My principle, Mr. Chair, is simply that as a department, Public Works is bound to comply with the Privacy Act. When on other occasions other departments have come before this committee—and this I have obtained from the annual reports of the Privacy Commissioner—what happens is they make a determination that it is in the public interest. There is an exception under the Privacy Act, 8(2)(m), that says that we can release personal information without the consent of the individual if it is in the public interest to do so.
To date, my client is of the view that a case has not been made that the release of these five names in fact fits that category. There have been at least four precedents here in Canada, where once a department releases something without the consent of an individual using that exception, it is required, preferably beforehand and certainly as soon after the disclosure as possible, to inform the Privacy Commissioner. So this is tracked, these are statistics that are available, and this has been the route other departments have followed.