Evidence of meeting #23 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pipeda.
A recording is available from Parliament.
December 11th, 2006 / 5:20 p.m.
Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Yes. I would only be speculating, but it would be an interesting speculation to ask the question, how might an office, not necessarily that commissioner but an office, with order-making power have dealt with the situation where Maclean's magazine came and dumped all of the commissioner's cellphone records onto her desk, which she bought from a U.S. data broker? I think it would be an interesting question to ask.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
I only have one question. Did you say, Professor Kerr, that people are blogging what's going on in this committee?
5:20 p.m.
Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Yes, all the time.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
My goodness. Unbelievable!
I'd like to thank our witnesses. This is always interesting information. We appreciate the recommendations that were given and the answers that were given. We thank our witnesses for coming and for your expertise. We appreciate it.
Committee members, we still have a few minutes to deal with some business. Now we're on the third report of the steering committee, which has in fact been superceded to a degree by intervening events.
That reminds me, I want to remind committee members that we will have a special meeting tomorrow morning. It will start at 9:30 a.m., not at 9 a.m., so please don't be here at 9 a.m. The sole purpose of the meeting will be to interview Robert Marleau, who has been put forward as the new Information Commissioner of Canada.
Everybody has before them the third report. You can effectively ignore paragraph 1 because of what I've just said.
Now we're going to paragraph 2. You can effectively ignore nothing there. We'll talk about paragraph 2, then. Obviously we'll have one extra meeting available to us, because we won't need January 30 to interview Mr. Marleau.
Madame Lavallée.
5:20 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
I would like to verify whether it is possible to add a third sub-paragraph to reserve time on December 15, in case the Minister of Justice comes to introduce his strengthened and modernized access to information legislation.
That is what I am proposing.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
That issue was not dealt with; you got a chance to say it again. As always, we're in the hands of the committee. Right now we're talking about paragraph 2. Is there any discussion about paragraph 2? You'll notice that there are some timelines set out there.
I'm simply asking. If there is no discussion, I'll ask someone to move paragraph 2.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
We come back in the last week in January. Our committee meetings, I'm told, have been changed, or will be changed. We will no longer be meeting on Monday and Wednesday; we'll be meeting on Tuesday and Thursday, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Our first meeting then would be January 30, Tuesday.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Chairman, on that, do I assume from what you're saying that it's because of paragraph 1 that there would be another meeting?
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
It's five more days for hearings.
I'd like to hear from you, Mr. Chair, and maybe the clerk, as to how many more witnesses want to appear before us.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
The steering committee, Mr. Peterson, went through the list of witnesses, and it was the judgment of the steering committee unanimously that this number of days would be able to adequately address the number of witnesses who requested an appearance and the issues they would be dealing with.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
And I take it we will be having the Privacy Commissioner back for a final meeting for a full two hours?
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Yes, and we also want to have the Minister of Industry. You will recall that the bureaucracy said they would need the minister's instructions to provide us with their advice as to what they thought were or were not appropriate suggestions. So we'll have a meeting with the minister and we'll have a meeting with the Privacy Commissioner.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
Out of the six meetings? We've got one for Mr. Marleau, then we've got one for the Privacy Commissioner, then one for the minister--
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Forget Mr. Marleau because we're having an additional one. We have one Wednesday, we have two during the last week in January, so that's three, we have two in the first week in February, so that's five, and we have two more in the next week, so that's seven. And that should finish it. Of the seven, two will be for the Privacy Commissioner and the minister. So there are five meetings, and we would leave--