Mr. Chair, I'm disappointed and perplexed with the response of Liberal members to this excellent letter that we've received from the Minister of Justice. Let's review the letter before we begin condemning it.
It reads:
The Government welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics entitled the Privacy Act: First Steps Towards Renewal, released June 12th, 2009. This Report is a culmination of the work that began in the spring of 2008, at the time the privacy commissioner tabled with your committee her ten recommendations for immediate reform of the Privacy Act. She referred to these “quick-fixes” and recently added two more recommendations to her list.
Mr. Chair, that does not sound dismissive to me. In the opening paragraph, there is a complete acknowledgement of the information that this committee sent to the minister. The letter goes on:
The Report states that the committee fully supports five of the privacy commissioner's 12 recommendations, and gives qualified support to one additional recommendation.
Clearly, the minister is demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge of the committee's position on the privacy commissioner's recommendations. If I go down the page, it reads:
In our view, the current definition of personal information in the Privacy Act, together with the application of the Charter, is sufficient to address the scenarios raised by the privacy commissioner.
Now, at this point we see a parting of ways between the Minister of Justice and the Privacy Commissioner, between the government and the committee. I would suggest to you, Mr. Chair, that this is an honest disagreement that, in the view of the justice minister, the current definition of personal information in the Privacy Act, together with the charter, is sufficient to address the scenarios raised by the Privacy Commissioner.
You don't have to agree with that assertion, Mr. Chair, nor does the committee. At the same time, to suggest that we should condemn a minister of the crown simply because he takes a different viewpoint from us, I think, puts this committee at a long-term disadvantage. If we, as a committee, are going to be initiating honest conversations between Parliament and ministers into the future, we must do so in good faith, in recognition that there will be occasions when our counterparts in the government have a different viewpoint from us.
We live in a country that was made to work by compromise and consensus, by taking different viewpoints and finding a way to bridge the gap, not by pulling out a hammer and beating someone over the head simply because they happen to have a different perspective. I would encourage us, rather than passing the motion in question, to produce a letter, perhaps in your name, Mr. Chair, writing the minister with our response to his letter, not condemning him or his letter but maybe challenging some of the points so that we could work through these disagreements and perhaps close that gap as we move forward.
Mr. Chair, to come out with a motion that has as its sole purpose to strike at another Canadian representative in a very aggressive and negative way only serves to build barriers rather than to build bridges. I think we have a lot of bridge-builders in this community on both sides, so let's get busy building bridges and work on building consensus. I think that's the Canadian way and I think it's the way this committee should proceed.
Thank you.