Evidence of meeting #71 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was privacy.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Let's talk about that for a moment.
The 2023-24 departmental plan states the office will be “exploring solutions to enhance capacity to address incoming complaints and breach reports more efficiently, so that we can dictate greater resources to proactively identifying and addressing violations of law that are of the greatest risk to Canadians.”
Does your office have sufficient funding to increase the capacity to address complaints and breach reports, Mr. Dufresne?
9:20 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
No, we do not. We're very grateful for having received temporary funding in this respect in the last budget. That is a positive step, and we will certainly use that.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
What is the impact of not having the capacity to identify and address violations of privacy law?
9:20 a.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
The impact really increases the risk on Canadians, if we're talking about breaches. We're seeing this as more and more of an issue for all us in terms of these massive situations when organizations that have lots of information are compromised because of an error or because of a cyber-attack. Due to our inability to be involved in more of those and to provide advice, we lose the ability to mitigate those risks.
My goal is really to mitigate those risks at the front end so that the issue doesn't arise at all. That's obviously the goal, but if it does happen, we need to be advised early. We need to be able to react and provide advice so that we can contain the situation.
That's the missed opportunity here: We have to make difficult choices about where we're going to be involved and we have less of an ability to do it proactively.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Dufresne and Mr. Green.
That concludes our first round of questioning. We are now going to start our second round. This is a five-minute round, starting with Mr. Kurek.
Go ahead, sir.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and all those involved.
Thank you to our commissioners. It's good to have you back before the committee again.
Ms. Maynard, to follow the line of questioning that my colleague Mr. Gourde asked, I saw this letter. The Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet responds to an access to information request with language that accuses the requester, in this case a media outlet, of being vexatious. That's a pretty serious accusation.
If you could, just expand a little bit about the process you go through when a government department comes to you and says, “We don't want to fulfill this request because we think”—in this case it's a media outlet, and feel free to answer more generally—“it is making a vexatious access to information request.” Can you expand on that?
9:25 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I'm happy you made that distinction, because the act does make a distinction. It's the request itself that has to be abusive, malicious, vexatious or unreasonable, not the requester. We are spending a lot of time reviewing the wording of the request, making sure that what's being asked meets the intent of the Access to Information Act and that the request itself is not abusive or vexatious.
The application for the authorization to not act on a request is made by the department. We review it. Sometimes, just by reviewing the argument of the institutions, we can say no right away. It is an exceptional mechanism, because we are taking away somebody's right of access. We make sure that these representations from the institutions are shared with the requester so that they have a chance to respond, and then, based on the response and the argument from the institutions and the wording of the request, we issue a decision to allow or not allow the institution to not act on the request.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Thank you for that.
It seems this is closely connected to the funding question. Here you have, basically, the Prime Minister's department. He's the leader of the government. It would put you in a pretty uncomfortable position, especially when you've explained to this committee that you need more resources to ensure that Canadians can have access to their government. It's not the government itself as an entity, but Canadians need to have access to their government.
I would certainly not question your integrity and independence, but certainly the situation puts you in a very challenging spot as an officer of Parliament and as an institution vis-à-vis the highest-ranking public servant, who is going to be involved in the passing of the budget, and now all of a sudden there's this conflict. I know you've expanded on that a bit.
Can you explain how you make sure this doesn't happen? Again, it's concerning that there would be what could be perceived as an institutional challenge.
May 12th, 2023 / 9:25 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I can assure you, as I said earlier, that I am definitely feeling the independence in my role. I use all the authorities I have under the act. The challenge is, as you said, with the optics and what it looks like. However, I am not at all challenged in my authority with respect to who is making that decision or who's asking for the application.
The lack of resources results in people waiting longer for an answer, which is unfortunate. Currently we have 3,500 complaints that are not being investigated because we don't have enough investigators. We have requests that require legal services, and those take away from other types of cases, so we need more resources to be able to respond more effectively.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
I appreciate that, because you're a relatively small independent office against the entire infrastructure of government. There's a bit of an imbalance that exists there.
I'm sure, Ms. Maynard, you've probably heard the testimony the minister provided to this committee, saying that, “Yes, there are a few challenges, but we're making great strides.” There seems to be a massive disconnect between what the minister said and the experience of people we have heard from, including your testimony, as well as what we have heard from many who have tried to use the access to information system in this country.
Does it concern you that there seems to be this disconnect between those who are making the decisions and the lived experiences of so many Canadians?
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
9:30 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
It is concerning there's no action plan being created or any actual actions being taken this year. It looks like we'll have to wait for the next round of reviews of the legislation in five years, which I'm not going to be here for.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Kurek and Ms. Maynard.
Ms. Hepfner, you have five minutes.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I would like to start my time by putting a motion on notice. It's a motion that should have been sent to the clerk, and I'm happy to read it into the record at this point.
I propose:
That, the deadline to submit witnesses for the study [technical difficulties] be end of day Friday [technical difficulties] 2023, and that the committee begin hearing from witnesses on Tuesday, May 30th, 2023.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
I'm sorry, Ms. Hepfner. I've stopped your time, as something is going on with the headsets there. The translators cannot hear, especially when you started speaking in French. Could you do that again, and make sure the microphone is near your mouth?
Go ahead, please.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
It's because I've turned on the translation on my computer here, and it's interfering with my ability.
It would be:
That, the deadline to submit witnesses for the study of the use of TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance Ltd be end of day Friday, May 19th, 2023, and that the committee begin hearing from witnesses on Tuesday, May 30th, 2023.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
With that, Chair, I would like to return to where my colleague Mr. Greg Fergus left off in his line of questioning.
Mr. Dufresne, I'm not sure if you're aware that we passed a motion unanimously—
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
I'm going to stop you for a second. I want to make sure that the clerk has received that notice of motion.
Go ahead. I am going to start your time. You have four minutes left.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Chair, I can't hear you. Is something going on suddenly with my audio?
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
It appears that there may be. My microphone is working.
Do you have your volume up, Ms. Hepfner?
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Lisa Hepfner Liberal Hamilton Mountain, ON
Can you hear me now? I can't hear you guys. I don't know what is going on with my earphones.