Mr. Speaker, I would like the hon. members opposite to take the time to listen to our arguments on this bill and stop behaving like clowns.
In 1996, the Minister of Justice at the time said that legislation was needed to protect personal information. Two years later the Minister of Industry introduces a bill. The pendulum has swung the other way.
The Minister of Justice said that legislation was needed to protect personal information. Today, we are debating a bill that is aimed more at facilitating electronic commerce than protecting privacy. Nobody denies the fact that electronic commerce will grow in value and importance in the future. Last week, we read in Le Devoir that the OECD, which is a major international organization, sees a bright future for electronic commerce. It is clear that there must be a major growth in that sector. It is obvious that we must adopt legislation concerning electronic commerce.
What is less obvious, however, is the process followed by the federal government. We are debating a bill which, in the final analysis, will not meet the personal information protection requirements that we could expect. I will give the House an example. Giving information in the course of electronic commerce is not like giving personal information over the phone to someone who can then either keep it or spread it around; the information is registered in computer systems, and that has significant multiplying effects.
We need to break new legal ground, to draft legislation that will provide a framework for years to come. We do not need legislation that will work only tomorrow morning, but legislation that will define how protection of information and electronic commerce will work in Canada for several years to come.
The bill does not seem to offer adequate balance between the requirements of quality electronic commerce and the protection of personal information. This bill is not carefully crafted. It is not clear or accurate.
Again, the minister's press release states that good legislation already exists in Quebec and that the government will let it be enforced, instead of the federal legislation, if it works well. Except this is not spelled out clearly in the bill. It will depend on the goodwill of the governments in place.
We know how successive federal governments have tended to work; as with all governments, they go with the trends. From time to time, the government tends to support the market, but we should not sacrifice on that altar what is important in the protection of personal information.
The bill does not spell this out clearly. This is a very important first amendment that should be made to the bill, so that the Bloc Quebecois can consider it an acceptable bill. The bill should clearly state that if a province has equivalent legislation, that legislation will apply. In this way, Quebec will be able to maintain the lead it took four years ago.
Today, on this planet, if we look at all the countries that have good legislation, I believe Quebec's legislation could used as an model and be studied by different countries to see how it works. It is based on the principle that the protection of personal information is fundamental.
It is not something that happened by chance. It happened because of all the work we have accomplished as years went by with, for example, the Office de protection du consommateur, and on the issue of the right to information in the public sector. We have a pretty good history in this matter. We took the lead in the protection of personal information.
Today, we have nothing against the rest of Canada passing its own legislation—I believe that it should do so—but we want to ensure that the legislation now in force in Quebec can apply, and that this will not cause further complications.
One can pass judgment on how the Canadian federation has worked in the past. One can condemn duplication. On can say that things should have been done differently. One can suggest ways to do things differently from the way they were done in the past. But, one thing is clear, we do not have the right to pass legislation that leads to more duplication.
If there is a sector where the industry does not want dual legislation and does not want to be embroiled in constitutional problems and problems with interpreting the law, it is surely electronic commerce, which will in any case be considerably affected by the need of international agreements.
It is difficult to see how information will be protected in North America. If information is transmitted from someone in Canada to someone else in the United States, how is it protected if other companies in Canada want it? Many things need to be spelled out and the bill is vague on this. Some finishing work has not been done. The bill should be sent back to the drawing table to ensure it is properly amended.
This bill opens the door to several interpretations and gives discretionary power to the governor in council. The governor in council is the cabinet. It is the government that, through clause 27( d ), may decide to change the application of this bill without having to reintroduce it before Parliament.
This is a principle that we do not often find in legislation and that we try to avoid as much as possible in our legislation and in the British tradition, to ensure there is no usurping of authority, especially in very contentious areas, such as personal information protection, where the government itself could be involved and would at the same time have the flexibility to change the legislation if it were not to its advantage to enforce the legislation as passed by the House.
On this point, there is work to be done. The bill, as it stands, needs more work and needs to be made clearer.
We can also ask whether the bill responds to the expectations of consumers and of Quebec and Canada privacy commissioners. The respective titles of the two bills, that is the Quebec legislation and the Canadian legislation, are very explicit.
Quebec's act is entitled an Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector whereas the federal act is entitled an Act to support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information that is collected, used or disclosed in certain circumstances.
Whereas the Quebec legislation is aimed at protecting privacy and applies to every organization, the federal legislation only applies to transactions with a commercial purpose. The difference in ideology is obvious.
At the federal level, electronic commerce is the main object of the bill. Personal information also means businesses' trade information. The federal act should not hamper the very same trade activities it seeks to promote.
One can reasonably state that the Quebec bill is stricter and more encompassing both in its form—it truly is a bill—and its definitions, its clear wording and the power to issue orders it gives the commissioner, something that is lacking in the federal bill.
