Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Bill

Honourable senators, I rise to speak to Bill C-4, An Act respecting certain affordability measures for Canadians and another measure. As we all know, Parts 1, 2 and 3 each legislate straightforward tax measures that were explicitly promised during the 2025 federal election campaign.

Consequently, I’m going to narrow my remarks to focus on Part 4, the so named “another measure.” It introduces amendments to the Canada Elections Act, namely the sections relating to the use of personal information of Canadian voters by federal political parties.

I want to thank Senator Moreau and the Government Representative’s Office for ensuring that the Senate could fulfill its constitutional responsibility to properly review this bill in our Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee and for them to be able to hold additional meetings in light of the importance of these matters.

Colleagues, Canadians are among the globe’s most data-hungry citizens. According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, in 2023 we consumed or produced an average of more than 17 gigabytes of data per day. The rapid growth of that number surprised even me. To provide some context, that amount of data is estimated to be equivalent to more than 8 million pages of plain text or about 30,000 novels — every single day for every single one of us, on average.

Included within these 8 million metaphorical pages of text are valuable nuggets of personal information that are identifiably linked to each of us — personal information about our individual likes and dislikes, whether it’s about people, jokes, movies, news or politics; our daily activities; the locations we frequent and when; the state of our health; whom we love; what we covet; the debts we have and the assets we own; and the money we earn, what we spend it on and where.

This personal information is gathered around the clock every day and rests within the control of an unblinking audience that’s connected to virtually every aspect of our lives, whether they be domestic banks, airlines, grocery stores, vehicles, equipment, appliances or other devices, as well as the providers of every form of online service, including big tech. The list is virtually endless.

The personal information that defines each individual Canadian is increasingly valuable to others, be they foreign adversaries, commercial entities or political parties. Unless Canada commits to constantly strengthening our legislative guardrails and cybersecurity protections, we are effectively providing others with a free pass to use our data to meet their needs, not ours.

Why does this matter so much? The surrender of our data, be it voluntary or not, provides organizations with a blueprint of our subconscious.

Colleagues, in the digital era, privacy can no longer be simply defined as the power to hide things that we’d rather keep secret. This is because the data that organizations collect about us creates a digital shadow that can overrun and outlive our intentions or our actions.

The unrestricted accumulation and exploitation of personal information allows others to build invisible corridors that steer our decisions, turning our free will into a calculated output. It equips organizations with a high-resolution map of our vulnerabilities that allows our fears and desires to be exploited with surgical accuracy.

Algorithmic bias can result in people being prejudged for jobs or loans based on a profile that may be filled with false information. This digital shadow is a version of “us” curated by algorithms. It can be used to set the price we pay that is wildly different from others purchasing an identical product or service. It penalizes vulnerable or targeted populations, not for what they have done but for what the model predicts they might do.

Based on my comments so far, you might conclude that I’m a big fan of tinfoil hats. But no, I’m definitely not — at least not yet.

Conversely, I am passionate and I passionately believe in the unequalled opportunities and social good created through the responsible collection and use of data. But this requires governments, organizations and political parties to provide individuals with the respect and protections necessary to reliably and repeatedly earn their trust.

Canada is not yet on that path, but we can be. And, colleagues, in the digital era, ensuring that the collection and use of data occurs responsibly is absolutely central to the role of the Senate.

Canada’s sovereignty, security and prosperity depend on the creation of legislative guardrails that enable Canadians to trust that their data is gathered, used and stored securely with their consent and control.

This is why I dream of the day when Canada prioritizes becoming the globe’s most respected provider of data rights and security and the most ethical provider of AI services that rely on those data. This dream is well within our grasp, and it all starts with the political commitment and legislation necessary to enable Canada to constantly iterate toward that aspirational goal in a rapidly changing world.

Where does Part 4 of Bill C-4 fit into all this?

Part 4 relates to the section entitled “Personal Information Collected by Political Parties,” with personal information defined as “information about an identifiable individual.” The purpose of the provisions outlined in the amendments in Part 4 relates to:

. . . the protection of personal information, including the provisions of this subdivision, is to provide for a national, uniform, exclusive and complete regime applicable to registered parties and eligible parties respecting their activities in relation to personal information, including the collection, use, disclosure, retention and disposal of personal information.

Last June, in response to repeated questions from multiple senators during the Committee of the Whole, Minister Champagne asserted that the introduction of Bill C-4 in the Forty-fifth Parliament was:

. . . the first opportunity since 2000 to clarify the intent of the House to have exclusive federal jurisdiction over privacy matters with respect to political parties.

The minister indicated that this is why most of the amendments in Part 4 will be deemed to have come into force more than 25 years ago on May 31, 2000. However, since that date, nine parliaments and four prime ministers have failed to introduce a “national, uniform, exclusive and complete regime.”

Without a doubt, I completely agree with the minister’s objective of having a national, uniform and exclusive regime that would not cause federal parties to have to adhere to 13 different privacy regimes across the country. It’s a reasonable objective, and I expect that there is wide-reaching agreement in this regard.

