Government Operations Committee on March 26th, 2015

[Joe Friday]

The Auditor General's report, which is a matter of public record, is something that we would be more than happy to be judged against, or for there to be a further look into those issues if indeed they're still alive and still relevant.

From my own personal perspective, I feel we have moved beyond that and have quite a different organization in 2015 than we did in 2010, with a number of safeguards in place and a number of operational and management steps we have taken to assure, quite responsibly, I think, parliamentarians and Canadians that what may have happened in the past simply will not or cannot happen again, given the safeguards and the—

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Friday.

Thank you, Mr. Byrne.

Five minutes goes by quickly.

For the Conservatives, Mr. Guy Lauzon.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Mr. Friday, and congratulations on your nomination.

There was some talk about public servants, and I note that you have 22 years with the public service. I also had 22 years of service with the public service. I think I understand the machinations of the public service, because I served as a PSAC union president for five years and then spent 11 years in management. I think I have a feeling of both sides.

My experience has been both as both a union president and a manager, and as you said in your comments, the vast majority of public servants are people of integrity. They're there to do a good job. Sometimes there are misunderstandings, and there was some mention of a few complaints to your office. I think that speaks well to the system that the public service is governed by now with the Public Service Commission, with the various unions.

In my 22 years on both sides of the fence, I never experienced an issue that couldn't be resolved within the.... There was the odd case, especially on promotions where it would go to the appeal process through the Public Service Commission, but generally speaking most employees and most management were satisfied with the process in place. There is the odd example where some people don't feel comfortable in that system. I guess that's where, for example, if I didn't feel comfortable with the system that's in place, I could go to you if I thought somebody were treating me unfairly.

I just wanted to put that in context.

There were a couple of things you said in your opening comments that really impressed me. You talked about accessibility, clarity, and consistency. You also talked about an external advisory committee that started in 2011. I wonder if you could just give us some background on accessibility, clarity, and consistency, which are the principles that you operate by. Also, tell us how that external advisory committee works.

[Joe Friday]

Mr. Chair, with respect to the clarity, accessibility, and consistency, these are the hallmarks of my approach to working within PSIC and they will be the defining features of how I will lead PSIC should my nomination be approved.

I think I can sum it up by saying that if people are going to come to us, they have to know who we are, where we are, what is going to happen to them when they come to us, and they have to be kept advised of what is happening and have to understand our decisions after we make them. That goes to not only how we communicate our work but also to how we carry out our work. This is essential to every step in the case analysis and investigation process.

The link to the advisory committee is that if we have external perspectives from members of this committee.... I mentioned four unions and one organization of executives that is on the committee. We also have a law professor from the University of Ottawa on the committee; we have the administrator of the tribunal who is associated with our office on the committee; and we have representatives of the internal disclosure process. So we have two senior officers, as they're called, from two departments on our committee. For us to be able to discuss what we're doing, how we're doing it, what we're planning to do with these people and to get their perspective is a marvellous investment in both clarity and efficiency, and also consistency.

I will be the chair of this new committee. We'll be meeting for the first time under my chairmanship next month. and I would like to use this committee as a conduit to our core constituency, which is the public service.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you very much.

Chair, that summarizes everything that I could ever possibly ask of Mr. Friday.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you.

Mr. Lauzon, by a happy coincidence, your five minutes are up simultaneously to your exhausting your questions.

That concludes one round of questioning, by our accounting. We have time for one more round, and the NDP has expressed an interest in one more time slot.

I do have one question. I was involved in the early days from the creation of the office of the whistleblower with the Federal Accountability Act, and even earlier when we had a very high profile case when the former privacy commissioner himself had a whistleblower come to this committee and expose wrongdoing in that office.

There was expectation, I think, that when we finally beefed up the Office of the Integrity Commissioner through the Accountability Act, there would be a windfall of whistleblowers coming forward, that there would be a flurry of wrongdoing exposed in the public sector, but we really haven't see that. Either there isn't a great deal of wrongdoing going on or whistleblowers still don't feel confident that they can come forward and tell their story without fear of reprisal.

Briefly, in your opinion, which is it?

[Joe Friday]

Mr. Chair, I do think there is a great challenge facing our office and all of our colleagues' offices, whether in Canada or elsewhere, with respect to people feeling confident to come forward, feeling safe to come forward. That's why our communications, with respect to what we do and how we do it, will be a permanent challenge for us. It's difficult to accept, as someone who believes fully in the value of this regime and this system, but it's something that I can't deny. When I speak to people individually or in groups, it would be unusual for someone not to express some kind of concern.

What I would say about our act, and why I think this aspect is really of great international interest and a model that many other jurisdictions are looking to follow, is that one of the fundamental changes from the former Office of the Public Service Integrity Commissioner to the external agent of Parliament, the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, is that the legislation provides a discloser with the choice of what route to take. They can disclose to a supervisor; they can disclose internally, because each department must have its own internal system; or they can come externally to us.

In the previous system, one had to exhaust all internal options before going externally. I think the change in the legislation has been of remarkable importance. Having said that, it has not fully addressed the issue of fear and confidence—and I don't know if it's institutional culture or human nature—but it is something that we accept as a permanent feature of our professional landscape and something that we have to continue to address to the extent we can through our communications, through our decision-making process, and through the advisory committee that we just discussed, the importance of which I can't underscore enough.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Friday.

