Mr. Speaker, I would like to read the title of Bill C-54 once again because it is important to remember what the government is trying to do with this bill. This bill is designed to support and promote electronic commerce. We are in an era of expansion, an era of constant electronic evolution, and developments in this field are faster than in any other field.
I will quote the title of the bill:
An Act to support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information that is collected, used or disclosed in certain circumstances, by providing for the use of electronic means to communicate or record information or transactions and by amending the Canada Evidence Act, the Statutory Instruments Act and the Statute Revision Act
What are the issues related to this bill? The issues are different, of course, for the various stakeholders. For the Minister of Industry, the issue is clear: making sure that Canada participate fully in the global economy, more specifically, as I said earlier, in the extremely rapid growth awaiting electronic commerce. The figures, which are just astronomical, speak for themselves.
It is estimated that the global electronic market could reach $200 billion by the year 2000, compared to an estimated $2.6 billion U.S. in 1996.
Yet, at the last OECD conference, which was held in Ottawa, the minister acknowledged that the main barrier to the development of electronic commerce is consumer confidence. Everything must be based on the confidence of those on whom this technology will be used or who will be using this technology, namely, the consumers.
We must first establish confidence in the digital economy. Here, in North America, less than one netsurfer out of five is prepared to buy products on-line. This reflects their crucial concerns about the safety of transactions, the respect for privacy and the remedies offered to consumers.
We must reinforce throughout the world confidence in the electronic market by guaranteeing the security as well as the protection of consumers and personal information.
This is the challenge for the industry minister. But for consumers' rights advocacy groups, for consumers themselves and for the people's right to privacy, what is the challenge?
For these people, the challenge is also quite clear. It is to provide an international agreement and national legislation that will effectively protect privacy and consumers' rights. We cannot accept any technological change, whether it is economically desirable or not, that leads to systematic and uncontrollable intrusion into people's privacy. We must thus ensure that consumers will be protected in their daily private lives.
There are other people who will be involved in this, for example, the privacy commissioners in all the provinces. They have to protect a human right, the right to privacy and thereby protect democracy.
In testimony before the human rights standing committee on November 21, 1996, Bruce Phillips gave the following examples. A direct marketing firm sells the list of about 80 million American households organized by ethnic origin. Let us suppose that a marketing firm sells such a list and says: “Out of the 80 million names that I am providing you, there are x million people from Germany, x million from Romania, x million from Israel”, and so on.
In organizing the list by ethnic origin, let us say that among the 35 groups identified, we find Armenians and Jews. The information provided gives both the number of children and the age ranges. It is easy to imagine how glad a terrorist organization would be if it could get its hands on this kind of information and use it for its own violent purposes.
Here is another example. In Canada, the Department of Human Resources Development and Customs Canada are currently matching their data bases in order to track cheaters—people who are supposed to be available for work and who travel to Florida during the winter because they cannot find a job. The human resources development minister matches his data with those of Customs Canada to spot people who may be cheating the EI.
Despite the ruling of the privacy commissioner condemning this procedure, this information is being used. Under the system implemented by the government, all travellers are presumed guilty unless they can prove otherwise. This is computer technology at work. This kind of operation would not be possible without the power of communication and data processing technology.
Here is another case. In BC, Pharmanet has a register containing all prescriptions being given out in the province. The purpose of this system is to avoid the prescription of incompatible drugs, but the content of this data bank can be made available to law enforcement organizations. It is far from certain the privacy of people is being protected.
Still another example. The number of hidden cameras is on the rise. In 1996, there were 200,000 hidden cameras in the U.K. alone. We are told daily how wonderful it would be to have cameras on street corners, near red lights or just about anywhere.
As invasion of privacy becomes increasingly commonplace, it is extremely important to find ways to protect privacy.
Basically those are the issues raised by the various stakeholders who made representations about this bill.
What about the bill? Does it meet the expectations it created? Does it meet the expectations of consumers and privacy commissioners, both in Quebec and in the rest of Canada? The answer is far from clear.
The ethics in Bill C-54 are quite different from those in the Quebec law as revealed by their respective titles. The Quebec legislation is entitled An Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, whereas the title of the federal legislation starts with “An Act to support and promote electronic commerce” and then goes on to say “by protecting personal information”.
