Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued second reading debate, Bill 22, the FIPPA amendment act.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 22 — FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND
PROTECTION OF PRIVACY
AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

(continued)

T. Shypitka: Well, I’ll continue on where I left off last week on the bill that’s in front of us right now, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act. As I suggested last week, this bill is an attempt to modernize or to update, as we’ve heard, a piece of legislation that has been in practice for the past ten years as it sits right now.

Now, there are those that support it for what this bill appears to be, and there are those, especially the ones on this side of the House, that oppose it because of what it actually does. The devil is always in the details. I kind of highlighted that a little bit last Thursday, and I’ll continue from that. The fact that we are seeing no debate on the government side right now on this bill is a little concerning. It also kind of is a testament to the awareness that they must have on this bill that it is not in the best interests of British Columbians.

I talked about the timing of this bill. I talked about why now, what the urgency is and what the priority is with this bill going forward right now without a comprehensive review from the Privacy Commissioner himself nor a decision or recommendation from the committee that has been struck from the government side. It’s a non-partisan committee. It’s a committee that I sit on. This committee is to sit until June 2022 and to examine this piece of legislation that we’re actually seeing right now.

We’re wondering on this side: what is the urgency? There are so many other priorities in this province right now that we could be focusing more on. The fact that there’s nobody that is actually calling for this amendment…. I have no knowledge of any group or any individual that is saying that we have to amend this act. So we’re concerned about that.

This morning I did a private member’s statement on the lack of government services due to, in part, the COVID pandemic. Those are things we could be looking at.

The opioid crisis is at record highs of mortality. Our housing market is crashing. School districts, as we heard in question period today, are scrambling in putting in their own COVID protocols without government, failing to participate…. Our wildlife populations — I know in my region alone there are a lot of issues. More right now are on the whitetail doe hunt. Those are things — regulation, legislation, things like that — that we really could be focusing on. These are a few issues that I can think of just off the top of my head right now.

The fact that this piece of legislation right now needs amendment, with no groups or no concerns that I know of, is a bit of a head-scratcher. I talked last week about data storage. I talked about how this bill allows our critical and delicate private information to be stored by a third party outside of B.C., outside of Canada even. Sarcastically, what could ever go wrong with that? We look at some of the world’s most major data breaches over the last eight years. I highlighted last week Facebook, LinkedIn, Alibaba and Yahoo. There’s a long list of data breaches that have happened over the last eight years, and this is in the billions of people.

[2:35 p.m.]

The U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, for example, allows data and records to be stored, to be held and to be revealed at literally any moment’s notice. These are concerns that British Columbians have, so this is why we’re concerned with this bill right now.

I’m confident that the good people of British Columbia would not want to have their private and confidential information held by a third-party contractor in a country such as China. This should be setting off some alarm bells, and it certainly does on this side of the House. It actually sets off alarm bells on the other side of the House as well.

I’ll go to a quote here, if I can find it. This quote comes from Jenny Kwan, former NDP MLA from Vancouver. She’s a current MP. She said:

“The government plans to turn over the MSP to either IBM or Maximus, both American multinational corporations, by the end of August. There have been issues raised around this privatization, particularly the issue around privacy.

“Accordingly, there’s an issue around the notion that the information contained under the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act could be in violation, in my view, of privacy for Canadians and British Columbians. More particularly, this includes information in terms of health treatment, pharmacy, income tax, mental health and criminal records, as well as records from the Ministers of Children and Family Development and of Human Resources.”

She was very concerned.

We could look at Joy MacPhail, a long-term member and MLA for the NDP. She said: “Under the Patriot Act, American secret service agencies can access the private information of British Columbians held by American companies or their subsidiaries without any of us knowing.” That was from, like I said, Joy MacPhail, on March 25, ’04.

Interjections.

T. Shypitka: We have members on the other side that are very interested in what I have to say, and I encourage them to get up and stand and debate. That’s what we want to do. We need to hear from the other side. So I encourage the member and all members from that side to get up and speak to what they think is true. I welcome that. That’s what this forum right here is all about.

Once again, this government is telling us not to worry. “Don’t ask silly questions. We’ll fill in those answers after the legislation is amended.” Nobody is going to be okay with that. A lot of constituents in my riding aren’t. I’m sure there are going to be a lot of constituents on the other side as well.

When we talk about data storage and saving it outside of our provincial borders or outside of our national borders…. I look to projects inside B.C. I’ve got a company that’s in Canal Flats. That’s just outside my riding. It’s in the Columbia River–Revelstoke riding, but it’s not too far from me. It’s about 40 minutes away. It’s a company called IRIS and Columbia Lake Technology. It’s a technology farm, a data server farm. It reappropriates an old sawmill that used to be there years ago, so it has a lot of infrastructure in place already.

This company has come in and built affordable housing in the small town of Canal Flats. They’ve got mortgage options for their employees. They have greenhouses there that use server heat. The server that’s out there puts out a lot of heat, and they recycle that heat. They make greenhouses out of it. That’s great. They use clean hydro energy.

This is in a location that’s cool, temperature-wise, and free of earthquakes. They utilize fibre optics that are available in the area. So why not direct all our data storage to sites like this? It seems practical. It seems like we should be looking out for our people in our riding and storing that information within our riding and within our province.

Once again, this is not about modernizing a bill. This is stepping backwards and diving off a cliff into water when you have no idea what lies beneath the surface. A leap of faith, in my opinion, is an understatement. I’ll read something from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner that kind of illustrates this is for me a little bit.

[2:40 p.m.]

This is a quote from the OIPC: “What is exceedingly troubling, however, is that government now proposes to allow public bodies to send British Columbians’ personal information outside Canada without explaining how they will properly protect it. Without concrete alternative protections for people’s data, the government is effectively asking the Legislative Assembly for a blank cheque to eliminate the current restrictions on public bodies accessing and storing people’s personal information outside of Canada.”

That comes from the OIPC. This is the Privacy Commissioner, an independent body that’s to look after the storage and enforcement of our private information.

It also goes on to say here: “On access to information, some provisions of the act improve the law while others do not. While making it an offence to willfully destroy records to avoid complying with an access request is a welcome change, greater clarity is needed to capture improperly destroying a record before somebody specifically requests it.” That’s something else in this bill — that it identifies the destruction of records before it’s actually requested for FOI. That’s a concern. That’s what we’re talking about here.

This bill does not include provisions to prevent documents from being destroyed prior to FOI requests. This was a request outlined, as I mentioned, by the OIPC that has not been addressed in this legislation, leaving a significant gap in the protection of documents that the public has a right to.

That was a quote from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Here’s another one: “If somebody destroys records because they think they might be of interest but wants to destroy them before any request is made, there is no offence for that. That cannot be right, and that needs to change. It is an offence in Alberta, and it could have easily been put in place here.” That’s from, as I said, Michael McEvoy, the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

The other day in this House — this was last week I announced this — I announced that the initialism NDP meant “never delivering promises.” Today, reading this bill, I take that back. In seeing how this bill allows the destruction of records, the initialism of NDP should be “no documents produced.”

All this may be funny to some. A recent FOI request from CTV in regards to receiving the true numbers of the COVID pandemic was received. Of the 60-some-odd pages received, I was told that there were 50-some-odd pages that were totally blacked out. The remaining pages were partially redacted. And that’s not right.

I’ve got a couple of minutes here, Mr. Speaker. I could go on a whole bunch of tangents here. There’s more than enough information. As a matter of fact, the information on why this bill is not right actually encompasses more than the bill itself. A whole bunch of quotes from a lot of different high-level representatives, a lot of them NDP representatives.

Maybe I’ll turn to one last page here. It was on fees. A lot of fees attached to this. That provides a barrier. There are three fees. There are three changes to fees included in this bill: a new application fee, potential fees for certain documents like manuals and also a new allowance for the public body to charge applicants for simply providing a copy of the record. The introduction of an application fee under section 44 is nothing less than a tollgate. I believe it was the Minister of Indigenous Relations that echoed that — that fees are a tollgate for access to information. It is a strike against accountability and transparency.

The minister, as I mentioned, claims that this will not be a barrier to access. Sorry, that is the minister presenting this bill. He said it would not be a barrier to access. But the commissioner is clear once again. Here’s another quote from the commissioner: “This would be a significant step in the wrong direction. Application fees pose a real barrier for many who seek information that should be readily available to the public.”

[2:45 p.m.]

This application fee will apply to all public bodies, universities, health authorities, school boards and local governments. In the bill, the government has assured that there’s no ability for the commissioner to waive the application fee, even if the matter of public interest as his office is able to in the case of other fees under section 55. The bill proposes a prescribed application fee, and not even the head of a public body will be able to waive it.

With these fees, with a minute left to go…. There’s so much wrong with this bill that we’ll be definitely opposing it. It’s amazing. With fees like this that stop the media from accessing, to keep us all accountable, to keep us all transparent…. It absolutely blows my mind. With fees like this…. And I shake my head. It’s only the NDP that can take the “free” out of freedom of information.

With that, I’ll wrap my comments up. I know that my colleague has got a whole bunch more here. I will not be supporting this bill. Thank you very much.

J. Sturdy: I am slow getting up. I thought to give the opportunity for the government side to speak to this important bill, but I didn’t want to risk losing my place.

This is an important piece of legislation. Why? Well, it’s in the title of this bill, in fact, in many ways. This is not a miscellaneous type of bill. This is about freedom. This is about freedom of information and the protection of privacy. It really doesn’t get much more fundamental than freedom. Yet in this bill, your government is proposing to allow your information to be under the regulatory control and oversight of jurisdictions outside of this country.

In this bill, your government is enabling your personal information to be scraped and linked. In this bill, people will, for the first time, have to pay for access to information. In this bill, there will be new opportunities for public bodies to ignore freedom-of-information requests. In this bill, the Premier’s office is proposed to be removed as a public body for FOI purposes. This bill, much of which is essentially enabling legislation, will generate a mass of regulations about which we know nothing.

These regulations can move the dial on outcomes and impacts — move the dial 180 degrees. We have no idea where our cabinet will land on this, other than…. I guess we can get some sense of it. This government tends to like big government and Big Brother and appears to feel that they know better how you should live your life. So we should get some sense of it. We should also, perhaps, get the sense from the Premier, who, just last week, dismissed it as: “Hey, man, who cares?” Well, I do, and many others do as well.

Now, we should probably have seen this coming. For example, look at the current type of media avails — what we have seen over last while, up to last week, where his predecessors…. The Premier’s predecessors and even the Premier, earlier on in his term, held press avails where you could bring on all comers and where there were a couple more people on the phone, and everybody got all of their questions answered.

Nowadays, if last week was any indication — it was a late start — it’s one question. You get one question and one follow-up, and somehow we run out of time after 20 minutes. Now, some reporters never even get picked for a question. Many questions never get answered. The tough questions don’t get asked, because the media handler will make sure that you never get another question. Limiting media avails is about restricting access to information — maybe not as formal as what this bill is about but just as insidious.

We know that information is power. This bill is about controlling the flow of information, ergo this bill is about power. This is about people’s rights to have access to information that government uses to make decisions. It is about people having access to power and control.

[2:50 p.m.]

As opposition, we have a job. People expect us to complain, sometimes to our detriment. It is our job to examine pieces of legislation like this, and it’s expected that we’re going to express criticism and concern and to shine a light on it, to poke holes in things and highlight the inadequacies.

As I say, our criticisms are to be expected. But what is surprising and actually alarming, or should be alarming to the members of this House, is the position of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Now, this statutory officer is no stranger to these issues or this legislation. He was involved in drafting the original bill almost 30 years ago. This gentleman, Mr. McEvoy, who, as the House knows, was appointed to a six-year term in 2018. But prior, he helped lead the Information Commissioner’s office of the United Kingdom investigation into Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.

Since his appointment, he’s held a series of investigations aimed at strengthening access to information and privacy. He authored a report on B.C.’s political parties and collecting and using personal information there and the massive health breach for LifeLabs. He’s also the chair, incidentally, of the governing committee of the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities.

This gentleman is well respected internationally. We could dismiss our concerns, but I don’t know that dismissing the concerns of the Privacy Commissioner is in the government’s best interest. The Privacy Commissioner did not condemn this whole piece of legislation, and nor would I. There are positive pieces.

The new requirements relating to privacy impact assessments, new privacy breach notification rules, duty of public bodies to have a privacy management program…. You remember, of course, that the duty is only to have the program, it’s not actually to use it. And the inclusion of snooping offences.

These are positive pieces that build on the work of successive governments, including the B.C. Liberal government in 2011 and 2016 who made significant changes to this legislation. However, the rest of the letter was scathing in what the Privacy Commissioner describes as “a step backwards” for British Columbians.

Much of this legislation, as I mentioned, is just a framework. Much of it is enabling. In other words, the devil will be in the detail. Much will be unknown for now and left to cabinet to structure as they see fit, done under the cloak of cabinet secrecy.

Interestingly, the Privacy Commissioner says, on that issue of regulatory intention, that it “is of greatest concern in relation to the proposed repeal of the data residency requirements in part 3 of FIPPA, discussed below. It is crucial for government to disclose now what it intends to do to protect the personal privacy of British Columbians whose personal information may be exported outside of Canada.”

I am grateful to the Privacy Commissioner for the work that he has done, for the letter that he has written, for helping me better understand the concerns of this legislation.

It’s important that we know now, and for legislators, for us, to set the goalpost in a fundamental way about what government can do with our information and not just hand it over to a company in a foreign jurisdiction under which we have no regulatory oversight.

No, we need to know and to be confident in how our personal information is being handled, where the data lives, who has access to it and how it can be stored. We already have enough concern with the use of data and privacy breaches on platforms that we participate in voluntarily through Facebook or Google or other social media platforms, but those are voluntary mostly.

However, in the future, the government is proposing to remove data residency requirements, which means our data could go anywhere, and I mean anywhere.

[2:55 p.m.]

The Privacy Commissioner says: “The proposed amendments remove the data residency requirements altogether, leaving any protections to regulations, about which we know nothing.” Who will have access to that data? Could it be scraped and cross-referenced?

We lose control as a society if we don’t have strict regulation administering personal and government data. Imagine servers in countries all around the world that may or may not be secure, that could be sold or accessed, that could be used for all sorts of nefarious processes or uses.

The commissioner expresses concern about data linking as well. It has value as an analytical tool, certainly, but the commissioner says: “Bill 22 leaves the details of how data-linking activities are to be conducted to regulations, about which we have no details. These regulations must include rules and requirements for data-linking programs that bring transparency to these activities and include protections that are common in other provinces.” In other words, we’re missing significant protections, and we should be concerned.

Now, the one issue that has received much of the media coverage has also been flagged by the Privacy Commissioner, and it’s a desire of government to delist the Pre­mier’s office from the schedule of public bodies covered by the act. Again, this is a “trust us” moment. “Don’t worry. Be happy. It’s all good,” says the government. Well, not according to the Privacy Commissioner. Again, I quote: “I’m very concerned that Bill 22 would remove the Office of the Premier as a public body under schedule 2 of FIPPA.”

