Evidence of meeting #54 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was workplace.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
I had information on the costs from the last meeting. Creating a Respectful Workplace is $275. Is that correct?
Acting Vice-President, Learning Programs, Canada School of Public Service
It is.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Investigating Harassment Complaints is $1,375, and Managing Harassment Complaints is $300. Is that correct?
Acting Vice-President, Learning Programs, Canada School of Public Service
It is.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Could you explain why there is such a great variance in the costs associated with each of those courses? Is one a half-day versus a two-day course?
Acting Vice-President, Learning Programs, Canada School of Public Service
Exactly. The duration of the course is the big driver for the total cost. Investigating Harassment Complaints is a five-day course. Essentially, when we cost our products, we look at all the direct and indirect program costs and we amortize that by the number of learners we anticipate to have, as well as the length of the course.
It's based on a per day...and then it is essentially prorated to the number of days of the course.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
How long are the other two courses that are only $275 and $300?
Felicity Mulgan Acting Director General, Functional Communities, Authority Delegation and Orientation, Canada School of Public Service
They are one day.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Could I just interrupt one moment? I'm having trouble with the sound. It is cutting in and out.
[Technical difficulty—Editor]
Secondary to those types of questions, how often are these courses offered? Obviously, the five-day one.... Is it offered as frequently as the others?
Acting Vice-President, Learning Programs, Canada School of Public Service
The school's offering strategy depends on demands. We essentially offer those courses on our website. As soon as we get a demand that is significant enough and worth an actual offering, then we do those offerings.
In these particular cases, they are not offered that often, because the school is responsive to the actual demand. For example, we try to have a minimum number of participants in order to deliver the course. If we only have two or three people who are interested in the course, we wait until that number goes up and then we do an offering to meet the demand.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
How many people would be considered a “demand” for each of those courses? Obviously, for the first one, if there are 3,000 people who have participated in it, it's held more frequently because there is a higher demand. What would you consider a required number?
A secondary question is this. How often have you offered these in the last couple of years, if there is not a huge demand and there are only two or three people who are requesting it?
Those are my questions. What is the demand, and how often have you actually held these sessions?
Acting Director General, Functional Communities, Authority Delegation and Orientation, Canada School of Public Service
For Creating a Respectful Workplace, I do have some statistics here. It's one of our most popular courses. We had 64 offerings in 2009-10; 24 in 2010-11; and 16 in 2011-12. The other courses, as you point out, are offered less frequently. Sometimes we do them by MOU with departments.
Typically, we have at least one offering per year in each of the official languages.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Where are those actually held? Do you have to actually be physically on site or can you do things online?
Acting Director General, Functional Communities, Authority Delegation and Orientation, Canada School of Public Service
These courses are offered at the school's premises, in our classrooms.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
We use technology here, so if someone doesn't physically have to be here, we can see and talk to them. Do you use that same technology as well, or does someone physically have to hop on a plane and come all the way to one particular location?
Acting Director General, Functional Communities, Authority Delegation and Orientation, Canada School of Public Service
The school has regional offices across the country. We take care of regional needs. We have 10 different points of service, I believe.
Is it 13?
Acting Vice-President, Learning Programs, Canada School of Public Service
It's 13.
Acting Director General, Functional Communities, Authority Delegation and Orientation, Canada School of Public Service
We have 13 points of service. We are also starting to adopt distance learning technology, but these specific courses are offered in the classroom.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
You say 10 different points of service. Are each of those courses held at each of those 10 different points of service, or is there one physical location for the classroom?
Acting Vice-President, Learning Programs, Canada School of Public Service
Again, if there's enough demand in a particular region, it would be offered in that region. If the demand is not there.... It's offered where the demand is, at those 13 points of service.
Conservative
NDP
The Chair NDP Marie-Claude Morin
Ms. James, I will have to stop you there, since you have run out of time. Thank you.
We will now go to Ms. Ashton for seven minutes.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Thank you very much.
In the recent testimony by Martine Glandon, who is the manager of value and ethics at Treasury Board, we learned it is the responsibility of each ministry to decide whether courses on harassment offered by the Canada School of Public Service would be mandatory. I am wondering if you know if there are some ministries whose employees are more involved than others in taking these courses.
Acting Vice-President, Learning Programs, Canada School of Public Service
The statistics we have are public service-wide. We mentioned MOUs with departments; these are relationships we build organization to organization to meet their learning needs. We have a strong relationship with Environment Canada for Creating a Respectful Workplace. But I do not have the breakdown for each department.
NDP