Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her comments, but I want to differentiate between what this particular bill covers and the topic of psychological harassment that she is raising, because this bill is not constituted to deal with a workplace issue of that sort.
That is not to say it is not an important issue and should not be dealt with in other ways. I will obtain a copy of her bill and have a look at it. If she would like to meet with me to discuss this outside the House, I would be more than willing to do so.
It is interesting in a way, because it was one of the reasons why I thought going to the Public Service Commission was an interesting choice. The problem is that we can do some things, particularly in larger organizations on more complex problems, to protect the identity of the person bringing forward the problem, but in a lot of cases we cannot. In a lot of cases it is kind of known within the organization. One of the concerns was about how we protect someone who has legitimately brought forward a case of actual wrongdoing, because there are other problems.
Britain has legislation like this. One of the complexities it found is that what starts out as a claim of wrongdoing turns out to be a personnel or HR matter because someone got passed over for a promotion or something. All of that has to be sorted out in dealing with wrongdoing.
In cases where people have brought forward substantive cases of wrongdoing, within the act there is a requirement that they be protected. As well, if there are any attempts to deal with them later on in their careers as a result of their actions in this matter, there are remedies for that.
One of the reasons why I thought the Public Service Commission was interesting was that it, by definition, is the body that would follow them for the rest of their careers and be able to extend some of that protection, but between the public sector management agency and the new House officer, we have the tools to provide that kind of protection.