- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Hamilton Centre
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $131,250.15
- Government Page
- Mar/21/23 2:15:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today in solidarity with those honouring March 21 as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It was on this day, in 1960, that the Sharpeville massacre claimed the lives of 69 Black people murdered by the police during a peaceful demonstration against the pass system in apartheid South Africa.
In Hamilton, we have a long legacy of community-wide human rights activism. I am especially proud to congratulate my sister and MPP elect Sarah Jama, who as an ardent anti-racism organizer and who won a decisive victory in the by-election in Hamilton Centre.
Today, I would also like to recognize the tireless efforts led by my brother Darren Green and the USW Hamilton Steelworkers Council, alongside the HCCI, HARRC, ACCA, CCAR, the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, the Hamilton Black History Council and dozens of other local organizations over the past decade. They continue to come together on this day to honour the victims of racial discrimination and continue our pledge to fight to see it eliminated.
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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, I really appreciate the hon. member for allowing me to expand on that, given my proximity to the Haudenosaunee territory, where the Six Nations of the Grand River are actively involved in their own policing.
If we acknowledge that we are in nation-to-nation relationships, then we have to grant sovereignty, ultimately, over all decisions within those territories, which would absolutely include policing. We only have to look at the pipeline to prison, which starts, as we know, with policing in schools and ends up with the disgusting and abhorrent overrepresentation of indigenous people within our prison systems. That is absolutely an indictment on the ways we have failed to provide fair and adequate access to the legal system.
What we need to do is work toward having a justice system in this country. We cannot have a justice system until we address the ongoing colonialism that is expressed through the state's monopoly on violence as it relates to policing within indigenous communities.
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- Oct/24/22 2:46:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with growing fears about the looming recession, the need for strong social safety nets could not be more important for Canadians. Inflation has already made life unaffordable for most and rising interest rates will result in higher consumer debt, along with hard-working people losing their jobs. However, just last month, the Liberals allowed the temporary expansion of EI eligibility to expire, leaving workers in Hamilton Centre and across the country to suffer.
Will the government commit to making long-overdue reforms to the EI program now to ensure that workers can get the financial support that they have earned and that they deserve?
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- Sep/20/22 2:50:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, this Liberal government will change the rules for EI, making it harder for workers to get the benefits that they have earned.
Canadian workers are caught between a rock and a hard place. On one side we have the Liberals punishing workers by cutting EI and keeping their wages at rock bottom, and on the other side we have Conservatives intent on abandoning workers altogether who are hardest hit by this economy. At a time when workers are struggling with the rising cost of living, this Liberal government is choosing to make them suffer more.
Will this Liberal government immediately stop the changes to EI and finally fix the broken system?
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- May/12/22 12:10:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I find it laughable that the Conservatives basically reference the Communist Party of China now as though it was not the Communist Party of China when Harper signed FIPA. I will reference some of the ways in which that deal was described. It was absolutely “naive” with “capitulation to China on everything”, and, “The terms agreed to by Ottawa are unprecedented and would be laughed out of Britain, Brussels, Canberra or Washington. Beijing has negotiated a heads-I-win-tails-Canada-loses deal.”
Would the hon. member not agree that much of the malaise that we are in right now with China economically is due to the 31-year deal that the Harper government signed when he was in power?
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- Apr/25/22 4:42:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating the hon. member for his 34 years of service and thank him for that.
I know that communities in his riding in Winnipeg are very much like mine in Hamilton Centre, yet Canada continues to see major losses in existing affordable housing as big corporations and REITs continue to scoop up housing on the market and renovict tenants. We have so many constituents who are living houseless, living in despair and dying needlessly in our streets.
Organizations such as FCM and the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness have been calling for the creation of an acquisition fund to support non-profits to rapidly acquire apartment buildings that go onto market in order to preserve and increase housing affordability. Will this hon. member and his government commit to the creation of such a fund to help combat the erosion of truly affordable housing in our communities?
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