Evidence of meeting #36 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 recommendations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Colleagues, we're going to carry on. We have about two minutes for Mr. Wallace, please.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you.
I'm going to continue on with the same processes. This is the one area I've been focusing on a bit.
Can you explain to me what happens, from a practical point of view, for a PIA in the Department of Justice? I'm assuming the Department of Justice has a fair amount of private information. I'd like to know from a management point of view when they're instituted, how they're used, how they're stored, how long they last. I don't know much about them, and I'd like to understand, if you have that information.
Director General, Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
I can try. I don't do PIAs myself at Justice. Typically, PIAs are done when an institution, like Justice, decides to make some changes to a program or develops a new program that involves personal information. Under the policy it is required that we study the effect on privacy of these changes to a program or of this new program. That involves going through a series of questions and looking at the impact, what information we need, whether we really need that. We talk to stakeholders, and of course we consult with the Privacy Commissioner.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Are they signed off by the deputy in charge of that particular area? What happens to them? She's recommending that they be legislated. I'm not sure they need to be legislated, and I'd like to know the feedback from the people who actually use them.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Public Law Sector, Department of Justice
Unfortunately, we're probably not the right persons to ask. We have a separate group in corporate services who are responsible for running that.
Do you want to know the process, the follow-up?
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
No. Could you ask the people in your department who are actually involved--even if they write and then we can share it with everybody--how they...?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Public Law Sector, Department of Justice
Would you like a general understanding of a privacy impact assessment analysis statement, how that's handled, what the process is, so you have that for part of your own knowledge base? Is that what you would be interested in?
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
That's what I would like. I don't care about the rest of them, but that's what I would like.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Public Law Sector, Department of Justice
We could certainly follow up and provide the committee with that in writing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
We're at the third round now. We're going to have Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, Conservative, NDP, Liberal, Conservative, if we go through all of this.
We'll start with Mr. Hubbard, please
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With respect to the recommendations, the minister referred to a number of them. Number one is to “create a legislative 'necessity test' which would require...”.
Is there a test now that has been generated? And I wonder why she uses the word “legislative” in terms of information. Is there a general guideline?
Director General, Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
There is actually. There is a test, and it's in section 4 of the act. I can read from the provision. It's very short:
No personal information shall be collected by a government institution unless it relates directly to an operating program or activity of the institution.
The Treasury Board guidelines have said this expression “unless it relates directly” should mean a necessity test. Arguably, that's the only legal interpretation that's possible. If we say you shall not collect information unless it directly relates to a program, then basically it's saying you can't collect information you don't need.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
So from your interpretation of the present legislation and the workings of it.... She also seems to indicate that there would be a need to purify some of the information that's already collected, why the need would continue.
Director General, Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
Well, even if you have a necessity test, you still need to decide, on a factual basis, whether this particular information is necessary to achieve that particular program. The answer is not always obvious. Reasonable people might disagree about what is necessary to be collected for a particular purpose.
Putting a necessity test in the act itself does not make that issue disappear on its own. There will always be some discussion about what is exactly necessary to collect in terms of personal information for a particular program.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
Another day we talked about criminal activity, criminal sentences, and the pardon system. We know that within our own legislation pardons can be granted after five years of a completed sentence. Yet we know that often our people communicate those offences to foreign jurisdictions, in particular to the United States.
We used an example of somebody who had been involved with marijuana 20 years ago. They might have a pardon in terms of Canada, but if they want to enter the United States, that offence is still listed. Often truck drivers, for example, are not permitted to cross the border into the United States on a free basis. It's a problem we encounter almost on a daily basis across Canada.
What can we do in terms of the privacy of a person who has served a sentence and who's been granted a pardon, yet our government has not been able to deal with foreign jurisdictions so that they see the person is a good citizen of our country and should be allowed entry?
Director General, Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
That's a very good question.
Certainly, there's the Criminal Records Act that deals with pardons and things like that in Canada. When someone is convicted of a criminal offence, there's a public record of that. That's public knowledge. You can access it from a courthouse.
If a foreign government collects that sort of information at the source, or at some point obtains evidence that someone has been convicted of a crime, and keeps that information, the fact that we have issued a pardon here is not something we can force another country to take into account. We can enforce that legislation here in Canada, but we can't.... The United States is sovereign, and if it wants to retain information it has gathered, that's not something on which we've got any leverage.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
What you're saying, really, is that all criminal offences are communicated with foreign jurisdictions.
Director General, Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that information about convictions is publicly available information in Canada. The restrictions on its dissemination aren't very great. If such information, one way or another, ends up in the hands of a foreign government, that's not something we could necessarily control. They could obtain it through different means.
Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, perhaps you could send us some information, unless you have it off the top of your head. Could we have a list of the countries with good privacy protection, where people are being well served by their federal government? We were discussing this earlier with the minister.
Next, if we count Kosovo, which got its independence after a vote in its legislative assembly, there are about 209 countries in the world, I believe. Does Canada have an agreement with these 209 countries? Does the way in which Canada exchanges information with other countries vary from one country to another? How does that work?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Public Law Sector, Department of Justice
What type of information—
Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
I'm referring to the Commissioner's 10th recommendation. This could be intelligence information... We know what we are talking about when we refer to Interpol. But we could think of Mr. Arar's case, who went through hell with the previous government. However, the fact remains that there are information-sharing agreements between sovereign countries. I would like to know how that works, whether there are categories of countries, whether there are some countries with which we do not exchange information, and so on.
Director General, Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
In practice, all institutions that run a program or activity, subject to the relevant legislation, may enter into an agreement with the parallel body in another country. There is no agreement between Canada and another country that covers the exchange of all the information held by the Government of Canada. These agreements are—