Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 7th, 2006

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Chair, if I may, when I look at your performance management PMPs...could you give us a Gantt chart of the checks and balances you do? I think there was a question about whether you take the AG's report. What do you mean by management accountability? How do you want to justify that qualification will bring about accountability or efficiency? I don't have the time, but if you could give us a Gantt chart and give us some analysis of it, that would help.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Ms. Ratansi.

Mr. Fitzpatrick, for seven minutes.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I'm going to make a couple of observations and then I have some questions.

Sometimes I wonder about this whole process. The Auditor General reviews things and comes here, and we review it and go through it, and we come up with reports and send out directives and so on. It seems to me the cumulative effect over the years of all this thing is faulty. Regulations, the statutes, the directives, the rules get more and more and more, and to me the Income Tax Act is a product of probably 100 years of this sort of thing. It's only the very wealthy who have the ability to work their way through this maze of rules to benefit themselves, the rest of the people are at the mercy of the monster we create. There are so many rules in place in government that you can't see the trees for the forest. And I'd hate to think a manager would be trying to manage on the basis of a massive rule book rather than just being a good manager.

But that's an observation on my part. Maybe all politicians could take a deep breath and figure out how they can simplify things rather than complicate things. We'll leave it at that.

I'm a big fan of a guy called W. Edwards Deming, who in management schools throughout North America would be perceived as the guru of modern management and how you get things done. The Toyota people would probably tell you he's the best thing that came along in the last century.

I recall his saying that to try to order or command or wish results is never going to work, but it seems to me that's what we do. We try to command or order results, and I'm not sure the record is all that great. That's the nature of politicians and bureaucrats, to try to order results through legislation or regulation or dictates.

I want to raise this issue about deputy ministers. I'm sure Mr. Baker, when he left the firearms registry, was very happy to get out of that quagmire. I have to admire the guy for trying to straighten out something that was maybe not humanly possible to straighten out, but he did his best with that situation, and he's probably a pretty good guy.

The real context was Indian and Northern Affairs. Quite frankly, I could not keep track of the deputy ministers we've had in that department. They come and go and they come and go, and there's no end of problems in the department.

I remember what Deming said. One of his seven bedrock principles of sound management was constancy of purpose. My goodness gracious, Indian and Northern Affairs is full of major problems that need to be fixed, and there is absolutely no constancy of purpose in that department. The deputy ministers are constantly being switched around, and I'm sure everyone, when they leave, must be glad to be out of that department. To get appointed to that department must be almost like being appointed to purgatory in the bureaucracy. All the other deputy ministers must say they wonder what that person did to get that job.

Notwithstanding that, constancy of purpose is a very important principle. I understand the prerogative of Prime Ministers and why they might have something like that, but surely the Privy Council Office must understand we shouldn't be trying to mandate a rule that says it must be three years.

In the departments that have lots of problems, surely the Privy Council Office must see the purpose of putting a strong person in charge, and telling this person they're going to be there for a fairly long time, they want these problems sorted out, and the revolving doors are going to stop.

So I'd like your reaction to that, because that's our intent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You have 2 minutes and 20 seconds to answer the 4 minute and 40 second question.

[Marc O'Sullivan]

Michael Wernick is probably going to rue the day I say this, but for Michael Wernick, who was appointed Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, I can say that one of the factors was his young age, which will hopefully allow for continuity, without any of the events that ruin the best laid plans. One of Michael Wernick's qualities, other than how highly he has performed in his career, is that within the deputy minister community he is young, and therefore there is room for continuity there. That is one factor that was taken into consideration.

We don't disagree with the objective. The objective of ensuring continuity is there. They objective of trying to have as much constancy within the leadership of the departments is an objective that we share with this committee. Where we disagree may be in terms of how to achieve that. We try to achieve that 3.5-year average. We could do better than that, but I'm just not sure that imposing a strict minimum term of three years is the answer because of the flexibility that it would take away. That's been said back and forth in this committee already.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I want to follow up on one of David Sweet's questions. Earlier he asked you about the number of people who have actually been terminated, to use your words. I will reword that a little differently. Has there been anybody, in your recollection, over the last 10 years at the deputy minister level who has been terminated?

[Marc O'Sullivan]

I can't think of an example, but I don't have the institutional memory between my ears. I'll have to check the records on that and get back to the committee.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Following up on Ms. Ratansi's earlier question about negative consequences, is there a consequence at all if someone repeatedly, year after year, over different departments, doesn't meet their objectives? Is there a consequence other than not getting their bump in pay? They still make a lot of money to do what they do. Is there a consequence?

