Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 25th, 2006

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

At this stage of the game, what will be the trigger to have the panel meet again? Would it only be triggered by a request from one of the five commissioners or officers for a substantive increase in their budget?

[Mary Chaput]

Once the panel members are identified and the panel is struck, we anticipate that it will be at the call of the chair of the panel. There may be merit in having a few conversations or meetings that are not actual funding requests but contextual sessions during which we could perhaps go over the process, for example, from a Treasury Board Secretariat point of view. It's also quite likely that before the panel has to deal with an actual funding request, various agents of Parliament may seek to appear before the panel to describe their world, so a reciprocal education process would be started up before the panel looked at a true funding request.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

I will follow up on Mr. Stanton's questions.

This committee recommended that there be a new permanent parliamentary body created, that it be representative of both the House of Commons and the Senate, that it function in certain ways, and that until that was set up, the Board of Internal Economy should serve the purpose. Instead, we have this panel.

Did the government ever formally respond to the recommendations of this committee on this matter? Was there a formal response?

[Mary Chaput]

I believe there was, but I'm going to ask Rose.

There was not?

[Rosemary Robertson O'Reilly]

No, there was not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

So there was no response to the recommendations of this committee?

[Rosemary Robertson O'Reilly]

There was no formal government response, no.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Why was that? Was it because of the election, or that it ran out of time, or what? Did the committee request a response?

[Rosemary Robertson O'Reilly]

I don't believe so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Okay. I don't have the report here. Anyway, that's point number one.

Let's assume there wasn't an official government response. Why wasn't the Board of Internal Economy the authority to deal with this, as recommended by the committee? And since a panel has been struck, and since the committee recommended that the Senate be involved, why isn't the Senate involved?

Those are my two questions.

[Mary Chaput]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to have to get back to you on that set of questions, because I wouldn't want to mislead you and suggest that I know the answers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

That's fine. If you wouldn't mind getting back to us in writing on those two specifics, it would be appreciated. Thank you.

We then go to Madame Lavallée, s'il vous plaît.

Oh, do we go to Monsieur Laforest?

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

I have no further questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I think most people would agree with the idea mentioned before of the importance of having independence from government but not from Parliament. I guess the question is, how do we do that? The panel is struck and away we go.

It seems to me that as with any pilot, you evaluate and ask whether this is the permanent way to go. It seems to me there's a little bit of consensus that, save for the need for a little more evaluation and probing, perhaps, this might be the permanent solution, if I can use that term.

Then Mr. Tilson mentioned concerns about having teeth. I guess that's an awkward question for you, because if you're simply following the procedures in place—you mentioned the FAA—there would be a need to amend them to give the panel real teeth.

I guess we can take from that description, as a committee, that this really is something we can recommend, and it wouldn't be for you to suggest that we shouldn't unless there were something egregious about which you'd say, “Well, if you had real teeth, there are a number of problems, and here they are.” And if there are, I'd like to hear them.

It seems to me the rationale—and we heard this, and I looked through the Information Commissioner's case—is that you don't want to have an officer of Parliament, or for that matter the government, put into the awkward position when they bring bad news to government that there's a political playoff there and we wanted you to steer away from that.

We need to address that. If this is a pilot, and certainly if we look at ways of improving it, I would suggest we take a look and probe, if the panel is the way to go—and we're hearing that it is—how to give it real teeth, and probe that a bit more. In so doing, we would need to know what mechanisms are required.

I go back to Bill C-2, and Mr. Tilson was chair of the committee on that bill. A number of witnesses pointed to the fact that we're creating more offices of Parliament. There's some peril in that, or the perception was that there might be peril in it, in that you're potentially delegating authority outside Parliament. It seems to me we need to look at the fine balance here between creating new offices of Parliament on one hand, and on the other hand wanting to make sure Parliament has the proper oversight. If we're just talking about this being a suggestion box, then we should take a look at that.

My question, I guess, is what are the tools? One of the tools, I noticed, was this blue ribbon panel of experts. Obviously we aren't experts in the field; we need more time, obviously, to understand the estimates, for instance, and people who have that expertise would be available. Certainly that was one of the recommendations.

