Bill C-290

Public Sector Integrity Act

An Act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Conflict of Interest Act

This enactment amends the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act to, among other things, expand the application of the Act to additional categories of public servants, permit that a protected disclosure be made to certain persons, extend the period during which a reprisal complaint may be filed and add a duty to provide support to public servants.
It also makes a consequential amendment to the Conflict of Interest Act .

Luc Sabourin

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the name of Luc Sabourin has resonated several times in the House. He is synonymous with integrity, courage and humanity.

Luc saw his professional life and his health destroyed after choosing to do the right thing: blowing the whistle on wrongdoing in the federal government. Alas, rather the punish the guilty, the system punished him, as it did so many others. This is a disgrace that should scandalize the House.

For a year now, in support of my Bill C‑290, Luc delivered powerful testimony to better protect whistle-blowers. A few days ago, he won the Centre for Free Expression's prestigious Peter Bryce Prize. Every year, this honour is bestowed upon a person who served the greater good by courageously speaking up about wrongdoing or abuses of the public and taxpayers' trust.

I call on the House to join me in congratulating Luc and in honouring whistle-blowers. We will continue to fight for these issues.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Further to my colleague's question about whistle-blowing, would you please share the response from your membership relative to the legislation at the Senate currently, Bill C-290?

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to congratulate Mr. Garon on passing his bill earlier this afternoon in the House.

My question is for Mr. Papernot.

On Monday, we heard from Gillian Hadfield, who's the chair of the Schwartz Reisman Institute. In her testimony here at committee, she said that the legislation concerned does a lot to address individual harms, but she also suggested that the legislation doesn't adequately address harms or risk on a systemic level, for example, trading on our financial markets.

The question I would have for you is: How does the introduction of AI into these systems impact our ability to control and to also ensure reliability of our financial markets or protect against antitrust behaviour and maintain trust in our judicial systems?

Public Sector Integrity Act

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-290 under Private Members' Business.

The House resumed from December 13 consideration of the motion that Bill C-290, An Act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Conflict of Interest Act, be read the third time and passed.

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

I would like to go back to Mr. Sabourin, because he endured eight years of harassment and abuse, and he deserves to have some time here on the floor today. There was hand sanitizer in his coffee and were threats to his children's safety before he lost his career in 2016 and almost lost his life. Whistle-blower reports save lives. In 1996, Michèle Brill-Edwards also lost her career after she reported that big pharma was influencing the drug approval process in Canada, endangering Canadian lives.

We put forward amendments. Our amendment to allow whistle-blowers to go to the public or media in specific situations in which, for example, the commissioner isn't dealing with the complaint or decides not to do anything to stop the wrongdoing.... Both the Liberals and the Conservatives opposed this. Now whistle-blowers are at a huge risk if they expose wrongdoing to the Canadian public, and it's because of the Conservatives. I'm going to underline that. Interim relief would have protected whistle-blowers from punishments like termination as soon as they reported wrongdoing. Instead, we're allowing punishments to happen then spending years investigating whether they were, indeed, punished. This is exactly what's going on: reverse onus. Right now, whistle-blowers have to prove reprisal. For example, if they were fired, they have to prove that it was because they reported wrongdoing, which is virtually impossible. This amendment would have forced their superiors to prove that there was a real reason to fire them. That's the amendment the Conservatives defeated.

In other jurisdictions, this brings the chances of success from as low as one in 100 to as high as one in three, but the Liberals and the Conservatives teamed up to vote against it. They didn't support it. These amendments were contrary to the advice of all experts and whistle-blowers who testified and submitted briefs to the government operations committee. This is relevant right now, Mr. Chair, to what's going on right here, because some of our amendments were not voted on because both the Liberals and the Conservatives spoke against them.

