Bill C-11 (Historical)

Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020

An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts

Part 1 enacts the Consumer Privacy Protection Act to protect the personal information of individuals while recognizing the need of organizations to collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities. In consequence, it repeals Part 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and changes the short title of that Act to the Electronic Documents Act. It also makes consequential and related amendments to other Acts.
Part 2 enacts the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act, which establishes an administrative tribunal to hear appeals of certain decisions made by the Privacy Commissioner under the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and to impose penalties for the contravention of certain provisions of that Act. It also makes a related amendment to the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada Act.

[Daniel Therrien]

There is no shortage of topics that could be investigated. So we need to use our resources to investigate the topics that pose the most risk. For example, we started an investigation into the use of artificial intelligence in employment. This seemed to me to be a particularly important issue because of the serious risks it poses for job applicants.

The challenges lead us to make choices. For all departments, financial resources are not unlimited, and we are not asking for an unlimited budget either. It's normal that our financial capacities have limits. We try to allocate our activities based on a risk analysis. Among our activities are investigations, which we take the initiative on, as opposed to complaints. People come to us with complaints that we have to respond to. It's important to respond to them because, for them, we are a mechanism for access to justice for citizens. However, they will not necessarily be aware of the practices that are the most risky for privacy, hence the need to be able to start investigations ourselves. We need to be able to do both.

Furthermore, we also need to play a proactive role, for example, by providing advice to companies and government departments and issuing guidelines. Bill C-11 will give us an approval role in codes of practice and allow us to advise companies. All of this is great, but because of the accelerating digital revolution, we need more funding. We are in the process of quantitatively assessing our needs. Unfortunately, some requests will have to be denied because we can't do everything.

[Daniel Therrien]

As I mentioned in my statement.... First of all, I need to acknowledge that in the economic statement of last fall, I believe something in the order of $18 million annually was set aside in that quasi-budgetary document. However, this was not only for the OPC, but for all of the government institutions that will be called upon to implement Bill C-11. We will have a share of it.

That amount was arrived at after consultation with our office before we saw Bill C-11. Now that we see Bill C-11, we see, in particular, our role in approving codes of practice by industry and giving advice upon request to companies about their privacy programs. We did not know that when we gave our estimates to the government, but now that we do, increased funding will be required.

Beyond increased funding—and I'll repeat the point that I made in my statement—we are totally welcoming of the role given to us by Bill C-11 on codes and advice to companies. However, frankly, we cannot do that for each and every request that we will receive. It's why I think we want to engage with business in that regard. Some additional funds will be required, but we also need discretion to manage our workload and to continue what we have done until now, which is to offer our services but not have to answer each and every request. We deal with those that seem to raise the higher privacy risks, for instance.

This is in part about money and in part about discretion for us to say yes to most requests but no to others if our budget cannot accommodate this.

[Daniel Therrien]

It's simply due to the fact that I have not yet been called to testify on Bill C-11. I'm waiting for members of Parliament to send me an invitation. We're ready to go, and as soon as we have a request from members of Parliament, we will be very glad to oblige and put this up on our website.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I think we live in a very exciting time, in many ways, but the questions I get at my office about personal privacy and data collection seem to become more and more important as time goes on.

You mentioned there was an increase of 15% with the budget this year and that you are preparing for legislative changes. You mentioned Bill C-11.

One of your comments I found a little bit curious. You mentioned that you make your briefs available on the website, but you mentioned that the brief on Bill C-11 was not on the website. Was there any issue? Why is it not on the website?

[Daniel Therrien]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

I am pleased to meet with you for the next two hours to discuss our 2021–22 Main Estimates, our activities in general, and then the fundamental issue of facial recognition. All of this, of course, in a context where a very important bill, Bill C-11, has been introduced in the House of Commons.

Last year was one of transition for many organizations, and our office was no exception. We quickly shifted to adapting our processes to continue serving Canadians during the pandemic.

It was also a year of transition on the budgetary and legislative fronts. Our office received a permanent increase of 15% in the 2019 federal budget to address the most urgent needs of the OPC pending legislative reform. This allowed our office to expand our policy and guidance functions, to enhance our advisory services for organizations and to address pressures resulting from new mandatory breach reporting requirements in the private sector.

