James Moore

[Digital Privacy Act, May 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to talk to my colleague about the substance of the bill at any time.

I would just say to my colleagues that this legislation has been before Parliament now for well over a year. A lot of people on all sides of this House have contributed greatly to the debate and the substance of this legislation. We think we have the right balance.

I appreciate the support of the Privacy Commissioner as well as a number of organizations that recognize that this legislation is very much needed in Canada. It bring us up to an international standard of privacy protection for Canadians, and I am looking forward to the passage of this legislation.

[Digital Privacy Act, May 28th, 2015]

Fair enough, Mr. Speaker, but the member opposite could have, of course, on any other occasion asked questions about this legislation, which she chose not to, and that is her prerogative.

However, equally, the member who just asked this question and others who have been in this House who claim to be so amped up about the importance of this legislation and having a meaningful discussion in a non-partisan way have never contacted me, have never sat down with me, have never reached out to me to get a briefing on this legislation or talk about it. Here we are, after more than a year of this bill being before Parliament, and these members have never, ever engaged in debate on this subject.

[Digital Privacy Act, May 28th, 2015]

With respect, Mr. Speaker, I am happy to debate the bill as much as the opposition would want to. This is a 30-minute time for debate, of back and forth, basically a 30-minute question period on this legislation. If New Democrats want to use that time to ask rhetorical partisan questions, they are free to do so. I am happy to stand here and talk substantively about any section of the bill for this half an hour.

Equally, I was before the industry committee for a two-hour period, answering questions of great substance from the hon. member's colleague, whom I know has spent a lot of time on this legislation in a good-faith effort to contribute to public policy and to talk about it there. I have appeared before the industry committee, including this week. I was before the committee for an hour; there were no questions from the NDP on this legislation. I was before the committee on three other occasions. There were no questions from the NDP on this legislation.

The member opposite could easily have come to the committee. Other members were there. She could have come and asked me questions on this legislation. She was not there. Equally, the member for Terrebonne—Blainville—

[Digital Privacy Act, May 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to my colleague, quite frankly, I do not agree.

With respect to the Privacy Commissioner, I consulted with the interim privacy commissioner at the time, Chantal Bernier, before we tabled the legislation and I also had time to speak with Daniel Therrien. I had a good, long substantive meeting, one on one, with both of these commissioners, as did my officials and my staff, before we tabled the legislation. We did listen, and we did consult prior to tabling the legislation.

With a piece of legislation such as this, as complicated and far reaching as this, we do not arrive at the legislation on our own, sitting in the dark, working away, and trying to guess at what the best balance would be. We consult broadly. We consulted with the Privacy Commissioner before we tabled this legislation, and we have arrived at what is an appropriate balance, in my view, which is why the Privacy Commissioner said about the legislation:

...I am greatly encouraged by the government’s show of commitment to updating...[this legislation] and I welcome many of the amendments proposed in this Bill. Proposals such as breach notification, voluntary compliance agreements and enhanced consent would go a long way to strengthening the framework that protects the privacy of Canadians...

This legislation is supported by the Privacy Commissioner because we were respectful of the process, because we consulted before we tabled the legislation, and we were able to go forward. Equally, I know that the NDP critic on this matter, the member for Terrebonne—Blainville, when we tabled this legislation, said, “We have been pushing for these measures and I'm happy to see them introduced”.

We were very pleased to see the NDP support this bill when we first tabled it, and I hope that the NDP will vote in favour of its sentiment when we began this process over a year ago.

[Digital Privacy Act, May 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the amendments in this legislation introduce requirements for organizations to report potentially harmful breaches of information security safeguards, like data breaches. For example, if there is a data breach on credit card information on a website, they have to report that information to the Privacy Commissioner immediately and also notify the affected individuals. It is a dual track of accountability. If someone involved in e-commerce is purchasing something on a website and that website may have been hacked and the person's information has been potentially lost or stolen, there is an immediate responsibility for the firm that has lost the information to report it directly to the Privacy Commissioner and also to the people who are affected. There is a dual track of accountability, and this is essential.

Failing to report these kinds of data breaches to either the individuals or the Privacy Commissioner would result in facing a penalty of up to $100,000 per offence. If there is a data breach of, say, a few hundred customers whose credit card information may have been stolen and that data breach is not reported to both the Privacy Commissioner and the individuals, in every single instance, there is up to a $100,000 fine. That is a stiff penalty, but we think it is necessary.

As more and more Canadians are migrating their businesses and academic pursuits online, we need to make sure information is being protected, not only by the government but obliquely by firms, and that they take their privacy obligations very seriously, stay ahead of the technological curve, and stay ahead of those who would want to steal people's information and use it for violations of their privacy and self-interest.

[Digital Privacy Act, May 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I completely disagree. That is what we did with Bill S-4. We had a very respectful and serious debate. We spoke about this bill in depth and talked about the implications of a bill as complex as this one.

In the debate in the House and in committee, and outside the House of Commons, we have had respectful exchanges with the government's partners that are affected by this bill, such as lawyers, representatives of the private sector and the Privacy Commissioner. We carried out analyses, we took part in debate, and presentations were made to the government. We made decisions after truly listening to the people who had concerns about the status quo.

