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.