Now, I understand that the government believes that the designation is not necessary. However, again the Privacy Commissioner disagrees with this:

“Moreover, I am not aware of any harm flowing from retaining this designation, which obviously begs the question as to why the change is being made when the outcome is, again, not as clear as I am told government believes it is. The Office of the Premier lies at the heart of provincial governance.” I want to emphasize this. “I call on government to delete this proposal from Bill 22, for greater certainty that FIPPA’s transparency and accountability provisions will continue to apply, as they have for decades, to the Office of the Premier.”

So what is the motive? Well, the Premier is beginning to look very much like a secrecy Premier, for he clearly isn’t supporting transparency. This government has said not to worry, it will be fine, while the Privacy Commissioner raises the alarm. Who do we believe? Who do I believe? What source should I rely on? Well, I tell you, in this case, it’s not the government.

The Premier has been complaining, as well, about the use of FOI by political parties. Well, ironic for a guy who made his career out of sifting through FOIs, but now he describes it as an abuse of the system, talking about opposition and certain media. But that in and of itself raises some very, very troubling questions. Origins of FOI requests are supposed to be unknown.

[R. Leonard in the chair.]

How does the Premier know where these requests are coming from? How does he know that certain journalists are abusing the process? He can’t know. He’s not allowed to know. But somehow he does. Clairvoyance, I suppose, is a possibility. Super second sight. What is it? The Premier having access to information that he’s not supposed to have while moving forward a bill to expand the denial of basic information to the public should alarm this House.

So what have those FOIs actually generated — those ones that the Premier doesn’t know where they came from? The list is pretty long, actually. The provincial health authority’s expense scandal came as a result of FOI, the champagne lunches. The B.C. government concealing hospital outbreaks. Dozens dead, hundreds infected, but the health authorities fight to conceal it. The Little Mountain care home deaths. Or WC2, the Wilderness Committee, uncovering that this government, the NDP government, misled B.C. about how many hectares it had protected from old-growth logging.

[3:00 p.m.]

Or the friends and benefits agreements that add millions to the cost of Cowichan Hospital. I think it was identified through an FOI. A 23 percent increase. Hundreds of millions of dollars added to the cost of that project, found as a result of an FOI. Or, of course, parents being forced to file FOIs for COVID school exposures.

The Premier wants to slow down these inquiries or even stop them. What’s the best way to do that? Not necessarily the best but a simple way is let’s create a barrier. Let’s impose some fees. If you’re going to charge them, well, charge them large.

I heard the Premier obfuscate last week on fees. “Oh,” he says, “they’re not set. Oh, we don’t know.” Frankly, that’s true, because only cabinet knows because they are setting the fees by regulation. The minister was clear that she was going to recommend a $25 fee as a gatekeeper. How to keep the public and the media away? The easiest tactic is tolls. In this case, the toll is $25 to start and much more after that.

What does the Privacy Commissioner have to say about this?

“Bill 22 would authorize the government to impose application fees for access to information requests, fees that could be charged by all types of public bodies. This would be a significant step in the wrong direction. Application fees pose a real barrier for many who seek information that should be readily available to the public. I am unable to understand” — this is a good line — “how this amendment improves accountability and transparency when it comes to public bodies that operate in a free and democratic society.”

Well, maybe this government isn’t interested in taking our public bodies in a free and democratic way. Maybe for this government, it is just another step backwards.

The minister says it’s a modest fee. In fact, she said it about a dozen times, I think, in a row. There’s a great clip online: “It’s modest. Oh, it’s modest. Modest. Oh, comparable, modest. It’s in line.” I think there’s a loop out there somewhere that I’m sure is going to make it onto TikTok one of these days. It’s pretty funny. But you know what? The fees aren’t funny.

The minister says it’s comparable to other jurisdictions, but is it? In fact, no. Five provinces — the fee is zero. The feds and three other provinces is $5. The only one that is $25 is Alberta. Somehow that brings us into alignment. That’s nothing short of ludicrous.

What is in alignment is the chorus of voices that say the fee is a barrier. The member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, in his previous incarnation as an MP, said: “Canadians also need to know that government has not abolished the $5 fee, which is a tollgate on citizens’ right to access.”

I’m glad that the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan is here, because he’s been pretty prolific in terms of his condemnation of FOI fees. I can quote him here and say: “We’ve seen fees put up as obstacles. We’ve seen exemptions expanded and stretched beyond their original meaning.” I couldn’t agree with you more, and the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan is not alone.

The Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations said: “Fees have always been an issue for many who have submitted freedom-of-information requests. The fee schedule will not be adjusted with this bill. It does nothing to ensure equity of access to information.”

The Privacy Commissioner made his voice very clear: “I think this is a step in the wrong direction.” Another quote: “I am concerned about that because any time a fee structure is put in place, it acts as a barrier and a deterrent to people making access requests.” I actually have about a dozen of his quotes, and I won’t belabour them.

I think the list also goes much beyond the minister or the commissioner. The administrators of the B.C. freedom-of-information program, investigative journalists…. Oh, one NDP candidate for Kelowna–Lake Country: “This is just bad policy. Please reconsider.”

[3:05 p.m.]

It goes on. The professor of environmental and climate journalism at UVic: “There’s only one other province that charges $25 merely to ask for government information: Alberta, one of the most secretive and undemocratic jurisdictions in North America. The B.C. NDP is proposing to take B.C. in the same direction.”

It goes on, and it goes on. But beyond that chorus of condemnation that barriers, through the imposition of fees, is another concern of the commissioner — new exclusions of records from the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act. Here’s another quote from the commissioner: “Another significant concern is the right of access under FIPPA would no longer apply to certain electronic records, a change that would, in turn, limit public bodies’ duty to create records from electronic records.”

We know that electronic records are the way we live. Some members may or may not have embraced this, but they are the exception. What will be excluded from requirements of document isn’t clear, but electronic records are the bulk of records and their potential for exclusion is alarming. Cabinet will be the arbiter of the limitations which, frankly, is an even greater concern.

Next, government intends to broaden the grounds for public bodies to disregard requests for access to information, to widen the scope where public bodies can simply ignore you. This is, again, from the Privacy Commissioner: “The bill proposes a troubling new criterion under which the commissioner could be asked to authorize a public body to disregard a request.”

Obviously, this is a big concern. Government could seek to disregard access to briefing notes, to issues notes, decision notes, calendars, expense claims. Well for staff, anyway, because all our expense claims are out in the public. But the grounds would be that the request is too broad. Now, these documents provide important insights into understanding how government is operating and their intentions and motivations and potential conflicts, which are harder to obscure in these briefs and filings and notes.

Again, the decision around regulations will be determined in the Premier’s office and the cabinet room. This is death to freedom of information by a thousand little cuts. Bit by bit, access to information is being removed, restricted and imperiled by this government. We are all the poorer for it.

The commissioner also goes on to talk about missed opportunity. The inappropriate destruction of records, which should be penalized any time, according to the commissioner, not only when there’s an access-to-records request in play. This should include oversight over destruction of records other than in accordance with the approved disposal schedules.

In other words, destroying records before they’re asked for should be an offence, not only after they’re requested. The NDP has chosen to do nothing about it. Most of us, I think, would agree that there should be no inappropriate destruction of records. There should be oversight of destruction, but this government has made the decision not to correct the problem. That, in and of itself, is a decision.

The Freedom of Information and Privacy Act, as it stands, provides for periodic review of the statute by an all-party special committee of the Legislative Assembly. Well, we actually have that all-party committee. It was appointed last June and tasked to assess and make recommendations to the House how best to serve the interests of the people of British Columbia, with regard to freedom of information and protection of privacy.

The commissioner — he’s full of great quotes — says: “It’s not at all clear why government has chosen to move forward with an amendment ahead of the special committee’s legislated work to review the act.” He goes on to say: “To move forward with these amendments, in a year that the special committee is tasked to do the work, is baffling.”

Well, I would suggest, not terribly baffling. It’s concerning, certainly. It is self-serving, absolutely. This is because this is about limiting access to information that may be inconvenient to government or worse.

[3:10 p.m.]

The committee held only one meeting, two minutes long. Its only accomplishment was to elect a Chair, and then they essentially stood down. So what’s the net result? Well, the stipend gets authorized, but that’s about it. Call me cynical.

I did have the opportunity to look through the 2018-19 report on the administration of FOIPPA, authored by the now Minister of Finance, and a couple of things jump out. The mandate was to improve access to information, and clearly, this legislation sends us in another direction.

This one’s good. One of the headings was: “Fees Collected from FOI Applicants Remain Very Low.” Well, I guess this legislation was intended to correct that issue.

Another heading: “Government is Committed to Enhancing Proactive Disclosure.” Well, frankly, there’s no indication that this is a priority for government. The commissioner has recommended it. The Premier has actually mentioned it in the past, but actions speak louder than words. There is no action or discussion of proactive disclosure in this bill — none whatsoever.

If this bill is any indication of government’s intent, and it clearly is, the public of this province should be very concerned about our ability to hold government to account. As the Privacy Commissioner says, and I’ll wind up with this last quote: “This legislation is a step backward for British Columbians.” I couldn’t agree more.

P. Milobar: Sorry for the moment to rise. Like the speaker before me from West Vancouver–Sea to Sky, I was just making sure no one from the government benches was wanting to take their time on the floor. Apparently not. Their time on the floor was better spent admonishing us for not wanting to speak to a miscellaneous statutes bill than dealing with something as important as the citizenry right to get access to government documents.

It’s very interesting. As I’ve been watching the coverage of this bill, we have a minister that’s spent all of about a minute and a half introducing this bill and then leaving. Those were the opening comments on this bill.

In fact, the Minister of Education, today, went over the allotted two-minute time, which is fine. That’s understandable — excited, introducing her first piece of legislation. Her introduction speech for second reading today — to take the bill to second reading on education — was actually longer than the minister of this bill spent discussing this bill in this chamber for debate. That’s how proud this government is of this bill.

Then that minister went out and did a media scrum, as the previous speaker said. And clip after clip after clip, “modest fee,” “reasonable fee,” “reasonably modest fee” were used over and over and over again for every question.

At the same time, the government talks about the fee as being necessary to try to drive down the overall number of freedom-of-information requests. So which is it? Is the fee meant to reduce the number of free FOI requests? Or is it supposed to be modest? Can’t be both. If the goal is to drive down the number of FOI requests, that automatically means the fee is prohibitive, because that’s the tool being used to try to drive down the number of requests. It’s shameful.

This morning, when I spoke on political intimidation, I was talking about how governments around this world use things like restricting access to make sure that their opponents are held in the dark and not able to truly access what’s going on in government behind closed doors, with private discussions that are deemed not worthy of public scrutiny.

Members from the other side were all nodding their heads in agreement. Don’t see any of them asking to speak to this bill. Highly doubt they’re going to vote against how they’re instructed to vote on this bill — yet all the while talking about how important things like this bill are for democracy and for the public to know what’s going on.

[3:15 p.m.]

There’s a long list of things that are required through FOI, because this government refuses to proactively release them. Perhaps the most telling, last week, was the Premier’s stunt where, in an attempt to try to change the channel and try to have people talk about something different…. If that’s not what it was, I guess it was just showing the Premier’s total lack of understanding of technology. I think it has been well documented in social media circles how the Premier called his smartphone his telephone. That’s probably the least used app on anyone’s phone these days — the telephone function of it.

The Premier’s response to FOI requests is: “Who cares? Who cares what’s on the Premier’s phone? Who cares what’s on the Premier’s computer?” That is a damning look into what is really behind this legislation.

Who cares is the public. Who cares what’s on a smartphone is the public, because we all know that in this day and age, a smartphone is not really a phone. Perhaps someone could send the Premier a memo. A smartphone is actually a fairly powerful hand-held computer that has all sorts of files. It has all sorts of capabilities on it for documents — document management, information storage, messaging back and forth.

That’s who cares — the public. The public wants to know what’s going on. It’s no different than the tower that used to be at somebody’s desk. It’s no different than a laptop. It contains critical information of governmental decision-making.

The Premier’s response: “Who cares?” The Premier is right. I could care less what his Scrabble score is. That’s not what we were asking as opposition. For the Premier to continually dismiss requests from the opposition for information as nothing more than a fishing expedition…. I touched on this, this morning too. The taxpayers of British Columbia pay everyone in opposition to ask those questions on their behalf, because they don’t have the time, the know-how or the wherewithal to properly word and structure an FOI request.

Do you know why? It’s because if they make one mistake, it comes back: “Records not found.” When we put in requests for wildfire suppression information from this current wildfire season, it came back, “Records not found,” probably because we misnamed one log, because somebody within the bureaucracy has decided to rename their logbooks. So we got: “Records not found.” We’re supposed to believe that this government went through a wildfire season — Lytton, Monte Lake and areas around West Kelowna wiped out — and there are no records, nothing.

So how is a member of the general public supposed to get that information? This bill does nothing to help that access. This bill actually restricts that access even further. It makes it even harder for the average person. It’s unfortunate that the Premier feels that it’s an inconvenience to him to provide information to the public that they’re requesting and that’s coming through his office.

I would point out to people…. I’ve seen some come to the Premier’s defence, saying: “He doesn’t have time for that.” You’re absolutely right; he doesn’t. We’re not sure what he’s doing these days. He’s ducking and hiding a lot, but we’re not sure what else. He doesn’t have time for that. No Premier should have time for that. Last I checked, the Premier has close to 500 people working in his office. I’m pretty sure that one or two of them probably know how to pull off some computer files really quickly.

As the mayor of Kamloops, I was subject to FOI requests repeatedly, several a month. Between there and as chair of the regional district at the same time — lots of FOI requests. I’m no tech wizard, by any means. It certainly wasn’t that onerous to pull the emails in the date range that people were asking for, and the subject matter, and send them off to the people that were responsible for dealing with vetting the information to make sure of what was supposed to be redacted or not, around the rules of FOI.

[3:20 p.m.]

It’s simply not believable that the Premier finds it so onerous. It’s just inexcusable. We saw that with a seven-page letter from the Privacy Commissioner. A Privacy Commissioner that is very well respected. A Privacy Commissioner that is seen around the world as a leader in the exact job he has been hired to do in British Columbia.

In fact, he was here 30 years ago when this was brought in. Under the NDP, I might add, it was brought in. And now it’s being dismantled by the NDP.

You know who was around as staffers back then? I believe the Premier and the Health Minister were staffers back then when it was brought in. I’m not sure if we needed FOI to get the back-dated memo from the Pre­mier’s office that was the now Health Minister as a staffer. But if it wasn’t proactively released, FOI would have actually shown that to be what happened.

Not under this legislation. Things like back-dated memos in the Premier’s office would no longer be accessible. That’s why it’s important. That’s why the Privacy Commissioner has problems around the Premier trying to remove his office out. That’s why there’s a lack of trust right now of what this Premier is trying to action within his own office. He was around when interesting things were happening in the Premier’s office. Makes you wonder what he doesn’t want you to see right now.

