Evidence of meeting #15 for Veterans Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ontario.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Betty Hinton Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
I appreciate the clarification on that.
Did I understand you to say you'd be opposed to reporting to a minister who's an elected MP?
4:05 p.m.
Ombudsman of Ontario
Yes, I would advise against that, because in my experience there's a conflict of interest there. It would make it very hard for the ombudsman to be able to conduct the job as objectively and impartially as the ombudsman can when they report to Parliament through a committee. The minister's job, as I said in French, is to put forward the best footing of the department. The difficulty arises when the ombudsman identifies systemic issues within the department, which may reflect badly on the minister. It brings together the whole issue of ministerial accountability. And it makes it very hard for an ombudsman.... It's doable, but it just makes the job very difficult and you have to do a lot of skating as an ombudsman.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Betty Hinton Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
I'm going to talk really quickly now. I have about fifty questions, and I'd like to hear your answers.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Betty Hinton Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
You made a comment that I found rather interesting. You said that you felt it was the minister's duty to protect his or her department. You and I would disagree on that completely. I think it's the minister's responsibility to protect the people who fall under the umbrella of it. In this case, it would be to protect veterans, not to protect the department. If there are flaws in the department, I think ministers would want to know that. That would be my perspective on that.
4:10 p.m.
Ombudsman of Ontario
I agree with you on that. Perhaps something got lost in translation here.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Betty Hinton Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Okay. And I know that's the view of this particular minister now, to protect veterans. That's their sole purpose.
My next really quick question is what do you know about Australia? We're going to examine Australia as a potential role model, and I'm sure you would agree that to do this job properly we would have to talk to a lot of different groups, which is what this committee is doing, and get a lot of different perspectives. We've been listening to department people, to the Legion, and to veterans groups, trying to get an overall picture.
What light can you shed on the Australian model? Is it similar to what you're proposing or is it completely different?
4:10 p.m.
Ombudsman of Ontario
I haven't examined the Australian model lately, so I'd prefer not to go there and mislead you on it. There was a time when I was very comfortable with it, but I'm getting a little rusty on that end of things.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Betty Hinton Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Oh, I doubt you're rusty. Maybe you are on that issue, but you're not a very rusty kind of guy.
Do I have some time left, Mr. Chair?
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Betty Hinton Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
My goodness.
Is there anything else you'd like to add, sir?
4:10 p.m.
Ombudsman of Ontario
The only thing I would say is that in talking about the different ombudsman models, there has been a tendency by organizations, specifically private ones, to use the word “ombudsman”, which conjures up all this credibility, without properly equipping the office to do its job. People wonder how that happened. I want to give you the reason why people started doing that.
It all comes out of a movement in the United States where companies were being sued for harassment in the workplace. In order to mitigate damages after a lawsuit, they started creating ombudsmen. That way, at the stage of the trial where you're assessing damages, they could argue that they should pay less because they did their due diligence; they had an ombudsman in place. If you look at the States now, you have the Department of Homeland Security and a whole bunch of them in the private sector, including Coca-Cola, with ombudsmen. It's a legal way to mitigate damages.
That trend has become very attractive, but at the end of the day, you don't really have an ombudsman, you have an extension of the human resources sector.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Betty Hinton Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
If it brings you any comfort, this committee hasn't chosen to examine the U.S. model. We're looking at possibly the Australian model, the British model, and a few others that have been established for quite a long while.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
Over to Mr. Valley, for five minutes, with Monsieur Gaudet on deck.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON
Thank you.
I appreciate your opening remarks. Something we don't get a lot of around here is straight talk. I was with you all the way until you started talking about lawyers. I kind of disagree with you on that part of it. By the way, speaking as an MP, this is the only job in the world where you can make comments about lawyers and get away with it.
I appreciate your straight talk, but I'm a little confused by one of your answers. I missed the part when you were speaking to this gentleman here, and then Ms. Hinton talked about it. Where are you going to report to, and where do you report to now in Ontario? Do you report to the Ontario Parliament?
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON
You seemed very clear at first that you think that's the way it should be, instead of reporting to a minister, and then you started to waffle a little bit. I'd like to hear, in terms of your opening remarks, how clear you are on where you should report to.
4:10 p.m.
Ombudsman of Ontario
I'm absolutely 100% clear that it's to Parliament through one of these committees. There's no doubt about it: this is the only way the ombudsman can freely do this difficult job.
I want to also say that everyone is of good faith. I have no doubt that this current minister is of good faith. The point is that it's not about personalities, it's about creating an infrastructure for you to do your job properly.
The minister relies on his senior bureaucrats to give advice in order to make decisions. One of them who testified here on June 1 told you that the term “ombudsman” has yet to be defined. Well, excuse me, it has been defined. Second, you were told that it would be contrary to law to have the ombudsman oversee the veterans pension appeal board. Again, that is mistaken.
Coming back to the ombudsman and the reporting relationship, they must report to a committee, and that's in order to be free of bureaucratic interference, not just political interference. Can you imagine if this committee had the resources of an ombudsman to follow up the things you hear through your testimony? Wouldn't that be a valuable commodity for this impartial committee? I think it would very much strengthen your committee work. So that's another function the ombudsman can have.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON
Thank you. That's what we need, some clear advice, and you're very forceful.
You have done many investigations. A lot of them are made public. Are there instances when they're not made public to protect someone?
4:15 p.m.
Ombudsman of Ontario
Absolutely. We never make anything public unless we have a complete, explicit waiver of confidentiality by the complainant. Confidentiality is one of the cornerstones of the ombudsman process. Most of our work is done in complete anonymity. The results of investigations are reported in our annual report. It is very rare for the identity of people to become known. When it happens, it is only with their express consent.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON
When you're investigating files or individual cases that come forward, at what point does an ombudsman make a decision that this is not an individual characteristic but something that could be a group action? At what point, in your experience, does this come about? It's not with the first case that comes forward, so is it the fifth, the tenth? Where do you draw the line and try to protect groups while investigating a certain scenario?
4:15 p.m.
Ombudsman of Ontario
The most obvious ones occur in cases where you detect a trend. People who don't know each other, who are geographically apart, come forward with the same experience. This discloses to you that there is a systemic problem, a problem that lies beyond an individual case or decision. That's the most obvious case. But we also have cases where very few complaints may disclose a systemic issue. So trends are not always the rule, but they're the safest rule.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON
An ombudsman for veterans affairs would build that kind of history behind him, to enable him to look for these things. It's an experience thing, I would assume.
4:15 p.m.
Ombudsman of Ontario
Yes, I think the first year or two would be a good indication of where the problems lie. Administrative tribunals—and I'm not an expert in the one that you've been hearing about, the veterans pension appeal board—are typically haunted by backlogs, delays, and injustices suffered in the hearing process. All these problems are within the authority of the ombudsman.
If you're going to cut the pension appeals board out of the ombudsman's mandate, it would be better not to create the office at all. This is the meat and potatoes of what an ombudsman does. If the government creates an ombudsman that can't oversee this board, don't bother. Call it something else, because it won't be an ombudsman. This is how crucial oversight of this body is.