Mr. Speaker, I would very much like, following the remarks by our colleague from the Liberal Party, to say “The Bloc Quebecois will support this bill”. But you know that the Bloc Quebecois will not support this bill, not because it would not provide good services to our Canadian friends, but because it, unfortunately, is being forced on Quebec by the Minister of Industry, and Quebec has already had, for many years, a law in effect, which is effective and meets our needs.
I am perhaps in a somewhat special position, because, if I go back to 1992, before I became a member, I was the president of the Association de sécurité informatique de la région de Québec. As such, I had the opportunity to submit a brief from our association to a parliamentary committee of the National Assembly on the subject of the establishment of a law to protect personal information in private enterprise, a Quebec law.
The Liberal government in office at that point, that of Mr. Bourassa, introduced the legislation. It was passed, it took effect and it is recognized worldwide as one of the best laws to protect personal information in private enterprise.
When we see the bill that is before us today, we are pleased that, seven years after Quebec, Canada has finally decided to provide personal information protection for Canadians. However, as an expert on these issues, I dare say that the bill proposed by the minister is rather weak compared to the law that has been in effect in Quebec for quite a few years now.
The Minister of Industry could have used the Quebec experience as a model. Instead, as is unfortunately too often the case, he chose to ignore it and, worse still, he wants to impose his legislation on Quebecers.
The Standing Committee on Industry heard a number of witnesses state their concerns. I want to mention one such concern expressed by the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, the CSN, which is a well-known central labour body.
The CSN said:
This bill is likely to create a problem by establishing two systems, depending on whether the information is used outside Quebec or not. Indeed, a business could be subject to the Quebec law but, as soon as the information was transferred outside the province, the federal legislation would come into effect. And it would not be easy for an ordinary citizen to know where his information is gone.
As members can see, the Minister of Industry's bill creates a problem because the minister wants to impose his legislation on Quebec. This means that Quebec businesses, which already invested money in 1993 and 1994 to comply with the requirements of the Quebec law, will have to spend money again to comply with the federal law, whose requirements are different, sometimes significantly. In any case, the federal law will provide less protection than the Quebec law.
This is a major problem. Quebec businesses have already taken measures to ensure the protection of personal information. Now, they will have to comply with a new law, and this means additional costs. Worse yet, some Quebec businesses that have until now been subject to the Quebec legislation will be able to withdraw from the Quebec legislation because they come under federal jurisdiction—I have the banks in particular in mind. The Quebec legislation is stringent, but it treats people fairly. Instead, they will be covered by the federal legislation, which is less stringent, and less protective of the individual.
In such a context, the effect in Quebec of Bill C-54—or Bill C-6 now, since its number change—will be the opposite of what was intended. The bill we have before us is intended to inspire consumer confidence in e-commerce, yet the perception in Quebec is likely to be very different.
In Quebec we know that legislation has been in place for seven years, legislation that inspires trust. Now certain sectors of activity which make considerable use of e-commerce, such as the banks, an important sector, a strategic sector, will be covered by legislation that is not as good as the Quebec legislation.
In such a context, what are the consumers going to do? They are going to exercise more caution, they will be more hesitant to use electronic resources. This is the exact opposite of what the bill is intended to do.
What would the elegant solution have been? The Minister of Industry referred to it when he stated that Quebec, and any other province that would like to have its own similar legislation, would be exempted from application of the federal act. That was a noble intention; it would have allowed the Bloc Quebecois to support with pleasure the fact that Canadians are acquiring legislation to protect personal information.
Under the circumstances, however, we cannot in any way accept this duplication of legislation. While I am at it, I will quote Ian Lawson, an independent expert who testified before the Standing Committee on Industry precisely on this issue.
He said “In order to resolve this problem of double legislation, the people of Quebec and the lawyers of Quebec will have a lot of work to do”.
Why will lawyers in Quebec have so much work? Because businesses will have trouble knowing where they stand. Things will be very difficult to sort out.
The Standing Committee on Industry had every possible opportunity to inform the minister about the impact on Quebec of this legislation, although it is good news in the rest of Canada. The Minister of Industry chose to ignore that advice.
But there is worse, even for the rest of Canada. The bill exempts from the authority of parliament entire, important sections explaining how this legislation will apply to Canadians and Quebecers.
In fact, the very terms that will be used in the related regulations are contained in a schedule which can be amended at will by the present or any future minister.
Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, told the Standing Committee on Industry “I have a problem with the fact that the code of the CSA”, which is a standardizing body, “is simply attached as a schedule. The principles of the code should have been incorporated into the legislation itself. I fail to understand why it was not felt advisable to try to use them as a point of departure for drafting legislation that meets the needs of Canadians in several respects where the Code, which, as you know is a compromise, might not be up to the task”.
Here we have a university professor telling us that the bill, despite its good intentions, has a entire section on which the regulations will be based that will not come under the authority of Parliament.
The Canadian legislation, the bill proposed by the minister, is weak. Quebec has much tougher legislation that is a far better response to the needs of consumers. The Bloc Quebecois cannot support such a bill, because it is nothing less than interference in Quebec's jurisdiction, and I am therefore glad indeed that sovereignty is on the horizon. That will exempt us from all these kinds of problems.