Justice Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2007

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

It is definitely conversion. If I see Rob's wallet on the floor, and I see a credit card, and I know I can use that for committing an offence, then it becomes a conversion. Hopefully there's some limit left on it.

[William Bartlett]

I'm not sure that's conversion in the law.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

It's conversion of identification information, isn't it? We don't know.

[William Bartlett]

Well, conversion involves a rather complicated form of taking. Finding something is not taking it.

You pick it up off the ground, you return it to the person, you've committed no criminal offence, you've committed no civil tort. You look at the information. Is that a criminal offence or a civil tort? I think not.

If you look at the information and form the intent of using that, I just don't know quite how the law would deal with the very scenario you've given here. Is that theft? At what point did it become theft or conversion? When the thought entered the person's head that they could use this information to commit fraud or impersonation? When they picked the wallet up, it wasn't theft or conversion. So an hour later, when they're sitting there at the kitchen table and saying, “Gee, I could actually use this information”, does that then convert the point at which they picked it up into a theft or a conversion?

Conversion is a little bit more than simply coming into possession of something. It's a pretty complicated concept in the civil sphere. I would be rather hesitant to suggest that it should be added to the criminal sphere.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Hold on to your wallet.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

Mr. St. Amand.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

Just as a point of curiosity, a customer at a bank inadvertently leaves a bank card behind. A second or third person in line sees the PIN number or the code that allows them to access the card. The wrongdoer, then, who comes into possession of the card, has obtained the number by looking at the screen. So that person is obtaining personal information with respect to the owner of the bank card. What offence or section of the code currently covers that type of stealth?

The theft of the card, yes, they take the card. If the defence says, “Gee, I only stole the card”, what offence then allows the court to draw the further inference you stole the card clearly with the intent to bilk that individual because you acquired information personal to them?

[Joanne Klineberg]

There's actually a simple answer to that question, but your question nonetheless raises some larger issues. The answer to that question, which is relatively simple, but not necessarily in 100% of the cases, is that the credit card offences that are already in the Criminal Code equally apply to debit card offences. So the offence in relation to credit card data would also cover debit card data. Merely looking at, and then possessing or making a mental note of the debit card data, without there being any colour of right to have it, any justification to have it, and so on, may already, actually, be captured by those very specific offences.

That's the simple answer to that question, but if you vary the nature of the information at all, you lose the applicability of those offences, which are only credit card and debit card data. The suggestion to add “by theft” and the discussion that has ensued here I think give rise to what this committee identified two weeks ago, which was that pretexting, which is the subject matter of Bill C-299, is just one way in which identity information, for use in identity theft, can be obtained. There are a range of different ways in which information can be obtained: conversion of the information by looking over someone's shoulder, or by rummaging through their garbage cans, computer hacking, getting an insider to feed you the information.... Our understanding is that Bill C-299, with very good reason, aimed at one particular method—that is, by deception.

I do think if you go towards theft, conversion, and those other situations, yes, those are situations that we should all be looking at and considering. They may well be outside the scope of this particular bill, but I think it does reaffirm what members of this committee seemed to appreciate a few weeks ago, which was that Bill C-299 could be one step in the direction of more comprehensive law. From the perspective of making sure the Criminal Code makes the most sense, we would urge caution in adding things now until the time has been taken to look at what the consequences might be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Moore.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

That's fine, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Rajotte.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Klineberg made a lot of the points I wanted to make. I have a lot of sympathy for Mr. Lee's notion or idea. I think that needs to be addressed in more comprehensive government legislation. For his benefit, I did try to focus on one part of the identity theft problem, which was pretexting, but I would in fact like to see that discussed within more comprehensive government legislation. I hope, if this bill does pass, it does, in a very friendly way, encourage the government to move forward as quickly as possible on that legislation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Rajotte.

As far as the chair is concerned, I will rule the subamendment, the amendment to the amendment, inadmissible.

Mr. Moore.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Why didn't you do that 20 minutes ago?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I think we had a good discussion and a good debate. To me, the information that justice officials supplied was valuable for all. So thank you for that.

Amendment G-2 is moved by Mr. Moore.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 2 as amended agreed to)

(Clause 10 agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Given the fact that there were a number of changes to the bill, is there a motion to amend the title?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

It would be to delete “the Canada Evidence Act and the Competition Act”.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I move that we delete all the words in the title following the words, “Criminal Code”.

I'm sorry, we would retain the brackets following “Competition Act”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

The title would then read, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (personal information obtained by fraud)”.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Ms. Jennings.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I would propose that the amendment that's being suggested be further amended so that, in brackets, rather than reading “personal information obtained by fraud”, it would read “identification information obtained by fraud”. The “personal information” that's in the original title refers back to PIPEDA. The amendments that we just unanimously adopted remove all of that and actually use the term “identification information” rather than “personal information”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Moore.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I agree with that, “(identification information obtained by fraud)”, and I would add, “(for false pretence)”, since that is also the effect of government amendment G-2.