Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance
Issue 9 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, February 16, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 6:16 p.m. to examine the Main Estimates laid before Parliament for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005.
Senator Donald H. Oliver (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, I call this thirteenth meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance to order. I remind you that this committee's field of interest is government spending, either directly through the estimates or indirectly through bills.
[Translation]
On Wednesday October 20, 2004, our committee was given the mandate to examine and report on projected spending in respect of the Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005.
[English]
This week, we are continuing to hear from the officers of Parliament. We have already heard from the Chief Electoral Officer, the Official Languages Commissioner and the Information Commissioner. The Auditor General has also been before us and will come back again next week. We understand that other Senate committees may hear regularly from some officers regarding their mandate and the programs that they deliver. However, this committee is interested in the dollars and cents. We are here to discuss their Main Estimates and how they allocate their funds.
This evening, we are pleased to have with us Ms. Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner. Jennifer Stoddart was appointed Canada's Privacy Commissioner by the Governor-in-Council effective December 1, 2003, on unanimous resolutions adopted by both Houses of Parliament for a seven-year term.
[Translation]
Prior to her appointment, Jennifer Stoddart served as President of the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec, an organization responsible for enforcing access to information and privacy protection legislation.
[English]
Ms. Stoddart has held several positions in public administration for the governments of Quebec and Canada, including at the Canadian and Quebec Human Rights Commissions.
Ms. Stoddart, thank you for coming. We are anxious to hear from you. The practice of this committee is that, after you give your presentation, honourable senators will have a series of questions for to you. Please proceed.
Ms. Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada: Thank you very much, honourable senators. Permit me to present Assistant Privacy Commissioner Raymond D'Aoust. He has special responsibility for the Privacy Act. I will attempt to give you an organized overview of our role, our mandate, our priorities and some of the privacy issues before Canadians. I know that you have detailed questions, and I would be pleased, as would Assistant Commissioner D'Aoust, to respond to your questions.
We are very pleased to be here as officers of Parliament.
[Translation]
I would like to start by providing a brief overview of the role, mandate and priorities of our Office. I will then turn your attention to some key privacy issues and discuss how our Office manages its budget to meet the challenges presented under the Privacy Act.
[English]
Our primary role as the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is to be an advocate for the privacy rights of individuals. Privacy is a fundamental right and is often described as the right to control access to one's person and information about oneself. Effective protection of one's personal information requires a strong legislative and regulatory framework, independent oversight and monitoring. It is in this context that we carry out our mandate to oversee the protection of personal information through the application of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA, Canada's new private sector privacy law, and the Privacy Act, which covers the personal information handling practices of federal government departments and agencies.
Our office plays an important role as a guardian of individuals' rights as set out in the federal privacy laws, as a public educator, and as an advisor to individuals, government, businesses and Parliament.
As an ombudsman, we work independently to investigate complaints, to make recommendations based on findings and to conduct audits under the two federal privacy laws. We also seek to publish information about personal information handling practices in the public and private sectors.
As an oversight agency, we have a responsibility to be an advisor to Parliament, government and businesses on emerging privacy issues and to act as a public educator to promote greater citizen awareness.
[Translation]
I would now like to focus on the priorities of the OPC. When I arrived at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, I set a clear goal of rebuilding the trust of Parliament and Canadians in our office. I identified some key objectives, most notably to lead the office's institutional renewal in the areas of human resources, planning, budgeting and reporting.
I also set some clear priorities for helping organizations with the implementation of the last phase of PIPEDA to help them understand their obligations, and citizens, their rights, under this new law. I will gladly discuss our accomplishments in this area.
Monitoring government initiatives to ensure that they take into account citizens' privacy rights and tracking trends and potential privacy encroachments of new technologies rounded out our priorities. I have taken a number of measures to enhance our capacity to assess and mitigate against technology privacy risks.
While we have made great progress on many of these initiatives, further sustained efforts to modernize our management processes and administrative procedures are required to enable the office to fully operate as a well- managed and efficient parliamentary agency.
Our office's most immediate priority is to stabilize its resource base, to complete our institutional renewal strategy and to submit a business plan with a formal submission to the Treasury Board of Canada by next summer.
[English]
I would like to talk now about some key privacy issues.
Having oversight for two federal privacy laws enables our office to assess emerging privacy issues of concern, both in the public and the private sector.
In the public sector, looking ahead, our office views the legislative reform of the Privacy Act as a key priority in the area of public sector privacy protection. No significant amendments have been made to this act since 1983, and our greatest concern is that the act no longer equips the Government of Canada with adequate standards to protect the privacy rights of Canadians in today's advanced security and technology e-government environment. Yesterday's Office of the Auditor General's report on information technology systems clearly reveals the need to thoroughly assess the privacy risks inherent to e-government initiatives.
We have defined formal advisory roles within the national DNA Data Bank and the Canada Health Infoway. We are also pursuing our collaborative work with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the RCMP on national guidelines for video surveillance.
We are also carrying out an audit of the cross-border flow of Canadians' personal information and the impact this may have on their rights to privacy. We are closely monitoring the review of the Anti-terrorism Act to ensure that Canadians' privacy rights are protected. We are benchmarking our practices with other data protection authorities, including those in France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia, as well as with other Canadian jurisdictions on a continuous basis.
We have met with the Minister of Justice, the Honourable Irwin Cotler, and have discussed the long-awaited reform of the Privacy Act. Following this, we are currently pursuing discussions with officials of the Department of Justice on this topic.
In the private sector, the experience of the first full year of application of PIPEDA appears to have been positive. The act is becoming better known among an increasing number of companies and individuals. However, some compliance challenges still remain. The complaints we receive indicate to us that there are still areas where business practices could be improved and that technology still holds many challenges. We also need to examine the cross- jurisdictional realities of globalization of personal data. On this front, we are actively engaged in discussions with the OECD, the APEC and with national data protection authorities in many different countries.
Issues of consent, electronic health records and the increasing use of surveillance technologies continue to occupy our attention and the concerns of citizens.
[Translation]
I would now like to summarize how the office is funded to carry out its mandate. At present, we, like all federal government departments and agencies, negotiate our budget with the Treasury Board Secretariat which then makes a recommendation to the Treasury Board minister. From 1983 to 2001, the office was funded to fulfill its responsibilities under the Privacy Act.
