Debates of May 23rd, 2013

Safer Witnesses Act

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I found the hearings quite interesting because we all know that witness protection exists. We know it through popular culture.

However, I had never really stopped to think about how the program works. It is a very small program within government. It is part of the crime agenda that is never really discussed. We have talked about more sensational issues than the witness protection program.

It is very much a lynchpin program. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, the point of the program is to combat group crime, whether that be organized crime selling drugs or whether it be a group of people who might want to commit a terrorist act.

It is a very effective tool against group crime. The fact that everyone supports the legislation speaks loudly that everyone in the House wants to combat crime. It is not a partisan issue.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to rise to speak in support of the bill. Indeed, this is an area that is really critical and one on which the NDP has been pushing really hard. It is good to see the government has listened to our requests to expand the federal witness protection program.

The criteria has been criticized, not just by us but by community members and organizations across our country for its narrow eligibility criteria, for poor coordination with provincial programs and low numbers of witnesses actually admitted to the program.

Before I get into the resourcing, which I might have to leave until we meet again or until I get to continue this dialogue, I really want to talk about the importance of the expansion of the criteria. There are some issues and our history informs us that these steps have to be taken.

I cannot help but stand here and remember the tragedy called Air India, an act of terrorism in Canada that killed hundreds of Canadians on a plane and that led to hundreds of families being impacted for a very long time. We saw whole families being annihilated. I recently met a gentleman who lost his wife and his children on that flight. A man who lived in my riding lost a sister and her family as well.

I also live in a riding in the city of Surrey, the riding of Newton—North Delta, where, if witness protection had been available, maybe the trial on the Air India disaster would have gone differently. I am not the first person to say that. That was said by the judge at the time. As we know, there was a great deal of fear about giving evidence. In fact, people who agreed to give evidence, then pulled back.

Then I have to mention the tragic murder of one of the witnesses. It was our inability to protect witnesses that really ended up being a real barrier and an obstacle to prosecution in the Air India bombing case. A witness, Tara Singh Hayer, whose son and daughter live in Surrey, was a publisher of the B.C. based Times of India. He was assassinated in 1998, making the affidavit he had given to the RCMP in 1995 inadmissible as evidence. Here is the stark reality of why the criteria for the federal witness program absolutely needs to be expanded, and we are pleased it has been.

Two other witnesses refused to appear before the Air India inquiry in 2007, citing fears for their safety. As a result of our failure collectively, what it has meant is that those families live in anguish even today. Yes, because they lost their loved ones, but more because they feel justice has not been done. For that reason alone, this legislation is really critical. At the time, Justice Major acknowledged he was unable to provide the necessary protection.

My heart goes out to the families that were impacted by that disaster and we mourn today because we failed to mete out justice to those who did great harm to the nation.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Newton—North Delta will have 15 minutes remaining for her comments when the House next returns to debate on the question.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members’ business as listed on today's order paper.

Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

moved that bill C-475, An Act to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (order-making power), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is with deep conviction that I initiate the first hour of debate on my Bill C-475, the purpose of which is to bring the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act into the digital age.

I would like to begin by reading from a statement by the Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, released this morning:

“PIPEDA is not up to the task of meeting the challenges of today--and certainly not those of tomorrow”.

It is therefore no surprise that she should have said this, because this legislation has not been updated since the arrival of the first-generation iPod. Matters evolve very quickly in the digital age, and the law is no longer relevant.

Millions of Canadians have never known a world without smart devices. It is an eternity in a modern society undergoing constant change, as ours is.

The Internet is central to our lives, because we use it daily. It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that Quebeckers and Canadians will spend about 45 hours a week online in 2013, that over 70% of Canadians use the Internet daily, and that our fellow citizens have more than 18 million Facebook accounts.

Canada as a country is firmly plugged in. For a few years now, laptops and devices like tablets have been used both recreationally and as working tools. They occupy an increasingly crucial place in our lives. We are moving more and more towards digital management of our lives. This major change means that new rules must be put in place and that they must reflect the new risks associated with these developments in the digital world.

Since the beginning of this year alone, we have witnessed serious losses of data, including data on 52,000 Canadian investors in February and more than 50 million clients of LivingSocial in April.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada recently stated that breaches of personal data have been steadily increasing in recent years. In that connection, a study by Telus and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, published in 2011, showed that each public company experienced an average of 18 data breaches a year.

Unfortunately, the current legislation designed to protect Canadians’ privacy has not been updated to address these risks and put appropriate measures in place to protect society. The current legislation does not provide for Canadians to be notified of a breach of their personal information. Organizations are not in fact required to notify them, regardless of the seriousness of the breach. This means that our fellow citizens cannot take appropriate action to protect their identity or their credit in order to reduce any harm they might suffer.

I am referring in particular to our passwords, social insurance numbers, personal emails or even the bank account numbers needed to make online purchases. The sharing of personal information with third parties, without consent, is a major problem in Canada.

In September 2011, the Privacy Commissioner noted that a quarter of the most-visited websites in Canada do not comply with Canadian law; they disclose our data without our consent. This bothers me a great deal, particularly when I think of children, the elderly and people who have not had the good fortune to learn how the Internet works and what the risks are. What is much worse is that companies that decide to do this do not currently suffer any consequences.

For more than 10 years, Canadians have been waiting for a better regulatory framework. They are rightly expecting results along those lines, and it is in that spirit that I decided to introduce Bill C-475. The bill proposes two simple and effective mechanisms to improve protection of Canadians’ personal information.

First, it requires that the commissioner be notified by any organization having personal information under its control when there is a possible risk of harm to users.

Experts in the commissioner’s office will assess the seriousness of the situation against a criterion for harm that sets a high standard. They will also recommend whether or not the organization should notify the users affected.

This mechanism allows for an objective analysis of the risk and better management of the risk through an expectation of a high level of security, rather than a subjective analysis based on the interests of the organization, which may differ from the interests of users.

The process will restore to Canadians the power to take steps to protect themselves much more quickly, in addition to reducing the harm done to them.

The second mechanism provided for in Bill C-475 is based on the Alberta model. It is designed to give the Privacy Commissioner order-making power when an organization fails to obey the law. The Federal Court would have legislated authority to penalize organizations that fail to carry out an order issued by the commissioner.

These mechanisms are straightforward and clarify the commissioner’s powers. In short, the Office of the Commissioner will now have the power to enforce the law, which unfortunately is not now the case.

By providing better oversight of organizations and the use of personal information to which they have access, Bill C-475 gives Canadians an assurance of acceptable risk management and the right to protection of their information. This bill was drafted to address the concerns of Canadians, people in the digital industry, civil liberties organizations, Internet experts and specialists in the protection of privacy.

I had the opportunity to hear a great deal of evidence from experts during a study the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics conducted on social media and privacy from May to December 2012.

Bill C-475 is a direct response to requests from the community to adapt the law to suit our digital age by providing some flexibility for people in the industry and clarifying the ombudsman’s role of the Office of the Commissioner.

Moreover, during many consultations specifically discussing the bill, the same conclusions emerged. The bill therefore takes a very balanced approach. It is balanced with regard to Canadians, since objective risk analysis will ensure that they are not bombarded with notifications of data breaches that do not affect them at all or present a minimal risk. The bill is also balanced with regard to companies, since clear roles and processes enable them to plan their policies and response.

It will be clear for organizations that they are required to report a breach to the Office of the Commissioner, but they will not be responsible for deciding what the ultimate risk is. Companies that are law-abiding will no longer have to compete with companies that are not.

Lastly, the bill makes it possible to bring our privacy protection legislation up to the same level as countries like Germany, Great Britain, Australia and France, or indeed to the level of provinces such as Quebec and Alberta.

As a world leader in technology, Canada should be adopting international standards.

