Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance
Issue 11 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, June 18, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, to which was referred Bill C-25, to modernize employment and labour relations in the public service and to amend the Financial Administration Act and the Canadian Centre for Management Development Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts, met this day at 6:18 p.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Lowell Murray (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Colleagues, we have before us Bill C-25, to modernize employment and labour relations in the public service and to amend the Financial Administration Act and the Canadian Centre for Management Development Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.
This is our second meeting on this bill. We heard from the president of the Treasury Board, Ms. Robillard, yesterday morning.
Today we are pleased to welcome the president of the Public Service Commission, Mr. Scott Serson, who is accompanied by Greg Gauld, Raymond Crête, and Marie-Claude Turgeon.
Mr. Serson has been here at this committee on previous occasions, that he has served in the federal public service in various departments, including finance and central agencies such as federal-provincial relations. In 1993, he was appointed Associate Deputy Minister of Health; in 1994, Associate Deputy Minister and Vice-Chairperson of Human Resources Development Canada; and, in 1995, Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. All of this is more than adequate training for his appointment in 1999 as president of the Public Service Commission of Canada.
You have a brief that Mr. Serson provided to the committee in advance. We have circulated it. I trust you have read it because Mr. Serson will not read the full text into the record. He will take us through all of the highlights, which is what I invite him to do now.
Mr. Scott Serson, President, Public Service Commission: I am pleased to be here this evening to share the perspectives of the Public Service Commission on the staffing provisions of Bill C-25 in the new Public Service Employment Act.
[Translation]
Many senators have insisted on the importance of the bill. They have stressed its relationship to democratic stability and responsible government in Canada.
Our professional public service is one of the most important in all of Canada. It guarantees stability in our country's governance, even if there is a change of government, and in times of national or international crisis. The great quality of the public service in Canada is due, in part, to the care we take in selecting public servants.
Our presentation announces the opinions of the commission concerning the new bill. I think you all have a copy.
[English]
I want to state from the outset that our submission and our comments relate to the staffing provisions of the bill. I would like to briefly outline the PSC's overall position. I will then discuss a few issues of particular concern, concerning non-partisanship and the commission's continuing independence. I will end by discussing my view on the importance of a closer relationship between the commission and Parliament in future.
In the view of the commission, the legislators' proposals as related to staffing are fundamentally sound. They offer an opportunity to increase the flexibility of staffing system so that managers can respond more quickly to the evolving needs of Canadians. While we support the change toward greater discretion for managers, we have reviewed the bill to ensure that this increased flexibility is counterbalanced with measures to safeguard against abuses such as political and bureaucratic patronage. We were concerned that the bill did not initially achieve the right balance between flexibility and protection of fairness and that it opened the door to some potential abuse.
[Translation]
Other witnesses have also mentioned this fear to the House of Commons committee, including several public service unions. I am happy that the House committee recommended that the PSC be entrusted with the power of checking how managers use their authority to determine qualifications in order to ensure that they constitute judicious grounds for selection.
This amendment reinforces the PSC's ability to preserve the integrity of the appointment process in the public service.
[English]
Of course, additional measures to further strengthen accountability and ensure the effectiveness of the PSC as an independent overseer could be contemplated. I will mention several in a moment. My main message, however, is that the bill is overall a step in the right direction given the need to modernize the public service human resource system.
I recognize that the Senate will wish to examine the bill in considerable detail, so the commission is presenting a few recommendations that are aimed at ensuring added protection against partisanship, reinforcing the commission's independence and strengthening our relationship with Parliament. These recommendations are aimed at improving the bill and should not be construed as rectifying fundamental flaws within it.
Our first recommendation is concerned with protecting against political patronage. We recommend that the PSC have the discretion not to proceed with the appointment of a member of a minister's staff to a specific position where it considers this appointment could be perceived as impairing the political impartiality of the public service. I should point out that the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, in its recent report on the Auditor General's audit of the Groupaction affair, also raised this issue.
Our second recommendation proposes that the PSC be given the authority to investigate possible improper political activities by deputy heads — not only as a result of allegations of a candidate in an election, but also from other individuals. A similar amendment was made by the House committee with regard to authorizing the investigation of improper activities of public servants in general.
The bill also contains a number of provisions relating to the structure and operation of the PSC itself. Some of these could, in our view, affect our independence and effectiveness. In recommendations three through five we offer suggestions aimed at strengthening the commission's independence, its effective governance, and its relationship with Parliament. These include: Parliament's provision of guidance with respect to the criteria for the appointment of commissioners; the process of appointing an acting PSC president on a temporary basis consistent with the amendment to appoint the full-time president under the Great Seal; and, the appointment of commissioners on a full- or part-time basis, depending upon the needs of the organization.
[Translation]
Finally, in our Recommendation 6, we propose that the PSC be allowed to delegate a larger share of its powers, of its functions, to deputy heads, where appropriate, for all or part of the public service.
Continuous pressure will be exerted on the PSC to transfer its service-related functions in future. For instance, it's important for professional development programs for public servants to be managed in the light of the needs of the public service.
The PSC should have the power to authorize a deputy head to offer services of this kind to other departments. It should also have the power to take into account all responsible parties by means of an official delegation time that preserves the integrity of the appointment process.
I am ready now to answer your questions.
Senator Bolduc: I was told that you had some concerns during the two years of debate concerning this bill. It now seems that you are in agreement with the bill. Can you explain to us why your concerns have disappeared?
Mr. Serson: At the beginning, it was thought that the bill would have given deputy ministers staffing responsibilities. That might be a good idea for the future. Our commission is concerned with the fact that this would be the first time that deputy ministers were accountable to Parliament. Thought was not given to all the ramifications, all the implications of this suggestion. People are always happy to have authority to delegate.
But I have read your speech. There is an attempt to be sensitive to the needs of the public service. This is why we were prepared to see our redress program go before another independent tribunal. We are ready to transfer our responsibilities for training and development to a new school in order to create something stronger.
[English]
Senator Bolduc: I would have thought that somehow in that kind of a bargaining process — excuse me for using the expression ``bargaining.'' I know it is motivated by public interest anyway — you have lost some powers and gained some. Had I been in your position, I would try to get the idea of the public competition somehow. Otherwise, how can you get real protection against bureaucratic patronage if you do not have an obligation for the administrator or the deputy ministers to use the competitive system? I am talking about the idea of competition so that we can evaluate or assess the relative merits of candidates.
This is, for me, so basic, because the administrators are not the owners; they are just fiduciary. That is not clear at all in the bill.
Mr. Serson: The important thing to remember is that there are many comments that the staffing system has not changed in a profound way in over the past 35 years. However, there was a profound change in 1993. That change included adding the notion of individual merit — the notion that one could assess a single candidate against the standard of competency.
Senator Bolduc: That puzzles me a lot. When I read the bill, I thought that they were codifying the administrative practices since 1993. Is that not true?
Mr. Serson: We are not codifying an administrative practice. That notion of individual merit was added to the Public Service Employment Act at that time.
The only thing I can say, senator, is that this is a concern for me. Future Public Service Commissions will have to monitor and report to Parliament on the balance between competitive and non-competitive processes. We have commented on this in previous annual reports and we intend to continue to do so because that balance has to be kept correct.
