Industry Committee on April 17th, 2024

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That's the question.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'm trying to make sure I understand this discussion about national security and defence being included.

Would that, then, make them equal in the process to the police? I have some concerns about that, but is that the result?

[Mark Schaan]

Spencer is a three-part test where any satisfaction of one of the tests can constitute lawful authority for the disclosure of the information. One, is it an emergency? Is it exigent circumstances? Is this information absolutely dire so that it needs to be accessed in this moment? Two, is it pursuant to a reasonable law? Is there some other authority that you can rely on to be able to get this information? Therefore, you can rely on that law for the purposes of accessing this information. Three, is it pursuant to a common-law authority where the courts have basically said there is no reasonable expectation of privacy for this information, so it's allowed to be given because it wasn't really considered to be private in the first place?

In the government's subamendment or future considerations in our future draft picks of amendments we might want to think about, what we're trying to do is suggest that the “reasonable law” piece—what reasonable laws you're allowed to rely on—can't include the CPPA itself. You can't go back to proposed section 44 and say that the CPPA says that an organization may disclose an individual's personal information, so that lawful authority allows you to do that. I think the question from the Conservatives is whether we also need to say that you can't rely on other sections of the CPPA, that you can't point to them and say that's a reasonable law.

Now I'll turn to Mr. Chhabra.

[Samir Chhabra]

I'll just put a finer point on it. If I understood your question correctly, MP Masse, you were asking whether including or not including those other sections in the reference would change the definition of “lawful authority”. The answer is that it would not.

I don't believe the committee right now is debating whether the definition of “lawful authority” would apply, because it would. The issue here is whether you're establishing a circular reference to the lawful authority being found in the act itself. The idea is to separate that.

Our understanding of the OPC's previous advice on this was that proposed section 44 was seen to be a risk, to be something that could be pointed at in a circular reference way, when in fact the idea here is to have a separate reasonable law form the reasonable basis or the lawful authority for the ask, such as the CSIS Act or the Criminal Code or other acts.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

And that would then trigger access to that information, because it falls under that specific menu of legislation that's already established. Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a very quick point.

It sounds like what I moved.... Actually, I didn't move it, because I wasn't able to. The subamendment that I was planning to move is now deemed another amendment, after we dispense with CPC-3. Essentially, there were brackets under (b), which was “it is pursuant to a reasonable law (other than section 44)”, and this could be changed to “other than section 33, 43 or 44 or subsection 47(1)”. Essentially, that would remove these self-referential loops within the bill and, for greater certainty, as some say, might make it a bit clearer and accommodate the suggestions that my Conservatives colleagues are making. It might be a way we could get this resolved.

Would that have any impact on the overall intention of what I had originally proposed when I planned to move it as a subamendment? No. Okay, great.

Why don't we do that? I'll agree to do that if we can dispense with CPC-3, and I will introduce exactly that.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I seek unanimous consent to withdraw CPC-3.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

(Amendment withdrawn)

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Chair, I wish to take the floor, if I'm allowed, to introduce exactly what I just said I would. I'll read it again. The one I sent around is being amended, but I haven't moved it yet, so technically I'm able to do that within the procedural rules of the House.

I'll read it into the record:

lawful authority means authority exercised by a government institution or part of a government institution where one or more of the following criteria are met: (a) there are exigent circumstances, (b) it is pursuant to a reasonable law (other than section 33, 43 or 44 or subsection 47(1)) or (c) it is pursuant to common law authority where personal information would not attract a reasonable expectation of privacy.

To my colleague Jean-Denis, I apologize that those slight changes, although they are just numbers being added, were not translated in the original version that I had sent.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Members, you have the amendment to clause 2 that is referenced as 13026345 as amended, so not the exact text. We know that Mr. Turnbull has added a few sections of the bill.

Mr. Garon, you have the floor.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I'd like to have the French version before debating the amendment, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

The clerk should normally have distributed the text of the amendment in both official languages.

I've received it.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Can we suspend until we get the French version? That's only fair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

The French version is drafted in the same way as all the other amendments.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

We were looking at Ryan's version, and we didn't realize there was one from the clerk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

It's technically under Mr. Gaheer's name.

Have you received it, Mr. Garon?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I thought I hadn't received it; pardon me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Mr. Généreux, go ahead.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I just want to check something with Mr. Turnbull since he just read the amendment in English. I want to be sure that paragraph (b) doesn't just mention section 44.

Mr. Turnbull, could you reread paragraph (b)? It seems to me that what you said differs from the text I have in my hand.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

The (b) part would be “it is pursuant to a reasonable law (other than section 33, 43 or 44 or subsection 47(1))”. It's really just amending what's in the brackets.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Should we have received two versions, Mr. Chair?