OGGO Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

¹

1540

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

Mr. Alex Himelfarb (Clerk of the Privy Council Office)

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

¹

1545

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lanctôt (Châteauguay, BQ)

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

¹

1550

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

Ms. Judy Sgro (York West, Lib.)

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Ms. Judy Sgro

The Chair

¹

1555

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

º

1600

The Chair

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

º

1605

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Mr. Jim Judd

Ms. Judy Sgro

The Chair

º

1610

Mr. Jim Judd

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Jim Judd

º

1615

The Chair

Mr. Jim Judd

º

1620

The Chair

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

Mr. Jim Judd

º

1625

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.)

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Mr. Paul Szabo

º

1630

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

Mr. Paul Szabo

The Chair

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

º

1635

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

º

1640

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

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

º

1645

º

1650

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

The Chair

Mr. Alex Himelfarb

º

1655

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

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NUMBER 050

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹  (1540)  

[English]

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

    We'll get started with meeting number 50 of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

    Before I turn the microphone over to Messrs. Himelfarb and Judd, I would like to say one thing for the record and for the benefit of committee members. That is simply to thank you, Mr. Himelfarb. Between the last time you were here and now, we had a bit of an issue, as you know, in accessing some documents. I know it was through your personal intervention that the situation was rectified. I appreciate the openness and the speed with which you worked to assist us with that.

    You had indicated at that meeting there were other issues that involved the management frameworks that you thought would be interesting. Rather than spend any more of your and Mr. Judd's time just waiting, we will commence and the others can catch up when they get here.

    Let me hand it over to you for a second and then we'll see where we'll go.

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb (Clerk of the Privy Council Office): Merci, monsieur le président. Thanks for your kind words. Et merci pour l'occasion de continuer notre discussion.

    The last time we were together we talked a bit about Bill C-25 and the fact that it was only part of a larger approach to increased transparency, to change the relationship between the public service and parliamentary committees, to clarify accountability, to bring some more rigour into our accountability and our reporting. We talked about some other pieces that were part of the commitment we had to public service modernization.

    Since that time, I sent to the committee three documents that were meant to be part of this larger initiative. One of them is a guidance to deputy ministers; one of them is a management accountability framework, which is now embedded in that guidance to deputy ministers; and the other is a code of conduct for public servants. I should mention that all those documents are draft documents. They have no formal status or approval. They're being revised even now.

    One of the key points of consultation is this particular meeting. While I know that we're here as witnesses, we are also hoping we'll get your feedback and your sense of what you're trying to achieve so that we can incorporate that into our work. We're hoping to get these documents out this month, knowing that they're evergreen, that they will continue to evolve, but making them public and available, especially the guidance to deputies.

    In fact, the guidance to deputies is an articulation of all kinds of pieces that have been hidden as sort of private counsel from PCO. They've never really been made public and available as the standard against which you can judge a deputy's performance and a standard against which deputies can judge their own performance. Getting that out in public, as well as an updated code of conduct and the management framework, is pretty critical to continuing progress. Even if they're imperfect, we'd like to get them out just to continue to work with them.

    Let me turn to my colleague, Jim. He will talk about a couple of those documents that Treasury Board has been the driving force on.

[Translation]

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

    Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would like to make a few comments on the two documents and then we could answer questions. I hope to hear comments from you and other members of the committee on the plans described in these documents.

[English]

    Very briefly, there are two documents that have been under preparation at the Treasury Board. One is the code, which, in part, is a culmination of an effort that has been underway for a decade or more in terms of discussion and dialogue about values and ethics in the public service. In part, it had as one of its high points the publication of the Tait report in the mid-1990s and subsequently some work done by colleagues of Alex and mine, Janice Cochrane and Scott Serson, on the dialogue with public service on values and ethics.

    The code in part brings that to some kind of closure, if you will, by being a formal statement for the first time ever from the government of public service values and ethics. It also updates the pre-existing conflict of interest guidelines and post-employment guidelines.

    The management accountability framework is a different piece of work altogether. It is intended largely to accomplish several things simultaneously. One is to set out for deputy ministers and public servants expectations about the gamut of management responsibilities and expectations. Also, it is intended to clarify or help in the process of clarifying the number of policies and reporting requirements that we have in the Treasury Board. It will be used as a performance tool, an assessment tool of how well we're doing in management terms.

    Both are new, both are different, and both are still in draft, as Alex has said. We'd be very happy to answer questions about them or, alternatively, to take your own comments and views on them, which was one of the hopes we had for this meeting.

¹  (1545)  

    The Chair: Monsieur Lanctôt, do you wish to begin?

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt (Châteauguay, BQ): Yes. I will not take much time.

    I like what I hear about the way things are being done. I think this is a first. It is a good start, but I see a lack of involvement by my colleagues on the committee here today. I certainly am not here to try to improve things for a federal parliamentary committee. I am here to help Quebec and I can only observe the lack of interest by all the members of the committee.

    I do not have many comments about the draft. To me it is just a draft. People want new legislation in order to try to show more transparency and accountability. We saw everything that happened this week and last during question period in the House of Commons. I do not understand why the government refuses to hold a public inquiry when the evidence is so clear. Even abroad—I travelled to Denmark—people are taking an interest in these issues. Representatives from Great Britain are taking an interest in this case. This morning a parliamentary delegation showed an interest in it.

    You are projecting a bad image abroad and that also harms Quebec. You are establishing a bad reputation of a country that hides things. I cannot understand why you do not want to clarify matters. I am talking about the sponsorship program of course. It is all well and good to adopt codes, but just because there are codes does not mean there are ethics or transparency.

