Information & Ethics Committee on May 25th, 2015

[Karen Shepherd]

Yes. The conflict of interest commissioner has used a definition. She's defined a close personal friend, in relation to the difference between acquaintances and close personal friends. I find that to be a definition that does make it a little clearer to work with.

When I was doing the consultation I actually heard, from some lobbyists, some concerns like the ones you're raising, but also an appreciation that there were certain friends they were not lobbying because they didn't want to put that particular friend in a conflict of interest. Those are the friendships I'm trying to address in this code, because of the court case.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Yes. I see the downside of it, as was illustrated earlier by the question about the Senate, the Duffy scenario, and so on and so forth. I can see how some of that is frightening, to say the least. There are other cases, too, when as a former critic—I was critic of Heritage—I was lobbied. I had discussions with a lot of groups in the arts community and the broadcasting community, and it was a real education for me. Yes, they want to further their interests, but my interests were served as well. I wouldn't want to see a chill over this kind of industry, where there are these loose parameters and we're not sure where we're stepping, always treading on—

[Karen Shepherd]

Yes, I fully agree with that. One of the reasons the rule reads the way it does now, as opposed to the way I had it previously, where it actually referred to friend and relative in the rule, is that I appreciated, in listening to the consultations and upon hindsight, that you don't want to stop good public policy. You don't want governments operating in vacuums, so I'm very aware of that in terms of making sure it doesn't happen.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

What kinds of enforcement tools do you have? You obviously want to increase the amount of enforcement you can put on people who go awry.

[Karen Shepherd]

In terms of enforcement powers, if I find that there's a breach of the act and I have reasonable grounds to believe that the act has been breached, then I have to suspend my particular investigation and refer it to the RCMP, who will then look at it.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Are there certain provinces that have more powers than you? I believe that's the case, isn't it?

[Karen Shepherd]

Yes, there are. There are two provinces that have the ability to issue administrative monetary penalties.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It's Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador. What do they do specifically that you can't?

[Karen Shepherd]

They can issue administrative monetary penalties. They can actually put a sanction appropriate to the breach, so like a late filing, or lesser transgressions that I just—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It seems rather reasonable to me. How do you feel about that?

[Karen Shepherd]

During the review of the act, that was one of the powers I asked for. The government's response indicated it is looking at that.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Sorry, I'm short on time, here. Thank you very much, Ms. Shepherd. I appreciate that.

Mr. Therrien, you said, and I'm quoting you here, that in meeting new responsibilities, the case for an adjustment will be necessary in the future. You said that under PIPEDA it went up 50%. Is this the adjustment you're seeking, in cases under PIPEDA?

[Daniel Therrien]

I'm not seeking it right now. My point is that—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

But you will, right?

[Daniel Therrien]

My point is this: we have to deal with complaints, and they're growing. We have a number of means to address them efficiently. That's one side of the picture.

What I'm referring to when I say we have new responsibilities is mostly new statutory responsibilities, under Bill S-4, to receive and advise on reports that we will receive from companies when there are privacy breaches. There is no funding that comes with these responsibilities. Under Bill C-51, we will investigate whether the collection and sharing practices of departments conform with privacy. There is no funding that comes with that.

I'm not asking for money right now. I'm suggesting it's going to be difficult to balance the books with these new responsibilities. Rather than to ask for money at this point, I say we will see, with the experience of implementing these new responsibilities, whether there is a need for additional funding. I think it is extremely possible, but I want to see what history tells us.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. Simms.

I now give the floor to Mr. Dechert, who has seven minutes.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our guests. Mr. Therrien, Ms. Shepherd, it's nice to see you both again, and thank you for being here with your officials.

Mr. Therrien, you mentioned a number of priorities in your opening remarks, including the economics of personal information. I was wondering about the issue of identity theft, which of course is a very significant issue for all Canadians, especially seniors who in my riding are facing increasing threats to the theft of their personal information. Can you tell us about what your office is envisioning doing to bring the dangers of identity theft to the general public and educating people on how they can protect themselves against these sorts of things?

