Evidence of meeting #38 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communications.
A video is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
What have been the efforts? I would like to know.
Chief Financial Officer, Privy Council Office
The efforts have been that, as we have contracts come up for renewal, we make efforts not to renew them if we can do it in a different way. For example, certainly when I arrived at the Privy Council Office, we would use contracted individuals for project management. It's very common to do that in both the private and the public sectors.
Given that we've had a number of IT projects, we felt that it made more sense to hire a full-time equivalent, an employee, to do that. The benefit is that it's cheaper over time, but also, you're keeping that corporate memory—
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
The Minister of Finance was asked why his budget speech cost a hefty $14,000 to write.
Now, some public servants will be leaving. They will either leave through attrition or we'll strongly encourage them to leave. A number of public servants say that they will be coming back because they can bill the government. As they say, they will charge a lot.
Many public servants with expertise are underused. What are the goals for building skills in house?
Chief Financial Officer, Privy Council Office
Again, I can only focus on the Privy Council Office, and I'm happy to do that. Within the Privy Council Office, we are absolutely looking for those who are impacted.... What I'm hearing in your question is the concern about people who have been impacted by the comprehensive expenditure review. Our head of HR is here, and that was one of the reasons he came with us: in case we had questions on the expenditure review.
We have put a lot of supports in place for our employees, whether it's giving them retraining or whether it's giving them opportunities to alternate with other employees and we are very much supporting that. Our goal is to place people. I'm pleased to say that at the Privy Council Office, through voluntary departures that we've had, we were able to cancel a number of our processes where people who might potentially lose their jobs wanted to stay. In many cases, we've been able to find volunteers who wish to leave and take advantage of the workforce adjustment provisions.
We still do have some employees who are impacted and we're trying to support. I can tell you that in my own branch I have I believe nine employees who are in that situation of wanting to find work. I'm meeting with each of them individually and talking about their skill sets and their interests and seeing if we can try to make calls on their behalf to other departments, if we can look at new opportunities for them to gain skills.
Employees who are impacted and choose to stay have a year to find another job, with our assistance. During that year, they have to be given what's called “meaningful work”. They can't keep doing the same work they were doing. One of the things we are trying to do is talk to those employees about what they would like to be doing in terms of gaining new skill sets.
Again, this week, I met with a number of people and talked about working in HR or working in Finance and giving them those opportunities—
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Listen to the witness who will talk about what happened in Quebec.
Mr. Chair, I'm worried. I don't like to sound the alarm. However, this situation is exactly what seems to be happening here. It upsets me. I just wanted to let you know.
Thank you.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Thank you very much.
Ms. Baird, I'm going to spend a quick couple of seconds with you. These are going to be rapid-fire questions. Please forgive me if I seem a bit abrupt.
How many employees do you have at the Major Projects Office?
Vice President, Major Projects Office, Privy Council Office
We currently we have about 99.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Are you still hiring employees there?
Vice President, Major Projects Office, Privy Council Office
We have a kind of fluid work structure, where people come and go. They're there for determinate periods of time. As projects ramp up, somebody might go back to their home department, for example, if they're in the public service. It moves around. We're at about that. It fluctuates.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Do you have a fixed timeline for which your office is supposed to approve projects?
Vice President, Major Projects Office, Privy Council Office
Our office actually doesn't approve projects. We help support projects advance through those different things I mentioned earlier—regulatory approvals, working with other departments, financing, structuring—and then any approvals they have to get through different federal government authorizations. Those continue to happen.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Why were projects that already had a final business decision and already had approvals referred to your office?
Vice President, Major Projects Office, Privy Council Office
Some had partial approvals or were partially through an assessment. We helped to get them over the finish line.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Some have been on the website ever since pretty much day one and the status hasn't changed. Why is that?
Vice President, Major Projects Office, Privy Council Office
I believe—I would have to check with our communications people—there was an update to some of the material on the website in March or early April. I would have to check that.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Okay. Thank you.
I'm going to switch back to PCO really quickly.
You mentioned that you guys deal with a bit of advertising and marketing. Is that correct?
Chief Financial Officer, Privy Council Office
We deal with coordination of government advertising, yes.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Are you aware of the Treasury Board guidelines on advertising?
Chief Financial Officer, Privy Council Office
I'm aware of them. I'm not the one responsible for it at PCO, but I guarantee that our communication experts are.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
I'm just going to read it quickly.
Government of Canada communications are non-partisan, effectively managed, well coordinated, clear and responsive to the diverse information needs of the public and Government of Canada employees
You mentioned that you are a non-partisan group. Is that correct?
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Are you aware that the Liberal campaign tag line “Canada Strong” has been used in Government of Canada communications?
Chief Financial Officer, Privy Council Office
I'm not personally involved in government communications, so I can't comment on individual government communications lines.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Okay.
If coordination goes through PCO, would somebody have not flagged that you cannot use partisan communications language in Government of Canada documents?
