I do have to take issue with the government's stand, and the Green Party and opposition parties have been taking this stand from the very beginning, because we are putting some confidence in what the Privacy Commissioner said in his letter. He has certainly raised concerns.
As I said earlier, it's backed up by the privacy commissioners of all the provinces, with the exception of New Brunswick, and I don't even know if they had a privacy commissioner at the time. The parliamentary secretary said “some formal fancy arrangement to take place”.
We're not talking about fancy arrangements here; we're talking about agencies having a formal agreement for the sharing of information. Yes, in this day and age, it can still happen quickly with the technology we have available, but when there's a formal arrangement and officials within the department know they have to abide by it, you naturally give it a second thought: “Am I accurate in this information? Am I implicating somebody who shouldn't be implicated?”
It's a safeguard. It does not slow things down. It's a safeguard in terms of the protection of the privacy of Canadians, and it is a recommendation by people who understand these issues far better than we do.