Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, Parliament appears to have accepted outright, without any dispute, the Auditor General's report. The simple act of my being here today to express my serious reservations may perhaps be viewed as being inappropriate, but the purpose of my statement today is specifically to point out the significant flaws and mistaken observations that undermined my reputation personally and that of my office.
I am pleased to be here to discuss a report that, essentially, deals with labour relations and four of my decisions. I will focus specifically on the four decisions mentioned in the report. I would also like to talk to you about the rigorous approach, control measures and very detailed procedures that were implemented under my leadership.
To the members of the committee, I would explain that I have spent eight years serving Canadian public institutions. I myself have made decisions as part of an administrative tribunal, I have managed commercial fraud programs throughout Canada and I have led audit teams to improve organizations. When I was with the Immigration and Refugee Board, I developed the chair's plan to eliminate a backlog of 55,000 files. I received the honorary title of chief of aboriginal police in acknowledgement of my leadership. As the Associate Deputy Minister for Public Works, I reorganized a department of 14,000 employees at a time when the sponsorship file was an issue. I went back to my roots, at Agriculture Canada, to help needy farmers.
In 2007, with the support of the two Houses, I accepted the position of integrity commissioner. Today I am very proud to say that I have left behind a professional institution that has expertise in administrative investigations that is unique in Canada and has a staff of very high calibre individuals. When I left my position, 15 serious investigations were under way.
I must say, unequivocally, that I have serious problems with the report, which must be read bearing in mind the terms of reference that I will explain to you.
We took the legislation the way Parliament has given it to us. We took a very complex piece of legislation, and I had to institute an organization able to deliver the very complex mandate and have the procedures and the level of controls in place. I have produced a document at l'Université Laval that gives the genesis of the office, the complexity, the challenges.
Essentially, the act prohibited us from intervening if there was another process ongoing. We weren't there as a replacement of another organization or to implement court decisions. We were also limited in our action if there was a venue more appropriate. We had official languages complaints, we had privacy complaints, but we sat down with the appropriate jurisdictions—and rightfully so—if they said this was their jurisdiction.
We also had a long list of criteria to examine—good faith, whether it was sufficiently important—but in the end, we dealt with the disclosures that came to us, the reprisals, in addition to more than 100 disclosure regimes across Canada.
I should add as well that I think there's a profound misunderstanding of the work we were doing. The roughly 200 cases that keep being referred to were in fact subject to very extensive probes, what is called pre-investigations. In fact, my former deputy commissioner, who is an expert in administrative law, looked at the legislation. We had a duty of fairness to ensure that we did not prematurely launch an investigation and affect the reputation of people who are accused and raise expectations.
Essentially those probes involved interviews, documentary evidence, analysis of facts. We spent weeks, months, and occasionally years to look at those probes, and every one was documented thoroughly. At the end of the day, I am proud to say that there was consensus in all of the cases brought forward. I never had to overturn a single decision or recommendation.
I also implemented, from the first day I arrived, procedures to deal.... I fundamentally disagree that there were no procedures. I understand, Mr. Chair, that you got reports of all the procedures that were prepared by the institution. I haven't received a copy, but I'll give you just one example.
On December 13,
the procedures guide was completed.
It was very extensive, and while it carries the word ébauche, right in the body of the document it says:
“The rules contained in this guide are provisional.”
The “provisional” is because you have to gain experience.
Based on my extensive experience in managing investigations, the first thing you do is you have your rules of practice. We have checklists for every reprisal case because this was our exclusive jurisdiction. We had org charts. We had tracking systems. We also had, at my request, operational procedures developed. I hired a former senior official from the RCMP who had extensive experience in managing the policy that proceeded from my legislation. We had in fact consigned to that procedure a number of policies. For instance, how do you deal with senior officers? What are the timelines? Essentially, there was just about every possible tool that could be used. As I was leaving, similar to what I had done at the Immigration and Refugee Board, we had the mapping of how decisions were made and all the cross-checks that were done.
In addition, after decisions were made, I had quality control by my deputy commissioner, and also a former DG of audit, who did the review for file completeness. As a result of legal services reviewing files, we reopened the file, because we're not above making mistakes, but we wanted to make sure the process was solid.
One other major misconception: the tribunal. It was still early days, but I delegated under the act the review of every single reprisal case to my deputy commissioner to ensure that we had looked at them very carefully. There's a very stringent test under the act. There has to be a link between the reprisal and the disclosure. In the end, no cases met the test, but there's also one other important factor, and it's called conciliation. Under the act, conciliation is one of the venues that Parliament has given us. Most parties would prefer an informal conciliation process in order that their identity not be disclosed in front of a public hearing by the tribunal.
We compared very well. On checks and balances, I would refer to my presentation. Given that this is the accounts committee, we have exemplary financial controls and governance systems.
Very quickly, about human resources, when I took over, I inherited an administrative unit that had been operating for five years with its own way of operating. I was told that a few players were not very eager to have my leadership. In fact, there was somebody acting in the job who was very disappointed. And I was told in June that no briefing material would be prepared for me in August. The complainant who has gone into the news has indicated he became very furious on my appointment, regrettably. He refused to provide any information of substance on the investigations he had conducted previously and those that were before our organization. He had been promised an executive position without competition, like others. I must say that some members were very professional and very helpful. But at the end of the day, as a result of an exchange requesting information, he left, and the performance issue became a big concern. I could not give him performance...based on the advice of the human resources agency.