We got amendments passed and improved whistle-blowers' access to the tribunal. We did a lot of really important work. However, I want to highlight this, because this is exactly relevant to what Mr. Genuis is trying to say about Mr. Utano and Mr. MacDonald. If they were really in their corner, they would have supported those amendments to Bill C-290. He also knows full well that, back to the Auditor General's report.... We're waiting for that report. Then this committee can do its final report and include his concerns in that. This meeting is unnecessary. It's the charade. It's costing taxpayers money, which doesn't seem to be a problem when it comes to Conservatives at the public accounts, government operations, international trade and ethics committees. They're doing four different committees, tying them up on this very issue while people are homeless on the streets of our country. I can understand four committees being tied up because of homeless people. It's costing us much more than the economic leakage of ArriveCAN.

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

First of all, I'm going to say this: Mr. Genuis just brought to the government operations committee a very similar motion, which was defeated. It seems that he is moving along from committee to committee to try to move this motion to the House, when he knows full well that this can be included in the final report. He can raise these concerns in the final report.

Now I'm going to talk a bit about Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano, who not very long ago was testifying before the government operations committee. I'm sure—it sounds like it—he was at more than one committee, because the Conservatives have this study going at four committees, which, like I said, could be focusing on things like housing and other things that are a real crisis in this country.

I'm not saying that we don't want to get to the bottom of this. We have to get to the bottom of this, but the outsourcing issue that ArriveCAN has is reflected in many different contracts, I'm sure. It started under the Conservatives, when outsourcing doubled under the big six consulting companies. It's gone up 400% under the Liberals and it's out of control, but it started with cuts to the public service by the Conservatives. This was actually cemented by Michael Wernick, who testified at the government operations committee, saying that when the Conservatives gutted senior public officials in 2012, this caused huge problems when it comes to leadership, and now it's costing us in outsourcing to outside consultants to fill the void.

The other thing we heard when the Conservatives were on the witch hunt around McKinsey is that we couldn't get some information from redacted documents. That started with a government policy in the Privy Council Office that was set by the Conservatives. You can't make this stuff up.

Conservatives were upset because they couldn't get information. I support that documents shouldn't be redacted before a committee, but it started with their own policies. This was affirmed at committee by the Privy Council Office. They know full well that they implemented policies that were going to make it difficult for future governments. Then they tried to use that as an excuse for not getting access to information. This started with the Conservatives.

I'm going to go to what is going on with Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Utano, because I saw these two witnesses testify before us at our committee when we tried to get some answers. They were absolutely grilled by the Conservatives. They were attacked by the Conservatives when they testified. There is no way that anyone could watch the tape of those committees and believe now that the Conservatives have their best interests at heart. That is absolutely hard to believe when it comes to what really took place there.

Now I want to talk about reprisals as well. I want to talk about policies that we've seen and about the failures to address protecting people like Mr. MacDonald or Mr. Utano or any public servant who feels that they are under threat from government for coming forward. We know that brave Canadians who report wrongdoing or crimes in the workplace often experience consequences such as losing their income, health and happiness, all for speaking the truth. All Canadian workers should feel free and safe in reporting workplace crimes and negligence. Absolutely, as New Democrats, we support that. Canada has the worst whistle-blowing laws—we're tied with Lebanon—and the Liberals and Conservatives teamed up to make sure that doesn't change under a number of amendments to Bill C-290.

We heard from David Hutton, who spoke to The Hill Times. He said that when the Conservatives reformed whistle-blowing laws under the Harper government—actually, Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the official opposition, was the minister in charge at the time—they actually made things worse, so here we are, with whistle-blower laws tied with Lebanon's as the worst whistle-blower laws in the world.

The Libs and the Cons teamed up to defeat numerous amendments that would have strengthened protections for whistle-blowers. They voted against many amendments to Bill C-290 that we and the Bloc put forward. It's not surprising for the Liberals: Their rich friends are not worried about whistle-blowing, so they're not. Pierre Poilievre, like I said, and the Conservatives always prop up big bosses, not workers. Ask workers about that. Ask unions about that.

