Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to follow my colleague's speech, although I hope to be a bit more brief.
I agree with some of the comments made by members opposite which find fault with schedule I of this bill. So much of the bill depends on this schedule which is, in essence, a code of conduct that has been established not just by industry, but by general a consensus of the various stakeholders, including non-profit organizations, which is an area of specialty for me.
Earlier in the questions and comments it was observed that there were shortcomings in the bill insofar as it relies heavily on the interpretation of what is sensitive information and what needs to be protected. If it is sensitive, then the organization collecting the information is required to do certain things with it, including protecting and handling it in a responsible fashion. The difficulty is that unless you define what sensitive is in legislation there are going to be problems and I believe that situation exists with this legislation.
However, there is another aspect that I would like to draw attention to which is again in schedule I. It raises the issue of lists. When we buy or donate to a charity or anything like that we go on a list. Sometimes these lists are held within Canada and sometimes they are held outside Canada. At any rate, there is a great industry in collecting, selling or renting these lists to various organizations.
According to the schedule's standard, the observation is made that an organization may not always be able to seek consent from individuals and sometimes individuals are unable to request information from an organization concerning themselves, but a charity or a direct marketing firm that wishes to acquire a mailing list from another organization can keep that information.
In my mind there is a bit of a hole there. I would like to know that any organization that is using my name is responsible for that personal information. However, it would appear that schedule I allows direct marketing firms to not be held responsible in the trading and marketing of these lists.
When we know that our name is on a list and we want to get that information from a charity or a for profit fundraiser that has our name on a list, what the schedule states is that certain information cannot be disclosed for legal, security or commercial proprietary reasons, or that information cannot be disclosed which is subject to solicitor-client privilege.
What schedule I states is that if there is a commercial proprietary reason for which an organization does not want to divulge our personal information to us, it does not have to do so. That creates an enormous problem. What if I want to know how my name is being used by one of these fundraisers? Is it being distributed, for example, to other organizations that do not have my interests at heart? Is it being distributed to organizations that will take advantage of the knowledge that I give to one organization, one charity or another?
According to schedule I, as it now exists, if I donate $10 to a charity and another person donates $100 to a charity, that is not considered sensitive information, or it could be considered proprietary information that I cannot get.
I happen to have something for the House to contemplate. This is a list of all the non-profit organizations that have placed their donor lists with a U.S. direct marketing agency. According to the schedule as it now exists, that agency can deny me the information as to who has access to my name on that list.
Therefore, if I had contributed, for example, $1,000 to the lifetime members of a TV ministry, another organization can get that information and find out that I actually donated to an evangelical TV ministry. Talk about religion being sensitive. By merely paying money, this organization can supply me with a list of all the people who contributed to B'nai Brith. It is the total list of all Canadian Jewish donors. Anyone who wants to know who is Jewish can simply find out by contacting this direct marketing firm.
I ask members where the protection is of my private information concerning my religion if organizations, even in the United States, can get that information and distribute it as widely as they like.
It is even worse than that. We would agree that those in Canadian society who are particularly wealthy or affluent would probably like to keep that information secret. If they make generous donations to a charity, they will turn up on this list as “Hotline Canada wealthy donors, 502,000 names”. Those are 502,000 names that anyone can access. If that is not personal information, I do not know what personal information is. If that is not information that can be used unwisely and improperly, I do not know what such information is.
I fear that the schedule as presently drafted does not provide adequate protection for the distribution of donor lists or commercial lists of any kind. We are now in an age when we can go into Radio Shack, buy a speaker or a piece of electronic equipment and that firm will record our name and address in a data bank. We are in an age when because of these lists and the electronic control of these lists we can build up a complete data profile of any individual in Canadian or American society. I would submit that is very dangerous.
While I support this legislation in principle, I hope that when it goes to committee we look very carefully at it because I do not think it addresses the problem of the selling and buying of information on donor lists or commercial lists, and that is something the legislation has to address.