Evidence of meeting #61 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th 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.
Retired Junior Officer, Canada Border Services Agency, As an Individual
They are criminal acts.
Bloc
Retired Junior Officer, Canada Border Services Agency, As an Individual
I went to the RCMP with all the information that I had and what I had seen, including photos.
I was told that this was not under the jurisdiction of their unit. However, they did not refer me to another unit.
Retired Junior Officer, Canada Border Services Agency, As an Individual
The letter stated that it was not under the unit's jurisdiction. That's it.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Okay.
If you could go back in time, would you still make a disclosure today?
Retired Junior Officer, Canada Border Services Agency, As an Individual
Yes, but I would do it in a different way.
Retired Junior Officer, Canada Border Services Agency, As an Individual
I would put all the information in an envelope and send it to the media. That's it.
The system abandoned me. The manager that I contacted and the directors at the time told me that it was more important to focus on my career and think about my family and my retirement than to focus on the potential legal repercussions of the allegations that I would be making against staff members, which included members of management.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Next will be Mr. Johns for six minutes, and then we'll suspend to vote and come back.
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Thank you both for being here and for your passion to fix this. I can't say enough about it.
Thank you, Ms. Forward.
I'm also going to go to you, Mr. Sabourin.
Again, I share the absolute gratitude for your courage to be here today, the strength you have and the resolve for justice for future workers, and current workers as well, so that they may feel safe and able to come forward in the future.
Many of the accountability experts and whistle-blower advocates voice concerns with regard to the fact that the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner has declined to investigate some pretty major high-stake cases, such as issues with Phoenix, issues you've seen in your work.
Do you believe that the commissioner, who has typically been a government public servant, represents a conflict of interest—someone that's been involved like that?
Retired Junior Officer, Canada Border Services Agency, As an Individual
Yes, sir, I do.
I reached out to the commissioner of integrity myself. I provided him with two years of material, and within a very short time frame, he came back and excluded a certain amount of information.
It was brought to my attention by a director at my unit that the integrity commissioner and the person I was pointing out in my complaints had previously worked together and knew each other. I requested from the integrity commissioner a formal notice, asking him to explain to me whether he had any conflict of interest with the people I pointed out in my complaint. He refused.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Do you have any suggestions, such as maybe having an independent person be appointed moving forward?
Retired Junior Officer, Canada Border Services Agency, As an Individual
Yes, sir.
My recommendation to the members of Parliament before was that any type of situation like mine, involving officers in an operational environment where there is risk to the Canadian government and the people working in the field, should be turned over to an independent person. It should be somebody who has no ties to anybody, and a second person should be verifying the validity of the information and the decision that is made. That's the important transparency that we can have.
I hope I made sense.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Absolutely.
Again, I really admire your strength in being here today. I want to thank you for that.
I'm going to give you some time to talk about what you believe are the failures and the foundational aspects of strong whistle-blower protections that need to be in this bill, which might not be in the bill yet, that we could look at to strengthen the bill through work with our friend and colleague.
Retired Junior Officer, Canada Border Services Agency, As an Individual
I think we all have to gain by working all together, every one of you, regardless of the party you represent.
We all represent you, the public servant. When the problems we face are people in high positions of authority who are engaged in wrongdoing or criminal activity, we have nobody to turn to. The mechanism in place to report it turns over the information that we give and the evidence we have to the people who are the ones we are reporting on.
This cannot continue. We cannot continue that way, because it's not conducive.... It's impossible to continue that way. We need to have an independent party who will take the information and protect us, and protect everybody else, and give the opportunity to any law enforcement agency to investigate discretely to see the magnitude of the problem or whatever damage was done.
It's very important that this concept is done. Otherwise, the system keeps failing us.
Retired Junior Officer, Canada Border Services Agency, As an Individual
Thank you, sir.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Ms. Forward, do you want to add to that question I just asked?
I will give you some time to talk about what is missing in the bill that could help to improve the bill.
President and Executive Director, Whistleblowing Canada Research Society
All I can say is that we have the eight best practices here.
In order to give whistle-blowers a reliable chance to prevail, we absolutely need the burden of proof.... The reverse-onus requirement should be there. A manager must prove the action taken was not a reprisal rather than the employee proving that it was. We need to also consider the question of financial losses to someone who is penalized for simply upholding the law and doing his job—at least have legal support in the system. That should be part of the system.
The third thing that I think is really important is that the amended PSDPA should ban NDAs. It should supersede such regulations that may occur in other laws, like NDAs that say you can't expose somebody or go public if somebody is doing something wrong.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm going to interrupt here. We have just about 10 seconds, Mr. Johns.
We're going to suspend, we'll run and vote, and then we'll come back.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Colleagues, thank you. We are back.
We appreciate witnesses' putting up with our doing our democratic duty.
We are into our final round. We are going to start with five minutes for Mrs. Block.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to start off by echoing the comment of my colleague MP Kusie. I also want to recognize and speak to the courage that has been alluded to here and the resolve that it has taken, I believe, for you to speak out and speak publicly.
I won't speak for all of us, but I would say that it is very difficult to understand how a professional public service would allow this culture to exist. It's even more difficult to understand and to hear the extent of the intimidation that you were subjected to and the impact that had on your mental and physical well-being. I want to thank you for coming forward, Mr. Sabourin, and sharing your story with us.
I also want to thank Mr. Garon one more time for introducing Bill C-290. I think the only thing worse than doing nothing is believing that you are doing something when you, in fact, are not.
Reviewing this piece of legislation and acting on it I think is something we are very committed to on this side of the House, of the room.
I don't really have any more questions. I would just turn the floor back to either of you to make any final comments that you would like to make to this committee today.