On November 15, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its decision in Alberta
(Information and Privacy Commissioner) v. United Food and
Commercial Workers, Local 401 (United Foods), ruling
that Alberta's Personal Information Protection
Act (PIPA) was unconstitutional and
declaring it invalid. As noted in a
previous post, the Court suspended the
declaration of invalidity until November 15, 2014 in order to
provide the legislature with sufficient time to decide how to best
make the law constitutional.
As of the date of this post, the Alberta government has not
tabled any amendment to PIPA. In response to growing concerns
that PIPA may lapse, including those raised by Alberta's
Privacy Commissioner in a letter to Alberta's Premier, the Alberta
government has formally filed a motion with the Court to extend the
November 15, 2014 deadline.This motion, recently approved by the
Court, extends the suspension of the declaration of invalidity for
a period of six months.
