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.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Let me pose my questions, if I could. Thank you.

I understand all of that, and there are different systems, but privacy commissioners all talk to each other. They're not some sort of independent, isolated person. In fact, they talk to each other around the world.

I'm sure you've read this, but in the current Privacy Commissioner's submission on Bill C-11 in 2021, he wrote:

The central issue in this design is as follows. In order to enhance consumer confidence, we believe that the decision-making system for adjudicating complaints should be as fast and efficient as possible. In order for individuals to have confidence, they would expect there to be real and timely consequences when the law is violated. Of course, the system must also be fair to businesses. Over a 40-year period, the OPC's performance in this regard has been excellent, and we welcome making our procedures more transparent and consulting on ways to enhance them. We are also prepared, should Parliament grant us the power to impose monetary penalties, to have to take into account any relevant factors, beyond those set out in—

He mentioned a particular section in the previous bill.

He continued:

In our opinion, the design of the decision-making system proposed in the CPPA goes in the wrong direction. By adding an administrative appeals Tribunal and reserving the power to impose monetary penalties at that level, the CPPA encourages organizations to use the appeal process rather than seek common ground with the OPC when it is about to render an unfavorable decision. While the drafters of the legislation wanted to have informal resolution of cases, they removed an important persuasive tool from the OPC. Moreover, this design is outside the norm when compared with other jurisdictions.

We've had a lengthy discussion on that already.

He continued:

Given these considerations, our primary and strong recommendation is to remove the provisions relating to Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal....

That's from the previous bill, Bill C-11, which has been put forward again.

When the Privacy Commissioner appeared before this committee on October 19, 2023, he said:

Third, there remains the proposed addition of a new tribunal, which would become a fourth layer of review in the complaints process. As indicated in our submission to the committee, this would make the process longer and more expensive than the common models used internationally and in the provinces.

This is why we've recommended two options to resolve this problem. The first would be to have decisions of the proposed tribunal reviewed directly by the Federal Court of Appeal, and the second would be to provide my office with the authority to issue fines and to have our decisions reviewable by the Federal Court without the need to create a new tribunal....

He's an expert, but that was also shared by the former privacy commissioner when he appeared before this committee. He also pointed out that every provincial privacy commissioner opposes the tribunal. In fact, specifically, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta stated before this committee, at meeting number 104, that:

We are concerned about whether the inclusion of the tribunal as an appeal body to the Privacy Commissioner's orders would impact our ability [as provincial privacy commissioners] to conduct joint investigations.

There's a lot of opposition to this. That's what we've heard. I'm at a loss to see.... Almost anybody who's an expert in this has said this will lengthen the process and make it more difficult—everybody except the government.

[Samir Chhabra]

As was pointed out, CPC-9 is a very broad set of proposed amendments that would, as we understand it, have the effect of making three important changes. First, it would limit the imposition of cost awards against the OPC. Second, it appears to remove the private right of action that would allow folks who have been impacted by a transgression of law to be compensated for their loss. Third, it would remove the tribunal from part 1 of the act.

We see the tribunal as a critical element that's necessary to ensure that the system is credible and fair. Removing it would be inconsistent with the current commissioner's recommendations. We have since 2018 conducted a significant number of consultations and engagements broadly engaging Canadians. I believe in 2018 there were more than 30 round tables across the country. More than 550 Canadians participated in those engagements. The more recent figure of 300 meetings that the honourable member referenced, I believe, refers to part 3 of the bill, on AIDA, which obviously we will come back to later.

A number of stakeholders pointed out that it would be perhaps unprecedented and certainly out of alignment with international examples, and even some domestic models and examples, to have one individual carry out an ombuds function, an investigatory function and an adjudicative function all in one. There have been, to our count, 50 cases since 2003 that have gone from the Privacy Commissioner on to court. By our count, 70% of those court decisions disagreed with the OPC's position on the issue. Expecting the Privacy Commissioner to carry out these very distinct functions in addition to the significant new powers that have been added....

The CPPA will provide the Privacy Commissioner with a number of new enforcement powers. They include the ability to issue binding orders following investigations, which can order compliance with the CPPA. They can order organizations to cease activities that violate the CPPA. They can force compliance in a compliance agreement and also make public any measure taken to comply with the CPPA.

