Mr. Chair, many of the comments I have with respect to this amendment would be along the lines of what you just heard from Ms. May on her last amendment.
I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I am with the response of the government on the last one. I thought they cared about what Carol Todd said. This amendment is entirely consistent with what Carol Todd said. I thought they cared about what the Privacy Commissioner said. After all, they fiercely supported his appointment. This amendment is entirely consistent with what the Privacy Commissioner said.
Not a single telecommunications company has asked for civil and criminal immunity, not a one. In fact, of every witness who appeared before this committee who was asked what motivated the insertion of this immunity against class action lawsuits, nobody could identify a single party who asked for immunity, no one.
It strikes me as a wee bit odd that yesterday we were sitting here and talking about whether or not transgendered persons should be protected, whether that clause should be put in, the amendment that was proposed by Mr. Garrison. The response from the government was that they didn't hear from any witnesses who asked for it. That very same argument can be made with respect to this immunity. We didn't hear from a single witness who said they want this in the bill.
Contrary to what Mr. Dechert said in his last submission, and contrary to many of the questions he's been putting to witnesses, this does change the law. Section 25 of the Criminal Code has a reasonableness standard when there is voluntary production of documents to police authorities. That reasonableness standard, as we have heard from several witnesses, has been removed with this immunity. What this immunity does is it allows people to act unreasonably. It gives them immunity for acting unreasonably in their cooperation with authorities. That's what this does.
We heard from several witnesses with respect to the joint impact of this provision with Bill S-4. When you take Bill S-4 and this provision together, what it means is that it is not just public officers, it's not just peace officers, it's anyone. Anyone in a contractual dispute can now get private information without consent, without disclosure.
We know now, although not because there is any transparency reporting, that this is widely used.
The purpose of this amendment is to prevent the widening and expansion of the non-consensual distribution of subscriber information. As far as I'm concerned, that is one of the most important changes that can possibly be made to this bill. We heard it time and time again. I would certainly hope that the government would respect the evidence that has come forward to this committee. A monopoly on good ideas doesn't exist on the other side of this room.
Thank you.