Report on Annual Expenditures for Travel, Hospitality and Conferences for the year ending March 31, 2012

As required by the Treasury Board Directive for the Management of Expenditures on Travel, Hospitality and Conferences, this report provides information on the total annual expenditures for each of travel, hospitality and conferences for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012.

This information is updated annually and does not contain information withheld under the Access to Information Act or the Privacy Act.

Expenditures on travel, hospitality and conferences incurred by federal departments and agencies are related to supporting departmental mandate(s) and the government's priorities.

In particular, for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, this includes the delivery of the following core programs and/or services to Canadians:

• The mandate of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) is overseeing compliance with both the Privacy Act, which covers the personal information-handling practices of federal government departments and agencies, and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act(PIPEDA), Canada’s private sector privacy law.
• The mission of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) is to protect and promote the privacy rights of individuals.
• The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) major programs are:
  1. Compliance activities: the Office is responsible for investigation privacy-related complaints and responding to inquiries from individuals and organizations.
  2. Research and Policy development activities: the Office serves as a centre of expertise on emerging privacy issues in Canada and abroad by researching trends and technological developments, monitoring legislative and regulatory initiatives, providing legal, policy and technical analyses on key issues, and developing policy positions that advance the protection of privacy rights.
  3. Public Outreach activities: the Office delivers public education and communications activities, including speaking engagements and special events, media relations, and the production and dissemination of promotional and educational material.
  4. Internal Services are groups of related activities and resources that support the needs of programs and other corporate obligations of an organization. As a small entity, the Office's internal services include two sub-activities: governance and management support, and resource management services (which also incorporate asset management services).

For more information on OPC’s programs please consult the Office’s 2012-13 Report on Plans and Priorities and the Office’s 2011-12 Departmental Performance Report.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada incurs travel, hospitality and conferences expenditure for activities directly related to its mandate. Since most privacy trends are global in nature, the OPC invests considerable efforts in developing and sustaining partnerships with data-protection authorities around the world, as well as international associations and regulators. OPC officials deliver numerous speeches to transfer knowledge about privacy to audiences in Canada and abroad.  Under both legislations, the Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act OPC carries out investigations and audits. Investigation and Audit work tends to involve travel because it often necessitates site visits to review materials and discuss issues with respondents. OPC also incurs travel cost related to conferences, public events and other professional development activities that are critical for staff to remain current with rapid evolutions in the privacy field. In particular for fiscal year 2011-12 the OPC incurred conference costs related to workshops to bring together academics, industry practitioners and privacy researchers from Canada and abroad to explore privacy issues of interest to the OPC and which are in line with the OPC strategic priority related to Information Technology.

Total annual expenditures for Travel, Hospitality and Conferences for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner are summarized below:

Total annual expenditures for Travel, Hospitality and Conferences

Expenditure Category	Expenditures for the year ending, March 31, 2012	Expenditures for the year ending, March 31, 2011
	(in thousands of dollars)	(in thousands of dollars)
Travel – Public Servants	$509.4	$ 574.4
Travel – Non-Public Servants	$12.2	$22.0
Total Travel	$521.6	$596.4
Hospitality	$33.5	$34.9
Conference Fees	$23.4	$6.7
Total	$578.5	$638.0

Approval by