Evidence of meeting #3 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
As a point of order, I don't know for certain where the extent of your powers lie, but is it within the purview of the chair to prevent me from speaking to a new amendment that's on the floor? I would like to speak to it, if I'm permitted to do so.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
As you probably know, when we have matters before the House, the Speaker often will indicate, “I've heard enough on this subject; everybody knows what we're talking about and it's very clear.” Where it is clear—and I don't think you can sharpen this pencil any further—I'm not sure whether further interventions are going to be helpful, unless there is an error. But this is to deal with a problem we went around the horn with several speakers about, whether there's a list or not a list, and whether it's exclusive, and so on. Those points have been made.
The chair has the authority, once the arguments have been made and repetition starts to come in, to suspend debate and put the question. If you're suggesting to me that you have something new to help the members make a decision on this, please go ahead and make your intervention.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
The legal principle involved is sometimes referred to as expressio unius est exclusio alterius. It is in fact the case that when we refer to one item, we are implicitly excluding others. I think this committee is in danger already, by reason of having inserted an artificial and unrealistic time limit, of being perceived at least as steamrolling something through. It will only add to that perception if we are referring to one person rather than the other. So I hope the committee might consider at least reducing the perception that I think is already going to exist about this motion.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
There are no further speakers on the list, so I want to put the question now on Mr. Dechert's amendment to effectively eliminate the phrase with regard to Mr. Reid. Does everyone understand the amendment and the intent of the amendment? Okay.
All those in favour of the amendment by Mr. Dechert? All those opposed? It is a tie, so I'm going to stay with the motion, then, as proposed.
(Amendment negatived)
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Chair, I think there had been agreement to accept at least two months, to the end of May, and I would put forward that motion. There had been an exchange that seemed to indicate agreement on that front.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
There is an amendment by Mr. Poilievre to change the word “March” to “May”. It's pretty straightforward.
(Amendment agreed to)
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I'll now put the motion as amended.
In favour? Opposed? We are tied.
The chair remains consistent. I will go with the mover of the motion. It carries.
(Motion as amended agreed to)
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I would then call our witnesses, please.
We're going to move on now to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, with Mr. Tom Pulcine, director general and chief financial officer, corporate services branch; and Lisa Campbell, acting general counsel, legal services, policy and parliamentary affairs branch, with regard to the supplementary estimates (B).
Mr. Pulcine and Ms. Campbell, thank you very much for being with us on very short notice. As you know, today the House passed a motion, with unanimous consent, that the supplementaries are deemed to have been reported by all committees as of five o'clock today. That sort of preempts our opportunity to do this, but we want to quickly look at them and have your input for the members' information and questioning. It would be our intent, still, to report them tomorrow morning as is, or as amended if the committee so wishes.
Having said that, I understand that you probably have a couple of opening comments. Then we'll get to the members' questions. Please proceed.
Tom Pulcine Director General and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I'm the director general of corporate services and the chief financial officer with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. With me today is Lisa Campbell, general counsel for the OPC. The Privacy Commissioner apologizes for not being able to attend today.
We are here to discuss with you our supplementary estimates (B) for 2008-09. The amount requested is just over $3 million. Before responding to your questions, I thought I could provide a bit of background with respect to our request.
Our office appeared before the House of Commons Advisory Panel on the Funding and Oversight of Officers of Parliament in June 2008, some seven months ago, to present a business case requesting additional funding. The key elements of our business case were as follows: to eliminate the backlog of privacy investigations by 2010; to create the knowledge, expertise, and capacity to assess and investigate the impact of technology and the Internet on privacy rights; to increase our capacity to work with our colleagues in other countries to address global privacy issues; to develop more public education materials and strategies that target specific groups most in need of information about privacy issues, for example, youth, small and medium-sized businesses, and the disadvantaged; to ensure that the OPC has the internal capacity to support all the different business lines as well as to promote good management, accountability, and performance measurement; and finally, to meet its obligations under new legislation, including the Access to Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Federal Accountability Act, and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and the Terrorist Financing Act.
