Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate today on the motion tabled by my colleague, the hon. member for Brampton, advocating legislation to protect public servants who report wasteful spending, illegal activities or any other incidents that threaten the integrity of the Government of Canada. The term whistle blowing has been used to describe such activities.
While the matter of legislating whistle blowing protection has been given a thorough airing in this House in the past, it is useful to bring it forward on occasion to see if the issues are real, if there are current mechanisms in place to assist public service employees who are fulfilling the legitimate requirements of their jobs, and if these mechanisms continue to provide the required degree of comfort for employees. It is useful as well to look at the experience of others in the area of whistle blower protection.
In Canada within the public service context, whistle blowing is rather loosely defined as making public disclosure of practices or actions related to fraud, mismanagement or waste. It is interesting to note that the current motion also includes a reference to items which threaten the integrity of the Government of Canada. It is very important for employees within the public service and in the private sector to have pride in their jobs and in their organization. Also I feel strongly that employees want to identify in a positive way with their employment and with their employer.
The issue which arises is what to do when an employee sees situations involving potential waste or mismanagement, or from a more positive perspective, when that employee sees a way for improving job efficiency or effectiveness. The concern is with those mechanisms that are available should the recommendations or suggestions not be welcomed or addressed.
I looked at some of the United States experience in the area of whistle blower protection legislation. As a bit of background, whistle blowing protection was legislated in the United States with the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and in 1989 with the Whistleblowing Protection Act. It was designed to provide protection against adverse employment actions for employees who blow the whistle.
The 1989 legislation allowed employees to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board to seek redress for alleged acts of retaliation such as reassignments and ratings. As a follow-up to determine the effectiveness of the legislation, the United States
government conducted employee surveys in 1983 and in 1992 with a number of interesting findings.
Survey data showed that from 1983 to 1992 fewer employees said they had personally observed or obtained direct evidence of one or more illegal or wasteful activities involving their agencies. However of these employees, an increased percentage said that they had reported the illegal or wasteful activities. There was also an increase in the percentage of employees who said they had experienced reprisal or threat of reprisal for having reported an illegal or wasteful activity, but there was a decline in the more serious forms of reprisal.
From the perspective of increasing efficiency and effectiveness it was noted that while a smaller percentage of employees reported seeing examples of illegal or wasteful activities, of those who saw them a much larger percentage were willing to report them. Some employees chose not to report for a number of reasons, primarily because they believed nothing would be done to correct the activity, or they feared retaliation. Of course, when employees do share information about problems they see, the receivers of this information must be receptive to the information and must be willing to work with the employees toward problem resolution.
The United States report reached the conclusion that agencies need to focus their efforts on creating an atmosphere in which employees and managers alike see the value both in identifying problems and in working together to resolve them and that threats associated with disclosing illegal or wasteful activities must be diminished. The report concluded that this can be done only by empowering employees with the control and the right to help make changes in the workplace.
Suggestions for improvement included the following. Agencies should emphasize organizational change and improvement. Agencies should examine their processes for selecting supervisors and managers to ensure that they are choosing management teams with whom employees will feel comfortable sharing information concerning illegal or wasteful activities. Agencies should ensure that employees understand the kinds of problems about which they should share information, how the information will be handled and what safeguards there are against reprisals. Agencies should actively solicit employees' views and give employees feedback concerning those views.
This leads to an interesting comparison with the approach within the Canadian public service. In terms of the Canadian approach, we think it is important that the government of the day works with the public service in a co-operative manner, and I feel a spirit of trust must be felt as we look to ways of eliminating waste and achieving effectiveness.
At this time there are mechanisms within the public service to allow employees to bring to the attention of senior management any concerns they may have regarding illegal activities which they consider beyond the bounds of propriety. As well, there are a variety of mechanisms to protect employees from arbitrary disciplinary measures including the well established grievance and adjudication process.
The Public Service Staff Relations Act allows employees to grieve any perceived injustice or wrongdoing where there is no recourse provided in law. The Canadian Human Rights Act protects employees from discrimination and the Privacy Act provides a measure of protection as well.
In addition to the legislation provisions, the harassment in the workplace policy adopted by the Treasury Board for all public service employees specifically forbids harassment for any reason whatsoever, including specifically abuse of authority. It provides a simple mechanism that allows employees to bring their concerns to the attention of a neutral third party. In addition, the powers of the press and the public service employee unions have been influenced. The press and the unions have demonstrated a continuing interest in keeping government employees and public organizations on the straight and narrow, as we are all aware.
A fundamental principle of management in most successful organizations is that the employees are accountable for their performance to their senior managers. Fair play on the part of employees and superiors is an equally important element. There are in place remedial measures and available avenues of appeal that work efficiently to deal with abuses of authority. There are also sanctions in place to prevent, avert or penalize proven dishonourable conduct, criminal actions, waste, extravagance, discrimination or abuse of trust.
Employees are expected to inform their supervisors of any seeming impropriety and to suggest ways of improving public service actions. Recourse to internal channels where available and likely to be effective is required so that problems may be resolved internally.
The employee must consider whether that alternative is appropriate, not because the truth should be hidden but because internal remedy may be the most effective. There is an important message for internal managers here. Employees, according to a United States survey, are more likely to disclose issues in the context of where the issue is likely to be addressed.
For all the complexity of the government, the incidents that put employees in particular difficulties are remarkably few and far between. Existing mechanisms have been shown to be capable of dealing with them. New legislation in the area might well open a gulf between the employees and management, one which does not exist now.