Industry Committee on Sept. 26th, 2023

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I appreciate that. I like your creativity, Mr. Masse, about how we could go about amendments. Hopefully, we won't get there.

What I can commit, Mr. Chair.... Like I said, this was meant to be helpful. I hear the concerns and the comments from colleagues. We will do our utmost to provide an outline of what I said, and I'm happy to share that.

I'm happy, first, to put my remarks on the record and, second, to provide the chair, maybe in a letter, with more specificity so that you have that. Then I would certainly work with our members to be able to provide the detailed wording of the amendments, so that this wording can be provided to you as quickly as possible.

Like I said, with regard to my intervention today, take it in a positive way. I just want to progress the work of the committee by saying what we intend to do so that, if we are in agreement on that, we can focus on the things that need to be improved, because these are things we already intend to do.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I don't disagree—I think many of them are positive—but we have to deal with the reality. The people who will be sitting where you're sitting are not just going to trust speculation on potential amendments. Even if the amendments were done with the most genuine interest, they could run into technical legal problems that we may not foresee.

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

You have about 15 seconds.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Okay.

I do see these as positive things, but they have to be real. They're not real to me until they show their mettle by being passed—being analyzed by our legal analysts and going through due diligence. Thank you for the intent here, because it is helpful, but until we see them in front of us, that's the challenge we face.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

I'll now yield the floor to Mr. Williams.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here. Thank you for at least starting with the amendments. I have a bunch of questions, so while you're here, I'm going to start by asking you about them.

We'll start with privacy as a fundamental right. I spoke about this in the House. Until now, I didn't think the government took it seriously, so it's nice to hear you making that statement. To make the point very clear, as I said in the House, nowhere in the current document does it state that privacy is a fundamental right.

First of all, Minister, where in the document will that be stated?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

First of all, that proves that I listen to you when you speak in the House. You should be very happy.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Several times this week we've had that proven to us.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

You should be happy. It reflects that we've been listening—not only to you, but I would say to a number of stakeholders; I want to give credit to people.

I've talked about the privacy right. I talked today about the concept that we're going to insert it. If you're asking me in which specific provision, we'll have to come back to you on that.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

I'll ask you this specifically, Minister: Do you support an amendment that would put that in the purpose statement of the document?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

There will already be, in the body of the law, when we present them, an amendment that will recognize that properly. If you remember when we started, there were issues about jurisdiction. We put it in a preamble to indicate our intention, but now we're going to state that as a fact.

I had discussions with the Privacy Commissioner on that. I think it's something that was wanted not only by you but by the Privacy Commissioner and a number of stakeholders in Canada.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

I'm sure you understand that the witnesses will come out. We've already talked to you. We'll have the Privacy Commissioner on Thursday. We'll certainly be asking for that. I was asking if you supported it. I'm happy to hear that you have. Certainly, as was mentioned by my colleague, we'll have a lot of different witnesses come out. I just wanted to hear where you thought it would be. Certainly, it's nice to hear that you think it's going to be in certain other places.

I'm going to follow up from my colleague as well on legitimate interests. Right now, as we've heard, it's too broad. We've talked about how it's far too broad. We want to look at it perhaps more in line with the GDPR, which defines legitimate interests in article 6(1)(f) as one of the lawful bases for processing personal data. According to the GDPR, legitimate interests means that a data controller, the entity processing the data, can process personal data without the explicit consent of the data subject, the individual to whom the data pertains.

In other words, they really define it a little more clearly. They even have what's called a “legitimate interests assessment”, or an LIA. We've talked about the privacy impact assessment in our version, but we haven't really looked at an LIA.

Would you support amendments that look to define “legitimate interests” more clearly and more in line with the GDPR?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I'd like to say that, just as a principle—I'll come to your specific question—I have a full list of the things we've been doing in order to align with the GDPR and European Union. Certainly, Mr. Williams, if you were to come with an amendment that would allow us to clarify something that, as I've tried to explain, we've tried to put into the law that would align with the EU, that's something that we would consider.

