moved:
That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology that, during its consideration of C-27, An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, the committee be granted the power to divide the bill into two pieces of legislation:
(a) Bill C-27A, An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and An Act to enact the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act, containing Part 1, Part 2 and the schedule to section 2; and
(b) ) Bill C-27B, An Act to enact the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, containing Part 3.
Mr. Speaker, as New Democrats, we are taking this opportunity to try to rescue part of a bill to protect Canadians' privacy as the Conservatives and Liberals have been warring over a number of different things. We have an important piece of legislation that has been drafted poorly but can be recovered. We are going to focus on this Parliament being able to rescue tens of thousands of dollars, having multiple meetings with witnesses and a variety of organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and others, that would not seem to be naturally in the NDP camp, but are on this issue.
It is important to note that the petty politics going on by the Liberals and Conservatives on this are at the expense of the privacy of Canadians. Specifically, I am talking about Bill C-27, which goes back to 2020 with regards to Bill C-11. It re-emerged in 2022 in this chamber, in November, when the Liberals tabled an act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts.
The Liberals drafted a bill that was so encompassing and so problematic because they were willing to compromise personal privacy rights for the consumer industry, big tech and other businesses at the expense of individual Canadians' privacy. However, we called them out on that. We have this motion in front of us today because the member for New Westminster—Burnaby stood in this chamber and helped separate the actual bill to make sure that the privacy component of this, which should have been done separately, can still get done.
As Parliament winds down, not only this session but potentially a future session, we still have time to protect Canadians' privacy. The Liberals and Conservatives have no interest in this whatsoever. They would rather play their own games and sacrifice the privacy of Canadians.
The bill was so poorly drafted that when I first saw it, I went to the minister back in 2022 and asked him to separate the bill, saying that he did not have to compromise Canadians' privacy for consumer interests. The Liberals knew that, because their lobbyists, their friends, their CEOs and the big tech, all those elements were chirping in the minister's ear, basically giving him the political support to go ahead with this. When I said to the minister, “Separate the bill, and let's do the privacy component first”, the Liberals basically said that they could not do it, they did not want to do it. We proved that wrong in this chamber by separating the bill in a previous debate.
Here we are now, as New Democrats, understanding there are dozens of organizations calling for the personal protection of privacy, including the Privacy Commissioner, to get this done and to not waste the work that is now being compromised by the games going on by the official opposition and the Liberals.
Again, this bill was drafted so poorly. When bills go to committee, they usually have maybe a dozen, at the most, amendments. Of those amendments, there are usually a few that are very significant to the bill and others that could be on language. I believe this bill had over 240 amendments to correct the problems with the bill.
We had debates here in the House of Commons and we referred the bill to committee. The minister showed up, after doing a lot of prancing around Canada about how great the legislation was, talking about the importance of artificial intelligence and how Canada has to deal with it, which we do agree with. However, the reality is that he did not care at all, and neither did the Liberals, about the privacy element.
In fact, we saw elements of the bill do the same thing to the Privacy Commissioner. This has been taking place in the Competition Bureau. I am referring to the Shaw-Rogers takeover. We saw the debacle that played out, because New Democrats were the ones that opposed that. We have seen that it has not lowered prices, only laid off workers. It has led to non-disclosure clauses from the people who got fired from Rogers. The Liberals did not care at all and created a tribunal over the top of the Privacy Commissioner.
That is important, because the tribunal, for doing its job, was actually sued by Rogers. Rogers took it to court to do due diligence, but the tribunal, which has people appointed from Liberals and Conservatives, then taxed our own Competition Bureau $10 million to pay for the legal costs for Rogers for just doing its job.
We did not want the same thing, we do not want the Privacy Commissioner being overridden by political appointees of Liberals and Conservatives. The history that I have seen here in this place, over the two decades I have been here, is one of constant appointments of either the blue or the red team to different positions of power, with no oversight and no accountability, leading to decisions against the public.
The bill came back to committee. I do not even know how many witnesses we had, off the top of my head, but we went for a long period of time and heard how badly the legislation was drafted. Some were so desperate to have anything that they would take anything, and they admitted that the bill was basically a piece of garbage. They basically said they would just take anything other than nothing, but most of those times, that was from the interests tied to businesses and consumer rights for industries versus those concerned with Canadians' personal privacy and protection. We heard that constantly, as the committee wound through all the different witnesses.