Canada needs stronger whistle-blowing protections so that there is more transparency and more accountability of government in the public service to protect all workers. New Democrats are committed to protecting the rights and safety of all workers. That's why we're pushing to make sure Canada has the strongest whistle-blowing protections possible. Whistle-blowing laws are important. Because of how weak our protections for whistle-blowers are, less wrongdoing will be reported and stopped.

Protecting whistle-blowers is necessary to protect Canadian lives and security. Whistle-blowing reports protect Canada's global reputation and relationships. We saw Luc Sabourin. He came and testified at the government operations committee. He reported that superiors at Passport Canada were destroying foreign passports and then logging that they had returned them to the foreign embassies. He endured eight years of harassment and abuse: hand sanitizer in his coffee, threats to his children's safety—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I was saying that we have reached a crossroads with this bill. All of the parties worked on it. It is a bit of a sliding scale. As we know, our interests diverge. Today, however, we have a good bill. This is obviously a first step, but everything starts with a first step.

I would like to take this opportunity to do what I did during my previous speeches on Bill C‑290. Once again, I call on all the parties to work together, because absolutely nothing could be less partisan than protecting whistle-blowers, transparency and integrity. Absolutely nothing should be less partisan than that.

I would add that today, we finally have a serious opportunity to send a message of hope to all federal public servants watching us today. They contact us, and we know that they are watching us. We want to tell them that their integrity and safety matter. I am speaking to them directly. Their safety, integrity, career, life and family matter. That is the profound message conveyed by this bill.

Now, there are some people I would like to thank directly. I would like to thank whistle-blower Julie Dion and whistle-blower Luc Sabourin, both former public servants at the Canada Border Services Agency. They are courageous people with a sense of public service right down to their core. They paid dearly in order to stand up for transparency. I would like to thank whistle-blower Joanna Gualtieri, a former public servant—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have always found you to be very charming, with your bright smile. I am feeling charmed today, but it is not because of you. It is because after hours of debate, after voting, testimony and amendments at committee, it is very moving to stand before you and my colleagues, who have worked with me for this last hour of debate on Bill C‑290 and on whistle-blower protection.

Today, the House of Commons is at a crossroads. I will not go over the bill's history or its content once again. My colleagues did a great job—

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the transparency-loving residents of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke to speak to Bill C-290, an act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

It has been fascinating to hear members from the NDP-Liberal government speak to this legislation. The Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act is a direct result of Liberal corruption.

Whistle-blower protection was a cornerstone of the Conservative Federal Accountability Act. It was the first substantive bill introduced by the Harper government following over a decade of Liberal corruption that reached its climax with the sponsorship scandal. The Chrétien Liberals had given millions of dollars to well-connected companies to do little actual work other than to funnel the cash back to Liberal Party coffers.

Canadians had grown tired of the arrogant, corrupt Liberals and demanded a change. Despite losing the election, the NDP and remaining Liberals refused to listen to Canadians. That is why the socialist coalition voted against our accountability act and whistle-blower protection.

I saw the bow-tied banker from Ajax join with the failed punk rocker from Timmins—James Bay voting against whistle-blower protection. As different as those two members may appear, they share the same inverted belief that people should serve the government instead of government serving the people.

Now, if Canadians have any doubt of this NDP-Liberal government's contempt for whistle-blowers, just look at its track record. One of the first acts this government did was to redirect a shipbuilding contract to its friends. When multiple people shared that information, what did this Prime Minister do? He called Vice-Admiral Norman a criminal and said the admiral would face the courts. Mark Norman spoke truth to power and paid a heavy price. I know he thinks this Prime Minister is not worth the cost.

When another whistle-blower leaked the story of Jody Wilson-Raybould being pressured to direct a prosecution, this Prime Minister called the report fake news. He then fired Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott and kicked them out of caucus to boot. This government is so repulsed by truth and accountability, it attacked the people the whistle-blowers tried to protect.

