[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, November 5, 1996
.1109 
[English]
The Chairman: I'd like to call the meeting to order.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee resumes its examination of the public service renewal initiatives. We are pleased this morning to welcome Mrs. Ruth Hubbard, president of the Public Service Commission.
Our objective in inviting you to appear today is to ensure that we obtain the commission's vision of the future for the public service, as well as its perspective on the new initiatives proposed by Treasury Board, among others.
We recognize that this has been set out, to a considerable degree, in your annual report. However, we hope to clarify a number of points during the course of this meeting.
I'd be grateful, Ms Hubbard, if you would introduce your fellow commissioners and officials and then proceed with your opening statements. Thank you.
.1110
Ms Ruth Hubbard (President, Public Service Commission): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, hon. members.
[Translation]
First let me introduce my colleagues present today: Commissioner Ginette Stewart and Commissioner Mary Gusella and Jean-François Martin, Executive Director of the Staffing Programs Branch.
Let me say how pleased we are to have the opportunity to be here today to discuss the Public Service Commission's 1995-1996 Annual Report.
As you may know, the Public Service Commission is your agent, the parliamentary agency responsible for ensuring that the people of Canada are served by a highly competent, non-partisan and representative public service.
[English]
We take this responsibility very seriously because we know that an effective, principled, professional public service is a cornerstone of our Canadian system of governance. It's an important support to Canada's current and future evolution as a society, a key element in maintaining Canada's advantage internationally. But we also know that, as in most democratic countries around the world, the need for significant change continues to grow. At all levels in Canada, from the larger sense of the society as a whole down to each of us as individuals, change touches virtually all facets of our lives.
In the face of global as well as domestic challenges, governance systems are evolving and governments continue to search for ways to serve citizens better, to deal with issues of service, quality and affordability. Correspondingly, we see the pace and scope of public service reform broadening and deepening in Canada, including an increase in the variety and flexibility of organizational models for public sector activities. It is in this context that the federal public service is changing and adapting.
Before touching briefly on the main messages in our annual report, I want to spend a few minutes talking about the public service in two ways: as an institution, and as a collection of dedicated, capable men and women who serve the public interest every day, because I'm not sure we often have the opportunity to think about the public service from these perspectives.
[Translation]
First, the public service as an institution. In our Annual Report we make the point that the public service is the custodian of the long-term issues of the country and, as such, must think in terms of the long-term consequences of current actions.
This does not mean that it decides what should be done about them. That responsibility clearly rests with those who have been elected. But the role of the professional public service is to give the government of the day the best advice it can, and then loyally carry out its orders and directions consistent with the laws of the country, by delivering services to the public and by enforcing the country's laws and regulations.
[English]
The public service is also a large, somewhat heterogeneous collection of people. They are people who are the friends, neighbours, parents and children of those we think of as ordinary Canadians. They are ordinary Canadians themselves in many ways, people who have good days and bad days, people with lots of education or people who bring life's experiences to their occupation, people with mortgages and the kinds of anxieties and concerns for the future that most Canadians feel, people who live and work in small towns or cities, the majority of whom work outside the national capital region, people who work mostly with ideas and people who work mostly with other people, people who, like others, want to do a good job and feel they can contribute to improving their work places.
Yes, they have jobs and many people in Canada do not. Yes, their salaries are paid for out of taxpayers' dollars. Yes, the interactions between citizens and public servants can leave some people really dissatisfied. Yes, there is room for improvement. But these public servants are also the people upon whom Canadians have come to count, without even realizing it, to ensure that our food is inspected, to ensure that the medical devices used in our hospitals are safe, to ensure that as small businesses we collect and send in the same amount of GST as our competitors up the street, to help us fill out forms so that we obtain the benefits to which we are entitled, to keep our community safe, to give us expert advice about a wide variety of rules and regulations that are in the public interest.
.1115
When we return from a trip abroad, it never occurs to us that it might be necessary or even possible to bribe the customs inspector at the border. We also assume that the personal or sensitive information collected by governments will remain highly confidential, that it won't be bandied about publicly and that we won't have to pay someone to ensure that it stays confidential.
[Translation]
We take for granted that we have a professional public service in this country. It never occurs to us that it might be otherwise. It is an essential part of our system of governance. Because the thousands of people who are public servants are committed to doing the best job they can, under the circumstances; committed to behaving in ways which strive to embrace basic democratic, ethical, and professional values.
As I said a moment ago, the professional public service is changing and adapting. Yet there must be a willingness to examine new approaches, to move beyond established practices and conventional wisdom, to hear and to learn from the experience of others. But we must not forget that public servants are people too.
[English]
The Public Service Commission must and will play its part to support and enable public service reform in the federal public service over the short, medium and long term, to support the government of the day and, working with others, ensure the continued existence of a vibrant public institution that will meet the challenges of tomorrow.
In the 1995-96 annual report, we are reporting from a number of perspectives. We've looked ahead to see how the continuing transformation of the public service will affect its composition and health in the coming years. We've looked back at the public service of 15 years ago to gain insight into the impact of change. We have reported on transactions and activities for the 1995-96 year and we've reflected briefly on the essence of the professional public service in the context of significant change that envelopes us all.
Our main message is that there's a need to foster new skills, new talent, and also preserve public sector values as the scope and pace of public sector reform in Canada continues to broaden and deepen. With respect to people in the public service, we see a combination of challenges in a context of continuing constraints on opportunities: first, the demographics of an aging public service, and second, the emerging importance of certain core competencies as the role of government changes.
In response, this means, first, the need within departments and agencies to find the appropriate balance between new talent through targeted recruitment, which the commission assists them to carry out, and the need to invest heavily in today's public servants in building on their experience and their capabilities. Second, it calls for a greater corporate effort at renewal at all levels in the public service, at the entry level, at the top, replenishing the pools, in specialized functional pools, and all of this supplemented by development in between.
[Translation]
On the subject of values there is a need to begin to reflect upon ways to ensure that democratic, ethical, and professional values permeate organizations appropriately, regardless of organizational form.
The professional public service has always played a central role in meeting the challenges Canada has faced in building the prosperous and vibrant society we have today. The Commission is confident that the women and men of the Canadian public service will rise to the occasion and will embrace the challenges for the opportunities they present.
[English]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We'd be pleased to answer any questions you and members of the committee may have.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Fillion, 10 minutes.
