Joe Volpe

[National Holocaust Monument Act, October 27th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to Bill C-442. Like every other member of the House, in the spring I stood in my place and I voted in favour of Bill C-442, which was a virtual carbon copy of Bill C-238 presented by my colleague from Winnipeg South Centre. That bill tried to do something on behalf of all Canadians, irrespective of background, religious background, ethnic origin, any other kind of national racial origin. Why? Because every member in this place was taken seriously by the significance of the Holocaust, what it meant in human history and the importance of recognizing the tragedy that could visit humankind when evil went unstopped.

It was as well a unanimous expression by members of the House of Commons of Canada to commemorate the suffering of those survivors still resident in Canada. There was no expression of political gain. There was no expression of partisan one-upmanship. There was indeed a complete and total unanimous expression that Canadians from all parts of the country wanted to have the Government of Canada, on their behalf, locate some land in the national capital region, to put together a consultative group and together design, plan, construct and then subsequently maintain a monument to commemorate the Holocaust and to commemorate the sufferings of those who had survived, and to do it all with funds available to the Government of Canada or, in other words, with the contributions of every man, woman and child, every taxpayer in Canada. Every citizen needed to be a part of that project.

It was not a project designed for the Jewish community to commemorate its suffering. It was a project intended to be an expression of the Canadian view of all that was required to fight back evil no matter where it existed and then to celebrate those hardy people who survived it. We used as an example the Jewish community, but we wanted to make it universal.

There is no gain, no political agenda in that. In fact, some would say we did not need to debate this. We just needed to do it. There was not one dissenting voice, not one from any community. Think about the value and the merit of that exercise. Not a single community in Canada said that we should not do this or maybe we should adjust it. They were all one with the intent, an intent that had been introduced, as I said, by my colleague from Winnipeg South Centre and from her and my other colleague in a previous Parliament, the member for Thornhill, Ms. Susan Kadis, then known as Bill C-547. However, the government wanted to make it its bill and so we said that was not a problem, that we wanted to co-operate

What did the government do with the unanimity that was expressed in the House? We went to committee and the government produced an amendment for every clause of the bill.

If the member opposite, the sponsor of the bill, felt offended that I made a remark that he did not like, it is because I asked him in committee if the Prime Minister of Canada agreed with his bill. I asked him if his cabinet agreed with his bill and if it was voting against the wishes of the House. That would have been untrue because everybody in the House voted in favour. He said that the cabinet and the Prime Minister all agreed with his bill. Why would he amend it? The only thing that was left in the bill was the title.

The Conservatives introduced amendments that took away the concept of public lands, at public expense, to be funded by the Government of Canada through a plan, design and construction process that would be at the cost of the Government of Canada and then to maintain it in the national capital region.

Instead, the Conservatives said that the legislative authority of the minister would be devolved to the advisory council that was going to be established. They would ask it to raise the funds, because they were the only ones interested in this project, to go out into the community and ask people to give them money. With that money, they would build this monument, then buy the land and locate the monument here. Whatever expenses would be incurred and, in the end, whatever money was left over would be given to the National Capital Commission.

What is wrong with that? What is wrong is it reversed every intent and every indication that the House of Commons of Canada unanimously accepted.

I challenged those in committee. Then that challenge was unable to pass because government members challenged their chair. Then I asked the Speaker if these amendments were in order. Last week the Speaker ruled that those amendments were not in order and ordered that the original bill be presented. That is what we are talking about today.

We are talking about a restoration of what Canadians, through their members of Parliament, agreed to unanimously in the spring. What is being restored today is the bill that was presented initially by my colleague, Susan Kadis from Thornhill, and recently by my colleague from Winnipeg South Centre.

I was offended that the government member would start off with one of these spins about how the Conservatives deserve credit.

This is a non-partisan issue. Today we should be glorying in the fact that the Government of Canada is going to respect the unanimous wishes of the House of Commons and plan, design and build a monument to the Holocaust and the Holocaust survivors right in the national capital region.