    If the evidence is there, then decisions have to be made. Internal investigations may not be enough to satisfy the public. It has been some time since I travelled abroad with a delegation, but the last time I did, people were already talking. I imagine things are even worse now because everyone at home knows about it.

    I know we are talking about modernizing the public service and that this document is an attempt to show transparency, but that message is lost with the things that go on in the House of Commons. The evidence is quite compelling and the government is trying to use the ethics counsellor or, worse yet, the RCMP. The RCMP is doing its job, of course, but none of the results have been made public.

    I did not want to make a really formal speech. I see that none of the committee members are participating and I prefer to stay out of it. You can do what you want with your Canada, but I want you to know that you are making a serious mistake. That is all I have to say today and it is a lot.

[English]

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: It is not really a question, and to be fair, I understand the spirit of your comments, but the issue was made public through an internal audit. The government's policy is to make those internal audits public. The solutions that were put in place were made public. There is a government-wide audit of all of these issues that will be public. The fact that criminal matters are examined by the criminal authorities makes pretty good sense to me. There is nothing being hidden.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: If you think an internal investigation is more transparent than a public inquiry then there is a problem.

¹  (1550)  

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: I did not say that.

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: But that is sort of what you are leading us to believe. The work is being done, things are being looked into and the results will be made public.

[English]

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: Looking at police matters, the Auditor General looks at government-wide matters and the audit internally is made public. There is an external review as well as an internal review.

    The Chair: Judy, do you have anything?

    Ms. Judy Sgro (York West, Lib.): We will get to the topic you are here to discuss. When we've travelled, I have been quite proud to hear about the public service here in Canada and how it is admired. In fact, Bill C-25 will be another step forward in improving that relationship.

    On the issue of parliamentarians and senior public servants, I should ask what your opinion is of the current relationship. More important, how can we improve on that relationship from our end and from your end?

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: It is probably true that historically senior public servants have been timid about dealing with parliamentary committees. We are here generally to represent our ministers. What we say will invariably reflect upon our ministers. Our ministers are generally seen to be responsible for the relationship with parliamentary committees. There is a history of timidity that is not disrespectful to committees or Parliament; it is deep in the tradition of ministerial responsibility.

    One of the things that the guidance to deputies encourages is the recognition of our answerability to parliamentary committees. There is encouragement to be open with parliamentary committees generally on the information we have, specifically on our direct accountabilities for HR and for resource stewardship.

    You are in a much better position to judge, but my hunch is that it is starting to get better. We recognize that the relationship can be improved in a way that's consistent with the traditions of ministerial responsibility. One of the purposes of the guidance to deputies is to say that this is part of the job. It is a natural part of the job and it is made more so by Bill C-25, because we have direct responsibilities for HR. We have responsibilities already in the Financial Administration Act. We are answerable here for those responsibilities.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Do you think the guide that you put out will be helpful and will move those relationships forward?

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: Especially with continued leadership to do it. Part of the fact that we are here is to send the signal. The conversation that the chair and I had on this was that this is kind of outside the normal practice. These are draft documents. They are not endorsed yet. Let's just do it and see how it plays. It's meant to send a signal.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Exactly. That is understood. Other than through committee functions, parliamentarians are not at liberty today, but will they be in the future, to pick up the phone and call a DM and ask a question of a DM?

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: I think they are doing it more than I've ever seen. I get calls.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Is it encouraged or prohibited in your guide?

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: Openness, transparency, and recognition of our answerability to Parliament are all there.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: I welcome the continued openness.

    The Chair: Let me just jump in here on a couple of things. I read with interest your report to the Prime Minister. In it you made some comments about...I forget the way you phrased it, but you raised the concern about timidity in terms of the policy options that were developed. Within this, I see, particularly the guide to deputies and the management framework, this desire to spur innovation.

    I was actually speaking at a conference on accountability that NRCan is having right now. The question came up that you want people to be greater risk takers, but in a culture like we have in the public service, how do you do that and still protect people when they make the inevitable mistake?

    Expertise is gained by experience and experience is full of mistakes. It's moving away from an approach that has been an attempt to have government be completely error free into one that is perhaps more realistic. I see it written in these documents, and I really welcome that, but could you walk me through how that actually happens? What needs to be in place in order for people not to be badly hurt the first time they make a public mistake?

¹  (1555)  

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: If I had a simple answer to this I'd be prime minister. If I had a simple answer to this I'd be very happy. However, let me give you my intuitive answer, and it's in the guide. I fear that sometimes we're too glib about the idea of encouraging people to take risks. There are some risks we don't take. We don't take risks with the law. If we don't think the law is in good shape, we have an obligation to try to change it, but we don't ignore it. We don't take risks with our ethical standards, because trust is a huge currency, and if we lose that currency, we lose our ability to provide the kind of advice you're talking about.

    So there are kinds of risks that I think we have to be straight up about, that are not acceptable. Those kinds of missteps or mistakes have consequences. They're different from risks that are governed by good intent, best knowledge, and sound risk management principles, and they didn't work out. We have to make those distinctions.

    If you look in the guide, on the second kind of mistake, we talk about the obligation to point them out, to demonstrate how you're correcting them and to actually actively make them public and make your corrective action public and accept the consequences.

    Now, part of it is that there are negative consequences: committees will be angry with you, people will be angry with you, but that's what made it a risk. We can manage through that, as long as the focus isn't a sort of constant gotcha. The blame works fine on breach of law, breach of ethics, but on well-intentioned mistakes after solid risk management because you're innovative, the blame does do harm.

