Bill S-4 (Historical)

Digital Privacy Act

An Act to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act

This enactment amends the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to, among other things,
(a) specify the elements of valid consent for the collection, use or disclosure of personal information;
(b) permit the disclosure of personal information without the knowledge or consent of an individual for the purposes of
(i) identifying an injured, ill or deceased individual and communicating with their next of kin,
(ii) preventing, detecting or suppressing fraud, or
(iii) protecting victims of financial abuse;
(c) permit organizations, for certain purposes, to collect, use and disclose, without the knowledge or consent of an individual, personal information
(i) contained in witness statements related to insurance claims, or
(ii) produced by the individual in the course of their employment, business or profession;
(d) permit organizations, for certain purposes, to use and disclose, without the knowledge or consent of an individual, personal information related to prospective or completed business transactions;
(e) permit federal works, undertakings and businesses to collect, use and disclose personal information, without the knowledge or consent of an individual, to establish, manage or terminate their employment relationships with the individual;
(f) require organizations to notify certain individuals and organizations of certain breaches of security safeguards that create a real risk of significant harm and to report them to the Privacy Commissioner;
(g) require organizations to keep and maintain a record of every breach of security safeguards involving personal information under their control;
(h) create offences in relation to the contravention of certain obligations respecting breaches of security safeguards;
(i) extend the period within which a complainant may apply to the Federal Court for a hearing on matters related to their complaint;
(j) provide that the Privacy Commissioner may, in certain circumstances, enter into a compliance agreement with an organization to ensure compliance with Part 1 of the Act; and
(k) modify the information that the Privacy Commissioner may make public if he or she considers that it is in the public interest to do so.

Digital Privacy Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the ability of corporations nowadays, through the digital area, to accumulate information and the type of information collected. Whether it is through our financial industries or through a lot of groups that sell merchandise over the Internet, there is a great deal of information about virtually everyone in Canada. The government needs to put into place safeguards to protect the identity and other related issues.

Perhaps the member might want to provide more of his thoughts with respect to the important role that government can play in protecting the interests of Canadians who engaging with the Internet and different types of transactions more and more everyday.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

There is a lot of information circulating, and our world is changing quickly. The challenge for us as legislators is to stay on top of all these changes.

Sometimes some information that seems innocuous can pose a threat to our privacy. An IP address, for example, can identify the location where we accessed the Internet, the device we used and what we did with it. All manner of information is hidden, and sometimes we are not even aware that it exists.

One aspect of this problem can be addressed through public education. However, as my colleague mentioned, the government has a responsibility to protect Canadians.

A private company with personal information about a citizen has an obligation to protect it. Sometimes, despite great efforts, this information can be lost or even stolen.

The government itself could ask for this information for reasons of national security. That is why the courts need guidelines that must be spelled out in the law to ensure that the government cannot simply extract this information from companies.

If that information is stolen from companies or if they lose it, there has to be a way to ensure that the Privacy Commissioner is informed and has the right tools to take action and protect people.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on behalf of Bill S-4, the digital privacy act, which is referred to the House by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

When Parliament first enacted the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, commonly known as PIPEDA, in 2001, it recognized there were certain limited circumstances in which an individual's right to privacy must be balanced with other fundamental rights and public interest.

One such interest is the need for investigations into breaches of agreements, contraventions of law and for fraud prevention, which in certain circumstances must be conducted by the private sector.

Examples of these are common. They include investigations into professional misconduct by self-regulating professional associations, like the provincial colleges of physicians and surgeons, as well as the law societies. Another example is cross-sector investigations to detect crime and prevent fraud, such as the work done by the Bank Crime Prevention Centre and Investigation Office of the Canadian Bankers Association and the investigative services division of the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

It is not difficult to see that there is a real public interest in ensuring that these organizations have the ability to investigate. In order to do so, they must be able to obtain personal information that is protected under PIPEDA.

The Privacy Commissioner told the committee:

I totally agree that there needs to be provision in PIPEDA allowing organizations to address the issue of fraud or breaches of agreements that they may face.

The need for such a provision is also recognized within the legal community. The committee heard from Eloise Gratton, leading privacy officer and partner at the law firm of Borden Ladner Gervais and a professor of law at the University of Montreal. Ms. Gratton spoke of her own experience as counsel to private organizations conducting investigations into wrongdoing. She said:

The bottom line is that I agree that we need to have a provision authorizing the disclosure of personal information without consent to address these types of situations.