In addition, the CPPA enables the commissioner to recommend administrative monetary penalties. That's the point at which a recommendation would be made to the tribunal around the penalties. The orders and all those are powers being vested directly with the commissioner and not with the tribunal. It's important to recognize as well that the tribunal has an important appeal function to play and has expertise in the space by virtue of the fact that three of the six members of the tribunal must be recognized as privacy experts.

I also think it's important to point out that we don't see any risk of hampering joint investigations that would be undertaken between the federal Privacy Commissioner and any provincial counterparts. A number of international counterparts do have tribunal-type approaches, including Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, just off the top of my head. The U.K. also has a tribunal approach, organized slightly differently. The CAI in Quebec also has a tribunal approach to doing this function. We don't see any issues around joint investigations at all. In fact, the CPPA specifically encourages and allows for the OPC to engage with other regulators to share information and to leverage that information to the best effect to protect Canadians. It's also consistent with other areas of federal regulation in which tribunals are used—agriculture, transport, competition and international trade.

The efficiency of the CPPA tribunal has also been raised in this recent dialogue. It's important to recognize that we see efficiency gains actually being made by providing a tribunal that, first of all, pays deference to the commissioner's decisions, whereas a court would take a de novo proceeding. By having proceedings that are more informal and easier to understand and engage with for ordinary Canadians, rather than needing to have a lawyer go through the proceedings with the Federal Court, it would be less costly and easier to access as well, for those reasons, and for ordinary Canadians to engage with.

There are a number of very important reasons that we feel the tribunal is the right approach. The department did receive many, many inputs to that effect from a range of stakeholders, dating back to 2018, before the previous Bill C-11 was introduced.

I hope that helps to answer the question.

[Mark Schaan]

Mr. Perkins, I would note that Bill C-11 was contemplated by a previous Privacy Commissioner.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, officials.

Before I ask a couple questions on this, which I don't believe I've talked to yet, I note that this is the third meeting we've had on CPC-7, most of which has been driven by the government's desire to amend and change it. I note this only because the government suggested that clause-by-clause would take four meetings and the government is the one pushing to make it longer.

Mr. Schaan, I'm a little concerned by your testimony earlier about the Privacy Commissioner. Bill C-11, which was the predecessor to this bill, attempted to make Privacy Act changes in the last Parliament, and I would like to read from the Privacy Commissioner's submission on it to committee, if I could:

While the OPC and the courts have provided some interpretations of sensitive information, it would be preferable to have a legislative definition that sets out a general principle and is context-specific, followed by an explicitly non-exhaustive list of examples (such as those included in article 9 of the GDPR). This would provide greater certainty for organizations and consumers as to the interpretation of the term. For instance, such a definition might read:

Sensitive information means personal information for which an individual has a heightened expectation of privacy, or for which collection, use or disclosure creates a heightened risk of harm to the individual. This may include, but is not limited to—

Does that sound familiar? It's in MP Garon's subamendment.

—information revealing racial or ethnic origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, political opinions, or religious or philosophical beliefs; genetic information; biometric information for the purpose of uniquely identifying an individual; financial information; information concerning health; or information revealing an individual’s geolocation.

That was for the last bill, so it comes as a surprise to me, Mr. Schaan, that you said the Privacy Commissioner has not asked for that. It's right in his brief.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This one's not a test, I don't think.

Throughout the bill, the term “lawful authority” appears. Now, we're in the early stages of the bill, and we found that our concern was that nowhere in the definition section of the bill does it actually define what “lawful authority” means. Without even providing that term, I think it provides a bit of ambiguity in there.

For instance, proposed section 44 of Bill C-27 allows an organization to share “an individual's personal information” with a government institution upon request “for the purpose of enforcing federal or provincial law”. The language of proposed section 44 is taken from PIPEDA, as I understand it, and it is problematic, given that it outlines few privacy safeguards that have been afforded to individuals in the past with Supreme Court decisions like the 2014 R. v. Spencer case. I'm sure everyone on the committee is familiar with that—I know that some of the witnesses are—but I'll just go over a summary of it.

