Second Session, 42nd Parliament

(2021) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 109

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 22 — Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, 2021 (continued)

S. Cadieux

Question of Privilege (Reservation of Right)

A. Olsen

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 22 — Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, 2021 (continued)

M. Dykeman

B. Stewart

M. Morris

C. Oakes

S. Chant

K. Kirkpatrick

A. Mercier

D. Davies

Hon. N. Cullen

A. Wilkinson

S. Furstenau

L. Doerkson

A. Olsen

T. Wat

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued second reading debate, Bill 22.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 22 — FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND

PROTECTION OF PRIVACY

AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

(continued)

S. Cadieux: I’m pleased to speak to this Bill 22, the Freedom of Information

and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, today.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

I reflect back on this because, in 2009 when I was first elected,

some of the first work I did as an MLA was on the committee that

reviewed FOIPPA, at the time, and provided advice to government on

necessary changes and then followed that up with chairing the committee

to appoint the Privacy Commissioner at that stage.

I’m really pleased today to be able to speak about this bill. I,

for one, have always placed a great deal of both value and importance on

freedom of information. I know, as an elected official, that is not

always popular. The act itself and abiding by it is not always easy, but

it doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. It’s incredibly important to our

democracy.

As minister, in 2011 — in my six-month stint as the Minister of

Labour, Citizens Services and Open Government — I was really proud when

we launched the Open Information platform and the open data platform in

British Columbia. That allowed for the routine disclosure of a lot of

information that previously had to be FOI’d.

[1:35 p.m.]

Again, not everybody liked that. Not everybody was comfortable

with it at the time. It was seen by critics as something that they were

cautiously optimistic about. “It was a good first step,” I think, was

some of the language used to describe it.

It was uncomfortable for members of government, I would say, at

the time, because government has to make tough decisions. Government

makes those decisions and does the work on behalf of the people.

Sometimes they get it right, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they

get called out for things that they’ve done. It’s not easy when you’re

in the position of answering for that. But it’s the right process in our

democracy.

I don’t think the public should expect government to get it all

right all the time. Government is representation of the people, by the

people, for the people. We’re not perfect as humans. We make mistakes.

But generally, I would say, all of us, regardless of our political

leanings, are trying to do the best job we can for the people of British

Columbia.

The people of British Columbia have a right to access the

information held by their government. They also have the right to have

their personal information in government’s hands held with the strictest

of confidence and safety.

In 2011, when we moved to disclose more things proactively, I

think it was a good start. When we opened government’s data up to people

— researchers, universities, the media — for people who wanted to use

that data, I think that was a good step. I’m sure in the years

following, more has happened and more has been released, and I’m sure, I

am aware, there have still been calls for more. It will never meet all

of the needs or desires, I think, of some advocates, and that’s okay

too.

Today we’re debating a bill that is being tabled at a really

concerning time. We’re dealing with a government that has taken, or it

would appear to be a government that has taken, great strides to strip

away transparency and accountability rather than improve it. Just today

in question period, we heard about a number of those circumstances.

British Columbians — the media, members of the opposition — are waiting

months, even years, for responses for documents requested through FOI,

documents they are entitled to.

It’s challenging, I understand, sometimes, for governments to

process all of the documents. We see that and we hear about how

difficult it is, and there are so many things to do, and it just takes

so much time and people are so unreasonable in their requests. The

reality is if government didn’t hold on so tightly to those documents,

people wouldn’t have to request them at all.

Here we have a bill coming forward to make amendments to the

Freedom of Information and Privacy Act, and government is ignoring all

of the advice of the last all-party task force to review the act.

They’re ignoring the fact that that all-party task force said fees

should not be a barrier. There is an all-party committee, constituted

just in June, that has yet to be able to complete its work, but

government is choosing to bring this bill forward now

instead.

What does that say to a committee of members of this House who

were tasked with looking at this? Guess they don’t matter. Guess the

opinions of that committee — the work that they would undertake with the

public — doesn’t matter. Government knows better. Well, that’s not

usually something you hear the public say.

[1:40 p.m.]

There is a member of the government who was previously the critic

for this file, and he’s had lots to say over the years on FOIPPA and on

FOI and, when he was a critic, on all of the things that needed to be

better. In fact, in 2017, the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan said

that his party, if elected, would improve things a lot. He said that

government would release so much more information so regularly that

there would no longer be a need for FOI requests. He said that the

benefit of releasing the requests as they are processed — so proactive

disclosure — would save those making submissions from the effort and

expense in fees of making requests.

That government — his government — if elected, would enact

legislation imposing a duty to document. It would enact penalties for

failing to observe FOI legislation and waive fees when government didn’t

meet mandated timelines for releasing materials.

I will wait with bated breath to see that member stand in this

House and support this legislation today, because it does none of those

things. In fact, it adds a fee. It adds a barrier to accessing the

information that should be publicly available. Now, yes, there have

always been fees for large requests that can be issued by government

after the assessment of a request, etc., but this is just for the right

to ask for something. This is telling the public: “You don’t have a

right to access government information unless you first pay a fee.” I

don’t think that’s right.

As we move through the things that this bill does…. I’m going to

go back a second. We have a committee that’s supposed to be reviewing

the act. The B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association is

quoted this week saying: “They just undermined the public consultation

process through the Legislature. Making unilateral changes rather than

implementing the recommendations of a current or previous all-party task

force. Great way to say one thing and do another. The B.C. NDP attack

transparency.” That’s what this is about. It’s about making it harder

for the public to get information from government.

We’re in a pandemic. There are lots of concerns about what we do

capacity, our schools. Government wants to make it harder for people to

ask for information.

Now, as I said a minute ago, the former critic said that

government would bring forward a duty to document legislation. They

haven’t. But not only do we not have a duty to document legislation; we

also, with this bill, don’t have a duty to preserve. The bill doesn’t

include provisions to prevent documents from being destroyed prior to

requests.

[1:45 p.m.]

The Information and Privacy Commissioner is concerned about that,

very concerned about that, and says: “If somebody destroys records

because they think they might be of interest but wants to destroy them

before any request is made, there’s no offence for that. That can’t be

right. It needs to change. It’s an offence in Alberta. It could have

been easily put in place here.” Michael McEvoy, Information and Privacy

Commissioner.

Government is not listening to the independent officer of this

Legislature, put in place by this Legislature to uphold this act. That’s

something.

So on to that fee again. The government’s plan is to add an

application fee to every single FOI request. Anyone filing a

freedom-of-information request that isn’t for their own personal

information will be subject to a charge for every request they make. The

minister is trying to sell it as a nominal fee — no big deal — to recoup

the costs associated with filing. There is no cost associated to filing.

It’s ridiculous.

Not only does the minister seem to misunderstand the process of

FOI, but it’s also disingenuous to say that the fee won’t be a barrier

to access. In fact, the Minister of Indigenous Relations had this to say

about fees for applications: “This is a really simple one.” Now, here,

he’s referring to the federal act. “The act requires people to pay a

fee, a tollgate fee on the public’s right to know, of $5. It’s a

tollgate fee which costs the government, by testimony, if it’s a cheque,

$55 to process. While it seems bizarre in terms of the economics, it

should also be seen as an obstacle that doesn’t exist in most provincial

freedom of information laws.”

A member of that government’s cabinet fought against fees,

federally, and is now sitting in the government that is choosing to

impose the very same thing. It’s interesting. It’s also interesting, the

language, because we have a government that on regular occasion likes to

shout from the rooftops that they removed the tolls from the bridge.

They removed the tolls, and now this government wants to toll the

freedom-of-information highway. That’s what they’re doing.

A fee is a targeted effort to discourage people from being able to

hold government to account — not just private citizens but the

opposition — to try to keep us from doing our job of holding government

to account. Our legislative duty.

The media, from their sworn duty to uphold the truth and ask

difficult questions…. A fee to file. Now, again, government might like

to characterize this as a nuisance fee to try and dissuade people from

making too many requests.

There is a simple solution. Just proactively disclose the

information. Make the information government holds available to the

public. We started that process. It would appear this government would

like to pull it back.

[1:50 p.m.]

Even before we began debate on this bill today, the public and the

media have been making their feelings known. They’re not happy, not

happy at all — pages of quotes of journalists concerned about this

tightening of a hold on information that government wants to have. I’m

not going to quote all of the journalists, because they have plenty of

space to do that for themselves.

I think it’s important that we recognize that government is

bringing in

an act without taking the advice of the previous committee

that was tasked with reviewing the act and who made recommendations to

ensure that fees not become a barrier. It’s bringing in legislation

against and despite significant concerns of the Information and Privacy

Commissioner, bringing in legislation while another committee has been

struck to look at it.

It’s distasteful that government sees that now is the time to

tighten up their control on information that is in the public interest

when so many important pieces of information have been held by this

government and only been made public through FOI — like the health

authority expense scandal just recently, the concealing of hospital

outbreaks, the concealing of care home deaths, the concealing of the

costs added by CBA agreements and parents forced to file FOI requests to

try and understand what is going on with COVID in their children’s

schools so they can protect them.

Freedom of information is important. Protection of privacy is

important. It may not always be comfortable for government, but

government shouldn’t have the ability to make it harder for people to

access what is already difficult.

Question of Privilege

(Reservation of Right)

A. Olsen: I reserve my right to raise a question of privilege regarding Bill 22

and the work of the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information

and Protection of Privacy Act.

Debate Continued

M. Dykeman: It’s a privilege to rise in the House today to speak on this

bill.

I have to say that listening to the members opposite speak today

on this bill has left me quite shocked. The reason why is that these are

important changes, and we’re here to discuss them, and this debate is

important. But the sort of pall that it’s being cast in is that this is

somehow preventing individuals or others from being able to access

information. I argue the complete opposite.

[1:55 p.m.]

I do find it shocking coming from the opposition. The reason why

is that if we look back at the history of the opposition, we have the

2014 ICBC report, which was kept under wraps and ended up costing B.C.

residents more than $1 billion and putting the health of ICBC at risk.

The Attorney General had written the Leader of the Opposition at that

time to compel the former Finance Minister to release the entire report

and act on key recommendations, and the government ended up deleting

those recommendations.

We have the triple-delete scandal where before they were

opposition, the previous government’s approach to transparency, really,

can be summed up in three words which were delete, delete, delete, and

when asked about this practice, said: “Well, I’ve triple deleted my

emails from time to time, and some emails are deleted, and some are

kept.” That doesn’t sound very transparent, right?

Then we also have the situation where other records haven’t been

released either, when asked for. It was just sort of like: “Well, those

records aren’t there.”

I served on the school board, as I’ve mentioned in this House

before, and one of the challenges that we faced as a school district was

a rising amount of requests for information. These weren’t individuals.

One thing about this legislation is it’s not going to be charging a fee

for access for individuals that would like their private information.

It’s for these larger requests and requests from people, like

organizations.

