Pierre Brien

[Gasoline Pricing, March 27th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has special problems in the petroleum industry.

Even Liberal members who have examined the issue admit that the high degree of concentration in the industry is the reason for the volatility in retail prices.

How can the Minister of Industry settle for a Conference Board study when the problems of the petroleum industry are well known—too high a concentration in the industry and the Conference Board's inability to serve as a true watchdog for consumers?

[Gasoline Pricing, March 23rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, back in 1998, some Liberal MPs looked into the issue of gasoline pricing.

Their report stated that prices would go up if their recommendations were not followed. Yet the Minister of Industry did nothing.

How can the minister today be proposing another task force, when we would surely not be in the position of having to go back to square one two years later, commissioning yet another study to the tune of $600,000, if he had heeded the recommendations of his own colleagues?

[Gasoline Pricing, March 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Industry has announced with great pomp and circumstance that he would, at the cost of $600,000, give the conference board the responsibility for looking into the rising prices of gasoline, whereas in a report published in June 1998, 47 members of his party voiced their concern for the recent tendency of the federal government to turn to outside bodies for data and figures on the oil industry.

How can the minister justify such an expenditure, when the taxpayers are already paying $25 million yearly for the Competition Bureau to carry out this type of inquiry?

[Gasolines Prices, March 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Industry, the one who was so quick to find money for professional hockey players, announced the federal government's solution to the problem of high gasoline prices: a study, to be tabled by January 2001, to be undertaken by the conference board at a cost of $600,000.

Does the minister realize that a study by the conference board, with members such as Shell Canada, Petro-Canada and other oil companies, is very much like an investigation conducted by the wolf to find out who ate the sheep?

[Gasoline Prices, March 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, in an effort to cover up his lack of action on the increase in the price of gasoline, the Minister of Industry has just announced that he has ordered a study of Canadian gasoline markets by the Conference Board of Canada.

The press release states “The Conference Board is the most appropriate body to undertake this study as it is independent of government and interest groups”.

How can the minister say such a thing when the member organizations include Petro-Canada, Shell Canada and Suncor Energy? How can he make such a statement?

[Gasoline Prices, March 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour and deputy chair of the team in charge of organizing the next election, established yesterday by the Prime Minister, expressed her opinion on the current increases gasoline prices. She has adopted the idea already proposed by the Bloc Quebecois of suspending the excise tax of 10 cents a litre on gasoline and of 4 cents a litre on diesel fuel.

My question is for the Prime Minister. Could he tell us whether the federal government intends to do its share to give relief to taxpayers by suspending excise taxes on gasoline?

[Human Resources Development, March 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the more questions we ask on the unbelievable scandal at Human Resources Development Canada, the less we learn. Everything is becoming more and complicated, and every day we are learning of new investigations on top of those already under way. The government's credibility is at stake, and taxpayer confidence is being undermined.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. When is the government going to finally decide to institute a public and independent inquiry under the Inquiries Act?

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, February 14th, 2000]

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.

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, February 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we are again debating Bill C-6 or rather the amendments by the Senate. This bill is important to the government, which promised it in its throne speech.

The government decided to speed up the process and hurry the bill through in the fall. It has decided now to adopt the Senate's amendments. Bill C-6, it must be remembered, is legislation to protect personal information, but its primary intent is consumer or individual protection. In fact, in nine provinces in Canada, with a few exceptions, there was no legislation where the parties could be covered.

In the case of Quebec, there is a consumer protection act. The federal government decided to bring in a personal information bill, which is a bit misleading. The intent behind it all is to promote, particularly, from what we have seen in the definitions, to promote the development of e-commerce, even if it means at times rounding off corners and not properly protecting personal information that an individual might provide in the course of such transactions.

Initially, the situation was examined in the bill. The debate began over two or three years ago—at the time my colleague from Mercier was shepherding the matter within the Bloc Quebecois—and many groups told the federal government they were not in favour of its meddling in this area. Why? For a variety of reasons.

