Information & Ethics Committee on May 13th, 2009

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Okay, I understand that I'm running out of time, so can I just ask you a quick question?

In your recommendations, you have suggested that the system be opened up to anyone worldwide. We know that a number of additional complaints were generated by the additional workload to the Access to Information Act. What do you think the cost would be of opening up the process to people throughout the world, the six billion people who live outside of Canada?

[Robert Marleau]

Sir, I've heard that question and commented on it before. The system is currently open worldwide. They only have to use data brokers in order to get at it. So I'd say the cost would be marginal. I think FIPA said in their testimony it would be marginal.

It's $43 million. If you add my office, that's another $8 million on top. That's about $52 or $53 million. Divided by 33 million Canadians, that's $1.56—or a double-double at Timmy's—per Canadian.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

You don't think it would increase substantially?

[Robert Marleau]

No, not at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

It is an interesting perspective, though, because theoretically there could be an infinite number of complaints filed and you could do it to every department, and all of a sudden the system would break down and the government would be on crutches. But the reality is that you have to start with what our laws are and why they're there and what resources we have to put in place to make the system work. We've heard this so many times that people can use proxies and data brokers, etc., to get around it. It might be an interesting proposition to figure out how to deal with this. It might be some sort of a screening process, but that's for another day.

Madame Thi Lac.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I will ask you to keep your answers short, because I have four questions to ask you in the space of five minutes.

My colleague opposite spoke of the cost of each investigation. Is the cost not directly tied to the response rate you get, and to the good will of the departments? Is the cost not a function of the difficulty you might have getting the information you request? The longer it takes you—and I'm referring to the average time its takes to process requests—the more resources you will need to assign to the job of getting these answers.

[Robert Marleau]

Mrs. Thi Lac, cost is primarily affected by the complexity of each case. Recently, we closed a file that had been open for four years. It involved the revision of 15,000 pages, all subject to section 15 of the national defence and public safety legislation. It's extremely difficult to assess cost when we're dealing with this type of file. That is why, in terms of the cost of an investigation, I hesitate to quote you a figure.

If a department is uncooperative and takes a long time providing us with the documents, or if I am forced to get a subpoena to get the documents, the cost increases. Given the complexity of the cases, it is difficult for me to give you an exact figure.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I wasn't expecting you to give me one. I was just wondering if the cost could be greater because your investigations are made more complex owing to the lack of cooperation on the part of the different departments. That was the gist of my question.

That brings me to my next question. I see that in the case of Canada Post, 32 complaints were registered, 28 of which were deemed to be substantiated. However, of the 26 complaints registered by Industry Canada, only four were deemed to be substantiated.

Could it be that all of the persons who initiated these complaints were inept at making a complaint? Or is it simply that it is easier to obtain the cooperation of Canada Post?

[Robert Marleau]

It's not easy to give you answers about the causes and effects. Some complainants are not as informed as others. We also have cases where complainants complain just because they can, in spite of the information they receive. Still others never seek our help because they accept the system at face value.

That is why in such instances, I emphasize my 12 recommendations which would improve the system's efficiency. Cost is not the issue.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Yet, we often hear that society is a reflection of its members. I was just surprised to see that some departments get results while others do not.

Are you saying that it's always the same people who register complaints with Industry Canada and that these people are incapable of filing a substantiated complaint? Do only inept people file complaints with Justice Canada? And does Canada Post always receive substantiated requests from people?

[Robert Marleau]

If I could add another element to the mix, Justice Canada receives five stars in our report because of the leadership it displays. It faces the same challenges as every other department, but it has allocated the resources and has the commitment of senior management to serving clients well. Some institutions such as the Privy Council, the RCMP, National Defence and Foreign Affairs will always register the highest number of complaints because they deal with the hottest issues.

However, Justice Canada also deals with some hot issues and it has satisfied the requirements of the act. That says a lot about the department's leadership.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I'm not looking at the total number of complaints, but rather at the total number of substantiated complaints. That's quite a different matter. Looking at the top of the list, we see that National Defence received 218 complaints, more than 50% of which were substantiated. However, when 28 complaints are filed and a mere four of these are substantiated...That's what I'm talking about, that is of 26 complaints received, nearly 70% are not substantiated. That's what I'm driving at. I have concerns, not about the overall number of complaints, but rather about the number of substantiated ones.

I have one last question. Earlier, you spoke of contractual workers. Everyone knows that prospective employees are subject to extensive background checks and that training an employee can be very costly.

Wouldn't it be more cost-effective to hire permanent employees? Why not devise strategies to attract workers who could be hired on permanently? Contract workers are subject to the same background checks as someone who is hired on a permanent basis.

[Robert Marleau]

I totally agree with you. We need a strategy to recruit permanent employees and to build experience. Above all, what we need are employee retention strategies. As a result of the new legislation, public servants with experience in the areas of access to information and privacy were attracted to the 69 new agencies that were created. Therefore, we have experienced a shortage of employees.

My Office also hired five investigators on contract in 2005-2006 to handle the case backlog.The strategy was to hire contract workers since eventually, these resources would be lost.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Merci.

We'll go to Mr. Dreeshen, please.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome once again, Mr. Marleau and Ms. Legault, and thank you for coming here this afternoon.

I was going to continue from where Madame Thi Lac was speaking. But could you explain for me, on table 3, where they talk about complaints overall, what “with merit” means?

[Robert Marleau]

“With merit” means that as a consequence of our intervention or investigation, there was more information released or more timely information provided to the complainant. In other words, we found something in the context of the complaint that was valid.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Therefore, for example, if we were to take Industry Canada, you found that in four of the 26 cases the complaint was valid. Okay. That is what I was curious about, because I thought that perhaps we were speaking of that from the other direction before.

What I'd like to do is go back to table 2, where we look at, for example, the RCMP, which had 24 with merit out of 62 complaints. For Industry Canada it was four out of 26. For the Correctional Service of Canada we had seven out of 27. When we are looking at the number of new complaints, would it be fair to extrapolate that this is what you would expect in an upcoming year?

[Robert Marleau]

My short experience in comparing these year over year is that it's a little bit like a spaghetti sauce. You know it's spaghetti sauce, but it's never quite made the same way twice in a row. It's all the same ingredients, but where it ends up is going to be quite different next year.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

You talked about the report cards and how all of these things were developed. Was any of this—the “with merit” and the complaints overall—ever presented as part of what any particular department has done? Do you see this in the report card?

[Robert Marleau]

Oh yes, indeed. If you look at—

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

I just don't have it with me now; I was just asking the question.

[Robert Marleau]

For the ten institutions that were selected for the report cards last year.... We started from the basis of the particular data we had, so we picked ten that were in those categories and did the report card based on it.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

In the case of the CBC, with its flood of requests, how was this reflected upon the report card, if you can recall?

[Robert Marleau]

The CBC was not part of the report card group. We're looking in the near future—I won't say next year, but the near future—at a report card on the new institutions that were added to the statute.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you.

Going back to your address, you talked about the new intake unit. Could you talk somewhat about the efficiencies that you feel are there with the new intake unit—what it does and what you expect from it?