Evidence of meeting #29 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was complaints.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
In your reorganization that I'm seeing here, it's just a presentation issue. You haven't done your reorganization yet, compared to what....
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
No, I think we're just giving more detail.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Okay. I just wanted to make sure I understood that.
You're asking for, let's say, a one-quarter increase in what you're actually using. When would you expect to have that in place? What's the timeframe on getting approval for your plan, assuming you get it or not? If you're having a hard time hiring people now, how are you going to hire another 30%?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It's a long and slow process. I understand we have a tentative appearance before the parliamentary panel on May 7--not confirmed--and then processes are a couple of months, I suppose.
Director General and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We're tentatively scheduled in early May to appear before the parliamentary panel on funding for offices of Parliament. If that takes place, then a Treasury Board submission would be prepared and submitted to the Treasury Board, which may get approval two or three weeks later. Then it would show up in the supplementaries that would be presented to you, probably in October, November, whenever the supplementaries would be presented.
Conservative
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Twice now we've heard this, and I was going to ask the Information Commissioner the same question, but I'm going to ask you the question. In relation to your clog-up by the Correctional Service, is this a problem we should know about? Is it abuse of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner? Are we just seeing some time wasted? Is there something we need to know as parliamentarians so that we can do something about this?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I'm suggesting that the time of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner could be better spent. You could suggest bringing reform to the Privacy Act and also to PIPEDA. We don't even have the possibility of declaring complaints frivolous and vexatious and made in bad faith, as we do under PIPEDA. Even that is not that useful.
We need to pick and choose. I think for some complaints we have to be able to say to citizens, “Okay, this is all the information. This has been decided time and again. Here you are.” Then we can concentrate on something that is going to impact thousands of Canadians.
So yes, I don't think our time is well spent having to investigate every single complaint. And then someone can make a complaint once the organization has not replied within the 30-day time limit. Some populations do that more than others. I don't think it's useful to the concept of privacy rights in Canada.
Conservative
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It is, Mr. Chairman, yes.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
So it's spelled out well enough that we can....
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes, it's one of the recommendations.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
If I may, I'd like to follow up on the contracting of staff. This has been a serious problem brought up by the Auditor General for years. It's so prevalent throughout the public service it isn't funny. I'm just wondering if Ms. Barrados has some concerns to express to other departments, agencies, commissioners, and so on.
Your numbers show that obviously it's more expensive. But the reason it's been so prevalent is that you can get somebody in and on the ground and behind a desk a lot more quickly by contracting out than by waiting for the full cycle of a hiring process. I just don't know what your views are. I want to know whether you really think this is a problem.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I think it's a huge problem. I know that Ms. Barrados, just coming from a presentation she gave, thinks it's a problem for all of us, because when you wait to hire people full time, you may wait a very long time.
We have a very specialized employee we've been waiting for. It's been six months since we made an offer of employment. Now, this is a particular question for us. It's a security clearance. You understand that a lot of our work needs security clearances, and after six months the person doesn't have a security clearance. That's apart from the time it took to go through the hiring process.
So we look at our mandate, what we have to do, and the services we're supposed to render, and we try to get them done. We're all concerned. But we're all competing with each other and making offers and kind of poaching each other's employees. It's a very difficult world. I could hire that person to whom we've made an offer after that person has passed the security clearance, and with two weeks' notice—this is how the rules work—the person can be off to another department. It may take me eight months to hire someone, but the person can leave in two weeks. It's not something I individually can change. So since I have the money, how do I get the work done according to the rules?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
We could talk a lot about this. I think you're now aware that the committee is concerned about this. We need to know about a game plan for getting out of this trap, because it's something we have to have a plan to do within a certain period of time. I don't know all the implications. But I hope we're going to be able to come up with a strategy to deal with this so that when you come here and talk about backlogs, we understand why the backlogs are there from the standpoint of the inadequacy of the act as opposed to HR shortcomings.
We'll go to Mr. Dhaliwal.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Madam Privacy Commissioner and associates, welcome to the committee again.
I'm having concerns about building sustainable organizational capacity. The way I see it, you are facing the same dilemma as any private business or private consulting company, and they are feeling the same way you're feeling about hiring employees and keeping them. When I look at your situation, it's even more complicated because you need people who go through a security clearance.
When I look at the next ten to fifteen years, the net labour growth in Canada is going to come from immigration, and when I look at the last two years, the number of permanent immigrants into this country has gone down by 36,000 people.
David Tilson Dufferin--Caledon, CPC
That's why we thank you for supporting our immigration policy.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Mr. Tilson, I'm not going to....
How do you see it, because building a sustainable organization capacity is a good vision? Every outfit should have that, and you're facing the challenges. When I look at your budget, you're going down in your budget from last year. Is this true?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes, we're going slightly down, by about $500,000.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
If you have to keep those talented people working for you, I'm not sure how you can sustain them if you do not have a proper plan in place or proper benefits. So how would you be able to manage with the lower numbers with the high demand of those employees?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Well, there are two things. I did mention that we do have human resources plans in place to increase hiring and to look at the issue of retention. How, within the same rules that apply to everybody, can we make sure people want to stay with us longer or more consistently rather than accepting job offers, as a way, within this context that everybody is faced with, of trying to basically swim against the tide? So we are looking at that.
You mentioned several things. Yes, our budget did decrease slightly, but as we mentioned previously here, we are going to ask for some more resources in order to bring it back up and to deal with new issues, like the federal accountability bill.
From year to year, though, if you look, we have steadily increased the number of permanent, full-time indeterminate positions. It kind of goes like this: people go in, people go out. There's what's called churning, which is very difficult for an organization, but we're working the base up, and I think too we're starting to attract a group of very interesting young employees.
One of the honourable members, Mr. Chairman, made a reference to our past. I think probably in the past that was a deterrent to people wondering what they would get into if they came and worked there. I think we've put that in the past. We have some fascinating issues for people to work on, and I think we're starting to attract more and more talented people. So I'm quite optimistic that we can inch our way up in terms of employees.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
I totally understand that you need talented employees working for you. It's the same dilemma I'm facing in my business, even though I don't go there. But I don't know how you can keep them with the same number of resources, with all those costs that are going up. How can you keep those employees working there when you're facing competition in the private sector?
You have to have a certain plan in place. Can you tell me what are those...? You have to attract those talented employees. How would you attract them to your organization, to work for you and not for another organization?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Well, one of the elements we're looking at is the type of working conditions people in our organization can benefit from. For example, we're fairly flexible about things like working hours, and we're looking at something many employees are interested in: the work-life balance. So, for example, we're organizing sessions where employees can basically look after their physical condition, sponsored by the office, all within Treasury Board guidelines.
Another example is giving them more direct responsibility, because we're a small organization. I know one talented employee left us and came back, having worked for a large organization. This employee said, “Well, if I go to a large organization, I don't have the direct impact that I can have in working in a small organization like ours”. So those are some of the qualities we can enhance to try to attract and keep talented people.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for your presentations, particularly the written presentations.
You can see this business of staffing is bothering us, and I'm no exception. I look at the chart, particularly the chart under tab 5, page 3, which shows there are almost as many people leaving as coming. I gather this is explained a little bit on page 5, where it shows 35%.
Are those contract people? Who are those people?