Mr. Speaker, it is a delight to rise today to speak at report stage of Bill C-54, an act to support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information that is collected, used or disclosed in certain circumstances, by providing for the use of electronic means to communicate or record information or transactions and by amending the Canada Evidence Act, the Statutory Instruments Act and the Statute Revision Act.
We are truly today speaking about an economic revolution that is sweeping our country, our continent and indeed the world. The whole issue of electronic commerce will have profound implications on the way that business is conducted, where people work, how people work and how business will be transacted. It is part of the globalization forces at work in our country. It has already had a major impact on business transactions in our country.
If there is one thing that has become very clear in the last number of months in which electronic commerce has begun to move into the stratosphere in terms of importance, it is the concern that people have about information about themselves that is being shared between companies, organizations and individuals themselves. Therefore, the public of Canada has been calling upon us to do something about the privacy of information.
If hon. members were to do a little shopping on the Internet and they found themselves a nice book that they wanted to read and they were asked for their credit card number, they would probably wonder where that credit card number was going to end up.
When people apply for a credit card, on the application there are a number of pieces of information about their financial world and their lifestyle itself and at the moment that information can be shared with virtually anyone. As a matter of fact, it is probably sold to different groups in terms of being used for their marketing plans and so on.
As we move into the World Wide Web of commerce, and as we become participants as individuals, something has to be done to protect privacy and personal information. I am pleased to say that Bill C-54 is a major step in the right direction.
When I spoke at second reading I indicated a number of concerns that we in the New Democratic Party had about this bill. Most of those concerns have been addressed. I am pleased to say that when it comes to third reading we will be supporting this piece of legislation. I will say on behalf of my New Democratic colleagues that it is a good first step in providing protection for personal information held by private sector organizations. More importantly, it will give consumers the tools and the confidence they will need to fully participate in the thriving but highly complex 21st century economy, that knowledge based economy of the 21st century that will see the use of the World Wide Web, the use of computers particularly for inter-business transactions, but also transactions between individuals and business firms.
I think it is fair to say that a number of firms and organizations met with the industry committee. Perhaps at this stage I should say that I want to compliment members of the industry committee on the work which they have done in dealing with the provisions of this legislation. I am a new member of this committee and I must say that when I looked over the transcripts of the committee proceedings, when I looked over the minutes of the proceedings and when I looked at the various experts who were called upon to report, I thought that the examination was very thorough.
One of the issues raised, and I think many of us received personal correspondence to this effect, was about people who do research using personal information about individuals. I am thinking of historians, genealogists, geographers, authors, urban planners, social policy analysts, medical researchers, climatologists, media of all types, anthropologists and occasionally even politicians who research information about individuals and, as a result, require personal information.
This legislation, as I understand it, protects the information, in that people can access that information for their research purposes as long as it is not being researched to be used for commercial means. If a researcher wants to look into the personal life of Louis Riel, he or she can seek an exemption through the legislation from the privacy commissioner. That exemption will be given and the researcher will simply have to indicate that the information will not be used for commercial purposes.
Although we want to see the regulations, I believe that the concerns researchers have brought to the attention of the committee have been addressed adequately in this legislation. If this becomes a problem for ongoing research, it is something we will need to re-address in the future in terms of making some modifications to the legislation. At this point let us assume those problems have been dealt with.
Another issue is that when we have privacy protection, when it comes to personal information, we do not want to have a number of different systems across the country. We do not want to have ten provincial and three territorial systems. We want to have one Canadian system.
We are under a lot of pressure from the European Union to get this legislation into place, to meld in with the work it has done. It expects us to act by this summer. This legislation presumably will be passed by the Parliament of Canada before the summer.
We will oppose the amendments in Group No. 1. They are thoughtful amendments from the Bloc Quebecois, but it is important that we acknowledge that if we represent one province or different provincial jurisdictions regarding this issue across the country it would not be appropriate. We have to oppose these amendments in order to maintain the consistency of these rules and regulations from coast to coast to coast and not have them on an interprovincial basis.
It is important to note at this early stage in the debate that this bill has an international context. We are aware that certain European Union deadlines have been imposed. We are not interested in being an obstacle to the passage of this bill. Indeed it is incumbent upon Canada to take the necessary measures to address these EU directives on the protection of personal data.
As a political party we support this legislation. Sufficient safeguards have been built in to address the concerns that have been raised at the second reading stage. We look forward to the debate on the second group of amendments.