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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Public Accounts

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, October 9, 2003

0905

The Chair (Mr. John Williams (St. Albert, Canadian Alliance))

Ms. Sheila Fraser (Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada)

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson (President, Public Service Commission of Canada)

0910

0915

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

0920

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. Odina Desrochers (Lotbinière—L'Érable, BQ)

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Scott Serson

0925

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

0930

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

M. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

0935

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

The Chair

Mr. Shawn Murphy (Hillsborough, Lib.)

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Shawn Murphy

0940

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Michael Corber (Director, Information Management and Review Directorate, Public Service Commission of Canada)

Mr. Shawn Murphy

Mr. Scott Serson

0945

Mr. Shawn Murphy

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Shawn Murphy

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Shawn Murphy

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Shawn Murphy

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

The Chair

0950

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Roger Gaudet (Berthier—Montcalm, BQ)

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Michael Corber

Mr. Roger Gaudet

0955

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Greg Gauld (Vice-President, Merit Policy and Accountability Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada)

Mr. Roger Gaudet

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Roger Gaudet

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Roger Gaudet

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Roger Gaudet

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Roger Gaudet

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.)

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Fraser

1000

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard

1005

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Charles Hubbard

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Mr. Charles Hubbard

The Chair

Mr. Alex Shepherd (Durham, Lib.)

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Alex Shepherd

1010

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

1015

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Paul Forseth

Ms. Sheila Fraser

The Chair

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Greg Gauld

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Greg Gauld

1020

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Odina Desrochers

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Odina Desrochers

The Chair

Ms. Colleen Beaumier (Brampton West—Mississauga, Lib.)

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Ms. Colleen Beaumier

1025

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Christian Jobin (Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, Lib.)

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Christian Jobin

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Christian Jobin

1030

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Mr. Christian Jobin

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Mr. Christian Jobin

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Paul Forseth

The Chair

Mrs. Andrée Dubois (Vice-President, Recourse Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada)

The Chair

Mrs. Andrée Dubois

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mrs. Andrée Dubois

Mr. Paul Forseth

1035

Mrs. Andrée Dubois

Mr. Paul Forseth

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Greg Gauld

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michael Corber

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michael Corber

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michael Corber

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michael Corber

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michael Corber

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michael Corber

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michael Corber

1040

Mr. Odina Desrochers

The Chair

Mr. Roy Cullen

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Roy Cullen

The Chair

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Scott Serson

1045

Mr. Roy Cullen

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

1050

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Fraser

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

1055

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Charles Hubbard

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Shawn Murphy

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Public Accounts

NUMBER 041

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Thursday, October 9, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0905)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. John Williams (St. Albert, Canadian Alliance)): Good morning, everybody. It's a bright and beautiful day. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

The orders of the day are, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(e), the special report of the Auditor General of Canada on the audit of the financial management and administration of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada of September 2003.

Our witnesses this morning are: from the Office of the Auditor General, Ms. Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General of Canada; and Ms. Kathryn Elliott, a principal of the office; from the Public Service Commission of Canada, Mr. Scott Serson, the president; Ms. Andrée Dubois, vice-president of recourse branch; Mr. Greg Gauld, vice-president, merit policy and accountability branch; and Mr. Michael Corber, director, information management and review directorate.

We normally start with an opening statement by the Auditor General, but she gave it to the previous committee. I understand you don't have an opening statement this morning.

Ms. Sheila Fraser (Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada): No, Mr. Chair. I'd just like to say I'm accompanied by Kathryn Elliott, who is a principal responsible for the human management resource issues in our audit of the office of the Privacy Commissioner.

I did not plan to make an additional opening statement. I would just refer members to the one we made on October 7. I believe copies have been distributed to the members.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Serson, we'll turn to you for your opening statement.

[Translation]

Mr. Scott Serson (President, Public Service Commission of Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I want to say that this may be the last time I will have the pleasure of appearing before this committee. I announced on September 26 that I am retiring on November 19, after 30 years of public service.

I leave with some concern about the challenges facing the PSC and, more critically, Parliament's lack of commitment to foster the constructive dialogue to address them.

[English]

Mr. Chairman, through my tenure a fundamental challenge has been to clarify for parliamentarians the PSC's place and role in the system. In simple language, we are an independent agency reporting to Parliament. We are, I believe, unique in the federal government: an institution that has both executive and oversight functions.

It's sometimes easier to start by saying what we are not. We are not a normal department nor a central agency. We do not have a minister, except for Financial Administration Act purposes. We do not report to the President of the Treasury Board, nor to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, although she does, under the FAA, table our annual report and financial documents related to us. We are not an agent of Parliament, although an important step was taken in that direction recently with an amendment to Bill C-25 to stipulate that the appointment of future presidents of the PSC will be under the great seal.

In short, we are a hybrid organization. We are neither a department nor quite an agency of Parliament, but we report to Parliament. We have both a service function for departments and an oversight role.

Turning to the Auditor General's report, Mr. Chairman, we agree with the audit recommendations made by the Auditor General. Indeed, they're very similar to the conclusions of our own audit.

As a result of the Auditor General's report, there have been reports in the press that the PSC did not act, did nothing. We did act. I won't go into detail now, but I'd welcome questions on the steps we took. I will note that of all the oversight agencies within the federal system, the PSC was the only agency that had taken steps to address some of these situations. Yet it is clear in retrospect that the PSC—the commission and I personally—did not act decisively enough.

We've asked ourselves why. There are a number of reasons. I just want to mention a couple.

The first is, I think, due to our oversight philosophy. Rather than adopt a shame-and-blame approach, we had applied the philosophy of modern comptrollership; that is, a strong learning orientation to improve performance and results.

The second has to do with the oversight of the staffing system.

¿ (0910)

[Translation]

In this spirit, the PSC has clarified and standardized our accountability agreements with departments and agencies. We have proceeded on the basis of self-reporting by Deputy Heads, in part to encourage greater ownership of the staffing system and in part because it is what we can accommodate with our resource base.

We conduct systematic reviews of their performance and feed back what we learn. We promote the values that lie behind the legislation to managers responsible for day-to-day hiring.

And, in addition to this delegation and oversight, we are also directly involved in staffing senior managers and in some recruitment activities.

[English]

In the context of the philosophy of modern comptrollership, I believed I was dealing with a normal—that is, a responsible—deputy head who would act when problems were identified to him. My staff believed they were dealing with a management team that would respond when problems were brought to their attention. In fairness, this is the experience we've had over the last four years.

Mr. Chairman, we've developed an action plan that indicates what we intend to do in response to these two audits and our experience with the office of the Privacy Commissioner. I've asked that it be distributed to you and to the committee. We'd welcome your feedback and questions.

We've learned from our experience with the OPC. We now know that we have to look more closely at ways to tighten our oversight. We, like others, will have to reassess our risk profile of departments and agencies and review our intelligence gathering and, more particularly, the policies that guide our interventions with departments. We'll have to look as well at our capacity to conduct audits and investigations and to withdraw delegation. Based on our experience, the commission also looks forward to the establishment of more effective whistle-blower protection for government employees who suspect wrongdoing.

Once again, Mr. Chairman, some of this will require resources. As an independent agency we have no minister to champion us in cabinet. We have no great interest from other central agencies in seeing us do more audits. So without a more consistent relationship with Parliament, I'm not hopeful for the future.

That brings me back to where I began, our relationship with Parliament. One of the key lessons from this situation is that a relationship with Parliament is key to our success as an organization. Right now we can only table an annual report to Parliament. I know this caused some concern involving the release of our audit. In Bill C-25, at our request, there was an amendment that will allow us to table reports in Parliament more frequently. This may help address our concern that thematic reviews don't get discussed.

In correspondence with you on our thematic review concerning competency and fairness—the one in which we focused on the office of the Privacy Commissioner—I highlighted an overall lack of documentation from many staffing actions in departments and agencies. In fact, 21% of the staffing files we asked for were missing. I believe this information was most relevant to the discussion surrounding Bill C-25.

In point of fact, I felt it was so important that I wrote not only to you but to the chairs of the government operations and estimates and the Senate national finance committees to advise them of this situation. We also reference this thematic review in our newsletter to members of Parliament and senators. No one indicated any interest at that time.

In our annual report this year, we note:

On those occasions when we have been able to discuss our concerns with Members of Parliament and Senators, our ability to respond to specific issues with new policies has been greatly enhanced.

We also say:

Our experience supports many of the recent observations made by those of us who depend on Parliament for direction and guidance. When meetings with parliamentary committees are episodic, it is difficult tobuild a meaningful dialogue.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, in the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates' final report stating findings and conclusions related to the Privacy Commissioner, the first recommendation proposes:

That the House instruct a standing committee, or a special committee, to study and report back on the role and functions of Officers of Parliament....

I proposed in a June 11 e-mail to the chair of the government operations committee that the PSC be included in this review. I noted once again that in the context of Bill C-25, the commission is seeking a dialogue with parliamentarians on a range of issues affecting its independence and accountability to Parliament.

The study, it seemed to me, proposed in the committee's final report could be an important means of achieving that objective.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

¿ (0915)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Serson. I thought you were asked to come before this committee to address the issues concerning the audit of the Auditor General regarding the office of the Privacy Commissioner, which you have just basically failed to do in your opening statement. Anyway, I'm sure the questions will maybe focus on that particular area.

