Evidence of meeting #14 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was budget.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
We're yet to get into a system of tracking that.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Okay, my next question was going to be on what sort of method you have for evaluating those changes and their effectiveness. I guess you're putting that--
4:45 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Yes, that's on our list to do.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Madam Dawson, you have approximately 2,700 public office holders you oversee, approximately 400-odd MPs, so about 3,100 people you are tracking. In a pool of 3,100 people, it's hard to imagine that everyone would be absolutely honest. Now, parliamentarians obviously are under the glare of publicity, so that's quite a motivator. There are a lot of people who move in the corridors of power who aren't seen, yet we're dependent upon self-reporting, upon people's personal integrity and honesty.
You referenced the tax system--I thought it was quite interesting--and you said that the tax system finds it somehow, in terms of reporting and then if people aren't properly reporting. That's an audit function. Have you ever entertained the thought of auditing some of the public office holders? Perhaps that's a change that would be helpful. Obviously the penalties were helpful in getting people to report on time. Unless there is a whistle-blower out there who sees things going really wrong, usually by then the Auditor General catches things when it reaches that scale.
4:50 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
If you don't know what to--
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
I just find it disturbing that you are reporting but you don't have an audit function. You're toothless in a lot of ways. It's all self-reporting.
4:50 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Values and ethics are more about culture. It's a different sort of scheme from income tax. The reason the income tax people get their information is that when somebody has a job there are T4 slips or there is information that goes to the employer. We don't have anything like that, of course. We're not talking about financial money that is flowing to people; we're talking about values.
The other thing about it is--
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
There's a cash world out there, and that's not really measurable in a lot of ways in various industries. There is a reason that, as wonderful a country as Canada is, in most cases when there is oversight there is the ability to audit. Yet your department doesn't have that. Don't you feel that is an oversight that should be addressed?
4:50 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
I'm not sure how to address it. We can certainly continue to think about it, but I'm not aware of any system anywhere in the world that has an audit function attached to this kind of role.
The problem is that it's the whole realm of their human activity. It's not focused on one aspect of their activity, and it's hard to audit everything about everybody.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
It's the spot auditing and the ability to do that. The threat out there of not knowing can be a tremendous motivator.
4:50 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
But you see that people don't keep records of what they've done. Usually an auditor goes in and looks at records, but nobody is keeping records about who they had a gift from.
4:50 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
I'm not sure there is room there. I'd be interested in reading anything on it, but it doesn't come to my mind that it would be very feasible.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Having come from public accounts, I think that usually when things go terribly wrong they sometimes end up in public accounts and with the RCMP. If someone just audited some of the calendars of activity that deputy commissioners were engaged in--golf weekends, being flown about, etc.--the ability to go in and do that sort of auditing could have stopped things well in advance before it really spun out of control within that department.
4:50 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Perhaps, but the amount of staff we'd need to do complete audits on all the public office holders would be prohibitive.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you.
Ms. Dawson, I have a couple of questions about your staffing and the budget amount in connection with it. Am I reading this correctly? Your budget sets out a list of 47 positions in your office at the moment.
4:55 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Right.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
I believe Mr. Wrzesnewskyj mentioned that you're responsible for 2,700 public office holders. I think he said 400 MPs.
4:55 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
The number is 308.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
So you have approximately 3,000 people you're responsible for. I noticed that you have a total salary line of $5,280,000 for 2009-10. So if my math is correct, your average salary is in excess of $100,000. Can you take us through the salary ranges for the various positions?
4:55 p.m.
Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
That average, the budget of $5.3 million, includes the employee benefits plan.
