Bill C-27

Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022

An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts

Part 1 enacts the Consumer Privacy Protection Act to govern the protection of personal information of individuals while taking into account the need of organizations to collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities. In consequence, it repeals Part 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and changes the short title of that Act to the Electronic Documents Act . It also makes consequential and related amendments to other Acts.
Part 2 enacts the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act , which establishes an administrative tribunal to hear appeals of certain decisions made by the Privacy Commissioner under the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and to impose penalties for the contravention of certain provisions of that Act. It also makes a related amendment to the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada Act .
Part 3 enacts the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act to regulate international and interprovincial trade and commerce in artificial intelligence systems by requiring that certain persons adopt measures to mitigate risks of harm and biased output related to high-impact artificial intelligence systems. That Act provides for public reporting and authorizes the Minister to order the production of records related to artificial intelligence systems. That Act also establishes prohibitions related to the possession or use of illegally obtained personal information for the purpose of designing, developing, using or making available for use an artificial intelligence system and to the making available for use of an artificial intelligence system if its use causes serious harm to individuals.

Industry and Technology

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address the issue of the aerospace and aviation industry. I grew up in Montreal, and my family and I were always aware of the existence of this industry, particularly when we went down what was then called Laurentien Boulevard in Cartierville. There was even an airport attached to the Canadair plant.

Now it has become a residential area, but it was very impressive to go by that plant. In fact, I believe that, today, it is by far the biggest manufacturing plant in Montreal. My father worked for Canadair after the war, in the 1950s, when Canadair specialized in manufacturing aircraft for putting out forest fires. I have always been aware of the aerospace industry.

However, I am rather confused as to why the decision was made to discuss this report now. If I am not mistaken, this report is over a year old and the government has already issued a response to it, as it is required to do when a committee report is tabled. It is my understanding that we are supposed to be debating Bill C‑27, which deals with some issues that are very important at present.

The purpose of this bill to modernize our privacy protection laws in a context where we are increasingly seeing the danger of the spread of disinformation. It is a growing and current challenge that threatens the very foundation of democracy. Bill C‑27 is timely. I think it addresses rather crucial issues for our society.

That being said, I would like to turn to the subject at hand, which is the aviation and aerospace industry.

In Montreal, this industry has a long and extraordinary history. It goes back nearly a century. Montreal in particular played a key role in the Second World War. I have before me an article from the Hamilton Spectator dated September 7, 1939. I will read a few paragraphs from this article. It will become clear that Canada and Quebec, but especially Montreal, were instrumental in the war effort in Europe. This article is from New York.

A sharp expansion in Canadian airplane manufacture is expected as a result of President Roosevelt’s proclamation of the United States Neutrality Act, the New York Herald-Tribune says today....

The neutrality proclamation has cut off for the time being at least the delivery of nearly half of the 600 warplanes ordered in the United States by France, Great Britain and Australia.

“The embargo proclamation, however, does not interfere with the manufacture of similar planes in Canada under licences already obtained by the Dominion's manufacturers from American firms,” the dispatch says.

Basically, what was happening was that the United States was not allowed to export fully built airplanes to Europe to help with the war effort, but it was not prohibited from sending parts to Canada and having Canadian manufacturers manufacture the planes and send them over to Europe.

There were two important manufacturers in Montreal that were doing this manufacturing for overseas markets. One was Vickers, which, as I understand, later became Canadair, and the other was Fairchild Aircraft, which I believe was located on the South Shore, in the riding of Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, which became, after that, United Aircraft, and then Pratt & Whitney.

Another Montreal company was involved in this wartime production, and that was the Canadian Car and Foundry Company. That company was founded in 1909. It was given a contract to produce Hurricane aircraft. By 1943, the company had a workforce of 4,500 people, half of them women, I might add, and had built 1,400 aircraft, about 10% of all the Hurricanes built worldwide.

I would like to take a moment to mention the company's chief engineer, a woman by the name of Elsie MacGill. Let me tell members a bit about Elsie MacGill. She was known as the “Queen of the Hurricanes”, and she was the world's first woman to earn an aeronautical engineering degree and the first woman in Canada to receive a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. She worked as an aeronautical engineer during World War II and did much to make Canada a powerhouse of aircraft construction during her years at the Canadian Car and Foundry.

