National Defence Committee on Feb. 28th, 2024

[Eva Henshaw, Vice-President, The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada]

I'd like to bring your attention to the proactive disclosure website. Years ago, on the proactive disclosure website, we used to be able to go into to see a bid as well on buyandsell.gc.ca. We would be able to see the work description and all of that detail. That is no longer available on the proactive disclosure website.

That improvement alone....

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mrs. Kramp-Neuman.

We'll go to Madame Lambropoulos, for five minutes, please.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you to our witnesses for being here to answer some more questions today.

Forgive me. It's been a long meeting. I think I'll be asking questions that haven't already been answered, but it is possible there will be some overlap.

You mentioned, Ms. Winger, that the review services audit was done recently. Do you know when that was done? You said you haven't seen a change since.

I'm just wondering about the timelines for when that happened.

[June Winger]

Yes. The review services audit was performed, or at least a report was given, in October 2018. National Defence agreed to accept the recommendations.

I think the analysis was supposed to begin by 2020. We are four years into it now.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

When you raised this recently, I guess with the head of the department you were working with.... I don't know exactly what the context was. When you raised it, they didn't seem to know what audit you were talking about.

Would you say there are communication issues between the different levels, and this could be hindering progress?

[June Winger]

Absolutely.

At nearly every labour management meeting that our members have—and there are many throughout the department—they review the contract services. They ask for the copy of the business case that was presented. Overwhelmingly, we are told there's no business case being done.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

You spoke about some of the challenges that the Union of National Defence Employees has been dealing with, including low wages for its members, low morale and layers upon layers of subcontracting, rather than giving work to members.

You were the VP. Now you're the president of the organization. Can you tell me about how long you've been with the union?

[June Winger]

I've been a member of the union since the late nineties.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Okay, so you have quite a history there.

I'm wondering if you could tell us, in the time you've been there, if things have got worse, if they have got better or if there have been waves. What has improved, if anything at all? Obviously, you've been talking a lot about what hasn't. Has there been anything that's improved?

What do you think is causing the challenges to grow, if they are growing?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have two minutes.

[June Winger]

I have two minutes. I'll be quick. I'm an Alberta talker. I'm slow.

I think there have been some improvements. I think the union has a greater relationship with National Defence than it ever had before. Although we don't always agree, we are certainly able to have those discussions and hear each other out. I think that's very worthwhile.

I think we've had a lot of challenges over the years. Certainly, the 2012 layoffs that were referenced earlier did not do much to help things. We still haven't recovered from them. Frankly, in my opinion, they're a large reason for why we have the contracting-in today.

When those 2012 layoffs happened, they were telling us that they were going to cut programs. Programs did not get cut. I work at defence research when I'm not in this position. I'm very much aware of how those programs get built. People hold on to them. They're their life's work. They don't want to lose them. They want to keep going with them. We just continue to push and push, doing more with less and less. That just builds to bringing in the contractors and leaving us in this situation.

That SWE has not been increased to be able to get the work done. Instead, we are paying phenomenally greater amounts of money to those contractors instead of having it in the public service and keeping that corporate knowledge that we're talking about.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Has the contracting got worse? Have there been more contracts then ever before, or is it pretty much at the same level?

When do you think that increase started?

[June Winger]

The contracting has definitely increased, and I think that it's primarily a long-term result of those cuts. We've never recovered from those.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Lambropoulos.

Ms. Normandin, you have two and a half minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to hear some general comments about the duality that exists between the public and private sectors.

One gets the impression, at times, that you promote the public service because it's the public service and the private sector always does a bad job.

I have a counter-example, however, which is that of the Royal Military College Saint-Jean, which is located in my region.

For several years now, a non-profit has been in charge of site management. It's acquired a lot of expertise. Staff is treated well. The services are adequate. It's a good arrangement, and the Department of Defence is getting its money's worth.

Contrary to what one might think, there's no real duality between the public service and the private sector. What we have is a broader issue with transparency, accountability and the inability to get information from the private sector about the number of complaints it receives, the way it treats employees and the quality of the service.

I'd like some general comments on that issue.

[Jennifer Carr]

I will definitely say that it's not a good or a bad, and I can't lump everything into one bucket.

I would say, though, that a public servant would be able to do the work when you ask them to do it. With a contractor, you have to amend a contract. They are not going to work outside of their contract. For example, if you had a roses and greens kind of contract and you wanted a tree cut, but they didn't do tree cutting, you would have to amend the contract, whereas a groundskeeper—

I'm sorry, June. I know that role. You can't just ask them to go and do that.

Yes, there is transparency. There's accountability. There's also level of service. If I need this done now, I can't wait to amend a contract. That goes into some of the contractor-employer relationships that we have with contractors.

They actually sit at the desks of employees. They are getting orders or direction from public servants, and that is not allowed to happen. It is against policy, but it still happens because they're trying to make things work.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Normandin.

You have two and a half minutes, Ms. Mathyssen.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

There were many conversations about Defence Construction Canada with both of you today. Can you talk about the problems you've seen with the personal relationships between DCC and the contracting authorities on base, and the impact that has on our military readiness?

[Jennifer Carr]

Do you want to go first?

[June Winger]

Sure.

DCC is really embedded in National Defence. Everybody sees them as almost another employee.

The challenge is that DCC staff have full access to the bases, so they're walking around looking for work. They look for work. They determine what work is needed. They'll walk over to the real property operations office, explain to them what they've noticed and then give an offer to perform the work and have the contract. It's the most bizarre thing you've ever heard of.

You hear about people going door to door here and offering to fix garages, and they always turn out to be a sketchy company. It reminds me very much of this.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

None of those contracts are.... They're not looked for. They're just offering them, and they're taken up on that.

[Jennifer Carr]

For sure.

Again, I could talk about my own experience when I worked at CFB Cold Lake. We used DCC as a hiring agency, meaning that if we needed a new staff member, it was a case of, “Oh, well, we'll just ask DCC to fulfill that contract.”

That is not their role. DCC has letters patent that talk about construction. They are not to become environment officers. They're not to become administration staff, but they are being used in that way. They won't say no, because it's money in their pocket and work for them to continue...for the overreliance on them.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

We heard from Ms. Winger today about the treatment of non-public funds workers, and I want to show my solidarity, of course, with those workers. They've been on strike for 45 days, I believe it was said. With that, I would like to give notice of the following motion:

That, given that 40% of Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services (CFMWS) workers are members of a military family; given that the treatment of military families is a matter of national security; given that the CFMWS workers in Kingston, Petawawa, Ottawa, Valcartier, Montreal-St. Jean and Bagotville passed a 94% strike action mandate for fair wages, an equitable pay scale, and good, security jobs; given that these workers have been on strike since January 15th and the employer has refused to return to the negotiation table with a fair offer; and given that the CFMWS have chosen to invest in replacement labour, private security officers and third party negotiation consultants instead of providing a fair offer, Therefore the committee express our solidarity with UNDE’s Non-Public Funds workers on strike and call on the Employer to bargain in good faith.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Notice has been given and we'll move on, if you're fine with that.

Mr. Kelly, you have five minutes.