Information & Ethics Committee on June 5th, 2008

[Ian McCowan]

This is the resourcing thing we were talking about earlier. In order to get our capacity up, in order to meet these deadlines, we need more folks. It's a very competitive environment in Ottawa right now. We hope we have some additional resources in place to make some improvement.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Are you funded for those resources?

[Ian McCowan]

Yes.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

You are funded for those. So it's not a money issue in a sense. It's about getting people and getting them trained and ready to go.

So you meet half, let's say, of the timeframe, so they can't really appeal based on not meeting the timeframe. So that should give the balance. Is there a process you have in place that, if you're not going to make the 30 days, you do anything to mediate the individual's request so they are not appealing? Or do you just let it go that you didn't make the 30 days and it's up to them whether they appeal that or not? Is there any system to try to reduce the number of appeals, even though you might not make the deadline?

[Anne Rooke]

Currently, no.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

So what happens then? Is an inmate just informed by letter?

[Anne Rooke]

That we're not meeting the 30-day deadline?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

That you're not meeting the deadline and just leave it at that. Are they informed—

[Anne Rooke]

We continue processing the request, obviously.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay. Are they informed of what their rights are to appeal?

[Anne Rooke]

Absolutely.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

They are. Many other people outside the system of corrections can get help from other people to do some of these things. Are they provided with any information on that, or do they just have to figure it out on their own? How do they know what to do? Is it well defined?

[Anne Rooke]

The offenders are pretty well versed in what type of information....

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

That's five minutes? It can't be.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

You can finish your answer. You are at five minutes already. The clerk is keeping time.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Vellacott, please.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

I'll come back to the line of questioning about the Privacy Act. Getting back to the example I was speaking of before, does the Privacy Act then require, in terms of protection of these other individuals...? Let's say that there is an altercation in a correctional institution. There is no problem in having the name of a guard or correctional officer put forward. But if there is another inmate involved in that request, is that, under the Privacy Act, guarded or not provided or divulged in terms of reading that file? That inmate requests and gets information, but it does not exclude the names of other inmates.

[Ian McCowan]

It all depends on the context of the situation. It's conceivable that the correctional officer's name could be excluded if there is a security basis for doing that. But I think Ms. Rooke was referring to the general rule vis-à-vis names.

Unfortunately, it does come down to sort of a case-by-case analysis. And the exemptions have to be applied--literally severing sentences, as you're aware--to determine whether any given piece of text needs to be excluded.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Yes, it's case by case, as you say. Some general rules apply.

Some would suggest, and I know that these accusations have been made at points here, that when you have the interaction of access and privacy at the same time, there is some degree of--I'll use the more positive word--subjectivity, obviously. Stronger words are used by others. When there are parts of sentences severed for the protection of the privacy of an individual, others would read that as denial of access or whatever.

To the issue of training people, I think I understood you to say that there is probably.... I have some friends I know who work in that area. They're soon to retire. They're on a part-time basis now. They're older people. They're sticking around longer. They like having a little control over their schedules and maybe not having full five-day weeks and that kind of stuff. That works for them. But we have the benefit of keeping these well-experienced people around.

In terms of training new people and giving them the skills over time, is there a shortage of funding? Or do we just need to get more people and have more aggressive recruitment in this area?

[Ian McCowan]

I have a couple of things, and then I'd encourage Ms. Rooke to add.

First of all, in terms of the problem, there is a shortage of people. You have to bring people on and train them, as you say, and not only in terms of the application of the two acts. In our case, you want them to learn about the Correctional Service of Canada and the correctional environment, because the exemptions are applied in a dynamic way. You have to understand how the institutions and the community operate to give the exemptions a proper life, for lack of a better way of describing it.

What we've done in the last year is acquire some additional resources, which are being moved into access to information and privacy. That will allow us to compete, for lack of a better way of describing it, with other government departments. If you're a well-experienced ATIP analyst, you can look around at the various government departments around town, and you can decide where it is you think you'd like to work. I think it was fairly clear that we needed to add some additional capacity. We've done that, and we're hopeful that this will result in improvement. If we're in front of you a year or two from now, we'll be able to report back that we've made some progress.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Describe for me, just very briefly--I think I'm on topic with this question--in terms of the training mode, at least within the department, how you prefer to do it or proceed with it. I assume that there is some training on the strictures, if you will. Is there a buddy system or a mentoring system? Describe for me what that training would look like such that you get somebody up to a pretty competent level or can at least turn them loose on these materials.

[Anne Rooke]

Our analysts are grouped into teams, and they report to a team leader who will guide the analyst. But we also assign mentors to the new staff, because our team leaders are extremely busy. So each new employee coming in as an analyst will have a mentor.

We are actually in the process of developing a training program, because we know that we're going to be bringing in new people to the ATIP field. So I have two people now who are developing a training program.

Corrections has quite a detailed program for all new employees that everyone would go through to learn about the correctional service.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Colleagues, I'm going to encourage you to please bring it back, and our witnesses as well. We are looking at band-aid solutions to the Privacy Act, as opposed to a discussion of operational ways that we do things. It would be very helpful if we could get some solid input or questions related to the order before us.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

I'm wholly new to this, and I do appreciate your being here. Unfortunately, I was not able to be here for the first part.

The point of order is that the brief says these witnesses feel it inappropriate for them to comment on changes that the Privacy Commissioner deems necessary to carry out her duties, and it strikes me that the questioning is moot.