We also received temporary funding to help us reduce a very large part of our investigative backlog of complaints older than a year. We met and even surpassed our target and reduced the overall backlog of complaints by 91%. We are very proud of that.

Over the past year, our work has included the publication of guidance on protecting privacy during a pandemic, as well as a contextual framework for government institutions to protect privacy in the context of COVID-19 initiatives. Consistent with this framework, we reviewed and advised the government on the COVID Alert app. Following a public consultation, we released key recommendations for regulating artificial intelligence.

We also completed our first breach records inspections report—again, this is about data leaks. In addition, we analyzed and provided recommendations on several legislative initiatives. This included a submission on the statutory review of the Access to Information Act, another submission on the modernization of the public sector Privacy Act, which was the subject of a consultation by the Department of Justice.

Finally, after a detailed analysis of Bill C-11, we completed another brief. All these documents, with the exception of our brief on Bill C-11, are available on our website.

While the injection of funds in the 2019 budget helped us to reduce our backlog and to increase our capacity, there is still a very significant gap. Given the marked acceleration of digitization caused by the pandemic, we continue to struggle meeting the demand in guidance, guidelines and advisory work, and to assist our investigators to address complaints filed by concerned Canadians.

In the government's fall economic update, funds were allocated to support the implementation and enforcement of Bill C-11. This is clearly a good thing. However, now that we know the extent of our new responsibilities under this legislation, we believe additional funding will be required.

Bill C-11 imposes several new responsibilities on the OPC, including the obligation to review codes of practice and certification programs and give advice to individual organizations on their privacy management programs. It should be noted that these are non-discretionary activities, meaning that every time an entity or organization seeks our advice or approval, we will be required to provide our considered opinion.

We welcome the opportunity to work with business. In recent years, I have restructured my office towards a greater proactive approach to guide and engage with organizations toward compliance with the law. We created two new directorates to engage proactively with private and public sector organizations, on a voluntary basis, on privacy risks of a high-impact nature. These activities have increased during the pandemic. Actually, they've been very popular.

As you know, another role we play is to investigate complaints alleging violations of the act. However, it is not our only role. In order to be an effective regulator, we must be able to be strategic in our enforcement and advisory activities, applying a risk-based approach.

As we explain more fully in our submission on Bill C-11, we are concerned that with the non-discretionary nature of our responsibilities under that bill, we will not be able to both serve complainants and organizations and focus on harms to Canadians in general. The issue here is not primarily financial, although in our view additional resources will be required. The OPC should have the legal discretion to manage its caseload, respond to the requests of organizations and complaints of consumers in the most effective and efficient way possible, and reserve a portion of our time for activities we initiate, based on our assessment of risks for Canadians. Such discretion is enjoyed broadly by domestic and international regulatory partners, both within and outside the privacy protection sphere.

Another option to balance our various activities could be ensuring that the OPC's role of approving codes of practice and certification programs under the proposed Bill C-11 be conditional on the payment of a cost recovery fee to ensure that we have the capacity for that task as well as for our other priorities. No regulator, ultimately, has enough resources to handle all the requests it receives from citizens and regulated entities. It is important that my office have the flexibility to allocate resources in ways that will offer the most benefits for Canadians and adjust activities to address new and emerging trends.

In addition to changes brought by C-11, proposals made by the Department of Justice in its recent consultation on modernizing the Privacy Act, the public sector act, would also see significant changes to our role in the public sector, of which we are largely supportive. This includes a new public education mandate, the power to issue guidance to government institutions, a role in issuing advance opinions and overseeing pilot projects, and greater discretion to publish compliance outcomes, among others. Justice's proposals also include an enhanced compliance role for our office, such as expanded proactive audit powers and a form of order-making. We have already begun to plan for these eventualities.

In closing, I would like to point out the fact that, as we look to the future, it will be important that modern privacy laws allow us to act as an effective regulator. Our office should also be provided with the financial resources necessary to implement these laws.

I look forward to working with Parliament on improving the legislative proposals to ensure our modern privacy laws adequately protect the privacy rights of Canadians, while promoting responsible innovation.

Thank you for your attention.

I welcome your questions.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I'm certainly supportive of these efforts. We do need to get this report done. The Canadian people expect it from us. We have to get it to Parliament. I would like to get this done as soon as possible. As I said, the next thing is to clear up the Pornhub/MindGeek study, which is also very important, and get that to Parliament.

