Public Accounts Committee on Sept. 6th, 2007

[Catherine Ebbs]

—it's just the process we have.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Chairman—

[Catherine Ebbs]

It's related to grievance matters and discipline matters. So if there is a matter that doesn't involve a grievance or a discipline, they have to go to other methods of recourse, not the External Review Committee.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Chairman, I just want to put on the record here that these people had serious grievances and they had nowhere to go. They didn't have the capacity to go to Ms. Ebbs and her committee, because the commissioner didn't send it there.

It's taken me five minutes to get that simple admission out of her, and that isn't appropriate.

[Catherine Ebbs]

Mr. Chair, if I could add that--

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Williams.

I have another question following up on that, but Ms. Ebbs, you have a comment. Go ahead.

[Catherine Ebbs]

I would only like to say that, as I've said, it's the law that sets out the grievance matters at level two and the discipline appeals, and the discharge and demotion. It's the law that sets out which of these cases have to be referred to the committee for review. If it is a case that the law requires be sent to the committee, the commissioner has no discretion in that matter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

But Ms. Ebbs, the point Mr. Williams was trying to make is that the law doesn't make any sense here because, to use an example, Ms. Revine was going to blow the whistle on this whole thing, and once she raised it, she was sent home. Her job was zapped. She was told to go home. Within two hours, she was sent home and told never to come back. Obviously the commissioner would not report that file to you.

[Catherine Ebbs]

We don't deal with public servant issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

So you are saying.... What was her recourse? She went to the Ethics Commissioner, and the Ethics Commissioner basically said he didn't have the capacity, the resources, that it was over his head. Looking in hindsight, where was she to go?

[Catherine Ebbs]

This person is a public servant, so there are grievance procedures for public servants that have nothing to do with our mandate at all. Under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, there may also now be avenues for matters that don't fall under the grievance process or the discipline process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

But Mr. Williams' first question to you was, does this make any sense? In your opinion, does this make any sense at all? From my vantage point, sitting here and listening to the questions and answers, it doesn't, and we've asked for your opinion.

[Catherine Ebbs]

I think within the labour relations environment there are different kinds of conflicts, and there are different systems set up for different kinds of conflicts. Our mandate is in relation to conflicts that are grievances and conflicts that are resolved by discipline. We don't have any mandate in terms of conflicts that can be described more as whistle-blowing. I think it's probably effective to have different processes for these different kinds of conflict.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Well, you say there are different processes, but we haven't seen them here in the months that we've looked at this.

Mr. Williams, do you have a comment?

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

With your indulgence...and I'm asking for your indulgence because I really find this rather strange that we have the External Review Committee--i.e., independent External Review Committee--sitting there spending a million taxpayers' dollars a year, and in her opening comment she said the mandate of the committee is to review grievances, disciplinary, discharge and demotion cases referred to it by the RCMP, which of course turns out to be just the commissioner. And for anybody who gets turfed, fired, demoted, and sent off to the doghouse, she will not even listen to what they have to say, because she says it's not in her mandate, and will not even accept the fact that the law is totally unbalanced here.

I have one simple question, Mr. Chairman, because she mentions the 80% or 90% of the rulings the commissioner has agreed with. So my question would be, how many times in their ruling did the committee disagree with the commissioner so that he had to reverse himself, or did they basically, in 90% of the cases, rubber-stamp what the commissioner had already decided?

[Catherine Ebbs]

The cases that have been referred to the committee, Mr. Chair, have gone through an internal process at the first level. There has been no decision made by the commissioner before the case is referred to the committee. It's only when the member has presented a grievance to level two or when a member has appealed a discipline ruling of an adjudication board within the RCMP in their internal process that the matter is brought to the commissioner for a decision.

