Information & Ethics Committee on April 27th, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

For the information of members, when we deal with motions from members, there is no time limit really. Members are expected to make their case on matters of interest, and there's no speaking order. So if you would like to speak on this, you should catch the attention of the chair or the clerk, and we'll put your name down.

Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank Mr. Poilievre for tabling this motion, because it is something we should be taking a look at. I have a particular interest since Canpages is based in my constituency, in Burnaby, and they are a step ahead of Google on this motion. Their street scene service went up on March 16. It is more limited than what Google is proposing, in my understanding. It is focusing on commercial districts in Vancouver, Whistler, and Squamish in British Columbia at this time, but they hope to expand it. If folks want to see a Canadian expression of this kind of service, they could visit canpages.ca and take a look at it.

I've spoken with Olivier Vincent, who is the president and CEO, not chairman and CEO, so maybe we could correct that in the motion on Canpages. He is very interested in appearing before the committee to talk about issues of privacy, the way Canpages has decided to deal with those issues, to deal with the question of what's happening to the original images, the non-blurred images they use, how people can report concerns about images that appear. In talking with him, he has made efforts to put in place a regime that addresses privacy concerns, and it would be of interest to committee members to hear him speak on those matters.

I would like to encourage committee members to support it. I think it is something that is very timely and merits our consideration.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Madame Thi Lac, s'il vous plaît.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Poilievre, we will not oppose your motion, since it deserves to be studied. However I don't want it to become the priority and to have it delay our current study or the study of motions that have already been voted on during the current session. My colleague Ms. Freeman passed a motion on the "in and out" and I wouldn't want your motion to short-circuit the work that is already underway.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, please.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I remember travelling in the former Soviet Union, where it was impossible to receive maps of cities because those were restricted. You were restricted on where you could travel. It is part of a free and open society that we allow people to access information of various sorts, but there is also a fine line here.

Mr. Poilievre mentioned potential terrorist concerns. I'm not particularly perturbed about that. If people have that sort of intent, they will scout out subway lines, etc. I don't see that as a real threat, but there are individuals who are vulnerable.

Mr. Poilievre mentioned women's shelters. There is a clear case to be made for those types of institutions to be protected from this type of surveillance, because that's what it is, and postings. Others who are vulnerable are children. We don't want this service to become an intermediary for those who would survey children's playgrounds or schools, etc.

We're into a new technology, a new area, and although all of us tremendously respect the freedoms we're guaranteed in democracies, there is also an acknowledgement of vulnerabilities in that there are members of society who are vulnerable and need protection.

There is legitimate concern about certain types of government institutions and government facilities. That needs to be worked through to figure out what type within what limitations. We obviously wouldn't be concerned if they were filming the Parliament Buildings, but we certainly would be concerned if a detailed video of nuclear facilities were put on line. They aren't government institutions directly. All that needs to be worked through.

Then there is the whole issue of personal privacy, something that we protect. I understand on that particular aspect these companies have done some work, such as the blurring of faces, licence plates, and that sort of thing. We should take a look at that, but it's the former that I am more concerned about, and the vulnerable in society. This is something we should spend a little time on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

There being no further interventions, I'm going to put the question.

Yes.

Mr. Nadeau, please.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

I just want to confirm something, Mr. Szabo. It concerns what my colleague said earlier. We do want to make sure that, in supporting this motion, the work that must be begun will be started before we study this motion. Do we have that guarantee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I thank you for that. This should be clear.

I have been working with our clerk and researchers on the materials and a binder is going to be circulated to you tomorrow. After I took out all of the news reports and the third party stuff that wasn't directly related, we have it down--including the testimony--so that it's all in one book for you. We'll have almost a whole month to look at that, and you'll get it tomorrow.

We have some privacy and access work to tidy up, which we are working on. We have our estimates, and we're certainly going to work on those. In the meantime, should the committee decide to embrace and pass this motion, we'll make the necessary inquiries to find out the availability of people. Should a time slot become free because of the unavailability of other witnesses for other work, I won't let that meeting go by. I will try to slot them in. However, if we are jam-packed solid, it may not happen until just before we leave for the summer.

It would appear that it's two people, or their representatives, to come before us on a pretty topical issue that's getting some attention. I don't think it would be considered a matter that would be interfering with the previously approved work of the committee at this time.

