THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, December 7, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day at 10:30 a.m. to continue its study on Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Statistics Act.
Senator Art Eggleton (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.
[English]
I am Art Eggleton, a senator from Toronto, chair of the committee, and I would like my colleagues to introduce themselves, starting on my right.
Senator Seidman: Good morning. Judith Seidman from Montreal, Quebec. I’m deputy chair of the committee.
Senator Poirier: Good morning. Rose-May Poirier from New Brunswick.
Senator Raine: Good morning. Nancy Greene Raine from B.C.
Senator Galvez: Good morning. Rosa Galvez from Quebec, replacing Senator Dean.
Senator Manning: Good morning. Fabian Manning, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Bernard: Wanda Thomas Bernard, Nova Scotia.
Senator Frum: Linda Frum, Ontario.
Senator Griffin: Diane Griffin, Prince Edward Island.
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy, from Nova Scotia.
Senator Petitclerc: Chantal Petitclerc, deputy chair, Quebec.
The Chair: We have been saying good morning to our guest, but it’s good afternoon for him in the United Kingdom.
Today we have an hour for the last segment of our witnesses with respect to Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Statistics Act. Following this session we will go to clause-by-clause.
With that, let me introduce our witness for today, who comes via video conference from the United Kingdom. I welcome John Pullinger, the U.K. National Statistician and Chief Executive of the U.K. Statistics Authority.
Welcome, we are ready for your opening comments.
John Pullinger, UK National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, UK Statistics Authority: It is a pleasure to be talking to you this morning. I can’t promise that you will have saved the best witness until last, but I will do my best.
I would like to start by saying that official statistics systems around the world follow a set of fundamental principles. I know some of your other witnesses have mentioned them, but I see them as a set of tests.
The first test is practical utility. There is no point in having statistics at all unless they are useful. I think that is the core thing. A key test for any kind of future arrangement is to ensure that utility really works. The way we are describing it in the U.K. now is that our role is to mobilize the power of data to help Britain make better decisions. It is all about getting our insights to the decision-making table.
The second test is one of trust. There is no point in having brilliant information if no one believes it, so there is a series of principles around professionalism, transparency, equality and confidentiality.
A third set of tests is around governance. I think that’s the core of what the committee is considering here: What are the institutional arrangements that can provide a guarantee to ensure both practical utility and trust? There are a bunch of elements to it. Legislation is one, but also the ability of the system to coordinate within the country. In both of our countries we have both a geographic aspect and a subject matter aspect to that.
Also core to these principles is the international dimension. We follow international standards and cooperate with our colleagues around the world to build strength together. These principles are universal and they have been adopted by the United Nations at its General Assembly meeting in 2014.
However, when you get to the national level, the key requirement is that they go with the grain of the institutional arrangements in each country. I don’t think it’s my place to advise you on how to legislate for Canada, save to say one thing: Throughout my professional career, which now spans over 37 years, Statistics Canada has always been a beacon of excellence among statistical agencies. Statistics Canada has always successfully balanced the twin requirements to deliver both relevance and trust, and this is a prize of immeasurable value to your country.
I won’t talk about Statistics Canada, but I will talk about the United Kingdom. Until 2007, we didn’t have a statistics act. Instead, we had specific legislation, for example, on the census or on business data collection and a whole series of administrative conventions.
It is also relevant to note that our system was fully decentralized. The Central Statistics Office, which was the National Statistics Institute at the time, at one point comprised fewer than 200 people, with distinct separate centres for business statistics and for population statistics. They were located in different line ministries, as well as statistical operations in most line ministries. That context is very different from yours. I have kind of outlined what happened leading up to where we are now.
During the 1980s, there were growing concerns about the quality and integrity of official statistics and several actions were taken.
The first was additional funding, particularly for economic statistics.
The second was a series of administrative mergers, quite actively looking at what happened in Canada, Australia and some other countries, that culminated in the creation of the Office for National Statistics in 1996, which is now the National Statistics Institute where I’m speaking to you from this morning.
The third set of actions was to establish the office as an executive agency of Treasury, so we’re still of the government system.
The fourth set of changes, which I think are quite interesting in terms of the way our legislation came about, was to see statistics very much as an essential part of government reform. The initial reforms were located alongside a series of transparency initiatives around open government and what the government of the day called the Citizen’s Charter on how the government would leave power in the hands of the citizens. Statistics were seen as integral to that set of initiatives.
The drive that created our current legislative framework came when the Labour government came in, in 1997, brought forward a package of constitutional reforms about how the country should be governed in the future. That included devolution to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. It included freedom of information legislation. It included some parliamentary reforms. It included independence of the Bank of England. Legislation for official statistics was seen as part of the constitutional package of government, and legislation on each of those elements came forward one after the other, after the other.
The problem with the U.K. solution around official statistics finally brought the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, which is what I’m going to talk to you about now, just to give you a sense of the key features because I think they are material to this discussion.
The first and most fundamental is the statement of purpose, which very clearly says that the purpose is to serve the public good. In particular, the public good means informing the people about the social and economic matters of the country and assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy. That was how we defined the universal requirement for practical utility.
