Evidence of meeting #48 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 amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman.
The member is harassing the witness. The witness does not remember. He has answered the question. There is no point in going over and over ground that has already been covered and asking for additional information.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
That's not a point of order. He's entirely in order in asking. If the witness chooses not to reveal or answer the question, then it's up to the committee at a later time to decide what, if any, action the committee chooses to take with respect to that refusal. Just because you, on that side, feel the witness is a little uncomfortable doesn't mean the question is out of order.
Carry on, please.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Sir, I'm going to ask you one more time to give me the names of the people. This is very serious. You and Mr. Esau have come to us and said there has been a breach of the law, and this committee is trying to determine if the government broke the law, if certain bureaucratic figures broke the law, if members of the public broke the law. That's what we're looking for. Part of this investigation is to determine if anyone broke the law.
You've told us you've talked to certain people who saw this report, and I'm going to ask you one more time, will you be prepared to give us the names of those people who have told you they have seen this report?
Prof. Amir Attaran
Do not, sir, make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. What I was told in a dinner setting, in a cocktail setting, in a social setting unrelated to work, by people whom I do not know well enough to assess their credibility, was that they had seen a document in The Globe and Mail , and it was a document they thought they had seen at work. I have no way of knowing whether they were truthful, and--
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
I think you've given your answer, and we'll let Mr. Tilson make his point.
What is it?
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
My point is that the witness appears not to be prepared to give me this information, and we'll let the record show that.
Prof. Amir Attaran
The witness is not in possession of the information. If you asked me, for instance, to provide a first and last name of one man who I recall being five-foot-eight, perhaps, in height, I wouldn't be able to give you--
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
The answer was no, I believe. I believe that's what you said, was it not? You were asked if you could provide the name, and the answer was no.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
No, that's all I want to know. The record shows he's not prepared to give me that information, and well, the record shows that. That's fine.
Liberal
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Okay, I have just one quick one here.
Professor, you referenced section 67 a couple of times. You used a couple of terms: “concealing records” and “concealing documents”. You referenced the fact that certain excerpts or excisions, I think is the word you used, were taken out of certain documents. Is section 67 concealing an entire document, or even specific segments of it, or both?
Prof. Amir Attaran
Let me be exact. Section 67 uses the word “records”, not “documents”, so that is the proper language of the act.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
So how does that square with--and we're getting into a legal question here, I understand--sections 13, 15, 21, all of which enable, under law, the withholding of certain components of the reports that are provided under access to information?
Prof. Amir Attaran
I'm going to pass that to Mr. Esau since he knows that area better, but I will say this. In the constellation of what happened overall, at one time the entire document was concealed when Mr. Esau was told that it didn't exist, that Canada didn't produce human rights reports. At another time, the entire document was concealed from me when the department went into what's called the “deemed refusal” and elapsed the timeline without taking an extension. At a later time, only excerpts were withheld. So at different times, either the whole document or only excerpts have been concealed.
As to the fine points of the operation of the act, I'll pass to Mr. Esau.
As an Individual
Yes, I think that has to be adjudicated. That's a legal question. I think any institution that withholds information has to have a reason, and the Information Commissioner will come in and ask for the rationale. It's the injury test, where if you can make a reasonable argument--I say reasonable and acceptable to a legal mind--that revealing such and such information could be injurious to the ability to conduct international affairs or international security, or whatever, then that determines whether or not there's criminality.
I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect that “wilfulness” and “gross misconduct” are terms...then you start getting into criminality as opposed to administrative inefficiencies.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Just to be clear, Professor, we're talking about paragraph 67.1(1)(c), I think. I think you had referred to that. I just want the committee to know there are two sections 67--one is subsection 67(1), the other one is subsection 67.1(1), etc.--and I think you were referring to the latter.
I just want the record to be clear that it's section 67.1 that you were referring to, Mr. Stanton. And I know that you were, because you made that specific point earlier.
Thank you.
Mr. Martin.