44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 20, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I had the opportunity to speak in a large debate, actually with Noam Chomsky, if one can believe it, with the Montreal institute for artificial intelligence, on a similar topic. The reality is that, with AI, the toothpaste is out of the tube. We are not putting it back in. It is incumbent upon humanity to answer that question with a positive outcome that we are putting guardrails around AI so it is developed in the best interest of humanity and propels humanity forward. We need a governance system that allows us to do this.
I am not speaking maliciously against AIDA. It was written at a time well before the technological advances that happened, and it is not going to meet the needs of what my colleague opposite is describing. I would encourage him to go back to his caucus to say that we need to take this component of the bill out. The government needs to rethink it and Parliament needs to think in a non-partisan way about how we are going to drive to that outcome, with smart governance.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.
Obviously, artificial intelligence can be put to good or bad use. One thing puzzles me, though. Generative AI, which describes ChatGPT, has recently displayed truly superior ability. It managed to gather a trove of data that would have been unimaginable even a few months ago. However, the legality of how this trove of data was obtained is unclear.
In relation to the part of Bill C‑27 that deals with personal information and privacy, I would like to ask my colleague if she is concerned about how ChatGPT obtains data.
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Madam Speaker, I am so glad we are having this debate. The large language model technology ChatGPT, as well as the Sydney chatbot, is based on these other technologies. It scrapes and uses massive data sets that may or may not be ethical to use, or as my colleague rightly mentions, they may have issues intellectual property ownership. It is the Wild West. There are no rules around this.
I would like to draw my colleague's attention on this matter to the fact that, without some sort of international agency preventing the balkanization of rules, and because data privacy is such a global network, unless we are taking that problem and working on it with peer countries, it is going to become even more of an issue. He is absolutely right.
Senator Deacon and I are starting a working group on these issues. I hope we can come up with some consensus before we have entrenched partisan positions on this to show that Canada will be a world leader in facilitating a global conversation on this and getting it right.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague about consent rights under this bill. Individuals, under Bill C-27, would have significantly diminished control over the collection, use and disclosure of their personal data. The new consent provisions ask the public to instill what could be an extraordinary amount of trust in businesses to keep themselves accountable as the bill's exceptions to consent allow organizations to conduct many kinds of activities without even the knowledge of individuals. The flexibility, under this bill, would allow organizations to shape the scope of not only legitimate interests but also what is reasonable, necessary and socially beneficial.
Does my hon. colleague share my concerns about the consent rights provisions of this bill, and does she have any suggestions as to what might improve it?
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Madam Speaker, my colleague raises an excellent point. I wish I had three hours to address the privacy components of Bill C-27. I am certainly very keen to follow, should this make it to committee, what happens there.
I am of the opinion that this should not make it to committee. There are so many amendments that need to be made on the privacy components, but more importantly because AIDA was tacked on as an afterthought to this bill. They need to be parsed out so due consideration can be given to the issues my colleague just raised. I think this bill is two bills, with half of it being something out of date and obsolete already. The government could have a far better approach. I hope the public servants in the lobby are listening to this and take this consideration to heart.
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Madam Speaker, so much has changed throughout the last 23 years. In the year 2000, there were about 740 million cellphone subscriptions worldwide. More than two decades later, that number sits at over eight billion. There are more phones on this planet than there are people. It is a statistic that should give anyone pause.
In 2000, Apple was still more than a year away from releasing the first iPod. Today, thanks to complex algorithms, Spotify is able to analyze the music I listen to and curate playlists I enjoy based on my own taste in music. In 2000, artificial intelligence was still mostly relegated to the realm of theoretical discussion, that is, unless we count the Furby. Today, ChatGPT can generate sophisticated responses to whatever I type into it, no matter how niche or complicated.
As technology changes, so too do the laws that surround and govern it. Canada’s existing digital privacy framework, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Document Act, has not been updated since its passage in the year 2000. For this reason, it is good to see the government craft Bill C-27, which is supposed to provide a much-needed overhaul to our digital privacy regime.
For years, the government has been dragging its heels on this important overhaul. For years, Canada’s privacy framework has been lagging behind our international counterparts. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, passed in 2016, is widely considered to be the gold standard for privacy protection. In comparison to the GDPR, I am not impressed with what the government has put forward in this bill.
Indeed, the largest portion of Bill C-27 is roughly 90% identical to the legislation it purports to be replacing, and what the bill has added is quite concerning. Instead of being a massive overhaul of Canada’s archaic PIPEDA framework, Bill C-27 would do the bare minimum, while leaving countless loopholes that corporations and the government can use to infringe upon Canadians’ charter rights.
