Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance
Issue 14 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, June 10, 1998
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 5:30 p.m. to consider the examination of the Main Estimates laid before Parliament for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1999.
Senator Terry Stratton (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen, I will give you a brief history of the reason for these sessions. Last fall, we heard of concerns within the civil service about shortages; that people were moving away into the private sector. It started with Jason Moscovitz on CBC Radio one Saturday morning, and kept rolling from there. As a result of this, we became concerned, and as a committee, we decided to hear from various people, ranging from Lawrence Strong, who heads the committee on the civil service, to the unions, to the auditor general, as well as to the minister, Marcel Massé. That is a brief history of what we have been doing with this study.
Today we have with us Ms Ruth Hubbard, President of the Public Service Commission. We welcome you. Please introduce the people who accompany you, and proceed with your statement.
Ms Ruth Hubbard, President, Public Service Commission: Thank you very much. I would like to introduce Jean-Guy Fleury, who is the Executive Director of Resourcing and Learning, Public Service Commission, and Judith Moses, who is the Executive Director of the Policy, Research and Communications Branch.
I would like to thank the committee members for your timely work in support of renewing the federal public service. It is an important issue for Canadians, and the committee's interest is very much appreciated.
Canada is recognized both at home and abroad as having one of the finest public service administrations in the world, the product of generations of women and men dedicated to serving the public good.
A cornerstone of Canada's stable, democratic system of government, the professional non-partisan public service is responsible for giving the best advice possible to the government, faithfully carrying out its directions, delivering services to the public, and enforcing the country's laws and regulations.
[Translation]
The Public Service Commission is a guardian of some of the key public service values that underlie the professionalism and integrity of Canada's public service: merit, non-partisanship and representativeness.
The PSC is the politically independent agency that maintains the integrity of the staffing system. The work of the commission includes such key areas as: recruitment; establishing standards for selection; selecting and staffing senior executives; promoting based on merit; managing exchanges; fostering learning and development; ensuring independent recourse and review; delivering employment equity initiatives to the public service; and reporting to Parliament on the effectiveness of the federal staffing system which is today largely delegated to departments.
[English]
The commission determines when it is in the best interest of the public service to recruit from outside the service. It works in collaboration with others, including line departments and agencies, central agencies, employee representatives and others. It provides guidance, advice and support, and monitors, and is accountable directly to Parliament.
Driving change and expanding support and participation in the globalization of the marketplace have transformed economies around the world as well as the expectations of citizens. In Canada, we have seen increased demand from citizens who want to be involved in shaping public policy, determining the balance between important considerations which define the public interest as it changes over time, and in the affordable and responsible delivery of service.
This, in turn, is driving public sector reform in Canada, and implies rethinking what the professional public service should do, what its main characteristics should be, and what competencies its people will need for today and tomorrow.
[Translation]
As the clerk said in her "Fifth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the state of the Public Service of Canada," the story of the Canadian model of public sector reform needs to be told. La Relève, the government-wide initiative to renew the Public Service, reflects a renewed energy and sincere focus on valuing and developing people.
Recruitment, retention and renewal are key issues, and the Public Service Commission is playing its part in addressing them.
The main challenges are well outlined in the report of the advisory committee chaired by Mr. Strong who has already been a witness at your committee hearings. They include demographics -- the aging public service; mobility within the service; emerging skills and competencies and reinforcing in all public service managers that good human resources management and planning are "mission critical" to delivering good results to Canadians.
[English]
To that list we at the PSC would add representativeness, especially in terms of key employment equity groups such as aboriginal people, persons with disabilities, and visible minorities. We need to ensure that the public service provides a climate that challenges and rewards; that integrates and accommodates people with diverse cultural backgrounds from both official language groups, and from every part of the country. The public service needs to be representative of the people it serves.
Mr. Strong's committee talked about the need for a concerted, highly targeted recruitment into the public service at the entry level, and perhaps at mid-career. As the government's recruiter, we would say that his report is right on. We are doing just that, in concert with line departments and agencies and other central agencies, in shortage areas like information technology, in targeted recruitment campaigns on campus, for example, for economists, mathematicians and engineers.
We also have special corporate development programs like the Management Trainee Program, which fast tracks high quality recruits to the middle management level through a combination of learning on assignment and more formal learning.
We are increasingly using Internet-based recruitment strategies, and we will be continuing to redesign and re-engineer our approaches to fit the market of today and the market of tomorrow.
[Translation]
We are also helping to address the challenges of internal mobility; emerging competencies; new corporate learning below the executive level and increasing and reinforcing the sense of ownership by managers, starting with deputy ministers, for staffing through reform which is values and outcomes, not rules and transactions, based.
[English]
I am proud to be a public servant. I am proud of what the public service does for the country, proud of those who continue to serve, and of those who still hear and answer the call. It is an honourable profession.
[Translation]
People join the Canadian public service for many reasons, but mostly because they get satisfaction from serving the people of their country. This is true whether they are working on the front-line as customs inspectors, bio-technology researchers, senior policy advisers or deputy ministers.
[English]
The challenges and demands are real. We need people who share the unique values inherent in the public service -- people who are committed to serving Canadians.
In closing, I would like to mention that a few years ago, Parliament passed an act declaring next week, the third week of June, National Public Service Week. Renewed pride in, and recognition of, those who remain committed to serve would support all efforts in shaping an effective and respected Public Service for all Canadians.
I would like to thank you for inviting me to address the committee. I would be very pleased to try to answer your questions.
Senator Bolduc: In the 1960s, we tried to determine merit in the development of civil service people through competition. Positions used to be widely advertised in the newspapers and elsewhere. It seems to me that we do not see many of those notices today. What percentage of the available jobs are filled by competition? What is the ratio between jobs filled by competition and those filled by promotion, as defined by the managers?
Ms Hubbard: I am afraid I do not have those figures with me, although I would be glad to provide them. We are making use of electronic media to make available the information about competitive processes, and to make it accessible to people inside the public service. This occurs much more now than it did a few years ago.
We are also using electronic media to look for recruits outside the public service. We are using the Internet. I would argue that there is a greater awareness of the available opportunities than there would have been five years ago. I would ask Jean-Guy Fleury if he has any additional information that he might be able to provide on this.
Senator Bolduc: I ask that question because merit is quite difficult to define in one way. You also have representativeness as another criterion. Sometimes those two criteria may clash. I wonder if the old game of competition is not the best way to define the most qualified candidate.
[Translation]
Mr. Jean-Guy Fleury, Executive Director, Resourcing and Learning, Public Service Commission: I would like to add two things. Most competitions are based on the merit principle, that is they require specific skills for a certain position. The Public Service Commission establishes criteria and managers set standards in terms of immediate or special job requirements.
As for the number of competitions, you mentioned notices, but technology is now being used more frequently. In short, the overriding consideration is merit. The Public Service Commission establishes criteria versus the position requirements. Although there were fewer competitions held during the hiring freeze, with the downsizing of the public service, we saw many inter-departmental staff redeployments, assignments and loans.
Senator Bolduc: You stated that you still hold competitions, that is to say you still delegate the responsibility for staffing to departments. Is that right?
Mr. Fleury: Ninety-five per cent of all staffing actions are delegated to departments.
Senator Bolduc: Do departments actually hold competitions or do they merely assign people from within the department to these positions?
[English]
Senator Bolduc: You know that the danger of that is that middle management may throw the game, not necessarily according to the principles of the law.
[Translation]
Mr. Fleury: I believe they do in fact hold competitions. To some extent, we have a system of checks and balances in place to measure the performance of departments and managers. There is also the appeals process, the right of recourse, the right to hold an inquiry and in some instances, the Commission can verify the staffing actions taken by given departments.
[English]
Senator Bolduc: Would you say that is good for the middle management level, for the higher civil service, except for those who are appointed by the government?
[Translation]
Mr. Fleury: At all levels, with the exception of the executive level where responsibility for staffing is not delegated to the departments. Appointments are handled by the commissioners.