[Translation]
Mr. Fillion (Chicoutimi): Thank you, Ms Hubbard, for your presentation.
As you no doubt knew, you would have to talk primarily about figures when appearing before this committee. I find that your statement is rather of a philosophical nature. I will go directly to the point and ask you about downsizing in the public service itself.
You were asked initially to reduce the size of the public service, and recently the figure proposed was increased by 10,000.
I believe that in the initial plan the budget for staffing was $1.5 billion. What is the situation now in that regard and, given the further 10,000 jobs which could be cut, how far are the reductions intended to go?
.1120
Ms Hubbard: It is up to the government to determine the activities of the public service and the number of public servants it will need to deliver services and provide advice. For that reason, explanations regarding costs and downsizing should be given by the representatives of Treasury Board.
As you stated, the government said that it expected that perhaps a further 10,000 employees would be affected by program review reductions. The government decided to extend the program review, from three to four years. It also stated that its objective was not to reduce the number of public servants but to look in a slightly different way at the role of government while continuing to reduce government spending.
The government considers that it will need, for downsizing, a further $700 million.
I am sorry but I cannot say anymore than that because the Public Service Commission is an agent of Parliament, not an agent which determines the role of the government. It is simply the agent which safeguards the merit principle within the institution of the professional public service.
Mr. Fillion: I would therefore like to ask the following question. When the decision was taken to cut another 10,000 jobs from the public service, did the Commission consider what kind of public service we will have?
This approach has to stop sometime. Young people, in all parts of Canada, need jobs. Older workers are going to retire. At some time, you must certainly be able to express your opinion in order to stop this hemorrhage.
Ms Hubbard: You are quite right, but we must act in accordance with the role of a professional public service, which is to give advice to the government and deliver services, to do the things which the government has decided that the public service will do. As the government explained, the purpose of the program was not simply to reduce the number of public servants. The program raised several other questions which were considered important.
The public service of tomorrow will be different. It will be smaller. We see that in almost every country around the world there is a basic change taking place in the nature of work, in the way things are done.
This reality is reflected in the public service as in other workplaces. Consequently, there may in the future be a slight difference in the skills required of public servants. It is more a question of assessing the abilities needed in order to work in partnership with other levels of government and other sectors.
.1125
Therefore, the public service will be different in the future. It will be smaller and have to adapt to the environment. In our view, however, the basic values will remain the same. The work will be done in the public interest. That is important. The essence of the public service is: excellence and truth, qualities which the public service has demonstrated. We are convinced that the public service will be able to demonstrate these qualities further in the future.
Mr. Fillion: Ms Hubbard, if I may, I would like to report to you what people in my riding tell us regularly. They say that the reduction in the size of the public service is apparent, but at the same time there is another parallel public service which you have created by having people retire and then giving them contracts. That is what people don't like.
Yes, on the one hand, we see that the public service is getting smaller. Money is being saved, but the savings are then used to create a parallel system. It then becomes very difficult for us, as elected representatives, to have any control over what is happening.
Ms Hubbard: Today, there are two ways of doing things. One is to offer contracts to provide services. This trend began in Canada not in the public sector but in other sectors a few years ago. We believe that, for some activities, this approach is more effective and efficient than others.
At the same time, it is true that there are many people leaving the public service. These former public servants have expertise which is valuable for companies and for other levels and sectors of government.
However, strict rules have been drawn up by the government so as to prevent someone leaving the public service from simply being hired on contract the next day and earning more money. This is how government spending is protected. The people concerned are skilled and have a lot of experience. I do not think it is unjust or unreasonable...
Mr. Fillion: Do you have figures to support what you are saying?
Ms Hubbard: No, but we can obtain the answers to your questions and send them to you. This is the responsibility of Treasury Board. We can certainly ask them to provide the answers.
[English]
The Chairman: Could we have the responses directed to the clerk of the committee, who would then distribute them. Thank you.
[Translation]
Mr. Fillion: There is also a perception on the part of the general public that it depends on the level of the public servant concerned. When a public servant is at a lower level, for example a member of the support staff, he or she is not replaced. Those people are not offered contracts. To do their jobs, the government goes straight to privatization, but as you go up the pyramid and deal with middle or upper management, great stress is placed on professional services. The people concerned have retired but still provide their services.
.1130
Is everyone, at every level of the structure, treated more or less equitably? I think it is important to ask that question. Did you consider whether all employees were treated equitably?
Ms Hubbard: First, you have to look at the work done at various levels of the hierarchy. As you know, both in the private sector and the public sector in other countries, technology can be used to help the delivery of services, and that affects results.
As regards the work done by people at the first level of government, that has a technological impact. It is not a matter of not giving contracts to those people. There is another reason.
I'm speaking on the basis of my experience. In the Commission, as a government department, we hire professionals, specialists, psychologists and people with experience in the area of training.
We do not know exactly what the demand will be for our services. We provide basic services through employees working as public servants. However, when we do not have the people we need, we look for expertise elsewhere.
We are restructuring our activities. That affects the responsibilities of management, as well as people working at other levels in the structure and in other departments. I don't know if that answers your questions.
Mr. Fillion: I will come back later.
[English]
The Chairman: Thank you, Monsieur Fillion.
Monsieur Bellemare.
[Translation]
Mr. Bellemare (Carleton - Gloucester): When I think of integrity, honesty, commitment and service, I think of the public service, public servants and also the Public Service Commission.
On behalf of my community, I would like to thank you, Ms Hubbard and your colleagues, for the work you are doing. However, I do have some concerns, not regarding your work but rather the direction that the public service is taking, despite you, because of budget cuts due to the deficit and the debt. Some people seem to think that the problem of the deficit can be resolved on the backs of public servants. I find that very worrying, and I would even say shocking.
As I pointed out to the representatives of Treasury Board when they appeared before us the other day, my personal observation is that we are creating a second public service, made up of outside contractors who do not have the culture, memory or interest of present or past public servants.
People are hired on contract to do work which may last a day, a week, a month or a year. The work is for a set term. The work seems to be done on the basis of budgets allocated.
.1135
As regards the issue of
[English]
downsizing and contracting out, if this is placed in your presentation on how there is going to be a renewal, you have observed in the demographics we have an aging public service. Ten years go by very quickly. All we have to do to get into the mindset is go back from 1996 to 1986. It appears, at least to people my age, that 1986 was just a few days ago, and 1996 has come brutally quickly. The year 2006 will come even more brutally quickly.