I would like to remind my colleagues that we did agree to facial recognition technology. I don't know when Bill C-11 is ever going to come to our table, but we could be looking to get some good work done in the next few weeks.

With that, I'm ready to vote.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Good morning, everyone. Again, happy Monday.

I think this is the first time in a number of days that I've had an opportunity to speak during the committee's proceedings. Obviously, I have a lot of thoughts on the work the committee has been doing in discussing Mr. Fortin's motion, which is in front of the committee, but also on the committee's direction overall.

I understand MP Gourde's sentiments. I have a lot of respect for MP Gourde in terms of his role as an MP but also for his work, more importantly. I do know that he's an individual with a lot of integrity. I agree with Mr. Gourde's suggestion that the committee has a lot of work ahead of it. The committee definitely has a mandate to do the good work that our constituents sent us here to do, and to do the good work of all Canadians and for all Canadians, of course.

We've spent a lot of time discussing Mr. Fortin's motion. Perhaps I will take a step back to how we arrived at Mr. Fortin's motion in terms of the proceedings during this committee and also testimony during the finance committee over the last, I would say, almost year, or eight or nine months.

I look at Mr. Fortin's motion, and I don't see....

First of all, as we've stated a number of times, and as has been set by the precedent of the former government, ministers do need to appear, but not ministerial staff. I think that needs to be pointed out.

Second, on point 6—and I know Mr. Fortin pointed out point 5 on his motion—Minister Fortier “also ordered witnesses Amitpal Singh and Ben Chin not to appear before the Committee, as mentioned in her letters to the Chair dated March 30 and April 7, 2021.”

I don't know where that came from. If I am missing something, then please, someone, do point that out to me. At this moment in time, I'm not too sure—and I cannot confirm from the information that I've received and the information that probably all of us on committee have received—that Minister Fortier, in any sort of way, told anyone not to appear. She appeared here as a minister. She appeared as a minister of the Crown to answer questions. The opposition or the other parties decided not to ask the minister questions, and that was their prerogative. I believe the meeting was ended, so I'm not too sure about the nature of that.

I'm just looking at my notes. Again, it's the responsibility of the ministers to appear here before our committee, not the individuals representing individual offices.

I'm not too sure what Mr. Fortin's intention is with this motion. Is it to provide information to the House that ministers appeared in lieu of their staff or staff members? We know that has been done in other governments. Is it that ministerial responsibility is the correct thing? Is it that we're being prevented from finalizing the report on this study that we've undertaken and that we're close to concluding?

I personally have invested a lot of time in looking at the other studies the committee has been and will be tasked with. Obviously, there is the MindGeek/Pornhub study, which is an ongoing, very important study for our committee. I understand that in the province of Quebec there are even heightened sensitivities that are important to that study. I know that many, if not all, Quebeckers, much like all Ontarians here in Ontario, want us to resume that study, want us to make recommendations, and also want us to ensure that we hear from the other individuals on that study.

Then we obviously have to return to Bill C-11 as well.

That's where I stand.

With regard to Mr. Fortin's motion, if we were to proceed to being able to write a report and put our recommendations down, why couldn't this motion be amended—these are just my humble thoughts—and looked at in the light? If Mr. Fortin wanted to have this appear in the appendix of the report, for example, it could be something very simple on the fact that the ministers were able to appear here.

I'm not saying that I'm putting forward an amendment. I'm just speaking my thoughts.

In the testimony that I've been privy to or had the privilege to see, we've had the Kielburgers show up for seven hours. We've had Katie Telford show up for several hours. We've had the Prime Minister show up for several hours. We've had witnesses come back to us. We asked questions. We've received literally thousands of documents on this study.

We need to finalize this. I agree with Mr. Gourde. We need to move on. I don't think any one of us wants to be debating Mr. Fortin's motion until the end of June. I don't think that's really the will of the committee.

At the same time, I do have significant concerns with Mr. Fortin's motion. In my mind, I can't see why some sort of conversation can't take place.

The ministers of the Crown came to this committee and appeared on behalf of the government. Minister Rodriguez answered several questions from our committee for an extended period of time. Minister Fortier was ready to answer further questions from the committee, but then the committee chose not to; the committee was closed and that was it.

