I find it terrible that we have to pass laws to protect our children because they are gifts from Heaven. It is a simple message to transmit to everyone.
I was a member of the Commission on Maher Arar. I have some difficulty with personal information requests. I know that some police officers do an excellent job—I have a brother who is a policeman— but there are others that are not very competent. In the case of Maher Arar, as they could not find all the personal information they were looking for, they fabricated some. I am rather emotional about it. If we make it too easy to access personal information, there might be some exceptional cases of abuse.
Law enforcement and some other people have access to information on divorces. There was a case in Montreal where a police officer managed to find his wife and gunned her down. I must admit that this case is extreme. However, we should be very careful when we give access to personal information because victims are women most of the time. The government wants to scrap the long-gun registry, but in cases of domestic disturbance, it is very important to know if there is a rifle in the home.
We should be very careful when personal information is requested on some people. I would like to know your opinion on this.