The Department of National Defence “committed gross mismanagement” and broke the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act in its handling of whistle-blower complaints, the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner found in an investigation released Tuesday.
In the report tabled in the House of Commons, commissioner Joe Friday found the Defence Department showed a “pattern of delays” in responding to internal complaints, and took years longer than permitted to disclose confirmed cases of wrongdoing.
Between 2015 and 2020, the commissioner’s office said there were three cases of confirmed wrongdoing in the Defence Department and Canadian Forces. However, none of those cases were listed on the department’s website until after the integrity commissioner’s investigation was launched in late 2020.
“The whistle-blowing regime for the federal public sector can only be effective if wrongdoing is brought to light,” Mr. Friday wrote in the report.
The commissioner’s report found the Defence Department delayed final decisions on founded cases of wrongdoing “without justification” and, even after decisions were made, didn’t meet required timelines for making those findings public.
Rather than publicizing the wrongdoing within 60 days – as required by the federal government – the Defence Department took from 1½ to 3½ years to disclose confirmed cases of wrongdoing.
The delays came from a variety of issues, the report finds. For example, the report notes a habit of misplacing or losing files that were awaiting final sign-off, and slowing down the approval process on cases with embarrassing findings.
“Results were delayed for unacceptable periods of time, suggesting a systemic problem” in both the Defence Department and the Forces, the report finds. Mr. Friday said his conclusions also show a “lack of accountability and responsibility.”
The report also found that the department failed to advise complainants about the results of wrongdoing investigations.
The department’s delays forced whistle-blowers to blow the whistle a second time, Mr. Friday noted in a statement. “Disclosers were left in the dark and had no choice but to raise the alarm again, this time about the very individuals who were meant to shine light on wrongdoing.”
The commissioner’s report does not disclose the allegations related to the cases except in one instance. A case that took 43 months – or 3½ years – for the department to publicize its findings of wrongdoing concerned an allegation that “sentences ordered at court martial proceedings were either not being carried out in a timely fashion or were not being carried out at all.”
The Defence Department’s website for founded disclosures of wrongdoing says it identified in 2017 a continued failure since 2002 to enforce “numerous disciplinary and administrative measures.”
The website also details conflicts of interest among senior Canadian Forces officers, reprisal against an individual for a past complaint and improper contracting in the time period the commissioner investigated.
Mr. Friday recommended that defence employees responsible for the act should undergo training on it and that the department audit its work to verify the number of complaints, investigations launched, findings of wrongdoing and prompt publication of those findings. He also said the department should analyze its performance on enforcing the whistle-blower legislation each year for the next three years.
Defence Minister Bill Blair’s office did not provide a comment from the minister when requested by The Globe and Mail. Instead the department sent a statement saying it accepts the recommendations and is also improving its administrative tracking of investigations.
The commissioner himself was not available for interviews about his report, with his spokesperson Bronwyn Johns-O’Hara saying there was no other information to share. “The report speaks for itself,” she added.
Marieke Walsh