OGGO Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

¹

1540

The Chair (Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.))

Mr. Jim Judd (Secretary of the Treasury Board and Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat)

¹

1545

¹

1550

¹

1555

º

1600

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Jim Judd

º

1605

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Ken Epp

º

1610

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ)

M. Jim Judd

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron

º

1615

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron

The Chair

Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.)

º

1620

Mr. Jim Judd

º

1625

Ms. Carolyn Bennett

Mr. Jim Judd

Ms. Carolyn Bennett

The Chair

Ms. Carolyn Bennett

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.)

º

1630

Mr. Jim Judd

Ms. Raymonde Folco

Mr. Jim Judd

Ms. Raymonde Folco

º

1635

Mr. Jim Judd

Ms. Raymonde Folco

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.)

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Paul Szabo

º

1640

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. Jim Judd

º

1645

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. Jim Judd

The Chair

º

1650

Mr. Jim Judd

The Chair

Mr. Jim Judd

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp

º

1655

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Jim Judd

»

1700

The Chair

Mr. Jim Judd

The Chair

Mr. Jim Judd

The Chair

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron

»

1705

Mr. Jim Judd

»

1710

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron

Mr. Jim Judd

The Chair

Mr. Jim Judd

The Chair

Mr. Jim Judd

»

1715

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ)

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo

»

1720

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp

Ms. Raymonde Folco

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

»

1725

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

The Chair

Ms. Raymonde Folco

The Chair

---

CANADA

Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

---

NUMBER 011

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

---

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹  (1540)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.)): Let's call this meeting to order.

    For the information of members, we said at the last meeting that now Bill C-25 has passed the House and is coming to us, we are calling a meeting for 9 o'clock on Thursday to hear the minister on the bill. We've ask the various parties to put forward their lists of potential witnesses. We have one from the Bloc. We have a list of witnesses who have already indicated their interest in appearing. I believe Mr. Forseth has been consulted, because he and Mr. Cullen were doing the work in the subcommittee on this bill. We're trying to put together the major list of witnesses now, so we can get them all in. We'll take a few minutes at the end of this meeting to sign off on that first round, so that we can get people lined up after the recess.

    Today, on this issue of new public management, changes in the management of our public service, we have before us one of the pre-eminent members in that particular discussion, the Secretary of the Treasury Board, Mr. James Judd. Mr. Judd, as is the practice here--I'm sure you've been before many committees in your career--would you make your opening remarks? Then we'll jump to questions

    Mr. Jim Judd (Secretary of the Treasury Board and Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[Translation]

    Mr. Chairman, if you will, I will address three issues today. First, we will look at how the federal public service changed since 1993, that is, over the last 10 years. Second, I will explain why, in my view, the public service had to change in the past. And third, I will look towards the future to outline the future challenges of the public service and especially for the Treasury Board Secretariat, of which I am today the Deputy Minister.

[English]

    The first point I'd like to make is that change in the public service has been relatively constant over history, but it has arguably been occurring at a higher tempo in the last decade than hitherto. From my vantage point, there have been six drivers provoking the change in the public service. The first is changing government priorities, and I would highlight three in particular. The most memorable in the last decade in regard to the public service itself was the program review exercise in the mid-1990s, which reduced the overall size of the public service by about 60,000 people in the larger quest to eliminate the federal deficit. Second, I think the government, before, then, and since, had to respond to new priorities, which has led to the development of new programs, new activities, and consequently, further changes in the public service, including growth in selected areas. Third, I think the government over the past decade has tried to respond to a public demand for better management, better service, better performance, better responsiveness in the public service.

    The second factor I would highlight is the broader impact of globalization, the blurring of the lines between what is domestic and what is international, and how the federal public service has tried to respond to that, in both policy and operational terms.

    The third principal driver of change over the last decade has been the impact of information technology in three respects, internal self-administration, operations as a government, and utilization in the delivery of services to Canadians.

    The fourth driver of change has been demography. Over the past decade the population in this country has grown by 8%, it has become more diverse as a consequence of immigration and other factors, and prospects for the future suggest a relatively higher average age and a smaller labour market workforce.

    The fifth driving factor is what I would refer to as the growing complexity of the policy business. Leaving aside the impact of globalization and its impact on the boundaries between international and domestic, more generally, there's been a blurring of boundaries between other policy areas that might be considered purely domestic, between, for example, social policy and economic policy. As well, many of the issues people are called upon to deal with these days, whether in the realm of health or science, are associated with some interesting ethical dilemmas, perhaps more than was ever the case in the past.

    The final driver is what I refer to as changing public and parliamentary values and expectations. I believe Canada, like most other OECD jurisdictions, has witnessed an ongoing decline in institutional deference and trust towards governments, and that's been accompanied by a growing public demand for better service from government, more accountability, more transparency, more effective participation in policy and program development, and better value for money.

    So what have the changes been in the public service over the last ten years? Ten years ago the government reorganized the federal public service in a fairly substantial way, reducing the number of departments from 32 to 23, consolidating a number of previously independent departments in mega-organizations, such as HRDC. Program review in the mid-1990s continued the trend of rationalization, with the elimination of some roles and responsibilities, more downsizing, growth in outsourcing, and the creation of some significant new separate employers, notably the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Parks Canada. Over the course of the decade as well there have been new institutions established responding to new priorities of the government, whether it's the granting councils or new agencies, like the financial transactions monitoring agency that was established several years ago.

¹  (1545)  

    On the size of the public service, at a macro level, the program review exercise of the mid-1990s reduced federal program spending as a proportion of GDP to its lowest level since 1949. It went from about 15.9% in 1993-94 to a projected level of 11.9% in the fiscal year starting April 1 of this year. Overall federal public sector employment was reduced in program review by about 60,000, but through subsequent program review, there has been growth, but not in the same places where the cutting took place necessarily, so that the population todays nets out at about 20,000 fewer than at the time of program review.

    The population of the public service has changed, I think, in three or four respects. First, it's more diverse than it was ten years ago. Today, contrary to ten years ago, women are in the majority in the public service, although not, I would suggest, as well-represented at the senior levels as they might be. Also, employment equity groups' representation in the public service has grown substantially over the last decade, but again not as far as it should to represent current Canadian demography.

    Another change in the work force that has taken place is that it has become more professional, more technical, less administrative, less operational. Essentially, it's become more white-collar, less pink- and blue-collar. If you look at the data for the public service over the past decade, you'll probably notice a reduction of about a third in the population of operational and administrative support staff and a growth in certain occupational groups, most notably IT, which is, I think, the fastest growing population in the federal government.