This bill has many other flaws. The framework of the bill is its schedule. This is rather odd. It is as if they were trying to hoodwink us. And that is unacceptable.
The schedule is a model code for the protection of personal information developed by the private sector and consumers as a framework for the protection of personal information in the private sector on a voluntary basis, I repeat, on a voluntary basis. This is noteworthy.
What this means is that the minister chose to stick to this code because he had the support of the private sector and was eager to develop e-commerce in Canada. In other words, they did not delve into this issue to see if the protection of personal information was adequate, real and complete. They said “This is the consensus the industry has agreed to. We will include it in the legislation as is”. But is it enough?
The minister did not follow through on the recommendations made by consumers and the privacy commissioners, who stated that the code provides a good basis, but needs to be reviewed and amended if it is to be included in the legislation. They are very clear on that issue. So, during consideration of this bill, we would need to review the code. As long as it remains unchanged, we have yet another reason to believe that this is an incomplete piece of legislation that needs some major amendments.
As I said, the bill is rather unclear. The roles are not clearly defined and there is still a lot of work to be done in this area. The bill is open to various interpretations.
For instance, it stipulates that organizations shall make a reasonable effort to ensure that the individual is advised of the purposes for which the information will be used. What is meant by “a reasonable effort”? Will there be all kinds of legal challenges because a company has disclosed credit card information or any other type of information, claiming that it had mentioned the information could be used for all kinds of other purposes and that, by giving authorization, the person who provided the information had also authorized all possible uses?
The person who provides information because he or she wants to acquire a product may not have understood this clearly, and there is a list of possible uses, but those uses are not mentioned in the legislation.
I want to get back to one important element. I am sure the minister responsible for regional development in Quebec is well aware that a law has been in place in that province for four years. Since it was adopted by the Liberal government at that time, nobody can say that it has a separatist or sovereignist bias. It is a law that Quebeckers put in place because they thought it was relevant and because we were slightly ahead in that area.
The federal government must change the bill so it is very clear that Quebec, or any other province that adopts similar legislation, can enforce its own legislation rather than the provisions contained in this bill.
There are other aspects of this bill that I would like to draw to the attention of the House. What about the exchange of information outside commercial activities, for example, between non profit organizations? The status of this type of exchange is not clear.
We know a lot of non profit organizations, such as foundations and all volunteer organizations, that must exchange information. Information is collected on volunteers. There is nothing in the bill with regard to this type of exchange.
Federal institutions are subject to much more restrictive legislation than the private sector will be with Bill C-54. There is a double standard. The federal government is asked to be efficient in its operations, but the requirements will not be the same for the private sector.
The consequences of these various aspects makes members of the Bloc Quebecois wonder. If, with a privacy law in the public sector, the privacy commissioner is obliged to take Human Resources Canada and Canada Customs to court under section 8 of the charter of rights and freedoms for contravening the Privacy Act, how can the government expect private enterprise to go one better with a law that is less restrictive and more open to interpretation?
We have just gone through this with employment insurance. The Government of Canada decided to relate information provided to Canada Customs by out of country travellers and by people receiving employment insurance. The privacy commissioner had to go to court to get Human Resources Canada to comply with the law, and we are still awaiting the decision on this. The government is proceeding against itself, when the requirements are indicated in the law.
How can we ask businesses to behave any better when the law contains no specific provision?
In short, the issues are fairly clear. The Minister of Industry has to make sure that Canada is an active participant in the world economy, more specifically, in the upcoming explosion of electronic commerce.
We think this will become very important. I think it will be vital to do so. In terms of traditional imports, Quebec is currently experiencing a pretty fantastic boom. The same is true in the case of electronic commerce. We are ready to get on the bandwagon and grab our share of the market. I think it is in the interest of everyone globally for this to happen.
However, a balance must be struck between the rights of consumers, the citizens' right to privacy and the right to trade. It is therefore very important that the federal government go back to the drawing board.
To conclude, it seems to us, in the Bloc Quebecois, that this is a jumbled bill, full of ifs and whens, whose central feature is a schedule that can be changed by the governor in council without debate. All of this is unacceptable to us.
This legislation will make federal-provincial linkage extremely complex and will result in further interference. It emphasises electronic commerce at the expense of the fundamental concept of privacy. This bill, as it stands, does not give commissioners any real power, making the legislation meaningless, and it does not draw upon Quebec's unique experience with protecting personal information, or privacy, in the private sector.
For these reasons, unless amended, this bill should be defeated in Parliament or sent back to the drawing board so that the final product can measure up to the expectations of the people in Quebec and Canada with respect to both electronic commerce and privacy.