Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity after the member's remarks to pose a question to her. It arises out of my earlier remarks in which I observed that the bill is deficient insofar as it does not clearly and explicitly explain what the parameters are in sensitive personal information when it comes to fundraising for donor lists for non-profit organizations.
Moreover, in another aspect it also is very deficient in that if a person knows that their name is held as a result of donating to some charity or another and they go to that direct marketing firm that has their name on that list and ask that direct marketing firm how many other lists their name has been distributed to, how many organizations it is out to, according to the legislation as I see it, because of commercial proprietary reasons that direct marketing firm can withhold that personal information about how a person's name is being used and who it has been given to.
I have a list from an organization in the United States that has this kind of information. It gets the names of these individuals because these individual organizations approach the organization to do direct mail fundraising in Canada for them. It has the list and once it has done direct mail fundraising for a particular organization, it offers that list of names to other organizations for hire or for rent.
For example, the Canadian Abortion Rights League is a group of 7,500 women. We can get their names, as well as the International Planned Parenthood Federation. So someone who is perhaps very virulently anti-abortion can get the information of all those individuals who directly support abortion with their money. I submit that is a very dangerous thing.
I mentioned also that this list contains 73,000 Canadian Jewish donors. I submit to the member that this is a highly dangerous thing because organizations that may be engaged in anti-Semitic activities can therefore access this information one way or another, yet the legislation does not prevent this information from being given out.
When I as an MP have tried in the past to get information from my own government about the funding of women's programs or anti-poverty programs, the names of the individuals involved have often been withheld in this information. I have not even been able to get them under access to information on the grounds that those who seek government grants, either poverty groups, women's groups or other minority groups, need the protection of the government that has their personal information sought as grants. It is very hard to get this information.
Yet on this list to this direct marketer in the United States, this for profit fundraiser, we find the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. There are 5,000 names there. Immediately underneath it is the National Anti-Poverty Organization. There are 17,000 names there. The National Association of Women and the Law, 1,300 names. Under that we have the National Gay and Lesbian Rights Supporters. These are all actually in alphabetical order.
I submit to the member opposite that there is something dreadfully wrong when an MP cannot get the basic information of who these people are who support these organizations. I am not saying that we should but we as MPs cannot get that information from the government even though the government is funding these organizations. Yet for mere money we can go to the United States and get the names of every one of these people.
Is this something that is acceptable to the hon. member? Does she not think that these organizations should not be giving their donor name lists to an American organization and should we strengthen Bill C-54 in such a way as to make this type of thing not occur?