Evidence of meeting #31 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 institutions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
No, Privacy Matters.
Conservative
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, it's up on our website.
Conservative
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
It deals with the contract provisions. It's exactly one of those tools departments find useful because it has templates, tools. If you're issuing a contract, and you're dealing with a certain level of—
Conservative
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, it's very much a how-to.
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
If you're outsourcing something, it suggests how you need to word the contract to protect Canadian information that might be held by the outsourcer.
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
It was very well received in that regard, I think.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Thank you, Mr. Wallace.
Flowing from that, as you know, the committee has resources from the clerk side, the responsibilities, as well, from the Library of Parliament, and our researchers are taking command of information and trying to coordinate it for us. I guess there's a request for you, and I'm going to ask our researcher, Nancy Holmes, if she would just make a request to you to help us to the extent you are able.
Ms. Holmes.
Nancy Holmes Committee Researcher
It was just following up on some questions you've already had, I think, from Mr. Hubbard and Mr. Wallace, and just sort of tightening it.
You said you haven't had much opportunity to look over the document that the Privacy Commissioner prepared, and that's sort of setting the framework for what this committee is doing in terms of its study. So it might be really helpful if the committee were able to get something back from you in response to those recommendations, particularly the recommendations dealing with putting into the act existing Treasury Board policies.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Okay.
To the extent that you have some input that would be helpful to the committee vis-à-vis those recommendations or related to them, we would appreciate receiving that.
Finally, before we excuse you, when we started I asked the question about state of the union under the umbrella Treasury Board is responsible for. When we did the estimates for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, one of the most significant areas of discussion, which actually has carried forward now into this, our review of the reform of the Privacy Act, had to do with the human resources situation in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, the capacity problems, the training level problems. As well, there was an identification that the impact assessments from around the government departments and agencies weren't working, weren't helpful.
It would appear that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has a significant human resources problem. It has a problem with staff. The turnover has been so high that the service levels have not been met. Backlogs are out of control. The act has not been looked at in 25 years. I didn't get the sense that you were concerned about this.
I'll ask you again. Given those facts, is there anything we can expect from Treasury Board to help move the attention of the public service--which tries to make all this work--to make sure that we're supported in these observations and that there is in fact a collaboration to the greatest extent possible that we're going to deal with human resources situations that are not just from the Privacy Commissioner? We heard it from the Information Commissioner as well as from other departments. Maybe we'll refer some of this to the government operations committee. The state of the union is not good, in my view, and I suspect many members would agree.
I'm not going to put you on the spot to answer right now, but I can tell you we have a responsibility to report on this, and I think it's going to take some time. Now we're faced with, as you know, in these ten recommendations and whatever else may come up, moves or interest levels or developments within the privacy regimes across the country and internationally to expand the level of activity and the responsibilities of privacy commissioners, which is going to require even more human resources. I don't know where it's going to come from, but the system we have right now can't even keep up with the responsibilities the Privacy Act already requires of them.
So I think we have a serious problem here. I want you to know that this seems to be a preliminary assessment. But if you have some input on that as well, I would ask you--not now--to provide us with some feedback on your assessment of the state of the union of the Privacy Commissioner vis-à-vis the areas of responsibility the Treasury Board Secretariat has. You laid them out in your speech: sound management practices for the handling and protection of personal information; clear decision-making and operational responsibilities are assigned within government institutions; consistent public reporting. This does not appear to be happening, and it's important.
I think we're going to leave it with you that there are some concerns. You may be able to give us some assurances of how this is being addressed--or will it be addressed? How could it be addressed, and how could we as a committee participate in supporting initiatives to make sure that the fundamental operational problems that we're apparently seeing are going to be addressed in a responsible fashion?
Is that fairly clear?
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
That's fair.
I just want to comment on one aspect of it. We do work very closely with both commissioners for the very reason that we want to make sure that the legislation or the policy is well implemented in departments. And on a few things you made note of--I think on the privacy impact assessment--we know there's a horrendous backlog with the Privacy Commissioner. These are areas where, regardless of funding, we're trying to work together to break that backlog by doing things differently.
I think your resources are always a factor for all of us, but we have to look at ways to be more efficient. So there are ideas we've worked on together to try to reduce the load that arrives at their door. We'll play a different role; we'll put more responsibility on departments. I think there's a balance between adding resources and trying to improve the flow of information and to change the process and simplify it for departments and to simplify it for us and the commissioners. This would be true with both commissioners.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Okay. The committee would appreciate your input to the extent that you think it would be helpful to the committee. I'll leave it with you to decide.
Thank you, Mr. Cochrane and Mr. Lemieux, for attending. You're excused at this time.
We have a little bit of business before we adjourn.
On witnesses, I just want to advise members so that they can be apprised. The clerk can give you a little projection.
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Richard Rumas
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The next committee meeting will be Tuesday, May 6, when we have the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. They will be accompanied—we're waiting for final confirmation that this is going to happen—by the Canada Border Services Agency.
Next Thursday, May 8, we have a man who wore many hats, including the first Privacy and Information Commissioner of British Columbia, Mr. David Flaherty.
The following Monday, which is the 13th, we have asked for the RCMP, CSIS, and the CSE.
On the 15th, which is the Thursday, we have Mr. Paul Comeau and Professor Michael Geist, who are, as you may have seen, on the Office of the Privacy Commissioner's advisory panel on reform of the Privacy Act.
Then there is a break in May. After the break, we have scheduled for May 27, which is a Tuesday, the minister with his officials from the Department of Justice. We're still working on the 29th, and tentatively we have scheduled the Canadian Bar Association for June 3. That Thursday may be the last sitting of the committee if the House follows the parliamentary calendar.
So that's where we are right now, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
And there are also one or two provinces—I believe New Brunswick and Nova Scotia—that have recently completed reviews, so they're very fresh on things. We may be having one or both of those before us.
That's just to give you a heads-up. This will be given to you in writing, but I wanted you to know that we have made some progress on that.
Mr. Wallace, you had something.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Just for the clerk, our House leader loves to remind us that the House actually sits until June 20, not June 6. Those shaded areas are just in case there is an extension.
I appreciate that you've done a lot of work in getting people here, and I think we have lots of time during the last couple of weeks.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I wanted to make sure they didn't not show up after that because they saw the orange on the calendar.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I think it will be appropriate for us also to have the Privacy Commissioner herself come back to wrap this up and give us a little time. But we are doing a little work. As you know, our support people from the Library of Parliament do a lot of work as we move along.
Are there any further comments from the committee?
The meeting is adjourned.