That's an excellent question.
Listen, I joined the public service in 1992. My sister is also in the public service, and I've had other extended family members in the public service.
I think that there has been a decline in the public service for many decades now. Increasingly, there was a concentration of power into the PCO, into what, at that time, we called the mandarin class. This has effected a strangulation on good, hard-working public servants.
My discussion here today is by no means an assault or a denigration of public servants, because most of them want to do a good job. The question is this: Can they do a good job? People cannot engage in whistle-blowing with the stakes being so high, so how do you change the culture?
Generally, historically, culture is changed when the people at the top decide that they're not going to tolerate the kind of abuse that's going on in the public service. I urge you to look at the surveys that started with Treasury Board in 1998. In my department, foreign affairs, the harassment rate was 25%. No private industry could operate with a 25% harassment rate. It's important.
I believe Mr. Fergus raised this issue. Somebody asked about disability. There is a huge number of people in the public service on short-term and long-term disability. What is not disclosed, generally, is that the public service self-funds the disability. It is not Sun Life that is the administrator of it. No, it is taxpayers. They lose when the wrongdoing happens. They lose because of the inefficiency of government, and then they lose when people go on long-term disability. The taxpayers are funding that.
The culture needs to change through a revolution at the top and when people are encouraged to be creative, to contribute and to make their highest contribution.