Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak this afternoon to this group of motions.
I want to say from the very start that the New Democrats actually applaud the efforts of the Reform members of parliament to strengthen Bill C-6 to protect medical privacy. We believe these motions are extremely important because medical records contain the most intimate, personal, potentially embarrassing and stigmatizing information that is ever collected about us, Mr. Speaker. You know that situation from your own experience. It affects all of us since at some point in our lives we all seek medical care of one kind or another.
These motions are extremely important because medical information is very vulnerable to abuse, which I suppose is the quiet theme throughout Bill C-6. We must remember that the primary purpose for collecting personal medical information from the patient is for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of that patient. This is the reason we confide information to our physician in the first place. If we cannot trust our physicians or medical clinics to keep highly sensitive and personal facts confidential, a crucial foundation of the relationship between the patient and the doctor is undermined. If that happens, patients will be less willing to divulge personal information and this could affect the diagnosis and treatment.
These motions before us underline exactly what is at stake for patients in this debate. The decisions we take on these motions as policymakers could have a profound impact on the delivery and quality of health care in our country. We New Democrats believe that there can be no trade-offs in this debate. There can be no balancing of medical privacy with other competing interests. Trade-offs do not serve the patients or the medical establishment at all. Patients are owed the right of confidentiality and we must ensure that this is enforced.
We support the Reform motions that seek to guarantee each patient in the country the right to medical privacy.
We strongly support Motion No. 18 which prohibits financial institutions from obtaining the personal medical information of citizens. They do not need this information and can only very weakly attempt to argue that they need access to this type of personal information about Canadian individuals.
New Democrats believe that simply because of changes in technology, in other words the computerization of medical records, patient privacy or values should not be compromised.
We will support the Reform motions that make a significant effort toward strengthening the provisions of Bill C-6 in respect of medical privacy.
I now refer to some of the Liberal motions. I know you study the motions carefully, Mr. Speaker. These motions respond to a concern raised by government and law enforcement agencies in respect to investigations. We support these motions because they are needed in order to maintain the status quo when it comes to government and law enforcement investigative procedures.
Earlier today we expressed concern about this because we have heard that the funding for the RCMP investigation branch in British Columbia is woefully short of money. It is to the point where a spokesperson for RCMP Division E on the west coast of Canada said they would have to call off police investigations because they simply did not have the financial resources to proceed.
This sends a very inappropriate signal to those in society who we consider to be unscrupulous people, people who are con artists or swindlers of one kind or another. Basically it says that in British Columbia if people who are participating in some illegal or fraudulent activity, stock market manipulations or swindling get caught, which is highly unlikely, even then probably nothing will happen to them because the RCMP simply does not have the resources to proceed with an investigation.
As members of parliament we have to listen to this RCMP spokesperson. We all know RCMP officers or members of their families. They are reluctant to complain publicly about anything to do with their effectiveness as police officers or their ability to enforce the law. Therefore when a spokesperson for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police writes a letter and makes it public to say that he is sorry that they cannot uphold the law in that part of Canada, then there is something terribly wrong. That is an RCMP officer's way of screaming to the public. We would think that writing a letter is still pretty quiet but for the RCMP this is a major statement that they are in serious financial trouble.
I know you are deeply concerned, Mr. Speaker. I know that you are often troubled about these sorts of issues, but let us face it. It is something that we have to take a lot more seriously. I urge the solicitor general to give this more thought.
Going back to the Liberal motions before us, I want to make it very clear that the New Democrats will support these motions. They are needed in order to maintain the situation now when it comes to investigative police work. These motions basically mean that private groups must disclose, without consent, personal information on citizens to government and law enforcement agencies when they are requested to do so for investigative purposes in the interest of national security.
Ideally, to be fair, New Democrats would prefer that if law enforcement agencies ask for personal information on citizens that they be required to obtain a search warrant and establish reasonable grounds for both the need and the purpose of obtaining the personal information. However, in this case we believe it is more important that Bill C-6 be passed now and that consumers be given the privacy protection they deserve which in our judgment is what this bill does. We would like to see it a lot tougher but it is not a perfect world.
We will certainly not be an obstacle to law enforcement agencies carrying out their responsibilities. I want to make it clear that while we support the Reform and Liberal motions, we would like to see the bill strengthened in a number of areas to ensure greater privacy protection on behalf of Canadians. However, it is a significant step in the right direction.
We are dealing here with what can only be described as the modern day version of the industrial revolution. We are changing the way Canadians do business. We are changing the way we as individuals conduct our business affairs.
When it comes to electronic commerce, where on a daily basis we are seeing seven people signing every second of the day on to the Internet, there is a small but very significant revolution taking place before us. I suppose like most revolutions we often do not know they are taking place until they are kind of over and we realize there has been a major revolution or a major change in the way things have occurred.
We are in one of these processes. As we attempt to become one of or perhaps the most electronically connected country in the world, providing leadership to other countries in terms of what to do, Bill C-6 is a major step in that direction. It indicates as a priority the need to protect the privacy of information and to ensure people feel secure that when they provide information electronically they will not be revealing anything they are not intending to reveal.