As I said earlier, as far as Quebec is concerned, we have to understand that a consumer protection legislation is in place, which has been regulating for a number of years the whole issue of protecting personal information, among other things, in the context of e-commerce. Naturally, this area is evolving fast, but there are definitions, including those of consent and signature. A signature on a traditional document is no problem, but consent in the context of electronic transactions is something else. We have our own definitions, based on the tradition of civil law. Our approach is clearly different from that of the federal government, which is based on the common law.

In its legislation, the federal government has to define these concepts. What is a consent? What is a signature? There are many terms to define.

The first difficulty arises from the definitions being different. Our approaches are different. It is important to know that, in Quebec, every business and person was covered by the consumer protection legislation. Even businesses and institutions under federal jurisdiction complied with that legislation.

Some will say “Look, it is clear to everyone that federal legislation applies to everyone”. What is not clear is, in the absence of a federal legislation, do they legally have to comply with the Quebec one? They did not take a chance and they did so. Of course, they did not take the risk of going to the courts, being turned down and being told that Quebec had jurisdiction in this area and that, because the federal government did not take up this jurisdiction, the Quebec government had been able to do so.

There are different supreme court decisions, and I do not want to get into the whole technical debate on this, but some people say it is possible they were legally subjected to the legislation; others say no, the courts should decide on the issue.

This would have been a good opportunity for the federal government members, these great champions of flexibility, such as the intergovernmental affairs minister and those in front of us here, who are telling us they have an extremely flexible regime. If that is the case, why then does the federal legislation not say that, in the case of provinces, such as Quebec, that have consumer protection legislation, such legislation applies? It would then take precedence. It was becoming clear for everyone in Quebec tthat it was the Quebec legislation that applied, including for federal institutions.

What must be understood is, it is very rare that businesses are not engaged in commerce elsewhere: in the Canadian market, in the American market and everywhere else in the world. Most of a company's activities can be subject to provincial jurisdiction in some cases, and to federal jurisdiction in others as a result of this bill, because there are some aspects that deal with foreign trade.

In practical terms, we will have many problems because businesses will sometimes be subject to one jurisdiction and sometimes to another. If the government wants to protect the consumer, surely it is not by making things more confusing that it will provide better protection. People will have great difficulty understanding their options; when someone feels he has been wronged, he must understand what remedies are available to him. And things are much clearer and simpler in Quebec's legislation than they will be in the federal act.

Therefore, depending on the type of information involved and on the legislation to which it is subject, people will have a particular recourse against a business, a different type of remedy or another organisation to turn to defend them.

Again, we will have a concrete example of the problems we face when two jurisdictions are involved in one area. There are many problems. First of all, for the consumers we want to protect, but also for businesses that have to abide by the legislation.

Business people tell us constantly “Look, let us do our work. We are entrepreneurs. Stop bothering us with all this paperwork”. But now, in Quebec, this bill will add a second level of jurisdiction regarding personal information protection. And businesses will have to deal with both.

Basically, the Liberals want to push Quebec aside. They want sole jurisdiction, as they will have outside Quebec. They want to legislate for Canada as a whole. The fact that Quebec already has legislation is the least of their worries. Indeed, none of the Liberal members on the other side has risen to remind this House that Quebec already has a solid jurisdiction that deserves to be recognised. They probably did not know about it. They did not say anything.

And these are the people who speak of flexibility, who tell us that things must be clear. These people, who are also apostles of clarity, are the ones who give us legislation that will make the protection of personal information very confusing. One need only read the minutes of the most recent hearings of the Senate committee, to see that the experts do not agree on jurisdiction, on the scope of the legislation and of the definitions. It is a real jumble.

This is what the so-called experts were saying, those lawyers from whom we will be seeking advice. Businesses that need advice go to legal firms. The people we heard all had different versions of what that meant in practice. But we should not worry about that. The federal government did not wait long to go all over the world claiming that it had an act protecting privacy and electronic documents. That was the objective. Then, they can say “Look at how good Canada is”. They will go and brag all over the place.

