Evidence of meeting #40 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sharing.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
The mandate should be reviewed at the same time. It's difficult to respond. It's too narrow, I would say, for me.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
The review bodies in your view should not have the mandate to—
Commissioner, Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner
The review body normally will ensure that the agency in question does not violate the law and respects the privacy of Canadians. This is the objective of a review body. It's not an oversight body. It's not a refined review. It's a post facto review.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Right. In Mr. Kelly's case, if there's unreliable information and you have discovered that the RCMP has received unreliable information or otherwise shared unreliable information, should some body that is reviewing these 17 recipient institutions compel the deletion of that information? Should someone have the authority to do that?
Commissioner, Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner
I made a suggestion earlier on about the section that deals with regulations, which is section 10. I suggested with regard to the powers of the Governor In Council to make regulations that a fourth criterion should be added. It should read something like this: “The destruction of information that is not relevant”.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Or if we change the threshold that it's not necessary.
Commissioner, Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner
Yes.
Senior Director, Operations, Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I would like to add in the law enforcement context, which is an answer I wanted to provide to an earlier question as well, that there's another layer of complexity in the law enforcement when it's information that's obtained by virtue of a search warrant, because then you're getting into judicial authorization.
When law enforcement bodies obtain information pursuant to judicial authorization, they report back to the issuing authority, so it's out of their hands to destroy or handle that information in any way. It belongs to the judge who issued the search warrant. There's a different set of parameters in the law enforcement context.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Mr. Lightbound asked about this at a previous committee meeting. To pick up on that, one example of why it's so important to clarify the mandate would be when the RCMP is required to obtain a warrant to receive information, but a disclosing institution provides that information and no warrant has been obtained. It would be to clarify that the RCMP does need to go off and obtain the warrant before they can receive the information and use the information. It would be good to have that in black and white.
Thanks very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Thank you very much, colleagues.
I'd like to thank our witnesses for being here today. This was a very good discussion. I appreciate your patience with me as chair. We all got through this very well.
Thank you very much for your testimony. If we do need to follow up with you subsequently, prior to the filing of our report from this committee, we hope that you'll be able to provide any information that might be able to assist us. We thank you very much for that.
Thank you, colleagues. We'll see you in the House of Commons in about an hour.
The meeting is adjourned.