Information & Ethics committee  Yes. Thank you for the question. First of all, I believe that I have a lot of things to do, in spite of the very kind words of the honourable member, Madame Freeman, and a certain media profile that came to the office without our really trying to obtain it. There are a lot of very practical things to do, particularly in improving our service delivery to Canadians, in keeping up on trends, and in trying to be strategic about our interventions.

Information & Ethics committee  Those are very recent recommendations. I don't know whether the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities is considering changing regulations under the Canada Transportation Act. I believe the bill you referred to is still being reviewed by Parliament, but I am not certain of that.

Information & Ethics committee  We proposed that Canada continue to talk to U.S. authorities and that it maintain a diplomatic position. This deeply concerns Canadians. But I would just like to come back to the regulatory power that already exists. For the Canadian government, the U.S. rule represents a demand for a great deal of information, if it is available.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. Furthermore, I also said at the time that no evidence has been offered to us, from any of the countries that use lists of suspects, to prove that passing on this information had enabled authorities to make arrests or that it had had any impact whatsoever. No security service has ever praised this procedure as being a useful one.

Information & Ethics committee  We recently examined this legislation, which is currently before Parliament. We understand that the Government of Canada has made strenuous representations to the Government of the United States, though to no avail. This rule—they call it a rule—will come into force on January 1.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, unfortunately, one of the things that makes us fear the consequences of this program is that there's ample historical evidence of a lot of slip-ups--people who have the same names, even if they're spelled differently. We can think of names in all cultural traditions that can be spelled different ways, and you can find yourself in a very difficult process to prove to the authority--it could be Homeland Security, it could be here in Canada, too--that you are not the person whose name is spelled a bit differently.

Information & Ethics committee  It's a nice promotion.

Information & Ethics committee  Some of them don't know and some of them choose to ignore it. I'll talk about two recent things my office has done to illustrate how I want to continue dealing with this. I said in my presentation that investing in experts in information technology and knowledge of information technology is hugely important.

Information & Ethics committee  I'll continue, honourable members, where I left off. These are critically important issues when you consider the role the Internet plays in daily life, as I was saying. I recently read that one in four American couples who met since 2007 first met on-line. Earlier this year, we held public consultations on on-line consumer tracking and cloud computing, in order to learn more about certain industry practices, explore their privacy implications, and find out what privacy protections Canadians expect with respect to these practices.

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chairman, if it would help, I could continue the rest of my presentation in French, and then go back and do the missing part completely in English.

Information & Ethics committee  The honourable members also have copies in their respective languages in front of them.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen members of the committee, good afternoon. It's an honour to be here once again with you, but this time to answer questions about my nomination for reappointment as Privacy Commissioner of Canada. I would deeply appreciate Parliament's confidence in me to continue on in this role and to have the opportunity to build on what my office has already accomplished.

Information & Ethics committee  Perhaps I could begin that part again.

Information & Ethics committee  I was just talking about Canadians being online more and more, so that's where we have to spend our time. At the moment, we are investigating further complaints about Facebook, as well as a site targeting children, and an on-line dating site. These are critically important issues when you consider the role the Internet plays in daily life.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much, honourable members and Mr. Chairman. This is a great day. I think if the next part will go as well, we can move towards real anti-spam action. Thank you. Merci.