I would suggest, Mr. Chair, that the scope of the bill is addressing a particular kind of activity. False pretense, as in fraud, is one of kind of activity, and theft is something else. And I wouldn't have thought that theft was the kind of activity that was within the scope of the bill.
In addition, I don't know what theft of personal information, by itself, really means. So I would caution against introducing into the Criminal Code a concept the law hasn't recognized up to this point; that is, theft of your wallet, yes, theft of a car, yes, but theft of information as such, information not by itself having any value, that is simply inherent in the concept of theft of what you're stealing, that what you're taking has value.
Conversion is a civil concept, which is, quite frankly, rather difficult to deal with in civil law and in my own opinion would not be a helpful concept to introduce into the criminal law.
So the concept of theft of information is simply, as Mr. Moore has noted, rather problematic. You're introducing into the law a concept that it has not recognized up to this point and is going to have some difficulty with. I'm not really sure what it would add. If you add problematic concepts to something, then it tends to undercut the effectiveness of the overall provision.
So those would be my comments, Mr. Chairman.