Evidence of meeting #57 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was workplace.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Okay, so you feel that you've hit the nail on the head with how you deal with it.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Well, I'm hoping.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
Do I have any time at all? It's gone.
Thank you.
NDP
February 7th, 2013 / 11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and welcome to the witnesses. We've talked, so it's nice to actually see you in person. It's nice that you've accepted our invitation.
Even though you're a small department, it sounds like you're setting examples for some of the others. Ms. Dawson, you're head of this particular area. We also had our Clerk in. Between both females, frankly, you give us a lot of assurance that you're trying to stay ahead of these issues rather than having to respond to them.
What's the breakdown of your staff between male and female?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
It's about 70% female, 30% male.
Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Just to be exact, we have 39 women and 11 men in our organization of 50.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
That would be five women and two men.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
That's good. It's nice to see women in there more often than not.
Often it seems that a culture will infiltrate and get established in various departments that have problems. You've been very active. You've done a review of your policies, and you're looking at them again. You can only deal with hypothetical questions in much of this, because you haven't had any of these complaints to deal with, versus some of the others.
This is a bit off from the sexual harassment complaints, but are you currently dealing with a lot of complaints from an ethical perspective?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Outside the...you mean not in my office, but....
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
We're dealing with lots of them outside my office.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
Clearly, for sexual harassment, you seem to very much have that whole thing under control.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Yes.
As Denise was saying, at our annual retreat we usually have some topic that's related to this. We have good discussions about it.
But no, we're aware of it, and people are tuned in to these issues. We discuss them at different opportunities. As I say, it's allied to our day job anyway, at least the function of the office, so it's not foreign to our way of thinking.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
Have you ever had any staff from outside go to you to complain about unethical behaviour of a member of Parliament?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
People aside from my staff?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Sure. Lots.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Oh, gosh, I get all level of complaints.
A lot of people who don't have a particular position, just regular Canadians, raise lots of issues with us about MPs' behaviours and things, sure. Most of those are not covered by our act, but if they are, I will look into it.
I have two ways of looking into conflict of interest and ethical issues. One is by request by an MP or a senator, but the other way is self-initiated. I do take any information I get, whether it's in the media or through calls from the general public, and we do take a look at it. Often it doesn't relate to our mandate, but sometimes it does.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
Can you give us some examples of the kinds of complaints from the general public that you're trying to handle at your office? Can you elaborate so that we have some examples of the kinds of complaints you would receive against MPs or senators?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Well, we might get a complaint that an MP had some sort of a personal interest in something that he had taken some action on. If it's within our jurisdiction, then a typical one we would get is a complaint from an MP against another MP. Many of the issues like that....
Our whole act, or not our whole act but most of our act—
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
—yes, is about the interface between your public duties and your private interests.
Those would be the areas in which people would raise issues with us. We've had all manner of issues raised with us that have nothing to do with our jurisdiction. Quite often we refer them to, for example, the Privacy Commissioner, or to a provincial body or something.
We get a whole panoply of information.
