Government Operations Committee on May 12th, 2009

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

So you are going to champion this new generation of new executives who, in turn are going to champion... That is quite a process, and it is interesting. I congratulate you.

Thank you. I have no further questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you.

Mr. Dewar, for eight minutes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you to our guests. It's good to see you again.

I wanted to start off with the fact that the record almost seems to be too good. I say that not because I'm looking for things that don't exist, but because I think it's interesting.

I'll get into a little bit of some of the points you made about how you see your office and its mandate.

I was on the committee for Bill C-2. For the record, I don't steer away from the word “whistle-blower”. I understand why you have it in your legislation. Many of the people I've worked with consider themselves whistle-blowers, and it's not a pejorative term to them. In fact, it's something they did for the public interest and they don't see it as a negative; they see it as something they did with integrity. So I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, perhaps.

You mentioned and enumerated the cases and what happened with each of them, and what direction they went, and I appreciate that. But I just find it unbelievable, to be frank, that we have no cases of wrongdoing to date. As I said, I think of this in terms of the fact that we've had an office in operation for not quite two years, but one that has being ongoing. I appreciate that it's new, but I just find it strange that we don't have any cases of wrongdoing.

So my question is, do you find that strange?

[Christiane Ouimet]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, let me clarify, with respect to the terminology of “whistle-blowing”, that this is the general reaction I have received. In fact, I have used it occasionally so that people understand the mandate with regard to the term “whistle-blowing”.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes, I understand that, and I appreciate it.

[Christiane Ouimet]

So I do not want to depict anybody who came forward in the past years as not doing the right thing. I know they've been motivated by the public interest.

This is an absolutely legitimate question you're raising. I've put the question to union leaders. In fact, I have a specific initiative that I've launched with union leaders. I've put the question to them: do you think there's a lot of wrongdoing in the public sector? The answer is quoted in my first annual report, that there is a perception that there is.

Does that mean there's no wrongdoing? Does that mean that people are not afraid to come forward? In fact, I devoted a full chapter to this issue. People do remain concerned about coming forward.

Does that mean that chief executives are oblivious to their responsibility? I've worked for more than 25 years in the public sector, and in each department at the time, even without the legislation being applicable, we have had our sensitive cases. Chief executives want to find out if something is wrong in their organizations. Of course, there have been a few incidents in the past.

I invite any members of the committee.... In fact, as I've said before, we've worked with advocacy groups, and they remain a very important voice. If there are issues, people can come forward in full confidence to talk to our lawyers and investigators, and in each case we will look at the issue.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I appreciate that.

One of the other things we were looking at is this. You were mentioning other jurisdictions. You know that in the U.K. they've set up their own system. They had about 150 cases of alleged reprisals in the first three years, an average of about 50 per year. Granted, it's a larger jurisdiction, I appreciate that, but it leaves me wondering why there's not a single case here. I'm the son of a public servant, I represent public servants, so don't get me wrong; I believe they do good work and that often there are misperceptions.

I want to go back to some cases in the past, because that's how we got here, and cases that are still in front of us. I'm thinking of Ms. Gualtieri and Mr. Chopra and his colleagues. You aren't able to touch those cases, I know, but it is helpful to understand the effect they might have. For the record, just so people know, the government is still fighting both Ms. Gualtieri and Mr. Chopra and his colleagues in court, spending an awful lot of money. I was hoping they would deal with it. That sends a chill, in my opinion, to people who see that people who were responsible, I believe, in many ways...and I think if you talk to Mr. Poilievre and Mr. Baird, they knew of the cases as well, and it was a certain motivation to create your office.

It's strange to me that on the one hand we have your office created, yet we have the government still fighting cases in court against the people who were the motivators to have this office. My question to you is, are you a bit concerned about the chill effect of these latent cases, the cases that are still in front of us, what that does in terms of the message it sends out, because the government's still fighting it; and if so, have you voiced your concern to government?

[Christiane Ouimet]

I'll say just a few words about Public Concern at Work, which is the organization I believe the member is referring to in the U.K. That has a very different mandate. It covers hospitals and some education systems. It was one of the first organizations I contacted when I took office. I even hosted one of its representatives here in Canada. We pursue a little more actively...because the U.K. system is different. In fact, they did need that organization very much for a number of reasons. I'm happy to elaborate on this.

With respect to some of the people you've mentioned, we've reached out to them specifically. I've been part of conference calls in Washington with some of those representatives to ask questions. What has been your experience? What should we be doing to be more à l'écoute? What are issues of concern? We are pursuing it, but we are going to pursue it in a more rigorous way and in a formal consultation process. So of course I can't deal retroactively, the member's quite--

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, my question is this: are you concerned about the chill effect from their cases, and have you voiced that to government? That was all.

