Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 19th, 2010

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

If I could quickly follow up on the comments our chair made when he was asking you about the cooperation between your department and other departments, there's a comment on the Privacy Act, again in section 4.2. It says, “The number of complaints filed against an institution does not necessarily mean the organization is not compliant with the Privacy Act”. Could you elaborate on that a bit?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes. Over the years some people have asked why we don't do a report card and rate all the departments and so on. This may be appropriate in some circumstances, but it doesn't seem to be appropriate for what our office does. Some departments, by their very nature, have to hold a lot of Canadians' personal information, so on a representative basis they're going to get a lot of complaints.

The single department that has the most requests year after year--I think probably since the office was opened--is the Correctional Service of Canada, because of course it controls all the personal information of the people in their files. Also, it has a problem with replying within 30 days, so then there's another complaint.

It goes down in that order. The RCMP has a lot of complaints, again because of its function. Ironically, for some places where there may be systemic problems, like Veterans Affairs, there are statistically very few complaints.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Ms. Block, your time is up.

We are now going to move to Mr. Siksay. Then Mr. Easter has a motion, and then we will adjourn.

Mr. Siksay, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner, I want to ask you about privacy impact assessment reviews, and one in particular. You mentioned that some places in government appreciate your work, but they're anxious when they see you're coming.

I'm assuming that one of the people you may have been thinking about is the President of the Public Service Commission, who had some concerns about how you reported on the privacy impact assessment review of the political impartiality monitoring approach, which you report was an attempt to collect information on the private activities of public servants. The President of the Public Service Commission said she thought the language was too strong and that you were misleading in terms of the intent of the program, although it seems like the program was scaled back as a result of your intervention.

I wonder if you could comment about that and how that process works, and your concerns about that program.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Well, we tried to report as objectively as possible our concerns with the first draft PIA and the description of this program and what it was set out to do. It was something that we had never seen before as a proposal, and what we understood was that it was a proposal to scan the web for indications of political activity. In talking with the commission, it was agreed to take it back, look at the program, and provide us with a new privacy impact assessment.

I think somewhere there's an acknowledgment that perhaps we have raised some relevant questions, such as, “Why this program?” In order to scan somebody's political activities outside of the government.... Has there been something like a radical increase in the remarked political activities of civil servants that would cause this? What we understood was that it was looking at personal websites, at blogs and so on.

Anyway, we're waiting for the second version of this, and we hope we can continue dialoguing about this and see eye to eye on it.

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

So you haven't received the second run-through of it yet?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

No, we haven't.

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

I appreciate that you are working on this, because it strikes me as a very serious issue. I do share your concern about it and I appreciate that you've taken it up.

I wanted to ask you about another issue, which is the situation of border crossings. There are a number of issues. There is some report of it in your annual report, but there were also newspaper reports.

One in particular was about a Montreal student who had a laptop searched by the U.S. authorities at the border. One of your colleagues, Anne-Marie Hayden, had responded that “Canadian courts have recognized there is a 'diminished expectation of privacy' at border crossings”. I'm just wondering... Is that something you accept: that there should be a reduced expectation of privacy at border crossings for Canadians or for people coming into Canada?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I think I have to accept that for a long time it has been recognized that nations are sovereign and they control the conditions upon which they let citizens of other nations come in. They can set those rules.

What I don't accept is that there are frequent complaints by the public about the manner in which they are treated at the border, so we are working with the Canada Border Services Agency to see if we can sensitize some of the border guards or officials to the impact of some of their words, their gestures, the way they treat Canadians coming back into the country, and how these things make them feel as though their privacy has been invaded and so on.

We can't change that reality, but we could help to encourage a more sensitive treatment of people.

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

You have developed a resource for people, which I think is called “Checking In”, about dealing with security and customs at the border.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Yes, we have.

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

Has there been significant uptake on that resource? Or is it one that you consider successful? Has there been an evaluation of its success?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I can't answer that question. I could get back to you on it.

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

It would be interesting to know.

If there's time, I just want to ask one other question about full-body scanning at the airport. Recently in the newspapers and in media reports, you noted that there is a new generation of machines coming on that will “more sharply” define the images that are used. I am wondering if that changes your view of this technology. Have you seen anything about Canada moving towards using that new technology? Where are we at with these full-body scanners at airports?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

For the moment, we are using a less intrusive type of scanner, the name of which escapes me. This is not the most intrusive, which may be the backscatter x-ray scanners, some of which have been introduced into the United States and which apparently put the human body into, shall we say, detailed focus as compared to the one currently used in Canada, which my office has tested out. People of both sexes have tested it out. It shows, as I understand it, foreign objects on an outline of the body, so it is much less privacy-intrusive.

In the quote you read, I was asked to say what keeps me “up at night”, and I said that if national security issues became so imperative that there was a push to move to these, then yes, that would be a huge privacy challenge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Siksay.

There is just one minor issue that may be dangling. I'm not going to ask for a response, Ms. Stoddart, but you did mention--and it may not be an issue--that there might be some concern with your ability to allocate funds within your department. If there's still an issue, I invite you to write a letter to the committee and we can follow it up. I'm not looking for an answer now.

Mr. Easter, you have a motion.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I'd just like to read a notice of motion into the record, Mr. Chair, so that it could be discussed. The motion reads as follows:

That the committee requests that Nigel Wright provide it with copies of any agreements with Onex Corporation for him to return from temporary leave to the corporation. The committee also requests that Nigel Wright provide copies of any recusal conditions that he has agreed to abide by as Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister to ensure that he is not in conflict of interest. And that the information be provided to the committee within 5 days.

I so move for notice.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

That is just for notice, Mr. Easter, and that of course won't be debated today.

That, colleagues, concludes the meeting.

On behalf of everyone on the committee, Ms. Stoddart, I want to thank you. As I stated at the opening of the meeting, the commissioner did come here on very short notice. She had to rearrange her schedule to accommodate us and we're very thankful.

Thank you very much.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Merci.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

The meeting is adjourned.