Evidence of meeting #46 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 report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. I would like to challenge your ruling and I would like it to be put to a vote.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I thought I had the floor. People are babbling away here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
My decision to recognize Mr. Tilson has been challenged. Is it the will of the committee to support the chair?
(Ruling of the chair sustained)
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
We're calling on Mr. Tilson.
By the way, just for interest's sake, Marleau and Montpetit clearly indicates that overruling the chair does not necessarily mean lack of confidence in the chair. I don't take any of these rulings personally.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that our side has complete confidence in the excellent work you're doing. This is a very difficult time in your chairmanship, and I congratulate you for it. You haven't made rulings that I agree with, but I respect you for it. You suggested, when I raised some points of order--
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Wallace for filibustering this meeting.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
I will tell you what the point of order is. I heard a lot mentioned about our men and women who are proudly serving Canadians, either here or abroad. There is no doubt in my mind that every member in this committee supports those men and women. I would like to bring a motion to take a vote on this: that every person who's present here supports those men and women in uniform.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
First of all, I don't rule that a point of order. It's an interesting thing. We're discussing a motion, and a motion on an entirely different topic requires the usual 48 hours' notice.
Mr. Tilson.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I can only say to Mr. Dhaliwal that our side supports both men and women.
Mr. Wallace has been very thorough in his presentation. I will try to not repeat too much of what he said.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I will do my best.
I'd like to emphasize some of the points he touched on. I believe the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Standing Committee on Justice are reviewing this very report. When Foreign Affairs, Justice, the courts, and the Information Commissioner are all making reports--and there's a court out west making a ruling on an injunction--I worry whether the rules of natural justice are going to be followed.
Mr. Wallace has said he hasn't seen the report, and I haven't seen the report. The only thing I've seen was in one of the Toronto papers, where there was a blacked--
Liberal
Jean-Claude D'Amours Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
On a point of order, Mr. Chairman.
I realize that Conservative members of the Committee get a kick out of hearing their own voice and talking about nothing. If that's what turns them on, so be it; that is their right. However, the rules governing committees have to be followed, and one of those rules is that speakers do not repeat the same facts or arguments over and over again just because they feel like it. Mr. Tilson has again referred to the point raised by Mr. Wallace during his argument, if you can call it that, with respect to an article that appeared in the National Post or The Globe and Mail. I can't remember which of the two newspapers was involved. However, those arguments cannot be made twice. He will have to find new ideas if he wants to continue talking. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I would request that you ask government members of this Committee to follow the rules. They will have to stop repeating what others or they themselves have already said.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you.
I rule your point not well taken. Each member is entitled to address the substance of the motion and make the points they wish to make. I'm following the debate very carefully. If the speaker becomes repetitious, I will interrupt him.
Mr. Tilson is entitled to put his own spin on whatever argument he wants to make, as is any member. I'm sure the members on the Conservative side have heard the admonition.
Mr. Tilson.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have not seen this report, and it is my understanding that Mr. Wallace has not seen the report. Maybe other members of this committee have seen the report. If they had, I'm sure that fact would have arisen. So the motion is talking about studying a report that no one has seen.
There has been reference to one of the local newspapers. There was an article, which we've all seen, on the front page, and there was a section that was blacked out and another section on another page that wasn't blacked out. I don't know whether that's the report. I don't know whether the blacked-out portion is this report. I don't know whether the portion that's not blacked out is this report. I don't even know whether that newspaper has the report. So that seems to be one of the things we're relying on.
Mr. Martin, I believe, referred to a report that some professor had. I don't know what that report is. I don't know whether that's the report in the motion.
So again, I submit an issue that I raised in a point of order, and which you ruled out of order. Again, I don't agree with you, but I respect what you've said. You encouraged me to talk about that if I wanted to in debate, which is what I'm doing now. That issue is which report the committee is going to study.
Presumably, the committee is going to have to go and ask the minister--a minister--for the very report that has been acknowledged by the Information Commissioner as being before the Information Commission in a study. I don't know the status of that report. None of us does. Nor do we know whether portions have been blacked out or whether the whole thing has been blacked out.