    To some extent, there will always be some consequences for mistakes. Mistakes aren't as good as getting it right. We have to learn to take the mistakes, but I also believe there's a political responsibility to distinguish among the kinds of mistakes.

    The Chair: One of the discussions along that line that have been active at this committee, because we have an additional responsibility with the estimates process, has been asking ourselves whether it is possible for the estimates process to evolve into almost an annual dialogue that is ongoing, that builds greater expertise on the part of committee members on the actions of a department so there isn't the once-a-year perception of playing gotcha, that it becomes each action. The performance reports, the estimates, the plans and priorities all become part of a dialogue that goes on and is repeated in some cyclical way.

    In part, I guess the question to you would be this. It seems that some of the problems in public management, because of that kind of gotcha and self-protection, are building layers and layers of systems that become more complex in an attempt to prevent problems that become so complex that you end up having all sorts of consequences that aren't as productive as you might like, or you dumb down people's risk taking.

    It's hard for the public service to say, well, we're not going to do that because two years ago we got whacked by a committee because we didn't do that, or we got a question in the House or whatever. However a well-informed committee, in some sort of relationship with a department, could say, look, we think that's foolish, and we would recommend you back away from that to free up some of the time that is spent in some of these.... Is that too simplistic?

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: I'll turn it over to the estimates expert. My instinct is that's the way we have to go. My instinct is that knowledge and trust is the only way to get some of this across here.

    These are pretty partisan forums. We have our relationship with our ministers. It has a lot to do with how these committees are managed, I expect. The bottom line is, absolutely, that's the way we have to go. Maybe we have to just take our hits and truck on, but there are real costs to it.

º  (1600)  

    The Chair: Jim.

    Mr. Jim Judd: I quite like what you're suggesting as a model. We've been doing a lot of thinking in the Treasury Board Secretariat about the whole estimates process, reporting to Parliament and so on. I think we are very conscious of some of the shortcomings that members of Parliament and the senators have identified with it. We're certainly looking forward to what comes out of your committee on that and, hopefully, using it as a basis to engage in a dialogue of sorts about what could or should be done to improve the system.

    Going back to Mrs. Sgro's question about relations between parliamentarians and the public servants and the general issue of this estimates process, there is historically, as Alex has said, a degree of timidity on the part of the public service in part because these committee hearings tend to be fairly confrontational fora.

    There are any number of other ways over and above committee proceedings to pursue a dialogue between parliamentarians, the public service, the ministers, and so on. At Treasury Board we are certainly interested in doing exactly that sort of thing on issues around the estimates process and parliamentary reporting, what could or should be done, and so on and so forth. We'd very much look forward to doing that over the course of the coming months.

    We don't want to pre-empt you by putting anything on the table. We'd like to see your conclusions and then sit down and start kicking them around, because we do have some ideas of our own about what might be done.

    The bottom line point, your end state, as described, would be highly useful. The level of understanding on an ongoing basis that allows you to sort of track issues, track problems, and track responses to problems over time is probably a very healthy thing to do. It gives you a much better understanding of the circumstances.

    One of the things you might think about as well--and I know some organizations do this-- if you have the opportunity, is to go out and see what life is like from our vantage point. We had a program at DND of inviting parliamentarians out to defence establishments and operations, and so on. I think it was highly instructive. Any number of organizations could do that, immigration posts or whatever. It gives you a better sense of what you're dealing with here.

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: I think, Mr. Chairman, that the direction you've set out is almost inevitable. It's the right way. We have to go that way. One way or another, we have to go that way.

    This committee can play a huge role, because you can look at public service management issues and contextualize those discussions in ways that other committees haven't necessarily done. Having a discussion on Bill C-25, also having a discussion on accountability, management, and service at large, and building a shared understanding of our universe, this committee has the potential to play a huge role in changing the culture and relationships.

    The Chair: Let me just interject something parenthetically here. I don't know what has occurred with Mr. Forseth. I know he's deeply interested in this. I know two extra committees have been called because there seems to be some desire to get out of here, but I'm a little saddened by the fact that we have the two most senior public servants in the country here and there aren't more members here.

    If you're willing, though, I'm quite willing to keep going because I have a bunch of questions. I don't want to waste your time, but Judy and I have a few things to ask.

    I'm deeply interested in part of this. I really appreciated, Mr. Himelfarb, your attitude the last time. There are problems. In the way any organization of this size functions, there are dilemmas. It's trying to get a better understanding of them on our part that I think allows us to be more helpful and move away from perhaps some of the silly kinds of gotcha that get played here.

    Part of it comes about in a difference with the local relationships, because we all have local and national relationships. We come here to deal with national policy in this rarefied atmosphere, but back home So-and-so comes into my office because he has had a very unsatisfactory experience with somebody. It's often difficult to reconcile or sort out because of some of the concerns about influence and the like. Out of fairness to the local public servants who are just carrying the mail somewhere, you don't want to go in and just have a row with them, but at the same time you want that issue rectified. However, when you come here to deal with it, it's a trivial issue relative to what's going on here, and yet you end up being full of all sorts of images about the public service and anger about what has or hasn't gone on that is based really on a bunch of smaller issues. It's trying to reconcile some of that communication. I'm not sure how we do it.

    Judy made the comment about people calling the deputy ministers. Some departments are great in that they have people who act as liaison and there is great communication, but in others it's almost a fear of any kind of.... It's often that if you fix some of those small problems quickly, the anger doesn't grow or the satisfaction doesn't grow, and yet it just seems it's very inconsistent across government.