[English]
Senator Bolduc: Yes. Those are for the executive levels 1, 2, and 3.
[Translation]
Mr. Fleury: Up to the EX-5 level.
[English]
Senator Bolduc: The assistant deputy minister and the deputy minister are appointed by the government, or is the assistant deputy minister still appointed by the Public Service Commission?
Ms Hubbard: The assistant deputy minister level is still appointed by us, the EX-4, 5 level. To add to what Mr. Fleury said, less than 1 per cent of the staffing actions in the public service are appealed, if my memory serves me correctly. An appeal, which is a formal route that is available, would suggest that, generally speaking, it is working reasonably well.
Senator Bolduc: You say that the criteria are established by the PSC for its jobs. Are the criteria so specific that only one person is qualified, or are they such that a certain number of people can qualify?
Ms Hubbard: There is a partnership, if you like, between the hiring manager and the Public Service Commission, because the hiring manager knows what works needs to be done. Our job is to make sure that the criteria are reasonable. Although I think it has less to do with being against the competitive process, we do find that hiring managers tend to believe that the people who can do the work best are people who have a lot of experience in that line of work. In other words, they would probably not be as open to people who might have similar abilities in similar areas. It is a shared responsibility, because it would be impossible for the PSC to specify the work that needed to be done.
Senator Bolduc: Did you tell us before that the top levels are still recruited or selected by the PSC itself?
Ms Hubbard: Yes. By and large, we have not delegated the executive category, the EX-1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 levels. Every week, the three commissioners, of which I am one, meet to decide the strategy for resourcing every position which involves an appointment or a promotion. Then we have people who work for us sit in on the selection processes to make sure that they are fair.
[Translation]
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Last week, the newspapers reported that Michèle Jean had been appointed to a post in Brussels and that someone had replaced her at Health Canada. What reasons were given for these appointments? Michèle Jean has never worked in any capacity in the diplomatic service. Since coming to Ottawa, she has worked for the Department Of Health.
Ms Hubbard: The position of deputy minister of health is one that is filled by the Prime Minister. This is an order-in-council appointment, and does not come under the purview of the Public Service Commission. Ms Jean was replaced at Health Canada by the former deputy minister of finance, who had been working outside the public service for a while.
Perhaps the clerk can provide you with further details about Ms Jean's European assignment. I believe she was hired to advise the European Community on health issues. The European Commission felt that it was in need of this type of expertise.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Was Ms Jean in fact hired by the European Commission?
Ms Hubbard: No, but the commission made a formal request for this kind of technical assistance. The Canadian government created a position and appointed Ms Jean to act as adviser to the European Commission.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: But this person had never worked in the health field before coming to Ottawa. Her background is not in health, but rather in education. She authored the well-known Jean Report on adult education in Quebec. Suddenly, she has become a world expert on health issues.
[English]
Senator Eyton: I want to come back to the topic of competitive exams. I assume you still have them. I wanted to use them perhaps as a barometer of how our brightest and best view service in the government. This is entirely anecdotal. I had a fine young son who, about nine or ten years ago, wrote a competitive exam. He was seeking a position with, I think, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I did not do anything before or after the exam, other than engage in a little gossip after the results came in. In that year, I was informed that in excess of 3,000 people wrote the competitive exam. The finalists, those who went on to interviews, numbered less than 100. Unhappily for my son, he placed about 65th when they hired 50 people. Therefore, he was not hired; he did not make the cut.
Based on his research and discussions, my son told me that the vast number of people applying for a limited number of positions that years were exceedingly well qualified. Almost all had one degree, and a great many of them had a graduate degree as well. The competition was intense. What that illustrated, at least nine or ten years ago, is that government service, particularly in those departments, was sought after and very desirable. That is a long-winded background. The question really is: Is there some comparable exercise now that can confirm that the brightest and best still think of service, let us say in those departments, in the same positive way?
Ms Hubbard: The answer to your question is yes. We still administer tests to people who are interested in applying. Proportionately, we still have many more people applying for permanent jobs than we have positions available. For example, we had over 9,000 applicants for the approximately 850 permanent jobs for which we recruited on campuses last year. That would have included those people that we were recruiting for Foreign Affairs.
If you talk about student employment, we have 90,000 applicants for 10,000 student jobs.
Senator Eyton: The question really is, can you measure that in terms of both the quality of the applicant and the numbers? Do you do that?
Ms Hubbard: As far as we know, both our requirements have gone up. In other words, what managers are saying they need in the way of educational qualification has risen over the last several years in all the categories of recruitment, even for term employment, that is, even for temporary employment. There is still a test for Foreign Service officers, and general competency tests are written by post-secondary recruits. We maintain a high standard, and it is a measure of quality.
Our experience across the board is that we have many more applicants than we have jobs. That does not work in tight labour market areas. For example, in niche markets such as the information technology area, where there is a shortage in North America, we have as much difficulty as other employers.
The other side of it, though, is that sometimes we have few requests, but they are for very highly specialized experts. Before the days of the Internet, we would have some trouble even locating worldwide experts. Now we use the Internet. Instead of being able to say to a department, "Here are the names of two people we know about," we are able to give the names of 10 people who have these very specialized skills, which would suggest that they have a better pool from which to select.
Senator Eyton: It seems to me that you are not very different from the private sector. I read that the federal government may be encountering some difficulty attracting and maintaining the brightest and the best. What you say indicates that there is still a great deal of interest, and that a great number of qualified people still want to work with the government.
Ms Hubbard: Over the last few years, Canadians who might have wanted to apply believed that the government was not hiring and, therefore, they looked elsewhere.
We did a survey of graduating students recently to find out what percentage of them thought about jobs in the public sector as opposed to in the private sector. It was a small survey, but if my memory serves me correctly, most of them -- 70 per cent of them -- had not thought about the public sector. That would suggest, not unreasonably, that during the period of downsizing, or even before that, the public service was not growing. People who were graduating, people who were looking for opportunities, would not have been inclined to look in the public service.
If you look at the next ten years, are we going to have to recruit well? I think the answer is absolutely yes. We cannot be complacent. We are going to be competing with other people, other employers. I do not think it is anything that we should be sanguine about.
Senator Bryden: I want to go back a bit in history. In or around 1967, employment in the public service changed dramatically with the introduction of the Public Service Staff Relations Act. The legislation provided for the unionization of the vast majority of our public servants, and there was a dramatic transfer to the Financial Administration Act of many of the duties and responsibilities and functions that had been carried out by what was then, I think, referred to as the Civil Service Commission. It set pay standards. It provided for terms and conditions of employment, everything. Indeed, I can recall participating in a discussion when the new system was up and running, as to whether there would be any continuing need for a Public Service Commission. It is fairly obvious that a need exists.
I want to quickly review some of the things that you have covered in your brief so that I understand what is included in your present functions. To tag on to Senator Eyton's point, in the private sector much of this would be housed in the same line department.
You mentioned recruitment. What is included in that?
Ms Hubbard: To answer that specific question, the decision that it is in the interests of the public service to fill a job at any level from outside the public service belongs to the Public Service Commission. The integrity of the process to recruit into the public service also belongs to the Public Service Commission. What the employer, the government, and the line departments concern themselves with is what kind of work they need done.
Back in 1967, as you explained, many of the functions of what a private sector person would think of as the employer were moved from the then Civil Service Commission to the Treasury Board. To give you a quick explanation of the division of the responsibilities, those things that a management board or an employer would worry about, terms and conditions of employment -- compensation, relations with employee representatives -- belong to the statutory committee of cabinet, the Treasury Board. What we do as an independent entity is safeguard, if you like, the merit principle and the idea of non-partisanship. By and large, how that plays out is the integrity of the staffing system, whether it is reaching out to bring people in, or whether it is promotion from within. We have delegated a great deal of what we, by law, are responsible for to deputy heads.
Senator Bryden: This has been delegated to line departments.
Ms Hubbard: This has been delegated to line departments, but we are still the ones who are accountable.
