Evidence of meeting #44 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 million.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Mr. Chairman, if you want to talk about committee tradition—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Pardon me, madam.
Monsieur Vincent, he did answer the question. He said there's no specific rule, which was your first question.
Second, he said it's his understanding that the vision of committees is that to extend the meeting would require unanimous consent. Now, you may not agree, but that's what he said. I did allow him to answer the question, and he answered it.
Go ahead, Madame Lavallée.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Mr. Chairman, if you want to talk about traditions, we can talk about tradition concerning the chairman's right to speak. Here, we've always been extremely tolerant about your right to speak, but it must be said that, every time, you alone take the time that an entire party gets to speak, meaning seven minutes. We've never objected to that.
Bloc
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
No, we have a timer here. I haven't taken seven minutes, and I take the Liberal slot.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
You do not take the Liberals' slot, as you say. You're taking extra time. We will get out the minutes of committee meetings.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
That's not true. I take the Liberal slot. You can ask the clerk. He keeps the list.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Can you just be polite here? You are in the chair and you are getting excited, so--
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
If you want to talk about traditions and what is done in other committees, I can tell you this is not something that is part of committee tradition and that this is not a common practice in other committees. If you want to talk about tradition, we can talk about it.
That said, I have a motion that I gave notice of in—
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
It is not common practice for a chair to speak so long during a committee meeting. I sit on other committees, and you are the chair who takes the most time. In any case, this is not something I've seen on other committees, nor has my colleague, and other colleagues who have come to sit beside me since I've been on this committee have told me the same thing. They are always surprised. I have always told them that you just had to put up with it, but today I've had enough.
That said, I introduced a motion asking the committee to examine the current government's practices regarding the Access to Information Act. If what is currently happening is a dilatory measure to prevent us from looking at this practice as well as everything else regarding the internal report by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, we will draw the appropriate conclusions, meaning that the Conservative government, through the Conservative members present, are opposed to such a review because they might have something to hide. That is the conclusion that I will draw, Mr. Chairman.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
First of all, there is no motion in front of the committee. There is notice of a motion. No motion has been moved, because we haven't got to that stage of the proceedings, so let's be absolutely accurate about what we're saying.
Is everybody finished with points of order, none of which I find valid?
We have one minute, Mrs. Davidson. Would you like to ask a question?
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be very brief.
Commissioner, I think there's always been concern among the public. People wonder how their privacy issues are being dealt with and want to make sure there are security issues in place.
My question is about the regional offices. Are they going to help the public to be reassured? Where are they going to be, and how many of them are there?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Chair, we are at the point of deciding exactly where they will be. They may not be offices in a traditional sense, but they will be regional presences, given that the very nature of what we work on is not fixed in one place but is continually moving.
One presence will be in the Atlantic provinces, and it may be that we have systems or a base in several provinces. The other one will be in the western provinces, maybe emphasizing the provinces that don't have substantially similar legislation.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you.
You also spoke about grants that you gave for privacy work and so on. Do we get a report of how that money is spent, or can we--on where the grant money goes?
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes, absolutely, honourable member. It's on our website. Every year we give the grants. We announce who won the grants, how much was spent, and when the research work is handed in we provide a link on our website to where it's published. That's part of the condition of the grant; you have to publish it so the Canadian public can read that information.
We expect to announce the grants for this year in a few weeks. So that's for 2006-07. If you watch our website, you'll see who will get the grants.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you.
I want to bring to the attention of the committee that the clerk has contacted the Minister of Justice and advised the Minister of Justice that we will be prepared to meet with him at any time that is convenient to him. We've been advised by the Minister of Justice that he has no time, possibly at least until the fall. I bring this to your attention only because I've mentioned numerous times before that there are other ways of skinning the cat. So it's up to the committee members to decide if they want to do so.
Eleven o'clock has come. I'd like to thank our witnesses, the Privacy Commissioner and her officials, for appearing here and for answering our questions. We look forward to seeing you on another matter on Tuesday of next week.
Thank you.
The meeting is adjourned.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Just a minute, Mr. Chairman. I would like to know what you're doing with the second item on the agenda. Is it being postponed to the beginning of the next meeting?