Justice Committee on June 6th, 2017

[Kathleen Roussel]

You're really in my bailiwick, because in my spare time, I love to have good information. To me, good information comes from a good case management system.

We've been using a case management system that Justice Canada developed for itself years ago. It's called iCase. Because iCase is very much at the end of its life, we've started a project to replace it with something that is—I'm sure we'll give it a spiffier name at some point—a legal case management system. We're basically trying to make sure that we're able to pull useful information about our cases when we need it, and we want a system that is somewhat more intuitive for prosecutors to use.

It will not add efficiency outside of the PPSC, but certainly within the PPSC, and for me as a manager, it will be much easier to give you that just-in-time kind of information about how many marijuana possession cases we have, the ultimate disposition of them, and how long they took to get from the date of charge to the date of disposal. Right now, while we can get that information, it's quite painstaking. Each time, we're writing scripts to get the information out of the system. We're trying to build a system that will allow us to have regular reports on what I would call business intelligence information that's useful for us.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Also, as part of your role, I understand that you will be working closely with our provincial and territorial counterparts. Can you describe your priorities in your work with the provinces and territories as well?

[Kathleen Roussel]

I co-chair something called the heads of prosecutions committee. It's a committee that brings together the heads of every prosecution service in Canada—provincial, ours, and the military's.

We get together and discuss issues of common interest. We have very frank exchanges on issues that are particular to our services and that impact things like recruitment and retention. While the information is in camera, I know where there may be some issues with recruitment and retention in Canada, because we're very open with each other, and that does allow us, I think, to have an exchange on things that have worked. At our last meeting, which was in April or May of this year, we actually spent most of an afternoon on Jordan, because we think that's the sort of thing about which exchanging best practices is vitally important to us.

At every meeting there are exchanges and updates about what's going on in each prosecution service, but also there are usually two or three sessions on best practices. We also will have discussions on occasion on evidentiary issues of common interest and the development of jurisprudence. The meeting is essentially in camera because we want to make sure there is full and frank exchange. I think every member of that committee would tell you that they come back from every meeting with good ideas.

The other benefit to it, if I'm being honest, is that all of us in our prosecution services will at times have cases that we can't take, usually because of a conflict. For example, the brother of one of our lawyers is charged, and by having those contacts you're able to easily pick up the phone and ask for help from the provincial prosecution service. So it has some side benefits. It's just basically relationship building in the most basic sense.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you.

To turn inwards a bit, at the PPSC, your employment equity standards are actually really good. Your targets to employ women and members of indigenous communities as well as people with disabilities are very commendable. I'm wondering why there seems to be a bit of a lag in employing visible minorities, the level for which is a little lower than the general labour one is.

Could you explain that? Could you also explain how you intend to improve that, if at all?

[Kathleen Roussel]

We are lagging behind in a few things. Some of them the numbers don't show, and I'll give you a concrete example in a minute. That is something which I'm committed to working on.

Certainly we're lagging behind on visible minorities, and I think we're slightly behind on persons with disabilities. We know that we have to consider it at this point, because we're behind on every hiring, and so one of the things we have done is to put in every one of our managers' agreements a clause under which they are required—and we'll assess them on it at the end of the year—to put those considerations at the forefront in staffing actions. I honestly think that may not be enough, and I have asked our human resources folks to look at other strategies to basically make sure that we are attractive to those communities, because sometimes that's the problem. It does come back, I think, to branding, and what we can offer people as careers in the federal public service.

Something the numbers do not show but that is of concern to me is that while we have no difficulty attracting female prosecutors, when you look at our demographics, and the higher levels of prosecutors, at our senior level, women are greatly under-represented. That's of extreme concern, I think, to my entire management team, not just to me. We have asked our employment equity and diversity committee to do a special study, to find out where the barriers are, because we noticed not only that women were not getting the promotions, but also that they weren't applying for the promotions. We've now finished a survey, and I'm expecting the results in the next few weeks. That ought to help us develop an action plan.

The numbers are very instructive, but we try to go beyond the numbers to see if there are actually other gaps that would not be visible. When you look at our demographics, more than 50% of our prosecutors are female, but in the higher levels we're getting below, I think, 30%.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much.

We've completed our first round of questions. Do any committee members have a short question they'd like to ask, or are we good with the questions?

Yes, Mr. Cooper.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

I have one question.

Thank you, Ms. Roussel, for being here today. I just want to follow up on or maybe dig down a little further into some of the comments you made earlier around hiring the best candidates possible.

You indicated that the PPSC has undertaken new hiring methods. Could you elaborate on what those are and whether they're yielding results? To that end, I heard you say, just at the end of an answer to Ms. Khalid, that the PPSC is currently behind in all areas of hiring. Did I hear you correctly in that regard, or was that in the specific context of recruiting women and other visible minorities?

[Kathleen Roussel]

It was in that specific context. We're not having difficulties generally across the board with recruitment, except, I would say, in certain areas of the country. You can appreciate that recruiting a senior lawyer to work in Nunavut is quite difficult. In some areas we have taken on an exercise where we really are trying to sell not just the PPSC but also the work environment and the community in which the lawyers would be practising. We've started to experiment with it. This is a new undertaking. We decided to launch it at our managers meeting last fall, so it's quite new.

I think we want to make sure, when we are going out to try to recruit young lawyers and also experienced lawyers, that we're able to properly explain to them the mandate and the exciting work of the PPSC, as well as the role in the justice system, which I think is quite important. I think sometimes we undersell the importance of the work. We refer to that as “branding”. We're trying to really brand ourselves as an employer of choice, based in large part on the kind of work we're doing, but also sometimes on the environment in which people would be working.

We've also started to look at developing our own articling program. In many regions we still are partnering with Justice Canada. That's not a bad thing. It's actually served us quite well. But in some of our larger centres, we think we would be able to recruit articling students who, rather than doing a rotation with us, would spend a year with us. In places like Old City Hall in Toronto, which I believe is the busiest court in Canada, it's quite crucial for us.

The other thing I would say is that four years ago, we developed the federal prosecutor development program, or FPDP. It is a very novel program. I don't believe any of my provincial colleagues have it. When we hire a young lawyer, we set out for them a program of learning that will have them move from the hiring level into what we call a working level, and that comes with a substantial raise. We can move lawyers through that in usually three to four years. The reason it's different is that we do it without any competition. Once we decide that you've met the competencies required for our working level, you're simply promoted, without having to compete for a new job.

We have a number of programs. The branding is much newer. I think in a year from now, when I'm back here for main estimates or something else—presuming I am back here after today—I'll be in a position to tell you how that went.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you.

Seeing no other questions, do I have the agreement of the committee for us to go in camera to consider the appointment, and then hopefully make a decision?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Ms. Roussel, thank you very much for coming before us and talking to us. I don't want to pre-empt myself by saying that we look forward to working with you in the future, but I'm sure we do.

[Kathleen Roussel]

Thank you very much.

Have a good evening.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you.

If everyone who is not supposed to be here would kindly leave the room as quickly as possible, it would be very much appreciated. We are going in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]