What was happening was, as a school district, we were seeing a

rising number of requests, and there was a real, measurable cost to

this. Opposition should remember that this is not a new discussion. If

we go back to 2012, the then Minister of Labour, Citizens’ Services and

Open Government was talking about $49,000 in total fees collected for a

program that actually cost $10 million to administer. So the opposition

at one time was defending the fact that some costs needed to be brought

in to recoup the extensive amount that this costs

governments.

As a school board trustee, I remember our staff coming and saying:

“Look, we are just under immense pressure here. We have rising numbers

of requests coming in. We are in a position where we’re probably going

to have to face having somebody come in to help us administer all of

these.”

This is something that’s being felt around different levels of

government. So approximately 40 percent of requests are for personal

records, which people are not charged for. These proposed amendments

won’t change this. It’s introducing a modest application fee for

non-personal FOI requests.

Interjection.

M. Dykeman: Yeah, they should, but there are costs. Now, the thing is that the

average cost to government for processing a single FOI request is

$3,000. Those large, complex requests can exceed this. Fees to produce

records are collected on less than 2 percent of FOI requests.

As I said earlier, approximately 40 percent of those are for

personal records. People are not charged for this, and they will not be

charged. So the province has processed more than 10,000 FOI requests

annually with the volume of requests increasing by more than 40 percent

over a two-year period, reaching an all-time high of more than 13,000

requests in the 2019-2020 year — a total of 13,055.

These are important things to recognize. This is a small fee to

help offset some of the costs. That’s something that taxpayers,

individuals, that want to request their information have access to.

Taxpayers also know that there are rising costs of government, and

sometimes you have to offset some of those.

That’s something that I think we spent an incredible amount of

time on. There’s been an incredible amount of casting it as if it’s

somehow obstructionist, and that’s simply not the case or the intent.

Now, one thing that we should celebrate, and it hasn’t been brought up,

and I’m really excited to talk about, is the increase in transparency of

this government.

The minister who’s introduced this legislation…. Our government

has more than doubled the number of proactive disclosures. This minister

has put out their estimates notes, corporate transition binders,

minister’s transition binders, deputy minister’s transition, expense

summaries, purchasing cards, business transaction, account

expenditures.

[2:00 p.m.]

There have been summaries of open and closed

freedom-of-information request records released in response to a

freedom-of-information request — gaming grants, ministers’ and deputy

ministers’ calendars, directly awarded contracts, travel receipts,

contracts with values over $10,000, summaries of alternative service

delivery contracts.

In the ones that I read first, there is an increase, more than

double proactive releases. This is something which the opposition

laughing about is almost hysterical, because it’s like the exact

opposite. Instead of triple-deleting them, we’re proactively releasing

them. So enough on that. I think we should get to some of the more

exciting thing that are taking place in this legislation.

The past two years certainly have had a significant impact on how

we communicate, how our students and adults are learning, attending

meetings, appointments, even our work as MLAs. Even our swearing in was

vastly different, taking place on Zoom. I have to say, after two years,

I certainly didn’t want to see Zoom again. But what this did was

actually make me appreciate some of the opportunities that we have

here.

I grew up in a house that really only had a couple of programs

that went on all day — TV shows. With my mom, she was a redhead, so you

certainly didn’t have a lot of say on what TV shows were on. You watched

what she was putting on. They rotated between Star Trek ,

Monty Python , Fawlty Towers and ’Allo

’Allo . Sometimes, if we were lucky, we got Jeopardy .

But that was it. There was nothing else going on in this house. That’s

okay.

What was really cool about it was with Star Trek …. I used

to sit there and say: “Wow, that’s really cool. Imagine if we had access

to some of this technology.” I realize that at the end of the pandemic,

I still can’t get something to materialize hot tea in front of me, but

we certainly have accessed some really interesting technology that a

long time ago would have only been something we could dream

of.

Our students this pandemic — obviously, we’ve had other pandemics

in history — have been in such a fortunate place. They’ve been able to

stay connected in a way that a number of years ago you wouldn’t have

been able to. They were able to still visit with their classmates and

see them and have two-way conversations. They were able to still stay

connected, in some way, with their teachers.

I’m a 4-H leader, and my 4-H members were still able to meet with

each other. We actually did a lot of judging of animals. We could see a

child with their llama or their chicken or whatever. It wasn’t the same,

but the point is that that technology opened up so many opportunities

for us to stay connected. It didn’t matter where your family lived in

the world; you could still see them.

It also showed us in some ways, too, how that’s not really a

substitute. You can see the person. In some ways, it was sadder, because

you didn’t have the connection, but it certainly was much better than

having no connection.

There are elements with efficiency and environmental

considerations and everything that we’re going to keep going forward.

This bill allows us to maintain some of the good by updating FOIPPA’s

data residency provisions so that public bodies can use those modern

tools while protecting personal information.

Enhancing public sector privacy protections and in­creasing

accountability by implementing mandatory privacy breach reporting.

Increasing penalties and adding new offences. We’re securing people’s

privacy while still maintaining and allowing these technological changes

that have taken place and the important utility of these technological

advances to be able to stay in place.

I remember, once again, on school board. Without these changes….

We had teachers who wanted to be able to access certain programs. I

remember there was a marking one. Unfortunately, due to the FOIPPA

restrictions, those teachers weren’t able to use those programs. There

would have needed to be these legislative changes for them to be able to

take advantage of these changes. It’s been a long time since this

legislation’s been updated, and it hasn’t kept up with the technological

changes.

[2:05 p.m.]

Those technological changes, I think, have certainly been spurred

as we’ve been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, because it’s changed

the way we live, we work and we connect with loved ones and how we

access services like doctors.

How neat is that, to be able to just log on? You’ve got your

doctor there, and they can see you. It’s certainly not perfect. It’s not

a change, but for certain things, it certainly makes sense — you know,

the non-emergency day-to-day things. How wonderful it is to have that

flexibility? This legislation will allow for that — updating those data

residency provisions.

It also helps with our commitment to diversity and inclusion,

reconciliation and equity, by increasing information and sharing with

Indigenous peoples, adding Indigenous cultural protections and removing

non-inclusive language.

I know in the news release, for those of you that have seen it,

there’s been lots of excitement surrounding this. I can tell you that

post-secondary institutions and schools…. In my former role, we talked

lots about the restrictions but also just the load, the load of these

large applications coming through. Although, unfortunately, today we’ve

had some of these changes cast in such a way that, like as I mentioned

earlier, they’re obstructionist, they’re going to put up a massive

wall….

The point is that you have to look at the larger picture and look

at the fact that organizations are dealing with so many changes, from

needing changes in the legislation to allow people to benefit from

technological advancements but also dealing with the fact that there is

a real cost to some of the applications. That’s what this legislation

looks at. It looks at the necessary balance that needs to take place to

be effective in the role as government.

As I mentioned earlier, these are not new debates. Back in 2006

and 2012, these debates were taking place.

These are small changes that will make a big difference in the

lives of British Columbians and still allow individuals to access data,

which, in a free and democratic society, absolutely people should be

able to do, and for organizations, they absolutely should be able to

access that information. That nominal fee is in there to help offset

some of those costs.

When you couple that with our government’s commitment to being so

proactive in releasing documents — twice as many documents proactively

have been released — that puts in the balance that needs to be put in to

ensure that people have access to what they need. A lot of it they can

access by going on and looking at the proactively released

documents.

It really was wonderful to be able to rise to talk about how these

changes will help us keep up with the changes that we’ve encountered

from COVID-19, how we work and live and connect with people, while also

looking at the challenges faced by organizations and addressing some of

the obstacles that have come from administering such a large demand of

documents and also looking at how we have changed the face of that by

proactively releasing so many documents ahead of time.

I’d like to thank you, hon. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak

on this. With that, I will take my seat.

B. Stewart: I think that it’s important to hear both sides of the House on

this particular topic. It’s something that is very engaging with the

public. The public themselves are very interested in the protection of

privacy as well as having access to it.

I think one of the things that people fail to remember is the

history of where we have come from and the fact that we’ve moved from a

paper-based system to something that’s electronic.

There have been a lot of incidents along the way that have made us

question how and where we store data and how it’s done in British

Columbia, protecting the records — health records, as we all know, but

the records of government — and the important things that sometimes we

need to go back and look at to make certain there’s complete

transparency in terms of the protection of the public interest and

people’s information.

[2:10 p.m.]

I think one of the things that really kind of got British Columbia

and really catapulted us into the forefront was that back in 2004, we

made changes to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy

Act. One of the reasons…. What triggered that was the fact that there

was 9/11.

Of course, with 9/11, I know the Americans were very critical of

their own agencies’ intelligence, etc., about the access to data and

making certain they had access — that there weren’t these barriers that

were in line that prevented people from actually being in a situation

where they were trading information, whether in those days it was on

cell phones or by computers. But the bottom line was that there was

information that perhaps could have averted some of the damage or some

of the things that happened.

Of course, the Americans introduced the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act. George

Bush introduced it on October 26 of 2001, just a short time after 9/11.

Has that changed? Part of what comes out in the Patriot Act is the fact

that data that is stored on servers that may be in the United States or

that they have access to are open to their ability to investigate and

look at. It is not protected. It is not private.

In British Columbia, we decided, on our own, that we were going to

protect our information by insisting that data was stored here. As a

matter of fact, the minister may know an address called 4000 Seymour

Place, right down here in downtown Victoria, where there is a huge

server farm underneath a building where a lot of this data has been

stored for decades. Of course, with the increasing volumes, etc., there

was new data storage built in about 2010 up in Kamloops, and

subsequently, there are other data server farms that are also in Canada

that are storing data.

One of the things that we’re now looking at…. I know, as a former

critic, that there were intermittent amounts of data that were being

stored or transmitted through different networks. I think that the

protection of data is, I mean, paramount in this whole discussion — and

making certain that it is not accessed.

About ten years ago I had the opportunity to have dinner and host

the former head of NSA, General Michael Hayden. He was NSA director from

March of ’99 until April of 2005. He subsequently was appointed second

director at the CIA, somebody who’s very knowledgable about what took

place in September of 2001.

He told us, at a dinner with the people that were there in

government that were responsible for that: “One of the things that the

U.S. has looked at with the PATRIOT Act is the bottom line that…. What

we are looking at is we want to protect you, and if you want our

protection, we have to have access to all that data, and that means

anything that’s transmitted through the United States.” He told people

that, and some people were shocked about that.

When you do ask yourself about the fact that…. If you want the

protection that you’re expecting, you want to make certain that other

groups, terrorists or whatever, are not accessing that information.

There’s a whole spectrum of other information. The NSA is looking at

this information, and we know that it goes on here. As a matter of fact,

there has been a certain inquiry that’s been going on dealing with

illegal transfer of funds, etc. That type of information we do want to

have access to.

Anyways, what’s more important is the fact that British Columbia

was seen to be a leader in terms of protecting privacy by the rules,

etc., that we established and — not only that — the fact that we

insisted that we store the data both in British Columbia and in

Canada.

