Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Bill

Honourable senators, I rise to speak to Bill C-4, which is somewhat of a bill with a bill attached, like a hitchhiker.

Bill C-4 is entitled the “Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act.” Its main focus is taxation and cost-of-living relief. Yet attached to this financial legislation is something entirely different in both nature and impact: a provision that exempts federal political parties from provincial privacy laws, confirms their exemption from meaningful federal privacy protections and applies this exemption retroactively for decades. This measure was not part of the government’s election platform, and it is unrelated to the affordability provisions at the heart of Bill C-4.

We all know that this provision for federal political parties was not the subject of robust debate in the other place. It was not the focus of the public conversation surrounding this bill. Yet its implications are seemingly significant and enduring.

Federal political parties in Canada are already exempt from the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, known as PIPEDA, and they are not subject to the Privacy Act.

I offer two recommendations, given the direction we’re heading and if Part 4 is to remain. The first recommendation is that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner be empowered with the authority to independently audit their data practices or enforce compliance. The second recommendation is that Elections Canada should also be able to require parties to publish privacy policies, but it has no authority to ensure those policies, as yet, meet those enforceable standards, and that’s up to the government to provide them.

The path forward is clear. The offices of the Privacy Commissioner and the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada must be empowered with real authority to independently audit political parties’ data practices and enforce compliance. Elections Canada must also have the power to require parties to publish privacy policies and ensure that those policies meet enforceable standards. Thank you.

Will Senator Klyne take a question?

Yes.

Thank you. Senator Klyne, you have been a long-time maximum donor to the Liberal Party of Canada going back to your time fundraising in Regina for former MP Ralph Goodale, and your maximum Liberal Party donor status continues to this day.

In fact, in 2025, you were a maximum Liberal Party donor plus a maximum donor to Mark Carney’s Liberal leadership campaign. I know this because all this information is publicly available on the Elections Canada website now, today. So you have significant ties to the Liberal Party of Canada, which is fine. Guess what? I have significant ties to the Conservative Party of Canada.

Given your major political involvement, including with MP candidates at the local level for so many years, don’t you believe that our unelected chamber should exercise a level of deference on this Elections Act legislation to the elected members of the House of Commons, who did vote unanimously for this entire Bill C-4 and who were elected by the Canadian public to cast their votes on behalf of their constituents?

What you have me worried about now is that my information is out there, so maybe we should do something about that in terms of Privacy Act considerations. I don’t need everybody knowing everything about me. I didn’t know you were a Conservative donor.

Of course, it’s allowed because the Elections Act allows it to be posted like that. All donations over $200 are required to be made known, and that’s for public disclosure. We are absolutely law-abiding in seeking to know that information, as it is publicly available right now.

Maybe I’ll start donating $200 a month and see if I can fly under the radar.

Senator Simons. On debate.

There’s a hit show on Netflix right now called “Nobody Wants This.” That might well have been the title of our Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee report on Part 4 of this bill.

Our three public hearings on the bill took place in one very long but fascinating day, and the message was crystal clear. The political party privacy provisions found in Part 4 of Bill C-4 have been condemned by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Centre for Digital Rights, the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia and even the very pro-business Alberta Enterprise Group.

Numerous academic experts from across Canada added their voices to the chorus of critics, and the bill does not have the support of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Chief Electoral Officer or the Commissioner of Canada Elections. All have called for amendments to the bill, and not one of them was consulted by the government in drafting this legislation.

So why is there this degree of frustration?

As someone who has the privilege of serving on the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee and who heard all the evidence, I want to take this moment to share some of what we heard with you.

Jason Woywada of the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association put it this way:

Part 4 grants political parties more power and less oversight in the collection, use and retention of personal information than Canada’s spy agencies. At a moment of declining public trust, Parliament is effectively saying, “Trust the parties.” Experience tells us that trust without law is no protection for the public.

Political parties now hold information that is as valuable as the money they raise. Those managing these systems operate under intense pressure to identify, persuade and mobilize voters. This creates predictable structural risks and dangerous moral rationalizations that cannot be addressed through voluntary policies alone.

That is precisely why Canadian privacy [laws have] always relied on principles-based approaches, with legislated guardrails. Civil rights, including privacy, have long been protected through shared federal and provincial frameworks, enforced by independent officers of Parliament and the legislatures. Part 4 attempts to remove those protections when personal information is held by a single powerful class of actors — political parties and their agents — without replacing them with equivalent federal safeguards. That approach is inconsistent with Canadian federalism, established privacy jurisprudence and democratic principles.

We also heard powerful testimony from Jim Balsillie — “the BlackBerry guy” — who is also the founder of the Centre for Digital Rights. He argued strenuously not just against the weak privacy provisions of Bill C-4 but against the strategy of slipping such changes into a bill about tax cuts. I’ll quote from his testimony:

The digital age is shaped by who controls the data, the algorithms that act on it and the information environments they create. This has caused a new era of human commodification [which] violates fundamental human rights in new ways . . . .