We have a Privacy Commissioner with a seven-page letter, of which about two paragraphs actually have anything favourable to say whatsoever, and even the favourable things come with an asterisk. Right direction. However, kind of concerned that it’s being left to regulation. Shouldn’t happen. And that’s around data linking.

Data linking, as we saw with Cambridge Analytica, can be a very problematic thing if the government has an overreach on it. You know who should know about that? The Privacy Commissioner. Last I heard, he actually worked on the post–Cambridge Analytica and Brexit issue, because he’s that good at what he does.

Here we have a Premier that chooses to ignore all recommendations, to run roughshod over the legislative process, a legislative process that says…. Section 80 in the FOIPPA act actually says that every six years, the committee must meet. And in fact, 2021 is that sixth year. By law, the committee has to meet to review the legislation and the act to make recommended updates and revisions. It’s very important that it’s done properly and that it’s done without the backdrop of political interference — and political intimidation, frankly — from the Premier’s office.

When we look at other aspects of this bill…. And we shouldn’t really just get hung up on the fee. The fee is one of those interesting things that the government, I think, is probably happy that everyone is debating right now and talking about so they don’t really dig into the links and the abilities that this bill would provide them for things like removing the Premier’s office, for things like data linking, for things like data being stored out of country.

Just because other jurisdictions have jumped to allow data being stored out of country doesn’t make it right. Just because we are one of the last jurisdictions to protect — and rightfully so — the residency of our data doesn’t mean we’re wrong.

It’s interesting, you know. This government has no problem if Dr. Henry says: “It doesn’t matter what the rest of the world is doing. This is what we’re doing for COVID.” They have no problem jumping behind that message, taking two steps behind Dr. Henry and letting her weather the storm of B.C. doing something different than the rest of the world. No problem at all. The Premier doesn’t mind being three steps back then whatsoever. He’s been doing it all pandemic long.

The going gets tough; the Premier disappears. The Premier shows up, has a bunch of confusing statements that contradict everything else we’ve been hearing from ministers and Dr. Henry; the Premier disappears again for a little while. It would take freedom of information to find out where he actually is, probably, right now.

[3:25 p.m.]

Here’s the actual true seriousness of that. All of a sudden, with freedom of information, with no one else clamouring…. Yes, some agencies are clamouring, because it would make their life easier, but easier doesn’t make better.

In a very self-serving move, we’re going to see our data shipped offshore with no guarantees of end-to-end encryption, no guarantees what rules it will fall under within that host country, moving forward — zero. At the same time, the government is enabling itself to severely expand its abilities around data linking and collecting people’s information, collecting information on governmental polls, governmental sites, social media sites with no clear indication what they’re going to do with that.

The Privacy Commissioner is quite clear about his concerns around that as well, because it’s heading down that road of Cambridge Analytica. But silence from this government. Quite literally, silence from this government. You get the odd heckle. They don’t have the temerity to actually stand up and actually say anything other than a heckle through a mask that’s kind of muffled. That’s pretty sad.

I find myself saying that bill after bill in this House that when they were in opposition…. Oh, this bill. Well, first off we would have never brought forward a bill like this. Secondly, we routinely checked with the Privacy Commissioner on every piece of legislation that might remotely impact people’s privacy.

There might be the occasional single clause that was up for debate and disagreement between the Privacy Commissioner and ourselves, but there was never a seven-page letter that rips apart pretty much every fundamental piece of this bill. There was never a complete avoidance and ignoring of section 80 in the act that says that you must actually have your committee meet and go through this process, with all parties of this House represented through that process, to properly dig into things, to properly consult with the Privacy Commissioner around possible changes and possible moves that could be made.

That’s not how this government operates. It’s a flat-out full assault on people’s ability to try to access information. They’re shameless about it. There’s not a hint of apology. There’s contempt and arrogance all over the place. There are nodding heads of agreement at other moments from the other side, but those agreements that are nodding will not have the courage of their convictions to actually vote against something like this. That’s pretty sad.

We’ve heard from experts out there that once data residency is gone, it’s never coming back. Do you know who really wants the change in data residency? This is amazing — that a government like the NDP would be siding with big data. We are one of the outlier jurisdictions. They don’t like that. It makes their life a bit of a pain too.

We have two major data centres in Kamloops built. Some handle exclusively things like B.C. health information. Data seems to be able to be stored in Kamloops, no problem. We have backup redundant fibre that comes into Kamloops. That’s why it was chosen — as well as seismically stable, as well as its climate.

The two data centres literally share a property line. They don’t seem to have a problem having a big enough pipe to get the information in and out to store it. They have got tons of room for expansion. The one is still only on its first footprint. Its buildout has five modules of space, the same as the first footprint on that same site. That’s how much growth they have the ability for — just in Kamloops.

When you see things like data residency completely ignored by this government, and the concerns and the refusal to go to committee, it really does make one wonder what exactly this government is hiding.

[3:30 p.m.]

I think the important part about this is this bill needs more time. This bill needs more time for the public to fully understand the clauses and the complexities, the true ramifications. This bill needs the courtesy, the actual proper due process to be dealt with at the committee, the all-party committee, that legislatively, it’s supposed to do.

We’re not expecting that legislative committee, in its sixth year, which it’s supposed to review, to do a bunch of housekeeping things. The public expectation is that that committee is going to read the bill, read the act, look at the two, talk with the Privacy Commissioner and figure out how to truly make it a better bill — a better act — moving forward, that, actually, truly protects not the Premier and his office but the public on what’s happening with their data footprint and their access to government records.

That’s really what was at its core. Not the fee. The fee is going to be the fee. I think we all see it for what it is. It’s going to be a bit of a pain, and frankly, as opposition, we’ll have to rework our budget a little. But really, the fee — and it’s been said before — means we’re going to take our caucus budget, which is taxpayers’ dollars, to pay the government to go hire someone else to process that fee with your tax dollars so we can file the same piece of information.

Who the fee really impacts is the average person and the media. I make no bones about it. It’s no secret. The $25 fee is not going to come out of my personal pocket when I put in an FOI. It will come out of our caucus budget. And me, you, and everyone else that’s a taxpayer in this province will pay that fee on our behalf.

Then we’re going to have somebody…. There are estimates. It will cost about $35 to process the $25 fee. So taxpayers will pay us $25, and then taxpayers will pay a system another $35. So the taxpayers will pay about 60 bucks so this government can charge a $25 fee. Just so that average people won’t have access to the Premier’s office, because as the Premier says, who cares?

Who cares what’s on the Premier’s computer? He certainly seems to care. I have no idea what’s on his computer, because he won’t tell us. He won’t tell us basic things. Why that’s important is when he tells us basic things around file names and things of that nature, it enables us to go file another FOI, because they won’t just give us the information they know we’re looking for. Then we need an expert to go and file a third FOI, so we can finally get the document we’re looking for, because each one is linked to the other. They just play a game of let’s delay.

On something as critically important as wildfires, they just flat out say: “No records found.” We’re supposed to believe they have no records of resourcing a wildfire three months ago. But there’s none available. It’s simply not acceptable. That’s why the special committee needs to actually have the respect of doing their job, not the contempt, from the Premier, of process, and the contempt the Premier is showing to regular citizens of this province with this bill.

With that, I’ve provided notice to the Clerks. I move:

[That the motion for second reading of Bill (No. 22) intituled Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, 2021 be amended by deleting all the words after “that” and substituting therefor the following: “Bill (No. 22) not be read a second time now but that the subject matter be referred to the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.”]

Deputy Speaker: The member for Kamloops–North Thompson has moved an amendment for the second reading of Bill 22.

[3:35 p.m.]

Members, debate is now on the motion moved by the member for Kamloops–North Thompson.

On the amendment.

P. Milobar: Thank you very much for this time to speak to the amendment. I touched on it a little bit in my comments about the problems with the bill, but I think fundamental and core to it is: the bill needs more time to breathe. The bill needs more time for the public to fully understand it.

More importantly, the bill needs more time so that this government can actually let the committee, legislative, that is supposed to be doing the work of reviewing the act, deal with the act review and now have the context of this bill to compare and see exactly what the government had in mind.

It does not preclude the government from bringing this bill back after the committee does their work. Hopefully, the government would listen to changes being proposed by the committee. Certainly, it does not change the government’s ability at the end of the committee doing their work, to bring forward a bill — an amended bill, hopefully — to make changes to the Freedom of Information and Protection Act.

It does enable people to do the work that, legislatively, they’ve been tasked to do. They were not tasked in section 80 of the act to meet once every six years to convene a two-minute meeting as a committee so that a Chair could kick in their stipend for the next two and three years. That’s not what the committee was tasked to do every six years.

The committee was tasked of meeting to properly review and properly advise the government on updates to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act to make sure, in conjunction with the Privacy Commissioner, that amendments are in line with keeping of best practice.

We have a seven-page letter from the Privacy Commissioner that very clearly shows us this bill is not in keeping with best practice. It’s important because, as I say, when we want to start talking about data linking…. Again, I think we’ve more than thoroughly put out there how problematic this bill is when it comes to fees and how problematic this bill is when it comes to the Premier’s office and his removal through this and his utter disdain for the public to even remotely try to have access to governmental data.

There are bigger, long-term problems for people, and it relates with data linking. We see that in the Privacy Commissioner’s letter that he acknowledges that data linking needs to be updated and modernized to reflect modern practices and standards, but he also goes on to say that leaving it to regulation, to not knowing exactly how the government is going to deal with data linking leaves a very problematic and troublesome path forward for people.

Does the government intend to analyze the online behaviour and personality traits of British Columbians, just as they would on a political campaign? We don’t know. But this amendment actually allows them to do that. It’s the type of information that’s usually captured by advertising companies, political campaigns. Again, what legiti­mate reason does the government have to want to capture this type of information?

It would allow the government to collect British Columbians’ social media data and from it, create a personal profile of that user. That’s what the government doesn’t want us talking about in this bill. That is why it’s important the committee have time and the public have time to give better understanding of the ramifications of this bill. It also removes the Privacy Commissioner’s ability to have oversight over the collection of that data. If ever there should be alarm bells, that would be it.

[3:40 p.m.]

That’s why the Privacy Commissioner has some problems, because it’s all through future regulations. Nothing is set in stone. Just like fees, the answer you get back from the Premier is: “Don’t worry about it. Nothing to worry about here.”

Well, by the silence from the other side, I know they don’t seem to worry, which makes you wonder if they actually have read their own bill.

We’ll find out in committee stage eventually, hopefully after the special standing committee has actually done their work, as they’re supposed to be tasked to. Hopefully, the government members can at least have the courage to vote to put this over to committee so the committee can do their work for the next few months. I’m not sure that’s going to actually happen.

The changes are challenging to our freedom of information, our privacy and our data. There are times that data linking can work. There are people that…. Someone experiencing homelessness may require multi-cross-ministry supports from Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Housing, Mental Health and Addictions, etc. So that can be a good thing.

Your data, your personal data, is supposed to be sacred when it comes to the government, especially in this modern age. The government has a responsibility to have proper protections, but we don’t see those protections in here. We don’t know the checks and the balances to make sure that that privacy is respected. It’s a very significant concern.

The NSA scandal of 2013 showed us the dangers of how government collects and uses people’s data and how it can be abused. Cambridge Analytica scandal, 2018. They mined Facebook to build voter profiles to influence the election.

Here’s a very concerning one. How many members of this House have children of school age? How many people in the media? How many people in general? A lot of those parents are utilizing social media to conduct their own COVID data tracking in schools and districts. Why? Because the government keeps withholding COVID data from families. How does this data linking connect with them, especially if they happen to be running through a school page?

I have news. Contrary to the Premier not wanting to take any responsibility for school districts, schools are a provincial government purview. How does this data linking impact your child’s online presence through their school? We don’t know, because there is no detail, and no committee has properly looked at this.

Why? Why does the government feel it’s so necessary to harvest people’s online social media presence when it comes to them making a comment about the bad roads, about campgrounds — favourable or not — or about a wide range of public engagement, about things like sick days.

The sick day surveys that are out there right now — take our survey. Click online here. Guess what. Under this act, under these changes in this bill, they’ll be able to start linking what you say on that with what you said about B.C. Parks, with what you said about the roads. They can start to get your social media digital footprint all lined up quite nicely for targeted government marketing. Nothing in here prevents that from happening — nothing. That should scare a lot of people, especially when you layer that with the amount of oversight of the Privacy Commissioner that is being stripped away in this bill.

No wonder the Privacy Commissioner has reservations about this bill — seven pages of reservations, actually. Well, let’s be fair, 6½. Half a page he had reasonably complimentary things to say about a couple of the clauses.

[3:45 p.m.]

We’re going to increase government’s ability to mine, collect, cross-link, essentially scrape your social media footprint and collate all that. We’re going to restrict the public’s ability to access information, at the same time. So the government gets to access all your information much easier. It makes it much harder for the public to access government’s information. The one statutory independent officer in this province that is tasked solely with being the oversight to make sure that there’s not overreach is getting their power stripped away in this bill.

This government, this Premier, has such contempt for the public that he won’t even allow that to go to a committee, a legislatively convened committee that…. Within the privacy bill, it says it has to meet once every six years, and 2021 is that sixth year. That’s how little respect for this whole process this Premier has, and that’s how little respect this Premier has for the public to access documents that he may be linked to.

“Who cares?” according to the Premier. He doesn’t want us to see any information that’s linked to him, but he sure went out of his way to make sure there’s a lot of information they can start collecting off of every single private citizen, including school-aged children, to link together, to make sure they have a nice, tight profile built up.

We don’t know where it all links. We don’t know, because it doesn’t actually specify in the bill, which, again, the Privacy Commissioner points out as a concern. We don’t know, if I go on and make a comment about the roads on my son’s social media page because he makes a post and I say: “Oh, be careful. The roads are bad driving to Vancouver today….” We don’t know if that gets collected in, because it’s a reference to government, or not. We don’t know how any of this interlinks.

Believe me. I am the farthest thing you’re going to find from a conspiracy theorist. But you can start to see why people start to get the feelings around government overreach when you see pieces of legislation like this and an unwillingness from government to stand up and defend it, to explain it, to describe it. Instead, we had a minister that stood up for a minute and a half, and the only clip you could get from a press event was “a modest fee.” That’s it. That’s the depth of defence of this piece of legislation.

Deputy Speaker: Member, just a reminder that you’re speaking to the amendment, on the referral.

P. Milobar: That’s right, Madam Chair. Thank you.

That’s why it’s important to go through the committee, and that’s what the amendment would do. Put it to the committee so those questions can actually be properly canvassed in an all-party way so that the public can properly understand the implications — specifically, and most importantly, probably, about their own personal information.

The $25 fee that the committee could discuss will impact those that actually file a freedom-of-information request. We know that that’s a few hundred people a year, and we know it’ll be a financial hit to them. We know it’ll be a financial hit to media, newsrooms with ever-shrinking budgets, but we already kind of understand that.

What the committee could look into, to shine a light on and expose for the public, is that every single British Columbian under this act actually has their data put at risk, and we don’t have a full understanding of that. We don’t have a full understanding of what the government wants do with that data linking, and we don’t know how that interconnects with their desire — and no one seems to understand what this desire is for — to move data residency out of the country.