We can see, very clearly, that Montreal and Quebec and Canada played an extraordinarily large role in the development of aerospace and aeronautics. Montreal is the home of IATA, the International Air Transport Association, which governs procedures, rules and regulations around commercial transport in the world. It is an international organization.

I would also like to mention that Dorval Airport basically started as part of the war effort that saw planes built in Montreal and other parts of Canada and shipped over to Europe. Dorval Airport, now known as Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, and I say that very proudly, was where the Ferry Command was based. The Ferry Command was a process by which planes would leave from Dorval and fly to England. These airplanes were being delivered to the air force over there.

Montreal has an extremely rich history, and throughout that history it has built up an industrial cluster or an industrial ecosystem.

Because next week is Tourism Week, I would also like to mention, in passing, that in my riding of Lac-Saint-Louis we have the Montreal Aviation Museum, which I invite members to visit because they will learn all about Montreal's and Canada's aviation history.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, our colleague across the aisle spent a lot of his time complaining about the issues the Bloc Québécois has chosen to address. Today, it is the report of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. He reminded the House that we devoted some opposition days to the issues of prayer and the monarchy, reminding us these were not real issues in his mind, that there were more important issues. Today we are raising the issue of aerospace. We might have expected him to applaud our choice and say that it was a good idea, that it finally allows us to talk about something that affects people, but instead he tells us that we should have talked about Bill C‑27.

The question we in the Bloc are asking is quite simple. Despite the agreement between the parties to drop the debate on Bill C‑27, is the member finally inviting us to discuss it and to add speakers to the debate? The Liberal position is not clear.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the real shameful stuff is going to come up, I can assure the member, in regard to the Conservative Party, but the Bloc is sitting a little too close. I was just wondering if the member wants to shoo over a little bit more. I agree. I would do that too.

They are starting to have a negative influence on the Bloc. Today, we were supposed to be debating Bill C-27, and we know how important it is to our constituencies that we provide security in the privacy of information on the Internet. We all recognize how important that issue is. The Bloc do not want to discuss that today, even though we have attempted to have it passed through the House. I understand it supports the legislation, which is a good thing. However, it wants to talk about the aerospace industry by bringing through concurrence of a report to use up government time. This is not the first time. We are used to the Conservative Party doing it.

Having said that, I am happy to talk about the aerospace industry. When I think of the aerospace industry, I think of John Diefenbaker. Do members remember John Diefenbaker? John Diefenbaker was a prime minister of Canada.

Canada, at the time, was leading the world, virtually, in the development of a first-class interceptor, a plane that was incredibly fast. We have to remember that this was after the world war, when there was a need for development and an enrichment of our aerospace industry. The prime minister at the time, John Diefenbaker, destroyed Canada's aerospace industry by cancelling the Avro Arrow.

That was a high-altitude plane. It was ahead of its time. I want members to imagine that plane program not having been cancelled. Avro employed hundreds of people at the time, possibly over 1,000, but I will say hundreds for now. They all worked in the province of Ontario.

I think of the technology and the research that was done. They actually rolled one of the Avro planes out. It was recognized around the world as likely the leading candidate for the development of a plane that was like a rocket, going to altitudes of 40,000 and above.

John Diefenbaker cancelled the program. Back in the late fifties, he cancelled the program. It is the truth. As a result, Avro actually went broke and closed its doors. All of the equipment and, more important, all of the brains and skills were dispersed. Many of the individuals who developed the Avro ended up leaving Canada so they could get into and expand that particular industry. Canada lost out big time, and it is something which even today, 70 years later, we reflect on. What would our industry look like today?

Well, earlier today, I was asking questions of members of the Bloc. I am happy to say that it is the province of Quebec that leads our aerospace industry. I pointed out, in the question I posed earlier, that in the province of Quebec, one can build a plane from the very beginning, from the bolts to the polishing of the aircraft, the final product. That is fairly rare.

When we think of the aerospace industry in Canada, one is talking about tens of thousands of jobs, well over 100,000 jobs. Do members know the average salary of someone working in the aerospace industry in Manitoba? It is estimated, I believe, to be over $60,000 a year. These are good middle-class types of jobs with incredible skill sets. In Canada today, it is Quebec that leads.