What kind of public service will we have then? Will we have a dual public service, one that is hired and one that is for hire?
Ms Hubbard: The short answer to your question is this. Our view is that we won't. I think the reason we say this is because we see the way in which work is being done varying so much. We see so many professional public services and so many governments in democratic societies around the world seeking ways to be more responsive to citizens, to find ways to focus more on affordability and yet to maintain those kinds of activities considered in those countries to be in the public interest.
If you were to ask me what the public service is going to be like 10 years from now, I would say it's going to be different. I would say it is going to be different especially in the area of what one might of thought of as service delivery. We'll see a great variety and richness in arrangements, in partnerships, in alliances. We're becoming in our country, as in other countries, more interdependent between governments - -
Mr. Bellemare: Isn't there a risk we will lose the grip on our mission, on your mission, and that it could be taken over by powerful contractors?
Ms Hubbard: I think our answer to this question, an answer we think is an important one, is what you will find in chapter 3 of our annual report.
What we're saying is that because of the increasing pace and scope of public sector reform in Canada, there is a real need to begin thinking about what is the best way to ensure that for activities carried out in the public interest, regardless of the organizational form, there are appropriate safeguards. We need these so appropriate organizational and individual behaviour continues.
The concern you're expressing is a concern we understand. We would say that because of what is going on around us, it is really important for parliamentarians, for citizens and for public servants to think about how best to ensure we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Mr. Bellemare: The deficit and the debt have created a right-wing agenda as a mindset in all of the communities. We've gone to contracting out as sort of a solution to this. Contracting out means downsizing on the one hand. But what if we're going to create what I call a double public service? If Treasury Board tells us they are saving $9 billion, this would also include the services provided, not just the fonctionnaires, the public servants cuts.
My question, not to you but to Treasury Board, is how much money are we spending on contracting out? I have a suspicion. I challenge everyone everywhere, including Treasury Board and your department. Perhaps we've saving $5 billion, not $9 billion, and we're probably spending $10 billion to $15 billion contracting out. In my estimation, this balance is not a good balance. We're hiring at a greater cost, and it is more than just a greater financial cost.
My final question would be this. There is great concern about the number of people laid off, or the number of jobs, as they say, being cut. Not the government, but the media gave out figures of more than 45,000 two years ago as the number that could be affected. Of course, we all know ``affected'' doesn't mean a person is laid off. But there is attrition involved. There is voluntary leave because of incentives. There is the transformation of a public service into a private service. So many of these so-called 45,000 media numbers have lately become 55,000. This has made me very hostile because it creates a sense of insecurity in my community and in other communities. It is not good for business. In the private sector, it has a rebounding effect.
.1140
What are the real figures? Are these just guesstimates on the part of some public servants chatting with the media? The media always look for an outlandish title for an article so people will read the article.
Ms Hubbard: Certainly there are figures available from the Treasury Board on the number of people who have left the public service over the last period of time with and without incentives of one sort or another. There is undoubtedly an estimate of the number of positions, which isn't exactly the same number. This could be supplied, and we would be glad to do this.
I think the estimate we were referring to earlier was an estimate the government used in order to decide how much additional money it might have to set aside to meet incentive payments for public servants whose jobs might disappear with the extension of program review to a fourth year.
So there certainly is a legitimate question around this. Is the way the work is being done in the federal public service the most efficient and the most effective way of doing it? I think this is the question you're asking and I think it is a question undoubtedly the government would be pleased to try to answer.
Mr. Bellemare: This is my final question for this round. Are there any more job cuts? We've gone from 45,000 to 55,000. Are there any more job cuts? Have people been designated or will they be designated?
Ms Hubbard: I'm afraid I can't answer this question for the public service as a whole. With respect to our own organization, which has been affected by its own downsizing, I think it is fair to say we have achieved most of the reductions we have needed to achieve in refocusing the Public Service Commission. There remains an impact for 1997-98 on the people who work in the Public Service Commission. We are doing our best to make sure people whose jobs might be affected at this time are aware their jobs might be affected. Many people in our organization who became aware their jobs might be affected down the road decided, at the time they found out, to make their own decisions about what they wanted to do.
I can only repeat what I have understood the government to have said. The estimate they last provided, which was perhaps an additional 10,000, is the best estimate they have at the moment of what the total impact might be. But I'm sure the actual numbers of people who have left is a number that could be provided to the committee if the committee wished.
The Chairman: Yes. The committee would like to receive this information.
Thank you, Mr. Bellemare.
Mr. Gilmour, please.
Mr. Gilmour (Comox - Alberni): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
On page 66 of your 1995-96 report, dealing with employment equity, there are 59% women, 2% visible minorities, 1% people with disabilities, and 2% aboriginals. With the latest legislation on employment equity, do you have plans to change the mix within the public service?
.1145
Ms Hubbard: The short answer to your question is that we aim to continue to try to make progress in the representativity of the public service. The recently implemented employment equity legislation will certainly focus more attention on the issue, but I think for a number of years we have been in the business of trying to ensure that the professional public service is highly qualified, non-partisan, and representative.
On the subject of representativity, let me say I think it's really important in a country like ours that it be representative, for two reasons. The first is that we face increasing complexity and change. The one thing I found out is that none of the things I thought used to work actually work any more, or if they work, they work only for a short period and they have perverse side effects.
As a manager, what I'm trying to do these days, which is not what I was trying to do for these same reasons ten years ago, is to bring as much difference as I can to the table. If what I think used to work doesn't work any more, then what I need is different ways of thinking about things. So much more than probably was true from a managerial point of view some years ago, greater diversity brings greater difference.
The other observation I would make is that it's important, we believe, for the federal public service to represent the people it serves. If you look at the federal public service at the moment and you just look at numbers, it looks as if the federal public service is actually fairly representative in gender. It's fairly representative in language. About two-thirds of the federal public service work outside the national capital region.
If you look at recruitment, some of the numbers you see in our annual report, you'll see we're in fact doing a pretty good job in recruiting people to the limited opportunities, in rough proportion to their labour market availability. That's true for people who are in visible minorities, it's true for aboriginal people. It's less true for people with disabilities. But we certainly don't yet have a representative public service in the sense that people from diverse backgrounds feel at home in the public service everywhere, and we certainly don't have representativity in women or visible minorities, aboriginals, people with disabilities, at all levels in the public service.
