Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to Monsieur Villemure for moving this motion.
I'm sure all committee members—well, the permanent ones here, anyway—know how I feel about the issue of social media companies and how they operate with respect to the protection and privacy of Canadians, so in principle I think this is a good study for our government and for parliamentarians to partake in. However, I'm not sure whether this committee is the right place for this, and I'll make two very quick points on that.
The first is on the ICA, the decision that's come out from the Investment Canada Act on this. I think the RCMP commissioner and the minister would be really limited in what they're able to say, given security clearance challenges and the issue of national security and intelligence in general that surrounds this entire issue, as my colleague Brenda Shanahan said, when we're talking about China and the whole reason this company is under investigation in the first place. I would think that the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians would be a better place to house this. There would be more ability for the RCMP and the minister to be open and able to talk with full honesty and, with full paperwork on the table, to say, “This is what needs to happen,” or, “These are the circumstances surrounding the decision.”
The second point I would make on this, Chair, is that I know that Mr. Villemure spoke about PIPEDA and its jurisdiction. Now, I think that TikTok would still be subject to Canadian privacy laws in Canada, regardless of where TikTok operates, as long as there's that touchpoint for Canadians. I'm not sure whether it's accurate that, once they leave the country, they would no longer be under Canadian jurisdiction, because there are a lot of companies that operate in Canada that don't have headquarters in Canada but are still bound by Canadian laws. In this case, I think TikTok would definitely be bound by PIPEDA in the way that it operates in Canada, whether or not its office is located on Canadian soil or not.
Those were the two quick points that I wanted to make.
I realize that we are going a little over time. I want to make a very quick amendment to the motion before we go to a vote. The motion asks for Minister François-Philippe Champagne to appear, and I have no problem with that.
In part (b) of the motion we're asking David Vigneault, the former director of CSIS, and Philippe Dufresne, the Privacy Commissioner, to appear for one hour each. I think that the former director of CSIS does not have a role to play in any of this. I think that it should be the current director of CSIS if we are going to invite them to appear, and that would be Mr. Daniel Rogers. I move the amendment that we replace Mr. David Vigneault, former director of CSIS, with Mr. Daniel Rogers, the current director of CSIS.