The CGSB “is a federal government organization that offers client-centred, comprehensive standards development and conformity assessment services in support of the economic, regulatory, procurement, health, safety and environmental interests of our stakeholders—government, industry and consumers.” It also certifies laboratories and manages specialized staff certification programs.

The ULC Standards representative said that in most other countries, for example, Europe and Australia, there is only one SDO, a government body. This is not the case in the U.S. or Canada, where there are several private SDOs, in addition to the CGSB in Canada.

A PWGSC official told the Committee that since the CGSB is part of that department, it does not have a board. Table 1 presents figures on the CGSB:

Table 1 – Data on the Canadian General Standards Board,
2009–2010 to 2013–2014

Sources: Table prepared by the authors using data from Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 Departmental Performance Reports, and data obtained from PWGSC.

Although Table 1 presents the number of employees expressed as full-time equivalents at fiscal year-end, a PWGSC official told the Committee that the number of CGSB employees dropped from 46 in 2010 to 33 in 2015. This decrease was explained mostly by positions in auditing services being replaced by outside consultants, which reduced the organization’s expenditures. She added that these reductions were done entirely through attrition, meaning retirements or employees who took employment elsewhere and were not replaced.

According to a PWGSC official, the CGSB’s main client is the federal government, and it develops standards and programs only when there is a clear public need. His colleague added that, the CGSB recovers about 80% to 90% of its costs through fees on the services it provides to clients. However, according to Table 1, between 2009–2010 and 2013–2014, this figure ranged from 50% to 73%. Part of the CGSB’s work is carried out to meet PWGSC requirements and so is never recovered.

In terms of developing standards, a PWGSC official said that the CGSB does not write the standards itself, but rather manages the standards development process by organizing roundtables, which were sometimes referred to as standards development committees.

The CGSB certification program was described by a PWGSC official as follows:

[It is an] independent verification process to ensure that the products and services meet specific requirements. Certification allows suppliers to demonstrate that their products and services have been tested and meet the quality and performance characteristics the standard requires, providing assurance to buyers that the products and services will perform as expected.

The CGSB partners with various departments on employee certification. As an example, a PWGSC official explained that the CGSB works with the Treasury Board Secretariat to certify federal employees involved in procurement and materiel management. Those who meet the conditions are certified as federal procurement or materiel management specialists. The CGSB also developed a program to ensure that the employees of private companies working with Fisheries and Oceans Canada are properly trained in relation to their work on monitoring the type and number of fish being caught. The CGSB evaluates these companies every year and conducts on-site audits every three years.

As mentioned earlier, the CGSB is also involved in developing standards on ISO standards development committees. A PWGSC official indicated that the CGSB also offers certification services for the ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 series of standards on a cost-recovery basis. According to the CGSB’s website, it grants accreditation on ISO 9001 (quality management) and 14001 (environmental management), and on Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Services (OHSAS) 18001. The PWGSC official added that in the early 1990s, the ISO 9000 standard became very important for Canadian companies in order to secure contracts. He said that the private sector was not ready to provide ISO 9000 certification services, so that is why the CGSB provided them for years. He explained that, “[a]t CGSB, of course, our job is not to duplicate what is in the private sector. We do not compete with the private sector. So as that service has come to fruition, we have now refocused our energies on providing those services to public sector organizations.”

A new CGSB program, GC Standards, was launched in 2014. According to a PWGSC official, it is a faster, less costly process for developing not an official standard, but rather a specification guide for a particular government department, for example. This process is less expensive than developing an official standard since the usual process of striking a committee and holding public consultations can be dispensed with.

Information on the CGSB is available on PWGSC’s website. According to the Micom Laboratories representative, the CGSB “does not have the right to advertise itself to the public or to users.” He added that greater awareness of what the CGSB does would result in companies and governments using CGSB standards more often when writing procurement specifications.

RECOMMENDATION 1

The Committee recommends that the Canadian General Standards Board take all appropriate measures to ensure that all federal government departments and agencies are better informed of its services with respect to standards.