Senator Downe: Actually, no, because as you know, senator, under the Privacy Act, anyone can waive the restrictions. The reason for this is we should not ask others for what we’re not prepared to do ourselves. In this case, our salaries are all disclosed, so it would be whatever the Senate salary is and above that for the CBC employees. It’s not a violation of the Privacy Act because we have all kinds of salaries released publicly across the government.

There’s a clear section in the Privacy Act where the person can waive. I can ask an ambassador, “Who did you have for lunch in Berlin last week?” They can say, “Under the Privacy Act, we are not disclosing,” but they can also waive that and disclose it. That’s the same here.