    Another interesting fact about the public service today is that it is older, on average, than either the private sector or the voluntary sector. That has been a consequence of both the downsizing in the 1990s and an accompanying slowdown in recruitment over the last seven or eight years. It's not only older on average, but proportionally, it has fewer younger people in it than either the voluntary or the private sector in this country today.

    On the operations front, I think I would highlight three things that have characterized change in the public service in this past ten years. First, it has become far more horizontal than it was previously. That is in part a function of policy complexity, globalization, and other factors, but it is an organization now that is much more used to working across departmental jurisdictional boundaries than it was previously. Second, more and more government services and information are provided through information technology, via the Internet, and that has been quite a change for us. In fact, I think the federal government currently ranks at the top of the G-7 in its connectivity with citizens through the Internet. Third, it is an organization that is doing more and more work through partnerships, with international partners, provinces, municipalities, the voluntary sector, the private sector, which again, I think, has had the effect of making the landscape more complex.

¹  (1550)  

    On the management front, there were three issues of change over the last decade. First, as a general proposition, we've moved away from a more central command and control directive system to one in which there has been a more differentiated approach taken towards authorities and responsibilities being passed out from central agencies, my own included, to line departments and agencies. This has been accompanied by a more rigorous approach to improving management practices throughout the system, including initiatives such as the modern comptrollership program, which focuses on risk management control systems, values, ethics, and performance information. It was further reinforced in a document my minister released in 2000, I believe, entitled “Results for Canadians”, which focused attention on values, results, and responsible spending in what was referred to as a citizen focus, meaning we shouldn't forget that the business we're in is about serving Canadian citizens.

    The modern comptrollership initiative, which came about as a consequence of work by a private sector advisory group to the federal government, was initially centred around five departments, but has now been extended to 88 or 89, I think, departments and agencies. Among other things, these initiatives have led to the development of what I would refer to as a new public service lexicon, which now uses phrases and practices such as “managing for results”, “results-based performance”, “risk-management”, “performance indicators and management”, “multi-channel service integration”, “service quality improvement”, “client satisfaction”, “citizen-centred program delivery”, and others, which is to some extent a reflection of the fact that this is actually taking hold in our community. It has resulted as well in mandatory risk-based management frameworks and evaluations for new programs and substantial changes and improvements in reporting on priorities and results.

    The second major change on the management front within the public service over the last decade is that we have started paying much more attention than we had previously to managing people. This has been reflected in a number of developments, including the higher level of activity for the Canadian Centre for Management Development, in professional training and development activities for public servants, the collective management of more senior officials, the establishment of a middle managers network, and more focused development on communities of expertise in the government, financial, human resources, procurement, and others. It's also been accompanied by an effort to further strengthen and build policy capacity in the public service, through initiatives such as the policy research initiative. And most recently, as you said, Mr. Chair, in your opening comments, it has resulted in the tabling in Parliament earlier this month by my minister of the most significant change to human resource management legislation, I think, in the last four decades.

    The third management or cultural change that has taken place over the last decade involves a much more vibrant debate and discussion on values and ethics in the public service. This had its genesis in part in the work the now deceased former deputy minister did in the mid-1990s on the whole issue of values and ethics, and it's a debate that has caught hold throughout the public service in various dimensions and is likely to continue into the future.

¹  (1555)  

    Looking back on the past 10 years, I draw two conclusions from all this. First, there has been considerable change in the system and relatively good adaptation to it. Second, I think it unlikely that the past drivers of change will disappear or abate, although some will obviously have more import for us than others.

    Looking ahead now, and in conclusion, I would say more change is inevitable. New challenges and old ones will continue to arise, and responsiveness to them will be a continuing feature of life for us. For my particular organization, I'm particularly concerned about three change-drivers, demography, technology, and public expectations, and how we manage those in the agenda of the Treasury Board Secretariat on behalf of the public service at large.

    My first preoccupation would be on the demographic front. Depending on whose statistics you use these days, somewhere between 45% and 75% of the executive cadre of the public service will be doing something else by the end of the decade, which creates for us fairly substantial knowledge transfer and succession planning challenges. It's not just the executive cadre, but according to our studies, the three levels below that are also probably facing the same demographics. The legislation that has been tabled, I think, is going to be very significant in allowing us to deal with some of the challenges we're facing in recruitment, staffing, learning, and so on, but the legislation itself is only part of the broader picture we have to pursue, which includes leadership development, much more active work on learning and development, in many dimensions, classification reform, values and ethics, and the supporting human and information technology infrastructure.

    The second challenge relates to parliamentary and public expectations, and is the continuing effort to improve our management practices. Management practices here are defined quite largely. I'll start very quickly with the budget that was tabled last year, which calls upon the Treasury Board Secretariat, as of this year, to lead a systematic cyclical review of all non-statutory spending in programs in the federal government. We have not yet nailed all the details on that down, but it is our expectation that we would proceed on two axes, one looking at organizations specifically, the other at horizontal or sectoral issues. The budget also promised that the Treasury Board Secretariat would work with Parliament and the Auditor General on exploring ways to improve how the government reports, publicly and to Parliament, on its activities, programs, and expenditures. And more generally, we have a need to ensure that management practices and initiatives, like the comptrollership initiative, take root. We also need, I think, to do a better job than we have done in management accountability, frameworks, expectations, incentives, and policies. From my own perspective of the Treasury Board, we have to make sure our own policies are relevant and current.

º  (1600)  

    The final challenge I would highlight relates to information technology, the continuing need for us to pursue what is called the government on-line agenda, which is committed to putting more and more services of the government over the Internet, with a specific target of 2005. But I would say as well that we have some significant work to do within the federal public service looking at our own use of information technology and management, with a view to seeing what rationalizations can be produced in that context.

    That is 10 years of history in a few minutes, and I'll be happy to take any questions you have.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Judd.

    We'll begin with a seven-minute round, starting with Mr. Epp.

    Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Judd, for being here. I want to first clarify for myself what your role is. What's your job?

    Mr. Jim Judd: My title is Secretary of the Treasury Board and Comptroller General of Canada. Practically speaking, I'm a deputy minister of the Department. The Treasury Board Secretariat is an organization of about 1,000 people, referred to as a central agency, that supports a statutory committee of cabinet called the Treasury Board. In general government parlance, I would be Deputy Minister of the Treasury Board Secretariat. I don't know if that helps or not.