Senator Bolduc: I read the auditor's report on one of your main functions at the time — that is, the public competition for graduates, the general competition to get into the service. That process gave us the quality of the service that we have actually at Foreign Affairs, Finance and many other departments.
I know that actually it is more complicated. They have access by the Internet. They can submit their candidacy from all of the Canadian universities, but somehow, some old processes must be kept. The civil services should get a fair share of the most valuable members of the young graduate market. I do not have any objection that the administrative officers in the ministries proceed with recruitment selection. I agree with all of that on the condition that they are bound by a kind of a competitive process.
I do not mean a national competition all the time for each position. However, there should be a competition for the recruitment of the professional people, the graduates, the entry into civil service and then the management of the people inside the various departments. There is a natural process. You may have two, three or four good economists, senior economists in the Department of Finance and suddenly you want to have a director, it is normal in my opinion that the Assistant Deputy Minister, he should not be given the right of decision just like that without any comparison. He has to somehow evaluate the people. That is the type of competition I am thinking of, particularly for the graduates and then for the top management of the civil service.
Mr. Serson: The only final assurance that I can give you, senator, is that that is an important balance under the new legislation and I believe it remain so for future commissions. What percentage of staffing actions is done through competitive processes, what percentage is done through non-competitive processes, and why — what is the rationale?
I certainly intend to continue to report on that to Parliament. Parliamentarians must be vigilant about that.
Senator Bolduc: The interests of the top civil servant — the directors, director generals and assistant deputy ministers — is not to have a competition because they want to go fast and be efficient and to have their man right now. We know what it is like. The pressure is tremendous on them to get the people they know best.
You have equilibrium or a balancing between efficiency on the one side and what I call a ``necessary due process.''
Mr. Serson: I could not agree with you more.
Senator Bolduc: You need to have a role for policy — although it is not the law — and you must monitor it.
Mr. Serson: It is clear that we will have a continuing policy role on the appointment process. We will be happy to talk to parliamentarians about the types of policies that we intend to bring into effect.
My only hesitation, senator, is that I believe — as a former Deputy Minister and a long-time public servant — that most managers these days are under significant enough pressure that they want competent people. You are right, they may take the fastest route to find them. However, I do not think anyone is prepared to sacrifice on competency because of the volume of work.
Senator Bolduc: It would be silly to give them the efficiency method of selecting by themselves right off the bat and at the same time having an appeal to a tribunal that will take a month or a year to get a decision.
What is the difference between the staffing tribunal and your own role of auditing?
Mr. Serson: Under the new law, our recourse function would go to the public service staffing tribunal. It would be modified. We are comfortable that the task force has represented the desires of public servants to begin with a more informal process in which they can ask questions, find out why they were not considered, why they were not selected. It was even one of the working groups of one of our committees that established that kind of desire on their part. We are comfortable with that.
The public service staffing tribunal will hear concerns about abuse of authority, personal favouritism, et cetera.
Senator Bolduc: Will you look at the due process?
Mr. Serson: We have been given a strengthened audit capacity. We will audit the integrity of the staffing process and the use of qualification. Furthermore, we were happy to get an amendment in the House that allows us to ensure that the qualifications established by the employer, the Treasury Board or the Deputy Minister are not being set in a way that favours a particular candidate. We will be able to verify that.
We will also have powers of investigation with respect to partisan pressures or fraud. We will be able to investigate any complaint with respect to a recruitment process.
It is a pretty thorough set of responsibilities we have.
Mr. Greg Gauld, Vice-President, Merit Policy and Accountability Branch, Public Service Commission: An additional safeguard in the bill is that complaints to the staffing tribunal can be made on the basis of the choice of appointment process. If it were an unadvertised or ``without competition'' process, people can complain on that if they feel that their rights have been abused because of that.
Senator Bolduc: What I want to suggest is that that comes after the fact.
Mr. Gauld: Yes.
Senator Bolduc: If some competitive process bound them at the beginning, we would not have to worry about that; it would be safer for them. If they can add additional qualification requirements, they are just defining the profile of the guy they want.
Mr. Serson: We can audit and report on that. If we have sufficient concerns, we can withdraw or ask for modifications to the delegation under which the Deputy Minister gets all this authority. These matters are not carved in stone. This will be reviewed from time to time based on our finding of how they are administering that authority, which I think is a considerable protection.
Senator Bolduc: You will continue to keep a close eye on the top civil service selection process? Is that correct?
Mr. Serson: That is an issue that we want to come to. There are certain pressures on us. The bill talks about transfer of development programs to the employer. We are concerned about that proposal because part of those development programs is the selection process.
One of the things that we are anxious to do at some stage is to have the opportunity to talk to both this committee and a committee of the House about their desires, vis-à-vis the future role of the Public Service Commission. This legislation sets in motions a set of pressures on us vis-à-vis some of our service delivery functions. It would be important to get from parliamentarians a sense of whether some of those service functions are related to merit and things that we should hold on to or whether, provided we could get the right kind of delegation authority, we could transfer some of those service functions to other service agencies, knowing that we can ensure there are appropriate standards of appointment.
Senator Bolduc: Historically, over the past 75 years, you have been the real managers of the civil service. The civil service is a special machinery that administers itself. For 65 or 70 years, you were the top managers. With unionization, you lost that part on working conditions, but kept the other one. Now, during the process of delegating to the personnel management — which is not bad in itself — you are becoming more and more an officer of Parliament. I think we have to look at the way it is handled, so that people in charge of personnel management, who are the administrators, will be careful.
Mr. Serson: The issue that has concerned me is my impression that, in the past, the Public Service Commission was responsible almost for pre-auditing staffing actions. We are now moving more and more to ex post facto audits. We want to satisfy ourselves that audit can do the job. During the period of program review, the Public Service Commission gave up a lot of its audit capacity in favour of putting resources into some of our resourcing functions and maintaining those. We have a process where we have to rebuild audit capacity.
Senator Bolduc: My point is that with the structural changes, I would hope that a staffing tribunal wouldn't replace you. That would be a disaster.
[Translation]
Senator Gauthier: You have talked about political patronage and bureaucratic patronage. Everyone knows about political patronage. Bureaucratic patronage is not so well known, but it is practised all the time.
By giving managers hiring powers that they do not have today, I think a major responsibility is being transferred to them. In this regard, I support Senator Bolduc. How is it that some people, who are recognized in the political arena, who have spent at least three years in a minister's office, have access to the public service through the back door? These people bring a certain partisan political background with them. How is it that they can occupy senior positions? How do you make the distinction? A while ago, you said that the commission could refuse the appointment of someone who had a partisan background.
Mr. Serson: The commission wants to have this right. That is one of its recommendations. It does not have this right since its only right is to determine whether an individual is qualified. It can examine individuals and make sure they can perform the duties of the job concerned. That is its only decision-making power.
Senator Gauthier: Mr. Serson, at present, the individual in question does not go through the normal selection process, he has a special status. So he's not subject to examination by you. Is that right?
Mr. Serson: Yes.
Senator Gauthier: How can the independence and complete non-partisanship of this individual be maintained, if he already has a partisan background when he enters the public service?
