Madam Speaker, I would like to respond to some of the comments that have been made by members of the House. I appreciate the level of debate that has taken place today.
First of all, I believe the member for Winnipeg Centre made the suggestion that maybe it was not wrong and he did not have too much of a problem with the fact that a member of an aboriginal band in Alberta wrote a letter to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and that letter was leaked back to the chief and council.
For the benefit of the member and for the benefit of other members of the House—and it may not be understood by members—a letter to a minister of the crown written by an individual is considered to be privileged information, the same as any letter received by any one of us from one of our constituents is considered to be privileged information. As members of parliament we do not take that information and share it with the press or with other individual constituents, unless we have expressly received permission to do so by the original author of those letters or those communications. That is considered to be privileged information.
It is not up to the member for Winnipeg Centre or anybody else to make judgments about whether it was the right thing to do. The fact is, that is the law and the law was violated, and it was violated by members of the minister's department.
In listening to the debate I heard talk from other members and other parties about Bill C-6 and the government's initiatives with respect to the Privacy Act. I say to hon. members, and the parliamentary secretary in particular, that is all fine and well, but the parliamentary secretary would know that Bill C-6 is designed specifically with the private sector in mind.
Bill C-6 does nothing to address the concerns and the rights of individuals with respect to private information that is held by government institutions, and in this case by federal government institutions. There is no institution or organization that holds more personal private information on Canadian citizens than the federal Government of Canada. Therefore, it is the federal Government of Canada that this legislation is targeted toward, or ought to be targeted toward, more than any other organization. That is not to say that the private sector and the initiatives in Bill C-6 are not good initiatives.
I share the concerns that some institutions in the private sector have access to tremendous amounts of private information and I share the view that those private institutions ought to be responsible for the private information they hold and ought to be held accountable in law when they willfully break the privacy rights of Canadian citizens.
I would also respond to the parliamentary secretary, who said that it is difficult to ascertain what damages may be awarded when violations occur. Maybe it was the member from the Progressive Conservative Party who said that. I am not sure. I certainly would not want to attribute comments to the parliamentary secretary if in fact it was somebody else. However, I would say this. There are many instances in law where it is difficult to determine actual damages when there have been wilful violations. I use as an example the laws with respect to defamation, slander and libel. It is often difficult, if not impossible, to determine what actual financial harm has been done when one individual wilfully defames, slanders or libels another citizen. I do say, though, that as difficult as it might be for the courts to make those determinations, they are granted that purview and do their best to discharge that duty. The mere fact that there are penalties ascribed in law to people who would wilfully slander or libel is a tremendous deterrent and it makes us much more responsible as individuals when it comes to considering how we are going to conduct ourselves. That is why it is imperative that the Privacy Act be amended, that teeth be put into it so that there are real, tough and strict penalties that are attached to violations of those laws so that Canadians can feel much more secure about private information that is held concerning them, in particular private information that is held by the Government of Canada, but by other institutions as well.