Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 28th, 2017

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

You didn't answer my question, Madam. Who is the one who said to the minister, “Push the button. Go.”

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

The Minister of Public Services and Procurement.... The deputy minister at the time would have been the one to give the advice.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Who's that?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

It was Mr. George Da Pont.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Chair, why do I raise this question? I have nothing personal against anybody, but it's time to have responsibility. When someone called the shot and it was the wrong shot, it's time to identify the person who called the wrong shot.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Deltell.

We'll now move to Monsieur Lefebvre, for seven minutes.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I won't repeat a lot of the great comments that were made around the table. I'll go straight to one of my major concerns. The Auditor General has raised the fact that the government is looking at spending over half a billion dollars to correct this situation. When we compare this situation with that of Australia, it was a lot smaller, basically one department with 78,000 individuals, and it took them seven years and more money than that.

I hear from Mr. Linklater that we are still in the root cause analysis report. We haven't completed that yet, so we are still looking at root causes. We've kind of identified them over the last period of time, but we still haven't finalized that.

We talked about the action plan here, and the lack of one. It took seven years for Australia to fix something that was fairly simple—complex but smaller. Let's put it that way. I look at your action plan. We can turn to the management action plan that you provided to us. For ease, I'll look at report reference number 1.98. The description of the final expected outcome is that, at the end of 2018, “[e]mployees receive timely and accurate pay in accordance with established targets, priorities and service standards. Within this context, the number of pay requests in the queue declines and timeliness and accuracy of pay processing consistently meets service standards.”

Basically, what you are telling us today, in your action plan, is that by the end of 2018 we should be on the road to full recovery and everything will be on the road to having addressed all the issues. The root causes will be addressed. That means the capacity will be met.

I am very concerned. If another country, a place like Australia, took seven years to figure out an issue that was a lot smaller than this—probably less complex because of all the collective agreements we need to address and all the work that needs to be done—I can see why Canadians would also have a lot of doubt about this plan.

Mr. Linklater, can you please explain that to us?

[Les Linklater]

I'll go back to the OAG recommendation that talks about considering all outstanding pay requests, establishing priorities, and meeting service standards. What PSPC has put in the MAP for 1.98 is to address that recommendation of the Auditor General. We do think that, with the redeployment of additional resources and with moving through collective agreements, we will be able to reduce the pain points for staff over the course of 2018. That's part of the issue we are dealing with.

As part of the integrated team, we are looking at the HR-to-pay continuum, which will necessitate, essentially, looking at the connections among the 32 HR systems that are running across government—how they input into Phoenix and how the business processes for human resources operate, given that pay is a function of HR management—and understanding where to go. From this first volée, if you will, of dealing with pain points for staff and meeting service standards, beyond that, where to?

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Okay.

The root cause analysis report is coming shortly. In this committee, we will have another meeting, but I would also recommend, Mr. Chair, that in February or March we bring it back and we follow systematically how this action plan progresses, and we bring back witnesses, because of l'ampleur of the situation.

Maybe this is a Treasury Board question. Another concern I have is that.... We've seen this before at this committee. We actually had people with respect to Shared Services and the great challenges and difficulties with the transfer of technology. After two years of being here, I am seeing a systemic problem of change management. It's not easy. I am not saying it's easy, or easily done, but it's as if there are a lot of missing links within our bureaucracy, which are the professionals.

When we go to meetings around the world to represent Canada, I always talk about the amazing people we have as public servants. That's what makes our country so strong. At the same time, I am wondering whether we have the proper tools. I am seeing it again, with Shared Services, and now this. There will be other projects, because technology always changes.

What are the tools? Is the training enough? Why do we have this systemic problem of change management within the Government of Canada?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We're out of time on that question, so it will be a very quick answer, if you have one.

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

You're absolutely correct. Do we have all of the tools? No. Are we in the process of getting the tools in place? Yes.

I would be happy to brief you in more detail, because this is an absolutely critical issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. McCauley, please, for five minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you.

Yaprak, you're going to have to excuse me. I apologize. I can never pronounce your last name, so I'll just go by the first name.

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

The first name is okay.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Chen brought up the Gartner report. It's surprising that it has taken people so long—and for the press to report on it—because the Gartner report is very, very different from the S.i. Systems one, which was “Oh yeah, go ahead”. Gartner was pretty damning. You read Gartner and it's like there's no way we should have gone forward.

We heard testimony from Minister Foote, when she was around, and from Ms. Lemay, but we never saw Gartner. It was not presented to us. It's clear why Treasury Board wouldn't have given us such a damning report. One of the things that Gartner very clearly states was that training was not done, would not be done in time even if they were to start it, and that it would have consequences, such as pay problems. There we have it, laid out right in front of us.

PSPC says, “Oh, we never got Gartner.” Why would we have not handed it over to PSPC if what you're saying is that everyone was talking together and meeting together? We had the meeting in committee that Mr. Deltell was mentioning in terms of your comment that if it's not “99%” ready, you won't go ahead. You had the Gartner report already saying that, but now we have PSPC saying that they never received the Gartner report.

Can you tell us why we wouldn't have passed that on?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

On the Gartner report, the fact that we had contracted it out, we informed at that time.... Our assistant deputy minister informed PSPC, and in January.... I don't have the exact date.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm sorry, but you informed them that you had the report or that you had the contract?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

No. That we had contracted it out, and in January the report was sent to PSPC senior management.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Oh, so they did have that...?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

Yes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay.

Ms. Lemay, I know you weren't here at the time, but why would PSPC have hidden that from Ms. Foote? Because there's no reason.... You or anyone—even with a grade 1 education—who reads that report says, “No bloody way are we going ahead with Phoenix.” Why was it purposely withheld from the minister?

[Marie Lemay]

I believe my colleague Gavin Liddy, at the OGGO committee, said that he did see the report but the minister did not see it.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right.

[Marie Lemay]

The report was exchanged between the OCG side of the house in Treasury Board and our side, at the same time as the S.i. report was coming, at the same time as those meetings were happening, at the same time as the deputy ministers' committee was happening.

All of this was coming together and the same responses.... It was felt that all of these issues had been raised previously and addressed and there was an overall collective sense that we were ready to go. That's how Minister Foote at the time was briefed by the participants.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right. Okay.

The summary of Phoenix testing reports, which was brought up earlier, states a bunch of major issues, pulling in the acting situation, which was one of the big problems of Phoenix. We knew about it on January 20. Also, it states that the input of late transactions will result in deductions, and that Phoenix will not pay supervising differentials is another problem that is identified. All of this is identified at the same time as Gartner identifies.... At the same time, on January 13, when there is the meeting with the CFOs and the head of HR, under Treasury Board, it states again, for Correctional Services.... We know that one of the problems with Phoenix is that it doesn't do shift work properly, so there's a 50% failure rate with Correctional Services, which does shift work. There are Coast Guard issues. We know the Coast Guard is a problem.

We have all the CFOs identifying the issue. We have the summary of Phoenix testing results saying that it's a mess, and we have Gartner. Again, Gartner is so simply laid out. It says, “Do not do it, the training is not done, and there are all these problems.” There's so much evidence saying that it's not ready, and don't do it, and it seems that everything was hidden from the minister. Why?