The minister came to us at the very beginning of all those witnesses and said he had some amendments, but it turned out those amendments were just ideas. They were not in any legislative format that we could deal with. They were not in any legal terms. He did not have the House of Commons or his department draft them. They were basically a set of ideas and propositions that did not even make any sense, in terms of the legislation. I do not think the minister even understood, and probably does not to this day, the amendments.
We got through the entire process. We fought over these amendments and what the minister really meant. Was he willing to compromise on the Privacy Commissioner and trying not to neuter it? Was he willing to do the right things to fix some of the elements of AI that people are concerned about? I kept on asking witness after witness whether they thought we should split this bill, and the resounding answer was “yes,” even from those who want to get the AI stuff done, and that there was no need to put the Privacy Commissioner in there.
Again, I go back to the roots of this legislation. The roots of this were to address the undermining of personal privacy of Canadians at the expense of businesses being able to access their data information and not be updated. We have an open hole right now. We have all this work that has been done, but we are going to propose to send it back to committee with this motion to try to deal with it and see if this House can actually get something done for Canadians. We spent a lot of time and money on this. There are some really significant issues here, and we are doing this because we have been in consultation with many groups and organizations that still want to see our privacy protected.
We got to clause-by-clause, and we went through over 200 amendments, as I mentioned. We found that there are some elements there that we could actually work with, at least as the opposition members. To give credit to the Conservatives, the Bloc and ourselves, there were some elements that we could actually agree upon and work with, and the government altered some of its stuff, too, but we were still stuck in a myriad of problems.
The situation became so bad that the Liberals began to filibuster their own bill in committee, because they did not know what to do. The minister then said he would come back with further amendments, and we have not seen them to date. I raised this most recently a couple of weeks ago as we tried to plan out our session, and we still have not had the Liberals bring back any of those amendments. They are on the record promising them. They said that they were going to happen, but we still have not been able to get over this tribunal issue. The tribunal issue is something important that we can get done.
Hence, we are going to split this bill, or see if there is interest in the House to do it, to see if we can rescue part of this legislation. I think it is important to note that, when we look at some of the issues here, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has raised concerns about this. It has some of the best capabilities of understanding legislation and it understands that we must protect the privacy component. Unlike the United States, we do have a Privacy Commissioner, and that is very important when dealing with artificial intelligence. It can actually be different.
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada also expressed misgivings and reservations about the bill's structuring and proposed measures for digital privacy in AI. Governments could benefit from them being addressed separately, as these are distinct areas that require separate attention.
Again, we have that component that can go forward with support from the Privacy Commissioner. It is indifferent to how legislation should be brought through the House of Commons, but at the same time it recognizes this is not the only way to do this. The minister did not have to throw everything he could into a bill to diminish privacy rights to distract Canadians, and that is really what this was about.
We should never even have started on the AI component without finishing the privacy component. This could have been done ages ago, and it should have been done ages ago. The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic is calling for separation of the bill, emphasizing the importance of ensuring that privacy laws and AI regulations receive individual, dedicated scrutiny, especially given their different implications for society and households. These organizations, among others, are also very much interested in moving it forward.
I mentioned the Canadian Chamber of Commerce as well. It sent in support, believing that the legislation has to be separated. I had a chance to meet with the members recently on a number of different issues, including border issues. They are really well aware. I know the previous debate was partially about CBSA officers. I am on the front line; I have 40% of Canada's daily trade go through my riding to the United States. The New Democratic Party has been supporting getting the training centre and improving the mandate of CBSA officers. This includes being able to seize illegal and counterfeit goods and materials, which they cannot do so readily right now, as well as ensuring that the 1932 order in council has been rescinded and, most importantly, giving the push to get 1,100 frontline border officers and sniffer dogs.
Those who were doing the examination are hired back by the Liberals after they were cut by the Conservatives. Under COVID, we had two tranches of not hiring workers. They are short 2,000 to 3,000 workers right now. The Conservatives and Liberals pushed for apps like ArriveCAN to take over the workers on the border. They went to more automation.
We believe the solution is right in front of us, and that is workers on the front line. Bring back the sniffer dogs. Bring back the workers who were fired and put them on the border where they should be. This is also a way to help stop drugs, paraphernalia, car smuggling and all that from coming into Canada.
We can look at a number of different things. I want to go back to and talk about how the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is actually calling for this bill because it understands there is a difference when it comes to artificial intelligence and the privacy elements.
It is important, not only to individuals but also to companies to understand how to protect Canadians' rules. There are many Canadian companies that want to follow rules, protect privacy and do the right thing. Those companies should be rewarded versus some of the larger ones we have seen, like Meta, Facebook and so forth. These companies have used loopholes to expose people in their privacy or use it to their advantage to manipulate them, and are getting rewarded for it and do not have to pay the consequences of not respecting privacy or the provisions under data protection.
