Thank you very much for invitation.
I'd like to introduce my colleagues France Duquette, deputy commissioner, and Éric Trottier, our chief financial officer.
Our office, Mr. Chair, was created in 2007 under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, as part of the federal government's accountability initiative. Our office provides a safe and confidential mechanism for public servants and members of the public to disclose wrongdoing committed in the public sector. We also work to protect from reprisal people who have disclosed—whistleblowers, that is—or people who have co-operated in investigations.
What I would like to underscore is that we are the external whistleblowing agency and that my position is that of an agent of Parliament, which ensures independence and neutrality in our work at all times.
Under the legislation, public servants are given the option to report wrongdoing internally or externally; that is, to their manager or to someone called a senior officer, which is an internal position required to be created in every department and agency. As well, they can use the external option, which is to come directly to my office. The choice is theirs.
The Treasury Board is responsible for the administration of the internal regime.
The Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada is often asked to speak of our ongoing investigations. Given the strict confidentiality provisions of the act, there to provide protections for all involved—the discloser, those participating as witnesses during an investigation, and the alleged wrongdoer or wrongdoers—we cannot confirm or deny the status of any file. We can and will only speak to those following the tabling in Parliament of a case report on a finding of wrongdoing.
Although we don't have jurisdiction over elected officials, we do examine any and all allegations and look at the actions and roles of public servants in the matter brought before us. Based on all the facts in a particular context, we then determine whether wrongdoing, as defined, was committed.
You invited me here today to speak about our priorities in delivering on the mandate I've just described. In order for us to do so, we generally maintain the same priorities from year to year.
They are to, first and foremost, ensure a sound management of our disclosure and reprisal regime that is timely, rigorous, independent and accessible.
Second, to foster a growing awareness and understanding of the whistleblowing regime.
And third, to ensure that the human resources capacity is in place to support those first two priorities.
In the past year, which was my first as the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, we completed what we called a lean organization and all-organization initiative and we looked at every step in our operational process and the role of every person in those processes to ensure effectiveness, and by that I mean decisions that are timely, clear, consistent, accurate, complete, and fair.
In the coming year our goal is not only to continue to look at our own operational processes and implement process solutions but to guide our internal process internally and also to provide clarity and transparency to potential whistleblowers and reprisal complainants. We believe that people who come to our office should have as clear an understanding as possible of how their files will be handled and what to expect when they come to us for assistance and support. It will be an open process.
I am proud of our team, who have demonstrated resilience and professionalism, recognizing opportunities to improve and address file management issues as needed.
In terms of our second priority, our outreach efforts are increasingly targeting middle and non-management federal public servants. We see an opportunity to expand there.
While whistleblowing is gradually becoming more accepted, the fear of reprisal remains a major obstacle. We found this with the second focus group initiative that we recently completed, the results of which we are sharing with our key stakeholders, including the Treasury Board and the office of the chief human resources officer. We are commissioning a research paper in this regard to contribute to our own understanding and to the whistleblowing literature in Canada and the world.
With respect to our operations, we're projecting total expenditures of $5.4 million in 2016-17. In future years we plan to fill all our positions, which is up to 30 FTEs, and to continue to support initiatives that support our priorities. To give you an idea of where we are at this current moment in terms of operations, we started 2016-17 with 73 active files, and as of this morning, we have 28 active investigations.
I am confident that we will continue to be able to manage within our budget in the present circumstances.
Mr. Chair, I look forward to answering any questions members may have.