Secondly, we’re at a turning point now where, as the member for

Langley East pointed out, there are certain things that are happening

that we need to address — efficiency, technology. I couldn’t agree more.

I think that one of the things that’s happened is that big data has come

at a cost because of the fact that we’re now having to have greater

amounts of storage and what is easier is to farm that out, sell it or

put it somewhere else on a server that we have no control

over.

[2:15 p.m.]

I don’t know if that opportunity was looked at by the minister or

the government. But the fact is that some of the things…. These server

farms are located around the world, in some of the places that we would

not want our data stored on. A place where we could be doing a lot of

this is right here British Columbia, away from earthquakes — reliable

safe energy, in terms of electricity. The fact is that it’s not a

threat. We’re not a likely site to be a target, like some of the other

cities in other countries where data is stored. I think that that’s

important. I think we’ve failed to look at the opportunities.

I do think that we need to be investing. Now, who would be a

likely candidate to invest, in terms of efficiency and data management,

etc., and technology? The government is not an early adopter. I found

that out as the minister of this ministry. It was very slow and hesitant

to adopt.

As a matter of fact, there was a case management system used at

MCFD that, believe it or not, in 2010, was green-screen technology. It

was maybe MS-DOS. The bottom line was the people that relied on being

able to have access to this. There was a hesitancy by people in

government: “No, it’s a very stable system.” And I’m thinking: “Well,

stable, but it’s not very…. It doesn’t share information. It doesn’t

work.” We had to shut it down to issue cheques for three or four days a

month.

Realistically, there is an investment that government has to make,

and it’s got to become more savvy. I appreciate the member for Langley

East, who brought up this point, in the sense that we do need to do

that. I know — from some work that we’re doing mutually on a committee —

that she’s one of these progressive types of people. She needs to be

listened to. On the other hand, data residency is extremely important

when it comes to the protection of that data.

Most of the members on the opposite side…. There are a few that

have been there for a few terms that would know this. If we were to put

the shoe on the other foot, the criticism that there may be some people

that, they say, now are abusing the system…. Well, I’m not convinced

that they forget what they did when they were in government.

As the minister, I used to visit this regularly and go over to the

FOI office, etc., and see the types of requests. I know that generally,

they’re looking for information, the same as the opposition is here.

They’re looking for information: “We want transparency, and we want to

make certain that government is being accountable or held

accountable.”

Now, there is a difference. I know that there is open access for

other individuals. I don’t assume…. There are individuals sometimes that

do abuse that, in the sense of the repetitiveness of a request or the

broad nature of a request. I do think that that needs to be reined in,

and I don’t think it should all necessarily be for free. This

organization had at least hundreds of people working in it, but I know

our record on delivery of records. We had about a 95 percent on-time

delivery. I know that has been slipping over the years. There are all

sorts of reasons or claims, and there are ways around it,

etc.

I do think that one of the things that is distressing here is the

fact that somebody that is extremely well respected around the world,

the Privacy Commissioner…. His advice has either been ignored or not

sought out. We have a committee that was previously sitting, and we have

a new committee that has been working on updating this, etc., and we

haven’t even waited for their results. We’ve jumped ahead: “We know

better.” To me, that’s just not right. We should be listening to the

Privacy Commissioner, working with him, to find a collaborative solution

to how we make certain that we protect privacy and have

Now, the member from Surrey mentioned that in her time as the

minister, she was responsible for open government. I ended up taking

that file, back in 2012-2013. I know that that was a big change, and —

as she mentioned in her remarks — it wasn’t welcomed by everybody in

government because of the fact that calendars were published on a

proactive basis. There were records that were published. It did kind

of…. You know, you hide behind that veil — if you want to call it that —

of the fact that they have to request it or ask for it — that type of

thing.

[2:20 p.m.]

No. Everything that’s in your calendar is open, and you need to

make certain that it is open and that it is actively published. She

mentioned open government. We should be working to be more proactive.

Instead of holding back on things, we need to make certain….

I encourage the minister, and I’m sure that she’ll be advised by

her staff that this is important in terms of trying to make certain that

we find efficiencies. Some of it is technology. Some of it is in

proactive things that we should be publishing. I know that if we were in

her role, there would probably be similar resistance to some things, but

I do know that we need to make certain that we’re moving forward on

this.

I think that there is a place in the act currently for frivolous

and vexatious repeated requests. In the case of the branch that is

responsible, Citizens’ Services, I think it’s really important that they

use that tool for people that are clearly abusing a system that was set

up so that it would protect privacy but, on the other hand, was

accessible.

I know that I can speak knowingly about the fact that there are

some abuses that we know. It was difficult to try to change habits or

say that we’re not going to do that, because how would you have a

transparent system if you say no and you pick and choose,

etc.?

I know that there are times when carpet-bombing of…. “We want all

the information. As a matter of fact, we want it not just from one

ministry, but we want it from all 23 ministries.” But I do think that

we’ve got to make certain that we modernize the act, and that’s why I go

back to the committee. The committee is there to make certain that what

we’re doing is we’re listening to the people that actually work with

data all the time.

As a matter of fact, I know the privacy conference has been

cancelled or postponed the last couple of years, but I know myself, I’ve

attended it many times, and every time I go to it, I continue to be

impressed by the knowledge of the staff that are working in the

technology department in Citizens’ Services, about their ideas. I think

that there is an investment that needs to be there.

Maybe some of the rules do need to be changed, but being that I

haven’t been on that committee, I can’t comment about whether this bill

reflects on the changes that were recommended by the former committee or

what might have come from the current committee in terms of what needs

to be done. It takes a long time to bring legislation forward. I do

wonder what is driving the government to bring this in and do it in an

arbitrary manner. I don’t think it would be completely arbitrary, but I

think that the committee and the commissioner’s discussion comments have

not necessarily been adhered to.

Let’s just talk about an example of where transparency is needed.

In March of 2020, we came back to this Legislature. Some of the members

came here for a very special session, an emergency funding bill which

was completely a blank cheque. It had some notional kind of, “This is

where we think we’re going to need the money,” or whatever, and we

agreed, and we supported that. But the problem with that…. We did it

again in June, and we subsequently did another one before the House rose

in August.

The situation is that we were supportive to make certain the

government had the emergency funds to be able to do things, but the fact

that it took not only a long time, the fact that there was very little

transparency…. As a matter of fact, we’re still waiting for information

about programs that were announced that weren’t fully subscribed or were

very slow in being subscribed. I think that’s the type of stuff the

public expects, where $8 billion has been written out and said to

government: “Okay, spend it. Do what you have to do to make certain we

get through this crisis.”

I know the critic, I’m sure, of Jobs and the economy and

innovation is still waiting for the outcome of some of the investments

that were supposed to be made in businesses. I think it’s been very slow

in coming out. Either there is a hesitancy in terms of…. Why not just

tell us what happened? Government and, as an elected official…. We don’t

get everything right all the time, but the situation is: let’s try and

improve the process by putting that information out there.

[2:25 p.m.]

By not providing it, what we end up with is this degree of

secrecy, that there’s something wrong or that the money is going to a

different place. That’s the whole reason that we ask questions about

this. We ask questions about: was the money spent where it was expected

to be allocated?

We know that there’s been a huge increase in health costs, in the

people that do the tracking of where things are going. I think that it’s

really important that the government expectation shouldn’t be any less

than the fact that what we’re trying to do is make certain that we have

the access to make certain that there is integrity with the fact that

we’re spending taxpayers’ funds. Just because you’re government doesn’t

mean that you get to not have to account for everything.

I think the fact that there is a change in fees, the fact…. I know

from commentary that we’ve heard in this House that the opposition is

part of the problem, they say. I’m thinking, well, let’s work together

to make it so that we get the information. We heard earlier today about

health requests to Fraser Health where 57 of 79 pages, I think it was,

were completely redacted. Is that a system that’s really working? I

don’t believe it is. I think we need to expect better from government in

terms of the information.

Probably when it comes to the changes, there have been some very

quick remarks by the media about this. I think that we do want to make

certain the media does have the ability to get information. It’s been

very difficult in a competitive world where some of the media don’t have

the resources that they once did. I think access to information is

extremely important to them. I know the fact is that when I look up in

the gallery here, there are so many less reporters because the media is

all the different sources, or whatever.

The bottom line is not to say that it’s well researched, but the

whole idea is that we do want to make certain that the media can do

their research and get access to information, as does the opposition. I

think that’s important.

I did mention about storing data outside of the country. I just

think about the recent events. Well, look at the election in the U.S. a

few years ago and Cambridge Analytica’s

part in it. The bottom line is

that data can be manipulated, managed and used inappropriately, etc. I

do want to make certain that we don’t allow that to move into British

Columbia in a way that it can be utilized in a way that’s unfair to the

voters, the people that are electing. They want transparency.

I think that’s what the media…. We want to make certain that their

access is not unimpeded, but we want to make certain that there’s a

reasonableness to their access.

I know that there are going to be lots of questions on this

particular bill, in terms of the different clauses. It’s a comprehensive

bill. It’s going to take some time to go through that bill. We’re going

to need time to make certain that we have an understanding of a lot of

the provisions and clauses that have been put in there.

I can’t help but think about the fact that when we did make those

changes that the former minister made when she became the minister and

the name was changed to Citizens’ Services and Open Government, I know

that there was a lot of criticism from the government side, or from

today’s government when they were in the opposition ranks, about the

fact that they didn’t believe that that was going to happen. I know

firsthand that that did happen.

I do think that there’s a degree of secrecy that is showing up in

terms of some of the questions that we’ve had in question period about

the fact that we want transparency. We want to make certain that there’s

access to this information and that it is not something that is glossed

over in terms of the fact that there’s no need for that information or

it’s redacted, etc. We do need to make certain that we have

an act

that’s working for both sides of the House, the public.

[2:30 p.m.]

We need to make certain that its intentions are driven by the fact

that we’re trying to improve a system that’s there to protect people, as

well as to make certain that the people that are needing access to that

can get access.

Mr. Speaker, I will take my place. Thank you very much for

allowing me to comment on Bill 22.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

M. Morris: My experience with the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act over

the years…. Oftentimes, I have witnessed a misunderstanding of the

legislation itself and how people guard information that really isn’t

necessary. They protect the information, thinking that they are not

allowed to disclose it without…. They don’t have a fulsome understanding

of the legislation.

Oftentimes what I have witnessed is people erring on the side of

caution by not releasing information, rather than releasing it. I think,

reading through this bill and listening to some of the discussion, from

the government side, particularly, I think government and I think a lot

of the members probably forget what the purpose of FOIPPA is. So I just

want to, probably, go over a little bit of the legislation

itself.

“The purposes of the act are to make public bodies more

accountable to the public and protect personal privacy by giving the

public a right of access to records.” It’s not an unfettered right, and

the act does have a number of provisions in there to ensure that that’s

not the case, but the purpose of the act is to give the public a right

of access to the records. The public.

