Evidence of meeting #31 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was privacy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director General, Consumer Product Safety Directorate, Department of Health
For every order that's provided for in the legislation, there is a review mechanism. I'll ask my colleague, Madam Labelle, to speak to the independence issue, but I would like to underline that for every order there is a review mechanism.
General Counsel, Legal Services Unit, Department of Health
In terms of independence, there is independence in decision-making. While the minister designates the official, the review officer, the decision itself is made by the review officer. It cannot be dictated by anyone else, so there cannot be any interference with the decision-making process. In that sense there is independence and there are procedural safeguards.
Conservative
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I was wondering if we could go back to what my Liberal colleague was talking about. You mentioned that the privacy laws apply to the provisions of this bill. My understanding and my challenge is that there's a lot of misinterpretation or misinformation being spread around about this bill. You talked about redundancy, and my understanding is that if we have something called the Privacy Act here, it's overriding legislation that would protect individuals, and you don't have to state that implicitly in this legislation. That's my understanding.
Could you use plain language for us, and maybe even give examples, so that we could clarify that to people who come to us with the question?
General Counsel, Legal Services Unit, Department of Health
I will address the first part of your question with respect to the Privacy Act and why, in our view, it's not necessary to repeat the provisions in Bill C-36.
The Privacy Act is a quasi-constitutional document. In other words, it prevails over any other statute unless there are express provisions in the legislation provided for by Parliament that set aside the Privacy Act. This is not what clause 15 does. Clause 15 in actuality is there to respect some of the requirements under the Privacy Act. It provides, under section 8 of the Privacy Act, that if there is going to be disclosure, it has to be under lawful authority, and that's what clause 15 does. It's also in a very constrained manner. It's only with respect to information that needs to be shared with others exercising a health and safety regulatory function, such as that of Health Canada.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Would you be able to provide us with some plain-language examples? You mentioned earlier that although the intent would maybe be different, the six months might actually even make things a little bit worse. The government would have to collect more information. Could you comment?
General Counsel, Legal Services Unit, Department of Health
It certainly would create a legal obligation on the government if it had to notify individuals within six months. I believe that my colleague Robert Ianiro, from the Consumer Product Safety Bureau, can provide examples as to the type of personal information they receive and how difficult it would be to identify the individuals in a lot of cases.
Director, Consumer Product Safety Bureau, Department of Health
I'm trying once again to wrap my head around the amendment. I can perhaps think of an example in which, if we're informed by a mother in Toronto that her child had an issue with their crib—a drop-side crib, for example—and she reported those details to us, the amendment that's being proposed is that if, for whatever reason, we needed to disclose personal information with another agency or with a provincial or another government about the specifics of that incident, within six months of that disclosure we would have to inform Mrs. Smith that we're disclosing that information.
The issue is that we may not have enough information from Mrs. Smith originally to contact her, and second, if she's not there, then we actually cannot share the information.
From our perspective, from an administrative perspective, it's quite difficult. Again, there are other protections and provisions that exist.
From an operational perspective, we don't deal a lot with personal information, but if this type of amendment were to be made in this legislation, it potentially sets a fairly significant precedent wherever there are other agencies collecting perhaps much more personal information. That would be very difficult and very onerous to manage, and in some cases potentially impossible.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
You stated that the Privacy Commissioner was in the Senate, where a lot of these questions were directed. What was her answer, again?
Director, Consumer Product Safety Bureau, Department of Health
That is correct. The assistant commissioner appeared before the Senate committee and did not raise any issues at all with respect to privacy and Bill C-6 at the time.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Thank you very much.
We now have completed both rounds, so we can adjourn, or—we have a bit more time—if anybody would like to ask a question or two, we could go on to another five-minute round, as long as I keep strict with the time.
Would anyone here like to start? Ms. Dhalla?
And Monsieur Malo, do you have a question as well?
We'll hear Ms. Dhalla and then Mr. Malo.
Liberal
Ruby Dhalla Liberal Brampton—Springdale, ON
Thank you very much for coming before the committee today. I'm going to ask a question probably addressing some of the concerns that my colleagues Mr. Dosanjh and Dr. Carrie have addressed in regard to the amendments and the whole issue surrounding privacy.