R. v. Spencer, in 2014, according to Wikipedia, “is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on informational privacy. The Court unanimously held that internet users were entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy in subscriber information held by Internet service providers. And as such, police attempts to access such data could be subject to section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At issue was whether the police could request subscriber information associated with an IP address from an Internet service provider without prior judicial authorisation, who could then voluntarily provide it. The Supreme Court ruled that the request for internet subscriber information infringed on the Charter's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.”

Law enforcement, with some exceptions, in my view—in our view—generally should be required to produce a court order when asking for somebody's personal information: a bank account, personal messages, health information and that kind of thing.

The ambiguity with respect to the meaning of “lawful authority” that existed in PIPEDA with regard to disclosures to law enforcement remains in the CPPA and will likely result in continued disclosures of personal information without consent by organizations to police and to other law enforcement agencies in the absence of a court order.

Given this issue, the Privacy Commissioner recommended that the definition of “lawful authority” for purposes of sections like proposed section 44 in this bill be amended to clarify that individuals should still enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy.

In the Privacy Commissioner's submission on Bill C-11 in May 2021, the Privacy Commissioner said:

Beyond transparency, clarity is also required with respect to the impact of the 2014 R v. Spencer decision with respect to when the state can obtain personal information via warrantless access. When Bill S-4 was before Parliament, the OPC recommended that:

a legal framework, based on the Spencer decision, is needed to provide clarity and guidance to help organizations comply with PIPEDA and ensure that state authorities respect the Supreme Court of Canada's decision. Such a framework would provide Canadians with greater transparency about private sector disclosures of their personal information to state agencies.

The Privacy Commissioner went on to state:

The ambiguity with respect to the meaning of “lawful authority” that existed in PIPEDA remains in the CPPA, as evidenced by companies' continued disclosures of personal information without consent to police and other law enforcement agencies absent a court order.

As such, we reiterate and update for Bill C-11—

At the time, that's what he was dealing with.

—a recommendation previously made in our 2015 submission to Parliament on Bill S-4, that a clarifying provision be introduced that defines lawful authority for the purposes of section 44. This provision would make clear that discretionary disclosures to law enforcement following a request should be permissible only where there are exigent circumstances, pursuant to a reasonable law other than section 44 of the CPPA, or in prescribed circumstances where personal information would not attract a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Recommendation 19: That a definition clarifying the meaning of “lawful authority” for the purposes of section 44 be introduced.

It wasn't. In his submission for this bill, on April 26, 2023, the Privacy Commissioner again proposed recommendation 19: “That a definition clarifying the meaning of 'lawful authority' for the purposes of section 44 be introduced” in this bill.

This amendment follows on the recommendations of the Privacy Commissioner on numerous occasions to “make clear that discretionary disclosures to law enforcement...should be permissible only where there are exigent circumstances, pursuant to a reasonable law other than section 44 of the CPPA, or in prescribed circumstances where personal information would not attract a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

That's by way of introduction. I haven't read the actual amendment, which is fairly short, but I know the witnesses have read it.

Do you agree with the Privacy Commissioner that this needs to be added to this bill, that we need to add a definition in the definitions section for “lawful authority”, which is a term used frequently throughout this legislation?

[Diane Poitras]

I certainly share my colleagues' concerns about the interoperability of the act in a context where the obligations would not be exactly the same. The fact that similar protection applies across the country is important for Canadian citizens, but also for businesses. They can operate in Quebec, but a number of them can do so across the country.

The fact that the process can be very costly is a concern we've heard very often in Quebec. At the time, under Bill C‑11, there was concern about the harmonization of the rules. Without harmonization, companies feared that they would have to comply with two sets of rules, and operating would become very expensive.

I don't know if that answers your question.

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Madam Speaker, on September 19, Bill C-354, an act to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act regarding the cultural specificity of Quebec and the Francophonie was tabled and read for the first time. From the outset, I would like to thank the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île for giving me the opportunity to reiterate our government's commitment to supporting the French language.

Bill C-354 aims to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, and this is closely tied to the government's ongoing work to ensure a broadcasting system in Canada that reflects the evolution of our digital world and in which all Canadians, including Quebeckers and members of the Canadian Francophonie, see themselves represented. In fact, closely linked is an understatement. The government's efforts have already been going very much in the same direction as the objective of this bill.

