Industry committee  As we mentioned earlier, we looked at roughly the last 20 years of cases that have gone to court. About 46 decisions, I think it was, from the commissioner have been taken to court. In a minority of those, the commissioner was actually a primary appellant. In those cases, the commissioner lost 70% of the time before the courts.

Industry committee  In fact, that is the design of the system that's proposed by Bill C-27 in the CPPA. It is, in fact, to have the commissioner have a stronger hand at that appeal process by virtue of the fact that the tribunal has to defer to the commissioner's findings of fact and the mix of the findings of fact and law.

Industry committee  Thanks for the question. As we noted earlier, it's somewhat difficult to give a point estimate or even a range estimate, frankly, on how much activity such a tribunal would see. There are a number of factors to consider. The commissioner would have significant new powers but also significant new opportunities to navigate through an individual case by taking a mediation approach or a compliance agreement approach.

Industry committee  Given the new powers being vested with the commissioner and the increasing ubiquitousness of important data and privacy issues among Canadians—including because of the rising use of AI tools—I think it would be reasonable to assume that there would be more activity going forward.

Industry committee  Thank you again for the question. I think this is a really important issue to underline, noting that some previous witnesses have highlighted that they feel like the tribunal could add process and time. It's not entirely clear to me whether all the witnesses had the opportunity to be fully briefed on the functioning of the proposed bill on the idea of two elements in particular: first, that the tribunal would be required to provide deference to the commissioner's findings and, second, that the decisions could not be appealed.

Industry committee  Thank you for the question. It's a very important point to raise. The tribunal has to give deference. Therefore, this notion that, somehow, companies would be motivated to go to the tribunal more so than they'd be motivated to go to a court—if you were to substitute a general court instead of the tribunal—doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

Industry committee  As we've pointed out throughout our testimony over the last several days, there are a number of other G7 countries that have tribunals or tribunal-like approaches that help separate the investigatory and adjudicative functions. There's Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the U.K., with a slightly different wrinkle.

Industry committee  The Federal Trade Commission doesn't operate in the space of privacy and data protection. It's also a commission by design, which means it's not a single individual taking a decision. Procedural fairness considerations there are baked into the fact that it's a commission or a group of people taking decisions.

Industry committee  I think that's fair. I think it also offers an additional feature that we've referenced a few times. It centres the role of the Privacy Commissioner. It gives the Privacy Commissioner more authority, more weight. As I pointed out earlier, if a company knows that they can go and get a fresh start with a court and impugn the commissioner's approach or the impartiality with which it was conducted, that certainly creates a challenge, whereas the tribunal has to give deference to the commissioner's findings.

Industry committee  Thanks for the question. It's a good one. It would form the corpus of decisions that would inform the OPC, and it would inform the interpretation and application of the CPPA. Within the internal world of the consumer privacy protection act, each decision of the tribunal would have an effect of setting a precedent in work within the CPPA.

Industry committee  Our testimony over the last several meetings has been very clear, but I'm happy to recap. We see there being significant efficiency gains by implementing a tribunal. It's absolutely and fundamentally important, in order to maintain alignment with the Constitution, to have procedural fairness and due process built into the system.

Industry committee  I think it's an important issue to unpack a little bit. Part of the rationale here is to understand that having an expert tribunal focused on the issues and dedicated to this work does offer many benefits to the administration of justice and to ensuring that the law is effectively and consistently applied.

Industry committee  Thank you for the question. Again, it's an important one. Alberta and British Columbia, to take two examples, don't have the ability to levy administrative monetary penalties. Quebec, in fact, does, but it has an internal model that operates as a tribunal within the CAI. Those are very important differences in the way the processes function.

Industry committee  There are actually two important ways in which we believe the expertise of the tribunal would function in this instance. The first is that, as we previously pointed out, at least three of the members appointed need to have previous expertise and experience in privacy and information law.

Industry committee  As my colleague Ms. Angus pointed out earlier, the rules of procedure would be quite different in the case of a tribunal versus a court. It means it's less likely to be susceptible to being gamed. It's also taking a much narrower perspective on the issue and focusing only on the appeal of the commissioner's decision in a manner that gives deference to the commissioner and the OPC.