We went so far as to write a letter to the minister responsible in the middle of May asking him to withdraw all of those amendments. Why? The Government of Canada did not need this legislation to do what we are discussing today. It did not need Bill C-442 to build a monument in the national capital region. That is already within the purview, the authority, of the National Capital Commission. It already has the funds for this.

If there is one regret in all of this it is that the Government of Canada had to ask the representatives of the people in the House of Commons to compel it first by unanimous decision of a vote of a bill and then to have the Speaker of the House withdraw, or cause to be withdrawn, all the amendments that would have gutted the bill. To do what? To do what the minister could have very simply done. He could have gone to the National Capital Commission and told it to get this done, erect this monument, the money was there and put it in the national capital region.

The people of Canada want this, demand it and they should get no less. There are 16 other such monuments already in the national capital region and they did not require legislation like this. The Jewish community, the Canadian public deserve no less.

[National Holocaust Monument Act, October 27th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious subject and I am glad the member finally turned his attention to Bill C-442. He spent the first part of his 15 minutes talking about initiatives of the country and of the government associated with the Jewish community. I might remind him that it is not the intention of the legislation for him to glory in rewriting history about Liberal initiatives with which he had the opportunity to cut a ribbon to commemorate.

I want to ask him how he feels today, seeing Bill C-442 restored by a decision of the Speaker and by an appeal on a point of order by myself. Did he support the bill in its original form or did he listen to the Prime Minister tell him to change it because he would not put any public moneys, nor public lands to the erection of a monument that he now thinks, or says, or claims is an initiative of his?

[Safeguarding Canadians' Personal Information Act, October 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am so happy that we gave the Minister of Canadian Heritage an opportunity to toot everybody else's horn. That is in effect what he did. He said the creativity component in Canada is not resident in the Conservative government, unless it involves hands-off, backing away, not encouraging, and perhaps productively, not stepping on toes.

What he said was that right up until now, the Conservatives have not recognized the creative and commercial value that culture brings to the Canadian marketplace.

I accept his Confiteor. That is okay. But he did not answer the question from my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona. My colleague asked what the government was doing to generate commerce through the new media. He asked this because the Minister of Industry said he was able to measure the level of commerce at $62.7 billion, exactly. Up until he said that, everything took place without the help of the Conservative government. So my colleague from the NDP asked what the government was doing, and whether it was doing it with this sound bite legislation.

The true answer is that the government does not know anything about commerce, does not care about the economy, and has no clue how wealth is created. All we have to do is look at the waste it has created and the debt it has incurred, which has put the country on its knees.

[Safeguarding Canadians' Personal Information Act, October 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I find myself ill-equipped to defend the Conservative government. There was a time when I would defend the Government of Canada because it was a Liberal government that had a vision on governance and on providing a future for Canadians. It did not matter what part of the country they were in. For my colleague's information, he may wish to ask one of the government members sitting here listening to the debate.

He will know that one of the first things that the Conservative government did when it came to power was to put over to one side, first, the initiatives of its predecessor in delivering government services online, and second, all the initiatives designed to provide greater service to Canadians at a reduced cost. For example, all the initiatives associated with Service Canada were put on hold, even though the system had been up and running for a year, because the Conservatives needed to see whether there was efficiency in service.

In addition, the Conservatives cut back on all kinds of services associated with immigration. They needed to bring the number of applicants down, and the best way to do that was to reduce the services provided in posts abroad, so that fewer applications would be received. When fewer applications are received, less revenue is being generated.

As for the revenues the Conservative government has generated from an e-commerce perspective, or what it has done to develop e-governance and government online, I can only say that the short answer is nothing.

If the member does not believe me, he could go to the trouble of reading today's Auditor General's report. The Auditor General looked at a series of departments and said that over the last five years there has been a reduction in efficiencies and direction. A reduction was seen in the parameters that are put in place to manage efficiencies. Her department saw a reduction in accountability and an increase in waste.

