Information & Ethics Committee on May 25th, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Order, please.

This is the twenty-second meeting of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Our orders today, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4,) are the main estimates for 2009-10, vote 45, under Justice, as referred to the committee on Thursday, February 26, 2009.

Colleagues, as you know, we've been working through our commissioners. Today, from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, we have with us the commissioner, Ms. Jennifer Stoddart, as well as Tom Pulcine, director general and chief financial officer, corporate services branch, to address the estimates.

I'd also indicate that at the end of our review of the estimates it's my intent that we would go in camera to look at the draft of the report on the 10 quick fixes, or 12--and there may even be 13--for the Privacy Act, which has been previously circulated to members.

Without further ado, Madam Stoddart, welcome.

Welcome, Mr. Pulcine.

I understand that you have some brief opening comments for the committee.

[Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be back here again at our committee. I have an opening statement of about 10 minutes, and then Mr. Pulcine and I will be pleased to answer your questions on the main estimates.

I'd like to begin by talking about the constructive relationship that we have managed to build with this committee. I must say that I deeply appreciate the confidence Parliament has shown in my office in a number of ways over the past few years, including that of stabilizing our funding at an appropriate level.

I also, I must say, appreciate that our opinions are being sought by various committees as parliamentarians debate issues that raise privacy concerns. Already this year, in 2009, we've appeared before committees some nine times. I've met with MPs from all parties in recent months and have provided a briefing for one caucus.

I'd just like to mention that some MPs have suggested that their staff would appreciate information about privacy protection to help them manage their offices. We're looking for representatives from all parties to help us determine what would be more useful. That's one of our summer projects: giving you some information to help you manage the personal information that you, as MPs, receive from Canadians. We'd like an all-party committee or maybe just staffers from all parties that we could consult with.

So overall, I think, it's a very constructive relationship with Parliament, and I thank you again for it.

I would like to move on to the subject of innovative action. This is critical. Each day brings new risks for privacy as new information technologies develop and governments continue to react to the expanded threat of global terrorism.

We have recognized the need for a focused approach if we are to have any hope of keeping up with constantly evolving issues. With this in mind, we have set five corporate priorities for 2009-2010: to continue to improve service delivery through focus and innovation; to enhance and sustain the organizational capacity; to provide leadership to advance our priority privacy issues; to strategically advance global privacy protection for Canadians; and to support Canadians, organizations and institutions in making informed privacy decisions.

I will touch briefly on each of these priorities.

First of all, there is service delivery. Improving our service delivery to Canadians continues to be our most important priority. In recent years, we've been challenged with increasingly complex investigations and a backlog of investigation files while at the same time facing major difficulties in recruiting experienced investigators.

In response, we have adopted a proactive, multi-pronged approach. We've expanded our outreach efforts as a way to prevent and solve issues before they turn into complaints. We hired some 20 new investigators last year, who took part in an intensive two-month training program earlier this year. Also, we've launched what we call a major backlog blitz.

We're also re-engineering our inquiries and complaint handling processes for greater efficiency. These changes include a new position of complaints registrar to apply a form of triage to the issues that come our way. Wherever possible, complaints will also be referred to an early resolution process to try to help individuals and companies resolve problems more expeditiously. I refer you to the handouts that we've brought, where you'll see not only some of the statistics on human resources but the complaint backlog strategy that I just mentioned.

Secondly, there is organizational capacity. In a related vein, another corporate priority is to continue to build the required internal capacity to support our privacy protection and promotion activities. The focus here is on recruitment and training as well as robust technology and integrative tools to assist and increase information sharing between our branches.

I was very pleased to see that Treasury Board Secretariat's recently released 2008 Public Service Employee Survey documented a high degree of commitment, engagement, and professional satisfaction among our staff, who overwhelmingly believe they are working in a supportive, service-oriented organization. I'm also gratified to note that with respect to the public service's designated groups--that is, women, aboriginal people, persons with disabilities, and visible minorities--their representation in our office exceeds the overall availability rate in the labour market.

In the meantime, we continue to try to attract quality candidates for a range of positions in the organization, both from within the public service and from without. In fact, we recently prepared a recruitment video for posting on YouTube in the hopes of appealing to the tech-savvy younger generation.

I'd like to move on now to summarize the work we're doing in our four privacy priorities.

The next priority overall relates to a streamlining of our activities in order to focus on those of the greatest strategic importance and impact. As you may recall, we have identified four pressing privacy issues that will receive priority attention from my office: information technology, national security, identity integrity and protection, and genetic information. We have concluded that each of these areas is associated with significant risks for privacy now and in the future.

Our fourth corporate priority relates to outreach efforts aimed at equipping Canadians with the information and tools they need to understand and protect their privacy rights. This includes a particular focus on youth privacy issues and social networking sites. We are also working with organizations and institutions to help them better understand their privacy obligations. For example, we worked with our counterparts in B.C. and Alberta to develop guidance for retailers on the appropriate collection of driver's licence information. And we worked with Google, CanPages and three of our provincial counterparts in order to better protect the privacy of Canadians in the face of new street-level imaging technologies.

A final corporate priority is to strengthen our emphasis on international work. Given how much personal information now circles the globe, it is clear that protecting the privacy of Canadians demands that we work with partners to develop a basic level of privacy protection around the world. As such, we are taking part in numerous bilateral and multilateral efforts aimed at advancing global privacy protection.