“Giving individuals a right of access to, and a right to request

correction of, personal information about themselves,” which is pretty

standard. “Specifying limited exceptions to the rights of access.

Preventing the unauthorized collection, use, or disclosure of use of

personal information by public bodies, and providing for an independent

review of decisions made under this act.” So an independent

review.

Here we have…. I think my colleague who spoke before me mentioned

it as well. All the members of this House got together collectively and

passed a large sum of money for government to spend in support of COVID,

looking forward to what the needs were of the public and to ensure the

safety and health of the public of British Columbia. The Legislature

wasn’t sitting, didn’t sit during that period of time.

There has really been no accountability as to where a lot of these

funds were spent, up until this particular time. It only stands to

reason that members of this side, of the opposition, are making

inquiries as to how these funds were spent and the product of where this

money was spent.

I’ve noticed, with interest, in situations that occur in my riding

and throughout the province, the number of non-disclosure agreements

that seem to be in force amongst public bodies, various ministerial

offices throughout the province and the number of consultants that are

signing non-disclosure agreements dealing with issues that affect the

day-to-day operations of public bodies. That information needs to be

made public as well.

[2:35 p.m.]

I see this, also, as another obstacle, where we see government

pretending to be transparent, pretending to be cooperative and

collaborative with members of this House. But at the same time, they’re

putting up more roadblocks to make it more difficult for the members of

the opposition to obtain information and members in the media to obtain

information that they need to hold this government to account publicly

as well. This is just another continuum of the obstacles that are being

put in place to make it more difficult for us, for the media and for

members of the public to gain access to the information that they truly

need.

Again, the previous speaker was talking about the current

all-party legislative committee that was constituted in June to make

recommendations. They still haven’t made those recommendations yet. So

this government has pre-empted the advice that this committee was

supposed to provide. And, of course, the Privacy Commissioner being

opposed to these new fees as well.

I can understand fees in some situations. Back in my previous role

as a senior manager in the RCMP, we were bombarded with requests for

information under this particular statute and other statutes. We had to

comply within a very confined timeline in providing that information. We

had to be careful, of course, because a lot of the information pertained

to ongoing criminal investigations and other police activities. We had

to make sure that we didn’t disclose information that would jeopardize

confidential information; would jeopardize undercover operators, agents;

or, worse, would jeopardize prosecution of a case that we have already

spent millions and millions of dollars on and a lot of time on, over

time, over a period of years, to bring a case to court.

There are requirements. But when we get into the civil side and

the public bodies, the public agencies that are providing a service to

the public, oftentimes I’ve seen them where they will not disclose any

information because it may reflect a bad decision that was made by

somebody within an agency or somebody within government, and they don’t

want it to reflect badly on that particular agency. That decision could

have had or would have or did have repercussions over a period of

time.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, public interest is

paramount. It says so under Division 4. It said: “Information must be

disclosed if in the public interest.” Under

section 25.1(a), it says

that it must be released if it’s “about a risk of significant harm to

the environment or to the health or safety of the public or a group of

people.” Now, I’ve highlighted this because this is what COVID has been

all about. This is a worldwide pandemic. The risk to public health has

been significant, not only in British Columbia but around the

world.

The people of British Columbia, of all sectors across the province

here, need to know the extent of the pandemic within their particular

regional area. They need to know the criteria used in determining

whether or not government made the right decision in implementing a lot

of the rules that they have — restricting access to bars, restricting

access to restaurants, restricting access to religious services. Without

access to that information, it becomes a very subjective process where

somebody within government may have access to all kinds of statistical

information that leads them in that direction, but it’s not released to

the public.

Oftentimes some of those decisions can be very subjective in

nature and more detrimental to businesses and more detrimental to the

people who are actually on the ground experiencing what some of those

impacts are. So government is throwing up another roadblock — that if

you want to access that information, you’re going to have to pay a fee,

and then you’re going to have to pay, of course, additional moneys

depending on how much paperwork and how much work is involved in

producing the information that that individual wants.

[2:40 p.m.]

A lot of this stuff is available at your fingertips. The public

agencies that are collecting this information and making those decisions

— that information is available at their fingertips. There’s a

section

in the act. I don’t have it in front of me here, but I think it’s right

at the beginning of the act. “Duty to assist applicants. The head of a

public body must make every reasonable effort to assist applicants and

to respond without delay to each applicant openly, accurately and

completely.”

You know, I remember this from the days when I worked in public

service. Our databases were complete. They were up to date for the most

part. And subject to ensuring that we weren’t going to jeopardize an

investigation or release personal information about a person, that

information was readily available, and we were able to respond right

away.

I hear more and more cases where media, where other agencies have

applied for information under FOIPPA to this government, and it takes

months to get that information back — months. And as we’ve seen

recently, the majority of that information is redacted. It’s blanked-out

pages, page after page after page. So I think some of these agencies are

creating more work by taking this stance.

You know what? I go back to situations in my own riding. I saw a

notable change — of course, we weren’t in government any longer — with

several public ministries, offices located throughout my riding, where

they could no longer speak directly to me as the elected representative

for that area — that we had to go through the ministerial office. My

staff would be requesting certain information from these ministerial

offices, and we were told to access it through the Freedom of

Information and Privacy Act rather than give us the information right up

front.

I view that as more obstructionist than anything else. There was

no real purpose for that. It delayed getting the information to us by

maybe two months, three months, four months, whatever the case is down

the road. But it was just a…. I don’t know whether it was a provincewide

decree by government that offices were supposed to keep information from

MLAs on this side of the House as we were trying go about doing our

business within our ridings to support the public that elected us in

those ridings and provide them with the information that they needed to

make decisions in the day-to-day course of their own particular

duties.

Going through the bill, looking at it, listening to some of the

discussions on this, I see this as another roadblock. There’s no real

purpose for it. Pending the results of the committee that’s been struck

to review this legislation…. Let the committee do its work. Let them go

out and hear back from the public as to what some of the concerns are

out there, hear from some of these agencies what some of the roadblocks

and impediments are within this legislation and then offer some advice

and direction to government on how to correct that.

Particularly when it comes to the privacy commission, the

commissioner’s office, what are their concerns? They have some concerns

over this particular bill that government has ignored and is just

blundering ahead to try and put this through. Why? What does government

have out there that they don’t want the public to be made aware

of?

I’ve heard the saying the tides come in…. This government has been

in place now for a year, but it was in place before that for a time,

spending billions of dollars under COVID. The tide is starting to go out

as we go through this term in office, and as the tide goes out, it’s

going to reveal a bunch of stuff sitting on the floor. We want to know

some of the decisions that were made that are going to cause this debris

field that we’re going to see on the floor as this tide goes

out.

Hopefully that’s not what this bill is designed for — to try and

cover that up. But I think that government needs to become more

transparent and more open than it has been. The people of British

Columbia deserve that in every respect, particularly after the tough

times that everybody has been through with COVID right across the

province here.

I look forward to further discussion on this bill from other

members. We’ll see what the committee stage brings us.

[2:45 p.m.]

C. Oakes: It truly is a privilege to stand in this Legislature to talk about

an incredibly important bill, and I want to thank the minister for the

work on bringing it forward. Accountability and transparency is always

critically important for any government. I think that the discussion

today is very relevant.

I have heard some of the members previous in government who have

talked about track records on transparency and accountability. I

recognize some of the members are new. I thought this would provide me

an opportunity to provide context of, often as an MLA working in our

ridings, what type of use freedom of information may look like in our

communities.

I’m going to take this House back, as I’ve talked many times in

this House about the devastating impact that the wildfires have had in

so many parts of the province of British Columbia. Particularly, I would

like to spend a few minutes talking about the challenges following the

2017 wildfires, particularly the Plateau fire in the Cariboo, and the

consequences on people, on our biodiversity and, in fact, as I have

talked in this House before, the long-range issues that communities like

mine have.

I want to raise this, because on August 11, 2017, it was an

absolutely devastating day for the folks in the Cariboo and for so many

people. The consequences of that particular day has led to impacts that

people are still living with today in 2021. That was a day where we had

a firestorm, and we had an amalgamation of multiple fires that became

the Plateau complex. Through that, some decisions were made. Many of my

citizens that live in my riding had individual structural protection

units on their homes.

We are a hearty bunch in the Cariboo, and we like to make sure

that when we are able that we absolutely take care to do the responsible

thing to make sure that if we are living in these areas that we have

things such as structural protection units available on our

properties.

On that particular day when the fire blew up and it ravaged, burnt

homes, burnt properties, had significant impact on livestock,

significant impact on people who’ve invested absolutely everything into

their homes and their lifestyle…. For many of them, it’s many

generations that had been passed on.

Some of the challenges that emerged out of that particular day are

that some of the structural protection units — the private structural

protection units — were moved from private homes and shipped down to the

Okanagan where fires were also happening in that particular

area.

What does that particular issue that I described as an MLA, which

I continue to fight for my constituents on…? The only ability that we

had as a community, as an MLA, as an office trying to resolve and get

support for constituents to resolve liability issues, to resolve things

such as insurance and so many layers was to really utilize the freedom

of information.

I can tell you that in many instances that we are still waiting

for certain reports. We’re still waiting for certain very critically

important pieces of information to thread what happened on August 11,

2017, and the weeks leading up to that and the years following that

process.

[2:50 p.m.]

It tells a story about how critically important it is for

constituents to be able to access very important financial support.

Often, it relies on the very documents that the government

has.

The reason why when we start talking about the layering of fees,

whether it’s a $25 fee…. What I don’t think the members, to date,

understand is that, in my experience, the number of FOI requests that

have to be submitted in order to get information is enormous. If you do

not have the exact language, if you do not have the exact word…. Was it

the Plateau fire or the Plateau fire complex? Was it the Castle Rock

fire or was it the Narcosli fire? There are so many dynamics on that

particular date that we were asking questions for. Was it the complex

fire? Or was it some name, because there was amalgamation of fires that

happened?

I raise this because…. Look, I believe that there is good intent

here. I believe that, as we are talking about this bill, there are,

obviously, valid reasons for it. What I think is critically important

for us in this House is to understand the unintended consequences and

how it actually works on the ground as we try to support constituents,

as the media try to get information to support people that are living in

our communities go through….

So fast forward a year after 2017 — the wildfires. We knew that

reports were coming out around hydrology reports. We knew that reports

were being formed, because we would hear about a report that was

happening.

For example, I have talked in this House about the West Fraser

Road. Now, we knew a report was going to be coming forward in March of

2018. We had evidence from people who were on the ground that we were

going to have significant challenges with many of our roads because of

the soil erosion, the impact of the wildfires and the hydrology reports.

We fought really hard to try and get that information so that we would

understand what those next steps looked like. So I put in a

freedom-of-information request about West Fraser Road and some of the

reports that had happened — lo and behold, no reports found.

Again, it was a back-and-forth process. Well, was it the West

Fraser Road? Was it the Garner Road? Was it the Webster Lake Road? Was

it a connecting road? Was it a company that was actually doing the

report — that you actually had to FOI the company who did the report —

or how government had termed what that particular road was going to look

like? You would often be having to put in multiple

freedom-of-information requests just to even try and find any

information.