Mr. Wallace has spent a great deal of time going through, I think it was, section 15, indicating why you could conceivably black out certain areas. Presumably, the Information Commissioner is proceeding with that.
Mr. Chairman, the point I'm making with this discussion is that our study could conceivably be frustrated. We will not be doing the report that we set out to do, because it is being done in a more thorough fashion by the Information Commissioner .
Then, of course, you get to the issue of the Information Commissioner's making a decision that conceivably could be appealed to the court. If we make a decision that someone doesn't like--the Liberal Party, the Bloc Quebecois, the NDP, the Conservative Party, an individual, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, someone over in Afghanistan--looking at the rules of national justice, they have no recourse. It could be anyone who doesn't agree with the report. Well, perhaps it wouldn't apply to the people of Afghanistan, but it would certainly apply to Canadian citizens.
They do have recourse--with respect to a decision that has been made by the Information Commissioner--to the Federal Court. That doesn't exist in this report. We're causing a bit of a problem.
We're going to look at all the issues. We're going to look at the issues that, it has been suggested, occurred in this government, the Conservative government. We're going to be looking at issues in the former Liberal government, which have been referred to. They may be relevant or they may not be relevant, but we're certainly going to look at them.
We're going to be looking at the issues with respect to the Toronto newspaper that made a report and whether that person or persons violated the provisions—because that's what the resolution says—of the Access to Information Act. Were they revealing secrets that, under the Access to Information Act, they shouldn't reveal?
All of these things make it very difficult, Mr. Chairman, to proceed with this motion, and that is one reason I don't believe we should proceed. When you look at the motion, I honestly believe it should be dealt with by another committee, with respect to matters that should go beyond the Access to Information Act. We are certainly going to go into it. We're going to go into matters of security. We're going to go into matters that have nothing to do with this committee.
I believe this whole motion is beyond the jurisdiction of this committee. I mentioned in my point of order that there are legal proceedings going on in British Columbia with respect to an interim injunction that would prohibit the transfer by Canadian Forces of detainees in Afghanistan. As I submitted in my point of order, I believe it would be inappropriate for the committee to proceed with this matter, because there's an ongoing legal matter that's before the court.
In our deliberations, our examining of witnesses, and our submissions, we could inadvertently prejudice those proceedings. I know they were introduced last week. I don't know whether they have been heard, but there certainly would be a timeframe for appeal one way or the other. It would be most irresponsible for this committee to prejudice matters that are before the court.
Finally, it's kind of ironic that we were dealing with the issue of identity until this big brouhaha occurred, because that's how all this happened. This happened because there was something in the Toronto newspapers that I don't think someone got legally. Maybe they did. They'll have to come to tell us whether they got it legally. They may have broken the law.
I'm not going to refer to the sections that Mr. Wallace referred to. I'm just going to refer to section 64 of the legislation, which says:
In carrying out an investigation under this Act and in any report made to Parliament under section 38 or 39, the Information Commissioner and any person acting on behalf or under the direction of the Information Commissioner shall take every reasonable precaution to avoid the disclosure of, and shall not disclose,
Here we are, going on our merry way. Is the Information Commissioner going to come to this committee under the provisions of the Access to Information Act, section 64, and say, “You guys are breaking the law, you're breaking the provisions of the Access to Information Act”?
There are a couple of exceptions to that. Paragraph 64(a) says:
any information or other material on the basis of which the head of a government institution would be authorized to refuse to disclose a part of a record requested under this Act;
In other words, the head of the government can say that all the various sections that Mr. Wallace mentioned--and I won't repeat them--in section 15 should be blacked out. That person has the right to do that.
Mr. Chairman, I believe we should vote on this matter.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Excuse me. Is Mr. Tilson asking for the question on the original motion?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
At the present time I have people who wish to speak. If the list is exhausted, we can do it.
Mr. Martin, do you wish to address the motion?