The second element is the institutional framework. It established a board, with a chairman appointed by the Queen, and its purpose was to promote and safeguard the production and publication of statistics that serve the public good, as defined. The remit covers the whole United Kingdom, and there are specific provisions for the board to be accountable to each of the constituent parts of the union in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.
The third element, and this is where I come in, is that to fulfil its broad oversight duty the board has two executive functions: professional and regulatory. In legislative terms I sm the chief executive of the board and I sm required to have an executive office to enable me to carry out the board's professional functions. For practical purposes, the relationship between me and the board is akin to the relationship between a civil servant and the minister. I have the professional administrative duty specifically to deliver the statistics that serve the public good.
The fourth element I am sharing with you is what the act describes as monitoring and reporting. I believe this is unique to the United Kingdom, but I’m giving it to you so that you get a good sense of the framework. It comes up particularly because of some issues around loss of trust that we had in the past.
We have a director general of the Office for Statistics Regulation. He is responsible for the functions that include preparing, adopting and publishing a code of practice for statistics, assessing compliance with the code and reporting concerns. That office is having an increasingly high public profile in defining what good looks like, promoting the value of statistics, trustworthiness in statistics and quality of statistics, but also calling out bad practice. The act obviously provides for a clear separation of functions between the professional and regulatory roles.
The final part of what the act provides is residual ministerial responsibilities which rest with the Minister for the Cabinet Office. The staff are civil servants and therefore part of the executive branch of government. It has many practical benefits in our engagement with colleagues across the rest of the government system, including movement of staff.
In summary, statistical offices around the world follow a set of universal principles for relevance, trust and governance. The U.K. legislation reflects its unique history with a government structure designed to meet, within the U.K. institutional architecture, the two core tests of an effective system: relevance and trust.
I hope that has been useful. I’m very happy to take your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Pullinger. We appreciate your opening comments. They are most helpful in getting more of an international perspective. Up until now we have had domestic speakers but now we have you with us and that’s helpful.
As is traditional, I will go to the sponsor, the critic, two deputy chairs, and then others can get on the list.
Senator Cordy: Mr. Pullinger, your comments about what our citizens expect of chief statisticians is very relevant no matter what country you are in. In fact, we had a witness yesterday who spoke about trust and said, “Trust arrives on foot but leaves on horseback.” I think we can easily lose the trust of our population if we are not very careful. Thank you for reinforcing that.
There is a difference between the chief statistician in the U.K. compared to the one in Canada. In Canada, the chief statistician has a role comparable to that of a deputy minister but in fact reports directly to the minister. In the U.K., if I’m correct from the research that I did, you actually report directly to theU. K. Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
How do you do that reporting? In Canada it’s all through the minister who would make reports to Parliament and to the public. Do you give yearly reports? How do you give your reports to Parliament? You don’t do it through a minister.
Mr. Pullinger: The specific issue of reporting we do once a year. An annual report is deposited in each of the parliaments and assemblies of the U.K. That’s a very straightforward operation, but the broader question of governance underlies your question. We have introduced effectively three levels. The professional level is where I have the autonomy and the duty to establish the form, content and timing of any of our releases and take responsibility for all aspects of that. That’s the professional responsibility, which is not dissimilar to the responsibility of the statistician in Canada.
The extra bit of the U.K. architecture is the statistics board, which is established with a chair who is appointed by the Queen and a majority of non-executives. It is designed to be people who are of unimpeachable integrity so that their voices are systematically non-partisan and likely to generate trust across the rest of the population.
For practical purposes, they substitute for the minister in our structure, but still there is a line to the Minister for the Cabinet Office. The Minister for the Cabinet Office has some residual responsibilities for the most day-to-day purposes. If there is a parliamentary question, I do not respond directly to Parliament. I answer the question and they get a response from me signed “John Pullinger.” That goes through the Minister for the Cabinet Office to get to Parliament. For the appointment of non-executive directors, that is done through the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
In terms of a residual responsibility, the Minister for the Cabinet Office has an opportunity under the act. If there is a failure of the board, it is his right to direct the board on how to operate. That has always been seen as a nuclear option and the act gives very clear requirements on transparency of that. Transparency, I know, is a big theme of this bill.
Senator Cordy: Yes, it is.
Mr. Pullinger: It is not correct to say we report directly to Parliament. For most practical purposes we are still civil servants and we are still in the executive branch, so we kind of do both.
Senator Cordy: I am wondering about your board. In Canada, we have a number of advisory boards to the minister. Almost 200 Canadians are on these boards. These are provincial/territorial boards, so there is representation among those 200 people from all across the country, from all the provinces and territories.
You spoke of your board. I have a copy of the list of members of the board and membership of the committees. Do you have one advisory board? I wasn’t sure. I have the list where the chair is Sir David Norgrove. Is there one advisory board only, or is that the board that you report to? Do you have other advisory boards? How does it work in the U.K.?