Mr. Serson: This right has existed in the Public Service Employment Act, since 1967. With control over the management system, we can make sure that people have the qualifications required for a particular position and we can discuss the values of the public service with them. We can make sure they understand properly.
I know many people who have entered the public service in this way and who have made a great contribution. I also know that people think that it is preferable to eliminate this priority. The commission recommends having the right to refuse a candidate who applies for a position in a department when the commission thinks there is a risk of reducing the public service's impartiality because of the relationship between the candidate and the department or minister himself.
Senator Gauthier: Do we know what the criteria are?
Mr. Serson: That is a good question. I think that the commission will use the same criteria that are used when a public servant wants to take part in an election campaign. Those criteria are as follows. What is the level of the position? What are the public servant's responsibilities? Are they related to the delivery of a service or the examination of a file apt to have political influence?
Senator Gauthier: Is there a system like ours anywhere else in the world? I am familiar with the Australian and British systems, and I know that is not allowed. Is there another system on which we base ourselves?
Mr. Serson: I do not know.
Senator Gauthier: Imagine, we are an exception in the world. Ms. Robillard appeared before the committee yesterday. I asked her for details about selection areas.
Mr. Serson: About competition areas.
Senator Gauthier: She said that the Public Service Commission would establish these areas, which are supposed to disappear. They want to get rid of these areas and, at present, it is the Public Service Commission that determines them.
Explain to me how you are going to go about eliminating selection areas, beginning with a region like the Maritimes. Are you going to do it by decree? Are you going to hold nationwide competitions?
Mr. Serson: Our intention is to do it by position. We are creating and putting in place an electronic recruitment system that can help us manage the applications that we will have with a national competition area system.
Senator Gauthier: I am familiar with the pilot projects you have carried out. You do not have the option of beginning with quite specific levels.
I am among those people who think we should eliminate these areas. I am a bit frustrated because you began, at the top, with managers. When you get to the middle managers and trades people, how will you open up the competition to them?
Mr. Serson: We believe we have to have a discussion with the members of Parliament and the senators about this. I doubt that it would be a wise use of Canadians' resources to have a national competition at such levels.
But we are sure that for the officers, we have to have national selection areas.
[English]
Senator Comeau: I am led to understand that you have not appeared before a parliamentary committee previously. This is the first time in seven years.
Mr. Serson: That is not true, senator.
Senator Comeau: I read that somewhere.
Mr. Serson: We were trying to make a point about issues related to area of selection. We are an independent organization reporting to Parliament. There are times when we need the help of Parliament — both the House and the Senate. When we appeared on the legislation, I told the members of the government operations that it had been seven years since we had been called before that committee, notwithstanding my concerted efforts to talk to chairpersons and vice-chairpersons about our desire to talk to them about issues such as national areas of selection and to get their political force behind it so we could get some resources on this issue.
The Chairman: He is speaking about the House of Commons, senator.
Senator Comeau: I used the word ``Parliament.''
Mr. Serson: I appeared before this committee in the last couple of years.
Senator Comeau: I misspoke. I am not sure what one can assume from the fact that you had not talked to the House of Commons in seven years. I guess that is a different ball game.
I would like to know a little bit more about the Public Service Commission. What is the appointment process for commissioners to the Public Service Commission? Is it through the Governor in Council?
Mr. Serson: In the past it has been through the Governor in Council.
Senator Comeau: I assume that this will continue?
Mr. Serson: No. There are realities of which I want you to be aware, senator.
We are a three-person commission. The legislation proposes that we become a commission composed of a full-time president and a number of part-time commissioners. One of our recommendations is aimed at addressing that because we are somewhat uncomfortable with that on grounds of the workload and uncertain effectiveness.
However, we did signal to the task force an openness to consider that issue. We felt that as an organization that was being pushed quite hard during this reform process over the last couple of years that greater representation from across the country and greater diversity of representation might lead to greater credibility.
Senator Comeau: That is not a part of the changes in the modernization?
Mr. Serson: Yes, it is.
Senator Comeau: There will be more —
Mr. Serson: More part-time commissioners.
Senator Comeau: They will be trying to get people from various parts of the country representing gender and linguistic —
Mr. Serson: One of our recommendations is that there be some criteria in —
Senator Comeau: They are not there now?
Mr. Serson: The call for part time commissioners is there. Some have said that by moving to part-time commissioners we are opening up the possibility that these could be partisan appointments. Our response was to recommend that there be criteria that might help prevent that because it is important that the Public Service Commission be seen by Members of Parliament and senators as an impartial body.
Senator Comeau: To get a closer relationship with Parliament, have you considered the possibility that Parliament would sanction the appointments?
Mr. Serson: The House committee made that recommendation. It is now part of the amended bill.
Mr. Serson: The President of the Public Service Commission would be appointed under the Great Seal, which I understand means that a vetting would required by senate and the House of Commons before appointment.
Senator Comeau: I am not sure if that is what it means.
The Chairman: That is what the provision is in this case.
Senator Comeau: In your opening comments, you briefly mentioned the matter of a school that is being proposed whereby public servants will attend one mega-school. I just cannot picture it. You would have people from Coast Guard along with managers and electricians. People who work for the public service would go to this one school administered by the Public Service Commission.
Mr. Serson: I would not characterize it that way myself, senator. You would be merging the former Canadian Centre for Management Development and the Public Service Commission's organization that deals with professional training. The centre has been training managers in leadership and gradually moving down into the ranks of middle managers, understanding how important they are to cultural change in the public service. That would not be an exclusive source of training and development for the public service.
Senator Comeau: I would hope not.
Mr. Serson: It is aimed at delivering those things that are important corporately to the public service — and more specifically, to the employer.
Senator Comeau: This is for the advancement and development of people who are within the Public Service Commission?
Mr. Serson: It would provide leadership training and basic professional training.
Senator Comeau: I will have to think further on that because I am not all that supportive of having an in-house school. I do believe in having management and middle management attending to various schools rather than having all public servants stamped with the same mould.
Mr. Serson: I do not want to try to convince you, senator. You may want to talk to the new president of the school.
Senator Comeau: I certainly would.
Mr. Serson: We were motivated by a strong vision, expressed by public servants, that they want to take these kinds of programs with their colleagues at other levels of government. Part of the orientation of the new school will be to build a relationship with universities and community colleges. The school is not a single source of providers. It is trying to reach out and assist.
Senator Comeau: Once you have created the nucleus of an empire, we all know what happens: The empire takes on a life of its own. I will not give examples. You have plenty.
I would like to get back to the question of relinquishing your duty to hire deputy managers in the service. My understanding is that this is still your responsibility, even though you delegate it.
Mr. Serson: Yes.
Senator Comeau: I have always been intrigued by the concept of delegating a responsibility or a duty and then saying, ``At the end of the day, it is not my fault the manager did wrong.''
You cannot delegate responsibility. You are still responsible and accountable if this thing fails. Others have suggested that if people appoint their family and friends to jobs, it is still your responsibility. That worries me. You cannot delegate responsibility.
Mr. Serson: We have not got the best of systems as it is. We have the accountability from Parliament. We have not delegated much recruitment responsibility for deputy ministers, but in the preamble of the act, there is a clear signal that if Parliament passes the act, they would expect us to do more.
