Government Operations Committee on Feb. 16th, 2017

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

I'll start. We have created a commissioner's and a CO's commendation for individuals who show integrity and professionalism. We haven't nominated anybody or appointed that yet. There are individuals who have come forward with things that have been recognized, but none come to mind immediately.

[Marc Thibodeau]

I'll also add that we recognize people who display that kind of ethical behaviour. Right now there are no examples that come to mind.

[Joanne Renaud]

I have no example, either—sorry. Concerning confidentiality, it's always a delicate balance, which we need to consider as well. When we deal with the people individually, we make sure that we recognize the fact that it took courage and that we are going to work with them in that neutral context.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

One of the concerns our committee has is whether departments and agencies have the capacity to really follow up on disclosures in a proper way. Often, administering the act is a very small part of someone's overall responsibilities. Many people might not have the investigative training to really pursue these cases. Given that the three of you come from investigative organizations, I wonder if you could speak to that and how you think other departments that may lack that skill set could improve the way they investigate cases.

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

Within the RCMP, the PSDPA office is ensconced within the professional responsibility sector, which includes conduct, grievance recourse, adjudications, professional ethics, and human rights. I have a pretty good investigative capacity. I have a workplace responsibility support unit, which is a team of investigators that can be assigned to these files. Historically, we've been ad hoc, to the extent that you can't predict what skill sets you're going to need besides investigative abilities. It could be finances, it could be human resources, or it could be procurement. I think it's fair to say that we've pulled in different resources when we've needed them.

In terms of other agencies, I can't really speak for them. I know we'd be open to assisting them if we had to, and we've had some dialogue with other agencies where necessary.

[Marc Thibodeau]

Thank you.

From a Canada Border Services Agency's perspective, we have a team in the internal disclosure office with two former PSAC employees who have had the training. From that perspective, we feel that we're well covered. We also have professional conduct, professional standards investigations that are available internally to the organization—not to my team, but to the organizations—which are available should there be a need.

We've also used external resources where that was appropriate in terms of volume or, primarily, where we had individuals come on board and do those services. If I have required further technical expertise, there are some elements of that nature that could be covered, for example, forensic accounting, if that were becoming an issue. We feel well equipped. Other government agencies would probably want to articulate and focus on the investigative skills, the skill set, that is available in many places.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay.

[Joanne Renaud]

I agree. In our case, we also have different skill sets. When it relates to a disclosure of wrongdoing investigation, there's only the manager of the ethics office, who is also looking at and working on the disclosure of internal wrongdoing, or me. We are a small organization, so we're not facing that many cases.

If we were facing cases that required more expertise than we had on-site, we would look at getting outside consulting help. We also have access also to certified fraud examiners and different types of people, depending on what the situations are. We do adjust based on that. We make sure that we keep developing and doing continuous training, as well.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Sure.

I have the privilege of representing the RCMP Depot, and our chair used to represent that facility, so I know that we're very proud of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I want to ask specifically whether you think it makes sense for RCMP officers to be subject to the act or whether you think it would be better to have something like National Defence has, where members of the Canadian Forces are subject to a similar but separate regime for whistle-blowing?

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

The policy decision on that was made when the PSDPA was created, and we were included. In our present circumstances, I think we could present a very reliable and defendable process that's separate from the PSDPA. I think, given recent history, I wouldn't be proposing any major changes in that regard, because we need to ensure that we have the confidence of employees.

To go back to my earlier comment, I don't want to make it sound like.... You know, there's that small percentage who are never going to come forward with complaints. You have to get the large proportion. They have to have the confidence that they're going to do that. I guess the backstop is that OPSIC is available to those employees who aren't satisfied.

Furthermore, we have external bodies such as the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, which has a piece of our work that could be internal matters. There's the External Review Committee, which also has a piece. There are a number of external bodies that have jurisdiction over various aspects.

So the policy decision, as I see it, has been made, but it causes difficulties. If you read the act, you'll see we have a stop time here; then we have to start it. There are certain things you can do; other things you can't do. I think it would be more seamless if it were an external process under which we managed it. But there would be critics of that approach, because they would not see it as having the externality they would like to see.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Our final intervention will come from Madame Shanahan.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you all for being with us here this morning.

It's very interesting to hear from so many different agencies about something that is very critical to the well-being, productivity, and overall performance of your various agencies. Thank you very much for sharing that information with us.

My concern comes back to the size of the funnel. When we look at the numbers, it almost seems that, regardless of the pool of employees we're drawing on, that funnel seems to be relatively small. We're getting closer to saying why that is, but I'd still like to explore a bit further.

