Information & Ethics Committee on May 6th, 2014

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you very much, committee members. That concludes our examination of the 2014-15 estimates for the agents of Parliament who report to our committee.

We now have time, I'm glad to say, to deal with a notice of motion put forward by our colleague Scott Andrews.

Scott, are you prepared to move your motion today?

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

If we have time, yes, sure.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

We seem to have a luxury of time, actually.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

We don't normally have that.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

No.

If it is your wish, then, you have the floor to move the motion that you gave notice about.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will move the notice of motion that this committee undertake a study, of at least four meetings, on the transfer of personal consumer and subscriber information from Canadian telecom providers to the Canadian government, as disclosed by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and this committee report its findings and recommendations to the House.

I think it is somewhat timely that we discuss it. We had the Information Commissioner here today.

Let me state that this is not a gotcha motion. This is not trying to embarrass the government in any form, because one of the things the Information Commissioner told us this morning is that this information is being transferred to municipal agencies and other agencies as well; we really don't know. There's often good reason for information to be provided to our law enforcers and Canada Border Services.

The intent is to make sure that this information is being transferred in a proper format. What concerns us is that the Information Commissioner states that there's no way of knowing if these government agencies and telecommunications and social media companies are following the rules. We should take a look at that, and see if they are following the rules or if the rules need to be tightened up a little. It's of some genuine interest.

We know about warrant lists and warrant disclosures of information. Often there are important reasons for government agencies to work quickly and not get a warrant to request this information. We understand that. But when you see the sheer volume of these requests, I think some bells and whistles should go off that maybe we have a problem here. Is there a better way? How do these requests happen?

From my understanding, a telecommunications company puts certain information to the side, and law enforcement agencies can have free rein to look at that information. Is that something we need to tighten up on? We really don't know.

I commend the government; there are a few bills before the Senate and before Parliament right now that will look at some of this information as it comes forward. That's a side issue; that's something we'll look forward to seeing make its way through the Senate, and into the House...to disclose some of that information.

It's about oversight. Right now there doesn't seem to be a lot of oversight on this, and no court oversight. Yes, the judicial system does apply for warrants for this, but not 1.2 million times, not 800 times. How many times are warrants being asked for and given? Is that taking up a lot of the time of our judicial system? We don't know because we don't know how many of these are warrants and how much is warrant-less information.

I think we should take a short study of this, four meetings, to see if there's more to this. As I said, it's not trying to “get” the government, because I think we all have an opportunity to look at things in this House, and if our Information Commissioner and our Privacy Commissioner are feeling their hands are tied, it's our duty to look into this.

One of the things that has come up for much debate is basic subscriber information from Internet service providers. Well, what is basic subscriber information? As we dive into this, we know it's your name, address, e-mail, and IP address. We had a little discussion this morning about the IP address as a very, very detailed piece of personal information—maybe, maybe not, but we should look into it.

From what experts are telling us, it goes beyond that basic subscriber information. It goes into transmission data or metadata. The analogy that's being used is that's the information on the outside of the envelope from Canada Post: to, from, and when, as in when something was sent, whether it's e-mail or a phone call; it's that information. That's getting into grounds where we need to see if that should require a warrant or not, and it's of some concern.

You know, it's a genuine motion. I think we as parliamentarians should have a look at this. The committee is probably the best spot to look at this to see if there's more to this than meets the eye. I do take the government for their word that most of this is being done on a warranted basis, and I hope it would be. We should just peel back the onion a little bit here and see if there is more to this than really meets the eye.

That gives you an overview of the situation. I think we're all familiar with the information around it. It's our duty to ask some questions and get some more answers on this, especially when it comes to, as the motion says, subscriber information. Let's see how broad or narrow that definition is and whether that is causing the Canadian telecommunications companies some leeway.

One of the things is that the Information Commissioner wrote 13 companies and social media companies as well. They're not telecom companies. Only nine responded and four didn't even bother to respond to the information commissioner.

So she's given us an opportunity to look into this as an area of concern. I think it's something that we should take at least four meetings to dive into to see if there's something to this or not and give it the due diligence that it needs.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Andrews.

That's a comprehensive argument in favour of your motion.

Madam Borg would now like to contribute.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me just say that I am happy to see this motion introduced before this committee. I think our committee is the appropriate forum to review the situation since we have learned from the news that 1.2 million pieces of personal data were forwarded to the government.

We have learned today that this involves several government agencies. The situation is extremely worrisome. I think Canadians are expecting some answers about that. As Mr. Andrews said, we must see whether there have been abuses, whether the requests were made with a warrant, why the data were sent and under what circumstances.