Not only does this bill allow for an increased overreach of government to collect personal data like never before and link it all together on you, every single resident of British Columbia…. Let’s be clear. Unlike the fee that will only be for those that file, data linking impacts every single British Columbian in their daily lives.

Then you layer that with all that data going to an offshore entity beholden to the laws of the country where the data is being held — not the laws of British Columbia, not the disclosure rules of British Columbia, but whatever that jurisdiction is. That is a problem. That’s what the committee needs to look at.

[3:50 p.m.]

That’s why this motion to defer it over to the committee, to let them properly do their legislatively mandated work, is so important — so that when we deal with an FOI bill at this House after the committee has properly done their work, we’re dealing with an FOI bill, Bill 22, that has been properly vetted, properly looked at, has proper safeguards in place for all British Columbians’ personal information and data residency.

This bill is…. It’s bad enough that the Premier is worried about hiding his own data from us. But in the very next breath, in this bill, the Premier wants every bit of data about us. That’s wrong. It should be the other way around.

Residents in British Columbia should know that the government is not collecting data on them every time they click on some sort of governmental webpage. Last count we heard, there were some 150 webpages the government directly oversees, and many other in their other partner agencies, that would all be subject to this. People click on governmental-linked sites much more than they might realize. Their kids click on governmental sites much more than they realize.

The committee needs to look into this to figure out why this government is so bent on making sure that the public is an open book to government and the Premier gets to slam the book shut when it comes to his office.

That’s why I’ll be supporting this amendment. I’m highly doubtful anyone from the government is going to bother speaking to the amendment, because they haven’t bothered to speak with any depth to the bill, which is completely shameful in itself. But I look forward to hearing other speakers and their comments and their opinions around the amendment to move this to committee to take a look at it properly, as legislation actually calls for.

B. Banman: I, too, took a moment before I stood to see if those on the other side of the House had anything to say with regards to this. Sadly, their response of silence is pretty much what we’ve heard throughout the entire portion of this.

It is a pleasure to rise in the House. Unfortunately, it’s not a pleasure, necessarily, to talk with regards to Bill 22. I am pleased to talk to the amendment, however.

I hold in my hand a letter from the Privacy Commissioner. If I was on the other side of the House…. I challenge the other side of the House to look through the records to see if there has ever been a letter of this magnitude from the Privacy Commissioner, pointing out as many issues with a piece of legislation as there are on this particular one.

Prior to politics, I was proud — and I am still proud — to be a chiropractor, a doctor. I would record people’s health care records, as is required and should be. I took that oath of privacy of what happened in that room. It’s sacred. I was not allowed to tell a partner what the other one had said in the room unless I had full consent. I was to keep those records secure, because someone’s privacy to the most personal thing, their health care records, depended on my duty to do so.

This particular legislation means that my health care records, my wife’s health care records, all of our records, will now end up going offshore. That is not something that we should take lightly. As was mentioned, once it goes offshore, we can never get it back.

[3:55 p.m.]

We are opening up a Pandora’s box, where we will not have the legal recourse to ensure that those records are held privately, that they’re secure. I am deeply troubled with the rapid pace that this went through.

Now, I was also a mayor of a city. I’ll be honest with you. Freedom-of-information requests are an absolute pain. They cause a lot of work. There are certain frequent flyers that ask questions, over and over again, and ask for requests, but it’s part of the democratic process.

As much of a tedious chore as it was to endure, democracy requires an awful lot of sunlight. The fees, I agree, can be a burden for some. It will act as a toll, which I find interesting coming from the side that loves to tout that they got rid of tolls. They’re now tolling the freedom-of-information highway. It’s no different.

However, in this case, I believe sometimes it’s worse, because this involves the heart of this place. We are supposed to be open and transparent. The taxpayers have paid for the information that they’re asking for, and it helps keep government accountable.

Seven pages of the Privacy Commissioner’s report, and it lists grave concern after concern after concern. I believe it needs a sober second thought. I believe that the committee that was put in place…. Rather than just issuing paycheques or stipends to those that are on that committee, I believe that they want to actually work to earn those stipends, on behalf of the taxpayer, by reviewing this legislation.

When one of the most respected privacy commissioners in the world sends a seven-page letter, it is time to heed those warnings. It is time to heed what the Privacy Commissioner has said. When one of the most respected privacy commissioners in the world says the proposals would be a step backwards for British Columbia, this House has a duty to listen. That’s why we hired the expertise of the Privacy Commissioner.

The Privacy Commissioner is waving a red flag of danger. To just boldly carry on is incredibly troublesome to me. It should be incredibly troublesome to British Columbians.

When it comes to data linking, I’m not so sure I am comfortable with my grandchildren accessing government-linked websites and their data now being linked. I’m not comfortable with where and what that data means and where it will end up and under whose control it will be.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

Every parent in British Columbia, every individual in British Columbia, should be concerned as to where this data is actually going to go, who is going to have access to it, and what it’s going to be used for. This is a travesty, in my opinion, of what the intent is for.

[4:00 p.m.]

We have seen — as has been mentioned prior, with the Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018 — what happens when data ends up in the wrong hands. It begs the question: what’s the government going to do with all this data? Why are they not wanting to put it through the actual committee who is to ask these questions? Why is this being railroaded through this House?

Actually, what bothers me, in some ways, the most is that the Privacy Commissioner has said: “At the very least, it is imperative that my office be consulted on the draft regulations, as soon as they are available, as their content will provide the crucial legal substance on data residency protections and other important matters.” Regulations that will not be debated on this floor; regulations that, behind the secrecy of closed doors, government makes up as they wish. It is far, far too much power and far, far too important for regulations of this magnitude, when it involves our privacy, to be made up as government wishes.

This House should defend our privacy. We need to remember why it is that this nation was formed in the first place. Democracy deserves that we protect it. Now, in the new digital age, the data that’s going to be collected — if put in the wrong hands, if the proper safeguards are not in place — can never, ever be taken back. To have this data go offshore to who only knows what, and who only knows what they’re going to do with it, and who knows who is going to be able to look at it — every British Columbian in this province should be outraged by that.

This House has a duty to protect our citizens, not to expose them to this kind of threat. It’s all fine and well if it’s in the right hands and the proper things are done with it. But this House needs to consider, itself: what happens if it ends up in the wrong hands? I’m not so sure that I’m comfortable with the data being used in those hands. What are they going to find out about me, my family, my neighbours, my granddaughter? British Columbians should be concerned about what’s going to happen to this data, how it’s going to be collected and who’s going to use it for whatever nefarious purpose that may end up if it’s in the wrong hands.

We have a duty — when the Privacy Commissioner says, page after page, that there’s a concern — to listen to that. This is going to be, I believe, one of the most important pieces of documents and legislation that’s going to come across us in these three years. For the other side of the House to sit there silent….

Interjection.

B. Banman: I’d love to get over it. Pardon me, Mr. Speaker. I’d love to get over it, but I can’t. I lose sleep at night because this is the kind of poorly written legislation that acts as a huge pitfall. This should be disturbing to all members of the House.

[4:05 p.m.]

This is not to be a partisan issue. We have a duty to protect our citizens, to protect our citizens’ data, to protect their health care records, not to use it because we don’t want to do freedom of information, and we’re just getting too many of them and it’s: “Boo hoo. It’s a big burden on us.”

This isn’t child’s play here. This is incredibly sensitive information, and we have a duty to ensure that it’s protected. This data that is going to end up Lord only knows where should be very, very concerning to us. In addition to that, not only is the data going to end up anywhere, but we have reduced the oversight. At a time when we should increase the oversight of the Privacy Commissioner, this legislation takes the power away.

It boggles my mind. We have taken and reduced the powers of the Privacy Commissioner. What’s the point of even having one then? If government is going to do whatever they want with this data, what’s the point of having a Privacy Commissioner, if we’re not going to listen to the Privacy Commissioner? This is incredibly flawed legislation.

I plead with the other side of the House to heed the non-partisan person that we put in power to overview what we’re doing, so we don’t end up inadvertently walking off a cliff. That’s what we’re about to do with this. This isn’t about one side versus the other. This is about protecting those we hold dear, that we all took an oath in this House to do so, and that is every single citizen within this province.

I am deeply, deeply troubled with this legislation. The data should stay within the confines of this province. We have the capability to do so. Only then will our legal system be able to properly prosecute those that make a mistake, even if it’s a mistake, whether intentionally or not.

It is unthinkable that any government would allow the privacy of their citizens, their most personal records, to not only be mined so they know what social links I’m talking on, what social links we’re all interacting on…. A group of parents, as was mentioned, that are trying to protect their children and are sharing COVID data because the government bureaucracy is too slow — somehow they will end up in a pool, and a profile will be made. That’s only one of many.

In addition to that, it allows people to delete information with no penalty. This coming from the side that yells out “triple-delete” all the time. Give me a break. This is worse, because it sanctifies it. It sanctifies the pre-deleting of information with no penalty. Even the subsidiary corporations such as InBC will not be allowed to get the most basic of information.

[4:10 p.m.]

This legislation somehow magically changes how the Premier’s office is subject to FOIs, with no pathway to how information from that office can be gotten.

We’re just supposed to assume: “Hey, it’s okay. You know, we’ll still be able to do it.”

The Privacy Commissioner points it out. He says: “I am very concerned that Bill 22 would remove the Office of the Premier as a public body under schedule 2 of FIPPA. My understanding is the government believes this designation is not necessary on the basis that the Premier, a first minister, is a minister and therefore his office is a ministry and is therefore covered under the schedule 1 definition of ‘public body’.”

He goes on: “This is not, with respect, clear in law or constitutional convention, and this change would introduce, at the very least, uncertainty in the application of law. Moreover, I am not aware of any harm flowing from retaining this designation, which obviously begs the question as to why the change is being made when the outcome is, again, not as clear as I am told government believes it is.”

The Privacy Commissioner is right that the heart of government lies at the Premier’s office. The heart of government lies at the Premier’s office. The public has a right to know — as the Premier himself said, and I paraphrase — and to get the right to the information so they can know whether government has made good or bad decisions. What rationale was used to make those decisions?

It further goes on. The commissioner points out that the bill makes it an offence for a person to wilfully destroy records or alter them, but it does not go far enough in the inappropriate destruction of records, which should be penalized at any time. So you destroy a few records. You alter them the way you want. Hey, there is no foul if you inadvertently do it. Please define what “inadvertently” means. How can you inadvertently destroy or alter a document? You have a duty to ensure that those documents do not get destroyed or altered. The taxpayers should have a backup copy of these records.

Then, when it comes to what they call snooping offences…. They do occur. They should be punished, but someone, according to the Privacy Commissioner, who merely views one inadvertently could now be guilty underneath this act. Inadvertently looking at a file. I’d be pretty concerned, if I was anyone that had the access to any government information, if I inadvertently looked at something and I now could be charged for an offence.

The other thing is that there is no decent legislation with regards to the data that is protected, like there has been in other jurisdictions. Again, I read from the Privacy Commissioner, in his letter of October 20: “With respect, it is not enough for government to say the guardrails will be put in place in regulation at a later date.” Hey, we’ll wait until somebody drives off the road, and then we’ll fix it. It’s basically what he’s saying.

You should be able to understand, to put safeguards and guardrails in place now. We should be sophisticated. If we’re not sophisticated enough to understand it, we should listen to the person that is, which is the Privacy Commissioner, and consult with him. We should have the committee think about guardrails. It has not been taken care of.

[4:15 p.m.]

He carries on: “If the government chooses not to pass a regulation, there will be no protections at all for personal information disclosed outside of Canada.” That’s worth repeating. There will be no protection at all with information disclosed outside of Canada. If this government thinks that that is healthy for the citizens of British Columbia…. Shame. It’s a shame.

Politics is one thing. Partisan is another. But when there is no protection, we should all be up late at night. It wouldn’t be that hard. It’s not like there aren’t examples in the world to be able to put regulations in or put in on the legislation itself. Quebec’s Bill 64 completely overhauls their privacy law regime to accommodate data residency outside of Quebec. The EU has done the same thing. There’s a General Data Protection Regulation. Australia has the Australian Privacy Principle Guidelines.

It’s not like the guardrails have not been put in place and the safety valve has not been invented somewhere else. We don’t have to necessarily reinvent the wheel, but to disregardly do this is paramount to handing the keys to a 16-year-old that doesn’t have a driver’s licence. “Here are the keys to a Ferrari. Go take it for a spin, and let us know how that’s going to work out for you.”

It’s reckless. It is borderline incompetent, in my opinion. All because the Premier doesn’t want to show us a few files on his computer. Is this how we got here? What the heck is on there? Makes me wonder. Why are we doing this legislation, to go to these great lengths to strip the power of the Privacy Commissioner, to store our data offline, to link everything we do and then remove the Pre­mier’s office from accountability and FOIs, according to the Privacy Commissioner?

Every British Columbian should be outraged. The press should be concerned, because it’s going to affect them. But I believe the press should take a deeper look into this legislation, because it’s a heck of a lot more dangerous than just adding a few tolls to the freedom-of-information highway.

This is incredibly flawed legislation. It literally takes a poke at one of the fundamental principles: that we have a duty to protect our citizens. We’re leaving their flank exposed.

I am deeply, deeply troubled by this legislation. I would heed this government to pay attention to one of the most respected voices in the world, our own highly respected Privacy Commissioner. Take this legislation and go put it in the committee, where it belongs. Let’s fix some of the flaws in this before it’s too late. Let’s take the partisan out of this.

The Privacy Commissioner did. He’s non-partisan. To strip him of his powers, to allow the Premier’s office to have greater powers and be able to avoid…. We have no idea, at the end of this. Then to secretly, behind closed doors, have the power to just leave it up to the minister for whatever regulations they feel like at the moment….

I’m appalled. I’m appalled, and I’m disgusted that anybody thinks that this piece of legislation is of value after the Privacy Commissioner has pointed out what they’ve pointed out in their letter.

[4:20 p.m.]

When the Privacy Commissioner decides it’s time to go stand in front of the media and say: “Hang on a minute. This ain’t so good. There’s a bunch of problems here, folks….” When the Privacy Commissioner says, “This is a warning to you all,” I would encourage all citizens of British Columbia to pick up the phone. I would say go to your media source, but I don’t know where that’s going to end up. You might be better off picking up a phone, phoning your MLA and saying: “This isn’t good.” I’d encourage you to go to social media, but I’m not so sure how safe that is anymore.

Shameful. Shameful. This legislation needs a somber second thought, and I fully support the amendment that it should go to the committee that’s required and then to the Privacy Commissioner for further discussion. We need to have the best legislation in the world that protects our individuals, not a piece of worse. This thing is just beyond flawed. I cannot and will not support it. I encourage everyone out there to do the same.

A. Olsen: I rise today to speak in favour of the amendment that Bill 22 not be read a second time now and that the subject matter be referred to the special committee.

