Information & Ethics Committee on Jan. 13th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Okay, so it would appear that we have unanimous consent.

I'll ask a final time, just to be clear: Is anyone opposed to the amendment as amended?

(Amendment as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We will now go to the main motion.

Does anybody wish to speak to the main motion as amended?

I see no speakers on the main motion.

Is anybody opposed, or is there a request for a recorded vote?

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

I have a question on the main motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The only thing I would say on the main motion right now is that there is nothing with respect to timelines. The motion as proposed suggested “immediately”.

Again, I want to reaffirm, and I hope my colleagues feel this way, that there is a sense of urgency and that we need to have the witnesses appear as soon as is reasonably practical.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Mr. Brassard. I am in the midst of commencing a vote and I want to avoid discussion on the motion. I had stated on this point the powers of the chair to convene a meeting and I understood the spirit of this motion to mean that this study should begin as quickly as possible with respect also to the availability of witnesses.

Is anyone opposed to the main motion as amended?

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

I'd like a recorded vote, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I have a request for a recorded vote.

Madam Clerk, could you please poll the members?

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I will now open the floor to other business or motions. I see that Ms. Khalid has her hand up. I thought there may be other members who had motions. If so, they should indicate their interest in speaking now.

Ms. Khalid, you were up first. Go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I move to adjourn this meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

That's non-debatable, so we will go to a vote—

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

I would like a recorded vote, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

We will go to a recorded vote on whether to adjourn.

Madam Clerk, poll the members.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On Ms. Khalid's motion to adjourn the meeting, the vote is as follows: yeas 5; nays 5.

Mr. Chair...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I vote no.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

I now go to Mr. Villemure.

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

I would like to introduce this amendment, which will be sent to you immediately:

That the Committee call upon the government to suspend the cellular data tender upon adoption of this motion until it reports its findings and recommendations to the House, and that the Committee report back to the House on the adoption of this motion at the earliest opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Mr. Villemure. Your motion is in order.

Do you wish to speak to the motion, Mr. Villemure?

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

Yes. This motion reminds us how important our work is, but even more so how we must take action urgently. We want to look forward, but the clock is ticking on this tender process.

I wish we could suspend the request for proposals, both to save potential bidders time and to allow us to learn more about so that we can report on the situation.

We've seen many details about this request for proposals, but some grey areas remain. I'm not saying cancel the request for proposals, I'm only saying suspend it. I feel that would be a wise decision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Mr. Villemure.

Next I have Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank my friend from the Bloc, Mr. Villemure, for providing this very important and obvious next step, given the conversation of concern around the table. I'll certainly be supporting it. I think that taking our time, getting an understanding and allowing the correct information to come to the public view are going to be incredibly important, versus having a scenario in which I suspect, had it not been for Mr. Brassard's motion, the recent extension they put on this particular RFP would have gone ahead without any real discussion at this committee. I thank both Mr. Brassard and Mr. Villemure, and I hope that the government doesn't rush in haste to have this go out in a way that does not allow for full discussion. I note that.

With regard to consensus and collaboration, I also note that if we're at the end of a meeting and other members from the opposition side have requested to speak, a motion to adjourn would sometimes look like cutting off the opportunity for the debate that we just heard so passionately called for around the table. I want to note that if members are looking to speak, I'll put it out there that it will be very unlikely that I'll support any adjournment motions that would potentially stifle people's ability to interject, notwithstanding any kind of filibusters. I just thought I'd put that out there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

Next is Ms. Khalid.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like to speak to what Mr. Green just said, and I apologize. I didn't see Mr. Villemure's hand up. I had my hand raised, and that is what I was hoping to do.

I'll be very honest with you. I had a double dose yesterday; I had a flu shot in one arm and a COVID booster in the other arm, and we've had a very good and substantive meeting, so in my mind I was hoping that I could get back to bed, because the fever is rushing up on me.

I find this motion to be very interesting and I appreciate Mr. Villemure's raising it. Since Mr. Brossard brought forward this meeting and his motion, I've had the opportunity to look over what the RFP says, and I have quoted some of it in the past as well.

What I'm really hoping we can tease out in this discussion is the purpose of a suspension when we have Dr. Tam indicating on the record how important this data is. We've seen the provinces using this aggregated data to inform how they've tweaked their COVID response over the past two years. We've seen cities using similar data trends to protect the public.

As a committee, we've agreed to study this very important issue. We've agreed in principle to really look at data protection and the privacy of Canadians in this digital world, as Mr. Brossard so eloquently said. I think it would be very pre-emptive for us to take any drastic measures like this. We need to do a deep dive into this study, which I think we're all very excited and eager to get going on, and I think it would pre-emptive to suspend the RFP. PHAC has delayed the tender date by a number of weeks. I'm sure that if we get our study under way and we start listening to witnesses, if we start scoping out exactly what our concerns are.... At this point in time, given the nature of the discussion and the letter that Mr. Brossard has presented to us, I don't think we have a clear understanding as to what issue we're dealing with in terms of privacy and the scope of these companies.

