Prorogation to lead to renewed calls for speedy privacy reform

The federal privacy commissioner and an NDP MP said they will urge the government to shift gears on privacy reform in light of the death of the government’s privacy bill as a result of prorogation. Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters in Whitehorse this week that he will ask the Governor General to prorogue Parliament in advance of MPs' return to the House of Commons this fall, a move that will effectively kill all government bills tabled in Parliament and not yet passed into law. That includes Bill C-12, the government’s latest attempt to reform the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which outlines how companies and other private organizations collect, use and disclose individuals' personal information, and how they use and maintain electronic records. NDP MP Charmaine Borg said she will now attempt to rally Conservative support for her private member’s bill, Bill C-475, which also deals with PIPEDA reform. “With C-12 dying during prorogation, I'm hoping they'll support my bill,” she said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I am going to be contacting them to see if they can support my bill and if they're willing to move forward to bring our legislation up to date.” Passed into law in 2000, PIPEDA contains a provision that requires Parliament to review the act every five years. The first review, conducted by the House of Commons ethics committee in 2006 and 2007, resulted in 25 recommendations on PIPEDA reform. Some of those recommendations were included in C-12 and its predecessor, Bill C-29, which died on the order paper during the last Parliament when the minority government fell in March 2011, triggering an election. Borg said several Conservative MPs previously told her they could not support her private member’s bill because C-12 was already on the order paper. She said she’s now hoping to woo Conservative and government support for her bill. “Last time around when we had the first hour of debate, they said because of C-12 they weren't going to support it,” she said. “Now that the situation has changed, my intention is to start contacting them again.” The bill, which is not based on the ethics committee review, would give the federal privacy commissioner the power to order companies to change their privacy policies and their handling of individuals' personal information. It would also require organizations to notify the privacy commissioner of data breaches, a requirement recommended by the ethics committee review, and also included in C-12. Borg’s bill, which as a private member’s bill does not die as a result of prorogation, was scheduled for a second hour of debate on Sept. 16, the day the House was scheduled to return. That debate will now be rescheduled for shortly after Parliament’s return, which Harper said will now take place some time in October. Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart will also use prorogation to encourage the government to shift gears on PIPEDA reform, privacy commissioner spokeswoman Valerie Lawton said in an emailed statement Wednesday. Stoddart has previously said some of the recommendations from the ethics committee review have become outdated, due to the spread of Internet services that collect users’ personal information, and has called on the government to conduct a new review of PIPEDA. She has also called on the government to amend PIPEDA to include “financial consequences” for organizations that don’t adequately protect individuals’ private information, and to require organisations to report data breaches. “The Commissioner believes the provisions set out in C-12 were not sufficient to create the kind of incentives we need to ensure that organizations take security issues more seriously in the current environment,” Lawton said. “In light of the recent announcement about prorogation, our Office would again encourage Parliamentarians to proceed with a second review of PIPEDA as soon as possible.” Another bill to die with prorogation is Bill C-56, officially called the Combating Counterfeit Products Act, which would add new civil and criminal charges to Canada’s copyright and trademark statutes and give border agents new powers to seize suspected counterfeit goods. Critics like Michael Geist, the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, have said the bill would position Canada to ratify the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which was rejected by the European Union (EU) last summer after public rallies by its opponents. Geist told The Wire Report in March that C-56 is troubling from a copyright perspective because it requires border guards to “serve as copyright experts” and removes court oversight of their ability to seize goods. It would also allow border guards to turn over to rights holders any goods that are suspected of infringing copyright, he said, adding that rights holders may delay returning those goods even if they are not infringing. Geist said in an emailed statement Wednesday that he believes the government will reintroduce its anti-counterfeiting bill when Parliament resumes this fall. “The government gave it a dry run in the spring and found little opposition from the opposition,” he said. “I suspect it will come back in much the same form.” David Robinson, associate executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), who has been tracking international copyright provisions, said the government will prioritize anti-counterfeiting legislation when Parliament returns. He said the bill contains provisions to support a proposed trade agreement with the EU, over which International Trade Minister Ed Fast indicated the government will resume negotiations this fall. “It’s one of the bills the government wants to put in place if there is going to be a signing of the Canada-European trade agreement,” Robinson said. “I don’t expect there will be a huge problem with this.” Borg, who serves as the NDP’s digital issues critic, said her party was prepared to move C-56 to the committee stage. “We were willing to move that bill forward,” she said. “We'll have to see if the Conservatives bring it back in its form. If they make changes we'll have to see at that point.” In an email response to a request for comments Thursday, Jessica Fletcher, a spokeswoman for Industry Minister James Moore, did not say whether the government will prioritize PIPEDA reform or anti-counterfeiting legislation when Parliament returns this fall. She also did not say whether the government will support C-475, or whether it would launch a new PIPEDA review. "As the Prime Minister has already made clear, we will be moving ahead with a renewed policy agenda set out in a Speech from the Throne this fall," she said. —With reporting by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca.

Prorogation to lead to renewed calls for speedy privacy reform

News | August 22, 2013

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Prorogation to lead to renewed calls for speedy privacy reform

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