Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to join my colleagues in addressing the bill before the House.
Protection of privacy has always been a major concern of mine. I was involved in the labour movement for many years before going into politics. I remember that when I was a member of the CSN, the organization's offices were searched by police. I saw police officers open books and carelessly search everywhere. To me it was a breach of privacy, of the collective life of our union. They searched our offices, our work spaces.
I have always been very much concerned by this question of privacy and this is why I have decided to rise today to address this bill. In my view, there are in fact a lot of enforcement problems.
As my colleagues have already mentioned, it is very important to recognize that there is a difference between the situation in Quebec and what goes on in the House of Commons.
There is a tremendous difference just in the titles of the two acts. The Quebec act is entitled “An Act Respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private Sector”.
The title of the federal act is:
An Act to support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information that is collected, used or disclosed in certain circumstances—
The difference is quite apparent just in the two titles. The title of the provincial act emphasizes the importance of protecting personal information in the private sector. We are debating a bill whose purpose is to promote electronic commerce and allow for its greatest possible extension and, incidentally, to protect personal information and privacy.
As we can see, the federal government is not seeting exactly the same goal as the Government of Quebec, which was primarily to protect personal information.
If we talk about protection of individual rights and respect for privacy in relation to the economy, since this is the true title and the true purpose of the bill, we have to wonder how the Liberal Party is protecting privacy in relation to economic liberty.
For instance, if we examine the behaviour of this government on the international scene, we realize that human rights often come a distant second behind economic expansion. I remind the House of what happened recently with the APEC. It has been in the news a lot, lately. Which was given greater priority, respect for democratic rights truly or the unreasonable demands of Suharto, a dictator?
A bill like this one does nothing to calm our concerns. The government says that it will promote electronic commerce but, since there may be some problems, that it will also try to protect privacy. It is not easy to trust this government about the issue of privacy in relation to the economy.
As my colleagues before me pointed out, this bill is flawed. Furthermore, the schedule will, in my opinion, be a source of problems in terms of application. Too much is written in the conditional. In my opinion, lawyers will have a field day with this bill because of the use of the conditional.
Lawyers are very happy with this kind of bill, as they are most of the time with federal bills, because this government's issues and federal bills are put completely within the realm of the courts. Very often, lawyers are the first ones praising this approach.
With all due respect, we should understand that this is the way lawyers earn a living. They prefer the adversarial approach, because they can go in court and defend their clients as effectively as they can. I do not deny this.
We should ponder over bills such as this one and others that have been put before the House and who involve a greater role for the courts. It is inappropriate for the government. It seems to be saying: “Listen, if you are not satisfied with this bill or the existing law, just challenge it before the court”.
People then have to pay huge legal costs, whereas the government has its own army of lawyers in the justice department and elsewhere. The government also has the money to pay lawyers to refute the arguments of any Canadian citizen who is seeking justice.
If private confidential information is disclosed in an electronic business deal and the whole legislation, in particular the schedule, is in the conditional it will be difficult for someone to say: “My private life has been exposed by this electronic commerce with which I disagree, and I would like you to protect me”.
We can see on which side the government will be. It will simply say: “Dear sir or madam, we are sorry, but your point of view is not in keeping with ours, and if you're not satisfied just sue us”. And then we start a legal saga which, too often, requires the taxpayer to pay sums of money he cannot afford, which means the government wins by default.
Let us take, for example, the Henry VIII section which in my opinion is absolutely terrible. You will remember that Henry VIII could, by decree, order that anyone in England be beheaded. Fortunately Henry VIII no longer rules because if he did it is quite likely that 45 heads of Bloc Quebecois members would be rolling on the floor of the House.
But it is the same system because these people will be able to change the rules simply by Governor in Council decision, which means cabinet decision, and this in my opinion is a huge problem. Who is lobbying the government? Associations for the protection of private life? Consumer associations? I think not. Then, who is lobbying the federal government? It is the huge corporations, the big banks, all the people who have money and make billions in profit.
If they think that some aspects of the schedule or the legislation do not suit their purpose, they will tell the government: “We are financing your party—we know how it works—our big corporation is financing your party so we do not want any interference with our electronic commerce”. Then they will ask the government to change the regulations. And we know what will happen.
The Bloc Quebecois is quite secure because we are funded by the people. We get $10 or $15 in rural areas, in small towns. Our hands are not tied unlike the government in front of us.
Government members have some obligations, because any major corporation that contributed $25,000, $30,000 or $40,000 to their party and now wants to engage in electronic commerce will say to the minister “Look, Sir, can you talk cabinet and the governor in council into making changes to the regulations, because I have a small problem here that is costing me approximately $100,000 or $200,000 a year?”
What will the government do? Once again, it will bow down before big business, and those who defend private rights and the right to privacy will end up empty-handed, as they usually do under this government.
Members will understand that it is very hard to support such a bill. I urge government members who still have some conscience left to vote with the Bloc Quebecois and to ensure that priority is given to privacy over all-out economic expansion, total freedom for big business.
I urge all members to vote with the Bloc Quebecois, in other words to defeat this bill.