Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 1st, 2007

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

One of your members, one of the members of the local chamber of commerce there, knew I was on this committee--and I've been on it for a little bit of time--and he said to me that he found the provisions of PIPEDA an absolute pain. He said that it's an example of.... For certain promotions he has, if someone does a certain amount of business with him, he has the names and addresses and credit card numbers and all kinds of information about people. So each time he does a promotion for his customers, he has to get the consent of his customers.

My question is whether the Chamber of Commerce, locally or provincially or nationally, has done a cost-benefit analysis on the business compliance of PIPEDA.

[Michael Murphy]

The short answer, Mr. Chair, is no, we haven't done anything like that. And that doesn't make implementing this act and its impact on business any different from most pieces of legislation.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Well, to be fair, he's done it for a while, and he's used to doing it, but when he first had to do it, he said what he had to deal with was terrible.

[Michael Murphy]

So many businesses hopefully doing so many different things to attract customers is all part of the thrust and cut of a vigorously competitive marketplace. Dealing with legislation, I have to say, is not a complaint I've heard from a bunch of members. Is that something that has become a theme?

Mr. Gray, you'd probably agree that it's not something we've heard from members on a repeated basis. I don't want to diminish the concern that was expressed by that particular company, but that wouldn't be a general statement, I would say.

[David Elder]

Sorry, but if I could just jump in, I know Mr. Nelson too. I don't know the particular facts of your constituent, but I'm not sure he would necessarily have to get consent each and every time he ran a promotion. I think there are ways to do a more global sort of consent.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

He can get a blanket consent. It's not a question. What do you think of those things?

[David Elder]

Yes, and I'm sure if he contacted his chamber, we could help him out.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Murphy, I think it was you who indicated that the commissioner has come to us several times and has said that a lot of what she does is educational for the public. That's what a large portion of her budget is for: educating the public on this whole topic. I believe you said you had some information on your website about PIPEDA.

[Michael Murphy]

Yes, that's correct.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Is it there right now, as we speak?

[Michael Murphy]

Absolutely, yes.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Do you have a link to the Privacy Commissioner?

[Chris Gray, Policy Analyst, Canadian Chamber of Commerce]

If I could just cut in, Mr. Tilson, Mike and I spoke about this yesterday and we're in the process today. The information is there, but we're going to make it a little easier to find for members, stemming from our participation here. We're going to have a direct link to the Privacy Commissioner's website, where there are a lot of good tools for members to use. We also have our previous information that Mike referred to— our contractual clauses and our templates—and which will be easy for members to find.

If I could just go back for a second, I handle the privacy matters with the chamber. Even tomorrow we're meeting with ITAC and the CMA to discuss better education principles and how we can work together there, as well as starting to think about these draft breach notification guidelines.

Just to reiterate, members, it's a two-way street. We have a biweekly newsletter that we send out, and we're always updating members on what's happening in regard to privacy and other issues. My name and the files that I handle are right on the website as well, so they can always give me a call, especially the small members who don't have the resources to do it themselves.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

And in insurance, do you do education on your websites?

[Frank Zinatelli]

We work with our member companies. In fact, one of our raisons d'être at the association is to ensure that our members are aware of developments in the privacy area. In fact, when the legislation first came in, both in 1994 and again in 2001, and when the Alberta legislation came in, we prepared, for example, Q's and A's in cooperation with regulators and by working with our member companies, so that our companies would have the right information, the up-to-date information, so that they could then reach out to their clients, as Ms. Philp was indicating earlier. Educating our members is really one of our important functions.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

This line of questioning was following along Mr. Pearson's questioning about feedback that you've had. I appreciate that you philosophized about whether your members, from both groups, have indicated concerns. You've expressed all those.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Tilson, you're at almost six minutes now.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Dhaliwal, we can put you back on if you want to ask another question.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is to Mr. Murphy and Mr. Gray.

When you put these recommendations that you don't want any changes or whatever these eight recommendations are, are they just from your organization, or have you taken the other small chambers into consideration as well? Had you asked for their feedback when you came up with these recommendations?

[Michael Murphy]

The thoughts we've expressed here stem from a fundamental belief that in coping with legislation like this.... I make two points. First of all, for most of our members, and that would certainly include the smaller members, we're only three years in, and in the scheme of legislative enactment in Canada that's very young.

I would couple that with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner's own comments about...and I think the arrival of the current commissioner was almost coincident with that phase, in January, 2004, where the bulk of companies in Canada got captured by the act.

As the commissioner herself has indicated to you, there are lots of preoccupations there for her, to do things in the office other than get on with the core work of implementing the act.

So it's early days, and I think that's the philosophy behind the recommendations.

As to our view on whether this is something that's shared across our membership, I would say it is, very strongly. This is a case where three years in on any bill, and particularly one that affects so many of our members, is really early days.

To change it today, when you're still in the educational phase for a lot of them in terms of their building themselves up to deal with the important elements of the act, I think is going to complicate life a lot more than we need to at this stage.

[Chris Gray]

Let me just add to what Mike said that the September submission we gave to the Privacy Commissioner is based upon a policy resolution that the Canadian chamber adopted at its 2005 AGM, which all the local chambers come to. So that's adopted by 250-plus grassroots members. We're very grassroots-driven, and with regard to developing this, that was the basis of it.

But we also have an internal chamber committee that deals with privacy matters. Of course, I get their feedback—from our corporate members as well—and that's how this was rounded out in late summer. I will admit it was difficult to get some people in the late summer working on this file, but it encapsulates views everywhere from the chamber's views to those of our corporate members and our other associations, such as the Retail Council of Canada. They've all provided input into this concise document.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

My follow-up question, Mr. Chair, is to Mr. Gray.

It's good that you have on your website the information about PIPEDA, but as Mr. Pearson said, all these small businesses have their own challenges to establish themselves, because they are the backbone of any community.

Is there a way that you can put this information in a very simplified way into layman's language, so that they can go to the website and access that information and familiarize themselves?

[Chris Gray]

It's a very good question. Mike Murphy and I were just discussing this yesterday. As we navigated our website, it wasn't as easy to find as we wanted it to be. So we're in the process today—and by Monday, hopefully, we'll have it up there on the main website—of putting up information indicating that our templates are there and showing what we set out previously. Also, a link to the Privacy Commissioner's website will be right on our main website. That will help members to better engage this.

Stemming from this, Mike also mentioned that we're going to be redoing an awareness campaign—we have a biweekly newsletter.

So we try to reach out as much as we can. That being said, in my experience with the chamber in the past couple of years, it's fairly rare that I get questions from members on this, so my understanding is that they understand their obligations and responsibilities under the act.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I appreciate all the work that chambers do, but this is one area where I personally, being a small business person and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, think we were not able to get the information to the small businesses. Maybe you can put in a link to the local organizations as well, such as local chambers of commerce, so that they can copy that information onto their websites also. That will be a positive step to informing the small businesses.