Government Operations Committee on Oct. 9th, 2025

[Harriet Solloway]

It's a really good question.

We've struggled with that notion of protection. The fact of the matter is that, en amont, as they would say in French, there's not a lot we can do.

The way we protect is by keeping the information that we get confidential, but of course when you're talking about due process and people being given the right to respond in a fair way to allegations against them, there may be some aspects that, in order to give that person the full right of defence, have to be disclosed. I can say that we protect by not divulging anything that we have to, unless we have to, and until we have to.

We also have the reprisal regime, but again it's ex post facto. It launches once somebody is already alleging that they've suffered a reprisal. I guess one hopes that there's a deterrent effect, because those measures are there. It does exist as a deterrence but, per se, I have no jurisdiction to, for example, pull somebody out of a difficult situation and give them something alternate to do, or whatever. I have no powers to do that. Any protections come in the form of deterrents, because there is the complaint regime, and also in keeping things confidential.

I'm going to ask Brian if he wants to add anything to that.

[Brian Radford]

No, your answer is complete.

[Harriet Solloway]

I think it is a really good question, and probably an area that the task force, I'm assuming, might have looked at. It will be interesting to see what they say.

[Vince Gasparro, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Do you think those protections are well communicated within the public service? Are people within the public service aware that there are some levels of safeguards and protection for them, if they launch a complaint or raise an issue?

[Harriet Solloway]

Even before my arrival, the office had worked very hard for years at raising awareness, and I do believe that a lot of the reason for the surge that we're seeing now is that there's more awareness. Again, I have no data, and it might be time to try to acquire some, but my suspicion is that there are many people who don't understand or know about the possibility out there.

There are other what we call internal mechanisms inside many departments where there's a senior officer in charge of disclosures. There are also ombudspersons, as raised before, and we hope that internally in departments, they are raising awareness amongst their staff as well. It's a shared responsibility to try to get the word out that this is the case.

[Vince Gasparro, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thank you.

I have no further questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Gasparro.

We'll go to Mrs. Block for five minutes, please.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Your office has been investigating complaints of reprisals of two former witnesses who came forward during our ArriveCAN study, who testified at this committee. Without giving us any details, because I'm sure you cannot do that, do you finally have a timeline for this investigation that you can give us?

[Harriet Solloway]

The reason I can't answer is that I can't give you an answer on that without disclosing anything about specific cases. I'm going to refer to Brian, who will say what we could say or say that we can't.

[Brian Radford]

At this point, we don't have a timeline for the completion of the investigations that you are referring to. All reprisal investigations require the submission of preliminary investigation reports for people involved, and it takes time to consider their submissions.

It would not be prudent for us to comment further on that particular investigation.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

When did your investigations begin?

[Brian Radford]

I don't have the dates of when those investigations began. However, like all reprisal complaints, the admissibility analysis would have been completed within 15 days from the receipt of the form. Within 15 days the commissioner would have decided to investigate some or all of the allegations. That would bring us back to, I would imagine, about a year ago, but I'm not sure of the date of the commencement.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Okay, thank you.

Again, it's been noted by my colleagues that, on your website, you note that you are receiving an unprecedented number of disclosures of wrongdoing. Although some details may not be public because of ongoing investigations, can you say which departments appear to have the highest number of reports of wrongdoing?

[Harriet Solloway]

No.

Brian.

[Brian Radford]

We have never reported on the number of disclosures made from a particular department. Now, in a large organization, it's not surprising that we would receive several or even numerous disclosures. We're talking about very large departments of many thousands of people.

So far at least, we've not disclosed the number of disclosures coming from specific departments or regions. There's an element of confidentiality to that. If we do it for some, we may have to do it for others. There are very small organizations in which the chief executive of the organization or the management there would be very surprised to learn that a disclosure, or two or three, was made against them. It could potentially expose whistle-blowers who come to us. When a person comes to us, if something is not investigated, the only person who knows is the discloser. We do not share that information with the department.

There's an important element of confidentiality associated with that information.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you. I appreciate that answer.

Can you tell us how many whistle-blowers have been reinstated to their jobs after reprisals since the creation of your office? Do you track that?

[Brian Radford]

First, we are aware of the reprisal complaints that have been made [Technical difficulty—Editor] allegations...number of investigations that we have conducted. As you may know, 10 cases were referred to the tribunal. Of those cases, two went the entire way of a hearing and others were resolved by way of mediation.

The settlements are generally confidential between the parties. The parties seek that confidentiality. We offer conciliation during the course of a reprisal investigation. We have completed approximately 26 successful conciliations over the years. From those 26 cases, there are many people who are still employed in the public service. Others retired; others accepted a financial settlement. Those agreements are also kept confidential at the request of the parties.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

We have Ms. Khalid, Ms. Gaudreau, Mr. Patzer and Ms. Rochefort.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. I am quite new to this, so please pardon my ignorance if I ask you some questions that may not make sense.

What is your interaction with other commissioners who are oversight bodies and transparency agencies across our government?

[Harriet Solloway]

We meet occasionally, and we share views and exchange what we can with one another.

I know that several of my colleagues have a similar concern over the funding mechanism, for example. Several of my colleagues already have an independent funding mechanism. For example, the Parliamentary Budget Officer gets his budget from Parliament. It's the same for elections and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. That's the kind of model the rest of us would like. We do exchange.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Do you think there's an opportunity for all of the commissioners to work together somehow, or should people be operating in individual silos based on what their respective duties are?

[Harriet Solloway]

I personally think that it never hurts to look at anything that you want to look at, but I do think that our mandates are all very different and require different expertise and different firewalls in terms of confidentiality, some of which are not compatible. For example, in my case, if there is a complaint under the PSDPA against me, it is the Auditor General who would investigate or who would consider those allegations. We have cases with one another.

If you're just asking me offhand, I haven't done an analysis, but I don't see enough of a commonality in our mandates to be able to do that.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Are there cases that multiple commissioners would have to get involved in?

[Harriet Solloway]

There aren't in our case. I can't speak for the other commissioners, but we are at arm's-length with everybody. I don't go to deputy minister meetings. We're at arm's-length from everybody.