Debates of Feb. 14th, 2003

Questions on the Order Paper

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 115 and 131.

Question No. 115

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Why did the Royal Canadian Mint remove the traditional title “D.G. Regina” from the obverse of the 2002 10-cent piece, and is it the intention of the Mint to remove said title from other coins in the future?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

The title DG Regina does appear on the 2002 10-cent coin.

In 2001, the Royal Canadian Mint temporarily changed the design of the 10-cent coin to celebrate the International Year of Volunteers. The Latin phrase, D.G. Regina, which is traditionally featured on all Canadian circulation coins, was omitted to accommodate the special 2001 commemorative coin whose design required additional art space. Commemorative circulation coins create important benefits by contributing to the overall success of the event being celebrated as well as generating additional seigniorage, or profit, for the government. In this case, the Year of Volunteer coin generated for the government approximately $9 million in seigniorage.

Both the traditional Bluenose design and the Latin phrase were returned to the coin in January 2002

Question No. 131

[David Anderson, Canadian Alliance, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

For each year from 1993 to 2001, what was the total amount billed to the government and its agencies by Angus Reid Group Inc. Research Associates?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

See reply to Question No. 38, tabled December 9, 2002.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 37 could be made an order for return, the return would be tabled immediately.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Question No. 37

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Since 1993, what grants, contributions, contracts and/or loan guarantees made either through a crown corporation, department, and/or agency of the government were received by the holdings of the “blind trust” of the former Minister of Finance specifying the source and dollar amount, date made, reason(s) for providing the funding, and present status of the grant, contribution, and /or loan guarantee (whether repaid, partially repaid, or unpaid--including the value of the repayment--in the case of contracts please specify whether the contract is fulfilled, whether it was tendered and any reason for limiting the tender)?

Return tabled.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Bras D'Or—Cape Breton, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-25, an act to modernize employment and labour relations in the public service and to amend the Financial Administration Act and the Canadian Centre for Management Development Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Public Service Modernization Act

[Paul Forseth, Canadian Alliance, New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before question period, I was outlining how the planned restrictions on public employees getting involved in politics is too restrictive. I am encouraged however because the minister told me during the break that she will have a second look at this section of the bill.

Throughout public service various oaths are taken. In Bill C-25 it has been observed that the oaths described do not refer to the Queen or to God. I view the more modern oaths for employee loyalty and non-disclosure for privacy as a contractual concept between employee and employer. There was some concern in the media about an apparent change in the oaths. An example is written in part 4, clause 54 of the bill.

It is my view that the oath is acceptable and reflects the recognition of standards for a modern business culture. The oath reflects a condition of employment that is contractual between the employee and the employer. The oath is job specific and is unrelated to the status of Parliament, the Queen or religion.

The Canadian Centre for Management Development Act will be renamed the Canada school of public service act. The purpose is to integrate learning activities in the public service. Training and Development Canada, which is currently administered by the PSC, and the Canadian Centre for Management Development will be amalgamated into a new institution of learning called the Canada school of public service.

Through this action it is hoped that the government will be mindful of the Justice Institute of British Columbia and its experience in public service training for many disciplines, the cross system synergies that can be found and also comprehend the capacity to market the school around the world.

It is hoped that this new federal school will have a broad mandate and that any permanent employee can apply for the use of its services. It is hoped that the school's mandate will be delivered under its auspices across the country as close as possible to where federal employees work and reside.

It is also hoped that partnerships will be strengthened with various universities, especially those with schools of public administration like the University of Victoria for example. The possibilities are limitless as Canada can sell its expertise around the world. With an outward attitude for participation rather than the Canadian tendency to isolate ourselves from world trouble, we could become the world's standard bearer to bring civil society and trusted public institutions to emerging democracies.

I also want to talk about the duty of public employees to observe and report wrongdoing, and having some protection so they do not bear retaliation for speaking up. The minister provided me with a long memo about “the policy on the internal disclosure of information concerning wrongdoing in the workplace”, which became effective in November 2001. Despite wide dissemination, I wonder how many public employees are aware of this system-wide policy. I doubt that many generally know of it. The policy is to allow employees to bring forward information concerning wrongdoing and to ensure that they are treated fairly and are protected from reprisal when they do so in a manner consistent with the policy.

I say to the minister that a long memo and attempts to have it circulated are not good enough. The memo could be rescinded tomorrow. The basic policy needs to be noted in the statute, something to the effect that Treasury Board will establish, observe and report wrongdoing policy for the public service and that the exercise of that policy in good faith will protect employees from activity that could be interpreted as reprisal. It need not be a long section. However the memo needs to have a basis in the statute in law, and the actual details would then form part of the volumes that Treasury Board produces for conduct.

We on this side of the House observe that the government has a big problem of morale in the public service. Many are stressed out and many are very cynical about anything changing for the better. The top levels want to leave and there may be a wave of retirements coming. Employees have seen many projects like universal classification, reorganization schemes and pronouncements by governments, come and go. Therefore they may be looking at this bill as just another one of those.

The data shows that worker satisfaction is declining. I can certainly tell the minister that consumer satisfaction with services from federal agencies is certainly declining.

Let me be specific on that one for a minute. All of what we do here in this place is for the country. We work for the citizens and they pay all the bills. When we start to legislate and reorganize the public service, we have to talk about the public for whom all of this is supposed to be.

