Dispute Resolution Guide

June 1995
Update November 2003

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Dispute Resolution - Building on the Foundation
(Archived Document)

from the
DEPUTY MINISTER
No. 210 DM 96-09-16

The year in review

It has been quite a year since I last penned a general message to employees on the subject of the Department's dispute resolution (DR) initiative. When I wrote to you last year, I outlined a number of specific departmental goals regarding dispute resolution. I set these goals in keeping with the Department's view that we wish to be a leader in the field of dispute resolution.

As the Department of Justice, we have to be concerned about freeing up our system of justice from its present bias towards court-oriented procedures in favour of a flexible approach that provides more options for dealing with disputes. These options range from negotiation to litigation and include intervention of third parties, such as mediators, arbitrators and fact finders, to name but a few.

We have to be concerned about access to justice, about issues of cost and the time it takes to resolve disputes. We have to be concerned about how satisfied individuals and organizations are with the outcome of disputes and with the durability of those outcomes.

While the Dispute Resolution Project of the Department is responsible for coordinating and leading our efforts in this area, I stressed last year how important it is for employees in every corner of the Department to become involved in DR and to play a role in ensuring its success. I am pleased to say that employees have been taking up that challenge. You have been helping the Department achieve that leadership role through your commitment and by putting DR into practice.

Together, we have achieved a great deal. We have created a foundation upon which to build in the years ahead. For example:

• We have agreement in principle to change the Treasury Board policy that discourages early settlement of disputes by requiring departments to pay for settlements from their own resources, while judgments are paid out of central funds of government.
  
  
• We have adopted a corporate policy on DR, circulated to all employees in February. This new policy is the result of extensive consultation with employees, other federal departments and agencies, and with organizations external to the government.
  
  
• We have, to date, trained 576 individuals in DR (principled negotiation, mediation, arbitration, contract clause drafting), of which 59 are non-Justice employees (e.g. representatives of client departments and agencies).
  
  
• We have established a network of DR contact persons in every legal services unit, in the regional offices and at Justice headquarters.
  
  
• We have a contracting directive in place (supported by a Treasury Board policy notice) that encourages the use of DR clauses in government contracts, the operation of which is being monitored and evaluated.
  
  
• We have put into place a system for screening legislative initiatives across government, in order to identify opportunities to apply DR.
  
  
• We have created a data base, the Directory of Third Party Neutrals, which has been distributed across the Department in hard copy and via Justice Workbench. It lists individuals and organizations in the private sector who act as third party neutrals (mediators, arbitrators, and so on) and that will be of great assistance to us and our clients when we are looking for a third party neutral.
  
  
• Working with our clients, we have begun the process of setting up pilot projects to use DR approaches both in the National Capital Region and in our regional offices. The Ontario Regional Office, for example, has established a pilot that will use various
  
  
• DR mechanisms to handle 50 civil and commercial cases. A similar pilot project is being set up in the Quebec Regional Office. Work in designing pilot projects is progressing in our other regional offices.
  
  
• We have worked to support the Federal Court of Canada's efforts to establish DR approaches in the Court's case-flow management system. The year ahead S building on the foundation
  

In acknowledging our accomplishments, and in thanking you for your efforts, I also want to talk about how we have built on our work to date. Much has been accomplished, and much remains to be done. Listed below are a number of concrete and measurable goals to which I would like us to commit ourselves.

By September 1997:

Working in cooperation with Treasury Board Secretariat, we will see implemented a change to the Treasury Board policy that differentiates between the payment of court judgments and that of settlements. That policy will no longer be a disincentive to early settlement.

• We will continue to emphasize DR training for Justice employees (at all levels and across all groups) and selected client representatives, in line with the commitment to training in our Justice DR policy.
  
  
• We will offer a course to train public servants to act as mediators in cases involving conflict and harassment in the workplace, in support of the Treasury Board policy and of the Justice policy Towards a Conflict-and Harassment-Free Workplace.
  
  
• We will continue to track and evaluate the use of DR clauses in government contracts pursuant to the Contracting Directive. Through this tracking we will be able to assess the effectiveness of the directive and any impediments to its operation.
  
  
• We will continue our initiative of screening legislative proposals (new legislation or amendments to legislation) for inclusion, where appropriate, of DR provisions.
  
  
• We will circulate a discussion paper on promoting DR at the federal level. The discussion paper will, among other things, raise key questions to be considered, first, by various sections of the Department of Justice, and then, more broadly, by Justice employees, other federal departments and agencies, and by organizations external to the federal government. The results of the discussion paper consultations will be reported to the Minister for his consideration.
  
  
• We will continue our work to support the Federal Court of Canada's efforts to establish DR approaches within its case management system.
  
  
• We will complete the work that has begun in the National Capital Region and in our regional offices in setting up pilot projects, by proceeding to implement the pilots in our offices across Canada.
  
  
• We will feature DR in the Department's Public Legal Education and Information campaigns as a means of further informing Canadians of DR and encouraging their participation in the DR movement.
  
  
• We will stipulate the importance of DR and our Justice DR policy in the documents used to retain the services of legal agents.
  
  
• We will record time spent on DR via the Department's timekeeping initiative.
  
  
• We will review the rewards and recognition system of the Department in order to provide appropriate recognition to employees who strive to advance DR in their work.
  
  
• We will create a Legal Awareness Module on DR for delivery by Justice counsel and will offer it to all client departments and agencies.

These efforts, along with much other work being done on DR within Justice and with our client departments and agencies, will go a long way towards improving our performance as a department and providing better client service.

I look forward to working with you to meet these goals.

George Thomson

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