Part 4 directly violates the right to political participation and democratic self-governance. Over time, these conditions weaken individual autonomy and collective self-governance —

— he said, adding —

— we have a real problem with how political parties in Canada approach privacy. Political data sits at the core of democratic participation, yet Canadian political parties have placed themselves outside the privacy rules they impose on others. In Europe, under the General Data Protection Regulation, . . . political opinions and political affiliation are classified as data of the highest sensitivity and subject to heightened protection, including strict limits on processing, explicit consent, or a clearly defined public interest basis, including binding regulatory enforcement.

Part 4 is framed around affordability, but all it does is exempt political federal parties from privacy obligations entirely. It provides no independent enforcement and applies retroactively. This follows years of resistance by political parties to basic transparency about what data they collect on voters . . . . This also comes during litigation challenging the exemption federal parties claim from privacy obligations legislated in certain provinces.

He concluded:

. . . Part 4 is not only wholly inadequate; it is out of place. Measures that compromise democratic integrity should not be held hostage to much-needed relief measures aimed at affordability. Challenges this serious deserve separate study through stand-alone legislation and full public scrutiny.

There, I must tell you, my friends, the witnesses were largely in agreement, as they were about the threats to democracy and public security that this bill represents.

Tamir Israel, who is a lawyer, University of Ottawa academic and the Director of the Privacy, Surveillance and Technologies Program of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, argued that Bill C-4 gave political parties carte blanche to gather personal information about Canadians, even without their consent or knowledge. Let me quote from Mr. Israel’s testimony:

Under this regime, there are no substantive limits on what they can do in terms of how they collect personal information. As long as it’s captured at some level of generality in their privacy policy, this places no limits on what information is being collected, from whom it could be collected, how detailed, what types of really intrusive personal characteristics — they could try to guess certain people in the voting public have — or how long they keep those profiles on people. There is just nothing. It really is a very open-ended paradigm that is deeply concerning for us. There are just no limitations at this point on what political parties can do.

We also heard from Matt Hatfield from the group OpenMedia, who shared his concerns about the long-term danger to our electoral system by allowing parties to self-regulate in this area:

We need to have actual deterrents here, and we simply don’t. The parties imagine that this is in their short-term interests. They think having as wide a net as possible to do what they can with voter data will give them an advantage in the next election, and it may. However, this is very damaging to the core of democracy and the long-term functioning of the system that we’re all in, including the parties.

Catherine Brownlee of the Alberta Enterprise Group was unable to testify in person, but she submitted a brief which also raised an important constitutional concern on behalf of Albertans:

Federal jurisdiction over elections under s. 91(1) of the Constitution Act, 1867 does not encompass comprehensive regulation of personal information handling, which is a core matter of provincial property and civil rights under s. 92(13). This bill’s explicit override of provincial privacy laws — such as Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) — creates significant conflicts and intrudes on provincial domains. The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly emphasized limits on federal overreach into areas of provincial competence . . . .

We listened to all of the experts, and I must tell you that the only expert witnesses who testified in defence of this law were the lawyer for the Liberal Party of Canada, the lawyer for the Conservative Party of Canada and the lawyer for the New Democratic Party of Canada, who all sang from precisely the same songbook.

We were, shall we say, unpersuaded by the argument that this is what the parties want. We really need to excise this entire section of the bill and start over.

There are other viable approaches. Senator Ross mentioned the testimony of Elizabeth Denham, who served for a time as Information Commissioner for the United Kingdom. I will continue from where Senator Ross left off with Ms. Denham’s conclusion:

Oversight of Canada’s political parties is even more important today, given the government’s desire to strengthen and preserve democratic institutions and preserve trust and confidence in elections. Canadians will look askance at cynical efforts to take away their rights at a time when geopolitical unrest has turbocharged the risk of foreign influence and cyber attacks and when hostile states are interfering with elections by deliberately targeting personal information repositories.

Colleagues, we have just heard the testimony from Anton Boegman, who seeks the office of commissioner of our new system to regulate foreign interference. Yet, at the same time, we have before us a bill that is crafted to leave us open to foreign interference and foreign influence in our elections.

The issue has been raised that, well, the parties will have their own rules, and they will be able to regulate themselves. So let me speak to you about what we heard from Michael Bisson, Deputy Commissioner of Elections Canada. Bill C-4, he noted, imposes very few rules on political parties because it allows them to make their own. How, he asked us, could the commission investigate alleged wrongdoing in such circumstances?

Let me quote from Mr. Bisson’s testimony:

Even if we were to be informed of a breach or through the receipt of a complaint, for example, we would then be dependent on finding the party’s policy that applies, knowing that that’s one of the 15. . . .

