Evidence of meeting #35 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was budget.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
I can't comment on the other departments. I looked strictly at my operation and at what I could do and still be able to deliver on my mandate, and that's what I did.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Congratulations for trying to be lean and efficient. You shouldn't be penalized for doing it.
I want to follow up on a couple of other things. You mentioned that you have 28 employees. You said you were down two positions, when Mr. Angus was asking questions.
Could you just clarify? Were you at 30 positions and are now at 28 positions, or were you at 28 positions and going to 26 positions?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
I have 28 FTEs and I needed to restructure, so I'm eliminating two positions to hire two positions. I will be at my 28 FTEs. At the end of the day, what I was doing in terms of having to make the difficult decision to eliminate positions was so that I could live within my salary envelope.
Liberal
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Of my operating budget, 60% is salaries.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
To try to maintain your 28 positions is tough when that big portion of your budget is for salaries.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Are all of your employees on full salary now? You don't have anybody off on temporary leave who is giving you some savings?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
There are no savings on something like temporary leave.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
As a last question, you've requested the immunity provision as part of the review of the Lobbying Act, the same as for other jurisdictions in the federal government—all the other commissioners, the Auditor General.
Do any of your provincial counterparts have any sort of immunity provision?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
I believe they all have the immunity provision. When they were in front of this committee, that was my understanding, that they all have it.
Liberal
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Not every province has one, no.
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
There is British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba just put theirs in place, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Okay. So they have immunity provisions, but our federal lobbying officer does not.
Does this impact the job you do at all? Does it sit in the back of your mind when you're doing some of this, that at some point you could be brought before the courts? Is that routinely there?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
I think it might have been an oversight that it wasn't put in, but in terms of how I conduct myself and my job and my office, no. We conduct ourselves, in my view, in a professional matter. I ensure that when I'm looking into a matter my files are well documented and that due process and fairness are followed. I am quite comfortable, if I were challenged. I think it is just something for being consistent with the other commissioners and my professional colleagues.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Do you have any examples, nationally or internationally, illustrating where this would impact upon you? Has it happened in any other jurisdictions that a lobbying commissioner has been brought before any judicial body that you know of?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
No, I'm not aware of any.
NDP
Conservative
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
Good morning, Commissioner and Monsieur Leblanc. Thank you for appearing again today. It's good to see you.
We're still working through your last set of recommendations. A lot of what we're talking about today relates to those recommendations.
I applaud you for the job you're doing. It's a very important role. It's important to me as a new member of Parliament, when I receive questions on the number of lobbyists who have been through or the report that has been through.... We've received one of your audits and have found it to be very helpful to keep track of who was coming through our office and to know whether we were running a tight enough system and making sure we understood it.
I also appreciate the budgeting issue. I come from a business background, so I understand clearly. You have limited resources. You have to operate within the mandate you're given. To make a change, as you did, where two people were released and you had to put in two people with different skills, that's a sign of good management. Granted, it may be from tight budgets, and I won't presume to comment on how you must have felt about that, but certainly I applaud you on good management in terms of identifying where the skills are truly necessary to help you get your job done.
In the RPP, you commented on a case management system that “will help streamline and monitor the investigation process.” Could you talk to us briefly about what the case management system is going to accomplish and how it works within your office?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Are you saying in my RPP or in the main estimates?
Conservative
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
Yes. You mentioned in there, “My Office's new Case Management System will help streamline and monitor the investigation process.”
As a new system, something you've implemented as an enhancement to the way you do business every day, how does that work within your mandate?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
That was in my RPP last year. That was one of the things we were hoping to have in place, more of a technology-based system, but because our service provider is with another department, as I mentioned in a previous appearance, we were not able to continue forward with that particular technology in terms of getting support.
The director of investigations has put in an excellent report, but it's paper. It's on the system. It keeps track of the files, the complaints, the results, the compliance measures put in place, and helps with managing the caseload.
Now that we have this, one of the priorities we want to work on this year is how we can improve the technology infrastructure to allow us to better manage and plan. Although we're able to do it with the spreadsheet on the system, it's still not electronic and easily flexible. Having an electronic caseload would be better, because we could—
