Transport committee  I can answer that. This is something that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has also alluded to. There is no empirical evidence that no-fly lists advance aviation security at all. There is no evidence of that. If you think about the logic of this, what you're suggesting is that some people are too dangerous to fly, but simply are not too dangerous to arrest, even on the grounds of conspiracy or anything else.

Transport committee  I'm sorry, we cannot recommend any amendments. Simply put, even if we managed to change the number of data elements or we managed to change the potential retention period, or did any of those things, we are still subjecting Canadians to a regime that we say does not comport with the rules of fundamental justice.

Transport committee  I would just say, again, that I'm trying to move away from the notion of the privacy issue being in the forefront here. We do know exactly what this information is being used for. It's being used to vet Canadians or other passengers from Canada against a watch list that provides no form of redress.

Transport committee  None. We're not aware of a single redress mechanism. We're trying to provide some clarity because we've heard about a mechanism, and as my colleague, Mr. Tassé, was pointing out, that mechanism has been instituted in the case of false positives. For example, you may recall a high-ranking member of the Canadian military who was on the U.S. no-fly list; that would be Bill Graham.

Transport committee  We're not aware of any. We believe this is unprecedented. It's part of what has constituted this conundrum we're in and why it has received such pushback from the European parliament. Our colleagues in Europe have been calling for a review of exactly this kind of purported sovereignty over airspace and how it impacts international travel.

Transport committee  If we're going to move to consent, part of the problem with this notion is that you really have not had very many opportunities to do anything else in attempting to enact your mobility rights to move around the globe freely. If you haven't had due process and the rules of fundamental justice have not been engaged to deny you that right, the problem here is simple: if we make it known that you will be subject to a regime that my organization says does not comport to the rules of fundamental justice, saying that you have informed consent is a deeply problematic notion.

Transport committee  Thank you. In short, a bill that is being touted as a safety measure not only enables a program that can nowhere demonstrate evidence supporting the claim that it demonstrably improves aviation safety, but it will also clearly be actively endangering the security of Canadians abroad.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for the invitation. I am appearing on behalf of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association to express our opposition to Bill C-42. Commissioner Stoddart has already done a commendable job of outlining the privacy concerns of Bill C-42, and stressing that once released, Canadian information will be broadly disclosed for a variety of purposes.

Industry committee  Yes, that is essentially correct. I would just alter slightly the notion that we understand that the long-form census is a public good. With the requisite humility of non-experts in statistical matters, we leave it for statisticians to determine whether the mandatory census is the best way to go about extracting these data, because there is clearly some data that's needed.

Industry committee  Yes. What we are here to really sound out is the sense that although in fact the long form includes personal data, as many things do, that does not in itself constitute a privacy violation. Our point here is that privacy is an inherently comparative analysis. If you are looking for a privacy-annihilating experience, apply for disability through the Canada Pension Plan.

Industry committee  No, I haven't read the entire form, but we've had various points brought out about which questions are considered the most controversial. We suggest that if there are controversial questions that don't actually have a benefit that is proportionate, they be extracted. But that doesn't constitute an assessment of the privacy profile of the entire program.

Industry committee  I hope I'm grasping the heart of the question there. We are concerned that one of the alternatives will be to rely increasingly on data integration from different programs to, essentially, profile citizens through databases rather than asking them directly. That has significant privacy implications that we are desperately concerned about.

Industry committee  Good morning. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is the oldest and most active civil liberties association in Canada, and privacy is a core element of our mandate. The association has received very few privacy complaints about the long-form census, and the small number of complaints we have received have been, in the main, focused on the involvement of Lockheed Martin and the implications of the U.S.A.

Public Safety committee  No, what is it?

Public Safety committee  I would suggest there has been a shift away from that notion, which has been demonstrated through various studies after 2001. When you simply put it at privacy, you're right, but of course it's so much more than that. We've been discussing, and I keep hammering on this notion--it's section 7--of the security of the person being stranded in a foreign country and not being able to get home, not being able to fly within your own country.