A lot of the things we've done on definitions are aligning with the EU. We talk with the EU all the time on these things. We want to be aligned. They are very keen about what Canada's doing as well, because we're going to be first out of the gate, I think, with your help. If you come with something that you think can let us better circumscribe that definition or avoid unintended consequences.... Listen, you see how much I've been listening to you. Look at all the amendments we're proposing to make it a better bill. We'll definitely be listening.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

We appreciate that. I think the intent of all the witnesses coming up will be getting that balance.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Totally.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

We understand that the balance needs to be there.

You've talked about $20 million more for the Privacy Commissioner. We're going to be debating a tribunal and the use of a tribunal. There are different speeds at the tribunal that have worked and haven't worked for the Competition Bureau, so we'll certainly be looking at that and what's going to work for this instance.

One thing that came out last week from the Rogers-Shaw tribunal was that the tribunal itself actually had to pay $13 million to Rogers. From that, we're learning that perhaps the process needs to be improved even on the competition side, not just the privacy side.

As the minister right now making amendments or recommendations, you talked about giving $20 million. In this case, if that had been the privacy tribunal, they would have already lost it. What changes would you make as minister or would you recommend in amendments to this tribunal process, or to the Privacy Commissioner role itself, to ensure that we wouldn't have that happen at all when it came to this process, if we were to enact a tribunal?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Just to be very specific, obviously that was base funding. The $20 million is base funding for the Privacy Commissioner to operate.

Part of the thing I heard from him was, “Minister, if you modernize the law but we don't have the funding to have the tools to enforce it, it's not going to work to the extent that I think every member of Parliament expects.”

I must tell you, with respect to the competition law matter that you mentioned, as you know, this does not usually come from base funding from the organization or the Competition Tribunal in this case.

I thought long and hard about a tribunal. I'm a lawyer and I was wondering whether it should be the court of general jurisdiction or a specialized tribunal. I'm not inclined to create new structures. It's probably part of my DNA. I was wondering if we could use a court of general jurisdiction, but I was convinced by experts that having people who understand this matter more deeply as opposed to having a court of general jurisdiction would be better.

In addition, we have consent agreements. We expect that most of these things will be done through consent agreements, whereby the Privacy Commissioner can get to almost a plea bargain agreement with the offender so they don't have to go to the tribunal. We don't want to clog the courts. With respect to a specialized tribunal, I agree with you. Most experts would say that, in this particular case, as in the case of AIDA, you need some skills to understand it. That is better and it should improve justice and be faster and less expensive.

I think the real answer is to have consent agreements, because I think most offenders—I don't have statistics—would come to a consent agreement with the Privacy Commissioner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Minister.

We'll now turn to MP Dabrusin.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you. It's great to be here at committee today.

Minister, thank you for being here. I know in the past we've talked about the fact that my community has a very large arts industry. I have a film studio district, and over this past summer I was talking with a lot of actors in my community, members of ACTRA, and writers who are members of Writers Guild. They've been watching what's happening in the United States with the strikes in the United States. In particular, one of the issues that have come up in those strikes has been about AI and the impact of AI on the arts industry, particularly with respect to the use of actors' voices or images and the use of materials written by writers who work for film and television.

One of the questions they were asking me was what we can do in Canada to make sure that we are creating the right protections for artists like actors and writers in the context of AI. They were actually very excited to see that we have this bill. They recognized that we are ahead of many countries in having this kind of legislation, but the question they wanted answered was what we could do specifically on the types of issues I just raised.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you very much, Ms. Dabrusin.

First of all, you're lucky to have a film industry. I think many of us around here would like to have one as well, because it brings a lot of economic benefits and certainly it's a great industry.

You're quite right that our friends down south are looking very much at what's going on in Canada, and I can tell you that it's not only down south but also on the other side of the pond in Europe, because everyone understands that on AI no one country can have all the answers.

I think in terms of co-operation and making sure we are taking initiatives to the OECD or the G7, such as the Hiroshima initiative we took with Japan, which had the presidency of the G7, even at the leaders summit people talked about AI. It's that important today. At the G7 leaders summit, they talked about AI, so that just says how much this is top of mind, not only for creators and actors.

I'd like to tell you more specifically about that, but I have an announcement coming and one thing they have advised me is not necessarily to say everything today. There's an announcement coming with respect to that, which will address some of that, because you're quite right that we need to put a bit of focus on that and understand the impact that AI can have. Also on generative AI, I saw something yesterday, I think in the New York Times—I don't know if colleagues saw that—on how even now with image and voice people can.... It's going at a speed.... That's why I'm saying that I hope colleagues feel the same level of urgency I feel, because every day we learn about a new aspect of that technology that goes beyond what we have already seen, so having a framework will be much needed and it will allow for responsible AI. We talk a lot about the challenges and the risks, but let's talk more about a lot of the responsibilities with AI.

