Information & Ethics Committee on May 10th, 2016

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Blaikie, go ahead, for up to seven minutes, please.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much. I'll continue with some questions for the lobbying commissioner to start.

There has been some discussion at this table about potentially combining the offices of the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner, but there has also been chatter about the virtues of combining the offices of the lobbying commissioner and the Conflict of Interest Commissioner. I think you just mentioned that you do the one side and not the other. Do you think that there would be financial advantages to doing that, and do you think there would be policy implementation advantages to having that office look at both those who are doing the lobbying and those who are on the receiving end of it?

[Karen Shepherd]

Thank you.

First of all, the offices were together, and they were separated after a court case found institutional bias happening between the two offices because the same individual on charge was found to be responsible for both the Conflict of Interest Act and the code of conduct for lobbyists. As a result, they were separated.

I think the two acts deal with very different groups in terms of what they're looking at. On the Lobbying Act side, about 300 people, from public office holders to lobbyists, are actually subject to the act, but that said, there is overlap in some things. Where the two universes overlap—with members of Parliament, for example, or ministers—there could perhaps be some synergies in having MOUs in place that would allow for joint interpretation bulletins, for example, and possibly concurrent investigations, without joining the two offices. I could see synergies in that universe.

I think, as my colleague said with regard to joining access to information with privacy, that aside from that comment on institutional bias, you lose two very strong advocates for both sides of the legislation. When you're thinking about Canadians having confidence in the integrity of government decision-making, the more advocates there are who are ensuring these things, the better.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

I wanted to ask the Information Commissioner about the interim directive that has been issued by the President of the Treasury Board.

There are two aspects of it that I would think might have different kinds of effects for your office. One is expanding the number of institutions, expanding access provisions to ministers' offices, which may generate more complaints. The other aspect is giving you the power to order release of certain information.

In terms of that interim directive, do you have a sense of whether, on balance, it is going to create more work for your office—as this is applied to more things and is perhaps therefore likely to generate more complaints—versus the ability to maybe dispense with certain things more quickly with that power?

[Suzanne Legault]

If I am not mistaken, I think you are referring to the interim directive that Minister Brison discussed last week. That actually dealt with the elimination of fees aside from the $5 fee, so that is great news—

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Pardon me; I am talking about his commitment to bring in a kind of first-step legislation before having a more comprehensive legislative framework change in the future.

[Suzanne Legault]

My understanding is that the changes that are being put forward in terms of a first cut at legislative proposals are in the mandate letters. My understanding is also that Minister Brison has suggested there could be additional significant improvements as part of the first package. This committee is reviewing this matter and is going to make recommendations to the government. The government has also started consultations.

In terms of what the landscape of the proposed legislation would be, I am not privy to this information at this point. There are many actors who are going to have a voice in this, including Canadians. This is first.

Second, I would hope that if there is a proposal to amend the act, there would be consultation with my office in terms of the financial implications, and that it would be brought forward at the same time as proposed legislation makes its way through cabinet. That would be the regular process.

I am hoping that we would be involved in that process and that there would be consideration of the financial impact, not just on my office but also on institutions. If the administration of Parliament, for instance—as is one of the proposals—becomes subject to access to information requests, there has to be an analysis of the cost for the administration of Parliament as well. All of these things will have to be factored into the cabinet process.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

The Treasury Board press release about the interim directive says:

the Government will table legislation to implement the rest of its commitments as outlined in the President of the Treasury Board's mandate letter. The Act will be extended to apply appropriately to the Prime Minister's and Minister's offices; it will give the Information Commissioner the power to order the release of documents...

That is the government's announced intention. There hasn't been any consultation with you, so far, in terms of what the cost implications of doing that would be.

[Suzanne Legault]

Not yet.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

There is nothing in the current estimates that would indicate the government is preparing to better resource your office to deal with whatever change in workload might accrue from these changes in the legislation.

[Suzanne Legault]

Not at this time, because the legislative changes or legislative proposals are not fixed.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

What would you say would make sense as a consultation timeline, if you are trying to appreciate what the cost implications will be for your office? Suppose legislation was going to be tabled in mid-fall, around September or October; should that consultation be starting now, or can it happen at the end of August? Is it just a matter of throwing some numbers together?

When would you expect to be contacted in order to be able to give a meaningful response on the cost implications?

[Suzanne Legault]

I would hope to be consulted as soon as a proposal for specific legislative changes to the act begins making its way through cabinet for approval. Until then, it is not possible for us to make any kind of estimate.

I can tell you that we have consulted with the Ontario office, which functions with an order-making model. They are similar size in terms of the workload that comes in. That is useful for us, because we have also looked at the way they are structured, what their adjudicative function looks like, and what the cost is for that office. If I remember correctly, their full budget is $15 million, roughly speaking. That is what I remember.

Because a lot of the work in an adjudicative model gets done at the outset, which is very similar to what is going on now, a lot of it—in fact, most of it—actually gets resolved before adjudication, which is exactly where you want to be.

That is why we have been spending efforts on mediation. We had someone from the Ontario office do specific training for our office on interest-based mediation.

We are developing these tools, which are useful in our current context and will be useful if the government moves to an order-making model. At this point, assessing the cost is really not possible until we see...nor would it be possible for the institutions that would perhaps be governed by the act now and not before. It is the same—

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Okay. Thank you very much.

