Official Languages Committee on May 8th, 2014

[Graham Fraser]

Well, there is a risk-based audit process. There is a risk-based evaluation. There is a plan of internal audits over the next few years in which we decide—

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

The question is on how you.... For instance, we've instituted that throughout the public service of Canada, and it's a very, very good thing. How departments integrate that information into a process of continual improvement is quite another question. I'm curious to know how you do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Madam Bateman.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Oh.

Just quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Go ahead, Mr. Fraser.

[Graham Fraser]

It becomes part of our management process. We have senior managers who regularly appear with the audit and evaluation committee. When there are audits and evaluations, there is a management response. Those become integrated into our proceedings.

We've been very fortunate with the outside members who are part of our audit and evaluation committee. There's a kind of ongoing discussion. I treat them really as if they were my board of directors. There's an ongoing dialogue with those external experts; I found it almost a quarterly seminar on governance that was very valuable for me.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Chisu.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Fraser, Ms. Saikaley, and Ms. Lagacé, for being here. Thank you very much for your presentation.

I want to start with a very small question. In your presentation you explained that the office of the commissioner has a budget of $20.8 million to carry out its mandate. This amount includes $13 million in salary, or 62% of your budget.

So now when we are speaking about the activities, that is, protection of linguistic rights, promotion of linguistic duality, and internal services, when I'm doing the addition, taking out the services, I don't understand those numbers. Are you including the salaries, for example, in the protection of linguistic duality? What is the percentage of the salaries that are part of each of the three main programs that you are developing? On one side is this one of 62%, they are all salaries, and you have some programs to develop. How are you doing it? If you are adding the numbers, it's not matching somehow.

[Graham Fraser]

Yes, salary numbers are included. But when we start looking at specific activities, for example, one of the things we try to do in analyzing our numbers is to work out how much it actually costs to do an investigation. We calculated that it costs roughly $2,000 for a formal investigation and roughly $700 for an informal investigation. That is really just the time cost of the average length of time that an employee spends on that, so it's a calculation of that salary cost. That doesn't take into account the legal consultation that will take place with our legal people or the various other operational costs. So it can sometimes be difficult, for me at any rate, to sort through the figures.

I'll ask Madame Lagacé to give you a more detailed answer from the accountant's vantage point.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

I know a lot of innovative accounting and so on. I'm an engineer, so when I'm looking at the numbers, I would like to have some explanation for the numbers. It's nice to have percentages, it's nice to have numbers, but you need to see behind the numbers to know what is really going on.

[Graham Fraser]

Before I pass the microphone to Madame Lagacé, let me point out that I am neither an accountant nor an engineer. Thanks to Madame Lagacé's very careful management of our finances, we have had ten consecutive unreserved opinions from the Auditor General.

I will pass the microphone to the person who understands the numbers much better than I do.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

This is just to understand things; there's nothing wrong here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Madame Lagacé.

[Colette Lagacé]

We have a budget of approximately $20.8 million. Of that, $18 million goes to salaries and operations and $2 million covers employee benefits. The commissioner's office has no authority over that amount. It falls under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Board Secretariat, which handles collective bargaining. So we can't touch that $2 million. All we can do is collect it and put it in the superannuation fund.

Of the $18.6 million we manage on a daily basis, $13 million goes towards salaries and $5 million goes to operations. Further to Budget 2012 and in support of the government-wide effort, we committed money from that $5-million operating budget to fund an IM/IT project internally. We requested funding from the Treasury Board Secretariat but ultimately concluded that we should make an effort. So we funded the project internally. That leaves roughly $4 million to cover rent, telephone services and other expenditures reflected in our array of programs. If you add $6 million, $6 million and $7 million, you get about $18 million.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Nicholls, go ahead please.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner, you indicated that justice was a strategic priority. You published your study on access to justice about 9 months ago.

What reply did you receive from Minister of Justice Peter MacKay on that issue?

[Graham Fraser]

We received an informal reply. I had given him notice before the presentation of that study at the Canadian Bar Association in Saskatoon, last August. When we put some questions to him in Saskatoon he seemed to react in a positive way, but in a rather informal context of questions and answers in public.

Officially we have received no response nor indication that our recommendations are being followed or that an agreement was being worked on with the attorneys general of the provinces. And so we are still waiting for an official reply. We were only told that they were continuing to study the possible effects of our recommendations.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Do you know when the minister will provide an official reply?

[Graham Fraser]

I do not know.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you.

Out of curiosity, I would like to know how many employees you have in your office.

[Graham Fraser]

There are 170.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

You have 170 employees?

[Graham Fraser]

As I said, that can vary from one day to the next. It is often difficult to pin down a precise figure because there is always turnover. Some positions are not staffed, some people retire, and others are promoted. In any case, there are about 170 employees.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Since I am an MP it is easy for me to understand why you have such expenses. The MPs only have four or five employees in their offices. Certain members around this table spend $400,000 a year for a four-person office. So your figures are reasonable since you have 170 employees.

I'd like to get to your mandate of promotion of linguistic duality, which is nearly one third of your budget. My colleague Monsieur Godin mentioned Radio-Canada. We're very concerned about the CBC's cuts and the CBC's mandate also to help you promote linguistic duality. Monsieur Lacroix mentioned that the revenue shortfall might put the CBC's mandate in jeopardy and that there should be a national dialogue about this with Canadians.

Would you be willing to participate in that dialogue with Monsieur Lacroix to discuss the CBC's role in promoting linguistic duality?