Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have prepared some opening remarks. I guess the main purpose is to situate some of the subject matter currently being looked at in the Office of Public Sector Integrity. I am very honoured that the Prime Minister proposed appointing me to the position

Government Operations committee  No, I did not.

Government Operations committee  In fact, I was in my living room, surfing the web, when I saw the Auditor General's report. I read it. It is not very long, only about 12 pages. I thought it was rather strange. It is rare to see such a negative report. I was retired, but I had expressed an interest in perhaps w

Government Operations committee  Of course, I had people working with me. First of all, there was Deloitte, as I mentioned earlier. I also had two special advisors who had never had any previous contact with the office. I looked at the material in each of the files. I think that many of the problems can be attri

Government Operations committee  I will address this chronologically. We will begin by using our website more in order to inform everyone, including public servants and the general public, about the steps and method to follow. At this time, 35 people work in the office, compared to 19 when I arrived, and our b

Government Operations committee  As I was saying earlier, I have always worked in the area of justice, in the broad sense. I am a lawyer by training. I chose law and I enjoy this area. The person in this position has an opportunity to enforce legal provisions. We have our own bible. This is the first time I am w

Government Operations committee  That varies according to the position. Since we are part of the federal public service, we have to follow the same rules as every federal department and agency. We have an administrative staff. Some are there to ensure that we are complying with the Financial Administration Act a

Government Operations committee  No, it's not. Out of those 70 cases I mentioned, six will be the subject of a full-fledged investigation. They have yet to be fully investigated, and we have 17 that we will study further. It's possible that 23 cases that were closed will actually lead to a finding of wrongdoing

Government Operations committee  We're down to 23.

Government Operations committee  The literature would suggest that it has been the experience in some other countries that the ratio of well-founded wrongdoings is very low. In the U.S., something like 2% of the cases that were reported were found to be well-founded. That's one explanation. I work on a case-by

Government Operations committee  Essentially, we can do that by better explaining what is covered, what the limitations are, how to go about lodging a complaint, and how to consult prior to lodging a complaint so as to situate and express, as well as possible, the actual complaint that you would like to pursue.

Government Operations committee  No, I think we have inherited a very young system, still in its infancy. With that, we have to explore how to make it work. I am convinced we can make it work. That's why I've agreed to come out of retirement and make it work. It is feasible. There's no question in my mind.

Government Operations committee  Basically, we can make it work by providing adequate tools—real tools—and face-to-face opportunities to meet with disclosures, and by having somebody who knows what he or she is talking about to give advice to disclosures as to how to go about putting their case forward, and also

Government Operations committee  We've done it already. I have made a decision in each and every one of the 70 files that were found to be defective, except for two that are still to be completed because they were huge. We will complete them soon. We're talking about 23 volumes.... Somebody had to go through 23

Government Operations committee  This is an officer of Parliament position. Throughout my career, I learned what it means to be an officer of Parliament: it is someone who acts on behalf of Parliament. That person has to be completely independent because of the nature of the duties. Legal training helps us to un