Madam Thi Lac.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Chair, are you suggesting adding meetings in order to study this matter?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

No, not according to the motion. It says to invite these two people to come and talk to us.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

When you said one month, you said that you would provide us with the documents and that we would look at the documents received within one month.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Oh, on the in-and-out, okay.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Could you explain this to me?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I think members will recall that when we discussed this, the first point was to get relevant information into the hands of members because of the lack of continuity of members on the committee. They would have an opportunity to review and prepare for it, and then we would have meetings to more fully formalize the work plan with witnesses.

It was anticipated that would commence after the summer. To my recollection, that is what was agreed to by the committee. There's a lot of reading to prepare.

And then to bring witnesses, our experience has been that it takes quite a while to find people and to rationalize times. The idea was that the instructions from the committee to the chair and the clerk would be given before we rise for the summer. That's so our resource people could help us put together the witnesses required in an orderly fashion for those hearings to start when the House resumes after the summer.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I understand that preparatory work must be done, either by our clerk or by the analysts, but I was saying earlier that this must not short-circuit the work already underway. I don't know how many meetings are still left for the current study. My colleague Ms. Freeman, from the Bloc Québécois, tabled a motion requesting that the issue of the "in and out" be discussed next. We expect that one of the next meetings will be on that issue. You are suggesting resuming this work in the fall session. However, if I agree to this motion and we have not had the opportunity to look at the "in and out" by the end of the summer, I don't want this matter to be put on the agenda when we come back, even if there have been studies and just because it's the beginning of the parliamentary session. When I suggest putting this motion after the ones already passed, I mean after Ms. Freeman's motion. The motion will get my support and that of my colleague only if that condition is met. However, if our motion was adopted at the beginning of the parliamentary session, I wouldn't want Mr. Poilievre's motion to take precedence over Ms. Freeman's motion. That is my concern: if it has to pass, then it should be placed after the motions already passed. My concern does not necessarily relate, as you say, to the production of documents.

With regard to our study on the "in and out", I know that a lot of research has already been done because this study was undertaken during the previous Parliament and we want to continue it.

I want to make sure that this is clear before I support this motion. Otherwise, I will amend it so that it can be studied following the motions already passed by this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I'm going to ask the clerk. This matter was discussed at the steering committee meeting, and a proposal on how we were going to handle it was discussed and agreed upon. It came before the full committee and the committee agreed with the calendarization of the in-and-out review that we would be doing.

Because there is so much information, just for your information, the first thing to be done is to get together the information that the researchers, the clerk, and I felt was necessary for everyone on the committee to understand the nature of the matter, where we are, what's left to be done, and to give authorization or direction to the chair and the clerk and the researchers on how to proceed to book witnesses--who and when and in what order. There are still some details that have to be discussed. That is going to happen as soon as we have a free meeting after the privacy project, the access project, and estimates. Once those are done, then we're having a meeting on the in-and-out review. That's when it will start. That was agreed upon by the committee.

We have had some problems with sometimes the ministers thinking they're okay and then they back out. If there happens to come a meeting in which we have no work to do, I'm not going to say there will be no meeting; I would slot in this discussion. It's something we can do at our next meeting if we have to, because we have a problem with Canadian Bar Association next week on Wednesday. They're still giving us the gears. But that may be an open meeting; I don't know yet.

In the meantime, we're going to find out about availability. I don't know how quickly this can happen. But Madam Freeman is very much aware of the discussion; she's on the steering committee, and she certainly was there to represent her interests.

I think the committee agreed that we would put it in and we'd do it properly, and we would do it when all members who are going to participate in the completion of that work are comfortable with the history and the plan for moving forward and how we are going to complete it. So I can only give you that undertaking. But I can't say that we are not absolutely 100% never going to discuss Google and Canpages until next fall. I can't tell you that. Okay?

All right. I think we're there. What do you think?

[An hon. member]

We're there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

As amended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay, sure.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay, it's unanimous. Merci.

We'll do what we can to find out where we are on that.

Colleagues, for our next meeting on Wednesday, this is just a reminder, Mr. Clerk, that we do have the draft report on privacy. We were going to deal with the 12 items. We were going to try our best to see if there's a consensus on each of those items and an approach on how we would move forward. That will help the researchers to start working on a draft report for us. We'd better find out, conceptually, what it looks like and whether we're going to take a position on one or more or any of them. But that's something we should deal with, so could you please come prepared to discuss the 12 items?

Thank you.

We're adjourned.