The budget for 2001-2002 was $4.4 million. With the enactment of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the office received an additional amount of $6.6 million per annum for three years. The three-year limit on the approved funding recognized the fact that it was not possible to reliably forecast the workloads and resource requirements necessary after the full promulgation of PIPEDA.
While the original intent was that this office would have submitted to Treasury Board by October 2004 a solid business case for securing stable long term funding, organizational issues which have been well documented in the recent past have not allowed us to meet that target.
From an operational perspective, there was also a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the forecasting of future workloads and related resource requirements resulting from full implementation of PIPEDA. In the absence of long term funding and a cogent business plan that would clearly articulate where investments were needed, the Treasury Board has continued to fund PIPEDA on a year-to-year basis from 2004 to 2006.
Both the Treasury Board Secretariat and our office have agreed that now is the time to stabilize the funding of our institution and to submit a business plan which will address the appropriate level of financial and resource allocation required to carry out our mandate to protect the personal information rights of Canadians in accordance with two federal laws.
[English]
To conclude, Mr. Chair, I would like to reiterate that the office is on a solid path to remedying the issues of its past. It is regaining ground and is well on its way to being a seminal force in protecting and promoting privacy in Canada.
I would like to thank you for calling me to appear before this committee. I would be happy to take any questions dealing with our mandate.
The Chairman: Thank you for that interesting overview. You say that you are on a solid path, but it does not sound that solid if you are funded on a year-to-year basis have to go cap in hand to Treasury Board.
How much money will you get for this year? Will it be $4.4 million, or will it be $4.4 million plus $6.6 million?
Ms. Stoddart: It is perhaps a bit confusing because it comes under two different votes. We are getting that amount. The same amount as we had last year will be carried over for the fiscal year beginning in April.
The Chairman: What is the total amount of your annual budget from both sources?
Ms. Stoddart: It is roughly $12,200,000.
The Chairman: Can you tell us how that is broken down between salary, administrative costs, program costs and research?
Ms. Stoddart: Salaries, including fringe benefits, is $8 million or two thirds of our budget. The rest goes to a variety of headings, of which the most important are professional services and transport and communication. Information technology costs are important in that budget as well. That is in last year's annual report, and because our budget is being carried over, it is about the same for this year.
The Chairman: The Information Commissioner appeared before this committee and told us that many parliamentary organizations such as yours meet from time to time to discuss a number of things, including your funding. Have you considered a better way in which to get your funding rather than going to Treasury Board for year- to-year funding as is currently the case? If so, what formula would you like to see?
Ms. Stoddart: In fact, we appeared before a House of Commons committee last week where this exact question was asked of us. Although we have not done an exhaustive study of this, we would prefer a more independent funding formula in line with that of fellow officers of Parliament such that our funding level would be set by Parliament through recommendation to Treasury Board. Parliament could be guided in that by a panel of advisors, sometimes called a blue-ribbon panel. Given the issues with which the Privacy Commissioner must deal and the increasing amounts of scientific, technological and international expertise that we need to do our job properly, we believe that Parliament could be well guided by the advice of such experts.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Senator Stratton: Welcome. Your presentation was very interesting.
There was a discussion a year or two ago about a national identity card system. The interim privacy commissioner, Mr. Robert Marleau, rejected that proposition. What is your position on that?
Ms. Stoddart: I am totally in agreement with the position of former commissioner Marleau as were all the provincial commissioners across Canada at the time. We have seen no reason to change that position. It was a very well researched and well presented position determined by the current staff, and we stand behind it.
Senator Stratton: Could you expand on why you and privacy commissioners across the country hold that position?
Ms. Stoddart: You have probably read the submission more recently than I have.
The reasons have not changed. We are concerned that such an initiative would be a significant step toward reducing the autonomy and privacy rights of Canadians by pinning them down to an identity card which, in itself, may seem like a rather anodyne and useful gesture. However, the problem with identity cards is that, to be useful, they have to be correlated with a huge database in which one's identity is stored. Of course, databases have many functions. They are used not only to check that the right person has the right card. They can very easily be linked electronically not only with databases in the public and private sectors in Canada but with databases in the public and private sectors abroad.
It was not shown at the time that former commissioner Marleau presented that submission, and nor has it been shown to us since, that the ostensible reasons for creating an identity card, that is, primarily for national security purposes or to reduce fraud, if we look at some of the commercial preoccupations, have been met in any jurisdiction where there are more stringent rules governing privacy. One of the major threats to any kind of ID system is the rapidity with which the ill-intentioned can falsify and counterfeit any kind of ID, including many kinds of biometric identifiers.
For the millions, if not billions, of dollars that it was estimated at that time it would cost, we questioned how it would help us to be more secure, to reduce fraud or to counter identity theft.
Senator Stratton: You have talked about identity theft, which I can understand and appreciate. The Senate and the House of Commons are now reviewing Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism bill. Would a national identity card assist in combating terrorism?
Ms. Stoddart: We have seen virtually no proof that national identity cards help to combat terrorism. In jurisdictions that have moved forward with national identity cards the hope has been that they will help to combat terrorism. However, we have seen no proof that there is more or less terrorism depending on whether a country's citizens carry a national identity card, nor have we seen any persuasive evaluation scheme for measuring such a relationship.
Senator Stratton: The only place I have seen national identity cards is in countries with dictatorships. For that reason alone, I say, no, thank you.
Senator Harb: Thank you for your presentation, Commissioner. The office of the Auditor General reports to the House of Commons committee as well as to this committee. One of the mandates of that office is to look at value for money. One could say that it also looks at money for value.
You now have a second mandate. In addition to monitoring the Privacy Act, you have to oversee the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Since a large portion of your personnel is involved in each mandate, would it be viable to combine the two and have only one act to oversee?
Ms. Stoddart: We had not thought of that, honourable senator. Perhaps that is another reform that we could eventually propose. However, for the moment we would suggest that the government concentrate on the preliminary step of revising Privacy Act that governs the privacy rights of Canadians vis-à-vis government agencies that has not been updated for more than 20 years, at a time when privacy rights are being transformed at an extremely rapid rate due to international developments and technological changes.
The second law, the private sector law, has a statutory review built into it, so it will be reviewed starting next year as part of the normal application of the act.
Senator Harb: We heard earlier that the commission you were formerly at had quite a lot of power to enforce and to deal with complaints. In the more than one year that you have been in office, have you had a chance to look at other jurisdictions, be they Canadian provinces or other countries, to find out what things they do that perhaps the Canadian government should consider in updating the Privacy Act? If you have not looked at other jurisdictions, would it be of interest to you to do so to see whether there are things that you can recommend to the government?