I think I’d like to just start my debate on this part of the work that we’re doing here to highlight that this exemplifies why we have committees — why we have the standing committees and why we have special committees — that undertake the statutory requirements of reviewing legislation. It’s because those all-party committees do the work to round the rough edges of proposals that might come in front of government.

We debate and discuss the issues that are in front of us. We invite people to come and provide evidence. Then we provide recommendations that are made by all sides and all corners of this Legislature to the government in order to craft the amendments of the legislation and to ensure that those changes that can be made to the legislation are informed and that they also reflect the discussion and the debate, the deliberation, that happens at those committees.

It is, I think, a necessary requirement. Well, not “I think.” I know it’s a necessary requirement of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to do this review, a review that’s underway right now. In fact, one of the unique aspects of this motion to amend is that there is actually a committee, a special committee, that’s sitting right now to refer this bill to.

Normally, when this motion is put on the floor, the member is putting it to a committee that isn’t tasked with reviewing the legislation that is applicable. In this case, there actually is a special committee that’s sitting to do this exact work, so there’s actually a committee that would welcome this legislation as part of that review.

Right now there’s another committee that’s meeting, and it’s the Personal Information Protection Act committee. That committee has been underway now for…. It feels like years, because I’m on that committee, and it started in the previous parliament. Not even a snap election could disrupt that committee work. Well, it did, actually. But as soon as the Legislature resumed, that committee was formed again.

Off we went to determine whether or not we would start the process all over again or whether we would simply pick up the work as it has been left off and continue along. I think we picked an approach in the middle, where we took some of the information that was gathered in the previous parliament and then we continued to do public consultations as the new committee was formed.

[4:25 p.m.]

What’s really interesting, and why I raise this, is because the way that this government is handling the citizens’ information has been divided into two. When your information is being held by a private entity, we will study that for months. The deliberations will inform the update. In fact, the Information and Privacy Commissioner has been very instructive to us in providing the recommendations as he sees would be fit to manage people’s information when a company is doing it.

When it comes to how government’s holding this information, this government feels that it’s okay to not do any consultation, to not ask any questions, to simply propose amendments and have this House debate them in here without the benefit of public consultation, without the benefit of stakeholders, without the benefit of experts. This is an opposite approach to the one that they’re taking when it comes to private.

When public bodies hold your information, British Columbians, this government deals with it one way. When private bodies control your information, this government will deal with it in a different way. It’s still your information. It’s still the information of British Columbians.

There is no reason why it needs to be handled in two separate ways, other than this government has a lack of interest in the transparency and the accountability that they have to their citizens. Yet they will be very, very certain to ensure that the private entities that hold your information will hold it in a way that is accountable and transparent.

It’s a completely unacceptable response to how we manage the information, the expectations that we have for this same information. The information isn’t different. It’s just how this government decides that it wants to deal with it.

What I would say is: let’s deal with the information the same way. Let’s have some consistency. We’re going to study, seemingly for months on end, how a private entity holds your information. The government should, by the same token, provide that same benefit of the study and the same process through the committee that is studying FOIPPA, the public side of this situation.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has written a detailed letter — seven pages. I guess this was his attempt to try to right the wrong of being cut out of the process to inform the legislation that we have in front of us — the amending act, Bill 22. This was the only opportunity that the Information and Privacy Commissioner had to inform this bill. It was to write a public letter and put on the record the numerous considerations that he feels that we should have.

I should point out that our Information and Privacy Commissioner is a substantive individual when it comes to information and privacy issues globally. When they were investigating Cambridge Analytica, as an example — the whole Brexit story that people have all heard about — who did they call on? Who was seconded to do this work? The very same Information and Privacy Commissioner that this government is choosing to ignore, the very same person who is an expert on this and who is informing, in fact, the Personal Information Protection Act.

He’s okay. His advice is good to inform that process. But in terms of the process of the public bodies, we’d prefer to cut him out of this debate, not take his advice, sidestep the accountability and transparency mechanisms that this House has put in place and just push it through. Use that majority government that the Premier so desperately wanted to achieve in the last election to push through a piece of legislation that is not in the public interest. The only interest that it’s in is the interest of the Premier’s office and the ministers who have no intention of providing the information that British Columbians own.

[4:30 p.m.]

There are a number of issues that the Information and Privacy Commissioner raised in the letter. Data linking. How are data-linking activities going to roll out? Well, we’ll leave that to regulation. We’ll leave it up to a minister. We’ll leave it up to the ministry staff to determine through regulation. We’ll leave it up to a minister. We’ll leave it up to the ministry staff to determine through regulation. Let’s ask British Columbians about that. We don’t have the opportunity, because this is going to be put into law before British Columbians have the opportunity to be able to comment on it.

Data residency. What do British Columbians think about where their data resides — here, there, everywhere? We won’t know what British Columbians think about this proposed change. We’re going to make this proposed change before we ask British Columbians, even though we have a committee that’s currently established — it has a Chair; it has a Deputy Chair — ready to go to ask British Columbians this very question. Again, another issue that would be great to refer to the committee.

Privacy breach notifications. What about the nuances that the Information and Privacy Commissioner has noted? Should we have the committee take a look at the impact of privacy breach notifications as an example when it comes to criminal investigations?

Subsidiary corporations. Another issue that was raised by the Information and Privacy Commissioner: leaving it to the discretion of the minister if it’s in the public interest to determine if a subsidiary corporation is a public body. Based on what? I don’t know. Why don’t we refer it to the committee and ask them to investigate this? They have the benefit of time and space to be able to investigate this in the appropriate way that a committee of this House….

I should point out that the committees of this House are committees of this House. They’re not government committees. We all stood…. When we appointed that committee to review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, when we did that work — this is good for the new members of this place to understand — we all did that together. We passed a motion in this place to strike that committee. That is a committee of this House. The work is outlined in the terms of reference, but it serves this place.

What government does when it moves legislation while a committee of this House is still deliberating and has yet to report is disrespect the act of this House. Certainly, as the Speaker noted, the government has the right to move legislation, but that doesn’t mean it’s the correct thing to do or a good thing to do. It doesn’t mean that it’s respectful of this House to do it. Certainly, the Speaker was reflecting on the fact that when there is no other option, the government could do that. But should the government do that? Well, that’s a completely different question and one that I guess is left to ethics.

If you respect this place, if you respect this House, this democracy, if you respect the processes of this place, then you don’t throw that kind of curveball. Then you don’t put in front of the Legislature an act which is substantively — the most substantial amendments in a decade — amending a piece of legislation that you’ve already referred to a committee that’s part of a statutory requirement of that act. It’s disrespectful. If it’s not disrespectful, then it’s an embarrassing mismanagement of this House. Either way, it’s inappropriate.

Removal of the Premier’s office as a public body. I don’t know. That seems like a good thing to ask British Columbians. What do you think about this? Should the Pre­mier’s office be a part of this freedom-of-information request process? Why not just cut the Premier out altogether? What do you think about that?

What do the experts have to say? What do the privacy experts have to say? What do the stakeholders have to say? What does the public think about their Premier not having to answer to freedom-of-information requests? Well, we don’t get a chance to ask British Columbians that anymore.

[4:35 p.m.]

If it was part of the same process that we applied to PIPA, the other act, we might’ve put out a survey. We could have asked, specifically: “Why don’t you provide information back on this?” It would’ve been a thoughtful process. We would’ve weighed all of the considerations. We would’ve deliberated on a recommendation. Then, when the Minister of Citizens’ Services moved this legislation forward, it could be reasonably assured that it was in line with the expectations of British Columbians.

Instead, the Minister of Citizens’ Services has said: “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what British Columbians think. We’re going to move this piece of legislation the way we think it should be, in spite of the fact that we’ve got a committee that is currently doing and undertaking the work that has been approved and, in fact, required by this House.”

Fines for the destruction of records. Well, the Information and Privacy Commissioner suggests it doesn’t go far enough. Again, yet another issue that could be referred to say: “What should the fines be? How expansive should it be? What happens when somebody willfully conceals or destroys or alters a record? What happens in that situation? Should it be any time, or should it be just when somebody makes a request?”

I’m certain that British Columbians would have an opinion on that matter, and it could inform this legislation. Unfortunately, again, the minister and this government, the Premier said: “We don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Move it forward.” Pretend like the committee is going to be useful, reviewing this freshly amended legislation. Try to convince British Columbians that we’re going to open this legislation again sometime in this parliament.

How likely is that going to be? Other than in pure incompetence, a piece of legislation doesn’t just open and close and open and close and amend and amend. It just doesn’t happen that way — unless, of course, a government doesn’t know what it’s doing. It forgets something, and then it’s got to amend it in a miscellaneous statutes and amendment act. But the likelihood of a government actually opening….

In fact, I think that there was probably even a policy in previous governments to the minister’s. I’m certain that Premiers past have said to their ministers: “You get your amendments in order now, because the likelihood of us opening that piece of legislation up again is small to nil.” I don’t know. I’ve never been in there. But I imagine that a government doesn’t like to open a piece of legislation and make major amendments within the same parliament. It just wouldn’t make sense to managing a House appropriately and to not be just a general embarrassment.

Application fees. I don’t know. When should information be free, and when should it cost something? When is the freedom of information the freedom of information? When are we going to charge British Columbians to get access to their own data — to their own content? I recognize there are probably some that will say: “Well, if you want your own data, you can get it.” Sure. If you want your own personal data, you can still get it. But let’s not forget — let’s not lose sight of the fact here, folks — that all of the data that this government collects is under the ownership of all British Columbians. It’s all of our data.

This government doesn’t get blessed with being in full control over all of us. This is still a government of the people here, I think. It’s starting to look a little Orwellian. But I can tell you that right now we still have an opportunity to fight this, so that’s what we’re doing. This amendment that’s been moved here — to refer this to the appropriate place — is the appropriate act, and people who vote against this are actually speaking against, and voting against, what the Speaker of this place ruled earlier last week. I’ll get to that.

Authorizing public bodies to disregard requests. I remember when this legislation first hit our desks, and we started to flip through it. When you are just giving it a cursory review you think: “Okay, it’s fine, fine, fine, fine.” This one, though — what is this one? What is this, where we are expanding the parameters…?

[4:40 p.m.]

This bill would expand the parameters of a decision-maker to say: “No. You know what? You can just disregard the request. Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter what the person was looking for or what their need was. You don’t need to respond to this.”

What does the Information and Privacy Commissioner say? “A troubling new criteria, under which the Privacy Commissioner would be asked to authorize a public body to disregard a request where the responding request would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the public body because the request is unreasonably broad.” I don’t know. Let’s refer that to the public. Let’s ask them what criteria should be in place where the decision-maker that’s empowered with this can disregard that.

These are all questions that a committee actually reviews. This is the reason why we have a committee process. We’ve literally had the Personal Information Protection Act and the Police Act under active review for months now, doing really good work of this House on behalf of this House. All the members that are sitting on those committees are happy to be doing that work because it is productive, quality work on behalf of this assembly.

If not anything, it’s incredibly inconsistent to have those committees doing that work while the government is undermining and eroding the committee structure that we have in place because they don’t want this to be publicly debated. As the Information and Privacy Commissioner said, committee work is essential in encouraging the fulsome public dialogue that is expected when it comes to pieces of legislation like PIPA and FOIPPA, the Personal Information and Protection Act and the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

There is a reason why there’s a statutory requirement for the legislation to review these bills over a period of time: (a) because it’s a fast-moving area and we need to make sure that our laws are up to date, and (2) because it’s the public’s information, not the government on the other side of the House’s information. It’s not their information to be able to determine how it gets shared and how it doesn’t get shared with the people of B.C. It’s our information.

An all-party committee of the House is the only appropriate place to be working up recommendations. Otherwise, we are incredibly vulnerable to a government doing exactly what this government is doing, which is changing the rules midstream. You got a committee? Doesn’t matter.

I can’t imagine how British Columbians can’t look at the other committees that are currently underway and think: “Well, if the government thinks that it doesn’t matter for this committee, how much do these other committees matter?” There’s a huge amount of work done by members of this House, and it’s incredibly unfortunate that this government has decided that it’s going to take this opportunity to undermine and erode the work of this House the way that they’ve done.

This process has given no time for consultation on “the first substantive amendments to the act in over a decade.” Those are the words of our Information and Privacy Commissioner. I think those are the feelings of the media. Those are the feelings of the people on this side of the House. I’m certain that those are probably the feelings of a lot of people that are sitting in the back benches of the B.C. NDP government right now, wondering what the heck is going on.

Nobody said to us, when we signed up to run, that we were going to be undermining access to information in this province. Nobody told me that was part of the promise of a majority government — that one of the first acts in one of the first sessions was to take a sledgehammer to information and privacy data management and access to information. I don’t know. Maybe they did. Maybe that was secretly part of the government’s agenda all along.

[4:45 p.m.]

Last week Mr. Speaker provided advice to this House:

“Once the House has tasked a select standing committee or a special committee with a line of inquiry through terms of reference, the House has no knowledge of what transpires in such a committee or what conclusions or recommendations the committee intends to make in respect of those terms of reference until such a time as that committee reports to the House.

“Respecting this principle and reality, the Chair can appreciate the difficult situation that a parliamentary committee would find itself in if, while it is nearing the completion of a public consultation resulting from a statutory review of an act, substantial amendments to the same act were brought forward for the consideration of this House. It may have a significant impact on the work of such a committee, especially if that committee is required to report to the House within a time-constrained period.

“Parliamentary committees….”

This is a key paragraph. Every member of that government sitting over there, feeling so comfortable in the majority, needs to listen to this:

“Parliamentary committees fulfil an important function within our democratic process. They allow a small subset of members to engage directly with British Columbians on matters that they are tasked with by this House. Committees often do this by undertaking extensive public consultations, which require a great deal of resourcing.”

The type of resourcing, the type of consultation, the type of process that this legislative process isn’t very well equipped to undertake.

This legislative process, the law-making process that we’re undertaking right now, where a bill gets read for the first, the second, the committee, the third time, is a different process. It’s one that should come, necessarily, after the deep consultation that this type of work requires, that this subject matter requires, not the upside-down, backwards way that this government is proposing this.

“Ah, I got an idea. Let’s amend the legislation before the committee finishes the work, and then we’ll pretend like we’re an upstanding, forthright, forthcoming government. And when asked a question, we’ll flash our cell phones around in front of a camera for a bit, hoping that the media and everybody else goes for it, hoping that time will pass, hoping nobody will raise the questions, hoping no unfortunate amendments come forward to force us to debate this any longer.” Completely and totally inappropriate.

The Speaker goes on to say: “The Chair appreciates that in certain circumstances, the effectiveness of the work of such a committee could be undermined by the introduction of a bill that relates directly and substantively to the work of that committee.”

Well, I would say that that’s exactly what’s going on here: undermining the work of the committee. Undermining public confidence in the processes of this House. Undermining the public confidence that their government is looking out and protecting their information for their interests, not for the interests of the governing party.

The Speaker provides this: “That is not to say that committee proceedings may preclude the introduction of legislation. There may be unique, urgent or otherwise necessary circumstances that may require the House to act swiftly through the consideration of legislation.”

