Mr. Speaker, the Liberal member for Markham is very knowledgeable on information technologies issues, judging from the comments he just made.
I would also like to mention that I started to work in this field in 1972. I worked in education and I have been a consultant for many years in Quebec, in Canada and internationally.
As a matter of fact, before being elected to this place, I was working on an MBA with a major in information technology. I was also the president of the Association de sécurité informatique du Québec. Accordingly, I am very familiar with security of information issues and I am especially interested in a bill like the one we are now debating.
I am especially interested in this debate since I had the privilege, in 1992, to present a brief, on behalf of the Association de sécurité en informatique du Québec, to the National Assembly, which was examining a bill to protect personal information in the private sector. That bill has now been enacted. It was passed four years ago, but it goes much further than what the government is now proposing.
Unfortunately, the government has only gone halfway and protected only in part personal information held by the private sector, i.e. information that is given in a commercial context. This is not the only type of information transmitted by computer. Thanks to the Internet, it is now much easier to provide information to recipients scattered around the globe.
I would like my colleague from Markham to tell us whether he believes that this bill should be much broader in scope, that it should in fact go as far as what has been done in Quebec instead of stopping halfway, because it has to be closely scrutinized. What does my colleague from Markham think about the fact that, if Bill C-54 is adopted without amendment, Quebeckers will lose rights that they have gained through the legislative process over the last four years?
It would be very difficult for Quebeckers to go back to the way things were four years ago before the Quebec government passed legislation in the leading-edge area of electronic commerce.
Would my colleague from Markam agree to see to it that the industry committee amends the bill so it goes as far as the four-year-old Quebec legislation? I await his answer.