Ms. Stoddart: We have not made a formal study simply because we have been preoccupied with administrative issues and because the last phase of our own private sector legislation was to be applied. PIPEDA, our latest private sector privacy act, is quite modern. It was based on the best practices internationally in the late 1990s.
In recommending that the government reform our Privacy Act, we have been thinking of issues that are not covered, such as privacy impact assessments, which are a generally recognized checklist of how a project will impact privacy rights. There is no mandatory obligation in the Privacy Act to control for that as we develop various administrative schemes in the government.
The Chairman: Do you need legislation just to do a privacy impact assessment?
Ms. Stoddart: No, we do not. In fact, Treasury Board has a policy. I think the senators' question was how we could look at best ideas from elsewhere. We have to look seriously at e-government in order to make privacy rights correspond with it. It requires a radically different perspective on use of personal information from the perspective we used when the Privacy Act was drawn up in the 1980s.
Senator Harb: Would it be feasible for your office to make a set of recommendations to the government? We heard earlier in another committee that your office is, in a sense, toothless. You have no ability to enforce any finding. You can only name, audit, investigate and try to talk organizations that fall under your jurisdiction into complying with the law.
It must be a major preoccupation of the commission to tell Parliament that you cannot do the most important part of your job because you have no enforcement powers.
The Chairman: Is it a toothless organization? Do you have any powers to bring in effective remedies?
Ms. Stoddart: We do have powers. The model under which this office operates is the model of an ombudsman with powers to go before the Federal Court in certain cases. This was the model chosen by the Canadian government. The term ``toothless'' is not quite appropriate. We have a different set of powers for a different approach that was chosen by the legislature in the 1980s, and Parliament chose to renew that model in 2000 when it adopted PIPEDA. It had the chance to look at the model five years ago and decide whether to keep this model or adopt another more confrontational one, which is that of an administrative tribunal, which model is used by the largest provinces in Canada. At that time, Parliament chose not to go that route.
As I said, there is a review of PIPEDA coming up next year. Undoubtedly, this issue will be debated because it seems to be a surprise to members of the community that we are an ombudsman model with certain powers.
That being said, we have not used all the powers that are in the law. I am developing a strategy to use the powers that have not been used until now to enforce the law. Those powers do exist. Some of them are naming names in the public interest. That is something I am currently examining. Another power is taking cases to Federal Court. Another is auditing where we have reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of the law has occurred.
Those are three powers in the law that have not been used until now and which I intend to use in the course of the coming year, in the right circumstances, of course.
Senator Harb: You cannot punish with a fine; you cannot jail someone who has blatantly broken the law.
In a presentation before another committee of the Senate, we heard that one agency that is supposed to be governed by your act is in fact breaking the law under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. The approach being taken is that it is a concern and a problem, but it seems that the Privacy Commissioner has no ability to tackle this issue head on and solve it. I am speaking of credit bureaus, which are covered by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, giving information of private citizens to another agency without the consent of the citizens. That is a blatant contravention of PIPEDA, but there is nothing being done about it.
How do you investigate those issues? I want to go on record as asking you to investigate this situation, because I think it is extremely serious. We were told that over 18 per cent of the population have checked on their credit in the last three years and, of those, half a million citizens have found problems in the reports they have seen. That is only of the ones who checked on their credit. There are many citizens who have not done so.
Ms. Stoddart: We have wide investigative powers and I am surprised to hear you say that we are refusing to investigate complaints and that we do not take this issue seriously. I gather this is about credit bureau practices. I would be very interested in learning more about this. If there is a group or an organization that feels that we are not tackling a serious problem, that is certainly not our policy.
I would remind the honourable senator that the possibility of investigating many of these issues is shared with our provincial counterparts. Many of the credit reporting issues can be addressed by the provinces as well. We certainly wish to be very vigorous in pursuing those kinds of complaints, and I am concerned if it appears that we are not pursuing them.
The difference of opinion sometimes arises in that under our legislation we cannot impose fines or send people to jail — far from it. We cannot make binding orders. That is the structure that Parliament chose. There are other structures possible. I presume that when Parliament chose this structure in 2000, it investigated various models. If Parliament wishes to change the model, a serious study of the advantages and disadvantages of each approach should be made.
Senator Ringuette: You indicated the following in your opening statement:
As an ombudsman, we work independently to investigate complaints, to make recommendations based on findings and to conduct audits under the two federal privacy laws.
Has your department conducted an audit with regard to e-government?
Ms. Stoddart: No, I do not think we have.
Senator Ringuette: What is your reaction to the statement of the Auditor General yesterday that she has audited e- government and found that the privacy protection of citizens therein is ineffective? Is that not your jurisdiction? Is it not your line of business to conduct such a study and make such a finding?
Ms. Stoddart: Yes, it is our line of business, but that does not preclude it from being the line of business of others. There is a privacy aspect to that, and I presume there is also an aspect of administration of government resources.
Senator Ringuette: There is a difference between auditing and commenting on value for money and auditing and commenting on privacy matters. It is apples and oranges. The Auditor General's comments were with regard to the efficiency of security measures protecting Canadians with regard to e-government. According to your statement here, that is completely your line of business; that is your territory.
Ms. Stoddart: Certainly audits dealing with the protection of personal information are our responsibility. I understand that the Auditor General started that audit in 2002 and this is a follow-up to it. Neither I nor interim commissioner Marleau was in the office in 2002.
Senator Ringuette: Before Mr. Marleau, there was another commissioner.
Ms. Stoddart: That is right. Ms. Fraser was doing these audits in 2002 and it is not clear to me what were we doing at that time.
With the rebuilding of our audit capacity, I am hoping to be able to carry out more proactive and vigorous audit functions in the future. I do not think that up until now we would have had the in-house capacity to do those kinds of audits. To come back to one of the themes of tonight's session, this is a function of proper funding to carry out our role. I have said many times that I am very concerned about the necessity for us to have the resources to fulfil our roles in areas of high technological expertise. Carrying out audits of information technology systems takes a lot of specialized knowledge. That is an area I want to move into increasingly in the future.
Senator Ringuette: I agree with what you are saying.
With regard to your budget and your mandate, in addition to the human resource expertise in your particular field you should also have access to the technology required to do that kind of audit, which you will probably say is extremely expensive.