By that he meant that every party of the 15 registered parties would have its own policy. There would be one policy for the Marxist-Leninists, one policy for the Parti Rhinocéros Party, one policy for the Liberals, one policy for the Greens, and they could each be completely different.

I continue with his testimony:

We would then have to look at the policy that was in effect at the time of the alleged contravention. If a policy gets updated three times in a year, we have to ensure we are getting the right version. Therefore, if there are no preservation requirements, we may not be able to obtain that, and because we don’t have powers to compel either, we rely on voluntary cooperation to obtain evidence.

My friends, these rules are worse than useless. They set us up for a situation in which foreign actors can potentially weaponize our own information against us and in a system in which the people who are supposed to be in charge themselves say that this bill gives them none of the tools they require for enforcement.

As unelected senators in a Senate where most of us belong to no party, we have a unique responsibility and a unique ability to say no, to say that Part 4 has no role in a bill about tax relief, to say that we need to pass the parts of this bill that matter urgently for the Canadian economy but take our time to craft a privacy regime that works to protect the privacy of Canadians and the integrity of our democracy.

Now, I assure you that Senator Batters will not be able to find evidence of a single penny that I have ever donated to any Canadian political party, so perhaps I can come to this with clean hands and say that I strongly support this motion, which accurately reflects the compelling testimony we heard at committee.

I thank Senator Clement for her clarity and her courage. I thank Senator Arnot for his passion. I thank Senator Ross for her incisive analysis. Thank you very much, my friends. Hiy hiy.

Honourable senators, I want to first thank Senator Cuzner for his valiant effort to move the focus of this chamber’s attention to the very limited technical measure in this bill as he reminds us that Part 4 is not about policy. But as was said on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter by Althia Raj, “. . . an absence of policy is itself policy . . .”

I also want to thank Senator Clement for her work at the Legal Committe and the National Finance Committee and her intervention and proposed amendment. I have a lot of time and a lot of regard for you, Senator Clement, and for you, Senator Cuzner, as you well know. But I’m not debating the desire to deal with this problem, the problem of Part 4. That’s for sure.

My question is, if we delete Part 4, what next? How do we end up helping Canadians? How do we give Canadians protections? I don’t know about you, but I have not met one Canadian who knows there is no privacy policy of any merit governing our political parties.

I expect there are very good reasons for it to be different than that for corporations. I have no doubt about that. I also respect the need for a unified federal regime, but I have not met one person who has any idea about the reality that we’re now in.

For our elected politicians to have the credibility to solely decide this issue, as it is being debated, they need to be clear on that fact and see if Canadians are as comfortable with that fact as they are. But I’ve not met anybody who is aware of that.

Even though I agree with the concerns that you and your seatmate have so eloquently described, I’m really focused on how to get data rights for Canadians. In business and in life, I always look for what the other party wants, and I try to use that to get what I need.

In Part 4, the government wants the retroactive 25 years for a very narrow litigation problem that they have. It is to maintain that single federal jurisdiction authority. I find it troubling — and I’ll say this again when I speak at third reading — that they’ve used litigation as their tool, rather than legislation. The legislative changes we’ve been provided are because of their litigation problem, not because of the need for legislation. We’re in an unfortunate situation that way.

The government wants to maintain that single federal jurisdictional authority. That’s what they absolutely want. What we want, I believe, as a chamber, is for the rights of Canadians to be protected. We’re all frustrated. The three federal parties are probably frustrated right now; I have no doubt. But in reality, this is a very difficult situation that we’re in, and it’s one where we’re going against tradition. This is a money bill. This item has been put in that money bill for, I think, a very cynical purpose, but it’s there.

When I listened to the lawyers in committee, I was troubled by their responses. They’ve chosen to disregard the concerns of Canadians and, in their responses, I saw that. When I looked at, for example, the advice they were clearly still giving to the political parties, they saw themselves as privacy experts. They were disregarding the expert testimony that was heard in committee in a way that I found really quite disturbing. They literally referred to the testimony that was heard from the experts who are globally recognized as equivalent to being a bogeyman. They literally used that word.

In my mind, it is the disregard for facts and strong arguments from those who have experienced this first-hand — for example, the well-mentioned Elizabeth Denham, who was responsible for this area in the U.K. and was studying what happened before proper legislation was put in place in the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica affair — that is deeply troubling.

They are providing this advice, and all the while they are spending taxpayer-subsidized political party donations.

The other thing I found troubling is that they completely ignored, in correspondence to the courts, the constitutional role of the Senate — our role in looking at legislation again and understanding the implications for Canadians. There is a lot of frustration about this issue on all sides.

Returning to my point, does this amendment get us closer to our priority of delivering data rights to Canadians? I don’t believe it does. That’s why I support the idea of a sunset clause if this chamber chooses to do anything.