º  (1605)  

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: It's actually a conversation Madame Sgro and I have had. I think your experience is that you phone some places and you get answers, you phone other places and they don't want to talk to you. We have a job to do, Jim and I, of opening the place up, because we have to find out. Frankly, those little things shape the perception.

    People know us through the EI office or through the RCMP detachment; that's how they know us. So they're not seeing it as trivial that we have this timidity about answering to parliamentarians. I think we're taking steps and I think you're seeing the steps. That's part of the culture change--wanting to hear the worst and incorporating it into our own improvement plans.

    My sense is that we're getting better and my sense is that we have a way to go.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: On that issue, because we're all trying to do our jobs better, and we're no different from everybody else in trying to improve the relationship, but there are specific protocols here that say that just because we have all the numbers of everybody in the infrastructure of Canada we don't simply call somebody there; we have to go this way, which means you must call the minister, and then it has to trickle down to whoever calls you back. Is that just something that evolves in different ministers' offices, or is there a protocol that says...?

    I found it very surprising coming here and not being able to pick up the phone and talk to somebody about some trivial thing for which I certainly did not have to bother a minister's office or a deputy minister's office. I just have to call somebody in that area and say that I have a problem and it needs to be fixed. I mean, it's not a major issue, but you can't get through because it's not the way we do things here.

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: There's a culture of timidity, but there is no protocol. We take answers from citizens; surely that ought to include MPs.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Sometimes it's easier to pretend to be a citizen.

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: Yes, “I'm not an MP, please take my call”.

    Mr. Jim Judd: Alex is quite right, Judy, there is no protocol around all this. I suspect part of it is timidity in some cases. Part of it is a degree of deference to the minister, for whom you are a colleague more so than we are, in a sense. Ministers are part of your community, if you will.

    However, I think it's part and parcel of the longer-term objective of trying to open up the communications and getting a better dialogue and understanding of both parts here. I would say that if you have particularly irritating problems, let me know.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: I'm hoping we're not going to have any more, that we all know where we're all trying to go and we're going to try to do that.

    The Chair: I think in fairness, it's variable across.... Some departments identify a person and it's perfect. In others, it's exactly that; you call them and you think that.... And often it is a small issue you're trying to resolve.

    Can I just push a little bit, though, on some of this. Accountability implies some ability to identify who has the responsibility. One of the discussions we got into in Bill C-25 was that in the previous system you had Treasury Board as the employer, the Public Service Commission as the employment authority, the Clerk as the head of the public service, and they reported through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. So you had four points of presence in this whole area.

    After the reform, you have the Public Service Commission as the hiring authority, the Treasury Board as the employer, and the Clerk as the head of the public service, and the difference is this ability to delegate. How does that clarify accountability?

º  (1610)  

    Mr. Jim Judd: Accountability can be a fuzzy notion. Part of it, I think, is a function of the complexity of the government, institutionally and just by virtue of size.

    It is our hope, I think, with respect to Bill C-25, should it be implemented, that there would be a much greater level of delegation from both the Treasury Board and from the Public Service Commission to deputy ministers to allow them to do whatever is required for their organizations' well-being and health. We will hold them to account, and that's part of the accountability framework, as you'll notice. There are people-related issues, values and ethics, and so on and so forth. We will hold them to account in terms of things that are delegated from the Treasury Board and monitor or assess how they're doing, and that's how the accountability will be managed in that instance.

    There will be, I guess, a formal level of accountability certainly, say, with the Treasury Board, but to the extent that we delegate it down. We're quite happy to do that if we have confidence in the capacity to implement it, and we will monitor and report on how they're performing.

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: I agree that it remains a complex system of accountability. Part of what was attempted was to clarify not just who's accountable, but for what. There was some bleeding between the commission, the employer, and the department about who was accountable for what and we had a real overlap.

    Right now the commission is the guardian of merit. Post-legislation, the commission would be the guardian of merit. Prior to that, it was responsible for a range of programs and policies that in fact had nothing to do with merit, that would normally be part of the employer's responsibility.

    Well, we've clarified that so the accountabilities are clearer. Even if there are many players, they are clearer in the sense that employers are responsible for setting what the employer needs, the competency profiles, defining the learning program, and ensuring the services are delivered in a sensible way. The commission is responsible as guardian of the merit principle.

    We've also created a frame where both of those two pieces can delegate increasingly to the deputy minister, with very clear accountability frameworks that the deputy minister becomes accountable for and answerable here. I think in fact that will change the relationship between deputy ministers and parliamentary committees inevitably, because that's a direct set of accountabilities. On those, the deputies will speak for themselves.

    The Chair: Judy.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: What are the main differences between the old conflict of interest code and the new values and ethics code that we're going forward with?

    Mr. Jim Judd: There are three.

    The conflict of interest and post-employment guidelines are pieces of work that have existed for some years. They have been updated over the last year. What we have done is add to it a front-end piece on values, ethics, and public service principles, and marry the three together as a public service code.

    It will be the first time we have such an explicit public elaboration of public service ethics, values, and principles. It has allowed us to update the conflict of interest and post-employment guidelines. It also provides for monitoring and performance measurement, if you will, of them because they're tied into the management accountability framework, which is in turn tied in to the deputy's guidelines. So the three larger documents are almost intertwined pieces that are mutually supporting.

º  (1615)  

    The Chair: Both of you know of my interest in the information management tools and the impacts they have on organizations. One of the impacts is to allow our organizations to be a little more flexible and move a little faster in a world that is demanding decisions more quickly. Another observation would be in organizations where they allow for the collapsing and streamlining of activity, the reduction in the number of iterations of similar kinds of services in an organization.