Then there are the multiple whistle-blowers who tried to do the right thing at the Sustainable Development Technology Corporation. They followed the procedures. They reported it to the deputy minister. The deputy minister even compared it to the Liberal sponsorship scandal. That same deputy said his minister would blow a gasket upon learning the damning information, except nothing happened. No gaskets were blown. No executives were fired. No board members were sacked. There were rampant conflicts of interest and comparisons to the sponsorship scandal. Yet, it was not until the whistle-blowers went to The Globe and Mail that anything happened.

Swap out the words “sustainable development” with “foreign interference”, and we see a similar story. If not for the CSIS whistle-blower, Canadians would still be in the dark about the extent of Communist interference. Our Conservative Party was attacked in the last two elections. The government knew it and covered it up. The Liberals had just spent the last eight years pushing conspiracy theories about Russia to smear Conservatives, so the last thing they needed were credible reports they had received assistance from Communists who control China. If not for the CSIS whistle-blower, there would not be a public inquiry into foreign interference.

Given the recent partisan comments by the judge and her selection of intervenors, we may still not actually have an actual public inquiry. Even the hand-picked special rapporteur actually confirmed that many of the CSIS leaks were accurate. He confirmed that the member for Don Valley North did engage in secret meetings with the Communist consulate in Toronto and did discuss the two Michaels. That member would still be sitting in the Liberal caucus were it not for the whistle-blower.

Yet, this Prime Minister sent his national security adviser out to speak to reporters just to let them know that this government is actively hunting for this whistle-blower. NSA Thomas actually said the whistle-blower would be caught and punished. The Liberal government is declaring a whistle-blower guilty without a trial again. It is as though it has learned nothing from Vice-Admiral Norman and his persecution. That is why we must pass this bill.

The NPD-Liberal government will continue to ignore lessons unless we update the legislation. After eight years of Liberal corruption, whistle-blower protection must become stronger. The Liberals claim this is unnecessary, because they budgeted $2 million for a special task force that is supposed to review a committee report from six years ago. They can save taxpayers $2 million and just support the legislation.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased and proud to rise here today at the end of the third reading of Bill C‑290 so that this bill can go to Senate, where we hope it will be studied and passed quickly so we can protect our public servants.

Public servants are the people who apply the rules and policies while ensuring that the federal services machine remains in good working order. Public servants are the first to notice when the rules and policies are not properly enforced, when they are asked to do things in a way that is not right or when people are doing things they should not be doing. They are the first to witness anything that could go wrong.

When a public servant witnesses such behaviour, it is important that they be able to report it without fear for their personal, social and professional life, as well as that of their family. I will come back to that. We have information that has led us to believe that, despite the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, some public servants have kept quiet and others have been threatened. My colleague talked about this in his speech. With that in mind, my colleague from Mirabel decided to take the bull by the horns and say that we could not let this go.

There is no small wrongdoing. Wrongdoing is wrongdoing. Whether it is big, small or mid-sized, it is wrongdoing, period. Each time there is wrongdoing, taxpayers' money is misused. Each time someone blows the whistle and, in the end, a public servant gets rebuffed, harassed or intimidated, there is a loss of expertise and loyalty. That loyalty must be protected. That is why my colleague from Mirabel introduced Bill C‑290.

This bill needs to be passed. We need to protect our public servants, those who are the most loyal, who want things to run smoothly, who want taxpayers' money to be used appropriately. However, what we have been seeing is that some public servants are being harassed and intimidated. I am talking about those who dare to speak up. Some have even had threats made against their families. Some have been told that they will not get a pension. Some of these threats have been carried out. People have been forced to retire early, and their pension was frozen for months or even years. That is not how an employer should treat its employees. If any private sector employer did something like that, they would very quickly end up in court.

Our role is to protect public servants and the public. By protecting whistle-blowers in the public service, we are protecting the public by extension. That is what this bill does. Does it go far enough? No, it does not. There are issues regarding royal assent, among others. Some provisions were weakened by committee amendments. That is unfortunate because, rather than becoming a leader, an exemplary employer, Canada is hardly making any headway with this bill.

