Information & Ethics Committee on May 27th, 2008

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you very much for the question. If you did have departmental officials here, I'm sure you were well served, because I'm certainly well served by them. I'm sure they were very, very helpful to you. I appreciate any information they've been able to provide.

We've actually made changes, as you know, with respect to the Access to Information Act in the Federal Accountability Act. We have extended the coverage of that particular act, and we have extended it to a whole group of organizations and corporations within the federal sphere that it never covered before. So I think that's a very significant improvement. I know there is a discussion paper before you, and if your committee sees fit to conduct a study after the Privacy Act, I would certainly look forward to any suggestions you might make with respect to that.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

We have a number of suggestions, in fact. The committee passed a number of motions asking you to come forward with a new Access to Information Act. For 15 years now, the proposed legislation has been revised in all sorts of ways.

Thank you very much for answering my question, Minister—

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

On my point of order, I can be just as difficult as she can. She is just ignoring you, Mr. Chairman.

[Some hon. members]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Order. Could you turn off all the mikes except the chairman's, please?

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I haven't heard that one before.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

That's a specific requirement. I'm advised by the technicians that should the chair be talking and another member jump in, they immediately turn that member's mike on; that's just to get the liveliness of the committee. But the chair has the discretion of requesting...and I have.

One of the important things to remember, if we're going to keep some decorum within the committee, is that when the chair does call for order, all members should respect the request for order. It's not happening now, so I ask all honourable members, please.... I know sometimes people get a little excited.

Madame Lavallée has a minute and a half left for the question and the answer, so I'm asking her now to complete her question and put the floor back to the minister in order for us to move on with our meeting, please.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you very much.

In response to your answer, Minister, I would like to remind you that on a number of occasions, this committee called on you, as minister, to come forward with a new, modernized Access to Information Act. Specialists in this field tell us that the few cosmetic changes you made to it in Bill C-2 are not enough, and that the legislation needs to be modernized and to be given some teeth, like the Privacy Act, which we are studying at the moment.

When will you be coming forward to the committee with a new Access to Information Act?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

You've covered a fair amount of ground here. Is this committee usually this lively, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Yes.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

That's good. Well, I'm glad to be here today to have the opportunity to talk to you about a number of things.

You pointed out that you would like to have legislation in this particular area. I would like your committee, quite frankly, to have a look at the discussion paper. Again, I look forward to all proposals you make with respect to this and indeed the Privacy Act.

With respect to a commitment to introduce legislation or a timetable on that, it's very difficult. One of the things I learned as the government House leader is that trying to predict when legislation will get through the House of Commons is very difficult. If you had said to me in February of 2006 that it would take the government two years to get through its Tackling Violent Crime Act, I never would have guessed that. But in fact it did; it took us about two years to get those components and put them together. I guess I learned a lesson with that. Trying to predict what we will get to and when a piece of legislation might get passed, if and when it is introduced, is a very risky business. I've seen that from this portfolio, and indeed as the government House leader.

Again, you're welcome to have a look at that, study that, and call witnesses in conjunction with or after the Privacy Act. Certainly I would be glad to have all recommendations on that and this, or indeed any other piece of legislation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, Madame Lavallée.

Mr. Martin, please.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, the tone of your opening remarks sort of leads me to believe that the Privacy Act isn't really your top priority. Perhaps you might even have difficulty with the ten—what we thought were fairly straightforward, almost innocuous—recommendations of the Privacy Commissioner in terms of the bare minimum that needed to be done to really update the Privacy Act. So both the tone and the content of your remarks kind of worry me. We don't want to spin our wheels here and go through the exercise of reviewing the Privacy Act if you don't really have any intention of implementing it. The same would apply for the Access to Information Act, I suppose.

I don't want to put Mr. Tilson into a tizzy here, so I'll limit my remarks to the Privacy Act.

For instance, what I thought was one of the most common sense, innocuous recommendations from the Privacy Commissioner was one where she identified that there's been sort of a creep in the collection of personal information; it's expanded. So she wants a necessity test. For a government department to justify the collection of personal information like that, it should have to state exactly and specifically what for, in the narrowest possible way. Is that one of the recommendations you could see fit to approve?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I don't want to prejudge anything you might have to say in your analysis of each of them. With respect to the ten I had a look at, I think some of them are possible right now within the existing legislation. One of them is that the Privacy Commissioner take more of an educative function. It seems to me she could expand and go forward on that. I did have some questions with respect to a possible conflict, but I would be very interested to hear what you have to say between recommendations 2 and 6. On the one hand, if the Privacy Commissioner can dismiss or not pursue one, and then at the same time we're also giving them a right to appeal to the Federal Court, there may be a conflict there. Maybe not, but again I would be very interested.

With respect to these issues, I take these issues as very important. I once sat on a committee much the same as your own, and we went coast to coast in 1987 having a look at these issues. So I'm somewhat familiar with the issues. I do take them seriously.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But you've also embarked on a very ambitious legislative agenda in the justice area.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I try not to get too far ahead of myself. There is a danger that a person or a government that has 30 priorities ends up getting nothing done. So I do try to take them one at time. The drug bill that is before Parliament is very important to me and I think to the country. I mentioned identity theft. I'm having a look, for instance, at the Youth Criminal Justice Act, but that does not preclude movement in other areas.

Again, I look forward to whatever recommendations you have. You will be studying these recommendations on a very intense basis. You will be hearing a lot of witnesses. I indicated to you already that departmental officials are watching very carefully, they're taking notes, and they're briefing me on what people have to say on those. I recognize as well that the Privacy Commissioner was trying to come forward with some changes that didn't necessarily mean we have to scrap everything and start over again in this area. Again, I'll be interested in what you have to say.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

It would just be helpful to know, because we would be wasting our time if you had no intention of acting on our recommendations. We'd be spending a lot of time for nothing.

Another thing that's fairly straightforward, and I wonder.... It is up to you. It doesn't really matter what we recommend, because if you aren't willing to implement it, it's all for naught. The one very commonsensical recommendation is number 6, which you say may conflict with number 2, which would give her the right to deal with any kind of vexatious or frivolous complaint if--

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

It worries me as well, Mr. Martin. I have to be honest with you. I appreciate that they look at these on a first come, first served basis, and there's a certain logic to that, of course. But I worry sometimes that something could be of huge importance to an individual that is--

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

What if it's the tenth time they've complained on the same issue from their prison cell and they're harassing the Privacy Commissioner with endless complaints, like “The warden looked in my locker and it bugs me, therefore I'm going to the Privacy Commissioner”? That would have the same weight as CIBC's losing 10,000 of your personal financial records.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

That's a very good point. We have this problem sometimes in civil lawsuits, don't we. It's possible that an individual can bring frivolous and vexatious lawsuits, and we have to deal with that.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Brian Mulroney, for example. That's just an aside.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

This is the Privacy Act--

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I know.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

--so I thought I'd just confine my remarks to that, Mr. Chairman.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But it's the idea of being able to triage complaints in some way, to be able to deal with those very important ones that are of national interest, as opposed to the ones from some frustrated prisoner in a penitentiary somewhere.