I think we need to motivate the government through what they are looking for and the political parties as a way for us to get the solution we want to see for Canadians. Right now, we are their only hope because, in addition to this having cost millions of taxpayer-subsidized political donation dollars, after five years, the lawyers of this litigation activity — the litigation problem still exists, and the legislative problem still exists. So nothing has been accomplished in this whole battle for five years.

There is an enormous amount of data value in the data of Canadians when it is used responsibly. We all want to get to that point in ways that maintain and do not ignore the need for social licence, as Part 4 does.

I think of Senator Kingston’s excellent speech on Bill S-5, and the fact that Bill S-5 is designed to earn that social licence from Canadians around their health data and to use the data responsibly for the benefit of Canadians with consent, guardrails and rules. We all know that is what’s needed. None of us are debating how this problem must be solved.

If the government felt this was the way to deal with data, they wouldn’t have had an excellent bill like Bill S-5 tabled. I’m sad to come to the conclusion that I don’t think this bill gets us closer to what we all want, which is to be supportive of Canadians.

We are told to trust and that the three parties will do something afterwards — that they just need to get over this line and will do something after. I like to trust people, but “trust, but verify” is something we all need, especially in this job.

We were promised a modernized political party regime by former Minister Gould when she was the Minister of Democratic Institutions in response to the House Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics report Democracy Under Threat: Risks and Solutions in the Era of Disinformation and Data Monopoly. I will read again her comment. This is the response from the government to the committee on the report with 26 recommendations that were ignored:

. . . we share the view that it is necessary to modernize our privacy regime —

— for political parties —

— to ensure it provides clear, enforceable rules and supports the level of privacy protection that Canadians expect. The Committee’s most recent recommendations in this regard are a valuable contribution to the Government’s ongoing privacy modernization efforts.

That was in response to a report that was issued in December 2018.

We have had other promises. We have a responsibility to trust but verify.

Former Minister Gould was chair of the House Finance Committee that gave Part 4 20 seconds of study. The gap we are seeing between the promises and the reality is concerning.

Colleagues, I believe we have to give a little to get a lot for Canadians. I will reluctantly be voting against Senator Clement’s amendment. If this chamber considers a sunset clause, I will speak in favour if it is tabled.

It is worth considering that if the government chooses to reject the sunset clause, I think we would have very good insight into whether they have any intention of putting in place rules on the three political parties that are up to a global standard. In my mind, it puts them in a position where they absolutely have to act.

Another element that we can consider and that I have discussed with many members of the Legal Committee is doing our own study. Don’t start with whatever we get and move up. Let’s start with what we think is the gold standard in the Legal Committee in terms of what political privacy framework would work best for the unique situation of political parties, for Canadians and for our country.

I will leave it there. Thank you, colleagues.

Would Senator Deacon take a question?

Absolutely.

My good friend Senator Deacon, you are the person who first got me excited about this problem. I’m wrestling with your remarks because were we to take out this part of the bill, in provinces such as British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec, provincial privacy laws would then be paramount. As the Alberta Enterprise Group argues, that is perhaps appropriate. Certainly, in British Columbia, people would have a much higher degree of information security were this bit to fall off Bill C-4. Then we could let the courts in British Columbia have a free and unimpeded opportunity to rule on whether that is appropriate.

I do believe in the goal of having a single, exclusive, national regime. You are right that there is an option of having several regimes across the country. Many provinces don’t have a privacy regime at all. That’s an option for the chamber to consider.

But I believe that two words out of four in Part 4, “national” and “exclusive,” have merit. The other two, “unified” and “complete,” do not. There is nothing in Part 4 that is unified and complete. But the first two words have merit, and that is the way that we should consider moving. That’s my view, and I respect that there would be a different view on that versus having a patchwork across the country where some Canadians will be protected and some will not. I’m trying to figure out how to force the government — sorry, I shouldn’t say “the government” because it’s the three political parties on behalf of all the other political parties. I am trying to force them to negotiate getting a strong regime for Canadian citizens nationally.

One might argue, Senator Deacon, that what would force them to get serious is if we send them a message that this bill is a completely inappropriate usurpation of our authority and betrays the privacy of Canadians. The only way to send that signal is to not accept it.

Wouldn’t it be more of a problem if we were to have a sunset clause that would allow the government to have this very weak privacy regime for however long we wait for the sun to set? Then, when the sun sets, what guarantee would we have that they would come back with anything better?

I think your points are all valid. We are into the hypotheticals. We don’t know. It is about which approach is best. When I spend time negotiating in life, I feel it’s always best to focus on what the other party wants and see if we can get somewhere in between.

But I hear you loud and clear that you have a very different way of looking at it, Senator Simons. And the lovely thing about sitting beside you — for as long as we did, but not long enough — was that I always loved our debates, and I very much appreciate your very strong and well-thought-through perspectives, but ours didn’t always align.