The challenge is that Part 4 does not propose a complete regime and neither did any of the three related pieces of legislation introduced over the past decade: Bill C-76 in 2018 as well as Bill C-47 and Bill C-65 in the last Parliament. None of them did. Bill C-65 never passed second reading, but it did introduce some limited measures. However, those fell well short in numerous ways.

Part 4 falls short because it only establishes a system that relies on self-regulation without providing for independent external oversight to review political party privacy policies. The only requirements are to publish a privacy policy publicly in both official languages and designate an internal privacy officer.

Yes, failure to adhere to this published privacy policy can lead to consequences, including monetary penalties, but only when the political party has not met its own standards. It also lacks a requirement to report breaches — not of its own policy, but cybersecurity breaches — to an expert organization, which in and of itself, in my mind, is a cybersecurity risk.

It seems that the sole purpose of Part 4 is to exclude federal political parties and their agents from provincial privacy laws, not to comprehensively fill the gaps in privacy protections.

Trust and social licence are central elements of a strong democracy, and in a data-driven world, managing personally identifiable data is central to earning and maintaining that trust. As a result, political party privacy practices should be openly debated.

Conversely, these political party privacy measures were inserted into the back of an affordability measures bill. This seems to have been intended to minimize public and political attention, and that approach seemed to have been widely supported because the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance spent less than 20 seconds discussing Part 4 when they studied Bill C-4.

Additionally, the committee chose not to hear from any of the witnesses who intended to speak on this privacy issue, effectively silencing expert testimony. Further, briefs submitted by both the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Commissioner of Canada Elections raised significant alarms, yet neither brief was acknowledged or debated by the committee.

In this particular situation, I’d offer that the Senate of Canada is fairly described as Canada’s chamber of sober first thought.

So, what’s the genesis of these amendments to the Canada Elections Act? Bill C-47 and Bill C-65 in the previous Parliament, and now Bill C-4 in this Parliament, each related to an extended legal battle that started in March 2022. That was when the B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner decided, in the absence of a complete federal privacy regime, to compel the federal political parties to comply with B.C.’s Personal Information Privacy Act. The decision was upheld by the B.C. Supreme Court in 2024, and that begins to explain the patchwork of proposed amendments to the Canada Elections Act.

The three major political parties, the Conservatives, the Liberals and the NDP, have cooperated throughout this extensive legal battle. I very much applaud collaboration between our major political parties, but I’m disappointed that their cooperation focused on litigating rather than legislating. As a consequence, Canada still does not have the long-promised complete federal privacy regime for political parties.

As parliamentarians, our job is to legislate, not litigate. The choice to litigate was made despite parliamentarians benefiting from some excellent legislative advice from Canada’s Chief Electoral Officers and Privacy Commissioners over that period.

Each time one of the previously mentioned bills was introduced, those officers of Parliament provided clear recommendations as to the basic elements of a complete privacy regime, one designed to govern how the personal information of Canadian voters should be collected, retained, shared, protected and otherwise used by our federal political parties.

Regardless, those recommendations are still not reflected in the most recent amendments proposed in Part 4 of Bill C-4.

Additionally, our federal political parties also received clear advice from their own elected members of Parliament as a result of the extensive study conducted by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. The committee’s December 2018 report, entitled Democracy Under Threat: Risks and Solutions in the Era of Disinformation and Data Monopoly, was motivated by the massive global breach of personal information perpetrated by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. That scandal originated in 2013, when over 5,000 personal data points were harvested from an estimated 87 million Facebook users. These data points were famously used to guide several different political campaigns in 2015-16, including those of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, U.S. President Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign.

In March 2018, British-Canadian citizen Christopher Wiley blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica, speaking to countless media outlets and legislatures globally. Impressively, within two weeks of that scandal becoming public, the House Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics issued a study on that massive breach of personal information and its implications. The introduction to that deeply troubling 100-page report from the committee identified:

The scandal quickly brought to light much broader questions relating to the self-regulation of platform monopolies, the use of these platforms for data harvesting purposes, and their role in the spreading of disinformation and misinformation around the world.

Among the first of the committee’s 26 recommendations in their December 2018 final report was that the Government of Canada should subject political parties and third parties to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA, and provide additional resources to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to support those additional powers. Those recommendations were not heeded by the previous government.

So, what’s the status of federal privacy legislation? Outside of the self-regulation of political party data in the Canada Elections Act, two pieces of legislation currently govern the collection and use of data in Canada. The first, the aptly named Privacy Act, sets rules around how the data of Canadians is collected and used by the federal government and its institutions. Essentially, it’s what allows the federal government to function and how departments can share information. It has not been meaningfully updated since it was introduced 40 years ago. Put another way, the Privacy Act was written when we shared information by fax machine, floppy disk and letter mail.

As a result, rather than a uniform set of rules, departments rely on thousands — and, by some estimates, tens of thousands — of bilateral data- and information-sharing agreements, with nobody keeping track of them; they are just individual agreements across government, its agencies and Crown corporations. The resulting levels of inefficiency contribute to the fact that Canada has dropped from third in 2010 to forty-seventh in 2025 in the UN’s E-Government Development Index ranking.

