Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 18th, 2016

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I would suggest that we do this first and then PIPEDA afterwards. I would be willing, Mr. Chair, to move my motion but to amend it, because currently it's worded “directly following the end of the current study”, so that we would move to PIPEDA after we've studied the....

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Colleagues, there's nothing wrong with the committee entertaining two different pieces of work at the same time.

One of the things that I'm finding as chair of this committee, and this is not a slight against the clerk or any of the analysts who are here, but sometimes our witness pool is pretty.... There's great depth in the pool but there's not great breadth in the pool. There's a very small list of people this committee generally calls to appear before it, and we sometimes run into scheduling conflicts.

I don't have a problem personally managing two different studies at once, and I don't think anybody at this end of the table has a problem with that. We may actually want to do both PIPEDA and this review at the same time, depending on witness availability. We might make the committee's time more effective that way. It's just a suggestion.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

That sounds like a reasonable proposition. If we just amend the motion to withdraw “directly following the end of the current study”....

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Okay, but right now we're dealing with Mr. Erskine-Smith's motion, Mr. Lightbound. I gave you every opportunity. What we'll do is get back to your motion as soon as we've dealt with this one.

All in favour of Mr. Erskine-Smith's motion?

(Motion agreed to)

We will commence henceforth. I encourage all members of the committee to get us a list of witnesses for that particular study as soon as humanly possible.

Mr. Lightbound.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I move that the committee start studying PIPEDA right after we are finished with the Privacy Act.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I'll entertain the friendly amendment. Well, it stays true actually.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

It stays true, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

We don't need to amend it. We'll just do it in conjunction with the other study as witness availability....

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Perhaps the clerk could prioritize, whenever possible, the study on the sharing of information act.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Yes, that was the sense that I got. That's what we'll try to do.

I have a couple of comments. In the previous Parliament, the PIPEDA was examined, but only in the context of social media. Is that correct? There was a report done in the last Parliament that dealt with PIPEDA, but I believe it was only so far as the impact on social media.

At some point in time, I think the committee will have to decide whether or not we want to adopt the work of the previous Parliament. We don't need to have that discussion right now. I would just encourage colleagues to have a look at that. We can decide how we want to adopt it, whether we want to re-examine it, and whether the information in that report holds true today or not. I just bring that to your attention.

We'll start getting witnesses right away, but I think we can safely proceed on the examination of the entirety of PIPEDA. Social media is changing constantly. Everything is changing constantly in that particular world, so things that were done three years ago might already be a bit obsolete.

All in favour of the PIPEDA study?

(Motion agreed to)

Now we have a work plan going forward. Excellent.

Mr. Jeneroux.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Could we also take a few minutes, perhaps not today because we just received it—I'm not really even sure if it's necessary—to go through the response to our report from Minister Brison. He sent that to us this morning, I believe.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Okay. I haven't even looked at it yet.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

I quickly looked at it. It seems like a standard response, but if there is time, maybe after a committee meeting, to do some committee business in the next one or two meetings, that would be great.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Sometimes, when we have a witness list that might only have one or two witnesses for the study, we exhaust the questions that we have for that witness after the first hour and a bit. If it's okay with you, Mr. Jeneroux, and if it's okay with the rest of the committee, what I'll propose is that we then use a little bit of time in an upcoming meeting to discuss that.

Would that be satisfactory to the rest of the committee? Okay.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Okay, very good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

We'll make sure that stays on the radar. If I forget, don't hesitate to remind me.

Is there anything else that we need to discuss today?

[The Clerk]

Do we have any travel plans for the new study?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

That's a good question. Does the committee see a need to do any travel with the upcoming study of PIPEDA? I think that will depend on the witness list, actually.

For PIPEDA, because it does broadly affect the general public, there is going to be a much different level of interest in that review than there is in the laws that pertain to how government does anything, because government is centred for the most part here in Ottawa.

I can assure you, through my experience with this, that once the broader public finds out that we're reviewing the Personal Information and Protection of Electronic Documents Act, people are going to be a lot more interested. It might be something that we want to entertain, just to make sure that we get out and talk to as many people across Canada as we can.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Do you mean from a business point of view, or the Canadian public?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I mean the Canadian public. Most people we've been dealing with so far have been academics, people who watch government, and government itself. That's the legislation that we've been reviewing. This legislation affects every single Canadian, so it has a different interest pool.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I think it's an option that we have to keep on the table, but we'll see with the witness list.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

The reason we ask this question is that it takes a long time to go through the committee travel approval process. If we're going to study SCISA first, that does give us a little more prep time to decide whether or not we're going to travel or if we need to travel. Otherwise, we're bringing witnesses in here, or we're teleconferencing, video conferencing, or whatever the case may be. It is definitely a lot cheaper, but sometimes not nearly as effective. We'll want to make that determination.

What I'm hearing right now is that we have no immediate travel plans, but we're leaving it open depending on whether or not we see a need. Okay? All right.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Chair, when you go for funding for committee travel, you need to have a specific plan in terms of which cities you want to visit, so I think it's premature right now to have that discussion, but it's something to think about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I would gladly prepare that on your directive. If you instructed me as your chair to do that, I would do that.

I can tell you, because I do sit on the subcommittee of the Liaison Committee—and I can't talk about what happens in camera at those meetings—that money is tight in the travel budget, so we need to be cognizant of that. If we want to travel in the fiscal year, we should be trying to secure that sooner rather than later.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Yes, once we get the witness list or....