Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Commissioner.
We had a discussion earlier about the preamble having no legal binding, that it's a statement of intent and, once passed, doesn't appear in the statute in Canada. The purpose section, then, is very important. You just said in response to other questions that if you put “fundamental right” in and the word “and”, “and” is there balancing against that, but that's okay. It still makes “fundamental right” prominent.
I'll go in a different direction on that. Let's assume that's correct. The Liberals are introducing into this bill a concept in privacy protection, the concept of a legitimate interest, the legitimate interest of the business—the big business and its legitimate interest to use one's data in a way in which it doesn't have permission to use it, and to allow it to use it even if it causes harm to the individual.
I would argue that proposed section 18, which introduces this concept, actually does not make the privacy of the individual of paramount importance. Proposed section 18 actually makes business interests more important, because a large business can ignore whether or not you gave it permission. It can ignore whether or not the information being used is going to harm you for its own legitimate interests, which are not always aligned with those of an individual.
Would you not agree that having that “and” gives that power in proposed section 18 much more weight, enabling them to ignore whether or not it's a fundamental right?