The second foundational piece of federal privacy legislation is the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. First introduced 25 years ago, and subject to iterative amendments over the years, it protects consumers. Despite those amendments, it is currently at risk of being ruled non-compliant with the data privacy regime in Europe called the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. Becoming non-compliant with the GDPR would undermine our trade agreement with Europe.

In the past five years, there have been two attempts to update PIPEDA, but the challenges associated with a minority Parliament meant that both failed to get through the House and to the Senate.

What really concerns me is that we are outdated and out of step on privacy on every level — consumers, government and political parties. That says to me that this isn’t a political priority, but I think there are some strong signs that the privacy rights of consumers are about to become a priority — or are already a priority — of this government, which is very good news. It’s finally being acknowledged as a necessity and a significant source of economic opportunity.

I remain hopeful that this commitment to privacy rights will extend to all federal political parties and public entities.

Since laws are generally written by government and examined by members of political parties, it’s reasonable to assume that the lack of rules related to political parties might be as a result of their conflict of interest. Many have argued, including the House Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, that political parties should be brought under the same umbrella as the privacy rules related to consumer data. I believe it is far more appropriate to have political party data collection governed under the Canada Elections Act along with the other rules related to political parties.

That approach was first formalized in Bill C-76 in the Forty-second Parliament. However, Bill C-76 was an inadequate attempt to remedy the lack of data protections for voters by putting into place a rudimentary self-regulatory regime.

So where do we sit today?

In terms of the personal information about identifiable voters, Canadians currently have no ability to limit their consent as it relates to the personal information that is collected about them, with no right to see the information collected and no ability to verify its accuracy, limit how it’s used or limit with whom it’s shared.

In the case of a cybersecurity breach, there’s no requirement for political parties to notify those affected or assist them in protecting themselves as a consequence of the risks and harms created by that breach. Similarly, political parties are not required to report a breach to a qualified oversight body capable of ensuring that their cybersecurity protections are strengthened in the future.

Those certainly do not qualify as best practices globally or even best practices within Canada. I have not yet identified any compelling arguments as to why federal privacy legislation should not be as robust as that in B.C.

Additionally, I’m puzzled as to why the limited federal party privacy protections proposed in Bill C-65 in the previous Parliament weren’t included in Bill C-4. They were limited, yes, but why would they not have been put into this bill? I don’t understand that.

Colleagues, the Senate is uniquely positioned as the only legislative authority that can review this legislation, and I look forward to seeing the committee’s work in action.

I want to conclude by proposing some questions for the committee to study. Colleagues, I think that Part 4 of Bill C-4 needs to be assessed in the context of the provisions included in proposed section 446.6 of the bill. The question is this: Do those provisions provide appropriate guardrails for the collection and use of Canadian voter data? If not, what guardrails are required to earn and retain voter trust and support?

My hope is that the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee hears from privacy experts with experience at the federal level and with experts who understand what is necessary to earn and maintain trust in our electoral process.

Consequently, I’ve no doubt that the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee would benefit from hearing from witnesses such as Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, cybersecurity experts, academic experts — notably, Sara Bannerman and Colin Bennett — the presidents and privacy officials from the federal political parties, the Chief Electoral Officer, civil society organizations and international experts familiar with the treatment of voter data under other regimes.

In terms of questions, I think it’s reasonable for the committee to understand the following:

First, what actual data is currently being gathered, used and shared by federal political parties? I’ve been assured by political party officials that there’s not much data, and it’s of limited value. However, this doesn’t seem to make sense when you consider the extended legal battle that has continued over years and legislative efforts to establish federal jurisdiction exclusively but without guardrails. Those two just don’t match.

Additionally, senior organizers for the main federal political parties often state in public forum that voters no longer choose their political parties, but that political parties choose their voters. This could only be possible if they use databases to identify the specific voters who fit certain characteristics and reliably deliver a carefully tailored message to those specific voters, regardless of their geographic location.

I did find a related report from February 2019 from the B.C. Privacy Commissioner entitled Full Disclosure: Political parties, campaign data, and voter consent, which reports on the privacy practices of B.C.’s provincial political parties. The commissioner outlined an eye-opening list of the data collected by provincial political parties in B.C. that goes well beyond information related purely to voter identity, party participation and payments. It includes gender, ethnicity, age, languages spoken, religion, income, education, familial relations, family or marital status, profession, workplace name, job title, professional status, number of years at a residential address, neighbourhood demographics, social media IDs, an ease of persuasion score — sounds interesting — past communications, and the list goes on. I find it hard to believe that federal political parties are not following similar data-gathering practices.

Second, what methods are being used to gather this information? The B.C. Privacy Commissioner identified that the primary methods included observations and conversations of volunteers while canvassing door-to-door, telephone communications, surveys, petitions and scraping social media. But I’ve no idea if this is a complete list. I expect, based on the B.C. Privacy Commissioner’s report on provincial parties, that the data collected from multiple sources is used to supplement and strengthen the political party’s understanding of individual voters, enabling a single data point to become a pattern.

Third, it makes total sense to have one privacy regime for federal political parties, but is there any evidence suggesting that rules for a federal privacy regime should be weaker than those for a provincial privacy regime? I can’t think of why this would need to be the case. There’s no doubt that it would be highly problematic if federal parties had to follow 13 different privacy regimes, but that doesn’t mean that federal parties shouldn’t abide by a robust privacy regime.

