Evidence of meeting #17 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pipeda.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Thank you.
Chair, do I have any more time? I've been trying to talk fast—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
No, I'm afraid you're out of time, but it was well worth the five minutes. We do welcome your participation, Ms. Jennings, particularly since you were on the original committee. It's very helpful.
I don't have a formal list. Would someone from the Conservative side like to put up a hand? No?
Then we'll go to Madame Lavallée.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Mention was made of the Quebec law and of the federal act. I'd like to know the current situation in Quebec. As a rule, Quebec law applies in Quebec, but in the case of businesses and organizations under federal jurisdiction, in particular banks, does the federal act apply?
Director General, Electronic Commerce, Department of Industry
Yes, it does.
Director General, Electronic Commerce, Department of Industry
Yes, the federal act applies to banks, broadcasters, and so forth.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
To telecommunications, ports, airports and so on. We're talking about the usual list of operations.
Liberal
Jim Peterson Liberal Willowdale, ON
I would like to turn the rest of my 20 minutes over to Ms. Jennings, please.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
I love my job.
With regard to the points raised by Madame Lavallée and Monsieur Laforest, this was a major piece of contention before the industry committee at second reading. It was quite interesting, because all of the constitutional experts came in and explained very clearly that under the Canadian Constitution you have areas that are exclusively federal jurisdiction, you have other areas that are exclusively provincial jurisdiction, and then you have areas that overlap, where both authorities, both levels of government, have constitutional authority to legislate. Where they bump up against each other, or if they do, the federal government may have to withdraw.
In this particular case, they made it clear that if no provincial law was regulating the protection of personal information in e-documents for the companies and organizations regulated provincially within the territory of a province, then the federal government's PIPEDA could apply there. However, even where there was provincial legislation, as soon as the information took part in a commercial transaction that crossed provincial borders or went outside our country borders, then it was the federal government that had clear and exclusive jurisdiction.
I'm amazed that five years later this same bogus argument is being brought up by my esteemed colleagues--who I respect very much, but I had the same argument with Madame Lalonde on the industry committee. The constitutional experts, including those from Quebec, said very clearly that if I buy something at a company in Quebec and I'm a resident of Quebec, and that company sends my information because its supplier is in B.C. or in the United States, Quebec law doesn't protect me. As soon as my information crosses the border, it would be in la-la land, and they could do anything they wanted. That was why there was a necessity for federal legislation.
As was stated, this legislation was modelled in large part on the model that already existed in Quebec. It was kind of like what we tried to do with
the national day care program. A program was already in place in Quebec. It took some time to convince provincial governments to sign on, but ultimately agreements were concluded. These were patterned on the Quebec model. PIPEDA took its inspiration from the Quebec model, but is designed to protect the sectors and areas not covered under the Quebec law.
Let me take my breath here.
Liberal
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Non, merci.
On the question of mergers and acquisitions, I see there have been requests for amendments to the consent requirements. Could you give us a little bit of information on what are these requests?
You're not giving a recommendation, so I'm assuming you don't have to go to your minister. It's simply sharing with us requests that you're aware of for amendments to PIPEDA on the consent requirements dealing with mergers and acquisitions.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Spectrum, Information Technologies and Telecommunications, Department of Industry
The way I understand it, when you do a merger or an acquisition, you need to have some data and information about officers, about the business they're in, and so on, and some of this information needs to be—the argument goes—“access without consent”, because otherwise they'd become aware of what's going on. So there are those kinds of issues here. Again, you're going to hear the other side of the argument, that it's because of this personal information that you don't want to share those arguments.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
I think we all are.
Colleagues, I'd like to go in camera briefly, in a minute, after I thank the witnesses.
You were right, Mr. Binder, we did ask you for a PIPEDA 101. That's absolutely correct. But as part of that consideration, because we're mandated to review the entire act, I guess we just assumed that the department, as a result of its consultations, might have some recommendations for us. So we're not looking to criticize you; we're now giving you some guidance as to what we're looking for, and specifically now what we're looking for from your minister. But you're absolutely correct that we did want a 101 course, because only one of us was on that committee when it was first passed. So we did want to get some background and contextual ideas on it.
Thank you so much for coming and for answering our questions. No doubt we'll see you again with your minister.
I'll suspend the meeting for two minutes.
[Proceedings continue in camera]