Evidence of meeting #57 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 investigations.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
That's when we get a request in or information in that looks like maybe there's something we should be starting an examination or an inquiry on.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Would it not be true with the compliance work? That's front end heavy, I would expect. You have 200 new office holders; everyone files disclosure reports. Presumably, there's a peak of work—
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Yes.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
—and then there's a lot less work over the ensuing three years.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
It's front end heavy, particularly after an election, but in fact, we have annual reviews of the material that's sent in. We have over 2,000, I think it is—a big number—requests that we get every year that aren't related to their filing of their documents at the beginning. There is turnover of staff like you wouldn't believe, both in the ministers' offices and other places, but primarily at the political level.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Not to cut you off, but 2,000.... I'm just trying to get the bulk of it. So, we have 45 case files—that's a small slice of it. We have compliance at the outset when members are first elected. You said there are over 2,000 requests for members asking about compliance issues?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Yes, they ask, “Can I receive this gift?” or “Can I take that outside activity?” or “Can I do this, that, and the other thing?”
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Of the $5.8 million that's spent on salaries, how many people are employed?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
In my whole office?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
There are 50 in my office. The compliance unit is 18 people.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Eighteen people. Is there a sense of how long these compliance requests take? I've experienced this, and it takes quite a lot of time.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Yes.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Yet, it looks like there are a lot of resources to get these done in a pretty short period of time. Perhaps you could speak to those 18 people who deal with those 2,000 requests, and then perhaps you could speak to the remainder of the employees in the office and what they're busy doing. I understand the 45 case files and the 2,000 requests, and I want to get a better picture of the resources deployed.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
All right. The 2,000 annual requests, plus the initial disclosure of documentation and putting it on the website and all that, that's the compliance unit; that's 18 people. I hate to use the term “investigations” because people are confused by that term, but when the examinations and the inquiries, when we're actually conducting a case.... There are usually four or five a year that we complete, if that—that's a good year. There's all the investigation involved in that, which uses up a lot of time. We have four lawyers and three investigators. The lawyers occupy themselves, as well, with other things, but primarily with the investigative work. There are seven people there.
Then we have the communications policy and outreach, where we have seven people. It's not their primary occupation, but a very busy occupation is answering media calls. We're very careful to answer the media calls as quickly as we can, plus public calls—the public calls in quite often. These are also the people who put the notices up on the website and do our general information, and they work up various policy options for things. That's that group.
Then there's the corporate group. There are about....
Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
There are 11 people.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
They look after the various corporate activities that have to be looked after.
Then there's another group.
Director, Corporate Management, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Yes, your office.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Oh, my office. How could I forget them? We manage stuff.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I have one last question. Just doing the math, with about 2,000 requests and 18 people, that's approximately 110 requests per person. However, some of these requests are simply, “Can I accept this gift?” So how long could that consideration take?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Yes.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
It seems as though they could do a lot more work, based upon the resources you have.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
That's only incidental work, in a sense. Their main work is working on how people are going to comply with the act with their initial compliance submissions. That usually takes months—or not usually, but very frequently. If there are people who own a lot of property or something such as that, sometimes it takes a fair bit of working through. Then there's the management of setting up trusts and things for people with controlled assets, all that stuff.
When I talk about the 2,000 things, those are extrinsic to the regular day-to-day work.