Good morning and thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I am very pleased to appear this morning, accompanied by my colleagues, before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
It has been almost a year since I appeared before your Committee for the review of my candidacy for the role of Canada’s first Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. I would like to say once again that I was honoured to receive your confidence after that appearance. We have been working hard since my appointment to build this new institution while fulfilling our responsibilities.
This morning, if the committee members are in agreement, I would like to take you briefly through my mandate, the approach and steps taken to fulfill that mandate, the challenges faced in establishing a new office and some discussion of our budget.
I'd like to begin by telling you who we are and why we were established, for the benefit of members who were not here a year ago when I first appeared before this committee. And I always like to turn to the preamble of the legislation, the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, the legislation that created my office last year.
It expressly recognizes the essential role of the federal public administration in Canadian democracy, and this is really important. It underscores the importance, from a public interest perspective, of maintaining and enhancing confidence in the integrity of public servants and in public institutions. And this is the way I like to describe the role, in addition, of course, to implementing a disclosure process and protection against reprisal. These principles of enhancing confidence and serving the public interest are the solid foundation upon which I've established my office and which guides our day-to-day work.
Under the act, very specifically, the office is charged with receiving and investigating allegations of wrongdoing in the public sector. When wrongdoing is found, we inform the head of the relevant department or agency, provide recommendations for corrective action, and we also table a report in Parliament.
The act is very clear. It specifically prohibits reprisals against public servants and charges us with protecting those public servants from reprisals.
The jurisdiction extends to 400,000 public sector employees. This is a very large mandate. We can also receive complaints of wrongdoing from the public. Security agencies such as CSIS, CSE, and the armed forces do not fall within our jurisdiction, but they do have their own internal systems.
I'd like now to provide you with more details on both the disclosure and the reprisal components of my mandate, to give you a clearer idea of how we can enhance confidence in public institutions while supporting strong governance at the federal level.
The act defines wrongdoing as follows: a contravention of any act of Parliament or any provincial legislature; a misuse of public funds or a public asset; a gross mismanagement; an act or omission that creates substantial 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 identified wrongdoings.
Under the act, though, there are safeguards to ensure there is no duplication. And I have the discretion to determine on a case-by-case basis whether an investigation is warranted. For instance, if it were more appropriate to refer the matter to another procedure provided under an act of Parliament, or if the disclosure was not made in good faith, we would of course refuse to investigate.
When we do launch an investigation, we use the combined expertise and experience of my staff, careful judgment, legal analysis, and sound investigative techniques to try to come to the best resolution in each case. The act requires--and this is very important--that we conduct our investigations as informally and expeditiously as possible. Of course the principles of natural justice and procedural fairness must be respected. In addition, and very importantly, our investigations are confidential. And what guides us throughout our work will be acting in the public interest.
The second aspect of my mandate, and one that is related to but distinct from the disclosure process, is the protection of public servants who come forward to disclose wrongdoing—people sometimes known as whistleblowers. This is an innovative and important step on the part of Parliament. In fact, we are the first in Canada, as well as in the world, to combine all the responsibilities and powers entrusted to my office.
A key feature of the Act is that it absolutely prohibits reprisals against any person who makes an allegation of wrongdoing in good faith or anyone who has cooperated in an investigation. We have exclusive jurisdiction in such matters.
I feel it is important to examine the definition of the term “reprisal”. 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, I decide whether or not an investigation is warranted. I may send the complaint to conciliation or dismiss it. The Act provides me with the discretion to refuse to deal with a complaint when, for example, the complaint was made in bad faith or if it is beyond my jurisdiction.
Again, as in the case of wrongdoing, the investigation is to be conducted informally and expeditiously. I also have the authority to apply to the newly created Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal for an order for remedial or disciplinary actions.
This reprisal mandate that has been given to my Office is a powerful and important one, and it underscores that protecting public servants who make honest and well-intentioned disclosures of wrongdoing is fundamental to good governance, and also to confidence in our public institutions.
