Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue 2 - Evidence, November 29, 2004
OTTAWA, Monday, November 29, 2004
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, authorized to invite from time to time the President of Treasury Board, the President of the Public Service Commission, their officials, as well as other witnesses to appear before the Committee for the purpose of examining cases of alleged discrimination in the hiring and promotion practices of the Federal Public Service and to study the extent to which targets to achieve employment equity for minority groups are being met, met this day at 4 p.m.
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators and guests, we will convene the meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. Today we are here to hear from the Public Service Commission. I welcome the chair of the Public Service Commission, along with other guests. Welcome to the Senate.
As you know, the Senate has a reference that we are working on. I will just, for the purposes of the transcript, indicate that we were authorized by the Senate from time to time to invite the President of the Treasury Board, the President of the Public Service Commission, their officials, as well as other witnesses, to appear before the committee for the purpose of examining cases of alleged discrimination in the hiring and promotion practices of the federal public service, and to study the extent to which targets to achieve employment equity for minority groups are being met.
Today we have the Public Service Commission before us. Before we start, I would make two comments. One is that we are not examining specific cases. The reference to ``examining cases'' is to look at the systems, policies and practices, and not any particular case that may be before the Public Service Commission or any other body.
Also, it may be that you, as our witnesses today, will not look at discrimination, but at how you treat all Canadians equally in the public service. We would, therefore, be interested in how you go about your task of providing equal opportunity for hiring for all groups in Canada; what shortcomings you see in your particular system and how you are addressing those shortcomings; what particular problems you may have encountered and how you are going about solving those; and, of course, any success stories that you have had with the change of direction that you have made would be helpful, both in the employment equity field and in non-discriminatory practices that you are intending to apply.
I welcome you. There will be an opening statement, I understand.
Ms. Maria Barrados, President, Public Service Commission: Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss barriers in hiring and promotion practices of the federal public service, and the extent to which employment equity targets for minority groups are being met.
I have with me today two members from the Public Service Commission, Mr. Greg Gauld, who is vice-president, merit policy and accountability, and Ms. Paula Green, director general, equity and diversity.
Today I would like to talk about the Public Service Commission's role in these matters and then look at the actions we have taken and what we have accomplished.
[Translation]
As you know the Public Service Commission is an independent agency reporting to Parliament, responsible for overseeing the merit system in federal public service staffing and promotion. Canadians and Parliament rely on the Commission to ensure a representative, competent public service that is non-partisan and able to serve Canadians in both official languages.
There are a number of players involved in building a public service that reflects the diversity of Canadian society. Under the Employment Equity Act, the Public Service Commission is responsible for identifying and removing barriers in its systems, policies and practices in recruitment and staffing, within its role and mandate as defined by the Public Service Employment Act. The Employment Equity Act also requires the Commission to institute ``positive measures'' — policies and practices that go beyond removing barriers to actively promote a more representative public service and to hasten progress in closing the representation gaps.
Under these two pieces of legislation, the Public Service Commission approves employment equity staffing programs to provide departments and agencies enabling authority and flexibility to institute ``positive measures'' to achieve their employment equity goals and targets.
I would like to describe a few of the employment equity activities the Public Service Commission has undertaken to provide leadership and support to departments and agencies in developing and implementing employment equity strategies and approaches.
[English]
As you are no doubt aware, in June 2000, the Government of Canada announced three-year funding for the Embracing Change Action Plan aimed at increasing the participation of visible minorities within the federal government. This funding of $7.2 million enabled the Public Service Commission regional offices to engage in a significance number of activities. We encouraged applications from, and referrals of, designated group members. We developed and maintained high-quality, partially assessed pools of candidates, and we provided support to organizations that promoted advancement of visible minorities in the public service.
Our outreach and our other initiatives have yielded a steady improvement in the volume, calibre and representation of employment equity designated-group applicants for public service job openings. The Public Service Commission contributed to the recruitment of more than 4,000 visible minorities from outside the public service over the past three years.
In fiscal year 1999-2000, 6.4 per cent of recruitments were members of visible minority groups. This figure has increased to, and remained at, approximately 10 per cent in each of the past three years. However, it is still short of the benchmark of one in five, or 20 per cent, which was the target that was to be achieved by 2003.
The commission has also been involved with the target of one in five by 2005 for entry into the executive category, which is a program still run by the Public Service Commission. We will provide an update on departmental efforts and results in my next annual report to Parliament.
Along with the government, we established the External Advisory Group on Embracing Change, whose members represent various professions and are of diverse backgrounds. The group provides advice on strategies to foster a representative and inclusive workplace and on the effectiveness of strategies to increase the numbers of visible minorities recruited. This group has presented deputy ministers with their collective views on the importance of an overarching vision of diversity in the public service and better service to Canadians. They have also put forward an overall diversity framework for implementation in central agencies and departments.
The $2.4 million invested in the employment equity mainstream initiative from 2002 to 2004 was designed to allow the Public Service Commission to integrate employment equity more fully into its staffing and recruitment policies and practices, help departments and agencies become more representative of the population they serve and raise the awareness of merit, diversity and employment equity in the public service. In the two-year period, we have been able to show that employment equity activities can be planned, mainstreamed and integrated into business operations. We have achieved results in two main areas, a greater supply of qualified employment equity candidates and improved organizational practices. Across Canada, the actual appointments of designated-group members varied, showing an increase in some regions, a decrease in some and no significant change in others.
