Mr. Speaker, the official opposition certainly supports the appointment of Mr. Radwanski as the privacy commissioner.
For years now the official opposition has asked that when appointing people like this to key positions, the individual should be interviewed by certain standing parliamentary committees, and that was done in part in this case.
Before I proceed any further, I would like to pay tribute to the previous privacy commissioner, Mr. Bruce Phillips. It was my privilege to meet with him on several occasions and I have a lot of respect for the gentleman. He did the office a great honour and carried out his responsibilities with respect and also with great confidentiality. I am sure that Mr. Radwanski will do the same.
I want to refer back to the particular interview process that took place at the parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Government Operations. This particular committee met and the members of the committee were invited “to an informal meeting for the purpose of consulting with the interim privacy commissioner.”
The hon. member opposite just indicated that the committee met to consider the the appointment of Mr. Radwanski. To the best of my recollection there was no motion made at this particular committee, neither was it ever indicated that there was a consideration here. It was for the purpose of consulting with, which is quite different from the implication left by the words that the hon. member used a moment ago.
Unfortunately, the committee interviewed someone who had already been appointed. In one sense it was really a ratification and, indeed, the motion here before the House is in fact a ratification. It is my understanding that Mr. Radwanski has occupied the position since September 1, 2000.
I want to ask this question. What was the status of this committee meeting at that time? It was my understanding that the committee was to have been conducted in a manner similar to that of a regular meeting of the standing committee. While an interview took place, while there was translation services and while there was a broadcast on the usual radio channels, there was no official record kept of what transpired at the committee meeting.
I submit that there is little practical use of a meeting like this, when it is purely a motion. I want to reinforce the concept that we agree that these kinds of interviews should take place with people who will be occupying key positions. It is essential that we do this. There should be transparency, there should be respect and there should be dignity for the office and also for the people who are being chosen to occupy these positions. In order to have meaningful input it should not be simply a consultation and it should not be simply a matter of meeting with this person.
We met Mr. Radwanski. He was a good individual. He met with the group and expressed himself well and demonstrated that he was able to do the job.
I would suggest that in future the record of these meetings be recorded. It will help both the memory of the members who were there and will also help to make the process transparent and accountable and it will give the respect deserved to these kinds of appointments.
I would like to say something as well about the individual who is being considered today, Mr. George Radwanski. I do not think there is any doubt that he is a very capable individual and that he has extensive academic and experiential credentials to do the job. However, one wonders whether his connections and association, past and present, with the Liberal Party, both federally and provincially, may have influenced the selection of him as the privacy commissioner.
To be specific, I want to refer to some of these connections. First, he was the special adviser to the treasurer of Ontario, appointed by then Premier Peterson to undertake a study of the service sector. He published the study known as “Ontario Study of the Service Sector, 1986”.
Then, in 1987 he was the special adviser for the minister of education in Ontario, again appointed by then Premier Peterson. He undertook a major study which resulted in a publication entitled “Ontario Study of the Relevance of Education, and the Issue of Dropouts, 1987”.
He served as a senior strategy and policy adviser and principal speech writer for the Right Hon. John Turner in the 1988 election campaign. Then very recently, Mr. Radwanski served as a senior policy, strategy and communications adviser to the Right Hon. Prime Minister of Canada in the House today.
During the discussion and consultation in no way did Mr. Radwanski ever try to cover this up or in any way suggest that he did not have these associations. In fact, he had had these associations and was quite open about that. I commend him for that.
He indicated that he wanted to make some recommendations with regard to the Privacy Act so that the act could be brought more up to date and more commensurate with the conditions in the world of government and business today.
He wrote “The Future of Canada Post Corporation”, which was a review of the Canada Post mandate to which the hon. member opposite just referred. The publication was given to the hon. minister then responsible for Canada Post Corporation in 1996. Unfortunately, those recommendations did not go anywhere. I hope the recommendations he will make on the Privacy Act will go a little further than that.
The Canada Post mandate reflected in my opinion both depth of understanding of sound management principles and what a strong organizational structure should look like. His comments, even in this early tenure in the position of privacy commissioner, showed the same kind of understanding and sensitivity that he revealed in that earlier review. I certainly wish him well.
In my mind there is no doubt about the competency of this individual. However, I have the sneaking suspicion that his appointment was not totally void of patronage considerations by those making the recommendation to appoint him the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.