Bill C-475 offers a different vision from that proposed by my colleagues opposite, who in 2007 introduced Bill C-12, which is no longer supported by the Privacy Commissioner. They will probably tell me they have already introduced a bill to modernize the Privacy Act, but I would like to remind them that it dates from 2007 and is absolutely not representative of our day and age, particularly when you consider that technology changes extremely quickly.

Bill C-12 was introduced in the House, but there has been no debate for six years, and its content has therefore become outdated. It certainly no longer represents a serious attempt by the government to modernize the legislation in order to better protect the public. Moreover, a problem with the mechanisms proposed in Bill C-12 to deal with a breach shows that it is completely inadequate.

The risk threshold for notifying the Office of the Commissioner is very low and subjective. This poses two major problems. The first is that because the threshold is low, users and the Office of the Commissioner will be notified less often in the event of a breach.

Organizations could avoid notifying those concerned, which poses a major problem with regard to their security. Nor will they have the power to protect themselves and reduce the potential harm to which they are exposed.

The second problem is that experts testifying before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics explained the need to obtain better data in order to gain a better understanding of the cybersecurity risks Canadians face every day. A low, subjective threshold reduces the data to which they will have access, which makes them less able to advise the government and companies on the risks associated with their practices.

My bill establishes an objective threshold, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner will be mandated to assess the risk associated with a breach. The interests of Canadians, which we in this House have the responsibility to protect, will be paramount.

Quebeckers and Canadians support the measures and principles in my bill. In April the Office of the Privacy Commissioner published a cross-Canada survey showing that 97% of Canadians would want to be notified by an organization if their personal information was compromised. Note that this is the overwhelming majority. In addition, 80% of respondents would also grant more powers to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. Again, a large majority of Canadians supported these measures.

My bill has garnered support from all classes of stakeholders affected by these changes, including industry representatives, civil liberties organizations, consumer protection agencies and academics specializing in law, communications, cybercrime and political science. I could go on, but there are too many to name them all.

The Union des consommateurs has stated that:

[it] believes that the implementation of the principles proposed by the NDP, through their private member’s bill amending the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, constitutes a real advancement to better protect the privacy of consumers.

Michael Geist, chair of Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa and renowned public affairs pundit, has said about my bill that:

Bill C-475 is a far better proposal.... Those provisions would do far to ensure a greater respect for Canadian privacy law and give Canadians the assurance of notifications in the event of security breaches.

Steve Anderson, executive director at OpenMedia.ca, stated that:

We welcome...[this] online privacy bill because we think it's a tool that can later be applied to protect our privacy against reckless warrantless access to our private information by government authorities. This bill is a useful stepping stone to safeguard our privacy.

Canadians trust us to act in their best interests. They clearly want us to give them better protection. By voting for Bill C-475, my hon. colleagues will be giving them the reassurance of stronger support for their rights and the power to protect their privacy.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill. I have two questions for the member.

The member's bill would empower the Federal Court to impose fines of non-compliance with an enforcement order by the Privacy Commissioner. Why would we not have an opportunity for the Privacy Commissioner herself to impose fines rather than having to go through the Federal Court?

Recently the Privacy Commissioner released a white paper on a similar topic. How does the member's bill compare to the white paper that the commissioner released today?

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague who also worked very hard. He studied social networks and privacy with us in committee.

With respect to his first question, I would say that it is a private member's bill and therefore cannot incur costs or expenditures. That is a short answer to an interesting question.

In response to his second question, the Privacy Commissioner released a report today indicating the changes she would like to see in the law protecting privacy. She has some excellent suggestions, which correspond exactly to what I am proposing in my bill.

There is real consensus among experts on the protection of privacy and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. These measures have the support of a substantial portion of the population. We must move forward with these measures.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what is concerning about Bill C-12, which the government has brought forward, is that it actually lowers the standards for the protection of privacy rights in this country. It allows a subjective test for companies that are dealing with a data breach. The threshold now is that a company assesses significant risk before it informs citizens. It is as if the government is trying to create a hackers' paradise in Canada. It has no standards for defending private information when it is lost in its offices. It does not inform the Privacy Commissioner.

The Privacy Commissioner has said that the government's bill is insufficient for protecting the privacy rights of Canadians. Given the serious issues of identity theft and hackers, I would ask my honourable colleague this: In light of what the Privacy Commissioner has come out with today about the need for order-making powers and the authority to protect privacy data from hacking, how does she compare what she is trying to do with her bill, which is address the protection of privacy data in the age of big data, with the government, which is creating such a loophole that almost any company playing loosey-goosey with the privacy rights of Canadians would be able to slip through? It seems that the government would prefer to protect the bad apples than protect Canadian citizens.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague who also works very hard on the protection of personal information.

As I pointed out in my speech, the bill introduced by the government dates back to 2007. It is no longer pertinent or practical and does not address the risks that are present today, in the digital age, in 2013. The threshold proposed by the Conservatives is very subjective. It would allow organizations to carry out their own assessment of the situation and the risk present even though these organizations are often not in the best position to carry out such assessments.

I am proposing that, when there is a risk, all organizations report it to the commissioner. It will then be up to the commissioner to examine the risk and the loss of data and to decide whether the risk of harm is serious or not. That is what we must implement.

I invite all members of the House to bring our privacy protection laws into the digital age to ensure that they address clear and present risks.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to private member's Bill C-475.

I thank the hon. member for the opportunity to discuss our government's approach to protecting Canadians from data breaches. This issue is one of many the government has committed to addressing in its own bill to update the Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act, namely Bill C-12, which is currently awaiting second reading.

I wish to point out that the data breach notification regime proposed in Bill C-475 takes a starkly different approach than that in Bill C-12. Bill C-475 requires organizations to first notify the Privacy Commissioner of every potential data breach, regardless of context or remoteness. The Privacy Commissioner must then determine whether affected individuals should be notified. Given the potential number of breaches that could be reported, such a regime would increase costs and burdensome compliance procedures for Canadian businesses and would impose an unwieldy financial and administrative burden on the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, generating more costs than benefits for taxpayers.

In contrast to the approach in Bill C-475, Bill C-12 requires that organizations determine whether a breach of personal information poses a real risk of significant harm to individuals. The organization experiencing the breach is in the best position to understand and assess the risks and decide quickly what should be done to protect individuals without delay. With appropriate oversight by the Privacy Commissioner, the responsibility should rest with the organization experiencing the breach. Bill C-12 also requires an organization to report a potential breach to the Privacy Commissioner when there is real risk of significant harm.

The Privacy Commissioner retains oversight of the notification process and would have the option of initiating an investigation if it were believed that notification was not done properly or did not occur when it was required. This also provides her office with information on the nature and number of breaches that have occurred.

There are other differences between the approaches to notification taken in the two bills. Bill C-475 states two factors that are to be used by an organization when determining whether to report a breach to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. These factors are the sensitivity of the information and the number of individuals impacted by the breach. The use of only these two factors to determine risk related to a breach does not allow for consideration of circumstances to determine if a potential breach could be harmful.

This approach in Bill C-475 to determine whether to report a breach to the commissioner would also not capture breaches impacting only one or a few individuals, even where there is a high risk of significant harm to those individuals. This leaves a large portion of potentially harmful incidents outside of the legislation.

By contrast, Bill C-12 lays out different factors for determining whether a breach poses a real risk of harm, namely the sensitivity of the information and the potential for the misuse of that information. This requires the organization to assess all the circumstances around the breach, including, for example, whether the information was encrypted, whether it was fully recovered, or whether the circumstances suggest criminal involvement. All of these issues must be considered when determining the risk related to a particular data breach. If not, we run the risk of not capturing all harmful breaches or of focusing on capturing too many remote potential breaches, thereby increasing the burden on organizations and quite possibly reducing the commissioner's capacity for dealing with those that would cause harm.

Under Bill C-475, the proposed threshold to be used by the Privacy Commissioner for determining whether to order an organization to notify individuals is “appreciable risk of harm”. This term is ambiguous and is not defined in the bill. It is therefore not clear what type of breaches this threshold is meant to capture.