With respect to jobs, I suspect that the province of Ontario lost the opportunity to play that leadership role as a direct result of a federal government's decision not to invest in the aerospace industry.

Let us fast forward a few decades. Today, we have a national government that does support our aerospace industry in a clear and tangible way, and we have done this from day one. We talked about Bill C-10 and how important it was that we ensure future contracts. We talked about how we could support the industry even though, at times, it meant there would be some give and take. That give and take is important to recognize. The world has changed.

I had a tour of Magellan in my home city of Winnipeg. I felt a sense of pride when I walked around the floor and saw an F-35 wing being manufactured. We have an absolutely incredible aerospace industry in Winnipeg, which contributes to the industry not only in Canada, but worldwide.

Those workers show their love and passion for the construction of very important components of the F-35. Imagine being a worker at Magellan who sees an F-35 on a news broadcast. He or she might reflect on whether that wing was manufactured in Winnipeg. Even in crating the wing, someone would need an engineering background to build the crate that houses the wing prior to its shipping.

The member before me talked about the importance of schools. Magellan has a classroom in which Red River College contributes to the education. It is very important to recognize that it is not only Ottawa that has the responsibility of supporting these industries, even though it feels we are alone in doing that at times. Many stakeholders have a role in ensuring that Canada continues to lead an industry that is so vitally important to the world. The best way to do that is to work with our partners and stakeholders.

When I was an MLA a number of years ago, and I hope the Manitoba legislature Hansard would show this, I spoke about the aerospace industry in the province of Manitoba. I said that the province needed to step up and support the industry. If the local entities and provincial governments are not at the table, it hurts the industry. It also hurts it if the industry itself is not at the table.

As much as I would love to talk about the province of Quebec, I think the similarities are striking between Manitoba and Quebec. We have aerospace industry umbrella organizations and those organizations are there for the health and the well-being of that industry.

This comes from Winnipeg's aerospace industry's umbrella agency. I will quote from its website so people can get a sense of what I am referring to when I talk about Manitoba's aerospace industry. It states:

Canada is a global leader in aerospace and Manitoba is home to Canada’s third largest aerospace industry. Our highly competitive aerospace sector produces world-class products for customers on six continents.

From modest roots in small bush plane repair in the 1930′s, the Manitoba aerospace industry has grown to include sophisticated design, manufacturing, servicing, testing, certification and research and development capabilities. We are home to Canada’s largest aerospace composite manufacturing centre, as well as the world’s largest independent gas turbine engine repair and overhaul company. Also located in Manitoba are the internationally acclaimed Composites Innovation Centre and two of the world’s most advanced aircraft engine testing and certification centres developed by Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney and GE Aviation. Along with these global aerospace leaders, Manitoba has a network of SMBs that compete and supply into the global marketplace. This growing cluster is strengthened through the Competitive Edge Supplier Development initiative, an internationally recognized learner to world class supplier and supply chain development program.

This gives us a sense of the impact the aerospace industry in Manitoba has on the world. We could come up with even a stronger statement, in a different perspective coming from the province of Quebec.

I remember another occasion when I was in the Phillippines. I talked to some military representatives, who talked about the Bell helicopter. They thought that the province of Quebec had a wonderful product in the Bell helicopter, that Quebec was a place they could look at. I asked a representative why he was looking at the province of Quebec in particular and what he thought about the manufactured helicopter. I did not expect, and the member commented on this, him to say that it was the fact that politicians in Quebec were so impressed with the makeup of the workforce in the construction of the helicopter, referring to the fact that people of Filipino heritage were in that industry.

With respect to our aerospace industry, one of the nice things is the diversity we see when we tour these plants, whether they are in Quebec, Manitoba, Ontario or British Columbia, “the big four”, as I would like to say. Hopefully Manitoba will even become higher and more prominent, but that is a personal bias. It is that diversification of the workforce and the skills they have.

That is why it is so critically important that Ottawa not only continues to support the aerospace industry, as it has prepandemic, during the pandemic and today, but that we also ensure, as much as possible, that those stakeholders are at the table as well. We want Red River College and the University of Manitoba at the table. We want those post-secondary facilities, whether they are in Manitoba, Quebec, Ontario, B.C., or any other jurisdiction, to be at the table to ensure we continue to invest in research and technology.