Senator Bryden: Recruitment does not include hiring.
Ms Hubbard: Recruitment is hiring. The way it works is if I were a manager who had a need, I could decide that this job is not a job that is likely to be filled from inside the public service. It could be at any level. I would have to go to the Public Service Commission and say that I want this kind of expertise. It is very scarce. There are not enough people inside. I need to go for an executive who is an expert in information technology, for example. The hiring manager would identify the need. The Public Service Commission would say, "You are absolutely right. We can help you; we know where the pool of people is. We can help you make a selection out of people and make a selection which is fair." That is how it would break down.
Senator Bryden: It would take too long to go through all of my points, but you raised a point about whenever there is an adjustment. There was a significant adjustment. I think 55,000 public servants positions were eliminated. At that time, preferential treatment was provided to people who were put on eligibility lists -- if that is the right terminology -- where people who had been removed from a particular job would have first call on a position for which they were qualified. Are those lists still in existence? Within reasonable numbers, how many people are on eligibility lists? How many people are there on eligibility lists who would be blocking the opportunity for people from the outside to come in?
Ms Hubbard: There are a number of categories of people who have a priority for appointment. The numbers that I have are from the period 1995-96 to 1997-98. In total, about 7,500 people were reassigned. Of that, about 5,500 were surplus or laid off. They are other people who have a priority, too. That is about the order of magnitude.
If you were to ask me how many people have such a priority today, I think the figure is a little over 2,000. That is lower than it has been in the last several years. It has almost returned to historical levels.
Senator Bryden: How many new people would have been hired in the period that you have the figures for?
Ms Hubbard: I would think the numbers would be much, much higher than that. We would have hired many more people for specified periods of time as opposed to indeterminate periods of time. In other words, if you take how many jobs we have filled permanently during that same period, I would guess it to be 1,000, or maybe a little more. We hired 850 in last fall's campaign. We hired about 600 the year before. We hired about 300 the year before that.
Senator Bryden: Those are for indefinite terms.
Ms Hubbard: Yes, but many more people were brought in for terms of three months, six months, a year or two years. That is a decision that the hiring manager makes.
Senator Bryden: There is a reference in your brief to hiring minorities. I am speaking of visible minorities, for want of a better term. How is that going in relation to Canada's rapidly changing demographics? Do those newly hired people reflect the change in our visible minorities?
Ms Hubbard: I have some general numbers for the public service as a whole which might answer your question. For visible minorities, 4.5 per cent of the people in the public service declared themselves to be visible minorities. If you look at labour market availability, it is about 9 per cent. We still are not where we need to be.
If you were to ask me if the people who present themselves for hiring are proportionally representative of the population, my answer would be yes. I do not have the data, but I could certainly find the numbers for you. That is my impression, whether we are talking about post-secondary recruitment, student employment, or temporary employment. In fact, we know that our temporary employment proportions are better than our public service proportions. That represents the number of people that you would expect to present themselves for those kinds of jobs.
The other point I would make is that with the downsizing over the last several years, the public service has made progress, not a great deal of progress, but it has not lost ground. We have not lost members of employment equity groups disproportionately in a significant amount of downsizing.
Senator Bryden: Do you have a positive program for hiring visible minorities and other under-represented groups under affirmative action?
Ms Hubbard: The Treasury Board, as the employer, has had a program called the Special Measures Program for a number of years. This is a special program designed to support affirmative action, if you like. In the Public Service Employment Act that we administer, we have tools which enable us to support those kinds of special programs. For example, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development asked us whether we would help them improve the representation of aboriginal people in their work force. We have used our powers under the act to make regulations, special measures of various sorts, to enable them to take the action that made sense for them to take.
The Treasury Board has a program, and that may be something you might want to explore further. We have tools. We both apply them. In our act, it says we must not discriminate on the grounds of race or gender. We also have obligations under the new Employment Equity Act.
Senator Bryden: Under the Canadian Human Rights Act, affirmative action programs are not discrimination.
Ms Hubbard: When we refer qualified candidates to hiring managers, we have an obligation to reach out to employment equity groups, so that the people who have the capabilities to do the work are represented in the population. We also have an obligation to help support those measures that make managerial sense, so that they can continue to make progress in having a public service that is more representative of the people that it serves.
Senator Forest: At the assistant deputy minister level there could be a potential vacancy of some 170 positions, I think the figure was, within four or five years, and you have developed a couple of programs to deal with that. One program deals with pre-qualification, and there is also one for executive development. I wonder if you could elaborate on those programs, and how you feel they will meet this need. To have so many vacancies at the assistant deputy minister level is a bit scary.
Ms Hubbard: Under the label of La Relève, which is something that the clerk may want to talk about more generally, two programs were developed for the executive level which we administer for the system as a whole. One of them was to identify people who were ready to be assistant deputy ministers and might have had a natural opportunity in a growing public service. That is what we called the pre-qualified pool.
We ask for nominations. About 15 per cent of the executives put their hands up. We take them through a very rigorous process. We look at their track records. We look at references. We look at interviews collectively across the system, and then we make judgments about the number that we think are ready today. Those are identified, "pre-qualified" if you like.
When there is a vacancy, or when work needs to be done for which a person at that level is qualified, the person is taken out of that pool and made an assistant deputy minister to do the work. That is one of the programs.
The other program has a different goal. It is to accelerate the development of executives up to, but not into, the assistant deputy minister level. This is in order to deal with the possibility that if everybody who could retire, did retire, there would be a shortfall. That is what is called the Accelerated Executive Development Program. We administer that. That is a program where people who are successful at the end of a very rigorous selection process get assignments. If I were an EX-1, for example, who was accepted in this program, the design is that within three years I would have had sufficient experience in different places that I would be able to demonstrate I could work at the EX-3 level, which is just underneath the assistant deputy minister level.
We have just started those two programs. We have done one round of this accelerated program. We are about to launch another one. With the pre-qualified pool, we have just run the second selection, and we have not quite finalized the results. Those are two ways that we are collectively trying to advance. I think it is also true that deputy ministers are quite free to say, "I have a job that needs doing. What I want to do is give opportunities to people in any department who have these capabilities." I expect we will see more focus on strategies within departments as well as across departments to provide people with the experience to ready them for work at that level.
Senator Forest: The figure of 55,000 is very high. Did you find that the cuts at the other levels were as high as the ones as at the higher level? I am concerned. We went through that at CN after we privatized it. One-third of our work force was downsized. At certain levels the numbers were greater than at other levels. I wonder if you have identified other levels at which the proportions would be this large in the downsizing, and that therefore would require special efforts.
Ms Hubbard: The actual downsizing numbers and percentages is something that you would need to ask the Treasury Board about. It was done, I would expect, from the same perspective as you would have experienced at CN. In other words, what is the new work, how is the work being redefined, and what does that mean in terms of the people that we need.
Was there a disproportionate effect? If you look at it that way, probably the answer is it was not even throughout. In all probability, it was more related to the nature of the work.
Is there a need for these kinds of programs for accelerated development that we have designed for the executives? I think the answer is yes. We already have some in place. When we looked at the situation, we discovered that we had nothing corporately at the executive level. For 25 years or more, we have had a career assignment program which is accelerating the development from middle management up to just below the executive. The management training program goes out and recruits some of the brightest and the best from universities and fast tracks them to middle management. Are we doing enough? Probably not. That is another one of the issues under La Relève.
If you talk about the science community, for example, or the communications community, or even the personnel community, each of them has a challenge around renewal which is a little bit different. The focus is on the nature of those challenges, what should be done about them, and the balance between doing something corporately and doing something within a department or within a part of a department.
Senator Forest: What about mobility of the workforce through the different departments? Often that is a way of gaining the people you need in certain areas. It may be a different department, but similar skills are required. Does that happen?
Ms Hubbard: I think Mr. Strong pointed that out as a challenge. I would partly agree with him. In the sense of our formal systems, there is not as much movement or mobility as, frankly, I think we could have if it were optimum. As Mr. Fleury said a moment ago, there is a lot of informal movement. There are many people doing a job for a few months, or for a year, on an assignment on what we would call a deployment, which is a lateral movement.
