Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that Bill 26 be amended (a) in paragraph 10.1(d) by striking out the period and substituting a semicolon; and (b) by adding the following after paragraph 10.1(d): "(e) the particulars of ownership, copyright, and rights to use information that will be retained, conveyed, or exercisable by each party." Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is being distributed. I will wait until all Members have a copy. The motion has been distributed and is in order. To the motion. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This amendment is similar to Nunavut's section 9 of their legislation to address information-sharing with other organizations. It would ensure that any ownership and exclusive rights issues to the information that we share must be addressed by the terms of the agreement to the satisfaction of the Minister. This would, in effect, ensure that Indigenous organizations and governments and other third parties, including NGOs, private corporations, et cetera, could place conditions into information-sharing agreements that protect their ownership of the data. Without this section, no such conditions are required, and the disposition of any information collected in these agreements would fall to the sole discretion of the Statistics Bureau, or ownership issues would be unresolved at best.
Earlier the Minister spoke about ensuring that this legislation is consistent with other statistics acts throughout the country, and we, as the standing committee, reviewed those acts and the legislative framework that underpins those statistical agencies. With the ever-increasing importance of information in the modern world, the committee felt very strongly that that needed to be addressed in any third-party agreements.
We received a submission from the Information and Privacy Commissioner that was very helpful in understanding the impact that this information has on the personal privacy of individuals and organizations. Data-sharing agreements are outside the government's normal possession of information, so they have to be handled differently. In this sense, where there has been a great deal of debate in Canada around the receipt of statistical information from Indigenous governments and nations to provincial and the federal government, we wanted to ensure that that issue was properly addressed in the legislation itself.
Now, certainly, the Minister can come up with any agreement that the Minister wants to and address any issue, but this gives certainty to any organization that is concerned about the particulars of ownership, copyright, and rights to use information that those will be part of any agreement signed into. It is not saying that the government will hold ownership, copyright, and the exclusive right to use their information; rather, it is saying that the Minister must address that concern before an agreement is entered into to the satisfaction of both parties.
That is what we intended with this amendment, to ensure that the security and ownership of information given to the Statistics Bureau was protected, and that it is clear to any member of the public and any organization concerned around the collection of statistical information that, at the end of the day, ownership will be something that will come up and will be part of any agreement that they sign with the government. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We disagreed with this. We found that this would be very disrespectful to the Indigenous governments. The Bureau of Statistics works closely with our Aboriginal government partners throughout the Northwest Territories, and this is a bit of a sensitive issue with for Indigenous governments.
Our view was that these issues are best solved through cooperation rather than the heavy hand of legislation. Having said that, we have a very good working relationship with Indigenous governments. We have worked with them on a number of occasions. Cabinet will not be supporting this motion.
Thank you, Minister. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I noted in the Minister's remarks that he indicated that the Information and Privacy Commissioner and other GNWT departments have been engaged in the development of the legislation. That is a good thing. I didn't hear anything about engagement with Indigenous governments. I assume, then, that the Minister has not heard directly from Indigenous governments on this issue.
I don't really understand what the problem is. Nunavut has the exact same wording in its legislation dating from 2006. They have had this in place and working now for 12-and-a-half years. If there had been a problem with this kind of language, you would think that their act would have been changed in some way. It is the exact same wording, Mr. Chair; nothing different. When the committee was reviewing this, they went to the Nunavut act to try to understand what best practices might be over there, another northern jurisdiction. The exact same wording is taken out of this. I printed the bill myself, the Nunavut act, before I came in here to doublecheck this, so I don't know what the problem is in putting this in.
This does not require that anybody owns the information. This amendment would just say that the ownership of it should be agreed on when you get into the agreement. It doesn't say who owns it; it just says that you should spell that out to prevent problems from happening in the future. That is what this is about. This is about preventing problems from happening in the future.
The other sorts of things that are to be contained in the agreement are security and confidentiality of personal information, removal and destruction of individual identifiers, things like that. What is wrong with making sure that the agreement includes something about ownership, copyright, and right to use the information? It just makes common sense that you would want to put that in to prevent problems from happening in the future.
I don't understand why Cabinet is not in favour of this. I haven't seen any evidence. I haven't seen any correspondence or emails from Indigenous governments about this. If the Bureau of Statistics already has a great working relationship with Indigenous governments, that is wonderful, and this is not going to take away from that. It is just making sure that there is a common understanding of how the information is going to be used and who owns it at the end of the day. This is about preventing problems in the future, and this doesn't tell anybody what to do with the information.
With that, Mr. Chair, I will obviously be supporting the motion, and I urge my Cabinet colleagues to do the same in terms of ensuring that we have best practice here in the Northwest Territories. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. I will now allow the mover of the motion to close debate. Mr. Testart.
Thank you for the opportunity. We, of course, during the committee review stage, spoke with the government about this, and I think that we have come to cross purposes, because what my colleague, the honourable Member from Frame Lake, has said basically encapsulates where the committee was coming from. This is about best practices. This isn't about ensuring one way or the other that there is an outcome; it is about addressing the concern that, rightfully, is a concern of anyone entering into these agreements is properly dealt with.
It gives confidence, again, to our partners who are providing this statistical information. It gives confidence to members of the public who are looking at this information to ensure that it is consistent with the high standards of privacy that we have set as a government for our citizens, and I think that this is an improvement. It is one of those improvements that is so important to our legislative process, working to research each clause of the bill and understand how to make those clauses better.
I do not agree with the Minister's concerns, and quite frankly, I don't understand them. We haven't received any submissions from Indigenous governments that inform that position, and we haven't been presented with any of that evidence, either. This does appear to be best practice for the North and best practice to ensure that ownership, copyright, and rights to use information are properly protected, because we don't want the government running roughshod over those rights and for people entering into these agreements not to be able to exercise those rights and have confidence that those issues with going to be addressed. That is why this motion is in important and will greatly improve this piece of legislation.
Mr. Chair, I would like to ask for a recorded vote. Thank you.
