:
Yes, we have opening remarks. Bear with me; they are more like speaking bullets than a speech.
I want to thank you and the members of the committee for having us here today.
As many of you know, PIPSC represents 60,000 members, and roughly 18,000 of those members work as IT professionals. We make up the largest component of the federal government's IT staff, with approximately 80% of those members expected to be within Shared Services Canada.
From our point of view, Shared Services Canada is a big and risky project. We believe PIPSC members—the people we represent—are key to the success of this project. PIPSC supports the concept of shared services, but it's how it's done. It's not a matter of whether it's right or wrong; it's how it's done that really will make or break this type of project.
As you know, in the literature there are examples of good ideas gone wrong. I'm talking about the Australian experience, where after seven years and $350 million later, there's certainly not a successful outcome. Overall we recognize that there could be value in this project, and we're trying to work in good faith with the government and with the Shared Services Canada regime management to make this happen.
PIPSC IT members do recognize that there is room for more streamlined and more efficient IT services in the federal government. But it's also important to note that these efficiencies will not be realized if there is not a plan up front and if there's not enough foresight to be able to work through some of the strategic issues, and not just on the level of the everyday operations of Shared Services Canada that we were brought in to talk about right now.
First of all, PIPSC members are always among the first to identify solutions. We want to be solution-based, and we have the knowledge of working at the work site to bring this to the table.
Initially when Shared Services Canada was announced, we were disappointed with the lack of consultation and the lack of transparency. Despite the legal obligation for the employer to consult with us, we really had to fight hard, in terms of sending letters to the ministers, in order to be consulted properly on this. I think that after some pressure, we were steered to work with Shared Services' senior management.
Since then we have been included in some consultation processes, and we are committed to continue to work with the employer throughout any implementation. But there are still many unanswered questions causing some uncertainty within our membership. For example, we still have not seen the business plan. We still don't have a clear budget for this, nor a human resources plan, which, as you can imagine, is very important to us as a bargaining agency: to look at where this is going and to look at how the people we represent are going to land on their feet or how they are going to be protected in some way as they move between agencies and departments.
In September 2011 we received the PricewaterhouseCoopers data centre feasibility study. We received this, by the way, from a journalist, which I think is indicative of part of the problem: if we were involved from the get-go, we would be able to provide some insight or foresight into the types of directions this needs to take to get to where the government wants to be with this. As we said, receiving it from a journalist is probably not the best way to receive it.
Upon review of this report, some fear emerged regarding the potential improper implementation of how we're going to proceed down this road to get there. Certainly from my members' point of view, there was a fear that this would result in some significant and probably unnecessary job losses, even to the point of boiling down some of the 320 data centres within local communities to a smaller number of data centres. As you can imagine, some of these data centres are in local or remote areas and in smaller communities, where one job is a huge economic impact compared to one job in a larger centre.
With the creation of Shared Services Canada, we also fear that there is a potential increase for unnecessary and excessive outsourcing, which we believe is expensive. There's less accountability. It has the opportunity or the ability to compromise standing principles in human resource practices, such as bilingualism, for example. That is also a concern to us--that should it be going in that direction, we want to make sure that those principles are upheld for our membership.
Our view is that providing IT internally is less expensive that contracting it out. More to the point, we're looking at the Government of Ontario experience back in 2005, when we had a commitment on the part of employer up front that said we're going to go down this road and we promise there will be no job losses. Right up front there was a commitment to the employees, to the bargaining agents. As I understand it, they have identified significant savings from going in that direction. We haven't seen the same offer and the same collegial spirit of working together on the part of this particular initiative this year at Services Canada.
The overall message is that our members are public servants and they're committed to the public good and they want to work together to find savings. Our members are also best situated to facilitate a smooth transition to the shared services model, which we believe can work if we do it right. Mistakes in the planning processes can lead to a dysfunctional shared services project outcome. We're worried about that. Ultimately, we need to ensure that Shared Services Canada is an entity that serves Canadians in the best way possible. While protecting our members out there, there's a continued opportunity to work together.
I'd like to pose that as our submission, and I'm be available to answer questions.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Corbett.
The committee should be aware that the PIPSC brought a briefing binder with them, most of which is in both official languages, but one chapter of it is in only one language. That chapter is the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, which members have had delivered to their office in both official languages in recent months. Given that we have that document in both official languages, I'd like to ask for unanimous consent of the committee to overlook the bilingual languages obligation and circulate the briefing document from PIPSC. Any objection?
Okay, hearing no objection, the clerk's assistant can then circulate the briefing binder.
With that, we can open our questioning. First, on behalf of the official opposition, is Denis Blanchette.
Denis, five minutes, please.
Welcome to the committee, Mr. Corbett, Mr. Campbell and Mr. Rodrigue.
Creating shared services is a very major issue in federal public administration. Like you, I agree that, given the sums of money involved, something absolutely has to be done. All around the world, people are doing things along these lines. Some have failed and others have been more successful.
Having seen how things are getting under way, do you have the impression that we are on the right track, or do we have to change direction already so that we don't run into a brick wall?
I want to thank you all for coming. I know it was short notice, and we appreciate your attending committee today. You were able to get quite a briefing package together under such short notice, too. That must have taken quite a bit of work under such short time constraints.
