Evidence of meeting #2 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was 100000.

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
Tom Pulcine  Director General and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services Branch, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

12:15 p.m.

Conservative

Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Maybe I can just shed some light on that. I did speak with Mr. Poilievre after our steering committee, but I would certainly encourage you to speak with him as well. I believe that, and here again I want you to confirm this, his intent was to come back and review what we had done and put it in a report form. That's my understanding.

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Sure.

That would be a completed item, but the committee would deal with a draft report at some point. Fair enough.

Mr. Easter.

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

It's not on this subject, just when we--

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

When we hit one, please indicate to the clerk if you'd like to comment.

Other than the mains, etc., the report cards are coming from the various commissioners. I think we just received one, did we not, from privacy...? It's the plans and priorities and the report cards. They're not coming until the 26th. We won't be in a position to deal with the mains until after we get that, which is at the end of the month. Our challenge is going to be to schedule business for us until we get those and have an opportunity to review it. We talked about the report cards.

Madam Freeman had raised an interest with regard to the process followed by the government in terms of order in council appointments. You will have received in your office from the clerk an e-mail that has the links to all of that information. I did print off most of it. It's quite comprehensive, but it's quite helpful because it goes through, step by step, all of the different checkpoints in terms of considering someone for an appointment, including security checks, etc. Unless Madam Freeman brings forward any further matters, I think that's already been take care of.

She also asked for a list of appointees for our committee. We're working on that.

When the issue with the two reports that I tabled today... I have spoken with the minister, and he was under the impression from his staff that they had already responded and there was no further work to do. I gave him copies of all of the correspondence, including his letter to us saying he will respond to the recommendations, but he wanted an extension until February 15. The prorogation stopped all of that. He is going to come back to me to indicate when they would be able to get the comprehensive response to each of the recommendations and a date.

He also wanted to remind me that he has not agreed to appear before the committee. I assume the committee would like to see the minister after we have received the response to those two reports and had a chance to review them.

We will plan at some point to try to get dates. Certainly, that is going to happen before the summer. The minister is a busy person, but we will extend an invitation to him to come before us so we can discuss his comprehensive response to both our reports.

We are expecting an order in council appointment of the new Information Commissioner. As you all know, we have an acting commissioner right now. We don't know when that's coming. I'm hopeful that we have a full-time appointee. We will have a special, separate meeting dedicated to having the nominee of the government come before us, which is the traditional practice. We would then do a report to the House with the committee's recommendation, and propose a motion of an appointment, which the House will vote on.

In addition to the things Mr. Rickford raised in terms of the broader privacy issues related to emerging...there are lots of things. We have two matters before us, and this is where we want to get a little bit of input from the committee.

The first one has to do with the whole question of camera surveillance. There have been court cases in the past. We've had balloons carrying cameras around the border. Mr. Siksay put together a fairly extensive package on this matter, the whole emerging risks or problems related to camera surveillance in our society. It would take a little time to study. We have no idea right now as to the dimension, but we do hope to discuss it at our steering meeting next Tuesday.

The other item is something that was considered in the last session of Parliament, and in fact the researchers were asked to prepare for the committee a document related to proactive disclosure and access to information.

You may know, for instance, that in the United States, President Obama has his whole economic plan on the web--every project, how many jobs, and other things. They have partial proactive disclosure in terms of access to information. But there are other countries that have, in fact, full proactive disclosure. Virtually everything the government does that's accessible to the public is accessible on the web, other than those matters that are, for instance, cabinet confidences, national security and public interest concerns, and so on, which the government, in their opinion, would not release under access to information because of their nature.

It goes to the question of the possibility of eliminating a tremendous volume of work in terms of processing and delays. This is one the committee expressed an interest in. We will have a copy of a document in a week. For next Thursday's meeting you will have the research information they have available to date on the jurisdictions in which this is occurring.

I wanted to inform you of the two areas the steering committee considered.

Now we also have the matter Mr. Rickford has brought up on the Google sphere of things, which is not exactly camera surveillance. There may be some overlap in terms of the privacy issues, but we'll have to see. We're going to have to get a little bit more information, okay?

We'll consider any other item the members would like to recommend the steering committee consider.

We'll go to Mr. Easter, and then we're going to Madam Freeman and Mr. Rickford.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

The steering committee, then, is not basically laying out a schedule at this point. You're going to meet again on Tuesday. Is that correct? I'm just trying to figure out what...

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

The schedule will only be, in the short term, to keep our committee busy. It'll have to deal with things either to do with the mains or with the appearance of a commissioner.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Okay. The other area—and we haven't put a motion as yet, but we may—is in the area of access to information. I know there's a report in the House. On one hand, you want to wait until the minister responds. But on access to information, it's increasingly slow.

If reports in the media are anywhere close to accurate, there's influence from the PMO. I think we need to call some of those folks who are reported in the press as having influenced access requests. This committee may need to call some of those staffers before this committee and have a look at it and find out what's going on.

I know that the system has really slowed down, and information is difficult to get. The whole spirit of the Access to Information Act, in my view, has been undermined. So I think we need to look into that area.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Okay.

