44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 28, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/28/23 12:38:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my esteemed and dynamic colleague from Shefford.
Women in Quebec and Canada are lucky in many respects. We can go to school, hold a job, get involved in our community and go into politics. We still have a number of battles to wage to achieve full gender equality, but we have it pretty good compared to some.
We have it pretty good because in some other parts of the world women do not have nearly as many rights and freedoms as we do here. Let us not forget that women and girls in Afghanistan have been unable to attend school or university for many months now. Let us not forget that women and girls are being disfigured with acid for refusing to enter into a forced marriage. Let us not forget that women and girls are being kidnapped, held captive, forced to convert and forced to marry one of their abductors. Let us not forget Mahsa Amini, who was abused and beaten to death, and all of the other deaths that followed. These people were imprisoned, tortured, blinded and killed, all because they stood up and demanded what we have here: freedom and equal rights. This goes well beyond being required to wear a hijab by the regime. It is a matter of freedom and equality.
For months, we have been outraged to see such things happening over and over again in Iran, but nothing has been done. Is the regime fed up with seeing our outrage? It is not. Is the regime fed up with our protests and awareness nights? It is not. To keep my language parliamentary, I will say that the regime does not care at all.
These protests all have one thing in common. They seek to raise awareness of the situation among Quebeckers and Canadians and their governments, so that these governments can take practical action and not just pay lip service. One of the things the protesters want is for the government to seize or at least freeze the material and financial assets located on Canadian soil of Iranian nationals associated with the IRGC, the Iranian armed forces, the Iranian morality police and Iranian intelligence agencies.
There is nothing about that in the motion and there is nothing about what my constituents told me in it. However, it does provide a worthwhile approach in terms of sanctions, that of asking the government to stop issuing visas to Iranian nationals with ties to the groups that I just mentioned.
Today, I am using my voice and my words here to share a message from my constituents. I spent time with them, I demonstrated with them, and we spent evenings together informing people about what was really happening in Iran.
Next, I am going to talk about the means at our disposal to exert real pressure. My constituents told me that, right now in Canada, there are people with ties to the regime who are making financial and material investments here only to then redirect those funds to support the Iranian regime. My constituents are asking me when those individuals will be subject to the same measures we reserved for the Russian oligarchs, meaning when their assets will be frozen to prevent support going to this untenable and unacceptable regime.
My constituents also shared a number of concerns with me, including the fact that this regime is powerful and has a long reach. They reminded me that money not only provides support for the Iranian regime but also allows some Iranian permanent residents or Canadian citizens in Canada to be monitored. They fear for their safety, and yet, that was the reason they came to Canada: to be safe, free, equal and secular. Some of them have received threats to their family back in Iran.
Every day they are worried that their name will get out there and that their family will be punished because they chose freedom. In fact, they fear going through the same experience that we have seen Chinese citizens and Uighurs go through in our own country. They even worry about travelling abroad, for fear that their plane will inadvertently be taken for a foreign missile.
My constituents tell me that individuals involved with some of the organizations I mentioned, or who are funded by them, are very active at every level. They do everything they can to downplay the actions taken, to have others shoulder the blame for appalling acts that are committed, to clear the regime. My constituents really want to avoid seeing here the experiences and events happening there. People tell me that they chose to live in Quebec because of our freedom and equality that they cherish above all else.
Now, for our part, we are we doing? We are protesting, side by side, with the Iranian citizens and protesters. Again, these are just words. There is no action. Where are the sanctions?
The government is aware of the suspicious situations I just mentioned, of the presence of Iranian nationals linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian Armed Forces, the Iranian Guidance Patrol or Iranian intelligence organizations. Nothing is being done.
There is a sanction in place, although it is apparently difficult to enforce and cannot be applied to everyone. Once again, there are ways to do that, and action is needed.
As many people know, I was once a teacher and a vice-principal. When classroom and school rules needed to be implemented, certain questions came to mind. What is the goal? What means do we have to enforce the rules? What sanctions can we apply? Are the means and sanctions consistent with the goal?
I mention this because it is important to be able to apply sanctions, when needed. If that cannot be done, the government will end up in a situation where it is constantly talking and never doing anything. That is basically what is happening right now.
