Consent has long been viewed as a bedrock principle. I think one of the reasons we really struggle with some of these issues comes back to Mr. Erskine-Smith's question about why we can't find a way to inform someone and I think try to do good with that prospect. Part of the problem is that in theory we might ask if we can find a mechanism for our citizens to provide consent to allow the service provider, in this case the government, to inform them about the services they're eligible for. I would say that our standards of consent have become so polluted by the low standards found in PIPEDA, which I think have been widely abused, that few people actually trust what consent means at this stage.
One of the things I think we have to seize back is to try to find mechanisms to ensure that meaningful consent is truly meaningful, informed consent. We have strayed badly in that regard. It's possible that the GDPR will be part of the impetus for trying to do that.