Sharon Hayes

[Protection Of Personal Information Obtained By Certain Corporations Act, October 26th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-315, entitled the protection of personal information obtained by certain corporations act, sponsored by my colleague from Cariboo-Chilcotin. The bill seeks to enhance the protection of every citizen's right to privacy. Each and every citizen has a right to privacy that protects any confidential information.

Personal information is much more than data, much more than a simple product. It is the essence of who we are and defines our uniqueness. It not only describes the facts but the nuances of our life patterns and our choices. The importance of the right to protect that individuality is a measure of the importance of the individual in society.

The right to privacy is well established in our constitutional and legal history. It is recognized in our common law and has been recognized to be included in the charter of rights and freedoms. In Canada we value privacy to such an extent that we established a Privacy Commissioner of Canada in 1983. There are also provincial and territorial privacy commissioners including in my home province of British Columbia.

The importance of privacy for individuals and Canadian families is shown in that through 1994 and 1995 the federal office of the privacy commissioner processed over 1,300 investigations and dealt with over 10,000 inquiries from the public.

I should like to focus upon the relationship between privacy, family and our current laws. Family is the fundamental building block in our society. It is the family that provides the social cohesion necessary for stability and prosperity in society. Many things are needed to promote and provide stability for families. Privacy is one of the essential elements needed to ensure inviolability of the home.

Increasingly, though, the family home is being subjected to intrusion from a number of sources. The age of contemporary information technology has meant that personal and confidential information has entered into the public realm with little or no safeguards established to protect the use and distribution of the information. With technology, data collection and assimilation become easier and less subject to scrutiny. Information from a multitude of sources can be accumulated, cross-referenced, and misrepresented with increasing facility and speed. While the public becomes increasingly conscious of uncontrolled information flow, they worry that the knowledge may lead to manipulation and intervention into their lives.

There is increasing public unease over the issues surrounding privacy. Almost 90 per cent of Canadians recently replied that they are concerned about their privacy. There is a mounting public pressure to initiate greater control to prevent abuse.

Of course the single largest collector of information on people is the government itself. We have legislation in place to attempt to control that information through the Privacy Act. A quick look at the statistics from the privacy commissioner is meaningful. According to the 1994-95 privacy commissioner's annual report, the number of complaints increased over 38 per cent from the previous year. The number of inquiries has risen from just over 1,000 in 1985 to nearly 10,000 in 1995.

The use of the multiple information database can construct a complete information profile on an individual or that individual's family. It can contain everything from their name to their age to their political affiliation, military service, and even information about related family members. As my colleague mentioned, it can contain the stores you shop at, the kinds of food you eat, and perhaps even your medical history.

The privacy commissioner has estimated that the average Canadian's name is processed through a computer five to ten times on a daily basis. I believe it is crucial for us to take the measures that are necessary to safeguard the privacy of individuals and their families. I believe Bill C-315 will do much to assist that.

Under the federal Privacy Act only government departments, ministries of state, and certain federal institutions are covered. This bill would expand those privacy laws by increasing protection to include federally regulated institutions. This bill would require that those companies that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal Canada Labour Code notify an individual whose personal information will be sold as part of a list to another corporation or client. It would also require that the individual concerned give their permission if they want their name on the list. This notice would outline the source of the personal information, a description of the information held, and a statement that the individual can have their name removed from the list at no cost to them. If an individual requests that his or her name be removed from the list, then the company concerned will be required to comply with that request

within ten days and send a confirmation of that removal to the individual concerned.

This bill expands protection by amending section 2 of the Canada Labour Code to include banks, radio broadcasting companies, air transportation companies, any shipping lines that operate between provinces or between Canada and another country, any company involved in the railway, canal, telegraph, or other industries linking provinces, and any work identified under the Canada Labour Code or deemed for the general advantage of Canada. All these fall under federal jurisdiction and are federally regulated.

The dilemma of privacy issues has been all too common in our news lately. The news stories illustrate the tension that exists between cost efficiencies and the protection of the integrity of information for the protection of the individual.

For example, in my province of B.C. the provincial jurisdiction of privacy limits was recently tested with the introduction of a database on prescription drug usage. This program was introduced in the name of cost efficiency in the ever-diminishing health care system funding and for the health benefit of preventing incompatible or dangerous prescription overlap. However, there was a huge public outcry that the privacy of citizens would be threatened by the potential misuse of this database. The government did set about to dispel those fears and in fact has come up with some instructive examples of safeguards for a shared database.