Fourth, to what extent is data exchanged with third parties, such as pollsters and social media platforms? The 2018 report by the House Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics directly linked social media data harvesting, data monopolies and disinformation. It linked those three things, highlighting that the business model of social media platforms —

. . . is to accumulate as much personal information about their users as possible and to manipulate them. As a result, there is no fair exchange between the two parties.

Here, they mean the social media user and the platform.

Time has provided considerable evidence supporting the assertion of the House Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in 2018, but do we know the extent of information sharing between political parties and social media platforms? Not yet, other than knowing that sharing exists.

For example, digital gerrymandering refers to the use of advanced computing, big data and algorithms to manipulate information consumption and public opinion using digital platforms. What was once a laborious manual process identifying neighbourhoods with differing priorities has evolved into a precise, data-driven science that identifies individual voters in a wide variety of locations whose interests are most receptive to a given message.

I first learned about this practice in April 2012 listening to Terry O’Reilly’s 30-minute podcast called “Under the Influence,” specifically, series 1, episode 17. I encourage you to listen to it. If you do, you will begin to understand why the House Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics titled their 2018 report Democracy Under Threat: Risks and Solutions in the Era of Disinformation and Data Monopoly.

Fifth and lastly — I’m getting there, I promise — does the concentration of detailed and personal data in these political party databases specific to individual Canadian voters raise national security concerns? Do cross-border data flows, particularly where Canadian voter data can be accessed by foreign governments, contribute to the risk of foreign influence? Is the lack of independent cybersecurity oversight in and of itself a national security risk?

It’s widely appreciated that sovereignty is weakened when data generated in Canada about Canadians is extracted, monetized and governed elsewhere. This is particularly true when foreign governments are already demonstrating a desire to influence electoral choices made by Canadians, be they at a national or subnational level.

Consider, for a moment, foreign interference and persuasion efforts within diaspora populations. We’ve all seen reports that the People’s Republic of China, or PRC, funded MP nomination meetings. One single political party data breach would save an adversary years of expensive and extensive espionage efforts.

We already know that there have been data breaches involving federal parties. The most recent was just last autumn. It was reported to have involved the personal information of several MPs. For everyone involved, I hope the breach was contained, as was reported, but without cybersecurity oversight, there is no way of knowing the extent of the breach.

I want to be clear again. With Part 4 of Bill C-4 in the state it’s in, the parties will only be subject to penalties when they breach their own rules, and their own rules do not need to include any form of reporting cybersecurity breaches. What we do know is that unrestricted and unregulated harvesting of voter data by political parties has growing national security implications.

To conclude, in this digital era, there is no question that, in order for the capacity of political parties to serve the democratic needs of our nation, the outcomes demanded by our population must evolve. Political parties can use voter data in tremendously beneficial ways. For example, it can help to identify social issues that may otherwise be difficult to quantify and enable innovative ways to disseminate the resulting messaging.

However, every organization, be it a government, business or political party that wants to use public data, must prioritize doing so in a manner that earns public trust and social license. All benefits vanish the moment a cybersecurity breach compromises valuable electoral data, especially without anyone’s knowledge, and it does so at the expense of national security.

When Canadians disclose their preferences in an effort to enhance our democratic representation, they should feel confident that the information will not be manipulated to the benefit of others, be they domestic or foreign.

Colleagues, the Senate’s responsibility is to consider how potential laws may affect different groups of people in Canada, those whose rights and interests may be overlooked because of their gender, religion, language, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Our role in the Senate is to promote robust institutional resilience, especially the resilience of those institutions that form the foundation of our democracy.

In the world as we find it today, governments, organizations and political parties must provide individuals with the respect and protections necessary to reliably and repeatedly earn their trust. In the Legal Committee’s examination of Part 4 of Bill C-4, I hope that they will be able to identify how the Senate can help Canada to achieve that end. Thank you, colleagues.

Will the senator take a question, please?

Yes.

I appreciate the comments by my friend and colleague. I have a great deal of respect for his depth of knowledge and his passion for this topic.

I want to thank him as well for the call he made last week to give me the heads-up about some of his concerns around this bill. I very much appreciate that. I know that he believes some of the improvements in Part 4 of Bill C-4 may be somewhat modest. I know he has had conversations with senior officials in the government, and I know he has spoken with a couple of ministers.

At any time, did he feel that this legislation would preclude any other efforts on the part of the government to proceed with more robust study and further legislation? Did he ever get any kind of indication?

I know he has spoken several times in the past about being less than impressed with previous legislation that came forward but died. Is there anything in the legislation that precludes any other further legislation being developed, or did he get any sense from those senior officials?

Thank you, Senator Cuzner. No, I did not get any thought that there isn’t a willingness to make changes in the future, but it also was not discussed. So nothing was said contrary to that, but nothing was said in favour of that. No commitments were made.

The reality is that we’re faced with what we have. For me, it’s repeating; this isn’t the first time we’ve had this, and it’s a repeated challenge.

We’ve seen now three minority parliaments in a row; I don’t think Parliament values this issue. That’s what really troubles me.

I wish I weren’t pushing back on government legislation. The first three parts need to go through. If they don’t go through and the government were to fall, that would be a nightmare for Canadians because we’re already acting as if it’s law.

I wish I weren’t pushing back, but I can’t live with myself not expressing the concerns that I know are very real. I’m hopeful that something will change, but history has said, no, this is a pattern; this isn’t a data point.

Senator Deacon, thank you for your excellent speech and for pushing back. You’ve pointed to the risk of privacy breaches through cyberhacking and malicious actors getting to the data of these political parties and using it for nefarious means. But there is an easier way to get your nefarious objectives accomplished, which is to form a political party.

When we talk about the risks intrinsic to this amendment, we’re probably thinking about the three major parties, the Liberals, the Conservatives and the NDP, but there are 20 registered political parties under Canada Elections. Anyone can form a political party relatively easily.

Would you comment on that risk, which is that people who perhaps have no real intentions of being political parties but nevertheless can become a political party and then could access a privacy regime that is much more lenient than for private companies or for consumers?

I like to think of myself as a lateral thinker from time to time, but I never contemplated that, Senator Woo. I would offer that, yes, that’s very clearly a real option in this situation.

I don’t care if the government or private companies or charities are gathering data for a political party. Different rules are needed for those three different groups because there are different risks and there are different roles. That’s what I’ve really focused on. You’ve absolutely raised another issue on which I really don’t feel qualified to comment, but it certainly sounds reasonable to me.

Senator, would you take a question?

Yes.

I’m sure you may know where I’m going to go. Canada is lagging, lacking, almost bereft of data governance and sovereignty. I’m concerned about where data is stored and, more importantly, how it travels to get there. Often there is a boomerang effect before it lands where it is being stored, perhaps by Trilio, which is a U.S. company. It may boomerang through the U.S. before it lands back here. Perhaps it may land at AWS in Montreal — “A” standing for Amazon.

I’m asking for you to perhaps dive deeper or reinforce. In your opinion, isn’t it a higher risk now, more than ever, to not have the guardrails in place around data, especially in this particular case, because when data travels, access to personal data — by perhaps the U.S. government — is increased? When data is stored by a U.S. company, even on Canadian soil, it is at risk of being accessed. And there is the final piece about informed consent that is lacking here.

I’d like you to speak briefly to the current data governance state right now in Canada to protect Canadians. Is this piece of this bill — on Canadian affordability, by the way — putting the cart before the horse? Are we giving up our data before we have the guardrails in place? Could you speak to that?

Thank you very much for the question. We’re way behind, very simply. We are a decade behind Europe. They showed a path, yes. Many say that the way they have implemented GDPR, their General Data Protection Regulation, is more burdensome than it needs to be. They have protected teens, youth and children. Their data and political party data are more restricted than any other data in the economy. They’ve recognized that this is about their sovereignty.

As I discussed, you can literally give people a map to your subconscious through your data. We’re doing that every day. I often say we’re at the wrong end of the data vacuum in Canada. It’s going; we never get it back. We don’t know how it’s used, but it’s going all the time. It is flowing off of us.

That’s my concern. We have to prioritize this issue. Our Privacy Act is not helping us to grow our ability to deliver e-government services that are better than the analogue services we have today. We are not getting the protections we need from Big Tech and all the data that is used on our phones — all of us. I saw you all looking down when I was speaking, looking at your phones. It’s happening all the time around us — my watch, everything. That data all leaves the country.

Yes, there is some sovereign data storage, but some of that sovereign data storage is with U.S. companies, and that is not a sovereign solution. Partially, it’s nice to have it physically here, but it can leave.

At a certain point, we do need to prioritize this issue. That’s why I felt compelled to speak about this. I would rather not have spent the time on this bill. I would rather this Part 4 didn’t exist and that we had legislation, but that is why I felt I had to do something. The issue is growing rapidly. I can’t believe how much data consumption and production have grown just in the last five years. It blows my mind. This is getting worse fast, and we’re not acting. I believe in using data; it can provide so much benefit. I’m going to stop.

Honourable senators, I rise to speak very briefly on second reading of Bill C-4. I want to thank Senator Colin Deacon for a thorough examination of the issue. It’s clear that Part 4 stands at the intersection of a number of uncomfortable issues for the Senate. The subject matter, being that of the activities of political parties, is an area in which the Senate’s advice is not necessarily welcomed and not seen to be the logical place for advice to be given.

The fact that this item, as Senator Deacon mentioned, was tucked away in a finance bill that we can’t touch, because it’s a finance bill, is another uncomfortable reality that we have had to face before.

The fact that it received zero attention — nothing to see here — in the House of Commons is another issue around which we must have our guard up and gird ourselves to do our duty. The public is not aware of this. If we don’t do something, the public will not become aware of this and the corresponding dangers . I have been a senator for a long time — 13 years. I have seen legislation of all kinds. I try to keep an open mind when we get a bill and try to understand what the government is trying to achieve. I believe we all approach things that way.

The affordability outlines in Bill C-4, as outlined yesterday by Senator Cuzner, are, of course, commendable, important and vital, particularly at this time.

Embedding changes to political party privacy rules in this bill, I dare say, does go some distance to undermining confidence in the government’s intentions. Senator Cuzner referred to Part 4 as merely technical, and I think 30 minutes of schooling from Senator Colin Deacon helps us understand that it is not just technical. It should have been produced as stand-alone legislation in the House of Commons. It was barely mentioned in their chamber or in committee.

I think we need to closely examine Part 4. Given that it has not been closely examined in the other place, our duty and obligations are heightened.

I’m pleased, though, that Senate leadership under Senator Moreau is proposing that the matter of Part 4 be studied at Legal Committee. I am a member of the Legal Committee, and we have been given the opportunity to do what is needed to surface and understand the issues.

I hope the committee will summon the Chief Electoral Officer and the Privacy Commissioner. I have no doubt that they will eagerly appear and give us the benefit of their wisdom. We should look to some of the other witnesses who submitted briefs but were not called as witnesses in the House of Commons.

It is important that we invite and encourage the operations folks, the presidents, even the legal counsel of the major political parties, those that have representation in the House of Commons would be a good proxy, to come and explain to us why they need a privacy policy that is different than that of any other federal organization or business in the country.

There are likely some good reasons for political parties to have their own privacy regime, but we should understand them, and this should be done in public so the public can understand them as well.

There are other questions: How does this consent to collect information work? What do they use the information for? What information are they collecting? We had a lengthy list just from the three B.C. provincial parties. Do they sell it? Do they ever sell information to somebody else? Are they obligated under their own policy to publicly announce if there have been data breaches? These are questions we should ensure are answered, and we should be listening as if the room were full of members of the public. What they would think? Then we’ll be in a better position to give observations and determine what other actions or entreaties we should make to our colleagues back in the House of Commons.

I support this bill going to second reading and look forward to working on next steps and doing our duty, as we always wish to do. Thank you.

Honourable senators, I rise to speak to Bill C-4, An Act respecting certain affordability measures for Canadians and another measure.

I will confine my remarks to that “other measure,” which is Part 4 of the bill that amends the Canada Elections Act to make changes relating to federal political parties’ policies for the protection of personal information.

I add my voice to this debate and to the critique that has been offered, and I appreciate the comments and interventions of our colleagues on this topic. This is the government’s third attempt to respond to a legal case arising in British Columbia where the principal issue is where the B.C. Personal Information Protection Act applies to federal political party operations in that province. By extension, of course, if the B.C. privacy legislation applies to federal political parties, other provincial privacy legislation might also apply, creating the risk of patchwork compliance described by Minister Champagne in his appearance in this chamber at Committee of the Whole in June 2025.

I accept that the assertions of federal jurisdiction should be situated in the Canada Elections Act, which is where the current and, in my view, inadequate privacy obligations of political parties sit.

I have no quarrel with the constitutional aspect of Part 4 that establishes that federal political parties’ activities relating to personal information should be exclusively under federal jurisdiction. But serious issues lie elsewhere. If I may use a familiar metaphor, Part 4 of Bill C-4 is the classic “elephant in the room” situation. The room is the public policy space around Canadians’ legitimate expectations about how federal political parties protect their personal information.

There are two elephants, two obvious issues that key players would rather not talk about.

The first issue is the failure of any federal government to date to subject federal political parties to any minimum standards, like those in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA, which applies to commercial activities in the private sector, or like those in the Privacy Act, which applies to the federal public sector.

The second issue is that federal political parties appear to prefer the status quo in that, under the current provisions of the Canada Elections Act, the parties are entirely self-regulating and they decide for themselves the standards that they will follow.

When will we see the federal government take leadership and propose substantive legislation that sets minimum standards that must be met by federal political parties, including the rights of Canadians to access the data held by parties and independent oversight, which are standards that are comparable to the regime applicable to other public and private sector entities?

As it is, the federal government’s actions with respect to the amendments in Bill C-4, in my view, risk undermining public confidence in our electoral system when the government should be doing exactly the opposite, especially in this era when our democracy is so under attack.

Although I will support this bill at second reading in order for it to proceed to committee study, I have a few recommendations with respect to committee examination of Part 4. Here are my recommendations for further Senate study.

First, given the specific content of Part 4, in my view, it should be reviewed by the standing Senate committee judged to have the most appropriate expertise on protection of privacy. I am very pleased to see that Part 4 has now been referred to the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. In my view, that is a very positive move.

Second, while I respect that this is a matter for the committee to decide, I would appreciate hearing from the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, who was appointed the minister responsible for Elections Canada last March. I think he should be called as a witness to comment on this amendment to the Canada Elections Act and to share with Canadians his views as to how the personal information of citizens is being protected. The Canada Elections Act is a cornerstone of our democratic system. This is very important, so let us hear from the minister at committee.

Third, I would appreciate hearing — and Senator Tannas suggested this — from representatives of the five registered political parties currently represented in the House of Commons about how the content of their parties’ policies protects the personal information of Canadians. I think Canadians would like to hear this. I think they would like to know this. Let’s invite them to the committee to testify.

Fourth, I would appreciate hearing an assessment from the Chief Electoral Officer about how the policies for the protection of personal information from the five registered parties currently represented in the House of Commons align with the fair information principles found in Schedule 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA. In the Chief Electoral Officer’s report on the forty-third and forty-fourth elections, which was released on June 7, 2022, he stated:

Elections Canada continues to hold the view that applying these privacy principles to political parties is the best approach moving forward.

Let’s invite him as a witness to the committee.

Finally, I would appreciate a committee study that considers the emerging issues with respect to foreign interference in political parties and the information they hold on Canadians, as well as developments in the digital manipulation of data and the AI applications to electors’ data, which are the issues that Senator Deacon has so eloquently outlined today.

Rapid technological advancement means that the context we are working within in 2026 is much more challenging than it was in the year 2000.

Bill C-4 was spoken to by its sponsor, the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, at second reading in the other chamber on June 6 of last year. Minister Champagne made no comment in the chamber on Part 4. Minister Champagne appeared before us regarding Bill C-4 during Committee of the Whole on June 17, 2025, to respond to our questions.

At the time, I noted that the minister confirmed it is the “will of the House” that the Canada Elections Act “govern privacy.” He also pointed out that amendments made to the Canada Elections Act by Bill C-4 were passed unanimously in the other chamber at second reading. It’s hard not to make the inference that this chamber should defer to the other chamber and follow suit.

As an update, Bill C-4 was deemed read a third time on December 11 of last year, and it passed over there on division, with the opposition of one MP — the Member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands — being noted at the time.

In response to a question from me last June, Minister Champagne declined to say why the government has chosen not to implement the clear recommendations made by the Chief Electoral Officer and others on how to better protect electors’ privacy. Our colleague Senator Simons got to the heart of the matter in her question to Minister Champagne, and that question was the following:

But you have created a lower standard than would be found in the private sector or other governmental areas. I’m not surprised that all parties agreed. This is a question of foxes in the henhouse, because it is in the interests of those parties to be able to exploit that voter information.

I also note the trenchant observation by privacy expert Dr. Colin Bennett — and we heard about Mr. Bennett from Senator Deacon — who was quoted in The Hill Times article by Ian Campbell on October 30, 2024:

This whole complex and expensive case would go away if the federal political parties agreed to apply the same standards to their operations that they have been happy to impose on government agencies and private businesses over the years . . . .

My fundamental concern — and one that is clearly shared by others in this chamber — is that the Part 4 approach undermines public confidence in our electoral institutions, and it does so at a time when they are under increasing pressure from evolving developments in society and increasing attacks from hostile elements.

As a way of grounding both the significance of our deliberations and the scope of our consideration of Part 4, I note that the Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that privacy protection is a quasi-constitutional right in Canada, as mentioned here by Senator Dalphond yesterday.

In December 2019, then-Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Daniel Therrien, said in his annual report:

Privacy is a concept that is contextual and sometimes difficult to define precisely, but it is nevertheless a foundational value in Canadian society, a fundamental right and, as we have seen in the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, a prior condition to the exercise of other fundamental rights, including freedom, equality and democracy. The starting point, therefore, should be to give new privacy laws a rights-based foundation.

I would like to leave you with the words of Steven Bonk, the first-time Member of Parliament for Souris—Moose Mountain in Saskatchewan, who was the only member of Parliament to fully address Part 4 at second reading. In my view, his views are spot on. He noted:

We should ask ourselves what example we are setting as federal political actors. . . .

I believe that we can do better. Rather than simply assert jurisdiction, we should be using this moment to create a clear, principled and enforceable privacy framework tailored to the political context, one that respects constitutional boundaries but does not sacrifice accountability. Canadians should not be asked to choose between federal clarity and democratic transparency. They deserve both.

Under the circumstances, these are very brave comments, considering the unanimity of response from the political parties. I feel that MP Bonk was brave in what he said, but these comments are very worthy of our attention.

Colleagues, I urge us to take a fulsome and active rights-based approach to our consideration of Part 4 of Bill C-4.

Thank you. Meegwetch.

Honourable senators, today we are tasked with second reading of Bill C-4, An Act respecting certain affordability measures for Canadians and another measure.

This fairly straightforward bill — at least, I thought it was — deals with four measures that were already scrutinized in Committee of the Whole on June 17, 2025, when the Minister of Finance outlined its contents to us. In addition, a detailed briefing was held for senators on January 28. Those endeavours clarified several aspects of the bill, clarified its scope and answered a number of technical and operational questions.

In essence, here is what Bill C-4 would do.

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act, with the main objective of reducing the tax burden on low- and middle-income households. The key measure is a reduction in the marginal tax rate on the lowest income bracket. For the 2025 taxation year, the rate would drop from 15% to 14.5%. Subsequently, starting in 2026 and for subsequent years, it would drop to 14%.

This reduction is intended to put more money in the pockets of Canadians, particularly those in the two lowest income brackets. According to government estimates, the reduction could result in tax savings of up to $420 per person and $840 per two-income family in 2026.

Part 2 of the bill aims to make it easier to access home ownership for first-time buyers of new homes by reducing or eliminating certain sales taxes.

The main measures would introduce a new GST rebate for first-time buyers of new homes. The bill amends the Excise Tax Act and other related regulations to introduce a special goods and services tax rebate for first-time buyers of new homes.