To enable this type of information sharing, PIPEDA currently has a regime that allows organizations to disclose an individual's personal information in order to conduct certain types of investigation.

As it stands right now under the current law, investigators who want to access personal information must be listed as an investigative body in the regulations. This involves coming forward with an application to the government and if the federal cabinet decides that the application is warranted, the organization is added to the list.

This is an extremely burdensome process for organizations. During the first parliamentary review of the act in 2007, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics recommended that this system be scrapped and replaced with a different set of rules based on those that had been in place for a decade in Alberta and British Columbia. The bill would implement this recommendation.

A number of witnesses who came forward at the committee to express support for the importance of the changes within the bill expressed many positive sentiments in this regard.

The Life and Health Insurance Association of Canada told the committee that these amendments would help the industry's effort to detect, deter and minimize insurance fraud, which is stated to be extremely costly to the industry. A witness from the association explained to committee members that there was a current gap in PIPEDA to which he said:

[It] restricts the ability of organizations to disclose information without consent...for the purpose of conducting an investigation into a breach of an agreement or of a law of Canada.

The Central Credit Union of Canada also testified that it supported the proposed exception for consent for fraud prevention. In the words of the Central Credit Union witness it would:

—reduce the administrative burden associated with some of the activities of...my organization's Credit Union Office for Crime Prevention and Investigation.

Finally, the Insurance Bureau of Canada also spoke to the importance of the proposed amendments for the investigation and prevention of automobile fraud. According to Insurance Bureau statistics, automobile fraud cost the Ontario economy an estimated $1.6 billion in 2014 alone.

The witnesses from the Insurance Bureau explained in detail to the committee how Bill S-4 would make an insurance crime easier to detect and prevent as a result of the changes our government was making, and this is great news. However, I should note that during the committee's review of the bill, some concerns were expressed about the potential for misuse of such an exception to consent or resulting in the over-sharing of personal information, as my colleagues opposite have noted today.

However, the bill would protect against this aspect. Organizations can only make use of the exception to consent when a four-part test is met.

First, the disclosure must be made to another private organization, not to the government or to law enforcement. Disclosure to government authorities must follow a different set of rules, for example, when police must obtain a warrant to get private information.

Second, the exception to consent is only available if the information is being shared for the purpose of conducting an investigation into a breach of Canadian law or a breach of an agreement, such as a contract, and it must be reasonable. This means that an average Canadian must be able to see the merit of disclosing the information in question for the purposes of an investigation.

Third, the investigation has to be legitimate. It must pertain to a contravention of law or a breach of agreement that has occurred, is occurring or is imminent. Information cannot simply be disclosed because an agreement might be broken.

Finally, it must be reasonable to believe that seeking the consent of the individual in question to disclose the information would compromise the investigation, for example, by allowing them to destroy or alter evidence.

The intention of this four-part test is to allow legitimate investigations that are in the public interest to take place in a manner that is being balanced with an individual's right to privacy.

My colleagues have brought up the issue of copyright trolling. Certain concerns have been raised that copyright lawyers could abuse the amendment to target Canadian consumers. Let me be clear. This type of activity is not an investigation. Nor is it fraud prevention. Under no circumstances do we believe this proposed amendment provides a backdoor that could be used for trolling, due to these tests. PIPEDA has always provided a legal certainty with respect to the rights of legitimate private sector investigations. Bill S-4 maintains that legal certainty.

I also want to touch on a couple of comments that have been made in light of the bill.

First is the definition of “significant breach”. There has been some doubt as to what this means. As set out in the bill, a significant breach is a breach that poses a real risk of significant harm based on the sensitivity of the personal information involved in the breach, the probability that the personal information has been, is being, or will be misused and any other factor prescribed in the regulations.

The definition of “significant harm” was also brought up. It is defined in Bill S-4 as bodily harm, humiliation, damage to reputation or relationships, loss of employment, business or professional opportunities, financial loss, identity theft, negative effects on a credit record or damaged or lost property.

There was also some doubt about “private investigation”. It is defined as an investigation carried out by private sector organizations, therefore, not a government authority into an alleged contravention of a Canadian law, or an alleged breach of agreement.

