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
Okay, and what is the salary range of those people? What do you call those people?
Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
We have some senior managers who conduct them. I don't have it off the top of my head, but we've had a senior manager conduct interviews. I myself have conducted some interviews. We've had some people who are at the ET-05 level assist us and be able to conduct.... That position is our entry-level adviser.
As for the salary ranges, you have this document. It has our salary scale on there. As I indicated, we have an ET-05 we bring into the interviews on the training and to conduct.... I myself have conducted some interviews. As I said, there have been other senior mangers who have been conducting interviews.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I want to be clear on this. When you did the Sgro investigation, there were lawyers who provided legal opinions and also did investigations. That was then. Is that going to happen again?
I seem to recall, Dr. Shapiro--and I don't want to put words in your mouth--your saying it was a new process and you wanted to be sure you were doing it right, so you retained a law firm.
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
That is correct, and that is why, since then, we haven't done that. I hate to promise that it will never happen in the future, because it depends on the context, how many investigations there are, and what our own personnel resources are. We have tried to keep the legal services limited, in a sense, to getting opinions about the legality of this, that, or the other thing, rather than conducting an investigation itself.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Sorry, Mr. Tilson, it's already been ten minutes.
Just for the committee's information, attached to the letter of October 3 that the commissioner sent are some detailed breakdowns of the costs. There's a chart that, in great detail, breaks down the salaries and the vacation pay, and even shows that the average salary paid to employees was $72,000. That was made available by the Ethics Commissioner. I hope that letter was in fact distributed. It's my information that it was.
In today's package, there is--and I must say, it's the first time I've ever seen it, in my experience--a breakdown of all of the salaries by category, not that I know what those darned initials mean. For example, it shows that SMG, whatever the heck that is, ranges from $94,000 to $288,000. And the number of FTEs in that category is seven, for a total of $1,044,924.
I don't think the committee should be expected to go to the website. On the other hand, I think the committee has received some very detailed information from the commissioner, which is in front of us. We could, if we wish, “drill down”, to use the phrase--I guess it's a bureaucratic phrase--and perhaps we would strike oil, but that's up to the members of the committee.
We go to Mr. Dhaliwal.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, fellow members, for coming out here as well.
Dr. Shapiro, we were talking about the lawyers. You don't have legal advisers on staff, so you have to go to outside firms. Besides that, do you have any other shortcomings in the department, such that you don't have the resources to do your job?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
No, I feel we're being adequately supported. I don't have any demands other than the ones I've presented.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Did you have any difficulties or any challenges that you want this committee to look into or consider when we go into these details?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
No. I referred to this year as an anchor year simply because I feel the office has matured and has sufficient resources for its needs under the current legislation, so I'm quite satisfied.
Liberal
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
If they occur at all, the future problems will relate to the question of what is the end result of the Federal Accountability Act. That, of course, has consequences for this and many other offices, and those will have to be dealt with when that time comes.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
On a scale of one to ten, where would you say your department performed when it came to doing your job?
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
It's difficult for me to assess how successful my office has been. There are a number of aspects of the work that I think have been extremely well done. But it's like any new office: if you go about three years, you make mistakes as you go along and you learn from them, hopefully speaking, and then you move forward.
What I'm particularly proud of at the moment is that for the first time in many years, the office has completely cleared the backlog of cases to deal with in terms of both members and the public office holders. That's something we have not been able to do before, but we now have brought it about. I think that's important to remember, and it's helpful.
As far as investigations are concerned, that's impossible to predict. I have no idea how many there are going to be. It depends on what transpires.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Another question is on the current year's request for an 8% increase over last year. How would you rate that in terms of what happens to the other departments when it comes to their operating budgets?
Director, Corporate Affairs, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Basically, in the table in the letter that we did provide earlier in the month of October, we rated our budget as compared to those of the other agents of Parliament. Our budget requirements were in the lower range when compared to the other agents of Parliament. Again, there are some reasons for their activities and our activities, but from the information we were able to obtain from the main estimates and the requests that other agents were seeking, we were able to come up with the numbers and clearly state that we are in the range of other organizations.
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
My own sense is that the 8% for next year is itself a high figure relative to the others at the moment, but it relates to two memoranda of understanding that we finally have negotiated with the House of Commons and the Library. That should put us in the right position for future years. I don't think we'll need additional requirements of that sort again. It's always dangerous to forecast, but that's my sense at the moment.
In terms of what we've done for next year, the only addition to the budget is for those two contracts. There are no increases asked for in terms of regular operating expenses.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you, Mr. Dhaliwal.
Just as a point of clarification, Commissioner, in your letter of October 3, you indicated that you had sought a 10% increase to cover costs associated with memoranda of understanding, yet in your remarks today, you said it was 8%.
Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
That's how it has turned out.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
So in your letter of October 3, you anticipated about 10%, but it turns out it's 8%. Is that what your evidence is?
Director, Corporate Affairs, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
The total increase for this year is 8%, 10% of which is for the MOUs. We have a 2% overall reduction in operation costs, which brings our request down to an 8% increase and not a 10% increase.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Are there any accountants on the committee? Maybe they could help me understand what the heck that was. It sounded good.
Director, Corporate Affairs, Office of the Ethics Commissioner
Basically, we were asking for an 8% increase. Had we maintained the same operational requirements, we would have had a 10% increase due to the MOUs. Instead of asking for a full 10% increase, what we ended up doing was to adjust our numbers for the operations. We reduced our operations by 2%, which brought the total percentage down to 8% instead of 10%.
November 1st, 2006 / 4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm going to ask you a number of questions, fairly quickly, because I'm new and I'm trying to learn how this works and to make sure I understand.
I understand the 8% you've gone up based on the numbers you've provided. Based on what you've provided to me, I have that the two memoranda of understanding added about $470,000 to the cost, and my numbers show that that is about 10% of what you were spending previously.
You are showing a decrease in contributions to the employee benefits plan, and I've rarely seen a decrease in that. Is that because you renegotiated a better plan or because you have fewer employees?