Bill C-27, while ostensibly one bill, is actually made up of three distinct components, each with their own distinct deficiencies. To summarize these three components and their deeply problematic natures, Bill C-27, if passed in its current form, would lead to the authorization of privacy rights infringements, the creation of unneeded bureaucratic middlemen in the form of a tribunal and the stifling of Canada’s emerging AI sector.
When it comes to the first part of this bill, which would enact the consumer privacy protection act, the name really says it all. It indicates that Canadians are not individuals with inherent rights, but rather, business customers. The legislation states that it has two purposes. It apparently seeks to protect the information of Canadians “while taking into account the need of organizations to collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities.” In other words, individual rights and the interests of corporations or the government are supposed to work in tandem.
In the post-charter landscape, that just does not cut it. Privacy rights must be placed above corporate interests, not alongside them. In the words of Justice La Forest 34 years ago, “privacy is at the heart of liberty in a modern state. Grounded in man's physical and moral autonomy”.
It is true that this portion of the bill mandates de-identification of data when one’s personal information is shared, and it is also true that it requires the knowledge or consent of the individual, but each of these terms, which should ideally serve as the bulwarks of privacy protection, are defined as vaguely as possible, and the remainder of the bill then goes on to describe the various ways in which consent is actually not required.
Subclause 15(5) of the bill would allow organizations to utilize a person’s information if they receive “implied consent”, a slippery term that opens the door to all kinds of abuses. Subclause 18(2) then gives those organizations a carte blanche to use implied consent as often as they would like, or even exclusively. Sure, there could be organizations that, out of the goodness of their hearts, would always seek the express consent of the individuals they are collecting data from, but express consent is in no way mandatory. It is not even incentivized.
Then we come to the concept of “legitimate interest”. Subclause 18(3) gives the green light for organizations to utilize or share one’s information if the organization feels that it has a legitimate reason for doing so. It is not just that this clause is incredibly vague, it is that it makes individual privacy rights subservient to the interests of the organization.
Moreover, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that section 8 of the charter provides individual Canadians with a reasonable expectation of privacy. Given all of the exceptions I have provided, it is not clear to me that this bill would survive a charter challenge.
Recent events should show us the problem with giving so much leeway to corporations and so little thought to individual rights. In 2020, through a third party service provider, the Tim Hortons app began collecting the geolocation data of its users even though they were not using the app. There was also Clearview AI, which sent countless images of people to various police departments without their consent. Maybe Clearview had their “implied consent”. It is all up for debate with a term like that.
This legislation does the bare minimum for privacy protection in Canada and, in many ways, will actually make things worse. When we consider the way in which data collection might develop over the next 10 or 20 years, it is clear that this law will be out of date the moment it is passed and will leave Canadians vulnerable to predatory data practices.
Then there is part 2 of Bill C-27, which intends to set up a Liberal-appointed data protection tribunal. This is not necessary. We already have a Privacy Commissioner who has both the mandate and the experience to do everything that this new tribunal has been tasked with doing. More government bureaucracy for the sake of more bureaucracy is the Liberal way, a tale as old as time itself. Instead of watering down the power of our Privacy Commissioner via middlemen, the duties contained within this part of Bill C-27 should be handed over to the commissioner.
Part 3 of Bill C-27 seeks to regulate the creation of AI in Canada. This is a worthwhile endeavour. At the beginning of my speech, I alluded to ChatGPT, but this only scratches the surface of how sophisticated AI has become and will continue to become in the decades ahead. The problem is the way in which this regulation itself is set up. The bill places no restrictions on the government’s ability to regulate. Unlimited regulation and hefty penalties, up to 5% of worldwide income I believe, is all that is being offered to those who research AI in Canada. This will cause AI investors to flee in favour of other countries, because capital hates uncertainty. This would be a tremendous loss, because, in 2019 alone, Canadian AI firms received $658 million in venture capital.
Conservatives believe that digital data privacy is a fundamental right that should be strengthened, not opened to infringement or potential abuse.
Therefore, Bill C-27 is deeply flawed. It defines consent while simultaneously providing all sorts of reasons why consent can be ignored. It weakens the authority of the Privacy Commissioner. It gives such power to the government that it will likely spell disaster for Canada’s burgeoning AI sector.
This bill is in need of serious amendment. Privacy should be established, within the bill, as a fundamental right. Several vague terms in the bill need to be properly defined, including but not limited to “legitimate Interest”, “legitimate business needs”, “appropriate purposes” and “sensitive information”. Subclause 2(2) states that the personal information of minors is sensitive. That is very true, but this bill needs to acknowledge that all personal information is sensitive. Consent must be made mandatory. The words “unless this Act provides otherwise” need to be struck from this bill.
