Information & Ethics Committee on April 1st, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

A lot of work has gone into this. One person would probably have some difficulty covering the bases, but it looks as though you have some choices. There are concurrent sessions going on.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, I don't know that you can exactly leave it open-ended, say, if everyone wants to go. Even if we cancelled that committee meeting and there was a delegation of one from each party, or two from the government and one from each of the opposition parties, I wouldn't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with the pairing. But if there's information there and each of the parties can get a reasonable backgrounder on proactive disclosure, there's nothing like being there and participating instead of reading a paper.

That would be my suggestion. I don't think the government would have a problem with that in terms of the pairing. We would have to put it to the House so we could get the finances to do it, but we need to pin it down.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Siksay.

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

Mr. Chair, I'm just looking at the website for the conference on my BlackBerry as well. The agenda does look interesting. I think there are certain workshops and presentations that would be appropriate for us. I think we should find a way of making it some kind of an official committee visit rather than just being a matter of whoever wants to go, or can go, gets there. I would prefer to reschedule what we have on the 27th to accomplish that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Madame Freeman.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

It's only just come to my attention. Thank you, Bill, for lending me your BlackBerry.

I've just read the agenda on Bill's BlackBerry, but I would like to get more information about this meeting. However, from what I have just seen, it could be of interest to us. I think we should seriously consider attending the meeting all together as a committee instead of sending only one or two members who would then report back to us.

If we want to do a proper job, everyone should have access to the same information and to the same data, so they we can move forward. Either we attend the conference, or we do not attend.

So then, I would like to have more information about this gathering on April 26 and 27. We could then decide whether or not it is in our interest to attend. Sending one or two persons does not represent the work that a committee should be doing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

A committee is the master of its own work. Quite honestly, I didn't anticipate that there would be such a strong interest in going to this convention on such short notice. I thought we would at least have our Library of Parliament staff attend and assist them in networking a bit, getting documentation to help us coordinate this fully.

But if the members want to reschedule the Privacy Commissioner estimates to a later date so that the committee can attend a two-day conference in Toronto, I'm open to that.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, are you saying the whole committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Well, that's what--

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I know I can't go, but whether somebody else can.... I would think that representatives of each party would be adequate rather than the whole committee.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Chair, is there a concern about resources in the event that farther down the road the whole committee looks at taking a trip?

I think Mr. Easter has proposed the most legitimate way to do this.

I'd like to know, and perhaps you want to get back to us, whether your concern is that once we have that sufficient capacity from the other important exercises, such as being at committee, listening to witnesses, and sticking to the schedule--which I know is your primary concern--it becomes a question of resources.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I'm not concerned about resources. This was included in the documents. It was raised as something going on that was relevant, but in terms of the benefit of going to something like this, in my own view, we may have overstated the importance of this convention to what we're doing.

With these conventions, if you look at the number of workshops, the concurrent workshops, and these kinds of things, to be able to cover it, people will go there and they'll pick and choose. The committee certainly wouldn't be able to be together. I'm not even sure whether they'll be offering simultaneous translation, etc., and whether members will get the okay.

I don't see this as a major item. It would be useful to have someone there simply to get a sense of who the key people are, what the key issues are, and to be there would be better than just trying to assume it off the web.

Right now, Mr. Easter can't attend. I can't attend. Madam Foote might—I'm not sure. But I don't want to try to make those decisions now, and I'm certainly not going to start playing with how to pair up properly, because it's not going to work. That's why I said, if there were somebody who wanted to go on behalf of the committee, that would certainly be acceptable. If we're going to be concerned about balancing parties and all this other stuff, I would suggest that we just leave it to see if we can have our researchers or a representative from the Library of Parliament be there to garner whatever information is available.

The committee is going to have to make a decision. I'm pretty sure there aren't more than two people in this room right now who really can go, to be quite honest.

We'll go to Mr. Siksay, Mr. Rickford, and then Madame Freeman.

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

Thank you, Chair.

It strikes me that if we are going to do this anyway, we'd have to bring a budget recommendation to the first meeting when we come back after the constituency week. So what I'd suggest is that we all go away and look in more detail at this conference agenda and come back prepared to make a decision at that first meeting. That would give the clerk time to put together a budget based on what we've discussed so far, and we can make a decision at that time. Even then, that puts it tight to get it through the other various parts of the process to get the travel approved, but we're facing that in any case. I think we are all flying by the seat of our pants, not having really looked at the conference agenda and who's going to be there, and that kind of thing.

I don't know that we're going to solve it today. I suggest that we put it over until that first meeting after the break week.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Rickford.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Sorry. While I was waiting, I forgot what I was going to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We'll come back to you.

Madame Freeman.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Bill has taken the words right out of my mouth. That is exactly what I meant to say. We're discussing having members eventually attend a conference when no one here has seen the agenda. If we want to do our work properly, we need to see the agenda. I don't think that having Mr. Szabo consult his BlackBerry to read us the agenda qualifies. Other committee members do not have access to that information. I think we need to have some background information in order to make an enlightened decision as to whether we should or should not attend. All committee members are capable of exercising their good judgment and deciding whether the committee needs to attend. We are discussing the possibility of attending a meeting at some point in the future when we do not even know what the ramifications are. If you could get that information to all committee members, we could then bring the issue back on the table and see whether it would be appropriate to send someone or to have all members attend. That will become clear to us in due time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

If all members would please refer to page 6 in the English document of “Recent Developments in Proactive Disclosure--Canada”, footnote 36 has a web address of this conference which is www.mips2010.ca, and you can print it out. It has the agenda, who should attend and why, conference facilities, accommodations, payment procedures, presentations, sponsors, support organizations, and the steering committee and registration material.

So the information for the members is there, and it was included in the report. I think members can inform themselves as to whether or not they think this is going to be useful, but I don't think we can say or tell anybody any more than what is on this website.

Madame Freeman.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

I appreciate your giving us an Internet address, but I would still like to have that information forwarded to our offices.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

You want us to print out the website.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

No, I would like some information about the agenda. I think I made myself quite clear. All I want is for you to send us some information about the conference agenda. We're talking about sending people to attend. That's all. My request was clear, succinct and specific. I believe anyone who was listening understood.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

You don't want the web address to read it yourself. You want us to print it out.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

I'm not interested in checking out a website. I want the formal agenda to be sent to all committee members. That is the proper way to impart information.