Government likes to change things form the top downwards. We think of a Lee Iacoca coming in and saving the basket case of Chrysler Corporation, or the new chief executive officer at IBM coming in to save old blue, driving change from the top with a new vision, a new leader, new ways of doing things. However, when we make such efforts, where do we put in the equation for the customer, the consumer, the taxpayer, the driving from the bottom up approach?

Being a grassroots reformer type of person, I am always looking at the grassroots perspective. Of course, being a politician I must always assess where the community opinion is. Understanding that in the public service we do not have real market forces, one has to assess the corrective power of consumers in a different way. One cannot go to a different store window and say, “Well, because we are not getting service from the immigration department, we will just go to some other window and get immigration service there”.

We must look at customer satisfaction to assess our accomplishments for the public service. For example, if an average Canadian citizen goes abroad and marries someone, it may take up to three years to get landed immigrant status for a basic no problem file. The newlyweds could be separated for years. This is actually happening in Canada right now. That low standard of performance is just absolutely ridiculous.

The next example concerns the CCRA. We will all be filing out income tax forms soon and they are unreasonably complicated. When we see the distress of senior citizens trying to cope with these forms, we wonder who is serving whom. We can go down the list. For instance, I was at a town hall meeting with war veterans, seniors trying to communicate and get benefits due to them. With the initiative of government online and the emergence of automated call centres, the government is actually retreating from and disappearing from the clients that it is supposed to serve.

In so many ways the system is completely backwards, as the taxpayer has to go to unusual lengths to accommodate the bureaucracy, when it should be the other way around where the system has a duty to accommodate and also effectively communicate with those it is supposed to serve.

How do we give the best value for dollar, for the money that has been taken from voters? Will they get a passport when they need it in a timely manner? Will they be protected from terrorists who come here as bogus refugees? Is our Canada pension plan threatened by unwise plays and mounting losses on the stock market? Will a soldier receive extra help when he needs it when he gets home? Does our democracy work? These are public service employee issues.

I suggest the bill is just a small start at the beginning of a long process to get us out of a bad state. The collaboration the minister talks about with the unions can begin right here, right now in the House, by allowing the bill to be continued to be built by the pragmatic expertise and goodwill in the chamber.

She may defend the House against those vested interests deep in the Treasury Board, in the PCO, in the PMO who are saying why things cannot be done and why the opposition cannot be trusted for having sound judgment or having a concept of the bigger picture.

I commend the minister for her enterprise. I commit that we on the official opposition side will be constructive, for the last thing we desire is to play politics with the lives of public employees, for we all desire that Canada become the very best.

My House leader has asked me, because of manoeuvres on the other side related to private members' business, that all legislation will have an amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “that” and substituting the following therefor:

Bill C-25, an act to modernize employment and labour relations in the public service and to amend the Financial Administration Act and the Canadian Centre for Management Development Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts, be not now read a second time but that the order be discharged, the bill withdrawn and the subject matter thereof referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not really understand my hon. colleague's motion, but I imagine that we must try to be constructive in our work and I fully intend to be.

First, I would like to thank all public servants. I think that today's bill is what they have been waiting 35 years for. It is there to protect them and help them develop so that the system functions better.

We know how much everyone here depends on the public service. They provide services we need and use regularly, day in and day out. We know the vision and efficiency they bring to their job. Today, I would like to pay tribute to them because they all deserve it.

That said, I must admit that I have only glanced at the bill because I received a copy of it just yesterday. It is not the minister's fault, on the contrary. Rather, my party asked me to speak because I am familiar with the Canada Labour Code. I was asked to take this on, and I was pleased to accept.

I accepted because I believe that, in the House, we have the tools we need to advance issues such as the public service. It is not a simple matter. The federal public service is very complicated. We know how big Quebec's public service is, but it is not, of course, as cumbersome as Canada's.

Bringing about change and trying to please everyone is almost impossible. It is a bit like when we amended the framework legislation on the environment, an experience I will never forget. We had the environmental groups on one side, industry on the other and, in the middle, all the other stakeholders. It is clear that you cannot please all of the people all of the time, but it is possible to agree on some things.

I would like, at this point, to address a comment to the Treasury Board president. I hope, and I would like an assurance of this, that in committee, we will actually be able to hear all the witnesses who want to come before us, as well as all the unions. The unions work with the employees, represent them and very frequently receive grievances.

I would like for the committee to be able to hear all the witnesses, to take the time to really work on this bill to ensure that it is effective not only for the next few years, but for a very long time.

However, and I will be speaking about this, I hope that the review period will be much less than 35 years. This does not make sense.

As we consider the bill and propose amendments, I hope that we will focus on this, and I also hope that the government will not do anything behind our backs. Let me explain.

Last year, we reviewed the Employment Equity Act. Perhaps the President of the Treasury Board is not aware of this, but while the committee was reviewing the legislation, Treasury Board decided to shut down the enabling resource centre for persons with disabilities. This was an essential service. It was not a costly operation; its annual budget was $566,000.

But this step was taken just as we were reviewing the Employment Equity Act and hearing witnesses, including people with disabilities, who told us that the centre was extremely useful and of critical importance. In fact, we asked the minister to appear before the committee, but I believe it was not possible. What I am saying today may be news to the minister.