    Mr. Ken Epp: Yes. I was hoping you'd get into things you actually do day by day, but maybe that's too detailed. I would like to ask you, though, whether this statement is true. Is it true that the Treasury Board is the overseer of all the financial transactions of the government?

    Mr. Jim Judd: The Treasury Board is sometimes referred to as the management board of government. It has three lines of business, basically. One is stewardship, which is expenditure management, management policies over resources in the government. Our focus is particularly on the A base of the government, existing government spending and expenditure. Our second line of business is in the human resources management area, where we are, among other things, referred to as the employer for part of the public sector, which means we not only establish policies and program requirements for human resource management, but also undertake collective bargaining negotiations with public service unions. And the third line of business is in information technology and improvement of service delivery to Canadians, which these days has a heavy information technology bent to it.

º  (1605)  

    Mr. Ken Epp: So even though there are different departments, like the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, HRDC, and others, that actually do the management of their specific programs, you are the overseer of them. That's what I want to establish.

    Mr. Jim Judd: Yes.

    Mr. Ken Epp: So if anything goes wrong in any of those departments, we should be able to get answers about why it went wrong or how it could have been prevented from you. I need to hear that somebody is in charge.

    Mr. Jim Judd: The Treasury Board, that is to say, the cabinet committee, has oversight of these things. The secretariat supports it. We operate in a devolved system of management responsibility and accountability, so that deputy ministers of line departments are responsible for their management, expenditures, and so on. We set the policy framework and monitor the expenditures and activities in these areas.

    Mr. Ken Epp: The Auditor General has said recently there needs to be a more concerted effort in making sure we get value for the dollars spent, and you mentioned that too. I have three pages of notes from you, for which I thank you. Just how do you do that? I did a rough estimate, and I don't remember the number and I didn't bring my scientific calculator with me today, so I can't recompute it, but it seems to me that if the government expenditures were loonies on a belt, the belt would have to be going at around 800 miles an hour. That's quite a problem, controlling where those dollars go. As the oversight committee, would you not want to have in each department a very stringent control system, so that the money cannot be misspent? How would you propose to achieve that, if your answer is yes?

    Mr. Jim Judd: We, as I said, set the management practices and policies for the government. The expectation in our system, though, is that ministers and deputy ministers in departments will be responsible for the operations, activities, and expenditures of those departments. To the extent that problems arise in organizations, we normally are involved in trying to help work towards the resolution of the problem and to ensure that the problem doesn't arise again.

    Mr. Ken Epp: I'm going to run out of time here, so I just want to jump ahead. If you find out, from whatever source, that there is potential for a billion dollars in GST scams, if you find out that there is a huge cost overrun on a government program, like the gun registry, if you find out that government contracts are being let for which the people's only work is to sign the cheque in order to get paid for a contract, do you guys jump into action, do you sit around, do you have a committee meeting, do you do something when that happens to stop it and make sure, on behalf of Canadian taxpayers, it is managed well?

º  (1610)  

    Mr. Jim Judd: Where the issues are known to us, we would normally intervene. I think the key thing to remember here is that we set the policy framework, the rules, and so on, but the expectation is that the rules and policies will be adhered to by departments and agencies. To the extent that this is not the case, we will intervene and work with the department or the organization in question to rectify the situation as it exists and, in some instances, change the rules framework more broadly as a consequence of the problem that has arisen. I think that is as good an answer as I can give you for the moment.

    Mr. Ken Epp: It's not terribly reassuring.

    Mr. Chairman, I would like to be put on the list for the next round, please.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Epp.

    Monsieur Perron.

[Translation]

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Judd, for being with us today.

    Like Ken, I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the situation. Let me try describing what you do. Based on my understanding, you are a bit like a business comptroller and therefore responsible for staying on top of expenditures. Unfortunately, that is not the way it works within the federal government or in any other government. In the private sector, the question is whether a section is cost effective and profitable, but if the answer is no, measures are taken to correct the situation.

    I apologize for having describe your duties in everyday language, in plain and simple terms.

    M. Jim Judd: To be frank, the analogy you have just made is not bad. We are responsible for the settling of accounts and for government spending policies and activities, as would be a comptroller in a company. We are also responsible for reporting to Parliament on behalf of the government, that is, on behalf of governmental departments and agencies.

    It's a bit like a company in the sense that the various sections of a company are accountable for their own management activities.

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron: I understand. Now, let's start talking about your government. If there is a departmental program which is not working, at what point do you say that the situation must be immediately turn around? Do you wait for the auditor general to tell you that the sky has fallen?

    When everyone realizes that a program is not working, do you have the ability to change the situation? Is that what you do? Are you involved in that process or not?

    Mr. Jim Judd: We don't wait for the auditor general. If we think a departmental program or activity is not working, we usually try to speak with the department to redefine the program's conditions and the monitoring which may follow.

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron: Let me tell you exactly what the problem is. This is serious. Take the fire arms registry, for instance. We had to wait for that situation to be made public. We did not know whether the secretariat was involved or not.

    Or take the heating oil assistance program back in 2000. It is simply unimaginable that the administration of the program cost more than the money which was paid out in grants to people who needed help, even, as it turned out, some of them were deceased, or other such non sense. Take these sponsorship programs. The situation had to be made public and raised by the auditor general before the Treasury Board Secretariat or the Department even appeared willing to correct the situation.

    Why did it take so long and why were things allowed to drag on before the whole thing was switched off and people acknowledged there was a problem and that something had to be done? It is as if to say that the issue was not serious, simply because it only involved money. I don't blame the federal government, but people are getting the impression that governments are spending money as if it were play money or that they don't care because it is not their money. The situation would be different if governments had to become profitable, be held accountable and report on return on investment. Sir, the money invested belong to taxpayers.

    Let me ask you a question. You work for the public service. How many people work for government, including members of Parliament, members of the military and everyone else?

º  (1615)  

    Mr. Jim Judd: As an employer, the Treasury Board is responsible for approximately 167 000 people.

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron: That includes all the people around the table, since we are paid by the taxpayers. Our salary is paid by the taxpayers. How many people's salaries are being paid by how many taxpayers? That was my question. How many people, including those in the army and the post office, are on the taxpayers' payroll? That my question?

    Mr. Jim Judd: With the RCMP, the armed forces, the public service and agencies like Canada Post and...

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron: Along with the foundations and everything else.

