Several things need to be said.
The first is that I should point out that the information required is not the same. The information provided by the Correctional Service is the date of the release of the individual, while the information to be provided by the detainee is about the person itself. The latter is needed to ensure that the payment is made to the right person, to the right address and the right account. So we are talking about two different types of information.
Secondly, the individual may supply the information directly. This does not exempt the penitentiary and the Correctional Service from their obligations. In fact, there are two obligations. There is an obligation for the Correctional Service to provide the date of release and there is an obligation for the individual to provide his personal information. Indeed, the detainee is the one who has the most up-to-date information. For example, if he or she provides information to the Correctional Service today and if two, three days or even a week before his release his bank account number or his address change, he will need to supply them again to Service Canada through the Correctional Service. It seems to me that the most effective channel to provide this personal information is directly by the individual.
As for privacy matters, the individual might not be willing to provide this information to the Correctional Service. He or she might not want to share this information. Under privacy and access to information legislation, the Correctional Service does not necessarily have authority to collect itself that information. It does not necessarily have that power. So would this not be going a little bit too far and amount to a violation of the individual's privacy? These are issues that need to be raised.
Thirdly, I fully understand that if this bill is passed there will have to be negotiations between provinces and the federal government about sharing the information. But we do not yet know the content of such an agreement. This means that we could end up with a two-tier system depending on whether a person is incarcerated at the federal level or at the provincial level. The information to be provided could either be non existent in one case or existent in another — depending on the attitude of the various correctional services — or else it could be very different.