Thank you, Chair.
I'm also interested in the idea. I believe the recommendation of the finance committee was to urge the Minister of Justice to include identity theft as a specific criminal offence.
It has always struck me as odd that it's a specific criminal offence to steal a cow in this country, but it's not a specific offence to steal a car or an identity. The argument is that if you listed everything there would be a huge volume of all the things that it's against the law to steal.
I sense there is interest in listing identify theft because it gives a judge more latitude in sentencing. Otherwise, how do you quantify how serious the identity theft is if it's not identified? If fact, when there's no actual injury it's still a crime to steal someone's identity, even if it never does result in financial loss to them.
I understand your point, but do you not agree that if it were included in the Criminal Code it would make it easier to enforce and would send the message to the community at large that we take this very seriously?