Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased to speak on behalf of Bill C-11. I appreciate the hon. member's amendment because it sets the tone for just how conducive and cooperative the passage of this was through the committee stages.
As previous members have already explained, the government operations and estimates committee worked hard to strengthen the so-called whistleblowing legislation to ensure it would meet the needs of public service employees today and into the future. I would like to provide a few more details on the amendments that have been made.
As has been noted, the biggest issue raised in the committee's hearings was the designation of the President of the Public Service Commission as the neutral third party. She explained the committee's position and the resulting commitment of the government to propose a new independent officer of Parliament as a neutral third party for disclosures.
I applaud the committee, the witnesses who appeared and the government. This is truly a demonstration of what democracy can achieve if there is goodwill.
The work of the committee was not done with this one change. The committee and the government proposed several additional amendments to further strengthen the bill during the clause by clause review. Some hon. members have mentioned a few of these and I would like to talk a bit more about them.
The RCMP was initially excluded from the bill due to the unique and specialized nature of its operations and concerns about information security, though it would have had to establish similar disclosure regimes for its members and employees. It now explicitly is included in the bill and the committee received appropriate kudos from those parties.
In addition, other amendments were made to broaden the bill. For example, the definition of wrongdoing now includes any activity in or relating to the public sector, regardless of who carries it out. It is not restricted to an activity carried out by a public servant. As well, the proposed public sector integrity commissioner would have the discretion to undertake an investigation on the basis of information received, not only from public service employees, but also from outside the public sector.
Another amendment makes it clear that a public servant can disclose any information he or she believes could show that a wrongdoing has been or is about to be committed, or that a public servant has been asked to commit a wrongdoing. In other words, the bill requires less certainty in the mind of a public servant about a potential wrongdoing before he or she can disclose information about it. These amendments significantly enlarge the scope of the bill.
Other amendments strengthen the protection of public servants making disclosures. For example, the bill would allow for providing temporary assignments to persons making disclosures or persons who have been the target of reprisals.
The bill had required the Treasury Board to establish a public sector-wide code of conduct and indicated that organizations could also establish their own complementary codes. An amendment during the clause by clause review now makes it obligatory, not optional, that organizations establish their own codes of conduct.
Though the committee adopted several additional amendments, time limits me to mentioning just one more set. In order to reflect the positive spirit of the bill that the committee was trying to achieve, the French version replaced the more pejorative “dénonciation” and “dénonciateur” with “divulgation” and “divulgateur”. This reflects our belief that disclosing information that could indicate a wrongdoing is an honourable thing to do.
As well, the definition of a protected disclosure has been changed from one that “is not frivolous, vexatious or made in bad faith”. That has been changed to one that is made in “good faith”. These wording amendments may seem minor, but the change of a few words has captured the positive light in which the committee and the government view the proposed legislation and the positive way in which they would like Canadians to understand and support its objectives.
I also would like to offer my thanks to those who took the time to appear before the committee and to the committee itself for working so diligently and cooperatively. The bill will create a positive public sector environment that will support public servants in playing their important role in serving Canadians and the public interest.
The goal was to create a strong and efficient mechanism for disclosures, one that was broad, flexible and fair. I believe this goal will meet every potential situation.
We must remember that we did not start from zero. There was a Treasury Board policy on disclosures that had served well since it was put in place in late 2001, and it was effective. However, enshrining disclosure protection in legislation is a significant step forward.
Because of the amendments, of which I spoke, it does three main things. It sets out a very broad range of circumstances in which a disclosure investigation can be launched. It includes measures to give federal public servant sector employees confidence to come forward. It promotes and supports ethical behaviour throughout the federal public sector.
A key feature involves protecting employees from reprisal. To embellish this, they include strong confidentiality provisions to protect the identity of the person making a disclosure, reasonable time to register a complaint of reprisals, provisions for the temporary assignment of employees affected by a disclosure case and the option to make reprisal complaints to labour boards that have the authority to make orders to remedy the situation. All these are aimed at giving public servants more confidence to come forward.
The fact that it is an officer of Parliament as a neutral third party is also something quite positive. It has been mentioned and spoken about by other hon. members, but I would like one thing to be emphasized. The bill makes it very clear that public servants have the option to make disclosures directly to the proposed new public sector integrity commissioner. Using this option to use an internal disclosure mechanism, I believe is something extremely positive. There are a few other examples that we could use, but the existence of these two avenues reflects the bill's third main thrust and its overall larger purpose of building a positive environment.
The bill as it exists will ensure that what may be small matters now do not have the opportunity to grow into major situations.
With all of these in view, the codes, the values for our public servants and the fact that they exist in a vast majority of honest and committed public servants, they know they can help not only Canadians but each and every one of us as legislators. I am proud to have been part of this and to have worked with members of the committee and the government. I am proud of having had the opportunity to learn from the presenters.
