Evidence of meeting #178 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A video is available from Parliament.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Our final five-minute intervention will go back to Mr. Nicholson.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Rob Nicholson Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
Thank you for your comments and your input here today.
I want to get back to a subject that we raised with your counterpart, Minister Qualtrough, with respect to the Privacy Act. I'm sure you are aware that, and I quote:
Personal information under the control of a government institution shall not, without the consent of the individual to whom it relates, be disclosed by the institution except in accordance with this section.
I'm quite concerned about a number of incidents that have taken place over the last number of months. Some of them have gotten a lot of publicity—the trial of Admiral Norman—with the information that has been released. I was concerned, for instance, having been a member of a group that gave advice to the government with respect to the appointment of a Supreme Court of Canada justice. The leakage of information about different individuals, I think, was a concern to everyone.
It's hard to pick up the paper and not see something else. I mentioned this to your colleague. It says last week that the office of innovation minister Navdeep Bains alerted Irving that Globe and Mail journalists had asked the department whether an investment in an Alberta french fry plant was counted as an industrial benefit requirement.
In a sense this continuous leakage undermines people's confidence in our system, and there is legislation that makes it an offence to release any information. I'm just wondering how concerned you are about this and what is being done.
I asked Minister Qualtrough about it, and she said they had sent out a message that they can't be doing this kind of stuff, releasing all this information, but I think it perhaps goes beyond that. It's a greater concern.
What are your thoughts?
6:25 p.m.
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Thank you for raising that.
Privacy is a key principle. When we signed up to the D9—the Digital 9—I was actually at the signing ceremony for the D7 charter in New Zealand. One of the key things was privacy. Privacy, as well as digital justice, inclusion and those kinds of things are very key to international and national discussions in the open government and the digital initiatives, going forward.
In the digital era it becomes even more critical to protect citizens' privacy. That's the kind of dynamic tension one has with openness. You must also at the same time be protecting individual privacy. We're very seized with that. It is a part of the data charter that our government has put forward.
Our ministry of Treasury Board Secretariat is working on artificial intelligence principles. So for any of the departments that are working with AI...it is responsible AI. That is also about protecting the privacy of personal information. That's a fundamental principle.
6:25 p.m.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I'll just supplement that very briefly from a Treasury Board official's perspective. There are a number of different aspects of privacy, but I'll speak to two of them very briefly.
The first is technical. Technical requirements, technical standards and technical risks around privacy are changing rapidly as we transition from a server base to a cloud environment and other things. Treasury Board is taking a leadership role in trying to ensure that the privacy of Canadians' information that the government collects is as secure as it can be. That is technically very difficult and very challenging cutting-edge material. We hope to get that right, but it's an ongoing and significant challenge for us in working with other departments and other governments.
As well, there are the behavioural aspects that you were referring to directly in your question. We try to make sure, through the use of internal audit and our other regular functions, that we have a good understanding of what data or information we have that would fall under the protection of privacy principles. We make sure that individuals and teams within the Treasury Board public service are aware of their legal requirements—their oath of office—to protect the integrity of that information and take that information seriously.
There is both a knowledge and a behavioural aspect of ensuring that we follow up on that on a consistent basis.
6:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
I'm sorry, Mr. Nicholson, but we're out of time.
Minister, once again, thank you and your officials for being here with us. I know you had to alter your calendar somewhat to be here with us, so I do sincerely appreciate that.
Colleagues, thank you all for being here. Our normal meeting time, as you know, is between 3:30 and 5:30, so committee's sitting here until 6:30 to hear the testimony, I much appreciated as the Chair.
The meeting is adjourned.