To us, this is an indication that the inclusion of designated-group members is not yet self-sustaining or self- generating, and that regional differences must be taken into account in our human resource planning.
[Translation]
We have an employment equity director with a budget of $880,000. As part of our core activities, we also launched a new Framework for Employment Equity and Associated Programs in staffing and recruitment in May 2004 to provide departments and agencies the flexibility to meet gaps in under-representation at both departmental and public service- wide levels.
There are two new programs under the framework: the Public Service Commission Employment Equity Program for external recruitment of employment equity group members below the executive level; and the Employment Equity Program for Executives.
The Public Service Commission has also approved specific departmental employment equity staffing programs for 21 departments and agencies. In addition to giving departments more delegated authority and flexibility, we have also provided them with policies, guidelines and tools on employment equity, such as: the Guidelines on Fair Assessment; an expanded area of selection for employment equity groups; and promoting the use of diverse selection boards.
We are also developing an appointment framework under the new Public Service Employment Act which will include directions on employment equity in staffing. The entire policy suite will be reviewed through an employment equity lens.
With the Commission's oversight role strengthened under the new Public Service Modernization Act, we will build employment equity issues into our audit planning process as we assess the effectiveness of approaches and activities in staffing that could have an impact on the representativeness of the public service.
[English]
We have taken action and continue to do so in a number of areas, and we are making progress. According to the latest statistics available for fiscal year 2002-03, there has been an improvement in the representation of each designated group from the year before. Representation of visible minorities rose from 6.8 per cent to 7.4 per cent. Representation of persons with disabilities rose from 5.3 per cent to 5.6 per cent and representation of Aboriginal people rose from 3.8 per cent to 3.9 per cent. Representation of Aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities in the federal public service workforce was above workforce availability. However, more needs to be done. As well, the representation of persons in a visible minority group was below workforce availability.
In many departments and agencies there is a lack of alignment of employment equity plans with organizational planning. While the Embracing Change Action Plan has improved representation, the achievement of the benchmarks is slow. In particular, for the public service to achieve the benchmark established for executive level appointments, departmental efforts must be more focused and planned. The Employment Equity Program for Executives, when used, has contributed to the increased number of entry level appointments to the EX group. In my view, employment equity must be integrated into everyday business, starting with plans and priorities. It is unacceptable to treat it as an add-on or an afterthought.
Madam Chair, I would be happy to answer the questions the committee may have. Thank you for your attention.
Senator Carstairs: Thank you very much for the presentation. There was some good news included and that is positive.
My concern is that we are doing relatively well in hiring in all of the groups with the exception of visible minorities — and you yourself have said we have 10 per cent but we need to move to 20 per cent. My concern really is the EX level and that I still do not see the kind of representation required, even of women, in that group. Can you give us more detail about your specific policies for ensuring employment equity? I would like to know particularly a little more about how successful you have been on the diverse selection boards, which I think is critical. If they do not see — for lack of a better expression — their own kind on the selection board, we know that getting the position becomes that much more difficult.
Ms. Barrados: Thank you for the question. While we have made a lot of progress in the hiring, we actually have not done quite well enough, because to try to meet that target of one in five, we have to do better than the 10 per cent level we have now for the visible minority group. That is really where we have the large under-representation. You are quite right, the worry here is in the EX category, and we are getting people in there, but not enough.
We tried to establish a separate program whereby we are encouraging people to bring in groups. There are a number of ways that they can do that. One of the things we are encouraging people to do is target some of the recruitment activities, so you can use a section of our legislation to limit the competition to people from visible minorities. When those kinds of tools have been used, they have been quite successful.
There are some other initiatives. There is one in two new departments. It used to be HRDC. They have undertaken an interesting initiative whereby they systematically recruited and qualified a group of people to go into a set of executive positions, and they got an impressive group of people from designated groups to move into those positions. Our concern is that these kinds of tools are not used broadly enough. Therefore, there is selectivity in how they are used.
I know we have had good experience with the selection boards, but maybe Mr. Gauld or Ms. Green has more detail on the specifics of those selection boards.
Ms. Paula Green, Director General, Equity and Diversity Public Service Commission: Good evening. Regarding the diversity of selection boards, we have had quite a bit of success in terms of using them for EX competitions. We find that that will make the employment equity candidates feel more comfortable in front of the selection board members.
However, we are faced with a difficulty in respect of higher level positions because we do not have a critical mass of equity group members that we can call on.
One initiative that we are looking at is to have more of our EX staffing experts from equity groups sit as members on the selection boards, which will make a difference.
Mr. Greg Gauld, Vice-President, Merit Policy & Accountability, Public Service Commission: I might add that considerable work was done with some of the extra funding we received over the previous years to establish inventories of board members, not specifically for EX positions, but for other positions where there will be visible minority candidates.
Senator Carstairs: I have another question that may be impossible to answer. In my experience with many members of the visible minority community, English is often their second language, particularly outside of the province of Quebec. In cases where the PSC is meeting its bilingual criteria, those people are learning a third language.
Have you found that that has caused difficulty for some individuals applying for and being granted positions at the EX level?
Ms. Barrados: Yes, that is an issue. We recruit roughly 60 per cent of the jobs that require English only and 40 per cent of the jobs that require both official languages, bilingual imperative or non-imperative, but mostly imperative.
The number is much higher for the executive groups, of course, as the new policy is being put in place. Currently, all ADMs are required to be bilingual on an imperative basis, which means they must have a level of French at the time of accepting the appointment. That will be the case for all EX-3s next year and then two years later it will apply to EX-2s as well.
