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.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I call the meeting to order.
This is meeting number 16 of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Our order of the day is to hear a witness from the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, Ms. Christiane Ouimet, commissioner.
It's nice to see you here. I understand that you have some opening remarks for us. Would you please introduce your colleagues you brought here with you today.
With that, please proceed.
Christiane Ouimet Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon.
It is a real pleasure to appear before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. I am joined today by my deputy commissioner, Henry Molot, and my general counsel, Joe Friday. I am absolutely delighted to appear before the committee to talk about the mandate and the role of the office, which is still relatively new.
I was truly honoured to be appointed the first Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, and I have invested considerable effort in building a new organization that will be seen by public servants and citizens alike as credible, efficient, and trustworthy. It's very important that we be seen as responding to serious issues of concern and also finding appropriate, practical solutions to problems. Our ultimate goal is to enhance confidence in our public institutions and to support good governance.
Much has happened to advance our work since I first appeared before both houses, but a lot remains to be done. I'm truly confident that the momentum we've created will continue with great strength and that we will build upon it.
I would like to talk to you today about our mandate, who we are and why we were established, but also about the preamble to our act, which expressly recognizes the essential role of the federal public administration in Canadian democracy. The preamble refers to the public interest, and that is very important. It talks about enhancing confidence in the integrity of public servants and in public institutions. This is the solid foundation upon which I have established my office.
I do feel that the current economic climate focuses our attention on the essential role played by our public institutions. In difficult economic times, the role played by public institutions is even more important. The importance and necessity of the programs and services they provide have never been more clearly evident. The same is true of sound management.
In the context of economic instability, I think this organization plays a very important role in ensuring there is confidence in our public institutions.
Perhaps it might be useful if I go through, in very brief terms, the mandate. Essentially, we're talking about one act and two regimes: the disclosure of wrongdoing process, and a reprisal complaints process.
Let me start with the disclosure of wrongdoing process. The act defines wrongdoing as a contravention of any act of Parliament, provincial legislature, or regulations made under such acts; misuse of public funds or public assets; gross mismanagement; an act or omission that creates a substantial and specific danger to the life, health, or safety of persons, or to the environment; a serious breach of a code of conduct; or knowingly directing or counselling a person to commit any of these wrongdoings. So you see it's very broad, and each element requires very careful attention.
My office is charged with receiving and investigating allegations of wrongdoing. Any public servant or any member of the public can disclose information about suspected wrongdoing.
Under the act, I have the power to determine whether or not an investigation is warranted based on the merits of each case. When we do launch an investigation, we use the combined expertise and experience of my staff, but also call on outside experts from time to time. We do legal analyses and use investigative techniques to find the best possible solution.
It is very important to point out that our investigations are confidential. What guides us throughout our work is that we are acting in the public interest in all cases that come before us. If we find a case of wrongdoing, we inform the deputy head, recommend corrective action and table a report in Parliament.
I have to say that public servants have the choice. They can go to their immediate supervisor, they can go to what is called the senior officer of each organization, or they can come directly to my office. Also, members of the public can come to our office.
Let me tell you about the second very important component under the act, which is called the reprisal complaints process. This second aspect of the mandate is quite critical, because we have unique and exclusive jurisdiction in protecting public servants from reprisals. We're of course talking about protecting public servants who come forward to disclose wrongdoing.
It is an innovative and important step on the part of Parliament. Reprisal is expressly prohibited under the act, and we must act swiftly and decisively to respond to it.
The act defines a reprisal as a disciplinary measure, demotion, termination of employment, anything that adversely affects employment or working conditions or a threat to take any of these measures.
When a complaint of reprisal is presented to us, there are some very short timelines, and I have been asked to be informed as soon as an allegation of reprisals comes to our office. Under the act, I have the authority to refuse to deal with a complaint when, for example, it was made in bad faith or is outside my jurisdiction. Whenever people contact our office, we want to make sure we listen to them, that we deal with their request and that we refer them to the best place to find a solution to the problem.
