Fear of Reprisal

White Papers:

"Analyzing and improving the CBSA performance using PSES data: Data Science Way", Submission to the Culture Division, October 2019
"Where is the highest Fear of Reprisal and Why?", Data Evidence for Discussion, May 2021 (Updated: July 2024)

iTrack PSES Web App (developed by Dmitry Gorodnichy in 2019):

on Open Canada GitHub portal
on Shiny Apps portal
Source code on GitHub

Background

In 2019, in an effort to improve the culture in the Agency I work in, I built a Web App (called iTrack PSES) that compared Public Service Employee Survey (PSES) results on key questions across different divisions of the organization. One of those key questions was the Fear of Reprisal. With the help of this Web App, my colleagues and I were able to demonstrate to our upper management at the VP level which divisions required specific attention. These were the divisions where Confidence in Senior Management was the lowest (PSES 2018 Question 30) and where Fear of Reprisal (Question 36 in PSES 2018) was the highest. As a result, it was then possible to improve the situation in those divisions that required special attention. See White Paper "Analyzing and improving the CBSA performance using PSES data: Data Science Way" for the details.

Later, in 2020 when I've started the Government of Canada R4GC data science community of practice in GCCollab to assist colleagues in learning new data visualization tools, some of them confessed that they experienced similar problems. We then applied the same approach to find the divisions/units where Fear of Reprisal was high in other government departments, and why it was high there (in other words, what it correlated with and did not correlate with).

The outcome of this analysis is provided in the White Paper "Where is the highest Fear of Reprisal and Why?". The main two questions answered in this analysis are the following:

Question 1: Where in the Public Service is the Fear of Reprisal the Highest?

Question 2: Why is the Fear of Reprisal High there?

The answers to these questions are summarized below.

Question 1: Where in the Public Service is the Fear of Reprisal the Highest?

Answer: The highest fear of reprisal is found in units that provide scientific evaluation for government policies and industry products.

The images below show the results for "Fear of Reprisal" (Question 36 in PSES 2018) across the government. Units that have mandates in policy and vendor product evaluations report some of the highest levels of fear of reprisal in the public service. These are:

PHAC - Health Security Infrastructure - Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response
PHAC - Infectious Disease Prevention
Health Canada - Health Products and Foods - Marketed Health Products
Health Canada - Health Products and Foods - Health and Non-prescription Products
Health Canada - Regulatory Operation - Health Product Compliance
ECCC - Industrial, Chemical Waste Directorate
AAFC - Office of Audit and Evaluation
Canadian Institute of Health Research - Research Knowledge Transfer Ethics

Question 2: Why is the Fear of Reprisal High in These Units?

Answer: This fear is not related to harassment and discrimination. It is related to something else.

Notably, the fear of reprisal in the specified units is not correlated with harassment and discrimination (Questions 48 - 61). This indicates that the fear arises from other reasons.

It is also noted that for the same agencies, the units not involved in policy and vendor product evaluations report much lower fear of reprisal. This further confirms that the primary source of fear in the affected units comes from the work they do, which—based on observations and firsthand accounts—is conducted under political and industry interference.

What else could the fear of reprisal be related to?

Answer: The fear of reprisal strongly correlates with the level of political and industry interference in the work performed by professionals in these units.

Evidence: Highest Fear of Reprisal according to Public Service Employee Survey (PSES)

The screenshot below from the iTrack PSES Web App shows that the unit in Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) that experiences the highest level of Fear of Reprisal (lowest PSES score) is ...

Health Security Infrastructure - Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response

The screenshot below from the iTrack PSES Web App shows that units in Health Canada that experience the highest level of Fear of Reprisal (lowest PSES score) are ...

Health Canada - Health Products and Foods - Marketed Health Products
Health Canada - Health Products and Foods - Health and Non-prescription Products

Conclusion

The analysis presented here was conducted before the start of the pandemic and before all pandemic-related measures and policies were introduced by the government. Knowing that these measures and policies were approved exactly in the departments where the fear of reprisal is among the highest in the public service should be of major concern to all Canadians, particularly for the Union, which has the mandate to protect the professionals working in those departments. I believe this analysis provides the Union with an excellent opportunity to address the problem before it becomes worse.

Canadians rely on the unbiased, interference-free expert work of our professionals who develop policies for all Canadians. The Union must do everything possible to ensure this is the case. And if it is not the case, the Union should be very vocal about it so that all Canadians know about it too. This is why I sponsored a Resolution for 2024 PIPSC National AGM that will task the Union with addressing this critical problem. To learn more about the sponsored Resolution to the PIPSC website or visit my "2024 AGM Resolutions" page.

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