Evidence of meeting #35 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Ms. Church, the motion is on the floor. It was placed on notice, so if you have some things you want to say, you can start now.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Okay.
It's been about a decade since the Privacy Act was last examined at committee, well before the rise of artificial intelligence and other modern technologies that now fundamentally shape how personal information is collected and used. With the Treasury Board having launched a review of the act and with our government committed to modernizing its operations, we believe it's essential that the committee members receive, first, a thorough briefing on the Privacy Act, including hearing from the Treasury Board, the Privacy Commissioner, relevant department officials and other commissioners and subject matter experts, of course, to understand what issues should be on the table and what considerations should guide our work.
In particular, we are suggesting to invite the Alberta commissioner, because Alberta's Protection of Privacy Act came into force in the summer of 2025, making it one of the most recent provincial privacy reforms in the country. Hearing from Alberta's commissioner would prove valuable in understanding how they've approached changes to their privacy act and what lessons might be applicable at the federal level. Of course, we would be open to extending invitations to privacy commissioners from other provinces as well.
Also, it's hard to imagine an area that could be more relevant to Canadians today than looking at this act in light of the wide range of developments we've seen in the 10 years since the act was last investigated at committee. The act itself has been in force since 1983. It's become a different world since then.
When the act was created, it set out the rules for how federal institutions were going to collect, create, use, retain and disclose personal information. Certainly with the methods we now employ to collect data, the types of data we have seen become relevant and become targeted for scams and become core to the digital realm we operate within, and in terms of the disclosure and retention of privacy and how it's retained, now that most of our data is in a technological form, it's worth looking at this act very carefully.
The act was originally intended to give individuals the right to access their own information and to request that it be corrected if they believed it to be inaccurate, but we know that many of the systems and processes around that collection, retention, use and disclosure of information have changed so much that the act itself may be found to have many vagaries and many gaps in light of how data is used today.
The act itself is applicable to federal institutions. The private sector is subject to different privacy legislation, but from a federal point of view, understanding how the federal government uses, collects, preserves and retains data and ensures the careful handling and privacy of the data that federal institutions use, out of necessity, for serving Canadians is also a very important part of the scope of the investigation we should be doing.
We know that the act applies across more than 250 federal institutions, so this is not a small and narrow piece of legislation. It's one that has a very core role in the functioning of so many of our government institutions and the broader public set of institutions serving Canadians.
Within that privacy regime, Treasury Board Secretariat has a central role to play in issuing the policies, directives and guidance to help ensure that federal institutions are compliant with the Privacy Act, providing government leadership, oversight and operational support to ensure that privacy practices are consistent across institutions, including the central registration of personal information repositories.
Even in terms of some of the work that we've been doing over the past number of months as a committee, there's no question in my mind that privacy has come up in many different forms, particularly in our study into the adoption of artificial intelligence and the concerns around the growth of that capability, and privacy has come into other aspects of our work as well.
This will touch everything: how we approach the retention of information, the role of Library and Archives Canada and the whole host of federal institutions that have a mandate to utilize, collect and maintain data. I think this is going to be a very important study.
The federal government actually has an opportunity to learn from other privacy regimes and commissioners across the country. We are, I think, certainly in a position where it will be useful to understand those best practices, understand how different provinces have adapted their legislation in recent years and adapted the types of structures they have in place to ensure that we, as servants of the public and as stewards of public institutions, are equipping those institutions to handle data as well as people's privacy and private information effectively.
I think we'll have a lot to learn from those other jurisdictions, in addition to always having an eye on the services and institutions that operate across jurisdictions, as well as the private sector companies that operate across jurisdictions and certainly Canadians themselves who have a foot in several jurisdictions, provincially and federally, as they move through different parts of the country. We want to make sure that we are, as well as possible, understanding the interconnection of those systems and trying, as we always do, to ensure that as we develop federal policies, they are in step and actually working towards and supporting our ideal of having a system of privacy that is intelligible, that is understandable and that supports the work of each jurisdiction, but that at the same time understands the necessity of operating as one country, where we are trying to find new ways to deliver government services and government benefits as expeditiously as possible, without friction, while always having an eye to people's individual privacy.
This continues to be an area where we're seeing how much modern technological developments are reshaping how we look at these privacy systems. For us to meet the goal, as I set out when moving this motion, of ensuring that Canadians can benefit from efficient and innovative public services that are both modern and secure is an important objective. Ensuring that we have a study that looks closely at balancing those objectives and understanding those objectives and making the most of the technological tools that help Canadians to access government services, while at the same time being very aware of the challenges, the gaps and the opportunities for harm when they aren't monitored or aren't as secure as they need to be, is a very important role for us as parliamentarians.
