Information & Ethics committee  The line has flattened, if I can put it that way. Issues of the day can cause it to go back up. It seems to have flattened. We have that under some control. Our early resolution process is starting to show real benefits, but we have no control over what comes in the door and what causes it to come in the door.

Information & Ethics committee  That's the only split we didn't come with. It's 70%--it's down to 64% with the reductions--for what you would call operations, which would include management.

Information & Ethics committee  That's correct. The budget was not cut, and we asked for additional funding. We got less than we requested after going through the Treasury Board Secretariat process and the advisory panel.

Information & Ethics committee  If we do not get these supplementary estimates, the original budget will go into position and be minus five investigators. But that's not a cut from this year. That was a sunset provision put on those when granted in 2005-06.

Information & Ethics committee  No. The costing of this submission in the A-base review is based on the existing statute, the existing mandate. We did have a discussion with Treasury Board at one point about mandate creep on some of the issues, but we resolved those. No, it is based on the statute as it sits.

Information & Ethics committee  No, we didn't do the A-base study, but in terms of the impact of the legislative amendment proposals that I've made, we've looked at them as low, high, medium, and for the education mandate we came out with high in terms of the cost, the base increase, if you like, to our budget, but not to the system.

Information & Ethics committee  Your annual voted amount is your A-base. Every year you re-challenge it. It's kind of like going to zero budget. Normally, going forward, you should be able to defend A-base. Anything above that has to be justified. We had not gone through one in the OIC for several years, but cyclically organizations will go right back to zero.

Information & Ethics committee  I can't speak for other organizations. I can tell you that if it were part of a larger fiscal restraint measure such as 5% off the top for everybody, or targeted elements such as travel across the organization, I'd have fewer issues with it. But no, it's a specific component that we had for advocacy and for systemic issues that was withdrawn from approval.

Information & Ethics committee  As I said to my colleague, it's hard for us to go to Sparks Street and bleed right now, because we got 24 FTEs out of 30. Those will considerably enhance our program delivery. The fact that systemic issues were treated in the fashion they were causes me concern. I'm willing to have the dialogue.

Information & Ethics committee  That was the main objective of the comprehensive review we conducted. The review forms the basis of this submission. For example, in the past, we expected investigators to be able to handle about 45 files per year. Now we are looking at an efficiency rate that will increase that number to 60 per year.

Information & Ethics committee  For investigations of specific, individual complaints, I am reasonably hopeful that we will have the necessary resources to make sure that, not only do we process them better, but also, to some extent, the clients' satisfaction level is acceptable. We are reluctant to set deadlines, whether they be ten, six or four months, because we have to consider the complexity of each case.

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chair, I am not sure I understood the question. Are you asking whether it would be preferable to use contractors rather than permanent staff for our work?

Information & Ethics committee  We are. We had no other choice but to use contracting as a way to deal with the backlog. But our human resources strategy was to eliminate contracting and to train qualified staff, especially in legal matters. In the longer term, that staff will be a better resource for the government in access to information matters.

Information & Ethics committee  It's a business model that we developed in-house, but with the assistance, as I said, of IBM as the A-base review consultant. It was the platform, if you like, on which we based our submission to Treasury Board. I can say that in terms of the Treasury Board Secretariat performing its challenge function, as it should do and do well, it was very well received and supported as the platform for justification of the supplementary resources.

Information & Ethics committee  In 2005-2006 we voted extra moneys for extra investigators to deal with the backlog, and that was to sunset this year. It was on a sunset timeline. The A-base review looked at that. And now what is being proposed will carry us forward in terms of meeting our program mandate. If Parliament does not vote the supplementary estimates (A) at this juncture in this fiscal year, I will have no choice but to go into aggressive cash management to stay within the vote.