Visible minorities entering the public service at the junior levels will have had opportunities to learn French. I am told that if they are interested and committed, the training is available and they do succeed in learning French. It becomes much more difficult for people who have entered more recently and are looking for senior positions. Of course, the tendency, by and large, is for them to seek out the bilingual non-imperative jobs or the English-only jobs. That tends to be where they concentrate, but those positions are available. In the non-imperative jobs, you have two years to learn French.
Senator LeBreton: I have a follow-up to Senator Carstairs' question and then I have two other questions. Could you expand on the phrase ``promoting the use of diverse selection boards?'' Is it a board within the Public Service Commission or is it within departments? How are the members of these selection boards determined? How do you apply them in terms of hiring, especially, visible minorities?
Ms. Barrados: In the nomination of individuals to the public service, we expect a process to be followed that most often includes a formal selection board. For the senior appointments, such as the EX1-3 categories, the Public Service Commission has a member on those boards. For the EX-4s and 5s, the Leadership Network has a member on those boards. Those particular processes are still approved, in terms of the strategy and the resulting nominations, by the Public Service Commission.
The other members are from the departments. There is guidance to departments on how that is done. The Public Service Commission and the Leadership Network are not directly involved. However, there is an expectation that a formal process will occur, and we are providing guidance and suggestions to ensure that the selection boards are more diverse, and by having a pool of people available to sit on those boards.
This is difficult at the senior level because all ADM appointments are made by boards of deputies. As you know, we do not have many visible minority deputy ministers.
Senator LeBreton: My question is specifically related to a statement in your brief that ``We have an Employment Equity Directorate with a budget of $880,000.'' How does that compare to the funds available for other budgets where similar mandates are in place?
Ms. Barrados: This is reasonably modest. I had put the other numbers in the statement about the millions of dollars in place for Embracing Change. That was $2.4 million on the mainstream initiative. Now we have Ms. Green's group, which is more of a champion for these issues and making sure it is part of our ongoing work. We have had that shift.
As I suggested in the opening statement, we have accomplished a great deal with the monies and the initiatives we had. Time will tell if we have actually pulled out too quickly in terms of the special initiative. I am hopeful that by having a group that always champions this, we can make it part of the policies, part of the new frameworks that are in place, part of everything that we do. We ask that it be part of it and we will push the agenda all the time.
Senator LeBreton: Was this a stand-alone, one-time budget?
Ms. Barrados: The $880,000 is in our base and it is ongoing.
Senator LeBreton: Is that annually?
Ms. Barrados: Yes.
Senator LeBreton: There has been much controversy recently, and it has been quite prevalent over the years, about the recruitment of potential public servants from across the country. I would think this is particularly relevant when it comes to visible minorities, because in some areas of Canada there are many more people who, I am sure, would appreciate the opportunity to work in the federal public service. Do you have an active recruitment program for positions in Ottawa, the National Capital Region and in other communities?
Ms. Barrados: Yes, this is an issue of some concern. I have to confess that at most of the committees I attend, someone asks me about this and chides me for not moving fast enough. The issue is that the Public Service Commission has the power in its legislation to use an element of recruitment called ``area of selection,'' which limits the pool from which you allow people to apply.
There are more federal public servants in Ottawa than in areas outside. You will see a number of job posters that limit the area of selection to the Ottawa area. Members of Parliament have expressed their unhappiness and concern that this does not fully open up jobs for people in the rest of Canada.
Thus, we have ensured that all EX positions are open to all Canadians. There is no restriction on the area from which one can apply. We have expanded that to include the next two professional levels. That still means there are many attractive jobs with the area-of-selection limitations. As well, we have encouraged broadening of the area of selection — the pool — to include visible minorities. We are aware that it can limit visible minorities so we have tried to expand it.
The larger problem that we have to address is volume. Many of the jobs in the public service, even some of the junior jobs, are viewed as attractive. They are well paying, secure and interesting positions, and so we receive hundreds and hundreds of applications. As an employer in the federal government, we have to treat each application in the same way; we cannot draw randomly or simply pick someone. We have to look at each application completely and thoroughly. We are moving to automating that process. Once we have a system in place, then people from across Canada can apply. We will be able to reduce the number to a manageable level through automation and then deal with those people individually. We are on track to do that and it has been an interesting challenge. I have approval from the Treasury Board for the project development plans and we have the specialists. I hear the members and I am trying to get this done as quickly as possible, but we can only proceed at a certain rate.
Senator LeBreton: If it is expanded, then your chances of recruiting more people and bringing the numbers up would be much greater?
Ms. Barrados: Yes.
Senator Oliver: Welcome, Ms. Barrados. I have had an opportunity to meet and talk with you on several occasions about these issues. I thank you for the excellent presentation you made today.
One of your references was to the Public Service Modernization Act. Now that that act has been passed, there have been a number of changes in what was once called the Public Service Commission. The commission that you are in charge of today is very different from the commission that existed a year or two ago.
In terms of diversity and the employment equity field, you now have three main functions: audit, monitoring and investigative. I have three questions.
First, in terms of your auditing function, which is a principal function of the revived and changed Public Service Commission, what have your audits revealed about systemic problems for visible minorities in the public service since you took over?
