[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, December 3, 1996
.1100 
[English]
The Chairman: I call this meeting to order.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee resumes its examination of public service renewal initiatives. So far in this series of meetings on public service renewal initiatives, our committee has heard witnesses from the central agencies and from the Auditor General's office. Our objective today is to gain an understanding of the views of a major public service union on some of the issues we have been discussing with officials during the last couple of months, in particular its views on alternative service delivery.
Welcome to Mr. Steve Hindle, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. Mr. Hindle will introduce the other officers accompanying him, and I understand they do have an opening statement.
As I said before the committee met, we allow about ten minutes for the opening statement, so I'd encourage you to get through your opening statement and allow the members an opportunity to ask questions.
Mr. Hindle, please.
Mr. Steve Hindle (President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada): I will do my best, Mr. Chairman.
I'd also like to thank the government operations committee for agreeing with the Professional Institute's request to meet with the committee to discuss recent federal initiatives in renewing the public service.
With me today are Michèle Demers, who is a vice-president of the Professional Institute, and Bob McIntosh, who is the institute's manager for collective bargaining.
We were concerned to learn that the original plan for your review of public service renewal had been to hear only from senior government officials. Perhaps we can offer another perspective as spokespersons for over 30,000 professional federal public service employees who play a key role in actually delivering government services and programs to the people of Canada.
Canada has embarked on a process of restructuring the federal public service in the wake of similar initiatives in Britain and New Zealand. Downsizing, privatization and alternative service delivery are the orders of the day in what the government has termed public service renewal. Federal government employees are living through a period of unprecedented change and uncertainty as this process of renewal takes hold.
Back in the 1993 election we had no warning that changes of this magnitude would occur. In fact, the red book issued by the present government during that campaign made no significant reference to the public service.
When the government changed in 1993, we hoped for a relationship based on partnership and mutual trust. This is particularly the case for the Professional Institute, because of the nature of the work of our members and the contribution they are able to make to getting government right as professionals involved in the direct delivery of government services.
We hoped for meaningful and continuing consultation, and our members hoped that as employees in the public service they would be treated with respect. These hopes have not come to pass. As you may have heard from other quarters, morale is at an abysmal level among federal government employees.
As staff are cut, the workload on the survivors increases, along with their level of stress. Members of the public service are faced with wrenching decisions about their future and are often required to make these decisions at short notice.
The pressures these employees face are exacerbated by the way they are being treated by government. Pay within the public service has been frozen for five of the last six years. The promise to resume collective bargaining, which the present government made during the 1993 election, is finally being fulfilled, but with so many restrictions that it is only a shadow of what federal employees and their unions were led to expect.
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Professionals in the public service are a tremendous asset that could and should be called on in the process of public service renewal. Because they are so closely involved with the delivery of programs, they often have a better idea of the problems and potential solutions than the managers who are making proposals for change. Members of PIPS would welcome the chance to work in partnership with senior levels of government, but often find that their input is neither sought nor welcome.
Some examples do exist that demonstrate the potential for partnership where a true commitment from government exists. A number of institute members and representatives have been involved over the past year, for example, in the current review of science and technology activities in the federal government. They have been treated as part of the team. Their contributions and ideas have been treated with respect, and the conclusions that are emerging have the advantage of a wide degree of acceptance from the employees most directly affected.
Too often, however, we find that consultation with public service unions on government initiatives is an empty exercise. Employees and their unions are brought into the process too late to have any significant impact. Senior managers make their decisions and then call in the unions to brief them on what the government or the department has decided to do. The timeframes allowed to respond are very brief and the information available to help us shape a response is often inadequate and incomplete.
We feel we are forced into an adversarial position where we have to fight back to win minor modifications of the plans that were originally presented. For example, let me cite the battle the institute and other unions had to wage in order to convince the House of Commons finance committee, and then the government, to accept the principle of substitution as a means of reducing the impact of government lay-offs and downsizing. More than 1,000 successful substitutions have since been made because we succeeded in getting this program, but it would never have occurred if we had not challenged the government's initial resistance. We faced similar resistance when we put forward proposals for joint adjustment committees in every region to assist employees being laid off to find alternative jobs within the public service, or to navigate their transition into the private sector.
A union-management relationship that is based primarily on consultation cannot be satisfactory or effective for any long length of time. The imbalance implied in consultations means that its effectiveness is inevitably impaired. No matter how sympathetic front-line officials are when talking with employees, the union side has no guarantee that this sympathy will translate into policy when decisions are made at senior levels of the public service or by ministers.
This is why the government's continued suspension of collective bargaining has been such an obstacle to maintaining a positive relationship. Even within the restrictions of the antiquated Public Service Staff Relations Act, collective bargaining has been the major means of communication and of resolving employer-employee issues within the federal government for almost 30 years. It is a structured means of dialogue in which the decisions made are set down in lasting form with the consent of both parties.
We have no problem with efforts to simplify and to streamline the working of the public service. In fact, PIPS has been frustrated on a number of occasions when proposals that we put forward for reform were turned down or ignored by the government. To take just one example, the institute went on record many years ago in suggesting that the structure of collective bargaining could be streamlined and some bargaining units consolidated. We received no response from the government at the time, but now we are faced with proposals for radical change from Treasury Board, and we've been asked to respond within 60 days.
Given what we feel is an irrefutable need for partnership between the federal government and its employees, we were very disturbed that Treasury Board would have even proposed some of the five options it released. One of these options was to consolidate all federal employees into one great big bargaining unit. Another was to reorganize bargaining units into functional groups that bore no resemblance to the present structure of bargaining units or employee representation.
These proposals were naturally viewed with great suspicion by the federal government bargaining agents. They would have involved a colossal effort to reorganize, both on the union and employer side, probably requiring a process of reclassification that could have taken years to complete. Vast amounts of time and energy would have been required that should have been directed to the effective delivery of services and to an improved employer-employee relationship in a streamlined public service.
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During the 1993 election the present government promised to return to collective bargaining in the public service if it was elected. The government has finally started to honour that promise, but the process of collective bargaining they have created barely deserves the name. It continued to suspend its employees' right to bargain for three years after the election. After six years with almost no pay increases our members have been warned not to expect a catch-up, and in fact not to expect much at all in increased pay.