Mr. Scott Serson: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to be clear from the outset here. I'm prepared to deal with that audit report, but I'm not prepared to let the PSC be scapegoated. If we're going to learn from this situation it has to be from taking a broader look at what I've experienced over the last four years.

The Chair: If you may recall, Mr. Serson, I asked you once before if you had asked Parliament for money in your annual report, because you said you needed more money, and you said you didn't include that request in your annual report. So let me just ask you, in your most recent annual report did you ask for more money?

Mr. Scott Serson: No, we didn't.

The Chair: And now you're telling us you have a problem.

Mr. Scott Serson: We signalled in our annual report that we would need more money for oversight and audit. We did do that, yes. Did we put a specific amount in? No.

The Chair: I will turn it over, but before I turn it over I have here two documents, and I have them only in the English language; therefore, if you agree to waive the fact that they're only in one language, the English language, I can distribute them; if you say no, then we will hold them back.

I have here the “Profile of Office of the Information Commissioner and Office of the Privacy Commissioner based on Thematic Review on Competency and Fairness”, documents produced by the Public Service Commission, dated February 21, 2002, and I have a letter to Mr. George Radwanski, the Privacy Commissioner. It doesn't have a date, but it is signed by Scott Serson from the Public Service Commission.

Do I have a...?

A voice: I would object to that.

¿ (0920)

The Chair: You object to the distribution. Then there will be no distribution of these documents.

Mr. Epp, eight minutes, first round.

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much. Thank you for being here.

We meet the Auditor General again, and it seems like we meet almost--

The Chair: There is a point of order.

[Translation]

Mr. Odina Desrochers (Lotbinière—L'Érable, BQ): I will not object to the fact that, contrary to the usual procedure, these documents are being distributed in only one language, since I do not want to hold up the work of the committee, which is dealing with a very sensitive situation. However, this must not happen again. So I will not object to the documents being distributed in only one language today, if you agree.

[English]

The Chair: We had an objection. It was an informal--

Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.): I object, Mr. Chair. We are a bilingual country. I'm unilingual English. I read French, but it would not be fair to committee members to start a precedent of denying one's second language.

The Chair: The rules are that things are distributed in two languages--right, Mr. Clerk--and therefore Mr. Hubbard's objection is upheld, so there will be no distribution of the document at this time. We may have it translated and circulated at a later date.

Mr. Serson.

Mr. Scott Serson: Yes, I would offer to do that, Mr. Chairman.

The letter is a letter to George Radwanski, an anglophone. It was in English. The report was done by a staff member for the commission, which functions in both official languages, so these were documents that were not translated. We got a short-notice request to provide them to the committee and we didn't have the resources to do them in a short timeframe. But we'd be happy to translate them.

The Chair: Mr. Hubbard.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: I'm very sorry, Mr. Chair, but I have to state my objection. We have a group here with a budget in excess of $100 million, and if they can't translate a document we should have a look to see what the problem is.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Hubbard, for that comment.

Mr. Epp, eight minutes.

Mr. Ken Epp: Thank you.

I'd like to begin, first of all, with that part of the Public Service Commission audit that has to do with the hiring practices. I would like to know when you and your office first became aware of the irregularities that were taking place in the office of the Privacy Commissioner.

Mr. Scott Serson: It would be July 2001, I think, Mr. Epp.

Mr. Ken Epp: I read in your report, and in your preamble here, that you have tried to make other people aware of your concerns in Parliament, in parliamentary committees, the chairs of two committees at least. Why, when there was no response, didn't you follow up on it? I'm not making you a scapegoat; I'm trying to get the facts.

Mr. Scott Serson: That's a fair comment, so I'd like to go through the stages. First of all, appreciate that for us this was a sensitive situation. The first indications of a concern here came from two sources. One—and quite frankly, I don't even remember this, but it's referred to in an e-mail—I think after I gave a speech somewhere and a member of the office of the Privacy Commissioner's staff came up and said they were concerned with some staffing practices at the office of the Privacy Commissioner. Subsequent to that, or around the same time, the then director of human resources came to see our staff and raised concerns. She alluded to the fact that she felt at the time that this was an individual coming in from the outside of the public service who was not familiar with staffing practices and needed to be reminded of how things were done.

This, in part, was the reason I personally went to see Mr. Radwanski on August 23, 2001, and I spoke to him about staffing in the public service. I alluded to some of the practices that he might have to be careful about. I told him that the way the Public Service Commission worked was we had a delegation, that the authority came from Parliament to us and was transferred in through delegation. He agreed to sign an up-to-date staffing and delegation agreement with us that I hoped would be part of a discussion around a management table and would start to increase his familiarity.... He also then agreed to be part of a thematic study, and we were going to try to get at whether or not the director of HR's observations were legitimate. I think through those times we were being very careful because those who spoke to us were very concerned that their identity not be revealed.

Then we did this thematic, and on the basis of the thematic, this is the letter that I think the chair was trying to circulate. I wrote to Mr. Radwanski and I said, these are the problems we found and these are the ways I suggest you address those problems. That would have gone through the process...I'm looking to my colleagues to help me on all these times. We did that thematic in the fall of 2001 and we then developed an action plan for the office of the Privacy Commissioner. We began to work with them on various issues, and we said where we're going to assess a performance is when you submit your report to us in the fall of 2002.

We got that report in the fall of 2002, and I think that is where we made a mistake. Our mistake was that we were too focused. We had too many reports—72—and we were focused on trying to get them analysed and to get the data ready for our annual report, which has to be finalized in June. We did not pull out the OPC report and look at it, and we should have triggered that; it's what we should have done. We should have pulled it out and looked at whether it was adequate, but we got into the process and we did not do that.

I had an earlier discussion about the results, but it was only in June that I was preparing to write to Mr. Radwanski when the government operations committee started to review his organization.

¿ (0925)

I'm going to turn to my colleagues to make sure I have that right, but I think it's a fair summary of our developments.

Mr. Ken Epp: I'd like a really short answer to the following question: are you ever involved in the hiring process directly?

Mr. Scott Serson: No.

Mr. Ken Epp: Not at all?

Mr. Scott Serson: Do you mean the hiring process of Mr. Radwanski or the hiring process in the office of the Privacy Commissioner?

Mr. Ken Epp: The hiring of officers and other personnel in that office.

Mr. Scott Serson: Yes, we are involved with the EXs, and we can be involved in referring them people when they do recruitment.

Mr. Ken Epp: Obviously, then, some of the people who were hired in that office were hired under your supervision?

Mr. Scott Serson: Yes.

Mr. Ken Epp: Do you want to admit to any mistakes there?

Mr. Scott Serson: I'm not sure I'd admit to any mistakes there, no.

Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Canadian Alliance): What about Mr. Lamarche?

Mr. Scott Serson: Mr. Lamarche— I don't see that as a mistake, Mr. Forseth. I see that as a very tough judgment call. In fact, we're going to investigate that appointment to make sure the commission was aware of all the facts, and if not, why. You mentioned certain facts the other day that I was not aware of, so I have to ask myself, was there a failure on our part in terms of doing adequate reference checks? Was information withheld from us? I'm not sure.

Mr. Ken Epp: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Forseth.

Mr. Paul Forseth: I have a supplemental to that. Mr. Lamarche doesn't even know how to turn a computer on, and he was previously fired from the House of Commons. It just appeared that during the term of the hiring the credentials or the requirements were changed. So I would think there was enough of due diligence that there's a case example—and I'm not trying to pile on Mr. Lamarche—of your fingers all over a hiring and it failed.

¿ (0930)

The Chair: There you go, Mr. Serson.

Mr. Scott Serson: Yes.

The Chair: Do you have a brief response? The time has expired.

Mr. Scott Serson: The problem here is that Mr. Forseth, having heard testimony in closed hearings, may have information that the commission wasn't aware of at the time. And that's what I have to discover.

The Chair: I see.

Mr. Scott Serson: I was certainly never aware of the fact that Mr. Lamarche could not turn on a computer, and I was led to believe that he left his job with Parliament under good conditions.

The Chair: Thank you.

Monsieur Desrochers, s'il vous plaît, huit minutes.

[Translation]

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Serson and Ms. Fraser.

Page 4 of your report states that in October 2001, you reached an agreement on the delegation of power and responsibility for staffing within the commissioner's office.

Is that done often or did you make an exception in October 2001 in the agreement that you signed with Mr. Radwanski?

Mr. Scott Serson: Are you asking me if that was an exception?

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Yes.

Mr. Scott Serson: No, and that is part of my frustration. When I was appointed chairman of the Public Service Commission, I learned that there were a number of delegation agreements and that some of them were up-to-date and others were very much out of date. Since I thought at the time that Parliament would be asking me about the state of the staffing system, I asked my people to modernize all the delegation agreements.

When we looked at the situation in the Office of the information and privacy commissioner, it was clear that the agreement was somewhat out of date and that the process of negotiating a new agreement would serve to ensure that the deputy heads understood their responsibilities.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Did you give Mr. Radwanski all the powers in that agreement?

Mr. Scott Serson: No. I believe that the agreement with Mr. Radwanski contained nothing out of the ordinary and that no special delegations were given to him.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: When you reached an agreement of that kind, what oversight is there afterwards? I imagine that you do some follow-up. The agreement was reached in October 2001 but it was only in 2003 that you realized that there were problems in the privacy commissioner's office.What happened between 2001 and 2003?

