Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 5th, 2018

[Col Vihar Joshi]

Correct.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I guess that's all the time I have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Now we'll go to Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Therrien, previously you mentioned that this piece of legislation doesn't go further in the privacy policy issue and just maintains the status quo.

My understanding is that it was never mandatory for any party to submit their privacy policy, and that is what this bill requires. I know that doesn't seem to go as far as you would like, but that certainly isn't the status quo, correct?

[Daniel Therrien]

It is factually the status quo; it is not legally the status quo.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

However, this bill does make it mandatory, so they are required now.

[Daniel Therrien]

They are required to publish a privacy policy, without any indication of the content of the privacy policy, compared to the factual status quo where these privacy policies are already public.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Okay.

But the policy for the protection of personal information, including information regarding its practices for the collection, protection, and use of personal information.... They must submit all of that to the Chief Electoral Officer before registering.

[Daniel Therrien]

What the bill provides is that there's an obligation for parties to publish privacy policies that touch on a certain number of issues, but the bill does not require these subject matters to be consistent with generally accepted, internationally accepted, legal privacy principles.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

You were saying that some provinces have taken this step.

[Daniel Therrien]

One: British Columbia.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

What year was that?

[Barbara Bucknell, Director, Policy, Parliamentary Affairs and Research, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

That would have been in 2004.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

It's been some time then.

Have you seen any requests for information come forward? How is that policy working out there? Do you have any tips as to what they have done, things to steer clear of if we do do this in the future, or things to implement?

[Daniel Therrien]

What we're told by my colleague in British Columbia is that provincial parties in B.C. are able to function in that environment.

Whether any lessons were learned there to train or inform employees of parties as to how to apply this legislation, we can certainly inquire of that from our colleague in British Columbia and provide that to you.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Do you know if any complaints have been filed?

[Daniel Therrien]

There have been complaints, yes.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Have there been a lot of complaints?

[Daniel Therrien]

Not many.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Okay.

The Minister of Democratic Institutions has suggested to this committee that we should revisit the issue of parties and privacy rules to recommend a more robust framework.

I understand that you're disappointed it's not within Bill C-76. However, that does not preclude us from being able to revisit the topic in the future and putting together our best framework.

What would you suggest that framework contain, if this committee does do a study on that? You had mentioned following international principles. Is that going far enough, or do you have other suggestions?

[Daniel Therrien]

My suggestion would be that the party privacy policies align with international privacy principles, which are reflected in Canada's federal privacy law, which is PIPEDA. I think the policies of parties should be consistent with PIPEDA principles, which are the same as international principles.

Point two, parties should be legally required to comply with these undertakings, which is not the case under Bill C-76.

Point three, whether or not parties are in compliance should be subject to oversight through a complaint mechanism to an independent third party, likely our office.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Colonel Joshi, I learned quite a few things from your introduction. We had the opportunity to meet when you presented to the electoral reform committee, so it's nice to have you back.

You mentioned that officers serving overseas cannot bring any identification that has their residence listed, for security reasons. That makes complete sense to me, but I was not aware of that point.

Had the previous legislation, the Fair Elections Act, made it difficult, and was it requiring even people serving in the military overseas to provide that identification?

[Col Vihar Joshi]

We've not had to provide the identification.

Now we will have to provide photo ID, which has a service number and your name on it. There was no prescribed information before. We would not bring, for example, bills or anything with our identification on it. We have our own driver's licences overseas, so we wouldn't have that information with us for security reasons.

You're not precluded from bringing your driver's licence in all situations, but there are certainly situations where you wouldn't want any personal information with you.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Under the current law, you'd have to provide that.

[Col Vihar Joshi]

Not if you were voting in the military vote; you would just have to have the identification card we have, which only has our specific service number identification, name, and photo. Everybody has that issued to them in the Canadian Forces.