I've raised this point before as well. We've talked about the difference between mobility data and mobile data. We've talked about disaggregated and aggregate data. With all of these articles that I've cited over the past two years that have been written on this issue and all the work that's been done on this issue, we should not take lightly what we're asking for here. We really need to understand the scope of the issue before we make that decision.

I would encourage members to get the study started first. We can see how we can prevent losing Canadian lives to COVID. Canadians' lives are at risk, and it would be unfair for opposition members at this table to pre-emptively stop something when even the critical articles state that the information out of these RFPs is being used to create a safety framework. It's being used to understand how the COVID pandemic is really shaping our cities and how the transmission rates are impacting what our responses look like.

As I said before, a lot of cities and provinces are using that data. It would be a very bad precedent for us as a federal government to suspend something that our public health officials have been using to save Canadians' lives over the past two years. We need to scope this issue out significantly before we make such a decision.

I am opposed to this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Ms. Khalid.

Now I have Mr. Fergus.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Like my colleague Mr. Brassard, I hope the committee wishes to go ahead this study in a timely manner and call witnesses just as quickly. If it is subsequently determined that there was no prima facie breach involving the personal information of Canadians, I hope that we can bring this study to a close. As my colleague Ms. Khalid mentioned, if we are to believe our officials, and if we have confidence in their work, they did it with good intentions and seeking to protect the privacy of Canadians. They used aggregated data, as did the municipalities and provinces. I hope that we will not keep municipalities and provincial health departments from using this data if we find that there was no privacy breach.

The opposition has a majority on this committee, and I hope they will exercise this responsibility very wisely, because this is about the lives of Canadians. It is important. If we quickly conclude that there is no problem, this study should be ended so that the data continues to be used appropriately, as officials have already assured us.

So if we pass this motion, we will be taking on a serious responsibility.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

All right.

Next is Ms. Saks.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think it's very important that we are clear on terms and purpose and procedure, because I think it really helps us in moving forward efficiently with almost a laser focus on the motion that was brought forward.

We came here today on a Standing Order 106(4) meeting that Mr. Brassard brought forward on a specific issue, which was—let me be clear—the data that PHAC asked for and has been using to date. That is de-identified and aggregated mobility data—not mobile data, but mobility data—meaning where Canadians have been during lockdowns and where Canadians have been during different phases. This has been used by Toronto Public Health. It's been used by Surrey. It's been used by the City of Ottawa. Such private companies as Telus are using data for “social good”; that's how they coined it.

Now, each of these private contractors has an agreement with each cell user in terms of opting in and opting out. PHAC was explicitly clear that these private contractors had to have absolute clarity with users on what they are engaged in on their cellphones. As Mr. Villemure appropriately said earlier, all of us hit “agree” on our phones on various things on a daily basis without reading the fine print. That is an important discussion that we need to have, but that is not the motion that Mr. Brassard brought forward today.

What we were discussing today, and had unanimous consent on, was the data that PHAC is using, which is aggregated and de-identified data to understand the pathology of this pandemic, how it is spreading through our urban centres and how it is impacting the day-to-day lives of Canadians. That data, which is de-identified, aggregated and scrubbed before PHAC analysts look at it, is helping us understand how we move forward so that Canadians can be safe. To tie their hands from understanding how this....

We're in omicron, which is spreading like wildfire. How are we supposed to make good decisions, how are departments supposed to make good decisions, and how are local public health agencies who are also using this data able to make good decisions to understand the movement of this virus if they don't have access to de-identified, aggregated mobility data—not someone's telephone number, their address or where they live—on the general movements of how this virus is moving through communities, through neighbourhoods and through urban centres?

That was my understanding of why we came here today—the urgency to understand that the data is safe, has been procured properly and is being used with the utmost respect for privacy. Each and every one of those vendors is obligated under the current privacy acts that we have in force.

If there is a desire, as Mr. Villemure may have expressed, for us to have a more extensive discussion on those issues, we can have that, but that's not the reason we're here today. We're here today to ensure that the data that has been collected and the RFP that is currently going out respect all of the important tools and levers that we have to keep Canadians safe and also ensure their privacy.

I just want to make sure that we are working in apples to apples, not apples to oranges, and that we understand the process that brought us here today and the immediate and urgent work we need to do so that we have well-informed steps in the further work we need to do. I want to make sure that we're not muddying the waters with motions that don't speak to the clarity that we need to have as a committee and that Canadians are asking us to provide to them.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.