This government followed the precedent set by the prior government in terms of having ministers appear. I think that was the right thing to do. I think that ultimately ministers are accountable.

I know on my team I express all the time that for everything that happens with regard to my being a member of Parliament, I have to be accountable. I have to be accountable for whatever happens in my office and be knowledgeable of it. That's the way I operate, and I think that's the right way to operate organizationally for any such entity.

Again, to Mr. Fortin, I look at this committee, and I've read, understood and heard all the conversation taking place with all our colleagues. In terms of the words, “That the Committee report these events to the House of Commons in order to express its dissatisfaction”, I don't see why it couldn't just be that this be reported in the appendix of the report, if that was the committee's will.

I think that's something we need to examine. I think that's an alternative. Because we've had so much testimony at this committee, as I stated....

Mr. Chair, I don't want to be verbose this morning. I don't want to repeat myself. We have a lot of work in front of us. There's stuff on the notice paper in the House of Commons. There's the budget, which we know is going to assist all our residents. I don't want to veer into the budget, obviously, because that's not part of today's motion.

We have a lot of work to do as parliamentarians in the coming weeks. We're obviously still in the third wave of the pandemic here in Ontario. We need to ensure that we get the support out to all our businesses, workers and employees. Quebec is facing another wave, as is B.C., as is Nova Scotia now and many other provinces.

We know we have a lot of work to do. Part of that is the study in front of us, which is the WE study, if I can refer to it as that.

I think if it's something I do wish to put forward and maybe we can get the language to you, Chair, I could put forward an amendment to Mr. Fortin's motion. We'll see if we can arrive at a way to proceed forward. I want to gather my thoughts before succinctly thinking about where I want to get to.

Gathering our thoughts is how we as a committee can move forward. We do know, again, that we have spent endless hours on this study. I think about how we even got to this point, where a note was sent in.... Over the weekend I was looking at my LinkedIn account. I think I have over 2,000 contacts over LinkedIn, and I receive notes from a number of people. Also, we all work with stakeholders and stakeholders reach out to us.

I know, for example, to the chair and to my Conservative colleagues, that MP Baldinelli and I and others have worked extensively with the wine industry—and I'll take this back to the conversation at hand, Chair. We've been able to work with the wine industry to ensure that we have a prosperous wine sector and there is something in the budget there. We only did that in interacting with the representatives from that sector and reaching out to the various ministers' offices to raise issues. That's part and parcel of our job.

Again, on this one here, a LinkedIn note that was sent said, “Thank you for hearing me out. Thank you for our conversation.” That was the catalyst for the various individuals to say, “Oh my God. Something untoward happened.” Well, not really. We all deal with stakeholders all the time and we all deal with entities that reach out to us to inform us. I'm sure, Chair, many of your members from the beautiful provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan deal with the beef farmers, dairy farmers or chicken farmers or whoever else in the agricultural sector for lentils, barley, or wheat. That was the catalyst for how we got to this motion and why these individuals appeared and why specifically Ben Chin was asked to appear, because there was a LinkedIn note. Funnily enough, on Saturday I was reaching out to the residents of my riding and asking them how they were doing and I was looking at my LinkedIn account and that's how Ben Chin was asked to appear. That's how Ben Chin's name is now in this motion that Mr. Fortin presented to us.

I agree with Mr. Gourde's comments. We need to move on. We need to finalize this study. I do agree. At the same time, I think, as a committee, unfortunately, we've become potentially and possibly bogged down in looking at this motion and saying, (a) what purpose does this motion serve, and (b) how does this motion relate to the study at hand? I'm having a hard time with that, Mr. Fortin.

I do respect every MP equally and try to cordially always have a great working relationship with all MPs on all sides of the aisle and of all political views, even my colleague on public accounts, MP Green, whom I may differ vociferously with on many, many things in terms of policy, but obviously always in respectful disagreement.

I'm looking at this motion, MP Fortin, to maybe break the logjam. We're going to look at it from other points of view in due order so we can complete this study and then move on to a further study. We need to wrap this up and get to the MindGeek/Pornhub study. I know that the individuals in that study, the individuals we had, have reached out to me personally and so they really would like to continue to present. They would love that opportunity, of course.

