Evidence of meeting #38 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was may.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
You're well past time. I'll allow the answer to that one, but you're past time.
12:20 p.m.
Chief Information Officer, House of Commons
If they are emails that are within the internal House of Commons network and you delete those emails during the day, we are very probably going to lose them completely.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
But you keep those that came from outside.
On a point of order, Mr. Chair.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Maybe I should call it a point of information, for you and for me.
Given the fact that Ms. Block is not authorized—and I don't think it's been asked of her—could maybe the chair, or maybe through the clerk could we ask Ms. Block to release all these different e-mails that were probably issued or received on November 18 and November 19 with the list? The IT services have given her a list and have given her copies of these e-mails. Could we ask her to give us copies?
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Ms. Block will be testifying before this committee. I would think it would be more appropriate for you to ask her—
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
—at a date in the future, as determined by the scheduling of this committee.
On a point of order, go ahead.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC
I'll make a friendly suggestion. It might be opportune for the chair to ask that, and I'll tell you why. We're going to be meeting next Tuesday with the lobbyists. So we're going to be getting a certain amount of information from them. It might be useful for our time to be able to know what was sent. Some work has already been done by the finance committee, but most of that's been in camera, so I'm not going to compound the problem.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Be careful here.
I'll ask Ms. Block. I think the best I can do is get it--
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC
I think that would be the most helpful thing you could do. It's very simple.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
From a technology point of view, she may call on Monsieur Bard to help her with it, if that's the case. But I'll ask.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
The witness said that she already has them. They supplied them to her, so there's no reason for her not to let us have it.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bard, for being here.
You mentioned, Mr. Bard, if I heard you correctly, that Ms. Block asked you to search her computer for e-mails that might have been sent on two specific days.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
12:25 p.m.
Chief Information Officer, House of Commons
We don't really question members' requests.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
I wondered whether she volunteered the information.
12:25 p.m.
Chief Information Officer, House of Commons
It was a simple request to the service centre--we do that all the time—“Could you please restore or try to help me find those e-mails?” We did that. We called her back and gave her the information.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
I want to make sure I'm clear here. I think it's important to the committee to know this as well.
So the two dates I think you mentioned were November 18 and November 19. And it was just those two dates that she asked you to examine her computer for?
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Thank you.
I agree with Mr. Proulx and Mr. Mulcair. I think it would be highly appropriate to ask Ms. Block. I don't think she would have any difficulty—at least I hope she doesn't have any difficulty—with providing us that information. If we could get that in advance and distribute it to the committee before next Tuesday, I think that would be very helpful.
Mr. Bard, I believe we have you scheduled to reappear before the committee towards the end of our examination. One of the questions I'm sure many of the members would be asking you is whether you have any advice for the committee on security protocol, to try to, if possible, prevent this type of thing from happening again.
Quite frankly, after hearing some of the early testimony I'm not sure if we could ever come up with a fail-safe program to prevent information from being leaked. But is there anything right now that you might be able to suggest, for our consideration, would be an effective protocol on security matters with respect to unauthorized release of documents via e-mail?