Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be here. It's not the first time. Actually, when we appeared in 2009, in a previous demand for changes to the act, we mentioned that the act had been around since the Chrysler minivan was a new thing. I know the Treasury Board preside

Industry committee  Thank you for having us here. This is a very important piece of legislation. It's also very important that we look at it in the context of things that have been happening, as it winds its way through the legislative process. Since the Senate hearings, we have had the Spencer deci

Industry committee  I would like to talk about another aspect relating to what Professor Geist mentioned. This also imposes a kind of penalty on companies that are more considerate about protecting our privacy. In fact, the companies that are the most open and that will inform more people if they e

Industry committee  Are you referring to the quote from the commissioner's report on PIPA? In that report the commissioner said that because we don't have the reports in terms of the information being made available, she is unable to tell. This was in relation to Professor Geist's report. This indic

Industry committee  I have another quick point, which is that, as I mentioned at the beginning of my prepared remarks, the government has decided to refer the bill to this committee before second reading. Presumably, that is because it is open to amendments beyond the statement of principles of the

Industry committee  No, I was not.

Industry committee  No, we did not.

Industry committee  Well, we were not asked.

Industry committee  Just to elaborate a little bit and maybe take it to a slightly different place and come back to some of the things we were talking about before, one of the advantages of having penalties is that penalties generally are reported: company X was fined by the Privacy Commissioner. It

Industry committee  You are the politicians. You've presumably all used your various party data bases. You know that there's a lot of information collected on a lot of people. One of the problems is that parties are not subject to any restrictions on this. All the various penalties and protections w

Industry committee  I think I would just agree with the other two witnesses. I think it is important, as Professor Geist stated, as related also to the transparency reports and making them public rather than private, that we do know about this, especially in terms of, as Professor Geist just suggest

Industry committee  Again, I'm agreeing with Ms. Lawson, but also, in terms of dealing with the question of breach notice fatigue, I think it's possible to deal with that through the notification itself. If it's something that does not relate to...or where you're just being advised that something ha

Industry committee  Given the complexity of the vocabulary used, I will answer in English if I may. I agree with what Professor Geist has just said. The federal Privacy Commissioner has noted that there are difficulties with Bill S-4 as a result of the Spencer decision. Our commissioner in British

Industry committee  It's more an issue of harmonization and, for that, there are two key factors to consider. The first is privacy protection of all Canadians. As you said, the fact that this protection varies from province to province is not a good thing. Why would British Columbians be better prot

Industry committee  Yes, I'd like to just chip in here in terms of the B.C. situation. Our commissioner, Ms. Denham, in her submission to the special committee to review our PIPA on November 26, 2014, on page 21, noted the following: Spencer may have clarified the constitutionality of warrantless