Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2007

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I said earlier that businesses should compensate those people. Instead of going to court, would people not be better off going to see you first, so that you could make a decision regarding a business' responsibility and ask that it reimburse the individual? You are on the front line. In the event that there is no agreement between the two parties, they could go before the courts. That way we could do away with at least one step and reduce legal fees. If people went to see you first, you would have to determine whether the business was responsible for the claimant's financial losses.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Absolutely. That is totally part of our mandate. For example, Quebeckers can come to us to file a complaint against a federally-regulated company. The service is free, and we could take care of the damage claim form.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Within a reasonable timeframe?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Very well. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

You have one short question, Mr. Stanton.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have just one very quick question. In your remarks you mentioned that when there's a breach of privacy, personal information, 5% of that ends up in some type of fraud or criminality. Where does that number come from? Where would you glean that?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

That comes from a study in the United States. I don't have the exact reference here, but we subscribe to many newsletters that cover the situation. This was a study coming out of the United States that was reproduced in one of these privacy law newsletters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you, Mr. Stanton.

Would you be kind enough to provide us with that reference material so that we could have a look at it?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes, certainly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you very much, Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner, for appearing before us. Your paper was very helpful. As you can see, we're struggling with a lot of these issues, and we do appreciate your giving us your views and your guidance at the end as well as you did at the beginning. It was very helpful.

Committee members, I have just two things. Tomorrow you should receive a summary of recommendations by all of the witnesses. That should be in your offices tomorrow, so for those of you who have nothing better to do on the weekend, you have the weekend to review it.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

There's nothing I would like better.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

We'll have our first in camera meeting on Tuesday at 9 o'clock. I will find the right room in the right time. Right now it's 237-C, and hopefully we'll see you then to discuss that.

You will recall that at the request of the committee I wrote to the minister asking that he appear. The minister seems to be very busy. I offered many different compromises, including holding a special meeting and having a meeting in the evening, and it would appear that the minister is busy for 24 hours a day until the break. He has finally agreed to appear on March 20. I've indicated to him that the committee will not accept any changes to that, so that's when he will appear.

By that time we will have focused on some of the things we're thinking about that we're either unanimous on or have a majority on, and we can discuss them with him.

Thank you very much. We'll see you next week.

The meeting is adjourned.