The manner of notification to individuals required by Bill C-475 is stated as “...clear and delivered directly...in the prescribed form and manner”. However, there are no details provided on what that form and manner would entail. Furthermore, the bill would not provide for regulation-making power to address this. PIPEDA applies to a very broad range of organizations of all sizes to ensure the timely notification of individuals. The means of notification imposed by any legislative requirement should be flexible enough to accommodate the varying circumstances in which these organizations find themselves.

For example, Bill C-12 would allow organizations to use means of notification such as website notices or paid advertisements, where necessary. This can be an important tool in situations where there is a large group of individuals who have not provided their current contact details, for instance. Organizations need access to every method available to reach those concerned in a timely manner. The new requirement proposed by Bill C-475 would create considerable uncertainty and would be burdensome and costly for organizations. In the U.S., where this issue is tracked annually, the average cost to an organization of a single notification is estimated to be $194. The average total cost to an organization for a data breach is approximately $5.5 million. As entrepreneurs in our communities strive to grow our economy and create jobs for Canadian families, we should take care to examine more efficient alternatives to ineffective procedures. These new requirements might even diminish the value of notification because of notification fatigue, causing individuals to ignore the numerous notices they receive. Bill C-475 would thus undermine its own purpose.

In summary, the opposition's approach in Bill C-475 would impose an administrative burden on the Privacy Commissioner and a financial burden on organizations and would impede timely disclosure of data breaches to individuals. Bill C-475 also does not define key terms adequately and does not capture many potentially harmful breaches, such as those involving a small number of individuals.

The notification regime proposed under Bill C-12, on the other hand, is a careful, risk-based approach that would balance the need for notification to individuals with the cost of notification. The comprehensive approach of Bill C-12 could be applied to the vast range of circumstances and considerations faced by the various types of businesses, both large and small, that are subject to our federal private-sector privacy legislation.

I would therefore urge hon. members to oppose Bill C-475, and I invite the opposition to join us in support of Bill C-12 and move it to committee for detailed consideration as soon as possible.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member talking about supporting Bill C-12. The problem is that the bill has been sitting on the order paper now for almost a year and the government has done absolutely nothing in advancing it, so that we could get it to committee and have a debate on it. One thing that Bill C-475 does is move forward the debate on privacy and the access to and protection of people's private information.

We are encouraged by Bill C-475 and want to get it to committee so we can update the legislation that has been in place. Only today, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Commissioner Stoddart, said we are falling behind and we are at risk of not being up to date with others around the world.

PIPEDA has been in place since 2001 with no changes since that particular date. On that, Commissioner Stoddart said:

Back in 2001, when PIPEDA began coming into force, --and even when I became Privacy Commissioner in 2003--there was no Facebook, no Twitter and no Google Street View. Phones weren’t smart. “The cloud” was something that threatened picnic plans. And predictive analytics was largely the domain of tarot card readers.

Things have changed in the last 15 years and we need to get up to date. Bill C-475 is a good first start. We need to also look at the commissioner's white paper released today, because she did say we are at risk of falling behind.

The reforms that need to be made to PIPEDA include stronger enforcement powers, requiring organizations to report breaches of personal information, requiring organizations to publicly report the number of disclosures they make and modifying the accountability principle.

One of the things the commissioner even said today is that she has no power. The only power the commissioner has is to name companies who breach these laws, so we need strong legislation and enforcement powers, and we need to make sure she has power to fine. Some of that may be in Bill C-12, but we have not seen that and we have not seen it being moved forward in the legislature.

These things do need to be updated. We look forward to having some more debate and getting this bill to committee so that we can really dig into it to see how these changes are going to have an impact and what improvements may need to be made to the bill from the information commissioner. We look forward to doing that in committee.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today in support of Bill C-475, put forward by my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville. This is an extremely important initiative for all Canadians.

Frankly, the question that arises is: Whatever happened to Bill C-12? This was to be the government's showpiece legislation to reform private sector privacy in Canada. That was back on September 29, 2011, and it is missing in action. As my colleagues have said repeatedly, privacy is the victim. Canadians are expecting, in this 21st century world in which we live, this digital economy, that their privacy will be protected.

I want to say in my remarks that this is good for business. This is actually essential for business. We can talk about privacy protection in the private sector as a human right, but we can also talk about it as being good for business, and I want to give a couple of examples where, in fact, we have kind of missed the boat on that.

The government had the opportunity. There was a requirement for it to bring in Bill C-12. It did not do this because of privacy protection concerns or even for good business reasons; it had to do it because the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act required that there be a statutory review. It has taken a long time, and I guess we will have another statutory review before it ever deals with Bill C-12. The point is that it is not just bad for privacy for all the reasons I have said, including the digital economy changing so utterly since 2001, but it is bad for business. That is a language the government, presumably, will understand, so let me talk about business.

We live in a world of big data. The current Foreign Affairs magazine talks about the rise of big data. Canadian Business magazine talks about a couple of examples where Canada, sadly, dropped the ball. Let me explain.

A few years ago Google made overtures in Quebec, but the provincial government and Hydro-Québec were unwilling to provide the kind of electricity required so a large data centre could be situated in that jurisdiction. What happened? Google went to Finland and, as a result, the company built a 350-million-euro data centre. Facebook is currently building a 900,000-square-foot facility 100 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle in Sweden. There is a gigantic industry available for gigantic data, and Canada is missing the train. Why is that?

We have cheap electricity by world standards. That should be easy. We have a very secure Canadian Shield in which we could situate these large data centres. Places like Kamloops in British Columbia have been considered. Here is what else we have. We have laws in the private sector that are substantially similar to those of the European Union. It has a very strong data protection law there. It cares deeply about privacy in that jurisdiction. Companies like Facebook have come to Canada and, essentially, test driven their new privacy regimes to see if they pass muster under the Canadian privacy laws, because if they do, they probably will pass muster in the European Union, the U.K. and places of that sort, since our laws are substantially similar.

Canada is perfectly situated between the United States and Europe with a relatively robust privacy protection regime to attract lots of business, but we dropped the ball. The government has utterly dropped the ball with Bill C-12. Who knows if it will ever see the light of day? I say that is tragic for business.

My colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville has spoken strongly in favour of privacy as a constitutional right, and that is true, of course, but the business side of this is good as well. What does her bill do? It does two fundamental things. It deals with breach notification, which according to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada today, 97% of Canadians think is a good idea, according to a poll. Talk about a no-brainer. Second, it talks about better enforcement provisions and order-making powers. Let me speak about each of those things that her bill would do.

First, in Bill C-475 there is a requirement to notify the commissioner of a breach if there is a possible risk of harm. We have seen lots of breaches where credit card information has found its way to various places it ought not to be, and the like, medical information, information that Canadians hold dear. If there is a risk of harm, the notification must be made in a form prescribed in regulations or otherwise specified by the commissioner.

We do not put everything in statutes; we wait for regulations to put flesh on the bones. That is how we do business. It is not surprising that is the way this has been proposed in Bill C-475 as well.

Then there was some concern because the bill talks about the commissioner requiring the organization to notify affected individuals to whom there is an “appreciable risk of harm” as a result of the data breach. Somehow I gather we should be criticized for the appreciable risk not being spelled out. Well, do we have “reasonable person” standards spelled out in our laws? Do we have every situation in the Criminal Code spelled out? Of course not. We use general words. We allow courts and commissioners and regulatory bodies to figure out what those mean. That is the way we do business. It is not surprising that has not been spelled out in detail here either. That is entirely consistent with normal Canadian drafting processes.

The commissioner would have the ability to order the private sector organization to notify individuals and the bill provides a certain number of criteria that should be considered in doing so. Then there is the possibility of an administrative monetary penalty, depending on certain factors that are listed, of up to $500,000. There is, of course, the issue of the right of action that the commissioner might have against an organization that has not complied with orders.