Mr. Pullinger: That is the board I report to. It’s not dissimilar to a classic corporate structure. Sir David Norgrove is the chair of the board. I am the chief executive of the board and I have a series of executive bodies that work for me.
In governance terms the board has some subcommittees. It has a Regulation Committee, which deals with the regulatory side and has no executive members from the statistical professional side on it. It has an Audit and Risk Committee and a Remuneration Committee. It’s like a normal board structure.
In terms of subject matter committees, for which I know you have a sophisticated system, I set up advisory committees on topics where I feel I need to have a broader range of insight. As an example, I have the Consumer Prices Advisory Committee, the Crime Statistics Advisory Committee and the Data Ethics Advisory Committee. They are committees set up by me and they report to me.
When I found out that some of them had dual reports to ministers within our structure, I have tidied that up. I’m the professional head here so the advice is coming to me to help guide my professional judgments.
We have a broad range of stakeholders on each of those committees.
Senator Frum: Mr. Pullinger, thank you for joining us today. Last week we heard from the former Chief Statistician of Statistics Canada. He expressed reservations about the approach that Bill C-36, the legislation before us, takes toward the appointment of the position of Chief Statistician. He used the U.K. as an example for us to look at. He specifically referenced the fact that in the U.K. there is a level of parliamentary approval required for the appointment of the top position.
Could you shed some light on the process the U.K. uses to appoint point their National Statistician?
Mr. Pullinger: Yes. The act requires for me to be appointed by the Queen, so that puts that part above the political process. It goes through a standard public appointment route, but ultimately the authority comes from the Queen and I have a letter from her conferring the appointment on me.
My terms and conditions, including termination of my appointment, rests with the board. In practice the act doesn't certify this, but I am appointed for a term of five years at present and the act is silent on whether I am statutory or whether it’s renewable or not.
The correct legal answer to your question is that I am appointed by the Queen, which puts it above politics, but I’m appointed according to the terms and conditions set down by my board, which is separated, again, from any kind of political interference.
Senator Frum: Which body would recommend an individual to the Queen? How does that process happen that your name is put before her?
Mr. Pullinger: We have public appointments commissioners, an independent group that deals with public appointments in the U.K. I went through that process. There were seven different stages of it with different professional and administrative elements to it. The final panel that appointed me had a mix of people. There was the chair of my board. There was the chair of our audit and risk committee. There was the head of the civil service, the head of the treasury department and the civil service commissioner. They were the five people who were making that recommendation.
Senator Frum: There are very many degrees of separation between you and the cabinet, it sounds like. If one wants to create is an independent arm's-length relationship between the chief statistician and the parliamentary or the executive branch of government, you have many degrees of separation, certainly in terms of how you were selected.
Mr. Pullinger: Yes, I think so, but there wasn’t anything particularly special about mine. The appointment by the Queen is relatively unusual, but by no means unique. The appointment through the civil service commissioner is a relatively standard approach. Members of that board were set up by relatively standard patterns. I don’t think anything special has been done for the appointment of me, compared with the appointment of other senior chief executive bodies of public organizations. I couldn’t say that for definite. I wouldn’t want to overplay the separation point.
In terms of the specific point you made about parliamentary scrutiny I am not required to go to a parliamentary hearing before I can be appointed, but the chairman of the authority does. When Sir David Norgrove was appointed he appeared before a committee, and his appointment was not ratified until that committee reported.
Senator Frum: That’s very helpful.
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you so much for your presentation and for taking the time for us.
You have talked about all the different changes over the years to get to where you are now in the U.K. One of the things that we are trying to achieve with Bill C-36 is a higher level of independence for our Chief Statistician. From your perspective, is that something that has been achieved in the U.K.? Is it something that you feel is important, specifically in terms of methodology?
One of the objectives of the bill is that the Chief Statistician has a lot greater independence when it comes to methodology. How is the U.K. experience in that regard?
Mr. Pullinger: The U.K. experience in this regard is absolutely instrumental to the legislation that we have. We need to achieve two objectives, which to some extent are in conflict with each other.
If you have an abstract idea of complete independence, you are isolated. That is not a good thing but nonetheless you want to be independent. If you have a total idea of practical utility, you’re in the minister’s office every day because you are helping with the minister’s solution, but that would be unlikely to command full public trust that you are autonomous.
Yet we do need both. We need the ability to deliver something which is useful. Around the table is where it can be most useful. The government inevitably is a big element of that. You also need independence in order to be trusted.
The way we reconcile that is that I have complete autonomy in professional matters. I have the protection of my board, the protection of the legislation, and my appointment process so that the government cannot and cannot be seen to influence the way in which I am producing GDP, immigration, crime or whatever other statistics.
All I can say is that for the last 10 years I have certainly never felt under any pressure. I have never seen public comments that suggest I am somehow being subject to that pressure, so that means it’s a success.
At the same time, the fact that my office is still part of the civil service and still part of the executive branch enables us to very easily be in meetings with ministers and other civil servants so that we really understand the questions of the day. We make sure that our statistical service is targeted to those questions. That would be more difficult, possibly, if we were more separate.
