Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2009

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

When you look into that report, could you also verify whether any of the other so-called closed databases had information that was shared with foreign governments? In this particular case, could you also look into finding out, if in fact it was shared, which governments that information was shared with and whether those governments have been informed that the particular database, because of the problematic nature of the data that had been gathered, has been closed down here, that it's not valid, and that foreign governments should no longer be using those databases?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes, certainly, we will look into that and get back to you.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

As a bit of a sidebar, we talked about genetic information and the sharing of information between countries, and obviously in North America a lot of that goes on.

I understand that as of a couple of weeks ago, Canadians travelling back to Canada who land in transit in the United States are actually being pulled into a separate line, and equipment has been set up and Canadians are being compelled to have their fingerprints and their irises scanned to be entered into a U.S. database.

Have concerns of that nature landed in your office yet?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I don't recollect that we've had specific complaints or been notified that this is happening at this time. Again, we can check to see, but not that I'm aware of.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I was one of those stunned Canadians, by the way, who was pulled aside with all Canadians off a plane and required to do that.

The Communications Security Establishment within the Department of Defence is probably the most top-secret department within Canada. It has the capacity to electronically eavesdrop in ways no other government agency has. Have you ever done a full audit of that particular department?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes, we did an audit in the last year, and I believe the results of that audit will be coming out in our next annual report.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Were there any significant concerns or areas of particular concern?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Well, my annual report will be coming out soon.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

We look forward to seeing that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I think we're there. I apologize.

We're going to have to move on to Mr. Hiebert, please.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's a pleasure to see you again, Ms. Stoddart.

When you were before us in 2007 and 2008 we were asking you questions about your human resources situation, so hopefully it won't come as much of a surprise that we seek an update on the status of that situation.

We should always start with the big numbers. How many current investigations do you have ongoing?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I believe it is 1,134.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

We are down slightly from where we were a year ago.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I apologize, Mr. Hiebert. I won't take it off your time.

Just for clarification, are these just files assigned or actual investigations commenced?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

These are active files with my office.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

No, we have to split hairs here, because I believe there was a situation where, if a file was put on an investigator's desk but they had not started any work, it was counted as active.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

If you'll bear with me, I can take you through all that with the greatest transparency. I can do both, but in what order? Would you like me to answer the personnel question or--

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

This is to help the committee understand where you are.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Can I start with the good news?

As you recall, the committee took a very direct interest in the human resources state of my office last spring and we said at that time that we were severely understaffed due to a very severe problem of retirement, flow-through, people moving on, etc., in spite of having a fairly generous budget. The figures showed that it was hard to retain employees. At that time my staff and I testified that we had measures in place that would turn those figures around, so I am very happy to tell you that we are now slightly over our quota of employees as requested in the budget. We had about 120 in May and we now have 161, which was our goal.

I'm particularly pleased with the fact that in the various categories where the Government of Canada asks us to make special efforts, we're well over the targets to hire aboriginal people, people with disabilities, and visible minorities. The vast majority of those 124 positions are bilingual positions, so we have a very good cross-section of Canadian society. We did make some progress in the last eight months.

I thank you for your interest, and I think we are in much better shape for the future than we were in a situation of constant staff turnover.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Speaking of which, what is the current turnover rate? In the past few years it was about 40% and your comment at that time was that it was equivalent to the public service. Can you give us some indication as to what the current turnover rate is?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I don't have that figure with me today, but I did see that we're under that now. We have a very low turnover rate and in the last few months we've been well below the general civil service turnover rate.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Going back to the number of active investigations, how many do you have? Can you break them down by Privacy Act versus PIPEDA?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

We currently have 547 PIPEDA investigations and 662 Privacy Act investigations as of the end of January, so we have a few more Privacy Act investigations than PIPEDA.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

In the past you've identified that a large number of your Privacy Act investigations relate to people who are incarcerated.