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.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We have something perhaps two-thirds developed. We're two-thirds of the way through that process now.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair—unless Mr. Peterson has any questions.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
On that point, Madam Commissioner, you were appointed on December 1, 2003. When did you put this system in place to develop programs or develop whatever it was you said earlier?
4:20 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
A results-based management system?
4:20 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We've only started to work on it, I believe, in this fiscal year.
4:20 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It was April, perhaps.
4:20 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
That's right.
4:20 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Well, that's an excellent question, honourable chairman.
When I inherited this office, the employees had no objectives and had no yearly evaluations. I don't know whether you remember the situation of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. It's been a very long and slow process to go from that situation, where there were no standards and where there was no objective evaluation.
To begin with the employees themselves, we moved through that and have it, I think, very well established. The employees are happy with it and participate in it. We're now moving to the second phase, which is the evaluation of our activities as an organization.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to take you back to the question of the conference that's coming up in September 2007. I think I followed most of the dialogue when Mr. Martin first raised it. If I understand it correctly, the contractor—it was an open bidding process—came in at around $750,000 for this conference.
Tell me again what the recoveries would be on that.
4:20 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
May I ask the director of corporate services?
November 8th, 2006 / 4:20 p.m.
Director General, Corporate Services and Comptroller, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
The current forecast is $500,000.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Where does that show up? Obviously it's going to be in the next fiscal year, then. Would there be a $500,000 recovery coming back into the next fiscal year, since it's going to be September 2007?
4:20 p.m.
Director General, Corporate Services and Comptroller, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
In terms of the net cost to the Crown, it won't be the $750,000; it would be the $250,000, over this fiscal year and the next fiscal year.
For what you were looking at, in terms of proactive disclosure we have to disclose the contract value. The contract value at its upper limit is $748,000 or $750,000.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
All right.
Madam Commissioner, in your opening remarks you mentioned that approximately two-thirds of the operating costs of the office relates to investigations—I'll say to the activities relating to PIPEDA—and the other third to the Privacy Act. I believe that was the quotation, if I have it correctly. At the same time, I heard that relative to the 1,600-odd files or investigations that were opened up, 1,200 were on the Privacy Act side, but only 400 on PIPEDA. The cost of the operation seems to be disproportionate to the investigations.
Could you speak to that, or help me understand why it is?
4:20 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. Perhaps the first figure you were quoting is an overall figure. The investigations are a particular phenomenon. There are many more Privacy Act investigations, because of the way the Privacy Act is written, than there are PIPEDA investigations.
If the chair allows, I'll let the director of investigations continue.
4:20 p.m.
Director General, Investigation and Inquiries Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
One of the reasons is that, for the Privacy Act, most of the respondents are here in Ottawa. The federal organizations are here. It's an act that has been in force since 1983, so the investigators, as well as our legal department, have a lot of case law they can follow. Investigations don't require as much—I don't want to use the word “effort”—expense, let's say.
Under PIPEDA, most of our respondents are outside Ottawa, so investigation entails a certain amount of travel. Since it's a relatively new act, we are more in need of legal opinions, from outside counsel often, and so the expenses are a little higher.
It's the same thing with the training. The training for investigators under PIPEDA is more expensive than under the Privacy Act. All of this makes the PIPEDA investigations somewhat more expensive to conduct.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I didn't notice—perhaps it's there—in section III of the report on plans and priorities a breakout of how you apportion the financial impact within your office between the two boundaries, one being the Privacy Act and the other being PIPEDA. You don't necessarily break it out that way for report purposes?
4:25 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
The director of corporate services, if the chair allows, can add to my answer, but increasingly we find it is more effective to simply put the amounts together, although we can simulate them, because sometimes it's difficult--not in investigations, but in public education activities and so on--to make a very precise breakdown. We did for the purposes of presenting our case for budget increase, but we haven't continued in that document.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I only raised that point, as a parliamentarian in looking at these issues, because when we look at things on a cost-per-volume or an incremental basis, those numbers become helpful in understanding what in fact the true costs are in relation to the activities of the department.
Do I have any more time, Mr. Chairman?