With this legislation and with the customs and practices built up around it, we now successfully deliver both the independence required and the connection required to enable us to be useful.
Senator Seidman: Thank you, Mr. Pullinger, for your presentation. Your historical background that you provided us was really important, but I would like to try to understand something about that just a bit better.
Was there a specific event that spurred this push for independence and the transformation of the old office for national statistics to a non-ministerial department?
You said that it was established in 2007 following a Labour Party win in the election. I believe that is what you said, but I am wondering if there was a specific event or something that led to this transition.
Mr. Pullinger: An accumulation of events happened that meant all parties realized just how important in the constitutional democratic framework of the country it was to have information that was both reliable and trustworthy.
There are two specifics. There were concerns about the quality of the numbers accumulated during the 1980s, in particular toward the end of the 1980s when there was a very serious policy failing that was put down to not sufficiently good quality national accounts data. That led to more money and some of the administrative changes that would enable the statistics office to improve its quality.
At the same time there was quite a strong public discourse that the government was interfering with the numbers. Whether or not that was correct, it still had a corrosive effect on trusting the system. Most notable on that was the way in which changes to the administrative definition of unemployment was interpreted, with the government effectively trying to massage down this area of policy.
As a consequence of that, the conservative government of John Major in the 1990s really invested in statistics and positioned statistics as part of the kind of democratic reform, open government, the Citizen’s Charter, and those kinds of things. It was picked up and taken to another level.
A key part of this is that there was actually bipartisan support for this. That helped. Since the act has passed we have now been through several different complexions of government: a labour government, ta conservative/liberal coalition and now a conservative government. This framework has not been questioned by any of them.
Senator Seidman: Clearly you are putting forward a very positive experience with this framework. Could you help us understand what might be the major differences, specifics or mechanisms in the way you function as a non-ministerial department compared with what would be a ministerial department?
Mr. Pullinger: It’s difficult to think of what the counterfactual would be. All I can really describe is the experience I have had. I have quite a lot of discretion around the way in which we produce numbers and the comments I can make about numbers.
A very specific and contentious area is the area of prices. We have different measures of prices. I am trying to improve the utility of the framework of the price statistics we have, but inevitably some of the traditional uses are very well embedded in very significant issues like benefits, rail fares, and the sale of public debt where you are talking vast quantities of money.
The statements that I make do have significant consequences, but I think this act has set up a framework that enables me to make my professional viewpoint known and unfettered. I know I need to do that with care to show that I am not acting naively and unaware of the consequences, but equally those people responsible for decisions know I’m not trying to trespass on their territory by telling them what to do. We have this nice balancing act. It is not comfortable; it really is not comfortable. Often some of the dialogues are challenging of me and my office, but I have the protections that enable me to tell it as I see it and that’s the best we can expect.
Senator Manning: Thank you for your presence here with us. You made comments concerning the quality of the numbers in the 1980s, the public perception of those numbers, statistics in general, what people thought at the time, and whether there was government interference in the numbers or just a negative view of what was coming.
With the restructuring that you’ve done in the U.K. and the changes you have made, do have you any stats today or have you done anything in the not so distant past to get the perception of what the people in the U.K. think of the numbers you’re putting out there today versus what was coming out in the 1980s?
Mr. Pullinger: We have a periodic survey of public confidence in official statistics, which is kind of tricky because we have to commission another agency to do that. I think they would not trust us to do a survey on ourselves. Unfortunately, we’ve only been doing that since we’ve had this legislation to track how well we have done it. We know well enough from the public discourse that this was a problem. We can say now from the survey results that there is good public trust in the office and the statistics it produces.
The primary area of concern to me, which I don’t think Statistics Canada suffers from, is public recognition. Statistics Canada has a really clear public recognition among pretty much all Canadians from what I’ve seen from the available information. We do not have such high levels. It’s pretty good. It's especially good around census time.
Of those who know us, they trust us. We see that as one of our key metrics to sustain and keep pushing up. There is nothing particularly in this era where experts or people in our positions are always contested. There is this sort of dialogue around whether we have this new era of post-truth and fake news. All this is clearly a challenge for us.
You asked if we surveyed it. We do survey it. We don’t have enough of a time series to compare now with the 1980s, but I am confident it is stronger.
Senator Manning: You mentioned about the census. I know you may be familiar with how it’s done in Canada. Could you touch on how the process takes place in the U.K.? Is it similar to ours? Do you have the long-form census? Are people obligated to fill it out? Can you give us an idea of how it works in your country, please?
Mr. Pullinger: Yes, we are required to have a census at least every 10 years. It has been every 10 years apart from once in 1966 and in 1941 when we did not have one. The new Census Act requires us to do this. It is an obligatory requirement and there are penalties for not complying. We don’t have a short form or long form, by the way, as a specific distinction.
To get the census agreed we propose a set of questions. We research those questions and propose them. They are then put forward by the government to Parliament, and Parliament approves regulations which define the questions. We have the professional responsibility to propose them, but there is the opportunity for Parliament to amend.