Are we going to continue to make progress on that? We're going to keep working at it. Is it difficult to do in today's environment? Yes, it is. Is it important to do? We think it is. We also think it's quite consistent with the notion of a highly competent, professional public service.
Mr. Gilmour: In the event that you had, for example, a visible minority applicant, it would be easy if that person were the most qualified. However, if you had an applicant who did not belong to a visible minority but who was more qualified, have you, because of this legislation, now been mandated to the point of having to differentiate or having to choose between visible minority and merit?
Ms Hubbard: No, the new employment equity legislation has not made any fundamental changes. As for our responsibilities - and you'll find this in the Public Service Employment Act, which is the act we administer - we are required by law not to discriminate in appointments on a wide variety of grounds, including ethnic origin. But we are also mandated in that piece of legislation to use certain powers in order to administer and develop programs to improve employment equity, programs the employer, the Treasury Board, thinks need to be used, and also to ensure fair and equitable access. So entry into and promotion in the public service is according to merit, either against a basic standard of competence or in the sense of best qualified.
We have the power to attract and to help to develop specific members of target groups, and we do in some specific cases. But even in those cases what we can do.... For example, departments may have training positions. We may help the department to select people who are competent to be trained to have greater capability, although they don't actually have that greater capability yet. Then after a period of development they may be appointed when they have demonstrated that competence. From then on their progress through the public service is based on merit.
So we don't see merit and employment equity as being opposing forces.
Mr. Gilmour: Great. Thank you.
Do you deal with union contracts?
.1150
Ms Hubbard: We don't negotiate with the unions. That's the job of the employer. We work with unions, and we consult with them. In fact, our law requires this. When we're enacting regulations or considering policies that will affect the workplace, we're required by law to consult with the unions. And I must say that we have what I think is a pretty good working relationship with the heads of the unions.
Mr. Gilmour: In the supplementary estimates, you're asking for another $5.5 million to bring your budget up to $107 million. When the public service is downsizing, which I would expect would require less money, why are you going to the Treasury Board for another $5 million?
Ms Hubbard: Yes, that supplementary estimate represents what we call the carry-forward. When it comes close to the end of a fiscal year, every department may find that it would in fact be wiser to not spend the money appropriated by Parliament for that fiscal year rather than seeking to spend that money. In order to encourage that kind of sensible focus on good management, the Treasury Board provides for a 5% carry-over - and it seems to me that this is with the support of Parliament and parliamentary committees. So this means that if your appropriation is $100 million, and if it is not usefully spent in the year for which it is appropriated, as much as $5 million of it could usefully be spent in the following year. That's what's called a carry-forward, and the mechanism for doing this is a supplementary estimate.
So that's what our $5 million supplementary estimate is for. It is for money that we decided couldn't be spent as usefully in the last fiscal year, but which we think we could spend usefully this fiscal year.
If this fiscal year is typical, we will end up with about the same amount of money that we won't spend, but which we might better spend the following year. Because our appropriations lapse at the end of each fiscal year in government at the present time, this is a technique for encouraging better management on the part of departments. We are therefore taking advantage of it like other departments do.
Mr. Gilmour: Do I have time for another short one?
The Chairman: I want to take a second, because I want to clarify this.
Can we then say that the $5.5 million you're asking for through the supplementary estimates is in fact part of the original $102 million, and that the technique to carry that forward is through the supplementary estimates? Or is it new money?
Ms Hubbard: No, it's new money in the fiscal year for which authority is being sought. If you like, it's part of the previous year's money.
The Chairman: Okay, that's what I wanted clarified.
Mr. Gilmour.
Mr. Gilmour: Mr. Bellemare was talking about contracting out. What mechanism do you use to basically get the best value for the taxpaying public when it comes to in-house or contracting out? Are there guidelines set down so that...?
Ms Hubbard: Yes, the Treasury Board has guidelines to help departments make sensible decisions about when to decide to use a contracting approach as opposed to an in-house approach. In the Public Service Commission as a department, when we want to make a decision about getting some work done, we ask ourselves the kinds of questions that we think are the sensible questions to ask: Is the work the kind of work where the expertise exists somewhere other than in the public service? Is there a sufficient marketplace for that work such that if we were to contract for it, we would get good value for money? Is it work that would in fact be better done inside the public service or outside of it? Is the demand...?
For example, we hire experts to assess the promotability of certain public servants. Many of those assessors are public servants, and we train them so that they can do that work. But since we can't predict what the workload is going to be, we might also use outside people who have a certain expertise to manage that small part. On the other hand, if we were in fact to engage these people permanently, or even for a fixed period of time - for six months or a year - we might not need them.
.1155
Our approaches are consistent with the guidelines that Treasury Board sets. They're really focused around how to get best value for money, or how to make sure we're not in fact disadvantaging our own employees by doing away with their jobs and replacing them in other ways, for example.
We have a contract review committee inside our organization that tries to make sure that our contracting approaches are reasonable, fair, equitable. We discuss this quite often with our local unions, the unions that represent the employees in our particular organization.
Mr. Gilmour: Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Gilmour.
That brings to an end the first round of questioning. We now move to a five-minute question and answer round. We'll start with Mr. Murray.
Mr. Murray (Lanark - Carleton): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms Hubbard, thanks for being here.
When I was listening to your remarks, I was interested to hear you talk about the professional public service. I think it's useful that we be reminded of the value of a professional public service, but it occurred to me that there must still be a sense within the commission, or within the public service at large, that perhaps Canadians don't value their public service.
I just want to suggest, first of all, that I think we may be beyond the time when Canadians as a whole were perhaps critical of public servants. I think that really goes back to the recession days, when people in the private sector saw themselves being laid off while not much was happening in that regard in the public sector. That's changed over the last few years. Public servants have lost their jobs across the country, at various levels of government, and in large numbers.
I would guess that as Canadians look at their national institutions, one of which I believe could be defined as the public service, there is a desire to not erode or even destroy many of those institutions. So I think we're beyond the point where we have to feel defensive about the public service.
That's the comment, but I guess I would throw a quick question in there: do you sense that there is still a great deal of insecurity and low morale within the public service? If there is, is it because people are losing their jobs? Or, as I often hear it, is it because people feel they're working too hard, too many hours, without the support they need?
