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.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
I'm quite satisfied with that.
You identified the one as a human resources consultant. Who is Copem Consulting? What are they doing?
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Why don't we just get the commissioner to provide us with that information in due course?
4:40 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to provide the committee with the details of all these contracts.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you very much. That will save us some time.
Mr. Dhaliwal, followed by Mr. Kenney.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Madam Commissioner, I'm going to pick up a bit on what Mr. Stanton left off on these backlogs. This concept of two-year backlogs is quite new to me, because I come from a private business background, where we do not have any backlogs at all. Does this backlog put additional stress on your office and your employees when you have a situation like this?
4:40 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Mr. Chairman, could I ask the director of that branch to respond?
4:40 p.m.
Director General, Investigation and Inquiries Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It definitely causes a lot of stress to the employees as well as to our managers, because we obviously have to field the questions coming from the complainants as to where their complaint has landed, how come it hasn't been investigated, and where we are with it. This adds quite a bit of stress to the managers and to the investigators. Also, the investigators are professionals. They take pride in what they do, and nobody is comfortable with this backlog.
I've only been in this job for a few months now, and we're getting together to put in different strategies to reduce this in a timely fashion. I'm hoping that, within 24 to 30 months, we will be able to reduce, if not eliminate, the backlog that we have right now.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Madame Commissioner, you said you need four personnel—or was it two?—to clear the backlog.
4:45 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
When we had submitted our calculations last year, we asked for a bit over four person-years for a period of two budgetary years—this year and next year—in order to clear that backlog.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Why wouldn't you include additional personnel? Now you're going from 100 personnel to 124. Why wouldn't you go with maybe another additional 8 persons to bring that backlog to zero sooner?
4:45 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We also asked for a higher permanent level of funding for that branch too. I believe it was for four or five permanent investigators, but I'd have to look up the exact number.
There's a rise in the general resource level of the investigative function, and apart from that, there's a two-year special effort to clear the backlog.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Would you agree to bring the backlog to zero immediately, or would you rather wait for two years? Which option would you prefer if you had to take the functioning of your department as a whole, taking the stress level off the employees and taking the resources that you have to manage those resources in a very efficient way?
4:45 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
As soon as we have the extra people, they are going to attack directly that backlog. In fact, I believe they've already started.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Good luck on that. We've heard that song from the immigration department for the 18 years that I've been here.
Mr. Kenney.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
I've been a member of Parliament for just about ten years. Until today, I had no clue what the Office of the Privacy Commissioner did, and I'm not sure I do yet. I'm wondering about the extent to which that might be the case amongst the general population.
You said earlier in your testimony that the taxpayers of Canada are pleased with what you're doing. Do you have any idea how many taxpayers even know the Office of the Privacy Commissioner exists? Have you ever done any quantitative research on that, any public opinion polling, given that you have this education mandate?
4:45 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We do public opinion polling. We wondered if we should ask that question, but we were told by the experts that it wasn't worth it because the public usually doesn't recognize organizations like ours.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
So you would accept, then, that the vast majority of the Canadian public doesn't really have a clue what you do or that you even exist.
4:45 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
No, I don't accept it, because as I said, we have a more aggressive public education program. We have become, in this fiscal year, much more proactive. My aim is certainly to make us known, but at the time I asked that question, we were trying to get the office together and we didn't have a lot of resources for public education.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
You do 1,600 cases, apparently. Do you know how many of those are redundant? How many come from the same complainant? Or are they all pretty much individual and separate complaints?
4:45 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Mr. Chairman, may I again ask the director of investigations?
4:45 p.m.
Director General, Investigation and Inquiries Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
There are cases, but I couldn't tell you exactly how many. I can confirm that over the years we have had individuals make numerous—
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Let's say all 1,600 are unique complainants. I've done a little math here, like Mr. Martin. Those 1,600 cases constitute 0.005% of Canadians, or half a thousandth of a percent of Canadians, yet you're proposing a budget of $16.5 million for next year. If you divide the number of investigations that you have—your principal legislative mandate—into that $16.5 million budget, that amounts to $10,300.75. If you just do it in terms of the $10.1 million figure that you propose for investigations, that's $6,300 per case. Do you think that's value for the taxpayers' money?
4:45 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Actually, I hadn't quite done those figures recently, but if this is of any comfort, Mr. Kenney, twenty years ago I was in an organization operating provincially in a similar style, and the cost was $4,000 almost twenty years ago. So if that's the figure, then it's pretty economical, because I would think that the cost has risen quite a bit in twenty years.
I will say that one of our concerns is trying to more efficiently manage particularly the complaints under the Privacy Act. We talk about this in our paper asking for reform of the Privacy Act, because we don't have the powers to deal with complaints that are perhaps not in the general interest of the Canadian public, as we should. We have very clear ideas about how this process could be streamlined. Within the law that we have now, we are trying to take a more aggressive approach to handling these complaints.