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act does have teeth and provides for a case-by-case analysis of the people suspected of being tied to the organizations that I mentioned. Why is this not done? We have the tools to apply the sanctions. Canada has a list of those responsible and of those at the most senior levels of the regime. The committee's recommendation does go further and prohibits entry of any cell of the regime in Canada. Let us evaluate every case before issuing a visa. Naturally, that is a lot of work, but it ensures the safety of our citizens of Iranian origin and the entire population.
In conclusion, as I was saying, we must protect our fellow citizens of Iranian origin so they can truly enjoy the life of freedom, equality and safety that they came here for. We must implement concrete and real measures to starve the regime so that it does not have the financial and ideological means to continue its wrongdoing and atrocities in Iran.
We must take action for Mahsa and for so many others. If we do not, we are accomplices.
I am going to borrow a phrase from a song by Loco Locass: Go for it, do it.
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Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for this opportunity to speak to Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act, 2022. While there are many important components of Bill C-27 to debate, my speech today will focus on just two aspects. The first is privacy, and the second is identity.
The protection of both the privacy and the identities of Canadians is essential. We need to ensure that strong legal mechanisms are in place to guarantee that protection. Connected with that is the need to protect from the commercial interests of private companies, as well as protection from the government and its potential overreach into the private lives of Canadian citizens. Consequently, I believe a national digital charter is urgently needed. To protect Canadians, it is important that we have a piece of legislation that acts as an umbrella to protect Canadians from government, and to uphold the privacy of Canadians' data and their digital identities.
The second part of my speech will highlight some of the breaches that have occurred over the past three years. These breaches drive home the urgent need for more stringent protection for Canadians when it comes to privacy and protecting their private information.
Privacy rights are at the heart of any democracy. They are necessary for reinforcing the limits and boundaries between private citizens, their government and the private sector. In Canada, individual liberties are guaranteed by section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has made comments on this. She stated, “liberty...depends on and mandates respect for the individual and his or her right to be free from government restraint, except as authorized by law.”
Justice McLachlin further explains why it is important for government to keep the people informed and to answer questions, stating, “People who possess power, even small administrative powers, may use information they should not have improperly. And even if they don’t, the individual’s fear that they may use it, often leads to unwilling compliance.”
Just as we have fundamental freedoms entrenched in the highest law of our land to protect us from government encroachment of our freedoms, I also believe that it is necessary to have digital data privacy legislation. That is a fundamental right that urgently requires the strengthening of our legislative protections and enforcement.
That is why we need a federal digital charter, which would act as an overarching piece of legislation. However, Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act, falls short of this very important objective. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner, for years, has made several calls for reform. Privacy watchdogs have repeatedly lamented that our federal privacy laws are outdated, that they fail to provide the needed legal protections in an increasingly digital world.
Canadians also have serious concerns about privacy. First, they have concerns about how their private information is being used, and what large corporations and governments are doing with it. Second, these concerns have turned into a fear because of the misuse and abuse of private information in the recent years.
This leads me to the second point of my speech. I will speak about the bigger problem in the privacy landscape in this country, which is that the Liberal government is failing to update its own legal boundaries and parameters in this area. The reality is that this bill does not touch on the Privacy Act, the act that governs the government, and this digital charter does not cover how the government handles the information it collects from Canadians.
Essentially, this bill is saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” With this bill, the government is telling businesses, even sole proprietorships, that they should add additional layers of red tape under the threat of financial penalties. Business owners are still struggling to recover from COVID setbacks, lockdowns and government red tape.
My fear is that many of these small businesses, subject to these new requirements, would not be able to survive or have the capacity to implement some of these new requirements. These demands come even though government itself has failed to lay down the rules and regulations as to what is needed in the form of a regulatory infrastructural framework to secure our digital future.
A digital charter is needed to protect Canadians, but the federal government should be leading by example by outlining a digital charter that would protect the personal data and privacy of its own citizens first, before it asks businesses to do so. Let us be honest that the number one privacy concern Canadians have right now is how their government is using their information. These fears were exacerbated during the trucker convoy when Canadians’ bank accounts were frozen and property was confiscated through the abuse of the Emergencies Act.