My second question relates to the funding for the embracing change initiative. Mr. Perinbam produced a wonderful report for the Government of Canada and for Canadians. In it, as you have told us, he said that there must be one visible minority in each five new hires. Visible minorities are at almost 15 per cent in Canada today, and the number of visible minorities in the public service is barely over 7 per cent; in the executive category it is an embarrassment, it is so low. Has the funding been exhausted, and will it be renewed? The Government of Canada announced two years ago that this one-in-five policy was a part of government policy and they would enforce it. How can they enforce it if there is no funding?
Third, you have what are called delegation agreements with department ministers. It is my opinion that if there is to be a change in a department and someone is to say, ``There are not enough women, visible minorities or Aboriginals in this department, I want it changed,'' the person who can say that with effect is the deputy minister. You as the head of the Public Service Commission have a real power over a deputy minister. I would like you to explain to us what power you have and how you will enforce your delegation agreements with deputy ministers to ensure that the need and the requirement for equal treatment for visible minorities in all departments is met.
Ms. Barrados: I will start, and then I will ask Mr. Gauld to fill in some of the details here, because you have asked some fundamental questions about the Public Service Commission and the direction in which we are going.
First, with respect to audit and our findings in terms of systemic problems for visible minorities, when I joined the commission a year ago, we had three auditors on staff, and they were not doing audits. The priority has been to get some auditors. We have accomplished that.
Senator Oliver: How many do you have now?
Ms. Barrados: We now have 18, with more coming on board, so we will be around the 20 mark. They have not come all at once, obviously. We have had some issues on the table with which we have had to deal. We have had to deal with the continuing implications of the work in the Privacy Commission and following through on that, because there was removal of authorities and conditions put on delegations. We had to deal with the audits of the Military Police Complaints Commission because we had a large number of complaints and a number of problems there. I have had a very small group with low capacity.
That is all by way of saying that we do not have any of those kinds of audit results yet. Our audit program is ramping up, and the auditors know that this must be one of the items that they look at in their audit work, but at the moment I do not have any audit results that I can put before you.
With respect to embracing change, my colleagues know more about the history of that initiative. My understanding is that the funding ended. The commitment for the money was made. It was a program that ended in 2003. We received a smaller amount of money for this mainstream initiative, and the effort has now gone in another direction. The clerk himself has taken it on as a priority. He has challenged deputy ministers to improve, and they are looking at putting concerns about diversity, and particularly visible minority representation, in all their existing processes, which is what we are trying to do. As I suggested, I think the jury is out on whether that is enough. The Embracing Change External Advisory Group is very active. It meets with us regularly.
Senator Oliver: What has that committee, if it is active, done about getting new funding to follow through on the Perinbam initiative of one in five?
Ms. Barrados: It is active in terms of giving us advice and making the systems work. There are mechanisms, such as the one in HRDC that I mentioned, and which is funded within the department and does not need special money. The issue is whether there is a will to do things.
I am not the one to push for more funding either, something that has to be put to the Treasury Board or the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency, because I feel that within our framework there are things that I can do and we can accomplish.
On the delegation issue, this is where we have to exercise our power more.
Senator Oliver: Could you explain what a delegation agreement is?
Ms. Barrados: We are in the process of transition. We currently have agreements for the delegation of the staffing authorities that are exclusive to the Public Service Commission to deputy ministers. About 90 per cent of the activities in staffing have already been delegated, but there is a very visible 10 per cent for executive recruitment — for example, ministerial priorities and external recruitment — that is still in the hands of the Public Service Commission. This, too, will be delegated as part of the direction under the new law. We are in the process of changing this. Part of that delegation will include obligations on diversity. There will be a specific requirement that goes with the delegation.
The other work we are doing is in terms of the EX group, which I am most worried about because we are not getting the numbers there. You need to have a critical mass to have an impact. I have asked the departments that have not been doing very well in terms of using the powers, the possibilities and the openings that are available to increase the numbers to advise me of their plans for improvement.
Senator Oliver: Can you tell us which those departments are? Would it be departments like Justice or Finance? Can you tell us with whom you have had to speak?
Ms. Barrados: I will ask Mr. Gauld to give you the numbers. We sorted out which ones had been working at achieving the numbers. I think we have a list of the departments to which we sent the letters asking them for their plans and how they were doing. It is in the book somewhere. If we do not have it right now, we will send that list to you. We have received some unsatisfactory answers, such as, ``We do not have any.''
Senator LeBreton: I agree that is not satisfactory.
Ms. Barrados: That is not a satisfactory answer. We have had some people say, ``Well, we will get back to you later.'' At least one department did get back to me later and produced a good plan, and I know they did it in response to my letter, but that is all right. That is good. We have a few that I would describe as taking it a little lightly.
We are following up to ensure that it is taken seriously. Everyone saw it. We are going through and analyzing all of these. I will go back to each of those deputy ministers to raise the issue specifically and remind them of all the things that can be done and the kinds of initiatives and options that are available to them. I will have a chat with the clerk as well about those departments where I do not feel it is being taken all that seriously. I intend to put it in my annual report to Parliament.
That is the kind of thing we are doing now before the changes in the delegations. That will be done this year.
We will make it a condition of the delegation agreements to monitor that and follow up with an audit.
Senator Oliver: Will you include a monetary sanction?
Ms. Barrados: I do not have a monetary sanction exactly, but I have a way to sanction. One sanction that the Public Service Commission can use is to put conditions on the delegation. A further sanction that we can use is to do assessments of the performance of the departments. I intend to make those part of the assessment process for deputy minister performance. Thus, I will provide the system that does those performance assessments. I also have the vehicle of reporting publicly to Parliament.