I want to draw to the attention of the House a statement by the B.C. privacy commissioner, Dave Flaherty, who said that too many people have too much access to too much information on the computer system. That pretty well sums up much of the problem of all the world as we proceed with this privacy debate.

The banks are probably one of the largest non-governmental processors of private information and are also one of the strongest resisters to privacy legislation. They maintain that their voluntary code should be sufficient. There have been noteworthy attempts in all sectors to voluntarily protect the privacy of information. In addition to initiatives by the banks, in 1993 the Canadian Direct Mail Association adopted a compulsory code of conduct for its members.

I commend those in the private sector for voluntary measures they have taken. However, it is interesting to note that one of the largest public outcries to the privacy commission was as a result of a recent Visa gold card application of the Royal Bank. Typically, banks require a social insurance number specifically and solely for the issuance of interest statements under the Income Tax Act. Unfortunately, the Royal Bank's recent request for consent was far broader. It reads: "If I have ever given you my social insurance number you may treat it as information and use it as an aid to identify me with credit bureaus and other parties. Even if I am no longer your client or this agreement terminates, you may keep information in your records and use it for the purposes noted above."

It is such liberties that make the unbiased and arm's length controls of information necessary. With banking institutions offering services in diverse fields of deposit taking, trust processing, securities and insurance subsidiaries, it is necessary that the interests of the consumers and the marketplace be protected by comprehensive guidelines.

Potential for abuses must be recognized both in what services are allowed and in the regulation of the privacy of the information that is collected. With legislative rules and penalties there will come a predictable and enforceable protection for citizens.

Like all government initiatives, privacy regulation involves cost. Quebec introduced privacy legislation in the private sector two years ago. The Quebec experience would seem to indicate that their new private sector privacy commissioner has generated minimal resistance, very mild activity, with only 300 complaints, and minimal cost. This would seem to indicate that there can be an ongoing affordable privacy control within the private sector.

Ideally, the federal system should be designed to be self-funding if possible. The one question I would have of my colleague's proposal is the possibility of cost recovery for the program. The penalties imposed on large institutions seem small and may not serve either as a deterrent or be cost-effective.

The challenge of protection of the right to privacy is great. The growth of that challenge will be exponential as new technologies and falling international, provincial, and private borders become more and more a reality, not only in the marketplace but in our homes. Government and voluntary attention must be given to this crucial concern.

Today I urge my colleagues from all parties to support my colleague on Bill C-315.

[Justice, October 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on Thanksgiving Sunday in Coquitlam, a grandfather, grandmother and their daughter were brutally murdered at the hands of the common law husband. This heinous crime once again illustrates the impotence of court orders in the justice system and the tragedy of marital and family breakdown.

Three white coffins stood in the very church that was the centre of this family's life and the tragic place of their death. I joined the community of Maillardville there last week and shared their pain.

It is for the sake of such communities that we in this place must find those measures that will strengthen and safeguard crucial family bonds in our society. We must work together to promote and implement measures in our justice and legal systems that make peace, not war, in the difficult separation of family structures. We must recognize that government policy does influence choice, attitude, and action, and seek out the root causes of the distemper of our times.

I wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere condolences to the grieving family and to the community. My thoughts and my prayers are with them.

[Health Care, October 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.

The minister is selective in what she will tolerate. Private insurance plans are tolerated, yet the minister intends to stomp out private clinics. In B.C., private cataract eye clinics have been shut down, forcing seniors to be added to unacceptably long public waiting lists.

Why is the minister discriminating against seniors while permitting other private options to continue? Why the inconsistency?

[Health Care, October 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

Seventy per cent of B.C. residents are already enrolled in private insurance plans to pay for certain services, including long term and extended care. The desire of B.C. residents is choice in medicare.

Why will the minister not acknowledge the desire of B.C. residents and other Canadians in allowing for genuine medicare innovations and reforms through choice?

[Employment Equity Act, October 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on this bill.

I like to call the bill respecting employment equity an act without respect for the abilities and sensibilities of Canadians. I put forward that the act perpetuates several myths: there is systemic discrimination that will be cured by systemic remedial measures; the myth of righting the historical wrongs of the past by proactive reverse discrimination in the present; the myth of addressing the problem of racism with a far more dangerous version of the same; and the myth that government mandated crutches to groups when those groups only desire to compete in that race from the same starting line.