To me, these are entirely common sense, entirely 21st century provisions. I am so pleased that Canada's highly respected privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has agreed entirely with these initiatives at a press conference in Toronto today. I thought this quote was perfectly in line with my colleague's bill. She said:

Personal information has been called the oil of the digital economy. As organizations find new ways to profit from personal information, the risks to privacy are growing exponentially.

That goes to the point that the law we have in Canada, although good at the time in 2001, is entirely out of date and everyone knows it has to be improved. The Conservatives seem to not want to do that. Therefore, this bill would at least get us half the way there with two key things.

Finally, we would have order making power for the commissioner. I live in British Columbia. In my province and in the provinces of Quebec, Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador, people have had the ability for this umpire in the game, this ombudsperson, to make orders where appropriate, and the sky has not fallen. It seems to me it has worked extremely well.

Why is it that we have taken so long to come up with what has been proven to be a huge success story at the provincial level? Imagine that: an administrative body making an order. How many thousands of examples can we find in Canadian legislation of just that kind of power? This is hardly surprising or radical. It is consistent with administrative justice regimes we find at the federal and provincial levels across the country.

The other thing Canadians want is breach notification. That is the other key element in this initiative. Why? It is because it is the most visceral example of privacy violation. When thousands of records frequently find themselves in the hands of others, not only is there a risk of identity theft and enormous personal loss, not only is it a drain on our economy if that occurs, but there is also a sense of enormous personal violation when individuals' privacy is put at risk.

There is an example in the United Kingdom, where someone left a data stick in the back of one of those black London taxis. It contained the records of several million British taxpayers. Just think what one could do with that information, not just economically. Think of the kind of very sensitive information that would entail. One could find out who was paying money to people, for example, who might have children of whom their current partner was unaware. That would be shown by way of alimony payments and maintenance payments that could be deducted from income tax.

There are a zillion examples of those kinds of breaches. Canadians are worried about that. According to our privacy commissioner, 97% in a survey expressed that concern.

I want to congratulate my colleague for her excellent work in bringing forward Bill C-475. I am shocked that our Government of Canada has not seen fit to move forward with Bill C-12. We get more platitudes about it but no action. I am thankful for the action this legislation entails.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to comment on private member's Bill C-475 tabled by my colleague, the member of Parliament for Terrebonne—Blainville.

First, I will correct the record for the hon. member. I think it was February 15, and I do not know if the hon. member was here, when our House leader certainly made very clear that we were willing to move Bill C-12 to committee, but it was obstructed by the opposition party that denied consent for that.

The Internet has become a platform for commerce. More and more online transactions rely on flows of information, including personal information. In fact, personal information is often cited as the lifeblood of the modern economy. It is a key asset and a driver for innovation. However, for information to continue to be an engine of growth and innovation, it is necessary to maintain a solid foundation of trust in the fair and responsible handling of personal information.

As the opposition is well aware, the government already has amendments to PIPEDA before the House in the form of Bill C-12, the safeguarding Canadians' personal information act. The amendments in this bill are the result of extensive public consultations and reflect the work of our parliamentary committee and legislative review process. They reflect the values of Canadian consumers as well as the realities of the marketplace.

Bill C-12 establishes broad-based, balanced, comprehensive improvements to PIPEDA which set out enhanced protections for Canadians' privacy, while ensuring that legitimate business needs for information are met.

By contrast, the opposition's approach to privacy in Bill C-475 introduces only two new measures in PIPEDA. The first of these is a potentially costly and administratively burdensome data breach notification regime.

Bill C-475 would require that organizations report every data breach involving a “possible risk of harm”, no matter how remote to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. The commissioner must then spend time determining whether each one of those breaches poses an “appreciable risk of harm”, and thereby warrants notification to affected individuals.

In contrast, the government's Bill C-12 proposes an approach to data breach notification that balances the cost to organizations of unnecessary notifications with the needs of consumers.

Bill C-12 would require notification to individuals only in situations where the organization determined that a breach carried a “real risk of significant harm”, which includes both financial harm, such as fraud, and non-financial harm, such as humiliation. This would eliminate the need for costly notification where it was not needed. This would minimize the compliance burden on organizations and reduce the risk of notification fatigue among consumers, while ensuring individuals would get the information they needed to protect themselves.

The opposition's Bill C-475 contains a lengthy list of consequences for non-compliance. This includes a monetary penalty of up to $500,000, which I am sure members will agree is a significant amount. However, should penalties for small businesses in our communities be as large as those of multinationals? The opposition seems to think this should be the case because Bill C-475 is silent on this question.

In contrast, the proposed measures in Bill C-12 reflect the importance of personal information to the smooth functioning of the marketplace. They address barriers to information flows, which were unforeseen when the act first came into force. They clarify and streamline privacy rules for business, while at the same time providing companies with the information they require to continue to grow and prosper.

Consumer information plays a role in many legitimate businesses. Financing transactions and acquisitions that occur in the normal course of development of many businesses require an assessment of business assets. These assets can include databases containing the personal information of customers the businesses intend to keep serving or information about the training and skills of employees who will continue to work with the business. Without the ability to access this personal information, it can be difficult for companies to assess the economic viability of a particular transaction.

Bill C-12 proposes to amend PIPEDA to enable companies to review personal information when necessary to conduct the proper due diligence prior to engaging in business dealings. Before any information can be shared between parties to a business transaction, each party must enter into a formal agreement that constrains the use of the information to purposes related to the transaction itself. In keeping with PIPEDA's existing principles, the agreement must also require the parties to protect that information with strong security safeguards.

Bill C-12 involves amendments that will remove barriers to the availability of information that is necessary to establish, manage or end an employment relationship.

Private sector representatives and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada have recognized that adjustments to PIPEDA were needed to reflect the unique context of the employment relationship.

As a result, Bill C-12 would amend the act to address situations where, for example, employers might need to collect and use the personal information of their employees to issue identification cards and control access to restricted areas.

These measures have been carefully balanced to maintain the protection of employee privacy by limiting the collection, use or disclosure of employees' personal information to that which is absolutely necessary and by ensuring that individuals are notified when their information is being collected, used or disclosed in the employment context.

Bill C-12 also follows up on other key recommendations. For instance, it would provide greater certainty and would clarify rules for business by streamlining private sector investigations. PIPEDA currently allows companies to share personal information with organizations that have a legitimate mandate to conduct investigations into breaches of agreements and contraventions of the law.

However, under PIPEDA, a burdensome and lengthy regulatory process is required in order to render this effective. To date, four separate regulatory processes have had to be launched to allow for the designation of 84 organizations or classes of investigative organizations with more expected.

Under Bill C-12, if passed, Parliament will act to replace this onerous regulatory process with an exception that will enable the information to be shared only in limited circumstances. Indeed, the government will only allow this information to be shared when it is necessary for the conduct of investigations and for fraud prevention.

I believe Bill C-12 provides a better model for the enhancement of privacy protection in Canada. I do not believe Bill C-475 provides the same balanced and comprehensive model.

I call upon members to support Bill C-12 rather than Bill C-475. I would mention for my colleagues from across the way that if they actually want to pass Bill C-12, as they seem to, both parties have mentioned it in the last few minutes, we would be glad to have that discussion and move it to committee tomorrow.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Before I begin, Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the members opposite that Bill C-475 does not represent a comprehensive review of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and for that reason, it cannot be compared with the government’s Bill C-12, which does in fact constitute a thorough review and is much broader in scope. Therefore I would invite the members to learn more about this bill before criticizing it.

I am especially pleased today to speak to this bill which was introduced by my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville. Since being elected she has worked tirelessly on various issues related to the digital world. In particular, she fought against Bill C-30 and forced the Conservative government to kill its online spying bill. She also held public consultations on the North Shore on personal information protection as it relates to her bill.

