Evidence of meeting #27 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was changes.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Jean-Claude D'Amours Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
On that point, Ms. d'Auray, when should that report have been submitted based on your deadline?
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I would ask Mr. MacLeod to respond to that. I believe that the 2008-2009 report that will soon be tabled should have been tabled possibly six months ago.
Ross MacLeod Assistant Deputy Minister, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Governance Planning and Policy Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
We expect the 2008-2009 report to be tabled in November. We expect the 2009-2010 report to be tabled over the next fiscal year.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
I'm sorry, Mr. D'Amours.
Did I hear correctly that the first one will be tabled this coming November?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Governance Planning and Policy Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes.
Liberal
Jean-Claude D'Amours Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
In other words there are still problems related to these reports. You stated to my colleague that initially you will establish your priorities based on whether or not there is a requirement by law.
Do you always work like that when you are deciding on the submission dates of your reports?
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
If I may, Mr. Chairman.
We are required by law to table reports within the time periods contained in the Official Languages Act, the Employment Equity Act, and the Access to Information Act. There are therefore deadlines and requirements. We comply with those. That is what I meant when I referred to priorities and legislative and parliamentary requirements.
October 19th, 2010 / 12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
The only other one is with respect to human resources. By law we have to table it as early as possible, when it is ready.
Liberal
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Mr. Chairman, I am sorry but that is what is written in the legislation. Obviously we try to do it as quickly as possible.
Liberal
Jean-Claude D'Amours Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Ms. d'Auray, you are telling me that that is what is written in the legislation, but in the end is this not a matter of priorities? Do all the i's have to be dotted in order for it to be clear that this is a priority, and if all the i's have not been dotted then is there a certain amount of flexibility that allows one to stretch the elastic to the point of it perhaps breaking? In that case the Auditor General will rap you on the knuckles and tell you that there is a problem.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
We have acknowledged the time periods and we have admitted that we clearly have to improve in that regard. Because we have made the commitment to do this I can only repeat our commitment to that effect. As I explained, we have experienced several organizational changes. Those changes have affected, for example, the group responsible for these reports. We have met our legislative requirements and we expect to continue to do so.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer, AB
Thank you.
I'd like to come back again, Madame d'Auray, to the submission you presented. In it you indicated that, as the Clerk of the Privy Council stated in his most recent annual report to the Prime Minister, planning is also the foundation for the renewal of the public service. It's a cooperative approach that is truly impressive. Part of it, again, is to go back to integrated planning. You spoke of recruitment, employee development, workplace renewal, and engagement.
Could you speak to the last three primarily, but to the employee development and the workplace renewal specifically, to give us some idea of the types of things that are taking place there?
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In terms of the development, one of the key areas we started with, and again it may sound very basic, was to make sure that every employee had a learning and development plan. It was something that I would say was not practised on a regular basis and that is currently the case, in that every employee is to have a learning and development plan.
The next stage for us was to look at what some of the core competencies are and at whether or not we should set up learning activities or development.
I would say it's very specifically training. There are some obligations that were established. If you are a manager reaching a certain level, you have to have financial management training, people management training, and contract management training. Those are prescriptions that were brought forward in order to establish a more rigorous professionalization. Those are developments that were brought forward.
In terms of workplace renewal, for a lot of those elements we are now looking at how we can use collaborative tools—some people will call them social media—or at how we can use the next generation of Internet/Intranet to ensure that information is shared. One of the key challenges we face is demographics. We are all aging, unfortunately—it depends on your perspective, but I'll speak for myself—and there is in fact a retirement factor within the public service. We're a reflection of the demographics in the general population. We have some knowledge, some retention of knowledge and information, and we also have to integrate a new generation, and they are used to working with tools in a very different fashion.
The workplace renewal is about how to make that transition. How do you use the technological tools we have to break down some of the hierarchical barriers we still have? Can I set up a wiki in order to have a discussion on what the policy issue is today, or what the corporate structure was, and try to find someone who could actually enlighten me on this? This is what we're talking about under renewal of the workplace.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer, AB
I appreciate that, and I understand the aging part of it. I spent 34 years as a high school math teacher, and one of the things we had to do was go through professional growth plans; those were yearly. The type of thing we tried to do there was to tie them into workplace renewal and engagement. I think it's critical that this type of thing continue too.
You also spoke.... The Auditor General wanted to address some observations—this was on the page previous in your submission—and you talked about improving labour relations and some of the procedures that are involved with them and also some of the agreements that have been reached between bargaining agents and Treasury Board.
Could you briefly comment on those two aspects, please?
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you.
I think I mentioned earlier that many of the issues that used to be rules-based and rules-bound dealing with either workplace or management issues were fairly rules-focused, as opposed to dealing with the issues themselves.
Concerning informal conflict resolution, discussion—having the managers and the employees deal with the issues up front, as opposed to filing papers—was really critical. That is in fact well in place and functioning. It does not preclude, as we know and have put in place, the requirements for formal processes and procedures if the informal conflict resolution does not work. Those are still in place and exercised.
In terms of the.... I'm sorry, the second part was the...?
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, the labour agreements. We have been able, especially on the essential services side, to negotiate and continue to process these. I think we have reached five or six agreements on essential services, and we are continuing the discussions with a number of key bargaining agents to conclude those.
Again, the work on both sides is done in very good faith. These are not easy issues to resolve, and they involve hours of work and availability. We are working our way through them, but I think we have at least five or six agreements that have been signed to date.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Fraser, thank you for waiting to the end. I think that also gives you an opportunity to understand our concerns.
Mr. MacLeod, you stated that you will be tabling a report in November. That is in two weeks. I am looking at the documents that we received today and nothing leads me to believe that a report will be tabled in November. You stated that you will be tabling another report at the beginning of 2011, but you did not specify a date. This is worrisome because we do not actually have a date, and nowhere in any of the documents does it...
Ms. Fraser, you have shared your concerns, which is absolutely legitimate.
Ms. d'Auray, I know that you work very, very hard but there is nothing in what I have read today that reassures me. Nothing indicates that things are working smoothly, and that changes will be made in good time.
Can you tell me how many individuals are affected by these changes? Has a study been done? There will be changes within the public service, people are retiring. What are the age categories involved, how many people will you need to replace over the next few months and the next few years? Can we have that information? It seems to be reserved to a select few. I think that information would be of interest to the committee and the people who work here.
Why is it that we have no information, absolutely no information on the report that will be tabled in November? Where will it be tabled, how will it be tabled and what does it contain? We should already have been given some tangible information about that today but there is absolutely nothing. The month of November will be here in two weeks, unless we are talking about the month of November next year, I do not know, but we need some more clarity. I will allow you to respond.
Mr. MacLeod, I would like you to answer my question please.