The government has also suspended binding arbitration as a means of resolving disputes in order to create what one can term a no-risk bargaining situation - no risk for the employer - and we have been warned that the value of any improvement in working conditions or fringe benefits will be deducted from any pay settlement the government may be prepared to accept. We can be forgiven for thinking that Treasury Board's real agenda is either to get rid of unions entirely in the Public Service of Canada or to hem them in with so many restrictions that they become an insignificant force.
The Professional Institute wants to get back to the bargaining table on behalf of our members, but we feel we are being bullied before we even get there. The balance that should normally exist between the parties in a bargaining situation is being artificially tilted in favour of the employer, the Government of Canada.
Good management involves collaboration between management and employees, respect by management for its employees with a responding commitment by the employees to their work and to the organization. This is particularly true for the professional employees who work in government and whom the institute represents.
As we see it, our members have every interest in ensuring the success of the programs in which they are involved at the workplace. They seek satisfaction in their work based on accomplishment and in effective delivery of services to Canadians. It would be wrong for managers or for government ministers to assume otherwise, since government programs must have the collaboration of our members and the members of other public service unions if they are to be delivered in a way that benefits Canadians.
The confidence that our members have had in government has been shaken, however, by recent measures that are affecting their work environment and their ability to be of service to the public. Programs vital for the future of Canadian society and the Canadian economy are being slashed or eliminated without regard for the long-term consequences.
Let me give some recent examples. I have three but I'll go through one. Next March the west Vancouver research station of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is due to be closed completely and its facility transferred to some as yet undefined private sector organization. This station has had an extraordinary record in research on the fishery, which is one of British Columbia's most important industries. One of its dramatic successes has been to develop a hybrid breed of salmon that grows to full maturity in two years, rather than the four or five years required for wild salmon. The team that made this breakthrough will be broken up next March, however, and most of its members are reluctant to accept the reasonable job offer in prospect since it would force them to transfer to Halifax.
Canada has been known for many years for its first rate public service. We've been seen as a model for many developing countries that have preferred Canada over Britain and the United States in studying how to establish a public service and to deliver programs. This reputation is now in jeopardy because of pugnacious and destructive policies being pursued by the federal government. The public service as an entity is threatened with being broken up through the creation of alternative service delivery agencies, as has occurred with the proliferation of agencies and privatized organizations that have taken over large portions of the work of Britain's civil service.
A decade after the U.K., Australia and New Zealand launched their programs of public service reforms, more and more questions are being raised in those countries about the consequences. The need to maintain a critical mass within the respective public services is being stressed, along with the need to keep the avenues for career mobility and transfer between agencies and the central public service open.
Much the same message is contained in the recent report on public service values and ethics issued by the Canadian Centre for Management Development. We feel the government is so intent on short-term gain in terms of downsizing the public service that it is ignoring these warnings and may be doing serious damage for the long term.
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The Professional Institute was directly involved in discussions with government that led to the early retirement program and early departure incentive programs that are now in force. Naturally, we prefer these measures to the government simply issuing pink slips to get rid of employees it no longer wants. However, your committee should be aware of the serious consequences the current cutbacks may have for the future capacity of the federal public service.
Many experienced federal employees are sufficiently disillusioned that they see little reason not to leave the public service when incentives like the ERI and the EDI are available. Capable and promising employees who have recently joined the public service see the direction the government is taking and they too may turn to opportunities outside of government if they can. Even for those federal employees who are caught in the middle, say the age group between 35 and 50, there is a temptation to leave if opportunities are available. Among those who leave will be some very bright people, the potential leaders of the public service in the next century.
This impending depletion of senior ranks of the public service is being recognized in the program called La Relève headed by Jocelyne Bourgon, Clerk of the Privy Council. She's attempting to ensure an adequate supply of talented top management. We hope your committee recognizes in its review that current federal initiatives are likely to affect movement and career development at all levels within the public service, not just the top ranks, and that this is one of the reasons for the current low state of public service morale.
Let me conclude with a few basic points. I hope some of these will be reflected in your report on public service renewal initiatives.
Good management of the public service is fundamental for the effective delivery of programs to the Canadian public. We in the institute have not lost faith in the importance of what government does in maintaining civil society and in providing services for which there is no easy alternative source if access is to be maintained for all Canadians. Managing this process effectively requires the active participation and cooperation of federal employees. That will only take place in an environment of collaboration and of respect for the people who deliver public services.
Secondly, the current fashion of constantly criticizing what government does should be approached with caution. We question the good faith of some critics of government whose agenda is too often one of discrediting the importance of the public sector in Canadian society rather than seeking to improve it. In other countries, Canada is seen as one of the best places to live. One reason we are rated so highly is surely the contribution to Canadians' well-being that comes from our tradition of sharing responsibilities through government and the public service.
Thirdly, the financial benefits of the current wave of government downsizing are often overstated. The government now estimates that 55,000 jobs will be eliminated in the federal public sector through the current series of lay-offs, departures, and early retirements. Another 50,000 jobs may be devolved to the alternative service delivery agencies that were announced in the budget last March.
The savings to the public service are estimated at $3 billion per year, 10% of the $30 billion annual deficit the present government inherited. There has been no indication to us as to what the continuing costs of the alternative mechanisms of delivery will be. The federal government has the right to determine the programs and services it wants to deliver, but it is also responsible for maintaining a public service that is capable of delivering these programs.
Recently, Bill Brett, the general secretary of the Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists in Britain, spoke to our annual general meeting about his union's experience with recent changes in the British government. In the past ten years, many U.K. government services have been privatized and an amazing number of new agencies, more than 280, have been established to take over service delivery from the traditional civil service.
These initiatives are now being questioned in Britain, both by academic experts and by present and former civil servants. The institute hopes that the Standing Committee on Government Operations takes a hard look at the British experience before it is too late for Canada to turn back.
My union and its members believe in the significance of public service for Canada today both in the sense of what government does and as the institution, the people, and the body of traditions that exist to carry out government policy and programs.