On this study here, on WE, we've exhausted our time. We need to wrap this study up, but we need to do things, I think, in a manner that's prudent and a manner that obviously reflects the will of this honourable committee and my honourable colleagues.

The reason, if I can even take a big step back, is that in the motion here, the idea of calling parliamentary staffers, bringing them in or not, and any government of any stripe saying no, which the Conservatives did in the prior Parliament because of ministerial accountability, and then getting to the point where this is reported back to the House could potentially be repeated in a future government. The ministers are accountable and do appear. Questions aren't asked, because the parties say, “I don't want the minister to be here; I want this or that particular staffer.”

Again, I go back to the fact that Ben Chin's name is here because someone, the Kielburgers, sent a note to him saying, “Thank you very much”, just saying thank you. Well, now we need Ben to appear here for six hours to ask him every question under the sun, and we want to go into that fishing expedition.

I think that's what really sort of got to me, because, since we are parliamentarians, many people reach out to us. MPs from various parties reach out to me as the parliamentary secretary to the national revenue minister. A member from Mr. Johns' New Democratic Party, the honourable member for Windsor has reached out to me several times on various issues dealing with international taxation issuance. We've collaborated very effectively on that issue and other issues relating to Canada and the U.S.

It's at the point that I think we'd be having Ben Chin or this individual or this staffer come in because a note was sent, when there was really nothing wrong with that, with just saying, “Thank you for listening to us.”

I get the fact, and believe me when I say that transparency and accountability are two pillars within my DNA. I say that in terms of democracy and in terms of any committee's operations and in terms of how we operate as a society, a civil society. Transparency and accountability are the only things that count for me at all levels. For me, transparency and accountability start with the ministers, and that's where they end, with the ministers. That's the only place we can go and the only thing we can do.

It's just so important that we focus on that. That is why the original motion to call these parliamentarians—I was offside—and then the motion now to report this back to the House is something that has left me—and Mr. Fortin used this word “dissatisfaction” at the end of the motion. I'm actually dissatisfied with the original motion, and now with this motion I'm dissatisfied because it points us in the direction, in terms of the accountability and transparency, of saying the staffers should be responsible, not the ministers. The minister should be responsible.

I have a wonderful team that works for me. I think one of them is on the committee right now. At the end of the day, they do great work for me and they work extremely hard, but at the same time I think—our office is not open, but somebody's knocking at the door and I cannot answer that—we need to ensure that the accountability stops with the ministers. That's been my point of view all the time. I believe it was former House leader Jay Hill— I think it was him and if I'm mistaken then please correct the record on that—and I think it was even John Baird who appeared before a committee, and I think that is something that we really need to think about. That's why I think this motion here, going to that point and saying, “We're going to report to the House that these parliamentary staffers did not appear”, is a very, very dangerous thing. I think that's something on which we need to have a collective rethink and so forth.

I understand it is at the will of any member to put forward a motion and they can do so. I think the original idea of bringing these parliamentary staffers—and, remember, I always go back to the catalyst being a thank you email on LinkedIn. Actually, the way LinkedIn accounts work, it's actually already set up. When you log in and you respond to somebody, it's already set up; you don't have to type it. It's just there. It's there: “Thank you for reaching out” or “Thank you for...” or “Congrats”. It's actually quite easily set up. I know I have received emails from individuals from literally all over the world, usually from Europe or here in North America, that say “Let's connect”, “Thanks for connecting, Francesco”, “Hopefully we can work together”, “Hope you're enjoying...”, “Hope you're well”, “Great initiative on the part of the government”, or even questions relating to initiatives. I receive those all the time, probably 10 to 15 messages a day.

That's why I'm saying that to specifically single out Ben in that email between folks.... That's what LinkedIn accounts are. That's why we're here today. That's why we're here on this motion.

Again, Mr. Fortin, I respect the work you do. I respect your advocacy and so forth, but at the same time, I think we need to come to a conclusion on this study, because I want to move on. I definitely want to move on to the MindGeek/Pornhub study. I have 45 briefs that my team and I are going through at this moment, making recommendations, because we know how important that is.

We know how important that is to all Canadians. We know how important that is with the presence of MindGeek/Pornhub in the greater Montreal area, in Quebec, la belle province. We know how important that all is, but we also know how important it is to conclude this study with this motion currently in front of us. We know how it is so important to get this done.