What are the challenges we face in doing that? First, as an independent body, we have a real difficulty when it comes to getting resources from the Government of Canada because we do not have a minister there to speak for us. I have been frustrated over the last four years because we have not been able to provide first-class service, as we do not have the access to sufficient resources. You can appreciate that, with first the hot economy and now with the economy backing off a little bit, the numbers of applications are skyrocketing. That is one issue.
More important, there is the issue that we have tried to do it all. We have made ourselves a scapegoat for the manager. The manager can say, ``We did not get adequate training from the Public Service Commission.'' It is the Public Service Commission's rules. The current commission sees this new legislation as an opportunity for us to change our orientation; to build up our audit and investigative capacity; to minimize — not abdicate — our policy principles; to delegate to deputy ministers; to monitor closely their use of those delegated authorities; to report to Parliament on the results and, where we have concerns, to modify the delegation for that department that is making the mistakes or has not invested enough in doing the job right, rather than penalizing with a broad rule those deputy ministers who are doing a good job.
Senator Comeau: One of the requirements for this to work, as I see it, is that you will have to be in close contact with parliamentarians on a regular basis. I can see the reason for that.
Mr. Serson: Yes.
Senator Comeau: However, we have a House of Commons with an extremely divided representation from opposition parties. Frankly, opposition parties are where, generally speaking, we get the really heavy questions. This is not a slight against my colleagues on the government side of the house, however, as well as a rather divided opposition in the House of Commons, we have a reduced number of opposition members in the Senate. Some of us are taking on greater loads.
It is a worry for me because if we continue with the kind of regime change we are seeing now in the House of Commons, this may not be as effective in the future as it should be. We are making this major change in the Public Service Commission at a time when Parliament does not function as it should. That worries me.
Mr. Serson: I have talked to members of Parliament on both sides and I have been concerned about their lack of resources. They may be concerned about our issues but in the end they turn to me and say, ``Mr. Serson, we are concerned about a number of issues; our time is divided.'' I think that is an important consideration.
Senator Comeau: Look at the Elections Act to see what will happen the next time around.
Mr. Serson: The second area is the structure to support committees. I am talking about the House committee on government operations. The committee does not to have someone on the staff to say, ``You have not seen the Public Service Commission in five or six years. Is it not about time?'' These are members of Parliament who are talking to public servants about being accountable and having systems of accountability. We were not being held accountable.
Senator Comeau: The question of appointments of political staff after three years of service — a kind of short-circuit system — has been raised by others. Why do you not just simply recommend that this be stopped forever, with no more short-circuiting? If people want to get into the civil service, let them apply by the same rules.
Mr. Serson: We did not have a lot of time to think about this as an issue. I was struck by Donald Savoie's evidence when he made some persuasive arguments before the House committee. I see that Senator Gauthier agrees with. I would be happy to see that issue debated more thoroughly.
I have told you of my own experiences as a public servant. In the context of the debate that is taking place, we have focused on where we have the greatest problem — that is, in a number of situations, we have been concerned with an individual has been placed on a priority basis. Our concern is not with their level of qualifications but with the relationship that puts them in a department where they were in a minister's office, where they seem competent at a fairly senior level. However, that could lead to problems.
The Chairman: Mr. Serson, they are entitled to get into the civil service after a certain number of years, provided they are qualified, but an individual is not entitled to a particular job in the public service.
Mr. Serson: That is correct. However, senator, the confusion we have seen is in this sense: Once they have applied for a job on a priority basis, if they meet the qualifications we have no basis to reject their applications on the grounds that although they may meet the qualifications, there are other factors that indicate this may not be the best job. We can that informally, and have.
The Chairman: I would like to see the evidence of widespread abuse of this, by the way.
Mr. Serson: I am not arguing that, Senator Murray. I am talking about several cases.
The Chairman: However, I could give you a list right now of people who went into the public service through that provision and proved to be extremely competent and loyal public servants and rose to high places. I could give you a list of people from both political parties that have governed this country since Confederation. I will move on now.
[Translation]
Senator Ferretti Barth: I have been on the National Finance Committee for several years, and I recall that in 1997, 1998 and 1999, we went through a crisis because there was a shortage of candidates in the public service. There was no succession. Then the commission set up a program called ``La relève.''
Does this program still exist? This program prepared public service candidates for more important positions before senior officials took their retirement.
My question is about the creation of a public service school. Who are the people who will have a chance to belong to this school? Are you going to recruit in the universities with competitions? This school should have a very practical function that produces very specific results.
Does a public service candidate for a very important, or less important, position, depending on the needs of the public service, have to attend the Public Service of Canada school in order to apply for a job just like anybody else?
Mr. Serson: With regard to succession in the public service, there are many recruitment and development programs. There's are programs for managers, for economists and for policy creation experts.
The program for managers uses the school's services, but the two organizations that will be put together to create the new school already have their staff. In the future, the bill entitles the school to hire its researchers and teachers for a given period. But that's not a part of the bill that I've studied.
I think people will use the school. There are three management programs. If you belong to these programs, you have to take the courses at the school. Afterwards, the school runs on the basis of the courses offered. Managers and employees who need training can request the funds so that they can enrol for training.
Senator Ferretti Barth: Perhaps I should have asked Ms. Robillard this question. There was already an institution for the preparation of public service candidates. How much will the government have to spend to build this new school?
Mr. Serson: I can not answer you. I am not sure.
Senator Ferretti Barth: To prepare candidates?
Mr. Serson: The two organizations are being merged to create the school. They now have a budget. Our training and development Canada organization is working on a cost-recovery basis. There has been a surplus the last two years.
Senator Ferretti Barth: Is there still a shortage of public service candidates?
Mr. Serson: No.
Senator Ferretti Barth: So the succession program can be abolished?
Mr. Serson: I still think that we have to be vigilant and look at our candidates' qualifications. I can tell you that in the past three years, we have had an increase of 66 percent in applications for indeterminate positions. In the past six months, there have bee eight million hits on our Web site. There is an average of 73 applications for each job. That is an average, there is lots of interest. We have to be vigilant and particularly so in the public service, with the succession for our management framework.
Senator Ferretti Barth: Do you have any misgivings to express about public servants taking part in political activities?
Mr. Serson: We are satisfied with the amendments proposed by the House of Commons. We think that should give us enough flexibility.
[English]
Senator Oliver: I am extremely interested in this proposed legislation because it is my opinion that Canada has an excellent public service. Certainly, the deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers and other senior officials with whom I have dealt have been excellent, well-educated, and placed on the principle of merit, and free of political influence.
It seems to me that it is not often that we have a bill such as Bill C-25 before us to consider completely reviewing and renewing the Public Service of Canada. This time, we must get it right to ensure that there are no mistakes. It will likely be a long time before we have this opportunity again.
With that in mind, and given the fact that we have to have the tenets of our culture right in this statute, I have a few specific questions. In response to Senator Bolduc, who was asking questions about your powers and tasks you have to do as a watchdog and as an auditor, you indicated you would like to be able to come back to Parliament from time to time if you needed to seek more money.
This is a Finance Committee that looks at the finances of the Government of Canada. How would you see coming back to Parliament for more money if you needed it, in order to be an effective watchdog? How would that process take place?