M. Scott Serson: I told Mr. Epp that we had asked Mr. Radwanski's office to participate in our thematic review. We developed an action plan with Mr. Radwanski's office and we followed that up with a number of discussions on the results of our thematic review with his management team.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: At that time, did you notice that something had gone wrong in the negotiations?

¿ (0935)

Mr. Scott Serson: Oh yes.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: What powers did you have with regard to Mr. Radwanski when you noticed that the agreement was not fully respected?

[English]

Mr. Scott Serson: If you'll excuse me, I'll say this in English so I can be perfectly clear.

We had heard these stories. The director of HR had come to see us about concerns. We said—and even at that time I believe it's fair, Michael, to say—that she had said to us, this may be the result of Mr. Radwanski not understanding the hiring system in the public service of Canada.

So we took two steps. We tried to make sure he did by having him sign that delegation agreement, and I told him I wanted them to be part of our thematic study so we could go in and actually look at files.

[Translation]

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Was it a lack of understanding on his part, or was he unwilling to respect the Public Service Commission?

[English]

Mr. Scott Serson: Well, in hindsight it's clear that he wasn't keen on following the rules, absolutely. But on the other hand, if we look at our understanding of the situation, the context was far broader than just him. Some of the problems we found in our thematic predated him, and it's clear that the management team was part of this whole process.

[Translation]

Mr. Odina Desrochers: When you noticed that he had trouble with understanding the staffing system and that he possibly may not want to respect it, did you have any power to intervene? What could you possibly do? Was this directly a matter for the Public Service Commission, or did you have to consult some other level of government when you noticed that Mr. Radwanski did not seem to want to follow the rules?

[English]

Mr. Scott Serson: That's why I'm saying that once the thematic was finished, I sent him a letter. I said these are the things we think you must do to get your house in order. Michael went over and sat down with them and they developed an action plan. We went back and assessed the action plan. We discussed the results thoroughly with them.

[Translation]

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Did you advise Ms. Robillard or anyone else about the irregularities you had noticed in the commissioner's office? I think that there is a lack of information. You took charge of the situation, but did you sound any kind of alarm elsewhere?

[English]

Mr. Scott Serson: My honest answer to that question is as follows. I had spoken to the associate clerk of the Privy Council Office on a number of occasions about situations with agents of Parliament I was concerned with. I expressed a concern that, number one, there didn't seem to be any systematic procedure for assessing their performance, and number two, that we often came across issues related to their performance where it was very hard to establish the evidentiary base but where I felt there needed to be some forum where that information could be collected to see whether it merited more direct intervention.

Now, what I have to be honest about, though, Mr. Desrochers, is that I do not remember whether I ever specifically mentioned Mr. Radwanski, and in part I think that was because I thought we had a process that was under way that had worked with other deputy ministers and that would work this time.

[Translation]

Mr. Odina Desrochers: [Inaudible—Editor]

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Desrochers.

Mr. Murphy, please, for eight minutes.

Mr. Shawn Murphy (Hillsborough, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have a few questions. I just want to make sure this is clear. You're saying that between July and November 2002 the Public Service Commission did a review of some of the staffing and hiring procedures in the office of the Privacy Commissioner, and you basically came to the same conclusions as the Auditor General did in her report.

Mr. Scott Serson: No.

Mr. Shawn Murphy: That's what I thought you said before, that you did the review and basically came to the same findings.

¿ (0940)

Mr. Scott Serson: I said in my opening remarks that I agreed with the Auditor General's recommendations.

Perhaps it would help if I asked Michael, who led that thematic, to comment on our perspective on it.

Mr. Michael Corber (Director, Information Management and Review Directorate, Public Service Commission of Canada): Thank you.

The thematic was done in the fall of 2001, and it covered the period from April of 2000 to March of 2001. So as Mr. Serson indicated, part of the thematic covered appointments that occurred before Mr. Radwanski was named the Privacy Commissioner and part of the thematic covered the period after Mr. Radwanski had been appointed. So it's clear, as it was and as is stated in the thematic—I don't know if you've had a chance to read it; it's been on our website and so on—that it wasn't an audit and it wasn't an evaluation. We weren't looking particularly at individual cases, trying to find misdoings in that way. It was a thematic study of competency and fairness only with respect to their values, and we were not doing an audit test such as we just did recently, as did the Auditor General.

We came to conclusions, yes, across the whole system. In eight departments and agencies we looked at where there were deficiencies. We also came to the conclusion that the Privacy Commissioner and other departments were at one end of the scale, the not very good end, and there were other departments maybe at a higher end.

That's just the context in which we then came to the commission in February and March, saying we had problems there significant enough that we wanted to do something. But we didn't have the kind of evidence you might see in an audit that would allow us to say it's time to be very strict based on the other concerns Mr. Serson had mentioned, about our approach, about the new deputy, and about the fact that even people in the organization seemed to prefer an education-learning approach rather than saying come in and audit us.

Mr. Shawn Murphy: The next question, Mr. Serson, again, is on this whole chain of accountability. You say your organization is accountable to Parliament. In this particular situation you executed a delegation agreement between the Public Service Commission and the office of the Privacy Commissioner. But as a member of this committee, I'm looking for some governance structures, some checks and balances. This situation should not happen.

We're going to deal with rogue people in life. I've seen them all my life and you've seen them. This was a situation where we had an irresponsible, incompetent person in the job, but he was allowed to do things that, had there had been the proper checks and balances, he would not have been allowed to do.

So my question is, are there any checks and balances in the delegation system at all? If there are not, there's no accountability; the chain is broken. You say you're accountable, but you execute the delegation. He went off on his own like a rogue elephant and you're not responsible. He says he's not responsible. Where do we go?

Mr. Scott Serson: First of all, I want to be clear, I wanted to have an honest discussion about this issue. But I'm not saying we're not responsible. We were there. I agree with the Auditor General. In hindsight, we should have acted more decisively, and that's an important lesson for the Public Service Commission to learn.

My problem, Mr. Murphy, is that I came into this job four years ago. If you recall at the time--you were part of those discussions--I came before this committee, and what was I told? I was told that what was important was speed. The Auditor General had just done, whatever it was, his capstone report, and said the staffing system was too slow. I sat here saying I think the integrity of the system is important, but I was told “speed”.

We went out and we addressed speed. I have been clear since I came in about the level of our oversight capacity. Every annual report to Parliament has said, this is how we're doing oversight. I don't believe it's sufficient, but it's what we can afford to do if we're also going to work on the recruitment issues and the national area of selection issues that parliamentarians think are valid.

Now, what have we done? We have used what I felt was the best and the most cost-effective method. We have signed these delegation agreements. We try to tighten up on what we're getting from departments. We do these thematically. They're not audits, because if we went to audits we would be intensively using resources. The thematic gives us greater spread to go in and try to verify some of this.

But yes, we need the dollars. What this tells us and what we said to Parliament in the context of Bill C-25 is we need the dollars now to go in and do at least spot-check audits to verify that the self-reporting we're getting is accurate.

¿ (0945)

Mr. Shawn Murphy: This is my last question.

I take it, in this particular situation, in this delegation agreement--and this is what I'm looking for--there really weren't any formal checks or balances.

Mr. Scott Serson: If you believe in a modern comptrollership system, that self-reporting by honourable public servants is a reasonable system, and that this self-reporting would be analysed, then that is a check. It may not in hindsight look valid enough, but it is a check.

Mr. Shawn Murphy: But after you did your study, after it was done and filed, did you not come to the conclusion that you were not dealing with an honourable person?

Mr. Scott Serson: In hindsight, that's the tough one for me to answer, why we didn't act more decisively then.

I can explain this, Mr. Murphy. As Michael said, there were three organizations that we didn't think were up to snuff. Our ultimate course of action is withdrawal of delegation, and for us to withdraw a delegation and start taking over the management of the staffing operations in these organizations ourselves is a heavy draw on our organization.

Again, that's not an excuse. We could have made that expenditure, but I think in part we were looking at the opportunity costs of doing that and we said “Let's try one more time”.

Mr. Shawn Murphy: I have just one final, quick point.

You mentioned there were three organizations. We know the office of the Privacy Commissioner was one. What were the other two?

Mr. Scott Serson: There was the office of the Privacy Commissioner, there was the other side of that organization, and there was the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Mr. Shawn Murphy: Thank you.

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

Mr. Forseth, please. We're now onto round two, so this will be four minutes.

Mr. Paul Forseth: I hope I can get more than four minutes.

The Chair: No, four minutes.

¿ (0950)

Mr. Paul Forseth: I see we have the Auditor General's report here, and thank God we have an Auditor General like we have. On page 6, paragraph 22, she wrote:

We found that most aspects of human resources management in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner showed an utter disregard for the legislation and regulations that govern the hiring of staff, the classification of their positions (which affects the salaries they earn), labour relations, and performance awards. Most executives and a number of employees benefited from breaches of policy and legislation or from other abuses.

That's a very nice way of describing a pretty bad situation that you found there.

We're looking for the checks and balances, as Mr. Murphy said. So how do we minimize the temptation to manipulate and use favouritism? That really looks like what was going on here. It looks like Mr. Radwanski had a malevolent agenda. I understand what you said, Mr. Serson, that normally when you deal with a high-level executive, you at least expect some normal professionalism to come with it. You don't anticipate that there's a whole hidden malevolent agenda behind them, which apparently we discovered with Mr. Radwanski.

