Evidence of meeting #36 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was files.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Thank you for coming back, both of you.
Walk me through this just so I understand. Right now, there's a file room, essentially, filled with files that are inventoried, that are just.... How long have they been there and why?
12:20 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Why they are there is that we have not been able to deal with the incoming complaints over the years.
When I started at the OIC in 2009, we had 2,500 files in the inventory. We were able to reduce the inventory until about 2011. We were down to 1,700. After that, we had a combination of budget cuts and a reduction overall. We had a reduction in staff and an increase in the number of complaints. Compounded, we ended up at 3,000.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Okay, but now what you're asking for is changes to an IT network that would help handle the traffic, from what I understand. Hiring the consultants, I would have thought.... I apologize for the tough questions, but I think it's important. I personally would have waited to see whether I got the money before I hired these people, and now you say it's incumbent upon the committee to keep these people around, or else you're going to have to let them go. It seems that there's a bit of a backwards logic in some of this. I'm still a little confused, so would you clarify some of it, if you don't mind?
12:25 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I really appreciate your question. It's a very fair question. What we have done is that we really have cash-managed; we do have a base budget, so that's what we've done. We've been extremely careful in the way we have hired people. We know that we are depending on the vote of the committee. When you hire consultants, they are not permanent employees, so we have the flexibility. That's why we have a higher component of consultants than we had originally planned for: because we didn't know and will not know until today what the result of the vote is going to be.
We have essentially cash-managed that money, so if the committee were to decide not to vote in favour of supplementary estimates (B), we would be able to continue our basic operation as usual. We would simply close fewer files, but we would not have difficulty in managing the decision in terms of people, if that's your question.
I appreciate your question. We had no choice, because the funding is approved for one fiscal year. Also, I understand that other committees are reviewing the estimates process and so on. This is a good example of why it's probably a good idea to do that.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
I'm still trying to draw the linkage between the IT network and how that plays. You've painted the consultants' vision very clearly and vividly in my mind. I'm anticipating that there's a plethora of consultants sitting around a TV wondering whether this is going to be approved or not so that they will know whether they will have jobs. However, if you can, tie it back to linkages between the IT network and help me to understand.
12:25 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
The IT component is very simple. It's really about more computers for the people who are working and to make sure that we could run the cable to a different floor and have the proper IT security around that. It's a very basic IT request. It's simply to accommodate additional people on a different floor and link them to our system.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
In the breakdown that you provided, then, of the $3 million, you have $1 million for personnel, $1.8 million for professional and special services—I'm assuming that's also consultants—$97,000 for rentals, and $121,000 for acquisition of machinery and equipment. If I'm looking at this without your explanation, I would assume that the $121,000 would be for the computers.
12:25 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes, that's correct.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
However, you're saying that the majority of this ask is for professional and special services, so a large part of it is the consultants. Okay.
What's the rentals component of it?
12:25 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
The rentals component was a portion of money in order to rent additional space. That's what it was. The OIC is at full capacity, so we don't have extra space. We have basically filled up every space available in our office—
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
I'm sorry to interrupt. I thought Elections Canada was providing space.
12:30 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Elections Canada is providing us further space at this moment. We will see how the $97,000 gets allocated in the end.
Do you want to answer that, Layla?
12:30 p.m.
Layla Michaud Acting Assistant Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Elections Canada is providing us with space, so we probably won't have to pay for the space they're providing to us, but because it was a vacant floor, there was some work to do in regard to the cubicles. We had to buy filing cabinets. We had to buy a few things in order for consultants to be able work there. We're using part of this $97,000—
12:30 p.m.
Acting Assistant Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
It seems odd that it would go under rentals, then, if it's actually for cubicle space.
If I could wrap up here, I anticipate you're probably.... I don't think we're anticipating an election any time soon, so I would imagine that the Elections Canada space is probably going to be available for at least the near future. Do you have a commitment from Elections Canada that the space is going to be yours until a certain time?
12:30 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
No. They've actually told us that it was until the end of this fiscal year. They also don't know what's going to happen in terms of electoral reform, so they don't know whether they're going to need to ramp up and whether they're going to need to use the space for training. They've provided us with the space until the end of the fiscal year, but we don't know after that.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
If you can get out of them what they expect on electoral reform, it would be great for us.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:30 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
No.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
That's true, Mr. Chair.
I have a question concerning the approximately $3 million requested to cover the cost of hiring additional employees. They have already been hired, but when were they hired exactly? Is the $3 million for 12 months, 10 months or 6 months? Which period is covered by this budget item?
12:30 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
It's only for the 2016-17 fiscal year, in other words, from April 1, 2016, to March 31, 2017. When we predicted the number of files, certain people were supposed to start working in May.
However, I should tell you that we were able to start immediately in May because we had carried out an anticipative hiring process. We had already held competitions for permanent and term employees. We were able to hire them quite quickly.
I've been in the public service and I've been the Commissioner for quite some time. I always work on the basis that good news is coming. My motto is “always be prepared.” I wanted to be prepared in case we obtained additional funding.