People will say I am gullible. Perhaps I am naive, but I had hope. I believed the member for Hull—Aylmer when he said that the government was going to introduce a bill that would complement and strengthen ours, so that Canada would become a leader in protecting public servants who disclose wrongdoing. That bill was to be tabled before the end of the year.

Here we are, basically at the end of the year. I have yet to see a bill that would strengthen ours. That said, I am a bit gullible. I will remain positive. I will remain optimistic that the government is going to introduce a bill that will strengthen the one that my colleague from Mirabel introduced and that was studied in committee, in order to really protect public servants.

The process of amending the bill was not easy, but it was extremely rewarding from a personal learning perspective. Amendments were tabled that narrowed the scope of the bill. Some of these amendments had to be introduced because my colleague from Mirabel's bill required royal assent. We do not run the government and we never will. In case this comes as a surprise to anyone, that will never happen. Certain amendments had to be introduced to avoid royal assent, which was an issue, apparently.

I think the biggest disagreement we had in committee was on the bill's coming into force date. The government wanted to delay that indefinitely. We said the law needed to apply as soon as there was royal assent. If we delay its implementation indefinitely, as with other bills where the government said it would come into force 18 months after royal assent, we would end up with a bill that might never come into force because there will be an election or something, when we want the measure to be implemented as soon as possible.

There is not a government in the world that would not benefit from having legislation that protects public servants who disclose wrongdoing. Every government should have strong legislation on the matter. This protects people who are loyal and it ensures that there is no corruption, no wrongdoing, no reprehensible or illegal act within the public service, which is why it needs to be exemplary. The government, too, needs to set the best example possible for other employers. That is why it is important to have strong legislation. I hope that the Liberal government, or any other government, will realize how important this is and will introduce legislation that will be even stronger than the one we have here.

When we met with people about this bill, we were asked why the Bloc Québécois was introducing such a bill. They said that the Bloc Québécois is separatist, but it wants to protect Canadian public servants. It does, but there are Quebeckers working in the Canadian public service. It is important that we protect our shared values. They acknowledged that that was true, that the Bloc Québécois is used to being David fighting Goliath.

Bill C‑290 is a David and Goliath bill. The Senate is another Goliath. I sincerely hope that the members of the Senate will do what was done in committee and come together to pass a private member's bill for the benefit of the entire public service and, ultimately, taxpayers' money.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege and honour to rise to speak to Bill C-290, an act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, at third reading. First, I want to give a huge shout-out to my colleague from Mirabel for tabling this bill and taking leadership on this. I also want to thank my colleague and friend from Beauport—Limoilou, who worked really closely with me and our team of New Democrats because we both care and really are passionate about protecting workers' rights.

I want to talk about those workers. These are brave Canadians and Quebeckers who report wrongdoing or crimes in their workplace and often experience consequences like losing their income, health and happiness and all for speaking the truth. All Canadian and Quebec workers should be able to feel safe when they are reporting workplace crimes and negligence.

We know Canada has some of the worst whistle-blower laws in the world, tied with Lebanon. The Conservatives like to pat themselves on the back and say that they care about whistle-blowers, but it is Liberals and Conservatives who have teamed up over decades to make sure that whistle-blowers do not get the chance to protect our society and government.

It was actually the current leader of the Conservative Party who last brought in legislation when he was in government. The experts say that he did not make things better; he made it even harder for whistle-blowers. He made it even worse. The Conservatives say they are for workers, but what did they do today? They moved a concurrence motion so that we could not talk about anti-scab legislation. The Conservatives are not here for workers.

Liberals and Conservatives teamed up to defeat numerous amendments that would actually strengthen protections for whistle-blowers in this bill. They voted against many amendments to Bill C-290. We talk about the coalition. Let us talk about the coalition of Liberals and Conservatives who are fighting workers, muting workers and stonewalling workers from doing the right thing and being able to have the opportunity to protect Canadians and Quebeckers. It is not surprising for the Liberals and their rich friends who are not worried about whistle-blowing. The leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservatives will always prop up their big bosses and not workers. We know that. They have a track record. We have receipts. We are keeping receipts. Canadians and Quebeckers need stronger whistle-blower protection, so that there is more transparency and accountability of government and the public service.