It looks like in his situation he managed to bring a lot of staff around him to be beholden to him so that they became almost like part of his gang. They were inappropriately reclassified, and they owed their whole situation to his personality and his office, so it was like an area of protection for him. You confirmed that by saying it wasn't just him who was the problem, but it was in the operations of the office, the larger executive level.

We say if it happened with Mr. Radwanski--he's the case example--knowing the law of averages and how huge the public service is right across the country, obviously, I would think it stands to reason we'd have that similar situation or close to it in various pockets across the public service.

Parliament can only look at structures and change law; we don't administer. We have to rely on you folks. We certainly all have goals of integrity and honesty and probity, and so on, and as Radwanski is the symptom, not the problem, we're looking for your advice as to how we get at other situations like that, protect and also remedy it, because Mr. Radwanski is gone, but the situation, the confluence of factors, is probably still there.

That's why we need advice on where we go from here in view of Mr. Radwanski.

Mr. Scott Serson: Mr. Forseth, that's why we tabled an action plan today. It doesn't need to be a final one, but it gives you an idea of some of the things we plan to do.

With respect to your particular question, one issue that you've raised with us, and I think it is a legitimate issue, is our involvement in executive staffing. Now, clearly, we had challenges from parliamentarians and from others involved in the public service to reduce the length of time it took to staff any EX position. We reduced it over the last three years from 120 days to 55 days, which I'm told compares favourably to the private sector. The problem is in doing that, we removed many of the challenge functions and we maybe overdelegated. So as part of this action plan we're going to have to go back through all of that.

We've already taken steps. This summer we moved the EX staffing group from the service side to our oversight organization to try to underscore that we have to move back into that business.

In this are the two questions we raised in the context of Bill C-25, with the task force, with the Treasury Board, which have not been resolved. That is, number one, the implication in Bill C-25 that we would do more audits. As Mr. Murphy has pointed out, this case certainly shows that we have to do more spot-check audits. We don't have the resources to do that, and that wasn't resolved.

The other is withdrawal of delegation. I'm not saying we're going to go in with hundreds of bureaucrats, but we need some basic people to do the oversight job when we withdraw a delegation. Again, unless we find the resources to do that, put them into flexible kinds of positions where we have some flexibility, we're always going to be sitting at the table saying “Can we afford to do this?”, and I don't think that should be a consideration.

The Chair: I want to wrap up, Mr. Serson, but I have a question on that.

How many people work in the Public Service Commission?

Mr. Scott Serson: Approximately 1,400.

The Chair: It seems to me they have five people in the HR of the office of the Privacy Commissioner. Do you mean you can't find five people or three people out of your 1,400 in the department to run the human resource section of the Privacy Commissioner? Is that too much?

Mr. Scott Serson: No, I'm not saying it's too much, but if we take the manager of the Ottawa district office, which has the heaviest volume of staffing requests in Canada, it puts stress on the organization.

The Chair: You did say it was a heavy draw.

Anyway, monsieur Gaudet s'il vous plait, pour quatre minutes.

[Translation]

Mr. Roger Gaudet (Berthier—Montcalm, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Before Mr. Radwanski was hired, how many management employees and how many union employees were there in the commissioner's office?

[English]

Mr. Scott Serson: Before Mr. Radwanski arrived there were in the order of 40 to 50 total employees in the privacy commission.

[Translation]

Mr. Michael Corber: Nonetheless, when Mr. Radwanski arrived, we knew that new legislation would be enforced all over Canada in the private sector. It then became obvious that the staff would practically have to double in size. And so, the staff grew to some 100 employees in all, including about 8 managers.

Mr. Roger Gaudet: At this time, how many management employees and how many union employees are there?

¿ (0955)

Mr. Scott Serson: There are about 90 employees who are not management staff.

Mr. Greg Gauld (Vice-President, Merit Policy and Accountability Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada): There might be a few non-union employees among the non-management staff. I could not tell you exactly how many union people there are.

Mr. Roger Gaudet: So, if I understand, there used to be between 40 and 50 and now there are between 90 and 100.

Mr. Greg Gauld: Yes.

Mr. Roger Gaudet: Thank you.

What means did you have available to intervene and advise the government about the irregularities you had observed? What means did you have to tell the government that this did not make any sense?

Mr. Scott Serson: Are you asking me about the measures we took?

Mr. Roger Gaudet: What means did you have available?

Mr. Greg Gauld: May I answer this question?

Mr. Roger Gaudet: It does not matter to me, so long as I get a good answer.

Mr. Greg Gauld: First, we have the annual report. The current legislation states that we must report to Parliament every year. Besides, we also publish thematic studies that we make available to parliamentarians and to the public at large. We can also carry out investigations, surveys and audits. You have before you a report on the audit we carried out, and this audit covered the same period as the audit carried out by the auditor general. As you can see in our action plan, we also launched at least eight investigations on specific procedures or on management staffing patterns. These are the tools available to us. We can publish our reports and we report annually to the government.

Mr. Roger Gaudet: I agree that having an annual report tabled in Parliament is a good thing, but if things like this happen in the meantime, you need some leverage to stop them, or to notify the government. What happened with Mr. Radwanski was very unfortunate. There is no doubt you had an instrument to tell the minister or to tell Parliament that things were not going well. Sometimes, when a report is published, the audit is done two years later, after everything is over and done with.

Mr. Scott Serson: We tried a number of means. We wrote about the thematic study that I mentioned. I wrote to the three chairs of important committees, including Mr. Williams, to tell them that 21 per cent of the files we had requested had not been provided, and that we had noted documents missing in 51 of the files we have reviewed during the thematic study.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Gaudet.

Mr. Cullen, please. You'll have four minutes.

Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks, Ms. Fraser and Mr. Serson.

The House of Commons has a new committee, government operations and estimates, which actually came upon the privacy office almost by happenstance in looking at the supplementary estimates and a few other things. One of the missions of that committee is to look at the estimates of officers of Parliament and arm's-length organizations. The committee is just starting that process.

We have, of course, with the privacy commission, another complicating factor in that it is not subject to the access to information rules. Normally that's the way the media can access this type of information.

I have a few questions.

How do we regularize the review, through your office and through committees, of the officers of Parliament in a standard way? That's my first question.

Second, is it appropriate for the Privacy Commissioner to be exempt from the access to information rules? You may or may not be prepared to speak to that.

Third, the President of the Treasury Board in a recent speech talked about a way of making the expenses and the behaviour of deputy heads and others more accessible through websites, and more transparent. At lower or middle levels of management the rules are more defined. When you get to the deputy head level, you assume these people are responsible and are acting responsibly, but as we've learned, that may not always be the case. Do you think the increased transparency will achieve this goal, or do we need tighter rules or more audits or more compliance to deal with this type of situation?

Maybe Mr. Serson would like to comment on those aspects as well.

The Chair: First we'll hear the Auditor General.

Ms. Sheila Fraser: I will start with the last question, on transparency. I think that is the best solution to this. We don't need more rules and we don't need more procedures. I think this should all be made available.

Out of this, and even before all of this happened, the officers of Parliament met, and we all agreed to produce our hospitality and travel expenses in our departmental performance reports this year. Mine are all available on the website, and I believe others are posting them on their websites as well. We will see, in our departmental performance report, which will come before this committee. We're also providing more information—we already did so last year—on salary levels. We're providing information on performance pay. We're trying to provide more of that information to parliamentarians.

The office has long said we have no objection to being subject to access to information. The only concern we would have there is how it applies to our audit work. I believe all the other officers of Parliament take that position as well. That is the question of access transparency.

On how to regularize the reviews, I think it is important, and Mr. Serson mentioned it, that officers of Parliament and agencies have a regular contact, and a review, and a place to discuss our estimates and our performance reports with parliamentarians. There has to be an established contact. Actually, the office of the Auditor General is privileged in that way, because we do meet very regularly with the committee on public accounts, but most of the others do not. That is something that has to be addressed, going forward.

As to other reviews, we have learned a lesson from this as well. This case has caused many of us to sit back and ask if the way we define risk is the right way. We in particular have perhaps focused on large departments with large budgets and have realized that we have to pay more attention to smaller agencies. As I've indicated, we are going to set up a team that will be developing audits, doing more frequent and regular audits of smaller agencies.

À (1000)

Mr. Scott Serson: I agree with the points Sheila has made. If we're talking about lessons for the Public Service Commission out of this, Mr. Cullen, it is that we have to move our system. When I took over this job I was a little worried about the state of departments, and I knew, having been a former deputy minister, how much attention had been spent on staffing issues, and I didn't think it was very much. I have been going through a process of trying to warn deputy heads and agency heads that we're going to become tougher and tougher. That next stage of toughness, we've agreed, has to be greater transparency about what we're finding in departments—not globalizing them, but getting at the details.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Serson.

Mr. Hubbard, please. You'll have four minutes.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm a little taken aback by Mr. Serson's indications that Parliament hasn't been.... I've dealt with the Public Service Commission since I came to Ottawa, and I've found it a very elusive organization. My main complaint over the years has been their hiring practices, and especially the geographic designations. I'm not sure we've ever had very good progress in making the public service more available to most Canadians.