The PS 2000 white paper, which began the process of public service renewal a few years ago, stressed that people are the greatest asset of the public service. Unfortunately, the process of program review that followed on that white paper has tended to focus on institutional reform and to devote too little attention to the people involved. Ministers and their deputies move programs around or send them out to be privatized like generals moving their battalions in some massive military conflict.
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What's at stake today is more than the lives and careers of individual members of the Public Service of Canada. The integrity of the public service itself - its ability to continue delivering services of importance to Canadians and its ability to attract, retain and develop the human resources necessary for effective government - is at risk. As anyone involved with human resources knows, no organization, government or private, can work effectively unless it has a high degree of involvement, commitment and participation from its employees. That involves both respect and a commitment to partnership that we find lacking in the federal government today. The institute hopes that the government operations committee will carry this message back to the government when you write your report on public service renewal in a few weeks' time.
Thank you again for the opportunity. We're willing to answer questions.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Fillion.
[Translation]
Mr. Fillion (Chicoutimi): The president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service has not presented a very rosy picture to us, far from it.
My first question relates to consultation. In your statement you said that the consultation was meaningless, that it was phony consultation and that since the government came to power in 1993, there has been very, very little exchange between the Institute and Treasury Board managers.
Can you tell me whether there are any plans being developed at the present time? Can you explain what type of consultation is taking place now and why you are not satisfied?
Ms Michèle Demers (vice-president, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada): Well, your question is rather vague.
Mr. Fillion: It's vague because your statement does not give any concrete examples. I hope that in your answer you can give me an idea of where specifically this consultation process was a phony one. There hasn't been any progress. Managers had already made up their mind before hearing from you. Were you consulted merely for the sake of form? That's the impression that I got.
Ms Demers: That's exactly what we are denouncing.
Mr. Fillion: I don't think it's quite so vague anymore.
Ms Demers: I understand your question. We are denouncing the fact that consultation occurred at a time when decisions had already been made and certain processes were already underway. The best example I can give you is everything that's been done with respect to the creation of agencies.
We regularly contact Treasury Board and make a point of asking for details as well as an opportunity to give our opinion and recommendations on the way to proceed in the future, for example with respect to the Food Inspection Agency. When we are consulted, we are faced with a fait accompli.
The same thing holds true with respect to the structure of the public service, the structure of groups and the merging of groups. The matter is discussed for eight to ten months behind closed doors, and then we are given 60 days to submit our recommendations, upon which they make their final decision.
The consultation processes are phony ones because they do not take into account the fact that public service professionals are able to make a positive contribution to the reorganization of the public service. They couldn't care a fig for what we have to say or the solutions we may propose.
Mr. Fillion: You also say that the ministers and their assistants do all sorts of juggling with the programs.
When there is this kind of juggling with programs, to place them in an agency or simply privatize them, this is a heavy burden for the Institute and its members. Your purpose is to defend your members.
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Ms Demers: Our purpose is to defend our members as well as to defend a certain quality of service. We represent public service professionals who are anxious to provide quality service and to maintain the reputation Canada has acquired over the years as a developed country focusing on science and technology. At the present time, everything relating to research, science and quality service for Canadians seems to be going downhill. That is something we worry about.
Mr. Fillion: I know you are concerned about protecting the integrity of the public service. That is your role. When the government, ministers and assistants juggle with programs, this brings about a decrease in the power of officials. You have a great deal of misgivings because the consultation or the exchange between the two is not heading in the direction you would like. Guidelines are being applied without consultation. Is that what you are referring to when you say that ministers and deputy-ministers are juggling with the programs? They are taking decisions without consultation, without thought for the quality of service provided to taxpayers, and without consideration for the members of your Institute who will be working within this framework.
Ms Demers: Yes. The people delivering the service. That is what we are afraid of and that is the sort of experience we are now facing.
Mr. Fillion: Have things happened since 1993, or have they just been passing the buck?
[English]
The Chairman: Mr. Hindle, you wanted to add a comment.
Mr. Hindle: One of the things coming up, as everybody knows, is that we're returning to bargaining in the public service in 1997. Right now, the institute is in a position to serve notice to bargain on behalf of the law group, which we represent. We have not served notice, and that has been intentional because we do not think the employer is ready to bargain. We have had a number of discussions with the government about the return to collective bargaining. It does not know how it is going to do it.
The government has suspended binding arbitration. There are a number of employees who will not have the right to strike because they are essential to the safety and security of the public service. The government has not come to a conclusion on how a dispute for those employees will be resolved at the bargaining table. They do not have binding arbitration, yet they cannot go on strike and cannot effectively deal with an impasse at the bargaining table. Are we to expect that the employer, the Treasury Board, is just going to rely on the government to write more legislation? We have not been able to come to an agreement. We have not been engaged in serious discussions about other processes involved with the return of collective bargaining. That's the responsibility of the employer, who is not ready to do it.
As part of the downsizing exercise - program review - Treasury Board, the employer of the Public Service of Canada was hit with a 40% cut. As a result, it eliminated most of the positions occupied by people who were engaged in negotiations with unions. This was done to the point that as far as we know, they went down to having two people who have responsibility for negotiations, for sitting at the table with the unions and negotiating contracts, as a result of program review. So the employer has supposedly determined that negotiator positions are surplus.
How are they going to deal with 72 bargaining units coming back to the bargaining table starting in 1997? They're unprepared, yet they're unable to tell us how they're going to do it and will not engage us in serious discussions on trying to resolve this. We are left with the impression that they are going to depend on Parliament to legislate whatever it is that they want.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Mr. Fillion.
Mr. Fillion: You did answer my question in part when you mentioned that in 1997 bargaining would be very difficult. Positions have been cut back and people who are no longer occupying their positions are not in a situation to negotiate.
You also know that the present actions of Treasury Board indicate that it would like to get rid of unions. But judging from the way you depicted things, once bargaining starts in 1997, at the rate things are now going, instead of having proper co-operation between employees and the employer, negotiations will not take place with the legal arms at one's disposal.