Mr. Gauld, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Gauld: We do not have the list of those 18 departments with us, but we can get that. One of the interesting facts that came out is that the departments from which we have received reports so far — and it is not all 18 — out of the 171 EX vacancies that they were planning to staff in the short term, they only identified six for which they would be using special targeting measures aimed at visible minorities.
Senator Oliver: Is that the four target groups?
Mr. Gauld: I am referring here to visible minorities. That is one of the reasons, as the president has mentioned, that we are getting back to them.
The Chairman: Will you be able to table that letter with us and the list of departments?
Ms. Barrados: I can send you a copy of the letter that I sent to the departments, and I can also send you a list of the departments that I sent it to. In all fairness to the process, I must do the analysis to ensure that they have it right. Sometimes, officials will send me something and not realize this will result in something going back to their deputy. Some of that must occur first.
The Chairman: I appreciate that you are beginning the process, but it would be helpful to start with the letters.
Ms. Barrados: Yes, absolutely.
Senator Poy: I wish to follow up on Senator Oliver's question. You said you have delegation agreements with departments. I have in mind specifically CIDA, Foreign Affairs and Canadian Heritage. From what we can see, they might expect to be more representative, given the nature of their work and clientele.
Can you be more specific about what you have told these departments they need to do to bring about more diversity?
Ms. Barrados: I will get Mr. Gauld to respond with the specifics, because he knows more about the details.
Citizenship and Immigration generally has good representation numbers. The others are not at the top of my list of those with good representation, but that does not necessarily mean that there is an issue. I have to go through the exercise. Health is another one that has done well.
Mr. Gauld can add something about the audit.
Senator Poy: Let us start with Canadian Heritage.
Mr. Gauld: For a couple of years, Canadian Heritage has had a strategic executive staffing plan. They give us the detailed plan and we give them the authorities to proceed, with en bloc approval to staff those positions. They have provided for many targeted staffing situations. They have been taking proactive measures to raise their representation in the EX ranks, with our assistance, using the SES, strategic executive staffing.
Foreign Affairs is one of the departments subject to the new comprehensive staffing audits this year. The audit people will go in there shortly to look at that. They have some distinctive staffing regimes because of the nature and history of the department.
We were discussing CIDA on our way over. They are not at the top of the list, but you could refer to the Treasury Board annual report on employment equity in the federal public service. That report gives the latest official representation figures for all the designated groups across departments. That would be where we would go for that information. We do not keep the population figures. We are more concerned with the flows; that is, how many people are appointed in a given year. The official representation figures come from the Public Service Human Resource Management Agency of Canada.
Senator Poy: Do you have any figures on visible minorities at the executive level of Canadian Heritage?
Mr. Gauld: We would not have the definitive figures on the number of EXs. That would have to come from the department or agency. We could tell you roughly how many people identify themselves as visible minorities for the purposes of targeted recruitment. However, in many cases, people may not identify for the purposes of an EX competition. The numbers that we have normally are not definitive until we check with the agency to see their numbers.
Senator Poy: Is it possible to get that information?
Mr. Gauld: We could certainly make that request of the agency.
Ms. Barrados: We could take a look. It goes without saying that I would be amazed if it is all right.
Senator Poy: From my experience, I do not think it is.
Ms. Barrados: It is not all right across government. We know that in the EX population, we do not have enough visible minorities.
Senator Poy: What is ``EX,'' is that ``executive?''
Ms. Barrados: Yes. EX-1 to 5 are all of the executives. We know that there are not enough visible minorities in that group. We know that we are not hiring enough and we know that we do not have enough special programs to increase the numbers. I am not satisfied. It is not good enough. We must do better.
Senator Poy: I also wish to follow up on the question asked by Senator Carstairs. She was talking about visible minorities and language requirements. You said that 60 per cent of the executives use mainly English; 40 per cent must be fluently bilingual. Is that the top executive level?
Ms. Barrados: No, that is for all public servants.
Senator Poy: I will go further. As a country, we depend on new immigrants to fill our labour needs. Most new immigrants for the past decade were from Asia and, therefore, they are visible minorities, and most of them are completely fluent, especially those in the labour force, in only one official language. I have looked into it, and they mostly speak English. The figures are 43.44 per cent speak English fluently and 4.65 per cent speak French fluently.
How do bilingual requirements, in particular for the executive categories, and for new hires, impact on visible minority promotions?
The trend for visible minorities is going up and they will be almost 20 per cent of the Canadian population by 2016. This immigration trend is expected to continue and our labour force will be increasingly dependent on new immigrants as retirements occur; 47 per cent of the public service is eligible to retire within the next 10 years. By 2011, all net labour growth in Canada will be due to immigration.
What does the government intend to do to enhance the competitiveness of the public service in attracting the labour resources available? I would like to know what your plans are.
Ms. Barrados: That is a good set of issues. In our annual report, we talked about our concern about the capacity to recruit, and to recruit aggressively, for what we expect to see in the demographic shift.
The situation currently, which I suspect will continue, is that there are many jobs where this is not really an issue. A large number of people are applying for many jobs in the public service. However, some jobs are more specialized, more knowledge-based, and which form the leadership. I think there will be much tighter competition there.
We at the Public Service Commission are dividing up our remaining functions and developing what I call a quasi- autonomous unit that will entail the people now doing that external recruitment becoming more of a recruitment organization, focusing on recruitment of the best-qualified people for public service jobs. We are moving in that direction.
