Finance Committee on May 15th, 2006

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Again, on the money issue, I just don't understand how we can't know how the department is run. I had asked you previously whether you know ahead of time, before you start a certain process, whether it's going to take a week, two weeks, or 120 days.

My subsequent question was, where you have 25 people who are probably going to intervene in a case and you only find out just before you start that case--I don't want to put words in your mouth--how do you budget for that? How do you know what you're going to spend? We have no idea what you're spending on. Can we get percentages?

[Pierre Gosselin]

This is a dilemma, sir, because--

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

For you or for us?

[Pierre Gosselin]

For us, because we never know if....

We know, for instance, that if a case on corn is going to be filed, there will be a great deal of interest; a lot of people have already made their presence known at Canada Customs, because they do the first part of the case. So we can have an idea that this is going to be a big case, but we don't know with any degree of precision until they file a notice of appearance.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I understand that, but we could at least get some detail of what happened in the past. There are no numbers in your report here. We can't tell what is costing what.

[Pierre Gosselin]

We don't cost individual cases, sir.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

So how can we determine how the money is being spent?

[Pierre Gosselin]

We've been set up to receive every case that is filed. Whether this year we have 100 cases and next year we have 200 cases, we have to deal with all of those cases within the time limits provided. If that requires that people work overtime, that's what we do. The legislation doesn't allow us to be late. We are always on time.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

There's no additional staff hired, or subcontractors, or...?

[Pierre Gosselin]

Sometimes, yes. In those kinds of instances, if we have an unexpectedly large draw and we are doing a case for a particular department, we can ask for additional resources in those cases.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

If there are additional resources required or needed, where would we see that? We wouldn't see it anywhere?

[Pierre Gosselin]

We didn't ask for any, this year or last.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

But how do we know that the amount of money you need this year is what you need if we don't know what you spent it on last year?

[Pierre Gosselin]

We know exactly what we spent it on last year; you have the list of the cases we dealt with. We cannot adjust the number of employees we have by the number of cases we get--

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Is there any way we can get a breakdown of major categories? We don't need it by detail, but is there anything you can provide us with that has numbers in it, in terms of--

[Pierre Gosselin]

Could you give me the--

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

We're out of time for Mr. Pacetti's questions, but I'd like to follow up on his line of inquiry, if I could.

I'd like to give you an opportunity to elaborate on what the cost determinants are. You've talked about time. Perhaps you could repeat your earlier statements in terms of time.

Let's use the corn dumping case as an example. You began with a predetermined timeframe for that case to be investigated by your tribunal, is that correct?

[Pierre Gosselin]

That's correct. That's in the legislation. We have 120 days plus 15 days.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

You alluded in your answers to the difficulty of actually breaking down the costs, but surely we could deal here with what the relative determinants of those costs internally would be. For example, some cases would be more intense than others within that timeframe. I would suppose that one of the cost drivers would be the amount of staff hours required to deal with a particular case. Would that be so?

[Pierre Gosselin]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

So are there other determinants? Could you elaborate a little bit on those for Mr. Pacetti and for the committee?

[Pierre Gosselin]

One of the determinants we've had in the past and that has driven costs has been the size of the file. The file has to be provided to all the parties in a particular case, so a lot of reproduction costs are involved.

In the corn case, as an example, we had to use both of our hearing rooms. The number of people involved was too large for us to be able to use only one hearing room. We had to rent some additional electronic equipment so that there would both a video and audio feed in the other room. Those kinds of things are extraordinary expenses. By and large, however, the hearing room is provided for because it's already in our facilities. The staff is already there. We just assign more or fewer people to a particular case.

If we have the unfortunate circumstance of having a large number of large cases all happening at the same time, then maybe we'll be a little bit thinner on the ground on the research side or in some other aspects of the case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Madame Brunelle, s'il vous plaît.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Good afternoon. If you tell us that you need a budget increase of about 5 per cent because the cases are increasingly complex, I can understand. With globalization and emergent economies, such as China, I'm sure that you will have more and more work. In fact, it seems that we are reaching a period where the harm has been done. Let me take the example of the textile industry in my riding, where all the factories have been completely closed down.

Is there any visioning work done in the context of your job? Do you consider which will be the next industries to be targeted by safeguard measures? Are you able to assess that so that the Canadian economy can perhaps prepare itself accordingly?

[Pierre Gosselin]

You raise two points. First, we have not asked for an increase. The 5 per cent you see is to pay the costs associated with the collective agreement. This is not a real increase.

Second, we have a mandate to deal with cases. If we're not asked to conduct an investigation, we cannot undertake one on our own. Consequently, we have to be given a mandate to study certain matters.