    Mr. Jim Judd: It would amount to about 330 000. I can provide you with the figures.

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron: I would like to have this information because I find it amazing. And this is not just limited to the federal government. It also occurs in the provincial and municipal governments. We don't know how many people we have working for us and we try to find out. We ask someone and we get an answer, we ask someone else and we get a different answer. This is certainly an important aspect of the administration of public funds. At the very least I want to know how many people there are on our payroll.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you, Monsieur Perron.

    This is going to be an interesting conversation. I have a few numbers here for you, which we'll add into the mix. I think Mr. Judd shares some of our frustration in not having the instruments that make those answers immediately available. I shouldn't answer for you, Mr. Judd, but having experienced some of the world you live in now, I have rather more sympathy than I once did.

    Madam Bennett.

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.): Thank you.

    You have a reputation of being the best there is in the public service. Obviously, you have a forward-looking candour. There's a culture difference people see in you that is about the future. That being said, you must have some huge frustrations with the culture of the place. You did say some of the things you'd like to see. One of the things we're really interested in at this committee, certainly I am, is the whole horizontal stuff and results-based management. In this “gotcha”, blame game culture we're stuck with here, if we're measuring results across departments, how do we determine where we're getting value for money and the results over all government departments for a goal or objective we're hoping for? PCO says on its website its job is public service management, public service reform, structure and machinery of government. How do you reconcile what your job is supposed to be in fixing this system, from the Treasury Board point of view, when PCO thinks that's what it's doing?

º  (1620)  

    Mr. Jim Judd: On your first question, I would say we still have some way to go towards reaching the state at which we have the kind of effective performance information we need on government programs. I hope that will be partly a result of things like the mandatory evaluations program we put in place for new programs, as well as the drive throughout the public service to better define program results, results of activities, results of expenditures. We are trying at the Treasury Board to promote this within government across the board. We are making progress. It is probably not as fast as you or I would like to see. We're also trying to simultaneously work with departments to present this annually in a different format, including electronically, so that a website for the Government of Canada would allow you to drill down into programs by department and agency and relate them to government priorities and see how they're doing. We're still in the early stage on that, but I do think the general drive is towards much more performance-based, information-based presentation of results and so on.

    On your second question with respect to the Privy Council Office, it's an interesting issue, because the Clerk of the Privy Council, secretary of the cabinet, is legislatively designated as the head of the Public Service. Second, the Privy Council Office plays a particular role in human resource issues in two respects. Because deputy minister and Governor in Council appointments are made by the Prime Minister, the Privy Council Office has a role in advising the Prime Minister on those appointments. And in respect of the legislation that will be coming before the committee on the human resource management reform, the task force that developed it, led by Ranald Quail, actually had a dual accountability structure put in place. One was to the Clerk of the Privy Council, one was to the President of the Treasury Board--not the Secretary of the Treasury Board. So the Privy Council Office does have an ongoing role in respect of the senior level appointments in the public service. The clerk has a larger role as the head of the public service and as the primus inter pares, if you will, of the deputy ministerial community, as the Prime Minister's deputy minister, in setting the policy agenda for deputy ministers and setting performance management agreements, which are negotiated between deputy ministers and the clerk, reflecting the fact that deputy ministers are appointed by the Prime Minister.

    So it's a bit of a mélange between the two, but generally speaking, the Treasury Board's role would be in respect of human resource management policies that affect the broader mass of the public service per se, collective bargaining with unions and associated issues.

º  (1625)  

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett: One of the questions I asked the CIO is, is the CIO in the right place under the Treasury Board if government on-line has a view to talking to citizens in a two-way communication, rather than just giving information? In the OECD paper it talked about citizens as partners, or various levels, information, consultation, participation, deliberation. As long as the CIO is only at Treasury Board, it's unlikely it's going to do anything more than level one, which is information. If it's actually going to be an on-line communication, wouldn't the person in charge of that have to be somewhere other than under Treasury Board?

    Mr. Jim Judd: The practice within the OECD in location of CIOs varies. I think our own practice is analogous to that of the United States, where the CIO is part of the Office of Management and Budget. In the U.K., I think, the CIO is part of the Prime Minister's Office.

    In fact, we are, with government on-line, focused principally on provision of information, in the first instance, on some issues like the health watch site, or transactions and services, tax filing, EI benefit applications and approvals, and so on. The consultative part of our activity is generally run directly by departments and agencies, depending on the policy issue or subject, although we've just added a portal to the Canada website that tries to provide comprehensive access to all ongoing government consultations, including the one that was just launched at Foreign Affairs, the foreign policy dialogue. But I think we're quite frankly, on this front, still at an early stage.

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett: To go back, should the Prime Minister--

    The Chair: Carolyn, whoa, whoa, whoa.

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett: It was a good question, you would have liked it.

    The Chair: I'm sure it's a great question, and I'm sure you'll have an opportunity to ask it in the next round, but Mr. Perron and others are going to be on me like mud on a pig if I don't change questioners right now, because you're way over time.

    Madame Folco.

[Translation]

    Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Mr. Judd, I'll be asking you my question in French but please feel free to answer in English, if you prefer.

    You have given us a quick overview of the reasons, including the demographic ones, for the changes you have made to the management of your department, as well as the factors explaining why you wish to change certain elements within the public service and the Treasury Board.

    The question that comes to my mind, unlike some of my colleagues, is the following. What did this improvement consist of, since we can assume it was one? How can you describe this improvement in the management of the department? It is a question that I am often asked as a member of Parliament. If the public service is operating so much better under the management of the Treasury Board, what is the impact on citizens? How is this improved management benefited ordinary citizens?

    You may have time to answer a third question, but if not, I can come back to it later. In view of demographic changes, public expectations and information technology, how do you see the other changes that you will have to bring about in the near future? If you cannot answer the third question, I don't mind. I will come back to it later.

º  (1630)  

    Mr. Jim Judd: Could you please repeat the third question?

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: In the last part of your presentation, you refer to three challenges: demography, etc. You described to us the obstacles and the challenges you face. How do you expect to meet these challenges? What would be the main thrust of your new directions for the public service and its management to meet these challenges you have described to us?

    Mr. Jim Judd: As for the question about services to Canadians, I would presume that our fundamental objective is to provide a better level of service to Canadians, either over the Internet, in person, or by telephone with respect to programs and activities that the government wishes to implement, so that such measures are as affective as possible so that the government can achieve his objective.

