Public Accountability Bounty Act

An Act to establish a public accountability bounty program

Preamble

Whereas public bodies publish, in Acts of Parliament, regulations, service standards and official guidance, the obligations they owe to the people of Canada;

Whereas compliance with those published obligations is measured almost entirely from inside the bodies that owe them;

Whereas Canada already pays members of the public for information about wrongdoing, the Canada Revenue Agency paying an informant between 5 and 15% of the additional federal tax it collects under the Offshore Tax Informant Program, and the Ontario Securities Commission paying a whistleblower up to 5 million dollars;

Whereas a breach of securities rules is therefore worth money to the person who reports it, while a public body breaking its own published obligation to a person is worth nothing to anyone outside that body;

And whereas that gap can be closed without establishing any new office and without any new appropriation;

Now, therefore, His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:

Short title

1. This Act may be cited as the Public Accountability Bounty Act.

Interpretation

2. (1) In this Act,

“Administrator” means the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner appointed under section 39 of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act;

“affected person” means a person to whom a defect was applied in a specific case;

“defect” means a verifiable difference between an obligation of a public body and its conduct, where the obligation arises from an Act of Parliament, a regulation, a published service standard, a published policy or directive, or official guidance published by or for that body;

“finding” means a report of a defect that meets the requirements of section 6;

“public body” means a portion of the public sector within the meaning of subsection 2(1) of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, and any other body prescribed by the regulations;

“registry” means the public registry maintained under section 5;

“reporter” means a person who submits a finding.

(2) The obligation relied on in a finding is the obligation as it read on the day of the conduct complained of.

Program

3. (1) The Public Accountability Bounty Program is established.

(2) The Administrator shall operate the Program, receive findings, assess them, determine awards, and maintain the registry.

(3) No person is disqualified from submitting a finding by reason of citizenship, immigration status, residence, age, language, disability, or absence of professional credentials.

(4) A finding may be submitted in either official language, and no fee is payable for submitting a finding.

4. (1) No office, position, agency or fund is established by this Act.

(2) The Administrator shall carry out the functions conferred by this Act out of moneys appropriated by Parliament for the purposes of the office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner.

Public registry

5. (1) The Administrator shall maintain a public registry of findings.

(2) Each entry shall record the number of the finding, the public body concerned, the class of defect under Schedule 2, the assessed severity, the award determined, the date the body was notified, the date of any correction, and the status of payment.

(3) The registry shall publish, and update on each entry, the total number of findings, the total number of affected persons recorded, the total amount determined and unpaid, the number of defects corrected, and the longest period during which a public body has not responded.

(4) The registry is a public record, and shall be available without charge, without registration, in both official languages, and in a format that conforms to the requirements of the Accessible Canada Act.

(5) The registry shall not contain personal information about an affected person except with that person’s written consent, and the publication of an entry is a disclosure authorized by an Act of Parliament for the purposes of paragraph 8(2)(b) of the Privacy Act.

Findings

6. A finding shall

(a) identify the obligation relied on and its published source;

(b) state the version of that source in force on the day of the conduct;

(c) describe the conduct that departs from the obligation, with dates and file numbers where they exist; and

(d) include evidence sufficient for the Administrator to verify the departure independently.

7. (1) The Administrator shall notify the public body concerned of a finding that meets the requirements of section 6.

(2) The public body shall, within 45 days after being notified, correct the defect or give written reasons why it is not a defect.

(3) The Administrator shall publish the body’s response in the registry in full.

(4) A failure to respond within the period is recorded in the registry and increases the award payable under section 9.

Assessment

8. (1) The Administrator shall assess each finding on four criteria: the number of people the defect reaches, the severity of the harm it causes, the difficulty of obtaining a remedy for it, and the extent to which it is entrenched in a policy or practice.

(2) Each criterion is scored from 0 to 3, and the total determines the tier of the finding under Schedule 1.

(3) The Administrator shall publish the assessment and the reasons for it.

