Justice Committee on March 20th, 2013

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

But there is some allocation that is made with respect to—

[Donald Piragoff]

It's an internal allocation within the department. It's not an allocation that Parliament has given us as a certain amount. It's us moving money around within the department to serve certain needs.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

But at the end of the day, there has to be some sort of determination made by us as parliamentarians on whether or not the International Criminal Court treaty, which we implemented, which was a priority in our policy, is being sufficiently supported.

[Donald Piragoff]

That would be the responsibility of DFAIT, and that would be part of their budget. Any membership fees or dues that we pay to the court as being members of the court would be handled by DFAIT as part of their allocation by Parliament.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Let me put another question to you. You might easily tell me, Donald, this is also—

[Donald Piragoff]

You save the hard questions for me, I noticed, as opposed to the minister.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

It's because of my respect for you. I mean that candidly. We've worked closely together.

Something you just mentioned prompted this question, which is on the whole question of mutual legal assistance. It happens that yesterday I met with an ambassador who was indicating to me that he was hoping to have a mutual legal assistance treaty with his country and so far it has not been authorized. My own sense is that it probably wouldn't make sense to do that, but I'll leave that out, but only because a larger issue that he mentioned was that there seems to have been a freeze on the whole approach to mutual legal assistance agreements.

I think these mutual legal assistance agreements have always been helpful, in my view, with regard to the pursuit of international justice, generally speaking. Have we frozen our approach on that?

[Donald Piragoff]

Yes, Mr. Cotler. There's a general policy in the department that goes back to sometime in the 1990s. Due to the cost implications of treaty negotiations for extradition, and mutual assistance, the deputy minister at the time put a moratorium on seeking new treaties both in the extradition context or the mutual legal assistance context, unless there was an exceptional case. Basically that's the situation we've been under now since sometime in the 1990s—I don't know the date—when the moratorium was put on negotiating new treaties, except in exceptional cases.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I think we may have, if it was a moratorium, breached it in certain cases.

[Donald Piragoff]

As I said, there are exceptional situations. The ICC was an exceptional situation, for example.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I have one last question. You have an increase of $7.5 million in the funding for activities that support the national security inadmissibility initiative and division 9 cases under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. I think I know what this is for, but could you expound on that?

[Donald Piragoff]

That money is to support work by the Department of Justice in support of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, particularly division 9 proceedings, as well as the security certificates provision. This money goes to support the Department of Justice in providing legal services in respect of the Immigration and the Refugee Protection Act and the security certificates process.

It also goes to fund the special advocates program. As you recall, the special advocates program, the process, was created by Parliament to provide a means for the interested person to be represented in closed hearings to protect national security information.

Also, a certain portion of the money allocated by Parliament goes to pay for legal aid for individuals who are subject to these proceedings.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you, Mr. Cotler. And thank you for those answers.

It's a Conservative round and I'm taking it again. I just have one question though on the internal services piece.

When I look at the main estimates this year under internal services, it's at $83 million or so. The main estimates for 2012-13 are $91 million. The year before actuals for 2011-12 are at $145 million. I look back and we're always around $108 million, $100 million, somewhere in that range. Why in 2011-12 did we have a 50% increase? What did we spend the money on internally? Why is it so much higher than what it has been in previous years and what we're asking for in this future year?

[Daniel Schnob]

I think it was basically an accounting issue. What we were doing as of that year is the central votes that we get during the year for collective agreement funding, for people on disability, etc., were all included under the internal services banner, when they were not previously. I will verify that and confirm that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

So you think that has changed, then, and that it was a one-time event.

[Daniel Schnob]

It was an adjustment in terms of how we did the accounting to make sure that what should have been aligned to internal services was properly aligned to internal services and has continued ever since.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

I appreciate that answer. It was one of the numbers that popped out at me.

Are there any other questions from the Conservatives? Okay, we'll move on.

Monsieur Mai.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.

I would like to put my questions to Mr. Pentney.

You spoke about the cuts. Can you repeat them again in terms of the numbers? I think I had 5,000. Could you go further in terms of which positions, in terms of departments, and things like that?

[William F. Pentney]

I'd be happy to.

There are about 5,000 employees across Canada. In last year's economic action plan, we promised to cut 330 positions. We are using a combination of measures to achieve that goal.

We are improving our computer system. Consequently, we have reduced the number of people in charge of bill payments, since we are a national organization with very large and highly active regional offices. We have merged the positions from the two centres, and we will be able to use the computer system better, instead of transferring all the paperwork from one office to the other. All that will be done electronically.

So we have reduced the number of people and created two centres of expertise—in Ottawa and in Edmonton—to complete the process. We have merged a few legal services in departments. There were a few small legal services. We have eliminated one management level and combined a few groups that were working in the same area. We decided to create a few centres of expertise in order to provide common services within the government more efficiently. Instead of having many lawyers who do a small part of their work in a specific area, we will create a few centres of expertise so as to have fewer people doing the work more often. They will handle cases and provide advice more efficiently.

Those are some examples. Services are being merged, and the computer system is being utilized better. Those are some of the changes in the way we practise law. That's being done through centres of expertise, mergers or some other reductions. We're talking about effective internal measures.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

When you say mergers, does that mean you will get rid of existing services in the regions, for instance, in order to centralize them? Are you just talking about certain positions within the department?

[William F. Pentney]

It's a combination of the two. Some people will stay. For instance, people who provide IT support will stay in the regions. They will provide virtually the same services but will report to Ottawa. We have eliminated some task overlaps between the regions and Ottawa.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Questions have already been asked about some of the lines in the budget to find out what the cost increases will be in cases where the government has to go to court to defend a bill. This directly affects the Department of Justice. Could you tell us what the figures are and discuss those costs? Have they increased and by how much approximately?

[William F. Pentney]

That has to do with our number one and number two strategic objectives, regarding

a fair and efficient justice system.

We provide the provinces with money for legal aid so that they can assist people who are appearing before the courts. The money is also intended for youth services and the delivery of government services. It's true that there is a level....

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

...constant.

[William F. Pentney]

Yes, the level of litigations is constant. We are responsible for about 5,000 litigation cases, across Canada. In most cases, we're talking about legal action taken against the government. We defend the government's actions and the laws.