They have not done so. The tradition has been that what we propose gets taken through. When areas such as ethnicity and religion were first introduced, there was a lot of contention about them. We invest a lot in the process ahead of time, working with parliamentary committees, working with parliamentarians, and preparing the way so that when the legislation comes forward we have a reasonable confidence that it’s going to be accepted.
Because the census is so closely associated with identity, our legislation gives a final role to Parliament to give us the authority to go out and compel the members of the public to complete this form.
Senator Raine: Thank you very much. It is very interesting.
What are the penalties if people do not comply with the obligatory compliance?
Mr. Pullinger: I did get some briefing on this. There are criminal penalties. Failure to provide information or providing false information are both criminal offences. Both have a maximum penalty of a level 3 fine, which is currently £1,000.
For the 2011 census, which is our most recent one, over 10,000 households were threatened with prosecution but only 400 cases proceeded to court. The threat of prosecution was a great deterrent in our context. Those are the specific numbers.
Senator Galvez: Being the chief statistician is a very technical appointment. You need to be a very strong math connoisseur. Because one of the issues is nominating the arm’s-length committee form of three people who choose a high-level mathematician, who has the qualities, criteria and background to be able to choose someone like you?
Mr. Pullinger: As I mentioned in answer to an earlier question, I had seven different elements to the appointment process. They were designed to put me through my paces in different respects.
Formally, the appointment is from the Queen, so that gives an independence. The committee that was part of my final selection panel, as I’ve mentioned, included the Civil Service Commissioner. This is the kind of independent head of public appointments. It included the chair of my board, who himself is appointed by the Queen to be independent. It included the chair of our Audit and Risk Committee, and she too is chosen for her independence of thought and of mind. It included the Cabinet Secretary, the head of the civil service, and the head of our Treasury department, two people who are very actively involved in the business of government.
There were a series of technical and psychological tests to put me through before I got there, including two academic professors to test on the statistical elements of it precisely.
Senator Galvez: Exactly. Out of the total, what percentage is political and what percentage is technical? You mentioned the Queen. I don’t think she will be able to assess your capacity and ability to run your models. Who are the people that judge your professional abilities?
Mr. Pullinger: In specific terms the statistical subpanel of my appointment process included two members of my board, two of the non-executive members, and one of them is a very eminent professor of mathematics who is currently the head of London University. The other was an eminent professor of geography and statistics at City University at the time. They were the two senior academic members of our board. They are people who have a very strong and balanced understanding, both of the theory and application of statistics. Their task was to assess each of the candidates on their professional abilities for the job.
The Chair: I will ask a question, unless somebody else would like to be put on the list.
We’ve heard about the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. Does that factor into your mandate or into the mandate of the UK Statistics Authority?
Mr. Pullinger: Yes, the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics are the kind of universal set that guides the framework for all of us. We are all members of the United Nations and that has now been adopted by the General Assembly as something that all countries follow. Certainly our legislation has quite carefully picked up each of the elements.
In my opening remarks I talked about the first test being about practical utility. In our legislation that is translated as serving the public good in some quite precise ways. The second set of tests is around trust. The questions you’ve raised today around independence relate to that. Also, professionalism, transparency and all of the different kinds of concepts like confidentiality are critical to maintain the public trust in what we do. The third test of these principles is about governance and having legislation that actually requires all of these tests to be met, including being part of a broader international community and coordinating our work with provinces or subject matter domains relevant to our countries.
That is a long answer to a question where really the answer is yes, we are part of a global system that draws on these UN fundamental principles.
Senator Raine: I have one other question. I am not sure if it’s a law or a convention in Canada, but our statistics are able to be made public 92 years after the fact. Do you have something like that in the U.K. for historical purposes?
Mr. Pullinger: Yes, for our census forms. When we send the census out we commit to not making anything public for 100 years. That is our convention. Having made that promise, we stick to it. Often when you get to a 90-something year you get a lot of genealogists saying, “We want this data. We want to see it. It will be good for our research,” but we have been very clear. We made a promise and we will keep it.
Senator Raine: If I could ask one more question, and that’s to do with advancing technology in terms of the hardware that you use.
How is that set up in the U.K.? In Canada we have a Shared Services hardware program or IT program. Do you have something similar? Who actually purchases and operates the hardware that you use to store and use the data?
Mr. Pullinger: Straightforwardly, we go for the best service we can get. In some areas we would want to draw on government infrastructure. In other areas we will procure our own. We have a pretty much mixed model. Mostly now we are procuring our own, but we would take a kind of very practical approach to that and make sure we get the best value and the best computing power. We need a lot of computing power here.
Not all of these things can you do in house, so it’s a practical question rather than anything else. I would want to be able to have confidence I can get whatever power. I’m very open minded as to how to get it and I will set up a framework to get the best value for the office, wherever that comes from. I am quite happy if that comes from the government and I am quite happy if it does not.
Senator Raine: In terms of selecting that capacity you have independence.