We turn now to Mr. Saini for seven minutes.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much for coming here. It's always a pleasure.

Ms. Shepherd, in your 2016-17 planning and priorities report, you note that, and I quote, “The integrity and accessibility of the Registry of Lobbyists has been identified as a corporate risk area.”

Can you elaborate on what this means and what steps your office intends to put in place in order to deal with this risk?

[Karen Shepherd]

The registry is my prime tool for ensuring transparency of lobbying activities.

As I said, when my budget was cut in 2012, I took the 5% cut with the registry and put it into maintenance mode. This is not sustainable in the long term. I need to be investing in development of the registry.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks and as René was talking about as well in terms of finding efficiencies, we moved the registry to my colleagues, to a different infrastructure and a more modern software platform.

This will allow us to do essential maintenance in terms of doing a review of the source codes. What's needed now is to ensure that the technology that is in the registry can be supported. The source codes and so on, as I understand, that were in there... The same people are no longer supporting it. We need to update the system, and that's why this year, when I looked at the priorities we were talking about in December, money was specifically reallocated that we were going to be investing in the registry this year.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

What have been some of the consequences of not being able to invest?

[Karen Shepherd]

Well, when I made the decision, we had a very strong and robust system, so we've been able to continue. People have been able to register, and we've been able to make sure that the system is functioning. There haven't been major downtimes or anything.

The concern, though, is when you're trying to improve the user experience. We haven't been able to invest in some of those developments. For example, when the senior reporting officer of an organization or a corporation changes, the lobbyist is required to report to our office about any individual who has changed so the registry can be updated. This is something that they submit to us, and our office has to do it, but if we could invest in development to allow the lobbyist to actually go in and make that change themselves that is required by the act, my office would then verify the change as opposed to having to do it. Efficiencies would be gained and there would be an easier experience for the user that way.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madame Legault, coming back to the issue of order-making powers, do you think that order-making powers would have a financial impact on your department? How would that happen, and what are the recommendations that you feel would have a possible financial impact on your department?

[Suzanne Legault]

I think that it would have financial implications. I think we are starting from a situation in which we're already underfunded. We need to deal with the 3,000 complaints, to a certain extent. That reality remains, whatever model that we're going to be....

As I said, we need to see the actual specific recommendations in the legislation to see what it's going to mean. There have been discussions about the Newfoundland model, about the Quebec model, and about the Ontario and the B.C. models. All of these models are different.

There will be a necessity to do a financial analysis of the implications of any proposed legislative changes, but at this stage I don't know what's going to be proposed by parliamentarians, so it's very difficult for me to do any kind of an assessment.

I think there needs to be a shift within the organization in order to provide for an adjudicative function similar to the way it works in other provinces. Ontario and B.C. are mostly the models that I think are better models. You have some adjudicators, but it would be very similar to what we have now. There is an intake, mediation, quicker resolution on simpler cases, and then there is almost like a funnel that goes from most of the cases and then trickles down to the most serious and difficult and contentious cases that go to adjudication. It's very similar to what happens now. In terms of how much more money would be required, as opposed to reallocation, we don't know yet.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Also, in your 2016-17 planning and priorities report, you note that OIC will introduce an online complaint form in 2016-17. This will make it easier for complainants to submit the material and save time at the beginning of the investigation process.

What kind of financial impact do you think this will have on the department?

[Suzanne Legault]

We're hoping it's going to have no financial impact, in the sense that we just hope it's going to facilitate the experience of our complainants when they interact with our office.

The main efficiency there for us is that an online complaint form could actually be integrated to our case management system, so we would actually gain efficiencies in inputting the data from the complaint form, such as the section of the act, complainant, addresses, department, file numbers, and so on, so that this tombstone data can be integrated as the online form comes in. That would be very helpful for us.

Over 2,000 complaints came in last year, but we also got about 600 inquiries, as well. The intake unit manages quite a bit of traffic coming into the office.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I have one last quick question. If I look at your total inventory at year end and if you start from 2009-10, it's been pretty stable, give or take 5% or 10%. However, there was an almost 40% spike from 2014-15 to 2015-16. Why is that?

[Suzanne Legault]

There was a very significant increase in the total number of requests across the system during that period of time. In the last three years I think we've seen something like a 57% increase overall in the number of requests being made to the system. The complaints have gone up at the same time.

I've been asked this question many times. I have seen no specific reason for the increase. It could simply be people being more aware of their rights under the act. We've talked a lot about open government. It could be that there wasn't enough transparency. People made more access requests because of that. It's not possible to know.

What we have seen is there was an increase in requests coming from the members of the public. Members of the public are about 47% of our complainants, as well, at this time. There is a correlation with what's going on in the system and what's going on in our complaints.

I was very pleased over the first few years of my mandate to see that we were actually making a dent in the inventory. We started at 2,500 and went down to 1,700. Since then we've had a double whammy. We had a cut in resources—we have 13 fewer people than we did at that time—and an increase in volume of 30% to 40% over that same period of time.

Unfortunately, we're really where I didn't want to go when I started my mandate, but at least we know that what we were doing was working, in terms of diminishing the inventory. That's good news. Hopefully we'll be able to make some dent in that 3,000 under our current resource level if we don't experience another spike in complaints.