Government Operations committee  I think the reason was that we had highly publicized case reports that attracted people to our office, and we also launched an online form. I think the Human Rights Commission has just reported, in its annual report, that the launch of an online form is generally followed by a spike in uptake.

Government Operations committee  No, I don't think there's a correlation. One reality of our work is that we're dealing with an extremely broad definition of wrongdoing, which deals with anything from the breach of an act to gross mismanagement to endangering life, health, and safety.

Government Operations committee  If I can try to contextualize a little bit for you, it is very unusual for us to get a disclosure of a single allegation of wrongdoing. The vast majority, more than 50% of them, have a number of the boxes checked, in terms of the definition. That actually informed how we went about designing our online questionnaire.

Government Operations committee  The three, if I can put it this way, most popular heads of wrongdoing are gross mismanagement in the public sector, which is not defined by law so we've defined it in our own approach, in our case reports; the serious breach of a code of conduct; and the breach of a federal law or a provincial law.

Government Operations committee  The spike was on the disclosure side more than on the reprisal side.

Government Operations committee  I think I will ask my number guy to talk to you directly.

Government Operations committee  The first basis for my disappointment was timing. First of all, this was a five-year review of the legislation, and it happened in 10 years.

Government Operations committee  That's right. I was quite eager after 10 years to get the five-year review done. I thought our proposals were achievable and implementable. I fully accept that my priorities as commissioner of a micro-organization are not necessarily the priorities of a government or any government, or my legislative priorities may not be the government's or anybody else's legislative priorities.

Government Operations committee  No, but the second sentence of the letter, “We will move forward to implement improvements to the administration and operation of the internal disclosure....” That has nothing to do with my 16 proposals, and that has nothing to do with the tribunal.

Government Operations committee  That's his responsibility, but he can introduce legislation to implement my proposals as well. I can't. I don't have the status to do that. I would have to do that through the Treasury Board minister.

Government Operations committee  I have not written to him directly after this letter.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. As I've said, I do believe that the communications between the external regime, for which I'm responsible, and the internal regime, for which Treasury Board is responsible, do exist and that we have good relationships. Again, I am an external body that does not have the authority under the act or in our system that Treasury Board has.

Government Operations committee  It hurts me to say, but I guess I can accept that I'm not the priority.

Government Operations committee  Yes, the 147 disclosures we get cover every aspect of the very broad definition of whistle-blowing. The act does specifically provide for protection for contractors. Whether or not that's sufficient is something that I think would be really interesting to discuss in an ongoing review of the legislation.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I would agree that things are not very predictable in our world. For example, we do not have the authority to go out and start an investigation on our own. We are an on-demand service, so that workload depends on the number of disclosures and complaints of reprisal we get in any year.