Evidence of meeting #77 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 whistle-blowers.
A video is available from Parliament.
Director, Whistleblowing International Network, As an Individual
Yes. It's one of the first to put that in, although original laws that were put forward before as draft bills and haven't passed did have that capacity built in and—
Director, Whistleblowing International Network, As an Individual
It's a very new law, so—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
To me, as a non-lawyer, that looks to be a way that the Mr. Garretts and Ms. Gualtieris of the world can be protected—
Director, Whistleblowing International Network, As an Individual
Yes, exactly.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
—and not to be punitive, but it will send a strong signal that if you're going to retaliate, you're going to lose your job and you could be fired and lose your house, etc.
Co-Founder, Democracy Watch
Earlier, I mentioned reversing the onus so that the employer would have to prove the retaliation has not taken place. I think that's important. Also important is giving the commissioner the power to levy administrative monetary penalties straight up, so that chief executives, heads of organizations in the government or private sector, would know that a personal penalty could be coming their way, not through a tribunal process that's going to take years but through a commissioner saying, “You did wrong and you're paying this fine.” If you make that significant enough....
As well, there was a question earlier about the training. I am doing my Ph.D. in law and looking at how to ensure people comply with good government laws. Behavioural psychologists point to a number of things that should be part of the training. One of the most important is that—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I think we might be out of time. I wanted to hear from Ms. Myers quickly. She was putting her hand up.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Perhaps we'll get to it in the next intervention.
Mr. Weir, you have seven minutes.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Ms. Myers, if you want to take a minute to respond to Mr. McCauley, that would be great.
Director, Whistleblowing International Network, As an Individual
I was just going to say that's one of the laws, the Irish law is definitely in.... As for the Swedish point of view, we've talked a lot about how there are tiers of disclosure routes that people can go, so that's another way. Also, there's the injunctive relief in both the Serbian law and the Irish law, which stops it from going off on a tangent.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
One of the points we heard from the previous panel was that whistle-blower protection in other countries often encompasses the private sector, so I'm very glad that on this panel we have Mr. Garrett providing the Canadian perspective from the private sector.
Mr. Conacher, I'd ask you to elaborate a bit on your proposal to extend federal whistle-blower protection to the private sector.
Co-Founder, Democracy Watch
Again, as the current banking service scandal shows, the federal government needs to pass a law protecting all federally regulated workers, and provincial governments need to do the same for both public sector and private sector workers.
We have a couple of areas covered, with competition law through the Competition Bureau and with the labour board under environmental protection laws, but what's needed, I think, is not only a blanket law but a place to go, so that everyone will know that if you have a problem, this office will help you and figure out which law enforcement agency you're supposed to go to with that particular problem. One of the details I didn't mention is that if you go to that law enforcement agency and they don't deal with it in a timely manner because of whatever conflicts of interest, problems, or flaws there may be there, then that central office should be able to take the case and move it forward so you're not left hanging, possibly being retaliated against, and waiting for two years for someone to get back in touch with you.
We have a current scandal, and we have another one with the food industry and CFIA. It was reported recently that they rolled over for the food industry in terms of a regulation. These private sector scandals show the inadequacy. It's likely that these situations would have been prevented if whistle-blowers had had a place to go and were fully and effectively protected.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Mr. Garrett, how does that sound to you? Does that seem like the right kind of model, or do you have other ideas about how we could make the system work better for folks from the private sector?
D.R.Garrett Construction Ltd., As an Individual
I really have no advice. People have asked me what they would do. I've had people coming to me, especially guards who worked at Kent, saying, “What can we do?” Before I came here, one guard told me he has evidence of six different incidents of asbestos exposure in Kent prison. That's before, during, and after my time. It doesn't stop.
I've listened to quite a bit of testimony here, and there's one subject I haven't heard and would like to impress upon you as parliamentarians. It's not anything to do with my case. Much of government has been told that we need to run government like business. There is an element of truth to that, but there is a distinct difference between government procurement and public procurement. So many things that are legal in the private sector are not really proper in the public sector. You have to disclose full transparency and accountability. The private sector doesn't have to do that.
There's a fundamental problem in government believing that we need to run government the same as the private sector. That's not totally true. When it comes to increasing efficiency and fixing problems, yes, but I don't agree with the almost decimation of our public tendering process. It's almost gone out the window. Really, it's the president of the Canadian Construction Association who should be here explaining this, not me. We're going to RFPs. We're going to P3s and design-build. These all work well in the private sector. They don't work well for government, because they don't have accountability and transparency. It's not there.
I'm way off topic, but there has to be a fundamental change.
I have an email here that I should have submitted. It's from senior management. I found it just before I came. It's one high-powered bureaucrat commending other bureaucrats, and the file that's referred to is my file. It says, “The project managers and the contracting officer have worked closely together over the past two and a half years to resolve this file, and should be commended for their tenacity. Overall the staff have been involved with the Department of Justice lawyers, the Office of Procurement Ombudsman Margherita Finn, and Garrett's legal representatives, as well as ATIP requests for file information.”
This is fundamentally wrong.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Thanks for bringing it to our attention. It's certainly not too late to submit that to the committee. I'd invite you to do so.
