Public Accounts Committee on April 8th, 2008

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lussier and Mr. Côté.

We'll have Mr. Lake for four minutes.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I want to follow up, if I could, on Mr. Sweet's line of questioning regarding what gets charged to departments versus what gets charged to the Department of Justice.

You were talking about departments paying for related costs, such as accommodation and support staff and computers. I'm just curious, though. You were referring to costs for access to lawyers. Can you clarify whether some of those costs are also paid for by departments?

[John Sims]

Yes, in some instances they would pay for agents. They would be paying for some of that $25 million to $30 million that is being spent on agents.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

There is $25 million or $30 million spent on agents. So you can say, then, that on top of the justice department budget, there's $25 million or $30 million spent on lawyers only, on top of what's within the justice department budget. Or is there more than that?

[John Sims]

I'm sorry, what was the last part of your question?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

In terms of what's actually spent on lawyers by departments or by anybody within government, obviously most of it would fall within the Department of Justice budget. What amount of money would the federal government spend on lawyers that doesn't fall within the justice department budget?

[John Sims]

I don't know. I'll try to find out for you. I think we know, but....

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I guess that's the point. You should be able to tell us that, because from my understanding, you would know when your lawyers are being used, and I think that's the crux of the matter for us. Any of us would expect that if any department would have a systematic approach to these things, it would be a department filled with lawyers, I would think. Maybe I'm assuming too much.

When you come before our committee and we hear that your expenses doubled between 1998 and 2005, we should be able to get a precise accounting for that. We would expect to get a precise accounting of where that came from, not sort of a general, well, you know, we're a more litigious society. That really doesn't cut it. We would expect more accounting.

[John Sims]

Let me try it this way. We know exactly how much money is spent on lawyers in the Department of Justice. I think we know exactly how much money is spent on agents, and we know that because it's the Minister of Justice and the Department of Justice that retains every agent, even if it's being done on behalf of another department. We see all the bills that come in. Every year there is an ATIP request that asks the department about the total amount of money spent on agents, and we know. But where that actually appears in the accounts for the department, I don't know as I'm sitting here right now. I'll find out for you.

But we know exactly how much money is being spent on justice department lawyers and on legal agents. We know that. It's $25 million to $35 million, and it's $600 million in the RPP this year.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

It's $630 million in total.

[John Sims]

We're now making a difference between lawyers and other expenses in the RPP.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I'm asking specifically about lawyers. Obviously that would be the bulk of your expenses. I'm talking about legal expenses.

Your terminology tells a lot in itself. You use the terminology “we think we know”. In my view, you should know you know. In most Canadians' view, they would expect you to know that you know what the amounts are.

[John Sims]

I do know, but I don't have it at my fingertips. How much money we're spending on lawyers is in the RPP.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

If you could produce that for us that would be great.

I want to move on to paragraph 5.66.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Is there an undertaking here that they will produce it?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

They're going to produce an accounting for the costs spent on lawyers, whether they're paid for by the Department of Justice or other departments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mike, you're out of time.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I'll finish on paragraph 5.66, because I'd like an explanation of this.

We found the department had taken some steps since 1993--and I know this has been talked about a little--to improve collection of detailed timekeeping. The department informed us it introduced the timekeeping in 1996, so it took three years to introduce it. By 2003 timekeeping was used by most counsel, although not consistently. That's seven more years, so that's ten years in total. It took until 2006 for you to make it mandatory. With three more years, that's thirteen years.

I would like an explanation as to why it could possibly take that long to come up with these answers. I'm wondering what we should expect from this most recent report in terms of action. I'm hoping it won't take three years just to start introducing preliminary steps and then ten more years to complete the process.

I'd like an answer if I could.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You can answer very briefly.

[John Sims]

All lawyers have been on timekeeping since December 2006. I don't know what happened between 1993, 1996, and 2003. We're working actively to implement a very good report by the Auditor General. We have action plans and we're at work on that now. We're going as fast as we can to implement these kinds of reports, as I've indicated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Sims.

Mr. Christopherson, for four minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I thought for a minute Mr. Lake was going to get into a Rumsfeld explanation of knowns and unknowns and unknown unknowns.

To wrap up, as I've time for one question, could you help me understand the lack of a human resources strategy? Given the four years I've been on this committee, more and more one of the important elements of managing complex, especially professional staff who are specialized is a human resources strategy, particularly where there's competition elsewhere for them. We know there are growing pressures on legal services. We also know there are a lot of specialized legal services in government.

I'm not hitting hard. I'm going to ask the question and sit back, sir, and let you answer. I'm having trouble understanding how you could have gone so long. I know you're working on it, and it's not that, but how did we get to the point where a department like this, with all the issues I've just mentioned, could go so long without a human resources strategy, given that the individual skills of your employees is your product? I don't know how you managed over the last 15 or 20 years without one. Could you help me understand that at a practical level? How could a department as important as yours go so long without a human resources strategy?

[John Sims]

We have a human resources strategy. It's sitting here on the table in front of me. It covers three years. We have priorities and active plans--

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm sorry, when was that brought forward?

[John Sims]

In July 2007.