Information & Ethics committee  Perhaps the Director General of Corporate Services could tell us exactly what are the parameters. I assume that we are considering what the other organizations are doing.

Information & Ethics committee  In the 2005-2006 fiscal year?

Information & Ethics committee  May I ask the director of investigations, whom I brought in case you had questions about this, to answer that question, honourable member?

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and honourable members, for being here to hear our presentation on our budget. I would like to present the director of investigations, Mr. Wayne Watson; and Tom Pulcine, who is the director of corporate services, and thus, a specialist in budget matters.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm very happy to be here. I'm going to run through the history behind today's session, because it's rather surprising to note that in fact the money was recommended to us by a parliamentary panel just about a year ago, and in fact, we're here one year later on the main estimates for the same amount.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It would depend. Privacy is very different in varied contexts. What does the law say? I'm not familiar with that part of it. If it's in the Canada Elections Act, is it justified? Is it needed? Is it necessary to the integrity of the electoral process? There are a lot of questions you could ask about that practice.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Do you mean that giving the list to political parties would be a problem?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  This is precisely the challenge: trying to ensure the electoral process conforms to modern privacy standards. In order to play their proper role in the electoral process, what information on citizens do political parties need? What do they do with it? I stand to be corrected, but presently there is no framework that regulates the use of this information in the context of the electoral process, except the Canada Elections Act.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would think it is possible, yes, if you need it to establish the identity of somebody.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, it wouldn't create a problem with the Privacy Act, because the Privacy Act is not written in absolute terms. It's not like the Access to Information Act. Again you come back to asking whether you need a photo. Quebec has gone that way and asks for photo ID.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Did you say a reluctance of volunteers to give information?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Oh, I see.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Excuse me, hon. member, there is something that has come to my attention. There may be some legal issues that I think I had better not comment on here, but my office was consulted by Elections Canada a couple of years ago about linkages with StatsCan. We thought there was part of the Canada Elections Act that might have prohibited the linkage at that time.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Three o'clock tomorrow?