Since we are getting to the end of this session of Parliament, should I not have an opportunity to rise again in debate in the next few weeks, I would like to thank all of my constituents in Calgary Centre—North for the privilege of allowing me to serve them in the last four years, as well as my volunteer team and certainly, in a moment of non-partisanship, my colleagues across the aisle and in the House who every day travel away from their families to spend time in the honour of public service. This is not a job. This is service. Certainly, when we all rise here in debate to discuss these issues, we might be passionate opponents one way or the other but we all do it to build a better Canada.

It is a wonderful position to be in to rise to support bills like this, which are common sense measures to make Canada a better place, to support better legislation, better privacy, better access to information and strengthening Canadian laws. These are the things with which we as parliamentarians are often seized.

It is always a great pleasure to speak in this place and it is a great pleasure to be here as a parliamentarian.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

The Supreme Court recently established that the government must have a warrant to obtain personal information from a private company. In committee, several witnesses said that the bill contained no provisions making it mandatory to get such a warrant from the court, so we have to wonder whether the bill is even constitutional.

Is the minister concerned about that? If so, can she tell us why the government rejected all amendments at committee stage despite the Conservatives' show of good will in sending the bill to committee right away?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, the changes in this bill affect private investigations, which, as the bill defines, are investigations carried out by a private sector organization, not a government authority.

With regard to the Supreme Court decision, the Supreme Court itself noted that PIPEDA does not create any search and seizure powers for law enforcement; instead, it allows companies to provide information to police should they choose to do so when—and here is the kicker—the police are legally able to obtain the information, meaning through normal warranting procedures.

The court has clearly stated that this is only when police have a warrant, are acting in exigent circumstances, are acting under an authority granted to them in law, or are obtaining information for which there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.

The Supreme Court decision itself clarifies how PIPEDA works, and it does not mean how the act or Bill S-4 needs to change.

I hope that my colleague will inform himself. I know he is well informed on this bill. He certainly knows the ramifications of the Supreme Court ruling in this regard. I hope that he would actually provide the correct information to his constituents and to folks abroad about this. Indeed, as the member for Terrebonne—Blainville said on April 8, 2014, “We have been pushing for these measures and I'm happy to see them introduced.”

This is something that supports all Canadians and is a common sense measure to help strengthen our legal system.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on June 2, 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down an important decision about sharing personal information.

In their decision, the Supreme Court justices stated that information about customers, including their names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses, could not be shared with a third party without a warrant.

In light of that decision, does the member believe that some of the provisions in Bill S-4 might not be constitutional?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the member was not listening to her colleague, who just asked the exact same question from the talking points that the lobby handed them.

I will, in fact, indulge her with the same response. This bill refers to private investigations, and private investigations are defined as investigations carried out by private sector organizations, meaning they would not be a government authority. The Supreme Court itself has noted that PIPEDA does not create any search and seizure powers for law enforcement.

This bill relates to information sharing between private organizations when such investigations are required to prevent fraud. We heard testimony from the law society and the insurance bureau at the committee. The Privacy Commissioner himself put forward a comment saying that this change needed to be made.

Again, to refer back to the decision just so the member is perfectly clear, PIPEDA allows companies to provide information to police should they choose to do so in circumstances where the police are legally able to obtain the information. In terms of relating information to law enforcement officers as part of an investigation, warrants are most often required. What this bill does is ensure that there are information sharing provisions between private organizations as part of an investigation.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today on behalf of my constituents from Surrey North to speak on Bill S-4, an act to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and to make a consequential amendment to another act. I rise today because I oppose the bill in its current form.

Members from three parties proposed amendments to the bill so that it would stay within constitutional boundaries. However, the Conservatives rejected every single one of those amendments, even the amendments that were drafted according to the comments and suggestions from the witnesses.

As the official opposition, it is essential that we carefully review the legislation and voice dissenting opinions in order to ensure that each bill is thoroughly examined. In this case, as in most cases that I have experienced in the past four years, it is evident that the Conservatives are determined to push through their own agenda on their own timeline.

I feel strongly that it is important for Canadians to know that their privacy is being protected, especially in the digital age that we live in. However, just because the Conservatives have not conducted the mandatory five-year review of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA, does not mean that we should rush through an unbalanced bill.

