Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 19th, 2009

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning. Thank you for being with us here. It's good to see you again, Ms. Stoddart. It's good to see you, Ms. Bernier.

I did want to follow up on FINTRAC and I also wanted to talk about your recommendations for Transport Canada. You made four recommendations to Transport Canada. My understanding is that they were responding to two of them perhaps before the report is even published, and the government has indicated that it's working on the remaining two recommendations.

Could you provide an update on those two recommendations?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes. I believe I don't have much to say, honourable member, because we are quite pleased with the cooperation on these recommendations and the follow-up that is going to take place. Our concerns remain with the overall operation of the program and the fact that Canadians don't have an idea of who is on the list, how they get on exactly, and do they ever get off. I was asked many questions about that. That's not in my mandate. Transparency would be appreciated in this.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

In terms of the four recommendations, you're satisfied with this?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes, we are.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Thank you very much for that.

I wanted to follow up on Ms. Block's questions on FINTRAC. You mention in your opening statement and one of your key recommendations is that FINTRAC “do more work with reporting organizations to ensure it does not acquire personal data beyond its mandate”. Then in your FINTRAC report, which I appreciate and I'm glad you did release it in full, you said, “the Centre acquires information in two ways: it receives and collects it. While we found no evidence to suggest FINTRAC is collecting information beyond what is authorized, we noted that it has received and retains information beyond the Centre's legislative authority”. I think that's a very important distinction in terms of receiving and collecting. So it's not exceeding its mandate in terms of collecting but receiving.

You also talk about working with organizations. Later in the report you mention...I think the example was the casino forwarding information to FINTRAC. Is the problem that FINTRAC is receiving information they're perhaps unaware of or they're not following it exactly? They should report to the casino right away. If it's under $10,000 they're not entitled to receive this and provide the full stop at that point. Is that--

[Jennifer Stoddart]

That's absolutely it, honourable member.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Are you satisfied with FINTRAC in terms of their response on that recommendation in the sense of following that procedure now, whereby they will be providing a stop and they will not be receiving information they're not entitled to?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes. FINTRAC was very cooperative. They have a very difficult task to do. Cooperating with that recommendation to pre-screen the information before putting it in the bank is going to be onerous for them, but they are committed to their best efforts.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

I certainly appreciate that.

In your annual report on page 31 you talk about the destruction plan: “The Centre is developing a strategy to move forward with a destruction plan.” This is information that either they should not have or perhaps they can receive but they should have a plan in place to not retain that information. Obviously, if it's a paper copy, you can shred it and it's very simple. As you all know, and as we've discussed on previous occasions, when it's electronic, as my friends in the IT sector say, it's almost impossible these days to destroy something.

Can you comment on a destruction plan, especially with respect to information that is held electronically?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Honestly, honourable member, I can't. I don't have that level of knowledge. I understand that is the challenge before FINTRAC. That is why they didn't say they'd do it tomorrow. They said, yes, they would use their best efforts. I gather to delete the information that's extraneous to their mandate at this point is a complex and demanding process, because the information is on a huge number of files stored electronically. What's important is that they are going to try in good faith to comply.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

A lot of your good work is referenced not only in the public sector but in the private sector, and this seems to be one of the main challenges for privacy commissioners and for countries going forward: how to ensure that information obtained and stored electronically is not stored past a certain point. Is there something for this committee's information? Who is responsible for ensuring that information that was acquired is no longer there?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Well, it's the holder of the information, according to the laws that apply to it.

But you're right: throughout the world this is a huge problem. It's so easy to collect the information. It may be wrong and it may be irrelevant, but it is collected, and then how do we get rid of it and how do we delete it? It's an increasing challenge for all of us.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

I appreciate that very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, Mr. Rajotte, chair of the finance committee, for bringing some continuity to an important area of discussion. Thank you for the questions.

Finally, we'll have a brief question from Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to come back to your comments on the biometrics introduction that CIC is planning. This is a two-part question.

Has CIC done a privacy impact assessment on your biometrics program? As well, the whole question of transferring fingerprints of refugees to other jurisdictions sets off all kinds of alarm bells for me, given that refugee claimants have often been persecuted in their country of origin. If we don't find that they're legitimate refugees, there may be real concerns for their security in their country of origin. I wonder if you could comment or expand on that a little more.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes. Chantal is familiar with this program.

[Chantal Bernier]

I would say that your concerns are exactly ours. We are working with CIC precisely to address all of those issues. They are doing a PIA. We are working with them in reviewing that.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Madam Stoddart and Madam Bernier, this has been a very comprehensive review of many of the issues that have gone on. I want to thank you very kindly for assisting the committee in better appreciating some of the challenges we face. I certainly thank you for the annual report and the special reports, particularly on matters like money laundering, FINTRAC, Facebook, Google Street View, and the list goes on.

We will never finish. As a consequence, I want to invite you to continue to work with the committee and, more specifically, to suggest next steps. Undoubtedly, we will be having a steering committee meeting before the Christmas break to consider suggested work in the areas under our mandate. We want to build on where we've been. We want to make sure the prioritization is right.

As you know, these processes, even what we've gone through, take a fair bit of time. The sooner we identify those priorities, the sooner we make a commitment to them and start to plan. We will hopefully have the time of the Christmas break to formalize a process so that when we come back in January we will be able to proceed right off the bat.

We certainly welcome your thoughts, suggestions, and input on either the completion of matters that have already been addressed but may require some additional work or, indeed, on moving us to a new horizon that may be an emerging issue.

I thank you. I understand that you have other things to do, and we have another matter, so you're excused.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

May I say on behalf of all my staff how much we appreciate the interest and support of this committee in our work? As an agent of Parliament, you're kind of alone. You don't have a minister and you're not a department. The fact that the committee takes such an active interest in our work and provides us a sounding board is very useful.

Thank you.

[Chantal Bernier]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

I don't think I'm going to suspend. I would like to go on to our other matter of business, which is the consideration of the government response to the tenth report, on the privacy quick fixes.

We did receive a letter from the minister, and that was previously circulated. There are copies available and I think those are being circulated again, just for the members' information.

For the members' recollection, in regard to the privacy, this is a project that actually started in the prior Parliament, and the committee, after the last election, adopted a motion to bring that matter forward to the current Parliament. We have had the minister this Parliament for one hour—that's it—and his correspondence.

Our report and our work were substantive, I think. And as was indicated in the dialogue with the Privacy Commissioner, there is a clear understanding that we were not in total agreement with all of the so-called quick fixes. We did embrace five, or possibly six. I think it's fair to characterize the others as maybe either premature or that we need more work on some of those. So we'll have an opportunity to consider those, if necessary, when we do continuing work.

I think we will want to consider in a steering committee meeting, which likely will be held next week, whether there is any further work. So I would ask the members to refresh themselves on that.

We do have a call for a vote in half an hour. Normally when a vote is called, the committee should not be meeting without the unanimous consent of the committee. Could I have an indication from the members whether or not they would like to proceed for a short while, or shall we adjourn?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, if I may, our whip has asked us to proceed to the House as soon as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

All right. Those are the rules. We will pick this matter up at our next meeting next Tuesday. I hope the members will start to consider matters that may be dealt with at a future steering committee meeting.

We haven't been advised yet with regard to whether or not there will be a nomination of an information commissioner. That will be coming before us, with the nominee. And the estimates we still are determining; that may not happen until after the Christmas break.

I'm going to do my best to keep you informed. Please have your staff make sure you are advised as to the specific agenda for next Tuesday's meeting. But the first item will be this carry-over item.

Thank you kindly.

We're adjourned.