- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council
- Conservative
- St. Albert—Edmonton
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $119,185.60
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, if the bill is passed, given the trend with respect to data practices, the bill will be, for all intents and purposes, already out of date, and that is a problem. However, I would submit that if it is studied at committee, which I expect it will be, it would require significant amendments around protecting the individual privacy rights of Canadians. There are major gaps missing from the legislation that I outlined, including with respect to sensitive information. There is a lack of broad categories, and the fact that this is not defined needs to be worked on. There are a whole lot of other provisions. There are many, in fact, which is why we cannot support the bill.
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Madam Speaker, what we need with respect to the AI component of the bill is clarity, and we need certainty. What we do not need is the power grab the government has afforded itself, whereby the minister would be afforded enormous powers by way of regulations that would create significant uncertainty.
There was a complete lack of consultation. I believe the consultation only began in June, and that underscores why the bill needs to be scrapped and needs to be defeated. The government needs to go back, do its homework, engage in consultation and get this right.
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Madam Speaker, to answer the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, the bill is fundamentally flawed. It is unsupportable on that basis. If it were a matter of a few amendments, it would make sense to send the bill to committee on the basis that the bill was supportable on principle, but that is not the case with the bill. Indeed, with respect to the consent provisions of the bill, the bill arguably would take a step back from the completely inadequate measures that were provided in PIPEDA.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act. This legislation is the first update of federal private sector privacy laws in more than two decades.
Contained within this bill are three distinct pieces of legislation, each of which is flawed in its own way. The first piece of legislation within this bill would establish the consumer privacy protection act, legislation that completely fails to protect personal and sensitive information of individual Canadians in the digital era. The second piece of legislation within this bill would establish a tribunal system with respect to complaints around potential privacy rights violations. I submit that this tribunal system is duplicative, cumbersome and political, and that it would slow down the process of adjudicating and determining privacy complaints, to the detriment of individual Canadians and often to the benefit of powerful corporations.
The third piece of legislation within this bill seeks to establish a legal framework with respect to artificial intelligence systems. Let me say that it is important that the regulatory void that presently exists, with respect to the AI sector, be filled, but the substance of the bill, as it pertains to AI, is fundamentally flawed. It contains vague language. More concerningly, it puts a significant amount of legislative power in the hands of the Minister of Industry by way of regulation, absent parliamentary scrutiny.
The government is essentially asking, with respect to AI, for Parliament to adopt a bill without knowing the details and without understanding the impact of the bill on AI. It is saying, “Trust us. Trust the minister to fill in the blanks and come up with the rules after the fact.” I do not trust the government on anything, after it has gotten just about everything wrong over these past eight years. In any event, it is an overreach. It is a power grab of sorts. It is inherently undemocratic and it undermines investor confidence in the AI sector when we need investor confidence because of the uncertainty the bill creates in giving the minister the power to essentially come up with and change the rules on a whim.
When it comes to the AI component of the bill, the government needs to go back to the drawing board and engage in meaningful consultation, consultation that simply did not take place.
This is a complex bill. It is more than 100 pages long. It includes many complex and technical matters and so, in the very limited time that I have to contribute to this debate, I want to focus on how this bill fails to adequately protect the privacy rights of individual Canadians.
Privacy has long been recognized as a fundamental right of Canadians. That is because it goes to the core of who we are as individuals and is essential to the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms. As the Supreme Court declared in a 1988 decision, “Privacy is at the heart of liberty in a modern state” and privacy “is worthy of constitutional protection”.
Unfortunately, Bill C-27 fails to put the privacy rights of Canadians first. Instead, it puts the interests of big corporations, big tech and data brokers ahead of the rights of individual Canadians, and that, without war, is unacceptable.
It is true that the preamble of the bill refers to privacy interests, and I emphasize the word “interests”, as being integral to individual autonomy, dignity and the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms. It is of significance that missing in the bill is any mention of rights, but instead privacy is referred to as an “interest” and not the right that it is.
The absence of rights-based language in the bill tips the scale against individual Canadians in favour of commercial interests. As a consequence, the tribunal, as well as the Privacy Commissioner, would face significant challenges in weighing the privacy rights of Canadians against commercial interests, more likely than not, unfortunately, to the detriment of individual Canadians.