D.R.Garrett Construction Ltd., As an Individual
That's just one of many, many emails. It's a system set up to attack the whistle-blower. I'm seeing it. There's a “three-D” process here—deny, delay, and eventually destroy the whistle-blower. I've lived it. I'm living it now.
Director, Whistleblowing International Network, As an Individual
One of the things that the Office of Special Counsel in the U.S. does, which is built into their system and which I think if the Canadian government did would absolutely send the clearest message culturally and would in reality be more effective, is to not only give timely feedback to the person who made the disclosure but actually review a little bit when they're investigating.
These people are the ones who know who the investigators should talk to. They're not in it to win big money. They're in it to either get back to their job or to ensure that those around them are doing better at work. They are incredibly powerful in terms of making sure that the investigation and the ideas on how you should resolve it are really clear. I've seen that time and time again. No matter how fragile they are in other ways, they knew professionally what they were doing. They know what the problems are. They're your resource. They were, anyway, before they went out of their management structure to let you know.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much, Mr. Weir. Unfortunately, we're out of time.
Our final intervention will be from Monsieur Ayoub.
Mr. Ayoub, you have the floor for seven minutes.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.
Thank you, Mr. Garrett. I sympathize with your bad experience.
For some time, we've been looking at the issue of whistle-blowers in Canada. However, I have the impression that we're moving in all directions across the country to try to solve a problem that, to be solved, requires a guide. I have the impression that a number of players are trying to get involved in the process at the same time and to justify themselves.
Ms. Myers, you said that whistle-blowers don't aim to make money. However, I learned today that the Ontario government offers five million dollars as a reward. I wasn't aware of this. I'm shocked, to say the least. We have to wonder about the goal of this type of practice. In reality, we want whistle-blowers who are actually experiencing a situation of this nature to be credible, but also to be protected. There's the protection issue, which is related to whether public disclosure occurs. However, I've realized that whistle-blowers carry everything on their shoulders.
Why couldn't a whistle-blower only sound the alarm and then be relieved of the responsibility? The case could be studied at the federal, provincial or municipal level, if necessary. The legal aspect of the proceedings would fall under an entity that would determine whether the whistle-blower is credible and whether the process should continue.
I want to hear your comments on the matter.
Director, Whistleblowing International Network, As an Individual
In French, especially in France, whistle-blowers are called “lanceurs d'alerte”. It's an appropriate expression. The term “whistle-blowing” is used everywhere because it's neutral. However, there are still problems on the English side, even in England.
I would say that the reward system is a separate system. I have some concerns about it, but in a financial situation—the SEC is a financial—then they are paying, but they are also finding that without the protections.... Even with the SEC's experience in the U.S.—and I've been in the same room with the person who set up their whistle-blowing system—most of the whistle-blowers who come to them never get a reward. It's quite limited, and in fact they're doing it because it's wrong.
It put it out there. It appealed to the money-making side, and it works a lot in the American system. It has caused great upset in Europe as well, as has anonymity and anonymous reporting. You've had fascist states, and it has been, “Go only to the state, and we will keep you...and we'll use it against other people.”
There's another thing you have to think about, which is having more than one channel for people to go to: important channels, the right channels, regulators who have the mandate to deal with the issue, managers who have the responsibility to respond, a PSIC that allows that flow to keep going to the right places, not a closed system that then isn't accountable itself.
You're absolutely right. It's about taking the responsibility for the investigation away, but not the responsibility for doing the right thing away from whistle-blowers. It's not just saying come to us, like a child, and then you are not involved anymore.
Co-Founder, Democracy Watch
We do have an office. It's the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, but there are literally hundreds of cases that have still not been given the full investigation and fair investigation by that office. The current commissioner is someone who has been there pretty much through the whole time, and as far as we know, has never blown the whistle on what was massive wrongdoing by the first Integrity Commissioner and also wrongdoing by the second commissioner.
People have tried to protect Canadians by blowing the whistle on governments that were wasting billions of dollars approving dangerous goods, covering up scandals involving big businesses, gouging them, selling hazardous products, and covering up pollution and oil spills. Those people have been harassed, fired from their jobs, sued, silenced, and hurt by the government and big businesses—not just the federal government but provincial governments as well.
That's all because the laws in Canada are weak, and enforcement is negligently bad. We do have the framework of a system, but we need these many changes, the 17 listed in this petition that more than 21,000 people have supported, to make the system effective and to fully and effectively protect whistle-blowers.
Again, you can argue about how much a reward should be, but the best practice is to provide someone with a bit of a buffer so that they know when they're going out on that limb that they have a buffer if the limb gets cut off behind them because of negligently bad enforcement by someone who is not doing their job properly, as has happened hundreds of times in Canada in the last 10 years at the federal level alone.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I understand. I'm not necessarily against it, but I wonder about the scope of the reward. In some cases, it could be worthwhile.
I've also learned that no regular and statutory reviews are conducted. You mentioned this. The Auditor General conducts an audit, but there don't seem to be any real follow-ups.
What would be a way to restore the long-term credibility of an organization such as the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, which conducts research?