The committee met at 9:01 a.m.

[M. Elmore in the chair.]

M. Elmore (Chair): Good morning. I’d like to welcome everyone participating and listening in today to our public hearing. My name is Mable Elmore. I’m the MLA for Vancouver-Kensington and Chair of the Special Committee to Review the Personal Information Protection Act.

I’m pleased to be joining you from the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

We are an all-party committee of the Legislative Assembly, with a mandate to review the Personal Information Protection Act. In support of this, the committee is holding public hearings to gather input from British Columbians. In addition to the public hearings, the committee is also inviting British Columbians to send us their thoughts in writing before July 30.

All the information we receive will be carefully considered as we prepare our report to the Legislative Assembly, which will be released in December this year. I encourage anyone who’s interested in the consultation or wants to learn more about the work of the committee to visit our website at www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/pipa.

Today we will hear from a number of presenters. Each presenter will have up to 15 minutes to present, followed by up to 15 minutes of questions and answers with members.

I’ll now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves. I’ll start off with our vice-Chair, Dan Ashton.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Mable.

Good morning. Welcome. My name is Dan Ashton. I have the pleasure of representing the people from Penticton to Peachland.

I’d like to pass it along to my peer at caucus, Andrew.

A. Wilkinson: I’m Andrew Wilkinson, the member for Vancouver-Quilchena.

I should advise I have to leave at 10:30 to go to the Medal of Good Citizenship ceremony.

K. Greene: I’m Kelly Greene, MLA for Richmond-Steveston.

Steveston is the traditional territory of the Musqueam First Nation.

My pronouns are she/her. Welcome.

A. Olsen: Good morning. Adam Olsen, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

I’m really glad to be continuing my work today from my home in the W̱JOȽEȽP.

G. Begg: Good morning, everyone. I’m Garry Begg. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Guildford.

I’m proud to be on the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people, including the Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Katzie First Nations.

R. Glumac: I am MLA Rick Glumac, joining from Port Moody–Coquitlam.

I’m joining you today on the territory of the Coast Salish people.

M. Elmore (Chair): Thank you, Members.

Assisting the committee today and also joining us are Susan Sourial, Lisa Hill and Mai Nguyen from the Parliamentary Committees Office. Alexandrea Hursey from Hansard Services is also here to record the proceedings.

Now on to our first presenter today, Donald McLeod from Donald R. McLeod Law Corp.

Thank you for joining us today, Donald. You have up to 15 minutes for your presentation. Hansard Services has provided a timer, which will be visible on your screen, if you use the gallery view.

Please begin when you’re ready, Donald.

Presentations on
Personal Information Protection Act

DONALD R. MCLEOD LAW CORP.

D. McLeod: Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you very much for this opportunity to address you on the Personal Information Protection Act. My focus is going to be very, very narrow, aimed mostly at the difficulties that I encounter as a lawyer.

[9:05 a.m.]

I have provided you with a précis of what I am going to say, so I don’t need to go into the whole thing and read it all. It should be pretty clear about who I am, anyway.

I am consulted, basically, by two groups of people: those who have hired me to represent them in various litigation matters and those who come to me because they are encountering difficulty in getting information from various organizations.

I practise primarily personal injury and family law. The kind of information that is obtained in those areas is usually medical and employment information. That’s the majority. Frequently people come to see me, though, when I’m not representing them in any sort of lawsuit but when they have tried to get their own information and simply have been stymied or encountered roadblocks. Typical examples would be they’re trying to get medical information from various medical practitioners, physiotherapists, and so forth, to assist them in making an application for benefits.

Let me say that I sat for seven years on the Employment and Assistance Appeal Tribunal hearing many, many appeals. It was quite common for people to come to us and say: “Well, I have been turned down because I don’t have any kind of medical information. The doctor didn’t write a very good report. I need my medical files. I’ve applied for them, and the doctor has told me: ‘Well, we have a certain fee schedule. In your case, it’ll come to several hundred dollars.’”

People who are on social assistance, usually through no fault of their own, can’t afford several hundred dollars to pay the doctor. That’s just an example of the sort of thing that would happen.

I usually end up helping these people at either no fee or a very minimal fee — just enough to cover the overheads. But quite often we will correspond with the record supplier. We will then, after being roadblocked through my office, go to the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Sometimes there will be an informal resolution. Most of the time there will be.

Sometimes it has to go further, and an officer acting for the commissioner will have to take action against the person providing the information and say: “Look. It’s the person’s personal information. You can’t charge them several hundred dollars.” But meanwhile, this person…. Six months have gone by, and my client simply can’t make application properly.

The difficulties that we encounter are three really narrow areas. The fees, as I’ve mentioned, charged by organizations, and their refusal, outright, to provide the information, usually without being paid. They know that there are no sanctions for not complying with the act, so there is no stick that somebody that wants their information can hold over the head of an information provider.

Then the third is quite annoying. The legislation — PIPA, as we call it — does not require an application to be made in any particular form or format. But very often an organization will say: “You have to use our form. You have to apply to us for our form.” Then when they get the form, it’s not filled out to the organization’s satisfaction. Again, there is some stymieing or a roadblock going on.

Now, some of the cases I’m aware of, dealing with the first issue, which is fees…. The adjudicators have ruled, as you can see in my paper, very minimal fees — $25 for 17 pages, $51 and some-odd cents for almost 300 pages of records, which is probably pretty reasonable. But what some of the organizations want to charge is totally unreasonable. You can see in my paper that I have provided a list of what the fee guide items for physicians is: $1.90 a page for the first ten pages, $107 for each 15 minutes reviewing the information.

[9:10 a.m.]

It is my submission that when someone is applying for their own records, there is no need to review the information for anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour, nor to charge those rather high photocopy fees. All that is necessary is for the records to be put onto a scanner or a fax machine and sent to the person who wants them — and who usually badly needs them.

My suggestion is that the legislation be changed to establish a minimal fee schedule. I’d suggest something around ten cents a page, with a minimum of $25. That way if that information is provided to the record holder, they will know what they can or cannot charge. I think that a lot of the difficulty will be forgone.

