The Liberal government signed a deal in October with the multi-national Maximus Inc. to manage and maintain the Medical Services Plan database.
All of the information in this database is confidential, and justifiably so. You may not be one of the people getting prescribed medication for HIV, mental illness, or venereal disease, and you may have never had an abortion. If you're over the age of 40, however, it's likely that you've been treated for some sort of medical condition (constipation or diarrhea, to give two examples) that you would prefer that your neighbours not know about. And, if you don't want your neighbours to know about it, you probably don't want the FBI to know about it, either.
When the plan to outsource the MSP records encountered some serious public opposition, New Westminster MLA and Minister of Minister of Management Services Joyce Murray responded by agreeing to put the issue to Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis. Loukidelis released an extensive report concluding that the sweeping powers of the U.S. Patriot Act will allow American authorities to access personal information on Canadians if it ends up in the United States or if it is held by U.S. companies in Canada. The Liberals responding to this finding by signing the outsourcing deal anyway.
I can use a lot of words to describe this action, and negligence and foolishness are two of them. I've earned a living from developing computer software for 33 years, and I can tell you that you rarely save money by replacing a working piece of software with a new one; the common phrase is, "if it isn't broken, don't fix it." Yes, there were some problems with the processing of MSP information. This was because the Liberals laid off 40% of the staff that was doing this work. So, it's another case of the Liberals "solving" a problem they created.
If you're already having trouble understanding why they would ignore the Patriot Act considerations, I'll make things even more difficult for you. A local company, Pacific Blue Cross, expressed an interest in taking over the MSP processing, and they were stonewalled by the Ministry of Management Services. The Liberals were determined to make a deal with a multinational.
The BC Government Employees Union has been fighting this deal, and they have made a court challenge which was heard by the BC Supreme Court last week; see British Columbians double-crossed over MSP contract with American corporation on the BCGEU's web site. Let's hope that they win. If they don't, the Green Party is committed to canceling this deal if the voters, in their wisdom, give us the means to do it. Just to clarify this, “canceling” means that we will tell Maximus to hand our medical data back to us, and "if you believe that you've been treated unfairly, sue us."
Safeguarding personal data of this nature is a responsibility that the government simply cannot be allowed to hand over to someone else, US-based multinational or not. If you're a New Westminster voter, note that the Liberal candidate that will be on the ballot, Joyce Murray, was directly involved in the Maximus deal.