How did the Auditor General have access to the very expensive equipment necessary in order to make the public statements that she did? Was your department consulted as the federal expert with regard to this very specific statement? When you make public comments about the privacy of citizens, you had better ensure that you have used all the right technological tools to make such a statement.
I am very puzzled. A red flag was raised for citizens who deal with the federal government through e-government. Since you have the responsibility to report to the public on the security of their dealings with the government, why did the Office of the Auditor General make that statement yesterday?
The Chairman: I should tell you, Ms. Stoddart, that on Tuesday next, the Auditor General will be here to speak to us about her report.
Please proceed.
Ms. Stoddart: In the past, these activities were not carried out on a proactive basis, and nor was the office funded under the Privacy Act. This would require resources under the Privacy Act, and the level of funding for the Privacy Act has not changed for years. Therefore, we would not have been able to carry out such an investigation to the extent that the Auditor General's office did. We are going back to Treasury Board this summer to request more funding because the Privacy Commissioner of Canada should be carrying out such privacy audits.
Senator Ringuette: I understand that. What amount of capital investment would be required with regard to technology in order to enable you to conduct such an e-government audit?
Ms. Stoddart: I do not know, but it would probably be quite expensive because you would need state-of-the-art software and people with state-of-the-art knowledge, so you would have to train your employees or hire from outside.
Senator Ringuette: We are looking at the budget. You said that you wish to be able to conduct such audits and that in order to do so you need the proper technology. We need at least an estimate of the amount of money required to purchase this equipment.
Ms. Stoddart: I would think it would cost close to $1 million to be able to audit, on a regular basis, the handling of personal information throughout the public sector.
[Translation]
Senator Murray: Yesterday morning, the committee heard from Information Commissioner John Reid. He hinted, and not for the first time either, that the two offices, that of the Information Commissioner and that of the Privacy Commissioner, should operate under the same roof. It is fortunate that you are here with us tonight because you performed a dual function while you were serving in Quebec. My question for you is very simple: in the federal context, are you in favour of a merger, or do you prefer to see the two offices remain separate?
Ms. Stoddart: Speaking somewhat metaphorically earlier, I stated that both models were possible. Earlier, two different approaches to implementing the legislation were implicitly discussed. The current model is one that some seem to prefer because it appears to have teeth and in some cases, produces more notable immediate results.
I admit that the two roles could be performed by a single organization. Again, the provinces with the largest populations seem to have the largest offices. That appears to be the case with some European countries that have enacted privacy and access to information legislation. Without committing myself, since I am personally involved, I would have to say that a merger is not beyond the realm of possibility. Are there advantages, or disadvantages to a merger? The federal government has made a conscious decision to have two offices, at a time when the provinces have chosen to have only one. I have not done a comparative analysis of the two different approaches, given the rather unusual circumstances surrounding my appointment. My priority was to rebuild trust in our office. These are questions that you will need to consider.
[English]
Senator Murray: When the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act was passed in 1999, it contained a provision that in any province that passed substantially similar legislation within a three-year period the provisions of the federal act relating to intra-provincial commercial would not apply. In how many provinces is that the situation, and how is it working out, from your point of view?
Ms. Stoddart: Three provinces have passed legislation that has been recognized by the Governor-in-Council as being substantially similar. It was first recognized in Quebec at the end of 2003, before the final phase of PIPEDA applied. Then Alberta and British Columbia adopted virtually identical legislation at almost the same time this spring. Ontario has just passed protection of personal information health legislation, and the Governor-in-Council is considering whether to designate it as being substantially similar.
Senator Murray: Is it too late for other provinces to do so? I thought there was a three-year deadline.
Ms. Stoddart: I would have to look at the act, senator. I do not have it in front of me. I think the spirit of PIPEDA, although I was not involved in the drafting, is to set a standard for the handling of personal information. It was adopted in order that Canada comply with requirements set out by the European Union in the 1990s.
To answer the other part of your question, we have approached the challenge of having similar privacy rules in different jurisdictions as being one that necessitates great cooperation and a willingness to look at simple and easily applicable solutions in dealing with our provincial counterparts in administering the same legislation.
Senator Murray: Are the private sector people affected indicating to you that it is working well or not working well, or that there are serious problems with what could appear at first blush to cause some confusion?
Ms. Stoddart: You are referring to a patchwork of different legislations?
Senator Murray: Yes. You have not heard that?
Ms. Stoddart: I have not heard that.
Senator Murray: I have not; I am just asking the question.
Ms. Stoddart: No, I have not heard that. There are questions about how the law applies, but we are working actively with our provincial counterparts. We have a memorandum of agreement about how to treat complaints before and after the substantially similar designation comes into effect and how to refer complaints to each other. We are working on a study that will explain Quebec's legislation, which has been in place for almost 10 years now, to the rest of Canada. We are doing our best to pre-empt any complaints about the difficulties of having several jurisdictions legislating on the same issue.
Senator Murray: The big problem when this legislation was going through, in terms of a sector, was health. It was a very serious problem. You need only read the Debates of the Senate and the testimony we heard at the Social Affairs Committee at the time. Although I have not had a chance to go back and look this up, I believe that the saw-off was eventually to proclaim the act for all the other sectors and to wait for year or so or more for the health sector to reconcile differences within the sector and differences with the government on the matter. I presume that the entire health sector is now covered, is it?
Ms. Stoddart: The entire health sector is covered by PIPEDA to the extent that it is a commercial activity, unless the province has its own legislation.
Senator Murray: To the extent that it is a commercial activity?
Ms. Stoddart: Yes.
Senator Murray: That is extremely complex, as you know. X-ray clinics in the private sector are supposedly commercial activities, whereas such clinics in hospitals are supposedly not commercial activities. Similarly, if you get your pharmaceuticals in the hospital, it is not a commercial activity, whereas if you take your prescription to the drugstore, it is. I thought those matters had been resolved.
Ms. Stoddart: I think they are on their way to being resolved, because hospitals are a provincial jurisdictions. Many provinces have for a long time had legislation governing the treatment of personal health information in the public sector. Some of them have moved to extend that to the private sector where PIPEDA would apply unless there is that legislation.
These issues are moving toward resolution in the coming years and toward a common, if not equivalent, standard throughout Canada because of the speed at which we are moving toward electronic health records.
Could I ask my colleague, who is following this file for us, to talk about electronic health records?
Senator Murray: Mr. Alvarez was here the other night in another connection and he gave us quite a rundown. How is that being reconciled with your requirements?
