Debates of April 11th, 1997

Criminal Code

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Deputy Speaker]

The division on the motion stands deferred.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Anjou—Rivière-Des-Prairies, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if you were to seek it, I believe you would find unanimous consent that all questions relating to Private Members' Business of April 11, 1997 be deemed to have been put to a vote and that any required division be deferred until April 15, 1997, at the end of Government Orders.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent for the hon. member's proposal?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It being more or less 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

Crown Corporations

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup, QC]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should make all Crown corporations subject to the Privacy Act.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to this motion of mine, which was selected as a votable item by the parliamentary committee responsible. I would like to thank the committee and particularly the member for Bellechasse, who made it possible for us to vote on this motion.

When first elected in 1993, I became the Bloc Quebecois' critic on Canada Post. During the first few weeks, I asked this Crown corporation for some information that would have helped us evaluate its efficiency.

We all know that, since then, several allegations have been made as to whether or not that corporation was properly managed. I cannot come to a conclusion even today because we never had access to the information. We might have had the opportunity to examine all relevant documents if only that corporation had come under the Privacy Act and possibly the Access to Information Act.

Therefore, I move this motion today in order to remedy an absurd situation. Some ministers are responsible for Crown corporations and they should reply to questions in the House about those corporations. At the same time, these corporations do not have to

provide the information that would be relevant to the decisions made by parliamentarians. This situation is rather absurd, and I think it would be nice if it could be solved. We cannot assume that illegal and inappropriate actions are taking place, but justice must be seen to be done.

When a minister is put in charge of a Crown corporation, it means that people who have questions to ask, parliamentarians and citizens who need information and those on whom this corporation holds personal information can ensure that it is properly managed and that data banks will not be shared between corporations without their having a say in the matter.

We are talking about personal information. Is the personal information held in these Crown corporations' data banks well protected? Is it not sometimes shared with other organizations for money? Is the Crown corporation not sometimes used as a straw man in order to get information that would otherwise not be available to the department? We may ask these questions and others as well.

I would like to list a number of organizations that are not covered by the Access to Information Act: the Canadian Wheat Board, Atomic Energy of Canada, Petro-Canada, Canada Post, the Export Development Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and VIA Rail.

We see that all these organizations have an impact on the lives of Canadians and Quebecers, particularly when it comes to the Canadian Wheat Board and the issues that were raised recently about its management. When we think about Petro-Canada, which is a Crown corporation competing with the private sector, is there not a double standard if the corporation will now be able to act like a private corporation, but with the advantages provided to a Crown corporation? Some things have yet to be clarified in this regard. I think my motion would improve the situation.

Also, for your information, let us review the mandate of the privacy commissioner and see how all public corporations could be subject to the Privacy Act. The privacy commissioner has the mandate to review each and every complaint about a federal institution that has not adequately processed the request made by an individual who wanted to review his or her personal files or that has collected, used, released or eliminated personal information in an illegal fashion.

Right now, some crown corporations do not have to meet these criteria. Complaints can be made against them, because an individual has been unable to review his or her personal files or because personal information has been collected, used, released or eliminated and the individual is left without any recourse. The purpose of my motion is to provide that individual with some recourse, because if an institution is considered to be a public corporation, if it is accountable to Parliament, if it has to submit reports to Parliament, then it is quite normal that these corporations be treated the same way as our departments.

We cannot think, on the one hand, that public institutions are sometimes less efficient than crown corporations could be if, on the other hand, we do not subject them to the same requirements. On this issue, our society needs to make some progress, especially since we live at a time where information exchange is now made possible thanks to all the new technology.

We need to ensure our citizens that they will be treated as fairly as possible and that they will be able to get the information that a particular corporation has collected about them. Did the corporation have the right to have this information? Is it handling that information appropriately and does it not transmit it to other organizations that do not have a right to have them?

Taking into account how important information has become in our society-information is power, as we say-and how important privacy is for us, there is a void that my motion seeks to fill.

It is also possible that the motion can be improved, in that it would be interesting if this matter was also covered by the Access To Information Act. Passed in 1983, this legislation gives Canadians the general right to access information detained by federal institutions, as we said earlier for the protection of personal information. There is also an Information Commissioner who investigates complaints.

