Government Operations committee  I don't think I could do that. No. They are all consultants.

Government Operations committee  What little knowledge I have is, yes, it is possible. It is possible to put contract language in that says you must have certain, you know, bilingual...a certain number of females, a certain number of people of colour. I know in the U.S. when they hire contractors, they must pay the same wage.

Government Operations committee  Again, I will reiterate that it is very disheartening for a federal sector worker when we see that the overreliance on the outsourcing fails to deliver value for money. It hurts the government's own ability to recruit the professionals they need. There is no sense in paying outside agencies market rates but not your own government professionals.

Government Operations committee  I have to say that the federal public service is a calling. It always has been. We put up with a lot of things because we see value in the work we do on behalf of Canadians. When our hands are tied, say, for example, with the Phoenix pay system, we have IT workers who could go in and help and fix it, but we can't do anything about it.

Government Operations committee  On the question regarding innovation, I think what happens with outside consultants—I'll go back to the morale—is that you have a lot of people who are capable of doing the work but who are hitting a glass ceiling because of the language barriers of regional distribution. They can't overcome those barriers.

Government Operations committee  It's very clear that there are things that are missing. Again, there's the glass ceiling because of the regional distribution. There are people who would not be willing to move to the national capital to move up in the ranks. The pay scale is far behind that of our private counterparts, so you really have to make a decision at the beginning.

Government Operations committee  Yes, I think we'd have to go and actually look at where those investments have happened. Definitely from the start we want to make sure that the government fully engages us with any kind of review of where public services are delivered. We are facing a technological change right now and we need to make sure that the government engages with its workforce around the rapid changes of the government in the workplace.

Government Operations committee  Yes, I'll echo Professor Clarke's message on this, which is that there are times when we do need to contract out services, again, with surge capacity or for a special purpose. Unfortunately, what I feel happens is that we contract out the whole project instead of the piece where we bring people in to help amplify or to provide that piece that the public service is missing and share that talent or that expertise with our internal people, making sure that the in-house capacity is leveraged as well.

Government Operations committee  Okay, where should I begin?

Government Operations committee  What I was saying was that, when we contract out, what happens is that instead of transferring that knowledge in-house and leveraging the contract to find the deficiencies and improve and upskill the government workers, that piece usually leaves with the contract and leaves us in the same hole that we were in at the beginning, instead of creating an upskilled workforce that can take those challenges to the next level.

Government Operations committee  Yes, that's fine. The answer lies in your question: sharing the expertise. I don't find that they are sharing expertise. They're coming in to do the work and leave with the work. There is a difference between coming in to help solve the problem and create a solution that works in-house, and creating an overreliance on your expertise without adding to the in-house expertise that we need.

Government Operations committee  There are many levels to that question. I'd like to say it's disheartening for federal public servants to see that their work is being outsourced. The government is actually valuing that work by paying the market rate of the service plus markup, while public servants are perpetually being told the government can't meet market rates for them.

Government Operations committee  I don't think so. I think we have a set of expertise in-house. It would be more prudent for the federal government to invest in and upskill those workers to allow them to do the jobs on behalf of Canadians, with value for money in mind—not the perpetual use of contracts that are employing and making shares and dividends for the companies.

Government Operations committee  There are values and ethics, and disclosures of conflicts of interest. They also have to go through gender-based analysis and other programs to justify the solutions they come up with. Of course, the federal public servants themselves have to be bilingual. They have to be reflective of the diversity of the nation.

Government Operations committee  The short answer is that right now we need to upgrade our government hiring polices. We need to make sure they're hired quicker and more efficiently. We have to modernize our IT procurement and invest in our in-house expertise. We also have to pay for that in-house expertise. Spending three or four times as much to outsource when we can pay a relatively good salary to provide that consistent delivery of services and programs that Canadians rely on....