Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you for inviting the Canadian Dental Association to speak to you today during the statutory review of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which we commonly refer to as PIPEDA.
I am the CDA's president, Dr. Wayne Halstrom. CDA represents over 18,000 dentists across Canada. It has as its mission to act as the national voice for dentistry, dedicated to the advancement and leadership of a unified profession and to the promotion of optimal oral health as an essential component of general health.
We welcome the opportunity to make our views known today because we have consistently engaged with the federal government on the issue of privacy of personal health information. We were active participants in the parliamentary debates that led to the passing of PIPEDA in the year 2000. We responded to the Canada Gazette consultations and appeared as witnesses before committees of both chambers of Parliament as PIPEDA made its way through the parliamentary process.
CDA has always been an advocate for legislation that protects our patients' personal health information from abuse and misuse in circumstances when it is released from the dentist-patient relationship. We do not support federal privacy legislation that creates an additional administrative burden for dentists. Dentists work within a provincial legislative framework that requires us to protect the privacy of patient information. CDA knows that dentists have an outstanding record when it comes to privacy protection and that there is no need to alter our current best practices.
Throughout the fall of 2003, there was a great amount of confusion and uncertainty about how PIPEDA would apply to dentistry and to our practices. We recognized that dentists were being inundated with multiple interpretations of what their obligations would be under PIPEDA. We called upon the Minister of Industry and his industry department to develop implementation guidelines for the application of PIPEDA, with consultative input from our association and others in the health sector. The federal government did not respond with guidelines entrenched in law for the health sector, but they did respond to the concerns of the CDA and others in the health care sector. They understood the need to create a process that would allow the health community to have its concerns addressed by the federal government and put an end to the uncertainty and misinformation.
We at the CDA appreciated the federal government's initiative to produce information that would help our members understand their obligations under PIPEDA versus simply obtaining another legal opinion on how PIPEDA would apply to dentists. CDA was an integral member of the working group that met regularly with officials from the Privacy Commissioner's office, Justice Canada, Health Canada, and Industry Canada to create the PIPEDA awareness-raising tools, as we've heard, the PARTs initiative for the health sector. This process created the final content for the federal government's interpretation of PIPEDA, a series of straightforward questions and answers that add clarity to the requirements around obtaining consent, disclosing personal health information to private insurance companies, office safeguards, and requests to change information on a dental record, to name but a few.
Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the PARTs initiative during the fall of 2003 was to clarify the federal government position on knowledge and consent. The PARTs initiative concluded that under PIPEDA, the patient's knowledge of the collection, use, and disclosure of his or her personal health information is required. A patient must be made aware of his or her privacy rights through methods such as the posting of notices and discussions in the normal course of exchanges that take place between a patient and a dentist. CDA is pleased that through the question and answer initiative the federal government provided this interpretation of implied consent that does not place an increased administrative burden on dentists.
We created a poster that assisted members in informing patients about their privacy rights. We have provided the committee with both our poster and the PARTs initiative series of questions and answers, but we remain concerned that the good work of the PARTs initiative has no legal status. Although the questions and answers clearly dealt with the concerns of the oral health sector, we know that multiple interpretations of PIPEDA remain, and an increasing paperwork and administrative burden is still required by some health care providers because the questions and answers have no formal legal status.
It is our recommendation to your committee that the PARTs initiative series of questions and answers be referenced in PIPEDA.
To conclude, Mr. Chairman, we know that PIPEDA aims to provide assurances to the public, our patients, that their personal health information will continue to be managed and shared confidentially and securely.
At the CDA, one of our key result areas is to make a recognizable contribution to improving the oral health of Canadians. In order for us to deliver optimum care and improve the oral health of Canadians, our patients must feel comfortable that their personal health information will not be misused in circumstances when it is released from the dentist-patient relationship.
Privacy is a right, underpinning health care in Canada. This right is addressed in legislation, codes of ethics, standards, and procedures. We are comfortable with the outcomes of the PARTs initiative and we now are asking your committee to formally entrench the work of the PARTs Initiative in PIPEDA.
I and my colleague, Mr. Andrew Jones, CDA's director of corporate and government relations, are happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you very much.