C-4, privacy erasure bill, passes through committee with no debate of crucial privacy erasure clauses

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance completed its examination of Bill C-4, An Act respecting certain affordability measures for Canadians and another measure on Wednesday October 29, 2025 without debating or reporting any amendments to Part 4 of the bill.

Part 4 of the bill is designed to retroactively destroy the privacy rights that the British Columbia Supreme Court recently affirmed are applicable to political parties under BC's privacy law; s 47 amending s 446.4 (1) of the Canada Elections Act states that federal political parties parties: "cannot be required to comply with an Act of a province or territory that regulates activities in relation to personal information, including the collection, use, disclosure, retention and disposal of personal information, unless the party’s policy for the protection of personal information provides otherwise."

s. 49 makes these provisions retroactive to May 31, 2020. 

The committee ignored all of the relevant briefs submitted to the Finance Committee highlighting this issue. This is astounding since the majority (seven) of the twelve briefs submitted to the committee and made available on its web site dealt with part 4, with all of the civil society organizations calling for it to be deleted: 

1. Caroline Simard, Commissioner of Canada Elections
2. Philip Dufresne, Privacy Commissioner of Canada 
3. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association 
4. FIPA the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
5. OpenMedia 
6. The Centre for Digital Rights 
7. Sara Bannerman (me)

The only mention of part 4 of the bill during the entire committee study is the totally inadequate summary 67-word summary provided by Cathy Hawara, assistant secretary to cabinet, machinery of government and democratic institutions at the PCO, who stated: 

Thank you for inviting me today.

 

Part 4 of the bill seeks to clarify Parliament's intent that the activities of federal political parties involving personal information fall exclusively under federal jurisdiction and, more specifically, the Canada Elections Act. It would further clarify that this has been the case since May 31, 2000.

 

Finally, the bill proposes new additional requirements that political parties would need to meet with respect to their policies on privacy.

 

Thank you.

The recent May 2024 British Columbia Supreme Court decision affirming individuals' rights in their personal information held by federal political parties was under appeal by parties, but the appeal was stayed on the introduction of C-4, since C-4 would attempt to retroactively destroy the rights in question.

 Bill C-4, if passed, also undermines provincial legislative authority. 

The Centre for Digital Rights sums up the very significant problems left unaddressed in the committee:

The so-called privacy provisions in the Canada Elections Act, even with Part 4 of Bill C-4's
proposed changes, undermines citizens' meaningful political participation and their right to a free,
informed vote, because they fail to require [federal political parties] to (1) secure individual consent, (2) restrict personal data collection, (3) grant full access to personal information, (4) confine the use and sharing of data to its original purpose, and (5) enable individuals to correct their information.
The absence of such requirements in the Canada Elections Act allows for a gerrymandered,
deliberately engineered system that favours the [federal political parties]’ goals over voters’ informed choices. It favours one political party or voter over another.14 It undermines the electorate’s ability to critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of different candidates, parties, and issues, and to be reasonably informed of all the possible choices. It leaves Canada’s democracy susceptible to the manipulative practices that voter analytics and micro-targeting encourage. It denies Canadians the transparency and informational rights they enjoy with government agencies and commercial organizations, but not with the [federal political parties].

 For more see my interview on Michael Geist's Lawbytes podcast and my other related posts.

 

Parliamentarians undermine privacy and democracy with C-4

Bill C-4 seeks to undermine Canadians' privacy rights in the troves of data held by federal political parties.

A BC court case, about to be heard next week, would potentially grant or affirm that Canadians have the same privacy rights we all expect everyday from businesses and government from federal political parties as well.  

The federal Liberal party, with the support of the other major federal political parties, will erase those rights with the passage of Bill C-4, which would undermine any rights that might be affirmed by that case by making any provincial laws, BC's Personal Information Protection Act, inapplicable to federal political parties.  

It is astounding, and yet not surprising at all (federal parties have engaged in repeated similar efforts), that federal political parties would seek to undermine rights so crucial to democracy in this way.  

Federal parties must truly fear public revelations about the personal data that they hold, what they are doing with that data, and/or any threat to the datified campaigning methods they use. 

See my recent appearance on Michael Geist's Lawbytes podcast here, recent parliamentary testimony here (from the previous effort last parliamentary session to accomplish the same goal), and past related blog posts on political parties and privacy here.

 

Lawbytes podcast: How Canadian Political Parties Maximize Voter Data Collection and Minimize Privacy Safeguards

My interview on Michael Geist's Lawbytes podcast, How Canadian Political Parties Maximize Voter Data Collection and Minimize Privacy Safeguards," is available here.