Government Operations committee  The core principle is confidentiality. It is also important to meet the natural justice requirements in handling information and cases. That's basically what we are referring to.

Government Operations committee  Are you talking about complaints made to the Commissioner?

Government Operations committee  Are you talking about the corrective action we took?

Government Operations committee  In some cases, we saw that there was preferential treatment when hiring. Often, corrective or disciplinary measures are imposed on employees or people who have engaged in wrongdoing.

Government Operations committee  The example given is for a manager who favoured an employee during hiring. The commissioner must deal with this issue. That's the example I'm giving you. In this case, disciplinary measures can be imposed on the manager who committed the act. It may also involve a misuse of fund

Government Operations committee  It's really uneven.

Government Operations committee  That's a good question. As I mentioned earlier, these are cases that can be addressed through other remedies, whether they are grievances or part of a collective agreement. If a process exists in a collective agreement, the problem must be addressed in that context. This is not p

Government Operations committee  Sometimes it isn't clear. It's the commissioner's role to determine what is clear. It isn't easy for an employee to know whether it should be a grievance or a disclosure. So the employee will do his or her best to get to the bottom of all this. Collective agreements have a griev

Government Operations committee  I also mentioned earlier what wrongdoing is. It must fall within the definition of wrongdoing.

Government Operations committee  If the action doesn't fall within the definition, we determine whether it can be addressed through other means.

Government Operations committee  Again, we get this information through the public service employee survey. Harassment is defined in there, and it is not defined as whistle-blowing in any shape or form. It is how you're treated with regard to either your manager or your colleagues. That's the essence or texture

Government Operations committee  Obviously it's outside of the purview of what we are doing here today, but TBS has in fact been quite active from the senior level to the very bottoms of the organizations, proactively reaching out to employees and proactively ensuring workplace wellness initiatives are put in pl

Government Operations committee  You're referring to reprisal in the form of harassment, I assume. Again, the act protects the individual who is doing the disclosure, which is an essential part of this act. This committee should reinforce the fact that the privacy of the information is paramount in terms of prot

Government Operations committee  They still have access to the internal process. I'm not privy to the agreement that was signed, but my guess would be that you don't disclose it externally. The process exists internally. Your immediate supervisor, or the commissioner, or the senior officer—

Government Operations committee  Without being privy to what the agreement is, if it is to not disclose externally, they still have access to an internal process. Their supervisor is aware of this information already. They just want to share with their supervisor, saying that they're aware of a wrongdoing.