I strongly believe in the work of committees, because I think there are responsible people there who do their research. There are members who really want to get things done. But, while we are reviewing something of great importance, the government should not be making changes behind our backs. I am making this comment in the hope that it will be a lesson and that this sort of thing will not happen again.

I want to be clear on this. I have made my point. The enabling resource centre for persons with disabilities in the workplace is a centre that provides services to people with disabilities who join the various departments. These departments do not necessarily have what is required to allow these people with special needs to do their job. So, we are talking about a very important service that has not yet been reinstated.

This is a message for the President of the Treasury Board, if she takes a particular interest in this issue. We had been told that the departments were able to provide this service, but this is not true. It is not the case for every department. There are only three departments across the country that can provide these services, which are rather important.

[Jim Gouk, Canadian Alliance, Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

This is a very important debate. The minister is listening attentively and I believe that you should seek to ensure that there is a quorum present in the House.

And the count having been taken:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Reed)]

There is a quorum. Resuming debate.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Mr. Speaker, whenever we start talking about something important, we get cut off.

So, back to the bill. I believe that when we study a bill we also have the opportunity to pass on certain messages. I do not see the problem with the Canadian Alliance, but we all have our own temperaments and characters.

I would like to get to the substance of the bill and establish some background. After all, it is a very large bill. You have seen how many pages it has and it affects many other Canadian statutes. We have to look at what impact this will have.

Bill C-25, the Public Service Modernization Act—as I said earlier—would replace the former bill that dates back 35 years. The current policy became obsolete a very long time ago and it was high time to make the appropriate changes.

This bill is the result of numerous reports and studies, more than thirty in total. Extensive background work was done to determine the need to renew how recruitment and staffing are handled in the public service.

These reports and studies all found that there has to be a change in culture in the public service. This is the 21st century, and we have to modernize and make dramatic changes because things certainly are not what they were 35 years ago.

The President of the Treasury Board submitted her bill to the House on February 6, 2003. The objectives of this bill are to add the concept of merit, implement a more flexible staffing system, improve labour-management relations, and incorporate learning and development activities for employees in the public service.

With this bill, the Treasury Board believes it will be able to handle the constant reduction in the work force and the increased competition in the labour market. It is clear that the public service has to be competitive too. People should be just as productive as in the private sector. We agree with this point of view.

The government also intends to deal with the demographic problem in the public service. With this bill, it thinks it will be able to resolve the shortcomings relating to age and representativeness. It is obvious that the population is greying, in all of Canada and in Quebec, and this is something we have to face up to. People may retire far later than they used to, they may keep working longer. People are living longer than they used to, so all these situations have to be adapted to. That is what this bill is attempting to do.

Then there is the matter of the skills shortage. The government identifies this as being critical. The final intent of this bill is to improve the public's perception of the public service, and this is very important. Often people have a very negative perception of the public service, and this must be turned around.

No one is expecting miracles, of course. There will be an attempt to find solutions that will work in the medium and long term. That will be the goal. The cultural change will have to focus particularly on the last aspect I mentioned.

This is a pretty thick bill, one that is imposing and important, since its intent is to bring about change not only to the technical aspects of the administration of the public service, but also the entire approach to it, hence the review and transformation of the culture of the public service. The approach taken must be structured and painstaking, if real changes are to be made, ones with real impact.

The purpose of the analysis that follows is to consider all the pros and cons of each provision according to its outcome.

As I have said, we are in favour of the bill in principle. It is, however, obvious that we shall attempt to bring in some major changes to correct what we consider its shortcomings. There are some elements we feel are not solid enough and might benefit from a some additions and clarifications.

As I said, our comments are meant as constructive criticism. I hope they will be well received in committee. I hope that my colleagues from all of the parties will provide constructive criticism on this matter.

There are flaws, including the issue of psychological and sexual harassment. This morning, an expert from the CSN, who conducted a study on this issue, sent me the results of a survey recently released indicating that 21% of employees in Canada's public service have said that they have been subject to harassment. That is a lot of people. I know the minister is very sensitive to this issue.

We should be more specific about this in the bill, because it is not specific enough right now. That is what representatives of certain unions are saying. This should be looked at and changes should be made to this effect.

Part 1 of the bill deals with the Public Service Staff Relations Act. The main purpose of this first part is to improve management-union relations, by establishing ongoing dialogue. In order to do so, the bill provides for better mediation to improve collective bargaining. The goal is to eliminate, or at least reduce, barriers to collective bargaining.

Finally, the bill establishes parameters to better manage conflict. Obviously, conflict management is not easy. It requires tools. There will now be experts to help. There are people who specialize in this area. It is important to know how to use their services wisely. The bill contains good provisions in this regard.

Existing provisions are maintained. The bill includes a description of management rights, the choice of process for dispute resolution and the administration of the act by an independent organization.

Part 1 is divided into 14 sections. It is fairly lengthy. The first section deals with labour relations. It deals with employee freedoms, but not with protecting employees in the case of whistle blowers.

We plan to propose an amendment to this effect. It is very important to protect employees who blow the whistle, and the bill does not contain such protection.

It seems unconscionable to us that public servants would only be protected by an internal policy. There needs to be real protection and we will present an amendment to this effect.

The 14 sections in part 1 deal with the workplace consultation committee and the Public Service Labour Relations Board, among others. Topics such as bargaining, essential services and strike votes are discussed.