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In 1997, once bargaining resumes, it won't be easy either for you or for the employer. In view of this situation, how can you explain your silence about the events that you have been observing and your preparations for bargaining?
We don't hear any talk about you mobilizing your members. Are you informing them about what is happening? What is the present process for preparing for negotiations?
[English]
Mr. Hindle: We are engaged in our own internal preparations for negotiations. I will take exception to having been silent on the recent initiatives. With all due respect, I think you will find that for each piece of legislation that has eroded rights of public service employees and our members, we have come before the committee that has been given the task of looking at it. We have submitted briefs and we have made representations such as this. This has been going on not just with this government, but with the previous government as well - the legislation that ended the public service strikes in 1991 - and that was not the beginning either. It has happened in the past with the Public Sector Compensation Restraint Act in the early 1980s, and even before that with anti-inflation protection. We have been using the mechanisms that are in place to voice our concerns with the people who we think are the ones involved in making the decisions, and those are the people elected to sit and represent the Canadian public in Parliament.
We are very concerned. We have a great deal of respect for the rule of law in this country. The members of the Professional Institute are the professional employees of the public service. They are not known for demonstrating outside of the gates of Parliament Hill or outside the offices of the employer. They are used to being treated with respect, but they have not been getting respect from their employer.
So yes, we are preparing for a return to collective bargaining. We want to be part of the solution to what's going on here, not part of the problem.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Fillion.
Mr. Harvard.
Mr. Harvard (Winnipeg St. James): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Sir, you stated in your opening remarks that morale is not good in the public service. It doesn't come as any great surprise, given what's taken place in the last two or three years. Do you really think it could be otherwise, given what we know about human nature? If you're downsizing an organization and closing down 45,000 public service positions, it would be difficult to believe that morale would not be negatively impacted by such a decision. Do you really think it's possible to carry out this kind of reorganization of the public service without having a negative impact on morale?
Mr. Hindle: I will concede that what the government has undertaken would inevitably have had an impact on morale, but I think the process that the government and the employer engaged in - the lack of involvement of the employees - made it worse. I think there was an opportunity to lessen the blow on the people affected, particularly on those who are left delivering programs that haven't been cut per se, yet which have fewer resources assigned to their delivery. I think there was something missing.
Program review started as an exercise in identifying what government should do and what it shouldn't do, and what should be done outside of government. What we have seen it become is a cost containment or expenditure reduction exercise. We have very few examples of programs that have actually been cut, yet the number of people delivering the programs or the money available to deliver the programs has been cut. People have been asked to do the same amount or to do more with less resources, and that has had a negative impact on morale.
There was no real attempt to engage the people delivering the program, delivering the service, in discussing more efficient mechanisms to deliver the program. The Auditor General himself said there has been no real attempt on the part of the employer to identify areas of waste in the government and to reduce or to attack those areas of waste. I think the employees of the public service would have been great allies in an effort to do that, to reduce the cost of government while maintaining its efficiency.
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Mr. Harvard: I don't want to be pejorative about it, but are you not being a little naive?
I'll put it this way. The government or the Auditor General or anybody else could have done absolutely everything you wanted to do, short of not going ahead with the job cuts, and the morale still would have been affected. I just cannot believe that you could in effect go to an individual who has been with the public service for five, ten or twenty years and somehow nice-talk him or her into believing that the best thing for him or her is to give up his or her job. That isn't the way human nature works, is it?
Mr. Hindle: There is no doubt that public service morale would have been affected, and in some cases quite negatively, yes. But one of the things that has had a very negative impact on people is the feeling that they have no control over their destiny.
They are not being engaged; they are not being considered part of the solution. They are being dumped upon by everybody as part of the problem: ``We just have to get rid of you. You're useless; you don't do anything. We'll get rid of you and the problem will be solved.'' With all due respect, they are getting rid of people and the problem is still not being solved.
Yes, public service morale would have gone down, but one of the greatest sources of anxiety for people in the public service is not knowing whether or not they're going to have a job in a week, in three weeks or in three months. It's far better for people to know their job is gone than to be left wondering if their job is gone. It shows a total lack of respect from this employer for its employees.
Mr. Harvard: I accept your statement, but are we not dealing to some extent with a cultural issue here? In the public service, for many decades it was more or less a given that your job was secure. And back in the old, old days, going back half a century or more, it was a given that in exchange for job security, public civil servants would have to put up with less than average pay.
That has not been the case in recent history. Starting perhaps in the 1960s and well into the 1970s and 1980s, public servants perhaps had a little of both: security and fairly good wages.
Now there has been another change. When we're talking about downsizing and trying to do this in a rather humanitarian way, are we not just confronted with public service culture? Part of that culture is in effect saying, ``Gee, we just took it as a given that we would always have job security''.
Mr. Hindle: It's taken as a given. Employment security in the public service is a myth and it always has been. It's a myth that people have not been willing to address, and some people are not willing to admit that it was a myth.
The reason it's a myth is that the government of the day determines the size of the government, the function of the government and the organization of the government. As long as the government of the day has a majority in the House of Commons, it gets to do whatever the hell it wants to do. Because it has allowed that myth to continue, or because of the way parliaments over the years have treated the public service, that is where the myth has come from.
It is quite clear, and it's been quite clear since the 1980s, that the government has all the power. It has all the cards. It writes the legislation. It has the supreme authority over the organization of the public service.
So I would put it to you that public service employment security has been a myth, and the myth has now been exploded. People now see it for what it was. It has always been at the whim, if you wish - it's never been really exercised as a whim, but it has always been the prerogative - of the government to determine how long public service employees maintain their employment. It has never been written in a contract.
When it was finally put into the workforce adjustment directive, the government took it away through legislation or changed it through legislation or used bullying tactics to get the unions to agree to changes to it.
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Mr. Harvard: You may be right in suggesting the government has always had the final word, if I can put it that way - perhaps. But with due respect, back in the halcyon days of the public service, back in the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s, governments of the day did not act upon that particular privilege they had. In fact what we saw was something quite contrary to that: a growing public service.
