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.
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Internally, we have begun to develop some idea of this. We started on it quite seriously a few months ago. Then, when the form in which this legislation would pass became less clear, along with the time when it would be passed, we put the matter aside for the moment.
It's my understanding that Treasury Board has set aside a sum of money for the implementation of Bill C-2—not just for our office, but for all affected offices—and we'll have to request funds from that source when the time comes.
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
I'd like to say hello to the whole team.
My question is somewhat similar to that of Mr. Wallace.
It appears you're doing a kind of operational planning for next year, based on both last year's operations and those planned for the future.
Has your planning taken into account the additional responsibilities you will have to take on under Bill C-2? Can you translate that into figures? Earlier you talked about a supplementary budget, and you answered Mr. Wallace that the Treasury Board seemed to have set aside funding for that purpose. I imagine that people at your office are able to tell us what your estimates are in that area.
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Yes, we have done that. Assuming the bill passes in the form in which the House passed it in the first place, our estimates are that it would be somewhere between $2 million and $3 million.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
So we're talking about supplementary funding. That represents 50% more.
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Yes, that figure included the notion that there would be one office to cover public office holders, the members, and the Senate. If the Senate were not included—I'm referring to one of the amendments—that number would go down.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
The employees of your office aren't federal public servants. Are you in a position to tell us whether work force turnover there is significant? Will having to increase the budget by 50% as a result of the responsibilities related to Bill C-2 also require you to increase your staff by 50%? If there's already significant work force turnover, won't that cause problems?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
As I said in response to Mr. Peterson, we're not having problems recruiting at the moment. There's a potential issue, but Bill C-2 will make that far easier than it has been up till now. I'm not prepared to say whether there'd be much of an increase in personnel.
I'll try to give you some idea of why the costs are high, other than the inclusion of the Senate, which may or may not occur. The bill gives the code legal status, as legislation. It will require legal services to be developed inside the office itself. The bill requires much more data to be collected, kept, and produced. This in turn will generate a whole range of IT problems. Our estimates may be overestimates. It's not possible to say. We'll wait and see what the bill actually produces. I think we'll be ready. We've discussed it a lot and I think we'll be ready.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I have a couple of short questions.
The plans for next year include $25,000 in capital. What would that be for?
Director, Corporate Affairs, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Every three years, we have to start changing our computer hardware. That's the standard for the House of Commons. So this year we're replacing one-third of our computers.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I'm looking at the preamble. Of the three principal activity areas—communications, operations, and policy—operations is the big section. Under operations, you talk about three principal areas of activity: compliance, providing advice and opinion, and investigation. You mentioned that there were eight investigations—one on one side and seven on the other. In the other two areas, I wonder if you could give us some idea of the volume of work. How many inquiries, compliance files, is your office of 30-odd employees dealing with in a given year?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
I'm going to ask Mr. Benson to respond. I think I have the number of cases we deal with each year, but I want to be sure.
Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
I can't say off the top of my head, although it is in the annual report. I believe we handled 1,149 cases in the reporting year.
If I may, looking at it another way, we have 1,350 full-time public office holders--clients, if you like--plus you, the 308 members of Parliament. So we have a total client base of 1,658 individuals that we look after, individual files.
In any given year, if there's an election and if there's a changeover of government, then the volume of business is higher. But our client base has averaged, over a twelve...the old office, and the new one now. There's been an average of 755 cases handled a year. The previous year it was 1,400, I believe, and this year I think it's...for the 2006-07 report...so I think it's about 1,400 cases that we've handled.
Conservative
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
We recently had someone from the Treasury Board come and speak to us on the new funding formula. I'd like you to provide some details on what you do.
You go to the Speaker, the Speaker sends the estimates to the Treasury Board, and that's it. Is that the process?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
That is the process for us. That's in the legislation itself.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Yes.
Can you give me some details on your discussions with the Speaker?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
As far as my own experience is concerned, these discussions have been really quite brief and not very detailed. We try to provide the maximum amount of detail for him. I can't be sure who the Speaker talks to about it. I don't know about that.
Conservative
