Evidence of meeting #16 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 chairman.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Oh, that's very quick.
On the backlog, you mentioned that even this year it appears you added another 300 investigations to the backlog. Is the go-forward plan going to bring that down eventually? I think that question might have been put, but do you see a point in time when there's a program in place to clear that backlog up? If so, how long?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. I'll just tell you about the budget considerations.
When we presented our proposal for a new budget, we calculated that it would take us two years to bring the backlog under control. Therefore, we were given--and this is what I hope you're approving today--four extra person-years to bring the backlog under control. Then we would drop down to a maintenance level.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It's around four; it may be 4.4 investigators for two years, and we have a definite plan.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The answers given to the questions raised by Mr. Martin and Mr. Tilson do not allow the committee to understand why and how $1 million was spent on contracts to management consultants. It would be important for your office to provide, later on, an answer to the committee in that respect.
Is your next budget going along the same lines? Are you going to spend as much on contracts? The committee must know in advance your objectives and the reason why you have to contract out management programs. We have to know why you anticipate spending such large amounts.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We give out contracts to management consultants to remedy the deficiencies of our office in terms of knowledge and skills. The term “management consultant” is very broad and includes accountants, experts in personnel management and sometimes even investigators who own a small business. We hire investigators on a contract basis because we cannot hire public servants quickly enough to deal with the backlog in case processing.
To give out contracts instead of hiring employees is not the ideal situation but we have to live with our budget and use our funding the best way possible in order to do our job which is to carry out investigations and reduce delays. If we have to hire people to do so, we will.
Since the limit is set at $25,000, we will give out contracts for a $24,000 maximum value, which makes it possible to do more work than with a $10,000 contract.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
This answers my question.
It is better to give the fullest possible detail than to include everything under a single heading “management contracts”. Such specifics allow us to make the connection between your needs and the work you have to perform with such an amount.
Thank you.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Thank you. This is a suggestion—
We could take to heart, I think, Mr. Chairman, to make things a littler clearer in our web site.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Madam Commissioner, for appearing before us.
I'm new here. I had the unique privilege of sitting with you at a dinner, and you introduced your portfolio to me, and I must confess that although I had heard about it, as Mr. Laforest has just said, it is something that has almost some intrigue to it. There seems to be an element of mystery surrounding it.
Forgive me, I'm not trying to be critical. I would just echo what you suggested, that maybe we need a little more clarity on your function, on what exactly you do. You explained to me the differences and how things have changed just in the last ten or fifteen years. I can't imagine how you try to keep up with that and still protect our citizens.
When it gets right down to it, most of this stuff is pretty straightforward. It makes sense: you're protecting privacy. But you have something called a contribution program. That is almost an oxymoron. It almost seems to be something that doesn't fit. When I mention those secret things, this is almost one about which you'd say, hey, what's this all about?
Can you elaborate on this?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is something that does cause a lot of interrogation: what is our contributions program? Our contributions program is a line item set up by Treasury Board in 2000, and it's for five years. It was renewed in 2005. It is to allow us to run a research grant program. We have been doing that every year since 2004, I believe. We advertise the themes and entertain submissions from people all over Canada and award contracts to a maximum of $50,000 to groups.
Usually it is to universities, research institutes, or different research units across the country, and sometimes citizens groups or business groups have been awarded contracts too, to do some research that we don't have the expertise to do into different aspects of privacy; for example, the use of RFIDs, or consumer rights, or how to develop a privacy policy in business, or what the impact of electronic health records is, and so on.
We put the links to these studies, when they're completed—people aren't paid until they are completed—on our website so that the Canadian public can consult these research documents.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
How much money do you have allocated or budgeted for that?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It was set up at $500,000 by Treasury Board. This year we are spending $388,000. I don't think we've spent more than that in a year, because we want to make sure we fund good projects.
November 8th, 2006 / 4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
How do you determine which institution is going to be awarded? Is there a competition?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. There is an open competition. We list the subjects and we list the criteria, and then there is an internal committee, and I and the two assistant commissioners make the final determination.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Have you had good results? Are you satisfied that we have had good value for our money?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I think so. The Canadian taxpayers get value for their money, because these are often projects done by specialists. We couldn't hire those specialists; they're not on the market, or they would be extremely expensive. Often in universities they get student help, and so on, and they put a lot of new information about privacy before the Canadian public.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
You alluded to the fact—and we all know it too—that you inherited somewhat of a mess, let's just say. Are you seeing light at the end of the tunnel? Are things starting to come together? What would be your progress report? Are you saying it's something on which we are going to have some results that are necessary to correct those things?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. I think we're well out of the tunnel. We've had our staffing delegation given back to us by the Public Service Commission, which is a kind of barometer for whether you are good enough to manage your own affairs, which we weren't. We have a clean bill of health every year from the Auditor General. We have been vetted by another agency that controls classifications. The Canadian Human Rights Commission also did an audit on us as to whether we had discriminatory hiring and employment policies, and we have been given good marks by all these agencies. We went before the parliamentary panel last year, and they agreed with our proposed level of funding, I could add.
So the signs are positive, I think.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Following up very briefly on Mr. Van Kesteren, do you have a research division within your shop?