I think Mr. Serson's group is well aware of that. I just take back the criticism he is making towards us as parliamentarians. I for one have made a significant effort to try to resolve some of the issues with the PSC, without a great deal of success. He talks about lack of effort or dedication in making changes through Bill C-25. The committee studied it at great length and I think made a very strong effort to bring forward a good bill to the House.

In any case, I'd like to deal with a couple of other issues.

You mention, Mr. Serson, there were three groups you had your eye on. It seems in the case of Mr. Radwanski that we're talking about an individual who was in great esteem here about five years ago and has sunk to be one of the lower-regarded people in our society today. It is almost unbelievable that a person who has had all those important positions can suddenly be battered around the way he's being battered by the Canadian press—and by many people, in fact, in this very room.

Something has happened. I'm not sure just how it could have happened, but it did happen. I think all of us are concerned with the mismanagement of funds. I'm taken aback by the fact that he had over 100 people working in his office, and apparently people were promoted and so forth. Were there never any grievances put forward by people who didn't receive those promotions and felt they were being treated unjustly? Was there never a grievance brought to your attention, Mr. Serson?

À (1005)

Mr. Scott Serson: Technically, in our world it's an appeal, but we had no appeals from the staff.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: And no one complained about all of this?

Mr. Scott Serson: Keep in mind that there's a subtext here, Mr. Hubbard. I was calling back last night to see whether.... Many people in the organization were benefiting from what was going on; I'm sure Sheila would agree with that. When you look back at the report, many people benefited from reclassifications. When we look back at the public service survey, this is a small organization, but everybody felt they were classified well. The organization was above the public service average.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: I only have a limited amount of time. I will get back to that.

You mentioned three groups you had your eye on: the Privacy Commissioner, the Information Commissioner, and third, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Have you made intrusions into those other two places to see if similar situations are occurring? Do you have your watchful eye on those other two groups? If you do, have you found anything in the case of either of those offices?

Mr. Scott Serson: I would say that in both of those cases we have been satisfied with the follow-up. If you ask me honestly whether we have gone back with spot audits, the answer is no, we haven't.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Have you reported to Parliament or any parliamentary committee your concerns with respect to those other two groups? Yes or no?

Mr. Scott Serson: Well...

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Yes or no?

Mr. Scott Serson: Specifically, no.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Have you brought to the attention of Parliament concerns with the two other staffing practices?

Mr. Scott Serson: Specifically, no.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: No. So it's rather disturbing that this could occur. We've had another very important position—I guess it was the commissioner, but I forget the exact title—involving the Industrial Relations Board, whose spending practices attracted a lot of public attention not very long ago. He, of course, was replaced. I guess he resigned.

For the Auditor General, did that signal a problem within some of these agencies and commissions that might be a problem for everyone, in terms of our being representatives of the people of Canada and given the financial contributions they make to the national revenue?

The Chair: Ms. Fraser.

Ms. Sheila Fraser: I believe that's a fair summation.

I know the office did a report on that particular instance, on Mr. Weatherill. I don't remember the exact date; I would guess it was 1997 or 1998. As I mentioned, we realized from this that we do not spend enough time looking at smaller agencies. We have looked at compensation, expense packages—those sorts of things—in all the crown corporations. We have a regular program we've developed to look at those instances.

We have not gone into smaller agencies on a regular basis, but I can assure you we are going to do so now, and I would be glad to come back to the committee, when we review our plans and priorities, concerning how we will be doing it.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: My time's up.

The Chair: Thanks, Mr. Hubbard.

Mr. Shepherd, please, four minutes.

Mr. Alex Shepherd (Durham, Lib.): Yes, thank you.

Mr. Serson, have you ever removed a delegated authority?

Mr. Scott Serson: No. The short answer is, in my four years we have not removed a delegated authority. We have, on occasion, told deputy heads that we were unsatisfied with the performance in a particular area of his or her department, and they have removed staffing delegations.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: Okay, but the short answer is no, you've never—

Mr. Scott Serson: From a whole department or agency, no.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: So in your letter to the Privacy Commissioner you didn't even put that possibility in there? You weren't telling him to straighten this organization out, that you could remove his delegate. You didn't even use that as a threat?

Mr. Scott Serson: No, but when I went to see him there was one thing that I was sure I did say to him, that he was signing a delegation agreement. It was the authority given to us by Parliament that we were transferring to him, and if it wasn't used properly, we could withdraw it.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: I guess my comment is this. I think Mr. Radwanski understood the system fairly well. He understood it didn't work and he could survive because he knew it didn't work.

You did an initial review of the Privacy Commissioner. I'm interested in the initial report. Is there a correlation between that and this other observation of the Auditor General about the director general of corporate services receiving $99,000 in lieu of notice and then the $53,000 bonus? These would also be factors of human resource allocation, but inconsistent with the Public Service Commission, I would think. Did your investigation report on that?

À (1010)

Mr. Scott Serson: No, our role is just on the staffing.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: Just pure staffing?

Mr. Scott Serson: The appointments, yes.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: You mentioned in your dealings with the PCO that you had concerns for other agencies. You later stated the Information Commissioner and the fisheries department. Is that the same story?

Mr. Scott Serson: No.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: You had other agencies that you were concerned about that you'd reported to the PCO?

Mr. Scott Serson: I have discussed other organizations over the course of the last four years, yes.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: Since we know that you didn't remove anybody's delegations, are those problems being satisfactorily dealt with, or do we have more problems than just the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?

Mr. Scott Serson: I was trying to indicate there that problems came to our attention that were not our responsibility. I think that was the question being asked.

In some cases, we can go in and look at the staffing and find that it is perfectly well done, but we can still be hearing concerns that staff feel they're being harassed, that management is being too tough, etc.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: When you say you hear concerns, do people come to you with their concerns and report them to you?

Mr. Scott Serson: We do executive staffing. So if there are problems in an organization, one of the ways it shows up is when we start to see the managers of that organization coming to us to get assistance to leave the organization.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: So you may mention this to the PCO, but that's as far as it goes. If somebody says they're being harassed, you report that to the PCO, but that's the end of your investigation. Is that what you're saying?

Mr. Scott Serson: If it's other than a staffing situation....

Mr. Alex Shepherd: So, in other words, you hope somebody else will deal with this problem somewhere else in the civil service, but it's not your responsibility.

Mr. Scott Serson: No. Be fair here. I said at the beginning that my calls to PCO were about putting in place a system—and that was not once, that was not twice—that would allow that intelligence to be brought together.

I'm still dealing with those kinds of cases, and I don't like the implication that we just let it drop. That is not my intention. In fact, there is a suggestion at the end of the Auditor General's response, in PCO's response, that they are starting to address that. I'm happy that's being done, and I'd like to think it's because of my prodding that it is being done.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Serson.

Thank you, Mr. Shepherd.

Mr. Forseth, four minutes, please.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Thank you.

We have a terrific Auditor General's report. It cost us $800,000, but I would think it is good value for the money if it can change the situation for all time into the future. Specifically in this report, using the case example of the office of the Privacy Commissioner, it talks about that legislation and policies being contravened. It says stress and intimidation in the workplace were used, I suppose, to accomplish bad agendas and that overclassification was a problem.

It goes on to say “Many classification policies were ignored”; “Hiring practices disregarded key public service values”; “The OPC manipulated the process to favour particular candidates”; “Overclassification and hiring practices resulted in high salary costs”; “The Public Service Commission knew about staffing irregularities”.

Specifically in paragraph 44 on page 10 it says:

Another practice the Office used to hire and promote a particular person from another department was a transfer to a position that existed only on paper (Exhibit 3). This practice contravened subsection 34.2(2) of the Public Service Employment Act, which addresses the transfer of employees from one position to another.

This is the kind of loophole that I would think is going on system-wide in the public service, and I'm asking specifically, in view of that observation on that specific loophole, how are we going to fix this for all time so this $800,000 report has lasting value into the future?

À (1015)

Mr. Greg Gauld: First of all, there are a number of investigations into specific cases—I can't comment on which cases—where there is evidence of particularly egregious violations.

As well, into the future, one of the things we're focusing on—and it's in the action plan—is reinforcing our expectations with respect to departments. For instance, I've arranged to convene all the senior HR officials for all the departments and agencies two weeks from now to talk about the lessons learned from the OPC, and that would be one of them. I expect Treasury Board will join us in hosting that get-together.

We're also trying to beef up our audit capacity. We are now working on a submission to seek the resources to enhance our surveillance capacity, including audit. That would be a risk area.

The other point that's in our action plan is that we are reassessing the risk profile of departments. We will be sitting down and going through every department, identifying the risks, and tightening up our risk management policy on this and our interventions, as Mr. Serson mentioned. Some of these may involve audits or lower thresholds for revoking delegations.

Mr. Paul Forseth: I've kind of heard that well-meaning line before: we have plans; we have policies. I heard the HRDC minister say, we have a six-point plan. But whether anything really happens at the end....

I just wondered if the Auditor General could, in view of what I said, refocus us and remind us of some hopeful outcomes and maybe give us some guidance about strategy in view of what Mr. Gauld has said.

Ms. Sheila Fraser: Certainly, we will continue to focus on HR issues in the government. We have done a series of audits. Obviously, we can't go in and look at every agency and every department. It would be prohibitive, and I don't really think it is the role, either, of the Auditor General to be doing all this.