    Can you talk to me a little bit about that in terms of the public service and some of the challenges in trying to move there?

    Mr. Jim Judd: It's a large challenge from several vantage points, and let me talk about it from several different dimensions.

    First of all, there are the inherent problems and issues associated with large IT projects, which are such that managing them, whether in the public or private sector, often presents a particular set of challenges and difficulties.

    We tend to look at IT systems and IT management in the public service on two axes, if you will. One is what I would call back office, which is the IT systems and IM systems that support administration of the government itself--HR systems, financial systems, management-related systems. And in the front end is outside service delivery-related systems.

    We are in the midst of some fairly major pieces of work on both fronts. One is a review that is just being launched on back office systems within the government, where over the past decade or so we have moved from 60-odd different financial systems now to about seven. One of the purposes of this review is to look at what can be further done to harmonize, rationalize the back office work that's associated with these systems.

    On the external service delivery-related side, you're I think fairly familiar, more so than many other people, with Government On-Line and what's it's trying to do. But there are also some things that we are looking at, particularly as it relates to the possibilities of combining systems and operations as between, for example, CCRA and HRDC common delivery platforms, shared service platforms, and what impact those can have in terms of the quality and rapidity of delivering service to Canadians in whatever area.

    I think we will probably succeed in meeting our commitments for 2005 on Government On-Line, but there are some interesting issues over and above the information management and information technologies that arise.

    One has to do with what's the impact of all of this on the people end of the service delivery, particularly outside of the National Capital region.

    Second is what opportunities might there exist for rationalizing, and I don't mean downsizing, but rationalizing the federal presence outside of the national capital region, so if you're living in a particular city or region, you don't have to go schlepping around to x number of different offices as opposed to one different office, multi-service, etc. My guess is that the work on the internal services stuff we should have more or less completed by November of this year.

    On the broader issues around external service delivery, particularly those related to HRDC and the possibilities for some significant innovations there, my guess would be about winter/spring of 2004, and if you like, we would be happy to come back and talk to you more about those things as they develop.

º  (1620)  

    The Chair: Go ahead, Alex.

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: I think your premise is entirely right, that the potential for IT to break down some of the barriers in service starts with the client or the community and works backwards to the department. We have been, I think, appropriately cautious about big bang IT solutions, partly because we can't afford it and partly because we can't afford the consequences of failure. We've seen how often big systems...partly because we have to get the HR side right and partly because we're probably going to run legacy systems for quite a while, and it would be wrong to pretend otherwise just because of the importance of the services they provide and the importance of managing that risk.

    Nonetheless, if you look at even something simple like the Canada website, which is mostly textual and doesn't do the service thing, what it does start to show is the possibility of starting with the client in the community. The work that Jim outlined is all in the direction--slower than we would wish but on schedule, as we committed to--that you're indicating, and the potential for changing how we're seen and how we serve is huge.

    The Chair: Actually, at an earlier meeting of the committee when we were discussing some of these issues, Madame d'Auray came forward with the statement that only 25% or 26%, I think it was, of these large IT projects succeed, which I thought was very forthcoming of her. It's not common for people to make that kind of declaration in this kind of environment. It was also most useful, because the number in large private sector organizations is about 28%. The government's experience with this is not all that different. It's an area where in any kind of new innovation there is going to be trial and error and there will be problems. It was the first time anybody had been that forthcoming about it. We quite appreciated that.

    Related to that, though, there are some of the new organizational issues, with the CCRA in particular. We can use that as an example, but there are other examples. CCRA is somewhat different from Nav Canada or those that are more narrowly focused. Talk to me about this management accountability framework relative to the operation of that agency.

    Mr. Jim Judd: It's a really good question, because CCRA does have quite a different structure, with an external board of directors associated with it.

    One of the things we want to do with the management accountability framework over the course of this summer and fall, quite frankly, is test drive it around town to see how it fits and how it works with, for example, agencies like CCRA or the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which is a separate employer as well. One of the issues I think we're quite conscious of is that we're dealing with a universe that varies enormously in terms of size, complexity, capacity, and even regulatory regimes--governance regimes, if you will.

    So the short answer to your question is that I don't know, but the longer answer is that we'll figure it out over the course of the summer.

º  (1625)  

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: In that context, there are really two drivers underneath the management framework. One of them is performance reporting. On any report, whether it's in a corporate plan or estimates, how do you report and what is the government looking for in good reporting? The other one is performance management. What constitutes good senior level performance? There are two labels we're going to have to examine how to use to make this thing real, as appropriate to each of those agencies.

    The Chair: Mr. Szabo.

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

    A couple of days ago, former Clerk of the House Robert Marleau appeared before the subcommittee on the estimates, and one of the aspects he raised with us was that reviewing the estimates is a constitutional responsibility. Second was the aspect that members of Parliament collectively have virtually ignored 50% of their responsibilities. It's a very serious description, maybe, of our circumstances, but the reality is that about 80% of standing committees don't do a review of the estimates. They are, under our Standing Orders, deemed to be reported back to the House without consequence.

    I'm very concerned about this situation. The work of the subcommittee, its report, was adopted last evening and will be reported to this committee, the whole committee, tomorrow, I believe, so we can share it with all after it's tabled in the House. We are hoping to use this to build relationships with senior officials of the government, of the ministries.

    I'm not sure if we're naive in believing that we can establish those relationships, but the estimates process is not just the main estimates, which happens once a year when we vote late on a Thursday night and then it's all over with. There's a full cycle, an annual cycle. It means that the relationship between departments and the committee to which they correspond do establish that relationship and in fact that the work of reviewing the estimates is an annual, ongoing process.