Part 2 deals with grievances. Then, occupational health and safety is addressed. The last part contains general provisions. I am trying to outline, for the benefit of those of my constituents who are listening, how the bill is structured. I am also doing so for those who have an interest in the matter and will probably want to appear before the committee.

Division 3 in part 1 deals with consultation committees and co-development of workplace improvements. Each department will now be required to establish a labour-management consultation committee. This is great news. Very often, conflicts are best resolved at that level, and much quicker as well.

These committees will be established by the deputy head in consultation with the bargaining agents, and will provide a forum where all labour relations issues can be discussed. There is nothing more important than to listen to the employees. They are the ones doing the work, and using the equipment, on a day-to-day basis, eight hours a day. It is important to listen to them and to consult them. This way, simple solutions can often be found to complex problems which, if left to worsen, could end up in employees leaving. There are employees getting ill and problematic situations getting worse. I find this opportunity provided for in the bill most interesting.

The deputy head and the bargaining agents, in consultation, will have the power to make changes to improve the workplace in the context of actions by the National Joint Council or any other appropriate forum.

The bill defines this committee as the arena for all consultation between the parties on workplace issues and their participation in the identification of problems in the workplace and the development of solutions, with a view to adopting the appropriate solutions.

The Public Service Staff Relations Board's mandate is to provide arbitration services and mediation services. Through mediation, the parties could receive advice from a mediator during collective bargaining or grievance settlements.

We know that often it is important to have mediators who are objective, but who can make a rather significant contribution. This usually helps to resolve the conflict much sooner or to complete the negotiation much faster, which means agreements are also signed much sooner.

The Board's mandate is also to provide compensation analysis and research services.

Let us move on to bargaining rights and the dispute resolution system. The bill upholds the current dispute resolution system. There will be some exclusions. Management positions or positions of trust are part of these exclusions, except with regard to Department of Justice lawyers.

We will have to determine in committee whether people want to make improvements or changes to this. We will consult with union and labour groups and review the information they provide.

There are essential services. The government defines essential services as anything that is necessary for public safety. The employer has the exclusive right to determine the level at which an essential service is to be provided, the extent to which and the frequency with which the service is to be provided. Once the level is established, there will be an agreement on the essential services, specifying the types and number of positions required to provide said services. In an emergency, the agreement will be suspended or modified. The right to strike takes effect only 30 days after the agreement has been reached.

There is also arbitration. The mandate of the arbitration boards will be to take into account the needs related to the positions, namely to attract people with the necessary skills, offer compensation similar to comparable positions in the private sector, while maintaining the appropriate classification level.

Paragraph 148 ( e ) stipulates that:

the arbitration board must take into account the following factors, in addition to any other factors that it considers relevant:

(e) the state of the Canadian economy and the Government of Canada's fiscal circumstances.

Conciliation is also an extremely important part of the bill. This will be dealt with on an ad hoc basis. Board members will be appointed by the minister from a list provided by the employer and the bargaining agents. Both parties will select the names on the list.

The Public Service Labour Relations Board and the arbitration board will use the same evaluation factors: individuals with the necessary skills and a rate of pay comparable to private sector rates for the appropriate classification.

I have gone over part I in detail. Part II of the bill deals with grievances.

From now on, deputy heads must have mechanisms for resolving disputes. These mechanisms remain, however, informal ones, and employees must be informed of them.

Employees will be able to pursue disputes relating to discrimination, except in relation to pay equity. Employees can also submit grievances concerning the interpretation of the Canadian Human Rights Act. If a dispute arises, the Canadian Human Rights Commission must be notified and will have full discretion to make representations.

I see that the clock is ticking. I will not read you the whole thing, but this is an extremely important part of the bill.

Part III concerns occupational health and safety, which comes under part II of the Canada Labour Code. This code was revised a few years ago. Since work on reforming this legislation has been going on for many years, provisions relating to occupational health and safety legislation have been significantly updated and improved.

Part IV contains general provisions. It is now illegal to disclose notes or draft orders by members of the board, adjudicators, mediators, or public interest commissions, or by any individual participating in complaint resolution. This principle has its corollary in the enforcement of mediation agreements in Quebec.

Finally, there will be a review after seven years.

I will not be able to finish reading my document, because my time is getting short, and I know that my colleagues in the NDP and Conservative Party also want to have a chance to speak. We will have an opportunity to discuss this in committee, anyway.

I wanted to touch on the weaknesses of the bill, because there is one in particular that I consider important. Harassment is a very important point. I have just heard from a CSN member who will be appearing as a witness on behalf of that union on this issue.

A survey of 95,000 public servants—a lot of people—last December reported that one public servant in five had been the victim of harassment in the workplace. Yet there is nothing in this bill to protect public servants from the harassment reported by so many of them.

The minister needs to ensure that there is a very precise definition of harassment. Harassment is not necessarily sexual, it can also be psychological, and this is harder to detect in a company. So imagine how much harder it is to detect in a public service of 95,000 people. Specialists would be required.

When a person is a victim of harassment, he or she does not dare to speak up. The bill needs to provide the necessary tools for doing so. It will perhaps make it possible for resource persons to be made available to provide services to workers who feel they are victims of psychological or sexual harassment.

It is important to point out that, if this problem—which is said to affect 21% of the public service—can be solved, the atmosphere in the workplace will be far more satisfactory. When we feel there is no pressure at work, it is far more pleasant to perform our duties to the best of our abilities.

