Information & Ethics Committee on Jan. 13th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome, everyone, to the second meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), the committee is meeting at the request of four members of the committee to discuss their request to undertake a study of the collection and use of mobile data.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely by using the Zoom application. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. So you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

As the first meeting using webinar, today’s meeting is also taking place in the webinar format. Webinars are for public committee meetings and are available only to members, their staff and witnesses. Members enter immediately as active participants. All functionalities for active participants remain the same. Staff will be non-active participants and therefore can view the meeting only in gallery view.

I would like to take this opportunity—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Yes, Ms. Khalid?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

My understanding is that our staff can't hear you on the phone line.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Okay. We have a problem with staff being unable to hear. I'll suspend the meeting for a moment.

If it's Ms. Khalid's staff who are reporting this problem, can you tell me if staff are now able to hear me?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Yes, Mr. Chair. I believe they can hear you now, loud and clear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Okay. Thank you.

I'll call the meeting back to order and carry on with reading some of the important points that people must be aware of.

I'll take this opportunity to remind all participants in this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted.

Given the ongoing pandemic situation and in light of the recommendations from health authorities as well as the directive of the Board of Internal Economy on October 19, to remain healthy and safe, all those attending the meeting in person are to maintain two-metre physical distancing and must wear a non-medical mask when circulating in the room. It is highly recommended that the mask be worn at all times, including when seated. I'll remove my mask when I'm speaking, but otherwise I'll keep my mask on.

Members also must maintain proper hand hygiene by using the hand sanitizer provided at the room entrance.

As the chair, I'll be enforcing these measures for the duration of the meeting, and I thank members in advance for their co-operation.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

Members may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either “floor”, “English” or “French”. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately. We will ensure interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings.

The “raise hand” feature at the bottom of the screen can be used at any time if you wish to speak or alert the chair. For members participating in the room, proceed as you normally would when the whole committee is meeting in person in a committee room. Keep in mind the Board of Internal Economy's guidelines for mask use and health protocols.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled as it normally is by the proceedings and verification officer. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. As a reminder, all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

With regard to a speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do the best we can to maintain a consolidated order of speaking for all members, whether they are participating virtually or in person.

Having been contacted by Mr. Brassard, I'm going to give him the floor, because I understand that he has a motion he would like to bring forward.

Go ahead, Mr. Brassard.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning.

Let me start by thanking you for convening a meeting of this committee on a very important issue. Many Canadians are watching this issue, including security and privacy experts across the country.

I'd like to move the following motion, if I may. I move that in light of recent media reports, the committee immediately begin a study, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h)(vi) and (vii), regarding the Public Health Agency of Canada collecting, using or possessing Canadians' private cellphone data, without their knowledge or consent, and therefore (a) invites the chief public health officer of Canada to appear for one hour, including a five-minute opening statement, immediately following the adoption of this motion; (b) invites the Minister of Health and the Minister of Indigenous Services to appear for one hour, including five-minute opening statements from each, immediately following the appearance referred to in paragraph (a); and (c) requests the members of the committee provide the clerk, no later than 5:00 p.m. today, with their preliminary witness lists for this study.

Madam Clerk, I have the motion in both official languages, and the motion has been circulated to you electronically.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Mr. Brassard.

I understand that this motion has been circulated electronically to all members and has been passed about in the room. The motion is in order.

Is there any discussion?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

I have just a few comments, if I may.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I apologize. Mr. Brassard was not finished. He was moving the motion and allowing time for its distribution.

Mr. Brassard, you still have the floor. Mr. Fergus will be next—

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Actually, Mr. Chair, just on a technical matter—a point of order, I suppose—I would like to ask the clerk if she can confirm that she sent that motion to my P9 account. I do not seem to have it in my emails, and I'm wondering if it went to the general inbox.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Nancy Vohl]

I believe so, but I will verify that your P9 was specifically added there.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

We'll take a moment, Mr. Brassard, to ensure that the circulation has in fact occurred.

[The Clerk]

Yes. All members received it in their personal email, in their P9 and MP accounts. The staff and whips did as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Mr. Fergus, I'll give you a moment to check and see whether you have it.

Do you have it now? No.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I do not, Mr. Chair, but please continue. I think it might be an issue on my end. If I have a problem, I'll come back to you and to the clerk afterward. I don't want to interrupt Mr. Brassard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Fergus.

Carry on, Mr. Brassard.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Madam Clerk, for circulating the motion.

Mr. Chair, this is an incredibly important issue for Canadians. Since news broke prior to Christmas and over the course of the last couple of weeks, Canadians have become more aware of the situation. The purpose of calling this meeting, and the request that came from the opposition parties, is one of accountability.

Here's what we know, Mr. Chair, and I'm not going to take up too much time, because Conservatives are here to work: We're ready to work this morning. To that end, yesterday I notified the clerk, the chair and other parties, including the Liberal Party, of my intent to move this motion, which would call on Ms. Tam as well as a couple of ministers to appear before this committee today if in fact this motion is passed.

There are three things that we really need to focus on and to dig deeply into on this issue. Number one is the data collection contract that existed, whereby the Public Health Agency of Canada was collecting data without the knowledge of Canadians, effectively doing it in secret. We need to know what security measures were in place to protect the privacy rights of Canadians.

It has come to our attention, Mr. Chair, that over the course of the last week there has been confusing information between Public Health Canada and the Privacy Commissioner and his office concerning to what extent the Public Health Agency did contact the Privacy Commissioner to discuss how the safety and security and the privacy rights of Canadians were to be protected as a result of this information. It is critically important that we find answers to these questions.