With regard to language, we have to balance things, because our official languages policy states that we must provide services to Canadians in their choice of official language, and that we must provide supervision of staff in their choice of official language. It is an obligation of the public service to manage itself in that way and to provide those services.
The issue is then how to deal with people who have not had the opportunity to learn the official language that is not their mother tongue. There are some francophones who have trouble with English. In that regard, there are a couple of things that we must do. First, we must do better than we are currently at providing training opportunities for people to enter the public service before they hit the requirements for a bilingual job. At the entry level, people can easily come into the public service in an English-only job. Those people should be given the opportunity, and should be encouraged, to take French training before it becomes a requirement for promotion or for another job. We must do that.
We must also ensure that we provide training for those with neither an English nor a French background to learn the language, because they do not have the same starting point as those of us who were educated in Canada. The language school and the psychology assessment centre are making good progress in ensuring that the people who take the training do succeed.
The area of most concern to me is how we work it for the executive group. There we have the vehicle of non- imperative staffing. We have imperative and non-imperative staffing. Entry into the executive group will continue to be possible via non-imperative staffing. That means that if people are willing and committed to learning French, they can get the jobs and then go on French training. The other way to get people from the outside into the executive group is to give them two years to learn French.
We must ensure that these systems work well for us and that we use them to bring in people from visible minorities. We must get the representation in the public service, but we must also continue to meet the official languages requirements and obligations.
Senator Poy: When you recruit, do you go to communities where the visible minorities are? There is always a barrier. If you do not go to them, in many cases they feel that no one wants them and there is no point in trying. It is even more important for government to go out there to recruit.
Ms. Barrados: The Public Service Commission has 16 district and regional offices from coast to coast. These offices have done the bulk of the outreach work and implemented the programs I discussed in my opening statement in terms of encouraging people to apply and sensitizing departments to forming panels.
We have succeeded in increasing the number of applicants, so we have a disproportionate rate of applications from visible minorities. Unfortunately, we are not getting them into the jobs. We have done well in terms of getting the interest and the applications. We just do not see that reflected in the number of hires.
Senator Poy: Senator Oliver was asking whether you assess individual performance. I think you were talking about departments. Does the public service examine the best practices of the private sector in promoting diversity? The private sector is very successful in doing this. As an example, at BMO, the bonuses are tied to meeting the diversity targets. Does the government do that?
Ms. Barrados: That is a good question for the clerk, who will be doing the assessment of the deputy ministers. I would assume that he would make it a priority to assess them with performance pay in mind, but I am not part of that system. I am the independent agent of Parliament. It is a good question for him.
With regard to your question on experience from the private sector, Ms. Green has been involved in working with the Conference Board and can perhaps respond to that.
Ms. Green: Senator Oliver is probably more familiar with the Conference Board study. We are one of the participants. We find that we are facing the same barriers in both the private and public sectors, namely, advancement into the executive category. Getting rid of those barriers is contingent on the individual and the organization. Senior leadership is extremely important. At the summit in Toronto, we heard the statement: ``If it matters to my boss, then it matters to me,'' in terms of making it happen.
We set a good example when we hire visible minorities. Once these employees are in, we must ensure that the organization provides a welcoming environment to retain them. It is also important for individual members of the equity groups to commit to developing themselves, to take advantage of the career development opportunities, form networks and mentor newcomers.
Senator Poy: You mentioned leadership. It seems that there is more leadership in the private sector, because their percentage is much better than in the public sector. It is a matter of committing to doing this.
Ms. Green: They are a bit better overall, but I do not think it is that much different in the senior ranks.
[Translation]
Senator Losier-Cool: I liked your presentation very much, particularly the last sentence, on page 6. It states that employment equity must be integrated into everyday business. That is so true.
For people looking for employment, checking the website is by far the most important everyday activity. However, increasingly, jobs posted on the website allow only current employees to apply.
To what extent is this a common practice? If it is a common practice, might it not also limit the employment opportunities for groups such as women and visible minorities who are looking for jobs?
Ms. Barrados: The act now requires that people be appointed to new positions from inside the public service, rather than opening up this opportunity to people outside the public service. This is going to change. Of course, when we get a high retirement rate, this will change as well.
As I said, this challenge is also present because of the limitations on areas of selection. We want to change that.
Mr. Gauld: Under the current act, we have to justify external recruitment. We have to start by seeing whether it is possible to fill a position from inside the public service. This provision is not in the new act, which will come into effect in December 2005.
We have to get used to looking for employees within the public service. There is also a practice of hiring term employees. As we mentioned in our annual report, managers often find it easier to hire a term employee locally and then make that person permanent. The result is that managers look for permanent employees from the local pool. In Ottawa, where there may be fewer visible minorities, people from the region are the ones who become permanent employees.
A great deal of external recruitment is done in this way. That is one of the findings in the commission's annual report — it is one of the things we have to correct. We have many people recruited from outside the public service, and thus have a good representation of visible minorities, through programs such as the Post-Secondary Recruitment Program. This program is not used very much by the departments. Often departments prefer to hire employees temporarily, and later make them permanent.
Senator Losier-Cool: What are the weaknesses of the new act that will be come into effect in 2005, which are not helpful with respect to the employment equity legislation?
Ms. Barrados: We are not talking about a weakness. We are in a transition period at the moment, and the new legislation will be enforced around the end of 2005. I think it is an improvement to have the option of holding more competitions open to everyone.