Mr. Raymond D'Aoust, Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada: We are now formally represented an advisory committee that is developing the privacy and security architecture around the Canada Health Infoway. We had a consultation about three weeks ago at which the first document was submitted to us. It is a requirements document which describes the features of the system to protect the integrity of the system, but also the personal health information. We commented on that at length. There will be another iteration of that document in about a month and there will be another meeting in Montreal. We are part of that.
You should know that Canada Health Infoway is not covered under the Privacy Act. They are doing this as a gesture of goodwill because they realize that confidence and public trust in this initiative hinges on protecting personal information, and they know that we have expertise.
Senator Murray: I believe they were set up under the Canada Corporations Act. Were they specifically exempted from the privacy legislation?
Mr. D'Aoust: They were.
Senator Murray: How did we miss that, Mr. Chairman? I will leave it at that. There is a parliamentary review of your acts coming up.
The Chairman: Section 29 says it is to be done in 2006. Perhaps both acts should be reviewed at once.
Ms. Stoddart: There will be a statutory review of PIPEDA next year, but I have met with the Minister of Justice and expressed to him our great concern with the fact that the Privacy Act has never been reviewed in some 23 years. We are starting to work with our colleagues in the Department of Justice on the reform of the Privacy Act, but I do not know that there is a parliamentary committee looking at it at the moment.
Senator Murray: That is a good idea. On PIPEDA, we should flag this whole health sector, because, as you will recall, it preoccupied us for weeks.
The Chairman: The review is to be done before a parliamentary committee, so parliamentary committees will have an opportunity for input, which is excellent.
Senator Murray: We do not know which committee. That is next year.
[Translation]
Senator Ferretti Barth: Ms. Stoddart, you served as President of the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec, and subsequently you were appointed privacy commissioner. Is that correct?
Ms. Stoddart: That is correct.
Senator Ferretti Barth: Can you explain to me the difference between the personal information protection and privacy?
Ms. Stoddart: When I took on this position, I had the same reaction as you because I believed the two concepts were related, even though the duties were different. I believe the designation ``Office of the Privacy Commissioner'' is not entirely accurate. It leads to some confusion, not only from the standpoint of semantics, but from an operational perspective as well
Elsewhere in the world, people speak of a commissioner responsible for personal information protection. That is the designation given to this official in Quebec. These persons are responsible for personal information.
Privacy is a much broader concept that encompasses other human considerations. A decision was made to use in English a concept that legally, is more appropriate, namely personal information protection.
Senator Ferretti Barth: Two foreigners applied to come to Canada as informal caregivers and were required to submit several personal documents as part of the application process, on the grounds that these documents were necessary in order for them to gain entry into the country.
Are you aware of this incident that took place at the Canadian embassy in Manila?
Ms. Stoddart: Unfortunately, I am not aware of it.
Senator Ferretti Barth: The official at the Canadian embassy in Manila asked the applicants to produce pay stubs.
Here in Canada, this type of information is strictly confidential and no one can merely request it. What is your opinion of this situation?
Ms. Stoddart: I cannot comment, but I can send you a written response to your query.
Senator Ferretti Barth: My next question concerns the advisability of merging the Office of the Information Commissioner with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. Your budget does not allow you to meet all of your organization's objectives. Why should the two offices not be merged into one?
Ms. Stoddart: I have to say that the two offices already form a single entity of sorts for the purposes of budgets and reports submitted to Treasury Board. Occasionally, we are compared to Siamese twins in that we are not fully separate from one another. In fact, the two offices have some administrative similarities which are recognized in the public accounts.
Senator Ferretti Barth: In 2004, you established a five-member advisory committee. Is that correct?
Ms. Stoddart: That is correct.
Senator Ferretti Barth: What criteria were used to select committee members? Did you oversee the selection process or did you look to various organizations for assistance? How was this advisory committee formed?
Ms. Stoddart: The members of this panel of experts were selected in consultation with the deputy commissioners. These experts are nationally recognized.
Senator Ferretti Barth: Was the public consulted on these selections?
Ms. Stoddart: No, we approached prospective members in person.
Senator Ferretti Barth: Are the members remunerated for their services?
Ms. Stoddart: No.
Senator Ferretti Barth: Were they recommended by the government?
Ms. Stoddart: No, they were not. I asked them to serve as expert advisors to our office.
Senator Ferretti Barth: And are they experts in your field?
Ms. Stoddart: They are.
[English]
Senator Downe: My questions pertain to the statements in your annual report about the large number of complaints about banks. Other than faxing information to junkyards in foreign countries, what is the nature of those complaints against the banks? Is there one bank that is a major problem, or is this across all banks?
Ms. Stoddart: No, there does not seem to be. Complaints against the banking sector are a significant part of our case load, because Canadians use banks a lot. We all have a bank account, if not several. The complaints are mainly about use and disclosure, as I remember; for example, what the bank is asking for in terms of personal information and who it is disclosing it to. Many of those cases are described in our annual report or on our web site.
Senator Downe: Is there any difference between traditional banks and the new e-banks such as ING and President's Choice?
Ms. Stoddart: That is a very interesting question. We would have to do a more detailed study than we have yet been able to do. Superficially, it does not seem to our staff that there is a distinguishable difference between the new commercial banks and the traditional ``big five,'' if that is the correct term for them. We have asked ourselves that question, but it would require a more detailed study than the ones we have done so far. I would say that for the moment we have not noticed a significant difference in banking practices.
Senator Downe: Credit cards were traditionally issued by the big, traditional banks. In recent years, a lot of foreign companies have moved into Canada offering credit cards. Have you noticed any difference between our home grown credit cards and those of the foreigners who have come into this area?
Ms. Stoddart: It has not been brought to my attention that there is a marked difference. There are sometimes problems with the handling of credit cards across the sector.
Senator Downe: My last question pertains to the question asked earlier about the national identity card system and your concerns about it. Do you have similar concerns about the SIN numbers that Canadians have?
Ms. Stoddart: Yes, we have great concerns about the SIN numbers, and my predecessors and I have made those concerns public time and again in annual reports. It is documented that the number of social insurance numbers in circulation is far in excess of the number that have been issued to Canadians. That is an example of careless handling of personal information, and we monitor and report on that regularly.
This is an early example of the challenge for a public administration to take the protection of personal information issues seriously and to build procedures for that. That is why we are happy to cooperate with the government in doing privacy impact assessments. We have been doing those for the government, at the request of Treasury Board, in the last two years to help forestall the creation of any new privacy problems that could crop up in the implementation of new laws, and the setting up of new structures and procedures.
