Evidence of meeting #116 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th 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.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I'm struggling with the schedule. You have an amendment to schedule 2 in this bill, but that's later on, so what's schedule 1? In terms of the numbering, there's no schedule 1 in the AIDA, and you've put schedule 2 in the AIDA. You must have been contemplating a relationship between that schedule, not in the sense of the content and what it does, but in this bill.... You're turning the unnamed annex schedule in the privacy part of the bill into schedule 1 because you've introduced an amendment called schedule 2.
11:30 a.m.
Senior Director, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
The Department of Justice has advised us that this is a drafting convention. That is why they wanted the schedule to be named schedule 1. There's no policy reason. This is not related to any of the other government amendments. It's just a drafting convention.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Can you call something schedule 2 if there's no schedule 1?
11:30 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
I don't [Inaudible—Editor] drafting convention, but this is schedule 1 to the CPPA. That's what's in question at the moment.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
No, there is no schedule 1 in the CPPA. You're renaming an annex schedule as schedule 1 and there's a reason for doing that, other than just having gotten it wrong. Seeing as the government has introduced 55 amendments, it clearly got a lot wrong in this bill. Of the 55 amendments, the first one you've put in is changing this to schedule 1 because you introduced an amendment called schedule 2 with there being no schedule 1.
I think it's a pretty simple question. Doesn't 2 follow 1? Isn't that why you're numbering it?
11:30 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
If I read the current draft of the act on page 3 as it relates to enactment, clause 2 reads:
The Consumer Privacy Protection Act, whose text is as follows and whose schedule is set out in the schedule to this Act, is enacted:
An Act to support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information that is collected, used or disclosed in the course of commercial activities
The CPPA clearly does refer to a schedule per the text of the bill, so it is in fact related to the CPPA. It is for the precision of a drafting convention, as advised by the Department of Justice, to schedule it as schedule 1.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
However, presumably the Department of Justice drafted this bill and this was the only schedule in the original Bill C-27. As such, it didn't need a number, or they would have numbered it. Now you're amending it for more precision to say it's schedule 1 for a reason, which is not that there isn't another schedule, but that you had already numbered the other schedule.
It's a simple question in the sense that you have one schedule in the bill that you're renumbering and you have another schedule that's new in an amendment you're proposing. You can't have two schedules that don't have numbers, so you've said in the opening of the bill that you're calling the one existing schedule schedule 1 because you have a future amendment.
Is that not the case?
11:35 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
No. As indicated, the schedules we're referring to strictly speak to the consumer privacy protection act—the CPPA—and the schedule is what's outlined in the CPPA. Notwithstanding that potential schedules might exist in the artificial intelligence and data act, this schedule, per drafting convention and as advised by the Department of Justice, would be more legible if it was understood as schedule 1.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Can I ask why they missed that in the first place?
11:35 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
Obviously, our drafters at the Department of Justice work very hard to try to ensure a bill is in the best state possible at the time of introduction. However, as has been seen through multiple corrections over multiple courses of legislative amendment acts, we have a statute update act for the very purpose of ensuring that we get it right. That's essentially what's being requested by the Department of Justice.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
If this section is left the way it is.... Let's say that your amendment here is defeated, for the sake of argument. Can you still move schedule 2 in an amendment since it's in the same bill? Would the bill start off with “Schedule” and then have “Schedule 2”? Is that the legal issue?
11:35 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
As I've laid out, this is, strictly speaking, related to the consumer privacy protection act, so it has no bearing on future amendments related to the artificial intelligence and data act.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
No, but it's all part of one bill. It's all part of the same bill, Bill C-27.
11:35 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
It's not part of the same legislation.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Yes, it is because the bill is the piece of legislation before Parliament.
11:35 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
No, the bill contains three legislative acts. The bill and the three pieces of legislation are not the same. The bill is the digital charter implementation act. The three pieces of legislation it is enacting are the CPPA, the tribunal and the AIDA.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Then what is schedule 1 if this amendment doesn't go through?
11:35 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
If this amendment does not go through, the “Enactment of Act” clause at the start of the CPPA will refer to a schedule unnumbered, which, by drafting convention, is not what the Department of Justice would like to see. Therefore, it will be slightly less legible.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
11:35 a.m.
Senior Director, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
Schedule 1 is a holdover from PIPEDA. It adds the World Anti-Doping Agency as being subject to the CPPA, as it is currently subject to PIPEDA.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
Thank you.
I'm sorry. I just want further clarification.
Mr. Schaan, if schedule 1 were to not pass, what would be the impact on this legislation?
11:35 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector, Department of Industry
The amendment is simply with regard to how the schedule is referenced in the act, not to the schedule itself. The amendment is proposing to reference the schedule as “Schedule 1” rather than as “Schedule”. As noted, it would be a slightly less legible bill in the eyes of the Department of Justice from a drafting perspective.