I do not think this use of the Post-Secondary Recruitment Program has to do with the act, it is, rather, a custom. People are not prepared to do the necessary planning or use this program. They want to do things in their own way, for the short term. This practice is easier, but the consequences of it are negative.
[English]
The Chairman: I just have a few questions. You have 18 or 20 auditors and you have not yet got their results; you are just starting. When do you anticipate having a sufficient series of audits that you can make some assessments?
Ms. Barrados: I expect that when we release our annual report next year, which as you know has to come two or three weeks after Parliament comes back in the fall, there will be at least three or four new audits in addition to a tracking of the audits that we have in place. We cannot just go in one time and walk away. We actually do have to be somewhat persistent. As my friend Sheila Fraser says, you have to nag.
The Chairman: I have a follow-up question to Senator Losier-Cool's on the new Public Service Modernization Act. There was much discussion at the time that act was passed that there may be regional disparities, and that delegating downward may produce the opposite of what you have said — in other words, that with more regional delegation, the awareness of the boss watching from close by will be dissipated rather than strengthened.
How do you ensure that this act, with its downward delegation and greater discretion at these various levels, will not lead to more difficulty with respect to issues such as women in the public service, visible minorities, et cetera? What I am referring to is that if there is a will, there is always a way around the rules. It has taken years to identify the problems and now we will put in a new system. Do you not expect that we will weaken what we have already accomplished?
Ms. Barrados: That is a legitimate concern. As we were having the discussions and the debates about the new legislation, it came down to a decision to go with delegation; but delegation has to come with a strong system of accountability.
As you know, at the time that the legislation was being discussed, there was an issue about whether or not the appointment authority should actually stay with the Public Service Commission, and the decision was that it should. It was decided that way because there was no consensus of where else it should be placed, and it was felt that it should be kept separate and apart from the executive.
The act gives the Public Service Commission direction to delegate, but with that delegation comes a strong direction to make accountability work, which means that we are going through a formal process of delegation. There is an understanding about what the law says we are to do and what I am delegating. These will be formal agreements. We are having these drafted now and are going through a consultation process. We are trying to move away from agreements that were very thick to short, crisp front-page statements with a lot of detail behind, so that deputies will read them and understand what they are taking on.
With it must come real monitoring and real audit, because otherwise, there will not be the focus and attention on these things that there should be. We are committed to following through. We will do the delegation, but we will be putting resources into monitoring and auditing, and we will be using the tools we have, which are placing or removing conditions on delegation agreements and making reports. We will be making internal and external reports.
The Chairman: You have stated before on the record that you see yourself as an officer of Parliament, not necessarily the same as the Auditor General or the Privacy Commissioner, but with a mandate to report to Parliament. After reflecting on that, do you see any benefits from a committee such as ours continuing to have a dialogue or an annual review — or even more often — with you on the topics that we are raising today?
Ms. Barrados: Senator, I would welcome that very much. It is important to have the discussions with committees of Parliament. The numbers of things we have to do are huge. We have many departments, many details and many transactions to worry about. Discussions such as this help us focus and remind us of what the priorities are here. I can assure you that the conversations I have had with Senator Oliver make me ask people, ``Now, remember, what would Senator Oliver think?''
That is why these discussions are good. Absolutely, Madam Chair, I would welcome the opportunity to come back and to have these discussions regularly.
The Chairman: Our concern about discrimination and employment equity comes from our sense of justice and fairness, which comes from our laws and our obligations. Do you factor into your processes within the commission our international obligations on these issues of equity and equality?
Ms. Barrados: I am not sure what you have in mind. Our obligations are very much toward staffing and appointments within the public service, and getting the right people into the jobs. I am not sure what these international obligations are.
The Chairman: What I am getting at is, to build a culture of respect for diversity and minorities and the issues and concepts of justice and equality, one has to look at the background. It is our commitment to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; it is our commitment to our international obligations. How do you go about convincing the civil service of the importance of this issue in our national context and the international context?
Ms. Barrados: It is a challenge. We do it by having these kinds of committees meetings and discussions, by doing our work, by making reports on areas that are going well, the good examples, and putting pressure on the people who are not doing so well.
I certainly take the opportunity, whenever I am speaking to an international group, to talk about our issues and how we are taking them on. We use all those kinds of platforms.
It is an ongoing commitment; and as I said, it must be a regular part of business, because we will never succeed if we just say, oh, today is the day we do this. It has to permeate everything we do. We are taking these appointment authority frameworks and are very much, as I said in my opening comments, using that equity and diversity lens to make sure that what we are encouraging things in the right direction.
Senator Pearson: As an example of what Senator Andreychuk talked about, we will be appearing at the U.N., on ``Beijing plus 10,'' where we will be asked about gender-based analysis. The way this was presented at Beijing itself is that all departments, all ministries, all people who relate to Parliament have a tool called gender-based analysis. The question is do you use that tool in quite a specific way?
Ms. Barrados: Ms. Green is saying yes, so I will have her explain.
Ms. Green: We do use the gender-based analysis tool when we formulate our policies, plans and priorities.
Senator Oliver: I have two questions. One of them is a technical question, and I do not expect you to answer it now, but I would like, if possible, a written answer later. It deals with the way that census coders and Stats Canada officials prepare their questionnaires for workforce availability. The methodology used is called WAM, which means workforce availability methods. Currently, the WFA method significantly understates employment availability for the EE- designated groups, particularly for visible minorities. The WFA method establishes a systemic barrier to employment for visible minorities, more than for any other EE group, and employment opportunities for current and future generations are therefore at stake.