Mr. Serson: In areas where we saw an issue of urgency or in a situation where we were sensing the desires of senators and members of Parliament — such as this issue of area selection — we would like the opportunity to go back to Parliament and advise that we made a submission to the e-government process, we failed to be accepted and our ability to move quickly on the issue that appears before you has been hobbled. We would ask if you are satisfied with the case we are putting before you, could you give us some assistance?
A report or a recommendation to the government would, I think, be extremely helpful.
Senator Oliver: Would that require an amendment to this particular bill?
Mr. Serson: I do not think it is absolutely necessary. We had proposed in the House an amendment of that nature to bring us a little bit closer to an authority that we thought the Auditor General had in this area.
Senator Oliver: The Auditor General has that power.
Mr. Serson: It was ruled out of order on a kind of technical point as being outside of the purview of the bill.
Senator Oliver: Would you like to have that power?
Mr. Serson: We had asked for it, yes.
Senator Oliver: My second question concerns the discussion in your paper about full-time and part-time commissioners. Some people who appeared before the committee in the House of Commons suggested that it be left as it is with three full-time commissioners so that we know it will be free from political influence and interference.
Would that not be the best way to resolve this crisis? Is there enough work for three people or is there not enough work for three people?
Mr. Serson: There is certainly enough work for three people, senator.
Senator Oliver: Three full-time people?
Mr. Serson: Yes, I have no doubt about that. In fact, while it could be argued that we are losing our recourse functions, because of the independence of our recourse officers, we spend very little time on that anyway — we are usually simply looking at corrective measures after the fact.
In respect of Senator Comeau's point, what does become important is the fact that we are going to have this more extensive delegated relationship with 70-odd deputy ministers and agency heads. If we are going to hold them to account, that will require personal time on-site talking to them about their responsibilities for staffing and recruitment, making sure they understand them, and understand the results of our audits and our review of their self-reporting.
I see it as being more demanding.
Senator Oliver: To ensure that not only the Public Service but also the Public Service Commission is free of influence, would it not be better if there still were three full-term appointments rather than, as you indicated, a series of term or partial appointments that might be subject to influence?
Mr. Serson: I have to be honest, senator; our trade-off is if we could have some certainty that we had a closer relationship with Parliament — and perhaps the appointment under the Great Seal of the president does that — then yes, I think we would certainly feel that the current arrangement is not a bad one. In fact, it works quite effectively.
Senator Oliver: The current arrangement?
Mr. Serson: Having three full-time commissioners.
Senator Oliver: My final questions are related to what you have earlier called, in response to Senator Comeau, ``a cultural change in the Public Service.'' I am interested in the culture of the Public Service. What kind of a Public Service do we really want for Canada that makes us so great?
Two of the words the minister used — and that have been used in Speeches from the Throne and so on — are ``representativeness'' and ``diversity.'' Nowhere in this statute has that been ingrained, other than in a preamble, as a part of what we would like to see in the future.
If I could give you some background information: The under-representation of visible minorities compared with their availability in the Canadian labour force led to the establishment of a Task Force on the Participation of Visible Minorities in the Federal Public Service in April 1999. As you know, the task force released its report embracing change in the federal Public Service on April 12, 2000. I know you are familiar with that report.
Right now, visible minorities comprise something like 15 per cent of the Canadian labour force; in the Public Service, they are less than 7 per cent. Therefore, they are grossly under-represented. With that kind of gross under- representation, should there not be something specific in the statute to ensure that the merit principle can also apply to visible minorities?
Mr. Serson: We certainly believe that the words in the preamble are a strong indication to the Public Service about Parliament's desire. However, I would draw your attention to the fact that the private sector committee — the Embracing Change Advisory Committee, which advises both the Public Service Commission and the secretary of the Treasury Board on the implementation of the embracing change recommendations — did appear before the House committee. One of their recommendations was to place this notion of diversity in the legislation in terms of the language of the definition of merit, where it talks about deputy ministers considering the future needs of the Public Service. It was their view that representing diversity there, as one of those future needs, would be even more helpful in terms of making it clear what Parliament's desire was.
Senator Oliver: Do you agree that would strengthen the legislation?
Mr. Serson: I think it would.
Senator Oliver: The bill does not address the issue of transforming the culture of the Public Service to enhance its capacity to achieve excellence. For example, the president of the Treasury Board noted the need of the Public Service employees to be supported by a working culture that values learning, innovation, inclusiveness and diversity, allowing them to make their best contribution to Canada.
Do you not think it would be good to have something in the legislation to make it an essential qualification that any person who was to become a deputy minister and so on be knowledgeable about the need to have diversity and representativeness in the Public Service? Should there not be something more specific, or are we going to continue to fall behind?
Mr. Serson: I think that is worthy of consideration. My priority would have been putting it in a definition of merit, because then it becomes a qualification for all positions in the Public Service of Canada.
Senator Oliver: The clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Himelfarb, has a history of being involved and concerned about representativeness. I am shocked, given that history, that there is nothing specific in this legislation — this framework legislation, Bill C-25 — that in fact protects both diversity and representativeness. How do you account for that?
Mr. Serson: I cannot account for it.
Senator Oliver: Are you shocked by it?
Mr. Serson: Senator, you have to appreciate that this is not our bill. This is a bill that was done by a task force. We had the opportunity to provide input from time to time and to give them our best advice. However, it is not our bill. I do not know anything about how the thing was put together or the behind-the-scenes discussions, because we were not a part of that. That was the way the government decided to proceed.
I expressed my frustration about that. I believe in inclusiveness; and I would have preferred a more collegial approach to the preparation of the bill.
The Chairman: Still, Mr. Serson, you are either our agent or theirs. I think you are Parliament's agent; and I am not sure that a collegial approach with the executive is where you want to be — or where we want you to be.
Mr. Serson: Perhaps that is true, senator, but having 28 years of collegial approach and a great career, this was a bit of a shock to my system. Let me put it that way.
Senator Oliver: Do you think that having such a fundamental flaw or error or omission in major framework legislation is something that goes to the root of the culture of the public service and the future of the public service of Canada?
Is that not troubling to you as it is to me?
Mr. Serson: I would like to see the committee reflect on the recommendations of the Embracing Change Advisory Committee. In particular, they had one recommendation that would have seen diversity referenced in the definition of ``merit.''
That being said, I do not think this legislation is the be-all and the end-all to cultural change. I think cultural change will be achieved by the active involvement of the leadership of the public service in making sure that public servants are aware that deputy ministers are serious about inclusiveness, diversity, representativeness, and holding hiring managers to account.
Senator Ringuette: I read thoroughly the first document that you sent to us earlier. I am somewhat surprised to hear that your institution has not been more involved in the task force process. Your portion of Bill C-25 — in relation to the three other acts — is enormous. The bill has major implications, as Senator Oliver said, with regard to the diversity and culture that we will see in the next 25 years in the public service.
I do know that you have been involved in pilot projects in Toronto; I have read about that. I have not read anything, however, on the quality of the recruitment through this pilot project and the impact of that quality down the road in regard to the cost of training for the Government of Canada.
Would you have any indication about that?
