Mr. Speaker, first, I want to say just how proud I am to have taken part, as a member of the Standing Committee on Governmental Operations and Estimates, in the consideration of Bill C-11. This consideration has led to significant changes to this bill, thereby greatly improving it.
Having sat in on the committee hearings, essentially from the fall of 2004 until the last day the House sat before the summer recess, I can say that the legislation has been studied extensively. As a first term MP, I was very pleased to see how a committee could achieve concrete, significant results when members operate and act in a constructive non-partisan manner to make legislation better for all Canadians and, in this case, also for the subset of Canadians who are important to us as elected representatives, namely the public servants of Canada.
The bill is very important, not only in a practical sense, but also because it would implement an important principle in the relationship between elected officials, especially those in the executive branch, and public servants.
Having worked closely with public servants over the course of my career here in Ottawa, even before I was elected, in my capacity as a parliamentary assistant to my predecessor, I can attest that Canada's pubic servants are extremely dedicated and work very hard. They are motivated essentially by their desire to contribute to this country. Their role is to offer the elected executive branch the expert and objective advice that it requires in order to implement the programs it was elected to implement. The public servants of Canada do an admirable job in providing that expert and objective advice.
However it is very important that governments in general return the loyalty that they demand and require of public servants. What that means in this context is that it is very important for the government to provide public servants with a legitimate avenue for raising flags about things like illegal activity within the public service and with respect to gross mismanagement, as my hon. colleague across the way mentioned when he listed those things that constitute a wrongdoing. One of the definitions of wrongdoing is gross mismanagement.
Bill C-11 would provide public servants with an opportunity to air and make known problems of wrongdoing that they encounter without, as in the past, having to go to other politicians in a surreptitious manner or by providing a brown envelope to a journalist. That is not the way things should be done. Public servants would now a legitimate channel to bring wrongdoings to the attention of those who could do something about them.
First, one of the amendments adopted by the committee bears mentioning because, although it was more of a symbolic change, it was important nonetheless.
In other words, the committee amended the title of the bill. Once again, this was a symbolic but important gesture that set a positive tone for the bill and for the disclosure of wrongdoing within the public service.
Initially, the French title of the bill included the words “dénonciation” and “dénonciateurs”. These words do not have positive connotations; indeed, they are rather pejorative. So the committee substituted the words “divulgation” and “divulgateurs”.
Second, the committee reversed the onus with regard to disclosure. The onus is no longer on those who disclose wrongdoing to provide absolute proof that they are not acting out of bad faith or making frivolous or vexatious disclosures. Persons who disclose wrongdoing will simply have to demonstrate that they are acting in good faith. In my opinion, this is a significant improvement in the bill.
Third—we have already heard this, but I want to take this opportunity to repeat it—the original bill gave the Public Service Commission, meaning the organization responsible for federal human resources, the responsibility to investigate complaints about wrongdoing within the federal bureaucracy. However, numerous witnesses expressed serious reservations about giving this role to a government agency that has such close ties with senior public servants and, ultimately, cabinet. The witnesses said that the commission was not sufficiently independent from the executive branch to ensure that all complaints would receive due process.
The government has responded by committing to appointing an independent commissioner who answers directly to Parliament, and not to cabinet through the Public Service Commission.
I would like to take this opportunity to give credit not only to the committee for pushing for this amendment, but also to the President of the Treasury Board, the minister responsible for this legislation, who is someone, based on my experience, who has a real interest in the structures and machinery of government and a real desire to make things work better. I believe he listened to the evidence that was brought to his attention through the committee, evidence provided by public servants, lawyers, the Information Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner and experts from other countries who came to speak to the committee to give their opinions about how we were going about protecting whistleblowers. A great deal of credit should be given to the minister and the committee members for making this happen. It was not in the original bill and it is crucial to the bill operating as it should.
I would like to mention another interesting and significant amendment. It may not seem to be so at the moment but I believe it is significant because it sets a precedent and opens up a future debate on the issue of government entities that are involved in security matters. We are talking about the RCMP, the armed forces and CSIS specifically.
The original bill did not cover any of those entities and there were rational, reasonable reasons why this was the case, namely, that these organizations are very different from other government departments and organizations because they deal with security matters. On the issue of sensitive information, even when we are talking about the armed forces, it would not necessarily be a good thing if a superior was not aware of a complaint against him or her, and he or she was going into battle with somebody who had lodged a complaint against them. It is a very different situation that exists within an organization like the armed forces, but the committee heard some very compelling testimony from someone who had been within the RCMP and whose attempts to bring a situation to light had been difficult and had met with resistance and in fact his career had suffered as a result.
When we are talking about the RCMP, it is an important security force but we are not talking about armed conflict or about the armed forces. We are not talking about the same kinds of national security concerns that maybe CSIS deals with. The committee thought this was a good test case to see if having the RCMP subjected to this soon to be law, Bill C-11, might work, and if it does work and it is effective, then in the future, perhaps in five years when the bill is reviewed, we could include or try to include other organizations like the armed forces and CSIS.
This bill has been a big step in the right direction and we should follow its success closely over the years to come so we can improve it again in five years.