Mr. Speaker, I am sorry my colleague from Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques could not continue. I know he had some interesting and important things left to say.
I find it also regrettable that certain members of this House refused consent. I fear they did so for lack of interest in the subject. They do not realize the importance of the issue. They do not realize the issue is the proper protection of the personal information of Canadians, because the bill does not provide this protection.
In the past two days, I have had the opportunity to examine this illusory bill in greater depth. It is an illusion because, to be really protected, the public, consumers, will have to indicate directly, voluntarily and clearly that they do not want this information revealed.
If, by chance, the consumer fails to say “No, I do not want this information released”, it can be. When we buy something, we do not take the time to read all the details on the bill. We look at the cost and pay the bill.
If we are not careful, with this bill, there will be a little box we will forget to tick, and our information will be free to circulate.
This bill, I repeat, provides the illusion of protection. In fact, it exists explicitly to promote electronic commerce. It is not there to protect personal information. Protecting personal information is only of secondary importance. This is a kind of encouragement that the bill gives consumers by telling them: “Do not be afraid of using electronic commerce, everything will be okay. Your transactions will not be intercepted. You do not have to fear that the information you will give might be disclosed. You have nothing to fear.”
Unfortunately, reality is quite different. The main part of this bill is contained in a schedule. The bill refers constantly to Schedule 1 containing an ethics code essentially dictated by a group of industry, business and trade representatives.
The problem is that the schedule uses the word “should” and that the bill expressly states that the word “should”, when used in Schedule 1, indicates a recommendation and does not impose an obligation. This means that the bill gives a false sense of security and amounts to wishful thinking, as it can be circumvented by those who wish to do so. Worse yet, Schedule 1 can be amended according to the wishes of industry and business.
Some things are appalling. We talked about this on Monday. For four years now, Quebec has had an act which protects personal information given by citizens to a private business, not only in a commercial context but in any context. This act makes Quebec a leader in this area.
On Monday, I heard a government member declare in this House that Canada would be on the cutting edge with Bill C-54. On the contrary, it is Quebec which has been on the cutting edge for the last four years. Canada will not even be a close second because the European Community has much better provisions than what is found in Bill C-54.
This is why I said, on Monday, that the bill should be sent back to the drawing board. This bill should be withdrawn. The minister should go back to the drawing board with the protection of citizens in mind. This could only enhance electronic commerce.
Things have been turned upside down. Fortunately, an amendment was put forward today suggesting that the minister go back to the drawing board. We are not asking the minister a favour. The citizens of Canada are not, through us, asking the minister a favour. They are simply asking that Canada be served as well as we are in Quebec. But it is more than that. Should this bill be enacted, Quebec could face some significant problems.
As we all know, federal laws often have precedence over provincial laws. There are federally incorporated companies in Quebec and in the rest of Canada. These corporations would prefer without a doubt to be subject to a toothless law like this bill rather than to a strong, well structured law made to protect all citizens.
This is a major problem. This bill is ill-conceived and misdirected. The government thinks it can help electronic commerce by giving illusions to consumers. This will not work. Worse, we might jeopardize a good situation which has existed in Quebec for the last four years and which could and should have guided the minister. Our amendment gives the minister an opportunity to review this bill, to rework it and eventually, to resubmit it to this House.
The other day I heard an honourable member—from the government benches, obviously—claim that, if even if we accepted this bill, we could send it back to committee and improve it. You know, and I know and most of the members in this House should know that a bill cannot be modified in committee beyond its original scope. Its objective is to promote electronic commerce.
If we try to give additional dimensions to this bill, for example the protection of personal information given to non-profit organizations, or the protection of medical, tax and other information, we are completely altering the framework of the bill before us by giving it a scope that it does not currently have. This is unacceptable and not allowed under the Standing Orders of the House when we work in committee.
So, if this bill passes second reading, we enter a dead end. We are going to put in place a bad law that will have perverse effects and will not meet the conditions required in today's economy to compete not only domestically, but internationally. Quebec took the lead in this area four years ago.
In international trade, countries whose laws are more responsible than the legislation we have before us will require that their companies transmit information only to countries whose laws are equally responsible. This legislation will not be and, therefore, some countries will most likely put an embargo on transactions with Canadian citizens and businesses.
Members do not want that, I do not want it. Quebec already has a responsible law.
Mr. Speaker, I see that you are going to interrupt me, may I ask unanimous consent to answer questions?