[Translation]
Senator Plamondon: I worked in the field of consumer affairs for 40 years before I was appointed to the Senate and I have to say that for the past 20 years, the focus has been on privacy issues. I attended meetings of the OECD in The Hague and in the United States. Naturally, I followed the proceedings of the parliamentary commission in Quebec. That province has carried out several studies on privacy.
I have some questions for you concerning consent. The same question was put to your assistant at a committee meeting several hours ago. This committee is examining budgets and as I see it, your office is not adequately funded and you have not been sufficiently proactive. By seeking additional funding, you just might be able to accomplish what I am about to ask you to do.
Most of the problems that consumers encounter with banks, insurance companies and credit cards or when opening an account stem from the fact that in the majority of cases, consumers broadly consent to all kinds of things, without really knowing what they are in fact agreeing to. They believe their consent is being sought so that the institution in question can acquire the necessary information to issue them a credit card or approve a loan. However, they are unaware of the ramifications of giving their consent. Quebec legislation maintains that consent must be informed and given freely and openly. The consequences of giving one's consent are clear.
Could you be more proactive and look into the whole issue of consent, particular as it applies to insurance, credit cards and banks, and the reasons why consent is in fact being sought? My question relates more specifically to insurance. I have already managed to get one Quebec company to change its position on consent, because the situation was open to abuse. Given the nature of the consent, the company could request information from your neighbour or any one on the street, because the form read ``any other person.'' In some cases, consent is granted for an unlimited period of time and there is no room for any corrections. A person cannot alter the form so that it reads ``for a limited period of time.''
If you were to adopt a more proactive stance on the issue of consent given by millions of Canadians when it comes to such things as the banking system, insurance and credit cards, you would be doing people a big favour. How much money would you need to move in this direction?
Ms. Stoddart: My colleague is taking notes, as you can see. In order to carry out this highly important evaluation exercise, we would certainly need in the neighbourhood of $1 million to acquire the proper tools.
Senator Plamondon: And would you consider this to be one of your priorities?
Ms. Stoddart: Yes. My goal for this year is to be more proactive and to use the various mechanisms in the legislation that have not been used to date.
Senator Plamondon: Do you have the necessary funds to carry out this operation?
Ms. Stoddart: Not really. I mentioned the sum of $1 million for the public sector. For the private sector, I could add $200,000 or thereabouts to that figure, because we need to find out about and understand all of these business practices. However, we need to have good reason to audit private sector operations. We need to be able to justify our actions. We have no doubt that this is possible.
[English]
The Chairman: You must have some experience with the various consent forms from life insurance companies, banks and so on. Have you not been dealing with some complaints on that already?
Ms. Stoddart: We have had complaints, and many of them are posted on our website. We do not post the findings in all the cases because after a time they tend to resemble each other. We are sometimes asked why there are not more things on our website. We publish the ones that add something new to what has already been said.
[Translation]
Senator Plamondon: However, the same major systemic problem keeps cropping again and again. It is not enough merely to make changes. We must correct the problem once and for all.
Ms. Stoddart: I was simply explaining what we had already done. However, you are correct. If there is reason to believe that the problem has not been resolved, despite our notices, then we could well be justified in taking a closer look at an institution's practices.
[English]
The Chairman: I would like to go back to the first question I asked you about your budget. You are currently funded year to year. You are planning to make a proposal to get some long-term funding, probably in the realm of $12 million to $13 million. However, if you are going to do the additional things suggested by Senators Ringuette and Plamondon, you might be looking at $15 million to $20 million.
Are you now working on a long-term budget to negotiate with Treasury Board? You will have to increase your staff and training for your staff, and you will have to buy new software and hardware. Are you working on numbers now for such a budget to take to Treasury Board?
Ms. Stoddart: Yes, we are. We are doing a business case review of our major and most costly activity, which is complaint handling, mediation and so on. We will then look at our other functions. We hope to finish this exercise by this summer and then go to Treasury Board with a list of what an efficient Privacy Commissioner should be doing and a list of the software, technological tools and training needed and profiles of people who have expertise in all these areas. To do this, well takes very skilled people. We would present a list of what we would need to do the job as the law envisages it.
The Chairman: You will factor in the number of new people that you will have to hire?
Ms. Stoddart: Yes.
The Chairman: How many people do you have on your payroll now?
Ms. Stoddart: At the present time we have 86. We have a budget for a little less than 100, but with the administrative challenges we have had over the last year, the number has gone down to 86. We will soon be hiring to bring the number back up to 100.
[Translation]
Senator Day: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for agreeing to meet with the committee. This has been a very interesting discussion.
[English]
I will start with your statement that you have been talking to the Minister of Justice with respect to the Privacy Act. My question also goes to your dealings in relation to your budget with Treasury Board Secretariat.
Perhaps we have been remiss in not having you appear before us more frequently. It seems that as an officer of Parliament you believe that there should be changes to legislation to enable you to perform a function that you are not performing, as a result of which you are unable to serve Parliament adequately. Should we not have better and more frequent contact so that we know what your concerns are?
Ms. Stoddart: Yes, certainly. To be an officer of Parliament means that one has a close working relationship with Parliament, a relationship that is different from that of other departments and agencies.
The House of Commons has set up a special committee before which we have appeared several times. We have a close working relationship with that committee.
The Chairman: What is the name of that committee?
Ms. Stoddart: It is the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee which was set up this fall. You might want to consider that kind of a specialized committee.
Senator Day: Prior to the formation of that committee, you waited to be invited to appear before either a House of Commons committee or a Senate committee from time to time?
Ms. Stoddart: I gather so, yes. I was not here very long before this fall. In the six months that I have been in this position we have been invited a couple of times.
Senator Day: Apart from this committee that has been recently formed, if you believe that there should be some changes to the Privacy Act, do you go to the Justice Department for help in dealing with your concerns, or do you go to the executive branch because you think that is where you should be reporting?
Ms. Stoddart: No, we clearly do not report to the executive branch.
Senator Day: I know that you do not formally.
Ms. Stoddart: We do not report to the executive branch informally either. We have a great deal of structural autonomy to do our job.
We spoke with the Minister of Justice because it is my understanding that the Minister of Justice is responsible for drawing up legislation and presenting it to both Houses of Parliament. The Minister of Justice is also the supervisor of a great number of highly specialized experts in privacy legislation, and you would need their help in order to modernize the act. This is not a simple exercise.