If my colleague were to ask if there is a correlation between a having a vision and the wasting and squandering of opportunities, I would say there is. The government opposite has chosen the chihuahua approach to governance: to be a little pipsqueak and do nothing.

[Safeguarding Canadians' Personal Information Act, October 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the closing comments by the minister, when he referred to bites, et cetera, reminded me of a statement made by our colleague from Montmorency yesterday. So much of the government legislation is sound bite legislation, “safeguarding Canadians' personal information act”. It almost as if we had a guard dog on site. The only problem is that the guard dog has a bark like a sheep dog and a bite like a chihuahua. When is the government going to get away from sound bite legislation and actually do something worthwhile?

The minister justifies it all by saying we have an Internet economy that is worth some $62.7 billion and so we will ensure we can grow that. The government is not going to do anything about that at all.

What is going to happen is companies that want to get on the Internet for the purposes of expanding their commerce are going to do so. They are not going to worry about whether the government wants to jaw-jaw its way into this. They are going to take a look at this legislation and say that the member from Montmorency is right, that those guys have a bite and a bark like a chihuahua.

This is especially so after the industry committee has made some recommendations to the minister. With the benefit of those recommendations, he still goes ahead and presents legislation that he himself acknowledges requires further study from the committee and make the kinds of suggestions to improve the bill that he knows he must put in place if this will be acceptable legislation.

All of us are desirous of maintaining our privacy, in keeping what is ours to ourselves, keeping our security safeguarded at all times, to ensure that anything that pertains to our person, our businesses, our interests is released only when we think it is appropriate for our sake, for our interest.

For the government to come forward and say that it will safeguard all of that, except in certain circumstances, does not make safeguarding personal privacy interests very secure. What it does is introduce exceptions to kinds of privacy and security that it claims to be support.

Its sound bite title is, like everything else the government does, smoke and mirrors, deception and manipulation.

One can easily applaud the fact that there are amendments to PIPEDA, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and notice that there is nothing in that title that sounds like a sound bite that it is actually a factual issue, but the government decides to take this legislation and make it look like it has done something else with it. That might enhance its opportunities to sell itself as something proactive.

It took the government four and a half years to discover that 80% of businesses are on the Internet, that means they have a website, and that 88% of Canadians are Internet savvy, that means they can browse the net. All of these things do not a business make, but they are the fertile ground for businesses interested in making their commerce more time sensitive, more immediate and more global.

Bill C-29 amends PIPEDA to, among other things, permit the disclosure of personal information without the knowledge and consent of the individual who possesses that for certain purposes. Some of the purposes will make sense. It is a little bit like the Trojan horse that gives access to a treasure trove in somebody else's domain.

The first of these does sound as if it makes sense. Number one is for identifying an injured, ill or deceased individual, communicating with their next of kin. There are very few people who would say that is bad.

Second is for performing police services. There are no other qualifiers. There are a lot of people who want to know what that means.

Third is for preventing, detecting or suppressing fraud. Successfully or unsuccessfully? What is the intent? Which organization?

Fourth is for protecting victims of financial abuse. How so? By releasing their information?

Another series of amendments is to permit organizations, any organization, for certain purposes not specifically outlined, to collect, to use, to disclose without the knowledge and consent of the individual, his or her personal information, number one, contained in witness statements related to insurance claims. Whose commercial interests are we looking at there? Second is information produced by the individual in the course of his or her employment, business or profession. That is virtually anything. Everybody in this place is producing information literally on a minute-by-minute basis, but some organization is going to have access to that.

Members might say that in a great, open and transparent environment such as the Parliament of Canada, such as the House of Commons, anybody who is engaged in this ought to so admit. It is something that we might have asked the Minister of Defence, for example, who today talked about the complexity of the procurement process and military hardware acquisition as being a little too complicated for the simple-minded public that wants to find out whether it is transparent and whether it meets the test of value for money, as being a bit of an intrusion and just barely tolerable.

