Finance Committee on May 17th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We'll go to Ms. McLeod, please.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up on my colleague Mr. Mai's line of inquiry. I have had conversations with people who are on these tribunals, and when you talk about two days a month.... I know they're very committed and very keen, but I think with anyone who does a job only two days a month, as opposed to being full time in a job, the issues around training and expertise become a challenge.

First of all, I really applaud these changes, but I think in terms of the ability to be full time and focused versus very sporadic is going to be of great benefit to the system.

Could you speak to that issue?

[Sue Foster]

Yes, thank you.

Part of the proposal is that by there being full-time members, fully engaged in hearing decisions, particularly at the general division level for the two different sections, this will also be of benefit to clients, because they will get clearer decisions from experts who understand the programs. Therefore, I think that in addition to the obvious administrative efficiencies that are associated with streamlining the program, clients can also be assured that the individuals who are hearing their cases are well familiar with any changes.

These programs are like living trees; they change all the time. So you're right, keeping the part-time members fully abreast of the constant policy changes that are happening in the program is a challenge. It's a challenge to keep them up to speed, but with full-time members, they will be constantly experiencing cases associated with the policy as it evolves.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We'll go back to Monsieur Mai.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I was not going to take the floor again, but I don't completely agree that the tribunal members are not well-trained. I understand that the goal is to concentrate the workforce and have full-time employees. However, it would be inappropriate to say that the current employees are not doing good work. I just wanted to clear that up.

Could you tell us a bit about how people are trained, even if they are part-time employees? I believe that those people have solid knowledge of their cases and that they do good work in their tribunals.

[Sue Foster]

I didn't mean to suggest that the existing tribunal members are not trained.

What I thought I said was that it's difficult for them to be constantly abreast of the constantly changing policies associated with these three programs, and particularly with the employment insurance program, which is, as you know, a labour market program and needs to be extremely adaptable to the ever-changing and broad labour market program.

So on the employment insurance side, we actually provide something like a hundred annual information sessions to board or referee members who attend these sessions. They are trained. As soon as the legislation changes, the information sessions are updated to provide an overview of the training. They're also provided with training on jurisprudence that is coming through the system that they may not otherwise be aware of. So yes, they are very well trained. They are giving fair decisions, but they do it part time.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Merci. I think those are all the questions.

We want to thank you very much for being with us and giving us an overview of that particular division.

We will call forward the officials for division 7. Thank you very much.

Division 7 deals with “Consolidation of Privacy Codes”. We want to welcome you to the committee and invite you to give us an overview of that division.

[Peter Edwards, Acting Corporate Secretary, Corporate Secretariat, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Chair, my colleague and I are very happy to be able to appear before the committee this morning to talk about projections regarding privacy.

The Budget Implementation Act will result in the merging and harmonization of the five privacy codes our department currently has. The privacy codes are there to protect private information under the department's responsibility. One of the things those codes specify is when and how that information may be shared. This protection goes beyond basic measures provided for in the Privacy Act owing to the extremely delicate nature of the information we gather.

So this information goes beyond the protections of the Privacy Act. The amalgamated privacy code, which is proposed here, uses mainly pre-existing provisions from five different acts, and this code reinforces the fundamental value that a citizen's personal information is privileged.

It will greatly streamline departmental activities and will provide a consistent approach. It will also improve the integrity of our programs. For example, the privacy code currently allows for the disclosure of personal information with other countries for the administration or enforcement of Canadian law under agreed upon conditions and where the minister considers it advisable. This has been possible for the employment insurance program.

By bringing all the programs under the same code, this will allow us to pursue stronger integrity for the Canada Pension Plan and old age security. As I said, this mainly uses pre-existing provisions from different acts. It appears to add a lot of new text, but the new text is appearing new in the departmental act and is coming from other statutes.

One thing that is made more clear with these amendments is that the departmental act will be amended to make explicit our authority to disclose information to provinces in support of provincial activities, subject to conditions and the prescription of the provincial activity in regulations. This change will ensure that operational needs of provincial programs and services will be met and will support work on important federal and provincial files such as labour market development agreements.

Additionally, authority to disclose information contained in the social insurance registry will be moved from the Employment Insurance Act and the Privacy Act into the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act. This will enhance privacy protection by ensuring that such information is governed by the same privacy requirements and safeguards as are other HRSDC programs.

We're very happy to talk about the provisions in the act.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll start members' questions with Ms. Nash.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Hello, and thank you for being here.

Just as a clarification, the amendments to the three acts don't explicitly set out the provisions relating to the protection of personal information found in the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act, how it would apply to the old age pension and the Old Age Security Act. Were these affected departments, as well as the offices of the Privacy Commissioner and the Information Commissioner, consulted prior to the drafting of the amendments?

[Peter Edwards]

I believe the question has two parts. I'll deal with the second one first.

We did consult the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. The code, which is contained in the departmental act, actually dates from several years, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner was consulted at the time.

In bringing forward this harmonization, we have consulted the office again. They have not raised any specific concerns with respect to the harmonization we're proposing.

I believe the first part of the question dealt with how CPP and OAS are being folded into this. You're right; since this is a harmonization, this does not show the sections of the act that are already there. What this does is it essentially takes pieces out of the CPP and the OAS Act, move them into the departmental act, and harmonize them all together, which has the result of ensuring that that code applies consistently across our programs.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

So the same protections of personal information would apply.

[Peter Edwards]

That's correct.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Can you just clarify again the rationale behind that change?

[Peter Edwards]

Well, in a general way, it has been administratively interesting to deal with programs for which the personal information is protected under a bunch of different pieces of legislation and the same standards have not applied across the different programs.

To facilitate administration so that we are always consulting one code instead of several pieces of information, and to ensure that the same standards apply—that's the rationale for bringing them together.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Okay.

Those are all my questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. Nash.

We'll go to Mr. Casey, please.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My first question relates to some wording that's employed here. The wording that previously existed was “protection of personal information”. Now the wording that we see is “availability of information”.

Can you just lay out the rationale for that change? I presume there's some real legal significance.

[Peter Edwards]

You're referring to clause 292, I believe?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Yes.

[Peter Edwards]

This just reflects the consequential nature of these amendments. Since it is taking the protections that were contained in the CPP Act and moving them into the departmental act, the protections are retained, but what is left over in the other act no longer deals with protection.

So the heading of the section changes, since what's left in the other act just deals with availability, but the protections are maintained and moved into the departmental act.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Okay.

You indicated in response to an earlier question that the Privacy Commissioner had been consulted. Is that also the case with respect to the Information Commissioner?

[Peter Edwards]

I want to clarify that we have consulted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, not the commissioner herself.

We did not consult the Office of the Information Commissioner.