Government Operations Committee on March 23rd, 2017

[Anne Marie Smart]

—they manage the departments.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I would suggest that with whistle-blowers, their responsibility is to protect the employees and the taxpayers.

Let me just quickly move back to section 10 again. Who's ensuring that the CEOs have fulfilled their requirements? I'm trying to figure out what directions they're receiving from Treasury Board about whistle-blower procedures and standards so that there's equal treatment for all of the public servants. Then also with the code of conduct, I know it says it must be consistent with the code of conduct set by the Treasury Board. Who is following up to make sure that in this whole myriad of departments it is consistent, and who is giving them direction to ensure they are following this?

[Anne Marie Smart]

We at Treasury Board do that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

In what way are you? Just give us some examples of what you're doing.

[Anne Marie Smart]

I'll give you a couple of examples.

They have to report to us every year on their statistics, so there's no hiding of this.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

On reporting statistics, how are you ensuring that public servants department by department are receiving equal treatment and equal protection? It seems that it's being shifted off so that the CEOs have to develop their own plan, and it sounds as though Treasury Board is just shifting it off and not following up.

[Anne Marie Smart]

I didn't want to leave that impression. We give them not direction but guidance on what should be included in a plan.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Who is following up to make sure they're doing that?

[Anne Marie Smart]

We do. If they haven't—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do you do audits, or do you just wait for them to say they're doing that?

[Anne Marie Smart]

No, we follow up and we make sure. I don't think we've done an audit per se.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay.

[Anne Marie Smart]

I do know that if a department is trying to hide something—I'm not saying they are—and if something is really off track, that kind of information tends to come out now through the annual surveys. You can figure out—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do you think an annual survey once a year is enough to follow up?

[Anne Marie Smart]

We follow up. If we're getting good material, that's good. If we're not getting it and the survey says there's a problem there, we'll follow up and ask what action plan is being put in place.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

In light of everything we've seen and heard in the last couple of months, do you think what we're doing right now is adequate?

[Anne Marie Smart]

Do you mean in terms of whistle-blowing?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I mean in terms of following up to make sure our public servants are protected and people dealing with it are protected as intended under the act. It sounds very much as though....

I'm going to pick on Health Canada. It was before us, and we've had two cases in, I think, seven years or something. The question was whether our system is that bad or those guys are perfect, and it was just kind of shrugged off as, “Ah, who cares?” That's maybe a bit harsh, but it sounds as though we have this act and we have requirements, but no follow-up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Unfortunately, Mr. McCauley, we're going to have to leave that as a statement rather than an open-ended question, because we have five minutes left for Madam Ratansi.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you very much for coming here.

I was quite interested in your opening statement in which you said that the act is an important part of the government's integrity framework and that integrity is the cornerstone of good governance and democracy.

From the way you have replied to all the questions that have been answered, from a process perspective, you have processes in place. However, from the evidence we have gathered from all the different people who have come before us—and there have been experts and whistle-blowers who have come before us—the process is not as solid. As a chief human resources officer, do you sign the contracts of all deputy ministers, or is doing that delegated somewhere?

[Anne Marie Smart]

I don't; the Clerk of the Privy Council does.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Do you approve of their jobs? How do they get selected to be deputy ministers or ADMs, or whatever?

[Anne Marie Smart]

If they've come up through the system, there is a fairly rigorous system of performance management that is done on everyone, all executives, all employees in the public service. For executives, just as an example, there are performance contracts and agreements required under our policy.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

So who does the audit of those performance agreements?

What I'm leading up to is that we have heard that the bureaucracy—and I'm looking at the whistle-blowers—and the bureaucratic culture protect the wrongdoer, and most of the time the wrongdoer appears to be upper management. But at one point I think you must have responded that you would like to protect the wrongdoer, because of the rate of false allegations. How many false allegations have you received?

[Anne Marie Smart]

I don't....