As New Democrats, we are committed to protecting the rights and safety of all workers. That is why we are pushing to make sure Canadians and Quebeckers have the strongest whistle-blower protections possible. I want to talk about the importance of strong whistle-blower laws. Because of how weak our protections for whistle-blowers are, less wrongdoing will get reported and stopped. Protecting whistle-blowers is necessary to protect Canadians' and Quebeckers' lives and security.

Whistle-blower reports protect Canada's global reputation and relationships, so this is important. Luc Sabourin reported that superiors at Passport Canada were destroying foreign passports and logging that they returned them to the foreign embassies. He endured eight years of harassment and abuse, including hand sanitizer in his coffee and threats to his children's safety. Before losing his career in 2016 and almost losing his life, he had the courage to show up at our committee and to fight to protect the future of all workers. He is a hero and the reprisal has been significant, and the impact and damage to his life have been significant. I want to thank Luc for the courage to have shared his story; and my colleague from the Bloc who brought Luc to committee and worked with Luc.

As I said, whistle-blower reports save lives. In 1996, Michèle Brill-Edwards also lost her career after she reported that big pharma was influencing the drug-approval process here in Canada, endangering Canadian lives.

We brought forward amendments that were defeated. Our first amendment that we brought forward was to allow whistle-blowers to go to the public or media in specific situations where, for example, the commissioner is not dealing with the complaint or decides not to do anything to stop the wrongdoing. Liberals and Conservatives teamed up in their coalition to oppose this. Therefore, now whistle-blowers are at a huge risk if they expose wrongdoing to the Canadian public.

The second amendment was interim relief, which would have protected whistle-blowers from punishments like termination as soon as they reported wrongdoing. Instead, we are allowing punishments to happen to them and then spending years investigating whether they were indeed punished. The coalition defeated it.

The third one is the reverse onus. Right now, the whistle-blower has to prove reprisal. I will give an example: If they were fired, they have to prove that it was because they reported wrongdoing, which is virtually impossible. This amendment would have forced their superiors to prove that there was a real reason to fire them. In other jurisdictions, this change brings the chances of success from as low as one in 500 to as high as one in three, which would make sense. Those would be strong whistle-blower laws. What happened? The coalition of Liberals and Conservatives teamed up to defeat the amendment.

Again, these are critical amendments. Some things we brought forward as New Democrats were passed. I am grateful that the coalition did not fight these and that we actually got them through, working closely with our Bloc colleagues, who were fabulous on this bill.

The first one is that we improved whistle-blowers' access to the tribunal. This is critical, because the commissioner has been acting as a gatekeeper, preventing workers from accessing the tribunal. In the tribunal's 16 years of operation, the commissioner has only referred nine cases to it. That is insane. It is a terrible track record for Canada and right there, as I said, with Lebanon. There needs to be access to both options, because the commissioner sometimes decides not to even investigate a complaint. It is unbelievable.

The second amendment we brought forward and that passed, as we were glad to see, would create a survey metric to measure whistle-blowers' satisfaction with the process, how supported and protected they felt, etc. We have been looking at the effectiveness of these laws with no input from the whistle-blowers they were supposed to protect. Now they have a voice. Again, I want to go back to my colleague from Mirabel and thank him for that.

The third amendment we were able to get through was adding psychological damage from harassment as a form of reprisal that whistle-blowers are protected from. That is absolutely critical. These are Canadians and Quebeckers who are standing up and fighting for the best services to deliver to their communities.

I am going to finish with one area that is not covered, which is subcontractors. I will give an example: At the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, we found out through the ArriveCAN scandal that there were companies that received a contract, Coradix and Dalian, and they subcontracted to a company called GCStrategies, which then subcontracted to a company called Botler. However, they are not protected. Even though they are delivering services under a government contract through the Canada Border Services Agency, they are absolutely not protected. This is just unbelievable.

