Evidence of meeting #15 for Veterans Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ontario.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
When you were at DND, the 2,500, was there similar...?
Conservative
Conservative
Ombudsman of Ontario
The budget was between $5 million and $6 million. I believe it was $5.5 million.
Conservative
Conservative
Ombudsman of Ontario
The Ontario ombudsman's office has been around for 30 years, and it's developed a very sophisticated triage method. As well, you have to remember that in Ontario, because our field of oversight is so broad, people call and complain about a lot of small issues. For the military, usually for someone to come to our old office there had to be something serious, whereas here in Ontario we'll get complaints about someone who had qualified not receiving their driver's licence, and then we oversee the driver's licence.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
So the complexity was substantially different with DND, and no doubt will be with Veterans Affairs as well.
Deputy Ombudsman, Director of Operations, Ombudsman Ontario
The other aspect to add, if I might, is that when you're dealing with the complaints for DND and CF, they're coming from across Canada, and you need to have regional representation, as would likely a veterans ombudsman to some extent as well, whereas in our office in Ontario, because we're in the province, there is a certain economy and efficiency there as well.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
That makes sense.
Since you have the powers to subpoena as well as to investigate, do you have specialists for investigation?
Ombudsman of Ontario
Yes, we have a special unit in our office called the special ombudsman response team; we call it the SORT. It's a small administrative unit to conduct field investigations. Mr. Jones, the director of SORT, is here this afternoon.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
They would have a forensic-level capability?
Ombudsman of Ontario
Yes.
You know what really consumed a lot of our resources at the military ombudsman's office? It was constantly fighting with the brass because we didn't have the tools to do the job. We'd make a request for documents, put in an ATI. “Well, we don't respond to ATI. I don't know about that; send it to JAG.” JAG comes back.... That's what I'm saying: if you're going to do this right, give this ombudsman the tools to do the job. You'll find you can do it a lot more cheaply, rather than having to butt heads with military lawyers all day long, which is what we have had to do far too much.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
You mentioned six out of the pile that you systemically investigated. It seems like a small number. However, you have elucidated the fact that there are a lot of minor issues, or at least ones you can clear up more quickly in Ontario. Is that a restriction because of budget or priority?
Ombudsman of Ontario
No. It's my decision as ombudsman. It's not in statute. It's self-imposed, but we pick really big ones.
We just conducted an investigation of property assessment in Ontario. There are 4.4 million properties in Ontario, representing trillions of dollars. Our intervention created a freeze on property assessments in Ontario. So those six ones are six big ones. There are lotteries. We're investigating the Lottery Corporation. It brought in $1.25 billion last year.
So we picked the six ones that would have the maximum impact on the population.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
One of the things that really interested me was when you mentioned that on a number of occasions--or maybe it was only the one, but I'd like to know if there were a number--you, in your capacity as an ombudsman, were able to intervene in cases of class action suits, and they were actually dropped.
Ombudsman of Ontario
Yes. I'll give you one example from my former job. We investigated the treatment of--
November 1st, 2006 / 4:40 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
And will you tell me the total number after? I'm just being notified that I have run out of time, so can you give me an idea about the number?
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Can you tell me the number of times that a class action suit would have been eliminated because of your investigation?
Ombudsman of Ontario
Yes. It's hard to say, because sometimes there have been individual lawsuits that were also dropped.
In my former employment as military ombudsman, I was involved in a case in which the Suffield guinea pigs--the ones who were sprayed with mustard gas during World War II--had been fighting the government for 50 years. They launched a class action lawsuit, and when we initiated our investigation and wrapped it up, they dropped the lawsuit, which was a huge lawsuit involving lots of money--millions and millions of dollars--in Federal Court. Again, it demonstrated the value of the intervention of an ombudsman's office.