Ms Hubbard: I certainly agree with you that if one thinks about public opinion, public opinion continues to evolve. I think one does see more in newspapers and on talk shows, more things that suggest Canadians are becoming more aware that some of the public interest activities they hold dear are in fact activities they want to see continued. So I certainly agree that this is true.
In my defence, I guess what I was really trying to say in my remarks was that sometimes we don't remember how lucky we are as Canadians. So it's not so much that public servants are being bashed as it is that sometimes, as citizens, we take for granted the work of those thousands of public servants.
In terms of insecurity and low morale, faced with the amount of change we've seen over the last few years and faced with the amount of uncertainty about the future that we've seen around the public service, I think it would be a very surprising institution or system if morale hadn't been affected. Having said that, though, the very fact that we can continue to take for granted those kinds of services as Canadians suggests that we have hundreds of thousands of public servants across the country who are coming to work everyday, who remain committed.
So I don't think they're dispirited, if that's the right way to say it. I think what they're doing, in various ways, is trying to deal with completely different ways of thinking about their responsibilities, and some of them are coping with that better and faster than others.
Mr. Murray: Can I pick up on that? I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'd like to go back to some of the other exercises in public service renewal over the years.
I think of John Edwards and PS 2000, for example. What happened to that? I don't know where that stands today. Were there lessons learned in that exercise that we find useful today? You mentioned that the public service is changing and adapting, and I'd like to understand who is behind that change. There must be somebody looking at this whole question. Who's driving that change that is apparently going on?
.1200
Ms Hubbard: I think the biggest driver in the recent past has been the government's formulation of the six questions that were put out for program review, which basically required ministers and public service advisers to ministers to think carefully about the answers.
What was the role of government? Was the activity something that governments ought to do? Was there another level of government that could do it better? Even if it was something that should be done, could it be afforded? Those are very profoundly important and difficult questions. They have had an impact on accelerating the thinking about the role of government and therefore about the role of the public service. We haven't seen that to the same extent before.
You mentioned PS 2000. I must say that I was involved in it. It resulted in some significant changes in legislation, which provide more flexibility, not the least of which was the act that we administer.
It was also a way of thinking. I happened to be on the PS 2000 task force on serving the public. We explored quite interesting questions, such as what does service mean in a regulatory organization when the people you are serving don't actually feel any great need to be served? It's a harder question to answer than one might think.
I think the results of that initiative are alive and well in various places in the public service. I don't think there's a kind of big bang, the perfect solution that will transform everything immediately so that from then on life will be neat. I have a horrible feeling that we're in for a long period of time in which the accelerating pace of change continues to accelerate.
Mr. Murray: Does that have to be a horrible feeling? Could it not be a good feeling?
Ms Hubbard: In a human sense, I have days when I think it's horrible and I have days when I think it's a wonderful opportunity. The fact that we are human means that we deal with it better or worse on some days than on others, and differently from our neighbours and friends. What you're feeling and seeing in the public service is a very human, individual reaction, shaped partly by how they see the world, and enabled in the sense of producing good results to the extent that they feel able to influence doing a better job and to influence serving the public better, and are able to get satisfaction. That will vary.
The Chairman: Mr. Fillion and then Mr. Bryden.
[Translation]
Mr. Fillion: You stated earlier, that you considered your relations with the public service union to be excellent.
I see in your report that you quite often use exclusion approval orders. There is a whole list on pages 42 and 43.
Do you use these orders when there is a problem in the public service or is this a way of classifying staff, or delaying early retirement or moving staff from one department to another, etc.?
Ms Hubbard: The Commission uses these orders for various reasons for individual circumstances or to facilitate downsizing in the public service. Whenever we use this mechanism, we must explain why and for what purpose.
If I may, I would like to ask Ms Stewart to explain the orders and the various reasons for using them. It is a way to administer the Act which we feel is in the public interest.
Ginette.
Ms Ginette Stewart (Commissioner, Public Service Commission): The principle is that the Commission must, at all times, act in the public interest. As Ms Hubbard has said, we are experiencing a range of situations that are ever more complicated. The orders are tools that we use when we believe that it is in the best interest of the public service to proceed in a given way.
.1205
I will give you an example. On page 42, we quote an order relating to the appointment of certain public servants of Alberta to Correctional Services Canada.
Mr. Fillion: This is to integrate public servants into the public service.
Ms Stewart: Yes.
Mr. Fillion: That one is self-explanatory, because these are public servants from a province who are joining Canada's public service.
We need a mechanism for these cases, but what about the others? You gave me the easiest example, the one that is easiest to explain, the one that is easiest to understand, but in other cases, these are changes to staff duties. Is this a tool that you use regularly? There are a few examples given here, but do you discuss these with the public service union? Are agreements arrived at in those cases? Do all parties readily agree? After all, we are working with human beings.
Ms Stewart: To answer the first part of your question, that is whether we are doing more of these, through personal experience, having been involved in the bill on public service reform, Bill C-26, I can tell you that the number of exemption orders has dropped tremendously.
For example, we have introduced the concept of ``casual employee''. Previously, many of these appointments were done through exemption orders. Now, with amendments to the Act, there has been a significant decrease in the number of these orders. That takes care of the first part of your question.
However, I would like to come back to the complex nature of the various situations that we experience in the public service. We are constantly seeking ways to help us through certain situations, such as in the example that I gave you earlier.
With respect to union involvement, the answer is yes.
Mr. Fillion: In that case, there is some kind of understanding between the union and the public service itself.
Ms Stewart: We discuss projects with union stewards who are involved in a particular situation.
Mr. Fillion: Are they simply informed or do they help decide?
Ms Stewart: The unions are consulted, but the final decision with respect to the order lies with the Commission.
Mr. Fillion: On page 46, you speak of special exemptions. This involves a few people. Can you give me an idea of what happened in that case? It's on page 46.
Ms Stewart: Yes.
Mr. Fillion: At some point we need a system like that one to settle special cases. What happened in those cases?
Ms Stewart: I am sorry sir, but I cannot give a detailed reply to your question. I will have to come back with the information that you are requesting.
Mr. Fillion: Will you send it on to the committee?
Ms Stewart: Yes.
[English]
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Fillion.
Mr. Bryden.
Mr. Bryden (Hamilton - Wentworth): Thank you.
