaves us in the same hole that we were in at the beginning, instead of creating an upskilled workforce that can take those challenges to the next level.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you so much, President Carr.

You mentioned that we are experiencing a period of extreme disruption both within Canada and globally. There are certain forces that are acting upon the world, whether it's automation, whether it's AI, whether it's cloud computing or whether it's remote work even. All of these forces are coming to bear on the work that we do as a government.

A global company like McKinsey, for example, that has 30,000 employees across the world in 65 countries, might it have a certain expertise or understanding of best practices that it can share with our federal public service that we may not have access to because we may not have those day-to-day contacts or those networks that are global? Is there value in that sense, in terms of sharing the expertise with a company that again is so connected globally?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Maybe a 30-second answer, please.

[Jennifer Carr]

Yes, that's fine. The answer lies in your question: sharing the expertise. I don't find that they are sharing expertise. They're coming in to do the work and leave with the work.

There is a difference between coming in to help solve the problem and create a solution that works in-house, and creating an overreliance on your expertise without adding to the in-house expertise that we need.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

That's an excellent point. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Ms. Carr.

Mrs. Vignola, go ahead, please, for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Carr, Mr. McAuley, welcome to the committee and thank you for being with us.

You already answered my first question, which was about the problem related to the use of consultants. We are talking here about McKinsey & Company, but the government hires a number of other companies. You can add any missing elements, but you answered that these firms were not held to the same ethical standards, disclosure and accountability measures. They do not even have to fulfill diversity and inclusion standards.

It can be necessary to call on consultants. Having been in the school sector, I know that it can take the help of external services to create the spark of creativity that leads to solutions. That sometimes happens. However, when the consultants aren’t held to the same standards, does it not become a way to circumvent the rules to apply new ideas? That’s what I’m wondering.

As for the use of consultants, has your union received many grievances from public servants? If so, how many, and on what grounds?

Let’s start with those two questions.

[Jennifer Carr]

On the question regarding innovation, I think what happens with outside consultants—I'll go back to the morale—is that you have a lot of people who are capable of doing the work but who are hitting a glass ceiling because of the language barriers of regional distribution. They can't overcome those barriers. That was one of the good things about a virtual working space—we could hire talent from across the country in order to fill in those spaces to create that talent and move it upward into the government.

I did mention that right now we have 2,500 grievances against the federal public service and against Treasury Board with respect to which we know that the work that consultants are doing is taking work from our members. These are jobs that consultants are doing that could be done in-house by federal public servants. We also know from the CIO that we are short 7,000 IT workers. If we can't even retain and recruit the members and keep the members we have, we're never going to reach the goal of having a self-sufficient federal public service and our reliance on contracts will just continue to grow.

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

I will continue on the topic of information. The government’s hiring of consultants to do IT work is costly and contributes to the loss of institutional memory. You just stated that there are 7,000 workers missing in the IT field.

Have they been hired or is there still a gap?

What would it take for these specialists to find the public service attractive, stimulating and pleasant enough to join it and provide their expertise while being confident that it will be recognized?

[Jennifer Carr]

It's very clear that there are things that are missing. Again, there's the glass ceiling because of the regional distribution. There are people who would not be willing to move to the national capital to move up in the ranks. The pay scale is far behind that of our private counterparts, so you really have to make a decision at the beginning. There is the Phoenix pay system, of course, so even if we could hire people into a good job, not knowing whether they are going to be able to be paid properly is a huge barrier right now. The government's being more reliant and spending more money on outside contracts for IT than on its own IT workers internally is also sending a silent message to our workers that they are not valued and that the government would much rather go outside to get the work done.

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

Thank you.

You mentioned 2,500 grievances pertaining to tasks that were given to subcontractors but that public servants could have done. How many of these 2,500 grievances were specifically about consultants, particularly McKinsey & Company?

Is it possible to get a breakdown of the grievances?

[Jennifer Carr]

I don't think I could do that. No. They are all consultants.

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

In situations where bringing in consultants is absolutely necessary, are there ways to require consultants to follow the same rules as public servants?

How could these rules be put into place?

[Jennifer Carr]

What little knowledge I have is, yes, it is possible. It is possible to put contract language in that says you must have certain, you know, bilingual...a certain number of females, a certain number of people of colour.

I know in the U.S. when they hire contractors, they must pay the same wage. There are wage restrictions. They have to mimic the amount—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid I have to cut you off there, Ms. Carr. We are at our six minutes. Maybe you can finish it in a written submission to the committee, or you can finish it with Mr. Johns' time.

Go ahead for six minutes, Mr. Johns.

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

First, I want to thank you for your loyalty to so many public servants who we can really trust with the responsibility of delivering services to Canadians and carrying that out.

We just heard, Ms. Carr, from—I'm not going to make a lot of friends around this table right now—the Liberals that the McKinsey outsourcing went from $2 million to $100 million, and it was cited as not a lot of money compared to the scope of things. I guess when it's $15 billion in outsourcing, they could try to say that, but to me, based on the average government worker at $79,470, that's 1,258 FTEs.

Can you talk about the morale of the public service when they hear that from government?

[Jennifer Carr]

Again, I will reiterate that it is very disheartening for a federal sector worker when we see that the overreliance on the outsourcing fails to deliver value for money. It hurts the government's own ability to recruit the professionals they need. There is no sense in paying outside agencies market rates but not your own government professionals. When we fall behind on compensation, recruitment and retention become very difficult. We need to defer to this committee to look at the relationship with these companies.

Why is it okay to pay market rate, plus inflation, plus overhead, to an outsource instead of your own public servants, who are willing and capable to do that work on behalf of Canadians?

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

I really appreciate that you talked about some of the past mistakes, such as the Phoenix pay system, which was supposed to save over $80 million a year and has cost us over $2 billion.

This was started by the Conservatives, who also cut Veterans Affairs, a third of Veterans Affairs, and meant to use technology to speed up disability applications. The Auditor General made very clear that there was a direct relationship—the job cuts to service delivery and the application wait times—which ended up leading to lapsed spending, money that should have gone to veterans.

Tell me about the morale of the public service when people can't get paid because of outsourcing, when people who have put their lives on the line are not getting the benefits because it has been outsourced or there are service cuts to serve the people who fight for our democracy.

[Jennifer Carr]

I have to say that the federal public service is a calling. It always has been. We put up with a lot of things because we see value in the work we do on behalf of Canadians. When our hands are tied, say, for example, with the Phoenix pay system, we have IT workers who could go in and help and fix it, but we can't do anything about it.

We have to be at the table. We have to be a part of the decisions to say that this is work that needs to be outsourced, or this is work that can be done in-house if you give us proper resourcing and proper staffing levels in order to do it on behalf of Canadians and at the best value for Canadians.