Clauses 1 to 10.

---Clauses 1 through 69 inclusive approved

Bill as a whole?

Does committee agree that Bill 36 is ready for third reading?

---Bill 36 as a whole approved for third reading

Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to take this opportunity to thank the Standing Committee on Social Programs for their thorough review and debate on this bill. I believe, as many of them have said, that this is an incredibly important bill. I really appreciate being here to help bring this bill across the finish line. I really appreciate the Members and support from all the Members. Thank you so much. We’re moving forward. There were a number of recommendations put out to us in the committee report and we will be responding to committee on all of those. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Thank you, witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber. Thank you.

Thank you, committee. We’ll move on to Committee Report

10-17(5), Standing Committee on

Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2013-2014 Annual Report of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories. We will go first to the chair of Government Operations, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Standing Committee on Government Operations submitted its Report on the Review of the 2013-2014 Annual Report

of

the

Information

and

Privacy

Commissioner of the Northwest Territories to the House on February 12, 2015. A motion was adopted by the House to receive the report and move it into Committee of the Whole for further consideration.

The committee would like to acknowledge the continued hard work and dedication of Ms. Elaine Keenan Bengts in her role as Information and Privacy

Commissioner.

Ms.

Keenan

Bengts

highlighted three legislative issues in her report: implementation of new health information privacy

legislation, access by design issues, and ATIPP legislation for municipalities.

The

Standing

Committee

on

Government

Operations

continues

to

support

the

recommendations put forward by the Commissioner and remains committed to bringing these important issues forward to the Assembly. In addition, the committee supports a comprehensive review of the current Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and shares the Commissioner’s concern regarding timely response to access requests.

The

Standing

Committee

on

Government

Operations has included several recommendations in its report and committee members will be introducing those motions here today.

The

concludes

my

opening

comments

on

Committee Report 10-17(5). Other Members may have comments.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. I’ll open the floor to general comments. We’re on Committee Report 10-17(5). General comments. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to

take this opportunity to publicly thank our Information and Privacy Commissioner for a lot of hard work that goes on behind the scenes for someone who, up until now, was in a part-time position. We know, moving forward, we will have the luxury of having someone in the office full time. I think this is going to be a huge step in terms of providing transparency and accountability to all stakeholders across the Northwest Territories. For that, I want to say I’m very pleased that we’re going to be looking at a full-time Privacy Commissioner in the near future.

One of the things that I wanted to echo, and it’s probably not going to be captured in the motions and it probably was not captured in the report. It’s something of an observation that, as we move forward, I think the Information and Privacy Commissioner serves an important role for someone who should be scrutinizing a lot of our acts in the infancy stage of an act or basically when the act is being brought into draft stage. I feel that if we’re able to bring the Privacy Commissioner in early on, it will probably negate a lot of concerns when the bill is tabled and when the bill goes out for public consultation. I’m going to challenge the government.

I’m

going

to

challenge

the

departments and Ministers to make sure that their offices work directly with the Information and Privacy Commissioner as her role becomes more definitive in a full-time capacity.

That said, I also want to echo the fact that with the health-specific privacy legislation coming on board, I believe this fall,

we’re going to see a lot more

intervention when our health care system is being

put into action and also being tested for its accountability and its issues around circle of care and custodian of information. I know the Information and Privacy Commissioner is going to be playing a very key and pertinent role and, again, as a committee member, I’m looking forward to her astute judgment and observation at a high level and protecting the public

’s information and their privacy.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to take this opportunity, as well, to thank the Information and Privacy Commissioner for the work that she does and for her report.

I want to just highlight a couple of things. Some of them have already been highlighted by the chair in his remarks, but a couple of other things. I want to support Mr. Dolynny’s comment about using the Information and Privacy Commissioner at the front end of the development of legislation. I would recommend, as he does, that the government consult

with

the

Information

and

Privacy

Commissioner at the time that an LP is developed, and certainly at the time that the actual act itself is developed.

There were a couple of things in her report which I want to highlight. One is that the number of complaints that came to the office have… I shouldn’t say the complaints have gone down, the number of organizations that she was dealing with went down. There were also two organizations which proactively notified her office of a breach of privacy, which tells me that we’re becoming a little more aware of information and privacy issues and that

organizations

and

departments

and

governments are recognizing that maybe there has been a breach and are choosing to go to the Commissioner with that issue as opposed to waiting until somebody makes a complaint. I think that’s a good advance.

The other thing that I wanted to highlight is that one of her concerns was that quite a few complaints related to delays in a response, and a request for information took an extremely long time. I think it’s something that we as a government need to address. It kind of goes to the issue of looking at access by design and, I think, as a government, there’s a bit more mindset to make more information available to the public. But certainly, when we get information requests from the public, ve

ry often there’s a very long time period before the

person who has made the request actually gets their answer, and that needs to be fixed. We need to be responding to the public in a fairly short period of time.

We also, I think, have to have a greater mindset with regard to the dissemination of information and making government information available to the public. We’re starting to go there and I think the

Department of Finance, through the office of the chief information officer, are advancing that. We have more and more departments that are providing things online and allowing residents to access things online, but we need to, I think, have a mindset that our first thought is to make information accessible. Not that our first thought is to keep information from the public.

I’m very sorry, I guess, and sad to see that we still do not have any action on access to information and

protection

of

privacy

legislation

for

municipalities. This has been an issue that the Information and Privacy Commissioner has brought up probably almost 10 years in a row now. I believe the government is starting to work on it,

but it’s

something which should have been in place certainly by the end of the 17th Assembly, and we’re

not there yet for sure.

I echo Mr. Dolynny’s thoughts about the workload that’s going to be required with the implementation of the Health Information Act and the fact that the Privacy Commissioner is moving to a full-time position is a good thing. It’s going to be necessary in order to ensure that looking after our health information is done in the right and proper way.

That’s, I think, it. This is, again, a good report. I think I’ve seen a good report every time the Information and Privacy Commissioner has put one forward for us. I guess I look forward to seeing some progress, I hope, on the ATIPP for municipalities in the very near future. Again, I just thank the Commissioner for her work.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I’ll go to Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a motion. I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories complete the work necessary to bring municipalities under access to information and protection of privacy legislation;

And further, that the Government of the Northwest Territories renew its commitment to produce and table a full and final report on this issue no later than August 2015, identifying the steps and resources necessary to complete this work in a timely manner;

And furthermore, that a proposal be included for phasing in this work such that tax-based municipalities be brought under the access to information and protection of privacy legislation without delay and leave open the possibility that smaller communities may be incorporated at a later date.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The motion is on the floor and being distributed now. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t need

to comment much more than I already have. This motion is the result of the work of committee and the need that we felt to support the Information and Privacy Commissioner in her desire to get legislation for access to information and protection of privacy legislation for municipalities. This is the result of that work.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion.

The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories provide an updated progress report to this Assembly on work done towards a comprehensive review of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act;

And further, that the Government of the Northwest Territories undertake a review of all previous recommendations

made

regarding

proposed

revisions to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and include in the progress report a status report on how the committee’s

recommendations

are

being

addressed. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The motion is on the floor. The motion has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion.

Question is being called. Motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Moses.