In the spring of 2010 the Auditor General noted that many of the government's IT systems were "...supported by old infrastructure and are at risk of breaking down. A breakdown would have wide and severe consequences—at worst, the government could no longer conduct its business and deliver services to Canadians."
Would you agree that there's a real need to modernize the IT services the government possesses?
:
We're supposed to hold a meeting, Liseanne Forand and I. We're supposed to meet every six weeks. Of course, that's ongoing, and tardy sometimes.
We have a group that works together, our union members and management. That hasn't given us a huge wind yet. It has identified some small nuisances, shall we say, that we're able to deal with, but the expectation is that this is perhaps going to solve huge problems. Right now we have barely rolled up our sleeves and scratched the surface.
So what does that say for how we're going to make savings in the long run? We need to work more aggressively with Shared Services Canada, and probably see the whole plan, the human resources plan as well as the budget.
:
It's been said that a consultant is someone you give your watch to and then pay him to tell you the time. I think there's a lot of truth in that.
Any time you are contracting a job in the federal public service, that person doesn't have the duty of loyalty any more. We expect certain provisions in Canada, bilingual provisions, say. All those things go out the window. In addition, the concept of the middleman comes up, and then the middle middleman. So in a sense, the person doing the work at the very bottom is really making a very low wage. And if that's going to be in a community, then the community suffers as well.
It's spiralling downward, if you ask me.
Turning to the subject at hand, I was struck by your comment, Mr. Corbett, about the importance of one job in a small community. It brought me back to 2005 when we were doing an expenditure review. I remember a huge argument in caucus about whether one job would be located in Newfoundland, or some other part of Atlantic Canada.
From your description it sounds as if you're going from 308 to 20. It's virtually inevitable that the job losses will be disproportionately in small communities, unless perhaps they set up one or more of the 20 in small communities. That's my first question.
When we were doing this we had job losses just through attrition. Do you know if there's a possibility of that, or will there be straight firing of people?
:
I'm only going to be a minute, and I'll give the rest to Ms. Block.
First of all, I really appreciate your coming today. I know that it was very short notice, since we had our meeting on Monday on what we were going to do today. I do appreciate that.
We have had the opportunity to look at your website. You post most things in terms of meetings you have--I'm assuming that it's for your members, to make sure that they're well informed. Being in the IT business, I guess it's good to post things on there so that people have access to that.
If I heard you correctly, your organization, your union, does agree that in the information technology area, we could be doing a better job in terms of delivering service to constituents or Canadians or Parliament or the function of government. Based on the auditor's report, you agree that it's appropriate for the government to look at ways to be more efficient and effective and that IT can play a big role in that. Is that correct?
:
In response to a question from the NDP, you indicated that it would have been nice to have had the Pricewaterhouse report in advance. The concept there, in my view, was to see if it's even feasible. They went and looked at it. I think we can learn from mistakes they made in Australia.
I think there are large Canadian organizations that have gone through a very similar approach, such as banks--the Royal Bank, for example. I think the leadership at Shared Services Canada actually was the leader in the consolidation of shared services at the Royal Bank.
I think the concern I'm hearing is that you don't think you've been involved in the discussions thus far. I just want to make sure that I have this right. I've been told that you had an opportunity to discuss the labour-management consultation framework, the draft terms of reference for the labour-management consultation committees, the interim staffing policy, the list of employees, and the group community framework. To me, and you can tell me why I'm wrong, that sounds as if we have engaged the union. You may not agree with everything that's happening thus far, but to be fair, they have been engaged since early September in the consultation piece on this particular item. Would you not agree?
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I echo the comments of my colleagues in thanking you for being here today. It was short notice and we're very glad to have this opportunity.
I want to follow up on my colleague's line of questioning in terms of opportunity. You observed that there still isn't a business plan, that you haven't seen a budget, and that SSC is still at the very early stages.
In terms of the observations my colleague just made, I would have to say it looks like there is still opportunity for dialogue and that SSC is very open to continuous dialogue with you in terms of where you go from here. Would you agree with that?
:
Perhaps I can clarify that a little. When he announced the project, Mr. Clement clearly indicated that he was projecting savings of $100 to $200 million per year, which he was going to put towards paying down the deficit.
In order to do that, you have to modify and unify complex systems. You have to set up new data centres. You have to combine services. You have to come up with new email systems. That is not going to be done in the time in which the savings are needed.
If we look at private sector examples, I am sure that the Royal Bank of Canada set up a solid business plan and a solid human resources plan before doing anything similar. We firmly believe that it is important to share information so that we can contribute to a dialogue that will result in savings being found.
So I think that now is a good time to ask if it is realistic to be thinking about making specific savings without solid data.
:
Thank you, Mr. Blanchette. That concludes your time.
Thank you to our witnesses from the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, Mr. Corbett, Mr. Rodrigue, and Mr. Campbell. Again, thank you for being here on such short notice. This is an excellent start to our study on this project, and we do appreciate the effort you made.
You can hear the bells ringing, and by the rules of the committee we have to adjourn now and go to vote.
Thank you very much for being here.
The meeting is adjourned.