Again, going to why that mattered, it was critically important

because in April of 2018, we had a catastrophic weather event which led

to us having a significant impact on West Fraser Road. They still live

with a detour. I am appreciative of the government — that they have

finally got the approval through the disaster financial assistance

program, federally, in order to invest. It’s over $100 million on that

critical piece of infrastructure.

Why it was important when I was raising the concerns that I had

been hearing in March of that year was because people had advised us

that there were challenges within the watershed. It was flooding out in

Nazko. It was flooding out in the Narcosli. All of those watersheds were

starting to get backed up because of the wildfires of 2017, and the

rehabilitation hadn’t taken place yet.

We had tried to raise it in the House. I tried to raise it with

the minister. We tried to do freedom of information. We tried all of

these steps — all of the tools available to us as elected

representatives, all of the tools. The media repeatedly tried to find

the information. We all worked collaboratively together to try and get

the right answers, because when these types of issues happen in our

communities, the next thing that happens is that we have to go and mount

an incredible defence of why we deserve to be prioritized in very

important budgeting processes.

In this particular case, we had to make the argument. We needed

information that would come through freedom of information, because we

just weren’t getting anywhere with getting the reports that were needed

to go to the federal government to say, under the disaster financial

assistance programs: “These were the steps that were taken, and this is

why we are eligible for the investment in the infrastructure to make

sure that these projects are moving forward.”

[2:55 p.m.]

Again, it’s a challenging process. And I know that members of this

House who perhaps have been here longer than I certainly can go through

many stories of the challenges of people as individuals — about the

information that we try and seek to support our constituents or that the

media or other organizations try to get. And layering additional costs

on an already complicated, bureaucratic, red-tape nightmare is not a

solution.

I think the Privacy Commissioner has come forward and said, “Look,

we’re taking a step backward,” and that we should absolutely be looking

at ways of making information-sharing proactive. It’s in the best

interest of our constituency. It’s in the best interest of citizens

across British Columbia.

I also wanted to talk about some of the other times that we’ve had

to turn to freedom of information to gather critically important data,

again, to help our constituents. Following 2017 and 2018…. When we talk

about transparency and accountability and how the government works with

MLAs on all sides of the House, how that works to support constituents….

Look, as MLAs, we know that whoever walks in the door, we help them.

That’s our role as an MLA, and I know that every member of this House is

proud of those accomplishments to be able to try and move those

processes forward.

Following 2017…. I heard the member for Langley East talk about

how this is a government that’s so open to transparency and

accountability and all of the steps that were taken. I can tell you that

there was a significant shift that happened, because as MLAs — I have

talked about this in this House before — there were roadblocks put in

place that we were no longer to go to our local, say, Forests, Lands,

Natural Resource officer to talk about files that were impacting our

constituents.

I can raise the alarm bells for this House, having experienced

catastrophic wildfires in 2017-2018, then following up with floods in

2018-2019, and then having the landslides that we now are faced with.

When I think of the impact of this last year on communities such as

Lytton and Paxton Valley and right across the Okanagan, and you see

anywhere where there are fires, there are going to be significant

impacts in the years that follow.

We need to make sure that there is transparency and accountability

to help those constituents navigate a very, very complicated system.

Whether it’s trying to get permits for…. Perhaps they need a new fencing

permit. Perhaps they need a new grazing licence. Perhaps they need new

tenure because of areas that have been burnt. Perhaps it is about trying

to get insurance. Perhaps it’s about all of those pieces and the ability

for MLAs to have access to critical information.

That is going to make it hard for British Columbians to get the

types of supports and services that they desperately deserve. For people

that have built this prov­ince, for people that have invested so

much — in so many cases, multigenerations — to not only build but to pay

taxes…. These are folks that are not asking much of government, but when

something happens, when there is an emergency, they would hope that

government would have their back.

If the only way that we can get information is to go through the

freedom-of-information process — and I’ve outlined my experience of

having to put in so many multiple requests to get one single report — I

think it identifies the challenge of: “Oh, it’s only $25.” Well, is it

$25 and it takes 40 attempts to try and get information on one

particular report? What does that look like? For the media who are

trying to get information to help support their communities, I think

it’s very troubling.

[3:00 p.m.]

I think the other issue that I’d like to raise in the context of

this particular bill that is before the House is the fact that I’m

incredibly proud and honoured to serve as the critic for Advanced

Education, Skills Training and Sport. I take that role to heart. I’m

passionate about the ability to try and make sure that everyone —

students, faculty, staff — feels supported in this. I know for sure that

our success as we lead out of this pandemic, and we all hope that that

happens soon…. That level of expertise — our researchers, our

innovators, our entrepreneurs — is going to be so critical to that

process of success for all British Columbians.

When we talk about transparency and we talk about accountability….

I have some experience in this Legislature. I’ve sat on both sides of

this House. I have a pretty fair understanding of how processes work and

how we move things forward in this Legislature. When the estimates

process came up in 2020….

For us, again, estimates is such a critical time, especially for

critics of various portfolios, to be able to ask very important,

relevant questions that have been brought forward to us by stakeholders

in those areas, to bring forward these requests on behalf of our

stakeholders, to help move the file forward.

I think sometimes people look at this House, and they think that

the work we’re doing is…. You say yes; you say no. It’s always this

combative process. I can tell you that more times than not… I think at

least the approach I’ve always taken in my role as a critic is: how can

we make it better? How can we bring forward the information that we’re

hearing from stakeholders to make sure that government works better for

all British Columbians? While we may disagree on how that looks and what

that process means, I think every member of this House legitimately

wants to make sure we have the best for all of the citizens of British

Columbia.

Imagine my surprise to find out through this process in 2020 — or

2021, sorry; these years just seem to have stretched unbearably long as

we have tried to process through Zoom and do the best that we can, as

well, through a hybrid session — that critically important Advanced

Education post-secondary questions got condensed down to, I think, three

hours. Three hours to talk about the investments that we make into

ensuring that we’ve got the best for students, that we’ve got the

supports that we need, that we’re training for the jobs that we know are

available through labour market information that the government does

have available. I appreciate that those reports are

available.

Imagine my surprise when the only other option I had as a critic

because of the condensed time frame was to make an agreement with the

government to say: “Look, I will provide my questions.”

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, could we have some order in the chamber, please. The

member for Cariboo North has the floor. Thank you.

C. Oakes: Imagine the frustration of not just the work that I’m trying to

accomplish to make things better and to contribute and to bring

stakeholders’ concerns forward to this House and to this legislative

body. Imagine my surprise when there was an agreement. “Provide your

questions in writing.” It was on Hansard.

Again, I followed up. I said: “Okay, here are my questions.

They’re very important and relevant questions.” That was in May of 2021.

I still wait. I still wait for those answers from those questions.

Again, to the staff of the Ministry of Advanced Education, we have some

outstanding issues. We’ve got some outstanding questions that

stakeholders continue to wait to hear from you on — critically

important, such as: where are we at on the scope of the funding

review?

That was supposed to be released. That was information that….

Certainly, I can tell you that the post-secondary sector is trying to

understand what the new funding review will look like. What is the scope

of it? What is the direction of that?

Deputy Speaker: Sorry, Member. Is this relating to Bill 22?

C. Oakes: Absolutely. It’s about accountability and transparency and the

steps that we have to take. So if I can’t get this information, Mr.

Speaker, the only option left to us and our stakeholders is to say:

“Look, we’ve going to have to utilize freedom of

information.”

[3:05 p.m.]

I don’t want to do that. I would like to believe that, in good

faith, when we bring things forward to this House…. Maybe it was just

that things get busy. But it’s an opportunity for me to raise it in this

House, just because I think it is important. I hope I don’t have to put

in multiple freedom-of-information requests to find out where we are at

on the funding scope. I hope that information will come, because I know

stakeholders, faculty, people in administration are trying to understand

that.

The other critically important file that came forward, and I’ve

continued to raise it in this House, is about the concern that we have

on campuses right now around sexualized violence and what that looks

like. We’ve seen such a significant rise. The pandemic has certainly

made it very difficult for so many people.

It’s important that a report was supposed to come out at the end

of December of last year that talked about what that next step looks

like and then that investment. The Minister of Sport is here, but the

previous minister…. I want to thank the minister for the investment

that, when she was the minister, was made, because I think it was

critically important that ending sexualized violence on campus was a

priority that I know that the minister worked hard on. I want to thank

the minister for that work.

The complication becomes when there are changes in ministers and

priorities change. Now we find that that there was no money for this

particular program in this budget year. Why this is relevant to the

accountability and transparency bill is the fact that, again, there was

a report that was supposed to come out in December that would walk us

through what the next steps were. There are 11 recommendations that

various student associations across British Columbia put forward. We’re

meeting next week with the Alliance of B.C. Students, who have put some

thoughtful work and effort into what needs to happen on campuses to make

sure that they’re safe for everybody.

Again, I’m hoping that I don’t have to go through freedom of

information. I hope that, again, by raising it today in this House,

those reports and that information will come forward and that we’ll be

able to share that information next week with the students who are

coming to advocate to all members of this House. I think it’s critically

important that that investment happens and that work continues.

Incredible work has been done through multiple different governments and

different ministers. I hope that we don’t have to utilize this tool of

freedom of information to access that information.

On Monday, I was really proud, as I know probably members were on

both sides, to speak to a motion about the women tearing down barriers

and taking significant pride in that. It has been a celebration of

accomplishment of women. We’ve had the ability to share those stories. I

think that’s critically important to do in this House. I also had the

opportunity to talk about what is happening with universities and

colleges and where that gender pay gap is.

I had raised this previously, as we’re going through discussions

with the government, and somebody….

Deputy Speaker: Sorry, Member. I’ve allowed very wide leeway for your remarks. I

really would urge you to keep your remarks to Bill 22 and the clauses

that are in it. Thank you, Member.

C. Oakes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the latitude that you have

provided, and if you’ll allow me just to thread the needle a little bit

again.

It’s about important information that comes forward. I always

appreciate the fact that stakeholders come to us in good faith, and they

ask us to raise these things of government. Some of the times it’s

because they don’t want to have to go through freedom of information.

The fear that we’re hearing, whether it’s the Alliance of B.C. Students

or other organizations, is: are they going to now have to have a fee

placed on freedom-of-information requests?

I’ve already walked us through the fact that, through transparency

and accountability, we’re just not getting that information that,

perhaps, I think the stakeholders and the organizations I certainly meet

with on a regular basis are looking for.

[3:10 p.m.]

I think people just don’t want to have that concern to what this

bill is talking about, particularly about adding a fee, making it more

complicated for stakeholder groups across this province or MLAs to be

able to get important information. Again, in the context of all of our

goals in this Legislature, it’s to make government work better for the

people of British Columbia. I think it is important to make sure that in

the context of listening to our table officers….