This is hardly accountability. It is hardly transparency and it certainly does not lead to the business of openness, but under PIPEDA, everybody else has to operate that way.

A third set would require organizations to report material breaches of security safeguards to the Privacy Commissioner and to notify certain individuals and organizations of breaches that create a real risk of significant harm. Somebody is going to make a judgment. I will come back to that in a moment.

As I go through this, I ask how we can safeguard Canadians' personal information. I am a consumer like everybody else in this House. As an individual and like many people in this House, excluding all those who serve the House, I am a legislator, and I do not believe that my personal information will be any safer, believe it or not, under the current drafting of Bill C-29.

The Government of Canada prepares a piece of legislation by which I, as a member of Parliament, as a consumer, as a private citizen, just like the Minister of Immigration, who is really listening to this, think that my information is easily protected by some of these measures that have gaping holes, in a legislation that did not exist before. It is going to need a lot of amendments in order for me to feel comfortable.

Why do I focus on me, Mr. Speaker? Just like you, we represent the general public and the general public expects us to feel what they feel, to see what they see, to experience what they live every day. There is not a Canadian out there who is not thinking, “Hold up. Is this legislation really designed to protect my privacy, or are they beginning to insinuate some sort of little loophole for others who are involved in business or whatever, to use to my disadvantage?” There are a lot of them out there already.

It is interesting that this legislation did not have this sound bite title that said, “We are going to go after all the crooks. We know they are out there but they are not being reported. We are going to build jails for them so that when we catch them, if we ever put police on the beat and if we ever sustain the court system enough that they will be able to process all of these accused and alleged criminals, we will actually be able to house them”.

That is not what this is about. If that is the kind of intention they have, I do not see that intention in the legislation. Primary in this kind of assessment relates to the requirement that I mentioned a moment ago to report a “material breach of security safeguards involving personal information under its control” to the Privacy Commissioner. That is what is going to happen. All of this is going to be reported to the Privacy Commissioner.

First, the threshold for determining that requirement for that disclosure is ambiguous. I noted that the minister did not make any effort to be specific to give us an indication of where the intent is. He did not give us any indication of the precision of the language. Not only is it ambiguous; it is confusing, quite frankly. As I said a moment ago, it has more holes in it than a retaining wall that has been breached by an invading army.

Second, there is no enforcement provision included in the bill to ensure that this will be done. When my colleague from Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord says that the sound-bite legislation that the Conservatives put in place is a little bit like a chihuahua barking away and trying to bite, he is right. If there is no enforcement mechanism, what is the purpose of making all of these statements? Who are they playing for fools? Do they really think Canadians do not look, do not listen, do not watch, do not critique?

I took a look at what the bill states and under proposed section 10.1:

(1) An organization shall report to the Commissioner any material breach of security safeguards involving personal information under its control.

It does not tell us how it got there in the first place or whether the organization had the right to get it there. It goes on:

(2) The factors that are relevant to determining whether a breach of security safeguards is material include:

Here is a definition for them, and so when I say it is ambiguous, confusing, wide open, it says, first of all, the “sensitivity of personal information”. Who is the best judge of whether personal information is sufficiently sensitive? Is it going to be the organization? Is it going to be the Privacy Commissioner? Is it going to be the person about whom that information is rendered? The proposed section continues:

(b) The number of individuals whose personal information was involved...

This reminds me of days gone by when priests in a confessional were trying to explain to penitents the significance of lies. One of the penitents said, “Father bless me for I have sinned, but it is no big deal; I just told a lie”.

The priest did not know any other way to get the penitent to understand the severity of that lie and said, “I tell you what. Here is a pillow full of feathers. Go up to the top of the hill. It is rather windy right now. I want you to open that pillow.”