    With respect to the management in the public service, I think that this is primarily a matter of learning and changing culture so that we can have better practices when it comes to management and reporting to Parliament and the public. We would like to see more careful spending, better management of programs and more effective programs.

    In light of the demographic changes and the changes in leadership that we will see over the next few years, this learning curve will really represent a tremendous challenge, particularly for people entering the public service. In my opinion, this is something that we do not do well enough right now.

    I forgot one of your questions.

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: I must confess, Mr. Judd, that I am not entirely satisfied by your answers. Of course we want to provide better service and we want the citizens to show up in person, call by telephone or use the Internet. We want things to be efficient. But if I may, and with all due respect, your answers are somewhat vague. I would like to hear what you have to say, perhaps not this time, but during another round of questions, on things that are more concrete with respect to the objectives that you have set, things that I could tell my fellow citizens, because if I were to tell a citizen that if he shows up somewhere he will get better service, that is not clear enough for him. I need answers on the matter.

    Furthermore, my third question dealt with the challenges you described to us; there were three categories. I know that the training of a new generation of public servants is a tremendous challenge. That is easily understood, I believe. But as far as the other challenges are concerned, have you already developed any approaches to deal with them?

º  (1635)  

    Mr. Jim Judd: To answer your last question, I would say that we currently have a program for management in the public service, namely the way that officials manage programs, spending, activities and the way that reports are produced.

    But it's really a change in atmosphere that began more than a year ago, in a larger sense. We're in the process of trying to make changes with the managers who are currently in the public service through training and development programs, policies, management and report standards and so on and so forth.

    But I must say that we will not be able to completely change the way we manage things overnight. This is a huge organization, with many different departments, agencies and lots of types of services, programs and activities. However, from what I have seen myself as a public servant, I think that we have made progress. We are going to make even more progress in this sector, but we will not be arriving at the final destination either today or tomorrow.

    As for the services that the federal government provides to Canadians, we are hoping that they will become more accessible through different means of communication, including the Internet, and that we will have high operating standards for these programs in the future. It is really difficult to provide you with a comprehensive answer, given the number of programs and activities provided by the government.

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: Thank you.

[English]

    The Chair: Okay, thank you.

    I'm going to go to Mr. Szabo, and then come back to Mr. Perron.

    Mr. Szabo.

    Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Thank you, Mr. Judd. What percentage of the population of Canada is connected to e-communications?

    Mr. Jim Judd: It's 62%.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: So let's say two-thirds of Canadian households are connected. We can't ignore the one-third, so our strategy has to continue.

    It's interesting that you include as a challenge the demographic shift. That's not a new thing. Obviously, we would anticipate these things. We've been working on this for a long time, I assume. Our strategy has long been established. Is that true?

º  (1640)  

    Mr. Jim Judd: Frankly, our strategy has been in development with respect to this since, probably, 1995-1996 .

    Mr. Paul Szabo: What is the challenge with regard to the changing demographic? Can you crystallize what that really means?

    Mr. Jim Judd: The majority of the public service executive cadre is probably going to retire before the end of this decade. The senior leadership of the public service will be gone, down to two and three levels below the executive cadre. There's a recruitment challenge, a learning and development challenge, and a knowledge transfer challenge: what are you going to do when all these people leave with their accumulated experience?

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Ever since we recognized there was a baby boom, we knew about this, didn't we? This is not new. I wouldn't think we just found out about it, so we have to do something about this.

    With public expectations, what's changed? Why is this one of our big challenges right now?

    Mr. Jim Judd: I think there is a view, certainly among many public servants, that the demand by the public is greater than ever for better, more efficient, and more effective service. Whether that should have been in the forefront of everyone's imagination from day one is a very good question.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Are you referring to e-service or services right across the public sector?

    Mr. Jim Judd: Services across the board.

    Your point about connectivity is a valid one. One of the issues we have to contend with is how you make gains in provision of service via the Internet without forgetting about the 38% of the population who aren't on the Internet, who still rely on mail, phone, or in-person service.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Yesterday, in a subcommittee on estimates, the chair of the public accounts committee appeared before us. He said, if you were to put together all the documents available related to the estimates, the operation and performance reports, you'd fill up this room. It is so much information that parliamentarians are certainly overwhelmed. One of the concerns I have is that parliamentarians, I would say, have failed to discharged about 50% of their responsibilities as members of Parliament by not being themselves connected, informed, and engaged in the operations of government, including review of the estimates. You know parliamentarians have not discharged that responsibility. How do you propose to engage 301 of your best emissaries to help bridge this informational need of connected and unconnected Canadians?

    Mr. Jim Judd: In the spirit of candour, in my current job I tend to share your frustration. We do produce a lot of information in the federal government, but sometimes we don't seem to produce the information people are actually looking for or are most interested in, or with the form, quality, or timeliness that are desired. There has been an exercise under way over the last several years, which I believe Madam Bennett was involved in, with parliamentarians and public servants looking at the issue of how reporting could be improved, whether to Parliament or the public. One of the undertakings in last week's budget was that the Treasury Board would go forth once more and try to engage both the Auditor General and parliamentarians in an effort to determine what kinds of changes could be made. That's probably one of the things we'd be interested in engaging this committee on.

º  (1645)  

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Do you have any indication of the nature of service requirements? It is focused in some areas, and I would suggest as an example the processing of immigration documents or visas or passports or other government documents. Could it possibly be that a lot of these operations are leading Canadians to believe they're not getting service levels--my cheque didn't arrive on time, my tax refund didn't come as quickly as I hoped? Could it be that these are really some of the most basic services Canadians encounter, or is it something broader, a person not getting the information they need on this aspect of government operations, something parliamentarians might be more involved in?

    Mr. Jim Judd: With some of the services we deliver, I think there is a very high client satisfaction, old age security, EI, in respect of the regularity and punctuality of the delivery of the cheques and so on. Otherwise, I would say, it varies, depending on the service, but many of the organizations within the federal government are putting service standards in their own programs to try to ensure that the quality of service is better. In some instances it is a problem of just knowing where to turn, where in the big machine you go with your issue to try to get it fixed. Quite frankly, it's an issue we run into sometimes with public servants, not understanding or not being familiar with the whole of the machine so as to know where to turn to in the case of a problem or an issue.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Judd.