[Marc O'Sullivan]

Deputy ministers are all ambitious and are all trying to keep moving ahead in their careers, and someone who is a poor performer doesn't. That's the number one sanction, in addition to the consequences for their at-risk pay.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Where would they move ahead to once they reached deputy minister status? It seems that it's almost like saying in the real world that if someone doesn't perform as the vice-president of marketing, we move them to be a vice-president of accounting, and if they don't perform there, we move them to be a vice-president of human resources. We have 29 different departments to move them to. It doesn't seem that there is ever a consequence. No company would ever do that. What is the rationale?

[Marc O'Sullivan]

That's tied to your colleague Mr. Sweet's question, and that's what I will endeavour to get back to the committee on: that ultimate sanction that you are referring to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I have a couple of questions, Mr. O'Sullivan.

The question on the tenure of deputy ministers has been asked by most of my colleagues. Mr. Fitzpatrick mentioned that at Indian Affairs and Northern Development we've had about seven or eight deputies over the last ten years, and a lot of unfavourable reports from the Auditor General's office. We are really in a difficult position, in that we cannot blame any one deputy because they've been there for probably only 14 months or 16 months, and they don't even know where the washrooms are by the time they're ushered out. You're saying Mr. Wernick is a young man. Mr. Horrigan was not an old man either, and he came before us about 18 months ago and said he was going to clean the department up, and now he's gone.

It is my premise that if Privy Council wants to churn the deputy ministers so often in one department, especially a department that according to the Auditor General is having some problems, then the Privy Council Office has to accept full responsibility for the mismanagement of that department.

My question to you is, in dealing with this specific department, does the office of the Clerk of the Privy Council accept responsibility for the problems that we see in this department? You can't blame the deputy ministers, because you've had seven of them. There's no one deputy minister you can point to. You've had seven deputy ministers there, so my question is, does the office assume responsibility for the problems?

[Marc O'Sullivan]

The Clerk of the Privy Council advises the Prime Minister on the management of the deputy minister community. The clerk is responsible to the Prime Minister on that. Your question falls within the ambit of that responsibility to the Prime Minister for how the deputy minister community is managed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Now, to my last question, Mr. O'Sullivan. With the expected enactment of the Federal Accountability Act, is the office of the clerk doing much work to clarify certain roles with the deputy ministers, with the Comptroller General, and with the chief financial officers? Is there any work being done on that particular issue?

[Marc O'Sullivan]

Well, it is in line with the work of the Treasury Board Secretariat, which Mr. Wouters referred to in his appearance. We're in line with that, because as I mentioned, the information we have in terms of the performance of deputy ministers vis-à-vis their management responsibilities comes from the Treasury Board Secretariat.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Williams.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I just have an observation. They've been crowing about this almost three-and-a-half-year average for deputy ministers, but it came out that one deputy minister over at Statistics Canada has been on the job for about 21 years. That is going to add about one year to this average, just his being there. Apart from him, the average is closer to two and a half years, not three and a half years. But they found it quite convenient not to mention that until it was brought up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Yes, and I think, Mr. Williams, there's been a lot of shuffling lately, so you're probably going to find that it's less than two years if you take that high number out. Again, there are probably departments that have long-serving deputy ministers, but we've seen departments here that seem to churn them after eight or nine months. I mentioned one.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have a really, really short one on this.

Given the examples we found in Indian and Northern Affairs—you've heard the story and know the issue—and with the process you have, would the criticisms contained in the Auditor General's report find their way to a deputy minister's evaluation even if they had long left? Is there a linkage? This ties in with something Mr. Williams asked, but where there's been that kind of criticism, and where you can identify a deputy, does that ever get factored in? He's not there now, but the report covers that time period.

That's the sort of accountability we're talking about, that somebody has underperformed, but because they've been shuffled along, deliberately or otherwise—let's say otherwise—they manage to skirt and avoid the whole issue of responsibility. Yet we have this outrageous circumstance in this one department that has been amplified, at least, because of all the different ministers, and clearly none of them really has their arms around it. Does it follow? Do you actually take that Auditor General report and say we need to keep this in mind when we're evaluating?

Your report just came out now, but it does affect who they are and the work they've been doing for our government, even if they aren't there at this moment.

[Marc O'Sullivan]

The government's appraisal is over the previous fiscal year, right? We're doing it for the previous fiscal year, but if there's a deputy who is consistently singled out for problem areas vis-à-vis their management responsibilities, as pointed out in AG reports, then that's obviously something being discussed when their assessment is made.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Will it find its way there, or is it just—

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Christopherson.

Thank you, Mr. O'Sullivan.

Do you have any closing comments, Mr. O'Sullivan or Mr. Blake? Be brief, because the bells are ringing.

[Marc O'Sullivan]

I'll endeavour to follow up on some of the questions, as I mentioned, and I'll provide that to the clerk.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We appreciate that and your attendance here today. Thank you very much.

This meeting is adjourned.