Information & Ethics Committee on June 19th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Ça va. Okay.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

Just to follow up on that previous comment, the open government act--you're calling it an act. Is it in the form of a bill?

[John Reid]

It's in the form of a bill.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

It is in the form of a bill. So technically the committee has a bill in front of it, and technically this committee has accepted and reported to the House on this. So technically I would say what the minister has done in his discussion paper is actually a reaction to specific points in that act.

Is that not an accurate statement?

[John Reid]

That's correct.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

So this committee could take your cleaned-up version and work with it based on that, and I think that's what the minister was asking us.

How many years have you been the Information Commissioner?

[John Reid]

Eight years as of July 1.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

And the previous government was there for a while. Were you pushing them for amendments for those eight years?

[John Reid]

Yes.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

And nothing really happened. Then would you say in Bill C-2 that at least some of it has been captured in terms of information access capabilities, some of it has been captured there in that bill? Yes or no.

[John Reid]

Some has been captured.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Some has been captured, so there has been some progress since this government came to power. Would you say that's an accurate statement?

[John Reid]

It's a good question because I haven't really done the analysis, but I will say that--

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'm going to challenge you to do the analysis.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

It's a good point, Mr. Chairman, you have to admit.

Thank you very much, Mr. Commissioner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

I think, Mr. Reid, that's what Perry Mason wanted you to say.

That is apparently it, except that I'd like to ask one question. I'm not going to read it, but I think I'd like to know the answer as a new member. Our briefing notes contain it as question number two. You wouldn't know that, Mr. Reid, but I'm telling my colleagues so that they know what I'm referring to.

The previous committee issued a report on officers of Parliament. Even way back when I was on the justice committee and you used to come to the justice committee, one of your major concerns was about there being no money. That's a song that's been sung every year for a long time.

This committee made certain reports and recommendations with respect to funding and recommended a pilot project that would be overseen by the House of Commons Board of Internal Economy. To your knowledge, have any of those recommendations of this committee been acted upon?

[John Reid]

Indeed they have, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Could you tell us about that?

[John Reid]

As a result of work done by the previous President of the Treasury Board, Mr. Alcock, an ad hoc committee of members was struck to look at the financial requirements of the Information Commissioner and other parliamentary officers. For the first time, we were able to see the top secret documents from Treasury Board that did the analysis of our spending and what our requirements were.

As a result of that, the Treasury Board offered to give us 90% of what we had asked for, which they could justify. After testimony, the ad hoc committee provided us with about another $300,000 for additional staff to deal with the backlog. Subsequently, just before the last election, the Treasury Board ministers met and approved that recommendation, so those are our budget figures for this year.

However, we had gone to Treasury Board and said it's very difficult to hire in the public service environment, and it's very hard to get space and we'll need more space. As soon as the parliamentary committee reports and lets us know what they've decided to do, can we begin the process of hiring and looking for space? Treasury Board said yes.

Unfortunately, three months after we had started the process, Treasury Board said no. We basically had to close down the office, because we had to find $450,000 in two months or we would have spent more than we were allowed to do under the act. Basically we went through an enormous amount of stress in the office because of that decision by the Treasury Board.

But overall, the new process worked very well from our point of view. We would like to see it an open process, because right now it has been a closed process. We'd like to see it opened up so that there would be a proper transcript and a proper ability for people to come in and see. In the annual report, there's a description of how we made out and how it worked.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

I'm not looking for compliments for this committee, because I wasn't even on the committee at that time, but was the committee's report helpful in moving things along in that regard with respect to financing?

[John Reid]

There were three reports. There was the report from this committee, there was the report from the Senate finance committee, and there was a report from the public accounts committee. And all three reports had a profound effect on the government, and they moved to deal with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you.

All right, colleagues, thank you very much.

Commissioner, we really appreciate your coming and giving us your evidence.

[John Reid]

Could I say one thing, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Yes, of course, if you want to wrap up.

[John Reid]

I'd like to wrap up. I mentioned casually that my next extension will run out at the end of September. That means there has to be a process in place to find a new commissioner, and it seems to me one of the things the committee might want to start thinking about is what role it should play in finding a new commissioner and in finding out how it's going to plug into the system of dealing with the new commissioner, because that was the process.

I think it's very important that there be a good search put on for the discovery of whoever my successor will be. My view is that I am happy to go; I've had a very exciting time as commissioner. But I would also be happy to stay on until a successor is found, because I think it is important that the office not go leaderless. I have said in my annual report that the way in which my extensions have been taken is a very uncomfortable feeling, because the technique is to cause me to lose my independence.

One of the things I'd like to draw to your attention, when you start looking at what changes you might want to make, is to look at how the Information Commissioner is both found and installed, but also at how you are going to deal with extensions when required and how you're going to deal with interim commissioners. This is because the current law no longer reflects what people understood.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.