Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 1st, 2006

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Stoffer, you're next.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you very much.

Madam Hinton said something that I thought was very poignant, that the minister's role is to protect veterans, and I couldn't agree with her more. If you extend that argument, the role of every member and every employee of DVA is to protect veterans, and I assume their families as well.

With whistle-blower attention getting a lot of newsprint these days, would you suggest that employees of a particular department, if they see something going on that is wrong, would be able to use the services of an ombudsman?

[André Marin]

Do you mean if you had a general ombudsman, federally?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

No. For example, you have somebody in an Ontario ministry that you're overseeing, and somebody in say the finance department sees something wrong. Can they go to the ombudsman quietly, without letting their name go out, to let you know that this is going on in that department?

[André Marin]

Absolutely. And there is protection against reprisal built into the legislation.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Very good. Also, could civilians then use the services of an ombudsman? For example, I'm thinking of a veteran who passes on and his spouse is left behind, and say she's fighting, we'll say for argument's sake, VIP services or something of that nature, and she feels that she warrants getting this.

[André Marin]

Yes.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you.

I see Madam Finlay over there. Would you be able to briefly explain...? Having an ombudsman is important, but you can't do every case on your own, so I would assume that the deputy ombudsman and director of operations plays a very important role in this. Can you please advise us of what your role is in terms of assisting the ombudsman? How would it assist, for example, a veterans ombudsman or one that National Defence has?

[Barbara Finlay]

Certainly. I like to think that I do play an important role from time to time.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Hear, hear.

[Barbara Finlay]

My role, largely, is to keep the operations of the office running smoothly. As was mentioned, we have in Ontario approximately 24,000 complaints a year. The ombudsman sets the general tone and direction of the office for Ontario. Our direction is that we want to obtain meaningful, concrete results for people as quickly as possible.

My goal is to put that into action in every single case. So I'm in charge of overseeing the staff and overseeing how the complaint files are handled to make sure that people are receiving a high quality of service. So I'm dealing with the daily functioning and operations of the office, whereas Mr. Marin is setting the general tone and direction. He's also setting for us the priorities in terms of the systemic cases we're investigating. Mr. Jones is the director of SORT and is carrying those investigations out.

So it's very much a team approach. And it's very critical that you have solid, experienced people and that the employees you have in that office have the investigative skills to get right into the files, know what they're looking for, can identify problem areas, know the documents they want to have, and are able to establish relationships with the persons working in the departments so they will get the cooperation they need.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

My last question for you both is--and I say this as a devil's advocate--that it's quite simple, then, for some, and I notice that in private industry this case happened, that a particular manager of a department would say, “Well, if you don't like it, go to the ombudsman.” So instead of dealing with the issue directly, as they should have, they shuffle it off to the ombudsman. So the person thinks, “Oh, okay, I will.” That, in some circumstances, could be a bureaucratic delay, because the ombudsman, of course, is busy and everything else, and has many other case files. Is it not possible that an ombudsman could be used as a crutch to delay certain proceedings that an individual may have or potentially have?

[André Marin]

That's absolutely a fair comment. We did have that experience with a provincial ministry, and we had to meet the senior echelons of the public service in that ministry in Ontario and advise them of the need to set up their own internal complaints resolution mechanism. We are there as a last resort. So it's an example of us saying--pushing it back to the ministry, and I think that's very important--the existence of an ombudsman is not an abdication of the department's obligation to try to resolve things internally; ombudsmen should be the last resort.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thanks, Mr. Stoffer.

It's now back over to the Conservative side. I'd like to use the chair's prerogative to ask a few questions. Your budget is, as you say, about $10 million right now. Forgive my ignorance in asking, but compared to the overall Ontario budget....

Do you know, for example, what the Province of Ontario would bring in, in revenue?

[André Marin]

I don't know right off the top of my head. I know just in health care, for example, we spend close to $35 billion.

I seem to have in my head $80 billion. I could find that answer and give it back to you, but it's in the tens of billions for sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Okay, that's good to know.

When your budget was $5.5 million as the ombudsman in regard to the Department of National Defence, I'm guessing the budget at that time for DND would have been around $7 billion. But you'd have a better number than I would.

[André Marin]

I'd have to look back, but what you're saying sounds like the ballpark figure. I stand to be corrected on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

With regard to either of these posts, are your budgets somehow linked to inflation? For example, is the ombudsman budget for DND always fixed at $5.5 million, or how does it fluctuate?

[André Marin]

It has evolved over time. I think it's a little larger now.

My current budget is set by the Legislative Assembly every year. I have to present a business plan with initiatives, and that's weighed against other budgets, such as the Auditor General's. The Ombudsman of Ontario is one of the officers of Parliament in Ontario. Other officers of Parliament are the Auditor General, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, the Integrity Commissioner, and the Environment Commissioner. Those are the five officers of Parliament. Every year, the five officers of Parliament supply budgets, House leaders meet and deliberate, and they decide how to allocate the resources. That's how it's done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Are you aware of any circumstances where an ombudsman's office is set up as a percentage of the overall department that they serve that function for, or...?

[André Marin]

I'm not aware of that. It would certainly be relevant, I would think, but I'm not aware of a precise formula tying it together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Would most of the formulas for ombudsmen with regard to setting their budgets be presentation of a budget and acceptance by their legislative oversight?

[André Marin]

It goes to a parliamentary committee. In Ontario, it's the Board of Internal Economy, which is a committee at Queen's Park that sets budgets for officers of Parliament and other areas. That allows the budget issue to be assessed independent of government, and it has been a very effective way to do business.