Government Operations Committee on Oct. 9th, 2025

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Your last comment says a lot.

If I remember correctly, 14 recommendations were made in 2017. Could you tell us which ones were implemented?

[Harriet Solloway]

I will ask Mr. Radford to answer.

[Brian Radford, Acting Deputy Commissioner and General Counsel, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner]

Ms. Gaudreau, I just want to clarify something.

Are you referring to Commissioner Friday's 16 recommendations?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's correct.

[Brian Radford]

Those recommendations were made during the legislative review—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

If I could interrupt, I think they're the recommendations from this committee, from way back—

[Brian Radford]

As a result of the legislative review.... Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

—and not specifically Mr. Friday's.

[Brian Radford]

The committee made recommendations regarding legislative changes. They were communicated to the government, but neither the government nor the Treasury Board Secretariat implemented them. The act has not changed since 2017.

Some recommendations were aimed at improving efficiency and were more administrative in nature, and most were aimed at internal disclosure systems, so the departmental senior officers in each organization. The Treasury Board Secretariat implemented some measures so that internal processes were similar from one department to another, for example. The mandate of the commissioner's office is not to review internal systems, because we are a fully independent body.

To answer your question, the government did not implement the committee's recommendations, which were communicated to Parliament through a report.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

If I understand correctly, we put in a lot of effort to make solid recommendations, and while they are communicated in a democratic way, the organization still needs to have the will, funding and respect to follow through on them.

We're talking about the disclosure of wrongdoing here, and it makes me think of the consequences for the whistle-blowers. Since a response to serious allegations can take two weeks, are the whistle-blowers in some sort of buffer zone? Do they face reprisals? How does the process work?

[Harriet Solloway]

I'm not sure I understand your question.

You're asking what happens to whistle-blowers once they've come to us to make a disclosure. Is that correct?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's correct.

[Harriet Solloway]

To begin with, we don't tell anyone, so if the whistle-blower doesn't say anything to anyone, no one will know that they have made a disclosure of wrongdoing. As a result, if no one knows there's been a disclosure, the whistle-blower is protected.

There are cases, though, where, for one reason or another, right or wrong, people think they know who made the disclosure. We've seen cases where someone wrongly accused of making a disclosure was a victim of reprisals.

Therefore, it's possible that, if someone thinks someone else made a disclosure—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, Ms. Solloway, but we're past our time again. I have to interrupt.

Colleagues, I ask everyone to keep an eye on your clocks to allow extended time because we have Ms. Solloway with us for only an hour today.

Mr. Patzer, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today.

At the start of the meeting, I went to your website and noticed there was an info block. I was talking to some other folks, and they ran into the same thing as well. I have a screenshot of it, and it says, “The Office is receiving an unprecedented number of disclosures of wrongdoing, reprisal complaints and general inquiries. As a result of increased submissions, delays in the analysis and investigation of files are expected.”

In the numbers you presented to this committee, it's kind of shocking, and I would say alarming, how sharp of a climb there is in cases. Do you have any reason for that?

[Harriet Solloway]

Everyone is asking me that, and I have no way of knowing. I have no reason to believe it's because there's more wrongdoing. There is no data that would suggest that. I can't disprove that either, but there's no data that would suggest that.

In my career, I've seen the start-up of many new organizations, particularly those that render a service to the public. It takes a while for people who might access that service to even realize it's there and then, once they do, to have enough trust in it to bring it forward.

My best guess, because I have no way of verifying it, is that I do believe the office was established in 2007, and I think, at a certain point in time, there was a critical mass period when people knew enough about it to start using it, and that gave rise to more and more.

That is my belief, but I have no evidence or proof to say that. If you're asking what I think, that's what I think.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Are you concerned that there may be a culture that's been instilled that has enabled some of this? Part of it, too, is that it takes so long to get an answer or that there are so many cases. Do you think that people maybe feel like they're not going to get to it anyway, so they can just do whatever they want, and what's anyone going to do about it? Are you worried that there might be a culture of that developing or brewing?

[Harriet Solloway]

I'm worried that it could develop. Again, I don't have evidence that it's brewing. It would not be an illogical consequence of the situation.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Wow.

When you look at the stats, prior to 2021, everybody was working in offices. We have a lot of the public service now working from home.

Do you think there is a correlation between people not being in an environment where they are with people who might be abusive or committing serious wrongdoings? As you said, that is the nature of it. Now that people are working from home, do they now feel safe to make complaints? Do you think there's a correlation to that?

[Harriet Solloway]

Again, I don't have evidence, but if you're asking me for my feeling on it, I wouldn't say so. People could be reprised against whether they're working from home or in the office. People can be subject to wrongdoings whether they're at home or in the office.

I don't think so, but I don't have evidence to back that up. If you're asking me my view, that's what I think.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

There's an article from 2022, which states:

The Government Accountability Project announced that Canada's whistleblower protections are among the weakest in the world, tied with Lebanon and Norway. The project was especially critical of the fact that only eight retaliation cases have been heard by the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal, despite PSDPA having come into force 17 years ago.

There are lots of other quotes about the functionality here.

Why are we viewed as having some of the weakest protections in the world?

[Harriet Solloway]

I'm not trying to be evasive. I think you probably have to ask the authors of that. I'm not sure.

Again, my sense is that they're looking at a legislative framework. Having worked internationally a lot, I know that it really is hard to compare jurisdictions. I do know that there was a task force that was struck around two years ago to look at the PSDPA because of some of the articles such as the one that you're citing. There was a recognition that I think improvements are required.

I am keen to know what the outcome of that task force is. To the extent that there are weaknesses in the act—and there are weaknesses in the act. I'm not pretending otherwise; that's my personal view—I'm looking forward to seeing that report to see what proposals are being made.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Ms. Sudds, go ahead, please.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata, ON]

Thank you very much for being here and, more importantly, for the work you are both doing.

I'll build on that last comment around the advisory task force. Can you explain from your perspective what the mandate that has been put forward for the task force is?

[Harriet Solloway]

When I started in my position about two years ago, shortly thereafter, I appeared at the task force. Other than the fact that they're looking at the PSDPA, I have no inside information at all regarding specifically what they're looking at.