Information & Ethics Committee on June 21st, 2021

[Daniel Therrien]

At the beginning of my mandate, there was a lot of emphasis on public and national security issues, and on measures that followed the events of September 11.

The Snowden phenomenon highlighted certain government practices. It's not all perfect, but we have made progress on those issues. Legislation has been passed to raise the bar on which departments [Technical difficulty—Editor] for national security purposes. Most importantly, independent oversight bodies have been established and are now in place within the public service and within Parliament. As I mentioned, not everything is perfect, but significant progress has been made.

In recent years, with Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and all the rest, there has been a lot of focus on what some call surveillance capitalism, where companies collect, process and disclose a lot of information about their consumers to provide services, but also to make money, of course. That is where we are at now, which is why it is extremely important that these issues be properly regulated through Bill C‑11 or its successor.

I have to say that recently we are seeing more and more public‑private partnerships. Clearview AI and the RCMP are just one example among many. This leads me to suggest that you think seriously about the relationship between the public sector and the private sector in terms of sharing personal information, and the idea of the same legislation governing both sectors, which we think would be extremely desirable. If two laws are used, it would be best if they had very similar principles, because data has no geographic borders and no boundaries between the public and private sectors. It is important that similar rules govern both sectors.

I would add that, to maintain the confidence of the public and consumers, it is essential that [Technical difficulty—Editor] result in penalties that are proportionate to the magnitude of the impact of the privacy breach on privacy. Order powers and consequent fines are therefore crucial. The reason for recommending substantial fines is not to be punitive. Rather, it is to ensure that the consequences for people whose privacy has been breached are proportionate to the consequences for the companies involved, so that, over time, imposing such a regime will result in governments, departments and companies properly protecting the personal information of the public and consumers.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Therrien.

Mr. Chair, do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You have about 30 seconds if you'd like it.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Then I'm done.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Monsieur Gourde.

Mrs. Shanahan, we'll turn to you now for the final questions.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I saw that Mr. Therrien might have something to add.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I'm sorry. I do apologize.

[Daniel Therrien]

I'll be brief. It's about the concept of privacy as a human right.

The issues we are talking about are extremely complex from a technical point of view, as everyone agrees. Despite the complexity of the technology and the privacy rules, it is clear to me that the goal should be for our Canadian values to be reflected in our laws. One of those values is to treat privacy as a fundamental right, and that is an important principle no matter how complex the technology is. If our goal is to ensure that our values in privacy or other areas are reflected in our laws on digital, I think we can't go wrong.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Therrien. I will continue along those lines.

It's true that it's a principle that we all understand, but how do we implement it? It's very technical. As my colleagues have already mentioned, we are really in the wild west. Our committee has learned things in the last few months that we didn't think were possible, and we have to make decisions about them.

In your view, is it possible to come up with legislation that respects this principle but has clear and specific regulations, especially if it includes fines?

[Daniel Therrien]

For more details, let me refer you to my submission.

Generally speaking, I would say that the principles can be clear and unambiguous, but not the rules. I agree with many of the speakers who speak favourably of the importance of having principle‑based privacy laws, such as the principle of corporate social responsibility. That principle needs to be defined broadly. Since technology is constantly and exponentially changing, I think it would be wishful thinking to believe that it is possible to have very precise, clear and permanent rules.

I agree that we must aim at the principle of transposing our values into our legislation. You are clearly asking the right question in asking how to do this in practice. There is a need for general principles, defined flexibly enough to accommodate the evolution of technology, but not so specific as to be detrimental to it, with the aim of both protecting privacy and allowing the use of data for the benefit of society.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

That's excellent.

Thank you again for your dedication, Mr. Therrien. We needed your expertise and we are glad you are staying on for another year.

I know my colleague Mr. Sorbara has a question for you.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you to my honourable colleague, MP Shanahan. It's very kind of you to share your time.

Mr. Therrien, again, congratulations on your reappointment for a year. It is actually a really learning experience for me to listen to you and to read the articles and pronouncements that you put out. This is a subject matter that's only growing in ever-increasing importance with this digital world that we continue to adopt at a very fast pace.

