Evidence of meeting #14 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was budget.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
It doesn't matter. My question is whether that's all there is. Is there anything else?
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I mean, the chairman has referred to something that I haven't seen.
I'll get to the crunch of it, Dr. Shapiro. I'm concerned with the lack of information we're getting with respect to these expenditures. I understand you seek your funding from the Board of Internal Economy, and I also understand that you've made a presentation to the Speaker. I also understand that you're different from the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner. I do recall when you appeared before us in February 2005 you indicated that you would prefer to be in the process that you're with now. I understand all that.
The difficulty I have is this committee is supposed to vote on this topic of expenditures. I'll just refresh the committee's memory of the Standing Orders. I'm not going to refer to all the numbers; there are too many of them. But on page 84, access to information, privacy, and ethics--this is on the duties of the committee--it says they shall include, among other things...and then they go through the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner, and then they talk about the Ethics Commissioner: “the review of and report on the effectiveness, management and operation together with the operational and expenditure plans relating to the Ethics Commissioner”. That's what we're supposed to do. So we have to vote on your expenditures.
I'll be quite frank: I don't see any here. I see a couple of lines that talk about program expenditures, and I don't see any details for that. I see contribution to employee benefit plans, and I don't see any details for that. Those are just two statements saying that's all there is.
Can you help me?
Lyne Robinson-Dalpé Director, Corporate Affairs, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Yes.
In the 2006-07 main estimates that were brought forward by Treasury Board, in that big brick that they table, you have the details--budgetary main estimates by standard object of expenditure--and in there, under Parliament of Canada, we have the Office of the Ethics Commissioner, which clearly, line by line, states how much we are anticipating on spending. For example, in salaries we have $3,536,000.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Chairman, I don't think the committee has that information. I never got it.
Director, Corporate Affairs, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
It's part of the main estimates that were brought forward to this committee with regard to our budgets.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
That's the big blue book that everybody gets at some point in time in their office. At some point we must have gotten something.
Mr. Tilson, in our briefing notes we also have a chart that must have come from somewhere. It looks pretty official. It didn't come from the Ethics Commissioner, so it came from our researchers.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I saw those notes too, and that's not very helpful either, Mr. Chairman.
I'm going to finish here, because I can see I'm not going to get anything more. I'd like to move on to the lawyers.
Do you have something, Mr. Benson?
Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Yes, I'd like to just make a comment.
Your question is in relation to the information that's available. Earlier I was talking about our budgetary process in our system, and it was indicated that as of September of last year we put up on our website our full budgetary expenditures by line object. It's fully there. The budgetary system for this year is also there. As we are expending on a month-to-month basis, we have each of our expenditures. If it's contractual, whatever, you can drill down fully right through on our budget.
The price of our having this unique budgetary system is complete transparency, which we've been doing since September of last year. The amount of information on our budget is on a monthly basis, and it's on the web.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Well, here we are, Mr. Chairman, and I have two lines in front of me. That's all I know. That's the material that's been presented to the committee, and that's all we have on it.
I'm going to move on to the topic of lawyers--it was raised by one of the opposition members. I do remember that you retained an outside law firm for the former Minister Sgro. I had a lot of trouble with that, quite frankly, as you may recall.
What's the size of the staff of lawyers that you have in the commission?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
We have members of the staff who are lawyers in the sense that law is their educational background. We have no one on the staff--
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
No one is hired as a lawyer. No one is retained as a lawyer.
November 1st, 2006 / 3:55 p.m.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
And the people who happen to be lawyers don't give legal advice.
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Not generally speaking, no.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I guess I'm just looking at the issue of.... Let me proceed further on this issue of what you pay lawyers. What do you pay them? What did you pay them this past year?
Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
As of April 1, there has been $44,000 spent just on obtaining legal opinions or legal advice.
Conservative
Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Absolutely, they did, but we retained counsel.
Again, the office is a separate employer. We cannot get legal advice from the Department of Justice, and we do not get legal advice from counsel to Parliament. So we have to, on our own, get legal advice. Up to this point in time, as has been indicated, we've been retaining that from outside counsel. In certain respects, when we're dealing with parliamentary issues and parliamentary privilege, individuals who can provide that service are rather unique and specialized.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
You also indicated that the lawyers do the interviews.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
When you proceed with the investigations, Mr. Benson, do the lawyers interview the witnesses, or the people who are...?
Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
To this point in time, they have done only one interview, and that was during the Sgro inquiry. Subsequent to that, we've had individuals within our office conducting the interviews.