I've spoken about the specifics of our mandate, but I also would like to stress our approach to how we interpret and fulfill our mandate. How we do our job is as important as what the job is. Our office is about integrity, not just breaches of integrity. We have a bias in favour of prevention over investigation. We've already been quite proactive in our communications and education and about who we are and what we want to do. We build on existing ethics foundation work in partnership with parliamentarians, chief executives, unions, managers, and employees to promote prevention, to encourage confidence, and to discourage wrongdoing.
When I first took office and when I appeared before this committee, as well as through a message to all parliamentarians that I sent the first week on the job, August 6, I indicated I would consult broadly on how to fulfill my mandate. I am very pleased to report that I've had more than 70 bilateral discussions—and my office has had more than 80 group meetings—with Parliament, experts in Canada and around the world, with former and current chief executives, people from all levels, and also the private sector. Also, I was reminded by the high interest of the Parliament that we also should include the regions in that consultation, which I was very pleased to do.
One unique message across Canada that I got from those consultations, as well as from my own thinking, is that prevention is absolutely a shared responsibility, and it becomes a core piece of our mandate. We will continue to do our part to educate and communicate with public servants, but we'll also be seeking the advice of this committee and all parliamentarians as we go forward.
I would also like to mention—and it is something that I mentioned last time I appeared before this committee—that we'd like to look as much as possible into how we can integrate alternative dispute resolution, such as mediation, into our operations and processes.
This gives you a general sense of how we approach the work. Of course I'll be tabling my first annual report in a few weeks, we hope, and you will have more details on where we are. We are completing the analysis, but perhaps now I'll say just a few words on the establishment of the office.
Creating a new organization is a challenge, be it in the business, private, or government sector, and certainly my office was no exception. With the establishment of this new institution we needed to interpret legislation and develop guidelines for disclosures and complaints of reprisals at the same time as we were recruiting staff, setting up offices, and putting basic systems and processes into place. One unique challenge is that we're operating in a brand new field of law, with many unknowns. Each decision has the potential to be precedent-setting.
At the same time, the act in many ways prescribes very short deadlines during which decisions and reports have to be made. So in fact we had the dual task of creating the new organization and at the same time operating it.
Another challenge--and this was very important for our organization--was to design the right governance and accountability structures. We wanted to become a model in those same internal management accountability practices that we were created to promote and that we believe are essential for the whole public sector.
Certainly I must confess the experience has made me acutely aware of the unique challenges facing small organizations, which have the same reporting obligations as larger organizations but may not have the expertise or the capacity. Because we're a small organization and because there's a shortage of experts, we decided to use shared services for human resources, information technology, and financial services.
I'm very pleased to report that we did create the new organization. We staffed it with highly competent core people. We defined its mission and values and put management procedures into place, and we opened our doors for business in less than four months.
Having established who we are and what we do and confirming with this committee that we're now fully operational as Canada's newest agent to Parliament, I would like to now turn to the main estimates.
Our budget is $6.5 million. I believe this is adequate, at this stage, to meet our needs and build capacity. It is very difficult to estimate our workload. In the future, we will receive a number of requests for information, disclosures and complaints of reprisal.
From the outset, I realized that there was a great deal of confusion about our mandate, namely about what we are and what we are not. However, I plan, after our first three years of operation—our budget is allocated equally over the next three years—, to conduct a thorough analysis of the trends observed, to establish a business case for the future that is based on facts and experience and to provide a more accurate sense of the resources required.
It is truly an honour and a privilege to appear before you today. The responsibility given to me by Parliament is a very important one and I take it very seriously. I bring to the position not only my many years of experience as a public servant--more than 25 years--but also my deep and abiding respect for the public service and Parliament. I consider it an honour to be able to serve as Canada's first Commissioner of Public Service Integrity.
Madam Chair, I welcome your questions and those of the members.