The one question I did have, Mr. Therrien, is about ensuring that Canada is competitive in the way we look at our privacy and interact in certain aspects with the Competition Bureau, that is, balancing it with the Competition Bureau of Canada's competitiveness and then keeping privacy in check. I know that it's a sort of holistic question, but it's just so important that we get that balance correct, versus what the Europeans are doing and have done, and versus what our neighbours to the south have done and are doing. Can you comment on that, please?

[Daniel Therrien]

Yes. We think that for Canada to be competitive—and the government underlined this in Bill C-11, and I would completely agree.... We have a confidence problem, a trust problem. Consistently Canadians, at the level of 90% or so, have expressed their concerns that privacy is not currently respected. They continue to use the Internet, because frankly you cannot live outside of the digital world in 2021. However, they still have important concerns, so we have a trust issue.

In order to deal with the trust issue, you need to have laws that enhance trust. That means ensuring that with regard to privacy laws, rights and values, consumers and citizens see that the legislation is apt to protect rights and values and produces proportional consequences, penalties, if these rights and values are not respected.

The law should provide for flexibility for companies to use data for legitimate commercial purposes, and our submissions I think go in that vein. There is no opposition really between privacy protection and economic development or innovation. As far as our relationship with the Competition Bureau and other regulators is concerned, it's extremely important that digital regulators are able to co-operate and share information so as to have an effective regulatory framework across all sectors. We have a good relationship with the Competition Bureau.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Sorbara.

Commissioner, we want to thank you for coming today. We appreciate your work, your continued effort to protect the privacy of Canadians and ensure that parliamentarians and Canadians are aware and informed of concerns that you and your office bring. We believe that to be an important service to Canadians. We look forward to continuing to work with you over the next year and look forward to where that takes us.

Commissioner, we know that the House has already approved your extension, so today we don't need to do that. We just thought it was important for committee members to follow our usual practice, which is to consider where you will head, and the relationship between the committee and you over the duration of your appointment.

We don't have anything further to add in terms of process. The House has already approved your appointment. We concur with that. I think I speak on behalf of all committee members in thanking you for your service and commending you for continuing to do what you have done so well over the last number of years.

[Daniel Therrien]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Again, thanks so much for being flexible in terms of time. We apologize for any confusion that brought.

Ms. Shanahan, I see your hand is raised. Is that specifically....? I was just going to thank the commissioner and allow him to leave the committee.

Thank you, Commissioner, on behalf of all committee members.

Ms. Shanahan, I believe your hand is raised. I suspect it has to do with committee business.

We will turn now to Ms. Shanahan.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

I thank you and the clerk for inviting the Privacy Commissioner today. I know that it was on short notice. Clearly, everybody's agendas are quite full in these last few days. I don't know what's on the agenda there now, but I want to say publicly just how much the members on our side appreciate the work that the clerk, the analysts, the interpreters and, of course, our IT people have done in making sure that this committee could operate to the fullest during this really extraordinary period, and especially that this committee was able to bring to fruition two reports. I know we were joking about it before the committee started, but there have been two fulsome reports. One was on the pandemic spending and the other was on the Pornhub issue, which I know is an issue that many of my constituents have spoken to me about.

Again, my thanks to everyone, and to fellow members of the committee here, it really has been quite an education and quite an adventure to be working together in all the different modalities that we had to go through.

On that note, I move that we adjourn this meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

That puts us in a spot. That's a non-debatable motion. I'm taking the chair's prerogative to not engage in debate but simply to say on behalf of all committees, I believe we concur with Ms. Shanahan's sentiments in thanking the clerk, the analysts, the interpreters and all members.

It's a non-debatable motion, so we'll move to the vote with regard to adjournment.

Madam Clerk, will you go through the roll call?

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0)

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, committee members. I look forward to seeing you over the next number of months, but we don't have any formal meetings planned—at least nothing that we're aware of at this point. Therefore, I want to thank you all for your diligence in your work and wish you all a good summer.

The meeting is adjourned.