We are not supposed to worry if the system does not work in practice. This is the least of their concerns. All they want is to be able to say that there is something in place.

People from the health sector in Ontario have been critical of the bill from the beginning. They were very worried about the transfer of personal medical files, and they ought to be since the objective of the bill is to promote electronic commerce. They were saying that the commercial approach does not exist in the medical field and that the bill would not have any application in their sector.

The government that said no will support the Senate amendments and exempt the health sector for one more year. This decision is a direct consequence of the lobbying by the Ontario health sector. We will wait one more year. Finally, that will give the health sector almost two years to think of ways to better define consent in the context of the electronic transfer of personal medical data. The amendments exclude the sector.

From the very beginning, we said that there were a lot of problems with this act. The government was in a rush. It wanted to act fast. We have known that since the beginning. These groups from Ontario who have won their battle in the Senate had come to the committee to say so. They had written to all the members sitting on the committee. They had repeatedly phoned our offices to tell us that it did not make sense.

The government was in a great hurry. It did not want to talk about such amendments here in the House, or as little as possible. It wanted things to move quickly. It wanted the whole thing submitted rapidly to the Senate where they have a bunch of friends controlling the situation. There are not too many problems on that side. They wanted to allow them to give the impression that they do work from time to time. So they suggested amendments.

I am very curious to know who wrote those amendments. Let us presume that they were done in the Senate, although they could very well have been inspired by the Department of Health or the Department of Industry.

So we have the Senate amendments. We cannot support those amendments, even if they represent an improvement over the present act, because this act makes absolutely no sense.

There were all sorts of things. Later, I will quote the Minister of Industry. It is true that, in theor, the act could allow the minister to exempt certain sectors or areas of activities. It is not in the act. The minister is keeping some leeway to do so—

[Privacy Act, February 8th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, we are now debating Motion No. 19, which I will read to the House. It reads as follows:

That a legislative committee of this House be instructed to prepare and bring in a bill, in accordance with Standing Order 68(4)( b ), to remedy the weaknesses of the Privacy Act, including providing relief or compensation for persons who suffer as a result of improper disclosure of their private information and imposing penalties for those who wilfully violate the provisions of the Privacy Act.

We just finished a lengthy study of the Privacy Act. It started after the last general election and went on for some time. Then, last fall it was put, somewhat hastily, on the government agenda again. Since it was among the commitments made in the throne speech, Canada wanted a privacy act.

I remind the House that we were opposed to this legislation not because of its purpose per se, which was to give Canadians an act that would protect the transmission of personal information, but rather because of the fact that, in most cases, particularly in the case of Quebec where such legislation already exists, several areas were already covered, in fact all areas were already covered.

Some areas are covered by federal legislation and others by provincial legislation. There will be a difficult adjustment for companies whose activities come, for one part, under federal jurisdiction and, for another part, under provincial legislation. But that is nothing new. We see that in so many areas and that will happen now with the protection of private information.

We have a great deal of difficulty accepting the principle that, because no other province was taking action, Quebec was pushed out of a jurisdiction it was exercising.

The federal government could very well have recognized in this legislation the precedence of the Quebec consumer protection legislation. Especially since the federal government bragged that its legislation was very similar to the Quebec legislation, with a few adjustments, and that it had borrowed big chunks from it. If both legislation are similar, all the more reason to give precedence to the provincial legislation. Companies, even those under federal jurisdiction, and federal institutions in the province could then be told to abide by the provincial consumer protection legislation.

A whole bunch of overlapping would have been avoided because the current legislation provides for a transition period. For a few years, the act will be only partially in force, but in time its scope will increase and problems will arise along the way. As a matter of fact part of the act is in force now while the rest will be later, in three years.

We strongly opposed it. My colleague from Mercier initially led the charge on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois. Several groups from Quebec came to testify on this bill. I am thinking about—and the intergovernmental affairs minister is going to accuse us once again of bringing out mothballs groups, but I will list a few of those who supported us—the chamber of notaries, the bar, people who cannot necessarily be accused of being part of any political family, let alone the sovereignist family.