The second issue we need to focus on, Mr. Chair, is the request for proposal that was initiated by the Public Health Agency to effectively continue this practice of collecting Canadians' data. The request for proposal was published on December 17, the day after Parliament adjourned for the winter break, and was scheduled to close on January 21 of this month, 10 days before Parliament is to return. I'll note that, curiously, just yesterday the request for proposal was amended to conclude on February 4. We have to find out why this occurred, Mr. Chair, and why this request for proposal was put out when there was no opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny.

It wasn't until this request for proposal was found that the Public Health Agency admitted they were tracking the cellphone data of 33 million Canadians. Canadians weren't aware of that, so we have to get to the bottom of that. That's why the study is so important.

Third, it's not just a matter of looking back but also of looking forward, Mr. Chair. This provides a perfect opportunity for this committee to call in privacy, security and surveillance experts from across Canada and around the world to talk about an important issue, and that is privacy and data protection in the digital age. I don't want to just look back. I don't want to just look at what caused this problem, who made these decisions, why it was done and what metrics they were trying and hoping to achieve as a result. I think we also have an opportunity, Mr. Chair, to look at privacy of data in the digital age and to make recommendations in this report.

As I said earlier, many Canadians have become concerned about this issue, and not just this issue, but a pattern of issues of government overreach, of government extension into the privacy rights of Canadians. We've seen it with StatsCan collecting the banking data of 500,000 Canadians without their knowledge. We saw the proposals in the last Parliament of Bill C-10 and BillC-11. If you start connecting the dots, Mr. Chair, it becomes increasingly concerning that government is seemingly using this pandemic as a means of and a cause for massive overreach into the privacy rights of Canadians.

As we are parliamentarians, it's incumbent upon us to make sure that we protect those rights and that there is proper scrutiny and oversight of not just the privacy rights but also the constitutional rights of Canadians, Mr. Chair.

I hope Mr. Fergus meant what he said the other night on Power Play when he was on CTV with Evan Solomon, which was that the Conservatives and the opposition parties are pushing on an open door here, and I hope that we can get right down to the study now and get to work on this very important and critical issue for Canadians.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Mr. Brassard.

I don't see any hands, so is it the pleasure—

I see Mr. Fergus.

Go ahead, Mr. Fergus. You have the floor.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank everyone who organized this last-minute meeting and commend all of my fellow members for being here to discuss this very important issue.

I have found all the documents that were sent by the clerk, including Mr. Brassard's motion. Before I talk about that, I'd like to point out that we share some values. It goes without saying that all members of the House feel it's important that the privacy rights of Canadians be respected.

When I look at this story and the statements that have been made, including the Public Health Agency of Canada's statement and those of many of the people involved in this issue, it seems quite reasonable to me.

I see one difference between myself and Mr. Brassard. He stated that the government was tracking the cell phone information of Canadians.

Based on the department's statements, that is clearly not the case. What it requested was aggregated and de-identified data. It does not contain any personal identifiers.

So it doesn't make sense to say that Canadians are being tracked. That is not the case at all. The de-identified data received is just aggregated data, which is very useful to see if, generally speaking, Canadians are following public health guidelines like self-isolation to keep the virus from spreading. It's not true that a government agency took the data.

However, like Mr. Brassard, I believe most members of the House agree with and are very open to the idea of checking to see if that is true. We should do an investigation to reassure Canadians that this data is being used properly. If we can put aside partisan differences and truly investigate this, I feel that we can reach a broad consensus.

I am anxious, as I'm sure all my colleagues here are, to begin this work in a reasonable manner. We need to ask those responsible to appear before the committee so that we can do our work.

I also hope that we will do it without delay and not digress into partisan issues, to ensure that we can reveal the truth to all Canadians.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

Next I have Mr. Villemure.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Good morning, Mr. Chair.

I would like to say hello to all committee members. Under the current circumstances, I wish them good health this year.

As you know, my experience as an ethicist is always close at hand. In my work as an ethicist, I never meant to point fingers, but rather to enable better understanding for the common good. By the way, in that respect, I agree with what Mr. Brassard and Mr. Fergus said.

Of course, the situation that has come to light recently forces us to ask questions. I agree with Mr. Fergus that Health Canada had a worthy objective. I don't believe that the department was trying to spy on Canadians. But it does raise a lot of questions. Who acted on behalf of Health Canada? How was it done? What kind of data was it? For what purpose was the data collected? Why was it done? Who did it? What security procedures were put in place?

That does not take away from the intent to serve the common good, that is, Health Canada's desire to model the behaviour of Canadians to rid us of this pandemic we all want to see come to an end.

Many people I run into in public don't fully comprehend the issue of personal data. As you know, we've all clicked on “I agree” without reading the terms and conditions, which were unintelligible. We can save that discussion for another day. People don't appreciate this issue very well, and in order to do so, they need to see the big picture. The word “comprehend” comes from the Latin [Technical difficulty] “cum”, which means “together”, and “prehendere”, “to grasp” with the hand. To comprehend, one must be able to grasp the whole issue. The committee wishes to help people comprehend, that is, get a grasp of everything that is at stake.

We want to ensure that the pandemic is not used as an excuse to infringe on people's freedoms. As we have seen in the past, privacy quickly erodes when people are afraid and unsure. I'm thinking of the H1N1 era when I was working as an ethicist, or the security issues surrounding the 9/11 attacks.

So I am all for putting partisanship aside even though we clearly have different ideologies. However, we still need to agree that we are trying to serve the common good. I agree with Mr. Brassard's third point about the importance of looking forward.

Having said that, I would like to raise two other points. First, we need to understand why the first request was so opaque. Second, we need to understand how this request for proposals works.

My intention is to help our fellow Canadians to understand the situation, so that we can protect privacy, which is invaluable, and it's something we do not think about often enough.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

Now I have Ms. Khalid.