Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, it's always a pleasure to be here at the ethics committee, the ethical heartbeat of Parliament, since the Prime Minister doesn't have one.
I'd like, first of all, to thank my colleagues for their good work with the Privacy Commissioner, Philippe Dufresne, who said he first learned of these tools being used by at least 13 federal departments and agencies through a Radio-Canada report published in November—shocking. He also stated that his office should not be learning about the use of such technology after the fact, which I think is a very important piece of information, despite the fact that in appendix B of the directive on privacy impact assessment, it states:
Government institutions seeking Treasury Board approval for—
Of course, Mr. Chair, I do fundamentally hold the President of the Treasury Board responsible for this incredible lapse. It continues:
—activities that involve personal information are responsible for:
Making every reasonable effort to initiate the PIA at the earliest possible phase of project planning; [and]
...identifying the timelines for the completion of the PIA....
However, the Privacy Commissioner told this group, my colleagues, that he learned about this after the fact.
Mr. Ryan, did your department procure surveillance gear that can be used to access employees' information and potentially the information of Canadians at large—yes or no?