On page 21 of the annual report, under employment equity, there's a little passage that deals with something called special measures initiatives and monitoring programs for members of designated groups. I've read that passage and I really don't understand what you're talking about there. Can you give me some details of what that's all about? What is that? What are you talking about?
Ms Hubbard: Yes. The special measures initiatives program is a program created by the employer, by the Treasury Board. It's a four-year program that involves, if my memory serves me well, around $55 million - after program review - over the four years. It includes a fund.
Basically, the purpose is to take the best elements of previous experiences with employment equity programs and include them in this new program, and also add a different focus to it. The focus before the special measures initiatives program, as I understand it, was primarily on recruitment - special measures in order to attract people from designated groups to the public service.
.1210
The 1994 changes demonstrated that recruitment is important, and we still do some, but it's also a question of retention and of diversity management. If the workplace isn't a place where the management, frankly, is sensitive to managing in a way that accepts the difference that's brought to the table, recruiting people from designated groups into the workplace doesn't have a good result. If we recruit significant numbers of people but they turn around and go, for various reasons, then we're not really achieving what the government would want to achieve. And frankly, from our point of view, we wouldn't either.
It's a fund of money and a program. I understand about 40 departments and agencies are part of it. What happens is they submit proposals to us about ways in which money - it could be partly their money and partly money from this fund - would be put together in order to make improvements. The kinds of things that are in it are varied, from a series of books, videos and materials about diversity to something in the north called the Northwest Territories omnibus project.
I was in the far north about a year ago to celebrate the 25th anniversary of something called Northern Careers, which is a program that recruited people into the federal public service in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. The result of those 25 years, I should tell you, is that amongst the decision-makers up there, in government, big business and local government, are many people who graduated from that program. They came into the federal government, got experience and training, and then went on to do other things.
So a sort of subsequent phase of that very successful northern careers program is embedded in this special measures fund. This is a program of the employer that we help them administer.
Mr. Bryden: By employer, do you mean Treasury Board?
Ms Hubbard: Yes.
Mr. Bryden: Okay. What about mentoring? Is it part of this same thing?
Ms Hubbard: Yes. In fact, it could be that one of the projects a department might submit would be for a program to see how to start mentoring. It's like seed money.
Mr. Bryden: What do you mean by mentoring, though?
Ms Hubbard: Well, I am speculating here. I am not an expert in diversity management, so I am guessing.
It may be that in attracting and keeping people - for example, Inuit in the public service in the far north - it's necessary to understand there is a need to help them make a transition to a work world that is quite different from the world in which they might have grown up. In the north it may mean they have to work many miles from where their family is. It makes it very difficult, if they move their family as well, for their family to cope with the sudden change.
In that case mentoring doesn't mean formal mentoring; it means recognizing that attracting and retaining this very capable employee means thinking about them in terms of their comfort on a whole variety of fronts and how their family is doing. It doesn't mean interfering in it; it just means being sensitive to it.
Mr. Bryden: I can see the utility of this in the far north, certainly, but does it apply in Ottawa, for example, with other designated groups?
Ms Hubbard: Yes, it certainly would apply. What's flexible about the special measures initiatives program is it can be whatever the department or agency believes would be useful to them to improve diversity in their organization, given the particular challenges they face. So it would take a different shape and have a different nature.
Mr. Bryden: Can I ask you, then, to provide for me details of this program? I'd like to have a real look at it, because I don't know where it came from. Can you tell me who authorized the $55 million expenditure on it in 1994? How does it work?
Ms Hubbard: Well, the government decided it wanted to have a multi-year program -
Mr. Bryden: It's a cabinet decision, is it?
Ms Hubbard: - but Parliament would have appropriated the funds.
Mr. Bryden: Of course we would never have seen that very readily.
Ms Hubbard: It is the latest improvement, if you like. Governments have been interested in diversity management for many years. The current centralized investment in it takes this form, but we will certainly give you details.
.1215
Another example is the technical aids program. People with disabilities who need devices to help them to function in the workplace can borrow such devices using a component of this program, which we administer. So for people with disabilities, it's an entirely different kind of thing we're talking about.
Mr. Bryden: Yes, I can see the utility there.
Ms Hubbard: But we would certainly be glad to provide you with more details and we'll send that to the committee.
Mr. Bryden: I would appreciate that very much, Mr. Chairman.
Ms Hubbard: What you'd be interested in is the kinds of activities.
Mr. Bryden: Yes. Actually, I would like a complete analysis of the activities, department by department, because while I appreciate the spirit in which this program has been implemented, as you've described it, what I need to see is actually how the departments do it. We went through this with contracting out before the current chairman was here. When we examined department by department, we found something very different from what Treasury Board thought they had. So we'll have a little look this time, if we may.
Can I move very quickly to a couple of other points? You were talking briefly about the percentage of aboriginals in the public service. Somewhere I read - and I'm not sure if it was in this package - that there's now an enormous number of people of aboriginal origin in the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Can you give me the figures from that department and then the figures for aboriginals in the public service overall? What I'm trying to look at there, just to explain this to you, is that I understand there's 2% or 3% aboriginals in the public service now. Does that 2% or 3% actually represent a much lower figure if you deduct the number of aboriginals in the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development?
Ms Hubbard: I have a figure for you with respect to what I'm told is the current proportion of aboriginal people in the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The information I have is that it's 22% at the current time. What I don't have, I'm afraid, but we can certainly supply you with, is what the base budget and estimated number of people is in the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. I suspect it's a relatively small proportion of the total.
Mr. Bryden: So you can see what I'm after: I want to deduct that figure from Indian Affairs and Northern Development from the overall public service so I can get an idea of the presence of aboriginals in the -
Ms Hubbard: I understand. We'll get the information for you. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a small enough number and a small enough proportion of the total that it probably doesn't affect the overall percentage. But that's a guess, and what I'll do is get you the numbers.
Mr. Bryden: Fine.
I have one final question. Indeed, you said something that I latched right on to. You said self-government was drawing qualified aboriginals from the public service. I don't know how to react to that. Is that a positive thing or a negative thing, from your point of view, in its impact on Canadian society at large and how the public service works into Canadian society? Can you just comment on that a little bit?
