Information & Ethics Committee on March 30th, 2010

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Building on the questions and the comments from previous members, I too would like to commend you for the work you have done in addressing the staffing shortages and the backlog. I'm a fairly new member of Parliament, and I was very pleased to hear some of the results from a year ago that you've been able to accomplish. It would appear that being interim certainly hasn't hampered your vision or ability to carry out your mandate as commissioner.

I also appreciate the analogy you built for us around a strong foundation, and the honour you are giving former commissioner Marleau. I think that speaks very well of both you and him, and of the work you're doing.

My first question is around your budget. You said you have planned spending of $12 million for 2010-2011. You also indicated that 70% of that would go towards salaries. Can you give us a breakdown in terms of what the other 30% might be used for, and what are the resources it is going towards?

[Suzanne Legault]

About 20% is for the fixed costs of running the organization, including everything we need to sustain the organization, such as the computer equipment, paper clips, basic training for our officers, basic travel, and our hospitality that we have historically year after year. I'm basically left with another 10%, which will be more discretionary spending.

Part of the 20% is to staff additional consultants to do the investigations. If you look at the resource graph, as I said, I have 20 extra people who are consultants or temporary help, and out of those, 16 are allocated to the investigative side of the organization. That costs a lot of money, so that's a big chunk of that overall 30%.

There is actually very little flexibility. We're a lean machine.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Did you identify any other needs you might have but aren't requesting funding for?

[Suzanne Legault]

What I've decided to do, Madame Block, is to review the business model as part of our internal audit this year, and do a detailed analysis, taking into account efficiencies we can garner and how the office is working. Then I will see whether we will need additional resources or not.

Also, we haven't had final word from the Treasury Board Secretariat in terms of the impact of the budget. We're expecting that at the end of April. We can't have a full understanding until we have final word from Treasury Board Secretariat.

I understand this is a time of constraint. I'm not ignoring that at all. I'm basically going to look at the entire organization and see whether we have efficiencies, and whether we can reallocate resources internally. Then I'll consider whether it's necessary to seek additional funding.

I am somewhat concerned at this stage about the impact of the budget for our organization.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Can you tell us how many institutions are covered by the Access to Information Act?

[Suzanne Legault]

I think it's 255, give or take a few.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Now, you did reference the Federal Accountability Act. There were a number of institutions added as a result of that act. How many were added at that time?

[Suzanne Legault]

I think it's 69 or 70.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Also, in some of the other questions you've answered, you talked about the length of time to do an investigation, and that it takes longer to do an investigation for the first time: whether it's a new organization or due to the nature of it, you're actually covering new ground.

Can you tell me, has that actually happened as a result of the 69 new institutions being covered by the Federal Accountability Act? Is one of the reasons for requests taking longer the fact that they're new, and new investigations take longer?

[Suzanne Legault]

The one that has had the most impact, I would say, is the addition of the CBC, because there's a new exclusion under the legislation and the CBC has taken the position that the commissioner does not have authority to review the information. So I have quite a large number of complaints.

When the Federal Accountability Act came into effect and the CBC became covered that year, 2007-08, I think we received some 536 complaints against the CBC. That was the explanation for the big surge that year. Out of those, I believe 121 raised the issue of this exclusion and this ability of mine to review the documents. Those are subject to litigation at this point, so they are on hold, literally, because I cannot access the documents until we get a court ruling on it.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

How many ATI requests were processed last year? You may have mentioned it in your opening remarks.

[Suzanne Legault]

ATI requests last year numbered around 34,000 across the system.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Okay, and how many were processed? Is that the number of requests that were processed, 34,000?

[Suzanne Legault]

In terms of requests, I'd have to refer to Treasury Board statistics, because I deal with complaints and those are requests.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

No problem.

[Suzanne Legault]

I think I have them here, actually, and can tell you. There's an interesting little wrinkle here.

In terms of total requests across the system last year, there were 34,000. Out of those, about 20,000 were directed to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, which is quite important, because Citizenship and Immigration Canada actually gets a huge chunk of those requests. That leaves about 14,000 to be spread around the institution; and out of those, last year I got 2,000 complaints. That gives you an idea of the range.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Can you quickly tell me how many people or groups these requests are coming from? Can you boil that down as to whether there are certain groups of people who are asking, or certain organizations?

[Suzanne Legault]

I'm not sure I have those statistics. They're published by the Treasury Board Secretariat. I don't see all the requests. I deal with the complaints.

I don't have the statistics with me, but they are published by the Treasury Board Secretariat in terms of how the groups are divided up.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Okay, thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Easter, please.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, folks, for coming and for the progress you've made.

My colleague Ms. Foote mentioned the interim appointment, and I am somewhat worried about that. What is the normal appointment period for an information commissioner? Is it three years, or five years?

[Suzanne Legault]

It's a seven-year mandate.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

A seven-year mandate.

The reason I worry is that we do know that other parliamentary officers and heads of agencies who have challenged the government have been forced out. I'll just lay it on the table: I'm concerned that, as an interim commissioner, should you be very challenging to the Government of Canada, you might be treated in the same fashion. I think we might as well put it on the table, because that is the record of the government.

In terms of getting to the appointment of a permanent commissioner, what is the process? Is it normally advertised for a number of months and interviews done? You're claiming that June 30 is the date. You certainly could be appointed on another interim basis, which would worry me even more. What is the normal procedure? Do you know?

I don't want to put you on the spot, but I think we might as well say what many of us are thinking.

[Suzanne Legault]

The procedure is certainly not within my control. There is a process under the legislation. If there is a nomination, it has to be approved by both the House and the Senate.

There was an advertised process last summer. I applied—it's on the public record—and I'm sure other people have applied.

Really, I've been asked this question many times. I conduct myself in a very objective manner. The way I'm conducting myself as interim commissioner is the way I would conduct myself as permanent commissioner. I made that decision even before I accepted this interim period. It was very clear and I was very clear with my staff as well. That's the way we have conducted ourselves, and that's the way we have moved forward.

I must say also that, if it is somebody else, I would be very pleased to leave an office that is in fantastic shape.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you for that. I think that needed to be said.

You mentioned the freeze across government. I don't have any great concerns about the freeze, other than the fact that one department hasn't 't been frozen, and that is the Privy Council Office and PMO. Their budget is increasing. Yet we see agencies such as yours that do a tremendous public good and are not communications or propaganda machines, etc., but providing information and dealing with complaints from the public, who are trying to really find out what's going on within government, and yet you're frozen as compared with the Privy Council Office. I think that's a concern as well.

Do you think this salary freeze, which you did mention in your remarks, is going to have any impact on your ability to do your job? Second, given that we currently have a government that is highly secretive and a Prime Minister who avoids the media with a passion unless it's set up, do you find there are more requests under access to information from the media to get information?

It's as if one is working against the other: you have a more secretive government and therefore you are going to have more requests under access to information. I don't know whether these requests are all leading to complaints or not. Are there any?