We listened to them and that is why the chamber of commerce, former privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier and Daniel Therrien support this bill. I have a long list of people who support the bill. A large group of Canadians pointed out that our government listened. We did our analyses, we did our homework and we came up with a balanced bill that not only meets the interests of our commercial and electronic future and Canadians' needs, but also meets the government's need to have a really effective bill on Canadians' privacy.

That is what we did. There was debate here, in the House, at committees and outside the House of Commons, before we introduced the bill and while it was before the House. We continue to follow an approach that is democratic and effective, as part of a process that truly achieves results.

[Digital Privacy Act, May 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, as the Speaker and a member of the House of Commons, you are well aware that this is always a very important discussion to have at the beginning of each Parliament.

In the future, it will be very important for every one of us to discuss the serious nature of our work in the House of Commons and the way that we are all going to participate in debate that is respectful to our constituents. We need to have that conversation not just here in the House, as an institution, but also within our political parties.

That discussion will be even more important when the number of seats in the House of Commons goes from 308 to 338 this fall. This is always a topic of discussion within the parties, particularly with regard to the House of Commons.

In my opinion, our government is very serious about meeting the needs of Canadian taxpayers and having effective and respectful debates about the content of our bills. That is what we have done with Bill S-4.

[Digital Privacy Act, May 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, from 2006, when we first formed government with our first piece of legislation, Bill C-2, and a number of measures since then, we have provided more tools, larger budgets and more responsibilities to independent officers of Parliament in order to hold not only Parliament but also agencies and firms beyond government accountable for their responsibilities and duties to protect Canadians.

This legislation would give the Privacy Commissioner and individual Canadians increased time of up to one year to take an organization to court if it broke the law, instead of the current 45 days. Very often data breaches happen and people may not be informed or may not be fully aware of the consequences that have happened with respect to data breaches and violations of their privacy online.

Currently, there is only a 45-day window when an individual Canadian can take an institution or a firm to court in order to get remedy with respect to the data breach that has taken place. We opened that from 45 days to one year, including empowering the Privacy Commissioner to take action on behalf of Canadians on an individual case or on a broader, more complex file. This is very important.

We want to ensure that the Privacy Commissioner has this kind of power and kind of latitude to take action because 45 days is far too narrow a window. These are the kinds of powers that the Privacy Commissioner asked for, we listened and we have included them in this legislation. This would go a very long way to providing Canadians with greater certainty in a digital world.

[Digital Privacy Act, May 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, with respect, the bill has been before the House a number of times. We actually thought we had deals in the past with the NDP, for example, to allow the debate on this legislation to collapse so it could go to committee for a thorough study. However, the New Democrats kept putting up speaker after speaker who read the exact same speech, with no new information, no new opinions, and offered nothing to the conversation so they could drag out the debate and make self-righteous statements at moments like this about the government ending the debate. It was a circular game being played by the New Democrats.

We want to move forward with protecting the privacy of Canadians. That is why the current Privacy Commissioner has said this about the legislation:

—I am greatly encouraged by the government’s show of commitment to updating PIPEDA and I welcome many of the amendments proposed in this Bill. Proposals such as breach notification, voluntary compliance agreements and enhanced consent would go a long way to strengthening the framework that protects the privacy of Canadians...

Chantal Bernier, the interim privacy commissioner, said the same thing. She said “I welcome the proposals”. This bill contains “very positive developments”. She also said, “I am pleased that the government has heard our concerns and has addressed issues such as breach notification”.

I hope this is not news to the member opposite. I know the New Democrats aspire to be government, but when governments actually propose legislation, it has to pass the House and it also has to pass the Senate. Therefore, having had the legislation approved through the Senate process, it is now before the House. The legislation has been before the Parliament of Canada for consideration, debate and a great deal of discussion for well over a year. It is time to move forward, it is time to protect Canadians, and it is time to update the PIPEDA legislation with the digital privacy act.

[Digital Privacy Act, May 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the fact remains that half the legislative process in the Parliament of Canada is conducted in the Senate. I know that the NDP wants to abolish the Senate. However, the Supreme Court says that that is impossible, so the NDP's policy is clearly pointless. Bill S-4 did originate in the Senate, but that is because we wanted an efficient approach to the process in order to ensure that both houses of Parliament would have the time needed to do their homework and act responsibly with regard to a bill as complex as this one. That is why we took this approach.

Certainly, in legislation as important as this, the personal information protection and electronic documents act reform, Bill S-4, which is quite technical, it is important that we have a thorough process. It is mandated that Parliament do this review and, as Minister of Industry, it is my responsibility.

I know the industry committee did a thorough study of this. We had all kinds of views that were incorporated prior to us tabling legislation, during the legislative process and deliberation at the committee stage. It happened on the Senate side as well. This legislation is something of which I am quite proud. It is very important for our country. Reporting of data breaches, accountability, the implication of support of the Privacy Commissioner with regard to data breaches, the penalties that are in place for firms that do not inform people about data breaches that take place, all are important. This would be a big step forward for Canada.

Again, it was arrived at after a great deal of consultation, in a non-partisan way, to draw in ideas. We arrived at legislation that would strike an effective balance. When the legislation is adopted and moves forward, the country will be very well-served.