Public Accounts Committee on Jan. 28th, 2021

[John Ossowski]

Absolutely, and as a follow-on to what my colleague was just saying and the first part of your question, I think it comes down to understanding the culture of the organization. Certainly law enforcement agencies and the cultures we have have been highlighted over the last few years, but I think we're only now getting to the point where we have the tools and the frame to talk about them and ask ourselves if this is what we really want.

No, everybody would argue, that's not the case. If we're not happy with it, then let's do something about it. I'm super proud of the work that we've done here. For example, our visible minorities advisory committee, which is a grassroots committee that formed itself, is providing me with advice. They certainly provided me with advice in the summer after the George Floyd incident about putting out communications and support to our Black employees.

More broadly, in terms of the conversations we need to have to understand the culture of the organization and what we're prepared to do about it, we're making huge efforts. I think a critical success factor for us has been that we have a full-time culture team as part of the CBSA transformation office that is working with a very dispersed organization. I have over 100 ports of entry across the land and people working abroad in 40 countries, so reaching out, having those conversations, listening to employees and essentially pulling the bandage off the culture and exposing it and talking about it.... People are starting to build trust, and I think that's reflected in some of the survey results we've seen, which are starting to show some positive direction. I want to be clear, culture change takes time and it's going to require persistent efforts, and we're absolutely committed to those efforts.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Kelly, do you have any further comments from your organization in regards to this issue?

[Anne Kelly]

Yes, in our organization, we're looking at a CSC anti-racism framework and actions. We've already developed it; it has a vision statement and purpose; it has guiding principles; it's a three-pronged approach. We're focusing on our staff, our offenders, but also our stakeholders. For example, I have a national ethnocultural advisory committee as my colleague said, that also advises me on certain issues. I have a national indigenous advisory committee that advises me on indigenous issues. In the Atlantic region, we've worked with Robert Wright, a renowned expert in Black cultural competence, and he's developed training for parole officers.

Yes, we're doing a lot.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you so much, Ms. Kelly. I'm sorry to have to cut you off; we are over time.

I will now move to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to begin by thanking all the witnesses for being here today.

My first question is for Mr. Dompierre.

I found the conclusions of your office's audit report rather devastating. Let's look at exhibits 1.1 and 1.2 on harassment and the concerns of Correctional Service Canada and Canada Border Services Agency employees. According to the survey you mentioned, three out of every four employees considered that they had serious or significant concerns about organizational culture. Three out of four is appalling.

We are well aware of the process, Mr. Dompierre, which dictates your actions and your impartiality as an officer of Parliament in the exercise of your duties and in your choices of topics to be audited. This is all to your credit, and what members of Parliament and taxpayers expect of you. Taxpayers expect you to play a watchdog role with respect to their financial interests and the healthy management of public funds.

As for what follow-up action should be required further to your report on working relationships and the respect required at Correctional Service Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency, can you say without the slightest doubt that the corrective action planned, if taken, would really correct a situation that I find highly disturbing?

[Martin Dompierre]

Thank you very much for your question.

As you mentioned, for the report, we surveyed each of these organizations in order to discover people's opinions about respect in the workplace. We made recommendations about this, and the Canada Border Services Agency and Correctional Service Canada Submitted their action plans to us, which explain the detailed measures they will be taking to implement our recommendations.

We have not yet studied these specific measures yet. We find the action plans submitted to be reasonable. We may, in the near future, have an opportunity to do further audit work to determine whether the recommendations that we made have been implemented.

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

Thank you, Mr. Dompierre.

In point 3 of your opening comments, you pointed out that issues that are not reported cannot be resolved and may affect employees’ health. However, in point 1.33 of your report, we find the following:

We found that in the harassment and workplace violence complaints that we reviewed, once employees made complaints, both organizations did not always tell employees that they could use informal processes.

That's almost 1 of 4 employees. Does that make sense?

If the organizations don't inform employees of informal processes, that's not going to help them make a complaint or raise any problems with respect to the two organizations.

[Martin Dompierre]

Thank you for your question.

When we conducted the survey we also found, if you recall, that people feared reprisal if they made complaints of workplace harassment, discrimination or violence.

In Exhibit 1.2, which you mentioned, this was a mechanism provided by the Treasury Board policy that gave complainants the right to use an informal process to deal with the problem at issue. Clearly, if people are not offered this possibility, it will certainly undermine the credibility of the process. People will be less certain that their complaint will be treated consistently within the process.

So it's all about how complaints are managed, and how people are made aware of the various forms of recourse to which they are entitled in the complaint process.

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

After all, we're talking about key organizations in terms of national safety, as part of this portfolio, under the Minister of Public Safety. I believe that a harmonious working climate is absolutely essential to prevent employees from becoming frustrated, which could also jeopardize their own safety.

Based on your analyses, do you feel confident that things are going to improve?

To what extent are you really convinced that things are really going to change?

[Martin Dompierre]

In our audit, we made recommendations concerning the importance of processing complaints consistently. Both organizations accepted these recommendations. We also recommended to them that complaints should be fully processed and evaluated.

This also requires documentation to support the decision to dismiss or accept a complaint. We made a recommendation about this as well. As I was saying earlier, both organizations agreed to implement the measures required to correct the situation.