Like I said, my thoughts continue to percolate in terms of putting forward something that I hope we can work with. If we were to present this scenario, if we presented a report and when we concluded the report, we can conclude it with—

[Jim Balsillie]

I'm happy to.

For sure we have to fix the Competition Bureau. You've heard Robin Shaban talk about that. We absolutely need proper privacy regulations to control data. Bill C-11, I've written, is woefully inadequate in that it's written to favour Silicon Valley, not Canada. I know that the ISED minister has responded to approach universities on guidelines for research funding. I don't know why we spend taxpayer money to make Huawei and China richer and more secure at the expense of Canada's security and prosperity.

It's up and down the line. Look at the right-hand side of the chart I showed you. Countries have been doing each one of these items for a changed economy for 25 to 30 years. The most important message I can leave you with today is we need to understand that the role of the government changed 25 years ago. This is not about industrial strategy. This is the role of the government. How do we build that role?

That's why I talk about this economic council. That's a place where we can build the expertise. We haven't built the expertise. You can spend all the money, but if you don't have the expertise to perform it well—whether it's competition, research funding, the Privacy Commissioner; whether they're standards; “trade agreements” which are mega-regulatory agreements—until we understand the role and the focus and the technocracy of it, we're just going to be making foreign countries richer and more secure on Canadian taxpayer funds. That erosion I showed you in that chart is going to continue because this rate of change is accelerating.

I stress that it can be fixed. This is an optimistic story. We have lots of expertise. We can reverse this course, but we have to understand it's an issue.

[Steve Waterhouse]

To update the ways to make this possible, we also need laws that are restrictive enough to discourage some people. We recently spoke about Bill C-11, which concerns the ability to protect individuals' personal data.

Without a definition of what constitutes a cyber conflict, on what basis can we declare the existence of a conflict with an organization that confronts us?

Even article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, doesn't define the term. This makes it difficult to know whether the unexplained shutdown of a power grid constitutes an act of war. Once a cyber conflict is defined, we'll be able to understand the scope.

Digital Charter Implementation Act

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, I did say that the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands was always right, but what I find even more honourable about her is how she apologized when she was wrong. I have a ton of respect for that member, and I will always listen attentively to what she has to say.

The reason I kept raising the point of order is that the preceding two speakers to this member kept going on and on about how the government is not responsible: The government sets the agenda; it has all been the government, and the government can do what it wants. However, in reality, we have seen that the opposition and this member came forward and maybe for 30 seconds out of the 10 minutes actually spoke about Bill C-11. His agenda, and we all know this from being in the House, is totally on another matter.

I get jaded, perhaps, when I see members from the opposition coming in here and saying, “It is the government. Why has the government not done anything? We would never play these games.” Then, literally right after they are done speaking, this member comes in here and plays this game. That is where my concern is born from.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while I am thrilled that members are listening so intently, I do think it is a bit telling that they cannot even get through a 10-minute speech without their tactics. It is disappointing, to say the least.

However, I left off speaking about the report that bears the Prime Minister's name. Now, the member opposite heckled when I said that, saying that if the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands is raising the point, one knows one is really out of order. Well, we see that is not the case. While the member opposite has to speak for his team today, what I can say is that the official opposition recognizes that the tactics being used by the government by attempting to send Bill C-11 to the ethics committee are part of a coordinated cover-up.

Liberals do not want to deal with the privacy of Canadians. They have had six years to do it. They do not want to deal with the privacy of Canadians. They refuse to take simple steps like banning Huawei, like Five Eyes partners. They do not want to take the necessary steps. They do not want to send this to a committee that is going to deal with this uninterrupted.

When the report bearing the Prime Minister's name comes to committee, we are going to put Bill C-11 to the side and we are going to address that report from the Ethics Commissioner. If the government really wants this legislation to be dealt with in an earnest way, then it is going to send it to a committee, as suggested by the opposition, that ought to be dealing with it, because the industry committee deals with the industry minister, and the ethics committee deals with the Ethics Commissioner.

When we have a bill that the government members profess is designed to protect the privacy of Canadians and is so important to them, we would expect that they place it at a committee where it can be given its due consideration and not time it with their hope that it will be able to displace the work of an officer of Parliament. The committee is surely going to deal with that matter; it is of great public interest.

