Evidence of meeting #33 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.

A recording is available from Parliament.

please go aheadchairsubamendmentdr jaczekprivacyminister's officeaccess to informationunanimous consentvan bynen

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Clerk of the Committee  Ms. Erica Pereira
Karin Phillips  Committee Researcher

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think perhaps we can find a compromise approach here. This is what I would like to suggest and the points that I would like to make.

On the issue of privacy, I think everybody is generally in agreement that privacy issues like names and emails should be protected. To that end, I think we should note, too, that in privacy versus access to information, the scope of issues is different. In access to information, the scope is far broader than that of privacy. Maybe we can land on saying that for privacy purposes, such as names and emails, we can look to apply the protection of privacy with these documents, and that instead of having the government or the department officials do the vetting of these documents, this should actually be done through the law clerk's office so that we can in fact achieve both. I'm hoping that all of the parties can come to an agreement on this.

Previously, HESA passed a motion on February 26, as I understand...that they might be on board to request the law clerk for vetting privacy. I think that actually achieves what we want to achieve here. I'd like to see whether or not Ms. Sidhu would withdraw her amendment and then table a different one—I'd be happy to table a different one—to have the law clerk do the vetting for privacy purposes.

Finally, just to refresh everybody's memory with regard to the February 26 motion I talked about—it was possibly my colleague Don Davies who moved this motion—the issue was to have the law clerk vet for privacy, cabinet confidence and national security. Those were the central themes that were applied to access to information.

As spoken

The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

For clarity, I'd like to point out that it's really not up to Ms. Sidhu to withdraw her motion. We have two options. We can vote on it or we can arguably do something by unanimous consent. It's before the committee at this point. We have to deal with it as it is.

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Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Chair, can I ask a question related to that? Can there be an amendment to an amendment, or do we have to defeat this and then move another amendment?

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The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

There can be a single subamendment on the floor for a given amendment.

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Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Let me try this on for size, then. As a subamendment to the amendment, instead of the language where we said it would be the department officials who would vet the documents, the law clerk would vet the documents for privacy, cabinet confidence and national security.

Can that be deemed as one subamendment, Mr. Chair?

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The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

You're moving a subamendment. That is in order.

The debate at this point is on the subamendment, as Ms. Kwan has proposed.

We go now to Mrs. Jansen.

Do you wish to speak on the subamendment?

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3:35 p.m.

Conservative

Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC

No. I wanted to speak on the previous one.

Thank you.

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The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

Thank you.

Mr. Fisher, would you like to go ahead, please?

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Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

I was going to speak on the main one, but I would like to get the wording of the subamendment so that I can write it down and see how it fits in with the amendment. I wonder if MP Kwan would reiterate her subamendment. I wasn't fast enough to write it down.

I'll keep my hand up for the main motion as well.

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The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

Go ahead, Ms. Kwan, if you wouldn't mind.

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Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Okay.

My subamendment would be that instead of the language that departmental officials would do the vetting, the vetting will be done by the law clerk, and the language of the vetting would be “privacy, cabinet confidence and national security”.

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Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

On a point of order, Mr. Chair—and I see Jenny has frozen for a second—could we get the clerk to tell us what that looks like, in its entirety? Sorry, Jenny.

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Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Sorry, my computer glitched for a second. I think I'm back on now.

Yes, could we have the clerk read out the subamendment in its entirety?

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The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

Please go ahead, Madam Clerk.

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The Clerk of the Committee Ms. Erica Pereira

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is my understanding of the subamendment. We would delete the words after “provided that the” and replace them with “Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel vet the documents for matters of cabinet confidence and national security as well as personal information.”

I wasn't sure about the last part.

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Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

I think we can use the word “privacy”.

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The Clerk

Do you mean “as well as privacy”?

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Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Yes, it would be “privacy pertaining to names and personal information.”

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The Clerk

Okay, so what I have, in its entirety, is “provided that the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel vet the documents for matters of cabinet confidence and national security as well as privacy pertaining to names and personal information.”

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The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Mr. Fisher, does that answer your question?

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Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

It does, although I think it gets us to where MP Jeneroux didn't want us to go. I think it's more like the old motion and is not quite as good as the wording we had in using the Access to Information Act. I will defer to the folks who have been here longer than I have, but I think what we proposed would get us to the place that MP Jansen and MP Jeneroux were trying to get to. I'm going to continue to think about this.

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The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

Ms. Sidhu, please go ahead.

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Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to echo what my colleague Darren said. I still prefer our subamendment, because it protects Canadians' rights, so I want to go with ours.

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The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu.

We'll go to Mr. Kelloway.

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Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I was going through two trains of thought here. I was listening to Darren talking about the original amendment and perhaps positioning where I thought my original points would be. To go back to MP Kwan for just a second, I'd like to build on what she was talking about, but in any event, I think I'll leave it at that. I think I need some time to think about Darren's point regarding the original amendment, as opposed to the subamendment, and what its original intent was.

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