Response from the Chief Human Resources Officer

Ms. Debi Daviau
President
Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
250 Tremblay Road
Ottawa, Ontario
K1G 3J8

Dear Ms. Daviau,

First and foremost, I would like to reiterate my congratulations to your re-appointment as President of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, and express my gratitude for your support and kind words in your welcoming letter and our first meeting. I look forward to working with you and your team in my capacity as the Chief Human Resources Officer, as we work together to support a strong and proud Public Service of Canada.

I appreciated the opportunity to discuss the issues outlined in your letter dated September 11, 2018 and will support the priorities being worked on collaboratively by our respective offices.

As you noted in your letters dated October 15, 2018 and October 18, 2018, the Public Service Employee Survey (PSES) is a valuable tool which provides a holistic view of employee perception of their workforce, workplace and leadership conditions.  I highly value and respect the work of public servants and your support in encouraging your members’ participation is essential and appreciated.

The Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) carefully examined all options to administer the 2018 PSES, and engaged Advanis for the data collection, as this service provider offers timely provision of survey results, and a reasonable administration cost.  Please rest assured that we continue to work closely with Statistics Canada, one of our key partners, to develop technologically advanced tools to provide valuable survey information to departments and agencies.  Statistics Canada has vast knowledge in the domains of survey administration and results analysis, and TBS intends to continue to leverage this expertise and valued long-standing relationship.

To your point on the clarity of terms used in the PSES, I agree that it is important that survey questions be as clear as possible to yield meaningful results. We will continue to conduct focus-group testing for all new and modified questions as a standard practice, and will review all questions and definitions, including those you mentioned, in an effort to provide additional precision in the terms used in the survey.

Once again, thank you for your letters and I look forward to our ongoing collaboration.

Sincerely,

Nancy Chahwan
Chief Human Resources Officer


20 November 2019
On November 20, 2019 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the composition of his new Cabinet.

18 November 2019
As you are certainly aware given the extensive media coverage over the past few days, at time of writing bed bugs have been found in at least 8 government buildings located in the National Capital Region. They have also been reported in federal government buildings in Montreal and Winnipeg. There may be other affected locations across Canada that have yet to be formally identified.

13 September 2019
We have developed this online Election Toolkit that will help you make an informed choice in electing a government that will protect public services and respect the people who provide them.

11 September 2019
On September 6, 2019, the government announced the investment of $117M in the design and delivery of the Next Generation human resources and pay system (NextGen), the much-awaited successor to the disastrous Phoenix.

31 July 2019
Parliament has risen and MPs are back in their home ridings — we are getting closer to the next federal election. With fixed election dates, we can expect Election Day to be Monday October 21, 2019.

10 July 2019
I recently wrote to Public Service Commission (PSC) President Patrick Borbey about the Employment Equity Promotion Rate Study published by his organization in late May 2019.