Information & Ethics Committee on Jan. 29th, 2019

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Good day, everybody. Welcome back—it's 2019—to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, meeting 132.

Before we get to our guests, we have some committee business. We have a couple of things. It's not necessary to go in camera.

Most of us in this room know about the international grand committee and the work we did in London. Charlie, Nathaniel and I went over in late November to join eight other countries to talk about this. Canada is picking up the torch where they left off. We're going to host it in Ottawa on May 28; that's what we're proposing. We looked at a date that would work for everybody, or as much as we could make that work, and May 28 seems to be the date.

I wanted to put that before the committee to make sure that we have your approval to move forward with it. It will be an all-day meeting, similar to what happened in London. It will start in the morning. We'll have meetings all throughout the day. We'll likely end the day at 4:30. Then we'll proceed into other things.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

What day of the week is that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

It's a Tuesday.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Okay. Good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

I wanted to get some feedback on that. Perhaps you could raise your hand or give me a, “Yes, we're good to go”.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Yes, we're good to go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Nate, you wanted to speak to it. Go ahead.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

To the extent that you need direction from the committee, I would say that your direction as chair is to act on our behalf to make arrangements as necessary to make this happen in Canada, to invite the parliamentarians and the countries that participated in the U.K., at a bare minimum, and if we want to expand it further, to work to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Perfect.

Is that enough direction?

Mr. Kent.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Chair, what are the requirements with regard to the financial support for a meeting like this? Would this have to go to the liaison committee ?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

It's a good question. There's a limit of about $40,000, so it's keeping it below that. I don't think that will be a problem.

Mike.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Michael MacPherson]

Basically, this is what we would be looking for. We would be reimbursing witnesses who appeared at committee just as we would for a regular committee meeting. However, members coming from other jurisdictions, let's say from the House of Commons in England or from Australia or wherever, would be paying their own way to come here, just as we paid our own way to go to the first one.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

What about for our facility usage?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Go ahead, Mike.

[The Clerk]

We'll be fine. We'll have a budget to cover all that.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

We'll be working a lot with Mike and the analysts to make sure it all comes to fruition. We want to make it an event that is really the next step in what we've already done. We look forward to it.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Do you have any comments, Mr. Angus?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

No. We certainly want to move ahead with this, so I say you have the mandate to take the steps necessary. We can come back and discuss the theme and what it is the international community is going to want to talk about. We can do that at a later date.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Perhaps the analysts can mock up a proposal for us. I only would note that Sheryl Sandberg is on an apology tour; so there you have it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

We will keep a list of witnesses and keep you informed about who we're asking to the function. I think that name came up as one that will be on the list.

Do members have anything more to say about the international grand committee? Do we have sufficient direction?

Thank you, everybody. We'll pursue that.

Now we have the notice of motion. We talked a little bit about this.

Mr. Angus, go ahead.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

The subcommittee of the committee did meet to talk about direction in terms of taking us over the final few months. We have our study on digital governance. We have a whole bunch of other pieces that we have talked about that actually would fit under the rights of citizens in the age of big data. It could be ethical issues around AI or it could deal with people's financial information and what's happening. I will bring that forward.

Nathaniel said he wanted to look at some of the language. I don't want to take it up today, but I want to put it on the record that we're looking to do this. Some of the questions that we may be asking Dr. Geist or Ms. Cavoukian today, on the larger question of the rights of citizens in the age of big data, may be germane to that as well as what they may want to speak to on the issues of digital governance. We'll have the two studies going in parallel, so some of the evidence may be more germane to one study than another.

I'll bring that back on Thursday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

You'll just withhold it for now?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Yes.