Thank you, Chair.
I have concerns that were expressed already, but I have just a couple of key points, and I expressed these in committee.
I don't think Canadians are comfortable with their birthdates being attached to a list, particularly when we look at who might share this list. I just think of the issues around identity theft. What we're doing here by including birthdates as proposed is essentially giving more opportunities for identity theft.
On the question that was asked around the difference between providing birthdates and addresses, addresses are pretty public as it is. You can look in the phone book, or there are other ways of cross-tabulating one's address and one's name. It's fairly simple to do. But it is not the same for one's birthdate, and I think we have to be very careful--we're going into new territory here--that we don't overcompensate our concerns with voter fraud with...privacy.
As I mentioned before in this committee, I was hoping to hear from Ms. Stoddart, and I know we attempted to have her speak, but I think we need to err on the side of caution. I think concerns around privacy outweigh the concerns we have here about tightening up a process, particularly when we're providing things like a random ID and we have other parts of this bill that will deal with oversight. So I just can't support the amendment that includes this kind of information.
The last point--and we heard this in committee--is that for people who are fleeing war-torn countries, who have suffered from being on lists and having identification to the detail we're prescribing here, it would be a problem, and it would be a problem that I don't think anyone around this table would be able to identify with. But certainly when people are on lists and they've fled war-torn countries...and the detail to which your name, your address, your phone number, all of those things are included, I think adding a birthdate is very problematic.
The last point is simply that I've talked to a couple of seniors about this--this is not quantified at all; it's just anecdotal--and it's not something they're keen on having.
So just for those reasons, I don't see being able to support this. Thank you.