    Before I turn it over to Mr. Epp, anticipating some of Monsieur Perron's interests, I have some numbers. I just sent out for them, because I thought we were going to talk about them. I notice that as you were saying, through that program review of about 1994 to 1999, in 1999 the public service bottomed out at about 139,000--that's the schedule 1 public servants--a drop of about 51,000 or 27%. Then, from 1999 to 2002, it grew back by 19,579. What's interesting, though, is that the overall drop across the system was about 27%, but in the National Capital Region only 20%. Where the average growth across the country was just around 6%, it was almost 19% in the National Capital Region. So program review tended to have the effect of concentrating the public service back into the National Capital Region. I wonder if you could comment on what drove that or give us a sense of it.

º  (1650)  

    Mr. Jim Judd: I think your conclusion, from the data I've seen, is correct. Over the period, despite the downsizing, because of the subsequent growth, the baseline in the National Capital Region stayed about at par and the regional representation has fallen to represent the balance. Part of it has to do, I think, with things like closure of military bases elsewhere in the country, part of it has to do with the rationalization of services, part of it has to do with the moves to Internet service, part of it has to do with the combining of corporate services out in the regions that amalgamated units and so on. That is an “off the top of the head” response to your question, because if the truth be told, we are engaged in an exercise at the Treasury Board at the moment of trying to make better sense of all the numbers over the past decade, the what, the where, the when, the how, the why, to be able to produce better ongoing numbers to explain public sector and public service employment, so that neither you nor I would be as frustrated as we currently are.

    The Chair: Would it be fair to say that part of the problem of generating numbers like that--we've had conversations in the past, and I think you share the frustration--has been that the lack of public attention to the management of government, as opposed to the outputs of government, has led to a lack of investment in the internal systems that allow government to keep track of counts and sort those kinds of things, that with the complexity of how things are held, things have never been organized in a way that facilitates easy retrieval of that kind of information?

    Mr. Jim Judd: That is certainly part of the answer. The other part, I think, is the definitional one of kinds of public sector organizations. You made the reference to schedule 1 organizations and so on. There's a whole galaxy of kinds of organizations within the public sector, which are counted differently. I think it's a question of the complexity of the organization and, your basic point, the standard of informatics.

    The Chair: I think this committee is going to be interested in that, because it'll come out in the review of the new legislation that refers to all of that.

    Mr. Epp, and then Mr. Perron.

    Mr. Ken Epp: Thank you.

    I'm going to continue with my theme of your oversight function. I want to ask you about the situation with respect to delivery of programs to people, because that's one of the things you mentioned. There's an increased expectation there on the part of the public. I certainly hear this in my riding, that they want government programs to be properly run, they want to get rid of abuses and losses, they want money to go towards things they value, like health care. How do you react to this? What's the process, when you find out, for example, as we all did, that there are, in a population of around 30 million Canadians, about 5 million social insurance numbers out there for whom there are no people? I know some of those people have died, so this insurance number isn't immediately transferred to someone else, and I imagine that those are inactivated numbers, but 5 million out of 30 million is a tremendously huge number, and I would think that would be one of those situations where you would really jump into action and say, we must do something. Does your board become involved in giving direction to HRDC that they must do something immediately to make sure there's a one-to-one relationship between Canadians and their social insurance numbers?

º  (1655)  

    Mr. Jim Judd: We did intervene with HRDC on that issue, and they have put in place a program to deal with the problem. Perhaps part of your frustration is that we are a small organization that sets a policy framework for government and provides oversight on it, but the expectation is that when problems arise, such as the one in HRDC, they will take measures to correct it. In the case of the SIN numbers we did work with them, and we are continuing to work with them on their program to fix the problem.

    Mr. Ken Epp: I have a similar question. When you have a problem with, say, HRDC, maybe one of the other programs, if there's suspected fraud, it's turned over to the RCMP for investigation, but we keep hearing this little phrase “Treasury Board guidelines”, Treasury Board rules for procurement, for letting contracts, for all these different things. What kind of supervisory function do you have over government spending in general with respect to your own guidelines and rules to make sure they're being followed?

    Mr. Jim Judd: When the policy guidelines and rules are set and put into place, it is the expectation that departments and agencies will follow them and will monitor and audit themselves to ensure that the rules and policies are being followed. If, however, we detect a problem with a policy, a guideline, or a standard, we may intervene, either with individual departments or with departments at large, to raise questions about the management of policy, the interpretation of policy, the application of policy and ask them to take corrective measures, in the event that we're not satisfied that they're doing well enough.

    Mr. Ken Epp: My last question in this round is going to be with respect to the use of IT, computer technology, and so on. There is so much around on the Internet, with intercomputer communications and so on. You hear of viruses, you hear of fraud, you hear of people stealing identities using the computer. Do you have any sense of whether the Government of Canada, in its various departments, is at all ready and mobilized to have a valid and proper defence against abuse of it? For example, there's talk of using the computer to register guns, doing it directly on line, forgetting about all the human interface. The accuracy of such a registry, I think, is seriously compromised if you don't build into it adequate checks to make sure the data are accurate. Do you have any sense of how well set up the government is to handle these situations where there is a direct computer interface with the person receiving benefits or applying for things?

    Mr. Jim Judd: We're in relatively good shape, but if you look back over the last several years at some of the large global viruses that came into play, their impact on government systems varied considerably. In some cases they affected a system for 24 hours, and in many other departments they had no impact, because the defence systems were of such a quality that they stopped the intrusion or just shut down the systems to prevent the virus from coming in. By and large, we are well served by defences, and most departments and agencies, if not all, spend a fair bit of time ensuring that the defence systems are in place, are functioning well, and are effective, because intrusion efforts are pretty much ongoing from anywhere in the world.

»  (1700)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much. I think the very fact that there have been very few system-wide shutdowns is testimony to the quality of the service provided.

    Before I recognize Mr. Perron for his broader questions, I'm fascinated by some of these trends. At the time when the public service dropped overall, between 1994 and 1999, by 27%, some 51,000 positions, the Privy Council Office grew by 11%. It's intriguing to me when I hear Mr. Epp's questions about who's in charge. What is the locus of responsibility here? I think that's something this committee is increasingly interested in as we try to sort these things out, not just the availability of information, but even if you have the information, who is responsible. As we grew back, when the overall size of government grew 10% in that second phase, PCO grew an additional 13.8%. In the face of this overall downsizing, and Treasury Board shrank 10% during that same period, PCO grew, so there seemed to be a shift of responsibility. I'm wondering if that is part of the answer to Mr. Epp's question about who's in charge, who's watching the system internally.

    Mr. Jim Judd: I wasn't aware of the data you have on the PCO, and I'm not sure how I would explain that. I will get an answer to you.