I'm a supporter of government and I'm a supporter of public service. I'm not anti-union, but we have to be quite frank with each other here. You say it was a myth. It is a myth now, if anybody wants to lead us to believe that public servants have a job for life. They don't. So it is a myth now, but it wasn't a myth 30 and 40 years ago.
A voice: Or 10 years ago.
Ms Demers: I would just like to add something here. You were talking about culture. What's becoming a culture and has been for the past maybe 10 years is the fact that this government, which is the largest employer in the country and also has to deal with societal issues and financial issues, is contributing to putting the fault of all of this problem on the public servants.
It's as if the public service employees and the public service are the cause of the national deficit, and nowhere else is there a problem to solve. They have shown, as Steve said earlier, no consideration of and no respect for the public service in their way of managing the public service.
The best example of this is if you look at Minister Massé's notes from the presentation he made to this committee. He made absolutely no mention of the contribution of the federal public service to the Public Service of Canada. It's like a non-existent entity. He's focusing on something else, and the public servants are sidetracked.
Luckily Madam Hubbard mentioned in her speech the dedication and the contribution of the public service employees to the functioning of this country, but the big master at the top of the game never is concerned with anything that deals with public servants.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Gilmour, please.
Mr. Gilmour (Comox - Alberni): Thank you.
When we're dealing with professionals in the private sector, very few of them are unionized or organized, whether we're talking about lawyers, accountants or any of the professions. Rather than deal through the union sector, they deal through the professional associations. I'd be interested in your argument for why the professionals within the public service need to be unionized.
Mr. Hindle: As in most cases of employment, private or public, unions come into existence or make their way into a workplace when employees have the feeling the employer is not treating them properly or fairly. Congratulations to those people outside of the public service who do not feel a need for a union, who have an employer that recognizes their value and treats them as professionals.
While you may look at professionals outside and say they're not unionized, as you mentioned, their professional associations provide an awful lot of service to people that is very similar to what a union provides to its members. Take a look at what's going on in the medical community in Ontario, with the doctors, and tell me those people are not unionized - that the Medical Association is not acting on their behalf as a union. I think they are.
I think you will find the lawyers and the doctors in this country have the largest closed-shop professional unions you're going to find anywhere. They control entry into the profession. They control an awful lot. Before you can become employed as a doctor or a lawyer, you have to meet their requirements. That is a closed shop. They provide service and they negotiate the fee schedules with the people who are paying the money.
Other organizations and other professionals don't see the need, because, as I said, their employer treats them with respect. As for the employees within the public service, some of them would say, ``I don't need a union, because my manager treats me with respect''. On an individual, case-by-case basis, you could probably find people to tell you that.
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I was one of those people who would have told you that as well when I was working in the public service. I had people who were very good managers, who were very aware of the concerns of the individuals they were responsible for, while at the same time ensuring that we delivered a good program. But overall, in the vast majority of cases and taken as a global picture with the employer, the Treasury Board, and its treatment of employees in the public service, that's the reason there are unions in the public service.
Mr. Gilmour: I worked for 25 years in the forest industry in B.C. I'm a professional forester. I worked for MacMillan Bloedel, which was at one time the biggest employer in B.C. with 25,000 employees.
I have difficulty with the comment in your paper where you say that government is not like industry, or government is not like business. Government is not like small business, but government is very much like big business. The environment I came from was strongly unionized - IWA. Port Alberni is in my riding, and you don't get a much more strongly organized town. I'm certainly not against the union. I've worked with unions all my life.
I think part of your difficulty is that by being unionized, the negotiating table is confrontational. That's just the way it's set up. I've been part of downsizing and it's not easy; it's painful. When we did it, we sat down and said, this is where we have to be; we know where we're going, but what's the best way we can get there?
I see your difficulty is that you're dealing across the bargaining table with it, so rather than being part of it, you're being pitted against one another. I see a philosophical problem. I see where you're coming from. I also see where the government is coming from. Being confrontational I think is the difficulty, as opposed to when you're dealing with non-unionized...as you are in big business. You sit down and try to get the answer through an attitude of ``Let's get together. Let's get to the answer and do it that way.'' It's a philosophical statement I'm making, because clearly you are unionized and you are not going to change that.
The difficulty I see is, how do you get the groups together? You have your position. Government is saying they have to downsize, and it doesn't matter which government it is. Business is downsizing; governments are downsizing. That's a fact of reality. The question is, how do you best get there? That's the crux, and I see the difficulty on both sides.
The Chairman: Bob.
Mr. Robert J. McIntosh (Collective Bargaining and Employment Relations, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada): If I may answer that, you've really hit the nail on the head, that is, the ability to sit down and negotiate a solution. What this government has done is legislate away our access to the bargaining table.
Since 1991 we've been unable to sit down and negotiate a solution to these very difficult problems. You cut off that formal avenue of discussion. A few minutes ago the member was referring to a culture, a command and control culture, steeped in many decades of history, where the edict comes down that this is the way it will be, rather than sitting down with employees and negotiating in terms of ``We have a problem, you have concerns; let's try to find a solution''. Cutting off collective bargaining has been a major consequence in the ability to manage the public service.
That's the point we're trying to make here. Restore our forum. Restore our avenue by which we can talk to the employer. Obligate the employer to listen to us - and we're obligated to listen to them - and to negotiate a solution to the difficulties we face, rather than simply having these unilateral impositions of so-called solutions coming down from the government.
Mr. Gilmour: The difficulty I see is that when you're negotiating across the bargaining table, you have your position. You don't want to have any employees removed from the public service, whereas the government will say, ``Look, we have to cut; we're at a deficit position and this is where we want to be''.
The difficulty is that I don't think, from your position at the bargaining table, you're able to accept that this is where the government has to be and say, ``Now where do we move ahead?'' You're still at the point of going head to head on the argument that you aren't going to lose any employees. I am suggesting it is at this point that you're not looking at the same goals.
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Mr. Hindle: I think perhaps you've misinterpreted our position on the whole exercise of downsizing. One of the problems has been that the employer did not invite us to sit at the table, whether it was a bargaining table or otherwise, to talk about how they were going to do this. A lot of the problem we have is not with what they're doing, but with how they're doing it, the process they're using, and the exclusion of the people most affected from that process.
