Evidence of meeting #16 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was complaints.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
You mentioned that one of the features of the legislation is that people can also make a complaint to the designated senior officer in their organization. Have all organizations designated such an officer, and is that work complete?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
In fact, they have a choice. They can designate either a senior officer within their organization or what we call the 10(4). That is subsection 10(4), where they can designate our office as the prime recipient of the complaint.
NDP
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
They either have designated or have their own, and we're reaching out to that community as well.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Do you know what the split is, how many have designated your office and how many have designated—
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
It is definitely in the minority. It is 37.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you.
You mentioned in your response to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj's question that you have worked with public service unions in terms of legal fees and that kind of thing. Is there a relationship with public service unions? It would seem to me that there is a pretty key connection between their work on behalf of their members and taking someone through this kind of complaints process. Is that relationship functioning well?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
I've worked very closely with the unions throughout my career, either co-managing the union management forum.... I have always said that unions have to be part of the solution. I appeared before the national joint committee, which represents the 18 bargaining units, just two months ago with senior counsel. I offered them a special consultation process in the fall, and they accepted at the time. First of all, a lot of the cases that come to us have a labour relations issue or staffing human resources issue. They have committed to work with us to identify the key challenges and the key solutions. Absolutely, they are a very key group with respect to implementing the legislation and coming up with solutions as well.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
When I was poking around on the website today, which I found very helpful and easy to find information that I was looking for—it was very well put together—I noticed that you had attended the Council on Governmental Ethics Law conference. Can you tell us something about that organization, and if that's a place where you learned more about similar regimes in other countries, or if you were talking about Canada's particular legislation? Can you tell us a bit about what that organization does?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
That organization has a much broader mandate than whistle-blowing. In fact, it regroups as well on elections issues, ethics issues.
While there are similarities with respect to the issues at stake, in the end what I gathered out of this--and I spoke to a lot of experts, including the World Bank representatives--was that you need a multiplicity of mechanisms in order to have ethical organizations. You have to reach out to the various units. You need, for instance, an ethics commissioner. You need, as well, some values and ethics. You need strong lobbyist legislation. You need a combination of these. But ultimately it is the leaders of each organization, and people in the organization who have a supervisory role, a model role, who make the difference. This is what we gathered out of this.
I would also point out that we're going to be paying far more attention to the system of our neighbours to the south. That's for obvious reasons, because of the economic situation and because there are more similarities in many ways. We'd be happy to report further on this in the future.
Liberal
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Thank you very much.
Merci, et bienvenue
I want to go over the numbers from your report that finishes the period of 2007 from the time of your creation, which I believe was in March, through to March 31 of 2008. On page 24 of the annual report, you list the number of disclosures, investigations, etc.
The number of disclosures received was 59; the number of disclosures reviewed to determine jurisdiction under the act was 49. What's the difference between those two?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Some of them were that the person making the disclosure decided they didn't need to pursue it, or it didn't need a further examination of jurisdiction because, for instance, it was clearly a private sector matter.
It is confusing, and I would commit that in our next annual report--
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I don't have much time, so I'm going to focus on these questions.
The number of files closed after preliminary review and analysis was 25.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Correct.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
So they were reviewed and determined not to have merit. Is that correct?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Correct.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Okay.
Then that leaves us, out of the 59--having subtracted the groups we've already mentioned--with 24. And then you had the number of files still in process as of March 31, which was 19. The number carried forward for analysis and verification was two, and the number of investigations of disclosures commenced under this act was three. So out of all the 59, only three led to actual investigations.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Well, yes. It's a combination. There were definitely three investigations, and “acted upon” means that there were some specific recommendations as well. But you're right.
What I was going to say--
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
So in the previous two, you made recommendations of some kind.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Okay.
Now, on the reprisals side, you have the number of investigations of reprisals commenced under this act as two. So there were a total of five investigations for the period ending March 31, 2008.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Yes, exactly, either full-fledged investigation of process--
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
And of those five, how many complaints were deemed founded by your office?
