When we went out and talked to the energy and other sectors about proprietary information, when we did our critical infrastructure tour across Canada, we heard from everybody, everywhere, that there has to be a sharing of information. But we can't share information if there's no protection of the proprietary part of the information.
When I'm in the United States—and I moderated a two-day energy industry panel—it's the same issue: you have to be able to protect proprietary information. Otherwise we're not prepared to give it to government; we're not prepared to work with them. Of course then we're doing the job with our hands tied behind our backs.
The flip side is that there are exceptional times when, for public safety reasons, some of that information, whether confidential or proprietary, has to be released. During SARS, certain people's medical conditions had to be discussed publicly, because we can't explain to people what we're doing and why we're doing it if we can't admit that someone has the illness. How we do studies and how we share that information had to be done.
Similarly, during the power blackout, we suspended the energy free market in North America. Then we could go to each operator and say, who is operating? Who is going to be back at what capacity? Then we made that information public. With the release of the information, we could say, this is why we're suggesting today that 50% of industry can operate, or 40% of industry. Also, this is why we're making the decisions we're making. That gave credibility to our actions. As soon as we could possibly reinstate the private market, we did, and we stopped giving out that information.
This bill really understands the balance, and it protects and allows for public dissemination. Both are very important principles.
