Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  I generally agree with Mr. Israel. Compliance agreements are a kind of band-aid. What you're really looking for, I think, is order-making power on behalf of the commissioner. It will help with some situations. However, long negotiations with companies may or may not actually have the result that the Privacy Commissioner wants, even with compliance agreements.

Industry committee  We are proposing today a hybrid model, one that looks a lot like what was in Bill C-12. In order for it to be two steps, you would have to have a reporting of material breaches of security safeguards, as it was worded in that bill, that affect personal information, as a first step, only to the Privacy Commissioner.

Industry committee  That's our concern, that the assessment done by the company may not be taking factors into account that the Privacy Commissioner might think of. They have a limited view; the Privacy Commissioner will have seen lots more situations. It's not malicious. It's just what will happen.

Industry committee  No.

Industry committee  I would like to say that if this bill didn't pass it wouldn't be the end of the world because the breach notification guidelines that are voluntary now are producing. I think you will probably end up with more breach notifications than you would after this bill. That's our view.

Industry committee  From PIAC's point of view, the amendment to remove or change the information sharing between corporations needs to be looked at because, as Tamir mentioned, there is some risk of companies using that in contexts like copyright against consumers, where judicial process would give them more protection and is far more appropriate.

Industry committee  I would disagree. I think that Bill C-12 which was previously there, had made the effort to set a bar for material breach reporting to OPC, which was based on the seriousness of the information lost and the number of people affected. Again, it also threw in this business about systemic problems, which I think is complicating things.

Industry committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Honourable members, my name is John Lawford. I'm the executive director and general counsel of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a national non-profit, federally incorporated organization founded in 1976 that provides legal and research services on behalf of consumer interests, and in particular, vulnerable consumer interests.

Industry committee  I believe that in the fall, the CRTC will be looking at a mechanism in this essential services proceeding that Geoff mentioned. The way the CRTC tends to look at this, as they did with high-cost telephone service, is to set up a contribution fund to which you can then apply, and it can be nationwide.

Industry committee  The deferral accounts is a nasty episode in CRTC history. I would hope that the CRTC would design it so that kind of gaming could not take place. It's often a “use it or lose it” kind of rule so that if someone does not get something ruled out in the area they promised, it goes back to tender, if you will.

Industry committee  Very briefly, there has been some work done by CRTC in measuring broadband, you know, receipt of packets, which I think will help in the upcoming future. To some extent, consumers also can go to the consumer complaints ombudsman now for telecommunications and say that they don't understand this, it wasn’t explained, and therefore they don't think they owe it.

Industry committee  I don't think anyone's talking about, with this measure or any other of the policies of the government, expropriating legitimate investments that the companies have made. I believe Bell Canada wanted out of regulation and to become its own private outfit sometime in the seventies and eighties anyway.

Industry committee  I don't have the figures before me, but I think the OECD and others have done studies showing that the GDP does advance more quickly in countries that have more competitive wireless and Internet markets. I think the government's focusing on wireless as part of its overall communications strategy is very smart, because they're seeing that kind of research.

Industry committee  Part of the trouble with the regional coverage is that there's often only one carrier out there with towers, and it's often on a less modern network, let's say, so you're running on not even GSM. Sometimes you just get voice in these areas, yet that's where we need it the most.