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

Thank you, Mr. Dompierre.

I now have a question for Mr. Ossowski.

Good morning, Mr. Ossowski. The conclusions of the report prepared by the Auditor General's office were not exactly flattering to your organization. Mr. Dompierre referred earlier to stress caused by the current pandemic, which could have a personal impact on people and lead to regrettable or even reprehensible action by officials in certain organizations.

Everyone is on edge, for reasons outside of our control, and that is understandable. But we need to remain calm. In my view, your organization plays a key role in assuring the safety of all our fellow citizens and the health of all our communities, particularly at this time, if you see what I mean.

In light of the conclusions drawn by the Office of the Auditor General, and in particular given the key impact of the Border Services Agency on collective safety, can you assure the committee that everything can be sorted out without the need for major studies or strategy meetings?

Do you have the moral authority to tell everyone to get onside and work together?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas. We have gone over time, so perhaps we can follow up with that question again during another round.

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

Madam Chair, would it be possible to request an answer in writing? We would be grateful to the witness.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Absolutely. We can request that we receive the answer in writing.

Thank you.

Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I want to begin, Madam Chair, by saying that I'm really grateful to this committee for the very thoughtful questions. If we would like to receive an answer, I'm happy to allow that to happen here in my time. It was a very thoughtful question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Green. That's very generous of you.

Mr. Ossowski, please go ahead.

[John Ossowski]

Certainly.

Let's deal with it in a little bit of sequence. Absolutely, we take these results seriously. To that effect, we're actually doing our own internal audit on how we're progressing in 2021-22. I would say that, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we certainly understand the importance of informal ways to deal with this, and we've actually had over 80 informal conflict management information sessions delivered to employees so that they understand the avenues that are available to them.

I'd also like to correct a little bit of a misperception, too. When we're talking about harassment and discrimination, people think that it's always management to employees. In fact, the majority of these cases are employee to employee. I think it's really important. This is not managers bearing down on their staff. This is something within all levels. It's up and down. It's sideways.

As for the point about whether I have the moral authority to make this all better, that's an interesting question because I actually would say that it is the collective responsibility of everyone in the organization to make improvements. If you see something that's not right, you have to act. That's what I'm trying to impress upon the organization. Don't sweep things under the carpet. If there's something that's not right—and everybody can understand the basics of what's right and wrong in these types of subjects that we're talking about—you have an obligation to act. That's what we're trying to talk about. The culture of the organization has been to sweep things under the carpet, and that's the part that we're changing. It's about speaking up and doing something about it with proper processes and training, and choosing the right people so that they can actually act appropriately and stop these things from festering to the point where they blow up into a giant problem that makes it much harder for everybody to deal with.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay. I think that's actually a really good segue, and I'd like to continue with you, sir. You talked about how often this is an instance or a culture between employees and not necessarily something that's coming down from management. However, it's fairly clear in this report that there are fears of reprisals. In your opinion, with the culture of reprisal, with the culture of sweeping things under the rug, would that still be at the staff level or would that not, in fact, be led by the culture and the direction of management?

[John Ossowski]

I think that management has to pay attention to what's going on. As I said, where there's smoke, there's fire often. If they see something going on, then they have to insert themselves into that conversation or whatever's happened and either try to solve it informally.... However, to let it get to the point where it's a formal complaint that has to be put into place, quite frankly, that's a failure. I think that the more that you understand what's happening with your teams and nip things in the bud, the better off we're all going to be.

That means training for managers. That means soft skills training. That means—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If I could interject, in 2018, senior management spoke with staff across the country to understand the concerns, and in addition, in the summer of 2018, you approved the development of a strategy. It wasn't in place at the end of the audit period. Could you explain why the respectful workplace strategy, approved in July 2018, was not in place?

[John Ossowski]

Yes, I can.

What we started with was something very basic, which was a listening tour. Soon after my arrival, having worked in other organizations where I really believe that understanding the culture was a critical element to making any kind of change, and not getting the kind of feedback from the surveys that had been done, with respect, by the AG or even the PSES.... It wasn't helping us understand the issue. We went around the country and held dozens and dozens of sessions with employees in very Chatham House Rule kinds of ways and said, “Okay, what's going on?”

That did two things. First of all, it gave us better insight into what was going on, and second, it started to build trust that we're listening, that we're going to do something and that we're taking it seriously. We're just starting to see the benefits of that. We're doing little pulse-check surveys now, and especially to the previous member's question—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

What were some of your takeaways? I'll preface this to say that I'm always alarmed when I hear that the visible minorities within your organization, the folks who are providing advisory capacities to you, are formed by themselves. That tells me that they saw a challenge; they formed an advisory committee. What are some of your takeaways from this type of advisory function?

[John Ossowski]

They didn't quite form by themselves; a champion was put in place. That champion brought them into place, but absolutely, there was resounding support for something like this. I think it's about the shift of tone.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If I could, specifically, sir, what were your takeaways? What have you learned from the advisory functions of groups that are organizing to help improve the culture in the workplace?

[John Ossowski]

That we need to speak openly and honestly about what's going on.