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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Karen Shepherd  Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
René Leblanc  Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

11 a.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault

We will start right away. I would ask the media representatives with cameras to leave the room, please.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), which deals with the main estimates, we are going to study vote 45 today. I call vote 45 under Treasury Board. I am going to give Ms. Shepherd 10 minutes for her presentation.

Ms. Borg, do you have a point of order?

11 a.m.

NDP

Charmaine Borg NDP Terrebonne—Blainville, QC

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just before we start the meeting, I have a suggestion. Since, unfortunately, I won't be able to be here for the second part of the meeting, could we study my motion on Thursday?

11 a.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault

So you want us to discuss your motion on Thursday, this week?

11 a.m.

NDP

Charmaine Borg NDP Terrebonne—Blainville, QC

Is there a consensus among the members of the committee?

11 a.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault

The motion has to do with perimeter security. The hon. member would like us to debate it on Thursday. Does the committee agree?

11 a.m.

Conservative

Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON

Can I just move that we go in camera for a brief discussion on this, Mr. Chairman?

I move that we go in camera.

11 a.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault

I have a motion for the committee to go in camera and this motion is not debatable. We will have a recorded vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4. [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Since the motion is agreed to, we are going to suspend the sitting to give people a chance to leave the room.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

11:08 a.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault

We are back to the public meeting. I will continue from where I left off.

I call vote 45 under Treasury Board.

I am going to give Ms. Shepherd, the Commissioner of Lobbying, 10 minutes to make her presentation.

May 1st, 2012 / 11:08 a.m.

Karen Shepherd Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Congratulations, Mr. Chair, for your election as chair.

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the main estimates. As you will note from my presentation, I am running a very lean operation, while delivering on my mandate.

I would also like to take the opportunity to highlight some of my accomplishments, and to outline my priorities for this fiscal year.

I am accompanied this morning by Monsieur René Leblanc, deputy commissioner.

Since my office was created, I have made my operations more effective within the restraints of my limited budget. After three and a half years, the OCL is a lean but efficient operation which allows me to be effective at delivering on my mandate as outlined in the Lobbying Act.

The annual operating budget for my office is approximately $4.6 million, including the contribution to the employee benefit plan. I employ a staff of 28.

Our funding has remained constant since the office was first established. However, due to the cost containment measures included in budget 2010, like all federal institutions, I have absorbed the growth and salary costs from collective bargaining and other increases. This has put pressure on my budget, particularly on my salary envelope.

Now let me turn to what I consider to be the core of my business for ensuring transparency: the registry of lobbyists. Currently, there are more than 5,000 registered lobbyists and information on about 3,000 active registrations. These figures have remained fairly stable since 2008. A budget of approximately $1.1 million, including salaries for six full-time staff, is dedicated to maintaining the registry, providing guidance and technical support to registrants, and responding to inquiries.

In the last few years I have focused on streamlining registration processes to make it easier for lobbyists to comply with the act. The time it takes to process a registration has been reduced from more than 20 days to three days.

New system features were also implemented to facilitate access to the information in the registry. System failures and downtime are an extremely rare occurrence, and a rigorous data assurance program has been put in place to further strengthen data integrity.

This year, my priority is to upgrade key features of the system, focusing in particular on search and reporting capabilities. This will make it easier for users interested in mining the wealth of information that exists in the Registry.

Let me now turn to outreach and education, which is a key component of my mandate. The Lobbying Act is a complex piece of legislation and the time and resources I invest in outreach is essential to fostering a culture of compliance. I allocate approximately 20% of my annual budget to public education activities, including salaries for 7 full-time staff.

Regularly, I reach out to a broad range of people, focusing especially on lobbyists and public office holders. Many of these contacts are face-to-face but, in the last year, we have renewed our presence on the web. This is the most effective and economical tool for public education.

The OCL website was redesigned to make it easier to find relevant information. Both the website and the Registry of Lobbyists were made fully compliant with the accessibility guidelines.

They are now more accessible to people with disabilities. This year, I want to build on that success. I plan to take a more strategic and long-term approach to assessing and meeting the needs of all stakeholders.

