Date of publication: April 10, 2022 • 3 hours ago • 3 minutes reading • 77 comments OTAVA – Public Services and Procurement Canada located at 11 Laurier Street, Phase III, Place du Portage. Monday, 30 August 2021. Photo by Postmedia / ERROL MCGIHON
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OTAWA – A director of public service who made racist remarks and promoted an official with whom he was involved and the internal integrity and security office of a federal department that violated government contract rules.
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These are just two of the latest examples of offenses discovered by the federal government in 2020-2021, according to its latest annual report on allegations and investigations into offenses by civil servants. During that time, 123 civil servants made 101 internal revelations containing a total of 174 allegations of offenses under federal government law to protect whistleblowers. This is the lowest number in the last four years, which the Director of Human Resources suspects may be the result of bureaucrats who work heavily from home and thus have fewer opportunities to observe and report issues. During this period, another 30 investigations were closed and led to the confirmation of 12 complaints of offenses and in 19 cases in which a department had to take remedial action to ensure that the issues would not recur.
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A first case of confirmed wrongdoing involved a Global Affairs Canada (GAC) executive, who was accused by a whistleblower of “gross mismanagement” due to “irregularities” by staff. The complaint also accused the executive of repeatedly making inappropriate comments to employees, “some of which were sexual in nature,” as well as systematic harassment through “inappropriate behavior” with colleagues. The report does not identify any of the current or former civil servants involved in each case. Although the investigation found that there was no serious misconduct, it found that most allegations of inappropriate sexual comments and behaviors were true.
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The document does not mention sanctions against the executive, but they were instructed to attend sensitivity training and coaching. The report also notes that they left the public service before the investigation ended. But the executive’s seemingly left a mess behind, as the GAC pledged at the report to work to “restore” the work environment to the affected workplace. Two other cases of violation were identified in the Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). In the first case, investigators found that one of the ESDC Internal Integrity and Security Offices, whose role is to “assess the credibility and loyalty of applicants and staff in Canada,” violated its own rules and regulations. government for contracts.
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In addition, investigators also concluded that an ESDC director “seriously” violated the department’s code of conduct when he told an employee to commit an unspecified offense. The document contains almost no details about what the offense was, except that the department had to review its government credit card policies in order to “mitigate the risk of misuse.” He also notes that the government will review all transactions between the department and a private security company. “The Chief Financial Officer Branch will review past and current transactions between ESDC and the private security company, identify unacceptable transactions and take corrective action to ensure that appropriate security procurement practices are implemented immediately.” , is mentioned in the report.
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It is not clear whether some officials were sanctioned after the investigation, as the document only notes that corrective or administrative measures were still being “determined” at the time of publication. A separate investigation by the ESDC found that a former employee committed offenses by leaving with a government-issued Blackberry mobile phone and continuing to use it after retirement. The device has since been recovered and disconnected. A final investigation described in detail in the report found “severe mismanagement” by a director working at the national headquarters of the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Service of Canada. The allegation that the manager bullied and marginalized another employee under their supervision (including the use of vulgar language and inappropriate racial comments) did not reveal a conflict of interest in promoting another employee with whom he had a personal relationship and “an exclusive source contract with a third party in which it held a financial share”, the report states.
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The investigators found that all allegations were true, but no sanctions were imposed on the director, probably because they resigned before the investigation was closed. In 2020-2021, the report reveals that the government has examined 188 allegations (including some pending from previous years) and launched 63 investigations examining anywhere between one and nine allegations of wrongdoing. The largest number of new surveys was launched in Global Affairs Canada (13), Public Services and Procurement Canada (13) and Employment and Social Development Canada (10).
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