Public Accounts committee  I'm just being told too that another thing is the whole consideration of the act. We've noted some difficulties with the act--

Public Accounts committee  Yes. I think that obviously when you see an average turnover rate of 50% per year, it certainly raises red flags. Now, one could have perhaps argued it away by arguing that it's a new office, that people came in and it wasn't what they thought it would be, that it's a small organization....

Public Accounts committee  There are some similarities, but I think there are also some important differences. In the case of the former Privacy Commissioner, there were issues around treatment of staff, which is similar to this case, but many of the findings, the serious findings, were related to financial improprieties, which we did not find--and we do financial audits.

Public Accounts committee  Well, I think we have to be perhaps more consistent and provide you with information on the management of our offices--staff turnover and those sorts of things--and we need to find a way as well to give you assurance that we are carrying out our mandates according to proper procedure.

Public Accounts committee  That is the kind of information that officers of Parliament could all provide to help demonstrate our management.

Public Accounts committee  You can appreciate, given the sensitivity of this file, that we follow a very rigorous process in cases like this. We engaged our own outside legal counsel to advise us on fairness of procedure. We advised Madame Ouimet that she could have legal counsel, which she did. Through all of the interviews there were legal representations on both sides.

Public Accounts committee  As I mentioned, we did not look at the appointment process, and we obviously don't get into motivations. That's something that only the individual can address. The committee may wish to ask if the rigorous process that Mr. Young outlined was respected and followed in this case. I would hope that somebody would go back to look at that to see if anything more could have been done that would have detected something.

Public Accounts committee  The commissioner's office would have produced, like all of us, a report on plans and priorities, as well as performance report every year. However, all officers of Parliament are fiercely protective of their independence and are very resistant to reporting to the government on their activities.

Public Accounts committee  This is a rather particular situation, because it is dealing with an officer of Parliament. The central agencies--the Treasury Board Secretariat, Privy Council Office, and others--that will do monitoring through government departments and agencies are actually very respectful of the independence of officers of Parliament--and we remind them of our independence quite frequently--so they do not do the kinds of monitoring that may be done for departments and agencies.

Public Accounts committee  Obviously, we met with the complainants to understand the nature of the allegations that were being made and to get as many details and facts as possible. As we mentioned in the report, we conducted interviews with some 34 current and former employees, so there would have been validating testimony of incidents or things that happened.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Chair. There are a couple of issues I'd like to address. In this particular case we did not look at the appointment process. My own impression is that it's very difficult for a parliamentary committee to get into issues of character and behaviour. I don't want this necessarily to reflect on this particular individual, but the political level and the parliamentary level have to rely on the validation that is done by bureaucrats.

Public Accounts committee  May I just briefly respond to that? I think there's an important point of clarification.

Public Accounts committee  An interim commissioner can be named by Governor in Council, but only for a period of six months, so it really is an interim position. All commissioners, auditors general, and officers of Parliament now, after the Federal Accountability Act, must go through a parliamentary process and hearings and a resolution by Parliament.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, we met with more than 30 individuals, including people who had left the office, during the course of our audit. I would, however, hesitate to name individuals specifically. You know that we try to ensure that the information given to us remains confidential.

Public Accounts committee  We met with the majority of employees at the commissioner's office, both former and current employees.