We know geographic mobility is limited. We know it is limited for the labour market generally. Along with other central agencies and departments, we are looking at mechanisms to make it easier to stay in the same geographic area, but move between departments. We have some practical work on the ground happening in provinces like Manitoba and Saskatchewan amongst federal departments. We are talking to provincial governments because, to a certain degree, we both have the same kind of problem.
Senator Bryden: During the restructuring and downsizing, for want of a better word, how many positions did the PSC lose? How many people are employed by the commission now?
Ms Hubbard: The current level of employment in the Public Service Commission is a little over 1,200. I do not have the exact number of people employed before the Program Review, but I would think that it was almost 1,900 in 1994-95. It was 2,100 in 1993-94. It has been coming down gradually.
The Chairman: Comments have been made by other presenters, and the media has reported on the fact that young people are not joining the civil service. The number of retirees will be rather staggering in a short period of time -- up to 50 per cent, I believe, by 2012. I would like your response on each of those points.
My last comment is more subjective. I know you are a supporter of the Public Service Commission, and I take that for granted, but how do you measure morale? That is of great concern around this table. Depending upon which group is presenting to us, we either hear that morale is rock bottom, or that it is reasonable.
Ms Hubbard: With respect to the first question, I can certainly confirm the views that have been expressed by others. The data that I happen to have with me suggests that 22 per cent of the public service was under 35 in 1994. In 1997, that figure was 15 per cent. In 1994, 29 per cent of the public service was between 45 and 54. In 1997, that figure was 36 per cent.
When you think about it, these figures are not surprising. The public service went through a rapid expansion in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Then it became relatively stagnant in terms of size, and then it downsized. One thing we know is we all get one year older every year.
We have not been recruiting to anywhere near the previous extent. I do not mean that there has been no recruiting, but if you compared the levels of recruitment with the days when the public service was expanding enormously, we are certainly not recruiting in that way. Are we all getting older? Yes. Is the demographic profile of the Public Service a concern? Yes.
What should we do about it? We have to worry about both ends, if you like. We have to worry about not having enough people who bring the perspective of young people into the country. I think it is also fair to say that within the last several years, people close to being able to retire or who have been able to retire with a partial pension have been saying that this is a good opportunity to go.
This is a question with which the government will also be wrestling. Do we have a demographic problem? Yes. If you asked what proportion of executives could retire from the public service in the next ten years without a penalty, in 1992, that proportion was 51 per cent. In 1997, it was more than 70 per cent. This does not mean that they will retire, but they could.
If you look at the age profile of the groups below executives, they are younger. They are not a lot younger, but they are younger.
On your question of morale, I would answer two ways. Downsizing and significant change are never easy. There was a six year wage freeze, necessary as it may have been, and a decline in the legitimacy of governments around the world, including in Canada. For many public servants who developed a strong commitment to the public interest, they had equated it with how they did things as opposed to what they did.
The change that is necessary is a tough change, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. The wage freeze has come to an end. Good human resources management and planning are now seen as mission critical. They are not seen as add-ons. There is a significant opportunity for change and for renewal. The new ways that governments are doing things are both a challenge and a window of opportunity.
Creativity is something that needs to be nurtured. When I was first a public servant in the 1960s, creativity was not something we talked about much. There is recent evidence that suggests that there is a high level of stress in the public service. That is certainly playing out amongst executives, but I believe that it is a factor at all levels. People are paying a physical price. We are beginning to see physical symptoms. This is worrying. This is not something that we should be sanguine about.
I think the fact that we are even acknowledging this is a start. Is morale poor? It is better in some places than in others. People who are clear about the role that they are playing, who feel as if they have some control over what they are being asked to do, seem to feel better than others. I think it is a very individual thing. It is a problem we have to worry about, but I am an optimist. I would say that there have been enormous challenges, but if I look back on the years that I have been a public servant, it has never been more exciting. There has never been more potential. It is a question of deciding whether the glass is half empty or half full.
[Translation]
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I have a question for you concerning the integration of disabled persons into the public service. Have you set specific objectives which you hope to achieve? What role do you foresee for disabled persons in the public service?
Ms Hubbard: Disabled persons are one of the target groups. They represent 3.2 per cent of the public service workforce.
Disabled persons make up 4.8 per cent of the overall labour force. Therefore, we still have some ground to make up. For many years, the public service and Treasury Board have had a special measures program in place to help these persons secure employment. As for the tools to help disabled persons adapt to the work environment, it all depends on the nature of the disability. We operate a low-cost program with departmental grants to help these individuals find work.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Your objective in terms of the proportion of disabled persons you would like to see in the public service is still quite low. Is it 5 per cent or 10 per cent?
Ms Hubbard: We want the public service to reflect the community that it serves. We begin by comparing our figures and the proportion of disabled persons in the overall labour force. It depends a little on the area of activity.
During the Program Review years, perhaps a slightly higher proportion of disabled persons left the public service. It may be that they were slightly older than other categories of public servants. More of them were eligible to take early retirement.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: One thing that I have observed is that there are very few disabled persons working on Parliament Hill, regardless of the type of position.
Ms Hubbard: Our objective is to achieve the same proportion as in the general labour force.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I would be curious to look at the figures for the last ten years, if you have them, to see how the situation has evolved.
On another subject, what are your requirements as far as bilingualism is concerned?
Ms Hubbard: The government has a policy on bilingualism. A manager decides whether a certain position needs to be staffed by a bilingual person or whether the incumbent needs to speak one or two languages. A position may be staffed on a non-imperative basis, meaning that it may be offered to someone who is willing to become bilingual.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: As President of the Public Service Commission, is bilingualism one of your concerns? I am struck by the fact that very few of the deputy ministers that come before our committees are bilingual. Therefore, I am curious as to whether this is a concern of yours. I am not saying that this should be a sine qua non condition of employment or that if a person does not speak two languages, he should not be hired.
I do know, however, that as far as francophones are concerned, there is an incentive for them to learn English and they do have access to English courses. Is the reverse also true?
Ms Hubbard: Bilingualism is a concern of the public service, the government and the commission. We want a public service that reflects the people it serves. Language is an important consideration.
[English]
Senator Bolduc: We lost approximately 50,000 employees in the last four or five years, roughly 22 per cent. Is that also true for the executive category?
Ms Hubbard: I do not have those numbers, but I can supply them to you.
Senator Bolduc: I would like to have them. In La Relève, you examine the whole public personnel management aspect of some functional collectivities, and that includes finance, information systems or policy formulation. I suspect that by finance you mean administration, and not necessarily people in the Ministry of Finance.
Ms Hubbard: We mean the functional area.
Senator Bolduc: One of them is the policy formulation group. Is this in the meaning of your La Relève program; is it the executive level, or is it the social scientists, mainly the economists working in policy analysis and formulation?
Ms Hubbard: It is the people in policy analysis, the economists, and also the people who provide executive leadership to those functional areas.
Senator Bolduc: It is not necessarily the top civil servants?
Ms Hubbard: It is the whole functional community from the top to bottom.
Senator Bolduc: At the same time there may be some misunderstanding, because that is for the La Relève program. We have here "The Fifth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada," by Jocelyne Bourgon, who is Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet. On Page 8 of this report it says there is a necessity to increase the capability of policy formulation. The author says that a group analyzed the economic and social aspects of this in 1995. In the same year a committee researched policies, probably to review the issues that Canada is facing as we approach the year 2000. You stress that there will be something on economic growth, something on human development, something on social cohesion and something on globalization. That I understand very well.
In 1997, a group of 300 public sector employees looked at strategic orientations. In November of that year, representatives from 40 research agencies outside the public service met to build an build an information network for researchers. You also have relationships with the OECD and think tanks around the world. Outside of all that rather bureaucratic organization, is there any systematic connection with individual researchers in various universities?
