Self-Assessment Tool

Political Activities Self-Assessment Tool: Assessing Your Specific Circumstances

Note: seeking nomination to be a candidate or being a candidate are political activities that an employee may only engage in after receiving PSC approval to do so. The process for obtaining such approval is described in the Candidacy Regulations. The following tool does not apply to such political activities.

The Charter of Rights and Freedom provides all Canadians with "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression" and any restriction should be "only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society".

Your right to engage in any political activity at the federal, provincial, territorial or municipal level is embodied in the Public Service Employment Act (PSEA), as well as the need to maintain the principle of political impartiality of the federal public service. The PSEA states that you may engage in any political activity as long as it does not impair or is not perceived by others as impairing your ability to perform your duties in a politically impartial manner.

Your political rights as a federal public service employee must, therefore, be examined in light of the need to maintain a politically impartial public service. The principle of political impartiality of the public service is a fundamental value which ensures that Canadians benefit from non-partisan delivery of services.

What is the intent of this tool?

This tool is intended to help you, the employee, assess and make reasonable decisions about your involvement in political activities to determine whether a given political activity would impair or could be perceived by others as impairing your ability to perform your duties in a politically impartial manner.

This is to be accomplished on a case-by-case basis, in light of a combination of the nature of the activity you wish to engage in, your specific circumstances and factors such as the nature of your duties and the level and visibility of your position. This type of information is important because the higher you are in the hierarchy and/or the more visible you are and/or the more your duties impact on others, the more likely your political activities will be scrutinized by others, and the more likely they could be perceived as impairing your ability to perform your duties in a politically impartial manner. It should be noted that the impact of a single factor may be sufficient to conclude that an activity is unacceptable.

The tool consists of general information and examples of political activities followed by a brief series of questions relevant to your situation to be answered on a scale of 1 to 5. At the end of the questionnaire you will be able to view, print and save your answers and get a sense of whether or not the activity in question could be problematic. The questionnaire should take approximately 15 minutes to complete. It should be noted that while you may save your answers for your personal use, none of your answers will be kept in a data base or be accessible to others, other than the optional statistical information which will be treated as confidential and used solely for reporting purposes and/or for evaluating the usefulness of this tool.

In answering the questions, keep in mind the duties you are performing at the moment and those which you may be expected to perform in the foreseeable future in your current position. If you are on assignment in another position you should keep in mind the duties of both your assignment position and your own position.

You may want to consult a colleague or another individual who is familiar with your duties to validate the objectivity of your answers once you have completed the questionnaire.

It should also be noted that the Employer and deputy heads have personnel management rights in this regard as defined in the Financial Administration Act. For instance, they can look into situations of inappropriate involvement of their employees in political activities and take disciplinary measures, where applicable.

You are also encouraged to discuss your specific circumstances with your manager and/or your Head of Human Resources or the departmental designated representative in your organization, should you require further advice.