Protection of whistle blowers is also lacking, as I have already said. The new bill has no provision to protect whistle blowers, who alert the media to the perceived misconduct of their superiors.

With respect to the protection of the law, an independent integrity commissioner would be appointed to deal with these situations. But that is not enough, and we will be putting amendments forward.

Then there is the whole matter of recruiting and staffing. Staffing and the merit principle are at the heart of the reform in Bill C-25. Hiring will be made on the basis of merit, a notion we wish to expand, to speed up the hiring process. At present, it can take months, even years, each candidate having to be assessed and ranked according to standards set by jurisprudence.

The minister wants to give managers greater leeway. Hiring time will be shortened, but we are wondering at what cost. The employees will have to make sure not only that they meet the position requirements, as they are currently required to, but also that they are on the good side of the boss under whom the position falls, or else they will no longer even be evaluated.

There is therefore the whole issue surrounding recruiting and staffing in which some balance should perhaps be sought, within limits. I realize that the process so far has proven complex and time consuming. But could a middle ground not be found? This is something we have a bit of a problem with.

There is also the whole bilingualism issue. Often, in filling positions, senior officials are hired who are not bilingual, but who undertake to learn the other language. Very often, what happens is that they do not learn that language. It is very important that the bill provide for that, that very strict rules be set to ensure that those hired to fill senior official positions are already bilingual, or are at least proficient in the other official language and prepared to develop their proficiency. People should not be hired, who promise to learn the language but end up never doing it.

There have been many reactions to this bill. These will be discussed in committee. That is the appropriate forum. Some, like Ms. Turmel, from the public service alliance, gave it a cold reception. However, through our work on the committee to try and improve the bill, solutions and common grounds will be found. As I said earlier, we will support and work in close cooperation with the committee. I hope that we will have the minister's full support.

I would like to add one last thing regarding the bill. It is something I was very pleased to see, not only as a member of the Bloc Quebecois, but as an open-minded person. Section 54, on page 133, changes the oaths or solemn affirmations. They are being changed to make them more acceptable to people of all faiths.

When a person accepts a job, he or she has to take an oath or make a solemn affirmation. I agree with the fact that is required. However, swearing something to God serves no purpose if a person does not believe in God. The bill is now sensitive to this issue. I applaud the minister for this. That is what I call modernization.

We will be working hard with the committee. I would like to congratulate the minister for the work that has been put into this. I hope there will also be a procedure, some sort of mechanism to improve the act more than once every 35 years. I hope that maybe there could be a secretariat named to the public service, as we have in Quebec. This would allow for regular updates of the legislation to ensure that we are not operating under obsolete rules, forcing us to do twice the amount of work to improve an act that amends all sorts of other legislation.

So, I hope there will be some openness to these ideas. I would again like to thank the minister for these improvements.

[Norman E. Doyle, Progressive Conservative, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say a few words on Bill C-25, the public service modernization act.

The bill is a good first attempt at overhauling the way the public service functions. By the government's own admission over the past few decades the public service has remained structurally and functionally a top down organization. It is somewhat stiff in its functioning, a lumbering giant that often requires a department to go through a maze of several months of paperwork and meetings in order to hire an ordinary file clerk.

Bill C-25 provides for more flexibility in staffing and in managing people. Managers, within certain limits, will have more power over hiring and who they hire, just like out in the real world. Applicants who feel they have been shortchanged in the staffing process will be given access to redress under the public service staffing tribunal.

The bill also stresses the need for a cooperative approach to labour-management relations. The intent is to make employees part and parcel of the process of running the workplace. Nobody really knows how to do a job like those who do it every day. If the intent of the bill holds true, we should have happier federal workplaces.

The bill provides for the overhaul and consolidation of the staff training and development process of the federal public service. It more clearly delineates the role of key players in the human resources area, in Treasury Board, the Public Service Commission and the various deputy ministers and their equivalents.

Many of the changes are long overdue improvements to the nation's public service. If carried out properly they could lead to a much happier, less strike prone and more productive public service.

Over the past 20 years the nature of work has changed. Knowledge simply flows in the computer age. We all know more and we all seem to do more. Whoever said computers would make life easier? Computers are fast and because of their importance in our lives, the pace of life has actually speeded up; it has become more efficient maybe, but it has definitely speeded up. The public service has not kept pace with the absolutely frantic pace of the private sector in the modern world.

Many public servants today are about to retire. They are baby boomers. We are told that 7,000 new people are needed every year just to keep pace with the retirements. A hiring process that lumbers on for months often sees the best and brightest applicants scooped up by the private sector. When we add to that a looming shortage of skilled workers in all sectors as the baby boomers move on, the public service will be very hard pressed to come up with the good workers it will need. If there is a criticism of the government, it is that it has taken this long to act on the reality of the looming skills shortage in all sectors of the economy.

As for the bill, it appears to be very thorough and detailed indeed. The devil is in the details as they say. I am sure that as we speak, lawyers and labour leaders are combing through the fine print. If there are major problems, I am sure we will be hearing from the various stakeholders in the system. No doubt there will be a more detailed analysis of the bill done in committee.

It is important that managers have a greater say in the hiring process. After all, the people being hired are people they will have to work with every single day. As an employee and an employer, I have always seen the wisdom in having a harmonious productive workplace.

