Information & Ethics committee  I think they can see quite a bit. My understanding is that they don't keep the images of the screening or the body scanners. If you look at their screens as your bags go through, that is perhaps how they look at it. You can then be subject to a secondary search if they see something suspicious.

Information & Ethics committee  But you're not carrying enough cash.

Information & Ethics committee  My understanding is, and perhaps Commissioner Bernier, who worked more closely with the audit than I did.... They are looking at everything; they have to look at everything to understand that you are not carrying on yourself or in your baggage anything that could be a danger to Canadian aviation safety and so on.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't believe we have, but perhaps the assistant commissioner would like to comment. It has taken a certain amount of time in the past.

Information & Ethics committee  We have a new responsibility around the illegal harvesting of e-mail addresses. This has already precipitated, without the law coming into force, intensive discussions with Industry Canada, the CRTC, and the Competition Bureau. They have bigger roles in the overall anti-spam legislation than we do.

Information & Ethics committee  I think it's progressing along. Perhaps I will ask the assistant commissioner, who is in charge of operations, to tell you about a program we're organizing in June to prepare for this.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I think it looms fairly large in our work expectations for this year, but because we don't know exactly what's coming out of this and exactly the timetable, because it's an ongoing process of exchanges between the Canadian government and the American government, it's a bit hard to predict exactly.

Information & Ethics committee  I think, honourable member, that's a very plausible explanation. We don't always know ourselves why there are more complaints or fewer complaints and so on. Just recently, complaints from the private sector have been going up, as have, I believe, those from the public sector. We're asking ourselves why this is.

Information & Ethics committee  Is this in the public sector act?

Information & Ethics committee  On complaints respecting the government, the key issue has always been, “Can I get access to my personal information?” or “If I have access, I don't believe it's everything.” We know there are very few Canadians in public security files who don't have access to their personal information, for allowable reasons.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, thank you. When I became Privacy Commissioner I tried to rebuild the office. I know in this committee we have talked about staff turnover for years; however, I think that turnover has stabilized. We've been able to recruit, and we sometimes have very long recruitment processes because many of our people....

Information & Ethics committee  I think we have clearly emphasized for a long time that this bill was unacceptable in terms of protecting Canadians' personal information and privacy. There are no safeguards or appropriate procedures to compensate for the infringement upon Canadians' privacy, to which police services have fairly direct access.

Information & Ethics committee  I will let the assistant commissioner, who is responsible for national security issues, answer that. She will be able to respond in more detail.

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  Very well.