Tomorrow I'm going to be with people like Cohere in Canada, which is doing great work, and Xanadu. There are tons of companies I can think of—Coveo is doing a lot of responsible AI in this country—so we want to push innovation, because Canada is at the forefront of AI, I think, if you look around the world. I remember at my first meeting in Washington, they said, “Minister, one place where Canada is way ahead is on AI.” We're at the cutting edge of it, but I think to continue that we need to have a framework and that's what we're proposing.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I have only about a minute left, so I'm just going to ask if you can make sure that we're including the thoughts and interests of artists—particularly artist actors and writers in films and the television industry, but I would say our creative industry as a whole—as we go forward. They're deeply concerned, and we want to make sure that we have a thriving industry here in Canada.

I know I don't have much time, but I have one last piece. You kind of hit the nail on the head that things are moving really quickly. How do we make sure that this legislation remains evergreen and doesn't get stuck as one snapshot in time?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

That's a very good question, and on the artists, I would agree.

By providing a framework, the way Canada has been doing it, if you think of PIPEDA, the existing law that deals with privacy, it's quite something what we have achieved. It's still relevant 20 years after it was passed, even though things have evolved. As I said, we didn't have Twitter and we didn't have Facebook at that time. The same philosophy has been applied here.

You can be very prescriptive. Some jurisdictions have decided to do that, but the risk, as you said, is that you become obsolete, not the month after but maybe within five years' time. Our approach has been to say, as we did with PIPEDA, that it's better to have a framework with guidelines and broad principles. Then, through regulation and codes, you can evolve with the technology.

Like you, I don't know what might be coming six months down the road or even five years down the road, but one thing I know is that you have a chance probably only once every decade to update these things. They need to be relevant for the long term. That's the philosophical approach that Canada has been taking. That's why our partners around the world are so interested in what we're doing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin and Mr. Minister.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

The part of Bill C‑27 that pertains to artificial intelligence relies a great deal on self-regulation. The bill has been designed so that companies can create codes of conduct to regulate themselves more independently. The government will therefore have to approve codes of conduct that may not be very strong, which is a concern. What accountability will there be? Will there be audits? If so, how will those audits be monitored? I am referring to governance, protecting innovation, transparency, which is essential, and copyright protection.

That leads me to a fundamental question: If there were an abuse or someone had to be reprimanded for violating a person's privacy, who would be held accountable? That isn't clear. Would it be the developer, the seller or even the user? The private sector needs us to get clarification from you on that because it is creating confusion and preventing us from moving forward.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Lemire, that is a very good question. We have very different definitions of developers and users, as they are very different groups. Developing a system and using it in a business are two completely different things, with different obligations. The developer clearly has a lot more obligations since they must ensure certain things.

It is important to note that the bill will regulate what we call high-impact systems. As I said in my opening remarks, I am not interested in the type of movie or music you might choose. I am repeating that because I know that people who are following us from home are concerned about that. If a robot or algorithm decides whether someone gets a loan or an insurance policy or is admitted to an institution, we have to make sure that the algorithm does not generate biased results that would lead in the wrong direction. Individuals also have to know that artificial intelligence was used to make that decision. When you buy an insurance policy these days, you don't even know if the application was processed by a person. So the method used to make a decision will have to be indicated. We also suggest that a special symbol be used to indicate that a robot is responding or acting on behalf of the business.

A big concern these days is not knowing whether a machine or a person is making the decision to grant a loan or not. If it is a machine, what is the decision based on? Is it based on our postal code, our age or the number of years we have been in the country? Canadians have to know. This must be public and clearly indicated because it can lead to all kinds of problems. That is what we want the bill to prevent, and that is why we want to act quickly.

Personally, I think it is possible to be innovative, but there is also a risk of abuse. A letter from Yoshua Begio telling us to be careful was co‑signed by hundreds of people. Yes, Canada is certainly ready for responsible innovation, but at the same time we need a framework that will enable us to protect people.