The fact that the Privacy Commissioner has come forward and said,

“Look, this is a step back when you start putting a fee onto accessing

very important information that I think citizens of British Columbia

have the right to get access to….” It does not contribute to that

resolve of I think all members of this House to make a government work

better for British Columbians. It just doesn’t. It’s going to take us

back. I worry about what those consequences — and unintended

consequences….

Again, I think, in fairness to the legislative team that built and

put this bill forward that we are discussing today, it is our job as

opposition to look at what unintended consequences of any bill could be.

I’ve stood in this House before and talked about…. I spent a few years

talking to hundreds and hundreds of people across British Columbia

about: how does government actually work for citizens?

That initiative was reducing red tape, and I know that it’s been….

There’s always back and forth between members of this House about:

“Well, what did that really mean?” But it was really, truly, about a

reflection of having important conversations with British Columbians on

how easy it is, really, to access and work to get information that the

citizens of British Columbia really rely on.

Again, we shouldn’t make things more difficult. I think the work

that I know the ministry did on trying to reduce tape…. And I know that

this government, the NDP government, has made…. They continue to have

that commitment of net-zero regulation increase. I applaud the

government for that. I think it’s an important initiative. The reason

why I think it is important is because I think, while governments

change, we have outstanding public servants that work and have

long-serving careers in the public sector.

I can certainly share with this House that the challenges of this

particular bill, when I look at the context of it…. Is this going to

make it easier for British Columbians to have access to the government?

Is it going to make it easier for British Columbians to get information

that they need? Whether it’s the media or an MLA who is trying to get an

important report so that we can access disaster financial assistance for

our region, for a road, or whether it’s us trying to work

collaboratively across multiple ministries, multiple agencies, to get

insurance for somebody that’s been burnt out, getting access to reports

is critically important.

Maybe my experience might be the anomaly in this Legislature.

Maybe the process that I’ve had as an MLA working to try and to access

freedom of information and what that looks like and the fears that I

have when I read this particular bill, what the unintended consequences

may be…. Again, I’m just raising this because I want this to be the best

government for British Columbians. I look at this particular bill, and

there are certainly good points of the bill. I’m certainly not arguing

against the entirety of this bill. I don’t want to….

I think having the ability to be transparent and to provide that

opportunity is critically important. But again, please understand how

freedom of information works often on behalf of your constituents. If

there is an issue that arises…. We saw the devastating impact this year

of wildfires, and I had significant challenges with spring

freshet.

[3:15 p.m.]

What I can say, in closing remarks, is that we have to prepare for

the incredible changes that are happening in our communities. We have to

fight for our constituents, and we have to fight to make sure that we’re

making things easier for British Columbians to access their government

and to access government information.

Again, I ask the government to reconsider some of the sections of

this bill. I think it’s going to be troublesome, and I think it’s going

to have significant impacts and unintended consequences that, I worry,

will not make British Columbia better in government.

S. Chant: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill 22, amending the

Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, affectionately

known as FOIPPA.

As a registered nurse in the community over the past 20 years, I

have dealt with the current version of FOIPPA in a whole variety of ways

— personal requests from clients, families or family members, asking for

extracts from charts; if I’m looking at reviewing serious incidents in

the community, submitting requests to other agencies for information to

help us see these incidents in terms of frequency and morbidity; and

also in a whole variety of other circumstances.

Oftentimes I, as a clinician, need to get support in understanding

and interpreting the information that my team has received. I’ve also

been available to clients and their families to help them interpret the

information they have been sent, because quite often, what comes from a

FOI is quite different than what you had thought you had asked for.

Having had all these experiences, I understand both the positive and

negative impacts that information and the

interpretation of information

can have on individuals and communities.

I’ve also been involved as an adult guardianship coordinator in

situations where the confidentiality and privacy of seniors are being

breached because someone else wants to make decisions about the elder’s

care, finances, housing, placement in a facility, or a myriad of other

things — decisions that may or may not represent what the elder would

want, exclusive of what might be considered for the best.

As a parent, I have heard from other parents whose kids — and I’m

doing air quotes here — now over the age of where they are considered

adults, have been in distress while away from the home, maybe in

residence at a college or university. Because the kid does not reach out

to the parents, no one else does either, to protect the confidentiality

of that adult that’s involved. Sometimes this has had fatal

consequences.

All of these situations — and many, many more — are terribly

challenging on moral, ethical and philosophical grounds. Many of them

involve the use of information to work through. However, information is

a double-edged sword and must be gathered, stored and accessed in a way

that serves the people of British Columbia effectively and

safely.

The other side of this equation is that information sources are

now almost infinite in number, or so it seems. Access to information —

be it correct, appropriate or nefarious — appears to have become much

easier, in many ways. Apparently, my phone number is on many databases

of entities that want to tell me many things, sometimes in languages I

don’t understand. Somehow Facebook seems to always have ads for things

that catch my attention. I wonder why that is. Although this information

flow is not new, it is significantly expanded, and the variety of

mediums has grown immeasurably.

FOIPPA legislation was implemented a while ago, pre–Zoom, Teams,

TikTok and Amazon. The list goes on and on. Even ten years ago, when

FOIPPA was last updated, many platforms were new. Information collection

processes were very different, and the rights of many had not yet been

recognized or acknowledged. Subsequently, it is critical that the FOIPPA

legislation be updated to reflect our current state, which is what our

government is committed to doing.

[3:20 p.m.]

Through consultation with those who use FOIPPA to either protect

or gather information throughout the diverse populations that make up

B.C. — some of whom have never had a strong voice, if any, in the past —

these amendments will allow B.C. to stay abreast of the ever-evolving

wave of technology, ensure that privacy protections are strong and

improve services to those who request information for appropriate

reasons.

How many of us have used some type of data tool in our public

service work and found it to be clunky or challenging or only useful for

part of what we’re trying to do? When we look around, we find that there

are other reputable tools out there that perhaps we could consider using

but are not allowed to do so because they’re not available to us. The

FOIPPA amendments will update provisions so that we can use some of

these modern tools yet continue to maintain a high standard of privacy

and confidentiality.

Through these amendments, breaches of privacy directions will be

updated. Breaches of privacy are incredibly important to recognize and

deal with. In the field of health care, we have breaches, and they must

be dealt with. That was a particularly important point to me.

These breaches will be updated to ensure that there’s mandatory

reporting, that it doesn’t just get dealt with on a one-to-one basis.

More effective consequences and a broader outline of offences to ensure

that those in positions of trust are clear in the understanding of their

roles and responsibilities and are accountable to those roles and

responsibilities.

Non-personal FOI requests, which expend a significant amount of

time, energy and money — ongoing, to generate responses — will have an

application fee attached, something which is associated with a whole

variety of services currently and is long overdue in being

implemented.

Of course, in keeping with our government’s commitment to DRIPA,

the amendments will support the increase of information-sharing with our

Indigenous partners, inclusive of cultural protections and finally

removing the non-inclusive language. This will help our government

remain accountable to the public, provide people with a way to access

records held by our public bodies and protect their privacy by

establishing how this information is collected, used and

disclosed.

There are so many public bodies that this act covers now. You

can’t imagine trying to name them, count them, say them — 2,900,

apparently. These are Crown corporations, municipalities, universities,

colleges, health authorities and many others. These amendments have not

been updated since 2011. They had a bit of a tweaking in 2019. However,

that was pre-COVID.

COVID has given us a really big window into what we do with

information, how we would distribute information, how information is

requested, the importance of information to people and the importance of

the right information going to the right people for the right reasons.

So we’ve learned a lot through COVID, and this allows us to implement

some of that learning in updating these amendments.

Additionally, since 2017, we have consulted. This government has

consulted with many, many stakeholders in order to try and make sure

that all of the voices that represent the diversity that is British

Columbia are included in these amendments and all the applications of

these amendments are spoken to. As well, the Privacy Commissioner has

been very much involved in this, and the privacy commission.

If we can be confident that information is well gathered, well

stored, well protected and accessed appropriately, we’ve gone a long way

with our FOIPPA amendments. They bring us in line with the rest of

Canada, and they allow us to manage people’s information safely while

also making people able to use those tools that are out there now that

weren’t there ten years ago, to get the services that they

need.

[3:25 p.m.]

I understand, speaking to what my colleague was saying beforehand,

that people want access to information. I understand that. I’ve been on

the face of that. I understand that information is very important to all

of us to make decisions about how we work our lives.

I also understand that information needs to be kept in the place

that it’s appropriate for the people that need it and want it and that

it needs to be accessible and that we need to figure out ways to make it

accessible when the requests are appropriate.

This set of amendments is allowing us to show the people of

British Columbia that we are committed to diversity, inclusion,

reconciliation and equity through increasing information-sharing with

our Indigenous partners, adding the Indigenous protections and making

sure that the non-inclusive language is replaced.

If we achieve all these things through these amendments and more,

we will have achieved a lot, because the FOIPPA that we have right now,

while it was started in a time when it was really needed, was started in

a time where the information flow and the information highway was a lot

different than it is now.

These amendments — I’m very pleased to stand in front of this

group of people to say that I support them, and I feel that it is

definitely the time that they were done.

K. Kirkpatrick: I rise today to speak to Bill 22, the Freedom of Information and

Protection of Privacy Amendment Act. This is important legislation. It

needs updating. There are so many good components to it.

We live in a time where — I guess all times have been, but now

more than ever — data-driven decision-making…. It’s so important for us

to be able to access information so that we can make decisions, we can

make them quickly and we can make informed decisions. But this bill, as

it is, appears to go against that and against the nature of a democratic

society, where people should have easy and open access to information on

what government is doing.

This government attempts to paint itself, or themselves, as

transparent, but as we heard in question period this morning and as has

been asked many times of this government, that does not seem to be the

case, and this stands in complete opposition to transparency.

There is a current all-party legislative committee, which has been

put together with the purpose of actually looking at FOIPPA and making

recommendations. They have not even had a chance to meet and to

prioritize the work that they’re doing.

So we have to ask: why is this bill coming forward at this time?

Why is there a rush to bring this to the House prior to that work being

done? Is there still a purpose or a reason for that committee? What will

that committee be doing once these amendments to the act have already

been made?

The government’s already begun to strip away transparency and

accountability. We’ve seen it in some of the legislation that’s been

brought forward so far this year. We’ll talk about the role of the

Information and Privacy Commissioner. They are appointed to protect the

information and privacy rights of British Columbians. They are the place

to look in terms of best practices.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

This government is dismissing and undermining that role of the

Privacy Commissioner. The Privacy Commissioner is opposed to imposing

new fees, which we find is part of this new legislation, and other

elements of the bill. This government has ignored his concerns, and he

has called this bill “a step in the wrong direction.” That’s the Privacy

Commissioner.

[3:30 p.m.]

It looks like the Premier has a total disregard for the

independent Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, because

earlier this year, we saw him ignore the commissioner when it came to

making the decision about a half-billion-dollar investment in the InBC

investment fund and the government deciding not to make that transparent

under FOI legislation.

