Government Operations Committee on April 19th, 2023

[Luc Sabourin]

It's just that my story is the story of every public servant who is loyal to this government and facing this dilemma. It's not just me. That's something that needs to be understood. I'm here on behalf of everybody who probably didn't have the strength or the chance that I had to be here today. It's very important to make this distinction.

[Pamela Forward]

I would like to underline what Mr. Sabourin has said. Our organization was set up to advance education on the whistle-blowing phenomenon through research and sharing that information publicly. We did not announce in any way that we provided services to whistle-blowers, but we end up providing support for whistle-blowers because they call us because there's nowhere else for them to go. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard similar to Luc's.

I'd like to share briefly that we just established a few months ago a support group for whistle-blowers. We have a professional facilitator manage the group. She's a former legislator from Manitoba.

Three of them had to leave the group. They could not even participate in the group because they are so mentally harmed by PTSD. They see threats and suspicion everywhere. They suspected me when they found out that I was a former public servant—I worked in a minister's office—so I became suspect immediately.

What we need to understand is that there's new information—really, it's old information that the public is more aware of—that this kind of behaviour, this bullying and harassment, causes actual brian damage that can be seen on a brain scan. That changes the landscape for employers. They now may become more legally liable. You can go in hand with a brain scan in the face of a history of harassment and bullying and being fired from the public service, or any organization.

When we're talking about public servants, it's a small minority of Canadian employees who are putting up with this kind of work. We hear from municipal and provincial people as well, and we've forgotten about the federally incorporated private sector, which has no protection.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Bains for five minutes, please.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today. I will echo the statements of everybody else by thanking Mr. Sabourin for showing the courage to ultimately revisit his painful lived experience.

Thanks also to our colleague, Monsieur Garon, for bringing this forward again.

I think Mr. Sabourin talked a little bit about this. The bill includes making “failure to provide support” to a public servant who is making a reprisal part of the act.

Would this change violate the confidentiality of the process, as additional people would need to know the identity of the discloser? I think you mentioned that it ultimately goes to people who know the people who know the people.

My question is for Madam Forward.

Bill C-290 also includes a new category of wrongdoing, which is “abuse of authority”, but it has no definition within the bill. How can the committee solve the problem of how to define that?

[Pamela Forward]

I think anything that smacks of wrongness is abuse of authority. People know instinctively when authority is being abused. Bullying and harassment are abuses of authority. Part of abusing authority is abusing your power and not exercising your power justly and fairly. A lot of it probably could be from not having the skills to do so.

Part of being a good manager or a good employer is listening. To develop speak-up cultures, you first need to have managers who know how to listen up. Then people feel heard. If they can go to their manager and their manager doesn't get excited when they perhaps make a suggestion that they've noticed something that could be done better.... Instead of taking it as a personal insult that they haven't done their job as a manager—which is often one of the things that sparks reprisals—they could just learn the skill of active listening. That encourages people to come forward.

That's one of the problems, really. It's just not having skills.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

You said this has been going on for a long time. Maybe Mr. Sabourin can also comment on this.

The culture of this is continuing on in various departments. We've seen it in other areas as well, whether it's the RCMP or other administrative areas.

Can you speak to the culture and what kinds of things you think...? I know you've talked about active listening, but expand on that if you could, please.

[Pamela Forward]

Thank you for the question.

We're talking about an internal environment. There are three things that impact an internal environment. One is structure. One is leadership. The other is culture.

With structure, strict vertical hierarchies in particular are very susceptible to developing dysfunctional cultures, mainly because of problems with communication. That's what the bill is trying to get around. Particularly if the wrongdoing is top-down, there are just no options for a whistle-blower, as Mr. Sabourin has mentioned.

The other question is leadership. Leaders have a huge impact on cultures in organizations. All leaders say that they're very open and that they want to hear what you have to say. They say to come to them, that they have open door, no problem, but what—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to interrupt you again. We're past our five minutes for Mr. Bains.

[Pamela Forward]

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm going to hand things over to Mrs. Vignola now, please.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Sabourin, before getting to the core of my question, I would like to know whether you were afraid of reprisals in coming here.

[Luc Sabourin]

I received threats from management. I was told that, if I spoke to MPs or the media, my federal government pension would be taken away. It was withheld deliberately for four years, from 2018 to 2022. The problem was resolved as a result of your office getting involved. It was a way of muzzling me for four years, so that I didn't speak to the media and so that my recourse options and deadline for disclosing the situation would run out.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay.

Do you stand to benefit in any way from your presence here?

[Luc Sabourin]

Not at all. I benefit in no way.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

Earlier, you said that you were working for Passport Canada.

[Luc Sabourin]

I was working on document integrity.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay.

What would the consequences have been for Canada's international reputation and national security if you had turned a blind eye to what you had seen and not reported it? Were you forced by your duties to report it?

[Luc Sabourin]

I had a legal and moral obligation to report the actions that I witnessed and that could result in a loss of the Canadian government's credibility with its allies. I could not turn a blind eye to these wrongdoings, which were serious offences of a criminal nature. If our allies had discovered these things, Canada could have lost its credibility and well-established relationships with its allies, including NATO members. When I reported the facts to management, my situation immediately became unbearable.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Are you allowed to give us details on what occurred that would have resulted in our allies losing all confidence in us?

[Luc Sabourin]

Do I have parliamentary immunity?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Absolutely.

[Luc Sabourin]

Okay.

Individuals in a position of authority ordered us to destroy passports and indicate in federal databases that we had returned the passports to the respective embassies.

I intervened. I told management that this way of doing things was illegal. It resulted in the creation of false documents in a federal database used by the Federal Court of Canada for some of its cases. I was told that the practice would stop. After a certain amount of time had passed, they put someone in a closed room to continue to destroy passports, while indicating in the federal database that we had given them back to our allies.

The perpetrators of these acts were in a position of authority. I reported them, and it cost me my career.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

How do you explain the fact that, to date, no genuine changes have been made to protect public servant whistle-blowers?

Why weren't these changes made? None of the committee's recommendations has been implemented in the six years since the report.

[Luc Sabourin]

Remaining transparent, but without pointing a finger at anyone, I can tell you that changing or amending the legislation to protect public servants scares some people and disrupts a very well-established culture. The only people who can make changes to help public servant whistle-blowers are the members of this committee. Without that, this culture will always be there. The only way to address it is to spell it out. You alone have the power to improve things.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Could we, in part—