Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-451, a bill that would prohibit psychological harassment at work. It comes to the House at a time when we are hearing daily about senior managers abusing the public trust when it comes to sponsorship programs.
The public service integrity office, or PSIO, has the task of being a neutral entity to encourage the disclosure of wrongdoing in the public sector. That office found that few employees were willing to come forward with stories of wrongdoing activities. I have a quote from the public service integrity office that I think is very important to this debate, and I will quote it at length. I think it explains the need for this legislation, which I support the legislation. The PSIO report states:
These activities have great implications for the public service because they are serious in nature, often have a detrimental effect on the interests and functions of a group of public servants or a whole department, and subvert the delivery of programs or services to the public. Some cases brought to the PSIO during the past year involved alleged conduct that was obviously within that category. All involved long and complicated investigations, whether or not wrongdoing was found. These cases most clearly fall within the mandate of the PSIO.
Yet, relatively few such disclosures were made to the PSIO. As was noted earlier, it is impossible to know how much serious wrongdoing actually takes places in the Public Service. We do know that serious instances have been uncovered by the police and the Auditor General. Also, serious instances of wrongdoing have been alleged by Parliamentary Committees. And many accounts of serious governmental wrongdoing have been widely reported and discussed in the media and other public forums. The question is: Why did the employees who presumably know about these activities not go to the PSIO?
While some may believe that such disclosures are being made by internal departmental channels, this does not always appear to be the case. In fact, departmental Senior Officers designated to review disclosures of wrongdoing say they seldom receive reports of serious wrongdoing.
In my view, much of it has to do with balancing the likelihood of job reprisal with the hope of personal benefit. For example, if I believe I am the victim of an employment-related wrong, I may be willing to risk reprisal in the reasonable hope of personal benefit if the problem is addressed and fixed. But if I am not the victim of the actual wrongdoing, I am unlikely to benefit if the wrongdoing is fixed. Therefore, I may be less likely to risk reprisal by reporting the wrongdoing. Also, many do not want to risk being labelled a squealer, a rat or a disloyal employee by superiors or colleagues.
Clearly, it requires greater courage and commitment to the public interest on the part of public servants to report serious wrongdoing, especially in light of the fact that they may risk real or perceived reprisals without chance of personal benefit. Surely, the institution concerned has a duty to provide incentives and recognition for the public service being rendered, including effective protection against job reprisals.
Clearly, skepticism about the ability of this Office to provide effective protection is directly related to doubts about the effectiveness of policy versus legislation, as well as uncertainty about the independence and powers of the PSIO. As such, the fears of reprisal--and doubts that a policy-based agency can withstand those determined to practise reprisal--may constitute yet another reason to recommend a legislatively supported agency.
This is a long quote but I think it is a telling quote in terms of why the legislation is imperative at this time and why I believe the House should support it. As the quote from the public service integrity officer explains, public service employees do not believe that sufficient support or protection for them to risk disclosing wrongdoing is in place.
I think the kind of comments that were made by the minister across the way on this issue only fuels the belief that they are not being protected at this point in time by the government in office.
Our public servants deserve better support from us than they have received. Who can forget the pictures of the privacy commissioner employees standing outside the office last summer wearing gags as a symbol of how they felt silenced by a culture of intimidation in their department? If they had felt more secure, we may have learned of George Radwanski's excesses much sooner. This bill moves us in the right direction to support public servants at this point.
By laying out an explicit definition of psychological harassment and its implications on public service employees, the bill clearly supports and protects the workers who have had to implement decisions made by managers right up to the ministers of the Crown. The bill states that hostile, inappropriate and unwanted conduct, comments, actions and gestures are all psychological harassment. It also goes on to talk about the abuse of authority, including intimidation, threats, blackmail or coercion that a person in a position of power might use to endanger an employee's job, undermine their performance or interfere with an employee's career, as another form of psychological harassment. It makes clear that just one incident of this behaviour that had long term effects on an employee would in fact be considered harassment.
This legislation is a small step toward some protection for whistleblowers since it would penalize an employer or manager who retaliates against an employee disclosing incidents of psychological harassment.
The NDP has called for protection for whistleblowers for years. Any time employees come forward, like the veterinarian at Health Canada who talked about pressure from managers to fast track drug approvals, they risk not just their current jobs but also any future employment, especially if their career happens to be linked to the public service.
Surveys of public service employees show that over 21% of employees report experiencing psychological harassment at work. That is just an unbelievable figure. Over 20% of people are identifying with this problem right now in our public service. Overwhelmingly, the harassment came from people in positions of authority. Seventy-four per cent of employees who reported being harassed identified their supervisors as the people responsible for the harassment.
We clearly need legislation at this point to protect our public service employees from intimidation and coercion from their supervisors, managers and others. The fact that the government at this point is saying that it is not necessary speaks volumes about the people who are in charge of the government.
In closing, this bill, while protecting employees, will also protect the interests of Canadians by ensuring public service employees are protected from job loss and censure if they make a disclosure of wrongdoing. I am pleased to support the bill at this time.