OGGO – 53.5 Annex A – Letter From Deputy Minister to Debi Daviau President of PIPSC – June 5, 2023

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Deputy Minister

Ottawa K1A 1L1

Debi Daviau
President Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
ddaviau@pipsc.ca
2021-01178485

Dear Debi Daviau:

Thank you for your letter of April 26, 2021, addressed to the Honourable Marco E.L. Mendicino, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, regarding the contracting out of the work performed by members of the Computer Systems (CS) Group and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) report, “Contracting Out of IT Work at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.”

 Pursuant to Article 30 of the CS Group collective agreement, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) makes every reasonable effort to ensure that it uses CS employees, wherever and whenever most appropriate, before contracting out work in order to meet operational requirements. Further, the Department is taking proactive steps to provide training to meet the future demands of the Government of Canada, in adherence with the collective agreement.

IRCC is taking steps to strengthen our institutional knowledge and skills in the IM/IT realm and provide career pathing. Over the last six months, IRCC has been running an exciting pilot program called the Digital Talent Engine (DTE). The DTE is just one way we support a culture of talent mobility within IRCC, creating opportunities for employees to explore, develop, and enhance digital skills, as well as a mechanism to attract and retain new CS talent.

The DTE has already supported the training and reskilling of our CS members, to better enable them to meet present and future requirements and shifting technological demands. For example, through the creation of specialized learning hubs that provide training on new/innovative software and programs used in our Journey Labs, the DTE has been successful in upskilling and reskilling many of our existing CS employees.

The DTE is also building new classifications and roles for CS employees, to support longer-term career sustainability, with a focus on alignment to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat IT Generic Work Streams and Job Descriptions. Moreover, it is partnering with stakeholders to create developmental programs for digital talent that can be accessed by other departments. In the near future, we also plan to launch a centre of expertise that will allow for coaching in-house.

With regard to the need to staff permanent positions, IRCC makes every effort to leverage existing employees, hire new indeterminate employees, or hire term employees with the skills and expertise required.

The Department runs regular CS staffing processes and inventories and proactively encourages existing employees to apply. These staffing processes create opportunities for acting appointments, assignments, and secondments, which facilitates intra- and inter-departmental mobility and lateral career development opportunities for employees. They also provide for the temporary movement of employees within and across organizations to meet temporary operational needs, as well as for training and learning, career development, and knowledge transfer.

Since late 2018, the Department launched the following advertised processes. With the exception of the CS-04 Manager/Senior Advisor, these processes were open to all persons residing in Canada and Canadian citizens residing abroad.

Despite IRCC efforts to staff CS positions through traditional recruiting efforts, not all processes have yielded sufficient candidates with the necessary skills, experience, and language profile to meet business needs.

Since the beginning of fiscal year 2020, the Department has offered:

• 161 acting appointments of less than four months;

• 36 acting appointments of four months or more;

• 23 promotions across all levels; and

• 47 recruitments in total (16 from within the public service).

The Department also actively participates in internal and external recruitment events and leverages recruitment tools such as GCconnex, CO-OP, and FSWEP to source and onboard CS employees. So far this fiscal year, 16 students have been hired through FSWEP and COOP within TDSS.

Our commitment to staffing efforts notwithstanding, IRCC makes use of contractual resources, where appropriate and necessary, to manage unexpected fluctuations in workload, to acquire special expertise/scarce skillsets not available in the public service, or to fill in for public servants during temporary absences.

Contracting can also provide the necessary flexibility in situations where program delivery needs fluctuate over time. In cases where IT solutions must be scaled up quickly and/or for a time-limited period and within a time-bound funding envelope, contracting may be the only feasible solution, providing ready access to skilled resources and/or “surge” capacity to deliver on a priority or commitment. Wherever possible, contractual resources with specialized skillsets are also leveraged to support the development of in-house capacity through mentoring and knowledge-sharing.

At IRCC, investing in our employees is critical to our long-term success. Our CS employees are integral to championing innovation, delivering IRCC’s digital future, and maintaining current IM/IT operations. Moreover, they continue to influence the Department’s modernization journey and, through activities like career pathing and upskilling, we are committed to their future development.

In response to what was outlined in the aforementioned report, we have detailed our efforts to not only adhere to the terms of the collective agreement, but empower our CS cadre.

Strengthening our working relationship with PIPSC is important, and we value your feedback and partnership as we continue to improve our support of our CS employees.

Thank you for expressing your concerns. I trust that this information is helpful.

Yours sincerely,

Catrina Tapley

c.c.: The Honourable Marco E.L. Mendicino, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship