QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Safe Restart Agreement
October 2, 2020
Honourable senators, my question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.
Senator Gold, the federal government recently advanced $19 billion to the provinces under the so-called Safe Restart Agreement. Those dollars were advanced to be spent in many areas, one of which is data management.
Can you confirm in which areas data is being collected and shared? Can you tell us something about the extent of data collection under this agreement? For example, does this include measures related to COVID-19 infection rates and the factors related to infection rates? Does it include data about the long-term-care sector in the provinces or other areas?
What commitments have been made with respect to data? I will have a supplementary question.
My answer will be brief because I don’t have the specific answers to your specific questions. I would just encourage senators that, when they have such specific questions, they might fairly assume I will not have the answers at my fingertips; that advance notice will help me provide the answers to you in a more expeditious way.
Having said that, the government is committed in all of its policies with regard to data, public health and the lives of Canadians to ensure our legitimate constitutional rights to privacy are respected as we navigate, not only through a crisis but through the digital transformation in the world in which we live.
I will do my best to get the answers to the chamber when I can.
Senator, as I looked at several of the agreements between the federal government and the provinces, I saw no mention of the federal government receiving data in exchange for federal dollars. Only in the British Columbia agreement is it mentioned that it explicitly commits to share data with Health Canada and CIHI. There is no mention of the federal government receiving data from Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta under their agreements. Maybe there is fine print somewhere that I haven’t seen.
Has the federal government made the funding to the provinces in the Safe Restart Agreement contingent upon the provinces sharing the data they collect with the federal government? It seems this data would be essential to your government in fulfilling your promise to set new evidence-based national standards for long-term care and to inform your efforts to build back better in the wake of the pandemic.
I’m sorry I didn’t give advance notice; next time, I will. I was really hoping to ask the minister these questions yesterday, but I was further down the list. I would hope she would have had the answers, so I thought I would ask you. Down the road, I expect to have more questions about this agreement and other issues in it. In any case, I’ll leave that with you, and if you could answer it, thank you.
Thank you. I’m flattered to be asked the question. I’m not offended that mine would be the second-best answer, which I am in all cases when we have a minister. However, this gives me an opportunity to pick up on something Senator Harder alluded to in his speech and which is really important. Notwithstanding my background as a constitutional lawyer, I have avoided involvement in any of my answers. But this is a federation, and the provinces have legitimate interests and laws dealing with access to their data and the protection of their citizens’ rights to privacy that are no less robust, no less important and no less constitutionally anchored than the privacy laws that govern Canada in its federal jurisdiction.
The fact is, in all of the debates during this very challenging time, when I’ve been pleased to take your questions about the federal response to this pandemic, as Senator Harder pointed out — and it’s something we should reflect upon going forward, as he recommends, and I subscribe to it 100% — our response has been an all-government response, not only federal, provincial and territorial, but municipal. The fact is there are no quick answers and no appropriate ways for the federal government to intervene in areas that touch upon the businesses and the lives of citizens governed so much by provincial legislation without cooperation, consultation and sometimes horse-trading with their provincial counterparts.
That’s not an answer to your question, but it’s to underline the complexity of how Canada has to respond to important questions such as you raise, given the federal nature of this country.
I will endeavour to find the answers to your questions, of course, but I take the liberty, since we won’t be together for a number of weeks, to encourage us to reflect upon some of the complications that our federal system imposes on us, and some of our responsibilities, as Senator Harder so rightly pointed out, to educate others about the federal fabric of this great country. Thank you.
The time for Question Period has expired.
