- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Hamilton Centre
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $131,250.15
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Madam Speaker, I am sure the hon. members from the other side are about to take some good notes on the recommendations we put forward. They are probably discussing among themselves how they can improve upon these serious gaps and have some public engagement on this.
We are not subject matter experts in this House when it comes to this type of technology. It is not clear whether there has been any public engagement specific to Bill C-27 as it is proposed. There was public engagement around the creation of Canada's digital charter, called the national digital and data consultations, that happened back in 2018. However, as I understand it, only about 30 or so discussions were held. That fell dearly short. The majority of digital leaders were from the private sector, and there were only a couple of universities involved. Therefore, it is unclear who the government is consulting with when it deals with this type of surveillance capitalism and the risks it presents to consumers.
Let us get right to the point. What are the gaps that exist in this legislation? How does Bill C-27 compare with the ideal privacy legislation? There are many gaps. Clearly, it does not compare to the GDPR; it also falls short of privacy legislation that is currently being proposed in la belle province of Quebec, in New Zealand and in the state of California.
For example, in California, the California Consumer Privacy Act, the California Privacy Rights Act and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act have all presented more robust solutions to what is before us here today. In addition, there are privacy protections that come into effect under the CCPA that we should be considering.
We need to ensure that the protections that come into effect include the rights to know, to delete and to opt out of sale or sharing, as well as the right to non-discrimination. Under that legislation, consumers also have the rights to correct inaccurate personal information and to limit the use and disclosure of sensitive personal information collected about them. There is a lot out there that we should be considering when it comes to amendments.
I am going to list examples of gaps within this bill so they are on the record. The bill does not promote the development of data stewardship models. It does not require that organizations take into account the potential consequences to individuals and societies through such measures as privacy impact assessments of a breach of security or safeguards. There is no section in Bill C-27 expressly dedicated to cross-border dataflows.
There has been no privacy impact assessment done to address any additional risks, which should be identified, justified, mitigated and documented in such an assessment. There is no assessment of the broader level of privacy rights protections in foreign jurisdictions. This is a very important conversation, particularly this week in the House, that includes how Canadians' privacy rights can be enforced.
This bill does not include specific rules that are applicable to data brokers, and these are important third parties who are not service providers. There should be a fiduciary duty to individuals if data processors act as intermediaries between individuals and data collectors. This would ensure that such service providers only use personal information entrusted to them for the purpose intended by the individuals.
This bill does not provide the right to disposal with respect to search engines' indexing of personal information where it could cause harm to the individual's privacy or reputation. It does not include the language that was in PIPEDA regarding individual access where it provides an account of third parties to which personal information about an individual or an organization has been disclosed. There should be an attempt that is as specific as possible.
This bill does not include the right of individuals to express their points of view to a human who can intervene or to contest decisions. When we look at AI or how algorithms are working in society today, they are inherently flawed.
In fact, there is another study that I would reference, titled “AI Oversight, Accountability and Protecting Human Rights”, which has commentary on this. This was authored by a series of subject matter experts who gave a long list of needs for adequate public consultation and proper oversight of AIDI to effectively regulate the AI market in Canada.
The commissioner needs to be an independent agent of Parliament. We need to empower an independent tribunal to administer penalties in the event of a contravention, and we need to outline the best practices for auditing and enforcing the law. There are dozens of recommendations contained in both reports that, as New Democrats, we will be presenting to the government at the appropriate time at committee.
It is clear, from the body of the preliminary work that has been done, that this bill is inadequate as it stands. It is too big to adequately cover AI and consumer protections. It has always been our belief that those should be split up. That way we can have an investigation to ensure that consumer protections are met, that surveillance capital does not continue to profit off our most personal information and data and that, ultimately, we have safeguards with a robust and very firm platform on which these organizations, businesses, companies, and in some instances foreign countries, are held to account when they violate our rules.
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Mr. Speaker, we have heard Conservatives time and again stand up and, quite rightly, talk about the cost of everything. I had the opportunity to visit the hon. member's riding in Regina a few weeks back and spoke to workers on the ground. The one thing they talk about, when they talk about the cost of everything, is the symptoms of capitalism, but they never talk about the structures.
