Evidence of meeting #104 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was deputy.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right. We're going to call the question. I am moving with the consensus. Let me just be very clear on what I'm hearing. I hear a motion that has stated that we shuffle or move the meeting of the 14th and that we invite the Auditor General alone on the 14th, and I hear not quite a consensus but a desire to have Phoenix on the 19th, and that's yes, in the affirmative.
All right? Then what we will do is vote only on the motion, because she was unwilling to amend the motion to include—
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
Nobody proposed an amendment per se. We were just having discussions, but if you want to amend it, I have no issues with amending it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Then I would be open to your amendment, given that there is an availability on the 19th.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I think we can make it as one vote. I don't think there is disagreement, colleagues, with what you just stated as the first part—
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
—so the second part is that if that can't be accommodated, then plan B would be to leave the scheduled 14th—
NDP
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
I don't even think we need to have a vote. I see consensus pretty well from all of us, so that's a big difference.
Now, Mr. Wernick, this is not normally.... This is the way they go. Sometimes we are moved by the testimony we hear to a place where we reshuffle our schedule to have the Auditor General appear again. That invitation will be given, but you have a closing statement. I'm going to close with your statement. That will be pretty well the end of the meeting.
I want to thank you for coming. I want to thank you for being open and frank. There are some questions we haven't had answered yet that maybe weren't even asked, but we will ask those questions to other deputy ministers who will be coming.
We welcome your closing comments.
Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet, Privy Council Office
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I promise not to drag this on too long. I just want to get a couple of things on the record.
First of all, I want to thank the committee for the kind words about the public service, and also for your interest. I think there's a genuine interest around this table in making Canada's governance better, and you play a very important role there. I acknowledge that, and I actually welcome the opportunity to have exchanges with you. I will come back as often as you want and at any time you want if you want to pursue the issues around how to make an excellent public service even better.
I would commend to you to pay attention to the issues of incentives and disincentives within which people operate. I think that is the key.
I also just want to be very clear, because things get quoted and put onto videos and spread around. There was testimony of a public servant put into an attack ad last week, which troubles me, so I want to be very clear and on the record: I am not saying the public service culture is perfect. I've said on very many occasions that it can be improved, that we are risk-averse, we are process-driven and rules-driven. We need to be more nimble. We need to be more creative. We need to be more assertive.
What I take issue with is the insinuation that it is a generalized broken culture, which implies a generalized broken public service, and I have to contest that.
The picture of the public service that comes out from these kinds of exchanges and commentary, and from experts and media and otherwise, sends the public service mixed signals. We're told that we're intransigent and unco-operative, but we're also told we're too obedient to our ministers. You get the Sir Humphrey caricature of the puppet master who's manipulating ministers and running the town, and then we're told that we're too compliant and puppets of the political side and PMO. We're told that we're careless with public money and building empires without regard to costs, and then we're told that we're overzealous in staying on budget and too timid in asking for new resources. It's a confusing set of signals that the public service receives. It's a kind of Schrödinger's public service: what happens when you open the box?
My advice is where I started, which is be very careful on the diagnosis before you start prescribing remedies. I think you can be led into mistaken diagnoses very easily. There are a lot of governance quacks out there. I think it's important to listen carefully to people with some expertise in governance, in running organizations, in organizational culture and behaviour, and apply them to the public service context. You have my full co-operation and commitment to work with you on that.
The last point is about the role of this committee. You play a hugely important role in the feedback loop to a better public service. I would encourage you to create a culture at this committee where it is possible to disagree with the Auditor General, to challenge the analysis, challenge the conclusions and the opinions. We have been trained over a decade or more that the only acceptable response to an Auditor General chapter is “We agree”, and then you play with the margins of “We agree, but” and try to get some other issue in. It should be okay to challenge the analysis and the findings of the Auditor General. It will make for a healthier, richer debate and a much better sense of solutions and so on.
I hope that I'm not in too much trouble for disagreeing with the findings of the Auditor General. I don't think it was an incomprehensible failure. I think it was comprehensible and I don't think we have a broken culture.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Mr. Wernick.
I would add just one quick thing. In your closing comments there is this misunderstanding, sometimes, that much of what you've discussed is what we deal with here, and it isn't.
There is a government operations committee, as you know, that is responsible for much of that. What we are responsible for, predominantly, is to review the Auditor General's reports and to then work with the deputy ministers to see action plans. I will add, in regard to us, that whether or not we always agree with the Auditor General, I have as yet seen very few deputy ministers who have ever disagreed with the Auditor General, so I think it works both ways.
Anyway, we thank you for your appearance here today. We are now adjourned.