    The Chair: Mr. Himelfarb's coming, so you can be sure we'll ask him the same question.

    Mr. Jim Judd: I'll tell him.

    In any event, it may have been because of an amalgamation with some other office that previously had been elsewhere. If your question is about the responsibility centres, the three central agencies, PCO, Finance, Treasury Board, generally speaking, have fairly well defined mandates, although I would say there is an overlap between ourselves and the Privy Council Office on some personnel issues, which Ms. Bennett raised, and some broader management of government issues, which exist by virtue of the fact that it is the Prime Minister's department. There is also, I think, some measure of overlap between ourselves and the finance department in respect of some elements of expenditure management. But generally speaking, the mandates are relatively well defined, and we exist in a state of cosmic harmony and bliss with each other.

    The Chair: I'll look for that term in the manual.

    Monsieur Perron.

[Translation]

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to be discourteous to you or our witness, Mr. Judd, but I would like to make a bit of a humorous comment to begin with.

    My employer, who pays for my baloney sandwich at supper time, is the taxpayer, who is your employer as well, when it comes down to it. In my case, unfortunately, the taxpayers can fire me every four years, but I do not think they can do that in your case. Every four years, they can vote for someone else and make me lose my job.

    Moreover, Mr. Alcock, myself and everyone around this table have less credibility among the public than a used car salesman. We always hear that green lumber takes less time to settle than a bureaucrat to get a job done. I get tired of hearing that and annoyed and it should annoy you as well. So I have an interest in making sure that my employer gets a good return on his money. That is why I am here at the table. I am not here to put you on the hot seat. I am here to work.

    That said, we seem to have found the key to success today. It is this wonderful horizontal management, which is going to solve nearly all of our problems, so that everything will be fine. I would like to give you my own little definition of horizontal management, and you can tell me whether horizontal management will be possible and effective in government. I would like to hear you speak from your heart about horizontal management.

    The way I see horizontal management is as a sort of interlock among departments. Take seniors issues as an example. There maybe programs for seniors in departments A, B,C, D, E and F. Those programs are aimed at providing better services to seniors at lower costs and more effectively. That is my interpretation. We would have to study the estimates of all those programs for seniors to see which department is most effective at managing them and at offering the best service at the lowest costs to our seniors.

    That is my simplistic definition of horizontal management. Do you agree with it? How should I improve it? And what are your expectations? Do you believe that some day we will have horizontal management that means that all departments are roughly on the same wave length, so that we can work efficiently and provide value for money to my boss, who is the taxpayer and who deserves it? That was my question. I would like to hear you speak from your heart on that.

»  (1705)  

    Mr. Jim Judd: I think that most of the specific programs for citizens here in Canada are provided by a single department. If you want a passport, for example, there is only one department that can provide it, and that is Foreign Affairs. If you want your employment insurance check, only one department provides that, which is Human Resources Development. Horizontal coordination is more applicable in other areas. I can give you the example of the Aboriginal people'case in Canada.

»  (1710)  

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron: As a company, I can get money from a number of different departments. There are programs scattered here and there. You have given examples of services to the public that are more centralized, but otherwise it becomes... The case of Aboriginal affairs is a perfect example.

    Mr. Jim Judd: The services delivered by the government to Aboriginal people here in Canada are provided by some 22 departments and agencies. Health Canada is responsible for health issues and other departments are responsible for other activities. The Industry Department, for example, is responsible for a program called Aboriginal Business Canada. In any case, the programs delivered by the departments are different. Health Canada deals with health and Industry Canada with trade. It is probably difficult to arrive at the situation that you have described. The reality is that horizontal cooperation within the government exists very clearly where public security is concerned. For example, after the September 11 crisis in the United States, Canada had to react to the crisis here by coordinating efforts with Citizenship and Immigration, the Customs and Revenue Agency, the RCMP, National Defence and a number of other departments with a mandate involving public security in some way.

    The other solution to horizontal cooperation is to change the government's structure every time it needs to react to a new policy or program. It is probably more effective to try to work horizontally rather than change departments, structures and organizations every time. Did I answer your question?

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron: Do you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Is there really going to be horizontal management some day? People talk about dealing with the program, but I am talking about financial management and business management. In the area of aboriginal affairs, for example, some day we will have to be able to... Is there anyone capable of evaluating all the existing programs in every department and bringing them together under one department for greater efficiency, instead of the money coming from various sources? People want to know where to address their questions and how to access programs.

    Mr. Jim Judd: It is probably difficult to do that without changing the structure of government. When it comes down to it, it is more efficient and cost effective to try to deliver services horizontally.

[English]

    The Chair: I suspect that is part of a discussion that's going to go on at some length over the next few months as this committee tries to sort some of this out.

    Mr. Judd, thank you very much. I appreciate the time, and I appreciate your insight and your thoughtfulness on this. I would like to give you an open initiation to come to the committee any time you want to have a chat, but I suspect we will be asking you to return from time to time to help us sort through some of these management issues as we try to get a better understanding of how government might evolve.

    Mr. Jim Judd: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd be happy to do that, either sitting around a table like this or in some other venue, because having been in the government for nearly 30 years, I have some idea of the magnitude of the task that faces you in trying to get an understanding of it, and I think it's part of our responsibility to help you through that process.

    The Chair: I'm beginning to think, if we could get an answer to Mr. Perron's first question, on how many people work for the government on any given day, we would have achieved a milestone of monumental importance.

    Mr. Jim Judd: If it makes you feel better, I will endeavour to come back with a fulsome explanation. It might take a while to walk you through it all.

»  (1715)  

    The Chair: We can share it, because I'm in the midst of that exercise right now.

    Anyway, thank you very much.

    For the information of members, I will move expeditiously through the non-business meeting we are about to have. I say non-business meeting, because I think it is a simple matter of this. You will recall that at the last meeting I asked all parties to submit lists of potential witnesses on Bill C-25. In fact, there are some that have asked to appear out of interest on this and have been identified as part of this process. Remember that Mr. Cullen and Mr. Forseth have been part of a subcommittee doing preparatory work on this, so some of those witnesses are represented here.

    Madame Guay, welcome. You are a new addition to the committee who is going to take responsibility for this bill. You have submitted a list. We will be merging the two lists, because there's some duplication. I will be asking for a motion on this when I have a quorum on Thursday. It is our intention to be as open to following the wishes of members as we can on this, because this is a very reasonable list. We will attempt to group them into a series of round tables and call them shortly after the recess, but formally, we will have to approve this when there's a quorum present on Thursday morning.