I was especially pleased to note that the proposed Electronic Commerce Protection Act includes amendments to PIPEDA, our private sector Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which you all know. These amendments would promote greater collaboration with international authorities to better protect consumers from electronic victimization by e-mail, spam, phishing, and other attempts at fraud and identity theft.

In conclusion, then, we've put in place a wide range of new initiatives, and I expect the coming year to be one marked by substantial progress on all of our priorities. Privacy challenges are constantly changing and increasingly complicated. I'm proud of the tenacious and creative way in which our talented team is working to fulfill the important mandate that Parliament has entrusted to our office.

I welcome your questions on any of those subjects.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you very much.

I think we'll go right to members, starting with Ms. Simson, please.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you for appearing before the committee again, Ms. Stoddart. I really appreciate it. I know the whole committee does.

I was just reviewing the budget, and by far one of the biggest expenses of the commissions is in the human resources and employee contributions areas. We've heard testimony from two of the offices that staffing continues to be a challenge by virtue of the size of the office; there doesn't appear to be any room for promotion, or that contributes to a high turnover rate.

Looking at the report you submitted, you say you have 163 employees. Is that the total complement attributed to your office, or is that the total number of people currently employed?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

The total complement for our office, starting in this fiscal year, is 178.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

So you're under.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes, but we're significantly over what we used to be, so in our world we think we've made appreciable gains.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

You mentioned that you hired 20 investigators. Was that within the last year?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

That was over the whole year. At the end of the fall we hired...some were internal promotions. We had 15 new investigators, and then five over the year. We were able to provide them with consistent and comprehensive training.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

We've also heard testimony that in human resources one of the commissions was almost $1 million under budget because of this ongoing staffing issue; that it's a systemic problem and challenge that smaller offices face. Is that also attributable to a specific skill set you need for the job, or could it be a product of the current hiring practices we see and how a job is posted, as opposed to going public with the particular job?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes. A lot of the turnover in the past and a lot of our historic challenges that have led to the unfortunate creation of a backlog in our complaint investigation are due to the tremendous demand within the public service, particularly in the national capital region, for investigators. Because of new legislation and perhaps the importance in recent years of accountability, investigators are hugely sought after, so it's hard to keep a lot of them for a long term in a small organization.

As to the broader picture, I can only speak for my organization. I know that one of the reasons we've made some progress in the past year is that we've tried to have a mix of staffing practices. We've had different types of competitions--some inside the civil service and some outside the civil service. We've borrowed employees and joined in generic job competitions with other organizations. It has called for some creativity, but I don't know the source of the overall challenge.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

You say that the investigators in particular are in high demand. Could you maybe go over the skill set and educational background, or what is required to be an investigator?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Generally it takes a university degree or the equivalent--writing skills, analytical capacity--

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

What type of university degree is required? Can it be a BA?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I believe we ask that it be related to the work, and in fact we currently have people with a range of skills, which is very important. Some are in criminology. People in information technology are extremely important now. So I think there can be a range of backgrounds, because we have many types of investigations, particularly in the private sector.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

So it would require a university degree.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, does your department ever try to recruit directly from one of the sources, such as a university? Or is a college degree, such as a community college degree, where a student has been pursuing criminology, or that type of thing, not something that you would look for?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I believe a community college degree would be suitable for some of the junior officers or for our inquiries unit, where, as I mentioned, we're trying to solve issues before they become formal complaints, because the process then becomes much heavier and much more cumbersome, and the person still doesn't have their answer.

So yes, college degrees are suitable for some of our more junior positions. Yes, we have tried to recruit on particular campuses. As I remember, it was via the Public Service Commission; it was sponsored by the Public Service Commission.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I was only curious. I've been following this through a number of examinations, because it would just appear to me that in this current environment, it is a little bizarre that there are so many vacancies in so many areas.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I know.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

It just somehow didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

But it's very encouraging to hear there is some recruitment going on of younger, right-out-of-university people, because I'm sure a lot of the students aren't aware that these types of jobs even exist. So that's very encouraging to me.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes. And if I may add, this is why we're developing something to go on YouTube, because the demographic we need in order to deal with the technological and the social challenges now is the demographic who may not be reading the traditional sources of recruiting for the Public Service of Canada. So that's one of our innovations.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Terrific.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Vincent, please.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Stoddart, I would like to go back to your 12 recommendations, specifically the fifth, which reads:

Provide greater discretion for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to report publicly on the privacy management practices of government institutions.

Let me read you some other paragraphs:

There is a public expectation that the OPC will investigate and report on matters of public interest. This is particularly so where the privacy issue is already in the public domain. The OPC has been hampered in its ability to speak with the press, with the public, and even with Members of Parliament, due to the existing confidentiality constraints in the Privacy Act.

You also write: So, if I discover a serious problem with the protection of personal information in a department or an institution providing services to Canadians as a whole, it seems to me appropriate, in certain cases, to inform Canadians about it immediately instead of waiting 18 months. This might also encourage departments to pay more careful attention to the protection of personal information.

I would like to hear a little more of what you have to say on that. Can you give us an example of a case that you would inform the public about as a matter of public interest?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Before you answer, because everything is relevant in a review of your activities....

But, Monsieur Vincent, presently we are looking at the estimates only. We are going to look at the report on the quick fixes in the second part of the meeting.

But I think he's trying to get an idea of the resources that are necessary, and the implications of number 12, I believe it was. But you may want to respond generally to the concern the member has raised.