The second issue is the lack of sanctions. When people want their information, some organizations just won’t provide it. This is most often encountered, in my experience, in employment situations. When someone is applying for the files relating to themselves, the organizations, which have usually terminated them, are quite unwilling to provide the information. It often will require a hearing in front of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

Now, when someone needs their files — for example, they’re applying for a new job somewhere, or they may be applying for some sort of benefit — and when there are no sanctions for a former employer to refuse information, then the person is simply left without a remedy. It takes months to go through the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Meanwhile, this person has no income and no resources. The practical result, under PIPA, is that many organizations, if they want, can simply ignore requests or put roadblocks in the way of various individuals or the people who want their material and, essentially, hold them off until they go away frustrated.

I am suggesting that the Information and Privacy Commissioner, or his or her delegate, should have the authority to order sanctions in a summary way, in order to compensate the individual for either having to engage a lawyer or spend a lot of their own time and effort to obtain what should have been provided to them with little difficulty. I’m suggesting that there should be a statutory or regulatory fee schedule established. The organization should be made aware of the consequences and informed that they’re liable, through a commissioner’s order, to pay compensation if they don’t comply.

Lastly, I would like to suggest that there be a statutory form established, and on that form, there’d be a statement that fees would be whatever they are established to be and that sanctions can be applied. The establishment of a statutory form for applying for one’s own information would do away with an organization saying: “No. You haven’t applied on our form, or you haven’t filled out our form correctly.”

Three practical issues that would let what is really a very good act otherwise be used by ordinary citizens — which, as I understand it, was the intent and import, anyway. Those are my submissions. Thank you very much for listening to me.

M. Elmore (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation.

I’ll open it up to questions from committee members. Does anybody have a…?

R. Glumac: A couple of questions. The things that you’re bringing up, in some ways, it seems to me….

Having a fee schedule and this kind of thing in the legislation is one thing. But isn’t the root issue that medical records aren’t easily accessible through online databases? With our banking information, everything is online. If we had to call the bank and get forms every time we needed to get information from our bank accounts, that would be a very challenging world to live in.

[9:15 a.m.]

This is the world that we somehow accept with anything to do with medical records. I’m wondering. Is there anything, from your perspective, in the legislation that prevents the modernization of access to medical records in a way that could be better for people?

D. McLeod: I really like that question, and it’s something that I have pondered. The simple answer is no. There’s nothing that prevents the digitization of medical records — or any other records, for that matter — but it’s a practical matter.

Many of the people that I deal with simply don’t have access to much in the way of computer systems. A lot of people can’t afford them, especially people who are on social assistance of one form or another. I know that’s hard to believe in today’s world, but I do have people who come and say: “Can I come to your office? We can do whatever it is on your computer systems.” It’s a practical difficulty.

One of the other practical difficulties is this. I really think that when we’re dealing with physicians, physiotherapists, employers — especially small employers — we’re going to encounter tremendous resistance to digitizing their records.

A. Wilkinson: This is more of a comment from my life experience practising law, like Mr. McLeod. It was, I think, 1992 — and he’ll know this — that the Supreme Court of Canada said that medical records contain your information that’s held in trust for you by the owner of the physical record. Of course, that also contemplates computer records.

Through the ’90s, there evolved the idea that hospitals would provide them for free. Then they realized that there were some difficult people out there who would ask for their free records every other week, creating a huge amount of gratuitous work.

Mr. McLeod, I think, is onto a very valid point. Establish an economical fee schedule by regulation in the statute, something like 25 cents a page, and if they’re not provided within 60 days, then they have to be provided for free. Beyond that, standardized disclosure forms so that there’s no dispute over it. I would see those as very sound approaches to solving a very practical problem in a very simple way. Employment records are beyond my expertise, as to the complications of that, but medical records I know a great deal about, and these would both be very sound developments in new legislation.

G. Begg: I think, along the same lines as Andrew, the issues that have been raised…. There had been a question before that. You commented about the records having to be reviewed. Does that imply that there is an opportunity to vet records before they’re disclosed? Why would they have to review a record?

D. McLeod: Yes. It very much does imply that there is an opportunity to vet the records. However, some people, usually physicians, do have, in some cases, an obligation to review records if they think the disclosure of those records could be harmful to the person receiving them. I think that doesn’t occur very often, but where I’ve mostly seen it is with psychiatric patients.

I think that the issue would be one of common sense more than anything. Perhaps if you’re looking at psychiatric records, there could be a justification for a review. I don’t think that the psychiatrist or psychologist should be able to charge for that — that’s my personal opinion — but that would not be that common. With regular, ordinary, mundane medical records from a GP, I see no reason why they should have to be reviewed.

G. Begg: This raises the next issue. What is the oversight mechanism for who decides what is ordinary, average information, and what is to not be disclosed? Is there an oversight process for that?

[9:20 a.m.]

D. McLeod: None that I am aware of at all, except that you can make a complaint if material is redacted. You can make a complaint to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, who, in theory, will get the unredacted records, review them and make a determination as to what should be revealed, much as it is when you’re dealing with public bodies under the Freedom of Information Act.

G. Begg: Thank you. My final comment would be that it would appear to be eminently reasonable to establish a cost recovery basis as a fee and a time limit whereby all pertinent information must be disclosed and a penalty attached to non-compliance. Does that make sense?

D. McLeod: It does to me. I think the penalty, in my view, should be more than simply denial of the cost recovery. I think that there should be a penalty that is substantial enough that some attention will be paid to it by the denier.

A. Olsen: I heard Andrew’s comments and solution, I think, as a way to solve this issue. I really appreciate….

Thank you, Mr. McLeod, for bringing this to our attention. I think it’s important that we reflect this in our work, going ahead.

With respect to the cost recovery piece of this, it’s a piece that I think is important — that if someone has navigated all the obstacles that have been put in and finally got it, there should be some cost recovery. This should not come at the expense of the people that are trying to get their records. I just wanted to emphasize that point. More than just…. Well, I’ll just leave it there.

M. Elmore (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much. Did anyone have any further questions?

That was a very informative presentation. Do you have any remarks that you’d like to wrap up with?

D. McLeod: Just to say thank you very much for hearing me and listening to me. Although I am, in some respects, a theoretician, we deal in the practical world.

M. Elmore (Chair): All right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time to present this issue to us and bring it to our attention. We appreciate it. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

Our next presenters. Are they ready to come in, Susan?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant, Committees and Interparliamentary Relations): One presenter is here. The second one is not. If I could suggest, perhaps, a committee recess for five minutes.

M. Elmore (Chair): Okay. We’ve got five minutes. We’ll be back in five.

The committee recessed from 9:23 a.m. to 9:29 a.m.

[M. Elmore in the chair.]

