44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 26, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to have the opportunity to rise to speak to Bill C-290, an act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.
Whistle-blowers are the unsung heroes of our institutions. They are the courageous individuals who put their careers, their reputations and sometimes even their lives on the line to expose wrongdoing. They are the guardians of our democracy and the champions of integrity. Their role in our society cannot be overstated, and their protection is a matter of national significance.
I think everyone will agree that public servants who wish to disclose serious wrongdoing must have a trusted, effective means of doing so and must be protected. As is the sponsor of this legislation, the government is committed to strengthening protections for public servants who make disclosures of wrongdoing. This is why it has already taken a number of actions, which were detailed at second reading.
However, the government is not stopping there. The Prime Minister asked the President of the Treasury Board to build on this progress and “Continue to take action to improve government whistle-blower protections and supports.” Action is indeed being taken. Budget 2022 provided $2.4 million over five years for a review of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.
In November 2022, the government announced the establishment of the PSDPA review task force. This task force will recommend amendments to the PSDPA and changes to the administration and operation of the disclosure regime, with a particular focus on the protection of individuals involved in disclosing wrongdoing from acts of reprisal. The task force is composed of people who bring significant experience and diverse expertise in the field. It is currently conducting wide consultations and inviting input from a range of stakeholders to ensure that a variety of experiences related to the federal whistle-blower regime are collected and considered. Experts, public servants and all those with an interest in this subject are being given an opportunity to share their views. The task force will also consider the report issued by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates in 2017 and the discussions on this bill.
In recognition of the fact that work in this area has evolved over the past several years, the task force will look at the latest developments in whistle-blowing regimes since the committee presented their report. As well, the task force will consider reports from the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner and other stakeholders. It will also seek out best practices through research on disclosure regimes, domestically and internationally. The government's intent is to ensure that the law effectively safeguards and empowers public servants to report wrongdoing. This review will ensure that we are taking an evidence-informed approach to identify improvements to the federal disclosure process. These improvements will mean better protection for public servants who come forward to disclose wrongdoings. Clearly, the government wants to improve the act.
The bill before us proposes a number of changes that the government fully supports. These are expanding the list of persons covered by reprisal protection, extending the time period for a reprisal complaint; increasing penalties for a contravention of the act, allowing reprisal complaints concerning the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner to be made to the Auditor General, ensuring that individuals are provided with reasons when a reprisal complaint is refused and, finally, adding a recurring five-year review of the act.
These would be valuable improvements to the act as it now stands. That said, certain amendments in the bill raise legal and operational challenges, many of which were raised both at second reading and at committee. We can take, for example, the removal of the seriousness descriptors from the definition of wrongdoing. By no longer qualifying the degree of severity of wrongdoing covered under the act, the bill would open up the process to the most trivial of misdemeanours. The result could clog the system and reduce its effectiveness; those who blow the whistle on serious problems may not get the protection we all agree they need and deserve.
This could also lead to duplication with existing recourse mechanisms meant for issues such as harassment, discrimination, workplace grievances and privacy complaints, which could lead to conflicting outcomes from multiple proceedings. Employees need a clear, simple and predictable path to follow. The purpose of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act is to address serious ethical breaches that cannot be dealt with using other recourse mechanisms.
Bill C-290 also proposes to allow an individual to take a complaint of reprisal directly to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal without a prior investigation by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. This would create the possibility of completely removing the commissioner from the reprisal process, including the investigation of the complaint and the opportunity for conciliation.
As the tribunal has no investigation authority or capacity, all evidence would have to be gathered through the tribunal process. This would make the process more lengthy and costly for all parties involved. As well, we can predict the surge of cases that would overwhelm the capacity of the tribunal. A backlog of cases, which none of us want, would quickly begin to grow. This could negatively impact the original intent and effectiveness of the legislation for those who truly need it.
Another concern I would like to raise is the coming into force state after royal assent. The bill proposes a timeframe of one year, but implementation would take more time given the breadth and complexity of the changes it contains. These are a few of the important challenges this bill raises, and we hope that the Senate takes the time to review these elements when studying the bill.
958 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I rise to speak in support of Bill C-290. This is legislation that would strengthen the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, which provides whistle-blower protections to federal public servants.
The Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act legislation was shepherded by the previous Harper Conservative government in an effort to restore public confidence in the operations of government following one of the biggest corruption scandals in Canadian history, the Liberal sponsorship scandal, a scandal that involved the waste, mismanagement and misappropriation of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money as part of a quid pro quo scheme, where Liberal insiders received advertising contracts in return for employing Liberal fundraisers, organizers and so on. These contracts were awarded to people who did little or no work and millions of dollars were funnelled into the Liberal Party as part of this scam. It truly was one of the biggest scandals and really shook public confidence and public trust.
In an effort to restore that trust, the Harper government passed the act that provides a mechanism by which federal public servants can bring attention to wrongdoing in a confidential way, including establishing the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada, as well as other measures to protect civil servants against reprisals. This bill would build upon the Conservative government's whistle-blower protections by expanding the definition of “wrongdoing” to include political interference. It would expand the powers of the Auditor General in taking disclosures of wrongdoing and undertaking investigations and would expand the scope of those who are protected. It would do other things as well, which have been mentioned in debate on this bill, all of which are positive.
This bill could not be more timely given what we have seen over the past eight years from the Liberals: an unprecedented amount of corruption, waste and mismanagement. In that light, it is not a surprise to learn that the Liberal government, based upon the parliamentary secretary's intervention, is less than enthusiastic about this bill. After all, we have a Prime Minister who was found guilty not once but twice of breaching ethics laws. It was unprecedented and never happened before until the current Prime Minister arrived in office. This is a Prime Minister who obstructed justice to protect the corrupt SNC-Lavalin, a Liberal corporation. He fired his attorney general when she called out his corruption.
We recently learned that the Prime Minister obstructed an RCMP investigation into his potential criminal wrongdoing in SNC-Lavalin and there is, as we speak, an active criminal investigation into the Liberal government's $54-million ArriveCAN app, better known as “arrive scam”. It is $54 million of taxpayers' money that went out the door for an app that does not work, that cost 500 times more than it should have, not to mention well-established evidence of collusion, price-fixing and fraudulent billing to the tune of millions of dollars.
Just when we think we have seen just about enough of Liberal corruption, there is always another Liberal scandal. We are learning of yet another Liberal scandal at the Liberal green slush fund, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC. Whistle-blowers came forward with evidence of wrongdoing, which prompted a third-party investigation. That investigation, for which forensic accountants went in, resulted in a damning report. The report concludes that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were handed out to companies that did not qualify. More than that, there have been multiple instances of conflicts of interest at SDTC.
Just to give one an idea, $38.4 million improperly went out the door as part of so-called COVID relief expenditures. Of those companies that received $38.4 million, based on the audits that took place, 29% involved conflict of interest disclosures on the part of board members at SDTC, and not once did any of those board members recuse themselves. The cloud at SDTC is so dark that even this spendthrift Liberal government, which has run up the biggest deficit in Canadian history and doubled the national debt, put a halt and a freeze on spending at SDTC.
The cloud at SDTC, involving tens of millions of dollars and conflicts of interest on the part of a board that is chaired by a Liberal insider, a friend of the Prime Minister, underscores why robust whistle-blower protection legislation is needed.
Many whistle-blowers would reportedly like to come forward with further evidence of wrongdoing at the Liberals' green slush fund but are reluctant to do so. Those who have are also concerned that they could face reprisals because, as it stands, they are not protected under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act because they are not within the definition of a public servant under the act. Although this bill does provide some additional protection to contractors, it would not protect employees and other whistle-blowers at SDTC who would like to come forward.
I would submit that, while this bill is a significant improvement, we would like to see it strengthened even further to include contractors and those who are at arm's-length from the government to be fully protected. The sordid affair at SDTC, the Liberals' green slush fund, underscores that, to shine a light on the rot and corruption that is so embedded right across this government, additional protections are needed to root out waste, mismanagement and corruption. No one, no federal public servant, contractor or anyone, for that matter, connected to government, should feel intimidated or be concerned about potential reprisals for speaking the truth and calling out waste, mismanagement and corruption.
On that basis, I support the bill, but it could be improved.
954 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
