Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here today and for your presentations.
Both Mr. Leadbeater and Mr. Watson, could you give me an idea of the coordination that may take place between your two offices with respect to the particular issue we're dealing with, and that's the disclosure of names.
I noticed in Mr. Leadbeater's presentation he referred to the Rowat case, which was a clear breach, by your analysis and by the Supreme Court of Canada's analysis. And I think that all of us reading the plain meaning of the Privacy Act would agree. I wonder if that incident and the comments in the Information Commissioner's annual report, there and at other times, has led to any investigations of the sort currently under way by the Privacy Commissioner. I'm trying to understand the interplay over time of the consequences of the Information Commissioner discovering and commenting publicly on the apparent breaches not only of the Privacy Act, with the release of personal information, but also of the Treasury Board guidelines. I would like to get some sense of how that works.
Second, I'd like to get your opinion on the difference between the frequency of practice of disclosing the general nature of--it was referred to in the newspaper this morning as amber lighting--a request for information that is about to be made public, so that officials, whether ministerial-level or senior public officials, can be prepared to answer in public, to provide information to be able to respond to concerns that may have arisen in the public domain.... Compare that practice with the actual practice of disclosing the name of a requester, which is the specific breach of the Privacy Act that's been mentioned. In commenting on the frequency of one or the other, comment also on the rightness or wrongness of the former, of the amber lighting.
I'd be very grateful for your opinion on whether that is an appropriate disclosure in order to have the wheels of government act responsibly and be accountable to the public for information that is in the public domain, or whether in some way that suggests an improper disclosure, where the name of the requester is not given.
Thank you.