Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois in explaining to members opposite and to Canadians and Quebecers who are listening to us through electronic means why the Bloc Quebecois is opposed to Bill C-54.
I remind those who just joined us—and I am thinking of children just back from school, particularly in the Gaspé Peninsula—that Bill C-54 seeks to promote electronic commerce, but it does so at the expense of our right to privacy.
What is the right to privacy? It means that strangers have no right to obtain information concerning my private life without my consent as an individual or a member of my family.
For Canadians, and particularly for Quebecers, the right to privacy is already provided for in the Quebec charter. I am not ashamed to say that this was done under the Liberal government that legislated in that area in 1994. Quebec was the only state in North America to have legislation aimed at protecting personal information in the private sector.
Why is it important to have this type of legislation? In e-commerce, where everything goes so fast in this computer age, information is easily available. In the past, it took time to gather information from huge registers. Now, with a diskette, one just has to press a few keys on a keyboard to transfer information regarding the lives of thousands of people instantly. That is why it is very important to legislate in that area.
Why is the Bloc Quebecois opposed to the federal bill? I will give a brief historic overview. As I mentioned earlier, in 1994 Quebec passed an act to protect itself in this regard, and it also has a privacy commissioner. The act has been tested. Numerous cases have been brought forward and we can be proud of the way the act operates.
Nevertheless, the federal government took an initiative in June 1998. It brought together in Fredericton all of the provincial ministers responsible for the electronic highway to examine the advisability of passing legislation to protect private information in the private sector.
Last fall, on September 21, 1998, the federal Minister of Industry sent a bill to his provincial counterparts and asked for their comments. However, without waiting for an answer, on October 1, 1998 the Minister of Industry introduced Bill C-54 in the House of Commons.
What is it that happened during the week of September 21 to October 1 to lead the federal minister to decide to speed up the enactment of the legislation? I do not know. Why are we coming back to this bill at this stage, during the last few weeks of sittings? Why the rush? I do not know.
However, I would like, if I may, to suggest how the House could have made better use of its time.
The fishing industry, the auditor general and all parties in this House have unanimously asked the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to introduce framework legislation so we will know how the fisheries will be managed in the future.
The Bloc Quebecois made a similar suggestion at the outset, in 1993, when I began in politics. The issue was also raised in section 19 of a report of the standing committee on fisheries, which asked the department to review its management methods. The auditor general himself, who is completely independent and neutral, and who most of all is not a member of the Bloc—and no one can say whether he is a Conservative or a Liberal—also asked in 1997 for the introduction of framework legislation for the future management of the fisheries. Nothing has been done.
Again this spring the auditor general, while examining another area of fisheries—the first time, in 1997, it was groundfish and this time it was shellfish—repeated the same thing “I find the same management principles that might have caused the groundfish collapse in the shellfish industry”. He called on the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to act to define this framework legislation.
Just this afternoon, in the House, the chair of the standing committee tabled a unanimous report—the five parties in the House are in agreement—asking the department to introduce framework legislation.
When I note that all parties are unanimously asking that legislation be introduced, contrary to what I see concerning Bill C-54, on which there was no consultation with the provinces, which did not receive the approval of all parties in the House and which the federal government is trying to have passed at the last minute, in the last days of sittings, I wonder who is making us run around in circles.
I am here, full of goodwill. I gave my assistance and my support, along with my colleagues from other parties, to the bringing forward of a bill. This was done unanimously. The government is not listening. I see the stubbornness of the Minister of Industry, who wants to have his bill on personal information protection passed. It is poorly drafted, from a legal point of view, and I will come back to this later . I wonder what he is really trying to protect.
I have already explained why the Bloc Quebecois is giving this bill so much attention. We already have our own law in Quebec. We are in the House of Commons, where matters of federal jurisdiction are discussed. The Bloc Quebecois is pointing out that this legislation interferes with provincial jurisdiction as it is written in the Constitution of 1867. The provinces have jurisdiction over personal information by virtue of the powers the 1867 Constitution confers upon them in the area of property and civil law.
All experts consulted by the Bloc Quebecois acknowledged that privacy of information is an area of provincial jurisdiction. Why is the federal government so obstinately intent on meddling in this?
I am not very familiar with the legislative framework of the other provinces. However, if the purpose of Bill C-54 was to stir up some of the provinces to get them to bring their legislation up to date with what the Quebec provincial legislation is already doing, a good meeting and a reminder would have sufficed. Trampling heavily into provincial areas of jurisdiction at this point, when the House's time could have been better used to pass fisheries legislation which everyone in this House wanted to see passed, is just making parliament go around in circles and is a waste of MPs' valuable time. The ministers in the other provinces are not prepared to be pushed around either.