Evidence of meeting #162 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pco.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you for that.
I think you were here roughly a year ago. Regarding the case flow over that year, how's the environment looking? You mentioned that you've had three conciliations.
4:30 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
In total, since the office was created 11 years ago, we have had a total of 16 conciliations. Three of those were last year.
Every conciliation is one less file that goes before a formal tribunal. I've said to this committee before that I refuse to take that as a failure. I take it as a great success that we've allowed people to resolve a reprisal issue and get on with their lives and with their careers.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Right.
Without telling any information that you're unable to tell, what's the nature of the cases or the situations where a conciliation seems to be more appropriate than others? Are you able to predict that from the intake? Are there some characteristics they share?
4:30 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
We're actually very sensitive to the wishes and the choice of the parties involved.
We do advise all parties during the course of an investigation. The only way to have a conciliation under my act is if we believe there is sufficient information to actually launch an investigation. Once we launch an investigation, we advise parties from the get-go of the availability of conciliation. We've had 18 in total. Sixteen have been successful; two have not. In those cases, they just go back into the investigation process.
Perhaps to draw a picture as clearly as I can—given the limitations on sharing certain confidential information—the majority of reprisal complaints that we get are complaints of demotion of termination. They are generally quite serious matters.
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
In my office, we pay for the conciliators so the parties don't have to cover that cost. We don't participate in the conciliation, but I have the rather unusual authority under my legislation to approve a conciliation agreement after it's reached. I look at it to make sure that it was not arrived at under duress, and that the parties had access to independent advice, for example, legal or otherwise, and—
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Unfortunately, Mr. Friday, we'll have to stop it there.
We'll go on to our next intervention with Mr. McCauley, please, for seven minutes.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Thank you.
Welcome back, everyone. Ms. Fox reminded us that last time she was here we had a fire alarm, so hopefully we won't have one today and be out in the cold.
Mr. Friday, you were sitting in earlier when I was asking Mr. Borbey about people within in the public service who are afraid to come forward. I'm wondering about your thoughts on a slight increase, but still an increase from last year, the year before and the year before that, in terms of people stating that they were afraid to come forward for fear of retribution.
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Mr. Chair, I would be the first to acknowledge that it is a very difficult and courageous thing for someone to come forward with a disclosure of wrongdoing—
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
—in any context. I don't believe it's confined to the public sector. It's a very difficult thing. The research paper we published at the end of 2016, “The Sound of Silence”, highlighted the two major fears. The first is a fear of reprisal and the second is—I don't know if you'd call it a fear—a concern that “nothing is going to be done anyway, so why should I bother?”, given the risks involved.
My views are that it is very difficult, that it takes more than an office of 35 people to change the culture of a 400,000-member public service and that it requires efforts at all levels in all organizations at all times.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I'm glad you brought up the bit about people feeling that they wouldn't make a difference. Fifty-six per cent of those harassed said that they didn't feel the report would make difference. On discrimination, 47% were afraid to come forward and two-thirds said it wouldn't make a difference anyway.
There was a question to you earlier from the other side about what you're doing to improve, but how much of what needs to be done is going to require legislative changes like those you suggested earlier and like those that were brought forward in the whistle-blower report done by this committee?
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
Certainly some of the major changes that I would like to see, and that I think would bring us in line with some of the best practices internationally, would require a legislative change. For example, the reversal of the burden of truth at the tribunal I think is of fundamental importance. That would require a legislative change. Increasing the penalties or increasing the remedies, the dollar amounts, would require a legislative change, because some of those issues are specifically limited in the legislation.
There certainly is an onus on me and on everyone associated with the internal whistle-blowing regime to explore all the flexibilities that currently exist in the law, as I said earlier, and those efforts are certainly being taken by my office. I hope they're being taken throughout the system. I don't have jurisdiction or any direct control over the internal system, but certainly from the external perspective, we are exploring flexibility. I want to avoid the word “stretching”, but....
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I bring that up because.... I'll be honest. I don't think it's any surprise to anyone on this committee that the previous Treasury Board president and I did not see eye to eye on the whistle-blowing. We asked him to come back, he agreed and then, frankly, refused to come back to discuss the whistle-blowing report. He would say—
4:35 p.m.
An hon. member
[Inaudible—Editor]
4:35 p.m.
Kelly McCauley.
No, that was last summer, thank you.
He would continually say, “We're meeting with unions, we're doing this, we're making great strides”.
Have you seen any visible improvement in or a change of legislation or laws to properly protect whistle-blowers to bring us up to best practices of other countries and jurisdictions?
4:40 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
I would say that I am seeing—and this is reflected in some focus group testing that we did in 2014 and I believe 2016—I think a general increase in acknowledgement of the importance of whistle-blowing. I think that's a societal change. Social forces such as the #MeToo movement, for example, are bringing a lot of attention to bear on the importance of this and the ability to speak up and to speak out. I think that generally speaking there is less negative association with the term whistle-blower and the act of whistle-blowing, which is very important. I would certainly like to see—
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
4:40 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
—the traction we're seeing socially could be really taken advantage of with legislative change. As I say, I remain very hopeful that those changes will occur.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
With the results that did come out, what is the next step? We obviously need a legislative change, but it's not coming any time soon, apparently. What is the next step with all these departments where people quite loudly have stated—almost 50% have stated—they are afraid to come forward, and then anywhere from 50% to two-thirds are asking what's the point of coming forward?
How do we address that internally if we're not given the legislative tools?
4:40 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
I think it ultimately comes to a question of leadership in organizations. I know it sounds like a cliché, but the tone truly is set from the top. I think it is incumbent upon every chief executive in the system to demonstrate that they take whistle-blowing seriously and that when something is brought forward and a finding occurs, something is actually done.
I had an interview two weeks ago with Radio-Canada. The journalist was looking at the case reports from our office, which I'm very happy to say are detailed, in which we identify situations and names. He looked at the reports under our legislation for the internal system. Sometimes the report is two sentences; sometimes it's a paragraph. I think some consistency in that regard would be helpful, and I would ask Treasury Board for support in that regard, because I can't change the internal system.
I think change may have to be incremental, but I do have optimism that change is occurring.