Mr. Speaker, I think that was an excellent question posed by my hon. colleague from the NDP. I remember when we were dealing with the particular issue in committee that same question was raised by a number of people especially concerned about, as the hon. member mentioned, the transfer of public sensitive documents to the private sector.
He and I may disagree at least on some of the philosophy behind that sort of trend happening, but what I will try to address is his particular question on whether or not the bill extends to protect privacy, if this is continuing to happen, to whoever is managing the particular information.
To my knowledge, when we dealt with this in committee that was the case. The goal was to strengthen privacy particularly in areas where there was sensitive documentation, whether managed publicly or privately, and that the same rules would apply, especially in the transfer of that information. Currently we have strong regulations in place in many cases for privacy in dealing with the sale of that information to other organizations, especially if it is treated as confidential. On that level, I was satisfied with the direction of the bill. I think it does deal with the hon. member's concern.
One thing I will reiterate, and I mentioned this to my hon. colleague before, is that we should not necessarily be afraid of some of these private companies that are dealing with sensitive information because they are bound by confidentiality. They are providing a service and in order for them to continue to do business and to have the public confidence, they have to make sure that they are very strict about those regulations.