OTTAWA—The Liberal government has no set timeline to bring in long-awaited private sector privacy reforms that advocates argue are urgently needed.

The problems with Canada’s aging privacy rules are well known, and multiple solutions have been put forward with multi-partisan support.

But Industry Minister Navdeep Bains told the Star Thursday that, almost a year after the government released its suggestions for privacy law reforms, the Liberals need more time.

“But it is a priority for our government,” Bains said in an interview.

“We have to work with other political parties … as we move forward, because we want to pass this legislation and we need their support … We want to sequence the rollout of these initiatives in a manner that enables us to have success in passing it through the House of Commons, and we’re working very closely with all political parties.”

Contacted by the Star Friday, the opposition Conservatives said the Liberals had not reached out to discuss privacy laws with either the leader’s office or their critics on the file. The NDP also had no record of Bains’ office reaching out to them on the file.

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, known as PIPEDA, governs how private companies collect, store and use personal information about Canadians. But critics have long argued it lacks teeth — such as significant fines for companies’ breaching privacy rules — and Canada’s privacy watchdog cannot order companies to comply with the rules.

The issue has taken on greater urgency in an age of major data breaches and ubiquitous social media platforms amassing personal information about Canadian citizens. The federal privacy regulator, Daniel Therrien, has suggested Canada is at “a privacy tipping point.”

“Calls for more effective privacy laws are now coming from everywhere. Even (Facebook’s) Mark Zuckerberg claims he likes the (European Union’s new privacy laws) and would welcome the adoption of similar regulation in the U.S.,” Therrien said in a 2019 speech.

“The solution is not to get people to turn off their computers or stop using social media, search engines or other digital services … Rather, the ultimate goal is to allow individuals to benefit from digital services — to socialize, learn, and generally develop as persons — while remaining safe and confident that their privacy rights will be respected.”

The Liberals released a “Digital Charter” last May, setting out 10 broad principles on how they intend to deal with issues like data ownership, privacy protections and online hate-speech — but have yet to back up those principles with any meaningful regulations or legislation.

Bains said while he could not provide a timeline on either PIPEDA reform or the Digital Charter, he expected legislation within a matter of months.