I commend this motion to my colleagues around the table. I hope that we will have the opportunity to explore this, to bring in some very credible experts from right across the country to add to our understanding and to be able to provide a report back to the House that will help guide the work of the government, and particularly Treasury Board , as they also work to progress with their review of the Privacy Act, which I think my colleagues will know was launched earlier this month on April 2.
This is with a view to ensuring that the Government of Canada can examine federal law to enhance service delivery, including modernizing processes that allow the secure sharing and reuse of data across government programs when it directly benefits individuals or the public, including establishing designated official sources of key data to reduce duplication and improve accuracy, which I think is a very important function.
I know that Treasury Board is going to be working at this over the next number of months. I think they have called for consultations, comments and feedback from the public until early this summer and have embarked as well on a series of consultations and meetings with federal institutions and subject matter experts. I think the work that we would do as a committee would greatly enhance the work that they're going to be embarking on over the coming months.
Finally, I want to say one quick thing before turning back the floor, Mr. Chair. It is just to thank the committee for allowing representatives like me to participate remotely on occasion. It is Yom HaShoah, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is important for parliamentarians to be present in our constituencies at important times like this. I just wanted to recognize that and thank you for allowing me to appear in hybrid format for this particular meeting.
Conservative
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON
Chair, I move that the committee now proceed to the consideration of the draft report, the review of the Conflict of Interest Act.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
The motion on the floor is a dilatory motion, so there's no debate. We're going straight to the vote.
We have a tie. I will vote yes.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 5; nays 4)
We're going to move in camera. This meeting is suspended until we set it up.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Go ahead, Mr. Hardy, on committee business. You have the floor, sir.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to move that we resume the debate adjourned earlier today on Mr. Barrett's motion.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
The motion has been moved.
We are resuming debate on Mr. Barrett's motion. Do I need to read the motion again, Madam Clerk?
Conservative
Conservative
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would definitely like to ask the clerk a question. Can the debate be reopened during the same meeting?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
I'll answer your question.
A motion was moved to resume debate, so it is my responsibility to then ensure the motion is in order. It's in order, but we have to have approval of the committee to do it. Because we are in committee business, it is in order.
Do I have consensus on the part of the committee to resume debate?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
That was my procedural error, and I apologize for that.
Let's go to a vote on that then, please.
We have a tie. I vote yes.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 5; nays 4)
We are resuming debate on the motion moved by Mr. Barrett. I have Mr. Fergus and Mr. Sari, and Ms. Church, I see your hand up.
Mr. Fergus, I apologize for interrupting you, but I had to deal with that.
Go ahead, Mr. Fergus.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chair, we've had the vote, but I would appreciate knowing, going forward, if, within the same meeting, you can reopen debate on a motion that has been adjourned.
It's my understanding that you can't do that within the same meeting. I would like to know on a go-forward basis, so perhaps we can have that clarification, sir.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
I'm going back to the book.
It's a fair question, so I'm going to suspend for a minute. The clerk needs a little more time for clarification. I want to make sure we get this right.
The meeting is suspended.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
We are resuming. I'll give a reminder that we're in public.
To Mr. Fergus's question, we did seek guidance. I'll read what it says:
“That the debate be now adjourned”
A member who moves “That the debate be now adjourned” wishes to temporarily suspend debate under way on a motion or study. If the motion is carried, debate on the motion (or amendment or subamendment, as the case may be) or study ceases for the moment and the committee moves on to other business.
If a motion to adjourn is defeated,—
In this case, it was not. It was adopted.
—a second such motion may not be moved until some intermediate proceeding has taken place or item of business has been considered. However, members may alternate between moving motions to adjourn the debate and to adjourn the committee, as these motions do not have the same effect and are considered intermediate proceedings.
Mr. Hardy's moving that motion to resume debate on Mr. Barrett's earlier motion as presented is in fact in order. My decision is my decision. You can challenge my decision if you like, but I'm reading it from this. If you want to challenge my decision, you can go ahead.
That's not you, Mr. Fergus, but—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Mr. Fergus had the floor.
You asked a question to which I gave an answer. Do you still wish to have the floor? I do have Mr. Sari next.
Liberal
Liberal
Abdelhaq Sari Liberal Bourassa, QC
First of all, Mr. Chair, my name was on the list when you suspended the debate.
If I understood you correctly, you were talking about a motion to temporarily suspend debate, but that's not what this was. This was a motion to just suspend the discussion. We moved on to something else, knowing that what had been understood, perceived, and agreed to, by members when they voted was that the discussion was being discontinued until further notice, until such time as the committee met again.
The rule you cited today clearly refers to a temporary suspension. I realize that the committee can choose to suspend the debate temporarily, move on to the next agenda item and then resume the debate. However, the rule you read clearly states that the suspension is temporary, and that wasn't the case here. Rather, the discussion was discontinued, because the members opposite didn't want to continue the debate today. Discussion of the motion stopped.