- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- St. Albert—Edmonton
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $184,501.20
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-65, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act. I listened attentively to the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader's speech. He characterized the bill as “good stuff” and suggested that at the end of the day, the Conservatives would support the bill. I can assure him that what is in the bill is not good stuff and that the Conservatives will not be supporting it.
There are problems with this bill, putting aside the pension issue, which I will get into later. There are amendments that we cannot support. For example, one of the amendments provided for in the bill is with respect to special ballot voting, whereby a voter would be able to mark their ballot by filling in their preferred political party as opposed to their preferred candidate. This raises constitutional questions.
Under our Constitution, there are multiple references to individuals being elected to the House of Commons. In contrast, there is not a single reference to political parties, and that is because in Canada, we elect individuals to the House of Commons; we do not elect political parties. This amendment would completely upend that. I submit that, while it is arguable that the amendment is unconstitutional, at the very least it is problematic. For instance, if it were to be adopted, what is to say that another amendment could not be made to the Canada Elections Act whereby the names of individual candidates are removed altogether and Canadians would simply mark their ballot by filling in their preferred political party?
Another problematic amendment to the Canada Elections Act provided for in the bill relates to assisting voters marking their ballots. As it stands today, a voter who requires assistance may receive assistance from an individual to help them mark their ballot. Such an individual may only help one voter in an election, and there must be some personal connection between the voter and the individual assisting them. This legislation would remove both of those criteria. With this bill, an individual would be able to help an unlimited number of voters mark their ballot, notwithstanding any connection of any sort between the person assisting and the elector. I would submit that this, on its face, raises questions of potential abuse, and I therefore suggest that this amendment be carefully scrutinized at committee.
With respect to the third party financing regime, this bill is a step in the right direction but is inadequate. It is a step in the right direction insofar as it makes an important step forward with respect to financing during the pre-election and election periods. It appears that the objective of the changes to third party financing is for the expenditures third parties make during those periods to be made from funds donated by individual Canadian contributors in the same way as political parties must raise donations from individual Canadians. The problem is that it does not entirely close a long-standing loophole whereby third parties can use contributions made from foreigners, foreign funds, to influence elections.
I have to ask why the Liberals have not seen fit to close that loophole. We know that during the 2015 election, millions and millions of dollars were funnelled from U.S.-based organizations, including the U.S.-based Tides Foundation, to registered third parties that ran a coordinated campaign to defeat Conservatives, to the benefit of the Liberal Party.
After nine years of the Prime Minister, we have seen a Prime Minister and government that have a deeply troubling record of turning a blind eye to foreign interference and even being complicit in foreign interference, whether that foreign interference emanated from Beijing or from the U.S., so long as it benefited the Liberal Party. I cannot help but wonder if the reason the Liberals have not fully closed this foreign money loophole with respect to third party financing is that they see it as a loophole that benefits them electorally.
I could go on to talk about other aspects of this bill and problems with it, but at the end of the day, it really does not matter, because this bill is not an elections bill. That is not what this bill is about. It is a pension bill. It is the loser Liberal pension protection act, under the guise of an elections bill.
By the way, the government is not fooling anyone. To put it into context, we have a deeply unpopular Prime Minister in government who is on the verge of facing a massive electoral defeat whenever he has the guts to call the next election. What that means, of course, is that many of the Liberals sitting across the way are not going to be here after the next election. They have to call an election by October 20, 2025, but the problem they have is that the Liberals who were elected in 2019, many of whom face almost certain defeat, do not qualify for their pension. What do the Liberals do? They introduce the loser Liberal pension protection act to push back the election date so that all of a sudden, the soon-to-be loser Liberals can pad their pockets with a pension.
This is about as cynical and dishonest as it gets from arguably one of the most cynical and dishonest governments that have ever governed this country. It is an absolute abuse of the legislative power of the government. It constitutes the government yet again giving everyday Canadians, as it does every day, the middle finger, as the Liberals pad their pockets. After nine years, they have pummelled everyday Canadians, made life less affordable and caused enormous hurt and pain for Canadians.
Contrary to the representation of the member for Winnipeg North, the Conservatives will not be supporting the loser Liberal pension protection act.
With that, I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-65, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, as the Bill delays the next federal election so that more departing members of Parliament can collect taxpayer-funded pensions, a measure that is particularly offensive at a time when Canadians are struggling due to the NDP-Liberal Government's inflation, carbon tax and housing costs.
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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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