Today, with Bill C-475, my colleague is calling for the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to be modernized to take into account the new digital reality. It is hard to believe that this legislation has not been modernized since it was first passed 13 years ago in 2000. Back then, there were no iPods, smart phones, Facebook or Twitter, and I did not even have an email address. It is time for the government to blow the cobwebs away and modernize this legislation to better protect Canadians’ personal information.

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act is based on the ombudsman model. The primary duty of the privacy commissioner is to investigate complaints concerning privacy breaches. The privacy commissioner has the power to investigate, to file complaints, to conduct audits and to publicly report on an organization’s personal information management practices. However, the act does not give the commissioner the power to make compliance orders, or in other words, to order organizations to amend their practices or face a fine if they fail to do so.

To clearly grasp the issue here, I would like to give a few examples that illustrate the need to give the Privacy Commissioner more powers. The commissioner recalled that in 2010, the retailer Staples had failed to delete all of the client data stored on devices such as laptops or USB hard drives that had been returned to their stores and were slated for resale. What is most disturbing is that this retailer had been investigated twice before and was still not complying with the commissioner’s orders.

Let us be honest here. The government created a watchdog who in essence has been muzzled. This watchdog does not have the power to enforce the act. This initiative by my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville would give the Privacy Commissioner the means to do her job.

Another example is Google Street View, which collected personal information such as email addresses, emails, usernames, passwords, telephone numbers and street addresses. The commissioner found that this practice constituted a serious breach of Canadians’ right to privacy. In this instance, the outcome was a little more positive. Google appears to have accepted the recommendations of the commissioner, who observed that the company was on the right track to resolving these major problems.

I should also like to mention the Edmonton-based site Nexopia, which describes itself as the largest social networking site for young Canadians. The site has over 1.6 million registered users, 80% of whom live in Canada. Nexopia.com users create profiles, engage in blogging, create photo galleries and post articles, artwork, music, poems and videos. The problem is that Nexopia does not have any kind of system in place to block public searches of the profiles of young users, and the website does not allow users to shield their profile from the public. You can see the problem.

These facts are troubling, considering that young people are often careless when it comes to their personal information and that they are targeted by many companies and some offenders. The commissioner conducted a thorough investigation, found that this organization was not in compliance with the legislation in a number of areas and issued 24 recommendations.

Following the release of her report, the federal Privacy Commissioner was forced to ask the Federal Court to make an order compelling Nexopia to stop retaining personal information. Since this action was launched, Nexopia has changed hands, and we are still waiting for the new owner to follow up on all of the commissioner’s recommendations.

Bill C-475 introduced by my colleague attempts to resolve much of the problem by amending the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act in two ways. First, it would give the Privacy Commissioner enforcement powers, the power to order an organization that has failed to comply with the act to take the necessary steps to comply. Any organization that refused to take action within the timeframe set by the commissioner would risk a fine of up to $500,000.

As well, the bill makes it mandatory to signal any data breaches that could harm an individual. If an individual's personal information has been compromised in a way that could harm that individual, the organization responsible must inform the privacy commissioner of the violation. The commissioner can then determine if the violation could harm the individual and may force the organization responsible to inform the individual that their personal information has been compromised. Non-compliance could result in a fine of up to $500,000.

We believe that this will help increase compliance with the law, reduce the cost of the current process, and reduce delays. It will also establish solid case law that will allow individuals and organizations to better understand their rights and responsibilities.

I would like to point out that three provinces already have laws that are basically similar to the federal law concerning privacy in the private sector. Unlike Ottawa, the provinces of Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia empower their commissioner to make binding decisions in certain circumstances.

As my colleague mentioned when she introduced the bill, it seems that there is a consensus among the public to increase fines for offenders. As the Commissioner said, it is important to note that Canadians are the heaviest Internet users worldwide, spending an average of 45 hours a month online.

We are also among the most avid users of networking websites in the world. I was not surprised to hear that half of Canadians are on Facebook. In light of those statistics, it is not surprising that privacy is an ongoing concern for Canadians.

The 2011 Canadians and Privacy Survey found that the vast majority of respondents are in favour of stiff penalties for organizations that fail to protect peoples' privacy. More than 8 out of 10 respondents want to see measures passed to name offending organizations, impose fines or take the organizations to court.

The Commissioner herself is calling for more power to fulfill her mandate. In her 2011 report, she said:

In recent years, we have seen very serious, large-scale data breaches. Data breach notification, in itself, may not be sufficient to create the kind of incentives necessary to ensure that organizations take security issues more seriously in the current environment. Many other countries are taking a harder line on breaches. For example, the United States has been a leader in this area and virtually all states have data breach laws. Meanwhile, a European Commission Regulation proposed in early 2012 included data breach provisions and very significant fining powers for European data protection authorities. Commissioner Stoddart has encouraged the federal government to explore strengthened enforcement options that would create stronger incentives for organizations to ensure personal information is adequately protected.

The report could not have been any clearer.

Why are the Conservatives so soft on those whose business practices are compromising Canadians' personal data?

As a final point, it is important to understand that the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and this bill apply to the use of personal information only in the private sector. Ideally, the proposed measures would also apply to government organizations.

I know in the past my hon. colleague has asked the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics to examine the possibility of opening up the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to resolve this issue.

In closing, it is unfortunate that the Conservatives oppose this, and I hope we can come up with a solution to this serious problem.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

[For continuation of proceedings see Part B]

[Continuation of proceedings from Part A]

The House resumed from February 13 consideration of the motion that Bill S-12, an act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and to make consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to the incorporation by reference in regulations act.

I feel I must pause for a moment and start from the very beginning. When I first arrived in Ottawa as a newly elected member of Parliament, scrutiny of regulations, or regs, as many call it, was the first committee that I served on. I was excited about it as I had expressed an interest prior on this particular committee and the very important work that it does. I soon discovered that some of my more experienced colleagues, upon hearing the news that I had joined the regs committee, were far more frequent to express condolences to me as opposed to congratulations.

Regs is not a committee that often makes headlines, and here I will digress for a brief moment. Shakespeare once famously wrote, “Thou crusty batch of nature”. As the member of Parliament for Papineau well knows, today we often express this sentiment much differently. The point I raise, as conveyed by Shakespeare, is it is not only what one says but rather how one says it that matters.

I submit that this same principle holds true for us as parliamentarians and more so when it comes to drafting technical legislation, although what we draft would probably not be seen as to rival Shakespeare. Though our intent may be clear, it is the language that we use that is of paramount importance. Unlike Shakespeare, government regulations should be able to evolve and adapt over time, along with technology and society, ensuring that the original intent be translated into language and standards that are clear and current. That is why I am here today supporting Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act.

Members may ask what incorporation by reference is, aside from a potential new question in a future House of Commons' edition of Trivial Pursuit. Incorporation by reference, as outlined in Bill S-12, deals with a regulatory drafting technique. If the bill had a slogan attached to it, I would submit it would be called the “let us not reinvent the wheel act” when it comes to technical legislation and regulation. I would like to expand on that thought.

In Canada, we currently have many technical and highly regulated areas. Some examples of this include the regulation of medical devices, the control and collection of organs for donation and those regulations that govern shipbuilding standards. In many cases, these regulations may well be set by international or nationally recognized associations. The question is this. How do we encapsulate these regulations into legislation and, more rightfully, is there a more effective and efficient way to do that? Bill S-12 does exactly that. That is why I am here to support Bill S-12.

How does Bill S-12 work? In plain English the bill codifies the ability of government to use a commonly used drafting technique of incorporation by reference while clearly prescribing when and how the technique is to be used. Put another way, it enables regulations to incorporate external material without having to duplicate that material. by simply referencing it in the text of the regulation. This cuts down the onerous amount of material that would have to be included and duplicated in a number of regulations.