Before the commissioner makes a decision, the law says that the case has to be referred to the committee, which is not part of the RCMP. We do a full review. We prepare recommendations and findings that are given to the parties as well as to the Commissioner of the RCMP. The law requires that the commissioner consider those recommendations. If the commissioner doesn't follow them at the appeal decision level or at the level two grievance level, the commissioner is required to explain the reasons why our recommendations were not followed. The course after that, if the member wants to pursue it, is with the Federal Court on judicial review.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Lussier, 10 minutes, please.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Chair, in a sense, my question complements the one Mr. Williams asked.

In the document you presented, you said that 42 grievances were submitted to your office in 2006-2007, that you made 40 recommendations and that 89% of those recommendations had been acted on by the commissioner.

Why do the numbers differ: 42 grievances and 40 recommendations? What happened to the two other cases? Then we see that, of the 40 recommendations, the commissioner followed up on 36. What happened to the four missing ones?

And if the commissioner does not accept the recommendation in a given case, would you be tempted to make it again in another case?

[Catherine Ebbs]

First, with regard to the statistics, there is a difference between the number of cases that we receive, and the number that we finish by year-end. We are not able to finish dealing with all the cases that we receive in a year.

In this case, 42 cases were submitted to us. So our workload included those 42 cases, plus others from previous years that we had not been able to finish. We finished 40. The others will have to wait until next year to be completed.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

There must be one recommendation for each grievance.

[Catherine Ebbs]

Yes, unless the grievor decides to withdraw the grievance. When the committee receives a case, it must prepare a report that includes recommendations.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

You also say that there is a second stage for cases in which the recommendations are not followed by the commissioner.

[Catherine Ebbs]

For each case, the committee has no second stage. In a disciplinary appeal, for example, the file comes to the committee which prepares a report and makes recommendations. This report is sent to the commissioner, who communicates it to the parties. Our involvement in the file stops at that point.

I believe that you asked if the fact that one of our recommendations is not followed means that we are bound by the commissioner's decision on the previous case when we deal with another case on the same topic. The answer is that we are not bound by a final decision in any way.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you. That answers my question.

Mr. Kennedy, are you aware of the statements made by Ms. Shirley Heafey in Canadian Press in October 2006 about cover-ups and lack of transparency in the RCMP and the fact that it was difficult for her to put much effort into the file? Does the change of commissioner solve all of Ms. Heafey's problems?

[Paul E. Kennedy]

Again, I'll allow Ms. Heafey to speak to her own experience; I've had excellent cooperation from the RCMP since my appointment in October 2005.

What I pointed out earlier is that you have to establish your credibility and you have to establish your value-added to it in terms of a process, but it's working well. There are challenges, though. That's why I publish my stuff, and I think I've got more opposition on some of my findings than she had, in terms of my recommendations, but what I'm doing now is that I don't recommend that you apologize or you do operational guidance. I've been doing a very detailed analysis of events that occurred, I'm making factual findings, and I'm making very specific recommendations as to whether or not there was fault, either individually or systemically, and on concrete steps to take to action. That's what I'm doing.

There are obstacles in place right now in terms of access to some kinds of information. The reason--and I think Mr. Williams will enjoy this--is that I have a piece of antiquated legislation that does not address today's realities. What we have been doing is passing legislation in the interim, for instance. It was very good, but it no longer fits with the RCMP.

A simple example is that part VI of the Criminal Code makes it a criminal offence to share intercepted communications. There is the one dealing with young offenders legislation and the statutory protections against the disclosure of that information. There is the witness protection program--it's a criminal offence to disclose it. All these are barriers to the RCMP's sharing information with me relative to investigation, because the law says they can't share it. The Federal Court of Appeal said those are the barriers--so sad, too bad.

For many cases it's not a problem, but in many cases there is a problem. If you look at the Security Intelligence Review Committee, they have access, as a right, to all information except for cabinet confidences. If you look at the Auditor General, she even has access to some of the cabinet confidence material. If you look at the access and privacy commissioners, they have access to it. Mine is a specialized body, and occasionally I run into these statutory barriers to access to information. So there is a problem. It's not a case of mala fides; it's a case that the legislation hasn't kept pace with the realities we are currently faced with.