Public Accounts Committee on Jan. 28th, 2021

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Does the mandate of your office include a gender-based analysis plus mandate?

[Martin Dompierre]

Definitely, we can go and look at gender-plus elements. We have no restriction in that area. This is even something that we will be pursuing more in the future and adding as part of any audits that we have under way to apply that specific lens.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

How far in the future? Is this something you're committing to undertaking immediately? We're on the heels now of a public and pretty scathing report on the Governor General. We're hearing reports from other boards and agencies. What commitment can we have from you, sir, that you will include gender-based analysis plus, including critical components around anti-Black racism, the plus side of the GBA plus, to ensure that we have clear data on what's happening at the ground level for employees?

I would just add that we are also under a class action lawsuit from Black employees against the federal government currently—like, right now.

[Martin Dompierre]

This is definitely something that has been put on my radar as assistant auditor general to ensure that as we conduct our performance audit, we consider gender-based plus in the work we do in terms of specific criteria, and to ensure that as we look at some of the data, we properly disaggregate the data to see these differences and these challenges by these vulnerable populations. This is definitely something that will be considered for the future.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Green.

Mr. Webber.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Ossowski and Ms. Kelly, as you are both very aware, many people working for organizations historically say that they don't come forward because they are not believed. They really never get a resolution that they expect, so it's just easier not to rock the boat.

I'm interested in knowing what percentage of complaints in your organizations are determined as legitimate complaints. Are most determined legitimate, or are they dismissed? If I'm reading correctly exhibit 1.3 of the audit report, the vast majority of complaints are rejected, and many early in the process, too. Is that correct? Is that occurring in your organizations?

[John Ossowski]

I can start.

First, I think it's important to understand the process. Initially when a complaint happens, there's an acknowledgement, obviously. The first thing that managers consider is whether there needs to be a separation of parties. Then there's an analysis and a decision point about whether or not it meets the definition. If it does not meet the definition, then it goes to an informal process to resolve.

In our case, of the 64 cases in the last two years, 7% were deemed to have been founded. That's at the final end of it. That's when the restoration process would begin.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

That's interesting: 7%.

Ms. Kelly.

[Anne Kelly]

For us, it would be around the same thing that my colleague from the CBSA just said. It's the same process. In terms of total complaints, in 2019-20, for example, we had 139 complaints, and four were founded.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Four of the 139 complaints were founded as legitimate complaints.

[Anne Kelly]

Many are still ongoing.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

That's interesting.

Staying with you, Ms. Kelly, then, in paragraph 1.26 of the audit report, the CSC, over a two-year period between 2017 and 2018, completed 18 assessments of 148 of your organizational units, such as the institutions and parole offices and such. Of course, these assessments identify the risks to the safety, security and well-being of the employees in each of these units, in order to later develop a strategy in each unit to manage risks. By doing only 18 assessments out of 148 organizational units, that's just over 10% of the CSC's entire organization. Does this really show a deep organizational commitment to identifying risks to the employees?

From the report, my gut feeling tells me that this sort of looks like foot-dragging. I know that was back in 2017-18, and I'm sure things have improved since. Why were only 10% of CSC's organizational units assessed back then? Also, where are we now with the unit assessments? Have we assessed all your units?

[Anne Kelly]

No, they haven't all been assessed yet. However, we had started this initiative, which is the ethical risk assessment initiative. The goal is to conduct ethical risk assessment at each site to help us determine and better understand the most prevalent risks at each site and then inform mitigation strategies.

The work we did informed our workplace wellness and employee well-being strategy that we have now developed. As I said, it's comprehensive. It has pillars, it has guidelines, it has objectives and plans, and it has key performance and wellness indicators, because we want to monitor the progress. This is very important for us.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

That's wonderful. Just as a timeline, Ms. Kelly, when do you think these assessments of all your units will be completed?

[Anne Kelly]

Unfortunately, because of the pandemic we obviously haven't been able to travel. Hopefully, soon we will be out of this, and we will resume our ethical risk assessment initiative. I'll be able to provide the committee with more concrete timelines when we know that we can resume our activities.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

We will now move on to Mr. Longfield for five minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses and committee members. This is a tremendous discussion.

Mr. Green, you took my main question on gender-based analysis and the fact that when I looked at exhibit 1.1, I couldn't see how concerns around harassment and “reprisals, civility and respect” were being defined by types of people within the organization, and whether it's gender-based or racialized information.

Statistics Canada is now providing us information on poverty and on other social measures. Maybe that's a comment back to the Auditor General's office for Mr. Dompierre. Is anything in active discussions with the Auditor General's office?

[Martin Dompierre]

Definitely. That's something that we are considering, so rest assured that GBA+ and the disaggregation of data will be considered in future audit work.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's super. Thank you.

Mr. Ossowski, you made a comment right at the tail end of one of your statements about reading emails. Our youngest daughter directed us towards a Netflix documentary called The Social Dilemma, which is about the impact of social media on polarization, hate and online harassment.

When I was managing organizations, I wondered about the impact of the outside world on our culture within the workplace. How much work is being done through your management teams in terms of the dilemma of looking at private information versus looking at information that could impact the workplace?

[John Ossowski]

If you're referring to looking at social media feeds that employees might be on, certainly as part of the recruitment process we have a look at that.

I recall a previous committee meeting here where Ms. May suggested that we needed to do more about people who are current employees. We are working with the Treasury Board Secretariat, as the employer, to see what more we could do to look at those social media feeds and proactively identify problematic employees.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's great. That's also a topic that I know Heritage is looking at, not within the scope of the audit, but still an important factor, especially with everybody being more online now with COVID.

Ms. Kelly, I just performed a 360 review of my staff. I had it done through the House of Commons HR. It's a very valuable tool to have my staff be able to speak openly to an HR person, and that I can get an anonymous report back to say here are some areas of concern between staff members or between staff members and me as a manager.

Is this some type of tool that you're using within your organization?

[Anne Kelly]

No, we're not using it as a common practice. However, it's certainly something I would be open to. I think that, again, it's always good to know what people are feeling and get the feedback. This is how you can improve an organization.

Definitely, however, we are having much more discussion around respect, as part of a respectful workplace campaign. It's divided by themes. We have themes like know where to draw the line, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in an organization, and small gestures, big impacts. Small things can have a big impact on the organization. The theme is all about respect. What do you want to be? It highlights the good stories. Words matter and in each of our institutions and our parole offices we have the wall of respect where people can write kind gestures that others have done. It's been quite popular. We're doing a lot to—

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Ossowski, how do you get the external review of you as a manager?