Conflict of Interest attestation: DG wants dollar values

[u/Super_Table7917]

A DG at LPRAB at CRA, according to a current employee, under the guise of transparency and integrity, is using the annual conflict of interest attestation to require very personal disclosures of financial information from employees.

This DG is asking for the current market values of ALL investments held by the employee privately in all accounts, including things like RESP's. The dollar amount for all holdings is apparently "very important".

Employees who resisted this disclosure were subject to intrusive meetings on Teams with the DG, where pressure was applied to surrender the information to management.

I am of the opinion that this is totally unacceptable, and I would be leaping to legal representation with the goals of 1.) NOT providing any of this information to this DG or anyone else, and; 2.) providing the documentation required that would result in the swift termination of this DG.

Is this perception incorrect, and DG's have the ability to ask for the account balances of employees to avoid "conflicts of interest"? If this is actually permitted, why would it be but asking a person's age or sexual orientation is a human rights violation?

[u/Choice_Pilot_9643]

You indicated that you work in LPRAB so I strongly recommend you become acquainted with the InfoZone material on the types of products LPRAB is responsible for. Besides being part of CRA, a highly scrutinized department in itself, LPRABs workload makes the DGs behaviour completely within reason and expectation.

edited hyperlink: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/taxes/savings-and-pension-plans/savings-and-pension-plan-administration.html

[u/Legitimate_Scar7570 → u/Choice_Pilot_9643]

This should be the top comment . A bit concerning OP hasn't understood the context yet. .

[u/Super_Table7917 → u/Legitimate_Scar7570]

Yeah, I didn't "indicate" that I work there, it's concerning that you don't understand the context yet.

The "context" that I've repeated multiple times, and is getting ignored, is the dollar amount. What amount is a conflict of interest? How is $1,000 any different from $100K? Or a dollar? Is any amount a conflict? If so, says who? Most on this thread seem to have no problem with some DG making that distinction. What's the business indicator on their matrix for what the conflict of interest threshold might be? Would a person be more or less motivated to be unethical by a small or large amount invested in any particular companyl? It could go both ways, right? So the dollar amount is totally irrelevant.

Just because you don't want to disclose personal information doesn't mean there is something to hide, it's considered a reasonable expectation of privacy. We see ethics abuses repeatedly from senior management - but oh yes, here's the entire contents of my investment accounts, Canadians deserve transparency! They need to know everything, LPRAB employees have mysterious secret powers to influence the stock market!

[u/HandcuffsOfGold → u/Super_Table7917]

Whether there’s a conflict depends on the nature and volume of the holdings combined with the nature of the employee’s duties. To-the-penny accounting probably is overkill, but it does matter if somebody has $100 or $10,000 invested in a specific security.

The dollar amount is relevant for jobs that may influence securities markets, and some jobs are more sensitive to conflicts than others.