Government Operations Committee on June 14th, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We now go to Mr. Holder for eight minutes.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank our guests for coming today.

Madam Legault, if I might say, I appreciate your presentation.

We haven't heard from Ms. Michaud yet. Perhaps we will in the course of these questions.

I sincerely appreciate the job that you've done on behalf of Canadians. I think that really matters. And I think, as my Cape Breton mom used to say, the proof in the pudding is in the eating. Really, what that means is that it's shown. When I look at the history of the cases you have inherited, you've inherited a backlog of some 2,000 cases, if I understand correctly, and your department closed 2,215 cases. That's rather interesting, because when I look at your stats I also see that the good news, and I certainly perceive it as good news, is that new complaints did decrease—and you indicated that earlier—by some 350, give or take, from the prior year.

I was just trying to do some math. Frankly, I don't pretend to know your business. I'm certainly used to complaints, but I'm not used to dealing with them at the level you do. I'm trying to extrapolate this out in relation to budgets, so I want to come back to that first. You indicated that you did receive a budget increase. How much was the budget increase for, may I ask you please, in dollars?

[Suzanne Legault]

In the last three years we had two submissions to Treasury Board Secretariat. For the first one, 2006-07, we received an additional $1.4 million. For last year and this fiscal year, because some of the funding is kicking in as we speak.... This fiscal year was $2.9 million, or roughly $3 million, which was an increase in the overall budget of the OIC of 57%. So that was significant.

The increase in budget was a result of the Federal Accountability Act. We became subject to the Access to Information Act ourselves, so we had to fund that function. We also had responsibility in terms of internal audit, so we got funding for that, and we also had an increase in our internal services functions and our investigators.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

In fact, then, when I hear about a $1.4 million increase and an additional increase of $2.9 million, it's not that the government isn't trying to fund. You have a number of issues. You've indicated backlog, among other things. Certainly it seems, from what I've heard, that the government has been responsive, at least to this point.

To your credit, again, I really appreciate the thoughtful way you've approached this. I'll just come back to your comment that you didn't exclude the possibility of going to the Treasury Board should that need arise, and it may well. Again, I think you've handled this with great aplomb. I salute your department for that.

I want to come back to the case count, though, if I can. I'm not an accountant like our esteemed chair, but I would tell you that as I look at the numbers here, I see you inherited 2,000 cases. You closed 2,215. We had a drop in the number of new complaints by some 350. I appreciate that might not be a number you can always control. I mean, how could you ever know the number of new complaints? The good news is that it's dropped somewhat significantly.

By the way, I also acknowledge that in the average time to deal with a complaint, you've reduced the processing time by one-third. I need to tell you that's a credit to the people you've brought into your team and their expeditious way of handling things. Again, I salute you.

I was trying to extrapolate at what point you get to the stage where you could handle things based on the efficiencies you already have. So I'm imagining this. If you closed 2,215 cases, what that means is that from the original 2,000 backlog you've reduced 700, which gives you 1,300 backlogged cases from them. Then I add to that, if I can, the number of cases you will get. You have 1,300 left and 1,650-some-odd you will deal with, so there are 3,000. Now, if you continue to deal with 2,200 the next year, that means instead of 1,300 backlogged from the 2,000, now you have something like 500 or 600 left. In other words, you're doing this exactly the right way. You're reducing it down, plus you have reduced pressure if the complaints go down, which they have.

At some point I'm trying to understand.... Again, forgive me, because I don't understand the average handling time of a case and what your averages are. Could you imagine that you'd get to the point where your backlog is acceptable? I would ask you what an acceptable backlog is, if that's even the right expression, and where you can manage it with resources, knowing that you're one-third more efficient in terms of case-handling time and that you've handled 700, so you've also handled one-third more of the backlogged cases. I mean, you're going to have to be making the complaints soon just so you'll have to have some to deal with, I almost wonder.

I don't mean that to be facetious, because this is serious business, but could you comment on that and help me out a little bit, please?

[Suzanne Legault]

Madame Chair, I'll try to be clear in my answer.

I think the honourable member is actually absolutely right in his analysis, in the sense that our goal and our business model is predicated upon the fact that, once we have cleared our large inventory of cases, we'll have a manageable carry-over from year to year of between 300 and 500 cases. We are now at 2,000. That's basically what we've carried over. We started the year at 2,500—it was 2,513. Now we are left with 2,049, having closed 2,125.

We are catching up and we are becoming more efficient. That is the plan. My concern at this point is how long it can take us to actually get to that manageable caseload. That's the concern I have. That's why I'm doing the analysis that I'm doing internally. It may be that, if we decide we need additional funding, it's only temporary funding to get us to that manageable carry-forward. That's part of what I'm looking at.

There are two other aspects, Madam Chair, to this question. The second one is that last year we also got significant funding to renew our information technology platform. Now, for our office this is very significant, because it's our case management platform but also our legal tracking system. This is our IT infrastructure that assists our investigation, that assists our monitoring of our performance, that assists us in identifying what's within our control and what the waiting times are for institutions to respond. This case management renewal that we are embarked on will also, in my view, generate efficiencies. We haven't fully realized those, so we're looking at that.

The third aspect is that because we have grown so significantly in the last year—in fact this year is the first year we have been fully staffed, which was the result of a very aggressive human resources strategy in September—

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

May I ask you if—

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

No, you're out of time. You gave such a long speech to her. I'm sorry, we have to go to Mr. Allen.

