:
We'll now call the meeting to order.
[Translation]
Welcome everyone.
[English]
In this meeting, again called pursuant to the Standing Orders, we have three possible items on the agenda, colleagues.
The first item, which we're going to go to immediately, is to hold a hearing on the certificate of nomination of Madam Jennifer Stoddart to the position of Privacy Commissioner. Her mandate has been renewed for an additional three-year period. As is the custom, she has come before the committee on the government nomination for this position for the additional three-year period.
The committee is very pleased to have with us the Privacy Commissioner. She did come here on very short notice and we thank her for that. We're going to ask her now for her opening comments, and then we will go to questions from members of the committee.
Depending on our time, we will then go into the Google study. Then, at 4:30, we're going to have Mr. with us, the member of Parliament for .
Having said that, I now invite you, Madam Stoddart, to give your opening comments.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[Translation]
Ladies and gentlemen members of the committee,
[English]
good afternoon. It's an honour to be here once again with you, but this time to answer questions about my nomination for reappointment as Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
I would deeply appreciate Parliament's confidence in me to continue on in this role and to have the opportunity to build on what my office has already accomplished. It has been a great privilege to serve Canadians and Parliament for the last seven years.
As you know, I've had the pleasure of appearing before this committee many times over the course of my mandate. and I'm very happy to see so many familiar faces today.
It has been quite a journey over the last seven years. Back in 2003, I took over an office that was only beginning to recover from an extremely difficult period. Our administrative powers had been seriously curtailed. Part of our budget was about to lapse. We were being investigated by the RCMP, the Auditor General, and others.
I must say that it took a lot of hard work, but we got our house back in order and returned our focus to where it should be--protecting the privacy rights of Canadians.
To be frank, this has also been a tremendous challenge in the face of a dramatic reshaping of the privacy landscape in recent years. Technological advances in human creativity have combined to bring us a multitude of new online services and electronic devices with important implications for our privacy: social networking sites, YouTube, foursquare, and smartphones, to name but a few.
At the same time, our personal data has become a hot commodity in both the private and the public sectors. Businesses use increasingly detailed profiles to better target us with advertising, while governments around the world see personal data as the key to combatting terrorism and other crimes.
We live in a world where the flow of data is global, instantaneous, and constant. I am extremely proud of our achievements in the face of this rapid change. However, the ongoing threats to privacy remain enormous, and there is still so much to do.
If reappointed, then, I would focus on a few areas: leadership on priority privacy issues--we have four, and I can talk more about them later; supporting Canadians, organizations, and institutions to make informed privacy decisions; and of course and always, service delivery to Canadians and, by extension, to Parliament as well.
[Translation]
I'd like to move on now to leadership on priority issues.
As Canadians live out more and more of their daily lives in this digital environment, it is clear that is where we need to be focusing much of our attention.
As you know, we have had ongoing discussions with on-line giants such as Facebook and Google. At the moment, we are investigating further complaints about Facebook, as well as—
:
I'll continue, honourable members, where I left off.
[Translation]
These are critically important issues when you consider the role the Internet plays in daily life, as I was saying. I recently read that one in four American couples who met since 2007 first met on-line.
Earlier this year, we held public consultations on on-line consumer tracking and cloud computing, in order to learn more about certain industry practices, explore their privacy implications, and find out what privacy protections Canadians expect with respect to these practices.
Looking ahead, we need to continue to develop a deeper understanding of privacy issues in a digital world. We should also continue to build on our expertise by hiring more IT specialists and creating links with outside experts. Continued cooperation with our provincial, as well as our international, colleagues will also be critical to our future success.
I'd like to move now to public safety. Another ongoing strategic priority relates to the potentially grave privacy implications of national security and law enforcement measures.
Privacy is not an absolute right. Indeed, there may be cases when privacy protections must give way to protecting a greater good. However, Canadians should only be asked to make this sacrifice when it is clear that the promised outcome—be it safer air travel or catching money launderers—will actually be achieved and that there is no less privacy-invasive option that would allow us to reach this goal.
We have worked with numerous government departments and agencies to introduce stronger privacy protections into initiatives such as Passenger Protect program—our no-fly program—airport scanners, and the RCMP's exempt databanks. We should continue to be vigilant in this area.
[English]
Another piece of the privacy protection challenge is making sure that Canadians develop strong digital literacy skills.
We're using online tools to help Canadians better understand their privacy rights and make well-informed choices in a rapidly changing privacy landscape. We have a blog and a website targeted at youth. We tweet, and we post videos about privacy on YouTube. Much of our public awareness work is being conducted in collaboration with a wide variety of others, such as teachers, consumer and business groups, and government organizations as well.