Mr. Pullinger: Yes. There is nothing specific there. There are some gateways, I guess is the way we would describe it, which are standards that apply across the public sector. The government digital service sets a series of standards. We need to demonstrate that but we would want to do that anyway. We want to comply with the best.
Being part of the government machine, certain things are mandated. We do follow that, but I don’t see that as a fettering of my discretion to get what I want. I see that as the ability to follow good practice.
Senator Seidman: I must admit that I rather like what I am hearing from you, Mr. Pullinger, about the way the U.K. has managed to balance relevance and trust and walk that fine line.
I want to ask you if you think this piece of current legislation is giving a kind of quasi-independence to the chief statistics officer but really lacking the true independence that the U.K. system might afford.
Mr. Pullinger: This is where parliamentary scrutiny really works because it’s understanding the political and environmental context in each country. On the idea of true independence, I would hesitate to use it myself. You have various requirements that need to be met. Independence doesn’t have a value in itself. Independence has a value in conferring trust, but it has potentially a negative value if it results in isolation.
The key tests are around utility and trust. You want to have something which is independence in the sense that it gives trust, but it’s not sitting on a planet on its own. We are connected to things and within an institutional framework. My staff are all civil servants. They are part of the government in that respect. I produce reports to parliament. Maybe we’re independent then. I have professional autonomy as to what I do so I am independent in that respect.
It’s just more complicated than saying there is a true independence or there is not. It’s not binary thing. Very honestly, it’s what works for your country that delivers this trust and relevance together. You are the committee that is current in working it out for Canada. I hesitated at the beginning to have any real wisdom to offer in that space. I want to try to describe as precisely as I can the tests we tried to follow when we did this for the U.K.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Pullinger. I appreciate your taking the time to talk to us and giving us your perspective as it is relevant to the U.K. That is helpful to us as we continue with our deliberations on Bill C-36. We wish you a good balance of the day.
We will proceed to the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Statistics Act. Is it agreed that the committee proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Statistics Act?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the title stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 1 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 2 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 3 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 4 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 5 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 6 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 7 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 8 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 9 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 10 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 11 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 12 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 13 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 14 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 15 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 16 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 17 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 18 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Griffin: I have a question about that.
The Chair: On clause 18?
Senator Griffin: Yes, on clause 18(2). The survey information can be released but only if the person to whom the information relates consents at the time of the census or survey to release of the information 92 years later.
I think we were told that people could subsequently opt in. Am I in the wrong place?
Shaila Anwar, Clerk of the Committee: Yes, it’s actually clause 10 on page 8. It is subsection 18.1(2) of the act.
The Chair: Your question is relevant to subsection 18.1(2) on page 8 of the bill.
Senator Griffin: It says it can be released:
. . . only if the person to whom the information relates consents, at the time of the census or survey, to the release of the information ninety-two years later.
We were given to understand during testimony that people had the option of subsequently asking for release of their information or approving release of their information. What I'm asking is: Does that preclude what we were told could happen?
The Chair: Do we have officials in the room that we can bring to the table, please?
Andrée Desaulniers, Senior Analyst, Information Management Division from Statistics Canada.
Andrée Desaulniers, Senior Analyst, Information Management Division, Statistics Canada: You are correct that the current legislation speaks to obtaining consent at the time of collection. We have been accepting, however, that people change their minds. People have been writing to Statistics Canada to change their “no” to a “yes.” We realize that children, for instance, at the time of collection probably had no say and will be contacting Statistics Canada in the future if they want to make it a “yes.”
The Chair: Do you have any further questions?
Senator Griffin: Then this is wrong. It should be fixed to reflect the reality. I like what she is doing. I am saying that is great but it’s not reflected here. I agree with what she’s saying, but it’s not correct here.
The Chair: You are saying that it is reflected in the practice but not in the law as it is set out here.
Ms. Desaulniers: That’s right.
Senator Griffin: I can’t move an amendment. I’m not a member of the committee and I’m not filling in for anyone today. I would like it if somebody else could fix this.
The Chair: It would also depend on how we fix it.
Senator Cordy: We could do an observation because it is practice.
The Chair: By the way, an amendment could be proposed at third reading of the bill in the Senate. I think it’s very difficult to do this ad hoc on the fly here. It needs to be checked out thoroughly.
Senator Griffin: Do you all see what I’m saying? The word “only” is in there. That is pretty strong.
The Chair: If you want to follow up on that, Senator Griffin, then you could move that at third reading.
Senator Griffin: It’s a very simple amendment, “or subsequently,” those two words.
The Chair: Things that may seem simple still should be reviewed by the Law Clerk. We shouldn’t be doing it on the fly. I would suggest that you pursue this and perhaps consider that at third reading, where you do have the ability to put an amendment.
Senator Raine: I am wondering if we could deal with this in an observation, requesting that consideration be given to finding the best way of recouping the missing statistical information or the historical opportunity.
Senator Griffin: It is a different matter.
Senator Petitclerc: It is a different matter.
Senator Griffin: This is to fix the legislation to put “but only” or “if the person subsequently.”
