Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 25th, 2006

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I turn the floor over to my colleague Mr. Laforest.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

As regards this pilot project, from what I understand, a neutral committee has been established consisting of representatives of the Officers of Parliament and of the government, here represented by the Treasury Board.

Is it a new concept for an independent committee to support, or at least study, the requests submitted by senior government officials? Otherwise, they would have no other way of asserting their views. Am I reading the situation correctly?

[Mary Chaput]

Yes, sir, that would be a correct interpretation. This is somewhat of a novel undertaking for the Government of Canada. There are a number of other jurisdictions that have models that are somewhat, though not precisely, the same, but it is new to us. It's for that reason, the newness of it, that we've initiated a pilot before going to a permanent structure, because we did not want to presume at the outset that we would get it perfectly right on the first go.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Is this initiative being taken under the authority of the Treasury Board Secretariat, or as a result of an express wish of Parliament?

[Mary Chaput]

The initiative, the conception of the initiative, and some of the analysis and research that went on were led by the secretariat, yes, sir, but I'd be wrong to say that it's fully and utterly within the sphere of control and influence of the secretariat, because obviously there are many players, not the least of whom are the parliamentarians who have agreed to sit on the panel. As well, there are the agents of Parliament.

If I may, Mr. Chair, I'll go back a little bit in history to give the honourable member a bit more information.

The conception came about by virtue of the fact that for some time there had been discussions between the secretariat and the agents of Parliament about the tension that existed between the secretariat and agents in those scenarios in which the very body that was audited by the AG was also an influential voice in determining what the budgetary levels of that organization would be.

It was thought that to deal with any potential or perceived conflict of interest in that relationship, it would be wiser to bring, first, more neutral parties to the considerations at hand and a broader set of interests. In that way, the agents and the secretariat could be assured that there was a very careful and measured consideration of the budgetary requests of the agents of Parliament.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Dewar is next.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the panel for your presentation.

Being new, I have a lot to learn here.

I had a chance to look over the May 2005 report on the process. Just to kick things off for me, at any rate, I understand the philosophy here. You described the importance of independence from government but not from Parliament. That makes sense, since these are officers of Parliament, if you will.

When I looked through the paper, I noticed that you touched on reference to other jurisdictions--the U.K., for example. Looking back, you mentioned that you've had the pilot and that it seemed successful. Have we mirrored that process? Have we really forged our own process, or have we relied more on another jurisdiction? Is it the U.K. model to which you suggested it's closely aligned?

[Mary Chaput]

Yes. The one we have relied most closely on is the U.K. model, but it is not a perfect mirroring, because the U.K. model is, I would say, weighted a little differently from ours. We therefore brought a particularly Canadian approach to the model we have here. Certainly as we go forward, as I said, there will be an evaluation of how it's working from a process point of view. We will evaluate if the model is correct and if the weights and counterweights are correct; it's quite possible that in the course of that evaluation we'll conclude yes or no, but we want to leave scope for that kind of conversation to happen.

If you'll indulge me, Mr. Chair, I'm going to ask my colleague here, Rose O'Reilly, if she'd like to add anything on the differences between the Canadian and the U.K. model.

[Rosemary Robertson O'Reilly, Principal Analyst, Government Operations Sector, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat]

Mr. Chair and honourable members, I believe the only piece of information I would add on the U.K. model is that to my understanding, it really covered their equivalent of the office of the Auditor General. It didn't focus on a broader group of agents. Because of that slant, and because of different types of legislation that are governing the country, the model that was developed and that we're piloting right now is partially that model and partially in response to recommendations made by the report this committee provided a year or so ago, and, I believe, to pieces of recommendations from two other standing committees as well. It really is, as Ms. Chaput has mentioned, a Canadian-made version.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

You mentioned that there had been success with the pilot. Could you elaborate a bit more, again for someone who's new, on how that was measured and why you suggest that it was successful? Once Bill C-2 is through the Senate, we'll have new officers. So certainly it would be important to know how the evaluation was done of the pilot. When we're looking ahead and looking at new officers and how they're going to be set up, we can maybe forecast challenges and recommendations in terms of how they set things up.

[Mary Chaput]

Mr. Chair, I would preface my comments by noting that my declaration of victory is in advance of the evaluation having been conducted. Our experience to date has been positive.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Fair enough.