I feel very strongly that the bill before us was not well studied and needs to be fixed before it is passed through the House. In fact, the Conservatives did not support or submit any amendments to the bill because they did not think that would allow enough time to pass the bill before the election. This sounds politically expedient to me. Canadians deserve better than what the Conservatives are giving them.

The issues surrounding online privacy and safety are not new problems. Rather, they are existing problems that have become increasingly harder to protect against as technology continues to advance. Therefore, given the changing nature of the problem, it is important that the legislation that we create also evolves.

I am glad that after so many years of inaction, we are finally considering legislation to address online privacy issues. My colleague, the member for Terrebonne—Blainville, tried to take action to protect Canadians' privacy back in 2012 with Bill C-475. Unfortunately, that bill, which was stricter and more effective than the bill before us although very similar to it, was voted down by the Conservatives.

The Conservatives have become very good at pretending they know how to do their jobs and protect Canadians. They are actually able to stand up in this House and lie through their teeth in saying that this is a balanced bill, and they believe that.

Online privacy and security breaches have the potential to significantly harm an individual. Protecting these rights is important for all Canadians so that we do not put anyone potentially in harm's way.

Some Canadians may feel that the bill does not affect them in their daily lives, but I can assure them that Bill S-4 would affect every single Canadian.

One part of the bill that I am very concerned about pertains to the sharing of our personal information. The bill contains a provision that would make it easier for companies to share our information without our knowledge or consent, without a warrant, and with zero oversight. It is troubling to me that there is no mechanism in place for oversight.

Do the Conservatives remember the ruling in Regina v. Spencer? I do. In this decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Canadians have a reasonable expectation of privacy online. More specifically, the Supreme Court stipulated that spyware data cannot be disclosed to a third party without a warrant.

In light of this decision, it is questionable whether certain provisions in Bill S-4 are even constitutional. There are limits on what the government can do, but the Conservatives seem to have forgotten that.

We are demanding that every clause pertaining to the warrantless disclosure of information be withdrawn out of respect for the Supreme Court ruling and the privacy of Canadians.

There is no doubt that the Conservatives have a dark past when it comes to protecting personal information, and this bill would only add to that darkness. The lack of oversight and the allowance of warrantless disclosure has led to 1.2 million secret requests from Conservative government agencies for personal information from telecommunications companies in one year alone. Under the current Prime Minister, staggering numbers like this show that something needs to change, and it starts with this bill.

The Conservatives' hesitation to accept amendments to this bill makes me question whose interests they are truly protecting. Are they protecting the interests of Canadians, who deserve to trust that their personal information will be protected, or are the Conservatives protecting their own self-serving interests?

We would like to see this bill contain a mandatory data loss or data breach reporting mechanism. However, the bill in its current form would most likely result in fewer breaches being reported. It would be up to the organization that suffered the breach to determine if the breach posed a real and significant risk of harm. Companies want to save their reputation and money, so why would they inconvenience themselves by reporting a potentially embarrassing breach of privacy that could cause consumers to lose trust in them when they could just hide it instead?

There would be no incentive to report a breach and no advantage to doing so. This is a conflict of interest that would deprive Canadians of the information that they need to make informed choices about which companies they decide to share their personal information with.

Furthermore, because of the Conservatives' inaction, PIPEDA, which is supposed to be updated every five years, is falling far behind international standards. Since the first statutory review in 2007, subsequent attempts to amend PIPEDA have died on the order paper. After this long wait to update PIPEDA, the bill would simply not go far enough to protect Canadians in this digital era. We as Canadians are getting the message that the government does not take the protection of personal information seriously.

I, along with my fellow NDP members, truly do not ask for much when it comes to this bill. We have long called for the modernization of Canadian privacy laws. They are not up to date. Instead of making it easy for companies to share our information, the government should put deterrent penalties put in place that would require or encourage these private companies to respect and follow Canadian laws. Following that, we insist that the provisions in Bill S-4 to allow organizations to share personal information without consent or a warrant be removed and that the loopholes in PIPEDA, which do the same thing, be closed.

The point of the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is to protect the very rights and freedoms contained within them. Warrantless access to our subscriber data and personal information most definitely poses a risk to Canadian privacy.

