Information & Ethics committee  I like words.

Information & Ethics committee  It's too easy to not let the Privacy Commissioner know what's going on. I'm being oratorical to make points, and I'm exaggerating a little bit to make points. It's not as if nobody listens to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, but think of how many times she's done major reports--in June 2006 in particular--on reform of the Privacy Act, and the Ministry of Justice has done nothing.

Information & Ethics committee  No, but when I read them this morning, I marked recommendations 1 to 4 and 9, because I found them more substantial than recommendations 5 to 8.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm a little tired of transported data flows, because the Open and Shut report in 1987 recommended that we should really be studying transported data flows of personal information, and nothing much was done about it. They commissioned a study, which I didn't get to do. A bunch of scholars at UQAM, Université du Québec à Montréal, did it, and nothing happened legislatively.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  But it is not just a matter of saying yes, is it?

Information & Ethics committee  I agree with all ten recommendations.

Information & Ethics committee  Pardon?

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  You don't want to do anything in the way of European data protection. It's so complicated. It's so rule-bound. It's inspired by the European directive. It's very legalistic. It deals primarily with law rather than practice. My interest is in policy. What happens in practice? In the privacy game, the motto is say what you do, as an organization, and then do what you say.

Information & Ethics committee  When you're doing the privacy risk management strategy, the first thing you have to have is a law. When they first introduced the freedom of information law in Ontario, my comment to the media around 1983 or 1984 was that I thought any law was better than no law until I saw this law.

Information & Ethics committee  If my successor, David Loukidelis, who appeared before you on PIPEDA last year, were here—and of course he told me what to say when I was here, so I have to remember all the things he told me to say, not particularly on this question—he would be talking about the need for the British Columbia government to appoint a chief privacy officer.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. I am going to start in French, but I am going to change to English because for more complicated things like the protection of personal privacy, it is easier for me to speak in English. I also have jet lag. That's an additional good reason. I feel I am almost twice as old as the Privacy Act.