Legislative hearing starts for privacy commissioner reports

Government accountability to privacy and information access is under review Monday at Nunavut's Legislative Assembly.

Over the next two days, the standing committee on oversight of government operations and public accounts will question officials about Nunavut's access to information process — a system that privacy commissioner Graham Steele calls inadequate and outdated in his latest 2021-2022 annual report. 

Citizens should be able to trust the territory to protect personal information, but not all departments are doing that right, standing committee chair George Hickes told CBC News.

"The commissioner is quite blunt in his last annual report saying that the government is not meeting its legislative requirements," he said. "I'd like to hear more about that from the commissioner and from the government on how they can improve the training, the management support and the resources that are given to access to information coordinators across the government." 

Nunavut's Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act predates the territory. While it has seen some updates, Steele's report says the legislation needs an overhaul. 

"We live in a world of surveillance and cyberattacks. Nunavut's legislative response to privacy has not kept up," Steele writes in the report, released in the spring. 

There's also no penalty if the government doesn't respond to requests for information, according to Steele. Right now, the privacy commissioner can only make recommendations. Steele wants to see more authority for his office to require the government to make change. 

At the outset of the hearing Hickes and Steele will provide opening statements, as will the deputy minister of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs, Jimi Onalik. The standing committee last reviewed reports of the privacy commissioner in April 2019. 

"One of the benefits of having a hearing like this is having both parties at the table," says Hickes. 

This is Steele's first full cycle as commissioner, after he replaced the late Elaine Keenan Bengts. Prior to Steele, Nunavut shared a privacy commissioner with the Northwest Territories. 

"Televised standing committee hearings on annual reports of independent officers of the legislative assembly are a routine part of the parliamentary cycle," assembly clerk John Quirke said in an email. 

"These officers are statutorily required to prepare annual reports to the legislative assembly, which the speaker tables in the house," he said.

Following the hearing, the standing committee will make a report to the government. 

The hearing starts at 1:30 ET and will be televised over local community cable stations and direct-to-home satellite service on Bell channel 513 and Shaw channel 289 and channel 489, as well as live-streamed by the Legislative Assembly.