Evidence of meeting #72 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 commissioner.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:20 a.m.
Director of Labour Relations, General Counsel, Association of Canadian Financial Officers
There are a few other examples, I believe, in South Africa and the United States.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
In the United States, is the evidence there to show that it does work?
9:20 a.m.
Director of Labour Relations, General Counsel, Association of Canadian Financial Officers
All of our research—we've done some international comparative work through Public Services International and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD—has shown that the reverse onus hasn't ground systems to a halt. There's been no opposition. I haven't heard from advocates in those countries saying that the reverse onus is under fire. I think it's just part of the system that's accepted, and it's working.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Great. Thank you.
Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Stetski mentioned one of the options. You had no preference, but did you say that the alternate model used by the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner limits your capability to further investigate?
9:20 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
No. The model as it exists right now and the powers we have under the act right now are limited. We can't look at reprisals from complaints coming forward from PSIC employees and we can't get information from outside the public service, so the situation as it exists right now limits our ability to investigate the way PSIC handled one of their investigations. Either of the two options we put forward would be with the intention of either removing those limitations from us or of giving the power to somebody else to do that investigation, but without the limitations currently in place for us.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I want to touch base on culture again.
I know you perform performance audits in departments. In your experience, are deputy heads, managers, and directors rewarded for creating a good working environment and creating a good culture within government and within their departments? How is that being measured?
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
That's a good thing, I think.
9:25 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:25 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Again, that's not something that we've actually looked at from that perspective. Obviously anything that I would say on that point would be purely anecdotal. I think that would be a better question for someone who deals with that on a regular basis.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
We'll go now to five-minute rounds.
Go ahead, Mr. McCauley.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Welcome, gentlemen.
Mr. Hayes, I feel I should ask you something just so you haven't wasted your time coming down, but I'm not.
Mr. Chamberlain, what are your thoughts on all the resources that we spend? When Health Canada was our first group of witnesses, I think they said they had 30 people in their office for investigations. Then when they had one, they contracted it out to a private company. Indigenous Affairs has a relatively large office. They've done two investigations over a three-year period. I wonder if you have some thoughts about all the resources that we're spending, department by department, on something that doesn't even seem to be working.
9:25 a.m.
Director of Labour Relations, General Counsel, Association of Canadian Financial Officers
Mr. Chair, I view it as being an incredible waste of resources in that they're completely ineffectual, in my mind. The fact that the crux of this job, investigating, is farmed out outside of government is incredibly wasteful as well. When we have a body, if properly resourced, that employs former law enforcement to do their investigations and knows this act inside and out, I think it's incredibly wasteful.
Often these offices are combined with ICMS and harassment. I truly believe, whether they do it intentionally or not, that they are designed to contain issues and to protect senior management in the departments. What struck me when the individual from Health Canada testified was the statement that the first thing they do when someone comes to blow the whistle is tell them to go talk to their supervisor.
Don't get me wrong. In a union, sometimes one of the options is to say to the member, “That's not right. That seems wrong. Maybe we can talk to your supervisor." We have those conversations. We're not against any. We work with management all the time; they're our colleagues and our counterparts in labour relations. However, if that person has no guidance and he or she is going to someone who is often the person who has told them to do something they're not comfortable with, there's a problem in the system.
Honestly, I think millions of dollars could be better spent putting in that independent office. No matter how much you invest in those departments, my members aren't going to trust the department if the final word is in that department.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
Director of Labour Relations, General Counsel, Association of Canadian Financial Officers
Yes, absolutely.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Mr. Ferguson, do you have any thoughts on Mr. Chamberlain's suggestion that all these resources that we're spending by department be utilized in a single independent office?
9:25 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
It's not something that we have looked at. I couldn't tell you what the level of resources are, how much they're used, or that type of thing. Really, it's not something I can comment on.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Fair enough.
I want to get back to the reprisals. Mr. Chamberlain, in your learned opinion, what are the consequences for senior managers who are guilty of reprisals? Are there any, apart from a slap on the wrist?
9:25 a.m.
Director of Labour Relations, General Counsel, Association of Canadian Financial Officers
That is one of the issues. Doreen says in her impact statement that she doesn't know what happened in the end to that senior manager, because part of the process is not necessarily knowing what happens. Often it's a slap on the wrist. Often the person is moved on to another department. I had the advantage of representing FIs in 65 to 70 departments. I've seen the same people more than once move from department to department. I think there's very little, unfortunately, I can tell you on that, because it's kept very quiet.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You've mentioned how our system is set up to keep issues internalized within the department as they pop up, which suppresses whistle-blowing. How do we actually encourage whistle-blowing so we bring in the reverse onus on reprisals? That still doesn't really protect a whistle-blower. It will still be very much like the lady mentioned: there will still be reprisals with a slap on the wrist for a department head or an ADM or someone else.
9:30 a.m.
Director of Labour Relations, General Counsel, Association of Canadian Financial Officers
If Doreen Dyet could have stepped into the priority staffing system and gotten a position at another department, she would have worked for a number of years further and she wouldn't have had any of the repercussions that she suffered.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative