Evidence of meeting #15 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
It's right?
I'm sorry. My apologies. Let's go to clause 19.
(On clause 19)
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
The idea behind the amendment is to ensure that the reports are made public.
Don't forget that one of the witnesses who appeared before the committee was Colonel Steve Charpentier, from the Department of National Defence. He told us how important it was for the department to ensure that the reports were made public.
The whole point was to ensure that information was shared and that certain agencies could see the reports. It used to be the Transportation Safety Board of Canada that did the reporting when a civilian-related accident occurred, and those reports were made public, as everyone knows.
Under clause 19 of the bill, the reports would be confidential and therefore would not be released to the public. The purpose of amendment NDP-1 is to ensure that the reports are made public. That follows through on what Colonel Charpentier told the committee about the Department of National Defence itself making the reports public. We wanted to make sure that was clearly stated in the bill.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you, Mr. Mai.
Is there any further discussion on amendment NDP-1?
Counsel, Legal Advisory Services, Department of Justice
Mr. Chair, my apologies, but we don't have a copy of the amendment before us. Is there a chance that we could see it?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
While this is being done, in the future, Mr. Mai, or anybody else on the committee, if there's an amendment and you expect an answer to it, maybe you could get the information to the witnesses. We would make better use of our time. That's all.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Sure. Well, we did send it to the clerk, so we were wondering if those amendments would be.... They were sent before today.
Conservative
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Maybe I could read it just to make sure that it's what was sent.
The amendment reads as follows:
That Bill C-3, in Clause 19, be amended by adding after line 19 on page 19 the following: “(1.1) The Minister shall, immediately after receiving the report referred to in subsection (1), publish the report.”
The point is really to have the report made public once the minister has received it.
Conservative
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Mr. Chair, are the witnesses going to give us some insight on this?
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
I'd like to add my voice to hear how they respond to this notion of making public the report.
Jim Armour Senior Investigator, Department of National Defence
Just in our brief discussion in the chance that we've had to take a look at this.... This obviously is a statutory requirement, which the minister is presently doing on an administrative basis. That's our only observation. It just statutorily makes the administrative process that we now have in place statutory. It becomes statutory. That's our only observation on it.
Counsel, Legal Advisory Services, Department of Justice
There's the added dimension, Jim, that in the context of the military, there are flight investigation reports that have confidential and classified material in them that the minister and Jim's staff here have to analyze and review before the process occurs and the report is put up on the public websites.
Senior Investigator, Department of National Defence
A report that would go to the minister might have to be amended, if you understand what we're saying, for security or operational reasons, and that's just information that might be used contrary to the best interests of the Canadian Forces in their operations.
This would have to certainly reflect that that would be a possibility opposed to an unamended report. A report may be amended for security purposes, but the minister would still, if this was going to happen, have to publish a report that would be amended for operation or security purposes.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Chair, to clarify, the amendment as it's written would compel a report with all information to be immediately published. Is that correct?
Senior Investigator, Department of National Defence
That's what we would read that as.