I don't want to take up too much time. I will just say that the terms “whistleblower” and “troublemaker” are still in a lot of people's minds, and whistleblowers might think they get marked with a stigma if there's not total anonymity associated with it, that it might interfere with their career ladder if they come forward and blow the whistle on any wrongdoing.

[Joe Friday]

Mr. Chair, if there's one thing I had the power to change, it would be those negative associations that attach to the word “whistleblower”. There's even debate as to whether or not we should be using the term. It's used internationally, and I personally use it. I believe there's no shame attached to the term, but I do recognize—

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

There are heros, sometimes.

[Joe Friday]

I do recognize that there are negative connotations or associations that are sometimes made with respect to loyalty, disloyalty, or dishonour. We say in our office that one of our challenges is to turn the perception of whistleblowing from an anti-social behaviour to a pro-social behaviour.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Excellent.

I won't take any more time. I apologize to the committee.

We have time for a five-minute round from the NDP and then we do have to deal with an item of business, as motion from this committee has to be reported to the House of Commons, so I will give Mathieu the floor.

Could keep it to five minutes or less, please, Mathieu?

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Yes.

You're right, Mr. Friday. This is about socially acceptable behaviour. Fundamentally, it's not about whistle-blowers. It's about keeping our government honest, and whistle-blowers do that. So they're essential to ensuring accountability and transparency in this country.

What we're not talking about, though it was suggested in the chair's comments, is that this is really about the fear of reprisals and whether or not the legislation is robust enough to protect whistle-blowers when they do come forward. You may be aware that I have tabled a bill on this that attempts to provide greater protection for whistle-blowers with regard to the delay for denouncing a reprisal in the workplace due to whistle-blowing. It's a 60-day limit right now. I am suggesting that it should take into consideration a yearly work evaluation cycle.

What do you think about that? Because if there are going to be reprisals, they would be at the next employee evaluation.

[Joe Friday]

Mr. Chair, first of all I would agree that the heart of any whistle-blowing regime is the protection against reprisal. One of the very difficult issues—and I alluded to it in my opening remarks—is that the subtler forms of reprisal are the most difficult to identify. When someone blows the whistle and then immediately something bad happens to them, the precision is almost mathematical.

I mentioned as well that we're looking at producing a suite of policies to guide us in being consistent and clear. The first policy we are working on and have almost completed is to provide some guidelines to the commissioner with respect to interpreting that 60 days. The law currently allows that 60-day period to be extended, taking into account the circumstances of the case, and as I speak we are working on internal guidelines to ensure that people are treated equitably.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

That's a step forward. Clarity needs to be sent to the public service about that when decisions are made. Hopefully that policy will be largely disseminated.

[Joe Friday]

My goal is not only to have these policies shared internally, of course, but also to have them shared externally as appropriate. That would allow people to understand what framework we bring to our work.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

The other issue I want to bring up is about trying to nab the perpetrators. When this happens, often your powers are limited with regard to where you can go to get the information. Sometimes the information is outside the public sector, when dealing with a contractor. Sometimes that's done on purpose, and you only have the mandate to look at people who are currently active in the public sector.

Do you feel you need to expand your power so you can go into the private sector or question somebody who is no longer in the public service, who has retired, to get to the bottom of certain issues?

[Joe Friday]

Mr. Chair, one of the recommendations for amending the legislation that I intend to propose is allowing our office—though we recognize there has to be some kind of reasonable limitation on our powers—to have access to information in the hands of the private sector.

Very often, as you point out, and I agree with you, that information is in the hands of a former public servant. Even if we could have access to the information in those hands, or have the ability to accept that information, not just to accept it if it's offered to us, but to actively seek information necessary for us to complete an investigation.... Fortunately, that has not posed a major practical hurdle for us to date. Quite frankly, given the amount of information available within the public sector, and the respect that all departments and public servants and deputy ministers have demonstrated when we investigate, information is shared with us in total without question. We have a marvellous level of cooperation, but yes, access outside the public sector would be an important amendment from my perspective.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Ravignat. Thank you very much, Mr. Friday.

No one else is on the speakers list, but Mr. Warkentin has asked for the floor.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Yes. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Friday, for coming. We appreciate your coming here and letting us grill you for a little while. It's probably one of the more difficult job interviews a person can undertake, as it's very public.

Mr. Chair, we on this side are satisfied with the qualifications and the competencies of Mr. Friday, and therefore I'm going to move a motion:

That the Chair report to the House that this Committee has examined the qualifications and the competencies of Mr. Joe Friday to the position of Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, and finds him competent to perform the duties of that position.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Warkentin. You have provided the chair with a copy of the motion. Are there any questions or any comments on the motion, or debate?

(Motion agreed to)

Therefore the chair will make a report to the House of Commons in 20 minutes or so that the committee has examined the qualifications and competencies of Mr. Joe Friday to the position of Public Sector Integrity Commissioner and finds him competent to perform the duties of the position.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. We will adjourn.