“—provide the Commissioner with greater flexibility to enter compliance agreements with companies that fail to comply with privacy legislation, and implement a broader right to data mobility.”
As my colleague Mr. Lemire mentioned, these are massive changes to this bill. They are also very consequential with respect to children. When we had the minister here the other day, if we'd had more time, then my line of questioning would have been focused on ensuring that our shared objective of protecting children from online threats is, first and foremost, a priority on this legislation.
I move this motion today because if we start this bill on the wrong footing, then we are doing a disservice to all of the Canadians who are asking us to be really mindful of some very serious issues. What bothers parents the most? It's what their kids are seeing on their iPads. That's one of the biggest concerns of any parent with young kids.
I'm glad the minister is moving in the direction that he is, but it disturbs me that he couldn't just send us a copy of the amendments in good faith. Nobody around this table disagrees that we have to do more for our kids to protect them from online threats.
I really hope that we can have a vote on this motion pretty soon. The minister can provide this in good faith. With the legal team we have here at Parliament, it doesn't take long for any of us to draft that material into proposed amendments and get them on the record so that we can work in good faith to get these things done.
I've been around this place for a long time. I have never seen a minister do what he did this week. It is contrary to the precedent established in our standing orders, which is that we hear witnesses and debate among colleagues in a collegial format at the committee stage of a bill. Then, if we have amendments in the meantime, we table them for the public and other committee members to see, based on the witness testimony that is coming in droves from across Canada on this legislation.
We don't disagree with the intention of the minister. The official opposition is asking in good faith that he just put it forward so that we can give respect to the hundreds of people we have literally invited here to appear over this fall session. Then we can do something positive to update legislation that all of us agree needs a lot of attention from our Parliament.
I will note that in the haste of writing what I did, I wrote three days instead of five in the French version. It's meant to be five days.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.