The Chair: She’s trying to get the legislation to reflect what the practice is, so an observation would not really cover that.
Senator Manning: I agree. I wouldn’t want to try to do something here today that may affect some other piece of the legislation we’re talking about here. You need to run it by the Law Clerk to ensure that making an amendment to this particular section doesn’t affect some other section of the bill.
I think third reading is your best bet.
Senator Frum: You can have an observation when we get there and you can also do your amendment. It’s just belts and suspenders.
The Chair: You could do that. You could observe that you feel that this is out of line with the practice and then consider it on third reading after you’ve checked with the Law Clerk.
Senator Griffin: Thank you, I appreciate that.
The Chair: We have actually passed clause 18. We don’t need to reopen is what I think we’ve come to. We’ve done clause 18, which is the last clause, not to be confused with this 18. That is 18 in the act and clause 18 is the one that comes at the end on page 11.
We have now finished clause by clause, and we now come to the next question. We are going back to the title that we postponed until we finish this.
Shall the title carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried. Does the committee wish to consider appending observations to the report?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: There are no amendments to the bill. Shall the bill carry?
Senator Frum: Chair, if I may. I would like to propose an observation to the bill. I was going to do this as an amendment.
The Chair: I’m supposed to ask the question: Do we do this in camera or in public?
Senator Frum: I am happy to do it in public.
The Chair: Is it agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carry on.
Senator Frum: I would like to propose to the committee that we attach an observation to deal with the selection process of the Chief Statistician. We did hear a fair amount of testimony on the subject, including our most recent witness, Mr. Pullinger, who spoke about having a seven-layered approval process.
I have drafted an observation, which the clerk has in English and French. As it’s being distributed perhaps I can read it while you’re receiving it, or would you like to wait until you have?
The Chair: Go ahead.
Senator Frum: The proposed observation would read as follows:
During the committee’s hearings on Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Statistics Act, many witnesses expressed concern regarding the appointment process the Chief Statistician. These concerns included the term of the Chief Statistician being renewable, the lack of Parliamentary approval and the absence of a search committee. Therefore, the committee urges the government to consider using tools including Executive Search Committees or Parliamentary approval to ensure the Chief Statistician is a non-partisan appointment who is independent from the government.
My thinking is that we did hear from the former Chief Statistician Wayne Smith who said in his testimony that where Bill C-36 failed, and critically so, was in the process of selection of the Chief Statistician. Bill C-36 sets down no provisions, no requirements for the selection process itself. This is somewhat surprising from this government, given that when it was in opposition it tabled a private member's bill that featured a clearly prescribed process for the selection of the Chief Statistician as a key element in instituting his or her professional independence.
We heard yesterday from Mel Cappe, former Clerk of the Privy Council, that once you introduce this idea of a renewable term you contradict or you undermine the principle of independence, and renewability and independence are in conflict with each other. We also heard from Philip Cross, another witness, that political neutrality is essential to the fulfilment of the role of Chief Statistician.
This is a recommendation to the government. It doesn’t bind them to do anything but it expresses much of the testimony that we heard.
Senator Cordy: I think this is a good observation. It’s better as an observation than an amendment just because if it’s in law then it ties the hands of the minister. This observation makes it clear to the minister we heard testimony that there may be other tools to use. On the other hand, if there is succession planning in place it may not be necessary; but it’s a reminder to the minister to use good advice from people before hiring the Chief Statistician. I think this is a good observation.
Senator Omidvar: I too think this is a good observation. I have a question around parliamentary approval. I forget their exact names, but we did hear in witness testimony from some other people that the Chief Statistician is not an officer of Parliament, so asking for parliamentary approval would impact on their status in government. They are like an Assistant Deputy Minister, I understand. It’s only officers of Parliament that require parliamentary approval.
I am wondering what your reasoning is for including that term without then going further and saying it should be an officer of Parliament.
Senator Frum: I think two things. We did hear from the witness a moment ago, Mr. Pullinger, National Statistician in the U.K., that while his appointment does not require parliamentary approval, the appointment of the chair of the board of the U.K. statistics board does require Parliament approval.
I don’t think it’s written in stone that only officers of Parliament can be subject to parliamentary approval and nobody else. If the stated goal of this bill is to increase independence, I think what we learned in the case of the U.K., as I say, is that they have seven layers of process before they appoint somebody. It’s extremely arm’s length.
This bill, in my opinion, doesn’t actually achieve what it claims to want to achieve, which is to make greater separation between the minister of industry, the cabinet and a chief statistician. One of the ways you could ensure that is to have parliamentary approval. They are already renaming the position. It’s a minor change. I don’t think it’s a meaningful change between being a deputy minister reporting to the minister and now he is the Deputy Minister of Statistics Canada. There is a status change in the legislation. It has no meaning.
There is no reason why you can’t have parliamentary approval of a position that is intended to be non-partisan and independent.
