Human Resources Committee on April 23rd, 2018

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Does the same go for the removal of safety officers from the process of refusing work?

[Sandra Hassan]

Yes, the same answer applies to refusing work.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Which bill is that in?

[Drew Heavens, Executive Director, Compensation and Labour Relations Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

It's not currently in any act before Parliament. As far as I know, there have been no proposed changes to those particular portions of those pieces of legislation.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

So the current Canada Labour Code contains the definition of the word “danger” as amended by the Conservatives after 2013. Is that correct?

[Drew Heavens]

That's correct.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Would you be open to accepting an amendment to amend the definition?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

The Treasury Board has some responsibility for the public service. However, since Minister Hajdu is responsible for matters such as worker protection and their safety in the workplace, it is up to her to amend the Canada Labour Code in order to ensure that protection. I am sure that she would be willing to make any required amendments in the area.

The minister would certainly be open to increasing protection for workers. Discussions with union representatives have actually taken place in order to improve working conditions in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

MP Long.

[Wayne Long, Saint John—Rothesay, Lib.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's certainly a pleasure to be back on the committee.

In my former life, I was president of the Saint John Sea Dogs, a hockey club. Culture is a lot more than words—it's action. You need to back up those words. It would be like my saying that I wanted to win the Memorial Cup and to treat all of our players very well, and then engaging in action after action contrary to those statements.

Actually, Mr. Chair, one of the first meetings I had as an MP was with our public servants. They came to my office in Market Square and the first thing they talked about was the major concerns they had with the Phoenix system that the previous government brought in. When they came in they were absolutely demoralized. So I asked them why they were so demoralized and—

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I have a point of order.

Chair, if we're going to be accurate and not deliberately misrepresent the committee members, the previous government did not introduce Phoenix. I would ask the member to be accurate. Phoenix was created and made ready, but it wasn't—

[Wayne Long]

This doesn't cut into my time, does it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Mr. Warawa, I understand your point, but I'm not sure this is a point of order.

Thank you.

[Wayne Long]

Mr. Minister, these workers who came into my office really were demoralized, so I started asking them why they were so down and had no energy and no life. I took some notes in that meeting. Just let me read to you from some of the notes that I took.

They heard about sick leave being taken away during National Public Service Week, the week that is supposed to highlight public servants and the work they do for Canadians.

Everything was cut; nothing was analyzed to determine where good cuts could be made. The public service was just hacked away.

Everything was top secret.

Nobody cared about people. Discipline was the first course of action, instead of talking to someone first.

To me, Minister Brison, it was very, very clear how a culture had evolved or was created to disrespect our public servants. I think the biggest concern I heard in that meeting was that it's difficult to do a good job when you don't feel respected.

Minister Brison, I'd just like to ask you what you and your department have done to reset the relationship with our public service unions and restore the culture of respect and good faith that existed under previous governments. Can you speak to that?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Long.

There's something I forgot to mention in response to Madam Trudel's question, as a reference. Budget 2017 announced funding for new compliance and enforcement tools, which include monetary penalties, with the authority to publicly name safety violators. Also, we're working with the provinces and territories to harmonize occupational health and safety regulations. I didn't mention that at the time, and I'd been wanting to. Sorry.

Wayne, one of the things I could never understand about the previous government was its gratuitous public attacks on the public service all the time in the House. I can't imagine CEOs of companies attacking their team in public. You wouldn't do that with your hockey team. You guys did win the Memorial Cup, if I recall correctly.

The point is that it is important that we do everything we can to demonstrate respect. You referenced the Phoenix situation. Look, this is something we inherited as a government. The legacy system had been gutted, so there wasn't a legacy system to fall back on, and the problem is that the new system had not been end-to-end user tested.

One of the things we've done as a government over the last several months is put in place digital standards, digital principles, for any new project above a certain threshold, which would require end-to-end user testing, among other things, but also the practice of keeping the legacy system going until the new system is fully implemented and working, testing any new system, or any change in terms of digital methodologies, with the people affected, in this case workers.

We're changing how we do things in terms of digital transformation and project management, but again, in terms of working with the public sector unions, I speak with the leadership of the public sector unions on an ongoing basis. We do not agree on everything—in fact, we differ on quite a few things—but we negotiate in good faith and work hard to find common ground. We do so in good faith on an ongoing basis, and respectfully.

They've got a job to do and we've got a job to do, but we can't do our jobs as government without a well-motivated public service and we do have one. It's rated one of the very top most effective public services anywhere in the world. I think we need to do more. We need to do more on mental health. We need to do more in terms of diversity. We need to do more to engage indigenous Canadians, to make the case that they can make a real difference within the service of Canadians, in the public service.

