Mr. Speaker, what is concerning about Bill C-12, which the government has brought forward, is that it actually lowers the standards for the protection of privacy rights in this country. It allows a subjective test for companies that are dealing with a data breach. The threshold now is that a company assesses significant risk before it informs citizens. It is as if the government is trying to create a hackers' paradise in Canada. It has no standards for defending private information when it is lost in its offices. It does not inform the Privacy Commissioner.
The Privacy Commissioner has said that the government's bill is insufficient for protecting the privacy rights of Canadians. Given the serious issues of identity theft and hackers, I would ask my honourable colleague this: In light of what the Privacy Commissioner has come out with today about the need for order-making powers and the authority to protect privacy data from hacking, how does she compare what she is trying to do with her bill, which is address the protection of privacy data in the age of big data, with the government, which is creating such a loophole that almost any company playing loosey-goosey with the privacy rights of Canadians would be able to slip through? It seems that the government would prefer to protect the bad apples than protect Canadian citizens.