    Madame Folco.

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: The first list we have here, not that of the Bloc Québecois, but the other one, where did it come from?

    The Chair: It is one kept by the clerk of people who have indicated their wish to come and people you would normally call; for example, the minister is on the list. The minister is appearing on Thursday morning from 9 to 11 in room 237-C--it will be televised--to present the bill. We agreed to do that before the recess, as this is a very big, very technical bill, to give people some time to think about it and to look at it. She'll present on Thursday, and then we'll deal with the substance of it when we get back from the recess.

    Madame Guay.

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): As I was saying to Ms. Folco, the bill has already been tabled in the House and it is coming back to the committee. The minister will be appearing Thursday morning. I simply want to say to you, Mr. Chairman, that I am very pleased to be involved in this issue. I want to be sure that if there are a number of people or a number of groups together, that they do not get lost in the shuffle. They need time to make their presentation. At some hearings that I have attended, we would hear from six groups. There was not enough time to get into detailed questions. We need to avoid that situation, if possible.

[English]

    The Chair: Yes, absolutely. I agree with you about giving people the time. What we've often thought effective is to match people on different sides of the issue, so you get a chance to see the dialogue among them, as opposed to just getting one side and then the other side.

    Mr. Szabo.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    There are, I understand, about 17 different unions affected by this legislation, but there are three large ones, and maybe, strategically, we should make sure we have appropriate representation, not necessarily of just the largest. I think one large one probably could very much represent the substantive unions, but there are smaller unions that have some more specific or focused issues they want to address. So I'd hope that there's a strategy to make sure there's a proper reflection of the union base we have to deal with. The labour relations issues here are enormous.

    Second, having gone through the bill and looked at a number of areas that are going to be touched, I found it overwhelming, and I think members are going to find this whole process quite overwhelming when you start getting into some of the detailed labour relations aspects of the bill. There are a lot of terminology issues, acronyms, etc. We can't afford to lose members, so I would strongly encourage, if possible, maybe either the Library of Parliament or our research people to provide an appropriate list of terminology, acronyms, etc. to help members keep up to speed on the impact of some of the issues that are going to be raised. Experience in labour matters, whether it be binding arbitration or strike approaches, will come up, and we must have the proper balance as to whether or not we're providing a framework that provides a flexibility to protect the interests of those covered, as opposed to getting involved in almost a union negotiation ourselves. So I have some concerns that the technical aspects of this bill will overwhelm committee members if they don't have a little more resource material.

»  (1720)  

    The Chair: I share your concerns, Mr. Szabo. It is a bill that does reflect a lot of very narrow expertise in the area of labour management relations. I do note that there have been, aside from the 35 years of experience with the existing system, 18 months of pretty concerted effort creating it, and it has produced an odd situation. I have never been through a bill of this sort where there aren't crowds of people on either side saying they want to come out and speak to us. They seem to have arrived at some consensus on the various sides. I think your point is well taken, though. I think we should make a point of reaching out to all the unions. I think their lack of appearance here shows support for the existing procedure, but we should check that.

    Further, I note that Madame Guay is joining us from the Bloc for this bill. Mr. Pat Martin from the NDP, who's currently heavily involved in the aboriginal bill, will also be joining us. He was a labour negotiator of some experience in a previous life. He also tells me privately that he's had several briefings on it, which are available to all members, and he thinks, overall, it has done quite a good job of balancing the interests. I have also met with the departmental officials who are driving the bill and asked them to produce, as they were doing in any event, quite a detailed clause-by-clause book that will be available to all members, so we can walk through this thing step by step.

    But I think your caution is absolutely on the mark. This is a large, technical, complex bill, and we'll want to bring as much expertise to the table as we can.

    Madame Folco.

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: With Paul's suggestion, is it difficult for us to work across two languages? I would really appreciate it if these acronyms could be done in parallel in French and English, because sometimes what throws us off is that we know the French acronym, but not the English one.

    The Chair: That's an excellent idea.

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: Further, I attended a briefing the minister, Lucienne Robillard, gave some time ago--I think you were there--and there was an overhead projection. I'm sure she still has the deck. That might be a source of information, a very bare level. Perhaps you can inquire of the minister.

    The Chair: Okay, we'll get it and circulate it to everybody. I have a copy here.

    For the interest of members, the minister is deeply interested in this bill also, has spent a lot of personal time on it, and is quite willing to meet with any member around the table who would like additional briefing. It's a rather unusual request, but she has asked whether I would have any concerns if she were to sit in the room and attend some of the hearings. I've told her not only would I not be alarmed at it, I would be quite encouraged by it. I think we would be better served if ministers took a more direct interest in the legislation driven by their departments. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

    Mr. Epp.

    Mr. Ken Epp: I have a few questions. Have we approached any of the people who negotiate for the government?

    The Chair: Yes.

    Mr. Ken Epp: How about academics? Will we get some labour specialists?

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: I have a list of academics; it's about seven names.

    Mr. Ken Epp: So you have included them in there.

    The Chair: Mr. Cullen and Mr. Forseth were working on the subcommittee on this, and I've not seen anything from them. I will ask them that question, because I believe they've begun some of that.

    Mr. Ken Epp: I've just seen Paul and asked him how he was coming with it, and he said they haven't got it finished yet, but they expect to get it in soon.

    The Chair: Good. So we'll have a look at that.

    Our concern is to try to get all this in to the clerk before we rise. Then she's got two full weeks to line up witnesses, so that when we come back, we can get right into this bill. It's going to be time-consuming and we're going to be sitting a lot of extra hours to get through it--unless you want to just pass it now.

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: Speaking of the time factor, is it possible to get some of that information before we rise?

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    The Chair: On the witnesses or the deck?

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: On the bill.

    The Chair: Yes.

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: We may have some time while we're visiting our ridings.

    The Chair: The information you're referring to would be a copy of the bill and the deck?

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: Yes, or anything else you intended to share with us.

    The Chair: What I have personally seen is a copy of the deck and the bill, and there was an interactive briefing with the staff involved. Beyond that, the clause-by-clause book is really being prepared for when we get back. It's huge--in fact, I think it's three books.

    Ms. Raymonde Folco: But at least the deck could give us an idea.

    The Chair: We are adjourned until 9 o'clock Thursday, room 237-C. Be there, look good, because you're going to be on TV again.