(4) The Administrator shall complete the assessment within 90 days after receiving the finding, and, if the assessment is not completed within that period, the finding is recorded in the registry as unassessed together with the time elapsed.

(5) The Administrator may refuse to assess a finding that does not meet the requirements of section 6, and shall give written reasons for the refusal.

(6) A reporter may request a reconsideration within 30 days after an assessment or a refusal, and the Administrator shall decide the request in writing.

Awards

9. (1) The Administrator shall determine an award for each verified finding in accordance with Schedule 1.

(2) The award is increased by 50% where the public body does not correct the defect within the period under subsection 7(2).

(3) The award is doubled where the defect arises from a policy or practice applied to all persons served by a program.

(4) An affected person who establishes that a defect was applied to them is entitled to an award assessed on the harm in their own case, and in no case less than 25% of the award for the defect.

(5) A person who independently reproduces a defect already recorded is entitled to 10% of the award for the defect, for the first three such reports.

(6) Where 10 or more affected persons are recorded in respect of one defect, the Administrator shall reassess the reach of that defect and adjust the award accordingly, and the adjustment applies to every award already determined in respect of that defect.

(7) No award is payable to a person whose official duties included the detection or correction of the defect concerned.

Payment

10. (1) An award is paid by the public body concerned out of moneys appropriated by Parliament for the purposes of that public body, and not out of a central fund.

(2) Payment shall be made within 30 days after the determination.

(3) The total of the awards paid by a public body under this Act in a fiscal year shall not exceed 0.05% of the total amounts appropriated by Parliament for the purposes of that body for that fiscal year.

(4) An amount that cannot be paid by reason of subsection (3) remains payable, is paid in the following fiscal year in the order in which it was determined, and is recorded in the registry as outstanding until it is paid.

(5) An award is not compensation, and does not affect any other right or remedy of the person, including any proceeding the person brings on their own behalf.

Findings recorded before coming into force

11. (1) This section applies to a defect recorded, before the day on which this Act comes into force, in a publicly accessible registry that recorded, at the time of the entry, the obligation relied on, the evidence, the date on which the public body was notified, and the identity or pseudonym of the reporter.

(2) The Administrator shall accept such an entry for assessment on the application of the reporter, and shall assess it and determine an award as if the entry had been made under this Act.

(3) Awards under this section are payable in respect of entries recorded on or after 27 August 2026.

Protection

12. (1) No public body shall refuse, delay, reduce or withdraw a service, benefit or decision by reason of a person having submitted a finding.

(2) No employer shall discipline, dismiss or otherwise penalize an employee by reason of the employee having submitted a finding based on publicly available information.

(3) A person may submit a finding under a pseudonym, and the Administrator shall not disclose the person’s identity without written consent.

Relationship to other Acts

13. (1) A finding under this Act is not a disclosure under section 13 of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, and nothing in this Act prevents the same facts from being disclosed under that Act.

(2) The Administrator may treat information contained in a finding as information provided by a person who is not a public servant for the purposes of subsection 33(1) of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

(3) Nothing in this Act affects the jurisdiction of the Federal Court under section 18.1 of the Federal Courts Act.

Reporting

14. (1) Each public body shall publish annually the number of findings recorded against it, the number corrected, the average time from notification to correction, the total awards paid, and the total amount outstanding under subsection 10(4).

(2) The Administrator shall include in the annual report prepared under section 38 of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act a report on the operation of this Act.

Regulations, review, coming into force

15. The Governor in Council may make regulations prescribing public bodies in addition to those referred to in the definition “public body” in subsection 2(1), prescribing classes of defects, and amending Schedule 1.

16. The Administrator shall review the operation of this Act three years after the day on which it comes into force and report to both Houses of Parliament.

17. This Act comes into force on the day on which it receives royal assent.

Schedule 1 — Awards

Sections 8 and 9

Schedule 2 — Classes of defect

Subsection 5(2)