When we think of manufacturing in Canada, many would argue, especially many of my Ontario colleagues, that we lead in the automobile industry. After all, we can take a look at the hybrids, at the plants that are being announced, the thousands of jobs, the clean energy, and all these things. In a good part, it is coming out of Ontario, but when we take a look at the overall picture of the manufacturing industry, Canada's aerospace industry is recognized, within our bigger picture of the manufacturing industry, as one of the best, if not the best, in investing in research, technology and advancement. We are seeing that in the types of demands that are there for Canada.

Ottawa should continue to support the industry. As the Minister of Industry indicated in a question about something he recently announced in the province of Quebec, I can make reference to things that recently have been announced in Manitoba. Whether it is through procurements and how the federal government supports the industry, or direct investments in the industry, or indirect things that are done through things such as trades and skills, my appeal would be that we look at what other stakeholders and jurisdictions can do that would complement the types of initiatives that the federal government is taking to advance a very important industry.

This industry employs thousands of people, with well-paying jobs. It contributes billions of dollars every year to our GDP, thereby enhancing our lifestyle. We can all take a sense of pride in how our aerospace industry has been able to do relatively well even during the pandemic. As we get through the pandemic and look at the potential to increase its demand in the years ahead, it is critically important we continue to look at ways to support our aerospace industry.

As much as I enjoy talking about the aerospace industry, I hope the Bloc and Conservatives will come onside and support Bill C-27 when it comes up for debate later today. It would be wonderful to see that legislation pass, which would make this debate that much better.

[Amy Hill]

Finally, PIAC provided a submission to the Competition Bureau in response to its market study on the grocery industry. We flagged a couple of issues for the bureau that we would also put before the committee today, which had either direct or indirect impacts to food pricing.

First, access to consumer data and the ability to process and use data from loyalty programs is a significant competitive advantage in the grocery industry. Purchasing data about a consumer allows the grocers to build profiles about consumers and then use the profiles for targeted advertising.

In the interest of time, I will just note that if Bill C-27 passes in its current form, consumers could lose important legislative protections when it comes to their data, leaving data more vulnerable even as grocers collect more from points programs.

Secondly, while this is a federal committee, the committee should also consider regional challenges, whether that be food affordability in the far north or restrictive covenants in some southern communities. Many Canadian communities have unique challenges when it comes to food. We hope to see recommendations acknowledging these distinct challenges.

John.

Business of the House

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, let me join with my hon. colleague, the opposition House leader, in wishing everyone a joyous Easter. I hope that members who are celebrating Easter take time with their families. This is also a very busy time for many of our other faith communities as we recognize Vaisakhi. We are in the holy month of Ramadan right now and we have Passover. This is a time that is very rich, one when I know people will be visiting churches, mosques and temples in our communities to share with the rich faith traditions in our constituencies. I hope all members are able to profit from those opportunities to be with their constituents and families.

With respect to Bill C-11, I will simply state that I do not think there is any amount of time that would satisfy Conservatives. In fact, I would challenge the opposition House leader to indicate just how many days of debate he would like. I do not think there is any end. Conservatives have indicated they want to obstruct this bill. This bill has had more time in the Senate than any bill in history. It was in the last Parliament and it is in this Parliament. It is time our artists get compensated for their work and that the tech giants pay their fair share.

Tomorrow, we will start the second reading debate of Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, and then we are going to be switching to Bill C-34, the Investment Canada Act.

When we return, we will continue with the budget debate on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Thursday, we will start the day with a ways and means vote relating to the budget implementation act. Following the vote, we will proceed to the debate on Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act, 2022, followed by Bill C-42.

Finally, on Friday, we will commence debate on the budget bill.

Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Madam Speaker, given the interest that we had in this place about Yogi-isms and in honour of that, I hoped to ask my colleague, the previous speaker for Banff—Airdrie, about “It ain’t over till it’s over.” In this government's case, a piece of legislation is not over until it gets a do-over because the government never seems to get it right the first time. We seem to be revisiting issues when we warned the government in previous parliaments that it was headed down the wrong track. We have, of course, a do-over now with this piece of legislation, redoing some of the work that the government tried to achieve in previous parliaments. However, here I am today talking about Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act.