The penitent went to the top of the hill, opened the pillow full of feathers and, behold, the wind blew them all over the place.

The penitent went back to the confessional and said, “Father I did what you asked me to do”.

The priest said, “Good, go pick them all up”.

The penitent said, “I cannot do that. Those things have gone for miles and miles now”.

Members can understand what the priest said then. That is the gravity of personal information about which one spreads lies, but the bill does not say that the person about whom information is being supplied has any control over it. Somebody else is shaking that pillow at the top of the hill. The proposed section continues:

(c) An assessment by the organization that the cause of the breach or a pattern of breaches indicates a systemic problem.

Yes, that will happen. Every organization is willing to beat its chest and say, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”. It is not going to happen. Very few people did it in times when people spoke Latin, and now that English has replaced Latin as the lingua franca, there are even fewer people.

So who makes the determination? Mr. Speaker, I guess you are like me. If it were my personal information that was being breached, I would want to report it to the commissioner. Yet Bill C-29 leaves that decision up to the organization that is supposedly making the report if not, in fact, the breach.

Bill C-29 also states that under proposed subsection 10.2(1), “Unless otherwise prohibited by law,” and look at that loophole:

an organization shall notify an individual of any breach of security safeguards involving the individual’s personal information under the organization’s control if it is reasonable in the circumstances to believe that the breach creates a real risk of significant harm to the individual.

As the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona said a few moments ago, so now the Americans, under Bill C-42 that the House had discussed before, can ask any of our domestic airlines, our carriers, to give them every piece of information in their possession, including everything one can name from there on in, everything one has to lay bare when one goes to buy a plane ticket. Bill C-29 essentially says that organization can do all of that.

What is the definition of significant harm under proposed subsection 10.2(2)? It is:

For the purpose of subsection (1), “significant harm” includes bodily harm, humiliation, damage to reputation or relationships, loss of employment, business or professional opportunities, financial loss, identity theft, negative effects on the credit record and damage to or loss of property.

Now one has to prove how significant that was. There are not very many people who are going to be better defenders of one's character and one's interest than oneself.

Real risk of significant harm and the factors that have to be included are those that are relevant to determining whether a breach of security safeguards creates real risk of significant harm to the individuals, and have to include the following. Listen to this. They have to include this:

(a) the sensitivity of the personal information involved in the breach;

Who is making the decision on the sensitivity? Somebody else.

It goes on:

(b) the probability that the personal information has been, is being or will be misused.

I am just thinking of Bill C-42. Any foreign state can ask of a Canadian carrier information that it will say is not going to be a problem and it is not going to do anything nasty with it, so the probability of that personal information being used or misused is practically nil, so it will take it all. Oh, good.

Again, while the conditions are defined, the interpretation is wide open and even includes variables that are impossible to determine. For example, how can an organization assess the probability that the personal information will be misused?

Most critical is that there is no enforcement and there are no penalties if the organization does not disclose a breach. This is untenable.

Other jurisdictions with similar laws have very high penalties for non-prompt disclosure. Let me see. I wonder where those other jurisdictions are.

Well, for example, right here in Canada, under the Alberta Personal Information Protection Act, PIPA, individuals and organizations can be fined up to $10,000 and $100,000 respectively for failing to notify the commissioner of a breach. There is an onus of responsibility. There is none in Bill C-29.

In Florida, which is just down the road, there are penalties of up to $500,000 for similar breaches. I mention Florida especially since our carriers are going to have to reveal everything to the Americans anyway; it is about a three-hour flight from Pearson Airport in Toronto. In Michigan, penalties run up to $750,000. Bill C-29 has no penalty. Why would these jurisdictions, including Alberta, have penalties and not the federal act that the government wants us to believe is the best thing since sliced bread?

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, October 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie has raised a few very important, serious issues, because they address themselves to the question not only of security but of internal security as well.