In terms of bargaining, we have shown a willingness with other employers, for example Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and the National Energy Board, in using something other than position-based bargaining for negotiating contracts. It's called interest-based bargaining.
We have been successful with those. The framework that has to be in place before this can work is trust between the employees and the employer. That will not work right now. There is no trust. There is no respect between the employees of the public service and the employer of the public service. What's missing is engagement in the process, discussions on the process. We are being forced to be adversarial, in some instances, because of that. We are being excluded and we do not want to be excluded. We want to be part of what's going on.
Mr. Gilmour: That's a fair comment.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Mr. Murray, please.
Mr. Murray (Lanark - Carleton): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think we're all skirting around the same sort of ideas here. I'm hearing the same kind of comments from most of the MPs.
PIPS has a history of not being antagonistic. You've come before us with constructive criticism in the past. Your members don't come out to my town hall meetings and harass me, and I appreciate that.
What I'm hearing this morning is a bit of a cri du coeur, if you will, from this union. I don't think it's so much about paying benefits and collective bargaining; I think it's about professionals wanting to play a meaningful role in the life of the government and the development of the country.
I think back to 1993 when this government came into office. One of the hallmarks of the government was the renewed reliance on the public service rather than on political advisers. You may recall that. There was quite a bit of talk on the streets in Ottawa about how anyone who had a political background was being ignored and the government only listened to public servants. I put that out as something to keep in mind.
I have the impression that you're overly sensitive perhaps to what government has done over the course of its downsizing. I can recall, particularly as an Ottawa-area MP - those of us who are and others at this table - the discussions in which we were very sensitive to the effect the program review would have on individual public servants to the point that our early departure incentive and retirement incentive packages were criticized as being too generous by many in the private sector.
The other thing that surprised us was the dearth of calls to our offices from public servants expressing either concern or outrage at what was happening. In fact, the concern was more, ``How do I sign up for the package?'' rather than ``Why are you doing this to me?''
I think we have to put all that in context.
My question to you is, how do we bridge this gap? Essentially what we have is a bunch of very intelligent professionals who want to make a contribution to their country, and they probably feel that unless they become an ADM, or a DM, or maybe a member of Parliament, they're not going to have any say in which direction this government is going. I think we all accept that members of PIPS are rational, intelligent, well-meaning, and devoted public servants.
I would be interested in your suggestions as to what kind of process - the science and technology review, for example, was apparently a good process - we should be following to perhaps eliminate some of the elitism, if that's where the problem is in terms of developing government policy and programs, to make the PIPS professionals feel they're more a part of this exercise. What they really want, I believe, is meaningful work that contributes to the good of society. Do you have any suggestions for that?
Mr. Hindle: I think the S and T review is certainly a good example of how it can work. We were asked to select members of the institute to participate in working groups. They went there, chosen by the institute, but they didn't go to represent the institute's point of view. They were also chosen because they work in science and technology areas. They were treated as fully contributing members. They treated the managers as fully contributing members.
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It was interesting to note that a number of the people chosen by the departments to work on these committees, whether they were in the union or not, at some point had probably been institute members. The common theme was science and technology - what are the issues surrounding it - and recruitment and rejuvenation - how to get good young scientists to want to work in the government.
In regard to your earlier comment about people lining up to take the package and wanting to get out, it's an indication that the public service is no longer a pleasant place to work as much as anything else. Yes, the incentives were generous, if you want to use that term; reasonable, if you want to look from the other side of the table. Who knows whether it was too generous or not, but the money was there, the opportunity to leave was there, and I think that's what most people were looking for.
The way to bridge this is to use S and T as an example, The universal classification standard is another one, where we are engaged in the process of looking at how the government will go about developing a new classification standard for public service jobs. We have not come to a conclusion that it is possible to use a universal plan for an employer or an employment situation as large as the public service, as diverse and complex as the public service. Having said that, we have also not said no, this is not going to work. We're willing to be part of the discussions around it, helping to design the plan, test the plan, and then ultimately we will be part of helping to implement the plan and the negotiations that will go with it.
I think it's about finding opportunities like that to have the people who we represent involved in the discussions. If this program is being eliminated, it's fairly simple: everything associated with the program is gone. That's far different from ``This program is being changed'' or ``This program only has $45 million in which to operate instead of $70 million''. Once those decisions have been made - and we're not arguing with the government's right to make those decisions; that's what government is for, that's what Parliament is for - let's engage the people involved in that area by saying ``We've gone from here to here. This is where we have to be. We have $45 million to spend. How are we going to continue to do this? Are there some things we can stop doing? Can we do them differently?''
Engage the people involved in delivering the programs in discussions about what the problems are with the programs.
The impression we have is that there is a perceived problem. A manager puts in a solution to the perceived problem without having actually had a discussion as to what the real problem is, what the real issues are, and the possible solutions, before actually making the decision.
I don't want to give anybody the impression here that we want to co-manage the public service. No, thank you. That is the responsibility of the people charged with managing the public service. I do want to leave you with the impression that we are all in favour of good management. Good management practices and good managers are good for the public service employees. There's no doubt about it. Good managers will have those people involved in at least coming up with ideas for solutions.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Murray: Is that the end of my time?
The Chairman: Yes.
[Translation]
Mr. Fillion.
Mr. Fillion: I've understood the message you wanted to convey to us this morning. You want your arguments to be taken into account when decisions are made on existing programs. You want to be consulted about programs in general and issues affecting the public service.
At the present time, we cannot disregard the vehicles that are in place, namely the union and the government. Once bargaining starts in 1997, we will have to be dealing with this structure. It is not up to us to change the structure. It will still be around for a while. These are the vehicles we have to work with.
Let's assume that I am the government and you are telling me that you want to protect the integrity of the public service, revitalize and rejuvenate it. The government has decided to consult you.
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What would your recommendations be to the committee or to the government? Do you have any immediate measures to suggest in order to revitalize the public service?