The advisory panel endorsed our business case as presented last June. We subsequently submitted a Treasury Board submission that was accepted by the board in July 2008 and then was added to the supplementary estimates, which you have before you today.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
The amount of vote 45b is $3,071,000. The members had a circular from the clerk on the supplementaries as well as some other information for their interest. At this point, do the members have any questions on the vote for our witnesses?
Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you.
Commissioner, you referenced that there's an increasing backlog because of the changes that have been brought in, the fact that you now cover complaints against crown corporations, foundations, etc. In this material you provided you show employee numbers, etc., but there's no hard numbers about the backlog.
Could you provide this committee with a table, perhaps over the last five years, so we can see how those backlog numbers have been changing? And perhaps you could give us an idea of how many complaints are backlogged at the present time .
Director General and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Sure, we can do both. We can get you that table. We don't have it with us today, but we certainly can undertake to get that table to show you that information over the last five years.
The backlog as it stands at the end of January is 373 files under the Privacy Act and 322 under PIPEDA. The backlog we reported in April was substantially higher than that. As well, the backlog we're forecasting for the end of March is going to be lower than the two numbers I just gave you. In fact, we are forecasting a reduction of our backlog since the beginning of the year--in the case of the Privacy Act of some 40%, and in the case of PIPEDA some 60%--based on the resources included in the supplementary estimates and other initiatives to support the reduction of the backlog.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
It also references that sometimes mediation and conciliation don't work and it requires actual court cases being started up. How many of those do you have ongoing?
Lisa Campbell Acting General Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Good morning, everyone. I am Lisa Campbell, General Counsel at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
I can tell you that at the moment we have six active cases under PIPEDA. However, they are quite complex. They are spanning several jurisdictions in Canada, and we also have one issue in the United States. Although they are not numerous, they're quite active.
The other issue is that many of our litigation cases, like civil litigation, generally settle before a hearing. Not many of them actually proceed to the full hearing. Many of them will file an application, the respondents will come to an agreement, and the matter will be settled.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
How often in those sorts of circumstances might a government department, as opposed to a crown corporation or a foundation, be involved?
Acting General Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
That's a really good question. The power to go to court is much broader under PIPEDA or the private sector legislation. There is a more restricted capacity to go to court under the Privacy Act. Further down the road when we talk about Privacy Act reform, one of the things we've recommended is that the Privacy Act expand those powers to go to court. Most of our ongoing litigation deals with the private sector and bringing them into compliance with the legislation.
I should say that our approach is also as an ombudsman. We try to resolve matters, where possible.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
At a future date could we be provided with some hard numbers on the litigation costs as well?. They were referenced in the report, and it would be helpful to have an idea of that.
Following along that line, in regard to government departments, how often do you have complaints, for instance, that might stem from actions by the RCMP?
Acting General Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I think Mr. Pulcine and I can both speak to this. It's fair to say that we do receive a number of complaints involving the RCMP and a number of complaints involving Correctional Service, for the reasons you might expect. They're often the same types of complaints. It's people who are in difficulty with the justice system who seek access to their personal files.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
I would like a better understanding of how you would proceed in that type of situation, what the costs might be. For instance, I have a document here. It's a briefing note to the commissioner. An access request was made for this document. The names of the various parties were removed, quite rightfully; however, on the second page of the document at the bottom, where the document reference number is, you actually have the name of a person. This is a case that, by the way, did not proceed--a criminal case--and it had tremendous implications. The name at the bottom is Mr. Casey.
How often have you run across this type of situation, where an access to information document was released, some names appeared to be whited out, yet the name of one individual. for some strange reason, was not whited out, resulting in tremendous damages to this particular member of Parliament's reputation?
Acting General Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I couldn't give you an exact number, sir, but there are a number of cases where there are complaints of improper collection or disclosure of personal information by government departments or agencies.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Would the cost of handling those types of complaints be any different from others? If you have numbers that would show the various government departments.... You've indicated there are especially troubling higher numbers of complaints around the RCMP and the Correctional Service. Could we perhaps get a breakdown of where most of these complaints are coming from, so we have an idea of where the costs are in fact being incurred, by which government department's actions?
Acting General Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
We do report in that fashion. In fact, in our annual report to Parliament, tabled quite recently, we break down complaints by departments and agencies. So that information is available. I would be happy to provide it on our existing caseload, if you're interested.
Acting General Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Thank you.