Evidence of meeting #141 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was waterfront.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sidewalk Labs
We're talking about it being generated in a specific place.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
No, I know that it's wherever the data's generated; PIPEDA applies no matter where you generate within the country.
4:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sidewalk Labs
As I said, I think an argument could be made which—
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Whether it's the City of Toronto or the province or the federal government—because it's so new and you're looking at the type of people who would write it, or the bureaucrats—what would you see as a process, whether it's us or someone else? Because while this weight that's been put on Google.... People don't trust you, and that's fair enough, but these regulations are not in place. How would you go about having that?
Had they been in place, this whole discussion wouldn't be happening because you would just have to meet them like anybody else. How would you see our going about putting them in place—whether it's federal, provincial or municipal?
4:50 p.m.
Head of Policy and Communications, Sidewalk Labs
I think an important step was taken by Councillor Cressy and Toronto City Council to initiate a process by which the city would consider a framework on these issues for the City of Toronto.
I think my sense of the work of this committee is that it has been studying a range of issues touching on this work, and I think this could be a very good place for that conversation to begin. I think we are cognizant of the deliberation involved in the legislative process, and so I think that one way Waterfront Toronto could move to implement a geographically specific regime would be through the contracts they entered into with us or with other developers, so that for a certain area we and others were contractually bound to abide by certain rules. That would potentially be an interim measure while the legislative process unfolded around these issues.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
As part of your development of the project itself, you're going to develop these rules. These governance rules have to be developed together, whether it's with the city or the province.
4:55 p.m.
Head of Policy and Communications, Sidewalk Labs
In every case, Mr. Angus observed our need to do.... Again, I think the important thing to note here is that we're talking not just about changes in the rules in an expansive direction, as in the case of tall timber, but we're also talking about the imposition of new rules that we believe will achieve Waterfront Toronto's objectives.
At the end of the day, in both cases, those decisions are not up to us. We are simply offering ideas. We think a robust democratic discussion has a lot of people throwing ideas onto the table, but ultimately it's up to you to decide which of those ideas are good and which are not.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Zimmer
Thank you, Mr. Baylis.
That's it, folks. The last question has been answered.
I'd like to thank all of you for coming to Ottawa today to present to the committee.
We're going to suspend for a few minutes until our guests exit, and then we'll reconvene at 5.
[Proceedings continue in camera]