Thank you.
I hope you'll be as generous with me as you always are with Mr. Ménard.
Before I ask my questions, I want to go on record and say that of course we're in strong support of this. Our leader, Stéphane Dion, speaking on a major crime bill a year ago in Toronto said:
To protect Canadian seniors, we will act on the recommendations of the Privacy Commissioner to address the problem of identity theft. There were almost 8,000 reports of identify theft in the past year, resulting in more than $16 million being lost, much of it taken from vulnerable seniors. A lifetime of hard work and savings can vanish in an instant. We need tougher laws to prevent this type of crime.
As I said at length in my speech in the House, and just for Canadians watching, make sure you don't give up your address, phone number, bank account, or your social insurance card for anything because people can set up bank accounts in your name and take out mortgages. Businesses should be careful because they could have to spend lots of money on employee information that's been lost.
We really appreciate your doing this, Minister. I have a couple of questions.
One, a Conservative member from Saskatoon--Wanuskewin was caught by this and lost a lot of money. Of course, he greatly supports this. I think he erred when he said the government would not be accepting much in the way of amendments. I'm hoping he wasn't speaking for the minister. I know the minister is not anti-democratic. We have a purpose in having committees. We want to improve the bill if there's a way and maybe make it tougher if things come up from witnesses. I certainly hope the minister is in agreement with our improving the bill if that's what comes forward from our deliberations.