Parliament is prorogued. It's a phrase some of our readers — both Canadians and non-Canadians — may not fully understand.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been facing lots of pressure for almost a year to either do something significant to improve his party's standing in Canada or to step aside. This week, he announced he would be stepping aside to let someone else try to fix the Liberal Party's dismal approval ratings. But, in order to buy time, he chose to use what some see as a constitutional trick — prorogation — which essentially cancels Parliament's ability to function and pass new laws.
To be fair, Parliament has been paralyzed for months with constant stalling techniques by the opposition parties. The only impactful thing to happen was a temporary tax break over the winter months. The system clearly was not working anymore, so change was required.
The prorogation of Parliament kills every bill that had been put forward for consideration to becoming law. On 24 March, my mother's birthday, a brand-new Parliamentary session will start, and all new bills will have to be re-introduced. This, of course, assumes this new Parliamentary session will last that long.
It seems highly probable when Parliament resumes, the first thing the opposition parties will do is work together to bring down the Liberal government, because the Liberals only have a minority government — that is, they have the most seats in the House of Commons, but not the majority. So, if the opposition parties work together, they can out-vote the Liberals on a nonconfidence motion and that would trigger an election.
What's important to recognize is that privacy issues are not party-specific. The parties may come at the issues from different perspectives, but I'm heartened that in Canada, they all seem to care about them. Do they care enough to put forward new laws? Well, that's another matter, and time will tell.
So how's that for a good dose of Canadian parliamentary process?
One person who knows all this stuff way better than me is federal Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne. He was, after all, the head lawyer for the House of Commons prior to taking his post as a privacy regulator.
All this to say, he read the tea leaves quite well when setting his priorities. He advocated for new and more modern data laws, but also recognized these laws may not materialize during his mandate. So, among other things, he vowed to use every tool in his toolbox to prioritize the existing privacy rights of Canadians, with or without new laws. While maybe not quite as vocal about it, I suspect his provincial counterparts are on the same page.
So, with 2025 off to a roaring pace for most of us, our politicians are taking a different path. When it does come to a functioning Parliament again, I hope whoever is in charge is ready and willing to once again put Canada on the map when it comes to being leaders in modern and responsible innovation of data laws.
Kris Klein, CIPP/C, CIPM, FIP, is the managing director for Canada for the IAPP.
This article appeared in the Canada Dashboard Digest, a free weekly IAPP newsletter. Subscriptions to this and other IAPP newsletters can be found here.