I find it hard to believe that such substantial amendments can realistically be implemented at committee. For this reason, the legislation should be voted down and sent back to the drawing board. Canadians deserve the gold standard in privacy protection, like that of the EU. As a matter of fact, they deserve even better.
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Madam Speaker, I share many of the concerns and comments members are making with respect to how quickly things are changing. AI, and the impact it is having on society, is quite significant. Where I am inclined to disagree with the member is that the legislation itself at least brings Canada forward, though maybe not to the degree some would like to see. There is the opportunity, after passing it through second reading, to bring it to committee and look at ways in which we can improve the legislation.
Could the member provide his thoughts on whether the Conservative Party, even if it does not see this as perfect legislation, at least sees it as a step forward that would be good to go to committee, where potential amendments could be made to make it even stronger legislation if they feel that is necessary?
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Madam Speaker, what I find interesting about the member's comments is that it just seems that the Liberals never met an industry they did not try to kill.
In Holland 100 years ago, the wooden shoes were called “sabots”. When people threw them into the windmill to gum up the gears, that is where the term “sabotage” comes from, which is what this government tries to do in every single industry it meets, including AI.
Canada has the expertise, the educated computer scientists and technology experts in this country, to be a world leader in the development of AI, but the bill would create a 5% penalty on worldwide income and give all the power of regulations to the minister. If I were going to invest in AI, I would be—
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- Apr/20/23 4:01:27 p.m.
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There are other members to ask questions.
The hon. member for Trois-Rivières.
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Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague referred to privacy as a fundamental right. The former privacy commissioner also raised the topic of privacy as a fundamental right before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
I would like to know what he means when he uses these words. Does he consider privacy to be a fundamental right?
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Madam Speaker, we have, for example, the ruling of Justice La Forest on it 34 years ago. We have section 8 of the charter, which has been interpreted by the courts as protecting privacy rights.
Privacy is what this bill should be all about. It is because of concerns over people's personal, private information that this attempt to legislate the issue is in front of us. However, the fact of the matter is that there are so many exceptions to the rule that it really would not at all do what it is supposed to do. In fact, it would really make matters worse.
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Madam Speaker, there were a lot of good issues that my colleague raised in this context, but I am concerned about where the Conservatives are at this moment, and maybe he can outline the alternative.
Right now, if we do not send the bill to committee, we then trust it to go back to the government and basically assume that it might do more consultation, that it might look at other legislation, that it will even bring the bill back and that the House could actually stand around for that process. If we do nothing on it, we then exclude all the commentary and information we should be getting from hundreds of witnesses who want to actually participate in a public debate on this right now.
Perhaps the member can lay out his party's vision on how long it will take AI to actually be raised in a responsible manner outside of the controls of the government alone, if the bill does not go to committee and we shut everything down now.
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Madam Speaker, the problem with this legislation is that it is just so fundamentally flawed. We just could not deal with all the changes that need to be made in the context of a committee. As just one example, when it comes to protecting the privacy rights of children, there is only one mention in the entire bill. It does not define “minor”. It does not define “sensitive information”. If this were a serious attempt at legislation, we would have, at the very minimum, hard and fast protections for the privacy rights of children, but the bill just does not do it. That is only one thing out of dozens of things.
The bill needs to go back to the drawing board. It needs to be more like what they have done in the European Union and it needs to protect Canadians' privacy.
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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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Madam Speaker, the member started off by talking about the sense of urgency that is there, because of the timing. It has been many years since we have seen the modernization of legislation to deal, in a substantial way, with the issue of privacy on the Internet. There are all forms of data banks and other things that are out there. People want to have the assurance that the national government is in fact acting on the issue.
My concern is that the Conservative Party seems to be determined not to see privacy legislation. Even if it disagrees with it, the principles of the legislation are very positive. Why would the Conservative Party not want to see this legislation at least get to the committee stage, where it could be further discussed?
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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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Madam Speaker, the section of the legislation on artificial intelligence, or AI, suggests self‑regulation. I would like to know whether my colleague supports self‑regulation or if, on the contrary, the state should further regulate the use of AI.
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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, we have been talking a lot today about, as I have certainly heard clearly from the Conservatives, how the bill is without redemption and cannot be fixed as it is just too flawed. One of the previous speakers for the Conservatives mentioned that maybe it could be split into two because it is so large, and certainly I agree. There are so many things that are the matter with the bill, and this is not the first time we have seen Liberal legislation that is highly flawed and that we must try to spend a great deal of time fixing. However, the parliamentary secretary and my own colleague noted the timing, and going back and taking our time knowing the industry is moving so quickly and the technology is moving so quickly.
Are there any recommendations the member could make for when it goes to committee? Maybe splitting the bill into two would be potentially helpful so we can take our time. The bill is out there, so what can we do to make it better?
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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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