Bill C-520, An Act supporting non-partisan offices of agents of Parliament

Opening Statement to the Senate Standing Committee on National Finance

Bill C-520, An Act supporting non-partisan offices of agents of Parliament

28 January 2015

Michael Ferguson, CPA, CA
FCA (New Brunswick)
Auditor General of Canada

Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to discuss Bill C-520.

First of all, I would like to say that, at the Office of the Auditor General, we are committed to carrying out our duties in a fair, independent, and non-partisan manner, and we have processes in place to regularly assess our independence. For these reasons, I would like to clearly say that, in my opinion, there is nothing in the Bill that will further our efforts to operate independently, and I therefore find that the Bill is unnecessary.

I recently signed a letter along with other agents of Parliament stating that, although changes to the Bill have addressed some of our earlier concerns, there are outstanding issues that I believe make the Bill difficult to understand.

First, the Bill refers to the terms “political activities” and “partisan activities,” but neither term is defined. The lack of definitions makes interpreting the Bill difficult. For example, the purpose of the Act as stated in Section 3 seems to imply that partisan activities are allowable as long as conflicts are avoided; however, Subsection 2(3) says that nothing in the Act is to be construed as allowing an employee to engage in political activities.

Subsection 6(1) of the Bill is also difficult to understand. It requires an applicant for employment to provide, as early as possible in the hiring process, a declaration as to whether the applicant has occupied a politically partisan position in the past 10 years. But the Bill does not specify what the agent of Parliament should do with this information. Is it supposed to be used somehow in the selection process or is it to be ignored? If we are supposed to ignore the information, then why collect it during the selection process rather than after the selection has been made? If we are supposed to use the information somehow in the selection of a candidate, then this would make us non-compliant with the Public Service Employment Act, which requires us to select candidates based on merit.

Under the Public Service Employment Act, if an individual had declared prior politically partisan positions, but for reasons of merit was unsuccessful in obtaining a position, that individual could challenge the decision not to hire on the basis that the declaration influenced the hiring process.

I am also concerned with Section 6(2), which says that every person who intends to occupy a politically partisan position while holding a position in the office of an agent of Parliament must provide a written declaration of this intention. This seems to be in direct conflict with Subsection 2(3), which says that nothing in the Act is to be construed as allowing an employee to engage in political activities.

I have other concerns as well. For example, the Bill requires written declarations from all employees indicating any politically partisan positions they occupied within the 10 years prior to joining the office. It is possible that this could result in the disclosure of a position that was held 35 years ago. Furthermore, an employee may no longer support the party for which the employee worked in the past.

Finally, the Bill does not specify how long the information should be retained and publicly displayed on the website, or under what circumstances, such as termination of employment, that the information can be removed.

Mr. Chair, I hope that my comments will be of assistance to the Committee as it undertakes its review of Bill C-520. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.