Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Slightly, I guess. My general counsel certainly is.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I understand that perspective. I know there are other perspectives too, and to the extent that perhaps it's not always identical in each case, in each aboriginal nation, how the money is received, there may be room for some distinction depending on the various financial structures of different first nations.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't think I can, with great respect, because I'm not a specialist in accounting or public accountability. I don't think I'm the best person to speak to that issue. I can only speak to the issue of personal information and whether or not it is justified, according to the criteria I've laid out for you, that the salaries and the remuneration, which I think includes transportation, reimbursement for expenses, and so on, be posted publicly on first nations websites and on the department's website.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No, we haven't, honourable member.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. I believe that's all moneys in the control of elected governments. As we did mention in those examples, it's the federal government as well as the practices of various provincial governments, I think. It means under the control of either one or the other government.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Again, I stress that I am not an expert on aboriginal affairs. I have great respect for the amount of knowledge that it takes to speak to these matters. It would seem to me that if there is a significant amount of revenue coming from businesses or areas that do not receive public money, then a different analysis should apply.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for inviting me. Honourable members of the committee, I am here today to speak to you regarding Bill C-27, an act to enhance the financial accountability and transparency of first nations. As you know, Bill C-27 will require that first nations chiefs and councillors provide an audited schedule of remuneration every year to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

Information & Ethics committee  That's right. There are only the three provinces. Elsewhere in Canada, PIPEDA applies to commercial use of personal information.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. There's a whole other series of issues that you could look at in a PIPEDA review. I believe we will be releasing a paper on that very soon. Some of them are more details in working with the law over the years. Some are more major things like enforcement powers, the role of the individual in trying to enforce his or her own rights, which I think would be a good subject for study for this committee.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. In terms of regulating the commercial private sector, there's also the province of Quebec, which adopted a law in 1995. I believe Quebec did not choose, on the advice of its justice department, to join us in that document, although I believe they're planning to join us in issuing other guidance of another kind.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. Over the time I've been Privacy Commissioner, we have made it a priority to coordinate our efforts on messaging. We're producing joint materials more and more. We've done joint investigations. We think it's very important in a federated country like Canada that industry has a similar standard to observe throughout the country.

Information & Ethics committee  I believe there's a more creative use on that, but once again could I ask Ms. Bucknell to complete my answer?

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. That's a very important question for privacy commissioners throughout the world. In fact, the privacy laws are not all that different. They are all based on the OECD fair information principles of 1980. We, in Canada, chose to follow the European standard of privacy laws, and therefore we're adequate for the purposes of transferring data.

Information & Ethics committee  In fact, a while ago I announced a new policy, which was rather than have the taxpayers fund civil servants to follow up on the companies as to whether or not they'd actually done what they were supposed to do, we have asked the companies to go now and get a third-party audit by an accounting firm or a law firm, or something like that, and report back to us within a given time period that these changes have actually been done.