Mr. Allen, you have eight minutes.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm not an accountant either, Mr. Holder, but I know figures dance and dancers can figure, so let me try to be shorter-winded but at least talk about the numbers.

Clearly, if you extrapolate the numbers out and keep everything the same as 2009-10—in other words, a caseload of 1,689 and it doesn't spike back up—it will take you about 4.6 years to reduce the backlog, give or take a month.

That means you're going to have to keep asking for the budget increases you've asked for as additional increases to clear the backlog. Does that seem reasonable and rational to you?

[Suzanne Legault]

That's a very astute question by the honourable member, because that's exactly it. Our business model was predicated on a five-year time span. The question I'm asking myself and part of the analysis we're doing this summer is whether that is too long a period for Canadians to have an Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada, which is in a position to deal with the cases. At the end of the day, when we start the year with a caseload of between 300 and 500, we are going to become a lot more efficient at handling our cases, because the number is going to be less.

Obviously, managing 2,000 cases every year is taxing all of our investigative function, because in order to be really efficient, the more we know our cases, the better we are at dealing with them; and the less of them we have, the faster we can get to them.

So it's exactly the right question to ask, and that's the question I'm asking myself. I'm analyzing whether I can do that faster within the complement I have. I can share with this committee that my objective for this year in terms of cases closed, to the breakdown of my employees, is 2,400, which is where I'd like to be, but I'm getting some serious concerns from my staff at this point.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

It also begs the question—and I agree with you about the numbers, by the way—assuming 1,689, give or take one or two, call it 1,690, the dilemma is that you have about 400 new cases initiated this year versus last. In the year before, in 2008-09, you had 2,019. These are new cases, new complaints. In 2009-10 you had 1,689, so give or take almost 400.

Your actual increase in closing the cases was 400. If you go back to where you were in 2008-09, and it's not an unrealistic expectation, you're actually back to where you were for unclosed cases of 2008-09. You've actually regressed two years, notwithstanding all the things that you're doing. I give you a great deal of credit for all those decisions you're making and trying to do that with what I think, for all intents and purposes, is basically a shoestring budget. But that's just me. I used to be corporate chair in a municipality, and I perhaps don't know my numbers all that well, but anyway....

The other thing I found interesting that you said, when I talk about shoestring budgets and the fact that we may be spinning our wheels here, is that you don't know how many cases you'll get in a year. You can't tell me absolutely what you'll get next year, because none of us knows. There's no crystal ball.

Part of your statement was, “We have observed in the last two report cards that under-resourced institutions use time extensions as a coping mechanism, thereby creating unnecessary delays.”

My fear is—and I don't know whether you share this fear—that indeed if we don't have the resources there and our numbers do go back to what is a general level, which isn't necessarily 1,689, but higher, we will indeed get back to what I think the Canadian public sees when it comes to ATIP, which is a sense that you put it in and forget about it, and somebody will knock on your door sometime in the future and you'll say, “Oh, I did ask that question; there's my response finally.” It's somewhat akin to getting the magic prize in your mailbox from that famous magazine group that obviously I will not name.

I wonder if you have any comment on that.

[Suzanne Legault]

Madam Chair, there is a lot again in that question. The way I understand the honourable member's question....

Again, you're absolutely right. The risk is that if we do have an increase in complaints this year, we are going to be creating an additional backlog, even with the increased number of cases that we close. That is the huge concern I have in dealing with the 2,000 cases we're carrying over, as opposed to a manageable carry-over. That's why I have a clear sense of urgency in dealing with that large inventory of cases we carry forward from year to year. So that's one aspect.

In terms of the second aspect, it's true that if there are insufficient resources within institutions to actually process access to information requests, it creates delays in terms of responding to those requests. It increases the number of complaints to my office as well, which again leads to additional delays. That's why the report cards have focused on delays in order to deal with those cases.

Frankly, Madam Chair, I've said this many times before. Where I really think we should be spending our time, not only within institutions in matters of access to information requests, but also at the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada, is on substantive decisions to release information to Canadians based on exemptions and exclusions. That is really the delicate balance that needs to be struck. In my view, that is where my role is the most important and the most efficient: to act as the arbiter in that function. We do not want to be spending our time on extensions and delays, because that is really not going to the core of what Canadians want as part of their access to information system.

I hope I answered in part the member's question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You've got a minute more.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I couldn't agree more about how you summed that up.

It seems to me that when we get into a budgetary crunch, if you will, there's a sense that everyone bears or should bear the same pain. My sense is that when it comes to a service to Canadians, when they're actually asking about the fundamental pieces of their democracy to get information, it's one area we shouldn't necessarily freeze or cut with all the others. I'm not sure whether you share that view or not, but I'm simply putting it on the record. You're free to respond, obviously, if you want, or not.

[Suzanne Legault]

As heads of institutions that are using public money, I think we all have a responsibility to engage in fiscal restraint to the extent that it's responsible and that we're still able to carry out our mandate. I think the analysis we're going through is the responsible thing to do. It would be the responsible thing to do for any head of institution providing any service. What we want to do is to make sure that we use taxpayers' money in the most efficient way possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much.

So you're looking for an increase in your budget of about another $8 million.

[A voice]

[Inaudible--Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much for being here.

I'll suspend the meeting for 30 seconds and then we can go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]