Could you look into whether or not this assertion or allegation is correct and the basis for it?
Madam Chair, I would like to ask one more question. One phrase that is often used when people are talking about the work of the Public Service Commission, Treasury Board and others, is recruitment and staffing. It has been my experience on the Hill that recruitment is not really the big job, because there is a huge pool of eligible, talented and able visible minorities ready to be promoted into the EX category. Therefore, recruitment is not as big a job as staffing and retention.
In terms of retention, a number of people have said that if you had an environment in the public service of Canada where if you are of a different religion than most Canadians, or if you have different cultural habits from most Canadians, there was a cultural system in place to accept and respond to those with different religious and cultural needs, it would help to retain these talented visible minorities. Could you tell me what types of systems are now in place through the Public Service Commission to ensure the cultural training that is required in these circumstances is available?
I know that you met recently with Jacqueline Edwards of the National Council of Visible Minorities, and she has been promoting for some time appointing a commissioner of diversity in Canada to help with the problems of visible minorities and the public service. This commissioner would work out of the PCO. What is your view on such a commissioner, and would it overlap with your current job?
Ms. Barrados: On the first issue, the question of the workforce availability, I understand that the Public Service Human Resource Management Agency is revising that because there is this concern about the numbers. I am told that they are coming out with revised numbers within a month.
Ms. Green: When the annual report comes out.
Ms. Barrados: They will be doing that in their annual report, and I think there is a recognition of that. Some of those preliminary numbers I saw do in fact support that.
On your second question, the issue of staffing recruitment and retention, I agree with you that there is a good pool of people out there. However, the Public Service Commission's authority is one of appointments. A number of the other human resource management issues are not with the Public Service Commission. My remit in this area of employment equity is to do a better job, and get the system to do a better job, of getting representation of the people who come in the door. The retention and human resource management of the system is not my area. It is the responsibility of the agency. They are the better ones to do that.
I agree that there are probably many people who feel they are ready for EX jobs, but often they do not quite have the necessary experience. I believe that we have to bring those people in and make sure they get the background and the experience so they will be a success.
EX jobs in the Government of Canada tend to carry a large responsibility for financial and human resource management. In my previous job and my current job, I have seen and do see too many difficulties with people who do not have that background. You want them to succeed. We have to think in terms of, if we are bringing those people in, we must give them the opportunity to get the training so they will be successful and stay. Otherwise, obviously, they will be frustrated and leave.
On your issue of a commissioner of diversity, that is an interesting question. We have now a number of players in this entire area. Before adding a new player, I would want to be satisfied that the current players are doing their jobs. We have the Public Service Commission, which has all kinds of authorities and levers to pull in terms of the appointments. We have the Human Rights Commission. We have the employer, the Treasury Board. We have the Public Service Human Resource Management Agency; and we have an adviser on diversity issues, based at the school, and she also advises the clerk.
We have all these players. I am not sure an additional person would move the agenda forward. In my opinion, you have to make the case that you have a particular issue that you cannot fix with what is currently in place, because you can tweak a lot of things that are currently in place before you need to create something new.
The Chairman: Thank you for coming and being so open and frank in entering into this dialogue. I trust that it will be the first of many as we continue to grapple with this issue from our perspective of discrimination and impediments that we would want to remove from the system; and I am sure you are on the same wavelength. Thank you for your time and for your expertise in coming before the committee.
Senator Carstairs: In terms of some of the excellent testimony that we heard, one item came up that is slightly outside of our mandate. That was the suggestion, of course, that the Clerk of the Privy Council should be asked whether bonuses for deputy ministers should be tied to a diversity strategy. I would like us to consider, although not today, whether we should broaden our mandate to include the Clerk of the Privy Council by way of a letter, on the basis of what has been said, to elicit a response.
We need time to mull that over, so I am not asking for a decision today.
The Chairman: We did put in — ``from time to time the President of the Treasury Board, the President of the Public Service Commission, their officials, as well as other witnesses...'' I leave you to ponder that.
I would also like the committee to consider whether we wish other witnesses to come forward on this issue before we put out any report, and also whether there are any specific recommendations from the committee that we should start incorporating into our report.
We have Mr. Alcock coming probably some time next week. We have not confirmed it. The time slots when he was available are a little difficult for us and he has some operational committee meetings that I think are justifiable. I did not want to have him at times that he was available that would conflict with all other committees that senators sit on. So I am trying to find a spot. However, we are tentatively looking at Tuesday, December 7. If it means seeking leave to hear Mr. Alcock when the Senate is sitting, I propose to do that. Hopefully that will be fine. Otherwise, he has already indicated that he would perhaps be available at 7:00 p.m. on December 7, but there is a conflict with other committees. To avoid that, and since it will be out of our usual time slot, it would perhaps be better if we could encourage him to come mid-afternoon.
Senator LeBreton: I will say now, in connection with my new duties as the whip, we normally do not like to meet outside our slots except when there is a minister appearing. If you give notice in the Senate, it is the one instance where we have gone beyond the bounds of our regular sitting times.
The Chairman: We should have this by tomorrow. In all fairness, he has been throwing dates back and forth to us.
Senator Oliver: He is appearing before the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance in a month and a half.
The Chairman: We will attempt to continue this study. If we meet on the 7, it may mean that we will not then have the committee meeting on the 6, unless we can get witnesses for some of the other studies.
The committee adjourned.