Evidence of meeting #37 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was year.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Charmaine Borg NDP Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
I assume it's always good to have as many forums as possible.
I would now like to briefly discuss Bill S-4, which will soon become law. We examined it in committee at second reading. You testified at those meetings. You proposed a few amendments, including to clauses 6 and 7 of the bill. However, those proposals were not accepted, and no changes have been made to the original version of the bill.
Are you worried about the repercussions that may have?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
On the whole, I think Bill S-4 is a positive development. It contains a number of positive aspects, including newly granted enforcement powers. Agreements could be applied more directly. Overall, we feel that Bill S-4 is positive.
I did recommend a few amendments to the bill that were rejected, especially the ones related to legal access and information disclosure to police authorities by telecommunications companies. Of course, I would have preferred it if those amendments were adopted.
That being said, as I indicated as part of the strategic priorities established by my office, since the bill will be coming into force, I intend to strongly encourage public institutions—departments and private telecommunications companies, among others—to produce transparency reports. That way, the public would be able to find out how much personal information those private companies are sending to various police authorities. I hope that will move the debate forward. In light of those facts, some changes might be made in the future.
I am assuming that the bill will be passed as is. I am trying to ensure that the measures to inform the public will be applied as transparently as possible.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you, Ms. Borg. Your time is up.
I give the floor to Ms. Davidson, also for seven minutes.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to our presenters here again this afternoon. It's always great to see you back again and to hear your views. We have an opportunity to ask you about the main estimates, so that's a good thing too.
Mr. Therrien, in your opening remarks you made the comment that we've seen increasing levels of complaints, and they've become more complex. Can you expand upon that a little, please?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes. In terms of volume, there has been a significant increase in the number of complaints under both the Privacy Act and under PIPEDA, if we look at a period of several years. In the last year the increase under the Privacy Act has been less important, approximately 10%. Under PIPEDA, the private sector legislation, it has been more important. We're trying to accommodate and manage this increase in complaints through the various measures that I mentioned, including early resolution of complaints rather than fulsome investigations.
We try to look at these complaints in accordance with the complexity of each case. The increase in complexity, if I look at the Privacy Act for instance, is a function essentially of the fact that many years ago many complaints had to do with access rights; that is, whether individuals about whom the government had information were properly given information held about them. More recently there are more and more files or complaints or investigations that have to do with more systemic issues like information-sharing practices of departments; for instance, Bill C-51 but also border initiatives or other initiatives. We've gone from complaints and studies and investigations that were focused more on individual treatment and we are now moving to more systemic issues, which of course make things a bit more complex.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Okay, thank you.
You talked about your all-encompassing investigations. Did you find that's working well? Is it creating any issues for anyone in the system?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I'll give you a bit of a long answer, as short as possible.
The worst consequence, I would say, would be that under the Privacy Act regime the treatment time of complaints is growing because of limited capacity. That said, we closed more files last year than we received so the backlog has decreased in the last year. But treatment time has increased to something like nine months, which we think is too long and we want to address it.
Under PIPEDA, the number of complaints has risen by roughly 50%, and through a number of means we have been largely successful in meeting the demand.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Okay, thank you.
I'm going to ask a question of Ms. Shepherd, now, please. I might come back to you, Mr. Therrien, if I still have time.
Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. In all our previous visits when you've been here, we've talked a lot about education and I see in your opening remarks you're talking about developing and implementing an educational program to bring awareness of the act and the code. How is that going, and are you doing anything specific that's different or are you continuing along the same lines?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
What's probably different is we're doing a lot more webinars for first-time registrants on the education front. We're trying to use the website as much as we can continuously to reach out to as many as we can.
The biggest thing probably that's different is with the new Lobbyists' Code of Conduct and the strategy that's going to have to go around it. I see maybe doing a lot more round tables across the country as I did during the consultation process. It turned out to be very effective. We're looking at maybe doing an annotated code as well, because we did an annotated act that got a lot of positive reviews. Part of the tools and guidance I'll be working on over the summer with staff will be to come up with some of these new tools.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Okay, and that's what you're referring to when you're talking about the new tools for the lobbyists, and those types of things.
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Yes, because with my experience, as I've said before to this committee, lobbyists very much want to comply with both the act and the code. I feel it is my job to make sure that they have the necessary guidance and tools to be able to do that. At the time of gazetting I'm looking at having the tools and guidance ready.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
You also talked about launching the segregated peer network. Can you tell me a bit more about that?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Yes, the segregated network was done so we could better protect the security of the compliance files. But we're also finding an additional benefit in it, in that it's providing a great development environment that's allowing us to replicate the lobbyists' registration system.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Further down in your opening remarks you were talking about the registry of lobbyists and you were saying following the budget reductions in the past two to three years that it was placed in maintenance mode.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Can you explain what you mean by “maintenance mode” and what your plans are to change that?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Right now the maintenance is just that. It's what's keeping it running on an ongoing basis, so the normal bugs or fixed things that may come up on a daily basis are there. It's just literally keeping the system running and running well.
We've invested a lot over the years, so it's a very robust system. That said, in order to be viable in the long term, I can't stay in maintenance mode. One of the things in my priorities this year is that we're replicating the lobbyists' registration system and looking at ways where we can be more cost efficient, to get onto a newer platform, because some of the technology is starting to become outdated. While it's still functioning now, we're running out of people who can support us on some of the technology, so it's time to do something.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you.
Now, I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Simms for seven minutes.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Thank you.
Ms. Shepherd, you've been busy, obviously, since the fall of 2014.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
You've widened the scope; there's no doubt about that.
I have a couple of questions, though. It says here in this publication you gave concerning the committee:
A lobbyist shall not arrange for another person a meeting with a public office holder when the lobbyist and public office holder share a relationship that could reasonably be seen to create a sense of obligation.
In your testimony you talked about a simplification of the code, which I respect, like as a close personal friend. The simplification aspect I get, but it leaves open a lot of questions as to knowing where the parameters are. I'm just putting myself in someone's shoes to try to figure out whether I should engage with a person I know. For all intents and purposes, this town is not that big, so we tend to see each other in social settings and so on. I'm just trying to figure out what kind of parameters you are looking at.
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Part of this summer we're sure to be looking at developing the guidance that will go with it. But as I was saying in my opening remarks, certain relationships create more that sense of obligation, so relationships where this is a partner relationship, financial or business dealings, for example, a relative. Having your sister call to arrange a meeting with the brother, the minister, would be a relationship that I think a reasonable Canadian will look at and see a sense of obligation.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I see that. That's clear enough. Let's take the case where you have a lobbyist approaching a member of Parliament's office and she had worked for that member of Parliament, say, a year ago or two years ago. How is that connection interpreted by you?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
The situation you're describing, to me, would be like a working relationship, where we all have acquaintances and friends. I would think a reasonable person would look at that and say it's not creating a sense of obligation. But a close personal friendship, where there's a close personal bond, almost as if the friend is your relative, I think would be a situation where a reasonable Canadian might question that particular relationship.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I can see what you're saying about the fact that there's a direct connection with people and sometimes we know of situations where that happens—I won't go into detail. It tends to hit the news in a hard way and people get disgusted by it, as I do, as a lot of people do. We don't want to see that. We want to see transparency.
Again, as I say, I get the simplification, but the question mark surrounding this is if you're doing this for a living, then sometimes it gets hard to decipher what the relationship is. You talk about the reasonable person test; I guess that's what you're saying.