[Christiane Ouimet]

I am concerned that people are afraid to come forward. I've written a whole chapter in the annual report, yes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay, not referencing those specific cases, but just the idea.

[Christiane Ouimet]

The concept is very important.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

If I may, I'll ask you about a specific case, and you'll tell me whether or not you can speak to it.

You're aware of the firing of a member of the public service, July 2008, who worked for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. He was, I believe, doing the right thing, and it fits into the frame of your organization, at least in my perception, of his providing information that he thought was in the public interest, but he was fired. I'm wondering if he has come to you and if you're dealing with this case.

[Christiane Ouimet]

I don't know if that's the case.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Pomerleau is the name, just so....

[Christiane Ouimet]

We have pending cases that we're not going to comment on. I can't deny or confirm whether we're looking at those cases, unfortunately.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

When we look at the legislation, one thing that was of concern and certainly was underlined was access to funds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Mr. Dewar, I was intrigued by the last question and I wasn't watching the clock, so you've hit eight minutes. In fairness to the crew here, we'll--

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Fair enough. Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Hall Findlay, for five minutes.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, all three of you.

It's nothing personal, but clearly the questions are focusing on Ms. Ouimet.

When the Accountability Act was brought in, everybody supported the concept. I know that's not your act; I raise the point specifically, though, because although it sounded very good in theory, in fact the detail of that particular act has in a number of cases been seen to almost stymie the functioning of certain aspects of the civil service. As a result of an attempt to regulate every tiny piece of everyone's activity, people stop trusting each other and stop being willing to take any kind of initiative for fear that it will be challenged or that it may break the rules.

I recognize that there is a line and that it can be a fine one, but I do remain concerned that the detail of the Accountability Act has perhaps gone too far.

I am intrigued by some of the questions we have had today, and perhaps not a really fulsome answer, in the sense that we talk about natural justice, and when somebody makes a complaint, we'd like to think it i's in the public interest, but there are two aspects to it. First, do you sense a possibility that because of this detail, people may be more concerned about doing their jobs, even if they're doing their jobs properly, but are afraid of being targeted?

That point ties in with the second piece I mentioned, which is that we like to think it's in the public interest, but I've been in the corporate sector for a long time, and it isn't always done in the public interest. The desire to not disclose the complainant would to me be very difficult for the person whose behaviour is the subject of a complaint, and the identity.... I've heard the talk, but I still don't know how you actually address those aspects in the day-to-day operations.

[Christiane Ouimet]

Mr. Chair, these are excellent observations. We're very conscious of, first, not paralyzing the system and, second, of not shutting down institutions that absolutely must continue to operate. It would be extremely disruptive. When public interest is guiding the disclosure, what they ultimately want is an end to the behaviour, an immediate correcting action, and a visible change in the management.

We've also looked at the private sector. We had the senior VP of Petro-Canada at our first colloque. We had as well Mr. Thomas d'Aquino, who is very well known and who also provides us with a quote in the annual report. Again, the earliest intervention at the earliest possible time is what people want, because reputations of well-known institutions might be at stake. To quote Mr. d'Aquino, leadership at the top is what counts. But at the end of the day, we're very conscious that you can also have wrongdoing by omission. If you don't have a timely intervention, that is extremely costly to the taxpayers, and then you're not doing your job. You may be safe from a risk management perspective, but in the end, we do want to encourage organizations to manage, to do performance management, and to take decisions in a timely fashion.

Next year we want to take a look at systemic issues, and perhaps members of this committee could guide us. In fact, that is one of the initiatives we want to launch with the unions I just mentioned. We want to look at the key challenges or systemic vulnerabilities and at some practical options and solutions so that we don't go two or three years down the line, when it's too late, and we don't paralyze organizations.

That could hopefully be subject matter.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'm intrigued by your comment that you can actually have a wrongdoing by omission. Could you very briefly highlight exactly what wrongdoing means in your world?

[Christiane Ouimet]

Wrongdoing doesn't happen overnight. Wrongdoing, according to the academics I've consulted, is issues that are wide-ranging throughout the organization and have been known and not acted upon for a period of time. We've looked as well at labour jurisprudence and precedents. It occurs when the combination of those factors make it so that you can no longer deliver on your mandate.

That's why I was talking about small organizations. If, at the end of the day, you actually invest in the wrong places--

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

That seems awfully broad and open to some pretty subjective interpretation.