The Commissioner sees to it that rights are protected and convinces public institutions to adopt information management practices that are in line with the Access to Information Act. Thus we must ensure that there is a watchdog and that he has real powers to act appropriately and have the necessary influence. He can even refer to the federal court any problem in the interpretation of the law that require its attention.

All those who think that this will create insuperable difficulties should remember that access rights are not absolute rights. They are subject to specific exceptions, limited exceptions, exceptions that did not prevent departments from working properly.

There has been a shift toward an increase in efficiency within departments and crown corporations, and I agree with that, but we must be careful that this shift does not result in a corporation acting as if it were a private corporation that is not accountable to the people.

I think it is necessary to ensure that all crown corporations are subject to the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act. Let us take, for example, the Export Development Corporation, which is not covered. I was reading all kinds of things this week about exports. For example, I heard that, when a product such as a Japanese car arrives in British Columbia, it is considered as a

product imported by that province even though it can be used anywhere in Canada.

When we hear that kind of information that seems absurd, we should be able to obtain the available data and analyze it to see if what we heard is true. Let us not forget that all that money comes from the public purse, that it is the taxpayers' money.

For all these reasons, I hope to have the support of the members of all parties in the House so that we can fill what I would call a gap in our privacy and access to information legislation. I hope all members of the House will agree on this and we will be able to agree to this motion before the next federal election.

[Bill Gilmour, Reform, Comox—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the motion by the member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup.

Motion No. 260 proposes to include all crown corporations under the jurisdiction of the Privacy Act. I put forward a very similar motion to this in the last session with respect to crown corporations under the Access to Information Act. This one is on the Privacy Act. It is very similar.

The right to privacy is a significant issue and important to many Canadians. Privacy is the right to enjoy private space, to conduct private communications, to be free from surveillance and to respect the sanctity of one's body. Privacy is a basic human value that Canadians hold as a right central to their freedoms and sense of human dignity and autonomy. Most Canadians believe they should have the right to control their personal information and to choose to remain anonymous if they should so wish.

Our privacy rights come from many sources. They are entrenched in international law, constitutional law, federal and provincial legislation, professional codes and guidelines. All the largest provinces, including Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta, have provincial privacy acts and freedom of information acts

The Privacy Act took effect July 1, 1983 and replaced some limited personal information rights set out in part IV of the Canadian Human Rights Act. These rights were expanded in the Privacy Act to deal with the growing impact of computers on government record keeping. The act increases the transparency and accountability of the process and gives Canadians greater individual control over their personal data in the government data banks.

In its day to day operations, federal government departments and agencies collect personal information from almost all Canadians. The Privacy Act gives Canadian citizens and people present in Canada the right to have access to information that is held about them by the federal government. It also protects against unauthorized disclosure of personal information.

In addition, it strictly controls how the government will collect, use, store, disclose and dispose of any personal information. The act gives Canadians the right to examine information about them that is held by 110 federal departments and agencies subject to some specific exceptions. Individuals may request to have any errors corrected and if the request is refused individuals may require that a notation be attached to the information describing any corrections requested but not made.

According to the act the government can only disclose personal information to someone else with consent or when one or more of the criteria in the Privacy Act are met such as to comply with a subpoena. The act also establishes an information code to regulate government handling of personal records.

Clearly standards for the use of personal information must be imposed on all federal departments, agencies and crown corporations. This is basic to the principle of responsible government that Reform upholds.

However there are many problems with the Privacy Act both with its enforcement and its abuse that must be addressed. Our rights under the Privacy Act are meaningless unless there are enforcement measures to ensure that the violation of these rights are deterred.

However, as it stands, there are no enforcement measures built into the act which means clearly the act is not as effective as it should be. Our privacy rights can be abused and there is nothing to prevent it.

A clear example of this point was recently reported in the newspapers when the Prime Minister's friend and political appointee, Bob Fowler, broke the Privacy Act. Bob Fowler improperly issued documents in an attempt to destroy the reputation of Colonel Michael Drapeau. Fowler sent poison pen letters about Colonel Drapeau to CSIS, the Department of Justice and the Department of National Revenue. These letters clearly broke the Privacy Act.