I’m just going to end my comments by saying this. Nothing in this second reading debate has demonstrated that there is anything unique, anything urgent, or anything reflecting otherwise necessary circumstances that require us to be having this debate. Therefore, there is only one place that this work needs to be happening right now, and that is in one of the committee rooms in this Legislature, the Special Committee of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, where, I should point out, at least one member of this place is benefiting from that committee being struck, with, now, no work in front of it. Completely and totally inappropriate.

Like I said earlier, this government has either decided that they don’t care about the processes of this House, or they lack the competence to align what the right hand, left hand are doing.

[4:50 p.m.]

Either way, the situation that we find ourselves in here today is entirely embarrassing. It is eroding the public confidence in this House, and that is completely unacceptable.

With that, I’m going to take my seat and just reiterate that I will be supporting, wholeheartedly, the motion to amend this legislation to send it to the committee reviewing FOIPPA.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the member for Saanich North and the Islands.

It’s wash, rinse, repeat right now. I’m pleased to have the opportunity to stand in the House in favour of this motion to refer the bill back to the special committee.

There is currently a Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It was only reconstituted on June 16, 2021. The Legislative Assembly agreed that a special committee be appointed to review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act pursuant to section 80 of that act. Now, this was only eight months ago that this was constituted, so I’m not quite sure what has happened in that period of time that has made this so important to be reviewed at this point or to be moved at this point.

The special committee was set to conduct consultations and submit a report, including any recommendations respecting the results of that review, after speaking to the community and to people in the community, and make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly. That was to be done within one year of this motion being adopted by the House. Waiting that one year, that is only eight months from now.

This government voted for the creation of this committee. This committee includes four members of government’s caucus. How are they feeling now that they’ve been appointed to this committee and they have no work to do? Don’t they feel that they’re being discounted, that they’re being undermined? I certainly feel that the committee is being discounted and undermined.

Now, I will follow up what the member from Saanich North said in terms of the police reform. I am on the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act, and I wonder, at some point, as we’re going through this and we’re interviewing all of the witnesses and we’re spending hundreds of hours reviewing this and speaking to stakeholders, should I perhaps expect that in the next week or two, this government is going to bring forward a proposed amendment to the Police Act? Because that is the same as what is happening right now with this act.

We have not heard this government provide a compelling argument or reasoning as to why it is imperative to make these amendments to this act in such haste, prior to allowing that special committee work to be undertaken. What has changed in four months, and why is this government so keen to undermine the role of the Privacy Commissioner and disregard his comments and recommendations?

If I were cynical — which, of course, I’m not — I might think that there is a change or amendment in this legislation that government would prefer not to have vetted by the committee and not to hear feedback on, because it may not be in agreement with the changes that are being made or simply not be transparent for the public to be taking a look at. So we are very concerned about British Columbians’ privacy.

The issue that has been spoken about most publicly and that has been of most concern in the media and amongst our conversations last week has really been this charge for access to freedom-of-information requests. That is a significant issue. But another issue that has not received as much discussion is the changes being made to how government can collect and use British Columbians’ personal data. What might seem like mundane or basic information might not be used for such basic or mundane reasons. We don’t know that.

[4:55 p.m.]

When someone submits a form to government regarding personal information, one often provides an email or a digital profile so that government can store information on file and share it amongst various ministries and public institutions. What this amendment is doing is allowing data scraping of British Columbians’ personal postings and social media, and this can be connected to the personal information that government already holds on British Columbians.

In the amendment, under sections 20, 21, 22 and section 48 of the bill, the definition for data linking is being rewritten. This will have three implications within the legislation. One of those implications is health research. The second is social media and engagements by government. The third is all personal records within the custody and control of government.

Until now, the government here in British Columbia has been largely restricted from gathering this information. When in the wrong hands, this information can be used to target someone without them knowing it. It can be used for any number of reasons, and we don’t always know what those reasons are.

Even in the past, when it was deemed permissible to collect this information, to collect this metadata, it was under the purview and the supervision of the independent Privacy Commissioner. Now this bill will allow government to collect British Columbians’ social media data and, from it, create a personal profile of that user. It also, at the same time — and this is very disturbing; everybody on both sides of this House should be quite concerned about it — removes the ability of the Privacy Commissioner to have oversight of that process. That is what the Privacy Commissioner is here for.

Now, in previous roles that I have had — this is an example I think is relevant — when interviewing and recruiting people for a job, human rights guidelines set out that you are not able to, as you are considering a candidate for a job, go onto their social media profiles and try and find out about their personal lives. You are not supposed to do that in reviewing somebody as a potential candidate for a job. The reason is that it could introduce some kind of discriminatory element into the hiring process.

For example, what if I’m looking at a potential employee’s social media, and I find out that they are a single mom? Well, I know sometimes, as an employer, people may not want to hire a single mom. They are concerned they’ll have lots of sick days. They’re concerned they’ll take time off.

Now, as an employer, I have got some information which I may or may not use in a discriminatory way. Could that impact how somebody could hire them? What if the potential employer saw this person was active in a certain political group, or they were from a certain cultural background, or they had particular religious beliefs? Could this possibly impact hiring decisions?

That’s exactly why we’re not allowed to look at those things. That’s exactly why we’re not supposed to be connecting people’s social media and the visits that they have on YouTube and what videos they’re looking at and what surveys they’re responding to. We are not supposed to be looking at that because it can be discriminatory in nature and it is a violation of somebody’s personal information. Just as a British Columbian would not know that their social media information is being used by an employer, they also wouldn’t know what and how it’s being used by government in this way.

This is worth repeating. This government is introducing a bill that will allow government to scrape this information and connect it to a British Columbian’s personal profile. It begs the question: why does government want to harvest British Columbians’ social media profiles and personal information? I haven’t heard clear information from the other side of the House on why it is important that government has information on the activities of British Columbians in this way and why this should be in their jurisdiction and data-collecting rights.

[5:00 p.m.]

Why does it want to know about briefing videos people watch, which ridings people live in, what pages they liked, how they interacted with a government announcement and what opinion they have of it?

Now, we all constantly get those ads on Facebook that are remarkably relevant to us. When I worked in the business school at UBC, I would constantly be targeted by global MBA programs and information on post-secondary institutions. It was like: “Wow, that’s crazy that they know so much about me. What a coincidence.” Well, of course, it’s not a coincidence. They’re mining my data. That’s what advertising is; that’s what Facebook is. When I worked in a non-profit, the ads were all related to fundraising programs.

This is the type of information that is usually captured by advertising companies and political campaigns — people that are trying to engage you and sell you a product, get you to change the way you’re thinking about something or influence your politics. But what legitimate reason does government have to want to capture this kind of information? Will it be used for government to personalize its messages that it sends to me, to get me to change my mind about something, for political purposes?

Now, the changes proposed in this legislation challenge our freedom of information, our privacy and our data. They broaden government’s reach into our lives, and they close the window on what information government is collecting and how they’re using the information they gather. My colleague earlier reminded us of the NSA scandal of 2013, which shows us the dangers of how government can collect people’s information and use data. The Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018, with Facebook data, saw that data improperly obtained to build voter profiles in order to influence elections.

Data can be instrumental in decision-making. Government needs data so that it can set good policies, but it has to be very careful about what data that is and how they’re using that information. Government does not need the personal profiles of British Columbians’ thoughts and lives on social media and other platforms.

Government also needs to ensure that our personal data is safe. As well as the data scraping, this amendment allows data to be stored outside of Canada and lacks guardrails on what protection it receives outside of our borders. Many jurisdictions don’t have, or can’t be trusted to have, protections on how personal information is protected.

The Privacy Commissioner has been quoted more times, probably, in the last week than ever in his life previous. To quote him again, in his October 20 letter to the Minister of Citizens’ Services: “With respect, it is not enough for the government to say that guardrails will be put in place in regulations at a later date…. If the government chooses to not pass a regulation, there will be no protections at all for personal information disclosed outside of Canada.”

The Privacy Commissioner is saying: “Wait a second. You’re missing something really important here.” And government is saying: “Well, we’ll get to that. We’re going to let you know what that is later.” But this is legislation that impacts all British Columbians. This is the Privacy Commissioner who is flagging this as an issue and concern.

Now, this government has heard — from media, from the public, from members of the opposition, from the Privacy Commissioner — that this bill is flawed and that the process for bringing this bill forward is flawed.

Again, the member for Saanich North and the Islands introduced a right of privilege in this House last week with respect to bringing this bill in and how that infringes and impedes their ability to be able to carry out the work that was vested, the authority vested to them, from this Legislative Assembly. In the Speaker’s response, he said that the government needs to be more respectful of the important work that parliamentary committees do on behalf of the House and democracy.

[5:05 p.m.]

Now, that’s pretty clear to me: democracy means that we follow the process. We allow these special committees and select standing committees to do the work that is intended of them, to be a resource to this Legislative Assembly, to come back and make recommendations that are based on consultation, that are based on professional input, so that this Legislative Assembly can make knowledgeable decisions in terms of the type of legislation that’s being moved forward.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

These are significant changes. British Columbians have an inherent right, as citizens and British Columbians, to have their questions answered before any sort of legislative and regulatory changes take place and to have feedback and provide feedback into this. This process leaves some serious questions. Government needs to press pause on this act. I think it’s very logical.

Hopefully, this government has learned and listened in this last week. There’s no shame in changing one’s mind when they can see that perhaps it wasn’t introduced the right way. Government needs to press pause on this act and let the special committee do its work.

R. Merrifield: Today I rise in support of the motion paper that’s before us: that Bill 22 not be read a second time now but that the subject matter be referred to the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

That’s a lot of words, but I’m not just reading words. I am sounding an alarm bell. There is an emergency in the House. I don’t even know if my voice is going to be loud enough or if our voices will be loud enough and if it’s actually going to carry outside of these walls. But for those that are listening: please hear us. This bill is incredibly troubling. This motion before us is our only solution.

When I was elected just over a year ago, I didn’t know how information flowed out of government. I didn’t actually quite understand it. I knew about FOIs. I had used them in the past, but I wasn’t totally sure about all of the intricacies.

Well, I have to say that over the last year, I’ve been appalled by what I’ve learned. Let me tell you: without documented and presented data, distrust grows. The Dalai Lama has said: “A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” I have to say that’s what we have seen in droves over the course of the last year.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The role of opposition is to draw attention to these issues. It is to seek information. It is to hold government to account. So yes, today I rise to hold this government to account as they attempt to lessen accountability and transparency while increasing their reach into every British Columbians’ life.

Now, what really gives me cause for alarm? Let’s talk about this last year. I mean, where would an FOI be necessary? I don’t know. How about a report on long-term-care deaths? COVID data — oh, don’t get me started. I could go down a rabbit hole on this one. But let’s just talk about the impact on children — student information on outbreaks.

Then let’s talk about nursing shortages, which still have not been acknowledged by the minister, and UPCC outcomes. How about how deaths are reported — how hospitalizations and ICUs are reported — related to COVID?

Then we could talk about PHSA dysfunction and executive overspends. How about firings within the Provincial Health Services Authority, costs of severance, or a Massey Tunnel report with 55 out of 75 pages redacted? Oh, wait. All of these were done through FOI requests. None of this information was offered by government.

[5:10 p.m.]

Let’s ask the question: if this government can’t even get their COVID data straight and is so secretive about its own dealings, how can we trust them to protect British Columbians’ privacy? The short answer is: we can’t. Instead, FOI requests by the opposition have resulted in exposés on these issues. FOI requests by the media have resulted in more. In the middle of the most traumatic time in history, this government’s response to a mandate is to weaken its transparency and punish those that ask questions while they refuse to publish the data required just to keep citizens safe.

What happens? In the absence of communication, anxiety grows. In the absence of transparency, others become leaders, like CBC and CTV journalists, who are more reputable and more reliable than the information that we are getting from government. How about parent groups, that are now producing better information than our school districts and our Ministry of Education? Journalists and parents have done more accurate information.

Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary, is quoted: “If corruption is a disease, transparency is essential as part of its treatment.” Well, in the bill that we had before us, the vast majority of the amendments proposed do not increase accountability, transparency or protections of privacy for the people of B.C. The amendments proposed do more to protect the privacy of the Premier, who is paid by taxpayer dollars, than of the public.

The Privacy Commissioner has opposed the fees and other elements of the bill. We’ve heard him quoted over and over again, but this government actually ignored his concerns. I’ll just use one of his quotes. He calls it “a step in the wrong direction.” I would call it a marathon in the wrong direction. I would call it decades in the wrong direction.

These amendments actually erode the public’s privacy. I’m going to give that a second read. These amendments proposed erode the public’s privacy.

This bill’s amendments actually expand powers to ignore requests and eliminate requirements for personal information to be stored on servers in Canada. It removes independent oversight of data-linking initiatives through which government officials can build profiles of citizens using different forms of electronic records, including social media. And this government wants the ability to actually destroy documents before they’re FOI’d. Less transparency, harder to get information and charging money for information that should be available seems pretty scary to me.

Did you just hear what I said? It removes independent oversight of data-linking initiatives through which government officials can build profiles of citizens using different forms of electronic records, including social media. I almost think that all this other stuff might just be a red herring, a distraction from what this government wants to do. This government is intending to change the current legislation to have access to this type of data without accountability or transparency.

Am I sounding an alarm bell? Yes. It should concern everyone. The changes in this legislation actually challenge our freedom of information as well as our privacy and our data. This allows a reach into our lives that we have never seen before.

[5:15 p.m.]

If I oversimplify it, the Premier wants to hide what he’s doing, yet he wants to know everything that we’re doing. He can shrug and say: “Who cares? Nobody cares.” Then why do they care about our data? Why do they care about your social media account? What could go wrong? I don’t know. The words Cambridge Analytica should send chills up your spine. The story of an organization collecting data, creating profiles and then targeting people with propaganda, politically interfering with elections. Data collected here in North America, stored across the ocean…. I don’t know. What could go wrong?

Yes, we’ve heard about the NSA scandal of 2013. Needless to say, British Columbians have a right to understand and to have questions answered before any sort of legislative and regulatory change takes place with this order of magnitude. I want to know: what does government want to do with my data, or what my mom, my dad or one of my five kids is posting — I don’t know — about an announcement of child care funding or a COVID briefing?

What about the parents who are using social media and have been lauded for the information that they’re using to actually conduct their own COVID data-tracking. What about them? What about British Columbians who express disappointment, via social media, in government — or COVID patients in the hospital or COVID in long-term care homes? What about people who post about those issues or items? Is the intent to extract as much of British Columbians’ data as they possibly can?

Then we ask: who uses this data? I don’t know. They want permission to store it overseas. They want permission to store it in other countries, where our laws don’t apply. Let’s ask this question again: who uses the data? Currently we know who uses this type of data. It’s about third-party companies, advertising companies — oh, wait — and political campaigns.

If enough of this basic data is gathered about a user, well, you can develop a full profile on that user — their likes, their dislikes, their views on social issues, their views on hot-button political issues. All it takes is for a third party to get a hold of that. What protects a government which has that information from actually having it used nefariously? Privacy laws, freedom laws that ensure privacy. What could those be? Oh, wait, we’re going to change those too, to make sure that that doesn’t give anyone access to how the government is actually using this information.