Senator Day: You are quite right that the Department of Justice is very good at drafting, and that is where you go to draft, but you have to know what you want drafted. There have to be policy considerations. Are you developing policy considerations with the Department of Justice prior to speaking to the committees of Parliament, of which you are an officer?
Ms. Stoddart: We raised issues with the Department of Justice, but many of those issues had been highlighted. I was re-presenting them and bringing this back on to the public agenda. They had been developed by former commissioner Phillips and were presented publicly in 2000.
Mr. D'Aoust: They were presented to the Department of Justice in 2000, prior to the arrival of the previous commissioner, Mr. Radwanski.
Senator Day: We will have further discussion of this among ourselves. Perhaps we have been somewhat remiss in not keeping the avenues of communication open so that if you think some things should be changed, you have somewhere to go, and this applies not only to your commission, but to others. We could urge the executive to come forward with some changes that will allow you to do a better job for us as parliamentarians.
I will return to a couple of small details to round out the comparison that we are trying to do between the various officers of Parliament and the various commissions.
You have 86 employees and that number will increase to 100. There is a provision in each of the acts for the filing of individual complaints. You investigate them and mediate them, et cetera. How many of your employees are involved in that and how many are involved in the various studies that you get involved in?
Ms. Stoddart: Approximately 35 per cent of our staff is involved in complaint investigation. It is more if you add those who deal with lawyers, and then if there is publicity, communications people become involved. The basic investigation and inquiry staff is about 35 per cent of our resources.
There is a very small group of people who do studies. We do not do fundamental or primary research. We do not have the resources to do that, and nor would I ask for them. I do not think that is a useful role for us. There are many academics, such as in the National Research Council, that do primary research. We do applied research. At the moment, we have four people who do applied research and develop policy positions for us.
Senator Day: What is the timeframe between when a complaint is received and when it is acted upon meaningfully?
Ms. Stoddart: Are you speaking of delays or the backlog?
Senator Day: Delays.
Ms. Stoddart: We currently have a delay of several months in treating cases under the Privacy Act because, as I said, the Privacy Act resources have not been looked at for years. PIPEDA complaints have to be handled within the year. We are directly funded for PIPEDA so they go to a quicker case resolution than the Privacy Act ones, depending on the complexity of the case.
Senator Day: The PIPEDA funding is about $6 million for three years. You got an extension, but you do not know whether you will get it again, so you are living hand to mouth in that regard, as I understand it.
Ms. Stoddart: That is right. We are also living on a fixed diet that was set up in 2000. Dieticians will tell you that as you grow you should increase your calorie intake.
Senator Day: We do not like to see organizations growing excessively. One of our jobs is to try to keep growth under control and meaningful. I do not want to take that metaphor any further.
Further to our earlier discussion with respect to changes to legislation or functions that you would like to see as part of your mandate, if you need more funds to achieve your goals, we would like to think that as an officer of Parliament you would come to us as well as to the Treasury Board Secretariat. When the Treasury Board Secretariat comes before us, we can focus on your issues as well as others that are brought to our attention.
Ms. Stoddart: Thank you. We would be happy to share our administrative challenges with you. As I said, this summer we will be bringing forward a revised request for additional funding and resources. It is a fairly arduous process to put this request forward because it has to withstand very serious scrutiny.
Senator Day: A question was asked earlier about the investigative role that you might be able to perform and how much you would need to perform it. You said you would need about $1 million to review what is going on in each of the government departments. There is a Treasury Board Secretariat guideline, rule or requirement, for which you have resources, to review these reports called privacy impact assessments. Is that done on an annual basis or only when something new is implemented by a government department?
Mr. D'Aoust: That is a good question. The policy was adopted by Treasury Board in 2002. Thus far we have received 50 to 60 formal PIAs and preliminary privacy impact assessments. We have reviewed 20 or 30 of those and have commented on them. We have also commented on the number of e-government PIAs as well.
There is not really a cycle to those. The policy says that when a new program, a new policy or a substantially modified program is introduced, the deputy head needs to do a formal privacy impact assessment, which is then submitted to us. The policy says that our office can use its discretion to comment or not. Usually we will comment on it. We have been fairly successful at helping departments mitigate and prevent privacy risks from occurring. The policy is working well.
Our issue on this front, if I may add to what Ms. Stoddart has just said, is that the office never received funding for this function. As a result, we have taken some resources from our audit and review function and devoted them to reviewing PIAs. We need to rebalance and recalibrate our resource allocation and get an infusion of new funds for that function.
Senator Day: Did I understand you correctly that the Treasury Board Secretariat requirement is only if a new program is introduced and not on an annual basis?
Mr. D'Aoust: A new policy or program, yes.
Senator Day: If you had the funding and were able to convince Parliament to urge Treasury Board Secretariat to provide you with more funding, would it be helpful if departments and agencies of the government that were involved in issues where privacy could be impacted did an annual assessment, or would that just be another one of the myriad of documents that are required? We have heard that even the Information Commissioner is required to file upwards of 100 different reports each year to either Treasury Board Secretariat or other internal government agencies. We do not want to invite filing of documents for the sake of filing, but we are trying to protect human dignity and privacy.
Mr. D'Aoust: I concur with you. It would be extremely useful to have that annual reporting mechanism. I am a member of an ADM committee that looks at privacy. We meet every second month or so. In late January, I had a good discussion with them as to how we can improve the annual reporting mechanism. Under the Privacy Act, deputy heads need to submit an annual report on what they are doing on privacy. They do the same on the Access to Information Act.
Those reports provide sheer volumetric information, that is, number of requests, time to process and so on. That does not give a whole lot of information, to be honest. Perhaps we can improve on that. We have had a warm welcome from a number of deputy heads with regard to improving the existing reporting mechanism under the act. It is an interesting thought to have an annual reporting mechanism and it is something that we should examine more closely.
Senator Downe: I want to take this opportunity to raise with the Privacy Commissioner a problem on which we always get the answer that because of privacy laws we cannot solve the problem. I am referring to the Guaranteed Income Supplement which, as you know, is a program for seniors with incomes of under $14,000 a year.
In 2002, Social Development Canada indicated that there were over 130,000 tax-filing seniors who qualified for this program but were not receiving it because Social Development Canada had no way of identifying them. They have taken a number of initiatives to try to identify them, but there are still a large number of people who are not receiving the benefit to which they are entitled.
