"Elementary My Dear Watson elementary!"

Good Day Readers:

While Federal Procurement Ombudsman Mr. Frank Brunetta may indeed be well-intentioned, with all due respect the gentleman is perhaps a tad naive. While organizations exhort the virtues of accountability and transparency fact of the matter is they don't like whistleblowers. The federal government is no exception.

Who can forget Mr. Allan Cutler the Public Works employee who blew the whistle on the Liberals' Sponsorship scandal lost his job only to be later exonerated by the Gomery Commission. Or what about Joanna Gualtieri the Foreign Affiars employee who went public about extravagant living accommodations of diplomats residing abroad? Also, not a happy ending.

For more examples, we would direct your attention to David Hutton from Protecting Whistleblowers Who Protect The Public Interest August 22, 2011 article entitled, PSLRB Whistleblower Rulings Harm Canada's International Reputation. If the government cannot adequately protect its own what reasonable assurances can be offered to outsiders?

We quickly reviewed the Federal Procurement Ombudsman's webpage but unless missed were unable to find any protections, such as paid legal representation if necessary, for those coming forward with information regarding possible wrongdoing. Mr. Frank Brunetta
The Procurement Ombudsman
http://opo-boa.gc.ca/index-eng.html

Sad to say but given the aforementioned examples, plus no doubt many, many others, the unmarked brown envelope, hard to trace e-mail and the late night anonymous telephone call will remain the preferred approach of the whistleblower. Look for more of this as horror stories involving Challenger jets/helicopter misuse, an expanded fleet of Parliament Hill minibuses, gold-embossed business cards, as well as, God knows what else continue to emerge especially once the $4 billion worth of budget cuts begin in earnest next year. Revenge of the bureaucrat!

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

elizabeththompson@ipolitics.ca

boa.opo@boa.gc.ca
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Procurement watchdog wants to know why suppliers are afraid to blow whistle

Thursday, September 29, 2011
By Elizabeth Thompson

Canada’s procurement watchdog has launched a review to find out why some suppliers say they are afraid to blow the whistle on procurement problems for fear of losing future contracts.

Speaking to iPolitics after testifying before Parliament’s Government Operations Committee, Procurement Ombudsman Frank Brunetta said he is determined to get to the bottom of the problem.

“I’m extremely puzzled as to why people would be reluctant, and I need to understand it. In my role as ombudsman, even one call of that nature is problematic.”

Brunetta said his office has taken a three-pronged approach to the review.

First, it has changed the questions it asks suppliers in an effort to find out more about any problems they may have had. Second, it has almost finished contacting suppliers who had told his office in the past they had experienced problems with federal government departments but didn’t want to press the issue to find out more about their reluctance.

Finally, Brunetta said he began discussions with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business a couple of weeks ago to have it sound out its members on their problems doing business with the federal government.

“My thinking is that they may be more forthcoming with an association than they would be with me.”

Brunetta said the problem may be as simple as human nature, for example the tendency of Canadians not to send back the soup when it’s cold because they don’t want to complain. “I’m hoping that its people saying, ‘I don’t want to make a fuss, we’ll just drop it,’ and that there’s isn’t anything more to it than that.”

Brunetta, who was appointed procurement ombudsman in January, told the committee he first noticed the problem when he and his staff were putting together his annual report and he noticed a lot of people who called his office to complain about a problem weren’t willing to follow up with formal complaints.

“It was the most startling thing that I discovered when we were preparing the annual report. As I was combing through the data with staff, I noticed some of these numbers were falling off the table and I started to ask, ‘Why aren’t we dealing with these,’ and the answer came back that these were suppliers that don’t want to pursue the issue because they were afraid of being shut out of future business.”

Brunetta said another problem he identified is that small- and medium-sized businesses are having trouble getting their foot in the door when it comes to government contracts. “New entrants into government business are finding it very difficult.”

Brunetta said his office forwards many of those calls to the Public Works department’s Office of Small and Medium Enterprises.

In the case of larger suppliers, the problems usually stem from the administration of contracts or delays in payment, he said.

Brunetta said his office found that 90 per cent of government contracts are for less than $25,000 and of that number, 60 per cent were awarded without a competition.But while there are a large number of untendered contracts under $25,000, they account for less than 10 per cent of the $20 billion in government contracts awarded by the federal government.

On the whole, of the 300,000 to 350,000 contracts awarded each year, only 200 result in complaints about the process, he pointed out.

elizabeththompson@ipolitics.ca