Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having the opportunity to speak on Bill C-315, a private member's bill put forward by the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin.
I came into the House not as supporter of the bill initially when I read it. However after listening to the member's speech I became more and more convinced that he had the basis of a solid piece of legislation.
I cannot stand here today and make a final decision on what the government will decide in terms of voting on the legislation, but as a government we will have to look at the bill to see if there is some way to get it into committee.
Basically I support the aim of the bill. I want to make it perfectly clear that the way to achieving that aim should be modified. Some views have been put forward indicating that the bill is unduly burdensome on the industry and that it has a narrow focus when broad based measures are needed to ensure a level playing field for industry while protecting the privacy of Canadians.
Let us deal with the issue of it being unduly burdensome. The bill, and I am not saying it cannot be amended, would require that each time a mailing list is sold would necessitate notification and individual consent. More flexible approaches have been suggested such as the one using a combination of general principles and legislation coupled with industry self-regulation.
Another concern that has been put forward is about the focus of the bill being too narrow at this time. As the bill is written now it applies only to the sale of lists containing personal information when in reality the normal business practice is the rental of such lists. The bill focuses narrowly on lists when a vast amount of personal data can be blended and put together from the consumer transactional data currently exchanged between firms or within a large organization. The definition of personal information provided in the bill is unduly narrow. It is more restrictive than the definition of personal information found in the federal Privacy Act.
Also the bill only applies to corporations when mailing list information is often transferred between individual proprietorships and partnerships that are not organized into corporate forms. That can be fixed also.
Bill C-315 applies to the narrow range of corporations engaging in a federally regulated activity. As used in the bill, federally regulated corporations would include, most notably, those firms operating in the interprovincial and international transportation sectors: broadcasting, telecommunications and the banking industry. Needless to say, many corporations and sectors are exchanging personal data that fall outside these delineated categories.
The effect of the bill is to protect consumers in a narrow range of circumstances from a narrow range of commercial actors in a burdensome fashion without any co-ordination or harmonization with other current or proposed privacy initiatives. If passed in its current form, the result would not be a level playing field of the clear and consistent privacy rules applying to all sectors but a patchwork quilt of uneven privacy obligations from sector to sector, firm to firm, and jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Other initiatives currently under way might provide a better approach. At least we can listen to some other initiatives. We are currently studying the options, as the hon. member knows. Most notable is the Canadian Standards Association model privacy code ratified in September by a committee consisting of a broad cross section of consumer, private sector and government representatives including Industry Canada's office of consumer affairs, Spectrum Information Technologies and telecommunications units.
Three years in the making the model code sets out 10 principles governing how personal information should be collected, retained, kept up to date, used and disclosed by the private sector. Adoption of the code by firms using mailing lists would tend to ensure that consumers are informed of the existence of such lists and are given the opportunity to consent to their use and to verify their accuracy.
The code is voluntary in nature but a number of different parties have suggested that it could become the basis for flexible framework legislation, leaving it to industry sectors to determine how they would meet the CSA, the Canadian standards.
The CSA code provides a clear example of the commitment and ability of consumer groups, the private sector and governments to work together to develop privacy protection solutions. As the member mentioned in his speech, the Information Highway Advi-
sory Council recommended a broad based, flexible privacy framework legislation drawing on the CSA model code as a basis. We have also received a recommendation from the Canadian Direct Marketing Association urging the creation of a flexible national privacy framework legislation using the CSA model privacy code as a basis.
The essence of both recommendations is the recognition of the need for coherent national privacy standards, protecting the consumer while providing the private sector with a flexible and level playing field.
The member has done a lot of terrific work on the legislation. We have heard him put forward many good ideas in his speech. Over the next while we will have to review the bill to see if there is some way to make some of the necessary amendments.
