Government Operations committee  The Public Service Commission works with departments to ensure that overall planning is in place, and I know that my predecessor, Madam Barrados, did do a special study on temporary help—

Government Operations committee  —looking particularly the inflow into permanent jobs. We do monitor the transition from casual worker into permanent jobs to ensure that the merit process is being respected, but that would be the jurisdiction and the perspective of the commission.

Government Operations committee  Under the Public Service Employment Act, there are 200,000 public servants, but—

Government Operations committee  In 2012-13 the commission revoked nine appointments. That's the term used under the law: those appointments were “revoked”. Those persons no longer had employment in the public service.

Government Operations committee  I should clarify that the jurisdiction of the commission only relates.... These are investigations that relate to the question of—

Government Operations committee  No, fraud vis-à-vis an appointment process; there may have been other public servants who for different reasons had been let go from the public service.

Government Operations committee  That's correct.

Government Operations committee  So the nine just have to do with revocations of appointments, where the appointment process itself was somehow flawed.

Government Operations committee  The Public Service Commission's role vis-à-vis non-partisanship and the primary way we ensure non-partisan public service is to ensure that the appointment itself is based on merit and is free from political influence. So that's a big part of what we do. We are also responsible

Government Operations committee  Thanks to the priority program, we have the flexibility to appoint those individuals to permanent positions.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. That's a bit difficult to explain because 2012-2013 was an exceptional year. I hope the fact that an individual with no experience in the public service can pass one of our exams indicates that our staffing processes are open to the public and accessi

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. The general workforce adjustment policy falls within the purview of the Treasury Board. The commission plays two key roles. First, it is responsible for using that policy to determine whether a public servant will be retained or laid off. To us, it is

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. Under our mandate for conducting investigations under the act, there are a number of categories under which we do those investigations. We can do investigations if there's been an error made in a competitive process, if there's been improper conduct.

Government Operations committee  Normally we have about 100,000 transactions per year. The number of founded investigations in that context is relatively small, but of course we take all of these cases very seriously. For example, in a fraud case where someone has presented false credentials, normally what woul

Government Operations committee  Thank you for that question. Medically released veterans are a priority. The commission can direct veterans with that priority status to the available positions. The current legislation sets out an order of precedence. For instance, some priorities are statutory and have precede