Thank you very much.
I was asked to come to testify before you today on the subject of biometrics. Basically, this is an invasion of privacy. At school, we read George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984. When we read them, we told ourselves that the author was describing the situation at the time in communist countries where people's privacy was completely controlled. We told ourselves that it was terrible and we were happy to be in Canada with our freedoms, our right to privacy, our right to free speech, our capitalism and our free enterprise.
The presumption is that people are honest. In every society, the criminals are few, and they are on the society's margins. Must we change the system of applying for a temporary resident visa because of that minority of alleged criminals? Given the cost, is it worth changing the system of applying for a temporary resident visa in order to catch that minority of dishonest people? There will always be dishonest people. There will always be people like Bernie Madoff, Earl Jones and Vincent Lacroix in the world, despite all our legislation and rules and all the penalties for criminals.
Nothing leads us to believe that Canada is being invaded by waves of criminals from outside or that it is necessary to rush to put in place expensive measures such as gathering biometric data.
If it becomes mandatory to gather biometric data, what will happen if the information is not complete? What process will be in place to complete it? Who will do it and how long will it take? If the biometric information contains errors, how will a foreigner be able to have it corrected? Will he be able to lodge an appeal against decisions that have already been made? What guarantees will our visitors have that their biometric information will be properly used? What recourse will they have in cases of abuse, of loss, of theft, or even just of a change in policy?
Citizenship and Immigration Canada's statistics show that a number of visas are issued to people who would not normally be admissible to Canada. How will biometric data change anything in those cases, for example?
The increasing amount of information involved for each application for a temporary resident visa means more work for visa officers. Where will that money come from? It probably means that it will become a lot more expensive to visit Canada.
This requirement to gather biometric information clearly targets only those countries for which a visa to visit Canada is required. The requirement to gather biometric information therefore discriminates against people from third world countries. What about the criminals from countries that do not require visas? It seems to me that the biggest fraudsters in the world come from countries where no visa to come to Canada is required.
AQAADI feels that Canada is not required to follow in the footsteps of countries like the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, or even New Zealand. Would it not be more prudent to wait to see how effective the measures are in those countries before imposing them here?
Finally, when biometric data are kept and when some visitors one day become Canadian citizens, we will be in a situation where our government is in possession of biometric information on its own citizens.
Thank you. That is what I had to say.