Mr. Serson: I will ask Mr. Crête if I am right about this. I do not think we have assessed that in a formal way, senator. I would say that, in our pilot project in Toronto, all of the feedback from managers was that they were getting the quality that they needed. They asked us to continue the pilot project because they were so satisfied with the results.
[Translation]
Mr. Raymond Crête, Director General, Resourcing Services, Recruitment and Assessment Services: Basically, that is right. We are able to do two psychometric evaluations to ensure the quality of candidates, not only for those who take part in the process, but for those who are subject to new barriers that may be put in place.
[English]
We are in the midst of doing two evaluations now. Once that report is done, we will be able to give you a lot more. The survey results from both managers in regard to the type and quality of the candidates has been extremely successful.
Senator Ringuette: Success was greater than when you had restricted zoning competition? I am interpreting your comments to say that the managers who require those resources are strongly supporting the project. You seem to indicate that, in a non-pilot project, you are not receiving those kinds of favourable comments?
Mr. Serson: I am trying to ensure that we separate the two issues. That is why I want to be careful about the question of quality. The overall reaction of managers is that they are doing an assessment on a small number of qualified candidates in cases where we use e-recruitment technology and our questionnaire process to reduce the number. Otherwise, with our limited resources, we screen about 20 per cent of the applicants and send the rest to the managers.
As I said, we are up to an average of 174 applications for competitions without moving to national area of selection. These managers are simply happy that they are getting a smaller number of well-qualified individuals. That is their first positive reaction.
Beyond that, they are not complaining to us about the quality. They seem very happy with the quality and want to see the thing proceed. I think that is a fair balance of the reactions of managers.
Mr. Gauld: Toronto is a test of the technology, not the national area of selection.
Senator Ringuette: I know that. Were they expanded geographic criteria that were used to test?
Mr. Crête: No. Neither pilot project was run under an expanded area of selection. To advertise a job now, a manager will prepare a poster with four to six experience factors. A Canadian citizen can look at the poster and decide whether to apply or not, depending on whether he or she has the experience. It is a shot-gun approach because Canadian citizens who do not work in the federal public service are often not sure what we mean by certain types of language often used within the federal public service. This new way of advertising jobs with this new technology allows us the opportunity to qualify and quantify — through the form of a questionnaire — what it is that we are looking for and the breadth and depth and type of experience for each of the experience factors.
When someone applies for a job, they report back to us. Each Canadian citizen has more information and a better understanding of what the job is all about. A manager can be much clearer in what he or she is looking for in a candidate, so the right candidates can be targeted. People can ensure that they have a good understanding and a realistic expectation that they can meet the job requirements that they are looking for when responding to the advertising for the job. We are targeting the right candidates in a more effective manager.
Mr. Gauld: There may be some confusion with earlier pilot projects of expanding the area of selection on a manual system. That was a different set of pilots with different results.
Senator Ringuette: How many employees do you have and what is your operational budget?
Mr. Serson: We have roughly 1,400 employees and a budget of $130 million.
Senator Ringuette: Who decides what competition goes public and what competition stays internal?
Mr. Serson: The manager would decide that.
Senator Ringuette: That is the manager at the department level?
Mr. Serson: Yes.
Senator Ringuette: Do you review that decision?
Mr. Serson: I do not want to imply that we are reviewing that in a rigorous manner right now, senator. We are relying on self-reporting. We ask the deputy ministers and agency heads to report to us on their staffing practices on an annual basis as part of their delegation agreement with us. Over the last four years, we have been seeking to strengthen that relationship to get a better set of indicators. This is the first year that we will have reports from all 70 departments and agencies. We will use that as a baseline to begin to make further improvements to that reporting process.
Now, the obvious point is the audit that the bill talks about. That will be a challenge for us. That is why I mentioned that in my opening remarks. A decade ago, we would have had 100 auditors in the Public Service of Canada. Today, we have a team of seven or eight. It is not sufficient to do the job that the bill seems to imply we should be doing. We will need resources or reallocate resources to do it.
Senator Ringuette: You indicated earlier that, in the last three years, there was an increase of 66 per cent in jobs that are for an indeterminate period of time. Who decides if a job is term or indeterminate?
Mr. Serson: The manager makes that decision.
That being said, we in our annual reports have, as has the Auditor General, made quite a point in the last two or three years that we do not believe that human resource planning in departments is adequate, that there has been too much term hiring. In fact, the Treasury Board has brought in a new policy to limit the length of terms. We have been trying to encourage deputy ministers to think more about the post-secondary recruitment program, which Senator Bolduc mentioned. The Auditor General has now reviewed the improvements we have made and given us a pretty good mark on them. We would like to see that used increasingly to hire determinate employees out of university.
Senator Ringuette: Therefore, it is a 66 per cent increase in three years for the indeterminate jobs.
Mr. Serson: Fifty-six, sorry.
Senator Ringuette: Let the record be corrected: 56 per cent.
What would that number be, then? We are looking at a percentage. What is the number of jobs in the indeterminate, and perhaps for the term also?
Mr. Serson: Our 2001-02 fiscal year annual report indicates that there were 5,000 indeterminate staffing activities over that period of time. There were 16,000 term activities — what we call ``specified period staffing.''
Senator Ringuette: Are you saying that 21,000 people that have been hired by managers without any kind of competition?
Mr. Serson: No. Our figures would show that above 80 per cent would be hired through competitive processes — namely, recruitment.
Senator Ringuette: Do you include in that definition the number of competitions won, in relative qualifiers that we see in this bill?
Can we ask this gentleman back?
The Chairman: We will see how we go. The government would like to have this bill, eventually, in Parliament. We will have nine meetings on this bill. This is our second now. We have many good witnesses. If you have another question, that is fine, but I have two more senators on the list. I would like to adjourn as close as possible to eight o'clock if we could.
Senator Oliver: We might want him to come back with draft amendments.
The Chairman: I think he has given us a pretty clear idea of what he has in mind.
Senator Ringuette: Bureaucratic patronage has not been addressed in the bill. We are looking at articles 68 and 69 that specifically address political influence and fraud.
Do you not think that there should be an additional article in regard to complaints that would be directed to you — the commission — that would deal with bureaucratic patronage?
Mr. Serson: We felt reasonably comfortable with the question of bureaucratic patronage because we felt that the one kind of major hole in the draft legislation was the notion that we would not be able to audit how managers were setting these additional qualifications and factors. While I do not want to imply that we believe that there is a lot of bureaucratic patronage in the Public Service of Canada, when we see it, this is what it is. It is setting the qualifications in a way to skew toward a particular candidate.
The fact that the House recommended an amendment that allows us to audit that gives us a great deal of comfort. We will be able to audit it and report on our findings. We will be able to make recommendations to the deputy minister. If we find that it is serious enough and it is not being taken care of, we can withdraw a delegation to a manager or to the deputy minister agency head, on a whole. Therefore, we were comfortable with that.
We probably could not argue against a little further protection, if there was a desire to see some investigative capacity.
Senator Ringuette: I could not see the balance, putting forward the notion of political influence and fraud. Bureaucratic patronage has been a big issue in the last decade. We have heard all the stories.
You have mentioned on page 4, ``notwithstanding the priority given to the appointment of staff of ministers, the PSC should have discretion not to proceed with a specific appointment where it considers that the appointment could be perceived as impairing a political impartiality of public service.''
