Ted Hsu

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have just a general question because I know my hon. colleague has been in this House for a while. In reading the budget document, the book that is about this thick, I find it hard to sort out what is new and what is old.

I wonder why the government does not make it a bit clearer in the document, so that average Canadians reading it can see what is new and what was already announced a year ago.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague and I are both from the province of Ontario. Given that the Government of Ontario was not at all happy with the budget earlier this week, I would like to give my hon. colleague the opportunity to talk about how she thinks the budget treated Ontario.

[Fair Elections Act, February 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I again have to say that the quality of the debate has been quite high today. I am happy about that, but I am now disappointed that the government wants to cut off debate.

On behalf of my constituents in Kingston and the Islands, I ask if the government would budget money to explain to voters that there would be no voter card and that there would be an extra day of advance polls? From my experience, it is very important to have the resources to supply that information; otherwise, it is the political campaigns themselves that have to supply that information, and then whichever campaign has the most money can get to the most voters.

I wonder if the government would budget for explaining to voters the changes in this legislation.

[Fair Elections Act, February 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the minister and the critics today for the quality of the debate.

I have a question about a potential gap in the legislation. I understand that there will be penalties now for impersonating elections officials. However, in my case in the last election someone impersonated my campaign manager and sent a voter across town to an incorrect polling place. I wonder if that penalty for impersonating elections officers could be extended to cover that case, where someone actually impersonates a campaign manager.

[Natural Resources, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, according to the NEB, last year from January to March eastern Canada propane storage dropped by 340 million litres, but only 330 million litres were in storage this January. With states throughout the U.S. competing for tight propane supplies, this is an international issue and a federal responsibility. If winter stays cold and the propane inventory runs dangerously low, what will the minister do beyond “...asking the National Energy Board and Competition Bureau to review propane market issues...”? How will he protect rural Canadians who heat with propane?

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is remarkable that he would talk about senators in this debate.

This is very simple: we want to establish a committee that Canadians can trust. The people should be able to trust their government. That is all we are asking for; it is very simple. I think all members of the House should be able to support today's Liberal motion.

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague who, I guess one could say, heckled, or asked the following question: “How do you know?”

I think that is the question Canadians are asking and which we want to answer by forming this parliamentary committee.

How do we know? If we do not know, do we want to participate in the digital economy? Do we want to help the government move its services online?

We are putting at risk something that is very important part of our economy, the digital economy. Why do that? Why not just have some oversight by elected representatives from different parties to work together to help reassure the people of Canada that someone who represents them is overseeing what this particular government agency is doing?

I think CSEC would probably welcome that. It does not want to harm Canada; it does not want to harm the digital economy.

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as this is a chamber of debate, I would like to start by responding to an implication that I heard from the Conservative side. It was that we have had oversight for many years now, so why do we need something new?

In response, I would say that technology is a wonderful thing. It is something, however, that changes. We have had many changes in technology in the last 10 or 20 years, amazing changes. For example, I can contact someone with the push of a few buttons. All of us can. We have these great smart phones and all sorts of other ways of contacting people around the world instantaneously. There is no need to remember email addresses, no need to remember phone numbers or any other contact information. All that information is available at the touch of a button.

It is also around us, and it moves. That information moves from place to place as well. That is why it is always handy. I can start an app on my smart phone that can tell my family in real time where I am on a road, what my velocity is, and what my estimated time of arrival home for dinner might be. I could also run another app, a much more recent one, that can figure out where I am in a store, a museum, or a shopping mall and, by using the ambient Wi-Fi signals that are now ubiquitous in large buildings, send me content depending on where I am.

Technology changes, and that is the thing that has changed. That is why we have to look at what kinds of risks come out of the opportunities that are being exploited by technology. Technology can be used to serve people and can be used to protect Canadians, but it can also threaten privacy, and there is no reason that we should not have the public participate in a review of how the government uses technology to protect us from potential foreign threats.

Last week we learned from a leaked document that was obtained by the CBC that the Communications Security Establishment Canada, CSEC, may have illegally intercepted and tracked the personal information of ordinary Canadians who were using public Wi-Fi at Canadian airports, and then tracked those people or the devices that used the Wi-Fi as they travelled elsewhere.

