Evidence of meeting #37 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was year.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
This is a document that was prepared by the Library of Parliament. It's not the main estimates.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Yes, it is.
Okay. I just want you to explain the expenditure between the budgetary vote as well the non-budgetary vote.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
You're looking at the 2013-14 numbers?
Okay, the 2013-14 numbers—I don't know these numbers. These numbers are not familiar to me. I don't know where they come from, but I can explain to you the difference in the amounts between 2013-14 and 2014-15. There's a significant decrease and that's because we moved in 2013-14. That's the difference in those numbers, but they're not the main estimates numbers, as far as I can gather.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Okay. That's fine.
We've been here before, obviously. We've been talking about the terrible strain on your office and the ability to function with all the information coming in, and so on and so forth. There are other jurisdictions around the world that seem to be current in the way they deal with information. You spoke about that quite a bit.
In the budget implementation act there's obviously nothing available for you to be up to par, we'll say, in what you hope to do. One of the policies that I've always believed in is open by default, but it seems to be very difficult here because of the lack of funds you're receiving. Is that correct?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Those are two things.
The funding of my office—it's just a reality. There are 2,300 files. The budget is $11 million, including employee benefits. Just do a bit of a comparative exercise with the number of files that we have to deal with. That's the issue with the budget at the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada. We're not talking about 50 files; we're talking about 2,300 files and more are coming in every year in the same amount.
That's the reality of the OIC. That's what happens in terms of protecting Canadians' rights of access.
Open by default has to be embedded in government policy whereby the government would take the approach that they would foster an open-by-default type of exercise and that has a lot of ramifications. It has ramifications in terms of, when you create documents, whether you create them with principles of access by design, for instance, which was developed by my colleague in Ontario, or whether when you create your document you're mindful, particularly with databases, of the personal information that's embedded in those databases, and things like that.
That's a different issue from the budget of my office.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
When you approached the Treasury Board what was their reaction to what you just explained about how it's difficult for you, given the resources you have?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Everybody at the Treasury Board Secretariat who has looked at our numbers agrees that we cannot, even if we were superwoman and had 90 super people, which we do but they cannot be more super than they are now. There are just so many files people can close. That's the bottom line and everybody's quite aware of it.
We have done all the resource allocations, all the efficiencies. We have imparted all the services we can. We beg all the time for people to lend us services and share their services. We have done all these exercises and we have done all the efficiencies. We can maybe muster a bit more in efficiencies, but it's not going to allow us to close 2,000 files.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Thank you, ma'am. We could have this conversation all day but I have other guests here too.
Ms. Dawson, would it be correct to say that you've had 149 confidential rulings since 2007?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
I'm not sure what...that would be the number of files that I did not pursue into an examination. Is that what you're talking about?
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
The fact that there have been private rulings on matters pertaining to members of Parliament or public office holders in general.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
We get requests for advice every day and I said there are 4,000 of them, so I'm not sure....
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
How many violations have you had since 2007?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
We have those numbers but I think we found they're in the order of perhaps between 20 and 30.
Do you have those numbers there?
Lyne Robinson-Dalpé Director, Advisory and Compliance, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
It depends if we're looking at monetary penalties or—
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
I'm sorry I thought you were talking about investigations. You're talking about monetary penalties.
It took us a few years, as I was saying, to get the investigations up and running because there hadn't been such a thing when my office was first established. We have had how many? Have you got them there, Lyne?
Director, Advisory and Compliance, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
We have had about 39 violations.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
In terms of he funding of the registry that was started in April, you spoke earlier about the amount of money that was required to do that. How much money was required to do that?
Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
The total investment was $240,000.
Liberal
Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
We used our internal reserve, because from within the budget that the commissioner gets every year there's an amount that is set aside for that type of investment. We actually were able to fund it internally, but from this pot, a reserve that we set aside every year.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you, Mr. Simms. Your time is up.
I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Maguire for seven minutes.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I have some questions. First, I want to thank you for your presentations. This is the first time I've had an opportunity to be on this committee and I welcome everyone here today. I had some queries as I heard your presentations and I had a few questions I'd like to ask Ms. Dawson as well.
It comes from some of the things my colleague, Ms. Davidson, started out asking in regard to the number of staff you have and some of those areas as well. I believe that the advisory and compliance area is the largest division, and it's about one-third of the staff. Is it 15, 16, or 20 people?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
It's 17, so it's closer to 15 than 20.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Thank you.
I just wondered what the division was like in regard to that. Your other four areas are named here as well and it's proportionately smaller numbers in each of those. I assume this is the largest one, as you say.
You've indicated that you have a number of advisers as well who provide you with information. Can you give me some background on what an adviser is or...?