Information & Ethics Committee on June 5th, 2008

[Anne Rooke]

No, not many people request the same documents repeatedly.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

So, usually, people submit a request once for documents and that is sufficient.

[Anne Rooke]

Generally, yes.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

What parts of your process could be improved? I am not asking what the Commissioner thinks should be improved. What could we do to facilitate your work?

[Anne Rooke]

At this time, the system works rather well.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Do you believe that you have enough staff? There is a thirty-day time limit. Do you manage to meet that requirement?

[Ian McCowan]

I'll respond to that one.

In the course of the last number of months we have actually allocated some additional resources to the access to information and privacy division. As Ms. Rooke mentioned, we had experienced some problems

in relation to deadlines and things of that nature.

So we have moved some additional resources over to do an adjustment, as it were, within the organization.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Merci.

We'll go to Mr. Martin, please.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I don't have any questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

We'll have Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for appearing.

I beg to differ when you say that you don't have any problems. We had this really neat book that was given to us by the Privacy Commissioner. It gives us a pretty good overview of what's taking place in the department. Page 71 lists the top ten institutions by the number of complaints received. Number one is Corrections Canada. It has 194. The next one is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, at 141.

It's an interesting book, because before you get to that spot, it talks about things like examples of privacy complaints. I'm just trying to find these so I can maybe give you some examples. Here's one. A woman complained that Human Resources and Social Development Canada, HRSDC, violated her privacy rights. There's one about a gun owner the RCMP released. So that's the RCMP. Canada Revenue Agency is one of the top ones too. Here is an individual and CRA auditors. An employee complains about DNA disclosed.

There are a lot of examples, but there's absolutely not one example from Corrections Canada.

I don't have the actual costs of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, but it's up beyond $10 million, I think. So when you break these complaints down and the cost of these complaints, just doing quick math, you're about a quarter of the cost.

I'm not pointing any fingers, and I'm not suggesting that you're not.... I think I was responsible for actually calling you here, because when I saw that, I thought that we had a problem. We need to know what the problem is. It's fine to say that this works that way and that works this way, but there is a problem here. It looks to me as if inmates are causing a whole lot of mischief—correct me if I'm wrong—and if that is the problem, then you need to tell us so we can do something to correct it.

We all are very much in favour of improving and rewriting, actually, the Privacy Act. But if we're going to be blindsided on this, you know, we need to know. You need to tell us, point blank, that we have a problem. If we have a problem, we can deal with it. I guess I'm asking you, what is the problem?

[Ian McCowan]

I understand where you're coming from. In terms of the response, I'd start where I was at a minute ago, just in terms of talking a bit about the context. If you go back over the last ten years, you're right. Historically we have been either at the top or near the top in terms of complaints. We're also at the top or near the top in terms of requests. We're in a situation where we have a high volume of requests, so there is some association with the number of complaints. That's part of the story.

Another part of the story is the nature of our operations in the environment. Some government departments reappear all the time at the top of the list in terms of requests and complaints, and it has to do with the nature of the operations. In terms of Corrections Canada, we're mandated by our statute to gather information about offenders in enormous detail. We have to know everything we possibly can in order to make the best decisions we can over a huge variety of things with respect to their incarceration.

As you can imagine, offenders are very interested in knowing what's on the file. As I mentioned before, there's a section of our statute that effectively means when they ask for information about their file it oftentimes will find its way to Ms. Rooke's shop as a request under the access act. Offenders are going to want to know what's on their file because it has to do with the decisions that are going to be unfolding. They want to know what it is Corrections Canada has.

But it's not just about offenders; it's also about victims. It's also about employees who are interested in this huge cache of information that we have. And I think we're unusual in that regard as a government department, because information is the lifeblood of our business. If we're going to do public safety well, we have to be on top of the information game in relation to every offender all the time. People are constantly trying to dip into that information pool from the various angles--sometimes victims, sometimes offenders. The majority are offenders, you're right. But the harsh reality is, we are always going to be making decisions about them and they are always going to be seeking some way to get access to the information we have on their files, which is basically fuelling the decisions that affect their lives.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

When I asked this question to the Privacy Commissioner the answer was really not clear.

I have to ask you again. Do we have a problem? Do we have a problem with inmates? Are they messing around with the system? Are they using the system for their advantage? We need to know that. I understand what you're saying, but there seems to be something going on here that nobody wants to talk about. If that's not the case, then we need to understand it a bit better. I listened to what you're saying, but maybe I just have to lay it out. It seems to me like these guys are just messing with you and they're just doing everything they can to make your job more troublesome. I'm asking the question: Is that what's going on?

[Ian McCowan]

I'm going to express my own personal opinion here. From what I have seen of the system, we're not in a situation.... Perhaps I can recall. When I was in an earlier life I used to do civil litigation. One of the things that's available in front of courts is to get a designation for someone being a frivolous and vexatious litigant. It's a tough thing to get. You have to hit a very high standard before you get there, and I notice one of the ten recommendations actually dealt with something that was quite similar.

I haven't been through every single complaint that's been filed by inmates over the last number of years. My impression is that the large majority of them are not in that zone. The large majority of them are in “I want to know what is on my file”.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Why do they want to know?

[Ian McCowan]

The best way to answer it would be if I could get Ms. Rooke to talk about the types of requests we often get from inmates. Would that be helpful?

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

You read my mind. Is this a violation of privacy? Can we get the complaint?

[Ian McCowan]

Would this help? Could we give an undertaking to give you a summary of the types of requests in terms of what information banks--

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I'm not talking about his name is John Doe and he's been charged with this, that, and the other. I don't need all that. I just want to know, this guy wants to know this.

[Ian McCowan]

I don't know if we could give you the specific requests, but we could certainly undertake to give you a synopsis of the types of things we get from inmates in terms of requests. Would that be helpful?

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Yes, we have to see some of this. I can understand your job, and it's hard for you to say, but if there's something here we definitely have to see it, because this is clogging up the courts and this is taking enormous resources from the Privacy Commissioner a lot of the time. We need to know this. I'm just afraid that the way the questions are going we're skirting the issue. This is the reason you're here. We have to find out why you are number one on the complaint list.

I could understand why it would be the RCMP, possibly. Even the RCMP have the same types of problems, or possibly Revenue Canada. But I'm really puzzled why it's Corrections Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We're well over.

If you want to, you may make a brief response to that last comment.

[Ian McCowan]

Let me just add that if it's helpful, we can certainly give you a summary of the typical kinds of requests we get from inmates. If it's helpful, we can even map it to the information banks, to what specific things they normally are requesting.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Okay.