When in the wrong hands, this information could be used against a user to target them, even without their knowledge. It’s not enough to say: we’re going to deal with the regulations eventually. My colleague from West Vancouver–Capilano very eloquently quoted the Privacy Commissioner on that one. Right now the only protection that British Columbians have against this information being used negatively is through accountability — laws that government is held to, laws that actually promote and ensure transparency and accountability.

[5:20 p.m.]

What does this government do? Together, these new data-linking and data storage provisions could result in British Columbians’ linked information being stored outside of Canada without any oversight of the FOI commissioner. This bill removes the ability of the Privacy Commissioner to have oversight.

Yes, we’ve seen this story before. Brexit, 2016 U.S. presidential elections. It undermines democracy. It creates an opportunity for political interference. That this government actually intends to change the current legislation to have access to this type of data, devoid of transparency and without accountability — yes, it should concern everyone.

The reach into our lives while closing the window on the information that’s being gathered — wow. Simply put, the Premier wants to hide what he’s doing but know everything that you are.

Let me get this straight. Government is asking for bill amendments that propose to have less transparency and more government reach into my privacy, no accountability for the Premier, the ability to destroy documents, create impediments to access, take the personal data of British Columbians and store it — wait, store it in foreign countries — and remove accountability for how this data is used. Forgive me for being somewhat suspicious.

So yes, I speak in favour of a pause. This must go to committee. Right now we have a public that relies on journalists, their MLAs and themselves to make sure that we hold the government accountable. I’m sounding the alarm bell, sounding it loudly, because I don’t know why the government wants this type of freedom and wants to restrict ours. But I assure you that it’s not the right thing to do, and the Premier knows it.

M. de Jong: We are hearing some powerful words this afternoon, expressed with, I think, an appropriate measure of passion, given the subject matter that we are dealing with. We heard it just a moment ago from my colleague from Kelowna, and before that, West Vancouver, and from the member for Saanich North and the Islands, insofar as we were talking about an amendment, not just an expression of frustration, but very much a proposed solution to address with that.

Before I get to that, though, let me make this observation about the nature of the debate that has taken place so far. This place doesn’t really work very well when one side or the other decides not to participate. A one-sided debate isn’t actually much of a debate.

Whilst I think everyone understands that there will be a difference of opinion, I have to say, candidly, that as disappointed as I am that no single member of the government — aside from brief comments in second reading by the minister — has chosen to speak to this bill, as disappointing as that is, I am astounded. In fact, I’m not sure when this has happened last, if it has, that no member of the government has stood up to put the government’s view on the amendment on the record. We haven’t heard from a single….

[5:25 p.m.]

We actually don’t know. We actually don’t know what the government’s view of what is traditionally called a reasoned amendment is. I don’t know when that has happened last. I will go further. I expect the government’s strategy is to allow this debate on an amendment that is regarded by our rules as reasoned — but, I would say, in layperson’s terms is very reasonable — for reasons that I’ll try to enunciate.

I think the government’s plan is to allow this motion to go to a vote without anyone speaking to it, without anyone on the government side standing up to explain why, in their view, it is unreasonable in this case to involve the committee that is already in existence with the stated statutory purpose of doing the precise work that we are in need of today.

I have, over the years, gotten to know some of the members opposite. I’ve never known the Minister of Forests to be shy. I’ve never known her to be shy about defending not just her views but her party’s views, and I suspect, like I, they haven’t always coincided.

The Minister for Jobs. I have not known him to be shy at any point in his parliamentary career. Yet not a single member of the executive council…. Over the last few months, I have come to know other members. The member for Chilliwack is here and has spoken to matters in the past. I am certain that he has views.

Deputy Speaker: Member. Of course, we don’t comment on the presence or lack of in this House, but you know that.

Thank you, Member.

M. de Jong: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am certain that the member for Chilliwack has views on the reasonableness of this proposal. I would venture to guess he might even like to share those views, but has been told not to. Unless members of the government would have us believe that, as one, they are just singularly disinterested.

This chamber doesn’t function very well when, on a matter of this import, one side — in this case the governing side sponsoring the legislation — says: “We are not going to participate and articulate our reasons for why this legislation is worthy of support and why the proposed amendment to engage the committee is unworthy of support.”

Members like…. Well, the member from Parksville has participated in committee work, and I think, potentially, has a contribution to make. I can say this. I knew his predecessor from Parksville. She wouldn’t be sitting silent.

My guess is that, were the members I’ve just referred to sitting in opposition, they wouldn’t be sitting silent either. But they will need to explain that.

I think this is a turning point for this government, because I have theories about governments and elections. Governments come into office and they receive a mandate from the people. Over time, the strength and support that they enjoy tends to erode away.

[5:30 p.m.]

This government just got elected a year ago with a majority, and why does it happen? I think it happens, in part, because of the challenges associated with governing. It’s not easy. You have to make decisions, and people react to those decisions.

I say this with, I suppose, a modest measure of experience. I think that erosion of support also occurs when the public begins to sense the onset of arrogance. Is there any more visible display of arrogance than a government that refuses to defend its own legislation and says to the public: “We don’t have to tell you anything about why this is appropriate. We don’t have to tell the Legislative Assembly why it’s appropriate. We’re just going to do it. We’re just going to do it.”

I suspect that in the years ahead — and the government has three years left on this mandate — people will look back at this moment as a defining moment, a seminal moment in this government’s time in office, and say that’s where the onset of arrogance revealed itself pointedly and graphically.

The bill that we’re seeking, in this part of the debate, to refer to the committee, is called the FOIPPA bill, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act — or amendments to that act. Someone called me on the weekend and had a different description of that acronym: find out if people prefer arrogance. FOIPPA. I think the government is going to find that they don’t, and the government is going to discover just how angry and how unreasonable people view their behaviour here with respect to this legislation.

We appoint, in this chamber, parliamentary officers to advise the House, to advise the executive branch, and, in fairness, in part, to offer critique and keep the executive council in check. But we do that as a parliament, as a House. Such is the role, and such is how the present Privacy Commissioner has taken office.

I have worked with a number in the past, starting with Mr. Flaherty, Elizabeth Denham. There was a period of time when my colleagues and I sat on that side of the House, when I was in the executive council, when I had responsibility for the FOIPPA act, and Elizabeth Denham was the Privacy Commissioner. We met regularly.

I simply want to say this, and perhaps…. Well, I think they actually do understand. I think the government is choosing to ignore this and doesn’t care. It’s not the first time a Privacy Commissioner has written a letter and made a letter public, articulating a concern with proposed amendments or non-amendments in legislation affecting that office.

It has happened on this government’s watch, even just a few months ago, with respect to a Crown agency. I expect my colleague from Kamloops will refer to that again in a moment. And by the way, it happened when those members were in opposition and we were the government. I recall particularly an occasion where a suite of amendments were brought forward by the then government, and there was one particular part of it that the Privacy Commissioner, Ms. Denham, was troubled by.

[5:35 p.m.]

After extensive discussions, there were some changes made, but the changes prior to the tabling of the legislation didn’t go far enough. She felt compelled, in a letter that included positive commentary on many of the other changes, to point out that she was still troubled by this one aspect. All right. The minister at the time, who happened to be me, had to answer for that.

As others have said, I defy anyone to find an example of a letter as comprehensive as this one that has now very much become the subject of discussions in this debate, containing such wholesale condemnation and concerns on such fundamental issues. This is not a letter that says: “Look, on balance, 80 to 90 percent of this bill is moving in the right direction. I am troubled by this one area for the following reasons.” This is almost the opposite of that.

Over the weekend, I was thinking to myself: “Is this a case…? Is the government somehow purporting to be caught by surprise?” Until I reread the letter and found phrases like this one on page 2, where, in describing his concerns around this fundamental area of data residency, the commissioner says: “However, as you are aware, I am deeply concerned.” That’s only one area of the concern, which tells us this.

The government was aware. The government fully appreciates and appreciated the nature of the concerns brought forward by the Privacy Commissioner and has decided to ignore them — has decided they are unimportant to whatever other agenda the government is seeking to pursue.

Now, these aren’t observations or views of some obscure third party or interest group. They aren’t the concerns or criticisms of a political opposition. They are the expressed reservations, concerns and criticism of the person that this House appoints — a legislative officer of this House.

I am obliged to ask what the reaction would be. Or is this prescient? The next time we receive information — and the nature of the office suggests that the Auditor General’s report will contain criticisms and recommendations — are we simply going to ignore them? Are we simply going to ignore them? What would be the reaction — and this happens from time to time — when, hey, maybe the government wants to make changes to the conflict-of-interest and disclosure acts? I guess it’s irrelevant what the conflict commissioner thinks about that.

Okay, that’s perhaps a little bit of inside baseball, and politicians get more worked up about that. But what about the representative for children and families, who is an officer of this Legislature, who reviews legislation, who makes recommendations about how to best protect children? Is the government sending the message today that the advice, the review, the recommendations and the concerns of the statutory officers that this House appoints for these areas are no longer relevant? That’s the message they’re sending here.

Short of a couple of minutes from the minister, who was obliged to do so to introduce the bill, not one member of the government is prepared to stand up and defend this. Well, I think they’re embarrassed. I think they’re embarrassed.

[5:40 p.m.]

I hear a lot in the debate. That, I suppose, comes with the territory when you’ve been around for a bit: a lot of criticism about things that did or didn’t happen under previous governments. I’m actually pretty proud of the steps that were taken around disclosure — and, I’ll say, even personally proud.

As MLAs, we disclose everything now, proactively — proactively. Every dollar that we spend that is public money we disclose proactively. We did that. We did that for MLAs. We did a lot of that for government, but not as much as I would have liked. There is a lot of institutional push-back. Try telling pharmaceutical companies that the contracts that they sign with Ministry of Health, for hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, are going to be proactively disclosed. I think they should be, but I failed.

These are the fundamental measures and the approaches that we have made some progress on, and I think the Privacy Commissioner played a role in that, by pushing, by critiquing, by making recommendations. But I think today, at this point, there are two components to this, procedurally, never mind substantively. I haven’t even gotten to that, but I haven’t had my second reading shot yet. We’re just talking about the procedure.

I think what has got at least one side of the House deeply agitated and upset is the refusal of the government to engage, which I’ve spoken to, and, secondly, the absolute show of contempt that this represents for a committee that exists, has been struck and is available to do this work. In the same way that I said at the outset, I can’t think of a time when an amendment has been tabled and the government has refused to, at least, inside of five seconds, say we support or oppose it, to have it done.

I don’t know that it has ever happened — at least in the last 30 years in this House — when a committee has been commissioned and has been charged to do the work, that the government has introduced a fundamental piece of legislation that touches on that very subject area and ignores and precludes any opportunity for that committee to make a contribution. I don’t know that it has ever happened.

Now, we know one thing, thanks to the ruling from the Chair. It’s not a breach of privilege. But it’s a breach of every other convention by which this House operates. Why would the government proceed in that manner, in that arrogant fashion?

Well, I’ve got a theory, and it’s a theory. But on this one, I think my…. Well, I’ll say this: if my theory is wrong, I defy someone opposite to get up and say it’s wrong. Here’s what I think happened, and yes, this is based on a little bit of experience. I don’t think the decision to remove the Premier’s office from existing FOI coverage…. The other provisions of this bill, as they relate to fees, as they relate to data residency — I don’t think most of that came from the ministry. I think it came from the Premier’s office.

I think the direction to bring this bill to the House now, before the committee had an opportunity to express views on any of these matters, came from the Premier’s office. I think when the bill went to the legislative review committee, officials, maybe even the Pre­mier’s chief of staff, were there to say: “Here’s what you’re going to do. No one will notice.”

[5:45 p.m.]

Well, people have noticed. People have noticed in a big way. Arrogance. A classic demonstration by government of the approach that says: “Well, we can do it because we have a majority. We’re going to do it because we can.”

I don’t know how…. And maybe this explains in part. I said embarrassment, but how do you answer the unan­swerable? How do you defend the indefensible? When the Privacy Commissioner says there is no rational reason for making these amendments that exclude the Premier from the kind of coverage that has existed under FOI legislation…. No rationale has been offered. No explanation has been presented. I’ve got news for members on the government side: they’d better settle in, because those questions are going to be answered.

Now, I’m actually hopeful. I kind of celebrate the fact that I still…. I have, like, one ounce of naivety left in me after all of these years. I have one ounce of naivety, and it goes like this: that, not in this chamber, but at some point, members of the government are going to convene in their caucus room, and someone is going to stand up and say, “Why are we doing this? Why are we exposing ourselves, in a way that is indefensible, to ramming through a piece of legislation that flies in the face of the recommendations of the Privacy Commissioner, that unilaterally removes, from the committee we struck…?”

The member for Port Moody–Coquitlam must feel terrible. He took this assignment…. I think he took the assignment as Chair of the committee. He’s accepted the 8 or 10 grand that goes with it. And now he’s got nothing to do. He must feel awful.

Interjection.

M. de Jong: It’s 12 grand, I’m told. See how dated I am? It was 10 grand when I was Finance Minister. He must feel terrible. Kidding aside, I think the members of the committee must feel insulted. They must feel insulted to know that they have been convened, empowered and now literally had the legislative rug pulled out from under them and left there, impotent in the face of what is now before the House.

Deputy Speaker: Member, I would caution you not to throw shade, so to speak, on other members in this House, certainly under Standing Order 40.

I appreciate the comments, but I would just advise you to be cautious, as I’ve heard other speeches going down a similar route. Thank you.

M. de Jong: As always, your guidance is helpful, Mr. Speaker. My expression of sympathy for the Chair of the committee was just that, but thank you for your guidance.

The question before the House at this moment, given all of the circumstances — particularly given what the independent officer of this Legislature has had to say about this legislation — is whether it is reasonable and proper to delay further debate on this bill until an all-party committee of this House has had a chance to examine it. That is the question before this House now.

[5:50 p.m.]

Now, my suspicion is that that’s not something the government wants to do. My suspicion is that they have been told that’s not going to happen. But my expectation, and the expectation of British Columbians, is that at least one of them will have the courage to stand up and explain an argument for why that isn’t reasonable.

Their refusal to do so, their silence, speaks volumes, not just in this chamber but well beyond the walls of this chamber, to British Columbians, who I think are slowly waking up to what is taking place here and who I don’t think will forget. I think people will look back on this moment in the history of this session, in the history of this mandate for this government, and observe that this marked a turning point, an unflattering turning point of a government who has decided that, armed with a majority, it will proceed as it wants without regard for the advice, the concerns, the cautions and even the opposition of a legislative officer.

It is, in my view, reasonable for this chamber to support the amendment to refer the bill to the committee. I urge all members of the House to offer that support.

Look, I’ll even offer a more modest request. Before they even consider supporting what I think is an eminently reasonable motion…. If they’re not prepared to do that, to at least have the temerity — one of them — to stand up and explain why.