M. Elmore (Chair): Welcome. We’ve got our two presenters. We’ll get rolling.

Our next presenters are from the Alma Mater Society of the University of British Columbia. Joining us are Saad Shoaib, who is the vice-president and external affairs officer, and Sheldon Goldfarb, who is the society’s archivist and privacy officer.

Welcome, Saad and Sheldon. As you may know, you have up to 15 minutes for your presentation. Hansard Services has provided a timer, which will be visible on your screen, if you are using the gallery view.

Before you begin, I’ll ask the members to introduce themselves. I’ll start with myself. I’m Mable Elmore, MLA for Vancouver-Kensington, Chair of the Special Committee to Review the Personal Information Protection Act.

I am pleased to be joining you from the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Next I’ll hand it off to our vice-Chair, Dan.

[9:30 a.m.]

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Welcome. Good morning. I have the honour of representing the people from Penticton to Peachland in the Okanagan.

I’ll pass it over to my caucus peer.

A. Wilkinson: Hello. I’m Andrew Wilkinson from Vancouver-Quilchena.

K. Greene: Hi, I’m Kelly Greene, MLA for Richmond-Steveston.

Steveston is on the unceded territory of the Musqueam First Nation.

My pronouns are she/her. Welcome.

A. Olsen: I’m Adam Olsen. I’m the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

I’m working today from the W̱JOȽEȽP village.

G. Begg: Hi, everyone. I’m Garry Begg. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Guildford.

I’m proud to be joining you today from the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, which includes the Kwantlen, the Katzie and the Semiahmoo First Nations.

R. Glumac: I’m Rick Glumac, MLA for Port Moody–​Coquitlam. Welcome.

M. Elmore (Chair): Terrific. Thank you, Members.

Saad and Sheldon, please begin when you’re ready.

ALMA MATER SOCIETY OF UBC

S. Shoaib: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for having us. Just to put some faces to it, I guess, my name is Saad. I use he/him pronouns, and I’m vice-president of external affairs here at the AMS of UBC.

Sheldon, do you want to go ahead and do a quick introduction as well?

S. Goldfarb: I’m the archivist for the AMS of UBC Vancouver, and I’m also the privacy officer. I’m also the clerk of our student council. It’s the intersection of those roles that have got me involved in this particular situation that we’re bringing to the committee’s attention, but I think Saad will explain further.

S. Shoaib: Today we’re just going to be talking about a small issue that we have with the UBC affiliate colleges, which is in relation to the Personal Information Protection Act.

Just to introduce the AMS, the Alma Mater Society of the University of British Columbia Vancouver is a registered not-for-profit under the Societies Act, representing almost 60,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Our job is to advocate for an affordable, accessible, equitable post-secondary education system in British Columbia. The AMS represents students who attend the University of British Columbia, along with its affiliate colleges.

The affiliate colleges, for those folks who don’t know, are the Vancouver School of Theology, Regent College, and St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi. St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi are essentially the same institution but just a graduate and undergraduate.

Moving on to the summary of advocacy that we decided and a sort of history of the issue, in order to effectively communicate our procedures and guidelines on student health insurance, electoral engagement, U-Pass and general announcements, the AMS needs contact information from its members.

Currently the AMS has an MOU with UBC which provides the AMS with necessary member lists that we’re required to maintain, as per section 201(h) of the Societies Act. There are no such MOUs with the UBC affiliate colleges. However, two of them do provide the AMS with contact information on a constant basis. The third affiliate has cited PIPA and does not provide us with contact information. This results in barriers of communication for our Regent College members.

Just some legal and structural context. Currently subsection 12(2) of PIPA does not have a provision for an organization seeking information from a public body, and Regent College is a public body as established by the Regent College Act. Section 201(h) of the Societies Act requires the AMS to maintain a register for its members. The register is used for, among other things, conducting elections of its directors, communication on important information like the U-Pass, like student health insurance, and other items as previously mentioned.

Unlike other societies, student unions such as the AMS…. Members do not sign up voluntarily. Members automatically become members if they are a student at UBC or the affiliate colleges.

[9:35 a.m.]

The barrier to elections and communications, from what we’ve seen, is that back in March, when we had the election of our directors as the AMS directors, the AMS was unable to obtain that members list from Regent College, that registry from Regent College. That resulted in only one Regent College student being able to vote in this year’s election of directors.

While Regent did announce that those wishing to vote in the election could provide consent to Regent to release relevant information to the AMS, this created an unreasonable barrier for AMS members at Regent. That was mostly because we weren’t able to send out newsletters because we need student information to do that, and those newsletters have important information on how to vote, when to vote and what the parameters around voting and candidate nominations are as well.

AMS elections are an essential part of the democratic processes that we strive to uphold as a union of students, and that’s also within the mandate of every other student union in British Columbia.

The AMS is sort of unique in this situation, as the AMS represents UBC students and also affiliate college students. It is really rare that a student union represents institutions that are not its home institution but other institutions as well.

Our recommendations are as follows: that the appropriate amendments be passed to ensure that student societies are able to obtain lists of their members from universities and colleges that their members are attending as students — in particular, that subsection 12(2) of PIPA be amended or an additional provision be added to allow student societies to collect personal information from their home university or college and that further language be added to specify that personal information may be collected by a student society from a public body in order for the student society to conduct its elections, contact its members, and so on.

The potential legal languaging that we’ve come up with is that an organization that is a student society at a post-secondary institution may collect personal information from that institution without consent of the individual to whom the information relates if the personal information is disclosed to or collected by the student society solely to assist the student society in carrying out its responsibilities towards its members. That languaging is based on the recommendations from the previous slide.

That ends our presentation on the issue. We’re more than happy to answer any questions that folks have.

M. Elmore (Chair): Perfect. Thank you for your presentation.

We’ve got Rick. Go ahead.

R. Glumac: Hi. Thank you for your presentation. I’m curious if you’ve had a chance to look at Bill C-11, the federal bill, and how access to these lists would be affected by that legislation. I’m curious to hear your specific comments on that.

S. Shoaib: We haven’t gotten the chance to look at Bill C-11 in relation to that bill. PIPA was the main legislation that was continuously cited in our talks with Regent College, and Bill C-11 was not brought up. Sorry about that.

R. Glumac: Oh, sorry. Okay. I thought we sent a letter out to everyone to take a look at Bill C-11.

A. Wilkinson: It strikes me that you’re swimming upstream, given that the trend in our society is to give autonomy to the individual to decide what happens to their personal information. The obvious question is: what percentage of the 60,000 students voted in your elections? Why not just give a choice to the students at Regent? Why impose your views on them?