The privacy commissioner looked at the case. When he confirmed that in fact Bob Fowler had broken the Privacy Act what happened? Nothing happened because Bob Fowler is a friend of the Prime Minister and there is nothing in the Privacy Act to enforce its provisions. This incident clearly illustrates the ineptness of the Privacy Act. It is not working.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada may investigate complaints about violations of the Privacy Act by government institutions. Yet when the commissioner finds a breach of the act, as he did with Bob Fowler, he can only recommend changes to the

government and bring to public scrutiny institutions that do not accept the instructions.

The provincial privacy acts in Quebec and Ontario, on the other hand, contain enforcement provisions which allow their privacy commissioners to make orders. These provincial acts and their effectiveness should be examined by the government to make our federal act more effective.

Despite the ineffectiveness of our federal Privacy Act, the main concern which I share with many Canadians is the abuse of the Privacy Act by government and its departments. The privacy and access to information acts work hand in hand. One is to protect information and the other is to ensure that information is open and available. There must be a balance between privacy protection and freedom of information.

Canadians have a right to see government files. At the same time they have a right to protection of personal information. Yet time and again the Privacy Act has been used to prevent individuals from accessing information that should be public.

The information commissioner has noted many problems and abuses of both the privacy and the access to information acts in his 1994-95 annual report. According to the information commissioner, the Privacy Act is used by the government as "justification for keeping secret embarrassing details about misuse of public funds or position".

The information commissioner also notes that "officials in the system have sometimes sought to protect the privacy of their colleagues by withholding the portions of records and reports which questioned their actions or competence".

The commissioner also says that "such a selective and seemingly self-serving application of privacy rights in the corrections and parole systems increases the cynicism of the news media and Canadians about the value of the right to privacy".

One example he gives, which I support wholeheartedly, is the government's refusal to disclose the names of former MPs in receipt of pensions. The government defended this decision by citing protection of privacy.

At present the Red Cross is fighting the Krever report and wants to go to the Supreme Court of Canada rather than have any of its members publicly named for their role in this scandal. In our criminal justice system we are also faced with the need to balance the public right to know how the corrections and parole system are working on the one side with offenders privacy rights on the other.

The right to information should be a fundamental block of democracy. There should be a spirit of openness and honesty practised by the government, not deceit and cover-up as we witnessed in the Krever and Somalia scandals the government continues to cover up. The destruction, withholding and disguising of information have become an everyday part of the government.

The government has an elaborate and sophisticated early warning alerting system that warns departments and ministers of requests under the Access to Information Act and that damages the public right to know about government.

Several pre-release administrative practices assist the government in monitoring, manipulating, delaying and holding back the release of information to the public. Clearly the system has been abused and exploited to the extent that Canadians no longer trust the integrity of their government. There is no question this has to change.

Many issues need to be addressed regarding the Privacy Act. It is important all government agencies be covered under the act. At the same time it is vital that the abuses of the act be brought under control. The Privacy Act must be a tool of individual protection, not an agency of political cover-up.

[Gordon Kirkby, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, we have before us today a motion asking the government to make all crown corporations subject to the Privacy Act.

While the motion is very specific it also addresses a much larger issue which has gained a new sense of urgency: the fact that Canadians feel they are losing control over their information or that they have been subjected to new invasions of privacy.

A recent survey suggests a great majority of Canadians are concerned about their privacy. This is hardly surprising. Personal information has become a valuable commodity in the marketplace. New technologies are making it possible to do widespread data matching and to electronically capture a person's profile for purposes of target marketing or other uses.

Without the consent of the individual, downstream use of personal information by third parties means the individual has lost control of his privacy and his personality. Not only that, but because of the unregulated exchange of personal information without the consent or even the knowledge of the concerned individual, financial and other decisions that have great implications on the individual's life may be based on inaccurate information.

Canadians are thus increasingly concerned that technology is threatening their privacy at home, on the street and in the workplace. Video surveillance in the street, workplace monitoring including interception of E-mail and voice messages, personality profiling aids, drug testing for employment screening, photo radar

and genetic testing are some of the examples of the threats to privacy created by new technologies.

New technological advances that promote efficiency and less costly flow of information also carry with them great dangers to the protection of individual privacy. As technology is making it easier to gather, manipulate and transmit personal information all over the world without individuals even knowing it is happening, concerns are growing that individuals could lose control over their information or be subjected to new invasions of privacy.