S. Furstenau: Hon. Speaker, I’m glad to take my place to speak in favour of the amendment that has been put forward — that Bill 22 not be read a second time now but that the subject matter be referred to the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

We’ve heard a lot of very passionate speeches this afternoon — also very informed — about the many, many reasons why this piece of legislation absolutely should be referred to the committee that is sitting right now, to this committee that was tasked with the work of reviewing this exact legislation, just as the committee in 2016 was tasked with the work of reviewing this legislation.

The member for Abbotsford West just suggested that perhaps the members of the committee feel insulted that the work that they were tasked to do looks like it’s not going to be relevant anymore. I wonder about the members of the 2016 committee, who spent a year working on recommendations to this House, specifically on amendments and reforms to this legislation. Of all the recommendations that were in that report — a year of hearing from experts, public hearings and many, many sessions of deliberation — none of those recommendations appear in these amendments. In fact, several of these amendments are the opposite of what those recommendations were.

I do want to start with answering the member for Abbotsford West’s question — I’m delighted to do so — about the last time that no member of a government caucus spoke to an amendment to their bill that was on the floor: March 26, 2019. It was Bill 10, the Income Tax Amendment Act.

[5:55 p.m.]

In fact, the Third Party caucus put forward three amendments, three motions. Each of us spoke each time to those motions. The member for Peace River North spoke, not as a member of government caucus…. He was a member of the official opposition. But not a single member of the government caucus spoke to those amendments. In fact, only one member of government spoke to that bill, and that was the Finance Minister when she introduced it and when she wrapped up debate. Not one member of government caucus spoke to a bill in March of 2019 that created the framework for a $6 billion tax-funded subsidy of the LNG industry in British Columbia.

Isn’t it interesting today that we are discussing this and remembering that? Because today this government put out an update to their climate plan, a climate plan that still includes this massive taxpayer funding of the LNG industry in British Columbia. A climate plan that still allows for a huge increase in fracking in the northeast of B.C.

At the time, no member of government caucus spoke to that bill. No member of government caucus, except for the Finance Minister, spoke in favour of that bill. Three amendments were put on the floor, and it was only a member of the official opposition who spoke to those amendments.

So thank you to the member for Abbotsford West for setting up a little history lesson. Always delighted to talk about the things that happen in this chamber. I think it’s really important — the point that was raised by that member about debate.

Again I come back to: when are we at our best in here? We’re at our best when we’re debating. We’re at our best when we’re listening. We’re at our best when we’re responding to the points and the arguments and the persuasive calls that are being brought forth from both sides of the House about legislation that will shape the future. That’s what we’re doing in here. We are shaping the future.

On March 26, 2019, the future that we shaped includes the largest point source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. Today what we are debating is a future in which public information and public data and public access to government information that belongs to the public…. Today we are debating how public that will be and whether, in the future, the citizens of this province will have the same privilege that they’ve had up until now to access that information without a fee, to access the information about the Premier’s office.

We’ve heard over and over again, in the cases that have been made, all of the reasons why, I think, we don’t want that future. I think that we should be working in here together, in our debates, to shape the best possible future for this province.

Right now a story is being formed, and it’s a story of a government that brings forward a bill that the government members are reluctant to speak to. I know some caucus members have spoken to it.

[6:00 p.m.]

It’s a story of a government that brings forward a bill, and there is a lot of resistance to this bill, not just from the official opposition, not just from the Third Party but from the Privacy Commissioner himself, from the public, from academics, from researchers, from the press. A lot of people are alarmed, so this story is, at the moment, that this government will use its majority to push this piece of legislation through because they can.

It could be a different story. It could be a story of a government bringing forward legislation. It’s one year into its majority. The two opposition parties with whom, a year and a half ago, they were working quite closely in response to a public health emergency — unprecedented…. There was an enormous amount of collective pride in this building, in this chamber, of the response and the collaboration and the collective sense of responsibility that we had to shape a future at a time when our sense of what that future might look like was evaporating in front of our eyes — a year and a half ago.

The story could be that one year into its majority, the government brings forward a piece of legislation and hears and recognizes that the resistance to this legislation isn’t simply political. It’s not just partisan. It’s legitimate and very serious concerns about the process, about the implications of ignoring the work of a standing committee right now, a special committee that was struck.

Instead of using the power of that majority, something that, when this party was in opposition, they decried many times, they say: “Let’s choose a different ending for this story.” Let’s choose an ending in a story where we are responsive, where we hear and listen to and respond to the criticisms that have been brought forward because that’s what a responsive government does.

Let’s have it be a story where we choose transparency, and we say to the public: “You know what? We thought that these amendments were necessary and important, but we hear you. We are going to turn this over to the committee to get your input on the record.” Then have the committee come back to us, because there isn’t an urgent rush to pass this legislation.

This legislation isn’t going to determine whether people eat or have a place to sleep or get medical care. This legislation is internal to the workings of government. Nothing will prevent government from doing good work if this legislation doesn’t go through. We can actually be a government that tells the story of good process, a government that says that we care about decision-making processes. We care about them being transparent. We care about them being accountable. For that, we are going to show how much we care by supporting this amendment.

There is nothing that prevents this government and its entire caucus from standing up and supporting this amendment. Not a single thing. The amazing thing would be that they would be applauded and celebrated for doing so. It would be a win. It wouldn’t be: “Oh, the opposition parties pushed the government to do something they didn’t want to do.” No, no, no.

[6:05 p.m.]

The story is: the NDP government responds and listens to the concerns of the public, the Privacy Commissioner, researchers, academics and the press, and they make a choice. A surprising choice. Not a choice many governments make when they have majorities, because it’s a sign of weakness.

It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s actually a sign of strength. It’s actually a sign of recognizing just how significant the burden of governing is, when you admit we’re on the wrong track and we can still correct our course. That’s what we’re going to do. That is a sign of strength. That is admirable. That is something to respect.

Here we are, yet again, debating a bill that government doesn’t want to talk about very much, certainly not in here. Doesn’t want to engage in the debate, as the member for Abbotsford West showed, but does have the choice. Every single member of the chamber has exactly the same privilege as every single other one. Every individual member has the right to stand up and vote the way they want to.

One person wanted to talk to me before they considered running for office. I said: “You need to write yourself a letter for the day when you’re in the Legislature and you have to vote against what you want to vote for. You need to write yourself that letter right now and tell yourself…. What do you do? What choice do you make on that day?”

On March 26, 2019, I think a lot of people voted for something that, perhaps, they didn’t want to vote for. But every member of this chamber has the opportunity to stand up and vote for what they believe in and what they stand for. We asked this of the government then.

The story from that time, we see today, is a story of a government trying to say that we can have an LNG industry, an increase in fracking, a massive increase in greenhouse gas emissions and a climate plan. But you can’t have both of those things and say that you’re leaders in climate. You can’t. You need to choose.

Today there’s a choice. The one thing that we take away from us at the end of our time here…. All of us are here in a transitory way, some of us less transitory than others. All of us are going to leave and pass these seats on to the next representatives, but what we will take with us for the rest of our lives are the decisions that we made. The ones that will haunt are the ones that we made that we didn’t want to.

Today is one of those opportunities. I hope that we can have a good story out of this, because the story is not done. It’s not written. Writing it right now…. It might have a surprise ending. I sure hope so.

With that, I will absolutely be supporting this amendment. I hope to be joined by many, many of my colleagues in this chamber.

[6:10 p.m.]

T. Stone: I am pleased to rise and speak to this amendment that provides for referring Bill 22 to the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

I want to start off by acknowledging the comments of the member of the Third Party. I think her comments, which were following the comments from my colleague for Abbotsford West, really summed up the challenge that many of us in this chamber, those of us in the opposition, have with the bringing forward of this piece of legislation, the usurping of the statutory process, which exists in this place, that should be respected.

I will say that I chuckle when the member for the Third Party referenced the transiency of our place in this House, the fact that we’re only here for a finite period of time. The protocols and the procedures and the traditions and the practices of this place were here long before us, and they will be here long after us.

I will add one minor addition to that. I think, much like orca pods, if you’re here long enough, like the member for Abbotsford West, you’re maybe no longer considered transient in nature. You become a resident of this place.

I say that with all due respect, because it is the member for Abbotsford West and, frankly, the Government House Leader, the Solicitor General, who we saw, the other day, have a wonderful exchange that really touched on two individuals that have been in this place for many decades, combined, and have seen a lot and have participated in a lot of votes and a lot of procedural wrangling and have seen this place dramatically expand and modernize its practices and protocols.

When we think of fixed election dates and we think of fixed budget dates and we think of all of the expense reporting, the proactive disclosure that takes place here, when we think of the fact that this place used to have all-night sittings…. I don’t know if the new members are aware of how debate actually was conducted in this place. So I always stand up and take notice. I pay close attention to what those who are in this place and have been in this place for a significant amount of time have to say.

I certainly agree that this bill, Bill 22, is a significant departure. The bringing forward of this bill is a significant departure from what is normal practice in this House. There is a special committee on freedom of information and protection of privacy that is charged with the statutory responsibility. This isn’t just something that is done a whim. This isn’t a typical ministry engagement that a ministry can decide to do or not do.

This is a statutory requirement, a statutory obligation that exists, that provides for a thoughtful, engaging, comprehensive review of this legislation, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, FOIPPA, with the goal being to modernize it, to ensure that it adapts with time, that its provisions keep up with where society is at and that it keeps up with where technology is at, that it keeps up with where public expectation is at.

That very committee is supposed to be meeting right now. That very committee, as far as I understand, hasn’t been disbanded or stood down. It exists. It has a Chair. It has membership from all parties. It is supposed to be meeting. I believe it had one meeting in its current incarnation that, if I’m correct, lasted about five minutes, and it was: “We will come back at a later date.”

[6:15 p.m.]

Instead, the government has decided to bring forward Bill 22 and completely short-circuit the statutory process that that special committee was supposed to undertake. The Leader of the Third Party mentioned how…. I believe she said in 2016, there was a tremendous amount of work done, about a year’s worth of work, and all these recommendations that were actually brought forward.

Yes, there was a snap election in there, so there was a new government that came into office. But none of the recommendations from that work have made their way into this bill. And, as was pointed out, this bill includes a number of provisions that are the opposite of what was recommended. How does that make any sense? How is that a respect for this place? How is that upholding the traditions and the practices and those long-standing procedural realities of this place? It’s not.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Well, the member for Saanich North and the Islands brought forward a point of privilege recently on this very matter, and I had to re-read the Speaker’s ruling a couple of times just to make sure I completely understood.

Frankly, it seemed to me that had it not been for what, probably, we could call a technicality, the government was in a real jam on this. Because if you actually take the time to read through the Speaker’s ruling, which now forms just another brick in the practices and the protocols and the traditions of this House…. The themes that were in the Speaker’s ruling were things like “once the House has tasked a legislative committee” to report back on an issue, the committee must be allowed to do its work, or should be allowed to do its work, before amendments and recommendations are brought forward.

The Speaker used a phrase in his ruling that really struck me. It was that the work of a special committee, a statutorily created committee, is an important function within our democratic process. And his decision goes on to highlight how the government bringing forward a bill — while it always reserves the right to do that, certainly — doing so, pry on a matter that relates to the work of a special committee that has been constituted but that has not yet done its work, has not yet considered recommendations to bring forward, that that has the great potential to undermine the work of that committee.

I remember one word as well that will stick with me. The Speaker, in his ruling, said that this would be considered to be discourteous. That’s not a word that we use much, but it’s a word that I think very accurately describes what the government has decided very consciously to do in bringing this bill forward.

The member for Abbotsford West touched on the lack of any presentation from government members on this particular amendment in particular. This is an amendment that the official opposition and, I believe, the members of the Third Party….

Many, if not most of us, will have spoken to some aspect of it in our second reading speeches and now here as part of this amendment, yet apparently, the government doesn’t have a perspective on it. Or if they do, they don’t want to convey it; they don’t want to put it on the record.

For the new members that are in the House, this is not normal. It is not normal for a government of any political stripe to bring forward a piece of legislation that provides for sweeping reforms of existing legislation, whether there is a statutory special committee in play or not. It’s not normal to have the government sponsoring the legislation not putting any speakers up. It’s unheard of.

[6:20 p.m.]

I mentioned in my second reading comments on this bill the other day that there are many members on the other side, many government members, that would have valuable insights, that I think all of us would appreciate to consider on this matter.

The member for Vancouver–False Creek, who I have tremendous respect for, has a very extensive background in the tech sector. She knows in intimate detail her way around all of the issues that are dealt with in this legislation, whether it’s data residency or data linking, amongst a number of other issues. I’d like to hear what she has to say about this amendment.

There is the member for Surrey-Panorama. She’s actually a former Minister of Citizens’ Services. She was formerly responsible for the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. I would suspect that she would have a few interesting things to say about this piece of legislation. Apparently not.

The Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, when he was in opposition in Ottawa as a federal MP…. Boy, did he ever have a lot to say about what he called tollgate fees when the federal government imposed a $5 application fee for freedom-of-information requests. He had all kinds of stuff to say. But that was as an opposition member. That was then. Today here in British Columbia’s Legislature, he’s a minister of the Crown. He has had nothing to say about this piece of legislation. That’s outrageous.

The reason this motion is…. Notwithstanding the lack of government members apparently feeling compelled or being allowed to step up and offer their insights and their views on this, the underlying motivation for this amendment, from our perspective, is this: this bill is deeply, deeply flawed.

Whether you consider the significant financial barriers to freedom of information that will come through the fees that are proposed in this legislation. Whether you consider the extraordinary, almost brazen decision to exclude the Premier’s office from the purview of freedom-of-information legislation in this province. Whether you want to dive deep or not into — yes, I will use this word, “insidious” — the insidious provisions related to data linking and data residency that are not defined, that are not clearly laid out in this legislation. Whether you are concerned about the significant reduction in oversight of the commissioner’s office, in and of itself.

We’ve heard, I think, some very appropriate comments about the independence and also the capability, the professionalism of that office and the professionalism of the person who holds that office today.

If you’re concerned about the attack on that office’s oversight on this legislation, or if it’s that you’re simply concerned that so much of this important detail here, so much of what will bring to life these new data-residency requirements or these new data-linking provisions or any number of the other major changes in this sweeping piece of legislation…. It’s all being done through regulation. It’s not even going to be debated and discussed in this House.

Whatever your concern is amongst what I just listed there — and there are others — this legislation is deeply, deeply flawed.

[6:25 p.m.]

The saddest reality of all is that there is the Special Committee to Review the FOIPP Act that is charged with the statutory responsibility to actually undertake a review, to engage with stakeholders, to maybe have a conversation on the front end of any changes with the FOIPPA commissioner and to bring back to government recommendations for inclusion in a sweeping piece of legislation that would then be brought to this House. That would be putting the cart after the horse. That’s why it’s so important that we stand here today and support this amendment to the motion.

Noting the hour, I am going to reserve my place in the debate. I do have more to say and look forward to that, but noting the hour, I reserve my place in the debate and move adjournment of the debate.

T. Stone moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 6:26 p.m.