Both Dalian and Coradix took a commission of between 15% and 30%, and GCStrategies took a commission of 15% to 30%. None of them had expertise in what they needed. These are headhunters. It is like the worst pyramid scheme, in terms of outsourcing, that is happening with Canadian taxpayers' dollars and the layering of commissions.

For Botler, the reprisal was significant for Ritika Dutt and Amir Morv. It is unbelievable, the punishment they took for standing up for Canadian taxpayers, for whistle-blowing, and the treatment they have been under. The government is continuing to fail them for continuing to tell the truth. It is continuing to allow these contractors, who are suspended from the Canada Border Services Agency, to have contracts with other federal departments, even though they are under investigation by the RCMP. We can talk about how failed and miserable the situation is.

We are taking a step forward to fix how the coalition of the Conservatives and Liberals teamed up to mute whistle-blowers. Again, it is because of my colleague from Mirabel, who used his slot. He was high in the order of precedence, and he took this on to stand up for human rights. New Democrats stand with the Bloc, and we worked really hard on this. I am glad it is moving forward.

Let us hope for a better future. Let us hope we can address the concerns that are not addressed in this bill and continue to work together. Workers deserve it. We owe it to them.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this House on behalf of the constituents of Calgary Midnapore in my role as shadow minister for the Treasury Board for His Majesty's loyal opposition.

Before I begin, I would like to send a special wish to my husband James, who is currently in the hospital awaiting surgery. I am not sure if he is watching this, but I am certainly thinking of him and looking forward to seeing him at the end of this week, as well as my son Edward. I thank my mother, my sister and my niece as well for taking such good care of my son at this time.

Bill C-290 is a private member's bill that was put forward this year. This bill would amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act to strengthen the current whistle-blower protections for public servants; expand the definition of the term “wrongdoing”; broaden what is considered a supervisor so that public servants can make a protected disclosure to any superior within their organization; remove the requirement that a protective disclosure must be in good faith; and ensure that a whistle-blower will be protected as long as they reasonably believe what they are disclosing is true.

It would expand the Auditor General's mandate to receive disclosures of wrongdoing from within the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner; remove the requirement that investigations by the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner cannot overlap with investigations under other laws; extend protections to former public servants, government contractors and all those involved in a disclosure; give supervisors a duty to protect and provide support to public servants involved in disclosures; allow for a remedy to be provided to a whistle-blower if a reprisal is taken; and extend the deadline to file a reprisal complaint from 60 days to one year.

It would expand the annual report requirements, including the number of disclosures made by wrongdoing, the duration of all open cases and cases closed during the fiscal year; the distribution of cases by region and the distribution of cases by federal departments and agencies; increase the fines for reprisals against a whistle-blower from $10,000 to $200,000 for indictable offences and $5,000 to $100,000 for summary convictions; and require the act to be reviewed by Parliament every five years.

This legislation was introduced under former prime minister Harper in response to the Liberal sponsorship scandal. Ironically, we find ourselves again, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP coalition, with a significant number of scandals. The most recent was a whistle-blower alleging the Minister of Industry's office softened the STDC report in a cover-up. This is another example where the government attempted to cover up a whistle-blower rather than support a whistle-blower, as former prime minister Harper so bravely did in his first piece of legislation.

In 2017, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates conducted a review of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act and published a report, and many of the recommendations made in the report are included in this bill. That is, no doubt, a positive thing. The question is: Why did the government not take it upon itself to adjust this legislation prior to a private member bringing a private member's bill forward? It is a valuable question.

When this legislation was finally brought forward, the government operations and estimates committee spent hours going through this bill. The major point of the committee going through this bill was due to an attempt by the current Liberal-NDP coalition to water down this bill and provide no protection to whistle-blowers, as is evidenced in the example I just gave of the industry minister. It is very disappointing and not surprising.