S. Shoaib: Yeah, absolutely. Usually, on average, we have a pretty good voter turnout in comparison to other student societies. Our voter turnout fluctuates between 21 percent to 12 percent. It depends what is on the ballot. But the reason why we require a student list is so that we can tell students when the election is happening, not so much imposing the election on them — providing them with the information that they need in order to vote for their representatives at their student union.

S. Goldfarb: If I could add that the students at Regent College are paying fees to the AMS. They are members of the AMS, just like the students at UBC.

[9:40 a.m.]

We do have an MOU with UBC under which the university provides all the contact information and other personal information about the students that we need in order to conduct elections and also to communicate with them about important things like U-Pass, how to get an exemption from the U-Pass system, how to register for the health and dental insurance plan that the AMS runs.

Under the Societies Act, we’re required to have a register of our members. It’s hard. The most convenient way to get it is if the institution we are the student society for provides this list of members. Otherwise, it’s very hard to…. If we can’t even get their contact information, it’s hard for us to even reach out to them to say: “Hello. Vote in the election.”

What happened with Regent College demanding that there be personal, individual consent to be put on the election rolls is that only one person said: “Sure, do it.” So only one person could vote for Regent College in our election. We don’t have the figures breaking down how many vote usually — there are several hundred students at Regent College — but I’m thinking that usually more than one would vote. This way, there was a special extra barrier put in to stop them, to make it difficult for them to vote. I think a democratic right in an election is that people who are eligible to vote…. It should be made easy for them to vote, not difficult.

I could add that we’re meeting with the Regent College registrar and IT person and privacy officer next month to discuss this. I’m thinking they’re concerned, rightly so, that they have to protect the privacy of their students, who are our members. We want to reassure them that this would be okay under FIPPA, which is their act.

We looked up FIPPA, which says that if there’s another act that says you can release the information, then FIPPA authorizes the release of the information. So we are thinking that the amendment that Saad showed you on the screen about amending PIPA would allow, under FIPPA, Regent College to release that information.

I think they’re interested in doing it, but they’re reluctant. We understand. We appreciate their concern. It’s our members — their privacy. But we’re their association that represents them. Their information should be protected from outsiders, but not from their own student society. That’s our point of view here.

A. Wilkinson: I think you’re conflating the idea of democratic participation and the distribution of benefits with the autonomy of the individual to decide what to do with their information. We as a governing body have to be very careful to protect the individual choices of the citizen, whether it’s from Royal Bank or Apple or CRA or you. So the presumption that a large organization is entitled to personal information, I suggest to you, is completely outdated.

G. Begg: I think my question has largely been answered by what Sheldon said, but I, editorially, would say that if there is an easier solution to the issue than legislation, that is the solution that you should seek first. And the overtures that you’re making I hope are successful.

It’s a balancing act. I know that you realize that. We have to zealously guard private information from various sources. We want to provide as much access as possible, but the voluntariness of that, as Andrew pointed out, should be left to those persons whose information is held. It’s an interesting sort of conundrum that we’re in. On the one hand, we want to ensure that information that is kept by whomever is kept, and on the other hand, it has to be available, but not as widespread as I sense that you want it to be.

S. Shoaib: Absolutely. That’s one of the reasons why we specified that the languaging would be a student society specifically, because student societies are in that unique position where members aren’t voluntarily joining student societies. They’re automatically a part of that student society when they pay fees to their home university or college.

[9:45 a.m.]

In addition to that, we already have an MOU with the university, so there’s already that understanding with one of the home universities and colleges that we represent students at that information would be provided in order to represent students effectively and efficiently.

K. Greene: I have a couple of, I guess, clarifying questions.

By virtue of enrolment at these institutions, you’re automatically becoming a member at the colleges that you mentioned, as well as UBC, and at no point is there a box to tick to say: “I realize that I am now a member of the AMS, and I’m cool with them emailing me.” At no point does anybody at any of the institutions tick a box to say: “I’m good.”

S. Goldfarb: Yes. That’s correct. They do not get to check a box. The university publishes an academic calendar in which it says that your information will be shared with the student society.

Regent College doesn’t have such a provision in its academic catalogue, but it does mention that. It tells the students: “You are automatically members of the AMS, and as a result, you are entitled to benefits under the AMS health and dental plan.” Things like that. At no point does it say that you can opt out.

The students at Regent College did vote in a referendum about 30 years ago to become members of the AMS. The students said: “Yes. We’ll get the benefits.” As a result of that, we collect fees through the Regent College registrar for the Regent College students, and they are entitled to use our U-Pass — the provincewide U-Pass — and our health and dental system. They’re our members, and under the Societies Act, we’re supposed to have a register of our members.

K. Greene: So the AMS is in a position where you have a group of members, but you don’t know who the members are.

S. Goldfarb: In a way, yes. But we’d know who most of the members are because even before we had an MOU with UBC, UBC was always cooperative and always gave us the list of the members so that we could run our elections and so that we could communicate with our members.

The other two affiliated colleges…. UBC used to provide this for the affiliated colleges as well, but then, last year, said that they couldn’t do this, it wasn’t appropriate, and we would have to speak to each of the affiliated colleges separately.

We spoke to them informally, and two of them gave us their information in order to conduct the elections. Regent College was the only one that said: “Well, no. We have privacy concerns, and we would need each individual Regent College student to individually consent.”

K. Greene: You know, I went to UBC. I do very much value the work the AMS does, and the services it provides for students are very, very valuable.

I wonder — back to MLA Begg’s point about something simpler that is not necessarily a legislated solution. As simple as, when students enrol, there’s a box to say that AMS will be contacting you unless you opt out, because they’ve got important things that you need to know. And not necessarily going the legislated route.

So just things to think about. But I appreciate that you’re in a bit of an awkward situation where you have members that you can’t contact.

A. Olsen: I just want to thank you for the presentation and just want to emphasize that where we’re at in society right now, consent is key and a fundamental aspect of what we’re working with in the update of PIPA. But more broadly, across society, consent is the very basis of where we’re going and where we should be going.

I think that, as my colleagues have pointed out, you can create a consent solution here — consent for people sharing their information and giving access to your organization. That’s the route that we should be going. I think that’s the route we are going in the work that we’re doing.

