Exactly. Cabinet could, behind closed doors, exempt certain sectors. It might say “Quebec will indeed have jurisdiction over that area, and we are recognizing your ability to make such a decision”.
The person responsible for this in the Quebec government is David Cliche, the minister responsible for the information highway and government services. He wrote to the minister, and his letter was not filled with insults, to request a meeting, saying “I wish to meet with you to review the situation, which is of concern to you as it is to us”.
It must be pointed out that, among the organizations that appeared before the committee during the hearings—not the Senate committee hearings but those of the House committee—were groups from Quebec, including the Commission d'accès à l'information, the organization supervising the Quebec legislation, which came to tell us “We already have legislation in Quebec; be careful of what you are going to do. We do not think your bill is a very good idea, it will cause confusion”. This warning was ignored.
Other organizations came, organizations like the Conseil central de la CSN, which the minister referred to as “mothball clubs”. I do not know that expression also applied to the Conseil du patronat. It too came and it told us that our legislation did not make sense. A group of friends of the minister came to say that the legislation would cause problems. They presented a brief to this effect.
The Chambre des notaires came to say the same thing. The bar, the organization representing lawyers, those who advise businesses and interpret this legislation, said “No, do not do that, do not pass Bill C-6, or else exempt Quebec from its application”.
These groups went as far as to ask that Quebec's jurisdiction be recognized in the federal legislation. They said “Everything will be clear. We will know what to expect. We will know what to do and we will comply with Quebec's legislation. If Quebecers wish more or less rigorous legislation, they will put pressure on their provincial government. We have a democracy in Quebec. There are election campaigns. There are pressure groups. There is a public consultation process with parliamentary committees, for example. We live in a democracy. Groups will be heard. But it will be clear that there will be only one piece of legislation”. But, this advice went unheeded.
I was saying that, on October 19, Mr. Cliche wrote to the Minister of Industry. But the government made sure the bill passed second and third readings first. Then the minister replied “I wish to thank you for your letter”, and went on to explain how Canada badly needed the legislation. “The bill has already been read a third time in the House of Commons, he said. It has just been passed”.
How unfortunate, the minister had not read his mail earlier. He had just realized that the bill had been passed and wrote “I agree that we should meet to talk about this”, once the bill had been passed. Could he not have met with the minister to list his arguments or even just to hear what the minister had to say, incorporate amendments into the bill at that time, and come back with more amendments, as required? He could have kept some leeway and told us: “Whatever can be done through order in council will be done that way.” Instead, he says: “Our officials should work together in order to discuss the exemption that will apply to organizations subject to the Quebec legislation”, because he would be in a position to grant some exemptions.
At the beginning, the industry minister said: “Yes, Quebec will be exempted. We could meet to find out which sectors could receive an exemption.” The speech has taken a very different turn. In a few weeks he will be telling us: “In the end, nobody was exempted; the legislation will apply to one and all.”
We know them. It is always the same process and the same conclusion. These people are steely-brained. According to them, the federal government has a monopoly on truth, efficiency, etc. and it knows best what is good for us and what it should impose on us, in that area as in others.
We have seen that before. I have been here for six years and for six years things have been the same. Some have witnessed that for much longer. It has always been the case and things are even getting worse. I could speak about many other areas, but, in this case, we are talking about a statutory area.
Imagine the areas where the federal government can spend its money. The temptation to control is even greater, even more so because the federal government holds the financial levers. That is why, for example, the federal government is withdrawing from areas like health and education and has almost stopped making the transfer payments it used to make before.
The federal government itself decides how the moneys will be primarily allocated in education and health. It leaves the provincial governments stuck with major administrative problems in the management of basic services, including in health. I am also concerned about education, because with the whole debate on health, we must not forget what is happening in the education sector, which is just as important.
But their one concern here is visibility, visibility and visibility for the federal government. As for the rest, including effectiveness, the provinces will administer the programs and, therefore, will be the ones criticized if things do not work. The federal government is saying “We are keeping what is good to manage, they can have the rest”.
We cannot support the various amendments, particularly those that are in response to the pressures of the Ontario lobby in the health sector. Such criticism was not voiced in Quebec. Why is that? It is because we have a consumer protection act. We also have, through the supervision that can be done by Quebec's access to information commission, processes and recourses, which means that the communication of personal information is already regulated.
In Quebec, no one phoned our offices to say “Listen, we need federal legislation to protect personal information”. This is clearly an area that people must know about. The Quebec government will have to increasingly promote an awareness of its act and of the possible remedies for individuals, because electronic commerce is developing at an incredible rate.
Of course, from time to time there are problems, as we saw last week—there will always be smart guys, faster than technology, who can paralyse the system—nevertheless e-commerce is bound to expand at a phenomenal rate. It is all right to have regulations, but we have ours already.
If Canada wants its own, this is all right too, but why impose its views, its way of doing things on us, especially in an area that comes under what the Prime Minister himself calls the Napoleonic Code, that is to say the Civil Code. The Prime Minister is still stuck in the past, but true enough, it is inspired by the Napoleonic tradition.
We are told that we, in Quebec, are distinct, that it has been recognized, and that there is even a resolution of this House recognizing the distinct character of our institutions and the Civil Code. And yet, the bill before us does not recognize the Quebec government's ability to manage something which clearly comes under, which should directly come under the Civil Code.
This is worrisome because it is probably the beginning of an increasing trend on the part of the federal government to move in in a roundabout way. A nudge here and a nudge there, and it occupies more and more space, a little bit in the area of health, a little bit here and a little bit there. What is worrisome with regard to the amendments concerning health care is that when the federal government comes to an agreement with Ontario in a couple of years, will it come up with an new way to deal with transmitting personal information that it will then impose on Quebec?
What will happen? It is very worrisome. Are we going to give the government a blank check and say “Yes, in a couple of years, not necessarily through legislative channels, cabinet will make regulations in the area of health care, which could have an impact on what we do in Quebec”. This government is telling us it wants to give the provinces enough leeway in the area of health care, but it will not do it in this particular instance.
Therefore, we will vote against these amendments. Mr. Speaker, in conclusion I move:
That the debate be now adjourned.