I would now like to turn to my office's compliance function.

Review and investigation activities absorb roughly 25% of my budget, including salaries for the equivalent of nine full-time employees. The number of administrative reviews I close is now keeping pace with the number I open. Since I became commissioner, I have completed a total of eight reports on investigations, five of which were tabled in Parliament in 2011-2012. More are coming. I have also referred several files to the RCMP, although no charges have been laid.

When I became commissioner on July 2, 2008, I inherited an inventory of 40 administrative review files and six investigation files. Thirteen of the original 40 administrative reviews remain in my caseload and all six investigations have been dealt with. Since becoming commissioner, I have initiated 79 administrative review files and completed 78.

In the coming year, I plan to improve my office’s approach to case management and further refine the way investigative work is prioritized. I have made progress on this front, but more can be done.

With respect to internal services, I have no choice but to acquire the majority of the expertise from other organizations. The service arrangements I have put in place are working well. They provide me with the broad range of expertise I need to meet my accountabilities as deputy head and they are cost effective.

Since I became commissioner, I have focused on ensuring that I provide value for money. Setting up effective corporate functions takes time. The first internal audit in my office's history was completed this March, covering the key internal controls over financial reporting. Planning is now under way to establish a program evaluation function and an audit of the lobbyist registration system is planned for this year.

These activities are critical to my ability to offer further evidence of both the effectiveness of our programs and the adequacy of my internal operations. They will also help me identify where further efficiencies can be made.

In July 2011, agents of Parliament were encouraged to adhere to the spirit and intent of the government's strategic and operating review exercise. Like the rest of my colleagues, I committed to undertake a review of my office's operations and present the results to this committee, and that has been done. In view of the exceptional situation, but also in the spirit of good management, I undertook a review of my office.

In my letter of last December to the Speaker of the House and copied to the President of the Treasury Board, I indicated that I was operating a lean and efficient operation, and that I did not have any money to give up. I nevertheless proposed that if the government decided to reduce my budget by 5%, I would absorb this budget reduction by deferring the development of new technology features in the registry of lobbyists. This proposal was accepted and announced in the last budget, and will take effect in April 2013.

Registered lobbyists may not be pleased about my deferring improvements on some aspects of the system. However, in my opinion this is the least risky approach to avoid compromising the system's integrity. I want to ensure that critical work gets done in order for lobbyists to comply with the act and Canadians to know who is lobbying the federal government.

In order to reduce the cost of maintaining the lobbyist registration system, I indicated that I would explore the possibility of hiring assistant specialists to reduce the current dependency on consultants. Essential maintenance work will continue to be performed on the registration system to ensure that downtime and system failure are kept to a minimum.

The strategic and operating review experience clearly indicated that I'm running a very lean and efficient operation. In order to ensure that I can operate within my budget allocation, I will continue to re-evaluate the demands being placed on my organization and make difficult decisions, as required, to ensure that I can deliver on my mandate as Commissioner of Lobbying and head of this organization.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my remarks. I look forward to answering any questions you and the committee members may have.

11:15 a.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault

Thank you.

I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Angus.

11:15 a.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Thank you.

It's excellent to have you before our committee again. I was very struck that in your statement you used the word “lean” on four separate occasions. That's a pretty strong word. You talk about pressure on your budget and not having any money to give up because it would compromise the integrity of your work.

Yesterday the Public Service Alliance released a statement saying there would be job cuts in your office. Is that true?

11:20 a.m.

Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

Karen Shepherd

Yes. When I said in my opening remarks that I'm running a very lean operation, that's true. To live within my budget I had to acquire competencies that I did not have on staff. I needed to strengthen my capacity in financial analysis and program evaluation. In order to do that, with my salary envelope being at capacity and diminishing discretionary income, I had to eliminate two positions so that I could hire the competencies I needed. So at the end of the day I will still have 28 FTEs, but I did have to make the difficult decision to cut.

