Information & Ethics committee  In other words, to give foreign nationals a right of access under the Privacy Act wouldn't deal directly with what currently occurs indirectly when you have foreign nationals making access requests through agents under the Access to Information Act. If we're there indirectly alre

Information & Ethics committee  I think at the end of the day, the way in which my provincial colleagues have implemented similar schemes demonstrates that it's only the tip of the iceberg. Only the small minority of cases of complaints lean to order making. Before you get there, you try to resolve, you try to

Information & Ethics committee  First, it would start with privacy impact assessments. As government departments developed new programs that require personal information, we would engage with them at the level of privacy impact assessments, before the fact, having in mind this necessity standard to assess wheth

Information & Ethics committee  It could be defined. It certainly can be defined, and it probably should be defined as meaning that the Privacy Commissioner could make orders that would direct a government institution to do what in the Privacy Commissioner's view is necessary to comply with the Privacy Act. Tha

Information & Ethics committee  I would start from the premise that rights under privacy should not depend on nationality; that's a policy choice. There are already mechanisms whereby even though there is no statutory right, there are mechanisms that I will ask my colleague Sue to explain that get to the same p

Information & Ethics committee  I'll put it at the level of policy objective. That issue, of course, was raised in the context of FATCA, as an example. The first step, I think, is to determine whether the agreement between Canada and another state—here the United States—for tax purposes is trying to achieve a l

Information & Ethics committee  First, what is the ill to be solved? The ill to be solved is in part delay, the fact that the current model does not give sufficient incentives for government departments to provide submissions to us, and particularly well-thought-out submissions early on in the process. That lea

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, it should be at the beginning, and many privacy laws around the world agree with that premise. My premise is that it is preferable to identify, reduce, and mitigate privacy risks before they occur, as opposed to finding remedies after the risk has materialized. It is impor

Information & Ethics committee  The question you're raising actually should make us all think about the worst-case scenario that Canada has experienced since 9/11, which was the Maher Arar case. It is important that we understand the lessons from that case and other lessons from 9/11. Here we had Canada sharing

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and gentlemen of the committee. Thank you once again for your invitation and your decision to conduct this important review of the Privacy Act. I would also like to thank all those experts who have testified before you thus far. As you have heard from m

Public Safety committee  I may answer the previous question on the link between the standards of evidence and the risk for ordinary Canadians. Take people who travel abroad, for example. In that case, does all the information on every traveller need to be sent to CSIS so that it can identify threats t

Public Safety committee  I agree that the level of literacy is low. I'll just take a minute to talk about the importance of more transparency on the part of government in this regard. The green paper, for instance, with respect to the new investigative capabilities, apparently asks Canadians how do they

Public Safety committee  The kind of process that has been started is an excellent point. If there are more educated Canadians who participate in an exercise like the one initiated by the government and the one that you're undertaking now, I think it would make for better laws, and perhaps more important

Public Safety committee  Absolutely.

Public Safety committee  I'll refer to my opening remarks. I think it's a good thing that the Green Paper goes beyond Bill C-51. However, the Green Paper and the discussion paper on information sharing, for example between Foreign Affairs or Global Affairs Canada and CSIS, addresses only information sh