Modernizing the laws that govern the protection of personal protection is an important issue in the digital age. However, ramming through a bill that has huge holes, such as this bill, is not a fix that can make up for years of inaction by the current government. I urge the Conservatives to accept the amendments to this bill so that we can work collaboratively to ensure that all Canadians can trust that their personal information is being protected to the best of the government's ability.

One of the other things that was very troubling was seeing time allocation moved for the 97th time. Time allocation basically puts closure on this bill. It does not allow for all of the members to bring the views of their constituents into the House, which is one of our primary jobs.

This is the 97th time the Conservatives have done it and I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, they are not going to get the chance after October 19, because Canadians are tired. They have seen democracy and the workings of democracy crumble. These guys are going to be out.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to be here today to express my strong support for Bill S-4, the digital privacy act. This bill would make significant and long-overdue improvements to Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA.

One question that has been asked repeatedly by members opposite is why the government is not amending PIPEDA in response to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Canada v. Spencer. They claim they cannot support the digital privacy act because the bill fails to act on this decision. Those are very strong words and it is clear that the opposition parties have not done their homework before speaking on this matter.

The answer to their question is quite simple. The government is not proposing amendments to PIPEDA in response to the Spencer decision because the Supreme Court confirmed that PIPEDA does not give the police any search and seizure powers. In fact, the whole purpose of the law is to increase the protection of Canadians' personal information.

Given the questions that have been raised around the Spencer decision, it is important that I take time today to clear up some of the misinformation. My hon. colleagues opposite do not need to take my word for it. They can always take the time to read paragraphs 71 and 73 of the decision themselves. The Spencer decision deals with a child pornography investigation carried out by the Saskatoon police department. As part of the ongoing investigation, police identified the IP address of a computer that was being used to access and distribute child pornography.

It is important to understand that the police were able to obtain the IP address simply by going online and interacting with the child pornographer, because computers make their IP addresses public whenever they engage in a file-sharing activity. With this IP address in hand, the police then asked the Internet service provider to voluntarily provide account information for the subscriber assigned to the IP address. The account information included the subscriber's name and mailing address. The police asked for the service provider's co-operation on the good faith belief that the subscriber did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to his or her basic account information, which is the individual's name and address.

With this information in hand, the police obtained a warrant to search the suspect's house, at which time a computer was seized and found to contain child pornography. Mr. Spencer was charged and convicted of possession of child pornography. Mr. Spencer appealed his conviction on the grounds that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to the account information obtained by the police. In other words, he argued that the police were required to obtain a warrant before getting his basic subscriber account information from his Internet service provider to make sure that his charter rights were respected.

In its decision, the Supreme Court found that Canadians in general have a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to their Internet browsing habits and history. This is because the sites we visit and the online activities we engage in can reveal “intimate biographical details” about ourselves, details that we may wish to keep private. Because linking an IP address with a specific account holder enables the police to learn about and observe an individual's Internet habits, the court found in the specific circumstances of the Spencer case that the police should have obtained a warrant from a judge to collect Mr. Spencer's account information.

It is, however, important to note that because the police were acting in good faith, believing that Mr. Spencer did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his account information, the court did not exclude the evidence obtained by the police and Mr. Spencer's conviction was upheld.

These are the facts. It is difficult to see how this decision means that PIPEDA, the digital privacy act or Bill S-4 in some way violates the charter rights of Canadians, as the members opposite have asserted at every opportunity. This is blatantly false.

As I stated at the outset of my remarks, the Supreme Court confirmed that PIPEDA does not create any search and seizure powers for law enforcement. Nothing in the law compels companies to provide personal information to law enforcement and the digital privacy act would not change that fact.

Justice Cromwell stated in his decision, “In short, I agree with the Ontario Court of Appeal...on this point that neither...the Criminal Code, nor PIPEDA creates any police search and seizure powers”.

He said, “PIPEDA is a statute whose purpose” as set out in section 3 “is to increase the protection of personal information”. Justice Cromwell further clarified that there are clear restrictions that PIPEDA places on disclosures by private businesses to law enforcement agencies. He stated that even in child pornography cases, the circumstances “cannot override the clear statutory language of...PIPEDA, which permits disclosure only if a request is made by a government institution with 'lawful authority' to request the disclosure”.

This fact clearly demonstrates that PIPEDA prohibits unlawful disclosure unless the requirements of the law are met, including that the government institution demonstrates the necessary authority to obtain, not just simply to ask, for the information.