I recently read an article, and I am sure I was not the only one as it was quite a public article, that referred to a study on the issue of who did the best hiring, the manager or the technocrat from the human resources section. The study found that while both entities could assess applicants on their level of technical competence, the manager did a much better job of picking an employee who also fit into the organization. Simply put, I guess personality does count and it counts a great deal.

This extra power on the part of managers has to be matched with a strong grievance procedure. Managers have to be required to account for their decisions on hiring. Hiring people because of political pressure is forbidden. Hiring friends who do not meet the basic qualifications is not allowed. The government, as we are all aware, has taken care of a lot of its political friends, so let us not allow the system to get into bureaucratic patronage as well. If such people do apply and do win a post, there must be a process for redress. Part 5 outlines the process. Again, on this front, the devil is in the details and in the importance the government actually places on real reform. No doubt it will be given full scrutiny in committee.

One aspect of the bill I want to make particular reference to, and I am pleased the minister is here today, is section 34 of part 2 regarding appointments. It says that the Public Service Commission may determine an area of selection by establishing geographic, organizational or occupational criteria. This is a part of the bill that can accommodate affirmative action hiring, I am aware of that.

I am sure the minister is aware of the efforts made by my colleague, the member for Cumberland—Colchester, with respect to that particular provision. He questioned the Minister of Transport on it yesterday in the House. The minister expressly made the comment that these provisions do not exist. If they do not exist, what are they actually doing in the new bill in section 34, part 2?

I am sure the minister is aware as well that until recently, in Atlantic Canada especially, we were faced with federal job advertisements requiring applicants to be from certain geographic areas. In Newfoundland, for example, a job opening in St. John's might be restricted to applicants from the Avalon peninsula. People who lived in Gander or Labrador City could not apply. Also, many jobs in central Canada were offered only to applicants from restricted geographic areas.

There are two sides to the issue. Some people have said to me in my own constituency that we have so few federal job openings, how would they ever compete if 30 million other Canadians were free to apply? That was one side of the issue. The other side is that there are so many more job openings in central Canada and other places that they wish they could apply. There are two sides to the issue. I happen to be of the opinion that all the jobs should be wide open to people from all over Canada. Whether they come from Newfoundland or some other part of Atlantic Canada, or British Columbia, they should be free to apply.

I certainly hope the minister will make reference to section 34, part 2 when she speaks. On page 125 of the bill it is stated:

For purposes of eligibility in any appointment process, other than an incumbent-based process, the Commission may determine an area of selection by establishing geographic, organizational or occupational criteria or by establishing, as a criterion, belonging to any of the designated groups--

Unless I am interpreting it incorrectly, and that is entirely possible, the very problem the member for Cumberland—Colchester was talking about yesterday is still in the bill even though the Minister of Transport indicated when he answered the question in the House yesterday that it was not in the bill. I certainly hope the minister will address that particular issue because it seems to me to be discriminatory in a way, especially as it pertains to areas that do not have a lot of jobs.

At the time of course I favoured the view of my colleague, and I still favour that view, that in opening up the competition, everyone would be able to apply, and that is the fairest way to do it.

The intent of the bill is commendable. I recommend that it be sent to committee for detailed study and analysis. Hopefully we will correct some of these shortcomings in the bill when it gets to that point.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join the debate on Bill C-25, an act to modernize the public service. I will keep my remarks brief because we are optimistic that by the end of the day we may be able to forward this bill on to the committee where the important work shall begin in doing a comprehensive review and analysis of the bill.

Comprehensive is the operative word because it is a huge piece of legislation. It is a very ambitious piece of legislation undertaken by the President of the Treasury Board. There is optimism in the labour community and among public sector employees that we are looking at meaningful change that will go beyond legislative change, but may, if successful, actually change the culture of the public service. That would be something we would all celebrate.

As is often the case, perhaps the best quote with regard to this new bill comes from Hugh Winsor. In the Globe and Mail he pointed out that as far as government goes, the less one intends to do about something, the more one has to study it. It is the rule of inverse proportionality.

I do not know if other members have mentioned this, but we note that the role of civil servants has been the subject of no fewer than 37 indepth studies in the last 40 years. Many of those studies made broad, sweeping recommendations. Many were entered into with the same optimism that I express today and none of them have really resulted in comprehensive changes in the way we do business as a public service.

The reason there is some room for optimism this time around is that we are starting with legislative change. We are attempting to fix the structural, skeletal aspect of the problems and then we can deal with the minutiae later on. That is why on the face of it the NDP caucus welcomes this undertaking. We commit that we will throw ourselves into it with all the attention it deserves.

I somewhat regret that instead of debating the bill I find myself forced to debate the amendment that was put forward, that the bill should be withdrawn and the subject matter thereof referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

That amendment would contemplate throwing out all the work that has been done to date. This would include the comprehensive 18 month study, the Fryer report. It would include the work of the task force led by deputy minister Ran Quail. Essentially it would bring up the matter of how to amend public service legislation at the newly formed committee on government operations and estimates.

I strongly suspect that the proposed amendment has more to do with political mischief than any sincere interest in addressing the copious problems that face our public sector employees. I am critical, as I say, that I am in a position now that my comments have to be taken in the context of debating a hoist motion rather than the bill which we had hoped would make meaningful amendments.

