Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members. It's a pleasure to be back here to conclude a journey that we've undertaken together over at least a year now. It's a year and a half that we've been talking about it.
My remarks today are going to highlight some of the important concerns, some of the reasons why I would encourage you to move forward to make recommendations for significant changes to the act.
We have enshrined in this latest document.... You'll remember that about a year ago, I guess in April, the first document we gave to you had eight recommendations, then the following month it went to ten, and because of witnesses and debates it's now at twelve significant things that we believe should be changed but that should not, we think, cause too much basic overturning of the structures of the act.
I'll begin by reminding us all that the Supreme Court of Canada, which is called to interpret our privacy legislation, has repeatedly affirmed the central importance of the informational relationship between the Canadian state and its citizens.
I had the pleasure of being at a training day for the government access to information and privacy community here in Ottawa last week, and Madam Justice came and gave a luncheon address herself and reaffirmed the importance of the work that the people in the ATIP community do and the importance of enshrining privacy.
The Privacy Act that you're looking at today has been accorded quasi-constitutional status because of the fundamental values it's intended to protect. However, as you have seen over the last year and a half, the act remains woefully inadequate to protect such fundamental rights in the face of new technologies, new ways of offering services, new imperatives, and new conceptions about privacy.
While other quasi-constitutional laws such as the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Official Languages Act have been progressively modernized to enshrine fundamental and contemporary Canadian values into law, the Privacy Act has remained virtually unchanged ever since it came into effect in 1983.
In the quarter century since, we have witnessed unprecedented growth...