Public Accounts Committee on Jan. 28th, 2021

[Anne Kelly]

Yes, there are restorative actions, but I'll just repeat that for us it's very important that although the conflict may be between individuals, it normally has an impact on the whole area. This is why our office of conflict resolution immediately gets involved to work with the impacted area.

We look at workplace surveys to see how people are doing and, again, senior management meets with the staff just to ensure that people can raise any concerns, preoccupations that they have, but our goal is always to restore the whole workplace area.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Also, Ms. Kelly, and this is not part of the audit, but with the pandemic this past year, I'm sure the stress levels have significantly increased.

I know they have with Correctional Services and such, and I would imagine that you probably are overloaded with issues with staff and with your clients who are in your facilities.

Can you talk a bit about how you are addressing these issues, which I'm sure escalated immensely?

[Anne Kelly]

Yes. During wave one, we had 360 offenders who tested positive and we had two deaths. During wave two now, we have only 15 active cases at this point. In terms of our staff, we have 511 who have tested positive, but 94% have been resolved. Definitely it's been difficult.

I want to acknowledge the work of all staff, especially our front-line correctional officers. Our business is 24-7, 365 days a year, and they do fantastic work. We've really been working hand in hand, and I applaud their work.

The other thing is that it has been difficult because when we have positive cases of COVID in our institutions, we need to restrict movement.

However, I have to say that I have received more letters from offenders than ever, thanking the organization for keeping them safe. I correspond with the staff and with the offenders weekly, telling them exactly what's happening, so everybody is informed of the situation.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I know it's not part of the audit, but have your staff received their vaccinations?

[Anne Kelly]

We follow the national advisory committee guidelines. We received a certain number of doses, and we split them up. According to the NACI guidelines, it's for offenders who are older, so 70 plus. If we don't have that number, then it's by a tranche of five years, so it would be for those 65 plus who have underlying health conditions.

My understanding so far is that we've used the doses we have received.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you for that, Ms. Kelly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Webber. You have 20 seconds left.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Okay. Well, I'll graciously pass that on to who's next, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to Mr. Blois for five minutes.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their testimony today.

Obviously I'm at the back of the bus in terms of questions that have been already asked and some of the dialogue. However, I want to go a little bit broad. We're looking at the results of the Auditor General's report in this specific area.

Ms. Kelly, Mr. Green pointed out that you've been in public service for 37 years. Thank you for your work.

I want to know from your perspective whether you have noticed a trend and a gradual improvement, in terms of even just having conversations about workplace harassment. You have almost four decades' worth of experience. Can you speak a little bit about how we've been able to move the meter in the right direction? There's certainly still more work to be done, but can you speak to that?

[Anne Kelly]

I started in 1983. I've worked in many institutions, both in Ontario and in the Pacific region. Definitely I've seen some improvements along the way.

First of all, when I started, I was one of the few women. I became a manager fairly quickly, and often I found myself being the only woman in the room.

In terms of harassment, discrimination, workplace violence, it's much more open than it was when I started 37 years ago. In those days, people didn't come forward as much.

There are also generational differences. I think 37 years ago, it was more that you went to work, you did your job, you went back home. Now what I see is that people are much more willing to share how they're feeling, what's happening. I think it's a good thing. They're also quite willing to share it with the top levels of the organization. I get messages from staff, and every message I get, I respond to, and it's the same for all of my executive committee.

For me, definitely there have been some positive changes. I think the biggest change is in the willingness to talk about it. I believe it's a shared responsibility. Everybody has a role to play to ensure their environment is safe and healthy.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I appreciate that. Obviously, we need to continue to move that. I think that's the benefit of having these committees where we can revisit ways that we can improve, to try to get even better in the days ahead.

Mr. Dompierre, obviously, as was already mentioned, these are two particular organizations that you took a look at. I know the question has already been asked about why and what other organizations you might consider in the future, but I'm sure that the Office of the Auditor General has done harassment, discrimination and workplace violence audits in the past. I know we're thinking about this more and more.

