Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act was passed by the Twelfth Legislative Assembly in 1994. The act is not currently enforced. Under the legislation it must come into force no later than December 1st, 1996.

The act provides the public with the right to ask for information held by the government subject to specific and limited exceptions and establishes a regime for access to information and protection of privacy. The act also allows individuals to collect personal information held by the government.

In providing access the act protects the rights of third parties who may be affected by the release of information. The act provides for the appointment of an Information and Privacy Commissioner to hold office for a term of five years.

In order to make an informed decision, the working group reviewed the following:

- the current Act;

- the current access legislation and practices across Canada;

- inter-jurisdictional information on access;

- Commissioner offices; and

- options for dealing with access to information based on extensive previous work and consultations done on access.

The current act provides steps for accessing information which protects the privacy rights of third parties. The process for access to information under the act is as follows. A person would make a written request for information to the government department or agency they believe have the information. The public body will make every reasonable effort to respond to the application openly, accurately, completely, and without delay. The public body has thirty days to provide the requested information, unless the time limit is extended or the information request is transferred to another public body. Depending on what is being requested, there are three scenarios. A public body must provide information, a public body must refuse a request, or a public body has the discretion to disclose or not disclose the information being requested. If the public body provides information, a processing fee could be charged. If the public body does not disclose the information, the applicant can apply to the Information and Privacy Commissioner within thirty days, appealing the decision. The Information and Privacy Commissioner will review the public body's decision, prepare a report with recommendations, and the reasons for the recommendations, and send the report to the public body and the applicant. Within thirty days of receiving the report, the public body must decide whether or not to follow the Information and Privacy Commissioner's recommendations, and must give written notice of this decision to the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the applicants. If the public body does not follow the Information and Privacy Commissioner's recommendation, the applicant may appeal to the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories. If a third party is involved, they are notified about the request and given a chance to request that information not being released.

Using the process using similar to the one outlined above, individuals are given the right to access information about themselves, and to request a correction of inaccurate personal information. The working group considered six different options for providing access to information and protection of privacy:

1. Maintain status quo;

2. Delay coming into force of the act;

3. Repeal the act;

4. Amend the act to provide a simpler and more affordable for access to information and protection of privacy;

5. Issue policy guidelines to provide access to information and protection of privacy; and

6. Combine the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner with the Office of the Language Commissioner and, if legislated, the Office of the Ombudsman.

The working group felt the original rationale for the act still existed, and there was a need for an Access to Information and Protection of Privacy regime to be put in place by December 31, 1996. For this reason, the working group rejected the options for delaying or repealing the act. The option of providing guidelines rather than legislation was also rejected. Members felt guidelines would not accomplish the intent of the act. Guidelines would also not give the same level of certainty that access and protection to privacy were being provided consistently. This left only two options specific to the act, implement the act as it stands, or amend the act.

The final option, which dealt with combining the offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioner with other offices; the legislative officer; for example, the Languages Commissioner and Conflict of Interest Commissioner, was addressed as a separate issue from the implementation of the act.

In reviewing the two final options, Members considered the potential use of the act. It is possible that there will be an inflated number of access requests in the first year, followed by a drop to a more consistent number of requests in succeeding years. However, based on the experiences of other jurisdictions, it is likely that there will be an average of between 70 and 90 requests each year with less than half of these being appealed to the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

Members agreed that there needed to be a process in place to address requests, but it would not have to be as complex as a process in one of the larger provinces where thousands of requests are received annually.

There is no quorum, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Overall, the working group agreed with the intent of the legislation. It felt it must proceed on schedule with implementation by December 31, 1996. The primary concern the working group has with the act is directly related to the impact of division and this legislation and any regime established under this act. Members believe it is crucial that the act be flexible enough to allow each new territory to implement access to information in a way which is consistent with their goals and objectives.

The working group did not want specific sections of the current legislation tying the hands of future governments. It is important when presenting the proposed amendment that it is clear, the rights to access and privacy have been protected. What we are proposing is the reduce the potential difficulties for both Territories on April 1, 1999, if the legislation were enacted as originally written.

The amendment should provide the access to information and protection of privacy as originally intended as the most practical way with a focus on ensuring people can get the information they need.

Mr. Chairman, I move that this Committee recommends that in view of the current environment of fiscal restraint, The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act be implemented with costs limited to those costs necessary to meet the requirements of the Act.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have some concern with respect, not to the contracting out of the position of Privacy Commission, but I have two concerns here. It states here that the arrangement with an established lawyer. I am of the feeling that we should not put into the Act and limit the occupation of the individual that is to be the Commissioner. Let me explain that, it should be the attributes of the individual that should be considered, not a designation of a title. The attributes

of a Privacy Commissioner, to me, would be someone who has investigative experience, administrative tribunal experience, conflict resolution skills, independency and impartiality, free of government and political association, and decision and arbitrating writing experience. That does not put it into the narrow category of a lawyer. There are many other occupations who could fulfil this position, and I cannot support a bill that would recommend that it be pertained to a lawyer or a law firm. A law firm may have dependency on other contracts in the government, et cetera.

The second item I wish to being attention to is, effect as late as April 1, 1997 of the appointment. I think, to me, it is ultimately important that the privacy commissioner also take part in any training throughout the government that needs to take place. Otherwise, there will be a tremendous backlog of cases because the moment the bill comes into effect, you are going to see the flow of requests for access to information. Departmental staff need to be trained and geared up to take care of those particular problems. I think the privacy commissioner needs to take part in that.

Those are my two areas of concern, Mr. Chairman.

This is the motion that I want to draw attention to. In the preamble, it states that the model for Saskatchewan that lawyers used in this particular motion, it states recommendation three to adopt the Saskatchewan model, implying that the position of privacy commissioner needs to be a lawyer. Again, I want to emphasize that I cannot support the bill if it restricts it to a lawyer or a law firm to be the privacy commissioner. Thank you.