So the Privacy Commissioner: “My understanding is that InBC will

manage some $500 million of public funds for the purpose of investing in

B.C.-based businesses…. Because InBC will be making decisions about the

allocation of significant public moneys and discharging important public

functions, it should be subject to transparency and accountability under

FIPPA.”

This goes, again, back to listening to the Privacy Commissioner,

understanding what true transparency is and the obligation that this

government has to being transparent with British Columbians. But

government chose not to make these changes and not to make the

management of a half-billion-dollars of British Columbians’ money

transparent.

Now we’ve learned that when it comes to something as basic and as

fundamental as our freedom-of-information system, the Premier blatantly

ignores the recommendations given. It already takes far too long to

respond to FOI requests. British Columbians, media, members of the

opposition are currently waiting months. Sometimes they’re waiting years

for documents requested through FOI.

Information requested through FOI is often timely. It is required

to make other decisions. By the time we finally get information, it can

be stale-dated. There can be something else going on that has actually

changed the validity or purpose of the information that we’ve already

asked for.

An example that I’ve got is a submission that we made to MCFD for

a report that government had received on the work that had been done on

the pilot sites with the $10-a-day daycare. We had requested…. We knew

government had commissioned this. We knew government had received this

information. In my role as critic, it was important that I understood

what that information was. We made the request. We then had…. The

response was a request for more time.

Then, without notifying us, without getting back to us, I just

happened to find that government had uploaded the information onto a

public website, which is great, and we wanted that information to be

public, but the process felt, again, like there was some hesitancy in

providing that information to us in a timely way and being open about

it.

Government has to be able to provide information quickly. With the

substantial increase in public sector employment, government should, I

would presume, have a greater capacity to be able to respond to those

freedom-of-information requests.

Let’s not forget about the supply bill from last spring. With no

accountability on how the money was going to be spent, it was: “Trust

us, and we’ll give you the details later.” Employment standards

amendment, child care bill — substantial pieces of information are being

put into regulation so that they don’t have to come to this House, so

that they don’t have to be debated and so that they don’t see the light

on them when these decisions are being made.

It just goes to a theme of putting up obstacles to British

Columbians, to the opposition, to the media, for their ability to see

what is happening with government and what decisions are being

made.

Over the last 20 months, we’ve seen government keep vital

information from the public with respect to COVID data — again, as we

heard this morning in question period. This is a time when British

Columbians are nervous. They need to know what’s going on. They have a

greater need for transparency and access to information, but at that

time, government is introducing a bill here, which will, inevitably, put

up increased barriers for people to be able to access that

information.

[3:35 p.m.]

information, you can add schools to the top of the list for that.

Information with respect to COVID should be readily available, openly

available, and it shouldn’t take parents setting up their own Facebook

pages and websites and Twitter accounts to be sharing information the

government should be sharing.

The Premier started the school year by hiding details on outbreaks

in schools from parents, because he didn’t want to stress them out.

Well, when we try and decide what is happening or figure out what is

happening and we don’t have information, it’s only natural that we

become stressed out, we become anxious and, in the absence of

information, we invent and determine and decide what the reality is,

which should not be as stressful for parents as they may, perhaps, be

thinking.

The Premier continues to dismiss questions that the opposition is

asking about why that critical COVID-19 data is being withheld. The

Premier says he’s not hiding anything, but we continue to question that

claim.

I’ll give you an example from last month. Government admitted that

it was keeping two sets of numbers on how many COVID patients are in the

hospital. There is one for the public — that they release to the public

— and then there is the real number that they keep in-house and don’t

share that. The real number that was not released is 46 percent higher

than the number that was made public, and that’s a pretty significant

difference.

If we look at the Massey Tunnel — an extremely important project,

one that has been a long time coming, one that there were plans and

processes in place for already — the government quashed a plan for a

ten-lane bridge to replace the Massey bridge. Instead, we’re getting an

eight-lane tunnel. Where is the information to justify this? We haven’t

seen government be able to provide real, detailed data on why this is

the best decision, why they are doing it and why that is better than

what had been previously proposed.

The bill doesn’t prevent destruction of documents. This is a

concern. This is destruction of documents prior to FOI requests being

filed. This was something the Office of the Information and Privacy

Commissioner noted, that this was a significant gap in the legislation.

This was something a few years ago that had been flagged, but it doesn’t

seem to be addressed in the legislation that’s being put in front of

us.

The Privacy Commissioner says: “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 can’t be

right, and that needs to change. It’s an offence in Alberta, and it

could have easily been put in place here.”

The application fee has set Twitter in a frenzy. It is a big

concern for people in terms of blocking access or making access

unavailable because of the cost of it. This means anybody who is going

to be filing a freedom-of-information request, if it’s for a

non-personal reason, is going to have to pay a fee for that. The

minister has said that this is a nominal fee — that this is just meant

to recoup costs associated with filing these requests.

We still have to pay. We get a quote on how much it’s going to

cost to produce the documents, so why do we need to have this additional

fee in order for someone to read the document to determine how much is

going to be required to provide that information to us? Saying that this

is not going to be an impediment is disingenuous. It is going to be an

impediment. It impedes the public’s ability to have access to

information that they should have access to.

The example which I believe one of my colleagues has used…. Let’s

just say it’s $5 per request. Sometimes you have to ask for that same

piece of information from multiple ministries. Sometimes you don’t know

that even until you get the first request responded to. So if you’ve got

to do that across a number of different ministries, it can really add

up.

[3:40 p.m.]

What we’re hearing…. The consensus is that this government is

going to be asking for $25. Well, that’s 400 percent more than the fees

in Ontario.

Now, I understand that FOIs can be annoying. They can be

time-consuming. They can be embarrassing. They can just be something

that is a bit of an annoyance. I’ve been on the other side of this with

FOI requests coming in, having to pull the information and deal with

them. And yes, I would have liked to have less of them, but they’re a

democratic right. They’re very, very important, and it’s the

government’s obligation to be able to provide that information to

people.

I’ve got a couple of quotes here with respect to fees. One

government member of this House once described fees as “a tollgate on

citizens’ right to access.” That was a quote from the member for Oak

Bay–Gordon Head in parliament in 2017. Another quote, and this is from

the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan while in opposition: “We’ve seen

fees put up as obstacles. We’ve seen exemptions expanded and stretched

beyond their original meaning.” That was this government when in

opposition.

I have another quote here from the Premier — which we can repeat a

few times — in 2015, when he was in opposition and said: “I think all

British Columbians should be concerned when their government hides

things from them. The whole point of having access to information is so

we can all make reasonable judgments about the effectiveness or

ineffectiveness of our political leadership.”

Now, I think that’s a great quote, and I completely agree with

what he said. This is part of the issue. It is a citizen’s right, and

it’s our right in opposition to be able to get information in a timely

manner without consistent extensions being requested and without having

to pay fees for this information that government should be readily able

and willing to provide to us.

So those are my key concerns. We need to focus on changes that are

going to allow reasonable access to information. We know that

information and the way information is shared and provided and stored

has changed significantly in the last little while or in the last ten

years. But really, data-driven decision-making doesn’t mean a six-month

or a one-year wait for information, and it doesn’t mean that people

should be having to pay fees in order to access that

information.

This government needs to start to put the light of day on

decision-making in terms of the legislation they’re bringing forward and

putting things into regulation and sharing that information. So this

just seems to be a theme with this government.

I agree with the need to update and change FOIPPA, but I disagree

with some of the amendments that are being put forward and believe that

they’re not in the best interests of British Columbians.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you to all members for turning off their phones.

A. Mercier: I’m pleased to stand up and talk to Bill 22, which is a reasonable

series of amendments to help improve access to information and

strengthen FOIPPA in this province. I’m also very pleased to see that

the opposition is having somewhat of a road-to-Damascus type of moment

about transparency and the importance of transparency in

government.

We heard the member for Abbotsford South, at the beginning of this

debate, read out a series of quotes from different folks and folks in

the media and folks in the local Fraser Valley media. But what he didn’t

give was the context, and the context is a fundamentally broken

relationship that the B.C. Liberal party has created between the

government and the public of British Columbia and, frankly, their broken

relationship with the truth.

Now, I want to go a bit over the record, because this debate has

been a lot of back and forth about going over the record. But I’d like

to talk about this, so….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. I would like to hear….

A. Mercier: We’ve got, and it’s a little rich….

Deputy Speaker: Members. Member.

A. Mercier: The members can heckle, Mr. Speaker. But it’s a little

rich….

[3:45 p.m.]

Deputy Speaker: Member.

A. Mercier: Oh, sorry.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you.

A. Mercier: You have a striking resemblance in sound to the member for Peace

River South.

Deputy Speaker: I’ll take that as a compliment.

Members, if I could hear the member who has the floor speaking, I

would appreciate it. Thank you.

Go ahead.

A. Mercier: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

You look at the context here, and the former government, the B.C.

Liberal government, the last time they were in office, set up an entire

apparatus based on private emails to hide what they were doing from

freedom of information in terms of government business. Quick wins.

Right? That’s not something…. That fundamentally changes the

relationship of government to the public and people’s perception of the

government.

I mean, we’ve heard from the member from West Van–Capilano about

InBC and whether or not InBC ought to be subject to FOI. For good

commercial reasons, those investments have layers of protection but

ultimate accountability, through a board and a series of processes, to

the government and, through reports, to this House. But what we didn’t

hear about was the deal that the Liberals did with Little Mountain and

the Little Mountain land the last time they were in

government.

The fact is that it’s rich to be lectured about transparency from

members of a former cabinet that ripped pages out of the reports on

ICBC, hiding a $1 billion loss from the people of British Columbia and

putting that corporation into dire financial straits. And I should say

that right now our government is executing and has executed one of,

probably, the greatest corporate turnarounds in North American history,

putting ICBC on sound financial footing.

Now, we’ve also, you know…. Their relationship with transparency

was so casual that when he was triple-deleting emails, the member from

Kamloops said: “Oh, I’ve triple-deleted my emails from time to time.

Some emails are deleted; some are just kept. We destroy some records; we

don’t others.” So you know, I can understand how they’re concerned about

the destruction of documents, given that they’ve destroyed so many in

their time in government. But the fact is that British Columbians can

take heart from the fact that they have a government right now that

cares about transparency, that cares about freedom of information.

That’s seen in this act.

I’ll say…. I’m just canvassing the debate that’s occurred here,

but there has also been talk about the supply bill that happened at the

beginning of the pandemic. Well, the fact is that you can stand in this

House and rail against authorization for spending that you don’t think

should have happened or ought to have happened, but this House

unanimously authorized that spending, so I’m really not sure where that

comes from in terms of a criticism.

We’ve also heard a bit about the George Massey Tunnel in this

debate and about business plans. This government has been amazingly

proactive in terms of releasing public documents. That was canvassed by

my friend earlier, the member for Langley East, so I’m not going to go

back and belabour that point. But I’ll just say that we’ve released a

business plan for the George Massey crossing. There was no business plan

released for the Port Mann.

