She has chaired Pharmaceutical External Audit Appeal Board since 2013
Helen Conway Ottenheimer, Newfoundland and Labrador’s minister responsible for access to information and protection of privacy, has shared that lawyer Keri-Lynn Power will perform a statutory review of the province’s Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, 2015.
According to its news release, the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Justice and Public Safety expects Power to commence the review this spring and submit the final report and recommendations to it at the end of next January.
“I look forward to Ms. Power’s recommendations as we build on our leadership in access and privacy in Canada,” Conway Ottenheimer said in the news release.
In force since 2005, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act aims to enable members of the public to access government records and to protect the personal information that public bodies collect, utilize, or disclose.
“Our government is committed to protecting privacy while supporting openness and transparency in the public sector,” Conway Ottenheimer said.
With a statutory review required every five years, the legislation underwent amendments in 2012 and in 2015.
The provincial justice department said it intends to release more information about the statutory review and the related consultation processes in the following weeks.
More on Power
The justice department’s news release provides more information regarding Power’s work in the province.
She has been chair of the Pharmaceutical External Audit Appeal Board since 2013. She has also been a member of the review panel of the Medical Care Insurance Act since 2014 and of the disciplinary panel of the College of Massage Therapists since 2015.
For 12 years, Power acted as an adjudicator for the Human Rights Commission. She also worked as a private practitioner for nearly two decades, clerked at the justice department, and coached for alternative dispute resolution courses.
She has chaired the family law section of the Canadian Bar Association’s Newfoundland and Labrador branch. At the Law Society, she has served on the honours and awards committee and the bar and bench committee.
As an active volunteer, Power received the King Charles III Coronation Medal for Community Services and the 75th Anniversary of Confederation Medal.
She obtained her LLB with honours and a master’s degree in international commercial law from the University of Kent in Canterbury.
Power holds a national accreditation certificate from the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, an executive certificate in conflict management from the University of Windsor Law School – Stitt Feld Handy Group, and a mediation certificate from Harvard Law School’s Harvard Mediation Institute.
She also has certificates in foundations in judicial competencies from the Ontario Bar Association, in trauma-informed advocacy from Mitchell Hamline School of Law, and in fundamentals of Indigenous people and Canadian law from Osgoode Hall Law School.
She was born and raised in Churchill Falls, Newfoundland and Labrador.