[Daniel Therrien]

Sure. When we consulted either the general public or stakeholders, but particularly the general public, the risk of identity theft was one of the biggest concerns among the general population. We certainly plan to have public education initiatives to inform the public about these risks. We also want to do more in public education with companies, with organizations, to ensure that they take appropriate measures to protect against these risks.

One of the strategies that I mentioned in my opening remarks would be to strengthen the accountability of organizations in privacy generally, but this is particularly relevant, I think, in terms of breaches and the risk of identity theft to make sure that organizations, companies, are held accountable for the measures they take or do not take to prevent this type of risk.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

You're talking about, for example, online merchants who might be collecting economic information on individuals who purchase things over the Internet. Would you be providing guidelines for those companies on how they deal with the information they receive?

[Daniel Therrien]

Yes. We plan, for instance, to provide more guidance to small and medium-sized businesses. We find that although they don't have a perfect record, large companies are better at protecting privacy, particularly in terms of breaches, although there are instances of problems even with large companies. We've seen that small and medium-sized companies, because they are smaller, because they have other things to do, do not necessarily spend as much energy as they should in protecting against these breaches. That will be one of our focuses in our public education campaigns.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

That's very good. As you know, the majority of businesses in our economy would be classified as small or medium-sized enterprises. As you point out, these organizations are often not large enough to have the in-house resources to deal with some of these issues, so that's a very significant benefit to our citizens if you can help those companies with that type of information.

Ms. Shepherd, I want to ask you a question about generally how the lobbyist registration system is going. You talked about how you're reaching out to stakeholders, developing tools to make it easier for people to understand. I think probably most government relations firms, that call themselves that, understand what's required of them under the Lobbyists Registration Act. Probably most law firms do, and a lot of law firms do, as you know, what you would describe as lobbying. It's not just the government relations firms.

I wonder what others—smaller businesses like the ones Mr. Therrien just mentioned, individuals who might do it very sporadically on behalf of their business or organization—reach out to members of Parliament, to ministers? How were you reaching that level of stakeholder? What more do you think needs to be done in that regard?

[Karen Shepherd]

Actually, in the enforcement regime that I have, I'm very pleased with what the team has been doing in terms of being even more proactive in terms of how we can ensure compliance. For example, I've mentioned before to this committee that we do what I call media monitoring. That might seem simplistic in itself, that you're just checking the media, but it isn't. There's further analysis that goes on to see whether these companies are registered, or if they're registered federally. If they are not registered then we're sending them advisory letters advising them about the act. That's one way.

We've also started in the last year doing what we're calling a net compliance analysis, where we're looking at what's actually happening maybe from coming out of the budget and looking at some trends in the data. For example, this year we were looking at doing a project on institutions that were saying they were receiving government funding but weren't registered federally. We're reaching out to them to educate them that there's federal legislation and determining if they need to register. Some of them may not have to register, and that's what we're finding largely because of the fact that they're not hitting the significant duty threshold.

We're also doing compliance audits. Again, it involves individuals who are registered and we try to make sure that the information is complete and accurate.

Any of the outreach activities that we do lead to sometimes further analysis of where there are areas.... Part of the reason that we spend time educating public office holders is that the more they understand the act, they understand the people coming to them.... We sometimes say to ask them if they're aware of the Lobbying Act, and if they're not, to send them to our office. That's another way of getting the message out, because public office holders also play an important role.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Certainly with my office we always ask that question when somebody calls us or writes to us and asks for a meeting. From my perspective it seems to be working very well. I haven't found too many who have not taken the steps proactively to register before they make a call or request a meeting, so I think you're doing a great job.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. Dechert.

Now the last five minutes goes to Madam Borg.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Therrien, I would like to come back to the last part of our previous discussion. You said you requested that companies that provide personal information on a voluntary basis submit a transparency report. Have you received any responses? I know some telecommunications companies already do that. Have you received any positive responses so far?

Could you also tell me whether you have asked the government to do the same? For instance, the government would be more transparent when requesting personal information from companies.