I mention this because the Foreign Affairs Committee specializes in international trade. We have 10 or 15 economists, half from the United States, half from Canada, that appear regularly before our committee. Is there any relationship between what you are doing and those individuals outside of the institutional network?
Ms Hubbard: That is a question that perhaps you might ask the clerk when she appears. I understand that she is appearing right after I am.
Senator Bolduc: I did not think she was here today.
Senator Eyton: I understand the policy reason for the independence of the PSC. On the other hand, it may act as a disability in some ways. I am putting on my private sector hat.
If I were running an enterprise, including a department, I would like to control the hiring, promotion, and standards of the people I require. I would find it more difficult to deal with a process whereby I went to an outside organization. It would be particularly difficult to go to a large organization that would check what I would see as a fairly ordinary process, or perhaps interfere with it.
In my experience, people are happy employees and perform well firstly because of the challenge and satisfaction of doing a job well, and secondly because of the hope for reward. More importantly, there is also the fear of failure, and the consequences that come with that. With the intervention of the PSC and the resulting lack of independence, that fear of failure would seem to be somewhat removed. There is a protection process of ranking that is beyond my control.
This has to do with the comments that Senator Bryden made earlier about the process, and about how you intervene in those decisions about hiring, promoting, and rewarding. Perhaps I do not understand the process well enough, but there seems a disadvantage to the operation of the PSC. Could you comment on that?
Ms Hubbard: For many decades, Canada has had an independent entity which reports to Parliament, and which has safeguarded certain fundamental values of the public service. Canada expects to have an autonomous but subordinated public service. It is subordinated to the will of the elected people. When the elected people say this is what we want to do, they ask the professional public service to help make it happen.
The autonomous part means giving advice without fear or favour. It is the without fear or favour part. Is it appropriate to continue to have that? Is there a price to be paid in terms of efficiency? Yes. Is it a price that the country, in its wisdom, has found it appropriate to pay? Yes.
Under the current legislation that is our job. The challenge is to do it in a way that creates as little reduction of the sense of ownership of people management as possible. Having all of the levers for good people management in your hands enables you to feel more ownership. When we talk about reforming our systems, then, and making them less complex, our focus is to increase that sense of ownership, while at the same time being able to help.
As a line deputy, occasionally I found it helpful to say to somebody, "I would really like to do what you are asking me to, but they will not let me." It is a big question. It is important.
Senator Eyton: It removes in some way that direct relationship between employer-employee or manager and employee.
Ms Hubbard: It allows an employer to say, "I need the job done and you are not doing it well." It does not interfere with that. What it does interfere with is the employer saying, "You're not doing the job well -- you're gone."
Senator Eyton: That was the fear of failure.
Ms Hubbard: One judges a society by what one would like to see preserved, and these tradeoffs are always tradeoffs.
Senator Bolduc: As an old civil servant, I must interject also that the decision-making process is not exactly the same. Managers in private business have more autonomy in deciding employment issues than do top senior civil servants, who are sometimes in conflict with their ministers.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for attending.
Welcome, Ms Bourgon. Please proceed.
Ms Jocelyne Bourgon, Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the cabinet: Thank you for your interest in La Relève. I have been following your deliberation.
I will guide you through three of my reports. It will set the scene for La Relève, which is related to a number of the questions that you have asked.
First, we will consider the report that I sent to Parliament in the middle of Program Review in 1994-95. The purpose of this report is to alert all parliamentarians through the Prime Minister about the state of the public service, and the challenges that we are facing.
In the report for 1994-95, I alerted the Prime Minister and the parliamentarians that the scope of the changes that we were managing -- the scope of the downsizing that we were managing -- could not be done without some pain, suffering and consequences. No organization, private or public, can realign its role, change its line of business, readjust to being an affordable organization, and manage downsizing to the tune of 45,000 or 50,000 people, without suffering pain, tension, stress, and consequences within its ranks.
In this report, I alerted everyone that we should not be under the illusion that this could be done without any consequences whatsoever. Downsizing must be managed with great care, it must be done humanely, and it must be done with great attention to people. It is a painful process for those who leave, but it is also a painful process for those who stay. No one who has been involved in the organization's downsizing has escaped its impact, whether it is because the colleagues and friends around them have been affected, or because a number of tough decisions had to be made, or because workloads increased overnight.
It is one process to make decisions about services you will not render, and quite another to re-engineer and rebuild a system; to design service delivery to allow people to cope with the new reality. During the period between the two, there is a difficult transition period that is difficult. Those who carry on serving the collective interest, and serving government and Canadians, must face a very difficult reality. You saw that in some of the reporting that has been discussed with you, the report by APEC on the health of the institution, and so on. We should not be surprised that a survey done in 1997 revealed what I was flagging would happen in 1995. We should not be surprised.
In 1994-95, then, I was saying that this task is doable, but it must be managed humanely and with great care.
At the time, I was already flagging issues that we should be mindful of, such as demographic reality, sense of pride, and erosion of pride. I was alerting parliamentarians that we all have a role to play in ensuring that we continue to have one of the best public services in the world -- a professional, non-partisan public service -- and in ensuring that we keep the resilience and capacity to serve those who would come after all of us. That was the third report.
Let us consider the fourth report. I entitled one chapter "La Relève". I wanted to alert the Prime Minister, the Government of Canada and parliamentarians of a quiet crisis underway in the public service. This crisis is the result of many factors. I talked about the scope and the scale of realignment of role and so on, but at the same time I listed six factors. The first one is a prolonged period of time related to the realignment of role, a prolonged period of time dealing with downsizing. I also mentioned other factors which were not unique to the public service.
I mentioned the impact on the sense of pride, and the permanent stream of criticism aimed at those who make a career commitment to serving the public interest. We must be careful about what we do. We must be careful not to erode the essence of why people come and want to serve, which is their sense that it is a respectable career, one which is deserves to be treated with dignity, and one that should enjoy the respect of those we serve. That is something quite precious, and we all had a role to play in ensuring that it was preserved.
The third factor to describe the quiet crisis was that we were losing some of our most experienced members. This was not a surprise, but it was a fact. Therefore, we were losing corporate knowledge and experience that we could all strive to replace, but it would take some time and effort to do so.
In the fourth report, I mentioned the issue of compensation that you discussed with the other witness.
In the fifth report, I flagged something which I was discovering more and more. The management team witnessed a very strong effort on the part of the private sector to recruit our best people. I understand it, because they are really good; they have a diversity of knowledge and experience which has tremendous value in the private sector. Remember, this report is for 1996-97. The private sector is doing well in Canada, but we are still managing downsizing. The recruitment push from the public sector to the private sector was very significant, therefore.
The second report basically said that we were dealing with a huge task of historical proportions, and we were doing it humanely. It also said that this was not without consequences, and that there were other forces at play that would impact on our capacity to provide Canada and Canadians with an institution that performed well.
In the last report, we see the end of the very strong impact of downsizing.
[Translation]
Most of our departments are in the final year of the program review. The Minister of Finance has announced to everyone that the budget has now been balanced. The transformation has been radical. We have gone from a deficit equivalent to 9 per cent of GDP to a balanced budget. That is a major accomplishment of historic proportions. Finally, we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. There is hope for those who survived this difficult period of time and who managed the changes successfully.
We must now turn our attention to preparing for the future in a global, knowledge-based economy. The economy has become increasingly dependent on knowledge and acquiring that knowledge means preparing the public service to face the challenges that lie ahead.
The three major challenges we face are these: establishing an institution that operates without borders, becoming a knowledge-based organization focused on knowledge acquisition and becoming an organization which will pay particular attention to developing leadership at all levels.
I do not wish to associate leadership strictly speaking with the executive and management categories. I use the word leadership in the broadest sense possible, as a reference to those who are capable of moving borders. Leadership can be found at all occupational levels and in all departments. By meeting these three challenges, we will shape an institution capable of growing and better serving the needs of Canadians in the future.