Can you describe the concept and whether the blue ribbon panel has been used before, and if it hasn't, conceptually how it would work?

[Mary Chaput]

I can describe it in very general terms. Each blue ribbon panel, depending on what it's doing, functions in a different way, depending on that panel's mandate and scope, etc. For example, there's a blue ribbon panel right now looking at grants and contributions and obstacles to efficient delivery of those to recipient organizations.

When the idea of a blue ribbon panel was thought of in this context, the thought was that the panel would bring together a variety of expert voices, and that by virtue of that combination, decision-making would be enriched, well rounded, and have a degree of neutrality to it that was important.

Of course, in this zone it's all about striking the right balance--the independence of the agents, the relationship those agents have with Parliament, certainly an important element, and the voice of Parliament in that regard as well as the responsibility of the executive for sound stewardship of resources. There was always a view held, at least at the secretariat, that the executive needed to be part of the triad, or whatever it was you ultimately struck.

If I may, in terms of going to a panel with more teeth, certainly that's a concept that merits consideration. The one caution I would issue in that regard is that there is a difficulty in being asked to make these very particular and important decisions around funding and oversight and the application of policy and compliance and risk that makes that a very weighty responsibility. That's not to say that the panel couldn't take that on or wouldn't be up to the challenge, but it requires a lot of careful analysis and input. Certainly, the panel would not want to go there, in my view, in any way, shape, or form without being assured that they were also going to be getting the very technical support that would be important to their decision-making. That would be the first thing.

The second thing is--

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Sorry--thank you for that--I want to make sure I understand. The blue ribbon panel conceptually, potentially, could be part of that support for a panel with more teeth.

[Mary Chaput]

It could be, conceptually, yes, sir.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[Mary Chaput]

The second thing I would note is that typically when the secretariat approaches these funding proposals, in our analysis we look across a broad cross-section of government organizations, making allowances for difference in mandate, etc., to determine what are the trends, who are the outliers, what are the emerging issues. It's within that broad scope that is available to us because we look at so many that we're able to make a recommendation that can be nuanced by the knowledge of those broad trends.

I would worry a little bit about the panel being asked to make recommendations on a subset in which perhaps those cross-sectional issues would not be as apparent to you. You would want to be aware of those if you were taking on a toothier function. It can be very important to know what the broad trends are, and certainly those trends could be analyzed for you and brought to your attention and you would not necessarily be working in a vacuum. That's why I'm saying you would want to be certain the supports were in place before you took on that role, because you would want to exercise it with all the right technical backing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

I think that's a very important cautionary note that you've brought to our attention. However, I suppose a panel with teeth could always make recommendations that would be subject to Treasury Board review and would not be implemented until Treasury Board signed off that they were legal.

Mr. Tilson.

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

Mr. Chairman, the report has been referred to several times, and I happen to have a copy. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned that the membership would be made up of representatives from both the House of Commons and the Senate, and equally comprised of government and opposition representatives. As far as experts are concerned, a funding body could obtain advice from experts, as well as from the appropriate parliamentary committees to assist in its deliberations.

It did talk about a pilot project, which we launched for the next two fiscal years, starting with 2006-07, and using the existing House of Commons Board of Internal Economy as the parliamentary budget determination body—I'm getting to my question—with the three commissioners within our mandate, the Information, Privacy, and Ethics Commissioners, as the initial participants. The Auditor General, who of course is part of it, is not part of our mandate, although I think they want her to be part of this process. That was recommendation one, which I just referred to briefly.

The second one had to do with exactly what's happening, that the Board of Internal Economy serve as the parliamentary budget-determining body for the offices of the Information, Privacy, and Ethics Commissioners on a trial basis, in the same manner as proposed in recommendation one. That would go for the 2006-07, 2007-08 fiscal years. Of course, you are now saying only the Ethics Commissioner goes to the Board of Internal Economy; everybody else is part of this other process.

[Mary Chaput]

There are a number of bodies that go to the Board of Internal Economy.

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

Absolutely, but these five groups—Information Commissioner, Auditor General, Chief Electoral Officer, Official Languages Commissioner, and Privacy Commissioner—all go through this process, as you presented it to us.