Law Times

Page 6 May 14, 2018 • Law TiMes www.lawtimesnews.com Names of bills carry meaning BY KADY O'MALLEY B efore we start going through the Liberals' long-awaited plan to rewrite Canada's electoral rulebook, let us take a moment to appreciate the restraint demonstrated by Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould in coming up with a suitably anodyne short title for her 352- page omnibus bill. To be fair, the very fact that she felt the need to style it as the Elections Mod- ernization Act will undoubtedly raise the hackles of particularly persnick- ety parliamentary purists, who can be counted on to point out that there's actually no requirement to go beyond the tried-and-true if distinctly non- informative "An Act to amend/enact/ establish . . . " format. But as legislative phrasings go, "mod- ernization" does, at least, offer an ac- curate description of what the bill is meant to accomplish without sounding suspiciously like a focus-grouped ap- plause line in a campaign stump speech, and that alone makes it a welcome break from the precedent set by then-prime minister Stephen Harper's government. Who can forget her predecessor Pierre Poilievre presenting the House of Commons with the glibly self-touting Fair Elections Act — a short title that managed to imply that the existing electoral system was inherently unfair. (There was, as it turned out, also a downside for Poilievre, as it armed the bill's critics with a ready-made counter-slogan: All they had to do was add an "Un.") Over the near-decade they held pow- er, the Conservatives turned the prac- tice of giving certain bills short titles — which had, up until then, been primarily used to give MPs a quick way to refer to legislation in debate — into an art form: specifically, the art of pushing out a stridently partisan message from every available platform. Protection was a running theme throughout the Conservatives' tenure, whether it was "protecting Canadians" from "unsafe drugs," "online crime" or simply "by ending sentence discounts for multiple murders." There were bills to protect "Canada's immigration system" and "Canada's se- niors," in general, as well as the double-barrelled Keeping Canadians Safe (Protecting Borders) Act, which never went beyond first reading, al- though Canadians can prob- ably keep feeling relatively safe, as all it would have done was harmonize cross-border maritime law enforcement. That, in a nutshell, was the underlying problem with the Conservatives' penchant for bumper sticker-ready bill names: The catchier the phrasing — and the more rousing a rallying cry it would make when accusing the opposition parties of failing to support it — the less useful they would be in explaining what the legislation would actually do. And, in some cases, it's pretty clear that was entirely intentional. When then-public safety minister Vic Toews unveiled his proposal to give the RCMP, CSIS and other federal law enforcement agencies sweeping new powers to spy on internet users without a warrant, he attempted — with what would turn out to be misplaced opti- mism — to position it as the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. Who could oppose that? Just about anyone who read beyond the minister's hoped-for headline, as it turned out: The bill sparked a massive public backlash, and it was ultimately left to die on the order paper. Two years and change into their first majority term, the Liberals seem to have resisted the temptation to turn the first page of a bill into a partisan billboard. Of the 76 government bills introduced to date, fewer than 20 include a short title, and of those, most are simply shortened versions of the full title. It may make for a far more bland legislative to-do list — and, of course, it means that in order to figure out what a bill does, you may may have to read it or at least scan the summary. It does, however, take a small step to- ward restoring a scintilla of dignity to the parliamentary process, even if you'll only notice it if you check the fine print. LT uKady O'Malley is a member of the parliamentary press gallery in Ottawa and writes about politics, procedure and process for iPolitics. She also appears regularly on CBC television and radio. COMMENT u EDITORIAL OBITER By Gabrielle Giroday ©2018 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. 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Karen Lorimer Managing Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jennifer Brown Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabrielle Giroday Staff Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alex Robinson Copy Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patricia Cancilla CaseLaw Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leah Craven Art Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Phyllis Barone Production Co-ordinator . . . . . Jacqueline D'Souza Electronic Production Specialist . . . Derek Welford Cybersecurity sagacity I t's the dawn of a new age after Facebook users around the world have found out unexpected ways their personal information may be available to others through their use of the social media plat- form. There has already been legal fallout. For example, Toronto law firm Koskie Minsky LLP is leading a global class action against Facebook, based on allegations that Facebook was aware its users' personal data could easily be accessed by third parties through the social media platform. This week, there are different features exploring cybersecurity and mobile technology, a rapidly expanding area of interest for lawyers in Ontario. One story looks at lawyers' concerns over the use and pro- tection of peoples' personal information, especially with the develop- ment of artificial intelligence and use of blockchain. Lawyer Imran Ahmad sees the potential for risk through the mis- use of data. "For AI to be effective, or even for deep learning to be effective, you need a lot of data," he says. "Those issues around the data sets — how they're collected, what is collected, what scope of information are we collecting from an in- dividual — all of that is a thing which is unclear at this stage. That's where some of the risk lies." Another looks at how lawyers are preparing for the rollout of new mandatory data-breach reporting rules going into effect in Canada. They'll go into effect in November, three years after being introduced through legislation. Some companies have progress to make to en- sure they'll be in compliance. "They will have some work to do really in just creating clear roles about who handles what report- ing channels and employee awareness about what to f lag so it can be investigated and determined if there was a breach," says David Elder. Legisla- tors can sometimes lag behind technology, and so, smart lawyers will have to learn how to be ahead of the curve when it comes to advising their clients on what steps to take. The World Economic Forum has said data is the new currency, and it's right. LT The Hill Kady O'Malley Kady O'Malley

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