[English]
Senator Bolduc: To the first aspect of my question, I was talking about the connection between the policy formulation people in the government, in the civil service, and the individual researchers in the university, and also maybe relationships with parties, because policy formulation is also a game for politicians. I know that politicians have sometimes foggy minds, and that they cannot always define all the technical aspects of policy formulation, but at the parties must make exercise in that field also. I would like your comments about what I said before, and about this little add on.
Ms Bourgon: There are policy branches in every department of the Government of Canada. They are called many different things, but each is a group of men and women whose primary task is to focus on policy research, policy analysis, and policy formulation.
In a world where more and more of the policy work that needs to be done cuts across the fences of various departments, how will we serve our political masters? It is not obvious. One attempt to improve our policy capacity and to enrich the policy work was to group every one of our units in 30 departments and agencies. We built them into a network, and told them that we trusted them to give themselves a work plan. We asked them to share amongst themselves, and to prepare an inventory of the policy data that we have in the Government of Canada. What is the policy researcher doing today? What is the policy researcher planning to do a year or two from now? They did that. We were amazed at the richness. We have rediscovered the richness of the policy work.
From there, we asked them to locate the gaps. We wanted to pinpoint possible future policy issues for which we were not equipped. From that, we moved to suggestions for desirable new projects, and we approved and funded some of them.
It is one thing to do that work internally; the real test is confronting external groups. We pulled everyone together in that report. Whether or not this was the right work was debated by 300 analysts, and we asked what other things should be included. In order to debate the results of their work, they deal with a number of policy groups and think tanks across the country.
This work is now available to anyone who has an interest in it. We are not trying to hold it; policy is the domain of ideas. You must share and debate it broadly. We would be delighted to provide the report to anyone who would wish to have it, and to present a brief, if that would prove useful.
This allows us to build linkages with leaders in various fields. There are linkages with leaders in policy fields in every department, because that is the central focus for policy work. It is not because we are giving a corporate approach to the effort that we want to undermine the work done by a department. Every department is working closely with a number of universities and leaders in their field.
Over and above that, when you move to the corporate level, the fact that the work is exposed to basically everyone in the country who has an interest in it means that a lead researcher in the field can exchange ideas with us.
I have covered your point about leaders and parliamentarians. I think I have covered your point about the various levels involved in the work.
Senator Bolduc: Industry Canada has a group in micro-economic analysis, and I receive that document once in a while. They have many seminars, and they import people from all over the world to make analysis about forms of economic growth and the reasons for it. It is quite interesting.
I wonder if it is possible to receive that type of instrument from various ministries, or if that takes various formulas. I know that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has a group that circulates a lot of documents inside that corporate world, but we do not see those papers in other departments. I suspect that the Department of Finance would be a little more discreet, because of managerial and fiscal policies. How do the other departments work? Do they produce reports like that, or is it only for internal consumption?
[Translation]
Ms Bourgon: Each department is different. When I was with the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, documents of a scientific nature were distributed not only to industry, but also to research organizations.
Were they distributed to members of the financial community? I will wager that they were not. What about parliamentarians? Perhaps they were distributed to a small group of people who over the years had expressed an interest in them. Were they automatically circulated to everyone? No. Each department takes a different approach to disseminating information about its clients and the nature of its work.
One of the advantages to grouping together the work is that it allows more people to express an interest in these issues and to put their names on a list. This allows the department to react accordingly.
I can draw up for you a list of the kinds of documents prepared by the Policy Research Committee.
[English]
This is so that you get a feel for it, see if there is an interest in it, and see if it is user friendly for you. We would be pleased to come back and discuss that with you.
The Chairman: That would be very helpful.
Senator Bryden: I have read some of these reports. I would like to compliment you on the initiative that is contained in this approach. You have a very clear objective, and the foresight to realize that it will take some time to get there.
The definition of effective leaders on page 23 of your last report is one of the best definitions of leadership that I have ever read. I agree with it entirely. It is one of the few times it puts leadership into everyone in an organization, not just into the various levels. It is extremely valuable.
In your program, one of the things that is being developed is the mobility of senior levels of management. To provide high levels of mobility you need to move your executives from time to time. Do you find as often occurs in the private sector that movement across disciplines inhibits the in-depth development of real managerial expertise in a particular discipline? How do you balance that?
Ms Bourgon: It is a key point. In management we must avoid the notion that there is one right way of doing things. We need different ways of doing things. We should not force ourselves into a choice. Do we need generalists, which mean everybody should be a generalist, or specialists, which means everybody must be a specialist? The honest answer is that we need both.
I am a manager. I am a specialist working in the geological service of Canada. I enjoy my career. I have spent many years of my life there, and I like the field. I want to continue to contribute to that field. Nevertheless, I would be interested in diverse experiences. That does not mean that I want to be retrained in social policies, or that I want to become an expert in the native right to self-government. I may want to get a better understanding of the land mass, of climate change, and of the ocean mass, because all of that is related to my field.
To me, mobility is part of an enriching career, regardless of whether people have decided to be specialists, or whether they aspire to the broader definition of a generalist. There is a need for diversity and mobility that should be supported and encouraged at the corporate level so that we assist the choices people make for themselves. If we are careful to support people in their choices, as opposed to dictating the choices to them, we will avoid some of the pitfalls that you are alluding to, that is, the erosion of skill and knowledge in a specialty field.
Senator Bryden: In the private sector, the principal interest is how to best serve the shareholders. The tenor of what is here appears to be what is in the best interest of the executive or of the employees. Is that always in the best interests of the public that is being served?
Ms Bourgon: La Relève is related to what is in the best interest of the individual person. If that is the message that is coming across, then I must rewrite all that stuff, because then we did not convey the message that needed to be conveyed.
The message we want to convey is that we believe very deeply that public democracy is an important institution, one that is supported by public sector institutions. Those public sector institutions need to be modern and up to the task. To achieve that, we need all kinds of things. We do not need an institution that just furthers the careers of individual people. We need an institution that is up to the task of serving the collective interest, and to serving whomever Canadians choose to represent them.
Who should be at the top of a department? People who understand something about parliamentary tradition. People with a knowledge of country. People with expertise in policy formulation, because otherwise how do you support the government of the day? People who are committed to service to Canadians. People who understand the serving of collective interest, and are guided in their actions by the values and principles acceded to that. It is not about the career of the executive. It is about preparing the institution to play that role.
I will therefore take another look at the documentation, because it should not convey that message to you, sir.
Senator Bryden: In much of the restructuring that has occurred in the private sector over the last number of years, and in their program reviews, the buzz word was customer orientation.
In addition to all the things you said, which I support, the public service of Canada serves as a delivery mechanism as well. The fisheries officer on the wharf in Murray Corner represents the public service of the Government of Canada to the customer. We hear about the fact that there is a lot of emphasis on sensitivity training in the military. Has any consideration been given to that type of training or development in the public service? The people on the front lines often deliver what is not necessarily good news.
I come from Atlantic Canada. Not everyone is a fisher, but you are never very far from the ocean or from the people who make their living from the ocean. Over the last 10 years the rapport between the people who use the services and the people who deliver them has become very poor. I use that only as an illustration. I am sure that there are others. It is almost like an armed camp. It is us against them; the fishers against the bureaucrats. Is there part of your system that will reach down there to the customer and to the delivery mechanism?
Ms Bourgon: It is my turn to agree whole-heartedly with what you said.
We tried to explain to each and every one of our employees that public servants do not serve a customer or a consumer. The consumer is free to buy goods on the free market in a market system. We serve citizens, and this is a higher order. Public servants represent the Government of Canada every day.
Public servants have their own reasons -- public sector values -- to be committed to quality of service and efficiency gains. These reasons, however, are different than the commitment of an employee in a private sector forum who is trying to ensure return to the shareholder.
We are committed to quality because of the respect which is owed to citizens. We are committed to efficiency because each time we spend $1 too much, this is $1 of service that will not be provided to another citizen. Understanding the difference between serving a citizen and serving a consumer is fundamental for all our employees to understand. We try to teach, train and explain. I hope that we are all making progress in that regard.
