Evidence of meeting #36 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was code.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you, Madame d'Auray.
Seven minutes, Mr. Saxton, please.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for coming back once again today.
My first questions are for the Office of the Auditor General.
One of your recommendations was to improve training with respect to conflict of interest. Would you agree that the new employee orientation in Canadian Heritage is a best practice that could be applied more widely in other departments as well? I refer specifically to paragraph 4.68 on page 23.
11:40 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Thank you.
Yes, we did point to it in the report as a practice that other departments might want to adopt, that there was an orientation session that was given to all new employees. The reason we raised training was because in the three cases that we note in the report, it raised questions to us as to whether people really understood what a conflict of interest was, and were there policies, procedures, and training in place that would help them identify those situations and then know how to deal with them.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thank you.
How do you deal with conflict of interest in your office? Do you have any successful practices that could be shared with other departments?
11:40 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
We have a fairly rigorous procedure for conflict of interest. As you can imagine, many of our auditors are privileged to sensitive information affecting companies that are listed on stock exchanges, grants that would be given to them, loans, financial information, those sorts of things. All of our staff must declare every year; they are required to fill out a form about conflicts of interest, generally as to whether they have family members working in senior positions in government. More importantly, they also have to disclose all of their financial holdings to a designated person within the office. In certain cases we have had to set up blind trusts for certain of our senior employees who are working on audits, for example, of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, those sorts of things. So there is quite a rigorous process.
Obviously I come from a world of accounting firms, where the list of prohibited investments was almost a volume. We haven't gone that far to prohibit staff from investing, but certainly we do make sure they generally are aware of all that. Again, on each individual audit, every member of the audit team—and this is a professional standard—must have a declaration of independence, and that has to be for every single audit we undertake. There is a very rigorous process, not only within the office but with professional standards as well.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thank you, Madam Fraser.
Because of the nature of the work conducted in your office I can understand the rigorous nature of the conflict of interest guidelines, but are there some practices in your office that you think other departments could also apply?
11:40 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Well, certainly one of the things we've encouraged government to look at is a more proactive approach to declarations that employees declare annually, not only when they think they may have a conflict of interest but even to declare they do not have a conflict of interest. That's something we have recommended that we think government should look at.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thank you very much.
My next question is for the Treasury Board Secretariat.
Can you describe what happens when someone is hired in the public service? What process do they go through to learn about conflict of interest responsibilities, and how has this changed over the years?
11:40 a.m.
Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
With the introduction of the values and ethics code in 2003, new public servants receive a letter of offer in which they're told they are subject to the values and ethics code and that they are personally responsible for identifying and disclosing any conflicts of interest they have.
There is a positive invitation to them to make a declaration, to the extent they feel they have a conflict of interest, and to file appropriate documentation, not unlike what the Auditor General has suggested exists in her office. In addition, they go through a mandatory orientation to the public service. That has as an important training element in it on values and ethics so that they're trained on the elements of the code and how those elements might apply in their working situation. More recently they've been given, as well, an online part of that training called “Paving the Way”. That takes them through values and ethics issues online and subjects them to a test at the end. So they're tested on their knowledge of values and ethics.
Those are the measures that are aimed at them across the board, and each individual. And then of course they are supported by the measures their organizations take on conflicts of interest and ethical issues that might arise in each specific organization.
Those are the measures that take place on entry.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thank you.
What is Treasury Board Secretariat's mandate with regard to managing conflict of interest? Deputy heads have the primary responsibility for managing conflict of interest within their departments and organizations, so what falls on TBS?
11:45 a.m.
Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
As part of our values and ethics code we have a chapter on conflict of interest, so we provide direction on conflict of interest specifically. As well, as is noted in the Auditor General's report and is contained in this booklet, we set out the responsibilities of individual public servants as well as deputy heads on managing conflicts of interest. These things are set out with some precision.
We also have put the structure in place. Given that it's a very large population we're applying the code to—over 200,000 people—to us it's really important that we have the structures in place. We require deputy heads to have an individual who can advise on ethical issues within their organization, receive disclosures of wrongdoing, and otherwise support it.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Fine, thank you.
Now we will start the second round of questioning.
Mr. Lee, welcome back. You have the floor for the next five minutes, sir.
November 30th, 2010 / 11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's truly a pleasure to be back with you.
For my first question I'd like to introduce committee members to the concept of foot-dragging—a novel concept.
11:45 a.m.
Terence Young
Never heard of it before.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Mr. Young is curious where that comes from. I knew members would find it novel.
I want to ask Ms. D'Auray, given that the legislation that required the development of some new policies in this field was adopted in 2005—assented to in 2007—it has actually been five years since we've all, as citizens, been on notice that we have to develop a policy. I know how long the five-year period was because I've been sitting in opposition for those whole five years, and I have enjoyed it.
Can you explain to me what happened over the five years and how close we are to completion? I know there's something in the pipeline—my notes say that something in this regard is at Treasury Board—and the Treasury Board ministers and public servants are waiting for it to come back. So give me an expectation of completion of task and tell me why you think it has been five years in the making. Why does it take so long?
11:45 a.m.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
We are planning for spring 2011. The code and policies have not yet been presented to Treasury Board ministers. As I said earlier, there are still some legal issues that require some validation.
A couple of things have delayed some of the discussions. One is the restructuring of the organization called the Canada Public Service Agency and its reintegration into the Treasury Board Secretariat. This resulted in machinery issues. It took us a year or two to integrate the organizations. Ms. Meredith described the time that it took for us to talk to academics, have discussions, and engage public servants. More than 5,000 public servants have been engaged in the discussions to date. We are broadening the scope of these discussions to encompass more than 400,000 public employees.
A number of elements have changed since 2005 and even since 2007, and one of those is the pervasive use of social media. How do we handle a conflict of interest in the management of personal affairs in the context of social media, and what does that mean in a conflict of interest case, whether perceived, real, or apparent? This has taken us quite a bit of time to sort out, and it's also an issue that a number of experienced people in other countries are struggling with. So it is not a case of foot-dragging. There are some complex issues that we are still sorting out, and our timeline is spring 2011.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
When we legislated this, we didn't think of conflict of interest as a growth industry, but maybe that's what happens.
The Auditor General recommended that departments do risk assessments to determine where the risks for conflicts of interest are highest and where related problems are to be found. This seems like good common sense. Have any departments gone down this road? Have they completed risk assessments? Which are they? Could you give me an example of how this search for the highest risks produces a good or bad result?
11:50 a.m.
Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
I think it's a wise practice, a very good practice. We know that organizations have done this. In fact, the Treasury Board Secretariat itself has done one of these assessments. So there are good examples that can proliferate.
11:50 a.m.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
At TBS we have done an ethical risk assessment. And in the audit policy, there is a requirement for departmental audit committees to have an annual look at the departmental risk profile. They are supposed to have a conversation on values and ethics within the organizations. Departmental audit committees do this each year.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you.
Madame d'Auray, I think it was you who said there is no current vacuum in the conflict of interest code and its application to the civil service. You talked about developing a new values and ethics code for the public sector and a new policy on conflict of interest and post-employment. What can you tell us about this now? I realize that it's not complete, that it's not ready to be presented to Parliament, but what can you tell us about the direction it's heading in and what might be new in that policy?