Some members might be interested to know, although I highly doubt it, that when I was a tenured faculty member at Red Deer College, I taught systems analysis and design, programming and database administration. I know it is hard to believe that a guy who likes hunting and fishing as much as I do also sat in a cubicle where they slid pizzas under the door, where I just churned away and developed code and relational databases and did some data architecture work for a handful of years.

It does not seem all that long ago. I got that education just prior to Y2K, and members would remember the scare everyone was going to have with Y2K. I worked in the private sector for a while, but the college I graduated from liked me so much as a student that it invited me back to be a teacher. I taught until 2005 in the information technology field.

I gave a speech a while ago talking about how much and how rapidly technology has evolved and the laws pertaining to that technological advancement. It was 2005 when I left the college, because in January 2006, I was elected to this place. Therefore, I am now a 17-year obsolete data programmer. If I am ever frozen and brought back, it is because I can still program in COBOL and C++, and many of these program languages are still around today.

I am loath to talk about floppy disks at my age. We do not have those anymore. As a matter of fact, I am part of a generation, as are a number of my colleagues, that was probably the last generation on this planet that did not even have cellphones. We had to actually remember people's phone numbers in our heads. When our house phone rang, we actually made an effort to go get it. I do not know if that happens much anymore, but this is where I am at. Long gone are the days of floppy disks, although I do hear that C Sharp and other object-oriented programming languages are still in vogue. That is nice to know.

Today, our information is not stored on floppy disks or hard drives, at least not the same kind of hard drives there were when I was in the business. It is now stored in the cloud, and targeted ads come up on our phones. Every time I bring up Instagram, I do not know where these algorithms get the information from. They must be listening to everything I say because all I get are ads for fishing rods, brand new boats, fish hooks, and I will admit, the cure for plantar fasciitis. Therefore, my phone is clearly listening to everything I say and even the things that my doctor is saying to me in the privacy of a patient-doctor confidential room. However, I am digressing.

This obsolescence in both technology itself and its rapid advancement is something that most of us—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was mostly listening for the Yogi Berra quotes, but I think there is one the member missed that speaks to Bill C-27, which is, “The future ain't what it used to be”, and that is exactly why we need Bill C-27.

The former member for Timmins—James Bay, Peter Kent, and I worked together on the ethics committee and the privacy committee a number of years ago, and we all shared a sense of optimism around technology and the possibilities of the Internet.

What we have come to learn is that we need much stronger protections. I have two young kids. They are growing up with the Internet. We need our laws to reflect our shared reality. We need age-appropriate design codes. We need the right to be forgotten. We do need a much stronger bill, but we need to get the bill to committee.

What are the member's thoughts on getting the bill to committee and improving the bill? I hope we get it there as quickly as possible. We are at a fork in the road, and “[i]f you come to a fork in the road, take it”.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Madam Speaker, he is certainly better known for the way his trademark mangling and misuse of words and phrases has resulted in strangely keen insights that are still widely quoted today by many. I have a few favourites. One of them is “I didn't really say everything that I said.” Another one is “We made too many wrong mistakes.” Another is “Swing at the strikes.”

When I thought about Bill C-27 and preparing to speak today, it brought to mind Yogi-isms, and not only because those examples I just cited reminded me of the Liberals' poor approach to governance but because the title of this bill is a real mouthful at 35 words long. This brought that to mind as well.

For now, I will call it the consumer privacy protection act, but it is really summed up best by what is probably the greatest Yogi-ism of all, which is “It's déjà vu all over again.” That really speaks to it. The member was looking for me to tie it back in, so there it is. There is the tie back in.

Here we are in 2023 and here I am speaking on yet another rehash of another Liberal bill from years previous. They have a real penchant for that, these Liberals. They kind of remind me of Hollywood Studios that no longer seems to be able to produce an original script so it just keeps churning out sequels. If Bill C-27 was a film, one could call it “Bill C-11, the redo”. Bill C-27 is essential a warmed-over version of previous Bill C-11, the digital charter implementation act the Liberals introduced back in 2020.

It is not to be confused with the current Bill C-11, which is also making its way through Parliament and is the online streaming act and which also poses another threat to Canadians' privacy and online freedoms.

It is really easy to see a bit of a pattern evolving here. In any case, in May 2021 the Privacy Commissioner said the digital charter act “represents a step back overall from our current law and needs significant changes if confidence in the digital economy is to be restored.” It of course died when the Prime Minister cynically called an expensive and unnecessary election nobody wanted and everybody paid for and that did not change the Prime Minister's political fortunes one iota.

