Government Operations Committee on June 19th, 2023

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

It requires the gathering and annual publication of statistics regarding the career and health trajectory of whistle-blowers as a direct performance indicator. There is a lack of direct performance indicators from PSIC. Virtually all accounts of federal whistle-blower experience in Canada reveal that careers ended, health was damaged and lives were shattered. There is no official data available regarding the career and health trajectory of whistle-blowers, and no attempt to acquire this.

Only the federal government has the information, authority and resources to obtain this information, which is inaccessible to researchers and others for reasons of confidentiality, and this is critical to any effective five-year review of the act.

Again, I'm hoping we can just vote on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mr. Fergus.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I won't repeat myself, sir, but what I pointed out before is my objection to this one. I'm hoping that people understand the importance of people's health records and the safekeeping of that confidentiality so that it doesn't follow them, track them or, unfortunately, get leaked.

(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 2 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Amendment NDP-16 is defeated.

On amendment NDP-17, we have Mr. Johns.

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

[Technical difficulty—Editor] requires the gathering and annual publication of client satisfaction as a direct performance indicator. There is a lack of direct performance indicators for the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner.

Multiple reports by the Auditor General and judicial review decisions show that PSIC incompetence, gross mismanagement and failure to provide due process, etc., always disadvantages the whistle-blower, so in consideration of PSIC's performance, the voice of whistle-blowers is completely absent and unavailable. This amendment would make data available and make public servants feel the protection and support, which would serve as an important direct indicator of PSIC's performance.

The purpose of the PSDPA and Bill C-290 are to protect and support whistle-blowers, so whether or not public servants feel protected and supported is obviously absolutely central to whether the PSDPA is functioning as it needs to. Any review of the act that doesn't consider these metrics is an incomplete review, and if public servants don't feel supported and protected in making disclosures, far fewer of them will report wrongdoing and wrongdoing will continue to fester unreported, damaging the public interest.

The reporting of this data would also motivate integrity commissioners and their staff to ensure due process for whistle-blowers. This would not require additional funds, because the evaluation of the performance matrix for the PSDPA requires measurement of whether employees feel supported and protected when reporting a wrongdoing under the act. In fact, the PSIC promised to conduct but has never conducted a client satisfaction survey of whistle-blowers.

I'm hoping we can just vote on this too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mr. Fergus.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Reasons similar to those for NDP-16 also apply to amendment NDP-17, in ensuring that there is consent from the whistle-blowers to be able to provide that private information. The second thing, again, is that this also covers a case where you're dealing with complaints that have gone to the commissioner, as opposed to ones that have been resolved internally or that the complainant has decided to pursue internally.

This will effectively require an annual survey to be conducted by PSIC. Again, we're very concerned about how we might run the risk of releasing people's confidential situations and their current status, so the same reasons that we opposed NDP-16 apply to amendment NDP-17.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Is there anything else, Mr. Johns?

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

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Can we go to a vote on NDP-17, Madam Clerk?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Aimée Belmore]

Mr. Chair, the count is five yeas and five nays.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I will vote yes.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

On NDP-18, it's Mr. Johns.

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

I will try to go as fast as I can. No additional funds are required.

It requires the periodic gathering and publication of indirect performance indicators. There is little to no information available regarding public servants' perceptions of the effectiveness of the whistle-blowing system, the frequency of perceived wrongdoing, which is supposed to expose and deter, and the effectiveness of corrective actions.

This makes it impossible to determine the trends that would tells us whether the legislation is having the intended effects. With this amendment, data would be available showing levels and trends in indirect performance indicators related to public servants' perceptions. These would provide a basis for a review and improvement of the legislation and its implementation, which are necessary for the regular reviews of the act to present a realistic picture of how effective the act is.

This would not require additional funds. The public service employee survey questions are reviewed every cycle and there's no obstacle to adding these types of questions to it. In the U.S., the Office of Special Counsel has conducted three cycles of this type of survey, demonstrating an improving trend.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Next is Mr. Fergus and then Ms. Kusie.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I really disagree with my colleague on his statement that this would have no additional costs. In fact, this will have a significant additional cost. This is providing another survey of public servants, which is similar to the public service employment survey that is done every year.

In digging deep on this, we found that each piece of PSES, the employment survey, costs well in excess of a million dollars a year. The entire budget for PSIC is just over a million dollars a year. To run the survey alone would increase the cost of the commissioner's office by 100%. This would be in addition to having a new function and responsibility for the commissioner, who doesn't do this. They would have to make sure they have new authorization to spend this money to conduct this survey.

To let you know, the public service employment survey is only done biennially, every two years, for the purposes of finding out what we do, where public servants are at, how they are feeling, the status of their jobs. To have PSIC double this work will create additional costs and significant additional costs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mrs. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Chair, I want to make a subamendment to the amendment, which I hope might be friendly, and that is eliminating paragraph (d). We have concerns about anonymity if keeping paragraph (d).

I would be looking to remove paragraph (d), please, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Can we vote on Ms. Kusie's subamendment?

Hold on one moment, please. We need to suspend for a moment for our legislative clerks to look at an issue.

Colleagues, our legislative clerks are advising me that subamendments have to be provided in writing.

We can either rule it out of order, or we can suspend for a couple of moments and you can put the subamendment in writing for us, Mrs. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Yes, I'm happy to put it in writing.

Is it just two sentences, or what does the extent have to be? I can loosely translate it as well, but I don't want to hold up the process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll suspend for a couple of minutes for you to put it in writing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, we are back.

Mrs. Kusie's subamendment, of course, is to eliminate proposed paragraph (d). Proposed paragraph (c) has the word “and” at the end, so we have to change that. I will read it in. If everyone's fine with it, we'll adjust Mrs. Kusie's subamendment to say, that the amendment be amended by adding “and” after paragraph (b) and removing the following from paragraph (c): “and”.

We'll get into Mrs. Kusie's subamendment, then.

Mr. Fergus.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I have no comment, sir.

(Subamendment agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It carries unanimously.

We are back to the actual amendment itself.

Mr. Fergus.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do have difficulty with this. I would like to thank Mrs. Kusie for making the change and removing some of the confidentiality parts of it. However, in regard to NDP-18 as a whole, as you can see at the very beginning, it says, “(2.01) The Commissioner must conduct an annual survey to determine”, and then it goes on for now three provisions.

That annual survey has to happen. I mentioned that to survey all public servants in relation to the way they feel disclosures are managed under this act would be analogous to the public service employment survey, which does cost a considerable amount of money, probably in excess of the entire budget for the commissioner's office as it stands now. That is a significant expense.

There you go, Mr. Chair. I think it would be better off for this amendment not to happen to Bill C-290.

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

I would ask about the costs and whether it would require royal assent.