Does this lead to sensitivity training? Each department is approaching it differently. Some departments are well advanced, and have held courses related to quality of service for years. Other departments are planning to start such courses, and still others are just starting. It is uneven. Each department is not moving at the same pace, or in the same fashion. Is awareness of these issues permeating our ranks? I sure hope so.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I find these witnesses most interesting, but I must leave as there is a small reception for our many colleagues who are leaving the Senate. I must excuse myself, but it is not for lack of interest.
Senator Forest: I too would like to commend you for the vision in the program La Relève. It is most important. You anticipated the problems which downsizing would cause.
You spoke about those who left. They were fairly treated. You also spoke about those who remained, and the morale problem. At some point, downsizing can become counterproductive, in that the people who remain are overburdened with both guilt and the double duty that they are doing.
You talked about your recruitment programs. I would like you to elaborate a little more on what you are doing to raise the morale of those who remain. How do you inspire them with the vision when they are overburdened with details? That is very important.
Ms Bourgon: It is fair to assume that morale has already started to improve in the public service. I have referred to the survey of 1997. I will be curious to see a similar study two years from now. The end of downsizing itself brings a bit more stability. It is not the end of change. Nobody is naive in the public service. We know that change is a permanent feature, and will be there for the rest of our lives. It is, however, the end of a massive effort to realign role and downsizing. When you come to the end of that believing that it was done well, and with humanity and dignity, that is already part of rebuilding morale.
I would like to encourage you to see what you can do. We need to address and contribute to rebuilding a sense of pride in a noble career. It is a noble career to serve citizens. It is a noble career to run for office as a way of serving them. It is a noble career to commit to serving the collective good. We need to talk about that. We need to reinstate that a bit more. All of us can help. You cannot believe the strength and the importance of the signal you send to junior officers in the public service whenever you speak about it. It is astounding how much parliamentarians' speeches about the importance of the public service circulate on the Internet. Every signal that you, as parliamentarians, send about the public sector's importance in society contributes to that.
Internally, we also have a role to play. For bizarre reasons, some of our most basic programs to recognize achievement, excellence and so on were dismantled. The Prime Minister has reinstated the Outstanding Achievement Award, and the Governor General is reinstating some others, as is the Treasury Board. I will do likewise. Every department is trying to rebuild pride. That will do a lot.
The fact that compensation was frozen for six or seven years was not the best news for morale. The fact that the freeze was lifted is good news. The fact that seven collective agreements have been signed is also good news, and there is hope that we will have more soon. All of these factors contribute to rebuilding morale in an institution which has managed a very profound change process. My message is that we all can make a difference. We can all make a contribution, and it matters.
Senator Forest: It does indeed. Thank you for that encouragement. It has been a concern of mine in the private sector in which I have worked, but also in the public sector.
[Translation]
Senator Bolduc: We have already had an opportunity to ask these questions. When Mr. Strong appeared before the committee, we discussed with him the ins and outs of this issue. At the time, I stated that this committee dealt with finance department officials, whereas the Foreign Affairs Committee dealt with officials from Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. Both departments have exceptional employees, among the best in the world. I am not saying that this is not the case for other departments. However, other departments more actively promote things. Officials are competent, but they ultimately subscribe to a certain ideology and think that they can improve the world.
Policy research can be biased. Personal values come into play. It is common knowledge that if you studied economics at Harvard, you have more leftist leanings, whereas if you studied in Chicago, you lean more to the right. When we talk about public servants being non-partisan, it is important to understand at the same time that when they formulate policy, there own values necessarily come into play.
I do not object to this, but when they draft their documents, I would like to see these officials admit that they are more left-wing or right-wing. That never happens. They never admit that to the government. Since departments want to take positive action, they step in. Not many economic planners are prepared to say that we should do nothing and let the market ride. Sometimes, but not always, that is what they should be saying. What is your reaction to this? I mentioned policy research people earlier, because as far as I am concerned, they are the very essence of senior bureaucrats. They produce future deputy finance ministers.
David Dodge, for example, did an amazing job at the finance department. I worked with him and found his work truly formidable. He is headed for Health Canada. There used to be a person at Health Canada for whom the five pillars of Canada's health care system were sacred, including the public administration of the health care system. I am convinced that within one year's time, with Mr. Dodge on the job, public administration of the health-care system will take on a whole different complexion. Inevitably, some of the values of the senior bureaucrats rub off, and I do not blame them for this. This does not mean that they are partisan. I would be curious to hear your views on the subject, because this is a fundamental issue.
Ms Bourgon: I have always felt that it was very important for people to enter into public service. When they do so, they give the best of themselves.
[English]
We are all the result of what we have done, where we come from, the way we were raised, what we have studied, and the work we have done. We bring everything we are to our tasks. It is no different for a minister, a deputy minister, or a policy analyst.
[Translation]
Are people, human beings, partisan by nature? I would have to say that they are.
[English]
Does that mean that everything is partisan in the work done by the public service? Absolutely not. Are we expecting a public service that will merely execute orders without ever disputing them? We have seen models of that kind in places around the world at different times throughout history. I do not believe it is the best way to shape policies and prepare a country.
Do we expect the public service to simply collect the raw data and tell others to deal with it? I am not sure ministers and government would be well served by that. Checks and balances are necessary. People bring their own convictions, beliefs, and value systems to policy research. That is why good data is needed over many years for policy research. You need to value the function of policy research before you value policy formulation, because that is something you can share broadly.
If policy research is sound, then you need a diversity of skills and people to get involved in policy formulation.That is where the richness of options which allow a government to fully play its role are found. A rich variety of policy options have been created so that I, as the elected official, can exercise my choice. That, too, comes with the value and belief system of the person, and there is nothing wrong with that.
The fact that we wish to build a public service that is competent and brings its beliefs, convictions, motivations, and dreams to the work is not incompatible with a non-partisan public service.
[Translation]
Senator Carstairs: Thank you for your excellent presentation. I do, however, have one question.
[English]
I could not agree with you more about the importance of pride. I do not think any employee anywhere has suffered that more than the employees of the Senate. Their institution is constantly under attack, and they serve us very well.
In this country, senior citizens also suffer from some pride diminution. In many cases, seniors are not up to the new technologies. We put them on voice mail, we ask them to press buttons, and we ask them to somehow understand the magic of banking machines. I watched one woman the other day try to put her card in five times. I did not know what to do. It is a private thing. Do you offer help or not? She finally gave up in disgust and went away.
How are we addressing this issue in the public service? Are we telling public servants not to talk down to senior citizens, but rather to treat them with respect? Public servants must realize that it is not because seniors are stupid that the do not understand the technology; they just have not had any experience with it. How are we dealing with that issue?
Ms Bourgon: It is a question that we will be dealing with for many years to come, because we are all illiterate in some field. I would like to broaden your question. It is not only senior citizens who might be illiterate in some new technology, or unable to access to some new type of information. All of us around this table are illiterate in some new technology, or unable to access some new form of information. I certainly am.
The manner in which services are delivered in this society must be shifted from one mode to another. How do we accomplish that, knowing that 30 million people will not make the shift at the same time? We cannot afford to maintain all the old ways of providing services. How to assure smooth transition in the transformation of service delivery is a constant problem.
There is no single solution. At the HRDC Service Centre they have done exceptional things such as create "le guichet unique", and signs in very large print which tell you where you are expected to go. They have counters where someone will sit down and punch the buttons for you if all you need is information which is already available on the software. In this case, it is not a private matter. They come to our office to get information.
Another point is to offer choice. Do you want to have your cheques, in your bank account or do you want a letter? More than one choice is offered. We do all of that. It is a very real problem for the employees, for those whom we serve, and for the changing nature of those we serve.
I was told that senior citizens in Canada are using more electronic devices, debit cards and bank cards, than those in any of the other G-7 countries. Somehow we are not managing that transition too badly. If that is true, what have we done to be so successful? Perhaps there is something unique in our approach that we could expand or do more of. I realize the seriousness of your question.
