Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for this opportunity to speak to Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act, 2022. While there are many important components of Bill C-27 to debate, my speech today will focus on just two aspects. The first is privacy, and the second is identity.
The protection of both the privacy and the identities of Canadians is essential. We need to ensure that strong legal mechanisms are in place to guarantee that protection. Connected with that is the need to protect from the commercial interests of private companies, as well as protection from the government and its potential overreach into the private lives of Canadian citizens. Consequently, I believe a national digital charter is urgently needed. To protect Canadians, it is important that we have a piece of legislation that acts as an umbrella to protect Canadians from government, and to uphold the privacy of Canadians' data and their digital identities.
The second part of my speech will highlight some of the breaches that have occurred over the past three years. These breaches drive home the urgent need for more stringent protection for Canadians when it comes to privacy and protecting their private information.
Privacy rights are at the heart of any democracy. They are necessary for reinforcing the limits and boundaries between private citizens, their government and the private sector. In Canada, individual liberties are guaranteed by section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has made comments on this. She stated, “liberty...depends on and mandates respect for the individual and his or her right to be free from government restraint, except as authorized by law.”
Justice McLachlin further explains why it is important for government to keep the people informed and to answer questions, stating, “People who possess power, even small administrative powers, may use information they should not have improperly. And even if they don’t, the individual’s fear that they may use it, often leads to unwilling compliance.”
Just as we have fundamental freedoms entrenched in the highest law of our land to protect us from government encroachment of our freedoms, I also believe that it is necessary to have digital data privacy legislation. That is a fundamental right that urgently requires the strengthening of our legislative protections and enforcement.
That is why we need a federal digital charter, which would act as an overarching piece of legislation. However, Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act, falls short of this very important objective. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner, for years, has made several calls for reform. Privacy watchdogs have repeatedly lamented that our federal privacy laws are outdated, that they fail to provide the needed legal protections in an increasingly digital world.
Canadians also have serious concerns about privacy. First, they have concerns about how their private information is being used, and what large corporations and governments are doing with it. Second, these concerns have turned into a fear because of the misuse and abuse of private information in the recent years.
This leads me to the second point of my speech. I will speak about the bigger problem in the privacy landscape in this country, which is that the Liberal government is failing to update its own legal boundaries and parameters in this area. The reality is that this bill does not touch on the Privacy Act, the act that governs the government, and this digital charter does not cover how the government handles the information it collects from Canadians.
Essentially, this bill is saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” With this bill, the government is telling businesses, even sole proprietorships, that they should add additional layers of red tape under the threat of financial penalties. Business owners are still struggling to recover from COVID setbacks, lockdowns and government red tape.
My fear is that many of these small businesses, subject to these new requirements, would not be able to survive or have the capacity to implement some of these new requirements. These demands come even though government itself has failed to lay down the rules and regulations as to what is needed in the form of a regulatory infrastructural framework to secure our digital future.
A digital charter is needed to protect Canadians, but the federal government should be leading by example by outlining a digital charter that would protect the personal data and privacy of its own citizens first, before it asks businesses to do so. Let us be honest that the number one privacy concern Canadians have right now is how their government is using their information. These fears were exacerbated during the trucker convoy when Canadians’ bank accounts were frozen and property was confiscated through the abuse of the Emergencies Act.
Canadians still remember how the government quietly spied on their movements during the pandemic without their consent. A year ago, it was discovered that the Public Health Agency of Canada was tracking Canadians' movement during the pandemic. This was done without their knowledge, and PHAC wanted to keep doing it quietly for years into the future, but it was the Conservative opposition that discovered this breach and stood up for Canadians. We demanded answers from the Public Health Agency on the way the data was collected, how it was defined, what third parties were privy to the data and whether any data was reidentified. It is important that the government answer these questions and sets standards because it is falling short of its own requirements.
Canadians have not forgotten even the ArriveCAN debacle, the privacy questions around its mandatory use, and the terms and conditions associated with it. In other words, exactly what personal data and identifying information has been shared outside the app? Under what circumstances, and with which domestic or international organizations, was it shared? The app’s privacy notice even stipulated that the government had the right to share our information contained in the app with international organizations and institutions.
Canadians have a right to know with whom their data is being shared. This matter, it is no surprise, was referred to the Privacy Commissioner for an investigation. We are still waiting for an answer on the ArriveCAN privacy breaches.
Let us not forget that Canadians were fined thousands of dollars and threatened at their own borders for not submitting their own private medical information. This was, in my view, a massive overreach of government powers, but the reality is that this overreach happened because Canada has insufficient legal safeguards in place to prevent such abuses, and this creates a profound distrust in government.
It concerns me that the government is moving toward integrating a digital proof of identity framework that would massively expand the centralization of government access to the private information and data of Canadians. There are numerous ethical abuses that relate to this data collection.
The biggest concern is having all of one's private information in one place. Imagine our health information, driving information and banking information all in one portal. This would give information handlers a great deal of power over our data. This power urgently needs to be kept in check, and we need public experts in consultation on the ethics behind this centralized data collection power to uncover what we need to do to protect Canadians.
In conclusion, Canada’s digital privacy framework has long been in dire need of modernization. I want to thank the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, which worked hard on this issue for years. Canadians must have the right to access and control the collection, use, monitoring and retention of their personal data. However, in Canada, the Liberal government is failing Canadians by not prioritizing its own accountability when it comes to protecting privacy rights. The bill sadly fails to put forward a rigorous and comprehensive legislative framework that would defend Canadians’ data, privacy and digital identities, now and in the future.
