Information & Ethics Committee on April 18th, 2024

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Is there a government department using best practices that the rest of us could refer to?

[Caroline Maynard]

Every institution has difficulty meeting its obligations.

When we publish information, it must be published in both official languages. One of the excuses I often hear is that it’s very expensive. At the same time, I think that if people did the work from the very beginning, knowing the information will be disclosed, we could cut costs and make sure the information is provided.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Maynard.

I will cede the remaining time.

Thank you very much, Commissioner.

[Caroline Maynard]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

That concludes the questioning today on the estimates.

Commissioner, on behalf of the committee and Canadians, I want to thank you for appearing before the committee again. Like Mr. Green, I really appreciate your frankness. I know you're in a difficult situation right now. You have a lot of work to deal with, and perhaps there is a lot of work ahead. If there's anything we can do as a committee to help improve your work and the efficiency of your office and staff, always feel free to contact me, the chair. I can certainly bring that to the attention of the committee.

Thank you again, Commissioner.

We're going to continue.

We have one order of business that I need to deal with. It involves the budget for the study we're doing. It is in the amount of $2,000. That includes headsets and some other expenses.

I'm going to seek the unanimous consent of the committee to approve the budget.

(Motion agreed to)

Seeing no other business, I am going to adjourn the meeting. I want to wish you all a very good....

Go ahead.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Are you going to talk about the letter?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I was going to bring it up, but I'm still dealing with some stuff.

Okay, I'll bring it up, but I don't want to get into a prolonged discussion.

As you know, the committee dealt with a motion the other day to defer the report on the social media study. We received a letter from ISED, saying it would be 200 days. I thought Ms. Khalid brought up a couple of good points the other day. I want to seek clarification and guidance from the committee. I think we should write back to ISED. Rather than have this open-ended 200 days, I think we should ask for more specificity on when they can expect this to be done. I know how important this study is to the committee. I don't want it to sit there and not be dealt with. If we get that clarification from ISED....

I talked to Ms. Khalid about it. I'm not sure how I can format this. We'll figure it out with the clerk and analysts. If it is the will of the committee, I would like to write a follow-up letter to ISED, asking for more clarity on the timelines. They said it was going to be 200 days. As we discussed the other day, we didn't even know whether that was based on when the security review was announced in September or on the date of the letter, April 19. That's what I'm looking to do. If I have the approval of the committee to do that, I'll draft it. I can send it out for you to see, for your benefit, before I send it to them. That way, you can provide comment on that.

Go ahead, Ms. Khalid, on that.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

First off, I appreciate your revisiting this. I know this study is quite important to members of the committee.

Yes, I think we need to seek confirmation on the timeline.

If I may, there are two other points we would hope to include in the letter.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Go ahead.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

A lot of media reporting has indicated that the review was triggered by a business expansion. I'd like for us to confirm this was the case for the nature of the review.

Also, section 2 of the Investment Canada Act states:

the purposes of this Act are to provide for the review of significant investments in Canada by non-Canadians in a manner that encourages investment, economic growth and employment opportunities in Canada and to provide for the review of investments in Canada by non-Canadians that could be injurious to national security.

I'm not sure how that relates to the complete substance of what we have been studying. I would like to seek a bit of clarity about the national security review. Is it to assess the data-harvesting and data-sharing practices of TikTok, or is it related to an impending commercial transaction?

I think having an understanding about the nature of the review would perhaps help guide us better with respect to how we turn out our report.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay. I appreciate those two points. That's something that, in my view, we can include in the letter for clarity.

I don't see any discussion on those two points that you bring up.

Like I said, we will draft the letter. I'm going to send it out to members of the committee in advance of sending it, so if there are any comments or clarification that you need on that letter, then I would appreciate input. We'll try to do that, probably, by the beginning of next week, during the break week, if that's okay, just to give a bit of time to draft it.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

All right. Thank you for bringing that up. Again, I was thinking...but I just wasn't quite sure how that would be formatted. I appreciate the guidance from the committee.

I see no other business.

Mr. Fortin and Mr. Martel, I thank you for joining us today.

The meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.