The act talks about dealing with and protecting people from reprisals as far as possible informally and expeditiously. This is a very important point. I also have discretionary authority to refer a complaint to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal for an order for remedial or disciplinary actions.
Let me now turn briefly to the first annual report that I've tabled before Parliament. We have handed out a little brochure, which you have before you. What I'd like to bring to your attention is that the thematic of our first annual report is “Building Trust Together”. In it, you will see these three words: “inform”, “protect”, and “prevent”. These are truly the pillars of our organization and the act. Let me explain how they will frame my submission today.
With the word “inform”, of course, we need to inform public servants and the general public of who we are, but as well, who we are not.
The annual report was a way of reaching out to people and all our stakeholders to introduce our new organization and to inform them about our mandate. There is still time to do more to make our role better known, for example by letting people know that our office has jurisdiction over 400,000 public servants, and that members of the public can disclose information about wrongdoing. With our role to inform in mind, we continue to focus on our outreach activities.
It is together that we must build trust in the process and in our procedures. Chief executives have a direct and pivotal role in informing everybody in their organizations, including in regard to the appointment of a senior officer who is tasked with the responsibility for accepting and acting upon allegations of wrongdoing.
In addition, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the Canada Public Service Agency, now the office of the chief human resources officer at the Treasury Board, is identified as having a very specific role, as well as supporting the Treasury Board minister.
One thing that has become quite clear to me since I assumed this role is that we cannot do it alone. We cannot take it for granted that because Parliament created my office, and because the office is up and running, as it had to be from the first day of the implementation of the act, people know exactly who we are. There's still a fair bit of confusion and a fair bit of work to be done.
The challenge of informing our stakeholders continues. I think everybody has a role, including the public sector, the media, the members of this committee, and your fellow parliamentarians, to help ensure that people are aware of our existence and our mandate and that they are confident in our ability to carry out that mandate and protect their interests.
The word “protection” is pivotal in the title of the legislation. This has to do with protecting the confidentiality of the disclosure, but also the confidentiality of the process itself and anybody who is part of this. Again, earlier I referred to informal and expeditious investigations, natural justice, and procedural fairness. We are not conducting criminal investigations. This is about public administration and administrative law. We have to recognize the many interests at stake. As well, we have to recognize that reputations and careers may be at stake as a result of any of our processes.
Our ability to offer real and effective protection is extremely important. In the next annual report, which I hope to table shortly, I ask whether people are afraid of coming forward, and if so, why? What collective role can we play to ensure once again that these questions are asked and answered?
Briefly, and I'm conscious of the time, I wish to address the third pillar of my mandate, which is prevention.
Immediately upon taking office, I made the deliberate choice, with the support of eminent jurists and Parliament, that prevention was part of the mandate. My office certainly will not hesitate to use the full strength of the act and investigate, but I think that the enforcement model is not enough. To achieve our goal, we must promote ethical behaviour and enhance confidence through the prevention of wrongdoing.
I would also like to make it clear that I am not the Auditor General, nor the chair of the Human Rights Commission, nor the person in charge of the staffing process. I play a complementary role that must not overlap with that of the specialized administrative tribunals. Once again, our objective is to protect the interests of all those who turn to us.
Before the meeting started, I spoke with some of the committee members about the fact that it was not easy to set up a new organization. There are huge challenges involved, but there are also opportunities. We invent processes, we interpret the act with the guidance of Parliament, but also with the assistance of all the people we consulted over the last two years. I think that as a result our mandate is very realistic and solution-oriented. We are not interested in simply identifying problems, we also want to identify solutions.
Creating a new organization presents challenges for any government and business, and our organization was no exception. We needed to interpret the legislation, to develop guidelines, while at the same time recruiting staff, setting up offices, setting up new processes. We needed to ensure that our organization had the right governance, the right accountability structures, to ensure that our day-to-day activities were conducted properly. Certainly, the experience had made me acutely aware of the unique challenges facing small organizations.