Further, by adding “as amended from time to time” to the reference of the external material, the regulation can stay current with any changes made to those standards without the regulation or legislation itself having to be amended or altered. This allows for regulations to be fluid, current and responsive. This in turn cuts down on unnecessary duplication of legislation and prevents regulations from becoming stale-dated.

Incorporation by reference is a widely used, common sense drafting technique, but this bill would legitimize it and place clear direction on its proper use.

I will provide another example of how this could work.

If a regulation provides that all hockey helmets must be manufactured in accordance with a particular Canadian Standards Association standard, the effect of that reference is to make that standard part of the regulation without actually needing to reproduce the text of the CSA standard in the regulation itself. The rules found in the Canadian Standards Association standard form part of the law, even though they are not repeated and reproduced in the regulation.

Frequently, technical standards like the Canadian Standards Association's standard used in this example are incorporated “as amended from time to time”. This means that when the Canadian Standards Association makes amendments to the standard to keep up to date with changes in technology or production methods or improvements in manufacturing and science, those changes are automatically included in the regulation; in other words, the changes made to the standard are incorporated into the regulation and become law without amending the text of the regulation. This is referred to as “ambulatory incorporation by reference”. Some people might refer to it as “dynamic incorporation by reference”.

In some cases and in certain circumstances, a legislator may desire a fluid parallel between legislation and regulation. In these circumstances, the regulations can still be frozen, based upon the regulations as they exist on a certain date. This is referred to as “static incorporation by reference”.

This means that only one particular version of the document is incorporated. In that case, regardless of what happens to the document after the regulations are made, it is only that version that is described in the regulation that is incorporated.

Incorporation by reference has become an essential tool and is increasingly relied upon by governments to more efficiently develop their regulations.

This approach also helps to standardize regulation in a universally understood language. That is of benefit to all.

Last year I was visited by representatives of the National Marine Manufacturers Association. One of the challenges expressed by the Canadian marine manufacturing industry is the difficulty they have in meeting different regulations in different markets that they need to access.

As members have heard before, I have said anything we can do to help Canadian industry access these markets, whether that means increased intergovernmental co-operation or collaboration, is a good thing and something I believe we should look at and support.

By incorporating the legislation of other jurisdictions with whom harmonization is desirable or by incorporating standards developed and respected internationally, regulations can minimize duplication and avoid repetition of the same material. It can avoid the need to reinvent the regulatory wheel, so to speak.

Incorporation by reference can minimize and even avoid undesirable barriers to trade, an issue that, as I pointed out earlier, has been identified by the Canadian National Marine Manufacturers Association.

Enactment of this legislation is a necessary, pertinent change for many of the reasons I have already outlined. These changes would also address the concerns raised by the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations that I referenced earlier.

I should also add that the joint committee will continue to have the mandate to scrutinize how incorporation by reference is being used in accordance with this bill.

I submit that the enactment of this legislation is a logical, necessary next step to incorporation by reference in regulations.

Before I close, I would like to share one further point.

I am reasonably confident that most members of the House support the principles of innovation. Marketplaces are changing at record speed. Technology and new economies are emerging rapidly. I am certain that many of us could all share examples of exciting new developments that occur in their ridings, yet increasingly when I meet with a new employer who has an exciting new product or service being offered, market access is often one of the biggest barriers to trade that is mentioned. That is in large part because regulation does not keep pace with innovation.

There are a lot of good things in Bill S-12. The Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations has expressed concerns, and the government has listened to those concerns. There are more tools allowing for legislators to be able to choose, whether it be a dynamic form of incorporation by reference or a static one. Bill S-12 would allow us as legislators to have those tools for our regulatory process, not only to help open new markets but also to be able to respond to some of the international agreements that we have.

At one of the last meetings I attended with the scrutiny of regulations committee, an international accord was brought up. It is certainly a challenge for the committee and also for the government to keep up with the changes that are involved in that accord.

When the government presents something that is just common sense and is within our Canadian interest, something that would allow greater clarity and a greater understanding of the rules to allow us to be able to harmonize with other markets and encourage our industry to reach out and expand, while the term “incorporation by reference” may not make most people smile, it is an important thing.

I ask that every member in the House support Bill S-12 and move it on to the next stage. It is a common sense bill. It is a practical bill. I ask the House to support it.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the bill is riveting and is receiving enthusiastic support from around the House. We are often called upon to debate issues of the day, issues of great passion, issues that stir controversy in the hearts and minds of Canadians, and then we have other days.

Perhaps I am wrong in my sense of the debate, but I have two questions.

One is that as the official opposition, we have a question as to which documents should be precluded from incorporation by reference. There are regulations that we seek to enhance and regulations that we seek to unify with either international or national standards, but in some industries this does not work as well. I am wondering if my colleague across the way, sitting on the committee as he does, has any thoughts on that at all.

There is a second central question I have in approaching what is predominantly a technical bill.

The devil always lies in the details, both of the bill and in how we arrived at the piece of legislation. What kind of consultation went on with the provinces and industry stakeholders to arrive at this bill?

I know there have been several iterations of this piece of legislation and that the legislation has been called for and worked on for some time, but some regulations cross provincial-federal jurisdiction and how things are regulated. My colleague mentioned sporting equipment and safety gear. There are things that do not perfectly fall within one jurisdiction or another, so one would assume that there has been at least some consultation with the provinces that will be affected, particularly those provinces with a strong manufacturing base. I am thinking of Quebec, Ontario, parts of Alberta and B.C. where industries there will be affected.

Does the member know what steps the government took in those consultations? As well, are there any documents that we would want to preclude from incorporation by reference because those particular regulations are just not appropriate for a particular industry?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I really welcome a question from a fellow member from B.C. today.

Specifically I will start with the first question: to which industry should this apply? Again, as the hon. member mentioned in his preamble, the devil is in the details. That is one of the reasons Bill S-12 proposes to allow us to use the tool in either static or dynamic form. The great part about it, and what has me excited as a legislator, is that we get to decide the appropriate path to progress forward.

The second question asked about consultation with the provinces. From my understanding, it is actually the Joint Standing Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations that has expressed concern with the use of incorporation by reference. It wanted the government to clarify how it codified its own regulations.

I do know, through the divisions of powers and also through court and case law that if, for example, a particular activity is being done in a particular province, it is typically addressed through provincial law, meaning that the province may decide to incorporate its own incorporation by reference, but if it passes from one province to another, then it is usually governed at the federal level.

One of the great things about our federation is that there is a constant discussion about this. Again, the court and case law on these kinds of things is quite clear.

I look forward to other questions like those of the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is an issue of concern in regard to incorporation by reference that exists not so much within Canada's borders but with respect to international standards.

Canada is a bilingual nation, and many of the standards that might be adopted are of one language. My question is in relation to that. How does the current legislation take into consideration the need for Canada to have regulations in both languages?

When we take a reference, as an example, and we say we do not have to change the details of the Canadian Gazette, because in there we now have a reference to X, which happens to be an international standard, and that document might only be in English, how does that work in terms of translation?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is an obligation by government to make sure that regulations, especially federal regulations, are available in both French and English. That is well established by the courts, and this government has honoured that in all that it does.

The second part I would like to focus on is that this is a changing world. We live in a globally competitive economy. I would like to know from this member whether or not he supports the idea of Canadian industry reaching out and trying to open up new areas, new markets, so that Canadian industry and Canadian jobs can be advanced.

I really hope the member for Winnipeg North can bear that in mind, and I am hoping this House will support Bill S-12 as it is presented.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Okanagan—Coquihalla, whom I was very pleased to support when he brought forward legislation to free the transport of wine from one province to another.

Unfortunately, I have no enthusiasm whatsoever, but great trepidation and concern that what appears to be innocent—incorporation by reference—will do serious damage to the scrutiny of regulations in this place.

There is a reason we do not say a law is passed and then incorporate by reference large swathes of changes that do not allow the average citizen to stay on top of what is happening to laws that affect them. On the contrary, this kind of change will undermine the ability of Canadian business to know what regulations apply to them and when they have been changed.

