Government Operations Committee on April 28th, 2015

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We'll convene our meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates to deal with the estimates referred to our committee.

We're very pleased to have as our first witness someone who is no stranger to this committee, but almost a frequent flyer here, Mr. Joe Friday, the Commissioner of the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada.

Mr. Friday, we'll invite you to make a few opening remarks and then we'll open it up to the floor for questions.

[Joe Friday, Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to committee members.

Thank you for inviting me to speak to the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner's 2015-16 main estimates and our reports on plans and priorities. I might add that it's a pleasure to appear before your committee again, following my nomination appearance almost a month ago to the day.

Our priorities for 2015-2016 are the following: first, ensuring a sound management of our disclosure and reprisal regime—timely, rigorous and accessible; second, fostering a growing awareness and understanding of the regime; and third, ensuring the human resources capacity is in place to support those first two priorities.

The way in which we manage cases at the office has evolved over the last eight years, after treating more than 800 files. The office has improved the quality and efficiency of delivering its program by refining and standardizing processes, developing service standards, and seeking feedback from stakeholders.

Looking forward, in order to provide clear guidance for staff and for people who come forward to our office with a disclosure of wrongdoing or a complaint of reprisal, we will continue to update and to publicize as appropriate our policies and procedures based on our ongoing experiences in applying and interpreting the act.

The office will continue to evaluate affordable technology and systems that will support the operations, such as the cross-government shared case management system initiative. In addition, the office continues to consider proposed amendments to the act that would improve the application of the PSPDA.

These priorities are consistent with the guiding principles that I defined during my nomination hearing before this committee last month: accessibility, clarity and consistency.

Awareness activities have over the last number of years been aimed at management across the organizations to which the act applies. It's a priority to evaluate and implement new approaches to reach a broader section of public servants, which encompasses those working at all levels of federal departments and federal agencies, as well as parent crown corporations.

Our third priority relates to staffing and retention. It's a unique challenge in small organizations and, as I also mentioned in my recent appearance, it's an ongoing challenge. We have a number of planned staffing activities and strategies currently underway, including the re-establishment of qualified pools for key positions within our organization.

In establishing these plans and priorities, we started last fall with a risk evaluation process. The process engaged management staff and our audit and evaluation committee. The same assessment was used by our office to develop a three-year strategic plan and then was used as the basis for establishing operational work plans. I'd like to say that this approach to planning builds partnerships and mobilizes staff toward developing and achieving common objectives. It was part of the process in preparing the 2015-16 report on plans and priorities that we're here to discuss today.

The office is projecting a constant level of spending from 2015-16 through to 2017-18 of $5.4 million, of which $3.7 million is for personnel costs. Of the total, 62% of expenditures are planned for the disclosure and reprisal program—that's our core mandate—and the balance is for what we have described as internal services.

PSIC has started 2015-2016 with 55 active files, of which 16 are investigations underway. Last year, the number of new files was comparable with activity levels in recent years.

While we don't control the number, the type, or the complexity of the disclosures and reprisal files we receive, we do monitor our workload closely and plan our resource expenditures accordingly to the extent possible. I'm confident we're able to manage within our budget at the present time and in the present circumstances.

Mr. Chair, I am also confident of our capacity to meet the challenges ahead. I look forward to keeping you and your fellow committee members advised of our continuing progress in this regard.

I would be pleased to answer any questions or provide details on our office.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Friday, for those very concise but information-packed remarks. It leaves us adequate time for a number of rounds of questioning. I'm glad that you're here today, and I should have mentioned it during my opening remarks that your speaking to the reports on plans and priorities at the same time as you're speaking to the main estimates is very useful to us as a committee. That was one of the recommendations of the committee in our own study. In the the analysis of estimates, its' very useful.

We'll begin with the official opposition, with Mr. Denis Blanchette.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our guests for joining us.

Here is what I find surprising. You are saying that you will have the same budget over three years, but you are also saying you want to make sure the staff is very aware of your presence and your services.

If your awareness-raising efforts were to bear fruit—in other words, if public servants became aware of your presence and the number of cases reached a certain maturity—that number would surely increase. I think you yourself actually included that in your risks, given the small size of your organization.

Under such circumstances, what would you do—and I am excluding the accumulated backlog in the processing of complaints—to effectively meet your mandate?

[Joe Friday]

Thank you.

For us, the challenge of raising public servants' awareness is really a permanent one. Despite our ongoing efforts to improve our communications and our awareness-raising measures, I think our workload is now fairly stable. For instance, we sent a video to the entire public service. I think that we are very sensitive to changes in our workload and that we have the flexibility we need to respond to an increase in the reporting of reprisals. We need to put in a fairly determined effort to remain focused on our applications for disclosure of wrongdoing and respond to them.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

However, you did say that your main risk factor was an increase in the number of cases.

Do you think the number of cases generated by the machinery of government has reached a certain maturity? In other words, have you reached a plateau that will not be exceeded or do you think the office is not quite well enough known and that additional cases might increase your small team's workload?

