Information & Ethics committee  I would just add, perhaps, that one of the issues you deal with when you're dealing with federal-provincial collaboration in this area is that not all of the consumer protection agencies across the country necessarily share the same legislative base, nor are they in the same depa

Information & Ethics committee  They can, but it often requires bringing more than one minister from a jurisdiction to a table when you're dealing with an issue as complex as identity theft. You're covering civil law and criminal law. You're dealing with issues involving the coordination of police forces and la

Information & Ethics committee  I've outlined for you some of the challenges we face as officials dealing with this issue.

Information & Ethics committee  Certainly federal-provincial ministers have indicated some concern to take some leadership on the public information aspects of this issue. And in our own federal-provincial committee, as I think you've seen, we've certainly taken some leadership there. It is fair to say as wel

Information & Ethics committee  Well, I'm here speaking as an official of a federal-provincial committee to explain what we've done. I'm not really here to give an opinion on what the government should be doing one way or the other.

Information & Ethics committee  I can certainly explain to you what we've seen. I can explain to you what we understand of the severity of the problem, the character of the problem. It's not my place as an official to give an opinion about whether government should take action or not.

Information & Ethics committee  No, CMC has not, as an organization, looked at the spam issue.

Information & Ethics committee  I think we've certainly done some good preliminary work in this area. I'm not entirely certain what the Privacy Commissioner was referring to in terms of the federal-provincial group, what area of activity it would cover. As a collective group, we don't generally deal with justic

Information & Ethics committee  If governments decided to do that, we could certainly collaborate with them and provide them with the benefit of the work we've done, and I'm sure we could be of some considerable help to such a group.

Information & Ethics committee  We've certainly looked at some of the work the Americans have done. David?

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. David and I will be pleased to answer your questions after a brief opening statement. I would also like to remind you that we've left you a package of information from the consumer measures committee, and I'll be referring to some of the documents in that