Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague and I am sort of surprised at his reluctance, given all his talk about oversight, to support this motion, which is about oversight. The person who does oversight for Canadians is the Privacy Commissioner, who has raised the alarm bells.
I would like to also suggest to my hon. colleague that the proposals the government is bringing forward to legalize what has been happening with the 1.2 million requests would actually vastly expand the ability of all manner of people to conduct any manner of fishing expeditions.
I would like to refer to an article in the National Post today, talking about Bill C-13. It says it will take out the caveat of the necessity to actually be investigating a crime when you call up a telecom and want information about an average Canadian. That would be removed. I find it staggering that we would not need to have a reason to investigate someone, that someone would just be able to investigate it and it would be legal.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks it is okay for the government to vastly expand who can make those calls. It would not just be the RCMP or CSIS now. It would be all manner of public officers. It would include tax agents, sheriffs, reeves, justices of the peace, people who work in the fisheries department, and mayors. I would like to ask my hon. colleague, if he is in a dispute with the mayor in his jurisdiction does he think that the mayor should have the legal right that would be enshrined in Bill C-13? Perhaps they do not read their own legislation. I know they do what they are told over there. A mayor would have the right to call a telecom and ask for the IP information on an average Canadian citizen? Come on.