Bill C-27 carries the stamp of that former digital charter proposal, which Conservatives had concerns about then, and which we still have concerns about in its new form now. Some of the text is in fact directly lifted from Bill C-11 and the text of that bill is available for all to review.

Let us talk more about the impact of the bill's content, rather than the wording itself.

The bill purports to modernize federal private sector privacy law, to create a new tribunal and new laws for AI, or artificial intelligence, systems. In doing so, it raises a number of red flags. Perhaps the most crimson of those flags, for me, is that the bill does not recognize privacy as a fundamental right. That is not actually all that surprising, because this is a Liberal bill. I hear daily from Canadians who are alarmed by how intrusive the Liberal government has become, and who are also fearful of how much more intrusive it still seems to hope to become.

It just seems just par for the course for the government that, in a bill dealing with privacy, it is failing to acknowledge that, 34 years ago, the Supreme Court said privacy is at the very heart of liberty in a modern state, individuals are worthy of it, and it is worthy of constitutional protection.

When we talk about privacy, we have to talk about consent. We have seen far too many examples of Canadians' private and mobility data being used without their consent. I think some of these examples have been cited previously, but I will cite them again.

We saw the Tim Hortons app tracking movements of people after their orders. We saw the RCMP's use of Clearview AI's illegally created facial recognition database. We saw Telus' “data for good” program giving location data to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

These were breaches of the privacy of Canadians. There needs to be a balance between use of data by businesses and that fundamental protection of Canadians' privacy. The balance in this bill is just wrong. It leans too heavily in one direction.

There are certainly issues with user content and use of collected information. For instance, there are too many exemptions from consent. Some exemptions are so broad that they can actually be interpreted as not requiring consent at all. The concept of legitimate interests has been added as an exception to consent, where a legitimate interest outweighs any potential adverse effect on the individual. Personal information would be able to be used and shared for internal research, analysis and development without consent, provided that the content is de-identified. These exemptions are too broad.

The bill's default would seek consent where reasonable, rather than exempt the requirement. In fact, there are several instances where the bill vaguely defines terms that leave too much wiggle room for interpretation, rather than for the protection of Canadians. For example, there is a new section regarding the sharing of minors' sensitive information, but no definition of what “sensitive” means is given, and there would be no protection at all for adults' sensitive information. These are both problematic. De-identification is mandated when data is used or transferred, but the term is poorly defined and the possibility of data being reidentified is certainly there.

Anonymization or pseudonymization are the better methods, and the government needs to sharpen the terms in this bill to be able to sharpen those protections. An even more vague wording in the bill is that individuals would have a right to disposal, the ability to request that their data be destroyed. Clarification is certainly needed regarding anonymization and the right to delete or the right to vanish.

There are many more examples. I know my colleagues will certainly expand on some of those questions as posed in the bill. I know my time is running short. I want to speak to the individual privacy rights of Canadians briefly.

Canadians value their privacy even as their government continually seeks ways to compromise it. The Public Health Agency of Canada secretly tracked 33 million mobile devices during the COVID lockdown. The government assured them their data would not be collected, but it was collecting it through different means all along.

Public confidence is not that high when the Liberals start to mess in issues involving privacy. The onus should be on the government to provide clarity around the use and collection of Canadians' private information because, to quote another Yogi-ism, “If you don't catch the ball, you catch the bus home.”

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I find it interesting that the member inquired with ChatGPT to determine whether or not Canadians should have confidence in the Liberal government on Bill C-27.

I would be much more curious had the member asked whether Canadians should have confidence in the Liberal government, period. I believe its AI ChatGPT would have been crystal clear in saying that no, we do not have confidence in the Liberal government.

Having said that, we do think this legislation is important. I think we are going to listen to debate to make a decision whether or not to send it to committee for further study.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, after testing ChatGPT earlier, I continued my research with Bing and asked it whether the Liberal government deserved Parliament's confidence when it comes to its Bill C‑27. The search engine told me that the bill enacts the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and that the Liberal government had introduced it in 2021. It also told me that it was unable to tell me whether the Liberal government deserved Parliament's confidence regarding this bill, but I could read the details of the bill.

