Mr. Chair, honourable members, the Canadian Bar Association is pleased to be here today to present our brief on the reform of the Privacy Act.
The CBA is a national association of over 37,000 lawyers, law students, notaries, and legal academics. One aspect of the CBA's mandate is improvement in law and the administration of justice. It's from that perspective that we appear before you today.
My colleague David Fraser is the treasurer of the national privacy and access to information law section of the CBA and a privacy law specialist from Halifax.
I am the chair of the national criminal justice section within CBA and a lawyer in Vancouver.
Mr. Fraser will address the issues of your review that pertain specifically to the Privacy Act. I will focus on the issue of cross-border sharing of information with foreign governments, particularly in relation to law enforcement and security.
Mr. Fraser will begin the opening remarks.