    I'm wondering if you would comment on whether or not you feel we're being too naive to think that we can--just as maybe we did with Bill C-25 on the modernization of the public service--shift the paradigm, the deeply embedded culture of our place, compared to, say, what the public service was, and in fact move towards a more collaborative relationship rather than what may be an adversarial approach to review of the estimates, and reduce it to something similar to question period.

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: Just before you arrived, the chair put that on the table in general terms. Part of what we were discussing was the partisanship within the committees and the timidity within the public service about these things. My reading is that we have no choice but to build this relationship, that we have to treat this as an ongoing dialogue, that we have to deepen our understanding of the estimates process, and that it will be bumpy getting there.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: I think I agree with you, but we can't just rely on the estimates process to be a proxy for this. There has to be a more comprehensive approach to building that relationship. It gets a very poor start by members coming to this place and not even getting a proper orientation on matters such as the estimates and what our job is. I don't know why. There should be, because usually for most people it's a review of the blue book, which looks more like a telephone book. There is no incentive.

    Secondly, now we have a situation that I raised yesterday in the modernization of Parliament committee, which has now completed its work and will be reporting shortly to the House. It's about the current condition of parliamentarians vis-à-vis the number of committees and the dilution of a member's attention. I know there were discussions of things like having weighted votes so you could actually reduce the number of people physically required to be at a meeting but have the proportionality of their representation and the House represented on each committee. That's not going to fly very easily.

    As well, the point is that parliamentarians are serving on two and maybe three committees, as well as the other push-pulls of their work. In fact, in this five-party Parliament, it is very difficult for anyone to do a very good job on any one thing, I believe; you have to sacrifice other things. So in terms of this effort if we're serious about building relationships, we need some continuity in committees, but you're not getting it now simply because of the system under which we're operating.

    In your view, is it possible and is it desirable to more aggressively seek a resolution to the workload distribution of members of Parliament to committees, including the greater use of legislative committees, maybe, so that the ongoing calendrical responsibilities such as the review of the estimates could be in fact put into everybody's calendar and would be part of their ongoing responsibilities?

º  (1630)  

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: On the first issue, the notion of orientation, it just seems to me that it ought to be doable quite easily. It makes enormous good sense. It's to my embarrassment that I didn't realize it didn't happen routinely. It seems to me to be a very simple step. I'm not going to pretend any expertise on committees or committee structures; I truly don't have it.

    I do believe that a committee like this one in particular, which is focusing on these enduring issues, can play a huge role if it has continuity of membership and some time to have this sort of ongoing dialogue, not only on the estimates but in the larger context on governance. Those are issues it seems to me hugely valuable to pursue.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: I tend to agree with you. The orientation for members of Parliament is on an afternoon, and I don't think it does it justice, but we have a Centre for Management Development, facilities to be able to train people who are entering the public service. I don't know why parliamentarians are not brought up to speed very quickly and why we don't think more seriously about looking at the advantages of having people dedicated to certain committees so seniorities are being developed and there is some real expertise to challenge the public service as well. We're not here to be a mutual admiration society. I think we want mutual respect, but I think we also want to be able to ask tough but fair questions.

    Consequently, I really believe there is going to have to be a champion of this and I'm not sure if it's the ordinary member of Parliament. I think it is with the Privy Council Office, for one, because it's in your best interests that we do good work and that we have the tools and the ability to hold government publicly accountable as well as deal with the transparency issues.

    I'm looking for maybe an indication that it's not naive to believe this should be part of a renewal, not only the modernization of the public service but also the modernization of government generally, to deal with these areas that I think weaken the case for better relations between elected people and deputy ministers.

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: I can say I think those are very positive messages.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: You're good. This is just...agreed, all those in favour, opposed, carried. Thank you. I appreciate your conciseness.

    The Chair: On the guide to deputies, because both of you mentioned interest in some of the comments on this side of the table, one of the things we've talked about anecdotally is the flip side of that. What we have not ever asked a group of deputies about is what the view from the other side would be. What things would you like to see committees thinking about incorporating, or are there areas in which committees could be useful?

    Second, I note you mention here that “Notes on the Responsibilities of Public Servants in Relation to Parliamentary Committees” is a document that is available to deputies and presumably to other public servants. Is that document available to us?

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: Absolutely.

    The Chair: If it's possible, it'd be interesting to have a look at that, just to get a sense of it.

º  (1635)  

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: We'll make sure that's sent as soon as this is over. There's nothing earth-shattering about it. It says to be cautious, don't pretend you're a government, don't pretend to talk policy, you're not a policy-maker, you're a public servant, nobody elected you--it's that kind of tone--but be frank, be open, be full, and be honest.

    The Chair: But is there an inherent contradiction? I understand the reason for and the nature of that advice. It strikes me that we talk a lot about transparency. I can appreciate your attitude toward it and certainly the work of Treasury Board in organizing information and trying to make information more available. Yet at the same time, the culture of secrecy runs deep. The first act of a newly hired public servant is to swear an oath that basically they will not reveal any information when they're not authorized to.

    It strikes me that you have two competing problems. The one is the desire to separate out responsibilities and push up the chain certain kinds of decisions, which also often results in making it more difficult to get access to basic information that might answer the question before you need to go anyplace else. Some of the organizing of information may assist that, but it just seems that there are two competing forces here all the time.

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: We touched on it briefly the last time I was here. I actually think we're making more progress than it must feel like from where you sit.