Canadians still remember how the government quietly spied on their movements during the pandemic without their consent. A year ago, it was discovered that the Public Health Agency of Canada was tracking Canadians' movement during the pandemic. This was done without their knowledge, and PHAC wanted to keep doing it quietly for years into the future, but it was the Conservative opposition that discovered this breach and stood up for Canadians. We demanded answers from the Public Health Agency on the way the data was collected, how it was defined, what third parties were privy to the data and whether any data was reidentified. It is important that the government answer these questions and sets standards because it is falling short of its own requirements.
Canadians have not forgotten even the ArriveCAN debacle, the privacy questions around its mandatory use, and the terms and conditions associated with it. In other words, exactly what personal data and identifying information has been shared outside the app? Under what circumstances, and with which domestic or international organizations, was it shared? The app’s privacy notice even stipulated that the government had the right to share our information contained in the app with international organizations and institutions.
Canadians have a right to know with whom their data is being shared. This matter, it is no surprise, was referred to the Privacy Commissioner for an investigation. We are still waiting for an answer on the ArriveCAN privacy breaches.
Let us not forget that Canadians were fined thousands of dollars and threatened at their own borders for not submitting their own private medical information. This was, in my view, a massive overreach of government powers, but the reality is that this overreach happened because Canada has insufficient legal safeguards in place to prevent such abuses, and this creates a profound distrust in government.
It concerns me that the government is moving toward integrating a digital proof of identity framework that would massively expand the centralization of government access to the private information and data of Canadians. There are numerous ethical abuses that relate to this data collection.
The biggest concern is having all of one's private information in one place. Imagine our health information, driving information and banking information all in one portal. This would give information handlers a great deal of power over our data. This power urgently needs to be kept in check, and we need public experts in consultation on the ethics behind this centralized data collection power to uncover what we need to do to protect Canadians.
In conclusion, Canada’s digital privacy framework has long been in dire need of modernization. I want to thank the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, which worked hard on this issue for years. Canadians must have the right to access and control the collection, use, monitoring and retention of their personal data. However, in Canada, the Liberal government is failing Canadians by not prioritizing its own accountability when it comes to protecting privacy rights. The bill sadly fails to put forward a rigorous and comprehensive legislative framework that would defend Canadians’ data, privacy and digital identities, now and in the future.
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Mr. Speaker, to bring it back to the topic of this debate, Bill C-27, the intention of the bill is to modernize the protection of digital privacy rights in Canada. The previous iteration of the bill was roundly panned by stakeholders when it was introduced in the previous Parliament. However, in this new version, Bill C-27, the government has added a few new elements, for example, regulating artificial intelligence.
Unfortunately, there are so many different elements within the bill that nobody can actually address all the issues within a 10-minute speech, so I will focus on the privacy issues that are sorely lacking within the legislation.
The bottom line is that the new bill, Bill C-27, remains fundamentally flawed and is, simply put, a redux of the former bill. Essentially, what it would do is put lipstick on a pig.
The dramatic and rapid evolution in how we gather, use and disseminate digital information in the 21st century has presented the global community with not only a lot of opportunities but significant challenges as we try to protect society and individuals against the unauthorized use of their data and information. This directly implicates the issue of privacy and the various Canadian pieces of legislation that address the issue of privacy.
This is not the first time the Liberal government has tried to “fix” a problem, and I use that term advisedly. It tries to fix things, but just makes things worse. In the 21st century, we are faced with immense challenges in how we protect individuals, our Canadian citizens, against those who might misuse their data and information. Any suggestion that this digital charter is actually an articulation of new rights is simply wrong. This is a digital charter, but it is not a digital charter of rights.
I will turn to the most significant and substantive part of the bill, the privacy elements. Very little of this legislation has been changed from the original Bill C-11, and the government has not measurably responded to the criticism it received from the stakeholders when the previous version of the bill was reviewed at committee.
There are five key additions and alterations to Canada's existing privacy protection laws.
First, the bill expressly defines the consent that Canadians must give in order for their data and information to be collected and used, and there are guidelines attached to that. We commend the government for doing that clear definition of consent.
Second, Bill C-27 addresses the de-identification, the anonymization of data that is collected by private companies. Again, that is important. We want to ensure when private businesses collect information from consumers that this information is not attached to a specific individual or citizen.