In consultation and discussion with some of the stakeholders—and there's a long history with the bill from Bill C-6 to Bill C-36—you guys have incorporated all of the amendments that the House had suggested. The amendments that were put forward by the Senate committee, which were defeated, have also been incorporated. The amendments by both of the senators that were passed by them at their particular standing committee have not been incorporated.
Can you give light to the committee, from what you know, on why those particular amendments by both Senator Furey and Senator Banks were not incorporated?
Then in a response to Mr. Dosanjh, Diane mentioned that they could be considered. Perhaps you could shed light for the committee and come at it from a different perspective.
Director General, Consumer Product Safety Directorate, Department of Health
I'm not sure how helpful we can be in the specific details. We may want to revisit it with information about each of the amendments.
In general, the concerns that were voiced at the Senate were very much related to inspectors' powers. The changes made between Bill C-6 and Bill C-36 were really to address some of the issues—for example, a concern that inspectors might have the authority to—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Excuse me, let me just interrupt for a minute.
Ms. Dhalla, you asked a question and you haven't listened to any of the answer.
Liberal
Ruby Dhalla Liberal Brampton—Springdale, ON
I'm sorry, he was asking me to follow up on something else.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Director General, Consumer Product Safety Directorate, Department of Health
Madam Chair, the changes that we've made between Bill C-6 and Bill C-36 really speak to some of the concerns that were expressed around inspectors' powers. For example, there's concern that an inspector might be able to enter a home for the purposes of looking at goods that were stored for personal use. It's very clear now that the actions for an inspector are confined, first of all, to the legislation, and that goods stored for personal use, for example, are outside of the realm of what the inspectors could look at.
In addition, there was some concern about what the liability might be for passing over private property. We've addressed that as well.
So really, we looked at the totality of the concerns. They were very much oriented around inspectors' powers. We believe that we've addressed them through the amendments we've made.
Again, in terms of each specific amendment, I think we would have to come back with the details of each of them, if that were what was requested.
Liberal
Ruby Dhalla Liberal Brampton—Springdale, ON
If we could get that information, that would be helpful.
Also, Robert had given an example of a woman calling in regarding a crib and the difficulty in terms of not being able to collect personal information. Wouldn't it actually be about the crib itself and the manufacturer versus the personal information of the mother who called in?
Director, Consumer Product Safety Bureau, Department of Health
There's no doubt that we would end up collecting all that information as well. I only spoke to the personal information, since the question was specific to personal information. There's no doubt that information on the product, the name, where it was purchased, who manufactured it, whether it was returned to the retailer or was still in their possession--all of those would be the sorts of questions that we would definitely compile.
Again, my remarks were just specifically on personal information, since the question was relating to that topic.
Conservative
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
I have a brief follow-up question to that of Ms. Davidson, which M. Dufour also echoed in his round of questioning. It deals with the increase in the number of inspectors.
I am pleased to see that everyone agrees that the government must increase the number of inspectors, and thus not delegate all product inspection to the industry. You have told us that the number of inspectors would increase from 45 to 90 by the end of fiscal 2012-2013.
I am simply wondering how you came up with that number of 90. Was that based on the $70-million funding envelope over five years and a mathematical calculation by dividing wages, etc., in order to come to 90? Or was consideration given to the scope of the bill and everything that is needed to really carry out the work, pursuant to the law's obligations? How did you come to that number?
Director General, Consumer Product Safety Directorate, Department of Health
I'll ask Robert to fill in the blanks. He was there personally during some of the discussions.
Essentially, there was a recognition that we needed more resources amongst our cadre of inspectors. We've done the analysis to ascertain, for example, where we have.... We want to go where the work is, essentially.
In my own travels recently, as the new DG, I visited with the regions. We don't necessarily have a uniform number of inspectors associated with each region. In British Columbia there is a lot of volume with imports, and we need to make sure we're resourced appropriately. It's the same in Ontario; a considerable extent of industry is found in Ontario. Obviously we would have--and this is the case--more resources in Ontario than we might find in areas where, for example, there's less industry, less import activity. In Quebec as well we have obviously larger numbers; it correlates to going where the work is and making sure that we're addressing the need.
Did you want to add to that, Robert?