Taking those comments into consideration and the fact that you delegate your power to deputy heads and they delegate their power to managers, are you saying that managers should be in the delegation of powers?
Mr. Serson: No, I apologize. Perhaps I should have made that clearer right from the beginning. What we have retained is the right to make many appointments at the EX level. I do not say that we do not delegate some, but currently we are making those appointments and in any future regime, the commission would probably retain the right to make an appointment of a political priority at that level just because of the sensitivity of it.
Senator Ringuette: When did you submit your first request to the Treasury Board to have the money necessary to remove the zoning criteria? I have seen in documents the reference to the year 2000. I have seen 2002. When was the request to the minister made?
Mr. Serson: I believe that we made our first request in 2000 or 2001. I believe it was 2000 when the government was calling for proposals for Government On-Line. We asked for $37.7 million, and we received half a million dollars, I think, to share with HRDC.
Senator Callbeck: I am not a regular member of this committee, but I would like to question you on the area of selection.
As I understand it, a person living in my province of Prince Edward Island, or any other province, cannot apply for a job in the public service in Ottawa? I know there are exceptions; I am told roughly 20 per cent.
Mr. Serson: Twenty-three.
Senator Callbeck: There are 77 per cent of the positions you cannot apply for unless you leave your province and come here to live. Then you can apply. My understanding is that you are looking at amending this so that eventually every Canadian will be able to apply for a position in Ottawa, regardless of where he or she lives.
I would like to know if that assumption is right. If so, what is the time frame? What is the plan?
Mr. Serson: The assumption is right, in the sense that the commission is committed to moving toward the end of area of selection at the officer level. I would like to have further dialogue with senators and members of Parliament about the wisdom of applying nationally, relocating people at the level of clerk and secretary. Whether that is a wise use of taxpayers' dollars is open for debate.
We have accepted the principle that Canadians should have a right to apply to their public service from anywhere in the country. We are trying to create the situation where we can deal with the volumes of applications. We tabled the results of a few pilot projects last November.
We committed to doing a further report on our internal systems, to see how they will work. We put that on the table in the last week or two, we let members of Parliament and senators know. We propose that if we get the money — and we have suggested that we would need about $40 million over four years — we will work as hard as we can to create the situation where we can move down through the officer levels, to open them up to a national area of selection. That would take a step-by-step process throughout that time frame.
That is the process we have been following since members of Parliament first began to discuss this issue with use. First, we ensured that senior managers' positions were at the national level. We then reallocated our own internal resources — manpower — to screen applicants so that we could move down to officer levels one and two steps removed from the senior management level. That is where we are today.
Senator Callbeck: If I understand correctly, you are saying if you get the $40 million over four years, this process should be in place for every Canadian to apply for a position at officer level?
Mr. Serson: Yes. I am saying that the commission is committed to attempting to do that. Do I guarantee that we will be able to do that in four years? No. I think that would be irresponsible because we are dealing with technology. We have looked here and throughout the states. It would appear that we are attempting to do something that nobody else in North America has done successfully.
There are going to be technological challenges. One of the challenges we face is that to create the kind of questionnaires that Mr. Crête has been talking about, we need manager and human resource professionals' time.
Both the Auditor General and ourselves have commented about the lack of capacity in the human resource area over the last two or three years. We are going to put this new legislation into place and that will take a lot of their time — not only to learn about it, but also to help \their managers adjust to their new and increased responsibilities in the staffing area.
The Chairman: This keeps coming up. Senator Comeau and Senator Oliver have been on this point and the president has talked about it too. The Public Service Commission is one of several agencies — officers — that are, or should be, in a very tight relationship with Parliament. The Commissioner of Official Languages, the Auditor General, human rights, several others.
I think that a committee of the Senate — perhaps the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament — ought to look at those bodies and devise ways in which the relationship can be made closer and tighter. If that is going to happen it is more likely to happen with our house than with the elected House for the reasons to which Mr. Serson alluded earlier — namely, that the different kinds of pressures that are on members of the House of Commons makes it impossible for them to give continuing interest to these issues. However, I think we could do that. I think we ought to take that on.
Second, in terms of reinforcing the autonomy of these bodies, Mr. Serson has to go to the government for his budget, as does the Commissioner of Official Languages, and the Auditor General. We need to devise a different way of dealing with their budgets. I think some procedure such as we have for ourselves, through our own Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, when we draft the budgets for the Senate — and in the other place for the House of Commons — is the way to go.
That has implications in terms of the expertise we would need to do that. However, I think it would reinforce the autonomy of these bodies if we, Parliament were to take their budgets under our wing in the first instance so they do not have to go cap in hand. It is not just a perception problem, but also a reality problem.
Senator Day: I am following our chairman and I am glad he put it precisely and succinctly. I wanted to follow up on your recommendation in the larger document that you gave us. You are citing the Auditor General about the funding issue that the chairman just talked about, and the Auditor General said ``Much like the U.K. model.''
Can you explain to us what the U.K. model is?
Mr. Serson: I should be able to, but I am afraid I cannot.
Senator Day: Could you send us something? That will save us time.
Mr. Serson: We can investigate and send something.
Senator Day: This committee is going through Estimates. This committee — and I am not sure of other committees of the Senate — is not in the habit of reviewing the functions of a particular operating entity within government and making a recommendation. We simply review proposals that are made to us to determine whether they are appropriate and decide whether we will accept them.
You seem to be proposing that we get involved in a debate with you directly as to what you need, before it goes to the Minister of Finance?
Mr. Serson: The suggestion is that the import of the Auditor General's quote, particularly that of the former Auditor General, Mr. Desautels, is that, to the extent that we begin now to move to a watchdog type status — which seems to be what the bill implies — there is a natural kind of tension between ourselves and the government about how closely they want to be watch-dogged.
That revolves around the question of the adequacy of our resources. Therefore, the import is trying to bring to bear the Senate's or the House of Commons' view on how much auditing, et cetera, they want done and the necessary resources to do that.
Senator Day: We have to expand upon the resource issue and see how it fits in this in with the parliamentary system and our process.
Is the Public Service Commission involved in helping the Auditor General hire staff?
Mr. Serson: No, we are not.
Senator Day: You do not with National Defence.
Mr. Serson: We do with the civilian force.
Senator Day: National Defence, in hiring the military force, has its own recruitment and its own sets of rules. Is that the same for other agencies as well? For example, does the Canadian Human Rights Commission have its own set of rules?
Mr. Serson: They are under us.
Senator Day: Could you send me a list of the agencies that you do and do not assist?
Mr. Serson: Yes. There are also some nuances and this bill will create more. For instance, when CCRA was removed from the Public Service Employment Act, they wanted the right of their employees to compete in the public service. The Public Service Commission was not given the authority to set their standards, but was given the authority to review how their staffing was done to ensure it was compatible with the public service approach.
Senator Day: I noticed something about that in the act.
Mr. Serson: That is brought to bear in employment.
Senator Day: Does an agency such as the CCRA adopt your plan and your way of hiring, in terms of regional selection?
Mr. Serson: No. They have been innovators in terms of the approach they have taken, which is one of the arguments for the greater flexibility for which this bill calls.
