Industry Committee on April 30th, 2020

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

On April 29, in a press conference, the Prime Minister confirmed that the federal government would consider using or promoting contact tracing apps. Companies like Palantir and Clearview AI have said that they're doing this work pro bono. In fact, they've gone out of their way to stress this.

The problem is, Canada's primary federal privacy law, PIPEDA, only applies to commercial activities. Given this gap, if a company builds a contact tracing app for free, at any level of government what is the mechanism that would be used to ensure that the health data they collect on us would not be monetized or sold after the pandemic?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

I think that at this stage what I would highlight is that there has been no official arrangement with any company around contact tracing. We are looking at different solutions and examining what possibilities exist there. We have to work with the provinces and territories to make sure we have their buy-in as well, and I can assure you that when it comes to privacy, that is of paramount concern.

The Privacy Commissioner, on contact tracing, said that—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

—the public health objectives and privacy protection can be achieved at the same time.

We agree with the commissioner that privacy—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you. That didn't answer my question, but I'm just going to go on to the next part.

You're talking about the fact that PIPEDA exists. I'll draw your attention to an article that The Star published on April 29, 2019. It's called “Facebook is laughing at Canada's toothless privacy laws”. The article states that Canada's law doesn't give the Privacy Commissioner “the power to actually tell Facebook to do anything”. It says, “If, and it's a big if, Facebook is actually found to have violated Canadian privacy law, the maximum fine it could face in this country is $100,000.”

If an application developed pro bono is used, even on a voluntary basis, in contact tracing efforts, would you say it's a fair characterization to say that functionally nothing really exists to prevent this data from being sold to, say, an insurance company, for the use of, let's say, premium setting, given that Canadian health data is worth considerably more than $100,000?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

You mentioned PIPEDA and the $100,000 fine, and I'm glad you mentioned that. Those are some of the changes we brought forward through the regulatory process. It's a $100,000 fine per breach. If you're a company and you have breaches in the thousands and the millions—and that's often the case—that's a significant fine. That $100,000 fine makes it very clear that the company must disclose any breaches to the individual and the Privacy Commissioner. This is an important step to protect Canadians.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Are you confident, though, that apps that would be developed pro bono or with government would fall under PIPEDA?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

We take privacy very seriously. Our government introduced the digital charter and that's why—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

This is a pretty big question right now, because your government is considering using these apps. Are you confident that an app developed pro bono would fall under PIPEDA?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

I'm trying to respond, so thank you very much for the opportunity.

As I said, privacy is a very important issue for our government, and if we—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

It's a yes-or-no answer.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Moving forward, we will make sure that it adheres to the stringent PIPEDA provisions that we put in place. We also proposed changes to the digital charter to make sure that—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Have you made the provinces aware of this potential gap at all? Have you mentioned this potential gap with any of your provincial counterparts who are looking at contact tracing efforts with companies that are developing it pro bono?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

We work very closely with the provinces and territories to engage them on a range of issues, including issues around contact tracing.

As I said, different solutions are being proposed, but privacy will always be paramount.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'll take that as a no. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you so much.

The next set of questions goes to Madame Lambropoulos. You have five minutes.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, and thank you, Minister Bains, for being with us to answer our questions this morning.

One of my main questions is inspired a bit by what Mr. Erskine-Smith mentioned earlier on testing kits. Quebec plans to reopen a lot sooner than a lot of the other provinces and has a plan to send students back to school within the next two weeks, even though it is one of the provinces with the highest number of COVID-19 cases.

I was wondering if that's been taken into account when considering where the testing kits should go in order to safely reopen society in Quebec and make sure that we're protecting people who are going out from those who may potentially be spreading the virus.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

We would allocate the personal protective equipment or testing initiatives where the needs are. That's why we constantly coordinate with the provinces and territories to better understand their needs. There are different burn rates within different jurisdictions. Different jurisdictions within provinces and municipalities pursue their own procurement strategies and are making purchases and looking at made-in-Canada solutions as well, so it's important that we coordinate with them.

When it comes to testing more broadly and reopening the economy, we've been very clear that this should be guided by the advice of the public health authorities. We have worked very hard to save lives, to make sure we don't overwhelm our health care system, to flatten the curve. We don't want to undo that, so it's important that we act in a thoughtful and measured way, in a coordinated way and in a collaborative way. That's why we work very closely with the provinces and territories, particularly the Province of Quebec, as they rethink some of these initiatives.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much.

Another question I have is about ventilators. I know that CAE and a couple of other companies are partnering to produce 30,000 ventilators. I was wondering when you think the first ones will be delivered.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

When it comes to ventilators, we've seen CAE, StarFish Medical, the Dr. Art McDonald initiative and company after company step up in a very thoughtful way and come forward with a solution.

I had the opportunity to speak with Marc Parent, the CEO of CAE, and CAE has a great initiative. They have the history, the technical know-how, the understanding. They were able to rehire people to help build some of these ventilators. We went from a letter of intent to a purchase order, and now they will be delivering the ventilators in a matter of weeks.

This is really promising news for us, because we know we are in a position to help not only Canadians but possibly other jurisdictions and other countries as well.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

This is my final question. I had asked it in a previous meeting and I am hoping you can answer it today.

What exactly is the procurement process, and what role does ISED play in this particular process? A lot of companies came to me once we announced Canada's plan to mobilize industry. A lot of them had written to me, and I kind of led them through the application process. What are the next steps after that?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

As Brian Masse mentioned before, this is a very customer-oriented initiative, directly dealt with by the government and the companies without any third party intervention. We deal with them on a regular basis through the portals to let them understand the opportunities.

When it comes to ventilators, I'll give you an example. We had Health Canada and procurement and medical experts together to evaluate some of these proposals so we could quickly make a determination, sign a letter of intent and work with Procurement Canada to get that purchase order out.

It's about creating SWOT teams that can analyze some of these proposals that are more technical in nature. When it comes to other promising opportunities, we deal with Procurement Canada. If we can help companies with a procurement initiative, we work with Minister Anand's office.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'm not sure how much time I have left. I should be timing myself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

You have 39 seconds.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

In that case, I'm just going to thank you, because by the time I get through the question, you're probably not going to have time to answer it. I thank you very much for your time today.