I think more transparency is needed on the issue and we need to look into it together, as members of the committee, to find potential solutions to this. There is clearly a gap. The commissioner explicitly stated it today. We have to see what the committee can do to address this shortcoming we see in the legislation.

The NDP plans to support the motion and I trust that all the members of the committee will do the same.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Is there further debate?

Mr. Calandra.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

I thank the member for bringing the motion forward.

I know that as part of our identity theft study that we're undertaking right now we'll be having representatives from telecom before us, or I'm hoping that we'd put them on an approved list, at some point.

Obviously, we've discussed it. We won't be supporting the motion right now. We think that as part of our identity theft study this might be an opportunity for us to engage a bit further, perhaps with telecoms and other service providers. In the context of our identity theft study, we had spoken separately with committee members about potentially bringing in the commissioner as we approached the conclusion of our identity theft study.

So if the member would consider putting it on hold for now, let's see what we can get through as part of our study on identity theft, and perhaps we could consider.... I know that all committee members would probably agree with me that we've made some really good progress on identity theft. We had wanted to perhaps consider extending that study a little bit further to tackle some of these other issues that have come up as part of the study.

In summation, I guess what we're saying is not at this time, but as part of our identity theft, perhaps we want to expand our witness list to include not only the telecom but other service providers, so that we can have them before us. As we said, perhaps towards the end of our identity theft study we could consider not only bringing in the commissioner but other individuals who have opened certain doors to us, and calling them back as well. Perhaps the member would be amenable to that. At the same time, I think we should probably look at other committees, I guess public safety, to see if this is before them or not.

In conclusion, I know that the commissioner was in front of the Senate recently, I'm told...?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

The Privacy Commissioner or the Information Commissioner?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

I think it was the Privacy Commissioner who might have been in front of the Senate on Bill S-4.

I had a chance to look at her testimony, so I'm wondering if the analysts could maybe just forward a copy or a link to her testimony so we could review that.

If it's amenable to the committee, then, not right now, but we'll expand our witness list on identity theft and perhaps increase the study; I would even suggest more than four meetings.

So perhaps that is acceptable.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Mr. Calandra, just for the record, the telecoms are not currently on the witness list, but we can always add them.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

I thought they were on an approved list. Sorry, sir.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I thought so too, but apparently not.

Scott.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Yes, I thought they were too, Telus and a few of them. Maybe we need to expand it a little.

You know, I'm open to just putting this on the table for now, to give us some time, just as long as when the telecom companies come before committee, we do the identity piece and we give them a little bit of time for this, don't just jam in the witnesses. Maybe we'll see where the other committees are on this, because I guess it would overlap.

As long as it doesn't get tidied up in the bill that's coming before the Senate now, because I think that's a separate piece, I'm willing, if it's the right protocol, Mr. Chair, to table this for the time being, to see where we go and revisit it in June. We are running out of time, and this may all get pushed into the fall.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Just as a point of information, I'm informed now that Telus, Bell, and Rogers were in fact on the approved list; it's not a full range of telecoms or service providers.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

I wonder, then, if it would be appropriate, maybe at another meeting, if we could suggest some committee business, to maybe consider then adding additional providers outside of the big three. If members want to consider adding more, we can maybe discuss that at a future date on committee business so that we could add to the study a little bit.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I think that's wise.

Okay, then, we won't call for a vote on this motion today, Mr. Andrews. We'll consider it and we will see how much of it we can fold into the study on identity theft.

Just for the information of committee members—I don't think we need to go in camera for this information—we won't have a meeting on Thursday. We're unable to get the witnesses from the banks that we anticipated, and we want to have a full panel of the banks when the time comes to speak to them.

Charmaine.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Just as a little point of information, is it due to their unwillingness to come or is it because of a scheduling issue?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I guess it's the clerk who has been speaking to them, but it's been difficult to get them to agree to come. We have one that's tentatively offered to come, but they're saying they have to fly him in from California, etc.

We've been clear that it's not the Canadian Bankers Association we want to speak to, it's the banks themselves, as private businesses, that we want to speak to.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Yes, I agree.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I think we do need to give the clerk some more time. Nobody said they won't attend, but it's been difficult to schedule them in a panel the way we want them to appear. All five at a time would be ideal as long as we could limit their remarks so they don't use up our entire time with five separate sets of remarks.

Having said that, our next meeting, then, will be next Tuesday, and we'll be dealing with the clause-by-clause analysis of Bill C-520. The independent members of Parliament have been served notice that they have one week to get their amendments, if they choose, to the clerk, within 48 hours before the meeting. So I think we're all in compliance there.

Members of the committee, of course, should amendments be coming forward from the various parties, must have them in 48 hours before that meeting.

Seeing no other business, I have a motion to adjourn. It's non-debatable.

We're adjourned.