Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
While I really appreciate the conversation we've had over these past two hours on the importance of privacy and how data is used, I want to clarify a couple of things that Mr. Brassard has said.
First and foremost, he indicated that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner was never engaged by PHAC. However, it is on the record that on April 22, 2020—which was two years ago—the Office of the Privacy Commissioner was engaged.
I was going to add him to my own list of preliminary witnesses. I found it very telling that we're having a conversation about privacy, ethics and the use of data. It was interesting that the Privacy Commissioner was not included on the list of witnesses that we had discussed already in our motion, but I hope we will include him and his office at a later time.
The second thing I want to highlight is that Canada, over the past couple of years, has done really well with our response to COVID. We've done that because we've had trust and faith in our public health officials. We've used science, we've used data and we've stayed away from conspiracy theories. We've tried to raise awareness to ensure that Canadians understand and appreciate exactly what is going on in their country around them and what kinds of health risks they face. When we say, “Oh, let's suspend this RFP”, knowing and understanding that this type of aggregated data collection is done by private companies, provinces and cities in the interest of moving forward in our dealing with the pandemic and with other similar issues as the years go on, I feel we are being very pre-emptive. We should have more faith in our officials.
The issues raised in the previous motion are absolutely valid. We need to make sure there is transparency in and accountability for how data is used in a bigger picture, but we need to do that in a responsible and reasonable way. The last thing we need to do is create fearmongering or confusion for Canadians about what exactly is going on.
It's been said a number of times by members from all sides that we don't read privacy statements or user agreements. We need to do better. As parliamentarians, we have the responsibility to take a reasonable approach in tackling this issue.
It was great to see that all members are in support of the motion that has been put forward, on which we've had a really good discussion. We really need to focus on that before we create doubt in our Public Health Agency of Canada, before we create doubt in how we've managed the pandemic and before we create doubt in what Canadians need to be afraid of now.
I really encourage members to reconsider what the impact of such a motion is going to be. Just from rereading the wording of the motion, I think that at the very least we can provide a bit more clarity as to what exactly Mr. Villemure is asking for in this motion.
I'll stop there, Mr. Chair.