Mr. Thibodeau, in your case it's 93 allegations that came in, and you talked to us about why that was—that they came from two different individuals. I'm sure you can expand on that a little more.

Still, when the focus is on individuals, one almost thinks that there is a certain type of individual who will come forward, but many more who will not. It's almost as though where there's smoke there's fire. Can we say that there are some systemic problems going on? I don't even want to go as far as pointing to wrongdoing as defined in the act, but what I like to see is that there are many allegations incoming and that measures are being taken to refer them or to take corrective action, and so on.

Could you speak a little bit more to the situation at border services?

[Marc Thibodeau]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chair.

In my comments I spoke about the integrity strategy that we've articulated and developed to address some of our objectives concerning integrity in the workplace. The three pillars were about proactivity, there being no wrong door, and also about leaving no stone unturned.

When we see an intake of complaints coming from a specific area or about a specific issue, without compromising the confidentiality of the process it raises a flag. We look at all of our organizations from this perspective.

We make sure that those trends or flags that are coming up are pursued, whether within the PSDPA context or through other means. “Other means” may be from a proactive perspective whereby we will go to talk to the employees.

One of our most prevalent tools is to go with the ICMS to take the pulse, to do surveys, or to do what's called “workplace assessment”, which is trying to find out what's going on from a climate perspective, and identify issues and the cause of those issues in order to implement solutions.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

May I ask, are these the 23 that were referred to “other processes”?

[Marc Thibodeau]

Those 23 could be referred to either ICMS—the informal conflict procedure—or could have been referred to the grievance procedure or to other procedures: the harassment procedure, grievances, consultation, or a discussion with the manager.

What I'm talking about is that once we've identified an issue, it doesn't matter where it's coming from. From the standpoint of proactivity, and our leaving no stone unturned and having a “no wrong door” approach, we're making sure that once we're aware of an issue, we address it. We go; we pursue it. We find out, first of all, the legitimacy of the issue; then what the cause is; what the solution is; and then we implement a solution.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Let me ask again, Mr. Thibodeau. Out of the 70 allegations that were not acted upon, one employee seized upon the disclosure process. Was nothing done after that?

Then 46 did not meet the threshold for investigation under the act. Can you tell us whether they were investigated otherwise? Were there avenues that could have been used for those investigations?

[Marc Thibodeau]

If there were other avenues that could have been used, they would have been discussed with the individuals. Informal conflict resolution or informal discussions would have been offered to the individual. At the end of the day, an informal process is voluntary and we need to have all the parties involved.

In the 46 cases that didn't meet the threshold for investigation under the act, it would have been the difference, for example, between the...and it didn't show because they.... Let me go back. The 61 allegations that we received were received at the end of the fiscal cycle, so they were reported as being open. We retained 16 allegations out of those 61. The difference between the 61 and the 16, which is 45, would show up as not meeting the threshold.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

You know, the numbers are important, but they're not giving us the whole story.

Mr. MacMillan, you mentioned that you had other reporting procedures too. It seemed like the funnel was opening up quite a bit more in the RCMP. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have one minute, sir.

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

You know, in my job I thought I'd seen it all, but there's stuff I just couldn't make up. I just couldn't, when I see some of the things our employees get involved in—and it's not a huge proportion, but less than half a percent year to year. That's talking the big funnel. Maybe it's misconduct, maybe it's PSDPA, maybe it's harassment, maybe it's other things.

Where I'm comfortable is that the processes are available on the front end, where it's a big funnel. Whether you're going to get through whichever spout it is in that funnel, into PSDPA or other things, I was just refreshing my memory on the definition of “wrongdoing”. To me, PSDPA is to deal with the more serious matters. A complaint of harassment can be PSDPA, but not every one of them is. It depends on the circumstances. They're very fact-specific.

So the numbers are not high, but I don't know of any jurisdiction with high numbers. There's lots of research and discussion around it. As I say, to me it's whether the legal architecture is in place. I think it's there. It might need some tweaking, but it's about whether you can impact the climate. Right now I do know, from a professionalism study done by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police in 2012, that 78% of my regular members had a willingness to report misconduct. By comparison, our municipal and provincial counterparts were at around the mid-50% level.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We'll have to stop you there.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your attendance here today. It's been very helpful. As I mentioned to our first panel, if committee members have additional questions for you, they will submit them to you in writing. Additionally, should you have any additional information that you think would be of benefit to our committee in our deliberations, I strongly encourage you to send it to us directly, through our clerk, particularly if you have any suggestions on how the act could be improved.

Thank you very much.

Committee members, we will reconvene in just a couple of minutes to go in camera for committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]