Fortunately, artificial intelligence still has its limits because we need to think for ourselves. I will ask my colleague from Provencher a question. Would the Liberal government deserve our confidence when it comes to Bill C‑27? The member talked in his speech about confidence in the government. Accordingly, should we not be urgently sending the bill to committee? I think that everyone agrees on the need to regulate artificial intelligence. There is urgent work to be done in committee. Will the member be able to quickly provide his support to influence the content of this bill?

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in this House to speak to this piece of legislation. I would like to start today by saying a few words about how this bill is structured, and then I plan to use the majority of my remaining time to discuss the implications of this legislation regarding personal privacy rights.

When I look at this bill, my initial response is this: Should there really not be three separate pieces of legislation? One would deal with the consumer privacy protection act and issues related to modernizing PIPEDA, perhaps a second, separate piece would create the proposed personal information and data protection tribunal act, and a third, separate component, which should absolutely be its own legislation, would be for the section dealing with artificial intelligence.

AI may present similar, very legitimate concerns related to privacy, but the regulation of AI in any practical sense is almost impossible at this juncture because so many aspects of it are still very unknown. So much is still theoretical. So much of this new world into which we are venturing with AI has yet to be fully explored, fully realized or even fully defined. This makes regulation very difficult, but it is in this bill, so it forms part of this legislation.

We can see just how vague the language related to the AI framework really is. I understand why it is that way, and do not get me wrong; I think we need this type of legislation to regulate AI. However, in the same way, this is way too big a topic to delve into in a simple 10-minute speech. It is also too big a topic to drop into an existing piece of legislation, as the government has done here, basically wedging this section into what was known as Bill C-11 in the last Parliament.

I have deep concerns with AI. They are practical concerns, economic concerns and labour concerns related to the implementation of AI. I even have moral concerns. We have artificial intelligence so advanced that it can make decisions by itself. The people who have created that technology cannot explain how it came to those decisions and it cannot tell them. The capabilities of this technology alone seem almost limitless. It is actually a little scary.

Personally, I look at some of the work being done in AI and wonder if we should, as humanity, really be doing this. Just because we have the knowledge and capability to do something does not necessarily mean it is for the betterment of humanity. I wonder sometimes where this technology and these capabilities will take us. I fear that in hindsight, we will look back and see how our hubris led us to a technological and cultural reality we never wanted and from which we will never be able to return.

However, here we are, and we have this capability partially today. People are using it, and it requires some form of regulation. This bill attempts to start that important conversation. It is a good first step, and that is okay. I think this is one of those things where we need to start somewhere as we are not going to get it done all at once. However, again, given the enormity of the topic and the vast implications, it should be its own separate piece of legislation.

Those are my thoughts on the structure of the bill, and now I will shift gears to talk a bit about personal privacy.

Personal privacy is a fundamental right. Three decades ago, long before the advent of the Internet or smart phones, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled privacy is “the heart of liberty in a modern state”. It did not say that privacy was at the heart; it said privacy is the heart. Personal privacy is the fundamental right and freedom from which all other liberties flow, and with the advent of the Internet age, the age of the smart phone and the age of digitized everything, laws related to protecting the fundamental right to privacy must be updated. Canadians must have the right to access and control the collection, use, monitoring, retention and disclosure of their personal data. The question is, how do we realistically do that?

One of the reasons I am a Conservative is that I believe in individual rights and that rights and freedoms must be coupled with accompanying accountability and responsibility. This has to be a two-way street. Canadians need to be informed, and they need to be responsible and aware of what they are agreeing to, subscribing to and giving permission for. How often do we simply and blindly click “accept” without reading the terms and conditions for using a website, using an app or allowing others the use of our information?

I would be curious to know among my colleagues in the House, when was the last time they fully read the terms and conditions of a user agreement or a disclosure statement? Most of us just hit “accept”. We do not want to be bothered.

Recognizing this, can we really say the privacy of Canadians is being violated when many individuals live every moment of their lives posting in real time online for all the world to see, and access and just click “accept” without reading what they are agreeing to?

In this context, what is the role of government and what is the responsibility of the individual user? Government and businesses need to provide clear information, but people also need to be informed. They need to take responsibility.