M. Elmore (Chair): Thanks, Adam.

[9:50 a.m.]

I also have a question. You mentioned a couple hundred, a few hundred members at Regent College. If you could just clarify the basis, the rationale, why Regent felt, because they wanted to respect the privacy of their members, that they weren’t able to supply you with the students’ information.

S. Goldfarb: I don’t think they mentioned this in the email exchange, but I think they were relying on FIPPA — that as a public body, as a college, they’re protecting the privacy of their students.

As the privacy officer at the AMS, I’m responsible for making sure that the AMS complies with PIPA. PIPA is very similar. I understand the point of that. I make sure that personal information of members of the AMS, the students at UBC and the colleges, is not released, without their consent, to outside bodies. But we’re not an outside body. We’re the student society representing the students. They’re members of our society. Regent College is not holding up the fees. They pass along the fees. These students are paying their fees to us, yet they’re being disenfranchised in an election.

The argument, basically, was a personal-information argument by the registrar of Regent. I understand where it’s coming from, and I appreciate it, but I think it’s misguided in this place. I’m hoping we will be able to sit down and work something out with him next month. I’ll just set up a meeting with him. We thought it would also be useful if the law itself said this is okay. I don’t know if that answers the question.

M. Elmore (Chair): Yeah, thanks. Generally, PIPA governs businesses in private institutions. There’s the line. Sometimes it overlaps with respect to public organizations. Just interested in that discussion. Also, I just wish you good luck in terms of your meetings with Regent and echo remarks from other members on the committee. I think that that would be the most expeditious way to resolve the matter.

Unless anybody else has any other comments or remarks, I’d like to thank you both for your presentation. I appreciate it and hope you enjoy the rest of the day.

We’ve got another five-minute break, everybody. Back just before ten.

The committee recessed from 9:53 a.m. to 10 a.m.

[M. Elmore in the chair.]

M. Elmore (Chair): Our next presenter this morning is Diane Milne.

Thank you for joining us, Diane. You’ll have up to 15 minutes for your presentation. Hansard Services has provided a timer, which will be visible on your screen, if you’re using gallery view.

Before you begin, I’m going to ask members to introduce themselves. I’ll start with myself. I’m Mable Elmore, the MLA for Vancouver-Kensington and Chair of the Special Committee to Review the Personal Information Protection Act.

I’ll pass it off to the vice-Chair, Dan.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Mable.

Good morning, Diane. I’m Dan Ashton. I represent the people from Penticton to Peachland.

A. Wilkinson: I’m Andrew Wilkinson. I represent Vancouver-Quilchena.

K. Greene: Hi. I’m Kelly Greene, MLA for Richmond-Steveston.

Steveston is on the traditional, unceded territory of the Musqueam First Nation.

My pronouns are she/her. Welcome.

D. Milne: Thank you.

A. Olsen: Good morning. Adam Olsen, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

I’m happy to be working here today at my home in the W̱JOȽEȽP village.

G. Begg: Hi, Diane. I’m Garry Begg. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Guildford.

I’m coming to you today from the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people.

R. Glumac: I’m Rick Glumac, MLA for Port Moody–​Coquitlam.

M. Elmore (Chair): Thank you, Members.

Diane, I’m joining you virtually from the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Please begin when you’re ready.

DIANE MILNE

D. Milne: Thank you.

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to provide input to this review process for the personal privacy protection act. My name, as you already know, is Diane Milne. I would like to give some context to my presentation before I begin. And I don’t think I’ll need the whole 15 minutes.

I have lived in B.C. for 45 years. I am a recently retired registered nurse who worked for 40 years, training here in the last graduating class at Victoria General Hospital and moving on to St. Paul’s Hospital in downtown Vancouver. It was my honour to work there for over 30 years, first in critical care nursing and then in varied positions as a nurse educator.

As part of my role there, I taught many aspects of privacy legislation and how it applied to health care. We were required to update our education in the legislation yearly, and I followed the changes with interest as it directly related to our work as health care providers. Many health care staff were previously unaware of these laws until legislation was enacted and we were required to practise according to these policies.

I’m presenting to the committee due to a recent incident of identity theft against me by my ex-husband. My knowledge of privacy legislation was instrumental in helping me submit three review requests to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of B.C. Two of these requests went on to review and rulings by the privacy office.

For many years before I retired, I meticulously discussed and planned my retirement with divorce specialists at the municipal pension plan to ensure that my ex-husband could not access my personal information, as he had a history of doing that in the past. I was concerned that he may try to access my pension information when he learned that I was retiring.

He has not complied with court and legal letters to disclose his financial information to move forward with divorce proceedings for nine years now, so we don’t have a legal separation agreement. However, under the definition of “separation” by the municipal pension plan, we are separated. It is not my intention to withhold my pension from him, but we both must adhere to the legal process. My files were submitted to the courts in 2012, and his are still forthcoming. Over all those years, I was repeatedly assured by municipal pension plan staff that under no circumstances could he access my pension information.

Right before I retired in March 2020, I discovered that he had filed a form 1 to the pension plan 30 days before my pension was processed and desperately contacted them the night before the deadline for filing. This form tells the pension plan that there is another party with financial interest in the pension. So this delayed processing of my pension for almost two months, leaving me with no income. He was also able to access a large amount of personal and financial information, as I will describe.

[10:05 a.m.]

In an email from his lawyer and following those repeated assurances that this would not occur, I received my private integrated pension administration system personal profile, which he somehow received from the municipal pension plan. It is my understanding that an employee there, who was identified, discussed my file with someone and added incorrect information without my knowledge or consent. The document contains nine pages of my personal information, including social insurance number, municipal pension plan identification number and my entire employee history of earnings and pension contributions from 1992 to 2020.

My profile had also been altered since I’d last reviewed it online. It contained incorrect information that could be detrimental to my personal finances and have implications for completing divorce proceedings. Dates of cohabitation had been added to my account which were incorrect, and no documentation was provided to support them. The date is also irrelevant for pension division purposes, since I wasn’t enrolled in the pension plan until long after that time. His name had been added as a separated party when, according to MPP criteria, we were separated. How they were able to obtain such a large amount of personal and private information remains in question.

While working through the reviews with the office, one of them was against the law firm that he had hired. It was a surprise to us all that family law supersedes privacy laws, so that request did not proceed to review. It is not clear if the law firm or my ex-husband were responsible for the identity theft. It is clear that it was a gross breach of privacy legislation and the municipal pension plan would be held accountable. All the altered and incorrect information has been removed from my account. That process took over a year and about ten letters, more emails and a large amount of my time and effort to resolve.