Senator Seidman: Based on everything we’ve heard I would be very supportive of this observation. Again, it’s an observation so we’re reminding the minister that there are lots of options in the toolbox including, by the way, parliamentary approval. We’re not saying you have to do this. That concept itself evokes a certain approach to this role which is worth pointing out.
I would indeed be supportive of this observation.
The Chair: On the observation I have no further speakers, so let me put the question. Is the observation agreed to?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Are there any other observations?
Senator Petitclerc: I have an observation. Should I read it first or after the explanation?
The Chair: You can go ahead. Meanwhile, it can be passed out.
Senator Petitclerc: I hope it doesn’t add confusion to what we were discussing a little earlier in the bill. My observation really has to do with many of the witnesses and questions from Senator Griffin about the lost data gap. It’s simply to ask the Chief Statistician of Canada to try to explore options to see how we could get the data back. That’s really all this is about.
I did not want to be too specific on how I feel that it should be done. We have been discussing with some people, including some of the witnesses, that maybe it should even be a question in the next census: would you agree or something like that.
I didn’t want to be specific on that because I don’t think it is our place to do that. I wanted to emphasize what we heard from many witnesses. I believe we realize that the lost data has not only a huge impact on historians but also some very practical effect and impact on lives, like Senator Griffin highlighted yesterday.
Shall I read it?
The Chair: Could you read it? I want to make sure everybody viewing understands what your motion is.
Senator Petitclerc: It reads:
Inconsideration of the proposed legislative change, that removes the consent requirement for the release of census records to Library and Archives Canada after 92 years, the committee calls the Chief Statistician of Canada to explore all options to encourage Canadians to consent to the release information for the 2006, 2011 and 2016 censuses and national householder surveys. Statistics Canada should, before the upcoming census, highlight to Canadians the historical value of census records for future generations.
Senator Cordy: Thank you for that observation. It’s clear that we heard over and over again about the data lost from 2006, 2011, and 2016 because of the box on the form for ticking. In addition, any box that was not ticked either “yes” or “no” was presumed to be a “no,” and this data is gone.
This observation allows the department to look at all options, and I think it’s important not to be prescriptive in how we do it. This is an excellent observation. We heard over and over and over again about the lost data.
Senator Raine: I am not sure about the wording. In French, you said “pour le recensement de ces années” and, in English, it’s “to the release information.” I think it needs to say, “release of information.”
Senator Petitclerc: You are right, yes, absolutely.
The Chair: “Release of information.”
Senator Petitclerc: “Of information.” You’re right.
The Chair: Is there anything else on this?
Senator Seidman: Yes. Again, it’s another grammatical thing that might help. In the third line: “The committee calls upon the Chief Statistician of Canada.”
Senator Petitclerc: Absolutely.
The Chair: I am sorry, where is that?
Senator Seidman: The third line should be: “The committee calls upon the Chief Statistician.”
The Chair: “Upon,” yes. Also, the comma in the first line should be removed after the word “change.” That doesn’t fit in there.
Senator Frum: I want to confirm that when we passed the bill you did hear me say that it was on division? Did you record that?
The Chair: No, I didn’t hear any “on division.”
Senator Frum: I did say it.
The Chair: It will be recorded as on division.
Ms. Anwar: For when? On the bill carrying?
Senator Frum: Yes.
The Chair: Is there anything else on the amendments to the observation?
Taking out the comma after the word “change” in the first line; inserting the word “upon” in the third line, “calls upon the Chief Statistician,” and in the fourth line, “release of information,” with those changes is the observation agreed to?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried. Are there any other observations?
Senator Griffin: For a third observation we need to go back to the section dealing with disclosure and consent to make the point that what is indicated in the draft legislation is different from the practice that is being carried out currently by Statistics Canada and with which I fully agree they should be doing.
The Chair: What is the wording of your observation?
Senator Griffin: That’s a good point.
Senator Cordy: Maybe something like currently in practice, the Chief Statistician or the department. I don’t know what to say. Go ahead; you’re better at this than I am.
Sonya Norris, Analyst, Library of Parliament: “The committee also wishes to call attention to new section 18.1(2), which indicates that consent can only be given at the time of the survey, which seems to not agree with current practice.”
The Chair: I would point out that ultimately the steering committee will have to approve the final wording of all of this. That’s our normal practice, just to make sure it’s all captured correctly. Let me ask whether that’s agreeable.
Senator Cordy: Should we say that the committee agrees that current practice is preferred?
Senator Griffin: That’s very positive.
Senator Cordy: Leave what you have, but then say it. I think we are saying it, but we also want to make sure it’s noted that we agree with the current practice. Would that be okay?
Senator Griffin: That’s a very good point, because we don’t want them to stop doing that current practice.
The Chair: So, that's agreed? Agreed, and the wording is subject to the final scrutiny of the steering committee.
Are there any other observations? Seeing none, I will now say: Is it agreed that I report this bill, with observations, to the Senate? Is that agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Agreed. I didn’t hear the words “on division” this time.
Senator Frum: Full and total agreement.
The Chair: That is agreed to and that will happen. We don’t have any other business.
(The committee adjourned.)