I speak in opposition to the bill and its policy of affirmative action in all matters related to government operations that is dressed in the guise of the euphemism of employment equity.

I noticed the member for Brant mentioned that in making an application for a job the government is asking about membership in a club or background or whatever. She took offence to that and I agree with her offence to that kind of thing.

This weekend I was looking at an application for a university for my daughter. That application was for a post graduate position in the university and included a page to ask her if perhaps she was disabled, or if she was from the aboriginal community. She was asked to identify herself presumably to gain entry to a program that should be equally available by academic achievement and by ability in one of our public institutions. As she takes offence at the questions asked of her, I take offence that my daughter should be asked certain questions that are outside her academic ability to enter an academic institution in the public realm.

That is very much the case in many of the areas in our society. We have taken one situation and given it another solution which is going to create a larger problem.

I speak not just as a Reformer but for the vast majority of Canadians who I know feel as I do, that people desire to be recognized for their ability-my daughter, myself and members of the House included-for their personal qualities and not for the colour of their skin or for their personal characteristics.

Along with a colleague from this side of the House I served on the committee on human rights and the status of disabled persons. I took part in the examination and hearings on this bill. We submitted over 40 names to be considered as witnesses to come before that committee. Those witnesses' names were submitted to offer balance to the discussion and what we felt was a majority perspective, the public perspective on many of these issues. Of the 40 names we submitted, only four were brought before that committee. From what I see in the report which the government produced, of those four none were heard.

When the Liberals came to power they trumpeted a new and open process of government. They chose to refer this bill to our committee before second reading. In reality what that did, and certainly at the end of our sessions in the spring, was remove that bill from public scrutiny and then allowed this orchestrated affirmation of the broad concepts of the bill.

I was interested in many of the witnesses who did come from across Canada through the choice of government. When we asked trade union representatives for instance how their experience of employment equity came about, they were very pro this bill. They supported what the government had to say. When questioned

concerning their own advancement or achievement of the goals of this bill, their own structures denied the fact that they took it seriously. They were very willing to apply it to companies or to businesses but not to its own administrative structure, where there was an obvious lack of representation from the disabled community and the aboriginal community. Generally speaking, women were not doing too badly in most of these situations.

I get the feeling that some of these programs put forward by the government are simply vehicles for certain groups to put forward their agenda. The groups that perhaps need government consideration for programs the most are denied or shunted aside while the more vocal groups take the stage.

I want to comment on an aspect in this bill that has not yet been addressed. It is in terms of my recent experience at the fourth world conference in Beijing. This applies very much to the concept of employment equity. Our government signed the document to that conference, which was very much in support of affirmative action. It becomes very plain after reading the document that it is an affirmative action program our government signed in the name of the Canadian people on the platform for action.

The platform for action from the Beijing conference commits all signatory nations to implement over 500 actions by the year 2000. In the next five years we are supposed to put in place 500 things that nobody really knows about here. They were signed on to half a world away.

I question our government's accountability in that process. Certainly around the world and across Canada employment equity has been denied by the public-certainly not by this government, because it has not been listening to the public. It has now extended that, again completely unaccountably half a world away.

Let me read one section into the record. This is part of the platform for action: "Implement and monitor positive public and private sector employment equity and positive action programs to address systemic discrimination against women in the labour force, in particular women with disabilities and women belonging to disadvantaged groups, with respect to employment, hiring, retention, promotion and vocational training of women in all sectors".

We are working on a bill here that I believe does not have the support of the Canadian people. Our government has put this not only in the public sector but in a private sector agreement in an international document it has signed on to. I am not even sure if Canadians know that. It has done that without resolution of debate on this issue in this House and certainly no debate on its signing on to the documents from the United Nations.

Will this document from Beijing ever come to the House? Here we have positive public and private sector employment equity agreed to elsewhere, but will we be able to discuss it here? We have signed on to something with no accountability coming through from the status of women people or anybody telling us what they have done, let alone the fact that they should not have done it without accountability. I question whether they will even admit it when they get back here.