The RCMP followed through and have also discussed the issue with my ex-husband. I have the police report to proceed with civil charges if I choose to. That process took longer than the privacy office, and I found it quite unacceptable to have to wait over a year for a report of a crime committed against me. I had to write to the RCMP headquarters in Ottawa and wait ten months for a response, at which time they sent the file back to its origin in North Vancouver and returned it to me from there.

It is clear there is need for more education and enforcement of privacy laws that are required for both private and public institutions. That is why I’m here today — to propose changes to the legislation to include individuals, family and all laws, and private and public institutions under the privacy act. In my view, those groups and individuals should not be above any law, including privacy legislation. There are other means to obtain required information in anything, including in a divorce proceeding. Hence, what happened to me needs to be prevented from recurring to others, who may not understand the law.

It is important to understand that there was no request for that information or any communication from them prior to this event. We’ve been separated for nine years, and I’ve had no contact with him since. All my legal requests to disclose financial information to proceed with the divorce have been ignored since 2012. The private information that they obtained from my pension account could be used against me and cause considerable financial harm for which there would be no retribution under current laws.

I think the legislation needs revision to move this change forward. Thank you for your attention. I’m ready for your questions.

M. Elmore (Chair): Thank you, Diane.

Do I have questions from any of the committee members?

Andrew, go ahead.

A. Wilkinson: Well, thank you, Ms. Milne, and our heart goes out to you. This has obviously been a source of great distress to you for almost a decade. It’s difficult for us to get involved in a particular case, but it sounds as if the mischief here was your estranged husband’s access to municipal pension plan and their willingness to record information, whether it was right or wrong.

[10:10 a.m.]

I may be…. Garry may fit into this category as well. Having filed for some pension credits on earlier employment that I left 15 years ago, there is a process to go through where there is a requirement to disclose whether there’s any spouse or estranged individual who would have a claim to your pension benefits. But my understanding — Garry is nodding his head; he may know more than I do — is that that function lies with the pension beneficiary, which is you, not with your ex-husband.

Whether this is something that can be addressed in revision to the legislation, I don’t know, but it’s obviously a very legitimate point that needs to be pursued as we move forward. Whether it was simply an administrative error that is already contemplated in rules and legislation — and that fault lies with the municipal pension plan — or whether it’s something that needs to be addressed in the laws of the land is something that we’ll take to heart, I’m sure.

Thank you for your time and very best wishes. We do hope this is the kind of responsiveness that you expect from legislators.

D. Milne: Thank you, Andrew.

M. Elmore (Chair): Do we have other questions from other committee members?

Just to follow on the remarks that Andrew had, it seems that the fault really lies with the municipal pension plan and how they inappropriately disclosed information and then also added information. So what is the status of that? I know you mentioned that you had filed a report with the RCMP and there is a possibility for charges going forward. But what’s the status with respect to how it processed through the municipal pension plan? It seems that they were really in error.

D. Milne: Yes, they did make a very large error, and they admitted that. The privacy office was really instrumental in helping me get that message through to them, because they weren’t quite understanding that when I was working with them. All the information that was false has been removed. It’s all back to the way it was before. In terms of my understanding, it’s all been resolved.

M. Elmore (Chair): At the municipal pension plan, presumably, they would have been advised, corrected that. I know you referenced, as well, the importance for informing individuals and organizations in terms of their responsibility. Thanks for that clarification.

Also, I just wish you the best and hope that this issue is resolved for you and that you can enjoy your much-deserved retirement. I know you’ve worked hard.

D. Milne: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to give you some input about it, because I think it’s a little bit of a loophole that people were able to find, right? So I appreciate the time.

G. Begg: Can I ask just one question of Diane before she leaves? I’m just unclear as to whether or not your ex-husband fraudulently obtained the information. Or did he always represent himself as an interested party through his prior relationship with you?

D. Milne: He’s never had any contact with the pension plan before. I’m not really sure if that answers your question, but yeah, he fraudulently obtained that information. It’s a private account, and I’m the only person able to access it, as well as pension plan staff.

I think that what happened was that the person that he contacted there and changed the information was unaware that he wasn’t supposed to do that. I don’t think it was done…. He didn’t know. There was a lot of education that went on after this happened, and I had contact with a lot of administrators at the pension plan, at first. Then the privacy office took over from that. They managed all the interventions to get them to cooperate and change all the information, and they did. They did.

M. Elmore (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation, Diane. I hope you enjoy the rest of the day.

D. Milne: I’ll send my document in to the group, too, so you don’t have to transcribe it. Thank you so much. Have a good day.

M. Elmore (Chair): Okay, we’ve got our next presenter. We’re going to give her till 10:20. So we’ve got another five-minute recess, everybody. See you back in five.

The committee recessed from 10:14 a.m. to 10:23 a.m.

[M. Elmore in the chair.]

M. Elmore (Chair): Okay, everybody. Our final presenter this morning is Martha Rans.

Nice to see you again, Martha.

Martha is the legal director with the Pacific Legal Education and Outreach Society.

Thanks for joining us. Martha, you’ll have up to 15 minutes for your presentation. Hansard Services has provided a timer, which will be visible on your screen, if you’re using gallery view. Before you begin, I’ll ask the members to introduce themselves.

I’ll start with myself. I’m Mable Elmore, MLA for Vancouver-Kensington and Chair of the Special Committee to Review the Personal Information Protection Act.

I’ll now pass it over to our vice-Chair, Dan.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Good morning, Martha. I’m glad to see you. I have the honour of representing the people from Penticton to Peachland, here in the Okanagan. Have a good day.

M. Rans: Good morning. I guess I’ll just get going, then.

M. Elmore (Chair): One second, Martha. Next I’ll have Kelly…. I’ve got a few more members that just have to introduce themselves.

K. Greene: I’m Kelly Greene, MLA for Richmond-Steveston.

Steveston is on the traditional, unceded territory of the Musqueam First Nation.

My pronouns are she/her. Welcome.

A. Olsen: Hi, Martha. Adam Olsen here, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

I’m proud to be working today from my home village of W̱JOȽEȽP.

G. Begg: Hi, Martha. I’m Garry Begg. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Guildford.

I’m coming to you today from the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, which includes the Kwantlen, the Semiahmoo and the Katzie First Nations.