While I look forward to members asking questions that are germane to Bill C-11, and of course we are not going to hear any questions that stray away from the meat of this bill, it is incredibly important that people recognize that as the defence committee has filibustered, as the ethics committee has filibustered, as PROC has filibustered and as Parliament was prorogued, this bill is being used in an attempt to avoid embarrassment for the government, for the Prime Minister. When a report from the Ethics Commissioner lands at the ethics committee, it will be dealt with and Bill C-11 will be put to the side, and Liberals will say that the opposition does not care about the privacy of Canadians.

We do now, we did before and we will then, but the government has a choice to make, and today it can decide to send that bill to the industry committee and it will receive due consideration. I would be happy to give our full attention to Bill C-11 and its merits, debate those and make amendments at the industry committee, but if government members are looking to disrupt the work of the ethics committee, they are going to be unsuccessful in doing that.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is very kind of the hon. member; I appreciate her so doing.

Back to the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, I have been, as I indicated I would, listening carefully to the hon. member. In fact, his argument, as I have been following it, has to do with the delay of the scheduling of this particular bill before the House. I suppose that is a legitimate point of debate in the House.

I see we still have about three minutes left, and I am sure he is going to link those ideas together and conclude with his arguments being relevant to Bill C-11. We will let the hon. member finish.

The hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to interrupt the member again when he starts speaking, so I thought this would be the best time to do it. On the same point of order I raised earlier, since you made your ruling, he mentioned the title of Bill C-11, talked about Huawei for about 15 seconds, and then immediately went back to the Ethics Commissioner report.

Now we are rising on a point of order to talk about a report that is completely unrelated to Bill C-11. I know the member indicated that one can supposedly loosely relate, but that is not the case. It is only the case sometimes with special bills like budget bills.

I would encourage you, Mr. Speaker, to encourage the member to stay on topic and not stray away again, because you already ruled on this once.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, the concern the government has with the content of the testimony of those individuals who were ordered to appear is so great that ministers of the Crown ordered individuals not to appear at committee, in contravention of an order of this House. We have seen the lengths to which the government is prepared to go to avoid talking about issues that are embarrassing to it and that are damaging to it.

We now have Bill C-11. We have legislation where, for many months, the opposition has been calling on the government to take a major step to protect Canadians' privacy, and it could achieve that by banning Huawei. We heard very troubling reports today about a country where we learned that via Huawei, communist China was able to listen in to a NATO partners' phone calls happening in that country and listen to the phone calls of a prime minister. This certainly is vindication for everyone who has called for Huawei to be banned. That is a concrete step that the government could take, with the support of this House, to protect the privacy of Canadians, but that has not happened.

We are six years into the mandate of the Liberals. They got a new mandate two years ago. Now they have this legislation. The industry minister has put it forward, but they do not want it to go to the industry committee. They want it to come to the ethics committee.

Why did they wait until this spring before they wanted it to arrive at the committee? Interestingly, last summer, the Ethics Commissioner said that he was investigating the Prime Minister for the Canada student service grant debacle, after the Prime Minister had said he failed to recuse himself from discussions related to the awarding of that contract. Members of the Prime Minister's family had received half a million dollars from the WE organization, and then the Prime Minister voted to give that same organization a half-billion-dollar grant, which would have included more than $40 million in benefit or revenue for the WE organization.

After the Ethics Commissioner said that he was going to conduct that investigation, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's office put out a tweet. The tweet highlighted the timeline that it usually takes for a report to come back on a potential violation of the Conflict of Interest Act. The first two reports issued by the Ethics Commissioner with respect to the Prime Minister were “The Trudeau Report” and “Trudeau II Report”. There will be a third report bearing the same name, which is due this spring. So—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I appreciate the interventions by hon. members. Indeed, relevance is a legitimate point of order when it is raised, and I compliment each of the hon. members for their knowledge of the Standing Orders in this respect.

I have heard from each member. I will listen carefully to the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes in respect to his comments on the matter. Yes, there is certainly latitude given to members, for example to make comparisons with respect to the topic before the House. I recognize he is just a little over three minutes into his speech, and I am sure that he will continue to keep his comments relevant to the matter before the House, that being Bill C-11.

The hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.