Digging into the former Integrity Commissioner's cases

(Hear David McKie's story from World Report above)

While the saga of Christiane Ouimet and the public accounts committee's investigation of her time as the public sector integrity commissioner of Canada continues, some interesting numbers have emerged that may shed some light on the way that she did - or didn't do -- her job.

The committee wants to find out why the former watchdog for public sector whistleblowers never found a single case of wrongdoing during her time as the person in charge of the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada. The auditor general lambasted Ouimet's performance and suggested the office to take another look at the complaints. The MPs on the committee would like to hear from Ouimet and there's all kinds of speculation about why that might not happen - which could be the topic of future columns.

For the time being, we have some numbers to pore over. The committee asked for, and obtained, a spreadsheet that breaks down each investigation by factors such as when the complaint came in, the nature of the complaint, the reason for the decision, and the decision itself - which in every case was to close the file.

Feb8-2011-integrity-complaints (Or view the spreadsheet on Google Docs)

I took the liberty of adding one column to the spreadsheet called "Time between days," which calculates the time it took from the date the complaint was filed to the date the decision was rendered. And then I sorted that column in descending order.

The case that pops to the top took 1,624 days, almost four and a half years. The parts of the Public Servants Disclosure Act that were allegedly breached in this case was Section 8(a) (contravention of an act or regulation) and Section (f) (directing a person to commit wrongdoing). The complaint was made in 2005, before Ouimet become the commissioner. But she was the one who dismissed the case, as she did in 62 per cent of the complaints - in other words, all the files that crossed her desk. Other staff members dismissed the remaining percentage.

At the low end of the scale, there were two cases in which the file was closed on the same day it was received.

And just to throw another number at you, the average length of time it took to investigate these cases was 118 days.

In crunching the numbers, there were other trends that I found interesting. For instance, in 18 of the 234 cases that were dismissed, there were allegations such as "gross mismanagement of funds" and "substantiated and specific danger to life, health, safety of person or to the environment."

What's also interesting is this: according to David Hutton, executive director of a lobby group for whistleblowers that goes by the acronym FAIR (Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform), Sean Bruyea's case fell into this category.

You may recall that Bruyea was the former army vet who complained that officials in Veteran's Affairs were breaching his privacy rights by passing around his personnel files during the time he become an outspoken critic of the department. His complaint was eventually substantiated - but not by Ouimet's office.

"Canadians ought to understand there is a very direct link between protecting honest employees from reprisal and the integrity of our democracy: the safety of our foods, our drugs; air transportation," says Hutton.

"There are so many ways we're dependent on the government to do things right and protect us. And also corporations to do things right...," Hutton says.

"If you speak out about wrongdoing, the likelihood is that your career and livelihood are going to come to an end. And there is absolutely nothing in official channels that's going to protect you. It's only going to make things worse."

Of course, there is information that is not in the spreadsheet. For instance, we don't know the departments in which the complainants worked. It would be interesting to know whether a disproportionate number came from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in the wake of the listeriosis crisis that killed 23 Canadians, for example, or Health Canada or Environment Canada.

It could be argued that withholding that information protects the privacy of the potential whistleblowers. But then again, knowing which departments are involved would give us more information about potential threats to our food, prescription drugs and environment.

At least this spreadsheet is a start. Let's hope the committee demands and receives even more information.

If you have any information or observations you'd like to share, especially after studying the material in the attached spreadsheet, please feel free to contact me at david_mckie@cbc.ca.