Perhaps partly because I'm a former provincial commissioner myself, I've always seen the need to build stronger ties with provincial colleagues and other stakeholders across the country. I want to ensure that the Privacy Commissioner's office is not perceived as either too Ottawa-centric or unaware of issues outside the national capital region.
We recently opened an office in Toronto, where many of the organizations we receive complaints about are headquartered. It will also be critical to maintain regional outreach to all parts of the country and to continue to maintain cultural and linguistic diversity in the office to be truly responsive to the Canadians we serve.
At the end of the day, what is most important to me is that our work meets the needs and the expectations of Canadians. As I mentioned at the outset, this requires that we also remain responsive to the needs of businesses, government, and Parliament.
I enjoy a very privileged position as an officer of Parliament and, from my point of view, I have had in these last seven years a very positive and a very constructive relationship with Parliament. As you know, I am accountable to Parliament. For example, I come to Parliament whenever I am invited to comment on legislation being studied at committee.
Once a year, we set out for Parliament's consideration—that's usually this committee's consideration—our plans and priorities. If there is a priority that Parliament would like me to follow, it has an opportunity at that time to bring it forward during this process. I also have tabled annual reports on our work to Parliament and with this committee over the years.
I would certainly welcome further opportunities to speak with members of this committee and Parliament more broadly about what my office does and to discuss any matter that raises privacy concerns.
In closing, I would like to say that I would welcome the opportunity to continue to leverage what has already been accomplished over the past few years, and I thank you very much for listening to this presentation. I'd be pleased to answer any questions that you might have.
:
Yes. Thank you for the question.
First of all, I believe that I have a lot of things to do, in spite of the very kind words of the honourable member, Madame , and a certain media profile that came to the office without our really trying to obtain it. There are a lot of very practical things to do, particularly in improving our service delivery to Canadians, in keeping up on trends, and in trying to be strategic about our interventions. There were these two I think very, very big cases that involved a lot of people and so on, but we have a lot of homework to do still.
The three years come from the fact that I thought it was about three years between the time I was appointed in late 2003, to 2006, when we finally got back something called our “staffing delegation”. Without that delegation, we couldn't hire our own employees without public service approval. If you're under that kind of cloud for two and a half years, you can't do very much. You're basically under a cloud of suspicion and, as a result, a lot of people perhaps don't come to work for you.
Once we got out of that cloud of suspicion, then we could tackle the second thing, which was getting a budget that was appropriate. Our budget had been frozen at its 2000 level, and then, because of all the things had happened, Treasury Board just said to get our house in order and they would look at our budget, which made sense again. I'll pass on the other inquiries we were subject to and so on.
So basically in that time.... As you know, it is very unusual in the public sector to have an agency that is in such a state. So because of the time I spent personally on all of those issues, which are not really part of an ongoing privacy commissioner's mandate, I didn't get around to some other substantive issues. I'd like to do that. I'd like to take back the equivalent of the time I spent on housekeeping and benefit from some of the wonderful people we now have, given that we're in better shape.
We're now able to attract a whole group of extraordinary and mostly younger employees who are increasingly doing an amazing job. I'd like to be able to leverage their talents in many areas, particularly in what's happening on the Internet and the interface between the Internet and society and information technologies of all kinds and to help Canadians with those problems.
:
We do it in many ways. Perhaps I could talk about our four priority privacy issues, all of which now touch the online world. They're in no particular order.
The first one is genetic information. With the proliferation of genetic websites, genetic testing, and medical advances related to our genetic composition, and the ethical issues around them, our genetic information is of course the ultimate personal information. This is clearly a huge issue that is coming up for society. We see it being commercialized already. It comes under both of our acts. We're continuing to follow those issues. We would like to investigate a genetic website. We haven't received a complaint yet, and there are many challenges in doing this. That is one issue.
A second one, of course, is national security. However serious personal information issues have become since 9/11, it's not clear at this point that they're going to radically improve in the near future. In fact, they may get significantly worse, as we talk about drones surveilling borders and increasing database exchange and so on. Continuing to look at national security issues is very important for my office. Increasingly, this involves online transfers. I think that's your particular issue.
Questions of identity integrity are another priority. This involves the consequences of having multiple online identities and the extent to which you have to share your information online as you browse from site to site, and also the extent to which advertisers or website hosts can scrape your personal information as you pass by and then perhaps sell it and so on. This was the subject of our ongoing consultation on behavioural advertising this year.
Finally, information technology is a general priority, an attempt to follow all technological developments in their implication on personal information privacy. Perhaps the most obvious these days is facial recognition technology, which again is based on transmission over the Internet. There's the smart grid, on which the Supreme Court brought out a decision just a few days ago. It was a very divided decision, but finally the majority said it was all right for the I think Alberta police to use information from the Alberta hydroelectric system about the consumption of electricity in the house of someone who was using electricity to grow marijuana.
