House of Commons Hansard #61 of the 37th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was quebec.

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Canada National Marine Conservation Areas ActGovernment Orders

7:10 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Gerald Keddy Progressive Conservative South Shore, NS

Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Party will be voting yes to the motion.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Division No. 98Government Orders

May 14th, 2001 / 7:10 p.m.

The Speaker

I declare the amendment lost.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Division No. 98Adjournment Proceedings

7:10 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Garry Breitkreuz Canadian Alliance Yorkton—Melville, SK

Mr. Speaker, in the House on February 20 I tried to get the Minister of Justice to address the injustice of having three and a half million citizens in an RCMP databank called FIP or Firearms Interest Police. All three and a half million are, without their knowledge or consent, in direct contravention of the Privacy Act of Canada, an act for which the minister herself is responsible.

Sources in the RCMP and the Sûreté du Québec confirm that there is a 50% error rate in the FIP databank. Sources in the Sûreté du Québec advise us that municipal and city police forces do not follow section 5 of the Firearms Act when loading personal information into the FIP.

The Sûreté du Québec has advised us that it took one investigator eight hours to clear the name of one improperly red flagged individual. Is this the culture of safety the minister envisioned with her billion dollar error riddled gun registration scheme?

The minister brags that potentially dangerous individuals have been blocked from buying guns or have had their firearms licences refused or revoked. How could she brag about a so-called success when the same thing could have been done 20 years ago with the FAC program? How could she call the FIP a success when it is based on information that is wrong 50% of the time?

The Minister of Justice says she is fully accountable and responsible. However she looks the other way when the personal information of three and a half million Canadians is loaded into an RCMP databank that contravenes all seven privacy rights guaranteed in the Privacy Act.

On February 16 the Privacy Commissioner of Canada wrote me a three page letter outlining his concerns about the RCMP's Firearms Interest Police database. Here are the key concerns Mr. Radwanski described in his letter.

First, the FIP database contains names of individuals that should not have been entered and even “contains the names of witnesses and victims”. Second, the police information and the FIP leads to investigations based on “unsubstantiated, hearsay and incorrect information”. Third, the police loaded incidents in the FIP not relevant to section 5 of the Firearms Act. Fourth, the police are conducting unnecessary investigations because the FIP file contains information on “cases where the charges have been dropped and the individuals have been acquitted”. Fifth, he said that there is no process in place to ensure that “improper or duplicate entries in the FIP files are removed or corrected”.

The last point that I would like to raise, and these are not exhaustive, is that the way the FIP database is set up makes it “extraordinarily difficult for individuals to exercise their access and correction rights”.

The government told Canadians that they have nothing to worry about if they have done nothing wrong. The privacy commissioner's letter proves that everyone has something to worry about, especially the three and a half million citizens in the RCMP's FIP file. When police are kept busy chasing down incorrect and unreliable information in this police database, it is possible for some criminals and truly violent individuals to escape detection.

My question is this: when will the minister implement the privacy commissioner's recommendations and fix this mess?

Division No. 98Adjournment Proceedings

7:15 p.m.

Erie—Lincoln Ontario

Liberal

John Maloney LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite seems to believe that the Minister of Justice is ignoring the recommendations of the privacy commissioner. In September 1999 the Department of Justice received an invitation from the privacy commissioner to do an informal inquiry into both what was right and what was wrong with the firearms program from a Privacy Act compliance point of view. The object of the inquiry was to fix any outstanding issues, if any. The Department of Justice accepted the commissioner's suggestion.

The annual report from the privacy commissioner discloses that in January 2000 he began a review of the firearms registry to thoroughly assess its personal information handling practices. He notes in his report that the deputy minister of justice has welcomed the review and awaits any observations and recommendations that would help the Canadian Firearms Centre meet its requirements under the Privacy Act.

The Canadian Firearms Centre examined that report in detail and had a meeting with the privacy commissioner's office in December 2000. In January 2001 the Canadian Firearms Centre submitted a report in writing expressing a number of improvements that could be made to the draft report. As of early March no response to the firearm centre's comments and request for examples of misuse of information had been received from the privacy commissioner. These are clearly not the actions of a minister, a department or a program that, in the words of the hon. member, continues to ignore the recommendations of the privacy commissioner.

I would like to address the member's second concern, that information used to make public safety decisions when deciding on eligibility for a firearms licence exceeds the authority of the minister and the Firearms Act. The House passed Bill C-68 after a lengthy debate. Section 5 of the Firearms Act specifies that a person is not eligible to hold a firearms licence if it is desirable in the interest of the safety of that person or any other person that the applicant not possess a firearm described in the statute.

To set the framework for making this determination, the legislated statute makes specific references to offences under the criminal code, such as an offence where violence is used, threatened or attempted, and offences respecting criminal harassment. Offences respecting drugs are specifically mentioned. Persons who have been treated for a mental illness are specifically mentioned where violence, threatened, attempted or used, is a concern. Finally, a history of behaviour that includes violence, threatened or attempted, against any person is specifically mentioned. Evidence of these factors could render an applicant ineligible for a firearms licence.

Gathering information in respect of these criteria is central to the public safety. The requirement of section 5—

Division No. 98Adjournment Proceedings

7:15 p.m.

The Speaker

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7.19 p.m.)