I would like the hon. member to reflect for a moment. He likes to talk about taxation. Will he have the courage today to talk about the out-of-control corporate greed that is ultimately driving up the cost of living for people from Regina all the way to Hamilton Centre? Does the hon. member have the courage to do that? Does he have the guts to actually take on big corporate greed today, or is he simply going to continue to protect the corporate class?
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Madam Speaker, week after week we hear the leader of the official opposition stand in this House and outline point by point the economic violence of capitalist corporate greed, yet he never has the courage to name the real cause of high inflation, which is the Conservatives' endless appetite for obscene corporate profits while everyday Canadians struggle to put food on their tables.
Does the leader of the official opposition not have the guts to take on the corporate greed of Bay Street, or is he simply happy to continue to serve them?
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- Nov/15/22 6:55:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I find it ironic that I heard the hon. member talk about our time on social media. I want to welcome him to TikTok. Many of his comments in the House are very similar to his rhetoric online. He talks about the dumpster fire that is the economy, but he does not have the guts to talk about the arsonist.
While the Liberals bemoan over and over about the cost of living and the high cost of food, why do they not have the courage to take on the fact that companies like Loblaws take in $1 million a day in profit? Why do the Conservatives not have the courage to go after the arsonists of this economy so that people in his constituency can afford to eat? The ultrawealthy in this country keep cashing in on this disgusting use of price gouging and corporate greed.
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Madam Speaker, while I rise in the House as a New Democrat in support of Bill C-30, I should state from the outset that, even with the emergency cost of living economic supports for Canadians made vulnerable in this economy, what people need most is stable social and economic supports that meaningfully improve their material living conditions, funded by a fair taxation that does not place the burden on a consumer tax that disproportionately impacts low-income and working-class people most. What Canada needs is a fair taxation system that would close corporate loopholes in order to recover the reported $30 billion lost due to corporate tax avoidance.
I should begin, in fairness, by highlighting, for those who are watching this debate tonight, that this bill would double the GST credit and provide $2.5 billion in additional targeted support to roughly 11 million individuals and families who already received the tax credit, including about half of Canadian families with children and more than half of seniors.
I believe this debate on Bill C-30 has made clear that most members, despite their partisan rhetoric, agree this bill offers a temporary reprieve from this greed-filled inflation and its inevitable recession, which will likely be associated with further unemployment. That is what keeps me up at night. It is the insecurity of the precarious workers that is built into this cyclical system and reproduced through these cycles to suppress wages and to force people back into exploitative low-paying jobs.
These attacks on workers are simply explained as profit-maximizing measures by shrewd corporate managers. This is why I believe that while contemplating this bill I should spend some time expanding on the preconditions of the economic system that drove us here.
People in Hamilton Centre are suffering. The vast majority of everyday people are unable to keep up with their monthly bills. Soaring inflation has pushed housing, food and energy costs way out of reach for people, and the feeling of insecurity is setting in across the country. Precarious employment is further punishing workers by threatening their ability to survive through this devastating economy, and wages simply are not keeping pace by being kept at and pushed down to devastatingly low rates. In short, workers' wages are being stolen by the record profits of big corporations and the payouts to their CEOs and shareholders.
Every aspect of our lives has been commodified by big banks and Bay Street. Our very existence is valued down to the decimal to be bought and sold by hedge funds and real estate income trusts so that those who have never lifted a finger in hard work in the creation of the means of production are grossly rewarded by the spoils of these dividends and payouts.
There is a class war happening in this country. There has always been a class war happening in this country, and it is being waged by the ultrarich in this country versus everybody else. Over the past 40 years the Canadian economy, both under Liberal and Conservative governments, has generated obscene amounts of concentrated wealth for the rich, while everybody else has been left behind. How can anyone in the House justify the enormous concentration of wealth by so few, while so many continue to suffer?
These everyday Canadian workers are facing down the barrel of another devastating recession, one that we know will be felt most by the rise of unemployment and the overnight hikes of interest rates, making people's payments on mortgages and personal lines of credit explode overnight. The adage of “the rich get richer, while the workers continue to get exploited” is happening now more than ever.