Having said that, let me speak to the importance of amending public service legislation. We should frame this in the context that the 1990s were a terrible decade for our public sector. There were seven years of wage freezes. Civil servants had to live through the madness of program review, which resulted in--

[David Anderson, Canadian Alliance, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to ask for a quorum call.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[The Deputy Speaker]

There is quorum. Resuming debate.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, just before we were interrupted by the quorum call, I was making the point that we should look at Bill C-25 in full light of the fact that the 1990s was a terrible decade for our public service employees.

There were seven or eight years of wage freezes with zero per cent increases. There was total devastation with program review where one-third of civil servants were laid off. Many were demoralized by job cutbacks because even though the civil service was reduced by one-third, the amount of work did not change. Employees were struggling with how to give service to the public with fewer resources and fewer people to do the job.

The ultimate insult was when the former President of the Treasury Board took the entire $30 billion surplus out of the employee pension plan without so much as a by your leave, with no negotiations, without even considering the fact that a surplus in a pension plan is the property of the employees. A pension plan should be viewed as wages being held in trust until such time as they are needed. When that pension plan went into surplus, the entire surplus of $30 billion was taken out of the employees' pension plan.

We can understand how morale reached a new all time low during the 1990s. It is in that context there is some reservation and hesitation on the part of public service employees as they look at this new proposal. Frankly, the level of trust suffered during that decade.

I have pointed out before that anybody who has been in the public service for a long time has lived through virtually every type of scientific management gizmo. Every type of California pop psychology one can imagine has been foisted on public service employees, from total quality management and William Deming, to quality work circles, to team concept and PS 2000. All of these ideas were supposed to do something about the terrible morale problem and the subsequent lack of attachment I suppose that many employees felt to their jobs.

The Fryer study identified many issues that would actually improve and lead to improved job satisfaction and ergo, improved productivity and a sense of well-being within the workplace. I am pleased to see that Bill C-25 incorporates some of the recommendations of the Fryer report.

I can serve notice to the minister that during the committee hearings we will be recommending further amendments that would further implement other issues raised by the study that have not found their way into the legislation. It is another reason we were optimistic that we could move the bill out of the House of Commons into committee where this meaningful work would begin.

Human resources and labour relations are always difficult issues. They are very complex. They are multifaceted in a sense. They are even more complex in the public sector because labour relations deal with the imbalance in the historical relationship between employers and employees. That imbalance is accentuated when the employer is also the legislator. I say that only to preface my remarks that the government, and previous governments, Tory governments as well, have exercised their legislative power over their employees far too readily and far too often. It has become the norm.

A specific example is back to work legislation. It has become the norm in the labour relations regime in the public sector that as soon as people exercise their right to strike or their right to withhold services, they can almost guarantee that the government is already printing back to work legislation to bring to the House of Commons.

In the few years I have been here as a member of Parliament I believe there have been five separate occasions when the government has ordered public service employees back to work, whether it was in the post office or in the public sector at large.

My argument and the reason I raise this, and I am serving notice that we will be raising this at the committee level as well, is that free collective bargaining does not work if we are holding back the power for employees to use the only tool they have to apply pressure to the employer, which is the right to withhold their services. When we deny employees that right, we are bastardizing the whole concept of free collective bargaining.

In 1966, when the public service employees won the right to free collective bargaining, it was an error, an omission, that a labour relations regime was not factored in, that a clear, concise and concrete labour management regime was not introduced as well. Instead, labour relations have been dealt with in an ad hoc, hodgepodge fashion. The one thing I welcome in the bill is that it does contemplate clarifying the relationship between employees and employers and, if I can take the minister at her word, reintroducing an element of fairness to the system by using a bipartite approach. Labour and management can sit down at the table as equal partners in a new national council concept and deal with the real issues of, from our point of view, job satisfaction, and, from their point of view, productivity and yardsticks to measure progress. That in itself is a move forward.

I have mentioned this before and I will again. It may be that because the minister's experience is from the Province of Quebec that she is open to this type of more progressive labour-management relationship, whereas those of us in western Canada have to still suffer through a situation where unions are always fighting for recognition. Not truly welcome at the table, they have to elbow their way to the table. Even then they are allowed at the table in a very reluctant way. It is an adversarial situation before the conversation even begins.

The European model is one of a more tripartite approach, where unions are recognized as a key element of civil society. I believe that if this attitude, this mentality, were transferred or moved into the federal public service, it might lead to real progress in the relationship that we see with the federal government and its employees.

I will not go into detail on the bill at this time because I still have some hope that we may get co-operation from all the parties in the House, that with one more speaker taking us to the end of the day we can conclude debate on the bill and get it to committee so we can hear from the 16 bargaining units affected by the bill. That will be the opportunity for us to make meaningful amendments to the bill and hopefully see it through to its logical conclusion.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to speak on Bill C-25. The whole subject of employer-employee relationships and employer-employee relations has been an interest of mine for a great number of years.

I have indicated on numerous occasions that for 27 years I taught at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in mathematics and computing. For four years before that, when I was just a kid, I taught high school. Believe it or not, in both of those environments I was involved with employer-employee relationships in a very real way.

I was always astounded when I first graduated from university. I really was just a kid. I was 22 years old, I had two degrees and away I went into the work world. I graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with great pride and unfortunately could not get a job in Saskatchewan. When Alberta beckoned and offered me a job, saying that it had never yet been disappointed in a graduate from the University of Saskatchewan, I took the job.