Ms Hubbard: I'll certainly try. Given that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development's mission is to try to ensure devolution of responsibility to first nation governments and to accelerate the development and devolution to local levels in the north, it seems to me that achieving that objective requires both that there be a fairly good percentage of aboriginal people in the organization, but also that many aboriginal people may join the federal government to learn skills they would like to take back so that they can be effective in their own governments in the future.
It seems to me that on the one hand, from the point of view of society as a whole, this is a good thing. And if you take it more broadly, if you talk about the northern careers program, the fact that such a high proportion of people who are serving the north, either in local governments, in the territorial government, or in private sector companies, have had experience in the public service seems to me that the federal government, as employer, has provided an excellent place for people to learn and at the same time make a contribution. If all the aboriginal people who work in the public service were to leave tomorrow, if they all saw their future in aboriginal governments, we would not have left in the federal government a very representative public service.
I think the trick is to look at each of these diversity groups differently to try to understand what it is that's motivating them and to try to figure out what is an appropriate way to ensure that we both have a representative public service and meet the needs of these groups, depending on their own aspirations. In the case of some groups, there may be some different elements in the aspirations of the vast majority of the rest of the Canadian population.
.1220
The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Jackson is next.
Mr. Jackson (Bruce - Grey): Ms Hubbard, I have three questions.
The first one is that we hear all the time, whether it's from the media or from my colleagues, that bureaucrats are running everything. The word ``bureaucrat'' conjures up the public service taking over from the minister and the minister becoming a captive. Are there checks and balances in the fact that you just give the minister advice? Is this a bum rap? How do you see that word ``bureaucrat''?
The second question is why should I become a public servant? Why should I join the public service? What good is that going to do me in a career? What makes that any better than any other career?
The third question is what skills and qualifications would I need to become a public servant?
Ms Hubbard: Let me try to take your questions in turn. Certainly some people have said, and some people believe, I guess, that bureaucrats run everything and that ministers are captives of their bureaucrats.
I joined the public service in 1963, I hesitate to say - of course I was only three at the time. So I've worked with a lot of politicians, parliamentary committees and ministers. I have always found it easy to take the opposite view.
Ministers can and do take advice from a variety of places. One of the places they take advice from is their bureaucrats. A really good senior public servant finds ways to ensure that the minister, whoever the minister might be, feels comfortable taking whatever difficult decision they have to take, as an individual minister, as a minister who is a member of the cabinet.
One of the things I learned over my many years in the public service was - and I think senior public servants do learn this - that the satisfaction comes not from having a minister or a government that does what you would do in their shoes but having a minister or a government that understands the issues because you've been able to help explain them in a way that enables a minister or a government to decide. So it is possible, I suppose, in a human way, over time, for bureaucrats to begin to worry that governments and ministers aren't deciding necessarily to agree with them.
One of the things I always learned was that it wasn't important if they agreed with a particular piece of advice I gave. My test was, did I tell them the facts, even if they didn't necessarily want to hear them? Did I give them the best advice I could find, from a variety of sources? Am I satisfied that I didn't give them just one idea but a variety of ideas, so that they could take a good decision? The decision at the end of the day is by definition a good decision, because as a citizen I elected these people. That may sound a bit hokey, but that's how it's supposed to work, and in my experiences that's more or less how it does work.
Why should I join the public service? Well, it's a good question - people do ask me this - although I must say that the young people I meet and talk to today are just as enthusiastic and care just as deeply about serving the public interest, about doing good for the country, as we did when we were young. There aren't nearly as many opportunities for them now as there were when I left school, but I think it's kind of more challenging. It's a bit tougher to figure out how to provide good policy advice when you have to worry about affordability. It's more interesting and perhaps more satisfying to figure out how governments can do things by working with other governments, by working with the not-for-profit sector, by working with other groups. It's more complicated. In a sense, a bureaucrat's dream is greater complexity, greater ingenuity, greater creativity, and greater satisfaction. So the challenges, I think, are tougher, if anything.
I do think also that young people today have a different view about work. When I left university, I never really thought very much about what I wanted to do with my career. I was absolutely certain somebody would hire me to do something, and until I decided to do something else, I would continue to be able to put bread on the table. Young people today don't think that way. They know better what the world is like. They have different views about what work means and what their satisfaction is.
.1225
So I'm quite confident, and I would only say to young people, if you want to have a challenging and rewarding and interesting time, if you feel a great sense that you want to make a contribution, then think about the public service. If you don't think of it as a special calling, if you get satisfaction in other ways, then perhaps you don't want to think about time in the public service. But I don't think that special-calling nature has changed much.
On your third question about skills and qualifications, it seems to me the kinds of things public service leaders are going to need are the same kinds of things as if you read and listen to what people are saying around the world, in the private sector, in the public sector - very similar kinds of skills. The difference is that in the public sector we have to put the public interest first, and that colours everything. We have to deal with uncertainty. We have to deal with complexity. We have to work in partnerships. We have to understand interdependence. There are things we didn't need to do as well before, and now they are going to be crucial. We have to be better at managing relationships and partnerships.
Although it's not a very popular thing to say, one of the most important characteristics of leadership in the future - I would think it's also true outside the public sector - will be what I call a passion for personal continuous learning. It's not just organizational continuous learning, which is important, it's how can I do better. It doesn't matter how much I'm paid, it doesn't matter how important I am, it doesn't matter how respectful people are to me; I'm not perfect, I don't know everything, and I have to keep working at trying to do better. It's a kind of openness to learning. It's a vulnerability that hasn't been very fashionable in our society generally.
That would be my take on that question.
Mr. Jackson: I note with interest that many countries are experiencing the same thing. The demographics all over the world seem to be such that at this point quite a few people in the upper echelons have to go. One of the things they are saying is that not only was it expensive to let people go on some of these packages given to them, but they are losing the skills you talk about and they don't necessarily hire people. They were saying maybe there should be a slowdown in those people leaving, because that's not necessarily a good idea. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Ms Hubbard: My experience as a manager suggests that when people have thought about it and decided they really want to do something else with their life, it's never a particularly good idea to try to keep them. That doesn't mean they're bad people. It doesn't mean what they have contributed is not helpful. It means they have made up their minds that they want to do something different. I don't think it's wise to keep people who have made choices or made decisions about what they want to do.
On the other hand, I also don't think it's a good idea to say everybody should go and we'll start over. There's an enormous investment in institutional memory and experience, and it's valuable. I think the trick is to find the right balance.