In addition, there are seniors who owe no income tax at all and therefore do not file income tax returns, and the department has no way of identifying them. These are obviously people who desperately need the money and may find the forms complicated, or they may be socially isolated. There may be a host of reasons why they are not getting the assistance they require.
Parliamentarians passed the law for this program. The title is obviously misleading because it is not ``guaranteed.'' It is ``we will make our best effort to get the money to you,'' and sometimes it is not even the best effort, in my view.
When you ask Revenue Canada and Social Development Canada about this, the answer is always couched in the privacy rights of individuals versus the government getting a benefit to people who are entitled to it. I have written to the Auditor General asking her to examine this because the bureaucracy cannot implement what Parliament intended.
Perhaps at your ADM meetings you could work with all the departments involved to see if they can solve this problem.
Ms. Stoddart: I am not familiar with this case, but it seems to me that privacy legislation can be very flexible and should work to ensure that Canadians have the benefits to which they are entitled.
I am rather amazed at what you are telling us. We have taken note and we will try to see what we can do. I cannot imagine that there is something in the law that forbids departments from identifying individuals in order to give them a benefit, but we will look into it.
Senator Downe: I share your view. I think it may be a bit of a red herring, but I will send you the information I have on file.
Senator Ringuette: I have two quick questions to confirm that I heard you correctly. You were not consulted by the Auditor General's audit with regard to privacy of e-government?
Ms. Stoddart: We were not.
Senator Ringuette: However, you are consulted by this group of deputy ministers in various departments doing e- government implementation?
Ms. Stoddart: Yes, we are consulted informally, and sometimes more formally, through the PIA process by the unit within Treasury Board that is responsible for e-government. We have close links with them.
Senator Ringuette: Given your mandate to investigate complaints and perform audits, how many of your 83 employees are lawyers or have a legal background?
Ms. Stoddart: There is a distinction between lawyers and people who fill jobs that bear the title ``lawyer.'' There are also other people like myself. I am a lawyer, but my job description does not necessitate that I be a lawyer.
There are perhaps 10 or 11 lawyers, of whom six or seven are in positions that are classified as LAs in the federal government.
The Chairman: Ms. Stoddart, on behalf of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, I want to thank you very much for this your first visit to this committee. I hope it was not too intimidating. For us, it was most informative and very useful. We hope that you will return, particularly after the mandatory review under section 29 is done, because I am sure we will have other questions for you on that.
If you have any more information you want to provide, please send it to our clerk and we will disseminate it to the other senators.
This brings the evidentiary portion of our meeting to an end and we will now proceed to deal with the budget application of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2006.
I would like honourable senators to know that the draft before you was reviewed by our steering committee where it was amended and given the seal of approval.
Senator Harb and Senator Murray, who had to leave, have approved it.
Senator Ringuette: We are not really an expensive committee, and we are asking for a lot compared to our historic costs.
The Chairman: We are more active. For example, the last few witnesses we have heard have never before been called before this committee. We are doing much more work than previously.
Senator Ringuette: We are requesting $42,000 for professional and other services. What is that comprised of?
The Chairman: There is a breakdown on the next page. We will have 30 working breakfasts at $20 and 30 working dinners at $400. That adds up to nearly $13,000.
Senator Ringuette: I did not realize that that would go under ``professional and other services.''
Senator Day: Until the last few months we never had a communications consultant or an expert adviser. Those are the two items pushing the number up significantly. They are budgeted at $20,000 and $30,000.
Senator Ringuette: Does our committee really require the expertise of a communications consultant?
The Chairman: Mr. Krause, who is here, has assisted the committee in the past. He assists the Banking Committee and other committees of the Senate, and it makes a huge difference.
Senator Ringuette: It may be because I am relatively new, but I have not noticed a major difference in communications. I have been on this committee since September 2003 at least. What has happened in this regard?
The Chairman: The consultant is new.
Senator Ringuette: What is he doing?
The Chairman: This budget request was made in December of last year and was not approved until January, when the Senate resumed sitting. This is February, so this is quite new.
If you read the Senate communications that are posted on the Internet, by the Defence Committee, the Social Affairs Committee and the Banking Committee in particular, you will see that the Senate is benefiting greatly by the communication of the excellent work that committees do.
I must say that I am absolutely delighted at the quality of senators on this committee, and I think that the committee is doing exceptional work. I just wish that more Canadians knew about it.
Senator Ringuette: We have an entity in the Senate called ``Communications.''
The Chairman: Every one of the committees I just mentioned has its own independent, exterior communications expert to help them.
Senator Day: The Internal Committee does not do outward communications for individual committees.
Senator Ringuette: They did for the Agriculture Committee in December when we put out our report on value-added for forestry and agricultural products.
The Chairman: All of the work for the year and a half before the report was issued was done by Mr. Krauss. He set up a lot of the leads telling the media that the report was coming.
Senator Downe: Your point is well taken, Chair. In the short time I have been in the Senate, I have noticed that the senators are a very modest group of people. They do not like to tell Canadians what they are doing, and the institution has been heavily criticized. I think that what Senator Kenny, Senator Kirby and others have done is very helpful. We have to keep telling people over and over again what we are doing. If anything, I think more resources should go to committees. It is the area of the Senate where we get the most impact with Canadians. Although this is for another discussion, I think that less money should be spent in the chamber and more put into the committees. This is what Canadians relate to. I jokingly tell people in P.E.I. that they love the senators; they hate the Senate. At least I try to create that impression, and committees go a long way toward that end.
We have ``the topic'' in Ottawa, the Auditor General, appearing before this committee next Tuesday. I am no expert, but obviously we should have a press release out on what we have done so far, and on Monday morning we should have a release announcing that she is coming here and explaining what we have already done and what we intend to do in the future. If we repeat this over and over again, we will get some coverage.
Senator Ringuette: Is the steering committee monitoring and approving press releases and quotes, et cetera?
The Chairman: The answer is that this is brand new.
Senator Ringuette: We have not started yet?
Senator Day: Nothing has been done yet.
Senator Ringuette: That is why I did not notice any difference.
The Chairman: Are honourable senators in favour of the adoption of the budget?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: The motion is carried.
Is there any other business to come before the committee?
Senator Day: On the issue of communications, are we going to put something out on the Auditor General and foundations?
The Chairman: I would like the steering committee to meet with Mr. Krauss right now to talk about that.
Honourable senators, there being no further business to come before the meeting, this meeting is adjourned.
The committee adjourned.