We’re disappointed, says Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) President Jennifer Carr, representing 57,000 public employees. It worries us.
His union has more than 2,500 ongoing grievances directly related to the outsourcing of information technology (IT) consultants.
At the federal level, IT workers have a clause in their employment contract that allows them to file a grievance against a subcontractor performing their work.
“Outsourcing leads to higher costs, lower quality of service, lack of transparency and accountability, and loss of institutional knowledge and skills. »
– A quote from Jennifer Carr, President of the Professional Institute of Public Health
The president of the union, which also represents healthcare workers, civil servants engineers and Revenue Canada employees, wants the government to adopt modern hiring policies to facilitate the deployment of civil servants.
Right now, it’s easier for managers to hire contractors than it is to fill positions, Carr said.
McKinsey and its impact on our governments
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McKinsey and its impact on our governments. 21-minute audio content, podcast. listen to audio.
Duration of 21 minutes21:29
Dramatic growth in the use of private consultants
In 2017, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government gave $111 million to six major consulting firms, including McKinsey, Deloitte and Accenture. In 2021, there were 272 million, a 245% increase, according to a study by Carleton University in Ottawa.
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McKinsey is the firm that has seen the strongest growth in orders, but it is far from the firm that has received the most money from Ottawa, public policy and governance researcher Amanda Clarke demonstrated.
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It concerns us, says André Picotte, interim president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE), which represents 23,000 federal employees, mostly translators and economists.
While recognizing that the use of consultants can be justified when in-house expertise is not sufficient, he notes with concern that there are subcontractors doing the same work as civil servants.
“There is a tendency for the government to go outside. Sometimes we get the impression that they trust external consultants more than their own employees. »
— A quote from André Picotte, Acting President of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees
André Picotte, himself a translator for the federal government, cites the example of using freelancers for translation. This is problematic because their work often falls short of the quality required by the agency, forcing our proofreaders to intervene, he adds.
He is currently describing an exaggeration of the use of freelancers and fears a drift.
His union dreams of a comparative study of outsourcing costs with the costs of using officials.
“We felt that such a study would prove that it is more economical to use internal resources. »
— A quote from André Picotte, Acting President of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees
A growing number of officials
It may come as a surprise that the use of outside consultants is increasing, while at the same time the number of civil servants hired by the government is soaring. André Picotte sees a more political explanation.
[Les politiciens] know they will achieve a specific outcome consistent with their expectations, while federal officials are more objective and the results of their work don’t always align with government opinion, he says.
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André Picotte recalls that when Justin Trudeau vied for civil servants’ votes in 2015, the Liberal Party promised to cut spending on consultants.
During the first day of the parliamentary committee on the contracts awarded to McKinsey on Wednesday, a Bloc Québécois MP expressed concern over the fate of the officials. Don’t we have the know-how in-house? If we don’t have it, why? And if we have it, why don’t we use it? She asked.
“Nothing is more demotivating for an employee than feeling that their work is not being recognized. »
— A quote from Julie Vignola, MP for the Bloc Québécois and vice chair of the Government Operations Committee
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said an analysis of contracts awarded to McKinsey was underway in parallel with the parliamentary commission to ensure that every dollar invested had been properly invested and that Canadians had gotten their money’s worth.
The Secretariat of the Treasury Board of Canada also told us that the acquisition of Professional Services allows the government to complement the work of civil servants by acquiring specific expertise and smoothing out workload fluctuations.
According to spokesman Martin Potvin, a contract awarded to a supplier like McKinsey can also help fill bottlenecks in specific job groups and specific geographic locations to keep operations running.