We are committed to an aggressive program of affirmative action. It is an umbrella program that covers all federal departments. This is not simply the status of women people who are going to work with special interest groups. The program that has been defined in our signing on to this document encompasses all federal departments in all areas, looking through what is called a gender lens, which would reflect public and private sector employment equity and positive action programs.

I am amazed to hear the government saying it is open and available to Canadian opinion when it goes behind closed doors or behind the globe and signs on to documents that are not only against public sentiment but have no accountability in the House. I object strongly to the denial of open government and of the wishes of the Canadian public.

[Blood Supply, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health on behalf of all Canadians.

The Krever commission is investigating the state of our national blood supply. Recent reports have revealed deep organizational breakdowns within the system.

Canadians want action now. Their health continues to be threatened by leaks in the blood supply system. Last week here in Ottawa about 1,800 units had to be recalled because of a breakdown in that system after it was learned that some units had not been tested for hepatitis B.

Now Canadians are outraged to hear through the Krever inquiry that a U.S. drug company was allowed to distribute AIDS tainted blood products in Canada that affected six British Columbians including five children.

Could the minister tell the House and Canadians what plans if any she has to reform the system and implement the commission's recommendations in order to restore confidence in our national blood supply system?

[Health Care, October 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the politically artificial October 15 deadline imposed by the health minister on the provinces is rapidly approaching.

Why was it imposed? Some provinces have dared to reform their health care system in the best interests of their residents by offering them choice. Alberta, for example, by addressing the chronic problems in their health care system, may be penalized $7 million annually.

Now there are indications that the minister may be backtracking on her original edict. Officials in her department have stated that October 15 is only the date when they will determine whether some provinces are violating provisions of the Canada Health Act. Financial penalties may be some months down the road.

It is clear the minister's line in the sand is being blown away; blown away by the wind of reform and innovation; blown away by the need for a new Canadian federalism.

[Swim For Life, October 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, sometimes one outstanding act of courage and commitment stands out and brings to prominence national issues as no spoken or written word can. Such is the case of the completion of a 20-day marathon swim by Fin Donnelly of Coquitlam who on September 24 completed a mammoth swim down the Fraser River. He completed the arduous 1,325 kilometre journey in 20 days.

Fin Donnelly's "Swim For Life" was a personal campaign to raise awareness about environmental abuse of the Fraser River and the need to protect this unique waterway. In his 20-day journey Fin kept up a gruelling pace in spite of personal and natural obstacles.

In dedicating his swim to the need to preserve our waters against pollution abuse, Fin has challenged individuals, businesses and governments that may be part of the problem to become part of the solution.

I join with my constituents in recognizing this young man's courage and commitment in preserving one of Canada's great natural resources, the Fraser River.

[Un Conference On Women, September 26th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, equality, democracy and peace were the themes of the fourth UN conference on women recently held in Beijing. Just what was advanced by our Canadian delegation? Not equality but gender equality that put feminist issues above all other considerations in government policy and direction and called for a social revolution based on a new definition of gender, affirmative action and sexual and reproductive rights.

Not equality, but a blatant refusal to speak against the most basic human rights abuses. That our minister would declare no problem after counting an equal number of heads in a preschool is an insult to the sensibilities of Canadians.

Not democracy, as our delegation put forward a token representation of MPs, senators and academics. Instead Canadians were represented by bureaucrats with no accountability for policies that had no public input. Not peace, but division with over 500 actions to be taken by the government. This agenda will drive a wedge between women and men, families, religion and custom.

Canada's position at this conference was nothing but a sham.

[Medicare, September 25th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian medicare system needs an overhaul. We Reformers believe the best way to overhaul a system is through respecting provincial jurisdiction and granting provinces and Canadians choice and flexibility.

With an Ottawa imposed deadline looming over Alberta, it has been reported that the federal government may now be willing to allow private clinics. What happened to the infamous line in the sand the Minister of Health proclaimed in Victoria? Has she decided to erase it? Why the flip-flop?

Last week in this House the minister stated: "To date the Canada Health Act has been extremely flexible in allowing for change within different provinces". If that is true, why the need for deadlines threatening financial penalties? Based on her statement, I would expect the minister to accept Alberta's decision to deinsure tax funding of abortions.

The minister cannot have it both ways. Either she will allow for genuine choice and flexibility in the health care system that works for all Canadians or she will continue to adhere to an outdated piece of legislation.