But certainly, going forward in our HR work, we will be taking the lessons we have learned out of this audit and applying them. Certainly, when we go in to look at small agencies, one of the obvious areas we will be looking at is the HR practices. We will try to see if there are lessons we can learn from that in other organizations. These are the kinds of things we will be looking at to see if that is occurring or not. It will be built into our audit process.

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

[Translation]

Mr. Desrochers, you have four minutes.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Mr. Gauld, a few moments ago, you told my colleague that the number of staff had gone from 40 to about 90. You said that, when Mr. Radwanski was hired, he had a plan providing for a significant increase in staff.

Was the corporate mission of the commissioner's office changed after Mr. Radwanski was hired, or did it remain the same as it was when the former commissioner was in the position?

Mr. Greg Gauld: I think that our audit report broadly explains, as does the report of the auditor general, that there is new legislation that considerably expands the mandate of the commissioner's office.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: At the time Mr. Radwanski was hired, there was a statute providing for a change in his mission.

Mr. Greg Gauld: If I have properly understood this legislation, which is to be implemented in three phases...

Mr. Odina Desrochers: I do not mean generally. I mean specifically in the commissioner's case.

Mr. Greg Gauld: Yes, I am talking about the commissioner.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: When was he hired, and who amended the legislation to give him so much power?

Mr. Greg Gauld: Parliament. I am not an expert in this, but the legislation is called...

Ms. Sheila Fraser: Mr. Chairman, there is a new legislation specifying that privacy issues apply to the private sector. I do not know when the legislation was introduced, but it comes into force on January 1, 2004. The Office is preparing for the coming into force of the new legislation, which affects the entire private sector in Canada.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: So that explains why so many more people were hired.

Ms. Sheila Fraser: Yes.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: This is the mandate Mr. Radwanski was given. It is when he hired all these people that the irregularities were committed.

Mr. Greg Gauld: There are some irregularities that may date back to the days before Mr. Radwanski took up the post, but most of the records we examined apply to Mr. Radwanski's term.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: I see. So, when Mr. Radwanski was given the mandate of increasing his staff, he was given the necessary leeway he needed to start—please excuse the term—"massaging" the staffing process for his office.

Mr. Greg Gauld: We did not give him any extra leeway to do that.

À (1020)

Mr. Odina Desrochers: But the process was initiated when he had the agreement in his hands, in October 2001.

Mr. Greg Gauld: Well, there was an increase in staffing that may have started when he arrived. That was one of the reasons we wanted to meet with Mr. Radwanski early in his mandate and have him sign a delegation and accountability agreement.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: When you noticed that, you quickly...

[English]

The Chair: Madam Fraser has a point to make.

[Translation]

Ms. Sheila Fraser: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make it clear that not just Mr. Radwanski, but also a number of senior managers were responsible for the problems we found in the office.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: You say that you met with him and Ms. Fraser adds that some senior managers were responsible for this situation as well. When you met with him to put the agreement in writing, what made you think at that point that there were problems with the hiring or staffing procedures at the Commissioner's Office?

Mr. Greg Gauld: I think the only indication we had at that time was the conversation I had had with someone who had told me that there were staffing problems. In addition, in our follow-up with the Director of Human Resources, we learned that he thought that the problem was that the new president was from the private sector and did not understand the staffing system.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Why was that?

Mr. Greg Gauld: He had thought about it, and that was his opinion.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Merci beaucoup, monsieur Desrochers.

Ms. Beaumier, please, four minutes.

Ms. Colleen Beaumier (Brampton West—Mississauga, Lib.): As I explained the other day, going back to basics is always good for me. What I want to know is this. We're talking about a palatial existence and reclassification of staff. Did the Privacy Commissioner not have a set budget? In my budget I have $7,000 for special events, which include town hall meetings, the works, and then you have to allow so much for your rent, so much for your stuff, and so much for your staff.

Where did all of this money come from on a set budget? That's my first question.

My second question is about accountability on the part of the public service. If I'm going to be accountable to my constituents, the only way I can be sure of doing that is to know that I get accountability from the public service. Would you say that whistle-blowing legislation is perhaps urgently needed?

Ms. Sheila Fraser: Mr. Chair, I can perhaps address the question on the budget. As the report notes, there was very poor financial management. There were very few financial statements, and there was not a regular follow-up of where they were in their spending.

The office of the Privacy Commissioner spent more than the moneys voted to them in the past year by $234,000, and as well, as we note in the report, in January it became obvious they were going to exceed their budget. They cut the investigative work; their investigators had to stop doing privacy investigations because they had reallocated the money from that to other areas.

There's a vote, if you will, that's given to the department, and then they can reallocate within that. As we note, those staffing reclassifications and promotions did put significant pressure on their budget, and that is probably one of the reasons they have gone over.

Ms. Colleen Beaumier: So there aren't currently any envelopes. Once I spend $7,000, that's it. I can't go over that, or I'm personally liable for it. There are certain things..if I overspend, it has to come out of my own personal finances.

So there were no envelopes in there? How big could this pot have been?

À (1025)

Ms. Sheila Fraser: At times there are certain amounts that are what we call frozen or allocated to specific items. I do not believe that was the case. Certainly it was not, for instance, the way your budget is, that detailed, where you can spend only so much.

There is a possibility to reallocate, which is needed to give departments and agencies flexibility. But in this case it was taken away actually from many of the privacy investigations and put into.... For example, there was money given for a computer system, and the money was taken from there and put into travel and hospitality.

Mr. Scott Serson: The short answer is yes, I think whistle-blowing protection is necessary. I think it should be more than that. I don't know how much time we have. I've expressed a concern.

Part of the challenge I think Parliament faces is that the more small agencies we create to do more of this, the more we get sources of information on bits and pieces of the public service and the less comprehensive they are. The same is probably true for employees. We know that right now there are about 13 places they can go to complain, grieve, appeal, etc. They often have difficulty sorting out which one to go to, so I would hope if whistle-blower protection is brought in, there is also some guidance brought in for public servants about how to use the mechanisms that are available.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Beaumier.

Monsieur Jobin, s'il vous plaît, pour quatre minutes.

[Translation]

Mr. Christian Jobin (Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, Lib.): I would like to come back to some of your comments at the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Serson. You said that the oversight philosophy of the Public Service Commission was based on the modern position of a comptroller and management's accountability. You also advocate the promotion of values among managers. In other words, it is results-based. Every agency tables its report based on its results.

You also said that there was a shortage of resources to analyze all the reports and that you had to provide a report very quickly. So you admit that there were some hitches in the system.

You also tabled a plan for change. You said that you wanted to re-evaluate the risk profile of the departments and agencies and review all the information collection and intervention policies and systems.

I would like to know whether you will be tabling an action plan soon to bring about these changes—because it is a 180-degree shift—as well as a staff plan. Do you need additional staff to carry out this change?

Mr. Scott Serson: We are now trying to get in additional staff through a submission to the Treasury Board for an enhanced audit capacity. I imagine that the next president will include in our next annual report a full discussion of the follow-up we said we would do to determine where we are at in this situation.

Mr. Christian Jobin: As you know, in auditing and accounting, there is the principle of the materiality of the figures. In an audit of an 11-million-dollar budget, the materiality is lower than it is for a budget of $100 billion.

In the area of human resources, there are a number of small agencies that submit reports to you and they are mixed up with reports from large agencies as well. I would like to know whether you have materiality thresholds to ensure that all agencies have an audit level when the report is tabled. In other words, we must ensure that the report of an agency with an 11-million-dollar budget is not set aside because it does not amount too much in the context of the government as a whole.

Mr. Scott Serson: We asked each organization to submit a report on its delegation agreement and the way in which it was implemented. However, because of our lack of resources and the problems we had analyzing these 72 reports this year, we decided to reduce the number of reports and to concentrate on the departments and agencies we felt had submitted the weakest reports last year.

Mr. Christian Jobin: When your report was tabled, Ms. Fraser, you spoke about changing the way in which you audit agencies. Would it not be advisable to work out an audit action plan for small agencies jointly with the Public Service Commission?

À (1030)

Ms. Sheila Fraser: I think that it is an excellent idea. I think we should do that.

Mr. Christian Jobin: Jointly?

Ms. Sheila Fraser: Yes.

Mr. Christian Jobin: Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Jobin.

We're now getting into a third round here.

Mr. Forseth, please, four minutes.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Again, I refer to the Auditor General's report on page 43. I have two specific points.

Mr. Serson, your responses were included in the report, and you said:

At this time, the PSC expects to open eight investigation files. After reviewing the Auditor General's report and/or obtaining further information or analysis, the PSC may determine that further investigations are required.

So my first question is, how is it going with the eight files, and who's going to see the results? Can this committee or the government operations committee receive the full disclosure of those eight files when you're done, either publicly or privately?

The second question is this. You further went on to say:

Furthermore, the PSC has developed a departmental observation system through its regional offices to gather and analyze staffing issues.

Well, that's the old observe and report system, but we know the historical weaknesses of being able to just observe and report. What about the power to swiftly remediate?

Mr. Scott Serson: On the latter question, you've seen the results of that observation system because we did a study of the whole FSWEP program. We saw problems in the Manitoba region that—

The Chair: What is FSWEP?

Mr. Scott Serson: I apologize. It is the federal student work experience program.

We saw problems in the Manitoba region. We remediated those problems... our regional director with the Manitoba Federal Council... Again, we weren't satisfied that this wasn't happening elsewhere in the country. So we did that study, and we are currently following up with departments.

