Agriculture Canada employees have been disciplined and at least one fired over inappropriate behaviour in processing farm support payments, the government says in a report to Parliament.
The department, in a response tabled this summer to a critical House of Commons public accounts committee report, said it had conducted a “thorough investigation” into allegations of conflict of interest and “improper use of insider knowledge” by employees handling safety net applications.
“As a result of this investigation, disciplinary measures were imposed on a small number of employees ranging from written reprimands, suspensions and up to termination of employment, depending upon the circumstances of the individual case,” the government response said.
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It did not specify how many employees were involved or the precise nature of their transgressions.
Agriculture Canada did not respond to an interview request.
The employees were involved in dealing with claims under the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program and its replacement, AgriStability.
The original complaint to Parliament by auditor general Sheila Fraser did not produce the same discipline fallout. That complaint concerned potential problems with 18 Agriculture Canada employees who may have been working by day processing applications and then working in their free time to complete applications for a fee.
The department identified five prairie-based employees who said they had completed claims for a fee. All the files they had processed back to 2003 were reviewed.
“The review identified some errors which are being addressed but did not indicate any inappropriate activity by any of the five employees,” said the report to MPs.
The department said the investigation that led to findings of wrongdoing “were separate from the concerns raised by the public accounts committee.”
However, the auditor-general’s complaint about moonlighting employees and the subsequent committee demand for a departmental accounting created a flurry of internal activity around ethics and conflict of interest issues.
Beginning in 2007-08, all of the department’s thousands of employees were given “conflict-of-interest education and awareness sessions.”
Last fiscal year, all 715 departmental employees involved in delivering farm financial programs had to attend training sessions in Regina and Winnipeg.
As well, former employees were told they had to identify themselves as such if they are filling out application forms for themselves or others.
Meanwhile, the files of more than 700 farmers whose applications had been handled by the five employees who admitted moonlighting were reviewed – more than 2,600 files in all.
A Values and Ethics Advisory Board led by a senior Agriculture Canada executive has been created to make sure the message makes it through the bureaucracy that behaviour that could appear to be unethical will not be tolerated.
“Agriculture Canada has acted to address conflict-of-interest concerns related to the CAIS program and to strengthen its values and ethics program, raising awareness and understanding of (conflict) measures and guidelines within (the department),” Agriculture Canada said in its summer report to Parliament.
It noted that during this fiscal year, the department’s values and ethics framework will be audited, “including the adequacy of conflict of interest controls.”
It also told MPs that farmers are being asked this year to evaluate the effectiveness of the new business risk management programs under the Growing Forward policy.
It promised that results of the farmer opinion survey will be included in future departmental performance reports to Parliament.