[Mary Chaput]

We want to confirm that with the evaluation. The reason we feel it has been quite successful is based on a couple of things: informal feedback from those agents who have had the opportunity to appear before the panel, as well as, I would suggest, the time that was required to get to some fruitful and positive outcomes. Typically when the agents bring forward Treasury Board submissions to the Treasury Board Secretariat, there is a highly iterative process, just as with any other department or agency, but because of the independence of the agents, there's a greater unease in that change of information on their part, which is quite understandable. And that tends to slow us down, frankly. Last year, when we had the benefit of the panel, I think there was a greater degree of confidence and comfort and ease around the exchange of information, and we were able to get to bottom-line recommendations much faster.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I have one last quick question. Who is doing the evaluation and when can we expect that?

[Mary Chaput]

The evaluation is not yet under way. We want to talk a bit more to the agents of Parliament about the framework for the evaluation to ensure that we all agree we have the right components being measured in there. It's quite likely we'll have that conducted by an independent third party to ensure there's no bias, even in the way the evaluation rolls out. It's not a highly scientific evaluation. We didn't feel that we needed a very weighty and heavy empirical process here. Rather, it's more like a confirmation or a validation exercise. We did have a framework that was quite sophisticated and scientific, and in conversation with the agents, we have agreed that it's likely more than what we need for this purpose at this juncture.

In terms of timing, I'd suggest that likely it will be within the next six months, but we want to be careful to have enough experience to base the evaluation on. We don't want to rush the evaluation and have insufficient experience and end up with either a false positive or a false negative.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Well, you've only had two.

[Mary Chaput]

Exactly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

And that's it. So I can see your point there.

Mr. Tilson.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My recollection, of course, is that all the members of this committee were unanimous in this process. As you indicated, the principle of it was when the various commissions, and others, I guess, such as the Chief Electoral Officer, would approach Treasury Board for generally an increase in their budget, the remarks made, of course, were that they would go cap in hand. They had to be careful because the Treasury Board would have control over their funding, even though--let's say it was the Information Commissioner--the Information Commission could be examining the principles of the Treasury Board in providing information. That's why it was. The committee felt it was a faulty process.

Now this panel is advisory only. That's all it is. There's no official mandate, no legislation, or no legality to it. It's simply, let's try it out. This panel will make recommendations to the Treasury Board and the same thing still exists. Do you know what I'm saying? It's as if it's doomed to failure because the Treasury Board--and I know we're all honourable people--could say in its wisdom, no, we don't think so, Mr. Information Commissioner, or Mr. Whoever-you-are; we don't like what you're doing to us. I'm not suggesting that happens, but it was suggested in principle that it could happen.

So really nothing's changed. In fact, if I were one of these thirteen members of the House of Commons, why bother? Can you comment on that?

[Mary Chaput]

Yes. I hear exactly what you're saying, and certainly the panel is not a guarantee of any particular outcome.

But there is a difference, in that by virtue of the panel process, when the Treasury Board Secretariat assessment is put to Treasury Board—the cabinet committee—that Treasury Board Secretariat assessment has been enriched by the panel deliberations and the panel recommendations. And when the Treasury Board ultimately makes its decision, instead of two lines of input—the Treasury Board submission and the TBS recommendation—it has the benefit of three. It has the benefit of the TBS recommendation, which is informed by the panel process, of the Treasury Board submission from the responsible minister, and of the panel recommendation.

While I grant you that this does not guarantee there will be respectful and fully considered deliberations in every scenario, I feel it at least ensures that what the Treasury Board gets is a very comprehensive picture of the issue from a number of angles.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Is there anything wrong with this panel having the final say?

[Mary Chaput]

I don't think it's an issue of right or wrong. Right now it's more a matter of what we're bound with by law. Right now—

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Oh, I appreciate that. I have to tell you, I seem to recall—I think Mr. Zed and I are the only ones who were here—that the committee was recommending that it be permanent, that it be final, and that Treasury Board obviously have a say, but really, that we were trying to solve a problem. But we haven't.

[Mary Chaput]

It may be that decisions have been taken to the effect that before we run, maybe we should walk. Maybe this is a first step on a journey that will take us somewhere else. But certainly at this stage the Treasury Board obviously still holds the authorities that are conferred on it by the FAA, and until the FAA is changed and there is a head of steam to provoke that, we are where we are.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Chairman, can I continue?