I recall a while back when my office received an email on this subject of privacy. The individual was deeply concerned about web giants having access to his personal data. I had to laugh, because at the bottom of the email it said, “Sent from my Huawei phone”.

As a government creating legislation, where should those legal lines between consent and informed consent be drawn? As Canadians, we are a bit too quick to consent.

However, we have also seen far too many examples of Canadians’ private and mobility data being used without their consent. We heard about the Tim Hortons app that was tracking the movement of Canadians; how the RCMP was using Clearview AI’s illegally created facial recognition database; the public doxing of all those who donated to the freedom convoy; Telus giving location data to the Public Health Agency of Canada without a judicial warrant; and, in my view, the most egregious violation of privacy in generations, the requirement by the government and others for Canadians to provide their personal health data and information in order to work and/or travel.

If I am honest, it is this violation of privacy rights that makes me truly hesitant to support any effort by the government to strengthen privacy rights: first, because it has so flagrantly violated them, but also because I and a growing number of Canadians just do not trust the government. We do not trust it to keep its word. We do not trust it to create legislation that does not have loopholes and back doors that will give it the capability to violate individual personal freedoms.

Why? Because we have seen it from the Liberals. They want to control everything. There has never been a government that has had such an utter disregard for Canadians.

I have noted before that it was the Prime Minister's father who famously said that the government had no place in the bedrooms of Canadians. However, the current government not only wants to be in our bedrooms, but in every room, on every device, in every conversation and in every thought. It wants to control what Canadians think, what they see and what they post, and, by extension I can safely say, how their private data is curated and used.

One thing that is vital if we are to trust the government with our private data and with protecting privacy, there must be clear boundaries. This leads to one of the larger issues with this legislation, an issue we are faced with every time the government brings legislation forward. It fails to provide clear definitions.

There is a section of the bill that deals with the sensitive information of minors. The fact that there is no section for the protection of sensitive information of adults is a sign.

What does it mean by “sensitive”? It is never defined. What does it mean by “scrutiny” for data brokers? It is this habitual lack of specificity that characterizes so much of the government's legislation.

It is like a band that is way more interested in the concept of the album and how it looks on the cover than the actual quality of its music. If it cared about the quality of the music, it would have brought forward a bill that looks more like the European Union's 2016 GDPR, which is widely regarded as the gold standard for digital protection. By that standard, PIPEDA fails the test, but so might Bill C-27 if we do not bring it closer in line with what other nations have done. This lagging behind does not just affect personal privacy, but the ability of Canada and data-driven Canadian businesses to work with our EU friends.

This whole new regime outlined in the bill has huge implications for businesses, something I am sure my colleagues will be addressing. There is so much that can and should be said about this legislation, but it comes down to this: Canadians must have the right to access and control the collection, use, monitoring, retention and disclosure of their personal data.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-27, An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an excellent question because that is the fundamental failing of Bill C-27. We have an opportunity, once and for all, to express and codify Canadians' right to have their personal information and data protected. Typically, that kind of statement of purpose goes into the purpose section. It is completely missing from that section because we know the Liberals are not really serious when it comes to protecting Canadians' privacy rights. We can do better than this.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

No, not at all, Mr. Speaker. We are certainly not trivializing Bill C-27. In fact, right now it is only the Conservative members of Parliament who are speaking to it. This is the most important issue of privacy and protecting the privacy of Canadians within an emerging digital environment. I am disappointed that my colleague from the Bloc does not take this issue seriously enough to get up in this House and debate it. It is important that we get this right.

What we have is a redux of the old bill the Liberals brought forward. It was so roundly castigated and panned at committee that the minister had to go back to the drawing board. However, he has come back with essentially the same milquetoast legislation, which does not address the most critical parts of protecting the privacy of Canadians.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I switched from ChatGPT to Bing, since I also wanted to test that platform. I asked Bing, in connection to what my colleague from Abbotsford was saying, what the consequences of not legislating on the content of Bill C-27 would be.

It gave me an interesting answer, namely that, essentially, it could have an impact on the protection of data provided by companies.

Not legislating and not acting right now will therefore lead to more data losses unless we establish a framework, which is one of the aims of Bill C‑27.

By playing all these games in the House to waste time and stop us from passing Bill C‑27, are the Conservatives not putting Quebeckers' and Canadians' personal information at risk?