We are, on an ongoing basis, doing more to create a more innovative public service, to encourage experimentation within the public service, and to make the public service a place where millennials want to work. Right now the average age, I believe, of new hires within the public service is 36 years old. We believe it should be lower than that and we should be attracting more young people to the public service, because they can really make a difference.

We take very seriously the responsibility we have to strengthen and improve our public service and to improve the environment within which our public servants work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

MP Fortier, please.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, welcome to the committee and thank you for joining us today.

I would like to expand on two matters.

Let me give you some brief background on the first. We are already talking about it to an extent. Of course, when we discuss this bill on labour relations in the federal public sector, Phoenix is not far from our minds. When this new pay system was designed, the Conservatives' main objective was to achieve cost efficiencies, which simply meant that they set about cutting corners in order to reduce the costs.

Recently, we have announced new investments to stabilize the public service pay system. These are measures designed to achieve a long-term solution.

Can you tell us what lessons have been learned from the mistakes the Conservatives made and what recent efforts has the government made to improve the situation through this bill?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you very much for your question, Mrs. Fortier.

As I said, we have made changes to the policies on all our digital transformation projects. At the Treasury Board, we are making a lot of changes with the help of the Canadian Digital Service. Recently, we attracted the person who has become the first CEO of that organization from the United States. He was the former leader of the United States’ digital services team. He also worked for President Obama and his administration.

We're changing the digital standards. We're bringing in the kinds of digital standards that other governments have brought in within other jurisdictions, common sense standards like having end-to-end user testing, so you actually know whether something works, and maintaining the legacy system until the new system is working well.

One of the standards we're putting in place as a digital principle is testing, with the minister and deputy minister responsible actually having to try the system. So they test it themselves.

Governments typically focus on policy and communications based on the assumption that once you get the policy right and the communications right, things just implement themselves. We know how that works out, not just with Phoenix but on a bunch of government transformations. This is not a partisan thing by the way, because all governments of all stripes struggle with transformation and digital transformation.

We are studying the models and experiences of other governments to put in place changes that will prevent a future Phoenix from happening again, or if it fails, it would fail with a working prototype earlier on. We're doing this because one of the lessons we've learned from other jurisdictions is to break these massive projects into modules and to develop working prototypes in particular departments and agencies, and to test them. If they are successful, they are expanded to other areas, and if they are not, we pull the plug on them and try something else.

Something that has emerged in the last 10 years is agile project management in digital transformations. It's a very different approach. Again, this is not a partisan thing, because governments of all stripes struggle with digital transformation. I believe the changes we're making will raise the bar.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

In your initial presentation, you talked about the great respect and the collaboration that have characterized your approach to public service unions. More specifically, you have shown that respect in your dealings with the unions, knowing that the previous government had taken a much more combative approach to negotiations, especially in terms of sick leave.

Could you tell us about what you, and perhaps your senior officials, have done and what you intend to do to repair the relations with the public service unions? Can you tell us about the progress you have made? If you have the time, can you tell us about the way in which this bill is going to solidify those relationships and protect the rights of the unions and their members?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

You have a little over a minute, sir.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

First, we negotiated with the unions that represent the public service in good faith. Those negotiations produced results.

We have reached agreements with the bargaining agents representing more than 97% of unionized employees in the public service. We are going to continue to negotiate in good faith with public service unions.

The principle of respect is the reason this bill exists. The bill will allow us to do away with the changes made by the previous government, changes that did not respect public servants.

This bill reflects the principle of respect for the public service, the same principle that characterizes our approach to negotiation with the unions that represent public servants. I feel that we are on the right road, and we will continue in the same direction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Minister. It's good to see you here.

I was elected to Parliament in 2004. You were here long before I was. I think it was 1997 when you arrived, so you've been here for 21 years. I believe you have a birthday coming up, so I want to congratulate you ahead of time. I think yours is in May, as is mine. I was born a long time before you. You're not a senior yet, but have been a very young and very successful member of Parliament for the last 21 years.

Whether as a member of the Progressive Conservatives or as a Liberal since 2003, you have been well-respected. You've done an incredible job here, and you've represented your community well. I congratulate you.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Do you mind if I put that in a brochure the next time?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I'd just like to finish complimenting you.

In 2004, when I came here, you were a member of the Paul Martin government. I was fascinated by your silky smooth responses as you said, “Let Gomery do his work.” There was the Gomery commission. The Liberal government was covered with corruption. Every day you were there in question period saying, “Let Gomery do his work.” I was quite impressed.

I continue to be impressed. Here you are with a government that, again, is saddled with corruption and a growing debt. Here you are—