Thank you. The first reason I think you should consider giving us stronger enforcement powers is that our reading of the expectations and the will of Canadians is that we should have these powers. We have consulted Canadians regularly over the years, and the percentage of Canadians who say, for instance, that they would be more likely to do business with an organization if the organization were subject to order-making or fines is higher than 70%. In the context of our consent consultations, we have conducted a number of focus groups, and when we ask them whether they think it would be a good idea for companies to be subject to orders and fines, they overwhelmingly say it would be a good idea, so I think Canadians expect it.
In terms of the importance of privacy that would come from that kind of a regime, we were told by companies during our consent consultations that, if the OPC had these powers, the current collaborative status that we have with companies might change. As I said in my remarks, that's not been the experience of other jurisdictions.
The experience of other jurisdictions is that having fines and orders that come with privacy violations changes the risk calculus for executives of companies. If an executive in a company has a choice between investing in consumer protection or environmental protection where there are fines that will potentially be imposed if there is a violation and investing in privacy where there is not, we were told quite point-blank that they will put their money where there is a financial risk.
So a not insignificant consequence of giving the OPC order-making and fine-imposing power is that it will change the risk calculus for businesses such that they will invest more in privacy protection, which I think is a good thing. Just the fact that these powers exist will change the risk calculus, whether or not we find them to be in violation of the act.