44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 19, 2023
- 05:29:56 p.m.
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Chair, I want to make a subamendment to the amendment, which I hope might be friendly, and that is eliminating paragraph (d). We have concerns about anonymity if keeping paragraph (d).
I would be looking to remove paragraph (d), please, Chair.
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- 05:30:25 p.m.
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Can we vote on Ms. Kusie's subamendment?
Hold on one moment, please. We need to suspend for a moment for our legislative clerks to look at an issue.
The Chair: Colleagues, our legislative clerks are advising me that subamendments have to be provided in writing.
We can either rule it out of order, or we can suspend for a couple of moments and you can put the subamendment in writing for us, Mrs. Kusie.
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- 05:32:30 p.m.
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Yes, I'm happy to put it in writing.
Is it just two sentences, or what does the extent have to be? I can loosely translate it as well, but I don't want to hold up the process.
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- 05:32:54 p.m.
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We'll suspend for a couple of minutes for you to put it in writing.
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- 05:42:42 p.m.
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Colleagues, we are back.
Mrs. Kusie's subamendment, of course, is to eliminate proposed paragraph (d). Proposed paragraph (c) has the word “and” at the end, so we have to change that. I will read it in. If everyone's fine with it, we'll adjust Mrs. Kusie's subamendment to say, that the amendment be amended by adding “and” after paragraph (b) and removing the following from paragraph (c): “and”.
We'll get into Mrs. Kusie's subamendment, then.
Mr. Fergus.
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- 05:43:14 p.m.
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I have no comment, sir.
(Subamendment agreed to)
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- 05:43:19 p.m.
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It carries unanimously.
We are back to the actual amendment itself.
Mr. Fergus.
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- 05:43:36 p.m.
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Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I do have difficulty with this. I would like to thank Mrs. Kusie for making the change and removing some of the confidentiality parts of it. However, in regard to NDP-18 as a whole, as you can see at the very beginning, it says, “(2.01) The Commissioner must conduct an annual survey to determine”, and then it goes on for now three provisions.
That annual survey has to happen. I mentioned that to survey all public servants in relation to the way they feel disclosures are managed under this act would be analogous to the public service employment survey, which does cost a considerable amount of money, probably in excess of the entire budget for the commissioner's office as it stands now. That is a significant expense.
There you go, Mr. Chair. I think it would be better off for this amendment not to happen to Bill C-290.
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- 05:44:57 p.m.
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I would ask about the costs and whether it would require royal assent.
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- 05:45:02 p.m.
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Do you mean a royal recommendation?
Mr. Gord Johns: Yes.
Ms. Mireille Laroche: In terms of a royal recommendation, as before, I'd say that's not in my purview, so I will leave it to the legislative clerk to say something. However, in our view it would create a cost, because if you look at your proposed subsection (2.01), you see it says, “The Commissioner must conduct an annual survey”. This doesn't say to work with the PSES and include questions, so he or she would have to create their own survey that would be applied to all public servants in order to get this information. Therefore, it would require methodology, question design, applying it and so on.
The other thing I would like to say is that the PSES currently asks a number of questions that are covered by proposed paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) in terms of awareness and the ability, so there could be an opportunity for collaboration to include some of the key questions of the PSIC in the current PSES.
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- 05:46:09 p.m.
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I just want to say that I've done that survey he talked about and I believe what he's saying. If you were to amend it to include it within the public service survey, I feel that would also be sufficient, which, according to his reasoning, would suffice, because then you're folding that survey into the bigger survey.
That would be my suggestion, if he's sincere, which I'm sure he is.
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- 05:46:37 p.m.
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I am sincere. Perhaps I could riff off of Ms. Kusie's suggestion. By folding it into the PSES with the appropriate questions and then removing the requirement for it to be an annual survey, that would really work, but if you make it annual, you're just doubling the cost of the PSES.
I will leave it to you to do so, to making sure that it captures....
May I make a suggestion that you might withdraw it, but then maybe the committee can make it clear in its report that we would expect that the PSES would include questions that would....
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- 05:47:24 p.m.
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Okay. I will go with that. I am going to withdraw it.
(Amendment as amended withdrawn)
(Clause 33 as amended agreed to on division)
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- 05:47:53 p.m.
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Great.
Clause 33.1 is a new clause. We have it in NDP-19, which is page 39 of the package.
Go ahead, Mr. Johns.
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- 05:48:01 p.m.
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Again, no additional funds are required. It requires appointees to the position of Integrity Commissioner to be independent of the bureaucracy and to be qualified to lead an agency whose primary mandate is investigation.
Integrity commissioners who are from the bureaucracy are in a serious conflict of interest between the investigative mandate of PSIC and their future career prospects in the public service. Three successive integrity commissioners, all drawn from the bureaucracy, have demonstrated similar behaviour in consistently favouring the rights and the interests of bureaucrats over the protection of whistle-blowers, contrary to the purpose of their position.
This behaviour has been reported both by the Auditor General and by judges and judicial review decisions. According to a focus group report commissioned by PSIC in 2022, few public servants trust the agency, and a commissioner must be appointed who does not have a conflict of interest that might deter them from investigating suspected wrongdoing through fear or favour.
A commissioner must be appointed who will be motivated, most of all, to ensure that whistle-blowers are protected as witnesses essential to their investigations.
With this amendment—I'm sorry if I'm speaking a little bit ahead—the PSIC will have greater credibility. Public servants will be more likely to trust the commissioner and to come forward with disclosures. There will be greater public confidence in PSIC, and more wrongdoing will come to light and will be remedied.
I've spoken on, I guess, NDP-19, NDP-20 and NDP-21 altogether, but if we could just vote on NDP-19 first, and then....
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- 05:49:55 p.m.
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We will go to Mr. Fergus and then Mrs. Kusie.
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- 05:49:56 p.m.
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Mr. Johns, I'll speak to NDP-19, NDP-20 and NDP-21.
In regard to NDP-19, I do think it's a little bizarre that you would bring in someone who has no experience with the public service to try to understand what happens in the public service and to better understand where the complainant might be coming from. It just seems that would be like asking a judge not to be a lawyer first.
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- 05:50:26 p.m.
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Can we stick to NDP-19 first?
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- 05:50:30 p.m.
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I'll stick to NDP-19. This is where I'm going on this one.
It just doesn't really add up. I'm not certain where the conflict of interest happens. The person is no longer holding a job in the public service when they're appointed commissioner. That is their job. They're not double dipping, so I'm not certain where this comes from at all.
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- 05:50:59 p.m.
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We will go to Mrs. Kusie and then to Mr. Johns. We're on amendment NDP-19.
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