Thank you, Mr. Green, and thank you for your role in the emergencies committee as well. It was a privilege to appear before you in this capacity.
I think that human rights and privacy rights are fundamental. Privacy rights have been recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the same time as we had a major recognition of human rights. They deal with aspects that are of fundamental importance—and again, this was recognized, as far back as 1948—for individuals and have a need to be protected from actions of the state. That was the focus in the declaration. We see now in the context of privacy that it's not just vis-à-vis the state, but it's also vis-à-vis the market, and we've used the words “surveillance capitalism”.
Privacy has been recognized. It has been recognized by the Supreme Court as being a fundamental value in a modern democratic state in the Dagg matter in talking about being grounded in physical and moral autonomy and the freedom to engage in one's thoughts, actions and decisions. I think that if this was true in 1948 and it was true in 1997 in the Dagg case, it's certainly true today, where we see even more potential for privacy and for information being shared, collected and obtained without individuals knowing.
It is something that I would be—in my role should I become commissioner—advocating very strongly for. It has been done by the commissioner, Commissioner Therrien. I will certainly continue to do that, and I hope and like to think that I will bring credibility as a human rights practitioner in doing so.