[English]
Mr. Hindle: You touched on the very important issue of the return to collective bargaining. That has to be treated very seriously. Both parties in the discussion have to go in without preconceived notions as to where they're going to end up. It truly has to reflect a give and take on the issues being discussed at the bargaining table.
Our members recognize the fiscal reality of the government. Our members also recognize having five years of 0% over the last six years and one 3%. They know what that does to their fiscal reality. Our members have a sense of the worth of their contribution to an organization and they want to ensure that the employer has that sense as well.
I think there has to be a strong focus on collective bargaining, treating it as true collective bargaining and finding a way to balance the power on both sides. Bargaining is about power and power sharing; you have what I want and I have what you want, so let's find a mutually acceptable way of sharing what each want. Treat us with some respect. Don't allow for statements in the press or in Parliament about the outcome of bargaining before we actually engage in the discussions.
The second point would be to find other avenues of meaningful consultation and ensure that the employers, the public service managers, realize it has to be meaningful. Don't make a decision and then come and tell us this is what you're going to do. Tell us what you think the problem is. Engage us in the discussion of the problem. Maybe the problem isn't really what somebody perceives it to be. Perhaps it is.
Once we have an agreement on where the real problem is, where the real issue is, then we can talk about what the options are for solving the problem. Ultimately it will still be up to the government and the managers to make the decision, but let's have more than one idea floated out.
[Translation]
Ms Demers: We would urge you to take a look at what has been done in other countries that have gone through privatization and devolution and to determine what their impact has been on society before going any further in the direction in which you are now heading. It is of the utmost importance for our society to avoid making the same mistakes or perhaps do things differently with the same basic aim.
[English]
The Chairman: I draw the attention of the members to the agenda that's before them. We have on the agenda that at noon we would move to business of the committee. I have a couple more people on the list for questions. I'm in the hands of the committee as to whether we would continue and allow members to put their questions and then move to the business of the committee after the witnesses leave. Is it agreed that we allow the questioners on the list to put their questions? At that point we will adjourn this part of the meeting.
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chairman: Mr. Bellemare.
Mr. Bellemare (Carleton - Gloucester): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am a great admirer of PIPS, but today I'm a bit disappointed in your presentation. Perhaps it's the tone. You sound more like a union than anything else, and I'm sorry to hear that.
Mr. Hindle: We are a union.
Mr. Bellemare: You are a union?
Mr. Hindle: It's called the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.
Mr. Bellemare: I didn't see the word ``union'' in there. Maybe I was naive. I saw you more as an association of professionals. This is how I saw you as opposed to the alliance, which is a hard bargaining union and confrontational. Perhaps I should have keyed in when you started saying that you wish to be consulted. What you told us is that for you, consultation is going back to the collective bargaining table. The collective bargaining table, to anyone's mind, is confrontational. It's a power game as to who's going to gain what.
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You've got it all wrong. We are $650 billion in debt. Should we shut down the country? We were some $50 billion in debt every year. We had to do some kind of revision of the way we operated. It was in programs, and of course programs affected jobs, but to my mind that doesn't necessarily mean people losing their jobs and individuals being hurt.
This government came up with an early retirement incentive, an early departure incentive, which was extremely fair. Do you think it was fair or unfair - these two programs?
Mr. Hindle: We were involved in the discussions that led to the establishment of them -
Mr. Bellemare: Were they fair or unfair?
Mr. Hindle: We are willing to live with it.
Mr. Bellemare: Were they fair or unfair?
Mr. Hindle: In comparison to what?
Mr. Bellemare: Are they fair or unfair?
Mr. Hindle: There is -
Mr. Bellemare: Compared to what? To the province of Ontario.
Mr. Hindle: They're comparable to what's available in the private sector, and they are better than what's available in the Ontario public service, I'll grant you that.
Mr. Bellemare: Do you know of any other organization where there is a better system?
Mr. Hindle: If you want to look at a specific stratum of organizations, I would say that executives, including executives in the public service, are treated better than public service employees.
Mr. Bellemare: You're not answering my questions at all. You're not answering my question.
Do you know what you should be doing? You've got the brain power over there. You should do what I've been trying to do, but I don't have your capacity; I don't have your workforce. I'm trying to figure out.... My personal battle is with Treasury Board.
I like to see myself as a defender of the public service and of public servants. I nearly had a heart attack when I discovered that 55 jobs were going to be released, but as the program was presented I became aware that some employees would be private contractors in my riding and in the area. The services would be provided.
There are services and programs that should not be kept on forever and a day. I'm sure you will agree that the programs we had in 1867 were not pertinent in 1967, and those of 1967 shouldn't be pertinent in 1997. Any child will agree with that, so there has to be some kind of review. What you should be doing is trying to figure out, like I'm trying to figure out....
In our downsizing, if our plan is to save $3 billion, are we really saving $3 billion? And at the expense of what? At the expense of the public service culture, which I think is being affected negatively. I don't appreciate what is being done. I don't appreciate it if the government saves $3 billion and then goes out and spends as much in contracting out.
Voices: Hear, hear!
Mr. Bellemare: I have discovered -
Don't applaud me. I want you to do that research and provide me and my colleagues, as members of Parliament, with that information. I want to find out that if in that $9 billion that Treasury Board - they're the real enemy, not the government. For example, how come they're not providing these members of Parliament with figures on how much of that $9 billion in contracts was for service, construction and procurement? I can't get that answer.
Why don't you help me and the rest of us so that we can say look, La Relève, does that count for something? Do I have to read books on demography to try to figure out the system and to say that La Relève is not coming fast enough? That in Canada we may soon be prisoners to private contractors and perhaps incompetent managers of contracts? That's what you should be looking at, and trying to give me and my colleagues some answers so that we can redress some situations here.
The Chairman: Mr. Bellemare, your five minutes are up.
Mr. Hindle, I'm not going to ask you for any commentary, because what Mr. Bellemare has said to you, essentially in a directive, is what you should be doing to assist us in trying to deal with the issue. I would ask you to either concur or say you're not able to do it.
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Mr. Hindle: I will be to the point. What he is suggesting we do is what we have been trying to do and have been unsuccessful in doing. We had hoped members of Parliament would be able to help us find out some of the information that he is alluding to. Perhaps our frustration is coming through in the tone of our presentation, which he was so disappointed with.