The issue is, in that observation system, what are the bits and pieces we know about a single organization or a single issue that we're not putting together to say, this is a bigger problem than the individual pieces.

So we're trying to address that, Mr. Forseth.

Your first question was about...

Mr. Paul Forseth: The eight files. You said you might open eight investigations. Well, this was probably written three or four weeks ago or so. You've had time now to get on with these eight files. Where are we at and what is the outfall when you're done? Is it going to come to a committee of Parliament?

The Chair: It looks like we're going to have a new witness coming forward, Madame Andrée Dubois.

Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Mrs. Andrée Dubois (Vice-President, Recourse Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada): We began the investigations and mandates were given to the investigators. It will be up to them to decide how they will conduct their investigations and to determine whether things will be in the private or public domain during the investigations.

[English]

They are masters of their procedures.

The Chair: Who decides, the Public Service Commission?

Mrs. Andrée Dubois: No, each investigator is the master of his procedure in how to conduct an investigation. If we reach the stage of boards of inquiry, that is, when we look at the possibility of revoking an appointment, then the procedure is much more open to public scrutiny.

Mr. Scott Serson: Mr. Forseth, as I said the other day, we're having our legal counsel look at this, because we understand that some of this knowledge is important to the public interest.

What we're trying to strike is the right balance between the public interest and the protection of individual interests and the privacy of certain information. So we have work to do on it. It's a complex issue for us.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Okay. So that's the long answer of saying that, basically, the eight files have not really been started yet.

Mrs. Andrée Dubois: They have been started.

I'm sorry, I said we have started investigations.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Well, you opened a file. Have you called any evidence yet? Have you been reviewing documents? Have you been interviewing people yet?

À (1035)

Mrs. Andrée Dubois: We have started a review of the documentation, individuals who will be called to testify have received their letters of notification, and allegations have been clarified. According to fairness of procedure, we have to give them some time to prepare themselves to give testimony. So it has started.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Okay, thank you.

Then please give me an indication, or maybe a ballpark figure, of when you anticipate you'll be done. I request that the results of that come back to either this committee or the government operations committee, either in a public forum or in private. At some point, because of the case example situation here, it's got to come back to Parliament one way or another.

The Chair: Do you agree, Mr. Serson?

Mr. Scott Serson: We'll take that under consideration. It's a fair request.

The Chair: You may, of course, respect the privacy of the individuals, but I think some kind of report will be expected.

Mr. Scott Serson: I think that's fair.

The Chair: Monsieur Desrochers.

[Translation]

Mr. Odina Desrochers: You say that when you noticed that something was wrong at the commissioner's office, Mr. Serson, you sent out some letters. To whom did you send letters saying that you were dissatisfied with the staffing and hiring procedures at the Commissioner's Office?

[English]

Mr. Scott Serson: Mr. Radwanski.

[Translation]

Mr. Odina Desrochers: To Mr. Radwanski?

Mr. Scott Serson: Yes.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Did you alert any other individuals? Did you send out any other letters?

Mr. Scott Serson: No, I did not send out any other letters, but Michael and his colleagues spoke with managers in the office on several occasions.

Mr. Greg Gauld: Are you asking whether we sent other letters to Mr. Radwanski or letters to other individuals?

Mr. Odina Desrochers: To other individuals. You sent some letters to Mr. Radwanski in which you said...

Mr. Michael Corber: Yes, and to the other two departments.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: To which departments?

Mr. Michael Corber: To the other two departments we had identified earlier.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Could you name the other two departments again?

Mr. Michael Corber: The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Did the answers you received from these individuals satisfy you? Did you feel you had their support in the steps you were taking?

Mr. Michael Corber: Yes, and that is the difference we noticed in the case of the information and privacy commissioner. We saw an improvement elsewhere following the letters sent by Mr. Serson. The annual report to which Mr. Serson referred, regarding their delegation agreements, which they submitted this year to my colleagues, showed that there had been an improvement. That is why we are not doing the same thing with all the departments. We are adopting an approach based on the probability that a particular department may or may not make some improvements.

In the case of Mr. Radwanski, apparently, there had been no improvement, and so naturally, we did an audit. In the other two cases, there had been an improvement and it was not necessary to withdraw their delegation or to do anything else.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Thus, it was only in the case of the Commissioner's Office that you intervened to change the hiring and staffing procedures.

Mr. Michael Corber: Yes, and that was the result of our thematic review.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: You spoke to Mr. Radwanski. How many management employees were targeted by your recommendations?

Mr. Michael Corber: I am sorry, but I did not understand. Were any managers identified? No. As I indicated previously, the thematic report was produced following a different type of study. The point of the audit was not to identify weaknesses in each case or to see whether the act or the values were respected or not. Rather, it was a horizontal review of the entire organization, and we realized that there were weak points throughout the entire organization.

The issue was brought to the attention of the deputy minister, the person to whom we delegated the authority to address these matters. That is how things work. And that is why it is up to management to manage their business in accordance with the spirit of the act.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: You said that, generally speaking, management had broken down and the office of the commissioner was engaging in certain activities, but surely there must have been people who turned a blind eye to what Mr. Radwanski was doing. Did you identify these people? People working in human resources, the accountant or someone else surely turned a blind eye because the situation continued.

Mr. Michael Corber: One of the problems is that there was a certain degree of staff turnover within human resources. Mr. Forseth talked about a

À (1040)

[English]

confluence of forces that arose in this particular organization.

[Translation]

Many people were hired and therefore there was a lot of activity at the staffing level. There was a turnover within human resources, there was a new deputy minister, and all this took place within a small organization. However, some managers had been there for a long time and we had hoped that we could count on them to make sure the law, which they had been subject to for a long time, was upheld.

Mr. Odina Desrochers: Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Merci beaucoup, monsieur Desrochers.

Mr. Cullen, please, four minutes.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a couple of questions for Ms. Fraser and Mr. Serson and staff. Do you find it strange or unusual that Mr. Radwanski would have been appointed to his position at an annual salary of some $210,00 not too long after he had negotiated an agreement with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency that would relieve him of approximately $450,000 or $500,000 in amounts owing for taxes? I'm wondering, if you think that is unusual, how we go about making sure that doesn't happen again.

From my perspective, looking at the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency situation, my understanding of it is that when they spoke to Mr. Radwanski he had still yet to have a formal offer for the job as the Privacy Commissioner. So it was quite appropriate, I suppose, that he didn't have to declare that he had a job in process or as a possibility.

In my riding I go through this, as many others do. We try to work with constituents who have a burden of tax and low income and help them negotiate a repayment scheme. But this was a write-off of a substantial amount for someone who walked into a job shortly thereafter at $210,000 year. What are your thoughts on that? How do we avoid that happening in the future? That doesn't seem appropriate to me.

Ms. Sheila Fraser: We have not looked specifically at this issue. From what I understand, Mr. Radwanski went through the normal procedures of the Bankruptcy Act. It was a proposal to creditors that he made, and it was accepted by the courts. Revenue Canada accepted, therefore, a certain number of cents on the dollar for the money that was owed, and that procedure was done through the courts and the legal process.

The only question I suppose that could be raised—and I believe that CCRA is looking into that—is, was there any false information given during those legal proceedings? If he had knowledge of a salary or if he had assets that he didn't declare, then it could somehow taint that proceeding.

But other than that, I think what the question raises is the process for appointment of officers of Parliament and other heads of agency, and as well the kind of vetting that goes into the people who are named to that process. In this case we understand that Mr. Radwanski's name came from the Prime Minister's Office, and then the Privy Council Office did the procedures to have him come into that position. I have no other knowledge on that.

Mr. Scott Serson: The only thing I would add, Mr. Cullen, is that I have looked at systems for governor in council kinds of appointments in other places in the world and there are systems that are more open than ours in Canada in terms of giving people opportunity to apply, having a fair assessment of them, etc. It can be done differently.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Do I have time for one quick one?

The Chair: Yes, you do.

Mr. Roy Cullen: On the question of whistle blowing, when we in the government operations and estimates committee looked at the Radwanski matter, we heard from a lot of employees, but some felt quite vulnerable.

We had this question earlier. There are a couple of approaches. One is through policy and enhancing policy. The other is a legislative approach. When we had Mr. Himelfarb at the government operations committee, he basically felt the government wasn't ready to proceed with a legislative solution.

Do you think, given now the events of the Radwanski matter, that the government should expedite whistle blowing in a legislative approach, or should we just stick to policy?

Mr. Scott Serson: I personally believe in the legislative approach. I think the evidence is there in the report of Mr. Keyserlingk and elsewhere that this is what's necessary.

I'm a little bit like the Auditor General, though. I don't think that's a full solution. There's a broader set of issues here about what systems are working. I personally am very concerned about the union system in this case, because I hear this leader of the union saying that people should have acted.

My concern is that for four years I've been sitting down with union leaders every four months and saying to them, if you have staffing issues in departments or other broader issues that you want to bring to my attention, bring them to my attention.

Say the unions weren't satisfied with the work that was being done by the Public Service Commission in terms of following up. That's two years of opportunity for them to go up to their national people and say, you're meeting with the president of the public service regularly, raise this question with him. Never.

À (1045)

Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you very much.

The Chair: We'll have a quick one-question round at the end, because there's another meeting here at 11 o'clock.

First of all, Mr. Serson, you've indicated that you're in favour of whistle-blowing legislation. Have you contained that in your annual reports to Parliament at all?

