Government Operations Committee on Dec. 13th, 2011

[Mario Dion]

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-case basis. I don't care about percentages. We look at each and every case to determine whether it fits within the mandate. There are several cases that are rejected because they simply do not fit, and this doesn't apply to those cases.

We have to follow the law, essentially. Something has to be a wrongdoing as defined. Something has to be a reprisal as defined.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Perhaps I can ask another question then. How in these circumstances do we restore the faith of Canadians in your office?

[Mario Dion]

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.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

So you admit, Mr. Dion, that you've essentially inherited a broken system.

[Mario Dion]

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.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Could you expound on how?

[Mario Dion]

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 to tell them right from the first meeting if something does not fit within the act. You tell them right there, even before they table anything.

Our role is not to stop complaints. Our role is not to pursue a complaint that isn't valid. Our role is to make sure those complaints that are valid go forward.

We can make it work through tools and a practical approach. That's what I would foster. As well, there is education of a general nature for public servants and members of the public, with our limited means, where we explain the statute.

We're not the only avenue, by the way. There are a number of avenues, such as the Human Rights Commission, for instance, or the Public Service Labour Relations Board. My reading of many of the 228 files indicates this is a very complex web of redress mechanisms that people do not fully understand. We have to better educate, basically, on what it is, what it isn't, where to go, and how to do it, and do this in a practical fashion.

I don't have a desire to reject anything. I don't have a desire to organize something so it will go forward. I'm not an advocate. I'm supposed to be somebody who makes decisions as to whether something does or doesn't fit within the act.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You have about 40 seconds left, Mathieu.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Perhaps you can expound particularly with regard to what, at this time, will be the procedures put in place in order to look at what I would call the record of mismanagement when it comes to the Ouimet cases. How are you going to go forward practically to solve these cases?

[Mario Dion]

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 volumes of documentation on one of them.

We've done that. I think the so-called Ouimet era will be behind us within the next few months.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Your time is up, Mathieu. Thank you very much.

For the Conservatives, we have Bernard Trottier. You have five minutes, please, Bernard.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Dion, I also want to thank you for being here. I enjoyed listening to your frank and very clear responses. It is easy to see that you are more of a businessman than a bureaucrat.

I have some questions about your past experience. You have been the acting Public Sector Integrity Commissioner for a year now. Before holding that position, you had more than 30 years' experience in the public sector.

Would you say that despite your experience in the public sector, you are capable of distancing yourself enough from wrongdoing committed within the public sector?

[Mario Dion]

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 understand what it means to be independent and the need to be impartial. I think the time I spent in the 8 or 10 different places I have worked in over the course of 30 years gives me a good idea of the operations, the way of thinking and the culture of the public service. Nonetheless, I cannot speak to the rest of the public sector, because I have never worked outside the public service.

I know how the different levels of management operate, act and see things. I have quite a bit of experience with that. I started as a student and then I had an LA-01 position, a position for lawyers just starting out and I worked my way up to deputy minister, or DM-02. I have seen how DGs and ADMs approach things at different times and in different departments. When we are talking about reprisals, it is helpful to recognize certain behaviours. I have seen a lot in my experience. Sometimes there are subtle ways of taking retaliatory measures. I have seen it all before, which allows me to recognize and understand the modus operandi of someone who has decided to do something wrong.

This also allows me to understand financial controls. I was responsible for human and financial resources at the Department of Justice. Understanding public financial management and human resource management is important when it comes to dealing with wrongdoing. I spent several years doing that.

I have benefited from my knowledge while being very careful to maintain real independence, real objectivity and the appearance of objectivity. I was twice appointed acting commissioner for six months each time. There were three occasions when I indicated that I could not handle a particular file out of concern for the appearance of partiality based on the fact that I knew the “accused”. I made it clear from the outset that I would not be touching the file, that I had no opinion and that the deputy commissioner would deal with it. That will be my approach in the future as well.

Obviously I know people. The circle of friends is more limited than you might think, even as a senior public servant. The circle is getting smaller with people leaving on retirement. My contemporaries are starting to retire.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Outside of that, Mr. Dion, would you say that your opinions on the public service, and your office in particular, have changed over the past 12 months?

[Mario Dion]

It has not really changed. As I said last night before the Senate in committee of the whole, I have see the entire workload. There are all sorts of files. There are small files, large files, files to do with human resources, financial files, etc. There is a range of behaviours and situations.

We have to remember that there are 400,000 people in the federal public service. I am not surprised in the least that we have 115 files. My opinion of the public service is no more negative than it was 12 months ago. The situation is normal for such a large public sector.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Would you say the public sector is changing and that people are more and more comfortable with the disclosure process when they know how it works?

[Mario Dion]

When it comes to the legal aspect, we are not the only option. In every department, there is a senior officer appointed by the deputy minister to handle these cases. When individuals want to disclose what they consider to be wrongdoing, an act that they witnessed, they can disclose it to their supervisor, as stipulated under the act, to the senior officer at the department or agency or to our office.

Every year, for the past four or five years, the Treasury Board tables a report on the disclosures within the departments and agencies. The numbers are going up. People are starting to become familiar the legislation. It has been only four years. There has been change, but the legislation is far from achieving its full potential.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Bernard. Your time has expired.

Thank you, Mr. Dion.

For the Liberals, John McCallum. You have five minutes, John.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming this afternoon, Mr. Dion.

I understand that at the Senate last night you were asked about potential conflicts of interest--you have friends and associates in the public service--and you said you would very clearly take action to prevent even the appearance of any such conflict.

I notice that you also spent some time working at Sussex Circle. I don't know if you think there is a potential there, among either former colleagues or clients, but what would be your attitude to potential conflicts of interest arising from that period of your career?

[Mario Dion]

That period of my career was a total of 18 months. I think it's important to understand that it was only 18 months. I think I carried out two projects under the aegis of the Sussex Circle. They were two short-term projects of ten days each with two clients.

Of course I have to include that one of the things I said right in December 2010 was that we needed a firm to do the individual files. I said that Sussex was obviously out of the question.

We went through a competitive process, and we called on forensic auditing firms to do it. The morning of my appointment, December 14, I resigned, of course, from the Sussex Circle, and I will continue to exercise prudence vis-à-vis any involvement directly or indirectly with former clients or with the Sussex Circle.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

This is not your fault at all, but the Auditor General mentioned that it was a fairly substantial problem in the act that you aren't allowed to talk to people outside the public sector. In terms of the reputation or the limited number of cases that you've produced, is this inability to speak to people in the private sector a major factor? Would it impede your investigations in 10%, one third, or two thirds of the cases? How important is that?

[Mario Dion]

Off the top—I did not do an analysis whatsoever—I would say it would be 10%.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, sir.

[Mario Dion]

I'm very concerned with the fact that in several files I had the distinct impression that somebody was able to evade the situation simply by taking their retirement, by leaving the public sector.

In one case we even had a person who went to a satellite, publicly funded organization outside the public sector and then became untouchable. I have no evidence that they did it voluntarily, but I know that they became untouchable through an action on their part after a complaint had been launched.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

That sounds like a problem.