Information & Ethics Committee on April 26th, 2007

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Oh, that includes the 12 that TB are thinking you'll need for--

[Robert Marleau]

That's right.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

RIght. That's where I was confused.

[Robert Marleau]

Our number now is 78, once we've ramped up on the supernumerary investigators.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Plus the additional 12 that may come this year.

[Robert Marleau]

To be determined.

[J. Alan Leadbeater]

We're not asking for approval for the funds for that in this round of estimates.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

But as to the $1,582,000 that's in there, is that not part of the extra 12 people? I thought I saw that in your report.

[J. Alan Leadbeater]

It would only be if we came back for that by way of supplementaries. We're thinking we will have enough to cover that one-time cost because of the delay in actually hiring the new folks.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

So your request for space--

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Wallace, I'm sorry, but you're over your five minutes. We have two questioners and seven minutes left, so I have to interrupt you.

I'm one of them. I'll try to keep it as short as possible. We have our guest, Monsieur Lussier, and I would like him to have an opportunity to speak.

I remind the committee that we've eaten up two hours. That's in the context of previous discussions on the value of having people here for the estimates.

Mr. Marleau, my questions are, again, referring to this document. On page 4, you indicate you've taken 16 cases to court and that the commissioner has been 100% successful. That is a fantastic statistic. I can understand your reluctance to want to go to court, because the more you go the more likely you'll lose that 100% mark.

What fascinates me is the next paragraph. You say the Crown has taken the commissioner to court 66 times on procedural and jurisdictional grounds. You have been successful 95% of the time. What kind of advice is the Crown being given if there's a 95% success rate? When you say the Crown in that sentence, who do you mean? Is that the justice department?

[Robert Marleau]

It is the Attorney General of Canada, acting for a government department of some sort.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

So the lawyer for the government department is the Department of Justice. Is that right? The Department of Justice would then make these decisions. I am going to make sure we remind the justice minister about these statistics when he's here.

Finally, on page 5, you said that the OIC has established a process whereby complaints under the act against the Information Commissioner can be independently investigated by former Supreme Court judge, Honourable Peter Cory. He has agreed to this role.

Under what statute, guideline, or whatever it is does he take his authority, and who is going to pay him? Does it come out of your budget?

[Robert Marleau]

We will pay for it. It will come out of our budget. It's under the delegation powers I have in the act under section....section 59. I thought it was 58; I'm starting to learn these numbers.

At any rate, section 59 authorizes me to delegate some of the powers to “any person”. In this case, we don't want to be seen to be investigating ourselves. Therefore, a former judge of the standing of Mr. Cory is the way to go for now. We may change that practice over time, to see what might be more useful.

The Privacy Commissioner has the same challenges we do, actually.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Now, that's shown where in the estimates, the potential allocation of funds for Mr. Justice Cory?

[Robert Marleau]

So far we have not requested any money for this. We're confident that as part of this year, as Mr. Leadbeater said, we can absorb it, but if we find that we get a large number, we may have to be back in estimates in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Okay, thank you.

Monsieur Lussier, please.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to justify my presence here by asking a question of Ms. McEwan, who has been quite quiet so far.

The organization chart shows, Ms. McEwan, that there are 16 people who report to you, and that figure probably includes you. What is the role played by the people who work with?

[Ruth McEwan]

I'm in charge of finance, access to information, human resources, information technology, records management. So obviously the qualifications depend—

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Do you have a secretariat?

[J. Alan Leadbeater]

We don't have a corporate secretariat.

[Ruth McEwan]

We don't really have a corporate secretariat. It's just different divisions that form corporate services.

At any rate, the qualifications vary, obviously, according to the discipline. For instance, in finance the director of finance would have a degree and a lot of accounting experience. The director of human resources would also have a degree and a great deal of experience. The same is true of the manager of IM/IT.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

That answers my question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Okay, Monsieur Vincent.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

To continue along the same line as Mr. Wappel, I would like to know what percentage of our budget goes to defending cases involving federal government departments. You said that 88 cases pitting you against the Crown have been heard . In other words, the Office of the Commissioner squared off against the Crown. That means that the Department Justice was involved in a court case against the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada. What percentage of your budget goes to mounting a defence against your own government?