Mr. Speaker, in many respects Bill C-27 is classic in the sense that it is a reflection of the difficulty in modern times, and even to a somewhat lesser degree historically, of our legal system, in particular our criminal justice system, keeping up with advances in technology and in society of a scientific nature. We have seen what has become known as the crime of identity theft proliferate significantly over the last 10 to 15 years.
We heard today some figures from the Minister of Justice on not only what that costs the financial sector in particular, but also individuals. We are now into the billions of dollars. It is a situation in our society where we have to take it into our hands to try to exert a much greater control over this issue.
There are various ways of doing that, and Bill C-27 addresses a partial strategy and no more than a partial strategy.
My party has always looked at anti-social, criminal behaviour as an issue to be addressed by way of prevention to the maximum. Then, if we cannot prevent the anti-social or criminal behaviour, we move into the criminal justice arena and provide legislation that creates crimes and punishment that flow from the breach of the legislation. That is the approach we take whenever we address an issue like this.
There is no question that the provisions of Bill C-27 are all necessary. The NDP very much intends to support the bill. When it gets to committee, we will be looking at ways to see if there is any manner of strengthening it.
We have heard from police forces, including the RCMP and local police forces, of the need for these provisions, which are all amendments to the Criminal Code.
To be very clear and not in any way mislead the Canadian public, these provisions are all reactive. They are to be used when the crime has already been committed, whether it is creating some new offences around identity theft or renaming the personation section to identity theft and identity fraud, or attacking, and this is very important, the production of data and making that a crime. All those are important sections to deal with that conduct, but again I emphasize it is after the fact. It is after a crime has been committed and individuals in our society and institutions have suffered negative consequences.
We have heard the horror stories in that respect of the way it grossly disrupts the lives of people when their identities are used fraudulently in a criminal fashion. It causes them great financial losses in a lot of cases. It also puts them through the emotional turmoil while they rebuild their identification. Dealing with the debt that has been accumulated in their name can cause great havoc to the individual.
On the institutional side, it is humongous, and the minister has mentioned financial losses. It is very disruptive. The bill is important from that perspective.
When I questioned the minister earlier today, I raised the fact that the government had not brought forward any proposals and certainly no legislation to prevent access to databases to regulate the security around those databases, whether it was by way of policy within the federal government, or by way of legislation, or regulatory functions under other legislation, under our consumer legislation, our privacy laws and our access to information laws. There are a number of other laws where we could implement a regulatory framework that would prevent easy access to our databases.
Imagine people of a criminal bent wanting to steal the identities of people. They can do that by following people around, or collecting their mail, or watching them at debit machines, or going to their place of work, or stealing their cheque book. There are a number of ways to do this but they are only getting one person's identity. It is an endeavour that has to take place and we know it happens. There is an alternative to that. What happens more and more and why we see this huge increase in identity theft is that organized crime targets databases to get the personal identifications of thousands of individuals in one fell swoop.
Recently I talked to some of our local police in the Windsor area about this. What happens is that data is sold on the Internet, kind of an eBay purchase, to other individuals who will then use that personal identification to take money out of bank accounts, use credit cards, the whole gamut of criminality that goes on. Those trades happen on a regular basis. Getting access to a large database is important for that network of trading to function.
I heard my colleague from the Bloc mention the need for international cooperation. A good deal of this is happening in countries, for example, in central and eastern Europe that have recently broken away from the Soviet empire where there are not strong enforcement mechanisms. I am told a good deal of that trading goes on in those countries.
There is a whole series of other work that needs to be done. In the overall volume of crimes around identity theft, I would argue they are more significant. If we can shut down that trading network, if we can shut down access to large databases, if we can get international cooperation to do that in other countries, we will be much more effective in shutting down large numbers of these crimes as opposed to going after the individual who steals another individual's identity.
Again, I am not downplaying the importance of the bill. It is necessary, but the government needs to step up to the plate and get serious about dealing with those other areas.
Other committees have looked at this issue. The industry committee has looked at it. The committee responsible for the privacy legislation has also looked at it. Recommendations have come to those committees of how to deal with some of these problems, where we focus almost exclusively under those legislations and amendments to legislation and the regulatory functions under those legislations to prevent access to these databases.
This would go a great distance, but the government seems to be much more concerned about this bill exclusively. I suggest it is a mistake to limit its focus just on criminalizing this behaviour. I am not downplaying the importance of it, but it is nowhere near enough. In fact, it is the smaller part of the problem.
The solution to this problem lies much more in creating security around our databases and international cooperation to enforce policies along that line, rather than this more simple and limited approach to the bill.
As I have indicated, the NDP will support the bill at second reading. When it gets to committee, we will look at ways to see if it can be strengthened.
In that regard, I have heard some concerns from members of the Bar about the wording in some of the sections. The bill would make it a crime to be found in possession of a substantial body of personal identification coupled with a reasonable inference of intent to commit a crime. “Reasonable inference” is used elsewhere in the code, but in a somewhat different context. There is some worry about whether that wording will provide, because of its vagueness, enough of a defence for that section to be used to acquire convictions.
We will need to look at this type of wording at the committee to see if there is any way we can strengthen it. We hope to hear from both our prosecutors and our police forces to see if there are any additional suggestions they have to perhaps augment the bill and strengthen it some more. Unless we see ways of strengthening it, I am quite convinced the justice committee will approve the bill, hopefully with some minor tinkering, and send it back for third reading and final approval in the House.
I hope also that in the course of the hearings before the justice committee more information will come out about the need for other endeavours that will be more productive and prevent more of these crimes. If so, we also may be able to recommend to the full House additional work that needs to be done.