Those are some of the ways that we are looking into Internet applications.
:
That's a very good question, and one with which I have grappled for years, obviously, because it has just opened now. A physical presence is clearly less and less important, but it still is important.
Ideally, if we had the resources, we would be present I would say in every province, because human interaction still counts for a lot. Human presence counts for a lot. Just being able to be where other people are in a more spontaneous and informal situation, rather than setting up video conferencing or trading e-mails and so on, I think is still preferable.
Why did we choose Toronto? It was because three-quarters of the respondent organizations under our private sector law, PIPEDA, are in Toronto. There are no plans to have a brick-and-mortar establishment elsewhere in Canada, but who knows? I'll see what this brings for the moment.
We have had regional presences. We hired a person full-time for two years in the Maritimes. He worked out of his home and went around the Maritimes making links, representing us, talking to high schools, and so on. We have an ongoing relationship with the Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner and used his office at some point. They're informal links, depending on the region, what resources we can have, and how we can stay within our budget and so on. It's a creative kind of thing.
:
I'm going to call the meeting back to order.
This is the second item we have on the agenda.
First of all, I should inform the members of the committee that we intended, of course, if it was possible, to deal with the Google report this afternoon. However, because of some technical issues, we are not able to do that this afternoon. That will be put back on the agenda, perhaps for half an hour at one of the meetings we have scheduled for next week.
Before I say another word, I'm going to ask all cameras to leave the room, please, at this point in time. Thank you very much.
The next item we have on the committee's agenda is the appearance before the committee of Monsieur , member of Parliament for . Monsieur Ménard has responded to a written request issued by this committee.
I should point out that as a member of Parliament, he is not a compellable witness. There is a very select group of individuals who are not compellable: members of other legislative assemblies, members of Parliament, members of the Senate, judges, and the Governor General.
But he has, of his own volition, accepted our invitation and he's here of his own volition.
We welcome you, Monsieur Ménard. As is the practice of this committee, we'll allow you up to 10 minutes for any opening remarks you may want to make.
The floor is yours.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
When the affair regarding which you have asked me to appear first came to light, I decided, for reasons that I will explain at the end, that I would give only one interview—to Christian Latreille with Radio-Canada. However, I also made it known that I was prepared to cooperate with all the competent authorities who might wish to investigate the facts, and that is why I am here today.
You called me to appear today to discuss this, and I understand, from the remarks made in the Chamber, that you would like me to explain why I took so long to discuss this publicly. From the minute I was caught up in these events, I understood that, if I talked about it, there would be a media storm such as the one that ultimately resulted, but also that it would be my word against someone else's. The fact is that I had no independent proof that would have made it possible to determine which version was true.
It is also important for you to realize that there was no attempted bribery. First of all, I had not yet been elected, so I was not included under the definition of “public official”, which is broad enough to cover members of Parliament and members of legislative assemblies, but not people running for such a position. Furthermore, I was asked for absolutely nothing in exchange for the money that was offered. At worst, it was an attempt to violate the Election Act. However, as we recently found out, even that attempt does not constitute an offence.
In any case, I had no independent evidence, and that is certainly what commanded my silence. I have seen a few prosecutions for bribery offences in my legal career, but never have I seen any action taken without there being independent evidence to justify the claims of the whistleblower.
Now, these are the circumstances in which this occurred. This happened before I was first elected in December of 1993. I had been the chosen candidate for some time, and I wanted to meet with a lot of important players in Laval, including the mayor of Laval. It seems he was also interested in meeting me. So he asked if we could make an appointment. As a result, I went to see him in his office one evening, I believe.
He was sitting at his desk. I sat down in front of him. We talked about Laval, about a lot of things—about politics, obviously. We talked about his city council, on which there were both sovereignists and federalists, and we mainly talked about issues in Laval. After some time, he asked me to come over to a small table at the side of his desk. He alluded to election campaign expenses. Then he took out an envelope which was sort of half-open and contained a wad of bills. He told me there was $10,000 in the envelope and that he was offering me the money to help me finance my election campaign.
I immediately pushed the envelope away, saying that he must know the law and that this was not an appropriate way to contribute to someone's election campaign. Donations have to be made by cheque, they cannot exceed $3,000, and they must be from voters whose names will then be published. He replied that a petty cash fund during an election campaign could be very useful. I told him that if I needed a small election fund, everything would be accounted for and declared. I added that I didn't want his money. I believe we--
I then saw him turn bright red, beads of sweat form on his forehead, and his hand start to tremble. He picked up his money and I exited immediately or a few moments later.
I asked myself… Basically, I left with the evidence. I knew how this would play out in public, if I were to say anything to anyone. I was absolutely convinced that he would vehemently deny everything, and that he would probably do everything he could to discredit me. I was convinced that this kind of denunciation would lead nowhere. I felt he would probably be acquitted if ever he were charged and that he very likely would never be charged on the basis of such weak evidence. So, I decided not to talk about it.