There may be some complaints about redactions, but the fact is

that this is about sensitive commercial bidding that is about to occur.

You don’t go and tell the person that you’re about to buy a house from

how much you’ve been approved for on the maximum for a mortgage. You

don’t tell them where your wiggle room is, because you’re not going to

get a good deal. This is about getting a good deal for the people of

British Columbia, not giving handouts to donors.

I’m not going to belabour this as well. We’ve also heard about

health data and some attempts to muddy the waters in terms of the

government’s handling of the COVID pandemic, which has been exemplary.

It’s an evolving situation.

There are all kinds…. I can say this as well, as a member of the

bar, having been involved with cases that have to do with privacy data

around health and privacy rules around health. There are a plethora of

very good reasons to have very strong protections around personal health

information, and that sometimes makes things difficult. We have done,

and the Minister of Health has done, an exemplary job at being

data-forward and open and transparent with everything that we’ve done

during this pandemic.

[3:50 p.m.]

That’s a simple fact. It’s a matter of record, and it’s going to

become a matter of historical record, looking back. I have no hesitation

to say that.

Having responded, I think adequately, to the comments from the

members opposite about this bill, I just want to speak briefly now to

the bill, Bill 22, and what it seeks to do and the impact it’s going to

have. We are updating FOIPPA’s data residency provision so public bodies

can use modern tools while continuing to protect personal

information.

That’s what my friend for Langley East was talking about, in terms

of school board meetings and making sure that we’re in the 21st century

and in the modern world, in terms of giving public bodies the tools that

they need to meet the uncertainty of our current times — also, frankly,

to meet the new reality of work and of public hearings and everything

else.

We are enhancing public sector privacy protections. We are

enhancing them and increasing accountability by implementing mandatory

privacy breach reporting — mandatory privacy breach reporting —

introducing a modest application fee for a non-personal

freedom-of-information request — non-personal. So your information that

the government has on you is not impacted by that. This is a nominal

fee.

I just want to say the members of the opposition don’t seem to

have a problem with fees when it’s the government reaching into the

pockets of British Columbians. When it’s raising ICBC fees or MSP, there

doesn’t seem to be an issue. This is a small, modest and nominal fee and

nothing like the increases that we saw under the former Liberal

government in MSP and ICBC.

This is a really positive bill, in many ways. You’ve even heard

Jill Tipping, the president and CEO of the B.C. Tech Association, say:

“This is a positive development from government that B.C.’s tech

industry welcomes. The changes to B.C.’s data residency requirements

will allow local companies to leverage cutting-edge technology to help

B.C.’s public sector deliver the modern tools that citizens expect with

the privacy protections they need.”

Now, it’s all fine and good, I guess, politically and for the sake

of having something fun to tweet in your time off to focus on one,

narrow administrative aspect of this bill. But the fact of the matter is

this bill brings B.C. into the 21st century in terms of

freedom-of-information and privacy protections.

I’m proud to speak this bill. I’m proud to vote for this bill. I

can understand when you’ve broken the relationship so badly, you’ve

damaged your reputation on an issue so much…. I can understand

over-swinging in the other direction to try to compensate for it. But

sometimes that just takes you right off the road, and that’s what

happening with the opposition here. They’ve completely missed the mark

in an attempt to try to convince the public that they care about

transparency. The record and their actions show otherwise.

Deputy Speaker: Peace River North. [Applause.]

D. Davies: Thank you. My one fan. Okay. There are a couple more that came out

of the woodwork.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the Freedom of

Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, Bill 22. Just

following behind the member for Langley and his point about how it’s

rich for us to be lecturing them on transparency…. Let’s be honest here.

It’s time for government, now, to accept responsibility that they are,

first and foremost, government now.

This isn’t just us lecturing them. If any of them has had the

opportunity, from the moment that this bill was announced to today, to

people rallying against this poor piece of legislation that’s been

brought forward before us.

It’s time, now, for government to start making good decisions,

because they are government. In fact, they are the previous government,

as we did have an election here not so long ago. But I won’t belabour

that point.

[3:55 p.m.]

This bill is being brought forward at a time when we’ve already

seen distrust in many of our institutions across the province.

Government is one of those institutions that is right now under scrutiny

by many people across the province. There is a trust issue.

When we see pieces of legislation like this that go to the core of

that trust, that attack that trust, that don’t quite pass the smell

test, that is an issue for British Columbians. We’re hearing loud and

clear that it’s an issue for British Columbians, and I will actually

raise some of these points here a little bit later around some of the

things that we’ve heard just in the last few hours on social

media.

I was first elected to public office 16 years ago, to city council

in 2005 in Fort St. John. Over that time, I’ve had the opportunity to

talk to I don’t know how many thousands of people. We made decisions

when I was on city council. Decisions have been made here. The

importance of people to have the ability to access government — whether

it was local government or, in this case, provincial government — is

absolutely critical to our democracy, a critical piece of our

democracy.

A little while ago the member for Langley East, I think it was,

told a little story about being a school board trustee and how it was

just so much work when people did FOI requests. “Man, this is too much.”

I’m sorry, but this is not the way to get around that. That is the cost

of democracy — to have people have this ability to access government, to

access documents. So I don’t buy that argument one bit.

Interjection.

D. Davies: Exactly. Well, you’d be hard-pressed, actually, if you were to go

legislation that’s been brought here.

There are a lot of issues with this bill, and my colleagues have

done a marvelous job at bringing some of them forward. I’m not going to

repeat them all. But British Columbians now, more than ever, are looking

for greater access to and greater transparency by government — more

information. This bill strips that away. We’ve heard numerous times….

The minister earlier stated that she did not believe that the fee — and

I’m going to talk about this in a minute — was a barrier. Well, it is a

barrier, and it will be a barrier.

I guess we can see some motivation for this bill. We’re 3½ years

away from an election. Maybe it’ll all be forgotten, swept under the

carpet, won’t be an issue, taking advantage of a majority to not really

be held accountable for passing this piece of legislation. Even their

own privacy commission, this government’s privacy commission — this

province’s Privacy Commissioner, maybe, is what I should be saying — was

absolutely opposed to fees being charged.

It’s really interesting. All of the colleagues this in this House

received an invitation, actually, today — this was on all of our desks —

to come and meet the statutory officers, including the Information and

Privacy Commissioner. “Members are encouraged to take advantage of this

opportunity to meet the officers and senior officials to learn about the

work and the responsibilities that these statutory officers undertake on

behalf of this Legislature.” The responsibility that they

take.

When we see one of these statutory officers, one of these

important parts of our democracy, come forward and say this isn’t a good

idea, government should be listening to that. But they’re not. He calls

this “a step in the wrong direction,” this bill.

[4:00 p.m.]

It’s quite confusing when we see government ignoring one of our

statutory officers’ strong recommendations — not just a passing comment.

“Yeah, this might not be good.” No. This is a step in the wrong

direction. “Whatever. We know better.” Which brings us to debating this

piece of legislation today.

There are lots of things that I’ll talk about here over the next

few minutes. One of the things that is interesting is about where some

of this information is being talked about being held — outside of

British Columbia, outside of our jurisdiction — which really intrigued

me a little bit. I remember when I first got elected in 2017 to this

place. I used to use Google Calendar on my phone. I got in trouble,

because we’re not allowed to use Google Calendar. We’re not allowed to

use Google Calendar as members of this place because that information is

held in a different jurisdiction, not applicable to British Columbia

laws.

Now we see the government pivoting to this new direction of

possibly storing information outside of British Columbia’s jurisdiction

— the United States or just outside of British Columbia. Again, another

concerning piece of this bill is: where is this information going to be

held? What could go wrong? We’ve never seen issues before with data

breaches, have we? Well yes, we have. We hear about it all the time.

When we’re dealing with British Columbians’ personal data, that raises a

flag that is very concerning to myself, as a member of this Legislature,

as well as to British Columbians in general.

I talked a moment ago about the application fee of an FOI request.

I think the range was anywhere from $5 to $50. The minister had said

that this isn’t going to be a barrier. I’m sorry, but whenever you make

something as a cost, that’s a barrier. When we talk about news sources,

whatever the media source is…. I think we can be honest here that media

is not a rich industry. It’s an industry that is already struggling to

make the bills. Yet they play a critical role of holding all of us to

account in British Columbia. So to say that…. This $25 or $50 or $10,

whatever it is, will indeed be an impact.

I could have been a designated speaker and just read tweets for

two hours and probably would have. Actually, maybe I should have done

that. Maybe one of my colleagues will do that in a little bit. But I did

select a couple that really stood out to me. I’m going to quote them.

They’re from Twitter.

Jon Woodward from CTV tweeted out a little while ago: “I can’t

count the number of times we interviewed outraged then-opposition,”

government now, “NDP MLAs over some scandal about the governing Liberals

at the time, and we had discovered that via freedom of information —

that we got this information. Now that they’re in government, they’re

putting a tremendous bottleneck in the system that now keeps them

accountable.”

Jon goes on to say in another tweet: “How much is $25? Here’s some

perspective. First of all, it’s five times the Ontario fee.” We do hear:

“Oh, other jurisdictions do this.” I’ll tell you, if I know our

government well, they’re going to go to the higher end of that $5 to

$50. I will almost guarantee it. I don’t think we’re too far off on

this.

[4:05 p.m.]

Jon goes on to say: “If this fee was in place in 2020, I would

have had to spend $1,525 just on application fees. Multiply that over

all the journalists in British Columbia, and you can see the chilling

effect.” That’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of money for one journalist

to do their job in holding government and all of us to account. That’s

democracy.

He goes on a little further. Actually, he had a number of really

good tweets. Again, I probably could have printed them all off. He then

starts listing off a number of stories that he’s covered just in the

last little while. All of these stories have come from

freedom-of-information requests. I only looked at a couple of them. He

listed off a number.

“More than $100,000 in living expenses paid to an ousted B.C.

health care executive.” He wrote that story here just a few months back

and got that information from a freedom-of-information request. He makes

the connection: would this story have ever have been brought forward

without a freedom-of-information request? Unlikely. It would not have

been brought forward.

“Five patients a day waiting 40 or more minutes for ambulance” —

from documents received from a freedom-of-information request. “Dozens

dead, hundreds infected, but health authorities fight to conceal B.C.’s

hospital outbreak findings.” Those are just a few of the stories. He

made reference to many of these stories in his tweet, and I encourage

members to go look at those. But this is important work that journalists

do. It’s also a critical piece of what we do in opposition, for our job

to hold government to account.

I did print off a couple more. I will read them out. This one’s

from Rob Shaw. “So in trying to detangle where this idea came from, it

would appear that health authorities, during COVID-19, in which they are

under fire for not releasing enough information” — which we heard about

earlier on today; I think it was during question period — “have

convinced the minister that putting new fees on FOI will help improve

transparency.” Listen to that. Like, listen to that.