Yes, it is true that there are systems of government that are far more efficient than democracy, but the rule of law matters in democracies, and as benign as this bill sounds, it is a dangerous move.

I cannot support Bill S-12.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's previous support of my changes to the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act.

One of the challenges we have is there is a not very well understood point that the House, Parliament, has sovereignty over what treaties it becomes part of to what standards are chosen.

As I said to the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, we have the choice, as legislators, to choose static or dynamic, depending upon what is in our best interest.

I would ask the member to keep an open mind and to visit the scrutiny of regulations committee to listen in. That committee does a very noble service by ensuring that when those statutes are translated into regulations, parliamentarians continue to scrutinize to ensure that not only are the regulations bona fide as per the statute, but that they are not unreasonably burdensome.

I would encourage the member to look at Bill S-12 as being more tools in the toolbox that would allow legislators like ourselves to decide what is in our national interest.

Bill S-12 is in our national interest based on those points.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is one piece of the member's speech that is a bit unclear for me.

I am the deputy critic for persons with disabilities and the word “accessible” has a different meaning when seen through the lens of someone with a disability.

I would ask the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla to explain to the House whether the word “accessible” means that persons with visual disabilities, or hearing disabilities or ambulatory disabilities would have access to the regulations or whether the word “accessible” just means that it is out there somewhere for somebody to get.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the concerns that the member might have.

Let me be clear. Parliament would still continue to put forward statutes, statutes which would then say whether it was static or dynamic form of regulation, incorporation by reference would take place if any and then those regulations still would have to go through The Gazette process, where there would be an open process that anyone could submit to.

I know accessibility is an important part for this government. I recently raised this very point about accessibility to websites to Shared Services Canada and it was quite happy to hear that information.

I would encourage, if the member has further concerns on accessibility issues, to work with our government to again seek a better Canada, whether that means opening new markets, or ensuring that regulations are both clear and forthright and up to date or by making them as accessible through those websites as possible.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to be here this evening with everyone to discuss Bill S-12 on existing rules for many products and on very specific and even very technical issues.

I will make most of my comments in English and I will try to understand not only the substance of this Senate bill, but also the future process for Canadians who will be affected by this statute.

In general, an important distinction to make is that the official opposition, through the good work of our member for Gatineau, will support the bill through to second reading and study at committee.

Some have called the bill a technical housekeeping bill. It attempts to bring together a number of different ideas and allows for certain powers that are meant to help the Canadian economy, regulatory authorities and government to have some sort of consistent standards.

We heard from my friend from Saanich earlier that there may be some concerns as to the supremacy of Parliament to continue to make standards that fit with our traditions and our cultural institutions.

We have also raised some significant questions that bear consideration at committee as to what “accessibility” will actually mean once this bill becomes law, as it seems it might. We never would want to say a piece of legislation is not of great urgency, but this is one of the pieces of legislation that the government saw fit to begin the midnight sittings.

I know all my hon. colleagues across the way love midnight sittings and are keen for them. They are chest-thumping right now as I speak and it is the more the merrier. Maybe we could see the clock at 11:50 p.m., if there were some sort of consideration to this.

The important thing in looking at the way the bill has come together is that the source has to be mentioned. There may be some openness to my earlier suggestion. We may or may not test the room a little later.

However, the source of this bill is important, as it is comes from the Senate. There is a lot going on in the Senate right now. It is not focused like a laser. The NDP and Canadians might argue that it is having some institutional challenges. Therefore, while the bill itself might seem somewhat innocuous and neutral in tone, its source is given new suspicion because Canada's so-called chamber of sober second thought might not be so sober these days and might not be giving much second thought to things because of the preoccupation of accounting practices and the recent involvement of the Prime Minister's Office in trying to manage certain problems for the government.

The government uses private members' legislation quite frequently to move what are obviously parts of the government agenda. Rather than using the many tools available to it, it goes through a back door, through the private members' bill route.

The government is also increasingly uses the Senate to introduce bills that fit into the government's particular mandate, and the scrutiny, if one can call it that, that goes on in the Senate is obviously much less. The amount of oversight from the public and the amount of openness from the red chamber is greatly diminished.

While this is a technical bill, its implications actually have a great effect on the everyday lives of people and the businesses and people who we seek to represent. It sets out the rules and how rules will then be incorporated from regulations and standards.

With respect to my friend from Okanagan—Coquihalla, over a number of elections there has been much turnover in this place. We sometimes lament that because we lose that institutional knowledge from time to time, the wisdom and experience. However, it also brings in new energy and excitement for particular committees, of which there is little to be found. I am glad we found a new member from British Columbia who brings the rigour and excitement to the regulations and standards committee, a committee wherein sometimes it is a straw-drawing exercise as to who ends up there, yet it is fundamentally important.

The committee is not often fought over, not the way one would usually fight over appointments to committee, but the scrutiny of regulations committee is a vital committee to a lot of businesses that rely on this. There might not be a wide audience for this debate tonight because it is a niche market one might say. However, those who are interested are extremely interested in what Parliament will do with this legislation and that we get it right.

What is important and at the heart of the matter is a bill originating from the unaccountable, unelected and now under investigation Senate causes us to pay a bit more attention. We want to ensure that the way this legislation was put together was done right and that somebody with some seriousness was involved in its creation. This legislation has some iterations, so we will give it the serious consideration it deserves because of the impacts about which I talked.

We mentioned in the earlier discussion this evening what regulations one might extrapolate from this, such as safety equipment, sports equipment, medical equipment. If regulations drawn up in some dusty civil servant's office are done poorly and then complied with, then those regulations come to life and have some effects and in some cases very serious effects.

I had the opportunity to move a piece of private members' business in my first term here. I was early up in the lottery and moved a bill to remove a type of chemical toxin out of a product that was a softener for plastics. Lo and behold, the bill had wide appeal because it was a known carcinogen, it was an endocrine disrupter and it affected children particularly. The bill received unanimous support of the House, passed through the House, but died in the Senate now that I recall the full story.

Going through the process of seeing the legislation through, it was the regulations that industry suddenly became very excited about and it started making patently outrageous claims, as was proven in the end, because it was worried about harmonization.

The chemical we were talking about was meant to soften plastic, as I said, and it was used in the production of blood collection bags and the tubes that connected them to the patient. There was a hue and cry from the Canadian industry that said if my bill were to pass and this chemical were removed, there were no alternatives. The comment from Industry was that people would die on the operating tables in Canada because of the bill. It was a pretty strong claim and it left a number of members of Parliament wondering if they would be committing murder by voting for my bill.

Then we found out, through regulations and standards, that the Americans had already moved toward eliminating this known carcinogen and that the Europeans had been for a number of years well in advance of Canada in taking known carcinogens out of the industrial system. In the end, one could only describe it as some sort of apathy and laziness on the part of Canadian industry, which had simply not been forced or required to move to the international standard in the production of these blood bags and the tubes that connected them to patients.

It was a strange moment because it became so technical. We started with a good principle that was supported by the House, but the whole debate boiled down to and hung in the balance over some regulation and standard that we as parliamentarians had little to no knowledge of it. Most of us do not come to this place with the experience and enthusiasm of my friend from Okanagan—Coquihalla, certainly not so specific a knowledge as to know whether this chemical was required.

Needless to say, we brought in some witnesses from Europe and the United States and they corrected our Canadian industry. Our industy quickly replaced the known carcinogen and replaced it with something much more innocuous and nobody died. A few less people might have had their endocrines disrupted and maybe a bit less cancer was caused.

If this is a housekeeping bill, which it appears to be in some ways, then what happens at committee becomes quite important. As members of Parliament, we do not have the wherewithal or the particular expertise to know whether this form of regulation should be moved and whether it is static or dynamic or whether it is good for this circumstance or that. We are going to rely on expert witnesses.

