National Defence Committee on Feb. 26th, 2024

[Harriet Solloway]

Without commenting on the reason why—because I haven't done a full analysis—I will say there's no question that our office has been seeing a consistently increasing caseload. I stand to be corrected, but I believe we are approximately 50% over last year, and I believe the year before there was an increase.

With regard to budgets, our office has not had an increase in its budget since it was established in 2007. I had been in the job two weeks at the time that we had to submit a budget request. We did make some very modest requests for an increase in the budget for the coming budget year, primarily because our IT system is about to collapse. We are now taking stock of where we are and what we need with a view to looking at how we can best be structured to increase efficiencies and identify resources that we're going to need going forward based on this strong trend analysis we've done.

We have a concern that I know other agents of Parliament share, but in our case, it's quite acute. We do have a concern for the budgets going forward.

I don't know whether that responds to your question.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you for that response.

Madam Mathyssen, you have six minutes, please.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you.

You haven't had an increase since 2007. That's horrific. You said your IT system is about to collapse. Can you go into more detail?

[Harriet Solloway]

Up until several months ago—and Brian has the institutional memory here—our IT services were contracted out. Now we've moved towards an in-house capability. We have two people in-house, and they're keeping the system together for now. We've already requested equipment, which we were able to do in this budget year, so we expect that quite shortly we'll be upgraded.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

You want to keep that in-house going forward.

[Harriet Solloway]

At this point we have to keep it in-house for a whole host of reasons that I won't go into but are in our budget submission. If you would like me to expand, I can.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I would assume that it's because it's also more affordable.

[Harriet Solloway]

It's more affordable. It's more secure. For a number of reasons, yes, it is more affordable and secure.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

This is for both commissioners.

Throughout this study, we've heard a lot about the differences among the officers of Parliament and between being a commissioner and being an ombudsman. We just heard from the ombudsman. I'm particularly interested in the independence of those offices.

Could you talk to us more about that independence and about how the independence of your roles as commissioners allows you to do what you do? Can you comment on the importance of extending that role, maybe, to the role of an ombudsman?

[Caroline Maynard]

It's interesting, because I was at the MGERC in 2011 and the issues are the same. I was listening to Mr. Vihar Joshi, and they haven't changed that much. It's the same thing for the ombudsman.

As agents of Parliament, the good news is that we are reporting to Parliament. We are completely independent. The resource issue is the only thing that really affects us. It really has an impact on whether or not we have the resources to fulfill our mandate. Apart from that, I am investigating the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board. We are reporting to Parliament the results of our investigations.

Without the proper resources and the proper mechanisms to get the resources, it is impacting our ability to do more. About 87% of my budget is salary. I'm like Commissioner Solloway: I have an IT team that's super small. We can't go to the cloud. We can't do things that other big departments can do quickly. I want to do more investigations. I want to reduce my timelines. I want to be more efficient with the mandate that I've been given. We have to make choices on where the money is going to go. Those are difficult.

I'm sure that reporting to a minister as an ombudsman is not the same thing. When you have decisions being made by a department, you're responsible for that. We have a completely separate mandate.

[Harriet Solloway]

I would like to add to that. Because both of our organizations are so small—I don't mean to speak on your behalf—one of the challenges we have is contingency funding. That's for either sharp increases or sharp bumps that may or may not be sustained; for complex cases that may arise out of the ordinary; or for cases where there may be a need to finance or fund legal services for a judicial review.

These are things that are hard to budget for. We have to keep money aside for them in case they happen, which impedes us from using the money operationally on a day-to-day basis. We have to be prepared for any eventuality.

When you're in a larger organization, you can move things around a more easily. It's a bit challenging for us. Otherwise, I absolutely concur with my colleague.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

In a meeting on this study, the deputy minister said that digitization was a large fix for this problem. Would you agree with that? Are you seeing that happen satisfactorily in the departments?

[Caroline Maynard]

Allison, do you want to respond to electronic digitalization?

[Allison Knight, Senior Director of Investigations, Priority Cases, Historical and Intelligence, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada]

Sure.

It's certainly one piece of the puzzle. I wouldn't say the majority of the cases are impacted by a digitization problem. That largely goes to historical records that are still on paper. It's not like the military is working on paper today. If you're looking for contemporary records, I don't think that is the main barrier to the timeliness issue.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

How much time I do have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have 30 seconds.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'll wait. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Colleagues, we're supposed to rise at 1:06, I'm told. We do not have time for 25 minutes' worth of questions. I'll take a minute off Mr. Bezan's question and keep on going.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank both witnesses for being here.

Commissioner Maynard, you gave us very compelling testimony today. How many departments other than National Defence have you been forced to take to court?

[Caroline Maynard]

There was only one. It was the TMC.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Was it just one case?

[Caroline Maynard]

Yes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

In the time that you've been commissioner, since 2018 or before, how many times have you had to do this?

[Caroline Maynard]

First of all, the authority to issue orders only started in 2019. It took us about a year or two to start having files where we issued orders. We're seeing an increasing number of orders. This year I have issued 298 or something like that.

Most of the time, institutions are complying, or they go to court to contest the orders. The act does allow that. In three cases now, two against National Defence and one against TMC, I've had to issue an order or ask for a mandamus to force the institution to respect the order.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

You also said that this is undermining your authority and undermining the Access to Information Act. For a government that says they are going to bring in more transparency, what's your take on this? Are they doing this because they're trying to cover up information? Is it embarrassing? Why would we be in the situation where an officer of Parliament is forcing ministers to go to court?