[Joe Friday]

I think there is a balance between the two possibilities or challenges. It is clear to me that our challenge is to make ourselves better known to our stakeholders. That being said, we have enough experience to manage our human resources in order to adequately respond to requests.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

In terms of budget, will the office's promotion efforts be maintained or increased over the next few years, or will they be fairly stable? What are the budgetary implications of promoting the office's mandate?

[Joe Friday]

We have a three-person team and a strategic communication plan, so as to use our resources adequately and throughly. For example, we are currently looking at some very affordable and effective options such as using social media, improving our website, creating another video, using electronic communication tools, and so on.

We remain focused on raising awareness. That's a permanent challenge for us and for our provincial and international counterparts.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I'll have to stop you there, Mr. Friday.

Thank you, Mr. Blanchette. Five minutes go by very quickly when it's for the question and the answer. If we can keep both fairly concise, we'll get more people in.

For the Conservatives, then, Mr. Chris Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Friday, thanks so much for being with us again. We appreciate it every time you do take time out of your busy schedule to come.

I think I have generally enough information with regard to the estimates in general and I appreciate the fact that you have disclosed and made it clear as to where the money goes. However, I want to drill down a little bit in terms of the process, in terms of allocating resources and different things within your office.

You're responsible for the oversight of departmental work that happens within departments. Are you also responsible for crown corporations?

[Joe Friday]

Our jurisdiction extends to parent crown corporations, so the total population, if you will, of our constituency is somewhere between 375,000 and 400,000 civil servants.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Right.

I had the opportunity to work with a constituent who had concerns regarding a crown corporation once. The issue was resolved with the help of the office prior to your taking over, but it created for me some questions as to just what the process looks like.

Obviously, there will be complaints that come to your office from time to time with a range of allegations, some with regard to behaviour within an office, some with regard to ethical issues, and some possibly with regard to criminal wrongdoing. Obviously, within that there would be other organizations, I suspect, that you would work with—possibly the Auditor General—if it were ever seen to be a systematic defrauding of taxpayers' dollars. The other would obviously be criminal justice organizations, such as the RCMP or police forces in some cases.

Could you explain to me how the process unfolds? Obviously, you wouldn't be left to conduct investigations of wrongdoing if they got so complex, or if they went into the area of criminal wrongdoing. Is that the case? Would you do a cursory assessment and then pass it on? How would that work?

[Joe Friday]

If during the course of an investigation into an allegation of wrongdoing we determine there may be a criminal violation or criminal activity involved, we have express authorization under our legislation to refer that portion of the investigation to the relevant police force or the office of the Attorney General of Canada, and we have done that on occasion.

We then continue to investigate the rest of the allegations if, indeed, they stand alone and can be investigated as wrongdoing. That has happened and we actually have a protocol in place for the referral of matters to the appropriate police force.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

The reason I bring this up is simply that it would seem to me that some of those investigations would be very complex and expensive, if in fact you were responsible for undertaking the entire scope of the investigation. But I'm hearing from you that you continue the investigation as it relates to the wrongdoing in terms of, I suspect, the elements that are not criminal.

[Joe Friday]

Yes.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Obviously the criminal allegations, and then of course the subsequent finding of guilt or innocence, would have an impact on your findings as well, but you wouldn't be left to fund the entire examination or the entire investigation.

[Joe Friday]

No, we would not be, and we're very cognizant of the fact that Parliament did not create our office as a new police force. We respect the specific jurisdiction of the police and the different kind of investigation that is required, including a different standard of proof, a burden of proof, between an administrative investigative body such as ours and a criminal investigative body such as the police.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I appreciate that, and that alleviates some of the concerns I have with the possibility that a budget could be completely thrown into chaos if you were responsible. When we've looked at criminal investigations my understanding is some of these investigations can be very expensive.

[Joe Friday]

And some administrative investigations can be very ongoing and long. I can think of one investigation for which we have four shelves of boxes of documents for one allegation of wrongdoing in our office. They can become very complex, and they vary from one case to another.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

In cases like that, would you hire outside investigators to supplement your internal investigation?

[Joe Friday]

Under our legislation we have express authority to contract for services to assist us if needed. We have used that to get expert advice and expert counsel, if and when necessary. We've also put in place a standing offer for external investigative services. That's a group of outside investigative services that we have opened to other departments as well so they can benefit when they're doing their internal investigations, because we of course are the external investigators, but a wrongdoing can also be disclosed internally and investigated without our involvement.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Warkentin, you're well over your time.

Thank you, Mr. Friday.

Next we'll go to the NDP, Mr. Tarik Brahmi.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Friday, I would like to focus a bit on the technological aspect of your organization. I assume this refers to the first priority you set out—ensuring a sound management of the disclosure and reprisal regime. Regarding that first priority, you talked about refining and standardizing processes in terms of service standards, and about improving the feedback you receive.

What kind of technology are you using? Is there software that helps you monitor those two aspects—service standards and feedback? Will it change over the next few years?

[Joe Friday]

We have used technological tools to conduct focus group testing. That's a national initiative. We are currently looking into the possibility of making an online form available to people who want to disclose or complain in order to simplify the process for registering a complaint or disclosing alleged wrongdoings.

For instance, we have established an external committee. I just held that committee's first meeting as commissioner. We used technological tools to include representatives from across the country.