Transport Committee on June 6th, 2007

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

It's been read into the record.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

It's been read into the record, more or less, at this point, but I just wanted to confirm that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Volpe.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

On that same point, since Monsieur Bélanger read the memo into the record and he made references to paragraphs 20(1)(b) and 20(1)(d) and subsection 19(1) of the Access to Information Act, asking in effect what that was, I'm sure Ms. Stanfield will tell us what the issues are in those sections that would cause the department not to reveal those items in an ATIP request.

[Susan Stanfield]

I can tell you what the legislation says.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

That's all we're interested in, thanks.

[Susan Stanfield]

Section 19 of the Access to Information Act deals with personal information.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Privacy issues.

[Susan Stanfield]

You have to read it in conjunction with the Privacy Act to understand how it all fits together when it comes to personal information, because the Privacy Act protects personal information that the government holds. So access to information is really about a third party requesting information about a person or a company. The Privacy Act is about the government's obligations to protect personal information that it collects while it does its business.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Is that section 20?

[Susan Stanfield]

It's section 19 of the Access to Information Act that deals with personal information. Is it subsection 19(1) that they referred to?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Yes.

[Susan Stanfield]

It says, “Subject to subsection (2), the head of a government institution shall refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains personal information as defined in section 3 of the Privacy Act.” And there's a long list of information in section 3 that identifies what personal information is.

Section 20 of the Access to Information Act deals with third party information. Was it paragraphs 20(1)(b) and (c)?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

It's paragraphs 20(1)(b) and (d).

[Susan Stanfield]

Subsection 20(1) says:

Subject to this section, the head of a government institution shall refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains

[...]

(b) financial, commercial, scientific or technical information that is confidential information supplied to a government institution by a third party and is treated consistently in a confidential manner by the third party;

[...]

(d) information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to interfere with contractual or other negotiations of a third party

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

I just wanted to come back to Ms. Stanfield.

So the amendment that reads “the information is required to be disclosed under an Act of Parliament” currently would refer only to the Access to Information Act.

[Susan Stanfield]

There could be other acts of Parliament that deal with information disclosure, or provisions in other acts.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

No, but it's with a specific requirement under an act of Parliament. So currently it would be only an access to information request. Am I not correct on that?

[Susan Stanfield]

I can't say with certainty, because I don't know if there may be other information disclosure provisions in other acts. It's mainly access to information.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Yes, so I think we can say with certainty that it's limited to information disclosure requirements that are mainly contained within the Access to Information Act.

[Susan Stanfield]

There are other pieces of legislation.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

So what had come out on Monday was the potential that this would be covered by a whole range of acts. It's not; it's specifically related to information disclosure.

You've raised a whole range of exemptions that exist already. We've had this discussion around even a request through access to information by CUPE on the SMS audit of Air Transat. That information was not forthcoming, as we heard in testimony and received; the pages were blanked out. And we've had other information that basically has not been available. So the access to information, even through that act, is limited as to the amount of information that can be disclosed. There are limitations.

[Susan Stanfield]

Yes.