Thank you, Mr. Chair.
When we left off the other day, we were discussing the minister's response, and there were a couple of comments alleging that the minister's response was somehow insubstantial. Mr. Chair, I have to say that, from my reading of the letter, that's just not factually correct. This is an extremely substantive response. I can point out a number of things, but in particular I'd like to point out that at the bottom of page 2, in the last two full paragraphs there and continuing on to the top of page 3, the minister goes into some detail about the need for law enforcement and other security agencies to share information with our foreign partners. He points out that:
...there are other important government activities which require government institutions and agencies to share personal information, both inside and outside Canada. Such activities include ongoing or proposed government programs relating to establishing, modifying or enforcing family obligations, addressing cases of international parental child abduction and suspected forced marriage, and responding to sudden worldwide health threats.
Now, these are pretty substantial comments, where the minister is saying more work needs to be done on these areas of the suggestions that were made by the committee. He goes on to say:
Without efficient means of sharing personal information globally and domestically, these entities would be seriously hampered in their efforts to assist and protect Canada and its residents. Furthermore, efforts to provide greater domestic legislative support to our treaty obligations under international conventions could be seriously hampered.
For all these reasons, any change to the way in which Canada shares sensitive and important personal information must be carefully considered before any decision is made on possible amendments. Further consultation with government institutions and agencies that are responsible for the security as well as the health and welfare of Canadians would be required to ensure that the Privacy Act does not restrict the flexibility or pose additional barriers to information sharing.
That's extremely substantial. He's talking about protection of Canadian families, protection of children. For anyone to allege this response is dismissive or insubstantial is, frankly, ludicrous.
So there's no way, in my view, that this committee could in any good conscience make a motion worded that the committee is somehow profoundly disappointed with the response of this minister. This minister is taking his responsibilities for the protection of Canadians and children very seriously. For this committee to ignore these substantive comments that the minister has made in his letter, asking us to do further work to ensure that the Privacy Act allows appropriate government agencies to share the kind of information they need to share to protect children and protect the health and welfare of Canadians, that would be an egregious breach of this committee's public duty, in my opinion, Mr. Chair. For these reasons, I could not for a moment even contemplate supporting such a motion as this.
I think the minister has made some very clear statements about what further work needs to be done. I think that's the obligation of this committee, and we should all put our noses to the grindstone and do what our voters elected us and sent us here to do, and that is to review the Privacy Act in detail and come up with some very comprehensive, substantive changes—not just quick fixes, where we'll have the government running around making small changes to every piece of legislation in the combined Statutes of Canada on a yearly basis, but a thorough and proper job. We need to hear from witnesses on these issues that the minister has raised in his letter.
I'm actually quite pleased with this response. I think the minister has taken time to read through our committee report, examined our recommendations, and asked us, with respect, to do some further work to guide him and the government on real substantive changes to the Privacy Act that will take into account these very important obligations of the government to protect the health and welfare of the people of Canada and to protect children from things like parental child abduction and forced marriages. These are things I think we need to spend some considerable time examining.
I for one would like to see this committee bring back some further witnesses on some of these issues.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.