Members do not have to take my word for it. They can take the word of the former privacy commissioner of Canada, Daniel Therrien, who, in a November 13, 2022, op-ed in the Toronto Star said that the absence of rights-based language in this legislation “will likely reduce the weight of privacy in assessing the legality of intrusive commercial practices.” That was from the former privacy commissioner of Canada.
While the absence of rights-based language is a significant shortcoming in the bill, it is far from the only shortcoming in the bill when it comes to protecting the privacy rights of Canadians.
The bill contains many exceptions and loopholes with respect to obtaining the consent of Canadians for the collection, use and retention of data and private or personal information. So wide are the exceptions, so wide are the loopholes that the purported protections provided for in the bill are all but meaningless. The bill provides no clarity with respect to sensitive information. There are no broad categories around sensitive information, information worthy of additional protections, unlike legislation in other jurisdictions.
The bill is completely silent with respect to the selling of data. It provides no limitations or rules around data brokers. It provides nothing in the way of protections for Canadians around other areas. It does not provide a remedy, for example, for moral damages in the case of data breaches.
In so many respects, this bill falls short, and that is why it has been widely criticized by leading privacy experts. Canadians deserve better. That is why Conservatives will be voting against this bill. The Liberal government needs to go back to the drawing board.
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moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.
He said: Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak to Bill S-206 at third reading stage. It is an act to amend the Criminal Code relating to section 649, otherwise known as the jury secrecy rule. This bill, which I was proud to sponsor in the House of Commons, is a straightforward piece of legislation that would carve out a narrow exception to the jury secrecy rule.
As it currently stands, former jurors are unable to disclose any aspect of their jury service with anyone for life, even a medical professional bound by confidentiality. This bill addresses that by carving out an exception whereby former jurors who are suffering from mental health issues arising from their jury service could disclose all aspects of that service with a medical professional bound by confidentiality.
This bill is a needed piece of legislation that would go a long way to supporting juror mental health, and I will get into the substance of that momentarily. I am very pleased that this bill has been reported back to the House from the justice committee unamended and with unanimous support. This bill has already passed the House unanimously at second reading stage.
A bill that I introduced in the 42nd Parliament, Bill C-417, a bill that is substantively the same as this bill, passed the House at all legislative stages but did not progress due to the call of the 2019 election. Thanks to the leadership of Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, who introduced this bill in the Senate, and Senator Lucie Moncion, a former juror who suffered from mental health issues arising from her jury service, we have seen this bill clear the other place, again with unanimous support.
I speak to the unanimity around this bill because it really does underscore that this is a common-sense fix. It is not often that we can find unanimous support across the board from all parliamentarians and all stakeholders involved, including former jurors, mental health professionals and lawyers, among others.
This bill is a product of the study the justice committee undertook on juror supports, the first parliamentary study of its kind. It was initiated by the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I had the privilege of serving on the justice committee during the study and continue to serve on that committee. I can tell members that while there are many people I can thank for leading the bill to where it is today in being on the cusp of passing into law, this bill would not have happened but for the jurors who came before the justice committee. These former jurors came to our committee and talked about the impact the jury service had on them.
Jury service is something that I think sometimes we do not know enough about, unless we are summoned to serve on a jury or know someone who has been. Jury service can be stressful. Jurors can be exposed to horrific evidence, and it can have an impact on their mental health.
To provide just a bit of context in terms of the experiences of former jurors who conveyed their stories before the justice committee, I want to take a moment to read into the record some of the testimony we heard four and a half years ago.
Mark Farrant, a jury foreman in a gruesome murder trial, said:
In court as a juror, I took all the evidence in silently, as was my role. As jurors, we ingest the evidence and the facts. We do not interact with it. We are not afforded an opportunity to look away or raise our hands and say to the courtroom, “Turn that off; I've had enough.”
Tina Daenzer, who served as juror number one in the gruesome Paul Bernardo trial, said, “Imagine watching young girls being raped and tortured over and over again. You couldn't close your eyes and you couldn't look away because your duty was to watch the evidence.”
Patrick Fleming, who served on a jury involving a 10-month gruesome murder trial, spoke about jury service and the impact it had on his life. He said:
When my civic duty was done and I was able to go home to my family and return to my “normal” life, I pulled into my driveway and expected feelings of relief to wash over me, but something was different. I did not feel at my place of peace. Something was not right.