The committee may be interested in the budget of my office. I would be pleased to answer questions on this. Our budget is $6.5 million. Since we are a young organization, we expected we would spend $3.7 million, but we actually spent $3.6 million. In the years ahead, we will build on our experience. We use diversified resources to ensure we have all the expertise we require. I know there is provision for a five-year review of our act, and we will focus our research and work so as to reply to any concerns regarding our mandate.
Mr. Chair, it has been an honour to appear. I'm happy to answer any questions that you or members might have.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Thank you kindly.
I must admit that I leaned over to say a word to Mr. Poilievre. We both know what we were thinking. Back in 2005 we were on the government operations and estimates committee that resurrected the dead whistle-blower act, which this now replaces, I guess, in its mandate.
If you haven't already, you might want to read the transcripts of some of those meetings we had. Many of the items that you talked about were argued very strongly by members, particularly the reprisals issue, which is extremely important, and also the area of the option of public servants to make complaints directly to the commissioner as opposed to through the designated person in that department, or whatever.
It's very interesting, but I'm very pleased that you and your commission are now in place and working towards....
I only have one question for you, because it was speculation all throughout our hearings. We were concerned as to whether or not introducing this act would create a wave of complaints. Did you have a wave of complaints?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
First of all, we had a wave of inquiries. There were well over 200 inquiries about what the legislation was about. It is confusing. The legislation, Bill C-2, has created a series of mechanisms. As well, as I recall, in the debates leading to the creation of this office, some machinery issues were discussed as to whether it was going to be a stand-alone agent of Parliament or joined with, for instance, the Public Service Commission, whether the tribunal should be created and what would be the role. But in the end, in the context of Bill C-2, in the context of the creation of a series of new agents of Parliament, some of which were called before this committee, we absolutely need to continue to inform about what we are and what we're not.
So we had well over 200--
Liberal
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
We had 200 inquiries and we did have a number of--
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Complaints? We had a good 70 complaints that needed more probing.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Which was considerable.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Our members will have lots of questions, so we're going to try to keep it nice and crisp as opposed to....
Madam Simson, please.
Liberal
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Currently we have 22, and a 23rd member will be added in the next month or so.
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
I noted from the briefing notes we received that in your first annual report to Parliament, which was May 28, you stated your office had received 59 disclosures and 22 complaints of reprisals. Are you in a position to give us--I know it is coming out fairly shortly, but it's almost a year later--how many complaints you've received since then and how many complaints of reprisals and disclosures you've had?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Yes, essentially last year the number of disclosures was 59 and 22. This year the total number of disclosures was 76 and the total number of reprisal complaints was 23. We had over 150 general inquiries.
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Okay. So for the new ones, would it hold true, as it did after your first report, that there were no findings of wrongdoing, no settlements or applications to the tribunal? Would that be the case again this year?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
I'll be tabling the report probably in the next week or so. There have been some full investigations in cases of reprisals. There has been a finding with respect to a reprisal case. In the context of disclosures, some corrective actions were recommended.
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
So there hasn't been a significant jump in terms of the number of cases you've looked after?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
That's correct. However, you will see a statement in the next annual report. I don't think it will ever be a sheer number. It will not be measured by the number but rather the complexity and the sensitivity of each case--just as we had the previous year, very sensitive, complex cases.
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
As a relatively new piece of legislation in a new office, unlike the other commissions we've heard that are over a quarter of a century old, do you think the current act does the job, or do you have any recommendations to maybe enhance it that might be easy to implement?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
This is a very good question.
You're absolutely right, Mr. Chair. When there is a new piece of legislation you need at least a couple of years to really understand the full strength, what is needed, and ultimately we're talking about public interest versus private interest. That's not to say that private interests are not important--quite the opposite. At this juncture we're looking at some technical issues with respect to specific timelines, and probably in a year or two we'll be in a better position to make recommendations.
But at this point certainly the breadth of the act, the discretion that is offered, is certainly adequate to do the job.
Liberal
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
That's correct.