44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 28, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, it is, again, an honour to rise and speak in this place on behalf of my constituents of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner in relation to Bill C-27. It is dubbed the digital charter implementation act.
It is really frustrating to continually see legislation from the Liberal government that is sloppy, lazy and really incomplete, to be honest, and this bill is no exception.
Canadians have seen most of this legislation before in a failed attempt back in 2020. That legislation died on the Order Paper when the Prime Minister took his costly, ill-timed and overly optimistic opportunity to call an election. Since then, we have had three years of inaction on this file, and now the government has tabled this piece of legislation, Bill C-27, which should have been more focused on giving the people of Canada the privacy rights they deserve.
Instead, this legislation is literally the least that they could have possibly done in this regard. The bill is a flawed attempt to start the long overdue process of overhauling Canada's digital data privacy framework. Conservatives will be looking at putting forward some common-sense amendments at the committee stage to protect both individuals and small businesses alike and to ensure that it is the best possible legislation moving forward.
The Conservative Party believes that digital data privacy is a fundamental right that urgently requires strengthened legislation, protections and enforcement. Canadians must have the right to access and control collection, use, monitoring, retention and disclosure of their personal data.
It is unfortunate that we could not rely on the Liberals to get it right the first time, but maybe they will have the modesty, humility and common sense to accept the amendments that will be coming, instead of once again using their NDP coalition to control and steamroll at committee stage.
It is also a shame because Canada's digital data privacy framework has been in dire need of modernization for years. This government has been dragging its feet as well for years on this critically important legislation.
It appears that there is no good reason as to why there has not been advancement on this legislation. Clearly, they did not spend their extra time making the legislation any better than when it was first proposed in 2020.
Conservatives will be looking to see how this bill can be improved. However, when looking at how to improve something, we need to look at why it is even in front of us to begin with.
The Liberals brought it forward today because they were finally exposed for being flat-footed on Canadians' data protection and how they were exposed. Let us think about TikTok.
Michael Geist, Canadian research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said that he found it “pretty stunning” that the Liberals had to block TikTok on government devices as a precaution because, again, “part of what [the Liberals] were attributing the TikTok ban to was essentially Canada's weak privacy laws.”
The expert continued to say that, when it comes to Bill C-27, the government “sat on it. It barely moves in the House.”
He is not alone in his criticism either. Former privacy commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien shared similar concerns to those of Michael Geist and those we as Conservatives have.
The former commissioner, Mr. Therrien, argued that the solutions in proposed Bill C-27 are not strong enough to rein in technology companies from pursuing “profit over respect for democratic values”.
He also said that Bill C-27 “will not provide effective protection to individuals, in part due to weak enforcement provisions.”
Former commissioner Therrien's most notable criticism, however, is in his retort to the Liberals' claim that the bill “will create the most important penalties among G7 countries”, which is called “simply marketing”.
This is just a gentlemanly way of a former public official saying that it is not really the case. There are those of us who would call it by some other name.
At best, Bill C-27 is a first step. It is better than the nothing that the Liberals have done for the last three years. That is where the catch-22 is with this bill as proposed.
Doing something will be better than staying in our current technological stone age, with respect to data privacy.
Specific items like the bill's requirements for all businesses to have a privacy watchdog and maintain the public data storage code of conduct are positive measures. However, it does cause worry about the burden this new layer of red tape will have on small business and especially for sole proprietors. Again, on a catch-22 of this lazy Liberal legislation, the law does not go far enough to protect children's privacy for example.
While the information of minors is finally included in the legislation, the definition of what is sensitive, what a minor is or who a minor is are not set out, and the sensitive information of adults for example is not given the same special provisions. This means that businesses are left to decide what is sensitive and appropriate for minors. It also means that the courts, when interpreting the legislation, will understand that if not amended, the sensitive information of adults was specifically left out of the legislation.
Further, businesses will have to navigate varying rules in each province where different definitions of a minor actually apply and that depends on provincial law. This is not good for protecting minors, this is not good for protecting Canadians' sensitive information and this is not good for businesses.
Finally, the fundamental problems in this bill can be summed up in that this bill does not recognize privacy as a fundamental right. Thirty-four years ago, the Supreme Court said that “privacy is at the heart of liberty in a modern state”.
Conservatives believe that individuals are worthy of privacy as a fundamental right, and the concept of privacy as a fundamental right is worthy of legislative protections. Based on that alone, the Liberals have missed the mark on this legislation. Once again, it is up to the Conservatives to fix the Liberals' poorly written legislation.
As I close, I want to offer my thanks for the hard work of the Conservative members of the access to information, privacy and ethics committee. They have done a great job to date. They spent a lot of time on the previous iteration of this legislation, and I have heard a great deal about how Canadians' information and data is used without their consent. With the many identified flaws of the bill, Bill C-27, I think it would be best if this bill were voted down and redrafted, honestly, in order to take these issues into account. However, the NDP-Liberal coalition will surely ignore doing these things right in favour of expediency and send it off to committee.
With that, Canadians and I are leaving the flaws that I have pointed out, and there are many more, along with the additional flaws that I am sure my colleagues will find in their review and will need to be fixed at committee. The Liberals have left the committee a lot of work, but I know that my colleagues there are up for the challenge.
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Mr. Speaker, I go back to something my father taught me a long time ago that in all things that one is deliberating, one should have a reasonable and a balanced approach.
With respect to my colleague's question, there needs to be an appropriate balance, legislatively, so that there is no ambiguity and misinterpretation. However, the businesses and individuals, whose information a business has, have the comfort of knowing that it is used appropriately, that there are safeguards in place for its use and that it is not going to be misused. I think that would be an appropriate balance to strike.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that question from my hon. colleague. When he stands up, I never know what angle he is going to go with. It is nice to have a reasonable question from my friend across the way.
I look at some of the recent examples of privacy and mobility data being used without consent. The member is right. Canadians have to be confident about the information they are using in apps, and they have to have businesses they can trust.
The Tim Hortons app was tracking movements after orders, which caused concern for Canadians. Telus' data for good program was giving location data to PHAC. That was a significant faux pas. One that really stood out was the public doxing of those who donated to the “freedom convoy” through GiveSendGo. Anytime one is revealing their personal information online, there has to be some confidence behind it. Businesses rely on it. Those who use those businesses as consumers need to have confidence that the information is not going to be abused and shared inappropriately.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not see the connection to the first portion of my hon. colleague's question. I do understand that this bill absolutely needs significant improvement.
I am certainly supportive of it, in principle, to go to committee to have the amendments ironed out and improved upon so the legislation could address some of the concerns raised by my friend, as well as the concerns identified by people across the country. This includes some of the experts who say we need to strike the right balance, and it is about time privacy legislation takes into account all those issues.
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