He went on to say:
We need assistance getting back to our “normal” life. We are civilians who did not choose this path for ourselves nor are we trained to deal with this type of situation. Being a juror is a monumental job that has had a major impact on my life.
In the course of our study, we heard about the jury secrecy rule and the degree to which it can impede jurors getting the full mental health supports they need. In that regard, there are at least two impediments.
The first is that the deliberation process is often the most stressful aspect of jury service. To not be able to talk about what is often the most stressful aspect of jury service is clearly an impediment to getting the help that a juror suffering from mental health issues requires. The second issue, which is more general in nature, is that it can impact the ability of former jurors to have full and frank discussions with mental health and other medical professionals because there is a lack of understanding about what the boundaries are regarding what can be talked about in light of the jury secrecy rule. We even heard that some medical professionals are reluctant to take on former jurors as clients as a result.
That is where this bill comes in. It provides clarity in the law and ensures that former jurors can have those full and frank discussions in a strictly confidential context. These full and frank discussions are often so vital to getting better in the face of mental health issues. This legislation is not novel. It may be new to Canada, but it has been successfully implemented in the Australian state of Victoria, where it has worked very well.
This issue and the way this bill has moved forward speak to Parliament working at its best. We had a groundbreaking study on juror supports in which an issue was identified regarding jurors getting mental health supports, and a solution was identified.
Rather than letting the unanimous report sit on the shelf and collect dust, I took it upon myself to introduce a bill, Bill C-417, a few months after the release of that report. However, at all stages, up until today, I received full support and collaboration from all members on all sides, including the member for Mount Royal, who was the chair of the justice committee during the study, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford and the former member for Victoria, who is the minister of aboriginal affairs today in the Government of British Columbia, among many others, all of whom recognized that this was an issue and that we needed to work together to implement a key common-sense recommendation that is small but will have a meaningful impact.
This bill is very close to crossing the finish line, and I hope it will cross the finish line today so that we can send it to the Governor General. It is a step forward, but a lot more work needs to be done around juror mental health. When we think about it, in a criminal trial, the lawyers, the Crown, the defence, the presiding judge and court workers all have access to various mental health programs and supports, but guess who often do not. It is the men and women who do not have a choice to be there. They are there because they have been summoned. They are performing their civic duty, and often they have nothing in the way of mental health support programs.
Fortunately, there has been some movement. Four provinces now have juror support programs, but they are not robust enough. In short, jurors in those four provinces have access to up to four counselling sessions free of charge. Often that is about it, and those measures were only implemented in the last number of years. I recognize the member for Ottawa Centre because when he was the minister of justice, he heard Mark Farrant and took it upon himself to see that the Province of Ontario developed a juror support program. However, there is more work to do because in six provinces there are essentially no supports and we need to do better.
What I hope is that after we pass this bill, the government will take seriously the implementation of another key recommendation of the report on juror supports: to work with the provinces to address the patchwork in the lack of supports and the inadequacy of supports, and provide, among other things, one-time funding so that we can have the supports that jurors deserve.
Jurors play an integral role in the administration of justice. We owe this to them. They should not have to suffer from mental health issues, unable to get help. This bill is a step in the direction of helping former jurors. I say very simply that it is a bill that has been studied and debated exhaustively. We all know the issue and we know what needs to be done. Let us get this bill passed and sent to the Governor General today to be brought into law.
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- Feb/10/22 4:13:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I respect the parliamentary secretary, and I say respectfully that I find it a little rich for the hon. member to be talking about rapid testing. For the past two years, the government has repeatedly dragged its feet when it comes to rapid testing. We on this side of the House, from day one, were encouraging the government to act with respect to rapid testing. Now, in year three, the government is finally getting serious. I say it is too little, too late.
The member talks about Bill C-8. What was completely absent from Bill C-8 was funding to increase hospital capacity in this country. When it comes to ICU capacity, for example, in which we had significant overcapacity problems part of the time during COVID, we have one-third of the ICUs the United States has and we rank last in the OECD, other than Mexico. Despite this, after blowing through another $70 billion of new spending, the government could not come up with new spending to increase hospital capacity so we could avoid the issues we have faced over the past two years. It is really a lack of leadership on the part of the current government.