On February 2, 2022, our government introduced Bill C-11, aimed at reforming the Broadcasting Act so that Canadian laws reflect the evolution of our digital world. The latter aimed to clarify that online broadcasting services fall under the act, to ensure that the CRTC has the appropriate tools, to encourage greater diversity and inclusion in the broadcasting sector and to better reflect Canadian society.

The legislative process surrounding Bill C-11 took a very long time. Indeed, one year to the day passed between the initial tabling of the bill in the House and its adoption at third reading by the Senate. Both the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications spent many hours dissecting, analyzing, hearing from witnesses and refining Bill C-11. During the same legislative process, several modifications were made to Bill C-11 to strengthen the commitment to the French language and official language minority communities.

The Broadcasting Act, as recently amended, put in place new guarantees to ensure continued support for the production and broadcast of original French-language productions, the majority of which are produced in the province of Quebec. What is more, the CRTC is required to interpret the Broadcasting Act in a manner that respects the Government of Canada's commitment to promoting the vitality of Canada's French-speaking and English-speaking minorities and supporting their development. Added to this is the fact that the act provides that regulations must take into account regional concerns and needs. It should also be noted that the government is already actively consulting the provinces and territories, particularly when it comes to broadcasting.

At each stage of the process surrounding the implementation of the Online Streaming Act, the provinces and territories were consulted. In particular, the government consulted its provincial and territorial counterparts as part of the consultations related to the decree of instructions proposed to the CRTC concerning the implementation of the law.

The final decree also contains various instructions to support the official languages of Canada and official language minority communities. The decree recognizes, among other things, the minority nature of the French language in Canada and North America and the fact that the broadcasting system should promote the development of Canada's official language minority communities and promote full recognition and use of French and English in Canadian society. A section was even added to the final version of the decree to support the creation and availability of programming in French.

In addition, for its part, the CRTC has published a road map describing the main stages of the implementation of the act and is already actively consulting the public. It should be noted that as an administrative tribunal, the CRTC already holds in-depth consultations before making decisions under the rules of practice and procedure that it adopted in order to respect the principles of procedural fairness and of natural justice incumbent upon it. Provinces and territories have the opportunity to participate in CRTC consultations. To this end, the provinces and territories, including Quebec, can already present observations to the CRTC on issues of provincial interest during hearings and consultations.

It is important to specify that the Government of Quebec has the right and already uses its right to intervene in the CRTC's consultative processes. The Broadcasting Act provides for three forms of consultation, depending on the decisions it is considering. They are, in no particular order, one, with official language minority communities on any decision likely to have a detrimental effect on them; two, with CBC/Radio-Canada on its conditions of services; and three, with any interested party for decisions regarding conditions of services. The latter is an open consultation, where provinces and territories and, in fact, any interested intervenor can put forward their opinions and concerns.

In other words, the addition of the consultation obligation provided for by Bill C-354 could raise concerns that are being addressed in the course of the work of the CRTC and under the requirements of the Broadcasting Act. An obligation for the CRTC to consult elected provincial governments could also have an impact on public confidence and the independence of the CRTC. It is important that we are all mindful of not just the independence of the CRTC but the importance of that independence.

As outlined, “The CRTC is an administrative tribunal that regulates and supervises broadcasting and telecommunications in the public interest. [It is] dedicated to ensuring that Canadians have access to a world-class communication system that promotes innovation and enriches [the] lives [of Canadians].”

Further to this, under the section of the CRTC's own website entitled “We listen and collaborate”, it states that, in order to “fulfill [its] mandate, [it] must understand the needs and interests of Canadians who make use of broadcasting and telecommunications services.”

In conclusion, the government supports and will continue to support the French language. The Online Streaming Act and the act to amend the Official Languages Act are concrete examples of our commitment to the French language. Once more, the government regularly consults the provinces and territories, including Quebec.

The minister has consulted her counterparts on numerous occasions when it comes to regulating the broadcasting sector. The government will welcome any questions from members regarding Bill C-354 as the debate on this legislation continues.

[Michelle Gordon, Lawyer and Founder, GEM Privacy Consulting, As an Individual]

Thank you for the invitation to appear before this committee for its important review of Bill C-27.

