Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the PC Party of Canada I am pleased to speak to this group of amendments to Bill C-6, the personal information and electronic documents act.
Before I comment on this group of motions, I would like to welcome the member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valley as the new NDP member, the member for Peace River as the Reform member and the member for Témiscamingue as the new Bloc member of the industry committee. I know we share many political views. In a lot of ways we do not agree, but I look forward to their active involvement and participation in the committee.
Unlike the Group No. 1 motions which consisted exclusively of amendments of my Bloc colleague, Group No. 2 motions comprise amendments of a variety of members both from the government and the opposition. I will try to address as many of the amendments as possible during my 10 minutes.
I should like to differentiate from the Bloc on one of its amendments. Motion No. 51 would amend clause 29 which deals with a mandatory review of the act every five years. On a side note, I find it interesting that the Liberal government would support this clause when the government House leader recently expressed his discomfort with mandatory statutory reviews.
Motion No. 51 from the member for Témiscamingue would delete the reference to a statutory review by a committee of both houses of parliament, opting instead for a committee exclusively of the House of Commons. This is just the latest example of needless Senate bashing.
Senators have made valuable contributions to joint committees, the latest example being the joint committee on child custody and access. Were it not for the battle waged by Conservative senators and courageous Liberal senators like Senator Anne Cools during the last parliament, we would not have had the review of the Divorce Act as it relates to child custody and access.
I therefore do not feel that we should tie the hands of future members of parliament and future governments by not allowing them to review their statutes with their colleagues in the upper house.
Nobody disagrees that the Senate as currently constituted needs to be changed, but until that happens let us not prevent senators from making meaningful contributions to our system of government. For example, the House Standing Committee on Industry heard from three noted constitutional law experts: Roger Tassé, Jacques Frémont, and Claude Massé. With all due respect to my committee colleagues, we would have benefited from having a noted constitutional law expert like Conservative Senator Gérald Beaudoin asking questions of these benefits. Let us oppose Motion No. 51 to keep the door open for Senate expertise on statutory review.
I commend my Reform colleague from Peace River for the amendments he brought forward under Group No. 2. They reflect a concern expressed by several health care organizations, several of which I had the pleasure of meeting prior to their appearance before the industry committee. The amendments clarify the definition of personal information and disclosure as they relate to the health care field.
I recognize that the Ontario government would prefer this definition to be left with provincial governments. I agree, but I worry what will happen to medical practitioners if this law passes without some guidance as to their use of personal information.
The PC Party of Canada will offer guarded support to Motions Nos. 11, 18, 19, 21, 22 and 24. This position is not my first choice. The federal government should have sat down with the provinces and territories to negotiate a harmonized definition of personal information as it relates to health care, but by and large the Liberals refuse to compromise or co-operate. As I did during my remarks on Group No. 1, I will give credit where credit is due to the government on its amendments in Group No. 2.
Many in the insurance and law enforcement community objected to the overrestrictive provisions on the disclosure and use of personal information. They were concerned this would seriously hamper efforts to fight crime or cases of insurance fraud. I was pleased to reinforce the concerns expressed by organizations such as the Insurance Bureau of Canada. With this in mind I trust with these amendments we have struck a better balance for all concerned parties.
We in the PC Party believe in the need for personal privacy legislation, but we do not feel the government has adequately taken into account the views and concerns of the Ontario and Quebec governments. We do not feel it has adequately considered the cost impact of the new regulatory regime of Bill C-6 on the private sector.
In many ways this is a frustrating process for the simple reason that we in the Progressive Conservative caucus support the aims and principles of what Bill C-6 is trying to accomplish. However it cannot be lost to even the casual observer that the Liberal government is zealously attempting to buck the reality of our economy. The reality is that our neighbour to the south is our biggest trading partner. No amount of wishful thinking on the part of xenophobic colleagues across the way will change that. Our tax regime is oppressive when compared to that of the United States. Thus foreign investment dollars end up south of the 49th parallel.
On the brain drain which the government has ridiculed as being a figment of our imagination, it was refreshing to see that it woke up long enough to address it in the throne speech last week. Brain drain is another natural consequence of Canadian politics being out of step with that of our American colleagues. It is simple cause and effect. That is why I have tried in vain to convince my Liberal colleagues on the industry committee that by pushing through the electronic commerce bill, a bill modelled on the European approach and in direct opposition to the American approach, we are headed for a competitive headache.
Foolishly I had hoped that the long summer break and extended delay caused by the prorogation of the House would have motivated the minister to take the time to try to improve Bill C-6. Unfortunately we still have a bill that deliberately antagonizes Quebec, Ontario and the United States as well as scores of associations whose well-intentioned submissions to our committee were ignored. Arrogance remains the order of the day.