Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Conservative motion before the House this afternoon calling on the government to finally come up with a plan to end the federally related COVID restrictions and mandates, including the government's punitive and discriminatory vaccine mandates.
When it comes to the mandates, the Prime Minister says he is merely following science. If he were really following science, he would listen to public health officials across Canada, including Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, who has stated that all existing public health measures need to be re-evaluated, including vaccine mandates. Make no mistake about it, the Prime Minister is not interested in science. He is interested in politicizing the pandemic, dividing Canadian society and demonizing Canadians for making a personal health choice.
Repeatedly, the Prime Minister has used incendiary and hateful rhetoric against his fellow Canadians for merely making a personal health choice. He even went so far as to say, “Do we tolerate these people?” Those are the words of the Prime Minister against his fellow Canadians. Needless to say, history will not judge the Prime Minister kindly for his recent hateful words or his recent actions.
The Prime Minister's mandates have not done much to keep Canadians safe, but they have destroyed lives, they have destroyed livelihoods, they have eroded personal freedoms, they have pitted one Canadian against another and they have infringed upon the rights and freedoms of Canadians including privacy rights. It is on the issue of privacy rights that I wish to spend the balance of my time.
In a free and democratic society, governments respect the privacy of their citizens. To underscore the importance of privacy rights, earlier this week when the Privacy Commissioner appeared before the ethics committee, he stated that privacy is a human right. In May 2021, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, along with all provincial and territorial privacy commissioners, issued a joint statement on what they contemplated would be vaccine mandates imposed by governments.
In the joint statement, the privacy commissioners warned that vaccine mandates would encroach upon civil liberties, that there were significant privacy risks involved and that the government should not proceed without careful consideration. Having regard for those significant privacy risks, the joint statement stressed the importance of the government doing its due diligence in seeing that, before any such mandate is introduced, all applicable privacy laws would be complied with and privacy best practices would be adopted.
I should further note that it is a federal government policy, pursuant to a directive, that when there is a program or activity of government that involves the use of personal information that directly impacts an individual, a privacy impact assessment be undertaken in respect of that federal program or activity and that such a privacy impact assessment be conducted before the program or activity is implemented. The purpose of such an assessment is clear: to ensure compliance with the Privacy Act and to address other privacy-related issues.
In light of the warnings from all privacy commissioners across Canada, one would have thought the government would have reached out and worked with the Privacy Commissioner at the earliest opportunity before vaccine mandates were implemented. In light of the federal directive respecting privacy impact assessments, one would have thought the government would have worked on and completed such assessments before the implementation of mandates.
To learn more about what the government has done or has failed to do with respect to protecting the privacy rights of Canadians, my colleague, the hon. member for Oshawa, and I wrote to the Privacy Commissioner. The letter of response that we received is deeply concerning. It is clear in the Privacy Commissioner's response that the government did not consult the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at the earliest opportunity. Indeed, in many cases, the Privacy Commissioner was contacted at the eleventh hour. For example, with respect to the vaccine mandate that affects the public service, the Privacy Commissioner was given four hours to review it. That is unacceptable, it is unreasonable and it demonstrates bad faith on the part of the government when it comes to protecting the privacy rights of Canadians.
What about the privacy impact assessments? The Privacy Commissioner has confirmed to my office that no such assessments have been produced. I would remind the government that such assessments were to be produced prior to the implementation of the mandates. Here we are, four months later, and there are no assessments. What makes that even worse is the clear warnings from all privacy commissioners across Canada about the significant privacy risks involved.
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. It is part of a disturbing trend on the part of the government to disregard the privacy rights of Canadians. We learned recently, for example, that PHAC failed to work with the Privacy Commissioner in respect of the collection of mobile data from millions of Canadians without their consent. There is the case of Statistics Canada, which was caught with unjustifiable plans to collect the data of Canadians in respect of their financial transactions without their consent. One would expect to see this happening in Communist China but not in Canada, yet it is happening in Canada under the government's watch.
The continued systematic disregard for the privacy rights of Canadians by the government is leading us on a dangerous path. It is time to reverse course. It is time to end this massive overreach and restore freedom. It is time to end the mandates.