R. Glumac: I’m Rick Glumac, MLA for Port Moody–​Coquitlam.

M. Elmore (Chair): Thanks, Members.

Martha, I’m joining you from the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Go ahead with your presentation.

[10:25 a.m.]

PACIFIC LEGAL EDUCATION
AND OUTREACH SOCIETY

M. Rans: Thank you so much, hon. members of the committee, for the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Martha Rans. I’m the founder and legal director of PLEO.

We are situated on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the Musqueam, the Squamish and the Tsleil-Waututh. We thank the host nations for their forbearance of our presence on this land.

I also want to very briefly acknowledge our law students, Sheldon Falk and Hayley Nelles, for their support in getting me up to speed on three pieces of legislation in five days flat.

I’ve been a lawyer for over 25 years and in the non-profit sector for over 40. In the early aughts, I was the lead researcher on a project reviewing the impact of electronic health records and a new case management system in the community and social service sector. As part of that project, I conducted a number of privacy impact assessments on community and social service non-profits. I’ve continued my legal practice to include privacy issues in the non-profit sector since that time. So a good 15 to 20 years of dedicated attention.

PLEO, founded in 2005, provides legal information, education and advice to artists and non-profits through two projects: the Artists Legal Outreach and Law for Non-Profits. Law for Non-Profits has been offering workshops and webinars on privacy matters since its inception. We’ve offered more than 50 workshops and webinars to the non-profit sector on recordkeeping and privacy — had our slides reviewed, incidentally, by the OIPC, to ensure consistency with the OIPC.

Our self-assessment learning tool prototype, available on our website, is also directed to privacy issues.

Finally, as entrenched as we are in copyright issues, we’ve been deeply engaged in policy around the impact of digital technologies on various sectors, with privacy interests in particular.

I’ve reviewed the OIPC submissions on the proposed changes to PIPA, as well as the General Data Protection Regulation and the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (Bill C-11.) I’ve not had time to formulate an opinion on the merits of either act, and I’m not here to make submissions of a technical nature. You have the OIPC for that, as well as our friends at B.C.’s Freedom of Information and Privacy Association.

I’m primarily here to raise with the committee some of the obvious issues that will arise for the non-profit sector as a consequence of any changes to PIPA that will be required to bring it into compliance, whether it’s with the CPPA, Bill C-11 or the GDPR.

What I will say, apropos of the legislation, is that amendments to PIPA required as a consequence of GDPR and CPPA are good. There’s no question that we need to enhance individual privacy rights given the abuses that have been legion in the last decade, as technological change and digital actors have moved to control more of our personal information and data.

As pointed out by the OIPC, there are ten significant areas of change, including, from my point of view, privacy breach notification, enhanced consent requirements, identification of personal information as its transferred to third parties, and an enhanced compliance and regulatory regime. Each of those will have an impact on the non-profit sector.

For example, if passed in its current form, Bill C-11 would require non-profits to designate a person to ensure compliance with the act, implement a privacy management program, which is somewhat different language from what currently exists, and determine at or before collection which purposes information will be used for. At its heart is the need for what I would argue is a more robust approach to privacy management across the non-profit sector.

Once again, I want to say that this is a good thing. I’m not suggesting, by any stretch of the imagination, that this is not a good thing. What the committee members may not know is that many in the non-profit sector are already struggling with the current requirements of PIPA, such as having a privacy policy.

[10:30 a.m.]

Many don’t even have one today. It’s 2021, and I think we’re talking about legislation that was brought in in 2010. I may be wrong about that, but it’s been at least a decade. They may not even know they need one.

Since the transition to the new Societies Act, there are now 29,000 non-profits in the province of B.C. That’s an increase of approximately 2,000. So that’s 2,000 more organizations that may not have a clue that they’re required to have a privacy policy, a privacy officer or — as would be required, I would argue, under section 9 of the CPPA — perhaps an actual privacy impact assessment and a more robust privacy management program.

I gave a workshop to members of the B.C. Food Banks some years ago. One of the smaller members of the association thought that they were covered by the privacy policy either of the church within which they were situated or through their membership in the association. This example is not unique.

I know some of the members have a history and background in the non-profit sector, and you probably know what I’m talking about. You may also have been on boards and not realized that the privacy policy in the organization on which you were a board of did not even include language with respect to the collection of personal information through their website or data analytic software.

I’ve seen CARF-accredited organizations that have not included those provisions in their privacy policies, notwithstanding that the OIPC issued very clear information and directives to that effect.

We know why. Non-profits operate on limited budgets in unique and diverse fields. Many non-profits are actively engaged in providing direct services to vulnerable populations. Ensuring compliance with PIPA is essential to their work, and they do it to the best of their ability.

Non-profits, especially, continue to struggle due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a sharp drop-off in donations, extra help and safety costs, and having to cancel revenue-generating programs and events, all of which have had an enormous impact. I’m sure some of you are familiar with Vantage Point’s surveys and the work that they did on the precarity of the non-profit sector in B.C. as a consequence of the pandemic.

As PIPA undoubtedly is going to be modernized to align with this federal legislation, special consideration should be given to the supports and resources that are needed by the non-profit sector to implement any changes to the act.

Specifically, what do I suggest, what does PLEO suggest, the committee should recommend? First, a robust allocation to the OIPC to ensure that it has adequate resources to educate and train, conceivably, all of the non-profit sector. In addition, funding could be allocated to non-profit partners, whether the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, PLEO or other organizations that, like us, take an interest in ensuring that people are aware of and can comply with PIPA.

The main issues that would be highlighted through this education and training would be to raise awareness of PIPA’s requirements for non-profits; how non-profits can comply with PIPA; best practices for handling and protecting personal information; and funding for privacy impact assessments.

One of the takeaways from the review that I did of the GDPR is that there is this requirement for privacy impact assessments. I don’t really know how that’s going to actually…. I don’t think any of us do now — whether or not that would be a requirement under Bill C-11 and how that issue might play out.

[10:35 a.m.]

I actually think that the way we could crack this nut is if we allocated funding for privacy impact assessments to those organizations, particularly non-profits, who are responsible for sensitive personal information so that they can manage more effectively the personal information of individuals who access their services. It would also enable them, one would hope, to better prevent data breaches as well as respond to them if they happen and advise folks and address the third-party suppliers and all of the other enhanced provisions that are undoubtedly going to come as a consequence of revisions to PIPA.

