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Government Rejected Its Own Committee’s Preferred Candidate for Privacy Commissioner

With Daniel Therrien, the government’s nominee for Privacy Commissioner of Canada, scheduled to appear before the House of Commons Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee tomorrow, reports this morning provide new insights into the government’s selection process. Josh Wingrove of the Globe reports that there was a short-list of six candidates, but that neither of the presumed leaders – Chantal Bernier and Liz Denham – made the final two short-short list. Treasury Board President Tony Clement ultimately made the final recommendation of Mr. Therrien to Prime Minister Harper, who approved the recommendation.

Stephen Maher reports that the selection committee’s preferred candidate was Lisa Campbell, the Acting Senior Deputy Commissioner of Competition at the Competition Bureau. Maher reports that government officials derailed the recommendation by seeking a second finalist for the position. The report is noteworthy since it confirms that the selection committee’s own recommendation was not followed. The delayed nomination means that no privacy commissioner will appear before the committee studying Bill C-13, the lawful access bill.

2 Comments

  1. yvonne robinson says:

    senior privacy consultant
    I have to wonder if the delay and lack of representation re: Bill C-13 is a coincidence….

  2. MICHAEL H says:

    I HOPE SOMETHING CHANGES
    The Justice Department Of Canada is still refusing to give my family and I our information on the investigations on us for the last 5 years. We have put in about 10 request in the last 5 months and they only answered the first 3 just to tell us they won’t give us our info, they are ignoring our requests now. They tell us to get The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada to investigate why they are holding our info from us. We have applied to The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada about half a dozen times in the last 8 months and they won’t help us. Maybe with this new guy, since he has been working for The Justice Department Of Canada for many years and he is familiar with our case, maybe he will help us because nobody would know more about our case than him. Thanks for reading.