Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-315. I should begin my complimenting the hon. member for having put the bill before the House. I believe that its intent is good and that the idea of trying to protect consumers and ensure that the personal information we supply as individuals to corporations and other entities is not just used willy-nilly in whatever fashion somebody other than an individual may decide.
It no doubt is disconcerting for consumers to go to large institutions and buy a product or get a service of some sort and all of a sudden appearing in their mailboxes the next month, and oftentimes for the next decade, are solicitations of one sort or
another. Obviously consumers are not anxious to see that happen. They are not anxious to have that practice continue to the extent it obviously is. In that respect, I want to compliment the hon. member for putting together a private member's bill to deal with that.
The bill and the process of correcting the problem needs to go beyond the recommendations that are in front of us here today. We need to continue a process that has already been undertaken by the government. There is a consultative process that many of my colleagues have talked about previously in the House, where the industry department is working on this issue and in coming up with the solution is trying to be as comprehensive as possible to deal with this problem in a way that finds a good workable solution and finds a solution in a way that is not going to by itself create a burden for the consumer, is not going to create new government bureaucracy, is not going to result in a situation where adherence to the new rules will be so expensive that invariably and inevitably that kind of increased expense would be passed on to the consumer.
In reviewing the bill, there are a couple of places where I think we need to step back and ensure the problem is dealt with more comprehensively. As has been mentioned by a number of government speakers previously, one of the concerns with the bill in the format it is being presented to the House is that the definition of personal information is too narrow. We want to make sure that when we address the issue of privacy and confidentiality we do it in as broad a manner as possible and capture as many of the situations that are occurring out there as possible. We do not want to deal with this piecemeal, where we deal with one aspect of the problem and then have to come back and deal with others. We want to make sure that the definition of personal information is indeed as broad as possible.
We also want to make sure that in solving the problem we do not create a new problem. I know the hon. members of the third party would agree with me that the last thing we want to do is create a new regulatory regime, a new regulatory infrastructure that places an enormous burden on businesses. The way this bill is drawn up and the amount of consultation and notification that would have to take place when we are trying to delete specific information would create an enormous burden for individual businesses. There is probably a more efficient way to do it, a way that would not create quite as much of a workload and create such additional burdens on the private sector.
In coming up with the solution for the problem in this particular bill, it is going to call for a whole new amount of direct mailing as you ask for permission from the consumer to use their particular name. If the list is being sold then people have to write to the consumer and ask for their permission and then they have to write back. That seems like a very difficult and cumbersome type of situation.
There is a concern about capturing a very narrow portion of the market, those corporations that are federally incorporated. Obviously there are a lot of other entities that exchange and use information, right from an individual through partnerships, provincially incorporated entities.
It is important we ensure we have as broad a scope as possible in the bill. As I mentioned earlier, we have to ensure we address as vast a range as possible of consumer privacy concerns. I really believe we have to deal with this problem in as comprehensive a manner as we possibly can, making sure all of the issue is dealt with.
As I said in my opening remarks, obviously the intent of the bill, the desire to ensure consumer protection, is excellent. It is one the constituents in my riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka and I am sure all Canadians want to have addressed. They are genuinely concerned, particularly in these days of computerization. Information can be transferred electronically and in great amounts from one institution to another. They are concerned in that kind of environment that their privacy be protected.
As the hon. member who introduced the bill knows, it is important that the consumer receive protection in this respect. That is why I believe it is important to broaden this initiative. When we address the problem we must ensure that we address it in the fullest possible way. When we have done our work we must ensure we have covered as much ground as possible in order to protect the greatest number of consumers we possibly can.