In fact, it was the New Democratic Party that put forth the first legislation on a digital bill of rights. We did this several years ago on everything from net neutrality to the right to be forgotten with regard to getting information scrubbed from the Internet, as well as a series of things to protect personal privacy. I know this very well coming from the automotive capital of Canada because we saw what took place with vehicles. They now gain information about drivers and how that is sold, how it is distributed and so forth, versus even actually selling the cars at times. This data can be more valuable than making the vehicle. This is one of the reasons we have had a focus on this for a long period of time, and we believe the privacy element should not be abandoned by the misfortune in the House.
There are a number of different organizations that are also concerned with this. In an article for The Hill Times, Andrew Clement says, “the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act needs a reset.” The author states that AIDA was written “too hastily”, noting that it “skipped...the normal public consultation” process and was introduced alongside the digital charter implementation act, whereas it should have been “separated from the rest of Bill C-27 for substantial reworking.”
The author suggested redrafting AIDA, which should include genuine public consultation; looking to the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act; and engaging community advocates, researchers, lawyers, and representatives of at-risk populations. The reason I gave that reference is that this was the due diligence and why the minister laid an egg with this bill. It was basically broken upon delivery as well because he did not do the work that was necessary beforehand, consulting all the different organizations. What we had is what Ottawa loves. Ottawa loves this so much. Ottawa has the back room scurrying with all the lobbyists who go to the Conservatives and Liberals. They all get paid for this. They are lawyers or representatives, who are getting the meetings and all those different things. Can we guess who the mass majority of them are? They are Liberals and Conservatives. They get all these appointments. They get all this lobbying going on; then, instead of having public consultations, which we think would have been important, they start to steer their influence if they can.
Canadians care about privacy. Members can look at the B.C. civil liberties union and others across the country, including some good protection in Quebec, which is better than in other parts of Canada. We need to give them credit for that. On top of that, that interest is well respected, not only here but also across the world.
Interestingly enough, on April 24, a joint letter was sent to the minister; it was also sent to the rest of us in turn, as well as to the official opposition. It was a joint call for AIDA to be sent back for meaningful public consultations and redrafting. Nothing has happened since then, aside from more debacle. These groups and organizations are calling for something the NDP has been asking about for a long period of time, in terms of why the government is putting privacy rights at the expense of artificial intelligence rights for businesses and corporations. I asked about that, especially when I had the first meeting with the minister.
These organizations include Amnesty International, the Canadian section; the BC Civil Liberties Association; the Canadian Arab Federation; the Canadian Civil Liberties Association; the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council; the Centre for Digital Rights; the Centre for Free Expression; the communications program of Glendon College, York University; Digital Public; Fédération nationale des enseignantes et enseignants du Québec; the Firearms Institute for Rational Education; International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group; Inter Pares; Just Peace Advocates; Macdonald-Laurier Institute; Mines Action Canada; the National Union of Public and General Employees; NSTP Consulting corporation; OpenMedia; the Privacy and Access Council of Canada; Response Marketing Association; Rideau Institute of International Affairs; and Tech Reset Canada.
Then there is a whole series of other individuals who would add another 34 names that I could actually put down here. I will not read them all because there are just too many. However, reading out the names of those different organizations tells us that there is a general consensus that the legislation is a complete and utter disaster the way it is. What we can do now is what New Democrats have called for in a motion, which is to separate them as follows:
(a) Bill C-27A, An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and An Act to enact the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act, containing Part 1, Part 2 and the schedule to section 2; and
(b) Bill C-27B, An Act to enact the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, containing Part 3.
That way, we can actually do the job that is necessary.
This is crucial because Canada has fallen farther behind. I know that the Liberals are all excited about creating another digital group and committee, which the minister announced, because we cannot get this through committee if there is no interest. Again, I remind the chamber that, the last we saw of this, the Liberals were in committee filibustering to talk out the clock before we broke session. They would not even come with their own committee recommendations or amendments. They talked the clock out on themselves for the last two meetings that we had because they did not know what to do. We are still waiting, to this day, for those amendments to come forward.
As I wrap up my speech, I want to thank all the interested parties out there. Canada has an opportunity with artificial intelligence; Canada could actually be a leading component for good on this in the world. However, we have to do this with the right protections in place and the right way of doing things. The first thing is to protect our privacy elements with the Privacy Commissioner and update, and the second part is to get it on to the business of order.