Senator Day: Therefore, there are agencies and entities within the federal government that do not do regional selection?
Mr. Serson: I apologize. I thought you were talking about the staffing system in general. They do use an ``area of selection'' approach to control volumes.
Senator Day: Is that similar to what you have done?
Mr. Crête: Yes.
Senator Day: Is it the same system, or have they devised their own?
Mr. Crête: It is similar to what we have under the act now.
The Chairman: The chairman did not have an opportunity, because of time constraints. I will not abuse it here, but I want to follow up on what Senator Day was asking. Mr. Serson, from pages 274 to 276 of the bill, we have Schedule 1, with the label ``portions of the core public administration.'' This section includes a whole list of bodies, starting with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency — which I had thought was a department of government with its minister — down to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. That is from page 274 to page 276. Then, on pages 277 and 278, we have something called ``separate agencies'' starting with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency and following through to Statistics Survey Operations, whatever that is.
You may tell me, that I have not read the bill carefully enough and you will be right if you tell me that. However, are these two separate groups of agencies listed here because one or other or both of these groups are exempt from certain parts of this bill?
Mr. Serson: I am not sure.
Ms. Marie-Claude Turgeon, Senior Counsel, Legal Services, Public Service Commission: This schedule has been renumbered. What you have under schedule 1 is all the departments or portions of the core public service for which Treasury Board is the employer.
The Chairman: Therefore, if they listed them all, it would say Agriculture Canada, Fisheries and Oceans, et cetera. They would have them all down. Have they just listed these to give us an idea of what they are talking about?
Ms. Turgeon: It should be exhaustive.
Mr. Serson: This is more a question for the task force than for us.
The Chairman: It is a question to the drafters of the bill.
Mr. Serson: It is to the drafting of the bill.
The Chairman: The question I am asking you to answer, if you can, is whether either of these two groups is exempted from many or all of the provisions of this bill?
Ms. Turgeon: Yes, some of the separate agencies fall under the Public Service Employment Act and some do not. They have their own appointment authority.
The Chairman: My final point is still on this subject. Mr. Serson, you will be familiar with a study called ``Parliament and Human Resources Management: The Role of the Public Service Commission as an Agent of Parliament,'' that was done for the Canadian Centre for Management Development on December 14, 2001, by Professor C.E.S. Franks and Professor J.E. Hodgetts. I want to remind you of some of the things they said here.
Canada, for over half a century, has had in effect two public services: one under the ambit of the commission another outside it. In recent years, this division has been accelerated with the transfer of departmental programs to special operating agencies and other forms of ``hiving off.'' Functions that were once part of the public service, but have now been transferred to non-departmental agencies of various sorts, include, among others, Canada Post, NAV Canada, the food and drug inspectorate, Parks Canada and Revenue Canada
Senator Bolduc and I opposed that.
In the past 10 years, these have reduced the core public service by almost 100,000 employees. By the end of 1999, the downsized public service had only 143,000 employees. More than 50,000 public servants had been moved from the core public service, for which the Treasury Board acts as employer and which comes under the purview of the Public Service Commission, to separate employers like the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.
I do not want to go through it all. However, they say these agencies — while not now part of the public service under the Act — still perform essential government functions. They should meet the same human resources standards in the area of merit as does the core public service.
To ensure the Crown agencies observe the appropriate standards for government employment, the commission should have a role in overseeing the implementation of the merit principle in these special operating agencies and in assuring Parliament that their human resources practices meet the same high standards that are demanded of the core public service.
They go on, but I will not take you through it all.
Mr. Serson, to what extent is that laudable objective reflected in this bill? Do you want to make a general comment on the point that they have made about what has been happening to the core public service in recent years?
Mr. Serson: I do think it is an important point in terms of oversight. I certainly would not argue to bring these groups back in under the Public Service Employment Act in terms of regulations et cetera, because they have established their own regimes. However, it seems to me it would be important for Parliament to have the assurance that staffing and recruitment in these organizations was being done properly.
The Chairman: Are you and the commission in a position to give us that assurance?
Mr. Serson: No, we are not.
The Chairman: Why?
Mr. Serson: We do not have the resources. We have never been asked.
The Chairman: Do you have the authority?
Mr. Serson: I do not think we have the authority.
Senator Oliver: Do you do an audit?
Mr. Serson: No.
The Chairman: There you go. I do not know whether anything can be done with this bill, but should pay attention to matter.
Mr. Serson: I want to be clear on one thing. You asked whether there is anything in this bill. There is a kind of acknowledgement in this bill that that is an important consideration. Since the bill opens up for deployments and certain staffing transactions, we will now have the authority, when an organization says that it wants to establish an agreement where its staff would be deployed to the public service, to look at their staffing procedure and ensure that it is up to standard.
The Chairman: That is very indirect. That is not what we are talking about.
Mr. Serson: I wanted to ensure you were aware it was there.
Ms. Turgeon: With respect to political activities, for instance, some separate employers fall under the Public Service Employment Act provisions on political activities. A big one is CCRA; you also mentioned Parks Canada. They do fall under the ambit of the Public Service Employment Act.
I would also like to mention that in Part 8 of the bill, proposed section 123 gives the Governor in Council the authority to make regulations to make the Public Service Employment Act or parts thereof applicable to these organizations.
The Chairman: Mr. Serson has indicated that that is not really where we should go.
Ms. Turgeon: It gives flexibility.
The Chairman: You would not bring them back into the PSEA.
Mr. Serson: Ms. Turgeon is pointing out that we have some flexibility there if the Governor in Council is prepared to undertake it.
The Chairman: How do we go about putting the commission in a position where it will have the necessary oversight and monitoring role that you can account properly to Parliament?
Mr. Serson: That is a profound question, senator. Could we take some time and get back to you in writing?
The Chairman: Yes.
Senator Day: When you are getting back to us, Mr. Serson, could you reference the new section 11, which is the mandate of the commission to conduct investigations and audits and says that the commission shall perform any functions in relation to public service that are assigned to it by Governor in Council, as well as the audit functions under numbers 17, 18 and 19? Does that not give you the power we have just been talking about?
Senator Oliver: It would have to be costed as well because it means a new budget.
Senator Day: There are all kinds of audit functions and the ability to do audit functions in many different areas. Just tell us where you would be limited along the lines we have been talking about here.
Mr. Serson: Absolutely.
The Chairman: This has been a very good start with the president and his colleagues and staff.
Mr. Serson: Mr. Chairman, we are genuinely gratified at the participation here tonight. It means a lot to us as public servants.
The Chairman: I assure you that this bill and the whole question of public service and of the commission is of great interest in the Senate, as evidenced by the fact that there are several senators here tonight who are not members of this committee but have come because of their interest.
Senator Gauthier: I wish to comment on the need for a committee of the Senate to review certain annual reports. You did not mention the annual report.
The Chairman: No.
Senator Gauthier: Recently, Warren Allmand, a former colleague of ours, made a speech at the first meeting of the ombudsman. He made an interesting recommendation: The Senate should look at annual reports.
I know from experience that the report of the commission was not looked at for several years. It was tabled and then forgotten. Mr. Serson was reporting to us that he was not called before Parliament.
The Chairman: We have made a good start. I thank you very much for your participation.
The committee adjourned.