Bill C-11, the Digital Charter Implementation Act, is currently before Parliament. At the time of writing this, it has still only undergone the first reading. Some of the more disturbing sections of it were covered previously.
Contrary to what the name may imply, “Digital Charter” doesn’t refer to antiviolence activity, spawned by the Christchurch psy-op. Instead, this is an end run around privacy as we know it.
This piece will focus on big pharma getting its hands on Canadians’ medical information. If this were to pass, then potentially all of this, minus your name and address, would be available to anyone will to purchase it.
What’s particularly disturbing is that one of the people pushing for this is Amber Ruddy, the Secretary of the National Council of the Conservative Party of Canada. She’s also CURRENTLY an employee at Counsel Public Affairs, the lobbying firm, and has Emergent BioSolutions, the company making the AstraZeneca vaccines, as a client.
A November 23, 2020 press release by the Federal Government summarized what it expected to accomplish with Bill C-11. Very interestingly, there will be new exceptions to requiring consent in order to obtain personal information.
CPPA will also promote responsible innovation by reducing regulatory burden. A new exception to consent will address standard business practices; a new regime to clarify how organizations are to handle de-identified personal information, and another new exception to consent to allow organizations to disclose personal information for socially beneficial purposes, such as public health research, for example.
There is nothing ambiguous about this. Public health research could be considered a “socially beneficial purpose” and your records handed over. But in fairness, this has probably been happening for a long time already. This Bill would make it a specifically permitted reason.
Among other things, Ruddy (and her colleagues) wanted to make it easier for drug companies to access “anonymized health data”. What this would mean is that your medical records could be send off to third parties, with the only caveat being that your personal information is removed.
Items like date of birth (showing age), and postal code (showing region) would likely still be included. As would the details of your visits, procedures, medications, and dates performed. Keep in mind, even anonymized accounts can be re-identified based on just a few clues.
Search “GlaxoSmithKline” and “Digital Charter”, it shows 35 registrations over the last few years, including Ruddy.
Transfer to service provider
19 An organization may transfer an individual’s personal information to a service provider without their knowledge or consent.
.
De-identification of personal information
20 An organization may use an individual’s personal information without their knowledge or consent to de-identify the information.
.
Research and development
21 An organization may use an individual’s personal information without their knowledge or consent for the organization’s internal research and development purposes, if the information is de-identified before it is used.
Public Interest
Individual’s interest
29 (1) An organization may collect an individual’s personal information without their knowledge or consent if the collection is clearly in the interests of the individual and consent cannot be obtained in a timely way.
Use
(2) An organization may use an individual’s personal information without their knowledge or consent if the information was collected under subsection (1).
Statistical or scholarly study or research
35 An organization may disclose an individual’s personal information without their knowledge or consent if
(a) the disclosure is made for statistical purposes or for scholarly study or research purposes and those purposes cannot be achieved without disclosing the information;
(b) it is impracticable to obtain consent; and
(c) the organization informs the Commissioner of the disclosure before the information is disclosed.
Socially beneficial purposes
39 (1) An organization may disclose an individual’s personal information without their knowledge or consent if
(a) the personal information is de-identified before the disclosure is made;
(b) the disclosure is made to
(i) a government institution or part of a government institution in Canada,
(ii) a health care institution, post-secondary educational institution or public library in Canada,
(iii) any organization that is mandated, under a federal or provincial law or by contract with a government institution or part of a government institution in Canada, to carry out a socially beneficial purpose, or
(iv) any other prescribed entity; and
(c) the disclosure is made for a socially beneficial purpose.
Definition of socially beneficial purpose
(2) For the purpose of this section, socially beneficial purpose means a purpose related to health, the provision or improvement of public amenities or infrastructure, the protection of the environment or any other prescribed purpose.
The entire Bill is quite long, but those are a few points. While claiming that this legislation gives members of the public wide control over their information, it lays out ways that same private info can be shared with 3rd parties, without the knowledge or consent of that person.
It’s interesting that Conservatives pretend to care about free speech and Bill C-10, but are silent about the erosion of privacy with Bill C-11. Have to wonder if their Secretary is the reason for this.
This is hardly the first such privacy intrusion has been brought forward. A decade ago, Vic Toews gaslighted Canadians who opposed warrantless seizures of their internet data as “standing with the child pornographers”. Seems not much has changed.
For more on Emergent BioSolutions, and other lobbying, check the links below. It’s quite the cesspit, and Ruddy is up to her neck in it.
(1) https://www.conservative.ca/
(2) https://www.conservative.ca/team-member/amber-ruddy/
(3) https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&billId=10950130
(4) https://parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-2/bill/C-11/first-reading#ID0E0XB0BA
(5) https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/062.nsf/eng/00120.html
(6) https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/vwRg?cno=367534®Id=908352
(7) https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/advSrch?V_SEARCH.command=navigate&time=1624013972454
(8) https://canucklaw.ca/bill-c-11-digital-charter-implementation-act-of-canada/
- B.C. Pharmacy Association
- Capital Hill Group
- Counsel Public Affairs (Georgakopoulos)
- Counsel Public Affairs (Prevost, Lavigne)
- Counsel Public Affairs (Ruddy)
- Counsel Public Affairs (Federal)
- Crestview Strategy
- Crestview Strategy (Blais)
- Crestview Strategy (Arsenault)
- Crestview Strategy (The Gang)
- Ensight Canada
- Enterprise Canada/Sussex Strategy
- Loyalist Public Affairs
- Rubicon Strategy
- Wellington Advocacy
Electoral politics, elections, political parties, voting are all a charade to hide the true nature of our system, which is fascist (and in which politicians are truly just gangsters). It’s a global Corporatocracy dominated by the US, which in turn takes its marching orders from the powerful transnational capitalist class (with Americans overrepresented within that body, as Maximilian Forte notes).