Mr. Scott Serson: No.

I think in fairness, Mr. Williams, we'd see that as a little bit beyond our mandate. We did deal with it because the government operations committee asked us to look at the views about protection, but even there, we went back to the government operations committee and said, “This is a little bit beyond our mandate, but we'll have a look at it for you”.

The Chair: We note that the director of human resources actually blew the whistle to your department about problems with HR in the OPC. From that, you actually went and visited with Mr. Radwanski and handed him a delegated authority. It seems to be a little bit of an incongruous statement here that you support whistle blowing, and yet you ignored it when it came your way.

Mr. Scott Serson: We didn't ignore it, Mr. Williams. In fact, one of the reasons I went to see Mr. Radwanski was because those concerns had been brought to my attention, and I brought them to his attention. I put him on a delegated agreement, because we thought that by working him and his management team through that new delegation agreement, we would give them a sense of what their responsibilities were. I also told him that we wanted him to be part of this thematic review, so that we could verify some of those things.

Keep in mind, when this lady came to us, she felt that this was not malevolence on his part; I think her words were that she felt he was another individual new to the public service who didn't understand the hiring system, and who was frustrated. I think the second thing she told us was that, in the case Mr. Forseth is talking about, she thought that was a meritorious appointment.

It's not as clear-cut as saying, “Oh, yes, we were told everything is terrible”.

The Chair: But here is a guy on the job who, by your own admission, or as you had been told by his own HR director, doesn't know the rules. Yet just two months later you hand him delegated authority. My question is, since you gave him the delegated authority, what monitoring and supervision did you put in place, knowing that he didn't know the rules?

Mr. Scott Serson: We had the thematic done, and we had a whole action plan. On several occasions, we went in there and talked to his managers and explained the rules and the values to them.

The Chair: If you had this monitoring process in place, why did we end up with a report that you tabled last week saying it's the worst you had ever seen?

Mr. Scott Serson: That's why we should have acted decisively when we got his annual report to us in the fall of 2002.

The Chair: How many auditors do you have who are supervising these delegated authorities?

Mr. Scott Serson: Now, I'm going to take advantage of that, Mr. Williams, because it's been underscoring this. I could say that in four years I've never been called on our estimates. But I can also tell you that if you look at our RPP, of the $140 million in our budget, we have almost $67 million in resourcing; $35 million in learning, which will go when the new legislation kicks in; $6 million in resourcing; $14 million in oversight activities, including about five or six auditors; and $22 million in corporate services, in part because we run the job site.

The Chair: Thank you for that edification, Mr. Serson. You don't report your estimates to this committee. And Parliament may have been remiss, but this committee has not been remiss in the reporting of your estimates.

I think I got in there six auditors out of 1,400 staff. How many delegated authorities do you have?

Mr. Scott Serson: We have 72 agencies we're responsible for under the PSEA.

The Chair: So is that 72 delegated authorities?

Mr. Scott Serson: Yes, delegation agreements.

The Chair: They cover 150,000-odd staff members, and you have six auditors.

Mr. Scott Serson: Yes.

The Chair: Don't you think you're a little light in that department?

À (1050)

Mr. Scott Serson: I do.

The Chair: Ms. Fraser, do you have anything to say about this, the lack of auditing capacity in the Public Service Commission, which has six auditors to cover 72 agreements and 150,000 staff—and I don't know how many thousand people employed in human resources management throughout the government?

Ms. Sheila Fraser: Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Serson has said quite clearly that he doesn't feel those are sufficient resources.

The Chair: Are you asking Parliament for more resources?

Mr. Scott Serson: We put into our annual report that we needed more resources in that area. I made it clear, I think Mr. Forseth would say, in our discussions with Parliament about Bill C-25 that we needed more resources, yes.

The Chair: I found it a little bit incongruous, too, that after you were aware Mr. Radwanski didn't have the skills, the knowledge, and so on to supervise and manage the HR, you still gave him the delegated authority. When he is gone and we have someone with impeccable credentials and credibility in this town by the name of Mr. Robert Marleau, the interim Privacy Commissioner, you yank the delegated authority away from him and say he can't do it. But you left it with Mr. Radwanski. What's going on?

Mr. Scott Serson: To be perfectly frank, we took the delegation authority away in that interim period, between the discoveries of the government operations committee and our own reassessment of his annual report. His senior management team is still in place—or being moved around, and various members are there. This is no reflection on Mr. Marleau at all. It just gives us an opportunity to work through it in a more thorough manner, and given what we've learned from the OPC, we're going to work through it in a thorough manner.

The Chair: Here's one final question. You being responsible for the staffing, all these staff reclassifications would presumably have been reported to you, or you should have been aware of them, and of the performance pay issue the Auditor General discusses in her report, and how they were able to massage these at the top.

I'm not sure if you are following performance pay at all, but I note that in your department, 56 out of 56 of your executives all got performance pay for doing their job either very well or better, and now we find you're coming up short.

Mr. Scott Serson: Again, Mr. Williams, if I reply to that in the wrong way you're going to say I'm making excuses, but I want you to understand something. Mr. Forseth asked us when the date is for the reports on investigations. He will understand that under Bill C-25 we're an organization that has been living with uncertainty about our mandate for two years. The staff have been living with uncertainty about the leadership of the organization for a year.

On the question of recourse, a new public service staffing tribunal may be created, or it may not. We have to wait until we see whether Bill C-25 is done. No provisions have been made for the thorough consideration of staff and whether they'll go some place or not. I wrote to the PCO. They said, “We'll just let the layoff provisions handle it.” So we have people in that organization who don't know whether they're going to have a job a year from now—in our organization, or in some other organization—and they're making a choice: they're choosing to leave. So we're managing with that.

The Chair: Performance pay is not for a difficult environment. It's for performance on the job. You can't use performance pay to say, “We understand it's a difficult”—

Mr. Scott Serson: I'm only saying that if you were genuinely interested in performance, you would look... Do the Montreal Expos play well when they're under threat of a move? Performance is related to many things.

The Chair: We're dealing with the Treasury Board guidelines and the Government of Canada's guidelines, and you're supposed to live within them as well. I say in a difficult environment it's not an answer to say, “I'll give everybody performance pay just because the environment is tough.” They get performance pay for delivering beyond expectations.

We're going to have a very quick round of three questions, because we have to wrap up.

Mr. Forseth, you may have one quick question.

À (1055)

Mr. Paul Forseth: Thank you.

Again, I return to the great Auditor General's report, on page 38, at paragraph 193. In a concluding way it says, “Finally”—that's after all is said and done:

Finally, the Treasury Board Secretariat

—that's the employer of the government—

and the Public Service Commission failed to respond decisively when they became aware of problems in the office of the Privacy Commissioner.

Here's your opportunity to shine, to say exactly what you've done. You admitted before that, yes, you did fail to respond decisively. So I can ask you simply, have you fixed it? Give us a list of the things you've done to fix the failures in your shop to respond to this failing to act decisively.

Mr. Scott Serson: We put an action plan on the table, and many of those things are under way already.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Serson.

Mr. Hubbard, a quick question.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: I'll make a very quick observation. It has been a very difficult learning experience. I guess that's what we're all experiencing here today.

I'm sure, Mr. Chair, that it's not just one person who's responsible for this. We have ethics among....

Is there any provision within the Public Service Commission where people can be identified and actually lose their jobs because of what happened, in conjunction with Mr. Radwanski?

Mr. Scott Serson: My judgment is that nobody deserves to lose their jobs. If you want to, hold me accountable--

Mr. Charles Hubbard: The most difficult thing for us as Canadians to accept was that there wasn't more than one.

Mr. Scott Serson: Are you talking about OPC or are you talking about the Public Service Commission?

Mr. Charles Hubbard: I'm talking about this particular case.

Mr. Scott Serson: In OPC there may be revocations of appointments. That's the process that Madame... I thought you were following up on Mr. Williams' question on whether or not I think I'm going to fire somebody because of the performance.

Mr. Charles Hubbard: Not within your organization, but within his. There must have been--

Mr. Scott Serson: Okay. Within his, there well could be.

The Chair: I think revocation of appointment is perhaps a euphemism for “fired”, but anyway.

Since it's Thursday and I'm feeling in a good mood, Mr. Murphy can have a very quick question.

Mr. Shawn Murphy: I would like to follow up on that last point. You say that nobody in the Public Service Commission is going to be fired, but the report is a fairly damning, scathing report on your commission. Is anyone on your staff going to be disciplined?

Mr. Scott Serson: No, these were—

The Chair: Okay, thank you very much. We're going to call the meeting to a close. There's no closing statement—

Mr. Scott Serson: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to say one more thing. I have never been called by a parliamentary committee to appear on my estimates. I have never been called in four years to appear on my annual report. I give due credit to Mr. Williams, who has called us in here whenever the Auditor General audits one slice of our organization.

I've struggled with this issue, and if we leave here today without understanding it, what does “reporting” mean? I assume “reporting” means that some part of Parliament calls me in and says, “Mr. Serson, what are the pressures you're facing in the overall context of your organization? How are you allocating resources?” Otherwise, this is just a catch-22.

The Chair: On that note, Mr. Serson, I think the public accounts committee will likely have a recommendation to Parliament that somebody look at your estimates.

Mr. Scott Serson: Excellent.

The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.