In addition to a warrant or court order, what might this lawful authority to obtain information include? Justice Cromwell stated:

“Lawful authority” may include several things. It may refer to the common law authority of the police to ask questions relating to matters that are not subject to a reasonable expectation of privacy. It may refer to the authority of police to conduct warrantless searches under exigent circumstances or where authorized by a reasonable law.

Justice Cromwell clearly noted that issues of disclosure and lawful authority arose in this case simply because the investigation was begun by police. This is simply not the case for private organizations. In his Supreme Court decision, Justice Cromwell wrote that, “...entirely different considerations may apply where an ISP itself detects illegal activity and of its own motion wishes to report this activity to the police”.

To summarize, this is what the Supreme Court said about PIPEDA in the Spencer decision.

PIPEDA does not provide law enforcement with any “search and seizure powers”.

Consistent with the charter, PIPEDA permits businesses to disclose personal information to law enforcement without consent in only the following circumstances: law enforcement have a warrant or a similar court order; the information is required to address an emergency, such as information that is needed to stop a crime in progress that threatens someone's life; the law enforcement agency is acting pursuant to a specific law that gives it the authority to obtain private information without a warrant; in response to a routine inquiry by law enforcement regarding information for which there is no reasonable expectation of privacy; or the organization, on its own initiative, provides the information to police to report a crime.

Clearly, the Supreme Court did not find any part of PIPEDA unconstitutional.

I hope that with this clarification, all hon. members will join us in supporting the digital privacy act Bill S-4, the digital privacy act, in ensuring that Canadians' personal information is protected.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we know that Canadians are very much concerned about the digital era. There are many corporations and companies worldwide, let alone in Canada, that collect a lot of valuable information and we should be concerned about that, as we continue to go on the Internet and the compilation of information continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

If the member believes that this is such an important issue, why did it take the government literally months away from an election to start bringing the bill back to the House? Nor was it even initiated by the House of Commons, rather the Conservatives chose to have the Senate initiate the legislation. This tells me that the Conservatives are not concerned about the issue of privacy for Canadians in the digital era.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I reject the premise of that question. My friend from Winnipeg North knows that the House has been very busy, that we do have two bodies in Parliament. We are a bicameral system and sometimes legislation starts in the Senate. This is a bill that was started there. It went through three readings and committee study. We brought it here and had committee study here. Now we have brought it here for second reading with all the considerations and evidence already presented to the House committee on the bill.

It is important that we get together and make sure that we study this. I want to assure the member that we do take this issue very seriously. The digital privacy of Canadians is very important to us and that is why we made sure in the bill that there are more powers for the Privacy Commissioner to ensure that digital privacy is respected, not just by government departments, but by everybody in this country.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence will have three minutes remaining time for questions and comments when the House next resumes debate on the question.

Now we are going to statements by members, the hon. member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour.

The House resumed consideration of Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, as reported without amendment from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks on the bill, I would like to pay my respects to the members of the House who rose today and shared personal experiences regarding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which reported today. Many of their words were heartfelt and were received that way. The House has work to do and I commit on behalf of my constituents to share in that journey and in that work. It is important work that lies in front of us. Not all of us will get a chance to speak to it today, so I wanted to be on the record with those comments.

Regarding the legislation that sits in front of us, this is yet another piece of legislation that toys with privacy and the impact of changing privacy rules. There have been several in this session of Parliament. Taken in isolation, they all creep toward something that is making more and more Canadians worried about their privacy and the security of their private data, wondering what the true motive of the government is when we take all of the items in concert.

There are ways of rationalizing and accepting, and even valid criteria to act upon in changing the privacy rules around data, but what seems to define the legislation and much of the actions of the government is that each and every one of those pieces of legislation is rushed through. Careful consideration of the impacts that are proposed are almost never part of the consideration, never reflected in amendments, and never reflected in the refinement of rules.

This latest legislation was presented to the House, then presented and pushed through committee and re-presented to the House as perfect from the get-go. I have covered politics most of my life. I have been around legislative processes in all three levels of government in our country and I have never seen such arrogance around the notion of presenting perfect legislation. The record of the government having its rules and regulations tested by the Supreme Court ought to give it pause for consideration, that when wise individuals and learned groups appear before committee and point out glaring mistakes, omissions or concerns there never seems to be a capacity to listen, only to soldier on.