Can you speak about how these audits may or may not have changed over time, compared to other ones that might have been done even five, seven or 10 years ago?

[Martin Dompierre]

I don't specifically recall a number of audits that we have conducted in that area, but we are definitely considering other audits for the future and making sure that, as we conduct our own analysis of risk related specifically to organizations within the federal government, we apply that lens and consider, based on the risks that we have come across, that if there are any future audits to be conducted in that area, we will definitely consider those audits.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I want to go quickly to you, Ms. Gomez, because you were the lead within the OAG in terms of this particular report. My apologies if this was already asked.

In terms of looking at how this audit actually went down, was it looking at the internal review processes and dossiers of files? Was it talking to employees directly? Can you speak, in about the 40 seconds that I have left, about what that looked like on the ground?

[Susan Gomez, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

Primarily, we did a file review. The results that we have in the table are the result of the file review that we did do.

In the planning phase, we always do interviews to try to scope the audit, so there were some interviews, but primarily it was done through the file review and through the survey that we have reported on in the report.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Moving forward, is it beneficial to have some of that interview evidence for the intrinsic kind of.... I know we have a certain process that we need to file, but are there certain areas where there could be mitigation of some of this informally without going through a process where we can't necessarily capture the culture and some of the good practices that are being done?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Who is that directed to?

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I'm sorry. It's for Ms. Gomez or Mr. Dompierre, if they want to take 10 or 15 seconds.

[Martin Dompierre]

Basically, as we do our audits, as has been said, any opportunities we have to consider some of the observations we collect during the interviews are considered as evidence and also would be considered to be included in our report.

In this context, as Madam Gomez mentioned, we focused on the file review, as well as the survey. That's where the angle of this audit was. We did not look at individual, specific cases of how the complaint and why the complaint was made, but more on the specific process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you.

We now will move to our last round of questioning, starting with Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll begin with an important comment for Mr. Ossowski and Ms. Kelly, and follow that up with a question for Mr. Dompierre.

Over the past few days, the climate of work at Rideau Hall has dominated the news. Based on the information we have so far, it's particularly troubling to realize that at the highest level of the State, even the Governor General can have complaints filed against her reprehensible behaviour. The consequences are enormous.

Mr. Dompierre, can you tell the committee whether your office will be taking any follow-up action with respect to this situation, or whether at the very least it will remain on your radar, if I can use that expression, for the good of the employees there?

I believe that an example has to be set from above, and it can't come from much higher than the Office of the Auditor General.

[Martin Dompierre]

We always do risk analyses for federal entities, which are required to maintain a healthy workplace that is free of harassment, discrimination or violence against employees.

If any work in this area needs to be done with respect to federal entities in the future, we'll certainly take it into consideration.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Dompierre.

Mr. Ossowski and Ms. Kelly, my understanding is that there are monitoring mechanisms in the public service, and policies on respect for employees and workplace harassment prevention. For reasons that I will of course not go into, thePrime Ministerdemanded and obtained the Governor General's resignation.

To what extent are you providing the leadership required to ensure that in future, the Office of the Auditor General would be able to cite you as a model to be followed in terms of managing the working environment for your employees?

[John Ossowski]

I want to reassure you that all the management cadre in the organization is committed to this. We hold our managers to a higher standard than employees. We're providing the support and training. We're actively monitoring this. As I mentioned, we're going to be doing an audit on ourselves on this matter in the coming year.

We're also looking at other mechanisms. We've got a heat map process, where we're looking to see where the hot spots are so we can dive in quickly. We're looking at using a third party firm, using artificial intelligence with the Department of Justice to understand where there might be some of those areas that we need to dive into quickly.

This is a full-court press, as far as I'm concerned. We are showing leadership.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much.

The last question for this meeting will go to Mr. Green for two and a half minutes.