The Chairman: I would like to go back to previous presentations that were made. In particular, those of the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Professional Institute of Public Service of Canada. The Public Service Alliance of Canada talked about increased compensation at the executive level. The Judges Act increases compensation salaries and benefits, and continues and enhances the scheduling increases in military pay, increases the pay of RCMP officers, and the list goes on. Last week they were talking about trying to save our pilots because they were all leaving for the private sector.
I understand your problem. Having heard from the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, or PIPS, the unfortunate thing is that a morale problem results from treating these specific groups differently. They are perceived to receive higher salary increases than do those in the general level of the civil service and certain sectors of the PIPS groups. I would like your response to that.
Again, it fundamentally leads to La Relève, but it is still a fairly substantial morale problem because we are not resolving these issues. I realize you are trying to resolve them in the best manner possible, but it is a fairly significant issue -- not just now, but also in the future. Would you care to respond to that?
Ms Bourgon: I will do so with great care, because it is not for the head of the public service to comment on compensation matters within the authority of the President of the Treasury Board.
The Chairman: I understand that, but you can comment on what is happening with morale, because it is a severe problem.
Ms Bourgon: I will try to stay on my side of responsibility and be as helpful as I can. I am glad you used the expression "perceived" when you said there is a perception that maybe the executives are receiving a better agreement. Minister Massé explained that the approach the government had taken was basically to establish a parameter within the fiscal framework. The total compensation associated to the advisory role of the Strong report represent 2 per cent of the base salary. That is basically the element that has been put in the framework. To my knowledge, all other agreements that have been completed have also respected the parameters put in the fiscal framework. Negotiations are still pending, and I assume they are operating under the same parameters. The negotiators on both sides or at least one of the sides may consider it is not enough, but so far the agreements that have been completed are within the broad fiscal parameters set within all groups.
Of course, we would all prefer that all collective agreements were ratified, and that everybody were back at work. Would we all wish that pending negotiations be completed as soon as possible? Absolutely. Would it improve morale to know that they were over with? Absolutely. Therefore, my wish would be for both sides to make their very best efforts to complete the work underway.
The Chairman: It is treacherous water, but I had to ask the question because it is being raised with us as a committee. I want to go back to the question of attracting youth and regeneration. I know you have a measurement for the number of retirees, the older level in the civil service. How are you progressing in this field? Can you explain to me how young people are being addressed and attracted to the civil service? As to the retirees, you do not want them all to leave, and how will you measure your progress as you proceed through this?
Ms Bourgon: You have a page of research from a well-known Canadian demographer, David Foot. It illustrates the challenges we are facing, and how we are trying to deal with them.
The Chairman: He made a presentation to our caucus a couple of years ago in St. John.
Ms Bourgon: Please look at the page labeled "Federal Public Service vs. Canada Workforce Pyramid." There is a white diagram with a blue side and a red side. The white shape represents the age distribution of the Canadian work force. I was sitting at the back when Ms Hubbard said we are striving to represent the Canadian society, those we serve. We are striving to represent the Canadian work force. To represent the Canadian work force means that we would follow the path along the white lines.
The public service is represented by the blue shape and the red shape. We are out of line with the white shape. Where are we out of line? We do not have enough young people, and we do not have enough people above 50. I understand why. I am not surprised. We have not recruited for almost 10 years. We have been massively downsizing. We have created incentives in order to make it easier for workers in their 50s to leave without penalties on their pension.
If we are trying to represent those we serve, our demographic curve should be more like this one. Look at it this way, there is a gap here and there is a gap there. At the same time, we need to finish downsizing, which we are doing in most departments. We also need to make a special effort to recruit young people so that they can represent their generation. We need their skills, knowledge, and expertise; their know-how with the new technology.
We also need to ask ourselves what barriers would prevent older workers with experience from staying with us beyond the normal retirement age. What measures could facilitate having them stay? We must do both at the same time.
We are trying to represent the Canadian work force and Canadian society. Canadians come in different age groups, and they are men and women of different origins. Diversity also includes generations.
We have asked departments to do demographic analysis. That will reveal our statistics with more precision; what do we need to do for biologists or engineers or clerks, level one, two, three, et cetera. We need a detailed analysis in order to formulate a good recruitment plan, and also to assess the barriers that prevent some of our older workers from staying with us for a longer period of time.
We have asked Statistics Canada to help us create models. What is the right way of doing dynamic demographic analysis? We are testing the methodology with our four largest departments, which represent 50 per cent of our population. If we get it right there, then we will have a model that could be used in other departments. From there, Mme Hubbard and her staff will assist departments with external recruitment, and the board will work with departments to see what will be done to provide an incentive for workers to stay with us beyond the normal age of retirement. That is our current situation.
The Chairman: Is the lack of morale, combined with the image of the public service, a factor in retirement?
Ms Bourgon: My experience is that there is no shortage of young people who wish to join us. It is just the opposite. For example, our Management Trainee Program is a small program which recruits trainees and grooms them to join our ranks. I find it very difficult that we have 3,000 exceptional applicants, and we will pick 40. I find it embarrassing. I find it difficult to have 3,000 or 4,000 applicants when we do our external recruitment for Foreign Service and to know that we will take 30, 40 or 50.
Ms Hubbard helped some of our departments to do external recruitment in information technology. There were thousands of applicants. Is there a shortage of young Canadians who want to serve their country and work for the Public Service of Canada? No. Has there been a shortage of external recruitment giving them the chance to start a career in the public service? Absolutely.
The Chairman: It is nice to get your side because others have come to us and said that they are having a problem getting youth to join the civil service.
Ms Bourgon: We have a problem retaining them after a number of years.
Senator Moore: I am looking at the chart the way you did. It is interesting to look at it that way. I see this gap, but I see also a large override in two or three of the sections. How do we account for that? What happened there to create a significant bulge?
Ms Bourgon: You are putting your finger on one of the tough problems we must manage. As we have been managing downsizing, we have deliberately created incentive for some of our work force to leave without penalty, so we lost at that end. We have stopped recruitment because we were managing downsizing. How do you tell your employees that you will proceed with five layoffs, but you will recruit two new students from outside? It could be the right thing to do. It most likely is the right thing to do, because you need 10 years to train them to be ready to replace you in your job. It is tough to do that when you are managing, however, so we essentially stop external recruitment and create an incentive for early departure at the other end of the scale. Owing to this, our curve is very steep.
What comes with that? Currently we do not adequately represent the work force of Canada. We are all in the same age group. It does not matter if you are a junior level secretary or the Clerk of the Privy Council. We are in the same age group. It means that we will succeed one another. If you are my boss and I work for you, we will age together. By the time you are ready to leave, I will be retiring too. That is what it means.
This curve is unhealthy in three ways. We do not represent the Canadian work force. We have a steep curve, which means that we have a succession plan problem. We need external recruitment, and we need to create incentive for workers to stay with us beyond their normal retirement age. We need to flatten that curve.
Senator Bolduc: Suddenly people in management are all the same age.
Senator Moore: They will all go at the same time, and we will not have any new people who have the experience to carry on.
Senator Bolduc: Not only will they go, but they will advise the government. We have lived through that at the beginning of the 1960s, back when the power was in the hands of a small generation of people of the same age. That generation carried its own values, and they are imbedded in the policies of the time.
Ms Bourgon: You have defined the problem very well. Is this a problem that we can overcome? Yes. Will it take deliberate effort on the part of every department and agency? Absolutely. That is La Relève.
Senator Moore: It will take years.
Ms Bourgon: Yes, but you will be surprised. The few steps that we have taken -- the end of downsizing, the lift of the freeze on compensation, a normalization of the situation -- all of these measures mean that some of those who were on the verge of doing something else for a living will decide otherwise. It will give us a breather, but we must use it with great care. There is no time to waste.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. This has been most helpful and encouraging.
The committee adjourned.