Hon. Colin Deacon: Honourable senators, based on my second reading speech — where I offered no solutions whatsoever — you won’t be very surprised that I am going to speak in favour of Senator Tannas’s amendment.

Colleagues, I recognize that it’s rare for the Senate to amend the budget implementation act, as it should be. Some have said that amending the budget implementation act may put the Senate’s reputation at risk. I completely disagree under these circumstances and with this specific issue.

In 2017, as senators debated whether to hive off a portion of the budget bill for further study and debate, the Prime Minister offered that “it’s important to understand that the House of Commons has the authority when it comes to budgetary matters.”

I agree fully. I expect most, if not all, of us agree as it relates to “budgetary matters.” The proposed change to the Canada Elections Act in Division 39, on the last page of a budget bill, is not a budgetary matter. Typically, a budget bill is about giving Canadians financial support in challenging times, about providing access to new rights and opportunities, like affordable childcare or investing in our future. Budget bills are not about undermining a Canadian voter’s right to privacy — an issue that our three major political parties have refused to act on for more than a decade.

So let’s talk about that issue. To Senator Duncan’s question to Senator Tannas, according to a 2021 Elections Canada survey of voters, 96% of Canadians agreed that laws should regulate how political parties collect and use Canadians’ personal information.

This is not the case today. These political parties self-regulate. This remains the case because the organizational leadership of the Liberal, Conservative and NDP parties have demonstrated that they cannot get past — as far as I’m concerned — their conflicts of interest as it relates to this issue. It’s ironic that the 96% of voters who want legal privacy protections to be extended to political parties can now only look to the unelected Senate for help. I’m of the opinion that we offer a beacon of hope, simply because 80% of us are not whipped by partisan leadership and can look at this issue independently. This is our time to provide that counterbalance to the elected House of Commons, where less than 1% of elected members are independent of the partisan whip.

Colleagues, the Prime Minister made one request of me when he appointed me to the Senate, and that was to challenge “the government” — whichever government is in power.

I try to do so as collegially and responsibly as possible. I have never, to this point, voted against a budget implementation bill, and I doubt that I will do it this time, but I am in favour of this amendment.

I chatted with most of you about the Prime Minister’s request, and I understand that he made a similar request of many, if not all, of his appointees. We’re independent. We’re not whipped. This is a luxury in Ottawa. It’s also a profound responsibility. Few have had this luxury and responsibility in the history of Canada. Well, now is our moment to fulfill that responsibility. This is why I support Senator Tannas’s amendment. It gives the political parties two years to implement new legislation that actually creates:

 . . . a national, uniform, exclusive and complete regime applicable to registered parties and eligible parties respecting their collection, use, disclosure, retention and disposal of personal information.

It is a firm and clear response that I believe, Senator Shugart, shows restraint.

The only ones who’ve been denying Canadians access to these privacy protections are the individuals and organizations that lead the Conservative, NDP and Liberal parties. But they’re conflicted in this debate, and their actions have proven that they’re serving their own political interests and clearly not the wishes or interests of Canadian voters.

The NDP, Liberals and Conservatives have worked in concert for more than a decade, seemingly doing everything in their power to not give Canadians privacy protections as it relates to political party data, despite the wishes of 96% of voters. For more than a decade, Canada’s three main political parties have ignored the two officers of parliament responsible for these issues. The Privacy Commissioner and the Chief Electoral Officer have repeatedly called for legislative, or even voluntary, protections to be put in place, but to no avail. They’ve ignored the strong and compelling recommendations from the House of Commons Ethics Committee report, specifically called Democracy Under Threat: Risks and Solutions in the Era of Disinformation and Data Monopoly. This demonstrates that the political party leadership is even willing to ignore the voices of elected MPs from their own parties. And they’ve joined forces to thwart the efforts of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C. by challenging him in the Supreme Court of British Columbia to stop him from trying to protect B.C. voters’ privacy in the perpetual absence of federal protections.

As I said in my second-reading speech on Bill C-47, it’s remarkable and deeply disturbing that this is one issue that unites Liberals, Conservatives and NDP in these hyper-partisan times. It is a sad irony that, instead of uniting to address the threat of foreign interference — the number-one political issue of 2023 — they are united in their desire to deny Canadian voters privacy protections that almost every Canadian voter says they want.

But why are privacy protections important in the first place? Large databases have been said to be like gold. True, they can have enormous value. However, the architect behind much of Australia’s work to develop and apply their consumer data rights, my friend Scott Farrell, describes it differently. He sees data as being like uranium because it’s both extremely powerful and dangerous, and it has a long half-life. That’s because data can continue to deliver harms for a long time if not handled very carefully.