The bill would also eliminate or reduce the GST based on the value of the home. For new homes valued up to $1 million, the GST will be completely eliminated for first-time buyers of new homes.

For new homes valued between $1 million and $1.5 million, a partial GST rebate would be granted. This could save some buyers up to $50,000 or so in GST on the purchase of a new home.

The measure applies only to first-time buyers of a new home.

Existing homes, for resale purposes, are not covered because the GST or QST does not apply to the resale of existing homes between individuals, so there is nothing to refund or exempt.

As a result, this measure does nothing to help first-time homebuyers purchasing an existing home. It should be noted that a first-time homebuyer is defined as a Canadian citizen over the age of 18 who has not owned a home in the past four years. A first-time homebuyer may be someone who has owned two or three properties in the past.

Part 3 of Bill C-4 formalizes the progression of the consumer carbon price. The main purpose of this measure is to remove from federal law the legislative framework that set the consumer carbon price in relation to fuel, that is, the federal fuel charge.

It is important to note that the government has already adopted this repeal through regulations. Bill C-4 simply eliminates a regulatory framework through which such a tax could be reintroduced. If the government decided to reverse its decision, it would have to go through the legislative process again.

As such, the provisions of the act that imposed a carbon levy on fuels and certain combustible wastes are being repealed. Regulations detailing the practical implementation of this levy are also being repealed in stages.

As I mentioned, a lot of provisions were retroactively repealed as of April 1, 2025, or on later dates in 2025, to ensure an orderly transition.

Part 3 removes the carbon pricing mechanism that imposed a cost on consumer fuel from the federal legal framework and phases out the associated rules and regulations.

At the November 26, 2025 meeting of the Standing Committee on National Finance, Senator Dalphond asked Canada Revenue Agency officials about the practical impact of eliminating this tax with respect to reducing the costs involved in administering this tax measure.

The CRA provided a written response within weeks. It is very interesting to note that it states:

Total savings of $116 million are expected over time. Of this amount, $72 million will come from reductions to the CRA’s current budget, including $47 million related to personnel and benefit plan costs, which corresponds to approximately 438 full-time equivalents.

For the record, it is important to note that eliminating the carbon tax led to two real controversies. There was significant controversy surrounding the “last carbon tax rebate” paid by the federal government even though the federal tax was no longer in effect. I will review the facts and the reasons for the controversy.

The federal government eliminated the consumer carbon tax, setting the rate at zero as of April 1, 2025, via regulations. The fuel charge, which constituted the “carbon tax,” was no longer collected as of that date.

Nevertheless, a final payment of the Canada Carbon Rebate was issued to eligible households in April 2025. Payments adding up to billions of dollars were sent to millions of Canadians, but not to Quebecers. The payments corresponded to the amounts calculated for the period from April to June 2025, but the tax that paid for the rebates had already been cancelled. That means the cheques weren’t covered by revenue that had already been collected.

The other aspect of this controversy is that Quebecers, who did not receive the Canada Carbon Rebate because Quebec’s carbon tax was not abolished, ended up financing the carbon rebate with their taxes. There is no provision in Bill C-4 to correct this inequity towards Quebecers.

Finally, Part 4 of Bill C-4 proposes amendments to the Canada Elections Act to establish a national, uniform and exclusive regime governing how federal political parties manage and protect any personal information in their possession.

The act specifies that federal political parties’ activities in relation to personal information are governed solely by the Canada Elections Act and are not subject to provincial or territorial privacy laws.

Federal parties will be required to publish a clear privacy policy, make it available in both official languages, write it in plain, accessible language, detail the types of personal information they collect, use, retain, disclose or dispose of, and explain how these activities are carried out, which includes providing examples.

Certain provisions are worded in such a way as to legally confirm that this exclusive federal jurisdiction has existed since the modernization of the Canada Elections Act in 2000. This is a retroactive clarification.

The amendment responds in part to a decision from a British Columbia court that ruled that federal political parties are subject to provincial privacy legislation. Part 4 seeks to eliminate this legal uncertainty by clearly establishing a single regime that is applicable across the country.

I personally questioned the appropriateness of including this measure in a bill that has financial implications. Although, to a lesser degree, this raises questions about omnibus bills, we will have an opportunity to come back to this when the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance releases its report on this topic in the coming weeks.

However, it is clear that including this provision in a budget bill does not prevent it from being amended, since a budget bill can also be amended in the Senate.

Bill C-4 contains measures that will provide tangible relief from some of the pressures that households are experiencing. For people grappling with high costs and persistent economic uncertainty, even targeted and imperfect measures can provide real relief. Practically speaking, it would be difficult to justify unduly delaying the adoption of such measures solely on the grounds that they do not constitute a comprehensive or definitive reform of affordability.

For all these reasons, I urge senators to vote in favour of referring this bill to the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and to the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance for Part 4, and to ensure that this provision can be adopted quickly, because let us not forget that the bill was announced in June 2025. Young buyers are waiting for these provisions to be implemented before purchasing their first home.

Honourable senators, it is up to us to take action for our young people. Thank you.

Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

(Motion agreed to and bill read second time.)