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.