The Chairman: Okay. I think you have an ally in Mr. Bellemare.
Mr. Hindle: He should be down at this end of the table.
The Chairman: Perhaps you can pursue this with Mr. Bellemare outside the committee.
Mr. Jackson (Bruce - Grey): Mr. Chairman, I want to correct one thing. I think it was Mr. McIntosh who said that since 1991 we have suspended collective bargaining, but I think this government restored it. For the record, it should say it wasn't this government but a government that instituted that.
How many classifications are there in the public service? In 1991, when it was suspended, we had about 250,000 people working in the public service. How many classifications did we have?
Mr. Hindle: We had 72 bargaining units.
Mr. Jackson: How much time does each bargaining unit take? How much manpower does it take to have all these negotiations that we talk about?
Mr. Hindle: It depends on the climate at the table. It depends on the will of the parties to resolve issues. There have been very few instances of negotiations taking place and contracts being signed before they expired, but the general idea is that within a year of expiry there will be a new contract. Over that year there could be two weeks of face-to-face meetings, but there could be more. Very rarely would there be less than two weeks of effort on the part of each side in direct negotiations, and there is also the time for the preparations on each side.
Mr. Jackson: How many of these classifications does PIPS represent?
Mr. Hindle: We represent 29.
Mr. Jackson: And you don't think you should condense these down to -
Mr. Hindle: We have suggested that they be condensed in the past and we are engaged in discussions with the employer right now in reducing the number of bargaining units. We are in favour of reducing the number of bargaining units. We have put forth a proposal that would see our 29 units become 5.
Mr. Jackson: Okay. That's it.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Jackson.
Thank you, Mr. Hindle, for coming before the committee, and to the rest of your team. The information you've provided today will be reflected in the report. We appreciate the opportunity of having you before the committee.
Mr. Hindle: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for your time.
The Chairman: This part of the meeting is adjourned.
Members, we will wait for the witnesses to leave the table and then move to the business of committee in camera.
Before we do that, Mr. Bryden has a motion that he'd like to bring before the committee. For the purposes of dealing with the motion itself.... Mr. Gilmour concurs, and I'm going to ask for agreement on this - Mr. Gilmour is asking whether the committee would agree to a Thursday morning meeting to deal with Mr. Bryden's motion and a motion that Mr. Gilmour would like to bring forward.
Today I'd like to continue a discussion among committee members with respect to government contracting and the OBS, because Mr. Adams has a number of questions and issues he'd like clarified by the committee members before he can proceed in any fashion. So the motions would be dealt with, but I would ask, at the request of Mr. Gilmour and if agreed by the committee members, to move to a Thursday meeting to deal with motions.
Is there agreement with that?
Mr. Bryden (Hamilton - Wentworth): Mr. Chairman, I think my motion can be dealt with expeditiously.
I would rather deal with it right now because it pertains to testimony or events of our previous meeting. I have no problem in dealing with it and getting it out of the way right now. I'm relatively confident that there is a general consensus in support of the motion. I don't know if that is so, but it can be put to a vote.
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An hon. member: Can we have a vote in camera?
An hon. member: There are no votes in camera.
Mr. Bryden: We're not in camera right now and I wouldn't want to be in camera for this motion. That would be improper.
The Chairman: Mr. Harvard.
Mr. Harvard: I think Mr. Bryden's motion raises the whole issue of how we should handle committee business. I think there may be some merit to the substance of Mr. Bryden's motion, but I'm a little uncomfortable with the process. I don't consider this to be some kind of an emergency motion that has to be forced upon us, sprung upon us, this very moment. Mr. Bryden has raised an issue. I think we should consider the matter of bringing these things forward in a timely fashion and giving committee members at least a little bit of notice. In this particular case the Reform Party is not even here. I don't know whether they were apprised of this coming or not, but they're not here. I see nothing in this motion that can't wait for a week.
You mentioned Thursday. Are you talking about Thursday this week?
The Chairman: I'm talking about Thursday of this week. This is Tuesday.
Mr. Harvard: Okay, so we're talking about two days. John may disagree, but I don't see where this motion has to be brought forward right now. I would think it could wait a couple of days.
While we're on it - and this may be ancillary to the issue of how we conduct our business - it seems that if someone, whether a party or an individual, wants to bring issues before the committee, it should be done through the steering committee. After all, that's what the steering committee is about.
Of course, the decisions of the steering committee are subject to ratification by the whole committee. If the whole committee doesn't like some decision by the steering committee, either taken or not taken, I guess that could be overruled by the full committee. But if the steering committee is going to work effectively, I think things like this should be funnelled through it, because it's the steering committee that has to set down a map for this committee.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Fillion, do you have something to add?
[Translation]
Mr. Fillion: I agree with your proposal to carry out the study of this operation on Thursday, at the same time as that of Mr. Gilmour, provided he does table his motion before Thursday so that we know exactly what it is. We'll resume our previous procedure. We've just received Mr. Bryden's and we can study it on Thursday, and we will study his if he sends it before. If he tables it on Thursday, we can't study it because we do have to take some time to examine it. So I suggest that the committee carry out the study on Thursday.
[English]
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Fillion.
I'll request that Mr. Gilmour provide us with a copy of the motion prior to Thursday's meeting, so on Thursday we can deal with it.
Is it agreed that I can ask the clerk to make arrangements for a Thursday meeting to deal with these two motions and other aspects of committee business that we don't get through today?
Mr. Harvard: Do we have a meeting scheduled for Thursday anyway?
The Chairman: No, we do not.
Mr. Harvard: Can we have it in the morning?
The Chairman: Yes, that is the plan.
All agreed?
The Clerk of the Committee: Mr. Chairman, will it be at the same time - Thursday morning at at 11 a.m.? Is that the preference of the members, depending on room availability?
The Chairman: Is there a preference for 11 a.m., or earlier?
We will endeavour to arrange the meeting for 11 a.m.
Some hon. members: Agreed.
[Proceedings continue in camera]