I could indicate to you that the steering committee, in fact, did discuss that. I think we concur that this is a matter we would like to see reviewed and resolved, if necessary. But in view of the fact that the acting commissioner already has commenced a study or a review or an examination of the matter, the steering committee did not feel that doing a parallel review... I don't want to preempt the steering committee's recommendation, but I suspect that we may very well say that once we have had the benefit of the findings of the acting Information Commissioner, we will consider whether further work is necessary by this committee. Okay?

Mr. Easter.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

If I could follow up on that issue, I really don't know whether we should be waiting that long. I'm new on this committee so I'm not sure how long the acting commissioner has been...she's been reappointed as an acting commissioner once, was it, or twice?

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Twice.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Twice. I worry about that as well.

When an acting commissioner is acting commissioner, her independence and the ability to do her job without fear of losing her job are in fact compromised. That's why she either needs to be appointed permanently for a five-year term, so that she can do her job and challenge the government as necessary without thinking she'll be fired for having done her job because she's only an acting commissioner... And we've seen this. Even government members know we've seen lots of people lose their jobs around here.

So what I'm saying to you, Paul, as our chair, is that we don't want to dilly-dally on this. Members and the general public are trying to use the Access to Information Act, and it's being compromised, so we can't dilly-dally until June.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

I'm sure that members share the concerns.

Members should also know that the acting commissioner is also the deputy commissioner, and if she should not be appointed to be the new information commissioner, she still has her job. So I'm not concerned about firing, as I'm sure she's going to do the job well. I have full confidence in her.

But the full committee will be making a decision as to the work we do. The steering committee is going to have to really bring to this committee our recommendations only. We cannot bind the full committee as to what we're going to do and when. All we can do is recommend. So that certainly is one of the items there.

I have Madam Freeman, Mr. Rickford, Madam Block, and Mr. Siksay.

12:30 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

Mr. Chair, I wanted to know whether you intended to keep this committee sitting till 1 o'clock. I have another meeting à 1 o'clock.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

We won't be making any more motions, and since you're on the steering committee, I don't think it--

12:30 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

I know we are meeting on Tuesday.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Yes, but I have to go until the members have had a chance to give their input for the steering committee.

12:30 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

No, but usually, we provide lunch when we--

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Yes. I don't think the committee has instructed the chair or requested the chair on that matter, but I know our researchers have suggested it might be appropriate.

Do you want to do that quickly? Shall I arrange for lunch for our meetings in the future? Is that the will of the committee...something appropriate?

12:30 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

12:30 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

Right now, we have another priority, which is the question period.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

I'll take that as an instruction to the chair to make the necessary arrangements. Thank you.

Mr. Rickford.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON

Mr. Chair, I have just two comments.

First of all, I'd like, certainly from my part, to encourage the committee to wait for the report before we proceed with anything. I respect and understand where the member is coming from. I'm not sure his party has been in power since the Internet was created. But if we could wait for the report, I think it would be the right thing to do.

The other part, and I appreciate your raising this, is with respect to the access for proactive disclosure study or anything along those lines. I would be interested in understanding the committee's enthusiasm around a trip to Washington to look at some of the research and work that's being done in this area. I'm throwing that out there. We are in a period of fiscal restraint, as other members have raised here and certainly in the House in looking at our resources, but I think this would be a particularly useful trip. If managed properly, it would benefit us all and inform us in some very important ways as to what, as you pointed out in your earlier discussion, the United States of America is doing in this regard.

I'm interested in this. Of course, in the great Kenora riding I have a spreadsheet called the “get-'er-done spreadsheet”. It keeps track of all the projects we're doing since Canada's economic action plan has been implemented. Of course, it's quite a long list of all the things we're taking care of, now that we have an opportunity to do that.

There is important information on there that I've often felt my constituents should have access to. There is a process there, and there are certainly things we should think about that have to do with that information: How should it be accessible? Why should it be accessible? I think anything we can do to understand better would benefit this committee.

We all share an affection for the Obama administration, and if he is doing something that we can just build on, by golly, I think that might be a useful exercise.

So I put that out there for us to think about.

12:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

Thank you.

Mrs. Block, please.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm just echoing Mr. Rickford's comments in terms of the report, just to have that process play out.

Once you have tabled the report, what is the length of time that the minister has to respond to it?

12:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo

At the last meeting of the committee, which was meeting number 1, the committee instructed the chair to retable those, but noting explicitly that we were not requesting a response. In one of the reports, it's page 30—page 31 is blank—the separate page pursuant to Standing Order 109, requesting a government response.

We have already received a response on both reports. This committee came to the conclusion that we wanted to get a more comprehensive response to each and every recommendation. Things were in process that we were going to have that by February 15, but the prorogation sort of threw all that off. I have now provided the minister with the various documents and documentation and correspondence so that he's up to speed. He's going to get back to me as to when we can expect to get his response addressing each of the recommendations in both reports. Once we get that and members have had an opportunity to review it, we will see if we can arrange to have him come before us, if there is a need to do that.