Information & Ethics Committee on May 9th, 2024

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Okay. What about monetary penalties?

[Philippe Dufresne]

It's the same. There are no monetary penalties.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Okay. This has been an issue since the act was amended and created. Is that correct?

[Philippe Dufresne]

That's correct, and it's a concern on both the private sector side and the public sector side.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

You have made several recommendations along those lines in your current role, and I'm sure your predecessors probably voiced very similar concerns to committee members. Literally, since 2015, there has been no appetite by the Justin Trudeau government to provide any meaningful consequences to these violations. Is that correct?

[Philippe Dufresne]

Bill C-27 was introduced by the government. It would provide me with the ability to issue orders, and it would provide for the ability for fines to be issued. That's on the private sector side.

In terms of the public sector, there is no bill to modernize it.

Currently, the Department of Justice has done a consultation paper in which that was a recommendation in terms of a greater compliance mechanism, and I would certainly encourage that moving forward.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Sure, and when was that recommendation made by the DOJ?

[Philippe Dufresne]

The recommendation was made in 2021. Since then, they have been consulting to get, in particular, more of an indigenous perspective on this.

My office, under my predecessor, supported this, of course, as do I.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I have one quick question on the arrive scam issue.

There are very strong allegations that a vice-president of the CBSA by the name of Minh Doan intentionally deleted four years' worth of relevant emails. These are emails that would have been very helpful to the Auditor General when she conducted her review, and they would have been helpful for the internal investigator, who is still investigating the actions of several players.

Do you think they would have been helpful for you as well if you had had access to that? If so, sir, what do you say in terms of your position as a commissioner in relation to those allegations?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Could we have a very quick response, please?

[Philippe Dufresne]

If I were to make any comments on that, it would be at the conclusion of an investigation if we had seen concerns, so it's not something that I would comment on at this stage.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Ms. Khalid, you have four minutes. Go ahead.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. I always really appreciate your input.

I just want to pick up on a point raised by my colleague Mr. Green with respect to the balance of powers, and something that you said as well.

Is it possible for there to be a complete separation between what your office does and what the government does and the interaction between the two?

[Philippe Dufresne]

Well, we work very closely as agents of Parliament. It's not a perfect, complete separation. We're proposed by the executive branch, but we're approved by the Houses, so there is certainly independence.

However, we work as part of the public service, and we apply a number of the procedures. We also have to work very closely with the Treasury Board, which provides guidance on Privacy Act compliance.

You've heard me recommend strong compliance powers, and I believe this is necessary. I am also a firm believer in collaboration and prevention, so I do work very closely with departments to inform them of privacy and encourage them to raise issues in advance so that we can prevent them.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Just expanding on that, then, how do you work with stakeholders to navigate through the changing needs of the privacy concerns that Canadians have right now?

[Philippe Dufresne]

We do a lot of outreach with all sectors and civil society.

I've had a very interesting discussion with children, youth parliamentarians. I am very interested in their challenges, how they see privacy issues and how they interact with their schools. I want to see privacy as part of a mandatory curriculum. It's certainly not an exclusive federal jurisdiction, and I work with my provincial colleagues on that.

I work very closely with industry. I receive complaints about industry, of course, but it's important for me to understand what their realities are. We want laws and rules that make sense and protect Canadians' fundamental right to privacy but also work for industry. I want Canada to be competitive and innovative.

I've said that the three priorities of my vision for privacy are that privacy is a fundamental right, but it's privacy that supports innovation and public interest and generates trust.

It's important that I understand those realities, and it's important that they understand my preoccupation. It's a very helpful dialogue, in which they will say, “Here are the challenges we face on the ground,” and I will say to them, “Here is what I hear from Canadians where they feel that their privacy is not being protected.”

That dialogue continues, and then, if issues are not resolved, there are ways through compliance. Even through compliance, I think that in some cases we may find that there is a violation, but we make a recommendation, and the organization learns it. They speak to their counterparts, and then they implement the good practice.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I know there have been conversations about digital ideas as part of trying to circumvent a lot of these issues you've talked about. What is your viewpoint on that? Do you think that is necessary, and how does that work with our privacy laws?

[Philippe Dufresne]

This is an example of where I've had strong collaboration with my provincial and territorial counterparts as the Privacy Commissioner. In October—not this October, but the year before—we actually issued a joint statement on digital ID from the privacy perspective. We flagged this as something that can make it easier for Canadians to interact with their government and so on, but it has to be done, if it is to be done, in a privacy-protective manner.

We gave a number of pieces of advice on that: It should preserve anonymity; it should not be a central repository, and so on. There were a number of comments. We didn't say, “You can't have it.” We said, “This is something that could certainly be useful; make sure you do it in a privacy-protective way,” and we gave some clear advice on how to do that.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Would a digital ID in the hands of a private company pose significant risks to Canadians?

[Philippe Dufresne]

All aspects of obtaining digital identification or biometric information about anyone, whether from the public sector or the private sector, are an area people have to be mindful of. We currently have draft guidance on the use of biometric information, one for the private sector and one for the public sector. We've received good feedback from industry and from Canadians on that. We're working to finalize that.

Certainly, any type of innovation, digital or otherwise, brings a lot of benefits, or it can. We need to make sure it's not done at the expense of privacy, and there are ways of doing it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Khalid.

Thank you, Mr. Dufresne. I do appreciate you being here on behalf of the committee today. Thank you for the important work you're doing on behalf of Canadians.

Mr. Roulx, thank you for being here in support as well.

I'm going to move to the main estimates right now.

I'm going to ask the committee whether we have unanimous consent to adopt all votes on the main estimates 2024-25 referred to the committee in one vote.

Do we have consent to do that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Green and Monsieur Villemure.

Shall vote 1 under the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, vote 1 under the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, vote 1 under the Office of the Senate Ethics Officer and votes 1 and 5 under the Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada carry?

OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF LOBBYING

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$5,391,678

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

OFFICE OF THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND ETHICS COMMISSIONER

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$7,708,333

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

OFFICE OF THE SENATE ETHICS OFFICER

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$1,451,267

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

OFFICES OF THE INFORMATION AND PRIVACY COMMISSIONERS OF CANADA

Vote 1—Program expenditures—Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada..........$15,344,268

Vote 5—Program expenditures—Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada..........$30,553,547

(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to on division)

Shall I report the main estimates 2024-25 to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

On division.