Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 9th, 2010

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a few quick questions for Mr. Bard.

Your answer to Ms. DeBellefeuille was that telephone calls were recorded. You mean there is a record of calls that are made, but they aren't recorded.

[Louis Bard]

It's a log.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

It's a log, right. It isn't the calls.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I'm glad to hear you say that, because I know that elsewhere it's the opposite. I would not have wanted you to be getting the conversations where I criticized you, Mr. Bard. In any event, there wouldn't have been many.

In addition, can RIM get the PINs?

[Louis Bard]

No, I don't think so. In reality, the PIN is a function in itself that is used, like a cell phone. It is really a matter of using the environment that is there for there to be a transmission between two people who have the same units.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

It doesn't go in any way through...

[Louis Bard]

No, it doesn't go through... In the House of Commons, security management, for BlackBerrys, is done internally. So the entire environment is inside the House of Commons.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I understand what relates to the House.

For PINs, that doesn't belong to RIM?

[Louis Bard]

No.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

You are convinced and convincing.

[Louis Bard]

No, it can't go through the server. There is absolutely nothing recorded.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Ms. Block's request to get the lists, the logs and the copies, did it apply to all the accounts in her office, in her operation, or only to his?

[Louis Bard]

It applied only to "assistant 1".

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

So if "assistant 1" used the computer belonging to "assistant 2", for example, you would not have known. That means you would have recorded the documents, but you would not have given them to Ms. Block.

[Louis Bard]

Absolutely not, we didn't do that kind of thing.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

So it was strictly on that employee's account.

[Louis Bard]

Absolutely.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

If Ms. Block asked you for the log or copies for dates other than the 18th and 19th, for example a week before or after, how much time would it take you to be able to produce that, Mr. Bard?

[Louis Bard]

It's always a few days' work. It's a matter of searching, exploring, gathering information. Ordinarily, we do it in two or three or four days.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Even if she told you she wanted to limit the search to emails that went out to the same recipient as those that were discovered on the 18th and 19th?

[Louis Bard]

The narrower the request is, the easier it is. If she wanted us to look further, we would have to adopt a strategy, to look at what we could do.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

So it could be done within a few days.

[Louis Bard]

Yes, that's what we did for Ms. Block. She called in the evening and it was ready at 8:30 a.m. the next day.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

From your logs, do you know where the emails came from that were then forwarded? In other words, the employee's computer or account has this email with the attachment. Can you tell Ms. Block where the document came from?