Manitoba: the law that governs your business calls

The act that passed and did not come into force

Manitoba did pass The Personal Information Protection and Identity Theft Prevention Act — PIPITPA, S.M. 2013, c. 17, C.C.S.M. c. P33.7. It was to come into force on proclamation. No proclamation was ever made, and it was repealed on 31 March 2024 without having taken effect.

That is not an inference. The Manitoba government's own legislative history page says so in plain words — « not proclaimed, but repealed on 31 Mar. 2024 » — and the page that would carry the current text returns an error, because there is no current text. We checked both on 15 September 2026. So there is no Manitoba private-sector statute to wait for or to meet today.

The civil tort, Manitoba's real distinguishing feature

The Privacy Act, C.C.S.M. c. P125, has been in force since 1 February 1988. Section 2(1) makes it a tort where a person « substantially, unreasonably and without claim of right, violates the privacy of another person ». Section 2(2) adds that « an action for violation of privacy may be brought without proof of damage ».

This is not a regulatory regime: there is no regulator, no administrative complaint, no reporting duty. It is a civil liability exposure running alongside federal law. Someone unhappy about a recorded call does not have to show a quantified loss before starting an action.

« Without proof of damage » is a rule of procedure, not a measure of risk: we do not know how many such actions are brought, and we will not put a figure on it. What it changes for you is concrete — in Manitoba, the quality of the notice at the start of a call is more than paperwork.

Recording a call: two regimes, not one

Section 184 of the Criminal Code makes it an offence to intercept a private communication, but section 184(2)(a), read with section 183.1, is satisfied by the consent of one party. A business that is a party to a call can therefore record it without committing that offence.

That says nothing about privacy law. The federal regime asks, on top of it, that you tell the person the call is recorded, state the purpose clearly, refrain from reusing the recording for a purpose other than the one announced, offer an alternative to someone who declines, give access to the recording on request, and limit how long it is kept.

At Zenvox the disclosure is spoken before the microphone opens, on every call, and it cannot be switched off. The rest depends on your instructions: what you have asked to be collected, and what you do with it afterwards.

A Manitoba clinic sits under both regimes

The Personal Health Information Act, C.C.S.M. c. P33.5, has been in force since 11 December 1997, with substantial amendments in force on 1 January 2022. It uses the word « trustee » where Ontario, Alberta and the Atlantic provinces say « custodian » — Manitoba shares that vocabulary with Saskatchewan.

Its section 19.0.1 requires a trustee to notify the individual where, having regard to factors prescribed by regulation, a breach « could reasonably be expected to create a real risk of significant harm ». Notice goes out as soon as practicable, and the Manitoba Ombudsman is notified in the manner that office sets.

That statute has not been declared substantially similar to federal law. A Manitoba clinic is therefore subject to both at once. The Manitoba Ombudsman oversees the access statute and this health statute; it has no jurisdiction over private businesses. A customer complaint about commercial use of their information goes to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

What leaves the province, and what that means here

The federal breach rule has applied to you since 1 November 2018: report to the federal commissioner and notify affected individuals of any breach of security safeguards that creates a real risk of significant harm, and keep a record of every breach for 24 months from the day you conclude it occurred.

The single most important point in this whole file fits in one sentence: provincial law governs what happens inside a province, federal law governs information moving out of the province or out of the country. In Manitoba, with no general private-sector statute, federal law already covers both halves. What leaves in our case, where it goes and how long a copy survives there: the statement at the foot of this page says so, in the one wording we use for it, and we do not rewrite it here.

On the federal side, the law itself has not moved: Bill C-27 died on the Order Paper on 6 January 2025, and Bill C-36, tabled on 15 June 2026, stood at second reading on 15 September 2026, without royal assent. None of its content is in force.