Evidence of meeting #32 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 subamendment.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Elizabeth Denham  Assistant Privacy Commissioner , Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Carman Baggaley  Senior Policy Advisor, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Daniel Caron  Legal Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

10:35 a.m.

Legal Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Daniel Caron

Ultimately, the organizations that use personal information in the United States are subject to the Canadian act. There are still principles that apply—

10:35 a.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

There are principles, but that's not the practice.

10:35 a.m.

Legal Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Daniel Caron

The organizations have an obligation to ensure—

10:35 a.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

Yes, but Facebook and all that are in the United States. So they hold the information.

10:35 a.m.

Legal Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Daniel Caron

I don't know what to add.

10:35 a.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

US authorities therefore have access to all our personal information since they are not governed by our acts.

10:35 a.m.

Legal Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Daniel Caron

I think it's possible that the American government may have access to that information in certain circumstances.

10:35 a.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

That's just a possibility.

10:35 a.m.

Legal Counsel, Legal Services, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Daniel Caron

That depends on the circumstances.

10:35 a.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

That answers my question, but the fact that all this information is stored in the United States and that the federal act and our provincial acts have absolutely no power over the data sent to the United States is an extremely serious problem. They hold the entire data base because you have no power.

10:35 a.m.

Assistant Privacy Commissioner , Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Elizabeth Denham

We do have jurisdiction. Whether we can enforce Canadian law at the end of the day is a different question. We haven't gone there because Facebook complied with our recommendations.

This is a global problem that everybody is working with. So on your comment about working together with other data protection commissioners, there's a global dialogue going on right now, because the reality is that personal data is stored all over the world.

10:35 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

You have time to ask a final question.

10:35 a.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

Since you cooperate with the Canadian provinces, which are not part of your area of jurisdiction, and you cooperate with other countries, have you begun an open and specific dialogue with the United States on this matter? I'm speaking specifically about the United States?

10:35 a.m.

Assistant Privacy Commissioner , Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Elizabeth Denham

We have an ongoing dialogue with the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. Under the PIPEDA review we've asked for an extension of our ability to share information with other data protection authorities to deal with the problem you've identified here. So we need to be able to share information and work together with other regulatory authorities that deal with data protection matters. It's a very good point.

We've asked for that power. We don't have it yet.

10:35 a.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

You don't have it, but you're just talking.

10:35 a.m.

Assistant Privacy Commissioner , Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Elizabeth Denham

That's correct.

10:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Thank you.

Mrs. Denham, Mr. Caron, and Mr. Baggaley, the discussion has been very useful. I'm sure that the members would like to be kept apprised of developments.

Mrs. Denham, you described how PIPEDA is not a prescriptive piece of legislation; it has principles more than anything. You talked about the spirit in the guidelines and reasonable interpretation that allow us to address these things on an ongoing basis. We have to continue to assess whether there are changes that can be stretched that far. It becomes a problem when you start talking about spatial issues and the technology of accessing information, interfering with it, modifying it, or stealing it in a mode that we can probably only dream about right now.

I want to thank all of you for coming. We certainly appreciate your thoughtful answers to the members' questions. We look forward to seeing you, your colleagues, and the commissioner in the very near future about the government response to the quick-fix issues on the Privacy Act. I understand that November 5 is our scheduled date, and an invitation has been sent to the commissioner. We look forward to having that discussion with you at that time.

Thank you kindly. You're excused. We have another matter of business to deal with.

At the last meeting a matter was raised about a motion that did not have the prescribed 48 hours of notice. That timeframe has now been satisfied. That motion has been circulated to you

The member has the right to present the motion to the committee, so I'm going to--

10:40 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

10:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Mr. Poilievre, on a point of order.

10:40 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

My point of order relates to Standing Order 108(3)(h)(vi). This motion is clearly out of order, as it falls outside the mandate of the committee, as stated in the earlier-mentioned standing order, where the committee is mandated to look into the “proposing, promoting, monitoring and assessing” of information and privacy “across all sectors of Canadian society and to ethical standards relating to public officer holders”. Based on your own rulings on this standing order, Chair, you must rule that this motion is out of order, as it exceeds the scope of the committee as set up by the House of Commons.

In regard to public office holders, the definitions that you used in the previous discussions on Elections Canada in this committee clearly ruled out investigation of those who are not public office holders. As members know, public office holders are cabinet ministers, secretaries of state, parliamentary secretaries, as well as Governor-in-Council appointees. So this particular motion does not pertain to public office holders.

Some others might make arguments about whether or not there's overlap between members of Parliament and public office holders, but what we have here in this motion is public funds by “Conservative members of Parliament”. There's a difference between members of Parliament and public office holders. So, as written, this motion is out of order and it is outside of the competence of the committee that we are charged with running. I ask you to consider that point of order.

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Okay. Do you have any comments on the point of order?

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON

I'd like to thank our colleague Mr. Poilievre for bringing this up. I'd like to make a friendly amendment to--

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Sorry, you're out of order. You can't make a motion on a point of order. We're now on a point of order.

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON

Okay.

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Okay.

On the point, the member is quite right in terms of the applicability of our mandate. I have ruled on this many times in the past, and we can only deal with public office holders as defined.

Some members of Parliament are public office holders, but not all members of Parliament. The reverse, though, is public office holders who are elected--ministers and ministers of state, parliamentary secretaries--are all members of Parliament. Because the last part refers to meeting the ethical standards from public office holders, that standard can't be applied to members of Parliament who are not public office holders.

Technically, I think it's workable, but it would have been maybe desirable to include, after the words “members of Parliament”, the phrase, “who are public office holders”. That would have resolved it.

I'm going to allow the discussion to carry on, since a simple clarification would be possible, but there is no question that should this matter proceed it would only relate to the incidents that involved ministers, ministers of state, or parliamentary secretaries. All other members of Parliament would not be party to any of the discussions.

On the point of order, I'm not going to sustain the fact that the motion is out of order or outside our mandate, pending resolution of the point that the member has raised, which can be simply resolved.

The member has put this motion before us. Do I have to read it into the record, or should we just assume everybody has it? Okay.

Madam Freeman, are you prepared to move your motion this morning?