11:20 a.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Given the importance of your work and the importance of protecting the public interest, are we being penny-wise and pound foolish in that we're seeing in such a lean operation, in such a key role, that you had to lay off staff at a time when we're expecting accountability and transparency at all levels of government?

11:20 a.m.

Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

Karen Shepherd

I eliminated the two positions because I felt I needed to restructure within my organization to deliver on the pressures that are being placed on a small organization in terms of my accountabilities.

11:20 a.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

You say cases have been referred to the RCMP and they haven't acted on any of them. I believe that 11 cases have been referred to the RCMP and we've had zero results from them.

Do you believe it's important for you to be able to have administrative monetary penalties and follow through on investigations, even if the RCMP have taken the files?

11:20 a.m.

Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

Karen Shepherd

The short answer is yes. As I said during the legislative review, I think it is very important for me to have administrative monetary penalties so that I can have some continuum in putting the right penalty with the degree of breach that actually occurs.

Right now, what I can do and have done is that after the RCMP has decided not to proceed, I have looked at the case when it has come back to me and determined whether I had sufficient grounds to continue with a Lobbyists' Code of Conduct investigation. The evidence is the reports I've been tabling to Parliament.

11:20 a.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

It seems to me it would be more efficient to be able to continue on. The RCMP simply don't act, and we don't know why. The Conservatives wouldn't allow us to hear their testimony.

We heard from the other commissioners, particularly Elizabeth Denham from British Columbia. On the imposition of administrative monetary penalties, she said that lobbyists suddenly took their registration much more seriously and registrations increased significantly.

Do you believe that if you had the power to administer penalties to people who weren't complying it would put more pressure on your registration process?

11:20 a.m.

Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

Karen Shepherd

As far as increased registration, the system is such that we can handle it. Just in terms of tabling reports to Parliament, after I tabled the four reports on the five lobbyists, a number of calls came from individuals wanting to make sure they could comply with the legislation. So the system can handle increased registration, if that occurs.

11:20 a.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Thank you.

Of course, in our review of the Lobbying Act we recognized that the vast majority of lobbyists are working within the rules and that some who may not be aware fully of the rules are not necessarily out to.... You could assist them.

But there are people for whom it would be in their interest. For example, there's Bruce Carson, who was pitching a project worth $250 million. So if you got 10%, that's $25 million, and the only penalty you would face was having to write an essay. It would be worth his while to fly beneath the radar.

I mention Mr. Carson because he was able to secure three meetings between the company he was representing and officials at Aboriginal Affairs, and it also appears that this company was given the inside track on funding dollars before any other company was made aware.

Given the fact that people like him will be flying under the radar because of the financial interest and the payoff, do you think there's a responsibility on designated public office holders like, for example, Minister John Duncan, to say which kind of meetings are being set up so we know that if, on the one hand, Conservative Party insiders are undermining the system, there's at least a way to catch these guys?

11:25 a.m.

Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

Karen Shepherd

One of the things I'm doing in my mandate on education is that when I'm talking to public office holders I do make them aware of what the requirements of the act are so that they can act accordingly.

11:25 a.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

It seems that the issue of education is really important. We have Mr. Paradis who didn't seem to know that he was way out of line in setting up meetings. We see the same with Mr. Duncan. He didn't seem to be aware. It seems that members of the Conservative cabinet don't really know what the rules are. Would it be helpful for them if they had to get some kind of remedial lessons on this?

11:25 a.m.

Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

Karen Shepherd

As part of my education mandate, I'm talking to all public office holders and designated public office holders.

11:25 a.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Thank you.

A final question for you is on the issue of liability because you play a really important role, and if you take on a non-registered lobbyist or a registered lobbyist who breaks the rules and you wanted to bring in administrative monetary penalties, they could possibly sue you. That would be, to me, a bizarre cost to the government to have to defend. Do you believe that you should be immune from those kinds of counterattacks, so that you're not impeded in any way in your work?

11:25 a.m.

Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

Karen Shepherd

I've asked for the liability provisions as part of my recommendations, but all of my decisions, including I think having AMPs, would be judicially reviewable. So I would have to look at that.

11:25 a.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Thank you very much.