Evidence of meeting #113 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was office.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Fisher. That's five minutes.
Mr. Fortin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
11:45 a.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As I have only two and a half minutes, I will try to be expeditious.
Ms. Maynard, you told us about four mandamus applications that were filed in federal court. To your knowledge, were they under an exclusion order or publication ban?
11:45 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
No, they are public.
11:45 a.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
So that means you’re able to tell us who is involved.
Did processing these applications incur any costs?
11:45 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Processing these applications required resources. We had to give these cases to our in-house counsel. Otherwise, they would have been investigative files. Our lawyers have to dedicate time to presenting an application to the Federal Court to force an organization to respect its obligations.
11:45 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
As I said earlier, Trans Mountain Corporation was one of the first organizations to refuse to obey an order. The three other cases involve the Department of National Defence.
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
After the mandamus application, what defences have been presented so far in all four cases?
11:50 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
In all four cases, we are still preparing documents to present at a hearing. Affidavits have therefore been prepared, but there hasn’t really been any debate yet.
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
The Department of National Defence therefore did not produce any written defence to say that they were refusing to cooperate for such or such a reason? Wasn’t there a process like that?
11:50 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
No. There hasn’t been one yet.
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
You mentioned questioning and affidavits. In the affidavits, did the Department of National Defence mention any aspects of its defence?
11:50 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I am unable to give you details.
However, from what I understand, when the Minister of National Defence is unable to respond, even though he said he wanted to, it’s often due to a lack of resources.
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
You said that is what you understood, but were you told or informed in writing that they needed more time and didn’t have the required resources to respond to the application?
11:50 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I would have to carefully check the affidavits for each case. They are all different.
If you want, I can send you the reasons provided by the Minister of National Defence, which are in the documents he produced.
11:50 a.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
If it’s possible, I would indeed be grateful to you if you could send the affidavits, the letters or the written processes that explain National Defence’s position, as well as those for the Trans Mountain Corporation.
I see that my two and a half minutes are up.
Thank you, Ms. Maynard.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Mr. Fortin, I am sorry, but your time has indeed run out.
Mr. Green, you have two and a half minutes. Go ahead, please.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
Mr. Fortin quite adequately expanded on the process when you have to refer to court. If I recall, you mentioned there were six cases you referred to the Attorney General, yet we've explored only four of them that went forward publicly.
Would you please share with the committee what the other two cases were that were referred to the Attorney General but not acted upon?
11:50 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
It's two different things.
The six cases the office referred to the Attorney General were with respect to investigations in which we felt there was reasonable evidence of an intent to obstruct the access requests.
11:50 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I will have to send you a list, because some of them are from before my time. It's usually because we believe there's a possible criminal charge coming up.
The four mandamuses are separate.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
For the purpose of this committee and for the purpose of the good welfare of open and transparent government, I would request that you submit that list of referrals to the Attorney General's office for the reflection of this committee in response to the work that you're doing.
Mr. Chair, at this time, I'd like to just table a notice of motion. I won't be debating it, but I think it's in keeping with the trends of the lack of forthrightness and truthfulness at this committee. I'm not moving it but just tabling it today. The motion, which will be distributed, reads:
That, in relation to the testimony provided by Google during their committee appearance on December 13, 2023, in which Ms. Jeanette Patell stated that Project Nimbus is not directed at highly sensitive or classified military workloads that are relevant to weapons or intelligence services, and recent reports that the Israeli military is using artificial intelligence for surveillance and to identify targets for air strikes in Gaza, and contracts signed in December 2024 between Google and the Israeli ministry of defence for the further build-out of the Google Cloud platform, the committee write to Google and seek clarification on their previous testimony and information on whether Project Nimbus or other Google Cloud services are being used to support AI-targeted air strikes in Gaza; that Google respond in writing within 15 days of receiving the committee's letter; and that, should Google fail to meet this deadline, the committee request the following people to appear before it at the earliest opportunity: Sabrina Geremia, VP and country managing director for Google Canada, and Sam Sebastian, VP and country manager for Google Cloud.
I'm tabling that now. That will be submitted to everybody in both official languages for their consideration at future meetings.
Mr. Chair, having people mislead this committee is something we should take very seriously.
With that, I'll cede the rest of my time with Ms. Maynard.
Thank you.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Green.
The motion has been put on notice, and the clerk is in receipt of the motion. That will be distributed in both official languages. Thank you.
We have two five-minute rounds left. We're going to go to Mr. Barrett, followed by Mr. Housefather, who will conclude.
Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.
April 18th, 2024 / 11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I'd like to circle back to the point that you raised in my first round and in the round with Mr. Kurek, talking about ArriveCAN.
You have an ongoing investigation. I appreciate that you can't get into the details of that, but we have allegations that a senior official, a chief information officer, Minh Doan, is alleged to have deleted 1,700 emails—maybe more, but we don't know—or destroyed documents in a case that is of great public interest. Obviously, this frustrated the work of the Auditor General of Canada, and certainly there are other potential investigations that are happening with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They've indicated that they are in fact investigating ArriveCAN.
In an investigation, if you find that a government official has deleted or destroyed government documents, what is the consequence that is meted out for a violation under the act?
11:55 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
There are two things. Administratively, if somebody could have destroyed or erased emails, I don't have any penalty. If we arrive at the conclusion that the documents don't exist anymore, we can make a finding and produce a report. However, if I find that there's reasonable evidence that it was done intentionally to prevent somebody from having access to these documents, my only authority is to refer it to the Attorney General for future investigation.