It was expected that the government would implement the recommendations in the 2017 report, but it did not make it a priority to do so. It did what it is really good at. It created a task force, someone to review this legislation and consult with. It is the government's forte to have consultations and gather groups together to review things, with no result.

On December 7, it was the one-year anniversary of the government introducing this task force, which was supposed to review whistle-blower legislation. One year later, there is nothing to show for it. I was in the lobby right outside these chambers when the then president of the treasury board started this process. A year later, there is simply nothing to show for it.

I am very proud of the history that the official opposition has of protecting whistle-blowers in the public service. In addition to the legislation that was brought forward by the Harper government, we also included, with our 2019 and 2021 election platforms, the promise to continue this legislation and to provide more stringent protection for whistle-blowers. Our party has been consistent in supporting increased whistle-blower protections as the policy issues arise.

As I said, this government has a history of scandal. It has a history of cover-ups. It has a history of inaction. After creating task force consultations, it wants to just kick things down the line, push things down the line and avoid responsibility. It is unfortunate, but we actually see this beyond this whistle-blowing legislation, Bill C-290, is in front of us today. It did it today with the private member's bill that was in front of us on child pornography, on protecting our children, protecting the next generation.

Liberals turned their backs. They did not support that legislation as well. This is absolutely in line with the government, to turn its back, to kick things down the line. It would be absolutely impossible for me to stand up here and not mention this as well, which is the most evident display of this. In the greatest conflict in the world right now, through turning its back on a long-standing defender of democracy, through not standing to bring a peaceful end of this conflict and the destruction of Hamas, it is willing to turn its back on not only an entire nation but also, essentially, the entire world order. The things that will come to pass in the Middle East are only, once again, a delay of the things that will soon arrive, that are arriving in other places in the world.

We see this with this current government and what it is doing with world conflict, with the child pornography PMB that was in front of us today, and also with the Bill C-290 legislation.

This government now has the opportunity to do the responsible thing and not only get this legislation through the House but also go one step further to complete the findings of that task force. I hope the President of the Treasury Board will deliver. She has not delivered on finding that puny $15 billion, hardly a drop in the bucket relative to our current deficit and our debt. I do not hold a lot of hope, frankly, that she will come through for whistle-blowers.

It is unfortunate that she was not there for the testimony throughout the government operations committee, which was heartbreaking. It was absolutely terrible to see the things that our public servants have been going through.

Our party was the party of supporting whistle-blowers at that time. We continue to be the party of workers all across Canada, standing up for them in both the public and private realms.

I truly hope that it is within the heart of this government, at this special time of year, at Christmastime, at Hanukkah, at Kwanzaa, to find the responsibility to better handle the crises of the world, our future generation and the concerns of whistle-blowers.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak briefly to Bill C-290.

This is an important piece of legislation that would amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, which gives federal public sector employees and others a secure and confidential process for disclosing serious wrongdoings in the workplace, as well as protection from acts and reprisal.

The bill proposes to expand the protections of the PSDPA to additional categories of public servants, permit that a protected disclosure be made to any superior, and add a duty to provide support to whistle-blowers, as well as repeal sections of the act that prevent overlap with other recourse mechanisms and provisions that set the standards of seriousness of wrongdoing. The bill is in line with some of the recommendations from the 2017 Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates' reports for legislative reforms regarding whistleblowing in the public sector. It is a bill that the government is very glad to see and is supportive of. We, as the government, believe that public servants who disclose serious wrongdoings must be protected.

The Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act helps to ensure an ethical workplace culture and supports the integrity of the public federal sector. Canada's whistle-blowing law is one component of the recourse mechanism for public servants that covers harassment, discrimination, labour grievances and privacy complaints. Soon, we will launch a comprehensive review of the act to strengthen protections for public servants who disclose wrongdoing. Its task force will include academic experts, union representatives and senior—

The House resumed from October 26 consideration of the motion that Bill C-290, An Act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Conflict of Interest Act, be read the third time and passed.