We just recently had the Library of Parliament conduct a study for the official opposition. We asked the library a very simple and specific question. Of all the legislation that had been moved through the House since the Conservatives came to power and until now, not in a majority but the previous minority Parliament, of all the amendments that had been moved by any member of the opposition, what per cent had been rejected?

I thought it would be high, but I did not realize that it would be this high: 99.3% of all amendments were rejected. Some members on the other side, on the blue team, might claim that 99.3% of the amendments were terrible. I see a few votes. I hesitated to ask the question.

We need to understand where amendments come from and the process for a bill. Oftentimes, committee members rely on the testimony of the witnesses in front of us, because 99% of the time, they know more than we do. What we do as MPs is try to weigh the testimony in front of us and understand what is the most credible and what is backed up by the most evidence. We then move that into an amendment and work with the Library of Parliament to construct an amendment that would improve the bill.

If that is how the legislative process is meant to work, then clearly, if virtually 100% of all the amendments proposed and worked on by the New Democrats and the Liberals are being rejected out of hand, the process, for political reasons, is not working very well. It is no great disservice to us in the opposition alone. However, it is a disservice to the members of the Canadian public who sent us here, because we are choosing some sort of political expediency rather than accepting the idea that maybe the legislation as crafted the first time is not perfect. For a bill as technical as this one, I would hope that because it does not stir as many of those ideological and partisan motivations, the government members on the committee, who form a majority, will be open to amendments, regardless of who moves them.

If we have said that the thing is important for industry and important for the consumers who rely on the products, then certainly getting the legislation right is also important. It is important that we hand over powers to move these static and dynamic regulations up through standards, that we not duplicate the process and that we do that well. However, we should not do some sort of roughshod approach to regulations in general because sometimes, and I would suggest that this comes more from my colleagues across the way than it does from our side, in the political dynamic, all rules and regulations are treated as always bad, always inefficient and always cumbersome. Of course, that is not true. Of course, a society without rules and regulations to guide the manufacturing of products and the cleanliness of the water we seek to drink and the safety of our roads would be chaotic.

It may often be politically appealing to suggest that the problem with our economy right now is red tape. I ran a small business before getting into politics, and there were some things I encountered that made no sense. There was heavy duplication or having to answer questions that had nothing to do with the business I was running. However, I understood the general purpose and intent, which was to ensure that it was not caveat emptor only that guided and protected the consumer. It was not simply a case of picking up that package of hamburger or that new car off the lot. If the regulations are not going to protect people, and government is not going to play that role, then it is simply one's own wherewithal and the interest of the producer to always hold to higher standards. Most producers and manufacturers do, and some do not.

I represent a riding that has a large agricultural base. I can sit with the farmers and ranchers in my area, particularly on the ranching side, and they will say the same thing: they need good, solid, clear regulations. Business people often talk about clarity. They want to talk about certainty. They want to know what the rules are so that they can anticipate and make the investments they need to make over the long term so that their businesses are healthy and they can hire more people. What they do not like is uncertainty or rules that change for political reasons or some blowing-in-the-wind, weather-vane approach to the rules that guide us. Business hates that, particularly the larger they get and when they are more capital-intensive businesses.

I am now thinking of what has gone on with the Environmental Assessment Act and the Fisheries Act, which are regulations to guide industry and people to make sure that we try to balance that natural tension between the environment and the economy to ensure that while we are creating prosperity and wealth, we are not downgrading and degrading our natural ecosystem and environment, because over time, we know where that leads. We have enough examples in the world to understand that. However, I do not think, when it comes to climate change, we are taking it at all seriously in this place and perhaps in other Parliaments as well.

The government took a memo from industry, particularly from the oil and gas lobby recently, prior to last summer. The memo included 12 recommendations, requests for changes to the Environmental Assessment Act and the Fisheries Act, principally. The government moved all 12 through, but not through open debate here in the House. It moved them through omnibus legislation.

I talked to some of the industry reps about this. They had no idea they were going to get all 12 accepted. They were more in a negotiating position. They were offering up their first volley and would get something less back and would negotiate down. They were a bit shocked. The downside for industry, and I would suggest the downside for the government, is that it has eroded the faith of the public as to whether those laws are in place to protect our fisheries and our environment and whether they are strong enough. There are new doubts and aspersions cast upon the oil and gas industry writ large, the good actors and the bad. The companies that keep a good safety record and the ones that do not are all painted with the same brush. That is unfortunate for industry. That creates more uncertainty.

In the attempt to smooth over those rough edges of regulations and standards, the government ended up poisoning the conversation for many Canadians who have natural and normal considerations and concerns when talking about a large-scale development, be it the oil sands or a pipeline out of a particular place or a large mine. That does not seem right to me, and it is not balanced. It has actually drawn back the conversation a number of years, when we have spent decades building up strong and healthy protections for the environment, and almost a century for our fisheries, and they are now gone. Canadians then have to turn to other means and other understandings and conversations, because their voices are going to be heard. Whether Conservatives try to shut us down or not, it is going to happen.

In terms of this legislation and what we do when we get it to committee, it is going to be absolutely critical that the government play nice in allowing witnesses from sometimes both sides of an issue. There may be consumer protection groups, civil liberties groups and accessibility groups, as my friend from Toronto raised earlier, that may have some questions. When we talk about accessible, let us define it.

Official languages groups, I think, will absolutely be interested in this, because generally speaking, and my friend from British Columbia will verify this, international standards are written in the so-called language of business: English. While we are guided by laws in this land that should protect both official languages, there is a bit of a rub. If a consumer or an industry in a francophone community seeks to get a regulation with some clarity, are they going to pay for the translation to understand that? Is the Quebec government going to have concerns? I imagine that it will. It may be well and good to say that we have rules and laws on the books already to protect official languages, but those laws are not being applied.

There is no end to the examples from this government. Just look at the Quebec City marine rescue sub-centre. Today, the government was asked what it intends to do since the Commissioner of Official Languages said that there could be a serious problem for people who end up in trouble on the water. He said that what is in place is inadequate. The government is saying there is no problem.

However, there is a problem when a francophone on a boat has to communicate with an anglophone at a marine rescue sub-centre who knows only two or three words of French. This is unacceptable and against the law, but so it is and so it shall remain unless the government changes its policies. It is imperative that it do so.

It is not good enough to say that we have many laws to protect our two official languages. That may or may not be true. We will see what happens in committee.

I could provide a number of examples of committees where the NDP supported a bill for which the testimony and all the proposed amendments were rejected by the government. The NDP then had to vote against the bill because it was not very good. The government says that the NDP votes against everything, but that is not true. We simply want better.

The consumer confidence impact of the bill is also quite important. Canadian products are known the world over for quality and innovation. We have been on the leading edge of some of the greatest inventions and innovations in history. Yet we have seen a steady moving away from that basic science, which is concerning, both to those in industry and those in science. It is not in every case that scientists sit down in the laboratory and know the product they are going to achieve in the marketplace. That is not the way science often works. There is a litany of examples of things that we now rely upon, such as the computer, the BlackBerry or the automobile that did not start off as inventions. They started off as basic science and understanding. That needs to still be there.

As international trade is so important to Canada as a trading nation, we need to get these international standards aligned properly and make sure that the regulations and standards we design are able to fit yet do not diminish us as a nation. This is important. Everyone should agree that in the pursuit of that trade, we do not diminish ourselves and say that we will accept lower standards for health and safety or for the quality of the products we have. That would be contrary to the aspects of good and fair trade.

In this bill, we have a number of things that are important. Yet it will probably be at the committee stage when we will see the willingness of the government to do what good governments do, which is work with the opposition to make things better. There is no chance, it is just impossible to imagine, that the first incarnation of this bill was written perfectly without a comma or period out of place and without a word that needs to be taken away or added.

The New Democrats will be there to study the bill vigorously at committee and ensure that it is the best piece of legislation possible.