Government Operations Committee on Feb. 16th, 2017

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

I think my colleagues partly answered that in saying that every agency will have different processes, and your previous witnesses explained that as well. But they permit employees to come forward, and it's not like one-stop shopping. It may be to the extent that they come forward with something, but where that goes into the different streams or avenues is sometimes dictated by the law. It's sometimes dictated by the complainer's wishes.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I've got only two minutes. I just want to move on a little bit further.

As I said, our role is to improve and amend legislation. Do you have any suggestions? Is there a particular improvement to be made to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, the lack of which at this time is preventing you from doing the work you need to do? Perhaps no such improvement is needed. Perhaps the law is perfect.

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

I didn't want to take up the time.

It's a complicated piece of legislation, and the notion of having experts on it widespread throughout the agency, I think, is not one that's helpful. You're going to have to have dedicated experts who understand how it works, and you're going to have an access point to them. That's one of the things we try to do in the RCMP: consolidate things a little bit to make it more seamless. That's why I have the possibility of imposing discipline.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

That piece of legislation is very complicated. Did you address that complication with any authorities?

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

I don't think you can uncomplicate it, because when you're dealing with reprisals and wrongdoings and you've got other legislative provisions for us, and agencies have grievances and other processes, it's by its nature going to be complicated. I've identified three specific areas around which we would like some consideration, which are available in my comments.

I guess the question is, philosophically, whether you are in the right place, and I think the answer probably is yes. But from the comments I've been hearing, the question is whether this is supposed to be something that's dealing with every complaint a concerned employee has, or something that's to deal with the more serious things.

I read the legislation as referring to gross misconduct, to serious breaches. It's at the higher end, and that's where you want these matters to be going.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McCauley, you have seven minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks for joining us. I appreciate your feedback.

Mr. MacMillan, I just want to touch on a very touchy subject; I just want to go to it. It's the horrendous number of harassment issues that have come to the RCMP.

I'm just curious. You touched on what you viewed as wrongdoing. Was the ignoring of all these complaints within the definition of wrongdoing? How do we change the act so that we do not have a repeat of such widespread issues?

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

I would see the PSDPA as capturing those that have been very badly dealt with. But in general, harassment type complaints should run through a process that's been created to deal with the harassment complaints that come forward. Last year, we had 242 complaints of harassment. That's a 60% increase.

While I could sit here and tell you that means that our employees have more confidence, I don't know what it means. It's a one-year increase. We've averaged 152 harassment complaints over the last nine to 10 years. Of those 152, on average, 3% are for sexual harassment. It has to be unpacked a little bit to understand that sexual harassment is an important and serious issue within harassment, but I'm not sure how—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm not referring to the actual harassment itself, which is obviously bad enough, but it seemed that it was endemic and that it was getting reported and that this level was ignoring it. To me, that would have been a level of wrongdoing that had to be reported. Is it just not part of your definition of wrongdoing?

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

Well, whether it were wrongdoing would be fact-specific. If a manager were consistently not dealing with harassment within her or his unit, you could get a situation of gross mismanagement of its not being dealt with. But if it's purely neglect, a portion of that would be captured by the conduct regime, which we've made more stringent with recent policy changes so that it's very clear that supervisors have responsibilities and that if they're not acting on them, we're going to act on these when it comes to our attention.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do you believe that you've had a better shift or a better understanding by everyone about the disclosure act that might address this?

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

We did a climate survey a number of years ago, which showed us that we had a lot of work to do in that area. We've gone through a sea change since 2014 with the recent amendments. Quite frankly, I think our employees are kind of overwhelmed with the amount of information landing on them on huge changes.

For example, our conduct system went from an average number of discipline cases in the high 200s to 741 the first year out. We're down to the mid-400s. This year, it's too early to say where we're at. But clearly to me, I'm not getting complaints that performance has been improperly dealt with as misconduct. The system that we had previously wasn't getting the right cases into that conduct system, and I think it will better capture them, and we have made it clear that there are responsibilities around harassment that—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Is it safe to say that you're making progress?

[A/Commr Craig MacMillan]

Yes, I would say there's progress being made, but there's still a lot to be done.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Thibodeau, I have a few questions for you.

You specify in your notes that briefing sessions on the act are provided to your employees. We have heard witnesses from other departments, and this is the first time we have heard about such briefing sessions. That is interesting.

How many briefing sessions do you hold per year, or per month?

[Marc Thibodeau]

Thank you for the question.

Your question touches on several aspects.

For the employees as a whole, we have put in place an online training session on values, ethics and disclosure of wrongdoing. I should add that 84% of staff at the agency have completed their training.

As for recruits, this training is given before they arrive at the CBSA College. They take part in a discussion on values and ethics as soon as they arrive. In addition, the director general of security gives a presentation explaining the types of investigations the agency conducts, as well as the various allegations conducive to investigation.

Toward the end of their studies at the college, the recruits are invited to a session that is usually held at the end of a day. The president of the union talks to them about employer-employee relations. For my part, I broach issues related to ethics, as well as to situations where in a seemingly totally innocuous context we may be in the presence of people seeking to obtain information on issues that are only of concern to us.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Have you been providing these briefings, either online or in person, since the act came into effect?

[Marc Thibodeau]

When I joined the agency in 2011, they were already being given.

At that time, we went to all the regions of Canada to give presentations on the code when it was revised, and we talked among other things about the disclosure of wrongdoing.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I would like to take advantage of your presence Mr. Thibodeau, since you are also responsible for remuneration, to put a question to you about that.

Have the employees at the Canada Border Services Agency had a lot of problems with the Phoenix pay system? Are you suffering from that situation?

[Marc Thibodeau]

I would like to draw your attention to a particular characteristic of the agency: our staff still includes compensation advisors. The Canada Border Services Agency conveys information on remuneration to Public Services and Procurement Canada , which then issues the cheques.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Are there cases where employees have not been paid at all?

[Marc Thibodeau]

We have had such cases, and there are challenges. Every two weeks, that is every pay period, I follow up on salary advances we have to pay to employees who have not been paid because of a system error.

The agency has 14,000 employees. Since Phoenix was brought in, we have paid out between 20 and 30 salary advances.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Weir, you have seven minutes.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thanks very much.

I'd like to start by asking if you can think of examples of whistle-blowers in your agencies who would merit public recognition and thanks for their service.