    The public service I came into 25 years ago was much more secretive and less open than the public service now. We have four public audits. We didn't have that before. Now we take for granted, because of access to information, that what we write is likely to get public. We take that for granted. We have a long way to go, I agree. On the shift to openness, from the inside it looks like we're moving in the right direction, even if it is more slowly than you would wish.

    There are places where secrecy, such as the advice to a minister or the deliberations of cabinet, is intended to do two things. It is to protect some of the principles of cabinet solidarity and ministerial responsibility, but also to allow for the kind of frank exchange that you might actually inhibit if I had to provide the nature of the advice I gave to a minister. I want to be able to give advice I know they won't take.

    I think the public service is stronger because of the confidentiality on the policy advice. I also think it's really important that we don't pretend to aspire to do what only elected people have the right to do. We have to deliberately constrain what is appropriate for us.

    The Chair: That raises a question that I debate with the auditor all the time. I will pick up on what Paul Szabo has been saying.

    For all sorts of reasons, I don't think House committees have been doing some of the things they could be doing in terms of this relationship. It strikes me that one of the roles of the Commons is, as I often describe it, almost like a values clarification exercise for the nation. It's where everybody comes together to sort out these compromises, or whatever they are, in the best sense of it. Perhaps it's because the committees have not been as effective in dealing with that sort of values role with the departments they're involved with that the auditor, through the value-for-money audits, has taken on a role that goes beyond the simple auditing of whether or not policy was applied and money got spent appropriately.

    They were having an articulation of values to drive programs. This is not a comment about the present auditor or the previous one; I have great respect for both of them. I have said the same thing to them both privately and publicly, that I don't know that they are the people who should be making the value statements for the nation. It strikes me that if the committees were a little more aggressive in that role, it might also take some of the burden off the auditor and provide some opportunities.

    I will use a simple example in an area I'm interested in: the purchasing of technology. It's an area where it challenges the existing procurement systems because they have to evolve and the people who are trying to do it are trying to sort that out. It's a tough issue.

    The auditor comes along and applies existing policy, which is completely inappropriate to it, but that's what is on the book. The public servants get whacked for doing something that is actually a progressive, important, and necessary evolution in order to get good value for citizens, but there's a time lag, and mainly in areas where there are new challenges--either innovative products or new situations. Again, I understand why the move was made, but I'm not certain that it's bearing the kind of fruit we might like.

    I don't know if that's an area you would even want to comment on.

º  (1640)  

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: I'm not going to make value judgments about the shift from compliance to value for money for the Auditor General, but I sure understand what you're saying.

    Irrespective of whether or not that was the right move, it's hugely in the interests of government to be focused on value for money and to drive it. Parliamentary committees have a huge role to play in that, as does the Treasury Board. I think it's huge. Irrespective of the role the Auditor General plays, the more that the government of the day focuses on it, the better off we are.

    The Chair: Mr. Forseth, did you want a few more minutes or do you wish to say something?

    Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Canadian Alliance): I could say something. I'm all out of breath. I just ran over here from meeting with members of the Serbian parliament. They're struggling with the role of government versus parliament and the role of committees and how committees should have oversight. They are trying to understand how we work it out. Interestingly, earlier there were some British MPs here. They were trying to figure out how we worked, and we talked to them to figure out how they work. We're in this ebb and flow.

    I think we'll always, and should always, be examining the relative power centres and how labyrinthine Canadian governance has become. We must always struggle to do better and to administer the people's money more wisely. We must also get to those fundamental questions and the changing reality of technology. Should government continue to do what it has been doing just because it has been doing it? Can it get out of the business? Perhaps someone else could do something better and the public would have increased confidence that Parliament has meaning. When people engage in it, they can affect it and shape it and move it and know that it's worthwhile, rather than Parliament being an inconvenience to a small power centre that happened to get elected on an advertising budget across the country.

    We are fortunate in Canada that we have, at least from the international perspective, a relatively widely respected public service that is somewhat politically neutral. We have to strive to build that very professional, politically neutral public service, not only for the benefit of Canadians but as a model for all the struggling democracies that are borderline, even in the edges of Europe. They have cultures, education, and traditions that go long before our Canadian ones, yet they're in dire straits to figure out how they manage the people's business and appropriately tax and then appropriately deliver public services.

    Canadian parliamentarians are being asked to engage these other parliaments and talk about how we get it done here. One of the lines I used before that Serbian community is that we still are a work in progress. That is the motivation for me to fly five hours from Vancouver to here every week. It is because we believe that we can build a better Canada. We can serve Canadians better. We can manage the people's business in the Parliament of Canada always to a better standard, but we have to invest. We have to have a very sound, non-partisan public service. We have to put in the training resources and trust there and outline a regime and sometimes hope for the best.

    It's the building of that model. We have to build in the feedback loops so that it's self-correcting. We don't just launch the missile and let it go. We have a guidance system that has feedback so that we continue to evaluate and ask ourselves whether we are delivering a good service. Are we helping Canadians? Are we spending our money wisely or not?

    Since we operate kind of on the public embarrassment model of opposition, I don't know how many times I have said that the Liberals can't manage. Then I use an example of why the Liberals can't manage. Then I say as a politician from a different party that we could manage better and here's our agenda and this is what we would do. We continue to play that out on the public stage and let the public decide who can manage the country better. The public has decided how they want to do that in the divided pizza Parliament we have had since 1993.