These considerations have led the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons to conduct a study of these issues. We are looking forward to its comments and recommendations.

Canadians view privacy as a fundamental right, and rightly so. We should not lose sight of the fact that the right to privacy is based not only on respect for an individual's anonymity and privacy but on his or her autonomy. The right of privacy is therefore not simply an individual right to be exercised in opposition to some larger public interest to make the operations of governments and businesses more efficient, less expensive and less subject to fraud. It should also be considered as an important social tool essential to the maintenance of a free society.

If citizens lose the basic individual autonomy provided them by the right of privacy they will not be able to make their own contribution to a free society. A free society cannot exist solely on values such as efficiency and attention to the bottom line. Mutual respect and personal autonomy, two values promoted by the right to privacy, are essential ingredients to a free society that must always be nurtured and protected.

The protection of personal information can no longer depend on whether that data is held by a public or private institution. This does not mean that rules governing the collection, use, communication and disposal of personal information need to be exactly the same for every individual and organization, but it means that it should be based on a common set of principles. It does mean that personal information held in the private sector should be protected by law.

What are the implications of the motion which is before us today? The Privacy Act governs the collection, retention and disposal of personal information by government institutions. It also limits the use government institutions may make of personal information and under what circumstances it can be disclosed to another government institution or to a third party. In brief, government institutions may only collect personal information defined as information about an identifiable individual that is recorded in any form that they need for one of their programs or activities. In most circumstances they must collect it directly from the individual to whom it relates. The personal information that has been used must then be kept for a certain amount of time, usually at least two years.

In addition, strict conditions must be met before personal information may be disclosed to a third party by a government institution.

Finally, the act grants individuals a right of access and correction which, if refused, may be investigated by the privacy commissioner and reviewed by the federal court.

When Parliament adopted the Privacy Act in 1982 the government was by far the main collector and user of information on individuals. The act was therefore made applicable to the various departments and agencies of the Government of Canada, including some crown corporations, such as Canada Post Corporation.

At the time, however, it was felt that crown corporations which conducted business in competition with the private sector, such as the CBC, should now be subject to the act so as not to place them at a disadvantage against their private sector competitors. Since then most provinces have adopted similar legislation applicable to their public sector. The province of Quebec has gone even further by subjecting its entire private sector to the protection of personal information legislation.

As it stands now, the Minister of Justice has committed the government to introducing legislation which will protect personal information held by federally regulated private sector businesses. As the Minister of Justice said last September at the international conference of privacy and data protection commissioners, by the year 2000 we aim to have federal legislation on the books which will provide effective, enforceable protection of privacy rights in the private sector.

The Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons will report to the House shortly on its study of privacy issues raised by the availability of new technologies, and I believe the government should wait for the recommendations of the committee before following up on the motion.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Anjou—Rivière-Des-Prairies, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues having made me realize how important this motion is, how important it is to make the information as widely available as possible while protecting people's privacy, I would like to put forward an amendment to the motion proposed by my colleague from Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup.

I move:

That the motion be amended by adding, after the words "Privacy Act", the words "and the Access to Information Act".

[Bill Gilmour, Reform, Comox—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was also going to move a very similar motion. I would like to amend Motion No. 260 by adding after the words "Privacy Act" the words "and the Access to Information Act".

The table officers ruled that this was not an acceptable amendment because it would introduce a new concept. I question why my motion was rejected when my colleague's was accepted.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The member raises a good point. In fact, it is sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander. Actually the Table does not rule. The Chair rules with the advice of the Table. The Chair rules that both of the proposed amendments are out of order for the reasons given by the member.

A new legislation, a new concept is being introduced, and for this reason both amendments are out of order. But, as the hon. members know, with the unanimous consent of the House, such an amendment may be accepted.

Does the hon. member for Anjou-Rivière-des-Prairies want to ask for unanimous consent?

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Anjou—Rivière-Des-Prairies, QC]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Do we have unanimous consent to accept this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

We do not have unanimous consent.

Pursuant to order made earlier this day, the House is deemed to have divided on the motion and the recorded division on the question is deemed to have been requested and deferred until Tuesday, April 15, after government orders.

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.