We in fact have talked to departments. There was actually another case in the PCO. A young recruit who came into the PCO had a Facebook page.... This is in the context of a Supreme Court decision you'll remember, which said that public servants do have political rights and do have the right to express political views, but they must do it in such a way so as not to compromise the non-partisan nature of the public service.
So you have a young individual who has political views coming into the public service, and he tells the people who hire him. They tell him nothing. They say nothing to him. They don't caution him or warn him. He puts up his Facebook page. He makes all kinds of political statements. He sends it to a friend. The friend sends it to a friend, and that friend sends it to someone who is not a friend, and it becomes a big political issue. The individual was embarrassed beyond belief.
My criticism in this case was not so much of the young individual, the new recruit, but very much of the department. When they were bringing this person in and when he said he was politically active, they didn't take him aside to say, “Do you realize the kinds of restrictions you have in the public service?” They didn't say that he has rights, but that he must never exercise them in such a way that it will compromise the public service. At the end of the day, a public servant must be able to serve any political party, and the political party must have confidence in the public service.