Government Operations Committee on April 26th, 2018

[Joe Friday]

As our past financial reporting has indicated, we have been lapsing funds since the first year of our existence, so the coming year we will be hitting the wall. What happens if we get a continued increase in disclosures or reprisal complaints remains to be seen. At this point we're projecting that we have just enough to do my job under the current legislation.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Right, including the extra hiring you're going to do.

[Joe Friday]

Including the extra hiring, which will be investigative case analysts and a lawyer.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

On the departmental plan for innovation, you said there were some efficiencies that you're trying to achieve there. Is that through software, or through other—

[Joe Friday]

We're doing quite a major reassessment of our case management system, for example.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Joe Friday]

And, boy, does technology cost.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. McCauley, seven minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Gentlemen, welcome back. It's good to have you.

Mr. Friday, thank you again for bringing up your recommendations for the whistle-blowers. A lot of them were incorporated in our final result and report, which unfortunately was promptly binned by the government, thrown in the garbage, and not acted upon.

The government responded with a simple letter saying, we're going to consult this and that. Were any actual changes made to how you operate based on the substantive report that this committee came up with unanimously?

[Joe Friday]

The short answer is no. The proposals we made all required legislative change for us to be able to implement. I can't do certain things if the law does not allow me to do it: for example, to increase the amount available to someone for pain and suffering from $10,000.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

As well, I think the legal support is frozen at $1,500, which is five hours of a good lawyer. When we're talking protecting people's lives, it's certainly not sufficient.

[Joe Friday]

Yes. I believe that to be unrealistic.

As I understand it, the government response dealt exclusively with the internal system, the internal whistle-blowing system, of which I'm not part. I think that was out of respect for and in deference to my status as an independent agent of Parliament.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It might be a tough question, but if the recommendations put forward in the unanimous report were put into effect, how much more would you require in terms of resources? Again, it's tough to look into the future, but would it be a 10%, 15%, or 20% bump?

[Joe Friday]

It certainly would be difficult to say, but I think we would be looking at potentially a considerable increase, at least a 20% to 25% increase in budget.

For example, if the legal advice limit was put up to $5,000, that would be relatively considerable, given that our overall budget is only $5.5 million.

While the government response spoke to the internal system, for which I'm not responsible, I still believe that changes to, for example, awareness and increased communication about the internal regime, and the external regime as well, would be very helpful.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

How much work are you doing in that role? You talked about the need to reach out to the civil servants and promote your services. This did come up in the study, and the answer was very disappointing, not from you but the lady we were chatting with.

Under the act, it's a responsibility of the Treasury Board Secretariat and the head of HR for that. She basically told this committee they don't like to do that. They leave it to someone else and really don't follow up.

How much work are you doing to fill in for that department not doing what its job is under the act? It's a great concern that we have 250,000 public servants who might not be aware of their rights or the protection that's afforded to them because the Treasury Board has said, “Well, the departments will look after that; we're not going to follow up on it.” That forces you to do their job for them.

[Joe Friday]

Out of a team of 30 people in my office, we had until very recently three people, so 10% of my team, working exclusively on communications outreach and parliamentary relations.

Last year, we distributed 9,392 communications products ourselves. Those are things that we produced. We've produced and are soon going to be posting a new video outreach to all public servants and members of the public. We had almost 50,000 hits last year on our website alone. Those are not repeat visitors; there were 50,000 unique visitors.

It's a big concern for us.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Since our study, have you seen Treasury Board step up to do its job as required under the act, or is it still lying low and sloughing off the responsibility on you?

Again, it's a great concern, because $5.5 million is not a lot of resources to protect so many people, and at the same time, your resource is being dragged away to do the job of another department, the Treasury Board's job, basically.

[Joe Friday]

I'm not aware personally of any new initiatives by the Treasury Board to increase outreach or awareness. I can say, for example, with the public service survey, I reached out to the chief human resources officer in the hope of being able to someday get a question specifically about whistle-blowing in the survey, because the one about reprisal is generally about retaliation, not reprisal under our act.

While there is no question in that regard, the response was very positive, and we've identified people from our respective offices who will take that further.

There are appropriate levels of communication going on, but since I'm responsible for the external program, I'm not a necessary player in discussing the internal program. I have indicated to Treasury Board, and Treasury Board has indicated its understanding of, my absolute undying willingness to be consulted on anything that we can work together on or that we can move forward on.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I appreciate the work you are doing in reaching out to the employees and filling the void again where Treasury Board is clearly not doing their job as defined in the whistle-blower act itself. I very much appreciate your comments.

I'm done with my questions. I would like, however, to introduce one of the motions that I have on the table, which we put in on April 19, 2018.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We should probably consult with the clerk to make sure that everything is in order.

Okay, go ahead, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

The motion is:

That the Committee hold a briefing with the Privacy Commissioner, officials, and experts to discuss the Government of Canada's advertising policy and practice with digital platforms like Facebook and the collection of analytic data from these advertisements that can be used by staff and other political actors at the expense of the Canadian taxpayer, and that the meeting be held no later than November 30, 2018.

I moved the motion previously, and I'm just moving it again. I think it is important for to us. I'm not going to debate or anything, but it is important for us to study this, given its effect on taxpayers. For expediency's sake, I'd like to move to an immediate vote on the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Do I have the general concurrence of the committee to have an immediate vote on this?

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

You submitted that before, and you say November 30, 2018.

Why don't we put it to the subcommittee to discuss it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. McCauley's request was to have a vote on this particular motion now, so to accommodate that request, all in favour of the motion, please so indicate.

(Motion negatived)