I'm a privacy lawyer and consultant based in Toronto. Having worked in the privacy field for over 15 years while raising three sons, I have a passion for children's privacy, and I will focus my remarks on this area today.

My interest in privacy law was sparked when I was a law student down the street at the University of Ottawa, where I did research with Professor Michael Geist and the late Professor Ian Kerr at the time when PIPEDA was a new bill being debated similarly to today's. When Professor Geist appeared here a few weeks ago, he reflected on his first appearance before committee to discuss PIPEDA, noting that it was important to get it right, rather than to get it fast. When Professor Kerr appeared in 2017 to discuss PIPEDA reform, he stated that, at the time, “the dominant metaphor was George Orwell's 1984, 'Big Brother is Watching You'”, noting that technological developments in the years since PIPEDA go well beyond watching.

Both professors Geist and Kerr were right, especially in the context of children's privacy. Given that children are inundated with emerging technologies well beyond Orwell's 1984—from AI tools to ed tech, virtual reality and our current reality of watching war and its accompanying hatred unfold on social media—it is more important than ever to get it right when it comes to children's privacy.

When Bill C-11 was introduced in late 2020, it didn't address children at all. As I argued in a Policy Options article in 2021, this was a missed opportunity, given that the amount of online activity for children was at an all-time high during the pandemic.

I commend the legislators for addressing children's privacy in Bill C-27 by stating that “information of minors is considered to be sensitive” and by including language that could provide minors with a more direct route to delete their personal information, otherwise known as the right to be forgotten. I also understand that Minister Champagne proposes further amendments to include stronger protections for minors.

However, as the first witness stated, I think there is more the law can do to get it right for children's privacy. I will focus on two points: first, creating clear definitions, and second, looking to leading jurisdictions for guidance.

First, the law should define the terms “minor” and “sensitive”. Without these definitions, businesses, which already have the upper hand in this law, are left to decide what is sensitive and appropriate for minors. The CPPA should follow the lead of other leading privacy laws. The California Consumer Privacy Act, the U.S. COPPA, the EU's GDPR and Quebec's law 25 all establish a minimum age for consent ranging from 13 to 16.

Further, the law should explicitly define the term “sensitive”. The current wording recognizes that minors' data is sensitive, which means that other provisions in the statute have to interpret the treatment of sensitive information through a contextual analysis, whether it be for safeguarding, consent or retention. Similar to Quebec's law 25, the law should define “sensitive” and provide non-exhaustive examples of sensitive data so that businesses, regulators and courts will have more guidance in applying the legislative framework.

Second, I recommend that you consider revising the law—as an amendment or regulation—in order to align the CPPA with leading jurisdictions, namely the age-appropriate design code legislation in the U.K. and California. Both of these demonstrate a more prescriptive approach to regulating the personal information of children.

The California kids code requires businesses to prioritize the privacy of children by default and in the design of their products. For example, default settings on apps and platforms for users under 18 must be set to the highest privacy level. This is something that could be considered in the CPPA as well.

Further, the California code establishes a level of fiduciary care for platforms such that, if a conflict of interest arises between what is best for the platform and what is best for a user under 18, the children's best interest must come first. This is consistent with the recommendation of former commissioner Therrien and others in these hearings about including language around the “best interest of the child” in the legislation.

The CPPA should contemplate requirements for how businesses use children's data, considering the child's best interest. For example, use of children's data could be limited to those actions necessary to provide an age-appropriate service.

As I argued in my Policy Options article in January 2023, we need a collaborative approach that includes lawmakers and policy-makers from all levels of government, coordination with global privacy laws, engagement with parents and coordination with educators. For this approach to work, the law needs to strike the balance between privacy and innovation. We want laws that are flexible enough to last so that technology can evolve, new business ideas can succeed, and children can be innovators while growing up in a world that recognizes their special needs and rights.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I'm going to turn to the other witnesses now.

Did any of you participate in the consultations on Bill C-11 or the bill the committee is currently studying, Bill C-27? Please nod your head if you did.

I see that no one was consulted. All right.

In light of what we've seen since we began our study a few weeks ago, no one seems to have been consulted, but the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry says that 300 individuals and organizations were consulted after the bill was introduced. I'd like to find those individuals and organizations. I don't know where they are.

