Evidence of meeting #4 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 c-2.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you.
Committee members, it's 5:10. Mr. Tilson is next, and we have two others who have requested an opportunity. I would really appreciate having five or so minutes during which I could ask a few questions, and I hope you'll indulge me.
We'll go to Mr. Tilson.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Will I have an opportunity to ask another question?
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Chairman, I believe we received an invitation from the minister for this committee to take a leadership role with respect to this issue. The Information Commissioner introduced a bill. Commissioner Reid and Mr. Leadbeater spent some time briefing us on that bill. In fact, I have the package that we went through here. We've done everything that one could with respect to a bill. Minister Toews tabled a paper in April, which provided some comments with respect to the commissioner's proposed legislation.
The one thing we haven't done, which you do for every other bill, is to have some kind of public hearings, where you could have the Mr. Walshes, members of the public, and indeed the justice ministry come to make comments with respect to legislation. Quite frankly, I would support continuing on with that process.
The only reason the bill went to the House was because of absolute frustration. We were going to proceed, we wanted action, and we were quite frankly getting nowhere with the former minister. If I could—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
No. Do you have any questions for the minister?
This is committee business that we can discuss in camera but not in front in of a witness who's making himself available as the minister to answer questions.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Chairman, I'm entitled to make comments to the committee at this time, and I am doing that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
You certainly are. I'm asking you to remember that we're not going to talk about committee business when we've got a witness here.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I'm entitled to make statements with respect to this proposed legislation.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I would hope that you would let me do that.
I believe the minister has been quite clear on what he is offering for this committee to do, and I would support that.
In other words, the committee should continue with this work, hold public hearings, and invite all kinds of people to come, whether they be, as I said, members of the public.... I'm sure the newspaper people would love to come and comment on this legislation. They've never had the opportunity. Mr. Walsh may have some comments. There are all kinds of people who I think would like to come.
Mr. Chairman, that is the process I would hope this committee would follow.
Thank you.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
I disagree.
You have all the information you need and you know what you want, Minister; you said so a few moments ago. You know what needs to be done and you have the whole summer to do it.
I would urge you to work on this over the summer and come back to us in September with a bill. If you do not come forward with a bill in September, I will assume that you do not have the political will to do that. I will certainly be making some other suggestions to the committee, but I will definitely not be recommending that we do your job for you, since you do not really want to put this bill forward.
That said, I am going to make a genuine access to information request. My comment may seem somewhat out of context, but once I ask my question, you will see that it is really about the Access to Information Act and your department.
On a number of occasions in recent years the Bloc Québécois has complained about the Access to Information Act because it did not enable us to get all the information we wanted.
Cinar Films, a large audio visual production company in Montreal, used false names to hide the foreign origin of some scriptwriters in order to get some significant tax credits from the federal government.
The Bloc Québécois often spoke out against the fact that the Prime Minister at the time, Paul Martin, refused to disclose information that would have shed some light on this matter. More specifically, he did not tell us why the Minister of Justice had decided not to lay any criminal charges for copyright violation against Cinar Films and its founders, even though an RCMP report recommended just the opposite.
Will the new bill, that you may introduce some day soon, make it possible to get information of this type from the Minister of Justice? As the new Minister of Justice, can you tell us why the former minister refused to lay criminal charges against Cinar Films even though the RCMP had recommended this?
My next question has nothing to do with the Access to Information Act, but I am going to ask it nonetheless. Does your government intend to lay criminal charges against Cinar Films, as the RCMP recommended?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
The minister will be sticking to the questions that pertain to the subject matter we're discussing today.
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
I'll deal generally with the role of an attorney general in prosecutions. All I can say is that the Attorney General doesn't make decisions in respect of whether charges should be laid. That is generally done by the police in our system. If the RCMP, for example, have evidence for a charge, it is they who lay the charge. They will consult with crown attorneys—sometimes federal crown attorneys, sometimes provincial crown attorneys—as to whether or not there is sufficient evidence and will make that decision.
Ultimately, in my experience, with one very notorious exception—and I don't mean that in a pejorative sense—in British Columbia, where the Crown screens criminal charges to determine whether or not they should go ahead, generally speaking the police lay the charges and the crown attorney then prosecutes them. I would be surprised that an attorney general would be involved in the laying of a charge. In fact, I'd be very concerned. In all the years I've been a prosecutor and a government lawyer and a provincial minister of justice, I've never had a minister involved in the laying of the charge. It would be, in my opinion, very inappropriate.
I can't tell you why the last government did or why the last minister didn't, but I would hope the reason the minister did not was because it would be highly improper for him to do it.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Are my five minutes up? May I make a brief comment?
Conservative
Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
You have raised a dilemma, Minister. Should we be studying an issue that may have an impact on a bill before the bill is introduced? When the committee studied Bill C-2, we had the bill before us. Subsequently, we had a few difficulties with the bill, as I mentioned earlier, following the comments by the law clerk who spoke to us about parliamentary privilege.
I come back to the issue regarding members of Parliament, because that is of interest to me. I am a member of Parliament, not a parliamentary secretary or a minister. I find the subject rather intriguing.
First of all, when we were studying Bill C-2, we agreed that the privilege of journalists not to reveal their sources must be protected. A number of journalists from the CBC came to meet with the committee. If I understand what you have said today, a lawyer would be less protected than a journalist, because solicitor-client privilege could be set aside under access to information legislation. You are therefore asking us to consider this problem, since we dealt with the one regarding journalists. Solicitor-client privilege, which is even recognized in the case of civil procedures in Quebec, could be compromised, with the result that journalists would be better protected than lawyers.
If the opposition were to ask a lawyer for advice, that would mean, under the new legislation that you are asking us to consider, that I could ask the lawyer who advised the opposition to testify in order to find out what the opposition really thinks.
Are you asking us to study that before a bill is introduced?
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
I think that's a very good point. I was somewhat surprised when I found out that the implications of the Information Commissioner's recommendation would be that CBC journalists—because it was a crown corporation, or at least at arm's length from the Crown, but through appointments and such, a crown corporation—would have to disclose their sources and that it would be the Information Commissioner who would then determine whether or not that source should remain confidential. I found that, quite frankly, shocking. And I think most Canadians who rely on at least some private but also to a great extent public broadcasters...that those journalists would be somehow subject to a standard that would compromise their ability to gather information.
I think the parallel here is this. Do we say we should just allow solicitor-client privilege for private lawyers who are advising clients but not in the public context? I think the same issue is fundamental there, and that is the protection of that source in order to ensure that ministers receive the best information. Similarly, a CBC reporter should be entitled to assure his or her sources that this information will be treated confidentially and will not be released to the Information Commissioner.
Having said that, in law, we know that the courts can demand that journalists, in particular situations, release that information. The solicitor-client privilege is even in a more separate part in terms of protection. I'm trying to think of a situation where we could in fact order a solicitor to reveal information provided by a client, where the client does not consent. It would be, as the Supreme Court, nearly absolute. I'm still trying to figure out when it isn't absolute.
Your point is a good one. And yes, I think you've summarized my position very accurately.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
Was reform of access to information part of your transparency and accountability agenda in the last election, part of your platform?
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
I'm here to speak as a minister; I'm not here to speak as a political individual. I believe the Conservative Party did in fact have that in the platform, though.