Annual Report on Travel, Hospitality and Conference Expenditures

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada 2022 - 2023

As required by the Treasury Board Directive on Travel, Hospitality, Conference and Event Expenditures, this report provides information on travel, hospitality and conference expenditures for Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023.

Travel, hospitality and conference expenditures incurred by a federal department or agency relate to activities that support the department or agency’s mandate and the government’s priorities.

Mandate:

The mandate of the OPC is overseeing compliance with both the Privacy Act, which covers the personal information-handling practices of federal government institutions, and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), Canada’s federal private sector privacy law, along with some aspects of Canada’s anti-spam law (CASL).

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada Travel, Hospitality and Conference Expenditures for Year ending March 31, 2023

Travel, Hospitality and Conference Expenditures
Expenditure category	Expenditures for year ended March 31, 2023 ($ thousands)	Expenditures for year ended March 31, 2022 ($ thousands)	Variance ($ thousands)
Travel
Operational activities	$92.90	$15.80	$77.10
Key stakeholders	$147.60	$3.00	$144.60
Internal governance	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Training	$32.10	$0.50	$31.60
Other	$9.70	$2.10	$7.60
A. Total travel	$282.30	$21.40	$260.90
B. Hospitality	$11.90	$1.20	$10.70
C. Conference fees	$20.30	$2.80	$17.50
Total [A+B+C]	$314.50	$25.40	$289.10
International travel by minister and minister's staff (included in travel)	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00

Explanation of significant variances compared with previous fiscal year

Total travel:

As public health restrictions have continued to ease in 2022-23, the OPC has resumed some in-person activities where appropriate. This resulted in increased travel expenses in 2022-23 compared to 2021-22 due to training activities, speaking engagements, consultation with stakeholders, developing and sustaining partnerships with data-protection authorities around the world, as well as international associations and regulators. As the OPC transitions to a hybrid workplace, it will continue to work towards actively leveraging technology to perform its investigations and manage its expenditures for travel.

Hospitality:

In 2022-23, hospitality expenses increased from $1.2K to $11.9K. The limited expenses incurred for hospitality were for in-person training and strategic planning sessions.

Conference fees:

In 2022-23, conference fees expenses increased from $2.8K to $20.3K. The increase in expenditures are in support of events that were directly related to the OPC’s mandate.