In a moment, I'll be giving notice of a motion, but I'd like to ask you a question, first, Ms. Piovesan.

Mr. Balsillie appeared before the committee, and I'm sure you read his remarks. He likened the bill to a bucket that has holes. What witnesses have told us so far seems to suggest that the bucket basically has no bottom. That's what it seems like.

You talked about the fact that the committee has heard opposing views from witnesses. Take the tribunal, for instance. Some suggested getting rid of it because we didn't need it, while others argued the opposite, that having a tribunal in the sector was important.

Given how far apart on the spectrum people's views are, do you think the bill should have been split from the beginning? We've heard from the start that the bill is almost monstrous, that it's too big, that the privacy piece and the AI piece should have been dealt with separately.

What do you think?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses as well.

Today's discussion is fascinating. I am very interested in what you have to say.

Ms. Piovesan, if I understood correctly, you helped draft Bill C-11, the predecessor to the bill before us today, Bill C-27.

[David Young]

It's essentially the same point. I was just leading on from that point I just made. It goes back to Bill C-11, which really tried to suck and blow at the same time. It defined a term of “de-identified information”, which if you read it, inherently said it's outside the statute, because it's not personal information—it cannot reasonably identify an individual. However, the statute went on to actually have several provisions, really some of which are still here, that said these apply; these are rules for de-identified information. That was crazy.

I'm sorry, but I lost track. Ask your question again.

[John Lawford]

I don't buy that, because businesses are functioning very well right now. I don't know of any innovation that's being stifled by the present law. Perhaps the Business Council said something different the other day.

If you take proposed section 18 out.... Now consider that proposed section 18 wasn't in Bill C-11. Apparently the department didn't need all these exceptions in the first version. Now, it's in. I'm just saying to take it out because businesses can function at the present time. I think to remove the general right of subjective consent from all Canadians is a pretty big lift. I want to see a lot of innovation being stifled before that gets taken away.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses. Welcome to the great Liberal darkness club. This makes me feel like a dog chasing its tail. I use that metaphor because I just saw Ms. McPherson's dog on the screen.

We are all here to discuss a bill that, as Mr. Champagne announced to us three weeks ago, would be subject to eight amendments, some of which will be major.

Mr. Balsillie, earlier you said that Mr. Bains consulted you at the time about Bill C-11 and that you had made recommendations. The current minister, Mr. Champagne, tells us he has consulted 300 organizations and experts.

Ms. Vipond, you clearly weren't in the group. At any rate, many of the witnesses here probably weren't in the consulting group, since they're asking us today to hold more consultations and that they be permanent and ongoing depending on how the bill evolves.

Mr. Balsillie, almost all the comments you've made on this bill thus far have been negative. Can you see anything anywhere in this bill that might be positive, or do you think we should simply toss it out and start over?

Based on what we have before us today, I think we've confused “privacy” with “artificial intelligence”. These are two completely different things, but we're putting everything in the same basket.

We would've liked to hear what you had to say about artificial intelligence. I'm convinced you would have liked to talk to us about that at greater length as well. So allow me to give you the floor.

[Jim Balsillie]

Not at all.

I have a bit of an advantage over everyone here in that I was in the small meeting where then Minister Bains and then deputy minister Knubley presented the original Bill C-11. They said that they were approaching this as some kind of balance, and I said, “Who concocted this concept of a trade-off between the two?” They, in fact, re-enforce each other. It's a false dichotomy.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank my colleague for sharing his time with me.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here.

Dr. Geist, I'd like to talk about the way this bill, formerly Bill C‑11, has been presented over the past two years. We know that amendments were requested and that the minister didn't really listen, because the new version is no better. So here we are, 18 months later, and you are having to testify about this bill.

During this whole process, which is set to last several months, we will be meeting with about 100 witnesses. How do you feel about this process, when we haven't had access to the eight amendments put forward by the minister, other than the few lines we've be able to get so far? I'm asking because you talked about this earlier.

I'd like you to speak as a witness. I'm not necessarily asking you to speak on behalf of others, but at the very least I'd like people to understand the process we are currently in, which I consider to be skewed. How can you or any of the witnesses who will appear possibly give your opinions on the content of a bill without access to the amendments?