Evidence of meeting #24 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 commissioner.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
—or it would have been a waste of money to make the advertisement in that case.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Well, under Bill C-2 it also said that prior to making a recommendation to the Governor in Council that a person be appointed, the Prime Minister
shall consult with the leader of every recognized party in the House of Commons. An announcement of an appointment shall be transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Commons for tabling in that House.
That's another step that, to my knowledge, wasn't done. If the government is saying they will comply with the terms of Bill C-2 even before it's implemented or ratified, just to be living by that higher standard, in Mr. Marleau's case that process wasn't followed. The leader of my party wasn't consulted that Mr. Marleau would be the nominee here.
This is what I'm getting at, with no disrespect to Mr. Marleau. He swore me in, in 1997, too. I think he has a fabulous résumé and is probably the right person for the job, but I also point out that others were interested. There were seven people we had on a short list. Two were currently information commissioners in provinces within Canada and were probably pretty darned qualified too, and a commission, a public appointments commission, made up of an independent panel may have wanted to analyze this and those other worthy candidates further. That's all I'm trying to raise here.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Mr. Martin, have you consulted with your leader and confirmed that he was not consulted about this?
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
No, I can only assume, because I think my party would have consulted—
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
To say something like that...that's why I'm asking you specifically if you know that as a fact or if that's your conjecture, to be fair.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Well, that's my conjecture, to be fair, but I can say that it would be—
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Okay. In any event, it's Mr. Martin's conjecture and that's all it is at this point.
All right. Are we through, sir?
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
I would just like to say that I think the leader's office of my party would have consulted my party's only representative on this committee if that had transpired, so it's reasonable to assume. I will check that out.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
But my question is to Mr. Marleau, I suppose, if he's to be an officer of Parliament soon.
Would you see the merit in the new process, or would you find any fault with the status quo that has served Parliament up to this time, to the implementation of the public appointments commission?
9:50 a.m.
Nominee for the position of Information Commissioner, As an Individual
As a Canadian citizen, I more than welcome the process that's included in Bill C-2. As a potentially future information commissioner, I like the transparency. It will likely be subject to access to information, and therefore there would be more shared by the government in terms of the process itself.
So I have to say that I have no difficulty with what is proposed in Bill C-2 and I see it as an enhancement of the process.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Martin, my understanding is that all leaders were consulted.
Mr. Marleau, we read your book in the House almost every day, so I welcome you to the committee, and—
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I have a couple of brief questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Marleau, in your opening statement, which is excellent, you state:
I confess that I have a bias against the status quo when it comes to management. If confirmed, one of my priorities will be to assess the management structure and practices of the Commission, to satisfy myself that Canadians and Parliament are getting good value.
Everyone here has referred to Bill C-2, and I expect it's going to get royal assent today, or if not today, tomorrow.
Assuming that's going to take place, and here you are appearing before the committee, you may not be there yet, but I'm wondering whether you've had any preliminary thoughts about how you would restructure the Office of the Information Commissioner to deal with the new entities that will now be covered by this legislation.
December 12th, 2006 / 9:55 a.m.
Nominee for the position of Information Commissioner, As an Individual
I thank you for the question, Mr. Tilson.
Through you, Mr. Chair, the statement I will make is that I will assess.... I have no predetermined plan for the commission. I don't assume that it absolutely requires one. In my experience in the privacy commission, and I don't mean to imply any kinds of difficulties I faced there, some of the smaller agencies have done things the same way for a long time. That's why I say I have a bias against the status quo. I want to look at how things are done, why they are done that way, and see if there are not efficiencies that we could extract, particularly on the issue of delays. This is the recurring theme in every Information Commissioner's report...and see how we could maybe accelerate some of the return, by changing the way investigations are done....
I don't have a structured plan. I've barely had time to evaluate the impact of Bill C-2 since it received agreement in the House just last Friday, after an exchange of messages with the Senate, but as I said, it will be my first priority.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Martin and I had the honour of sitting on the Bill C-2 committee, and we appreciated the comments you made at that time for that committee.
I have a belief—and this is not the belief of the government; it's my personal belief. Because of the accountability legislation, I believe the government, or someone, should have briefings from time to time, telling political staff, or telling civil servants, or telling incumbent MPs, or telling newly elected members of Parliament what their obligations are under this legislation. It's a very comprehensive legislation. I don't know whether we will or not. I hope we do, because I think the government should take some leadership on that.
Again, I appreciate that you may not have put your thoughts to how the Information Commissioner should educate the newly expanded access to information community.
9:55 a.m.
Nominee for the position of Information Commissioner, As an Individual
That's a big challenge. I believe the commissioner, as part of his advocacy role, should do a complete assessment of Bill C-2 and publish, on his website, the perspective of the impact from the commissioner's point of view. I think it has to be done in concert with the executive in terms of what their perspective is as well. You just can't have two conflicting or two parallel tracks out there, so that's why I talk about this sustained dialogue. Without giving up independence, I think you can have that dialogue and come to some kind of common agreement as to where Bill C-2 will take us.
The impact of Bill C-2, of course, touches on the ATI, and it's an improvement. It's not the improvement that I understand the previous Information Commissioner wanted. The biggest improvement I think in recent times is not so much Bill C-2 as it is the creation of this committee. I believe there have been more appearances of the Information Commissioner since the creation of this committee, before parliamentarians, than there were in the previous 15 years. Now that there is a focused group of parliamentarians on the issues, that's a key way I think for the commissioner to get the message out, as you say, to brief MPs on a regular basis about the needs and the growing impact of the act on government, and maybe through this committee.... I know, for instance, that this committee has filed a report with the House requesting that the government bring in a comprehensive review of the act. That is to me proof that the dynamic is well on its way.
Sorry, Mr. Chair, if I'm going on at length, but as far as briefing new MPs is concerned, that's a big challenge. As Clerk of the House, we used to put on orientation sessions for MPs. I was approached by the Auditor General and by the language commissioner to see if they could find a module in there to at least explain their role and their relationship to Parliament. And we did from time to time have them in, but the demands on the new MPs' time in those critical weeks when the House is just back is tremendous. It's very hard and it's information overload.
So my tack on it would take the longer-term view, through this committee and other opportunities to interact with members, or one on one, even, with the office, to help them along in understanding what they can do and where they want to go and how we can help.