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- Feb/10/22 4:04:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Conservative motion before the House this afternoon calling on the government to finally come up with a plan to end the federally related COVID restrictions and mandates, including the government's punitive and discriminatory vaccine mandates.
When it comes to the mandates, the Prime Minister says he is merely following science. If he were really following science, he would listen to public health officials across Canada, including Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, who has stated that all existing public health measures need to be re-evaluated, including vaccine mandates. Make no mistake about it, the Prime Minister is not interested in science. He is interested in politicizing the pandemic, dividing Canadian society and demonizing Canadians for making a personal health choice.
Repeatedly, the Prime Minister has used incendiary and hateful rhetoric against his fellow Canadians for merely making a personal health choice. He even went so far as to say, “Do we tolerate these people?” Those are the words of the Prime Minister against his fellow Canadians. Needless to say, history will not judge the Prime Minister kindly for his recent hateful words or his recent actions.
The Prime Minister's mandates have not done much to keep Canadians safe, but they have destroyed lives, they have destroyed livelihoods, they have eroded personal freedoms, they have pitted one Canadian against another and they have infringed upon the rights and freedoms of Canadians including privacy rights. It is on the issue of privacy rights that I wish to spend the balance of my time.
In a free and democratic society, governments respect the privacy of their citizens. To underscore the importance of privacy rights, earlier this week when the Privacy Commissioner appeared before the ethics committee, he stated that privacy is a human right. In May 2021, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, along with all provincial and territorial privacy commissioners, issued a joint statement on what they contemplated would be vaccine mandates imposed by governments.
In the joint statement, the privacy commissioners warned that vaccine mandates would encroach upon civil liberties, that there were significant privacy risks involved and that the government should not proceed without careful consideration. Having regard for those significant privacy risks, the joint statement stressed the importance of the government doing its due diligence in seeing that, before any such mandate is introduced, all applicable privacy laws would be complied with and privacy best practices would be adopted.
I should further note that it is a federal government policy, pursuant to a directive, that when there is a program or activity of government that involves the use of personal information that directly impacts an individual, a privacy impact assessment be undertaken in respect of that federal program or activity and that such a privacy impact assessment be conducted before the program or activity is implemented. The purpose of such an assessment is clear: to ensure compliance with the Privacy Act and to address other privacy-related issues.
In light of the warnings from all privacy commissioners across Canada, one would have thought the government would have reached out and worked with the Privacy Commissioner at the earliest opportunity before vaccine mandates were implemented. In light of the federal directive respecting privacy impact assessments, one would have thought the government would have worked on and completed such assessments before the implementation of mandates.
To learn more about what the government has done or has failed to do with respect to protecting the privacy rights of Canadians, my colleague, the hon. member for Oshawa, and I wrote to the Privacy Commissioner. The letter of response that we received is deeply concerning. It is clear in the Privacy Commissioner's response that the government did not consult the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at the earliest opportunity. Indeed, in many cases, the Privacy Commissioner was contacted at the eleventh hour. For example, with respect to the vaccine mandate that affects the public service, the Privacy Commissioner was given four hours to review it. That is unacceptable, it is unreasonable and it demonstrates bad faith on the part of the government when it comes to protecting the privacy rights of Canadians.
What about the privacy impact assessments? The Privacy Commissioner has confirmed to my office that no such assessments have been produced. I would remind the government that such assessments were to be produced prior to the implementation of the mandates. Here we are, four months later, and there are no assessments. What makes that even worse is the clear warnings from all privacy commissioners across Canada about the significant privacy risks involved.
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. It is part of a disturbing trend on the part of the government to disregard the privacy rights of Canadians. We learned recently, for example, that PHAC failed to work with the Privacy Commissioner in respect of the collection of mobile data from millions of Canadians without their consent. There is the case of Statistics Canada, which was caught with unjustifiable plans to collect the data of Canadians in respect of their financial transactions without their consent. One would expect to see this happening in Communist China but not in Canada, yet it is happening in Canada under the government's watch.
The continued systematic disregard for the privacy rights of Canadians by the government is leading us on a dangerous path. It is time to reverse course. It is time to end this massive overreach and restore freedom. It is time to end the mandates.
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