The people of Hamilton Centre are struggling, left to survive the misery of the daily grind of low wages and legislated poverty, should they be living with disabilities, while also facing greed-driven rocket-high costs of living.
The Liberals, with their constant talk about the middle class and those working hard to join it, which is so insulting, would have Canadian workers believe that it is their own fault if they are not getting well-paying jobs or, more accurately, if they are not born into wealth to begin with and that they should blame themselves.
The leader of the official opposition will continue to put big corporations and billionaires first. The Conservatives will blame government for any meagre supports delivered to people living with disabilities, low-wage workers, migrant workers and anybody else left out of this economy. They speak of inflation and the money that was directed to working-class people, yet they never have a critique on the $750-billion bailout of big banks and Bay Street. The Conservatives attack Canada's social safety net of the copay contributions of employment insurance and the Canada pension plan, and not because they care about the contribution of the workers, but because they are fighting to save the contribution copayments by big business corporate employers.
This is at a time when Canadians need this economic support and stability the most. We should be delivering more support to Canadians and not less, particularly those who are left unemployed and our seniors, who are struggling to get by on their meagre CPP. They should be getting more and not less. We should not be attacking their pensions in this House. We should be ensuring that CPP and EI dollars are protected in separate accounts so that successive Liberal and Conservative governments will not have the tendency to raid these funds to balance their books.
While the Conservatives have callously attacked this bill throughout the debate on one hand, we already know that they are going to be supporting it. They are forced to ultimately support it because it is literally the least the government can do in the face of the astronomical costs of living. In their so-called free market fantasy, they never admit that corporations make off like bandits, pilfering government support by exploiting loopholes that have allowed them to take taxpayer dollars while paying out record dividends to their shareholders.
I am often in this House, and when I hear Conservative Party members clapping about the record profits of oil and gas, I ask myself how many MPs are receiving dividends on the profits of the same corporations that took wage subsidies and supports. These companies were not reinvesting in the economy. They were not improving the material working conditions of their employees by raising their wages to keep pace with the basic levels of economic survival. They were lining their own pockets and those of their shareholders.
This capitalist system creates enormous wealth, but it also creates great misery for the majority of people. This entire system is predicated on corporations spending as little as they can while getting the most out of every dollar they spend. It is not that they do not want to pay low wages; they are also pressuring people to get the most output from their workers at this low wage. When we hear about job creation, long gone is the day when a family can have one or two income earners who work nine to five and have enough to pay their bills. Families and workers across the country are forced to participate in two, three or four low-wage exploitative jobs. The rewards in this economy when this wealth is generated always go to the employers while workers continue to be punished.
In this regard and in many other ways, it is the capitalism of the system that generates the inequality. If we can, in a very small tokenistic way, return some money back to the pockets of Canadians, we support that. However, we call on the government to do more by workers, do more by seniors and do more by people who are living with a disability and precarious people who have been exploited by this economy.
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- Sep/29/22 4:29:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I heard the member of the official opposition talk about inflation and copayments for pensions and employment insurance, but not once did she talk about profits. I would like to give the hon. member the opportunity right now. Oil and gas made $147 billion, yet not one word came out of this member about that.
Would she perhaps give some consideration to the runaway profits of the oil and gas sector, the food sector and the housing market, rather than simply being stuck on the taxation associated with it?
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- Sep/27/22 11:35:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, corporate profits are rising twice as fast as inflation while wages are rising only half as fast. Oil companies are making record profits and their CEOs are making millions of dollars in bonuses. Oil and gas made $147 billion this year. Imperial Oil made $2.4 billion.
When workers are hurting, big oil and gas companies are making profit. I hear the Conservatives clapping at that. On the backs of workers, big CEOs are making record profits. We hear them clap.
Does the hon. member side with the New Democrats in providing an excess profit tax on oil and gas companies for profits over $1 billion in order to reinvest money in solutions that make life fairer and more affordable for families, or does the Bloc take the Conservatives' side with big corporate CEOs?
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