The Conseil du patronat cautioned against it. Quite a few groups, including trade unions, the CSN in particular, submitted briefs. The Quebec access to information commission highlighted all the potential problems and difficulties associated with its implementation.

In practice, some definitions are different, for example, what is a signature. When we talk about e-commerce, some notions which were defined in the civil code can now be found in the federal act. Their meaning is different because these two approaches—the one based on the civil code and the one based on the Criminal Code or the federal privacy legislation—are very different.

We are not trying to artificially create a problem where there is none. There are technical problems, and the groups themselves will have to live with that: the lawyers of the Bar, the business people represented by employers and the workers represented by central labour bodies.

Of course, not everyone in this group necessarily has a monopoly on the truth. How did it happen, however, that we found ourselves in the situation—in the case of Quebec—where only the representatives of the Liberal Party were in favour? Perhaps two or three individuals whose motives and often whose links to this government are questionable and who pay lip service to this bill.

There was therefore very little support for this legislation in Quebec. However, we understand the aim of it: that Canada be governed by a law since there was none outside Quebec. However, I am told some provisions existed in Ontario and perhaps in some other provinces, which were not as extensive as the consumer protection act. It is understandable for Canada to want to be proactive and have a law. That said, if the other provinces do not want to exercise jurisdiction, that is not our problem. And if the federal government thinks that it should exercise it instead, it should have entered into an agreement.

The ministers of the Government of Quebec have requested meetings and, to my knowledge, they never even received an acknowledgement of receipt or nothing was done to have highly technical and specific discussions to see how to deal with the situation.

Now we have a Reform Party member who, no sooner is the debate over, already wants to amend the act. To my knowledge—and I may be wrong—this legislation was supported by the Reform Party. They could have promoted it more when the bill was being reviewed. There is, among other things, this idea of compensating those who suffer prejudice.

Would this not—I am not an expert on this issue mind you—open the door to compensation whenever there is prejudice? When this happens between parties in a civil case, there are recourses for individuals. Now, must we systematically set out in the act that there will be prejudice and that compensation will be paid to those who suffer prejudice?

As for the second part of the motion, dealing with applicable penalties, this is already covered. Whether we like it or not, legislation already exists, and there is a penalty for failing to comply with its provisions. In fact, there is whole series of offences.

What does this motion mean with regard to penalties? How far are they willing to go? What does it mean in practical terms?

The motion is relatively precise in that regard. The notion of prejudice is new. It can be understood that it is only a matter of principle. The notion of sanctions or penalties already exists. Why is it not explained more clearly in the motion? It becomes difficult to support a motion the second part of which is vague, and probably deliberately so.

In any case, it is very difficult for us to support a motion aimed at amending a piece of legislation that is hard for us to live with. The fact that this piece of legislation has been adopted does not mean that the problems I alluded to earlier will not arise with regard to the different definitions in the federal legislation. I used signatures as an example earlier, how an electronic signature is defined, and so on.

Of course, there will eventually be some degree of harmonization, but in the meantime, it may very well be that consumers will not enjoy the same protection as they did before. When only one act applied in Quebec, businesses under federal jurisdiction—and I am thinking specifically about the telecommunications sector—complied with this act. Everybody came under the same legislation and it was known. Now there are two acts.

Consumers will see businesses using the excuse that there is a transitional period, that the federal legislation will be fully in force in a few years, that there are two definitions, that things are complicated, and so on. And there will be consumers who will find it all very confusing and will wonder which of the two pieces of legislation applies, and which protects them and how.

This is a very complex issue in a sector that is already complex and is evolving very rapidly.

Some of these principles were defended during the committee proceedings, but it might have been better to debate them or to make amendments back then, rather than support the bill, as the Reform Party did when it came time to vote. To my knowledge, we were almost the only ones to oppose the bill. Today, some members are voicing opposition, but they had much less to say when it might have done the most good.

I will conclude by saying that it is very hard for us to support this motion, which is not votable in any event, but had it been votable, it would have been very hard for us to support it.