Evidence of meeting #31 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was office.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Suzanne Legault  Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Layla Michaud  Interim Director General, Corporate Services Branch, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Mary Dawson  Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Denise Benoit  Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

12:30 p.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Jean Crowder

Thank you, Mr. Andrews.

Mr. Calkins, for seven minutes.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I may not use all of my time, in which case I'll see if one of my colleagues here would like to use the remainder of that time.

Thank you, Ms. Dawson, for being here today to address some of the concerns and speak to the estimates. I'm going to be talking about some of that. I know you've already deferred to Ms. Benoit. My questions may be specific enough. I'll leave that to your discretion, though.

In going through the information that's been presented to me, I want to first ask you some questions about your organization chart. You've outlined in your testimony that you have 50 employees. On your organizational chart, under corporate management you have 10 employees.

Could you tell me what those roles would be, what kinds of employment? Is that human resources? Who are we talking about in corporate management?

12:30 p.m.

Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

Mary Dawson

I'll let Denise take that one.

12:30 p.m.

Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

Denise Benoit

Under corporate management, we have two employees who are HR. Of course, we do our own staffing at the office. We have two people working in finance. We also have one person who is the coordinator of all administrative services at the office.

Because we've been developing a new case management system, we also have a business analyst who's been able to really translate our business requirements properly, so that the system would meet what we need. We also have information management, so records management, of course.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB

So that would make up the difference. Human resources is two, financial services is two, an administrative coordinator is one, and a business analyst is one. That's six. The other four would be.... How is that?

12:35 p.m.

Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

Denise Benoit

There is me and my administrative assistant, and there's also one person on maternity leave who works in finance. Yes, that's my team.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB

Okay, that's interesting.

When you take a look at the overall complexity of various organizations that do this, and I'm just asking a question, they need to come to a span of control through management. In the private sector, we see two human resources people, for example, for every 100. Yet, you have two for 50. Is there something complex going on in this office that you need two human resources people, and two financial services people? To change the aspect of what's required in the private sector compared to what's obviously here in the public sector seems to be out of line.

I used to work in information technology, with overly complex teams dealing with overly complex problems. You have a 4:1 ratio of corporate management in your organization. Yet, in the private sector I've never seen anything fewer than 8:1 or 9:1.

12:35 p.m.

Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

Denise Benoit

Because we are under Parliament, we try to respect all the policies and guidelines that are in the public service. As you can imagine, there are a number of policies that need to be applied and that requires a lot of expertise within our office. If we rely on one person only, and if that person leaves, then we're left with no services at all.

On the financial side, we have one person who's the accounts payable person, so at a more junior level. Then we have someone who does the reporting, who's at the senior level. The people are definitely not at all the same levels, so it's different. They bring different expertise to the office.

Because we're independent, we're not relying on anybody else to do our HR. On the financial services part, it's the same issue.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB

I understand the independence notion, so let's explore that for a moment, shall we? I think independence is absolutely critical when it comes to people working in advisory and compliance—when it's the commissioner herself and her staff, people working on reports and investigations, or people working in policy research, communications, and legal services. But when it comes to corporate management, where is the justification—the rationale—for not using the services that are already available?

Is paying somebody working on advisory compliance any different from paying somebody else working in the Government of Canada, or working at the expense of taxpayers? I would just like to know what the rationale would be for maintaining independence for somebody simply in charge of keeping track of vacation days and paying the staff.

12:35 p.m.

Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

Denise Benoit

When we can, we make use of arrangements. For example, we have MOUs with the House of Commons for information technology, which is something we could just not do on our own. We have an MOU with the Library of Parliament for the actual accounts—issuing cheques—because that is not an expertise that we have. Compensation is done by Public Works, so we're using an agreement with Public Works to do our pay. When we can, we do go ahead and make these arrangements, but there are some services that we felt were better kept in-house.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB

This gets more interesting because now you are obviously utilizing some in-house services, which don't appear on your organization chart. They are doing some of the workload for you, and yet you still have a 4:1 ratio.

I'm not going to dwell on it. I would just hope that everything is being done as efficiently and effectively as possible.

I know that KPMG has done an audit, Madam Commissioner.

12:35 p.m.

Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB

In their audit, did they do a performance audit, or was it simply an audit making sure that it's compliant with the generally accepted accounting principles, and so on? Was there any attempt or any interest in doing a performance audit, or is it too soon in your office?

12:35 p.m.

Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

Mary Dawson

I'll ask Denise to answer.

12:35 p.m.

Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

Denise Benoit

At this point, the primary focus was really to look at it to make sure that all our practices were in accordance with accounting principles. As we move forward, that is something we actually are mentioning. I don't know whether it's in our annual report or somewhere else, but we're going to start looking at doing internal audits of our processes to see if there is room for change and improvement.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB

Okay, when it comes to the broader interests of the taxpayers' interests, when it comes to everything that's moving forward with the deficit reduction action plan and so on, I can see here, based on the budget information that you laid out for us, there was no request made to you. Because of your independence, there was no request made.

Was there any consideration given to try to do the Information Commissioner's fair share of reducing the cost to taxpayers?

12:40 p.m.

Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

Mary Dawson

Do you mean the Conflict of Interest Commissioner? I do the same thing myself once in a while.

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB

I'm sorry, Conflict of Interest Commissioner. We have so many commissioners here. I apologize, Ms. Dawson.

12:40 p.m.

Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

Mary Dawson

I understand that we are actually under the level that even the government people.... We are a small enough organization that we were not targeted for these reductions.

Is that correct, Denise?

12:40 p.m.

Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

Denise Benoit

Exactly. When you look at organizations in the public service, there was a threshold where if people had a budget—I can't remember what the exact amount was—these organizations were not asked to provide savings.

In our situation, we're a relatively new organization that is still building, so at this point, as we're finally reaching the level where we wanted to be at, it is difficult to turn around and offer savings. We've made a commitment not to increase our expenditures. We've been asking for the same budget as the last budget, so that's our commitment. We haven't come before this committee for additional funding over the last few years.

12:40 p.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Jean Crowder

Mr. Calkins, you are well over your time.

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB

Are you certain, Madam Chair?

12:40 p.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Jean Crowder

I am very certain. I have the clock in front of me.

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

Before I release the commissioner, I now need to call the question on vote 15, under Parliament.PARLIAMENTOffice of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics CommissionerVote 15—Program expenditures...........$6,338,000

(Vote 15 agreed to on division)

It is carried on division.

Commissioner Dawson, I want to thank you and your staff very much for appearing before committee. We look forward to the statutory review of the act when it's tabled in Parliament.

I'm going to suspend for two minutes. We do need to go in camera because of the nature of the business that I need to bring forward to the committee, so I'll suspend while we move in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]