Government Operations Committee on Feb. 21st, 2017

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

— is it workable, in your opinion?

[Debi Daviau]

I think so. It was the first time I'd heard that suggestion, but I do like it because again, while obviously the reverse onus is an important piece of this as well, the person going through this process need not be at home and shunned and wearing their scarlet letter “A” around town. They need to continue to be productive in their workplace.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes, I don't think it would be a stand-alone, but it would be added protection, an added ability for someone to come forward with confidence that they're not going to end up like Mr. Korosec.

[Debi Daviau]

It's three years later, and they're working two part-time jobs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Unfortunately, we're out of time.

Mr. Stetski, you have seven minutes, please.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

One of the roles I serve is as NDP critic for national parks. I want to talk about the Phoenix pay system for a bit because I've been approached by a number of employees who were not getting paid. The minister's office was quite responsive in dealing with those individual concerns as we brought them forward, but there was also a group of employees who did not want to be identified, so there is still some concern. It's harder to intervene on behalf of a group, but we certainly intervened on their behalf as well.

When you look at the problems and how long the problems have existed with the Phoenix pay system, how would some of the recommendations you're making help or have helped so that this didn't drag on as long as it has? You have tremendous talent, both of you, in the groups you represent. Would a different legal system have helped prevent where we're getting to now? Perhaps even more importantly going forward, how can we better use the talents of the people you represent to prevent these kinds of things in the future?

I'll start with Ms. Daviau and then go to Mr. Rousseau or your representative.

[Debi Daviau]

Thank you.

As you know, we represent different members. The PSAC represents the compensation officers; however, we represent the IT people. I know for certain that early on in this project, in this Phoenix transformation—and I'll let PSAC speak to it—that they were raising alerts about the potential hazards we were facing with the transformation to Phoenix. We were also raising alerts from a systems perspective. Of course, early on it was about contracting this out without doing proper examination of the internal abilities to do this project. Government pay systems were built and maintained and run by our members for the 40 years that this system has been patched together. It continued to pay people, and we believe that Phoenix could have been completely averted had we had better avenues to prevent this from being contracted out.

However, in the context of the whistle-blowing legislation, we have further concerns that the more you contract out, the less ability there is to blow the whistle on wrongdoing. For example, if somebody over at IBM who's in charge of the Phoenix project is involved in wrongdoing, how do we even know about it, much less take steps to have that revealed to us? The further you get away into subcontracts, the less likely you will ever even find out that wrongdoing is occurring. That's where our concerns are.

[Patricia Harewood]

I think one of the issues with Phoenix is whether the definition of wrongdoing as it stands right now would have covered the kind of wrongdoing that has occurred due to Phoenix.

As Ms. Daviau has already pointed out, since the wrongdoing that is referred to in section 8 is within the public sector, it's very limited. It would not have covered the wrongdoing that was and is the Phoenix fiasco. Therefore, obviously this committee may need to look at a more expansive definition that would include the kind of misconduct or wrongdoing that has occurred with Phoenix.

[Larry Rousseau]

That said, I think it's important that to be fair, we wait to see what the Auditor General, in the appropriate instances, has to say once we've done the autopsy on just what the heck happened with Phoenix. I think that at this point we'll be able to look back.

I don't want to make it sound as if the wrongdoing was entirely on the private sector's side. It's possible, but it's possible there were things happening on both sides. We'll have to get to the bottom of that.

Certainly we'd like to see something in there, because people have been calling me for the past two years, telling me stuff, but they won't come forward. That's our problem. That's our problem, and that's what we need to address.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Is there a better way forward?

[Debi Daviau]

For sure. We like a lot of the recommendations that PSAC is making about necessary changes to the legislation. Of course, we add on a few other perspectives. Obviously we're looking at it from a different angle. We're looking at it from the angle of protecting members who have faced a very long-drawn-out process.

I thoroughly enjoyed Stan's testimony, because it is very personal, as opposed to what we're doing, which is representative. Absolutely, we believe that if there were some changes to legislation, some tweaks to the process to give broader authorities to refer cases to tribunal and remove the bottlenecks in the system and the conflicts of interest, quite frankly, that would go a long way to fixing this. We've advocated for whistle-blowing legislation, as I've said, for as long as I can remember. The last change to the legislation was woefully inadequate. Hopefully we're going to get it right this time around.

[Larry Rousseau]

I think that if we go forward, every minister, every deputy minister, and every assistant deputy minister has to make it a mantra that wrongdoing potentially costs, whether it's private sector or public sector, an enormous amount of money—far more, probably, than the actual act that happened. They would go to their respective organizations and say, “We need leadership is to get to the bottom of it”, so that when Mr. Korosec brings it forward, it's not a culture of battening down the hatches and protecting the organization at all costs and expending people who are just trying to do good in the world. That's what we have to do going forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Our final intervention today will come from Madam Shanahan.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so much to the witnesses for being here this morning. Your respective testimonies have been illuminating and also very moving. When I think that this act had a proviso that it was to be reviewed every five years, and this is the first time that we're reviewing it after 10 years, I can only imagine that any feelings employees had about having trust in the act were completely eroded during that time. Now we're back and we're trying to do a reset.

We heard from an earlier witness, Mr. Chamberlain, that he believes that PSIC can be remediated, if you will, and that he has confidence in it. I'd like to hear from each of the witnesses if you feel that's the case. If we're putting a lot more power into that office, how can we guarantee that at a future time—maybe the current one is okay—we don't have another rotten apple?

[Debi Daviau]

Broadly, I do think PSIC could be saved with the changes. However, I don't view it as putting more power into that office. I actually view it as a bit of a decentralization of the power of that office, and building in the oversight and the proper linkages, whether to the Auditor General's office or....

We talked briefly about harassment in the workplace. There are some severe disconnects right now that need to be pieced together in order for PSIC to work better, but I don't believe it lies in giving it more power—absolutely not. Right now we see it as a bit of a bottleneck, as the only body or the only person able to refer to a tribunal. That's proven to be problematic. No cases are really getting through that process. I think it could be saved, but not by giving it more power.

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

Would it be just an add-on? The commissioner did have 16 recommendations. Do you agree with them, more or less?

[Debi Daviau]

More or less, yes.

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

Ms. Harewood, would you comment?

[Patricia Harewood]

Just to add to what Ms. Daviau has said, I think some of the commissioner's authority or discretion would need to be removed, because there have been a number of testimonies in which you've heard people talk about how the commissioner is serving as a gatekeeper and cases aren't getting in the door. If there were more direct access and the commissioner had less discretion and had to refer certain matters to tribunal should there be a finding of reprisal through an investigation, that would certainly be advantageous, so removing some of the broad discretionary powers that the commissioner has would be of benefit.

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

Thank you.

[Stan Korosec]

I'd agree with that, especially in section 20.4(1), where you can decide whether it's just a remedy in favour of the complainant or a remedy with discipline. Take that out of there. I don't even know what the purpose of that was. We're talking about education and all that, but you have to make the changes to the act that everybody has been talking about here so that the people in the office and the commissioner have something good to work with, which helps us.

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

Do you agree, Mr. Korosec, more or less, with the 16 recommendations?

[Stan Korosec]

I haven't read them, sorry, so I don't know.

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

All right. Thank you.

Mr. Rousseau, Ms. Harewood, would you say yes, more or less?

[Larry Rousseau]

More or less, yes.