Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak once again to Bill C-54, because it represents a missed opportunity by the federal government and the Minister of Labour to assume the leadership role announced on a number of occasions.
It is surprising that the thrust of this bill is not the protection of personal information and privacy. As we look into it, we realize how different it could be and in fact how much work went into making it different.
I would be amiss if I did not mention that the Minister of Justice had announced at an international conference he would be tabling a bill on the protection of personal information. We understand it was the upcoming OECD conference that pushed the government into action. Unfortunately, this haste caused it to circumvent the federal-provincial consensus reached. The consensus was on harmonization.
It is important to note that, for a long time, it was hoped in Canada—and it was the wish expressed by the former privacy commissioner, Mr. Grace—that protection of personal information in the private sector would be voluntary.
When privacy commissioner Bruce Phillips was appointed, and after he himself had tried to provide for a voluntary arrangement that would adequately protect the public, he said, in his 1997-98 annual report, that he had reached a different conclusion.
I quote:
The past seven years have brought one signal change: that is in my views on how best to face the mounting challenges to preserving privacy rights. My first annual report expressed a scepticism about the need for stronger privacy laws and “some hope yet for the path of voluntary action”. That hope did not long survive.
By 1995, I confessed “Reluctantly and by stages” to having concluded that “voluntarism is inadequate”. I pressed for both federal and provincial action to bring the private sector under the umbrella of privacy laws.
This evolution in thinking occurred partly (but not entirely) because of the inadequate response of the private sector. Other important influences were at work. These include growing government and private sector exchanges of information, privatization of government operations with the resulting loss of existing privacy information—
—and the developing European Union common data law which risks restricting information flow to countries with inadequate private standards—of which Canada is one.
The preparatory work done by Mr. Phillips, the commissioner, and by the provinces and the federal government was based on harmony and dialogue.
However, we have no choice but to deplore as strongly as we can the fact that Bill C-54 and particularly clause 27 not only have the federal government establishing a lower national standard, but also give it the outrageous power to decide whether the Quebec legislation applies to Quebec, and when, because they give the federal government the power to decide to what type of organizations and activities the provincial legislation applies.
This is totally unacceptable and incomprehensible, particularly in the case of Quebec and in light of the comments made by the privacy commissioner. Quebec has had a law since 1994 to protect not only commercial information, but also the numerous exchanges between businesses, associations, and so on, a law to protect privacy and personal information.
As it now stands, the federal bill restricts in many ways the scope of the provincial act. Some of the conclusions stated in the Owen report were reaffirmed by the task force on the future of Canadian financial services. The Owen report also recognizes that the Quebec act currently applies to all businesses in the province.
Mr. Dubreuil, a constitutional expert, was asked what would happen if the constitutionality of the provincial legislation was challenged. Mr. Dubreuil stated twice that the Quebec law would survive such a challenge. That means that this law applies now not only broadly to all businesses on Quebec soil, but it protects the rights of Quebec citizens when information about them is used elsewhere.
The same report notes, and I quote Richard C. Owen: “National institutions across the country will have to come to terms with these provisions”—the ones in the Quebec law—“when personal information is sent outside Quebec. In practical terms, this means that they may be required to not send personal information about residents of Quebec, unless measures meeting the requirements of the law throughout Canada are met”.
That means Quebeckers are protected beyond the borders of Quebec. Now what happens with Bill C-54? This bill has the power to regulate all transactions outside Quebec. It will also have the power to regulate transactions of businesses in Quebec under federal jurisdiction.
There is at least a third matter of concern: the influence of the federal bill, which recognizes the CSA code in the schedule, on future jurisprudence as it applies to the meaning of the Quebec legislation.
This is a clear collision of what I might call Quebec and Canadian cultures. The effort in Quebec and elsewhere before was focussed on harmonizing the two. It might be advantageous for Canada, but this was not what the federal government chose.
This government chose to deprive Quebeckers of the rights they enjoy under their law. It chose to not give Canadians equivalent protection. It chose to include the schedule in the bill, the CSA code.
This code, which businesses have agreed to apply, is a good one. However, the code is unclear. It errs seriously in the matter of requirements concerning the consent businesses must obtain so people will know what information about them is being gathered and how it may be used.
For us and for all Quebeckers—since the Quebec legislation was recently revised by the Liberals and the PQ—Bill C-54 is unacceptable.