Government Operations committee  Certainly. Thank you, Mr. Chair. What clause 40 does, as Mr. Housefather mentioned, is remove a reference to subsection 19.1(4). That's all that clause 40 does. The reason it's in section 51 of the PSDPA is so that if subsection 19.1(4) comes into play—and that's the prohibition on having another process once you've filed a reprisal—section 51 says that this does not prohibit the presentation of a grievance or having the Canada Industrial Relations Board consider a complaint under section 242 of the Canada Labour Code.

Government Operations committee  I would just say that Mr. Johns has spoken of “injunctive relief”, but I don't see that in NDP-14. I'm sorry. I'm confused. I'm not sure how to clarify this.

Government Operations committee  Under the act the way it is currently written, the protection starts from when you make the disclosure. You don't need to have an investigation. The protection is from the time when you make the disclosure. This is after that, so you would already be protected from everything that is listed in this amendment.

Government Operations committee  Clause 27 is basically consequential to clause 30 of the bill, even though it comes before clause 30, because it's a reference to section 34 in the PSDPA, which clause 30 removes. This amendment to paragraph 25(1)(j) makes a reference to section 34, so I presume that's why the bill is removing that paragraph.

Government Operations committee  Should I explain section 34?

Government Operations committee  The implication would be that if clause 30 were to be defeated, you would want to keep this subclause that's referred to in clause 27 of the bill because section 34 of the PSDPA is a provision that prevents the commissioner from going outside of the public sector. There are concerns that if section 34 is removed from the PSDPA, it would open not just the private sector but also the excluded organizations to investigations by the PSIC.

Government Operations committee  The clause in the bill would automatically add the repriser as a party before the tribunal, so they would always be present. What the amendment in G-9 is doing is saying that they would only be present at the tribunal if the tribunal thought they would be affected, usually through discipline, by the outcome of the tribunal.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. This represents a fundamental change to the structure of the legislation, which in itself I leave it to you to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. The rest of the law hasn't been designed around this approach. The way the tribunal has been designed, and the way it's been set up, is for receiving complaints by the commissioner.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. That section of the bill would remove two criteria that the PSIC is supposed to consider before referring to the tribunal, one being the public interest and the other being whether or not either the chief executive or public servants have co-operated in the investigation.

Government Operations committee  I'm sorry, I didn't hear the beginning of your....

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. Perhaps everyone already understands this, but just to be absolutely clear, clause 19 in the bill is the one that provides that where the PSIC has dismissed the complaint of reprisal, the individual can take the complaint themselves to the tribunal. All of the other sections listed by Mr.

Government Operations committee  Under the current version of the PSDPA, in section 19.1 former public servants may make a complaint of reprisal to the PSIC. They are not prevented from making a reprisal complaint. Clause 8 of the bill, the way it is currently written, has nothing to do with that. It's adding references to former public servants in making a disclosure to the public or the right to provide information to the public.

Government Operations committee  This amendment appeared.... At present, a disclosure may be made to the public under very specific circumstances when there isn't enough time to make a disclosure elsewhere or to make it through the regular procedures, or when there's a substantial and specific imminent danger. In this case, it's basically that, if you've made a disclosure and either the PSIC or the senior officer has decided not to investigate, you are free to go public, and they may have made the decision not to investigate on very good grounds.

Government Operations committee  If a whistle-blower goes public under circumstances that are protected by the PSDPA, then they would be protected. It appears that, if this amendment passes, they would be protected from reprisal.

Government Operations committee  The difficulty is that it's hard to protect when you don't know who they are.