Suddenly, I was the math department in a small rural high school in Alberta. I was just a young person, 22 years old, offering in-service to the other teachers because we were going through the years of new math. The reason I bring this in that it all ties together. As a result of doing this in-service work, I got to know many teachers throughout the whole county. At one of the annual meetings of the Alberta Teachers' Association local there, I suddenly was elected, just this young fellow from Saskatchewan, to be the president of the ATA local. One might call it a teachers' union. We always called it a professional association.

It was a very interesting experience, because as soon as one has the opportunity to work representing other people one immediately finds ways of bringing together people who are far apart. I found it an incredibly valuable experience, because 95% to 99% of relationships between employers and employees are healthy and good and work fine, but there is always that 1% to 5% where a conflict develops for one reason or another. How do we reconcile that? How do we bring those people together?

Of course it becomes a real mixture of psychology and sociology and a whole bunch of other things, and often very little mathematics, although I did apply some mathematics to it. I discovered that if there are two people, there is only one relationship between the two of them. If there are three people, there are three relationships. If I had a way of drawing a diagram, there are person A and person B, so there is that one, persons B and C, and persons A and B, so there are three relationships. That grows geometrically as the number of people increases. For example, if there are 16 people there are 120 relationship pairs.

When we have thousands of people in a civil service, like we have in Canada, we cannot expect that there would not occasionally be frictions between the personalities, so employer-employee relationships and inter-employee relationships become very important. One discovery I made early on when I was a young kid teaching high school math and involved in the ATA was that we have to learn to co-operate. One has to forgive. There has to be an attitude of acceptance and understanding. There has to be a culture like this one: I like my job, I like the people I work with, what I am doing is worthwhile, it is valued by my employer, and it is valued by my clients, whoever they are.

In the civil service, these clients are usually citizens of our country. Many of our civil servants work with citizens of other countries. All of us, regardless of our position, even members of Parliament, have to work on those interpersonal relationships.

When the President of the Treasury Board brings forward Bill C-25 and says that the government is going to modernize the public service, I would like to emphasize that underlying this is the foundation of value for each individual who works in the public service.

I also became involved in this when I went to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. Lo and behold, there were about 750 professional staff members there who honoured me by electing me as their first president of the academic staff association at NAIT. Until that time, we had been forced members of AUPE, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, whether we wanted to be or not. Even then, before I was the president of the staff association, I was elected president of branch 38 of AUPE. I had an opportunity there, and later as the staff association president in taking part in the formation of our new staff association, to build on the important foundations I discovered earlier in my life. It was an interesting experience.

There is one thing I want to comment on. Bill C-25 includes the whole subject of arbitration and conciliation and methods of solving disputes. I would like to advise the President of the Treasury Board and all Liberal members here today, the huge crowd of them, that they need to do this right.

I will share a personal experience. When I was the president of the staff association, for our very first contract we put our heads together and asked whether we wanted the right to strike. A number of members said no. They felt that the only time members need the right to strike is when a situation cannot be solved in any other way. So we reasoned. If we have an argument with our neighbour about where a fence should be, we have a court system and a legal system in which that can be arbitrated. It can be determined. We do not have to picket in front of our neighbour's house stating he is being unfair because his trees are on our land or whatever the problem is. That is not how to solve these types of situations. We find out where the boundary is and we have to live with the decision. That is true in every area of conflict. There is a mechanism or there are developing mechanisms in our country to solve those conflicts, through hearings, through arbitration, through conciliation and whatnot.

We argued that for ourselves the right to strike was a means to an end, not an end in itself. We bargained away in our very first contract on a clause which was set up so that it would be perpetual in subsequent contracts. Both parties had to agree if the clause were to be removed. Once the clause was in there, unless both parties agreed to remove it, it would stay in there perpetually, which is a good way of putting it. We put into that clause a whole sequence of arbitrations and mediators and everything, a whole dispute resolution mechanism so that disputes could be properly solved. It worked really fine.

Now I am going to take a slam at the provincial government of Alberta. It worked really fine until those guys in the government, and I am talking now as an employee, those guys in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, passed a rule which stated that in cases of arbitration, the arbitrator must take into account government policy.

That seemed like a really innocuous little statement, but it threw a pile of sand into the smooth working gears of our relationship. After that, when it came time to negotiate a new round of salary agreements or whatever the government would simply, in advance of that, make a public announcement. This was when inflation was 8% to 10% per year. The government would say that its policy that year was that no government employee shall have a raise increase exceeding 2%.

That blew us out of the water. It made it very unfair because it said we could not bargain fairly. If we could not come to an agreement we could go to arbitration because we had binding arbitration. If binding arbitration was there the government had already passed a rule that we had to take into account government policy and it had declared the policy was 2%. That was the end of the show.

The House can see how frustrated we were. It landed up that we were there in the boxing ring and the person with whom we were boxing was also the referee. It made it very unfair.

My advice to that vast group of Liberals who would impose this legislation is to ensure that where there is arbitration and where there is conciliation that it be kept fair. If the Liberals do not, they will cause unrest in the civil service which they do not want.

That is a very important principle. I am arguing a principle, not specifically the wording of the bill. I expect the committee will look after that.