Evidence of meeting #30 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was employees.
A recording is available from Parliament.
April 29th, 2008 / 4:55 p.m.
Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
In an average year, they will represent about 50% of our complaints.
4:55 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
And then all the guards complained. That's the case that's before the courts.
When I say I would like to have more discretion—
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Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
—that's one of the reasons: there are certain situations where people are using their rights intensely, shall we say.
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Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
In light of number six, how do you justify or how are you going to be able to enforce the provisions in recommendation number two, when the act, in section 41 and 42, says “Any individual who has been refused access...”? Isn't there a little bit of a discrepancy there?
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Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
This is recommendation number...two?
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Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
When groups are creating mischief, and I think possibly some of the correctional inquiries could be related to some mischief, if you have the discretion not to give information or to stop it, what do you do with the sections 41 and 42 of the act, which you've copied in recommendation number two—“Any individual who has been refused...”? How do you reconcile that?
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Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I think we're pointing this out to you because it would need to be looked at again: that I have the right to refuse to investigate complaints, and only in certain cases could the individual go to court.
There's something called judicial review in law, which means that when I exercise my discretion unwisely, unreasonably, or incorrectly, depending on the standard—and that's standard for all decision-making bodies—the courts would catch any errors I made in using my discretion and not investigating certain cases.
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Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Do you have other areas of concern? For instance, do terrorist organizations use the act?
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Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
All that is something I couldn't discuss in public, but I think there's a consensus that if you haven't been brought to the attention of the public authorities, you're unlikely to use something like the Privacy Act, which would mean we would then go to the RCMP and ask whether they have a file on A, B, and C. The RCMP could say no, but then the RCMP would ask who A, B, or C is and why the person wanted this. So in fact, we have very few such complaints.
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Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Can you recommend as witnesses anybody who would help us to find a healthy balance with this specific point?
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Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
With national security...?
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Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Yes, national security, and the issue of the correctional facilities, so that we can get a—
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Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
You might consider as witnesses some of the provincial commissioners, who are very able, very experienced. The ones in British Columbia and Alberta, Commissioner Loukidelis and Commissioner Work, have just gone through revision of their own laws. There's also my former colleague in Quebec. Quebec, again, has done a major revision of its privacy act. I'm sure you could call Monsieur Saint-Laurent too as a witness.
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Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You raised the issue of education, and I emphasized some aspects of that earlier. Do you have a plan, a program designed to make people understand what a Privacy Commissioner is? What part of the population are you targeting in particular?
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Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Our Public Education and Research Section has a mandate to do public education. We increasingly see that privacy studies are segmented by population ages. More recently, with certain provincial commissioners, we've developed a module for youths who go on to sites specially designed for youths: Facebook and other social networking sites. However, these sites can become very invasive in terms of their personal information if the youths are not well informed.
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Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Are the Education departments of the various provinces affected by that? Are they your entry point for facilitating your work?
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Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We in no way want to encroach on the provinces' education jurisdiction. In fact, that model was created at the request of certain provincial commissioners. All the provincial commissioners think it is a good idea for us to collaborate with them, but we do nothing in the province without the provincial commissioner's involvement.
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Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
We're talking about youths, but what approach do you want to take to ordinary people, adults who are in the labour market, the population as a whole?
5:05 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It's an approach with a number of components. We've made an enormous investment in our publications and the presentations we offer, not only the deputy commissioners and myself, but also all staff members, who each have a different niche. For example, Ms. Kosseim often talks to lawyers. The technology people talk to engineers and computer scientists and so on. We offer about two presentations a week in and outside Canada. Our website has had a lot of success recently. It's been visited much more frequently than a few years ago.
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Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Earlier you gave some examples of requests from outside Canada. In the departments, in general or in particular, depending on the case, are employees assigned to that service?
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Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. Every department has a directorate that handles access and personal information protection issues with a full-time team. For example, at Health Canada, approximately 40 persons work in access and personal information protection. We deal with those professionals a lot.
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Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Earlier you were saying that certain provinces had taken action and that, internationally, the European Union was doing the same.
Is the Canadian act within the international average? Should it be given a good sprucing up? Are we a few decades behind?