Just to be clear, the bill contains numerous broad exemptions, which we could probably drive a truck through, and will likely create the loopholes that will allow corporations to avoid asking Canadians for permission.
Third, the bill provides that all organizations and companies that undertake activities that impact the privacy of Canadians must develop codes of practice for the protection of the information they collect.
Finally, the act would create harsher financial penalties, up to $25 million, for a violation of Canadian privacy rights. We, again, commend the government for doing that.
However, let me say for the record that what we do not support is the unnecessary creation of a new personal information and data protection tribunal, which is another level of bureaucracy that would add more layers of complexity, delays and confusion to the commissioner's efforts to enforce privacy laws.
Canada is not alone in expressing concern over the risks that digital information and data flows represent to the well-being of Canadians and our privacy rights. Many other countries are grappling with the same issue and are responding to these threats, and none more so than the European Union. The EU has adopted its general data protection regulation, the GDPR, which has now become the world's gold standard when it comes to privacy protection in the digital environment.
The challenge for Canada is that the EU, which is a market of over half a billion well-heeled consumers, measures its willingness to mutually allow sharing of information with other countries against the GDPR, the standard it has set. Those who fall short of the rigour of that privacy regime will find it difficult to conduct business with the EU.
Do our current regime and this legislation measure up to the GDPR from the EU? No, probably not. In fact, for years Canada's digital data privacy framework has been lagging behind those of our international counterparts. The problem is that if we do not meet the standard, we will not be able to do the kind of business with the EU we expect to. As someone who played a part in negotiating our free trade agreement with the European Union, I know it would be an absolute travesty to see that work go to waste because our country was not willing to adopt robust privacy and data protections.
I note that, as is the custom with our Liberal friends, the bill creates more costs for taxpayers to bear. There is a creation of new responsibilities and powers for the commissioner, which we support, but this legislation calls for the creation of a separate tribunal, a new layer of bureaucracy and red tape that small and medium-sized enterprises will have to grapple with.
There are other unanswered questions. Why does this legislation not formally recognize privacy as a fundamental right? Regrettably, as presented, Bill C-27 misses the opportunity to produce a path-breaking statute that addresses the enormous risks and asymmetries posed by today's surveillance business model. Our key trading partners, especially the EU, have set the bar very high, and the adequacy of our own privacy legislation could very well be rescinded by the EU under its privacy regime.
Thirty-five years ago, our Supreme Court affirmed that privacy is “at the heart of liberty in a modern state”, yet nowhere in this bill is that right formally recognized. Any 21st-century privacy regime should recognize privacy as a fundamental human right that is inextricably linked to other fundamental rights and freedoms. By the way, I share the belief that as a fundamental right, it is not appropriate to balance off the right to privacy against the rights of corporations and commercial interests. Personal privacy must remain sacrosanct. When measured against that standard, Bill C-27 fails miserably.
I have much more to say, but I will wind down by saying that this bill is another missed opportunity to get Canada's privacy legislation right by consulting widely and learning from best practices from around the world. There is a lot riding on this bill, including the willingness of some our largest trading partners to allow reciprocal data flows. This bill is not consistent with contemporary global standards.
The Centre for Digital Rights notes that this legislation “fails to address the reality that dominant data-driven enterprises have shifted away from a service-oriented business model towards one that relies on monetizing [personal information] through the mass surveillance of individuals and groups.” That should be a wake-up call to all of us. Sadly, this bill fails to listen to that call. Let me repeat that there is a move toward monetizing personal information through mass surveillance of individuals and groups, and the government has not yet recognized that.
For those reasons, I expect the Conservatives will be opposing this bill and voting against it.
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Madam Speaker, I should have pointed out at the beginning of my speech that I would be sticking around to answer any questions and address any comments. I appreciate the member for Winnipeg North, who I hear an awful lot, so I am getting used to him.
I do appreciate the member's question about whether or not Conservatives support this legislation because, in principle, we support the concept that there needs to be regulation in protecting, acquiring, monitoring and distributing individuals' personal data. He pointed out that the Liberal government was the one that brought in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I have a question for the member, and I know he cannot answer it, but why did the government not respect the charter?
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