I wonder whether he has a reflection on what transpired at the beginning of the year. Remember now, we are all gripped and seized with the issue of criminality, whether it is on the ground or in the air.

The hon. member will know that there was a particular report that received a lot of attention here in Canada, via some of the daily press, regarding an expert who was coming here to attend a conference on the expansion of international criminal elements from a particular criminal organization vested in southern Italy, that there were tentacles here in Canada that were a threat to the peace and security of Canadians and Americans. I wonder whether the hon. member saw that. I know he follows this.

I wonder whether he has any reflections on the reasons that the Government of Canada refused to give that technical expert all of the protection that he receives whenever he travels anywhere else in the world and offers the benefit of his expertise for the safety and security of citizens everywhere around the world. The Government of Canada is presenting legislation to comply with an American act without negotiating, but in that instance, it had a specific situation that would have cost it nothing except to provide a couple of bodyguards. Why did the government walk away and say no? Why did some local off-duty police officers have to provide that individual with security here in Canada?

I am wondering whether the hon. member makes the connection about the intent of the Conservative government to stand up for its citizens and its system. Has he come to the conclusion, as many of us have here, that the Conservative government is a sound bite legislation government? It makes a lot of sound, but no bite.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, October 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member for Windsor West would like the record changed. When he said he did look at the bill when it was first brought in by the Liberals, I think he meant the Conservatives. I am sure he will want to correct the record.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, October 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether my colleague from Windsor West has looked at all of the efforts that the government says it has made to provide the Americans with a sense that the Canadian public travelling across American airspace is actually a secure and safe one.

Has he even looked at the $3.2 billion that the Government of Canada is taxing passengers in order to invest in new technologies to ensure that they are individuals who have no malice of intent? On that $3.2 billion tax by the Government of Canada to buy products that are supposed to convince Americans that Canadians are actually good people, is he not impressed with the fact that the Canadian government would have taxed Canadians to that extent, given that message to the Americans, and then walked away from the negotiating table because the Americans were not impressed?

Does he not think perhaps the Conservatives should tax us even more and squander even more money to provide a message to the world that Canadians are people of no malice of intent, and when they are passing over airspace, they have the security and the approval of their own government and they have the respect of their own government, even if the Government of Canada today has no respect from Homeland Security in the United States? Has he looked at that at all?

[Fairness at the Pumps Act, October 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know whether the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques will give me a chance to ask him a question in English. I found him to be quite animated and frustrated.

So I wonder if the member is frustrated because of the “gaspillage du temps de la chambre” to consider a bill of such insignificant magnitude. I say “insignificant” because it is typical of the government's sound bite legislation.

Here it is, we are talking about the fairness at the pumps act as if it has been unfair and the government has noticed that it has been unfair for five years and has done nothing about it.

I know my hon. colleague used to sit on the industry committee, amongst others, and he heard government members saying that they had to do something about this, they had to introduce competition, and they have not done anything. Now they are talking about a criminal act taking place at the pumps and they are going to pass legislation to change it.

I wonder whether the member thinks this is part of the government's crime and justice agenda. In other words, is this a sound bite but no bite?

[Fairness at the Pumps Act, October 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor was not here when this was a raging debate, led by members of the now government side, who were in opposition at the time and who were looking for fairness at the pumps.

I noticed that my hon. colleague looked at the legislative item that says fairness at the pumps act. For a government that has been in power for almost five years and one that used to rail against unfairness at the pumps, it has done nothing. It is now simply looking at measurements and weights associated with arriving at prices.

As the member and my hon. colleagues have indicated, six years ago the provinces in Atlantic Canada figured out a particular formula, but one that did not completely address the issue of gouging and fairness in the rest of Canada.

I wonder if my colleague is finding out the same thing that the rest of us are finding out, which is that this is a waste of Parliament's time, especially when the government knew what the program should have been and yet did nothing for five years. It is now moving sound bite legislation with no substance but lots of spin.