Evidence of meeting #32 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 foreign.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director of Outreach and Consultation, Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and Innovation, Science and Technology Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
I believe there is a process to get off the list, but you'd have to go to Transport Canada.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
All right. I'm going to give Mr. Wallace 30 seconds to comment.
I don't know whether you've sat around and thought about how this legislation could be improved. When you leave this place, if you think of any recommendations, we would appreciate your writing a letter to the clerk of the committee with any that you may have, in your experiences, in your way of life. That would be most helpful. We would appreciate that.
Mr. Wallace.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Tilson. I was going to say the same thing.
Let's be honest, the Privacy Commissioner has come here with 10 recommendations for easy, quick fixes. Without any feedback from anybody else, I think we could do them all. We need to hear whether they're accurate or not. She may or may not be right. She has a responsibility for the Privacy Act and not much further.
As a committee member, I'd like to hear, where the rubber hits the road, what the effect might be. So if you agree with those recommendations, that's great, and if not....
I agree with Mr. Tilson; if you could provide it in writing, that would be excellent.
That's all I wanted to ask.
Liberal
Director, Access to Information, Privacy and Disclosure Policy Division, Canada Border Services Agency
I welcome the opportunity. I think we need to digest them. In our world there are basically four main acts that deal with exchange of information. The CBSA Act, in the mandate, speaks about implementing agreements with foreign governments. We have the provisions in the Customs Act. We have the ability to make regulations in the IRP Act, and we have the Privacy Act, of course. We also participate in a working group that's led by Treasury Board. So whatever we would recommend needs to resonate with other departments as well.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Mr. Colpitts, this recommendation is number 10 of the Privacy Commissioner's points for consideration. In addition, she has provided some other.... I'm not going to go into it, but I would hope you would take the opportunity to examine the commentary. There are a couple of concerns, one about the existence of agreements and being in writing. I'm not sure whether there are examples of where that may not be the case in terms of the information, and also there is a question about whether the personal information is used for administering or enforcing law or conducting an investigation.
The act doesn't impose any duty to disclose on the disclosing institution to identify the precise purpose, so she has a problem with the Privacy Act requirements in terms of the disclosure. I'm not sure whether or not that really impacts on the discharging of your responsibilities, but your commentary would be appreciated on whether or not this is a matter in which the effectiveness of the Privacy Act is being mitigated by the absence of some technique or something that can be done to remediate the situation.
I commend the commentary. It's only two pages long. You could have a look at this and the committee would appreciate your specific feedback on recommendation number 10.
Madame Lavallée, for a final intervention.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I as a matter of fact wanted to begin with recommendation 10. I will summarize the recommendation in one sentence: reinforce the provisions concerning the disclosure by the Canadian government to foreign States of personal information.
Were you consulted by the Commissioner before she drafted this recommendation?
Director, Access to Information, Privacy and Disclosure Policy Division, Canada Border Services Agency
No. I think her recommendation may be informed by the audit that she performed on the CBSA, but I really haven't had a chance to study her documents and appreciate what she has to say.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Were you aware that she would be making such a recommendation? It impacts upon you directly.
Director, Access to Information, Privacy and Disclosure Policy Division, Canada Border Services Agency
I only got a chance to look at her comments that were in relation to this committee meeting on April 29, on Friday, so I haven't had a chance to talk to staff and to counsel and other people in the organization as to what these recommendations would mean to us and whether we would be in a position to signal support.
We want to make sure that whatever we would signal would resonate with our partners in the program.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
In your day to day work, do you feel the need to reinforce the provisions pertaining to the disclosure of information to foreign entities? Is this a recommendation that you would have spontaneously made? If not, does the act as it now stands allow you to do your work properly?
Director, Access to Information, Privacy and Disclosure Policy Division, Canada Border Services Agency
I think we have learned how to live with the Privacy Act as it's framed right now. Within our own program legislation there are often suggestions that we could change it, either to tighten or to relax certain terms and conditions to clarify our ability to share information, but I have not heard that kind of discussion in the context of the Privacy Act. The Privacy Act provisions for disclosure are important to the administration of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Very well. Thank you.
What information do you possess and in what format?
Director, Access to Information, Privacy and Disclosure Policy Division, Canada Border Services Agency
Do you mean what I brought with me today, or that the agency has?
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
What kind of information do you have? You talked earlier about airplane passenger lists. What other information do you have? You have negotiated 277 agreements with the rest of the world. I imagine that you exchange a good deal of information.
Director, Access to Information, Privacy and Disclosure Policy Division, Canada Border Services Agency
I deal primarily with disclosure policy, so the larger issues. And dealing with the day-to-day transaction kinds of issues, managing the 300,000 travellers who cross the border or arrive every day, is for folks in the regional offices and in operations.
In the context of our enforcement-related work in the immigration world, we would certainly work files on individuals.
Maybe Caroline could....
Director General, Intelligence Directorate, Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
I will just pick up on that. The kind of information we would be containing depends on the type of agreement you have. For example, you might have information that a particular container is carrying some prohibited good of some kind. Maybe there is going to be a lot of false tobacco or something, or there might be a bunch of illegal migrants in a container. So you would have that information about the container and the shipping company and the boat that it's coming on, etc.
In the arrangement we have with the United States to share information on third-country nationals for purposes consistent with the enforcement of the immigration act, we can share a whole range of information. I'll just give you some examples of the kind of information it would be: the name of the person, the aliases, the gender, the physical description--that is, 5 feet 7 inches, 180 pounds, or whatever--the date of birth, the country of birth, their work history, the travel carrier they might be on, their address--there is a whole range of information. You might not have it all for everyone, but we've agreed that these are the kinds of things that would be consistent for the purposes of enforcing the immigration acts in both countries. And we have agreed to share that information when it is relevant to the other party, when there is a request being made by one party to the other, or if it's in our interests to tell you about it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Thank you.
Ms. Melis, Mr. Colpitts, Ms. Rumball, thank you kindly.
We have asked you for some feedback with regard to recommendation 10. These are not all-inclusive. If you have any other observations or suggestions to make to us with regard to matters to be considered, we would certainly welcome those too.
You did talk briefly about training. I don't know if training is an issue. Your annual reports on things.... What's the state of the union, from your perspective? It would be helpful for us to know if there is any way we can help to improve the system.
Thank you kindly.
The meeting is adjourned.