Coming to the present, 17 years later, Mr. Christian Latreille from Radio-Canada was looking to meet with me. We had a few phone conversations. He wanted to talk about Laval in general, because I had been an elected official for Laval for so many years. I decided to ask him to come and meet with me during the break week. So, he came on a Monday. He started by discussing general matters involving Laval. Then suddenly, he stopped, looked me straight in the eyes, and asked me whether it was true that I had refused to take $15,000 in cash from Mayor Gilles Vaillancourt.
It's true that there was a long silence at that point. And the longer I remained silent, the more I realized that I had already given him an answer because, had my answer been no, I would simply have said no, that's not true. However, I could see that he was well informed, even though the amount mentioned was incorrect. And, seeing that he was well informed, I finally turned to him and asked him how he had found out about this. I had never spoken of it. He told me he had received confidential information from a source he had promised to protect.
I could see that he was very professional, as an investigative journalist, and having secured information from a confidential source, he had to ensure it was true before making that information public. I knew that I had basically just proven to him that what his informers had told him was true. I began by correcting him with respect to the amount: it wasn't $15,000, it was $10,000.
Then I told him exactly what I have just told you. I explained why I had never discussed it, primarily because of a lack of evidence, but also because I knew that the mayor of Laval had committed no crime. Even the offence set out in the Election Act had not been committed, since I had refused the money.
At that point, he told me he had enough information to make what I had just told him public, that I was going to have to respond to that revelation, that I would be questioned in Parliament, by my own party at my office, at a public event, and that I ran the risk of seeing my side of the story come out in bits and pieces, something that he felt was not ideal in terms of presenting my point of view. He said he would offer to interview me, if I liked, and he guaranteed that the entire interview would be broadcast, so that my side of the story would not be truncated and would be made fully available to the public.
I thought about it. I am not the one who asked for time to think about it; he made that offer. So, I thought about it and consulted certain people. I have to say that opinion was divided. Some told me to let the journalist put the information out there and respond afterwards.
Finally, after consulting my last chief of staff in whom I have complete trust, it was decided that the best option would be to do what was suggested—in other words, to tell my side of the story in its entirety to a journalist who would report it correctly, and then not talk about it anymore. That's why I have been refusing interviews with reporters ever since.
Obviously, the notice to appear sent by the committee is different, especially because of doubts raised in the House on this matter.
I said nothing about Mr. Vaillancourt because I was convinced it would go nowhere. On the other hand, my reputation would have been very much in doubt, because he would not have been charged and a lot of people would have interpreted that as my having lied.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Mr. Ménard
I would like to say straight out exactly what Mr. Coderre said. I am a little concerned and a little troubled by what has been happening for some time, particularly the statement you made to the journalist, Mr. Latreille.
I would like to begin with this. You have been a lawyer since 1968, and you took an oath. Subsequently, you were president of the Quebec Bar. You were also an MNA. In that capacity, you took an oath to represent the people of Quebec. And, to be fair, you were also Minister of Public Safety and Minister of Justice.
I would like to come back to one of the first things that you mentioned. From what we can tell, Mayor Vaillancourt tried to bribe or corrupt you. You say that you're not sure. That was in 1993, and he had just been elected in 1990.
Knowing that he had done this, why was your immediate reaction not to go to the police? You know that the police would have taken your complaint and written up a report stating that you came to see them. That does not mean there would have been a conviction, or that you would have won your case, or anything else. Did you take that very simple step of going to police and telling them that this incident had just occurred and asking for a police report? Did you do that?
:
You'll see what I'm driving at. You talked to several of your colleagues. At one point, did you tell them to be careful and not get involved in this?
There is only one weak link in this whole affair. You did what you had to do. Indeed, as I said right at the beginning, there is no evidence that would prompt me to doubt your word. However, you sent him letters of thanks and congratulations, because you nevertheless wanted to work with Mr. Vaillancourt, since you were both elected representatives.
But at some point, did you not feel a certain discomfort? Mr. Chevrette was the Minister of Municipal Affairs, with all that entails. I know him, I know his temperament, because he is my cousin. Did you talk to one another?
By the way, I would just like to state for the media that he is a distant cousin.
A voice: He didn't turn out so well, if you ask me.
Hon. Denis Coderre: Well, I turned out well. Some people have other flaws, but that's their problem.
But let's come back to serious matters. Because this is in fact a serious matter: we're talking about two reputations being pitted one against the other, of a situation where it looks as though everyone is being put in the same basket.
With your fellow ministers, did you not discuss the possibility that if one of you could not handle it, this could be referred to the municipal level? Did you not confide in anyone at the ministerial level or among your colleagues?