I would hate to think anybody thought people my age, which I must say sounds startlingly old, don't have anything to contribute any more. On the other hand, I have to admit that if I sit around the table with people who are in jobs like mine and we're all about the same age, we're pretty short on input from another generation. We're pretty short on input and on a different perspective. If we're going to think about the future of the public service, it seems to me it needs to be informed by presumably the experience and wisdom of people who are as old as I am and also the insights and hopes and aspirations and experiences of people who are going to be here long after I'm not doing what I'm doing.
We have to manage the good of the system and balance that against the aspirations and interests of the people who work in it, regardless of what their age and experience are.
The Chairman: Earlier someone mentioned the youth component and why a young person should come to the public service. You mentioned in your brief the aging public service, and certainly there's a public awareness of youth today. The government is very aware that we have issues to deal with concerning our youth. Has the public service thought of a public service youth internship program of some sort, where we would draw young people into the public service on an internship basis and then not only provide them with some good experience that perhaps would provide them with marketable skills back in the private sector but also deal with the aging population question of the public service at the same time?
.1230
Ms Hubbard: Certainly for as far as I can remember, the federal government has had programs of summer student employment. In fact, before I became a public servant that was one of the few ways young women could actually earn enough money in the summer to put themselves back at university in the fall. That continues.
There are co-op programs, there is a variety of mechanisms that governments have already put in place, and there are some that this government has in place. Those have the happy advantage of meeting the needs of departments and agencies to get work done and also of providing these people - often students, or other people - with experience. In certain departments where they have a specialized need, I know they have special...what you would call internship programs because they want to maintain their relationships with the scientific community or some other community.
We also, of course, have specialized targeted recruitment programs to attract post-secondary recruits into the public service - and hopefully keep them - in areas where we have real needs, in the area of economists, mathematicians, mathematical statisticians and our management trainee program. We try to recruit the brightest and the best and then develop them through to the middle management level.
So yes, there are those mechanisms. They do seem to work. There may well be others that one could explore. There may be programs that are more appropriate in some departments and agencies than across the whole system, and I would expect you may see more of that kind of thing as departments and agencies worry about their own renewal.
The Chairman: Right. Perhaps I can ask you, if you could, to supply the committee with some numbers on what some of the targets are and perhaps what the numbers of youth are who end up being employed by the public service through summer employment programs and other programs.
Ms Hubbard: Sure. Certainly, we'd be glad to do that.
The Chairman: Mr. Bryden, do you have a final comment?
Mr. Bryden: Yes, indeed, just a comment. Given that the whole theory and principle of employment equity is to make the public service representative of Canadian society, surely the group that should have highest priority in terms of achieving that aim is the age group. In employment equity, surely we should be trying to make the public service representative of the ages of Canadians. That's the only comment I really wanted to make.
Ms Hubbard: I think it is certainly true that we need in the public service the points of view that are brought by the various generations. I think one has to balance that with questions of investing in people who already have experience and knowledge and institutional memory and think about the trade-off between the wisdom that one, hopefully, acquires as one gets older against the enthusiasm that one sees in young people. A really good, professional public service would have a balance.
The Chairman: Okay. I did say it was a final comment. Mr. Harvard just put his hand up.
Mr. Harvard (Winnipeg St. James): I want to ask one question, because you mentioned a few minutes ago about the public service being a special calling. I happen to believe it's a special calling, as I also feel politics is a special calling.
My question is this: does a special calling imply that those who respond to that calling should be expected to make certain sacrifices, especially in the area of wages and benefits? I know that in some areas the public service is quite competitive with the private sector. In some other areas I wonder whether it is competitive, especially in the upper echelons. My question is this, then, Ms Hubbard: are you concerned that there is a drift toward a situation where the public service, at least in some very important areas, may not be competitive with the private sector and will be losing some very important talent, or not attracting talent that will go to the private sector?
Ms Hubbard: From the point of view of whether we're finding it difficult, as the Public Service Commission, to recruit and retain people with certain specialized expertise - for instance, in the information technology area - relative compensation, relative demand in other sectors is an important consideration. For questions about how competitive is the compensation in the public service with respect to the private sector, that is a question you should direct to the Treasury Board.
.1235
But generally the answer is yes. I don't think people work in the public service, especially at senior levels, because they think they're going to be rich. I think the same observation is made about politicians. Having said that, though, I think one has to be realistic and look at who are the other competitors who are seeking the services and the expertise that we need in the public sector. What's the range of tools that have to be brought to bear to make sure we attract and retain the brightest and the best?
One of the things we can offer in the public sector, it seems to me, is a sense of satisfaction, a sense of continuing to learn and to grow. I would never counsel anybody to join the public service to get rich. On the other hand, I think it's just accepted that there's a satisfaction from serving the public that has a value to those who view it as a special calling. But I think we have to be careful in the public sector that we don't over-value that sense of public good and find ourselves some day unable to attract or keep the kinds of people we actually need to get the job done.
It's a complicated question, but yes, it worries us when we find scarce competencies and we have to look at why they are scarce. Is compensation one of the issues? If it is -
Mr. Harvard: You might not expect someone who wants to go to the deputy minister level to be rich, rich, rich. But when you hear about people, whether in banking or the computer industry or whatever, CEOs.... I equate a deputy minister with a CEO in many ways. You hear about CEOs making $3 million, $4 million, $5 million or $10 million, and then a deputy minister at a small fraction of that. How long can that continue before you find yourself in a situation of not attracting the kind of people you need?
Ms Hubbard: I think it's a question that deserves to be studied and answered. I think what deputy ministers derive in terms of satisfaction is not entirely based on what they're paid. However, there are other considerations. I think it's a very good question. If we are observing the phenomenon of more and more of our very senior people leaving, maybe the question is why are they leaving and what can be done about it. Some things can be treated and some things it's not very realistic to imagine could be treated to the extent.... One could never imagine compensation at the deputy ministerial level - I shouldn't say that, maybe you can - being equated to what the heads of some private sector companies get.
Having said that, there may be a disparity that is so big that it is in fact having an impact. If it is, it's presumably of concern to the members of this committee and to Canadians.
The Chairman: Thank you.
As a final, final comment, I would ask you to assist the committee in responding to some questions that we may be sending you for further assistance.
Ms Hubbard: Absolutely, I'd be delighted.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for your contribution this afternoon and for your assistance.
The meeting is adjourned.