Operating context and key risks

Additional resources totalling $8.1M over four years, beginning in 2017-18 and through 2020-21, have been approved for the ERC. Plans are being implemented to hire additional legal counsel and other staff for program operations. The additional resources are essential for the ERC to effectively deliver its case review program and to begin to address its backlog. As funding is time-limited, only fixed term appointments or secondments of additional staff can be used. For that reason, in the area of program operations, there is risk of an inability to adequately increase the ERC’s case review capacity to meet operational pressures. The ERC will continue to actively monitor trends in the numbers and kinds of cases referred from the RCMP to plan proactively to meet future operational requirements. Public Services and Procurement Canada will be leading a refit/space optimization project for the ERC’s offices in Ottawa in 2018-19 (which is not anticipated to have significant impacts on ERC program management or results).