Information & Ethics Committee on June 19th, 2007

Evidence of meeting #55 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Committee Business - Access to Information request for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade internal report entitled "Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights"

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Leonard Edwards Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Gwyn Kutz Director, Human Rights, Gender Equality, Health and Population Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Jennifer Nixon ATIP Team Leader, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Francine Archambault Senior ATIP Analyst, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Gary Switzer ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

1:05 p.m.

Senior ATIP Analyst, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Francine Archambault

Sometimes they will. Sometimes they won't, and we agree to release. It's an ongoing process, and it can change from one week to another. I can see a document today and next week the recommendations she made really apply, whereas today they don't. It's an evolving situation.

1:05 p.m.

Conservative

Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON

It's kind of an evolving circumstance.

1:05 p.m.

Senior ATIP Analyst, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Francine Archambault

That's right.

1:05 p.m.

Conservative

Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON

Okay. We've heard that before, actually. Thank you.

1:05 p.m.

Senior ATIP Analyst, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Francine Archambault

It definitely is, and it's the same.... I think most analysts in the ATIP world try to keep themselves abreast of what's going on. As well, Treasury Board offers certain training sessions or refresher courses on certain exemptions, as to when to apply them, what they really mean, and what's considered proper as far as what that exemption means. For example, number 18, is a financial situation. Most analysts will take advantage of that and keep themselves current.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel

Mr. Switzer and Ms. Nixon, any comment beyond what Madame Archambault has said?

1:05 p.m.

ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Gary Switzer

I might add that the Information Commissioner sometimes gives out information. There are judicial things that you would look at, legal opinions that also help you to look at how you would interpret the act, and those things are taken into consideration as well.

1:05 p.m.

Conservative

Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON

Excellent. Thank you for your answers.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel

Ms. Nixon, do you have any comment? Okay.

Ladies and gentlemen, I do want to thank you on behalf of the committee for coming here today. I sincerely hope that the experience was not as bad as you thought it would be. We do appreciate your comments and your candour. We'll continue our deliberations. I'm hopeful that the committee will be able to make some recommendations that will help the situation so that we don't have this kind of thing taking up parliamentary time again, although one never knows.

Committee members, we don't know what the situation is with the House. If the House is sitting on Thursday, I thought we would have a meeting about 9:30 in the morning just to figure out where we go from here. If the House is not sitting on Thursday, we already agreed that we would try to set up a summer meeting to deal with this issue before we come back, so that we could go on to identity theft. That's how I'm proposing to play it. It'll just depend on what happens with the adjournment of the House.

Again, on behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank everybody from the Department of Foreign Affairs for being here today. I want you folks to notice that the deputy minister was here all the way through to listen to what you had to say, and I guess to back you up in case we were too mean. So thank you, everyone.

We're adjourned.