The problem is that this happened at a Canadian airport, where undoubtedly many Canadians were using the public Wi-Fi and then became part of the tracking that was alleged to have taken place. The problem is that the Communications Security Establishment Canada is supposed to be keeping track of potential foreign threats, not monitoring Canadians.

Canadians, having heard about this story and having heard about what the NSA was doing in the United States, are worried about privacy and worried about the rule of law. They are wondering if we as Canadians need to rely on leaks from people like Edward Snowden in order to know how their government actually does its work.

Canadians are wondering what sort of information is private. They are wondering about the digital economy and what will happen if people fear using the Internet. They are worried about online government services. We know that the government is trying to move more and more government services to websites. It is very commendable to have good government websites that provide service to Canadians, but now it is very fair for Canadians to ask what the risks are and how they can know that their privacy is being respected.

What we are not hearing from the government is a flat denial and that Canadians' privacy is being respected. I know there is a conversation about the difference between data, which is, for example the content of an email, and metadata, which is information about who sent the email, who received the email, and what time the email was sent.

I know there is a difference, but Canadians are worried. The way that members of the public can and should respond to this concern is to have their elected representatives, parliamentarians, oversee what the government is doing. This is a way for Canadians to be assured that there is some sort of check on what the government is doing by people who are accountable to the public. This right that Canadians have is expressed through what their elected members of Parliament ask for, in this case today for oversight and accountability.

It is important to talk about the difference between aggregate data and private data. Here it is important for good government and smart government to know, for example, how many Canadians live where. Even a municipality needs to know what sort of sewage system to put in place and what capacity is required. We need to know the aggregate data on how many Canadians live in a certain place. We need to know how many people travel down a certain street, even for the simple reason that we want to manage the traffic or parking. We need to know how many people work in a certain industry, or how many people are out of work, so that we can be good economic managers. That is something that Statistics Canada, for example, has done very well, both protecting individual privacy but also providing aggregate numbers so that government can have a good idea of the country it is supposed to be governing.

What Canadians are worried about is information about individuals, about where a particular person lives, where that person goes, what time of day that person goes to a certain place, whom that person goes with, and how long someone stays in a certain place. These sorts of pieces of information about individuals are what Canadians worry might get into the wrong hands or be used for purposes that are not legitimate. Or, they simply want their privacy respected and do not want that information out there.

That is why the member for Malpeque has introduced Bill C-551 in this Parliament, which would create a national security committee of parliamentarians to oversee what the government, in particular the CSEC, is doing and to oversee from legislative, regulatory, government-policy, and administrative points of view what the agencies responsible for national security are doing. That parliamentary committee would be representing the public and giving the okay from the public for what the government decides to do regarding national security and privacy. This is not a particularly new idea. It has certainly been championed by Liberals for many years in government and in opposition, but it is something that is important to do. Canadians, directly or through their elected representatives, have a fundamental need to understand what their government is doing and to have confidence that their government is doing the right thing. A parliamentary committee is the right way to express that oversight.

I would also add that we have international partners, the U.K. and Australia, who have parliamentary oversight to protect the privacy of their citizens. Looking at it from CSEC's point of view, I am sure there are people in CSEC who want to do the right thing, so it would be very appropriate for them to consult with Parliament and say what they are doing and why they think they are addressing privacy concerns, just to get an okay from people of Canada.

I call on all members to support the motion today that the Liberal Party has proposed.

[Business of Supply, February 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to continue a line of questioning by the previous NDP speaker concerning the NDP proposal to cap the ATM fees at 50¢. The reasoning behind this is that the average transaction cost is 36¢, and there is plenty of profit to be made between 36¢ and 50¢.

The problem is that is an average transaction cost, and the cost must be more for rural areas because it costs more simply to send out somebody to refill the ATM. Sometimes there is only one machine out in a rural area, so the cost must be more.

It is not right to compare that 50¢ the New Democrats are proposing as a cap to the average cost of 36¢. The reason is that economic decisions are made on the margin. What is the marginal cost of an ATM in a rural area?

There needs to be some flexibility in that 50¢.

Would the member be willing to change that NDP proposal, to have that flexibility to account for higher costs on the margin in rural areas?

[Business of Supply, February 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my concern is for some of the rural locations where if only the so-called white-label ATM machines are available, sometimes these charges can be as high as $7 or $8.

That is quite a lot of money. Is it obvious that the market for ATMs in those locations is competitive, or should we be taking a look at those areas and whether there really is competition?