Access to large amounts of detailed personal data enables political parties to micro-target their political messaging. This personal data allows them to target and speak compellingly to the interests of increasingly narrow slices of our voting population to motivate those voters to donate and get out to vote, as Senator Tannas alluded to.

Consequently, our political parties and their messaging increasingly focus on the issues that divide Canadians, not the issues that unite us. As I mentioned, political party organizers now openly admit that they choose their voters; voters no longer choose their political parties. This is equivalent, in my mind, to digital gerrymandering.

Currently, our political parties are not required to secure any voter consent, regardless of the data they gather. They do not need to be transparent in terms of the data they have or how it’s used. They are not required to provide any guardrails, meaning nothing is out of bounds, and they’re not accountable to an appropriate governance body. There is no authority to which voters can complain or who can investigate abuses. There are no protections. All of the evidence, including Division 39 in the BIA, suggests that our political parties may be very happy to keep it that way.

As I said at second reading, these databases represent a powerful target for foreign adversaries who intend to interfere in our democracy. If a political party is hit by a cyberattack, they have no obligation to report that breach to anyone. A decade of evidence suggests that this status quo will continue unless the Senate rises to the challenge and adopts Senator Tannas’s amendment.

One of the very first debates that I heard when I was appointed to this chamber was by the Honourable André Pratte, a dearly missed former colleague for so many of us. He described four criteria that justify the Senate’s actions if it were to continue pushing to amend a government bill. In that situation, he was speaking to the message back from the House related to Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act. Senator Pratte offered that the Senate should insist on an amendment in relatively rare cases where: one, the issue is of special importance related to our constitutional role; two, where we are prepared to lead a serious fight and see it to its completion; three, where a significant part of public opinion is on our side; and, four, where there are realistic prospects of convincing or forcing the government to change its mind. These four points have helped me as I considered Senator Tannas’s amendment and, if adopted, our potential response to the government if they were to reject this reasonable amendment.

I firmly believe that it was entirely inappropriate to include Division 39 in this budget bill. Regardless, Senator Tannas’s amendment gives the Conservative, Liberal and NDP party leadership what they want, and it gives us the confidence that Canadians’ privacy rights will ultimately be protected.

This amendment also allows us to fulfill each of Senator Pratte’s criteria. It provides a counterbalance to the whipped House of Commons where the leadership of the political parties are conflicted, denying Canadian voters their fundamental right to privacy. I would argue that it fulfills the distinct constitutional role of the unelected Senate while respecting the House of Commons’ ultimate authority on budget matters. It empowers us to fulfill the objective of the serious fight that has been led by the officers of Parliament who are responsible for these issues and by the House Ethics Committee who saw and warned that the status quo presents threats and risks to our democracy and, finally, by a provincial privacy commissioner who has been trying to protect the privacy of B.C. voters when federal political parties refused to do so voluntarily.

These collective efforts have been rebuffed for more than a decade by the political party leadership that has a blatant conflict of interest. It also responds to the public’s conviction — not just its opinion, its conviction — as 96% of Canadians want political parties to provide legal privacy protections. The last 10 years have clearly demonstrated that if Canadians are to get those privacy protections, the whipped House of Commons will not lead the way. Only independent senators can. It is up to us, colleagues.

And finally, Senator Tannas’ amendment provides a realistic prospect of convincing the government to change its mind. It gives the NDP, Conservatives and Liberals what they want, as long as they deliver what is also promised in Division 39. If a complete national privacy regime is implemented within 24 months, then they get to keep the change to the Canada Elections Act that makes that federal privacy regime exclusive.

I’m sure that the irony of this situation is not lost on any of us — the fact that an unelected Senate might stand firm to protect the foundation of our democratically elected House of Commons. I know that voting in favour of this amendment might be disruptive, but it’s our responsibility to look out for the rights of Canadians. Only the Senate can finally bring certainty to the 96% of Canadians who want legal political party privacy protections.

For me, the question is clear. If you agree with the 96% of Canadians that laws should regulate how political parties collect and use Canadians’ personal information, then this is the moment to stand firmly behind and in favour of Senator Tannas’ amendment. If we choose to stand firm, which I desperately hope we will, I think the Senate will have done something for which we can be incredibly proud and for which Canadians will someday be thankful. Thank you, colleagues.

Hon. Colin Deacon: Will Senator Ringuette take one more question?

Senator Ringuette, just as a clarification, you do understand that the private information gathered by political parties goes well beyond the voter list and donations. It includes personal information about one’s family, their ethnicity, the language they speak, the job they have and social media — and it goes well beyond that.

My second point is that there have been very specific recommendations put forward to the government and political parties by the Privacy Commissioner and the Chief Electoral Officer about what this legislation should look like. That work has been done, and it has been done for many years.

Are you aware of those two items?