Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. I am very pleased to be here to introduce myself and to answer your questions with regard to the position of President of the Public Service Commission of Canada. As you know, the commission has a long and prestigious history as an insti

Government Operations committee  Yes, approximately.

Government Operations committee  That is an excellent question, one that has a lot of aspects. It isn't just knowing how to attract young people, but also how to retain them. There just happens to have been an article on this topic this morning in the Ottawa Citizen. It showed that there are a lot of barriers an

Government Operations committee  Well, there are several issues. I am somewhat worried about the use of French in the public service. There has been a lot of progress and there are more and more bilingual positions. People meet the minimum linguistic requirements for these positions. Nevertheless, I see that wo

Government Operations committee  Thank you. I apologize if my answers were a bit long.

Government Operations committee  From what I see, the tendency over the past few years has been that the public service is aging. Young people of 35 or less, if I remember correctly, make up a smaller proportion of the public service as a whole. We have fallen behind, clearly, and we have some work to do.

Government Operations committee  I agree with the first part of your statement. We want to attract people who adhere to the values of the public service, who have a sense of dedication, and who understand that a career in the public service implies that you are working for your country and that this may sometime

Government Operations committee  Personally I like the idea that people who might like to shake things up a bit join the public service. I am talking here about people who are not afraid to speak, who say what they think, who have opinions and who will question the status quo. I think everyone can benefit from t

Government Operations committee  Exactly. One could draw parallels. To me, respect for hierarchy is somewhat less important. However, you raised an important point in the beginning of your intervention, which was the variety of roles and experiences one can have during a career. I often like to refer to my own

Government Operations committee  I couldn't say. I think they are quite competitive salaries.

Government Operations committee  I have always been in favour of decentralization, to give the regions more roles and powers. In all of the departments I worked for, I found that our regions provided a certain wealth that was not always exploited fully. The Department of Canadian Heritage is not an exception. I

Government Operations committee  One thing I would have to do when in the position is study the data. I've looked at the annual report, and yes, there are some trends there. I'm not sure we've seen a significant increase in casual employment, for example, but we can see that a large proportion of the new entries

Government Operations committee  I'd have to study what exactly the conditions are. As you know, sometimes casual employment can be used to bring back people who have some skills and can help contribute also to corporate memory transfer. Again, I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions, but I think we still have

Government Operations committee  You're asking me to comment on a program for which I don't have responsibility, but I have to say that all senior public servants share in the responsibility to make sure that our employees are paid, and paid accurately and on a timely basis. In our department, in my role, I ma

Government Operations committee  Those are questions that I think need to be addressed to our political masters. I will say, though, that when I was part of the team that created the Department of Canadian Heritage, I had the responsibility of transferring the translation bureau to the then department of publi