Government Operations committee  Of course it would. Our aim is to complete the investigation as quickly as possible. The one year is a ceiling. It's not an objective, no more than one year. Of course we do complete investigations sometimes within eight weeks, six weeks. The commitment is to never take more than

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, if the government decides to give us more resources, we will, of course, plan to use them well, in conjunction with the objectives of the statute, obviously.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. An office had existed since 2001 as part of the Treasury Board Secretariat. It dealt with integrity, but it had not been created by an act. That is the first distinction. It had no powers under any legislation. It was simply Treasury Board policy. It

Government Operations committee  I would say that it is stronger. Maybe it is more effective, because we learn as we go along and we improve the effectiveness. There is no doubt that it is stronger.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, that's correct. It's one year from the launch of the investigation.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, in the next version of this document, we will remodel the manner. The target will be 100% at one year, barring, of course, exceptional circumstances to do with vast complexity or something completely unforeseen at this point.

Government Operations committee  First of all, Mr. Chair, I only heard of the honourable member's private member's bill as I was walking into the room, so I haven't seen it. There have been a few instances in which we were prevented from acting in a case involving a former public servant, so of course, if the

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. If you were to look at previous versions of the report on plans and priorities, you would see 43 and 45, instead of the 32 you are reading now. The figure of 32 is the number of people we are able to pay in coming years. That is the reason. We have re

Government Operations committee  It has been sufficient, and I guess my predecessor and I have been quite generous in interpreting a provision that gives the commissioner the power to extend the period, when there are reasons to do so. It's a very vague wording. I think it's important for the stability of the

Government Operations committee  I think whistle-blowers are adequately protected at this point in time. The tribunal has been set up, and the chair of the tribunal is taking his mandate very seriously. There have been cases resolved. Three have been referred to the tribunal; two have been sectorally resolved th

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. Mr. Chairman, actions speak much louder than words. The best publicity we will ever generate for the effectiveness of the office is the case reports we table in Parliament. Two and a half years ago we had tabled no case reports in Parliament, ever. We

Government Operations committee  In fact, Mr. Chairman, there was a discussion several years ago in Parliament. There was a bill tabled, if I'm not mistaken, back in 2005 that included such a provision, but it was not in the form of the final bill as adopted. So there is no reward at this point in time. The poli

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  When the review that the act calls for is initiated, I will have a number of proposals to make vis-à-vis improving our reach. For instance, there is a section in the act that clearly says that the commissioner shall not do anything to obtain information outside of the federal pub

Government Operations committee  I believe so, because one of the things we have to guard against as well is that it would not be appropriate, in my view, to actively solicit disclosures either. It has to be done in a very professional way. There are other means of redress available as well in many of the situat