º  (1645)  

    I'm hoping we can continue to go more towards the consensus model, that we can find consensus. I'm appreciative of our chair and some of the philosophical underpinnings of the approach of this committee. We're going to try to do that so that we deliver the public's business in a much less confrontational and more consensual manner that looks more at results rather than at who is doing what. That comes from power sharing rather than trying to say who has the most marbles and who has the most power.

    When we have the privacy commissioner come before us, like any esteemed member of the public service, we hope they're totally open and honest and transparent. They are the servants of the people and of the House.

    I see here that you have ethics and a guide for deputy ministers and all kinds of things. That's always under review. I was pleased to get the consent of the minister to begin to acknowledge in law the internal whistle-blower memo. I heard from people that they still don't trust that they could ever whistle-blow on anybody. They say that that's being a sacrificial lamb. That culture has to change.

    I hope this committee can be a player in that overall dialectic that goes along with the public to do the public's business, but to do it not only honestly and ethically, but efficiently and in a way that takes the least amount of resources out of the labour of the individual and still gets the job done. That comes from trusting interactive dialogue rather than power games. Of course power games have to do with not sharing power and if you don't have knowledge, you don't know what you don't know. Hopefully we can break through those barriers and develop more consensus in what we're trying to accomplish.

    I think that's somewhat in the vein of what you outlined to our committee. You've got a big challenge to change the culture. We could have every rule in the book, and we've got all these rules, but I'm certainly sure there are lots of things that are unethical or stuff happens. I would like to see a minister some day stand up and say, “Yes, stuff happened. You in the opposition, I invite you in and we're going to fix it together”, rather than this stonewalling, “We're perfect, and you don't know what you're talking about”.

    Those are some rambling comments, I suppose, about where I'm coming from to try somehow to shift power from the PMO back to the average person in my riding. That's a long agenda, but through the power of electronics and changing rules and making this country much more consensual and grassroots in orientation, I think we can do it. Some day I hope that the people of Canada eventually will say that they control the government. I don't think they can say that yet, but we're working on it.

º  (1650)  

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: I think that in some ways you've summarized the spirit of a lot of the discussion that preceded your arrival.

    We talked about not being able to do this all at once, in one meeting or one review of estimates. We talked about this committee having a role and an ongoing dialogue being pretty key. We talked about some of the risks of a culture of blame and also some of the risks of a culture of secrecy. These documents that we shared with you aren't a fix-all; they're a work in progress. I like the notion that this is a constant work in progress. Those documents are a work in progress. What is more important to me in some ways is that we've shared it with the committee in draft form so that we can have the dialogue.

    The Chair: I'm interested in the issue of accountability. We have the British tradition of ministerial accountability, responsibility for what goes on in the department. The minister is not involved in the day-to-day management of the department. It's a principle that grew up at a time when the operations of government were relatively small, easy to see, and within the span of control of an individual. In modern management the systems are so large and complex it's very difficult to apply those kinds of accountability models. We still maintain it, albeit it's not quite as ironclad as it once was.

    The responsibility of the deputy, however, is not a political responsibility. It's not a responsibility to the House. It's a responsibility to whom?

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: It is to the minister and to the Prime Minister who appointed the deputy, through the Clerk of the Privy Council.

    In a sense, the ministerial responsibility concept grew up in a different time, but it also grew up because that was who was in the House. That was who had to be able to answer. The idea was nobody could duck.

    There's an old saying in the public service that public servants manage risk and we let ministers manage outrage. There's a real risk the public servants can hide behind. That's not the idea. One of the reasons we have this guidance is to remind all of us, me included, that we have responsibilities for which we are answerable to committee. We don't stand in the House, but the committees are linked to Parliament.

    There is a way of squaring the circle. You do need somebody who answers in the House and you do need somebody who accepts that they are responsible for everything that happens in their domain. Being responsible doesn't mean they can be blamed for every issue. Very often they can't be expected to know the details of a program and so on, and we do have a responsibility to answer for financial stewardship, for management of HR.

    The guidance isn't earth-shattering. It takes a lot of the traditionalism and it makes it available publicly so you can hold us back to account. What it does is capture what's in Bill C-25. It captures what's in the FAA and reminds us that we are answerable for a whole range of this stuff.

    The Chair: Absent other questions, I'll pose a final one and then we can perhaps move on.

    I want to take you back to your report to the Prime Minister and to the comment you made about the timidity. It's a theme in the management accountability framework, but can you play that out for me a little?

    It was a timidity in the proposing of policy. I forgot the way you framed it, but it was a fear of making the bigger charge.

    Mr. Alex Himelfarb: I'll say a few general things.

    At least for a decade, public servants were described as overhead and waste. Something had to be reduced. That has an impact on people. The missed steps that should have been public...you know which ones they are. They should be out there and we should be fixing them. It became so much more about blame than about improvement, inevitably. What worries me is that we will retreat into the safe answer instead of the best answer.

    Providing the best answer, taking the risk, may actually put your career at risk in some ways. That's our job. Now, it would help if committees work on consensus. I take both sides of what you said and I welcome that. It would help to have an ongoing dialogue, but there are ways, I think, in which committees can help. It's not just us, but we have to get bolder. And we can't let the weight of the last couple of decades of this concern stop us from saying that there is a better way. Our advice has to be as good as we're capable of, not as safe as we would sometimes like.

º  (1655)  

    The Chair: Given the time of day, I will thank you very much. I do appreciate your time.

    Mr. Judd, I think we will take you up on your offer to discuss some of your thoughts on committees—I believe that's what you promote—at another time. We may well respond to you on this after members have had a chance to consider it more fully.

    Members, we will meet at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow in Room 362, East Block.

    The meeting is adjourned.