While perhaps I respect the tenacity of the government on these files, errors are being made that put people at risk. However, what it really does, and I think this has been seen in the last part of the session, is that Canadians do not trust the government with their privacy anymore. It leads to speculation, worries and even paranoia, to the point where the faith in the government has disappeared. That is a concern.

In many of the omnibus bills is the kernel of a good idea, of a legitimate process, but it gets obscured by the omnibus nature of some of these bills, by the vagaries of some of the language, and by the intransigence and stubbornness of committee members and members of the opposite party to sit there, to listen, to take input, to make amendments, and to make a good idea a better idea, which is the role of Parliament. It astounds me that the government seems to think it gets it right the first time, every time. I have never seen that in any government. Any government that has that much self-assurance really ought to stop and consider whether it is acting in the best interest even of itself.

One of the dynamics here is that there seems to be this belief that the private sector is acting in the interests of the private sector, that it has the best interests of private individuals at heart. If the government truly believed that surveillance, the sharing of information, and the distribution of that information to third parties was such a wise way to go and was part of the argument toward stronger public safety rules and regulations, imagine if we were not talking about metadata right now and talking about rifles instead. The government would never tolerate, in fact has never tolerated, this kind of tracking, intrusion and data banking of people's information about something which is really dangerous, such as a gun. Yet when it comes to private information, it lets it go this way, that way and every way. It clamps down on the very same individual rights and privileges of people with their data. It will release that information and share it willingly, but will not do it when it comes to guns. There is a contradiction there that does not make sense.

There is a balance that needs to be struck. We hear about that balance all the time around various other debates, but when it comes to sharing information, it seems to go out the window. We have a party that on the one hand says we cannot share any information about who owns weapons in this country, but on the other hand says that we can go into anybody's computer and distribute that information as widely as we want in the name of public safety.

If the party opposite could reconcile that contradiction for me, I would be happy to listen to the arguments. However, from my perspective, we need a balance in both of those issues, and that balance has not been achieved in either one of them. In large part, that is because the paranoia with which the government pursues one file is coupled with a complete lack of trust on another file. As I said, it is contradictory and does not make any sense to me.

The other issue that crops up again and again is the government's inability to orchestrate proper civilian oversight of the changes it is making. Just as it has no doubt about the legislation that it introduces and believes it to be perfect from the word go, the government never seems to think that there is a need to review and be perpetually vigilant about where the legislation may be going off track or delivering results that were not intended or expected. There is no oversight about how this information is being shared or how the agencies that are pursuing, sharing, or developing it are conducting themselves.

The absence of this oversight on so many files tells me another thing. It tells me that the government does not trust civilians as much as it trusts itself. That, at the heart of the legislation, has to raise concerns on the opposite side. Either we trust people or we do not. The government does not trust the opposition. It does not trust ordinary Canadians. Half of the time it does not even trust the courts to provide this oversight and review and to check the government against its own mistakes.

Parliamentarians are human, and they make mistakes. We all have to correct each other, and if we do not build that into legislation, particularly into privacy legislation, we fail each other. That is one of the reasons that, despite there being some good in this bill, on balance it fails.

The bill fails in two regards. In fails in that it would not create a consistent approach or a collaborative effort to create better legislation, which worries us. It also fails because it would once again fail to bring in a mandatory and processional review of how this legislation is performing. Without those checks and balances, the legislation leads to Canadians worrying that their government is not protecting them. Those worries take Parliament, the respect for Parliament, and the respect for the rule of law into places that they just should not go in a modern democracy.

For those reasons, my party and I will not be supporting this bill.

New powers require new responsibilities, and the best way to make sure that they serve both the public and private interests of individual Canadians is to make sure that Canadians have oversight of these rules and regulations. Once again, that is absent from this legislation, even though experts who appeared before the government in committee urged that it be there. That is a failing, and it is a failing that has ramifications far beyond this bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member might provide further comment regarding the importance of the government getting legislation of this nature right. We have a continual reliance on and growth in the Internet, where private information is becoming more and more prevalent and corporations and other types of agencies have large data banks where they accumulate all sorts of personal and non-personal information about Canadians.

There is a role for the government to play, but it is absolutely critical to ensure that information is protected and that individuals' rights pertaining to their information are also protected.