That’s, basically, with four minutes and 20 seconds counting down, all I have to say.

M. Elmore (Chair): Great job, Martha. Thanks a lot for your very concise presentation.

I’d like to open it up to questions from committee members.

I’ll kick it off, Martha. Thank you for really bringing the perspective and the impact, particularly from the non-profit sector. I think you’ve really articulated the challenges of the sector, particularly coming through COVID but also just some of the structural barriers in terms of ensuring that non-profits understand what’s required to meet privacy requirements and to have that capacity.

Your recommendation in terms of…. Can you talk about that a little bit more? I mean, I know your recommendation is to resource the OIPC or PLEO or other organizations to conduct that education work. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

M. Rans: Sure. First, I think that we have to…. I don’t know how much people know about this, but most non-profits and charities in B.C., which I’ve certainly addressed, don’t have a line item for privacy compliance. Government does. I was in government for six years with the B.C. Human Rights Commission. I know that we had dedicated privacy staff.

These organizations, even multi-million-dollar…. One organization in the Lower Mainland — a $22 million budget — has a 0.5 individual whose responsibility it is to address privacy issues. We need to address the reality, which is that the budgets within and across all ministries don’t adequately address the privacy compliance needs of the non-profit sector writ large.

I think the OIPC does an extraordinary job and, certainly, under the current government, has had its resources increased. I acknowledge that. I also know that the requirement is that you basically call them up. I tell people to call up the OIPC all the time, and in my experience — I hate to say it — many people just don’t. So we have an issue here.

When I started in this field 20-odd years ago, there used to be lots more education provided by the OIPC. They used to travel regularly to Vancouver. Now we have Zoom. We have all these technological capacities. We need to get the incredible knowledge of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner out to the people. They have limited resources. So that would be a great way to do that.

I think it’s like the transition to the new Societies Act. I said to the government of the day that we need dedicated resources. The non-profit sector is different.

I do think you also need to dedicate resources to small business. These are also the private organizations that are going to struggle and do struggle today with complying with whether it’s privacy or employment standards.

We need to pay some attention to that. Wherever the budget is allocated…. We need a budget allocation, meaning a provincial budget allocation, to this area because it is extremely important. Without that training and education, there are going to be struggles to comply with that.

[10:40 a.m.]

I do think that those of us in the non-profit sector who are deeply embedded within it, like PLEO, like our other friends, can do a lot to enhance that education. We reach people in corners of the province that you may not and that others may not reach.

We’ve had workshops in Fort St. John, Penticton — Member Ashton — where I visited three times and did the privacy and recordkeeping for non-profits. I’ve been to Williams Lake. I’ve been all over the place. Anybody that will have me, I will go. Now we can use the wonders of technology, and there’s infrastructure that is required in order to enable us to do that. That’s primarily where I think the budgets need to be allocated.

Though I would say that I think that this should be something that should be on government’s agenda in terms of addressing the non-profit sector, which is ensuring that there are budgetary allocations in all service agreements that include funds to ensure that those organizations, like the community and social service sector, have access to resources as part of the service, to ensure that they can effectively manage the privacy obligations that are upon them.

I would suggest that if you’re not hearing from the Federation of Community and Social Services on this point, you seek them out. I’m quite sure that they can speak volumes about the need, how onerous, not onerous in a bad sense — that’s sort of maybe overstating it — but just how important it is to them that they do comply with requirements and that it is not easy to do so in an environment where the administration piece of those service agreements or grants doesn’t take proper account of their need to comply with government legislation, including PIPA.

I think that PIPA has a particularly important role here, precisely because our clients are often among the most vulnerable. They are entitled to privacy protections that can be very challenging to address, where you may be dealing with folks who are unhoused or who are struggling with various challenges. I think these issues have not been properly, perhaps, addressed and funded in the past.

M. Elmore (Chair): Thanks, Martha. Good point — really highlighting the challenge around capacity for non-profits. I take your point that folks come together to deliver these front-line services to vulnerable populations, and these concerns are important.

Can you talk a little bit…? I know you mentioned that you offer the workshop webinar Law for Non-profits. You mentioned that there is another program with artists. What is it that you also deliver? Workshops?

M. Rans: Well, there’s our legal self-assessment and learning tool, which is a digital platform that will be launching in September to help anybody, actually, who accesses it to better understand and comply with legal obligations with respect to the Societies Act and PIPA — privacy, more generally, recordkeeping in the non-profit sector. That’s kind of the focus of that tool.

The Artists Legal Outreach, which will become, come January, the first funded legal clinic for the arts in Canada, with a staff lawyer who we’ve just hired to serve artists and arts organizations on a full-time basis, will be a legal clinic dedicated to the arts. We come up regularly on issues around what we call “pivoting to digital.” Among the issues that are raised consistently, whether it’s by artists, individual artists or performers, throughout is: “What happens to my stuff when I put it up online?”

[10:45 a.m.]

Also, how do we protect the privacy of those engaged in all of these activities? There’s a massive influx of funding from the digital strategy fund of the Canada Council for the Arts. One of the focuses that they’ve asked us to undertake as part of the legal clinic for the arts is ensuring that privacy issues in the digital frame, so to speak — in this milieu that we now live in — are understood by artists and arts organizations across Canada. So the whole question of privacy and who controls our stuff is very much entrenched in the copyright conversations that we’ve been having for 20 years. I hope that answers your question.

M. Elmore (Chair): Thanks, Martha, and congratulations for the legal clinic. That’s pretty exciting and much-needed. I also look forward to your digital tool that’s coming out. I’ll keep an eye out for that as well.

Does anybody else have a question you’d like to make before we wrap up here?

I really appreciate your presentation, Martha. Thanks, as well, to your support folks for getting you up to speed on the national and international context of the legislation. I really appreciate your important remarks that you brought forward with respect, in particular, to focusing on non-profits and the need to support capacity. So thank you very much.

Did you have any closing remarks, Martha?

M. Rans: Only to thank you all for your attention. I know this is a big file. Sometimes I think we all feel we’re falling under the weight of all these words. I really appreciate your attention and time.

M. Elmore (Chair): Okay. I hope you have a great rest of the day, Martha.

M. Rans: You too.

M. Elmore (Chair): Okay. Thank you, everybody. That concludes our presenters today.

The committee will meet again on July 6 and 7 to continue our public hearings. I hope those listening will join us again in a couple of weeks.

I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Thank you very much, Dan.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 10:47 a.m.