Government Operations committee  I can certainly explain it from my perspective. It would have been two or three years ago—Patricia would know the details of the timing—that the Prime Minister's advisory committee made a report suggesting that governance within the government on HR issues was overly complex. The

Government Operations committee  Your understanding is the same as mine, that we are going through an elevated rate of attrition in the public service now relative to, say, five years ago. Now the rate of attrition is around 3.3%—certainly above 3%—whereas five years or so ago it would have been well below 2%, a

Government Operations committee  It's really the demographics of our workforce and of hiring of baby boomers starting back in the early 1980s. It's numerical, I think. In general, the public service has a relatively low rate of attrition through avenues other than retirement, and so our attrition is largely driv

Government Operations committee  We have many means to support them. I think you would find in looking at the backgrounds of the deputy ministers who are leading departments that they have tremendous experience in managing people through their careers. That's partly what supports them in taking on the big jobs t

Government Operations committee  My first day of work was August 31, 2009.

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, I would be happy to start in terms of the pay system question. I would simply say that the government has committed to work on modernizing the pay system, as you've mentioned. It has dedicated resources to that. I would also say that there could well be the need fo

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I am the Chief Human Resources Officer. With me is the Assistant Deputy Minister, Compensation and Labour Relations, Hélène Laurendeau. I am pleased to have this opportunity to talk about the public service, which is such a vitally important part of life

Health committee  Maybe I can answer that. I'm relatively new in my role, so I have been observing almost as a third party. I have sort of an independent perspective on how this planning is taking place. There's a lot of planning that's supporting departments across the government, and the deput

Health committee  As mentioned, all of the deputy heads, whether of the RCMP or Canada Border Services Agency or HRSDC, are responsible for engaging their employees on how any potential increase in sickness could affect their work. That kind of discussion will cover considerations of which service

Health committee  The guidance we're providing to our employees is, first of all, that we're assisting in providing for coherent guidance through—

Health committee  There's an advisory and there are also frequently asked questions and answers put out by Health Canada.

Health committee  That's where we take our guidance from. That's the relevant guidance we use for federal employees.

Health committee  Thank you. With respect to federal employees, we're counselling deputy heads of organizations to deal with their health and safety responsibilities for their departments based on science, based on what science is telling us.

Health committee  To this point, departments are able to fund such training with the resources they have for their departments, so that's that. They're able to reallocate, if they need to, as circumstances arise. That's where we are right now. Obviously if the situation becomes extremely serious

Health committee  Thank you for the question. We see engagement of the unions happening within departments because, as Mr. Lavoie said and as I mentioned in my opening remarks, it's deputy heads who have responsibility for the health and safety of their employees. They have an obligation to work