Government Operations Committee on April 24th, 2023

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Okay.

Mr. Wernick, maybe you can speak to it because you're in the know of seeing how this is also playing out. This is exponential growth that we're seeing here. What is the solution to this?

I understand that we need management consulting companies, but this kind of growth is deeply concerning, I think, for everybody. I guess my bigger concern is that we have public servants right now who are struggling to pay their....with the wages they are paid. Obviously, they are out fighting for a fair deal. Then we have the CEOs of these big companies making millions of dollars in profits at the same time.

Maybe you can speak about that because that's concerning for most Canadians, I think.

[Michael Wernick]

Yes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I would see that as an economic [Inaudible—Editor].

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You'll have to put that in a 25-second answer, I'm afraid.

[Michael Wernick]

It's difficult to measure because my anecdotal understanding is that a lot of boutique consulting firms have been absorbed by the bigger ones, kind of like what happened with law firms. Therefore, it may be difficult to sort of measure from time to time.

I think what's happened is a growth in both the amount or volume of work and the pace of work. If people want to use fewer consultants, then they have to slow down and be clear on what they are willing to do less of.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Bonin, I understand you have a flight to catch. We have two more five-minute sessions. I'm not sure if you can stay for 10 minutes, or do you need to leave right now?

[Geneviève Bonin]

I can take another one, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Perfect. Thank you very much. We'll have you speak for another five minutes, and then we'll say goodbye.

Mrs. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

While I'm happy to hear that Ms. Bonin is willing to stay, my questions are actually for Mr. Wernick.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Why don't we excuse Ms. Bonin, then, and we'll start your time again in a moment.

Ms. Bonin, thanks very much for joining us.

We'll start your five minutes again, Mrs. Block.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Kelly, do you want to trade with me?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Well, we can if you want.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you, again, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Wernick.

The increase in external contracts began on the heels of the Liberal Party's forming government, as my colleague, Mr. Johns, has pointed out. In your role as the Clerk of the Privy Council, were you aware of the increase in external contracts?

[Michael Wernick]

I had a general view of what was happening in government because there's something called GC InfoBase—which I recommend to you—which shows the costs of government. I was not day-to-day manager of the public service; that's the secretary of the Treasury Board. I had a general awareness, but my role as cabinet secretary was really to get things through cabinet and to get initiatives launched and implemented.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

In your opening comments, you mentioned the need to ensure an effective public service. We need to protect training and leadership budgets. As the head of the public service, would you have held that view when you were the Clerk of the Privy Council?

[Michael Wernick]

Yes. I was appointed in 2016, and one of the first things I went to the Prime Minister with was restoring the leadership programs from the Canada School of Public Service, which had been terminated under the previous government in one of the spending reviews.

The 2012 spending review and deficit reduction action plan actually really did a lot of damage to training and leadership programs in the public service. It was one of my priorities—with my colleague, the secretary of the Treasury Board—to restore those programs.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

In the article that you wrote dated February 7, 2023, you observed a couple of things that I'm going to touch on. The first would be the following:

I worked with several ministers who were highly skeptical of public service advice and insisted on running the issue by an outside firm with a big reputation before taking a decision. During spending reviews, ministers reflexively turn to outside advisers....

Can you share with us, perhaps, any advice that you would have given to those ministers or any concerns that you would have had about that view of the public service?

[Michael Wernick]

No, to be clear, I think it's perfectly reasonable and understandable that ministers want to have an outside perspective. If somebody comes to you and says, “We're going to buy 88 fighter jets, and this is what it's going to cost,” the Treasury Board ministers would like to have some outside validation of the ship design, the procurement process, or the costing and so on. Particularly with regard to costing, ministers want to see outside advice.

I had a number of discussions with the President of the Treasury Board at the time about how Shared Services Canada was doing, and I advocated for more investment in training, IT, and the needs around cybersecurity and so on. All that is to say that it's important to reinvest and recapitalize the capabilities of the public service.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

I think we've all been incredibly concerned with what may be perceived or may be true about the lack of capacity building within the public service, as well as, perhaps, the ownership of the developed product when you procure the services of an external consultant. I also want to quote something from your article, where you state, “Nor is it true that private firms always do good work—as we saw with the Phoenix pay system and with some apps, such as ArriveCAN”.

I think one of the concerns that has been raised during this study is the lack of transparency and accountability that can arise when you are procuring the services of external consultants and those external consultants then subcontract. We don't have eyes on those contracts and are told we can't have access to that information. Can you comment on that, please?

[Michael Wernick]

I think you can make recommendations. You should talk to the contract management people at the Treasury Board if you want to go into that in more detail. As I said, transparency about what's out there for tender is important. The proactive disclosure of all government contracts, which has happened for many years, is really important. There is an Auditor General. There is internal audit. There is a procurement ombudsperson. If the oversight and feedback can be improved, you should make recommendations in that area.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Kusmierczyk, please.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Wernick—and also thanks to Ms. Bonin—for your tremendous public service to Canada, our country, and for your exceptional work.

I want to say, Mr. Wernick, that I do have a copy of Governing Canada. I'm about three-quarters done. Thank you so much for writing that guidebook. Especially for new people who arrive on the Hill, that really is an excellent source of guidance. My only gripe with it is that it has a very small section on parliamentary secretaries, which I'm hoping the next edition rectifies.

This is the eleventh meeting that we've had studying McKinsey. It reminds me of the movies Ishtar and Green Lantern because there's a tremendous cast of characters—star-studded—and a lot of fanfare and anticipation about what this study is going to yield, what entertainment and what value it will provide. However, all it has done is lead us to a collective, profound yawn. There really haven't been any major insights or enlightenment from these eleven meetings. We've learned a lot about outsourcing. We have an outsourcing study that's on the books. It's too bad we couldn't simply continue with that. However, it is what it is.

Mr. Wernick, could you pick up the thread of some of the conversations about the public sector and the public service and the tremendous work our public servants do here in Canada and how we can help them out? You mentioned in one of your articles, dated this year, the following:

To improve the way the public sector works, governments should always invest in ways to bring in fresher and more objective perspectives and advice, challenge incrementalism and orthodoxy and help the public service craft implementable options for governments to consider.

Is it fair to say that bringing in consultants with experience working in the public sector and having best practices from around the world is one tool in the tool box in order to be able to achieve what you described in this quote?

[Michael Wernick]

I think the public sector, writ large—federal, provincial and municipal—always needs new ideas and innovation. It is subject to incrementalism and risk aversion, and there is a risk of a mindset of “well, this is the way we've always done things”.

If you want to bring in fresh perspectives, I do think there are a number of ways to do that. Think tanks, foundations, and so on and engagement with Canadians are important. Advisory firms can play a role in that. If they've done work in that area with another government or with the private sector, then they could be a useful source. They don't always do great work, but at their best, they give public servants new ideas, new tools, new ways of thinking about things, and new skill sets.