Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, before Oral Question Period, there is a fairly significant leap in Bill C-3 from Bill C-54. Bill C-54 dealt only with the basic nature of the right to privacy be recognized.
With Bill C-6, we are making a leap to the recognition of the need of organizations to gather information and to use or communicate personal information for purposes that a reasonable person would consider acceptable under the circumstances. It is a good idea to repeat this because it transfers fairly significantly concern about and responsibility for what was in the past a matter of privacy and becomes a matter of information that may be useful to business.
This ties in with the fact that societies, and the individuals who are part of them, are increasingly losing power and respect in our life as a society.
The Quebec government and the Quebec society reject this bill. In that area as in many others, a consensus was achieved whereby the federal measure is being condemned by everyone, by all those who take an interest in that issue, in Quebec.
When I say everyone, I do not mean just anybody. Here is a partial list of the stakeholders. There is the Barreau du Québec, which is not close, except in certain circumstances, to the Quebec government. The Chambre des notaires vigorously opposed this bill, and so did the Action Réseau Consommateur, the Quebec Interprofessional Council and the Commission d'accès à l'information. The Quebec government itself formally opposed this legislation, through two of its ministers.
One thing that particularly struck me in this coalition—we might call it the labour management coalition—was to see the Conseil du patronat which, except under particular circumstances, is not close to the Quebec government, and the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, the CSN, which tends to be close to government, get together to denounce this bill. That in itself is enough to make one wonder, provided one is acting in good faith.
This is perhaps what we should question about the federal government in this matter as in others: its good faith. In light of the very reasonable criticisms made, and given that Quebec's legislation in that area has been in existence since 1994, has proven its usefulness over the past six years and is well known all over the world, Quebec's legislation should have served as a basis for the federal act, but it did not.
One wonders why the federal government turns a deaf ear in such a context. It may have reasons to do so. I am sure that many in Quebec share that view. If we make the intellectual effort, we can only wonder where we are headed. Why does the federal government insist on introducing such a bill?
It is part of an operation, a vision, a new way of doing things in this new Canada now taking shape, this underhanded Canadian nation building we are now seeing here. This came up one or two years ago.
By signing the social union agreement, the Canadian provinces gave the federal government permission to interfere in areas that, according to the Constitution, come under provincial jurisdiction. The only open opposition to the plan came from Quebec, through its premier, Mr. Bouchard. But the federal government forges ahead.
It worries us. There are signs that this is all part of implementing the social union.
As proof, I wish to cite the comments made by a representative of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association before the Senate:
In Ontario and in other provinces, legislation is now being drafted which would make it possible to obtain health information from all existing sources and create a medical e-file on every Canadian.
The federal government, together with the provinces, plans to create a national health information system in which these medical e-files would be available, along with other information, under the watchful eye of whomever is chosen to run it.
It is because Bill C-6 threatens to thwart this plan that stakeholders from the health sector have brought such strong pressure to bear on the Senate and the other place—
i.e. the House of Commons.
When someone who undoubtedly has privileged information uses an expression like “national health information system”, it is based on something. And while we are on the topic of vocabulary, the bill states that, if a province wants to pass privacy legislation, it will have to be legislation, and I quote, “essentially similar to the federal legislation”. The federal government is taking on a role for which it has no mandate and which is not supported by the Constitution.
It must be kept in mind that, under section 92.13, this is a clearly recognized provincial jurisdiction. The anglophone provinces allow the federal level to act freely in an area that belongs to them, and the federal government tells them they must enact legislation that is essentially similar to its own.
So here we are setting up a pattern to have everything in this country done, increasingly, slowly but surely, the way the federal government wants it. In 5, 10 or 20 years from now, decisions are going to be made here in Ottawa and no longer in the provincial capitals. The provinces will all be considered on an equal footing, Quebec included, and will become, slowly but surely, nothing more than great big regional county municipalities.
The choice that is clearly going to be offered to Quebecers will be to become either an authentic sovereign country, master of its own destiny and its own future, or a simple province like the others, one in which the Quebec people will have no recognition.
This leads us to the conclusion that this is a cleverly and insidiously worded bill, clandestine, non-transparent, which the leaders of the present federal government do not have the courage to defend publicly. We have seen the initiatives it takes, for instance, in the area of young offender legislation, where Quebec has an exemplary law of its own, which will be trampled under foot by Ottawa's initiatives and Ottawa's dogged insistence on interfering in the area of health research with its Health Research Institutes. The Bloc Quebecois has put the government's will to the test.
While it can be agreed that the federal level does have some legitimate involvement in research, it constantly stresses matters pertaining to health instead. It insists on using the expression matters pertaining to health instead of limiting its intervention to health research, as the Bloc Quebecois would have preferred.
This is highly significant, and we clearly feel, despite the weakness or the underhandedness of the federal leaders, that they are increasingly getting involved, in an underhanded way, in nation building.
We see it with the millennium scholarships in education, which is well managed in Quebec with a system of loans and grants that is unique in Canada. The federal government, trampling on Quebec's rights once again, treating it with contempt and passing over the Quebec model and structure, has taken upon itself to intervene in a field of jurisdiction that is not its own.
We can see this with assistance to transients, which goes directly to the public. We see it in assistance for home care, which goes directly to the public, even though home care is a provincial prerogative. These sectors are sacred in Quebec and, furthermore, they are well managed by Quebecers. The federal government is using its spending power to intrude.
This, therefore, is an insidious instance of nation building, something that is very current in the problem raised by Bill C-20, for example. In order to better crush Quebec, the federal government passes legislation, but when it comes to recognizing distinct society, nothing happens, because never was there mention of a distinct society.
Not with the transients, not with the millennium scholarships, not with young offenders, not with the institutes did they say “Quebec has special status; it is a distinct society”, a distinct society that is the subject not of a bill, but of a motion. To crush Quebec, they passed Bill C-20.
The distinct society exists on condition that it be nothing more than a hollow shell, because English Canada would not agree to a distinct society such as the Prime Minister liked to talk about following his commitments at Verdun, where he dropped Quebec like a hot potato, just like his predecessor Mr. Trudeau, at the time. We must remember that. We must have some sense of history, because the stakes are too high.
We cannot take a piecemeal approach to these issues. We must know where the Privy Council is headed, and talk about the Privy Council. We must talk about what is Canada's motivation right now, what is responsible for this contempt toward the Constitution of Canada. The government despises the existence of the people of Quebec, it does not recognize it. This bill on personal information is yet another illustration of that contempt.
I hope Quebecers will take note of this type of behaviour, which may appear insignificant but is actually very meaningful.
