I'm not an expert on constitutional law or on judicial independence. However, I can tell you that some of the information is already public. For example, salaries are provided under the Judges Act. Right now, total amounts are disclosed. In addition, under the Judges Act, judges' salaries are disclosed on an individual basis. For example, the salary of a superior court judge is already known.
What Bill C-58 proposes is to publish judges' names and the cost of their participation in conferences, their travel expenses, their hospitality expenses, and so on. What you heard from that witness is that very specific and individualized information on judges can undermine the independence of the chief justice's court administration. The chief justice is in charge of assigning judges to various places. In addition, according to the witness, publishing that information can compromise judges' personal safety.
I believe that the committee must take that seriously and do the work needed to see whether constitutionality and judicial independence are really at stake under the circumstances.