House of Commons Hansard #59 of the 37th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was information.

Topics

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Mr. Speaker, today I have four separate petitions, all from my riding of Red Deer.

The first two petitions have been signed by 128 people who do not want Bill C-250 to be passed in any form into federal law.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Mr. Speaker, the third petition has been signed by 27 people who call upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research to find the cures and therapies necessary to treat suffering Canadians.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Mr. Speaker, the fourth petition has been signed by 209 individuals who pray that Parliament will take all necessary measures to ensure that materials which promote pedophilia involving children are outlawed.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

John M. Cummins Canadian Alliance Delta—South Richmond, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present this morning.

The first petition is directed to the House from shrimp fishermen on the west coast. They are concerned about the government's plan to impose exorbitant management fees directly on active shrimp fishermen. They claim that the fees will essentially put them out of business. It will increase their costs by a factor of four.

I do understand that the minister may be addressing this issue, and appreciate it, but this is certainly encouragement for him to continue his efforts in that direction.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

John M. Cummins Canadian Alliance Delta—South Richmond, BC

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I have concerns child pornography.

The petitioners note that Parliament is not expressing the wishes of people on this matter. They call upon Parliament to protect our children and to put laws in place that will do just that.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

John M. Cummins Canadian Alliance Delta—South Richmond, BC

Mr. Speaker, the third petition concerns the coast guard.

The petitioners note that the coast guard no longer has sufficient resources to do the job that we expect of it. It is short of hovercraft on the west coast. Certainly the non-financing of the newly reinstated dive team is a concern as well.

The petitioners call upon the House to direct the minister to put in place more funding for the coast guard.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:35 a.m.

Bloc

Suzanne Tremblay Bloc Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the member for Laval Centre, who is the Bloc Quebecois critic on disability issues, I am pleased to table a petition signed by almost 6,000 people, who ask that Parliament object to any plans to restrict access to the disability tax credit and to ensure that the government hold off on passing any measures in the House without prior discussions and consultations with disability organizations and health care professionals.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:35 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Grant McNally Canadian Alliance Dewdney—Alouette, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to present two petitions on behalf of my constituents, the first one being signed by 66 individuals who are against the slaughter of horses and the sale of horse meat for human consumption.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:35 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Grant McNally Canadian Alliance Dewdney—Alouette, BC

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by several thousand people from my riding who are opposed to child pornography and who would like Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia and sado-masochistic activities involving children are outlawed.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:35 a.m.

Liberal

Gurbax Malhi Liberal Bramalea—Gore—Malton—Springdale, ON

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I have the honour to present a petition signed by many constituents from the greater Toronto area.

The petitioners are concerned that rural route mail couriers often earn less than minimum wage and have no collective bargaining guides under section 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act. They are calling upon Parliament to repeal this section of the act and ensure that these basic rights are available to all rural route mail couriers.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:35 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Larry Spencer Canadian Alliance Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions this morning to present, one from eastern Canada and one from western Canada. Both are calling upon Parliament to write laws that outlaw all types of child pornography materials.

Questions on the Order PaperRoutine Proceedings

10:35 a.m.

Bras D'Or—Cape Breton Nova Scotia

Liberal

Rodger Cuzner LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

Questions on the Order PaperRoutine Proceedings

10:35 a.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

Is that agreed?

Questions on the Order PaperRoutine Proceedings

10:35 a.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:35 a.m.

NDP

Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the introduction of a national identity card offends the principle of privacy and other civil rights of Canadians and this House therefore opposes its introduction.

Mr. Speaker,we hope the debate today will be an opportunity for all members of the House to state their opinions, positions and concerns about the proposal for a national identity card.

I would like to begin my remarks by quoting from the federal privacy commissioner George Radwanski. He said:

The right to anonymous is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.

He went on to say in a speech that he gave at Carleton University in Ottawa last March, that:

We need to make loss of privacy the exception, not the new way of doing business.

He went further and said that:

The burden of proof must always be on those who say that a new intrusion on privacy is necessary to meet some important social need.

He went on further to articulate and lay out some of the tests that would be involved in whether a need had been established.

I point out, Mr. Speaker, that I am sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg—Transcona.

On that basis, the burden of proof is on the government to show why a national identity card should be introduced.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration came to the standing committee last week. I was there when he spoke. Although he said we needed to have an open debate and he and the government welcomed ideas from the committee and Canadians, I really felt the minister seemed quite intrigued with and sold on the idea that we needed a national identity card. He presented it on the basis that there were issues around national security and that there was a need to have information contained in a card that could be clearly identified, and so on.

However, he also raised another question which I found quite disturbing. At the committee meeting, he said:

--any debate about identity cards should not centre exclusively on issues of national security. Far more important are the issues of citizenship and entitlement to services.

He then went on to say:

--it will be important to acknowledge that we have before us more than an opportunity to debate an identity card. We are also seeking to clarify what it means to be a citizen, a Canadian... Establishing one's identity goes to the very essence of these questions.

This is disturbing because it raises the spectre that somehow the state has the power to not only create a national identity card, maybe for the purposes of some sort of security, but also now because it revolves around the question of establishing what is a Canadian identity, what is one's own self identity. It seems to me that the state has no business in that determination. Who we are as Canadians is something that we individually have the right to determine. That is not a power that can be or should be conferred on the state.

In looking at the question of whether there is a need for a national identity card, already quite a debate has unfolded. Some of the very dangerous situations that could come from a national identity card have already been articulated and it really moves us into a very slippery slope.

There is no question that such a card can be seen as a tremendous invasion of privacy, as set forward by the privacy commissioner. A widely used identity card would in effect allow the state and various enforcement agencies like the police to monitor the movements of citizens.

I am sure the minister will tell us today that the card will only be used for specific purposes, that it will be well guarded and our privacy will be well guarded, but this is the thin edge of the wedge. This is the beginning of a whole new kind of society where personal information about each of us will be encoded on a card, stored somewhere and used in a variety of ways.

That is a fundamental concern based on principle. Beyond that, there are other concerns. One concern is, if the national identity card did exist, it would be opened to abuse. Some say that they have the most honourable of reasons for having the cards, but once the system is in place it is open to abuse by police and various other authorities. Also, it can be used to harass, for example, minority groups by demanding that the identity cards be shown, if they are stopped.

We have other identity cards such as a drivers licence or a passport, and they are used for specific purposes. However to have everything wrapped up in one card and if someone fails to produce that card, it sets the stage for more intrusive searches and for racial profiling, which we have already seen post-September 11.

The New Democratic Party has been very vigilant in calling the government to account for allowing practices of racial profiling to take place at the border, for example. We believe the introduction of a national identity card will take us further into that kind of environment where minorities become subject to harassment and abuse by authorities.

This card will allow for very controlled information. The individual, who is the subject of that card, will have no knowledge as to whom may share that information. I would like to quote from a constitutional lawyer, Mr. Morris Manning, who appeared before the immigration committee on February 10. He said:

If it goes to the RCMP it will surely go to the FBI. If it goes to the FBI it will surely go to Interpol and if it goes to Interpol it will be disseminated around the world.

He issued that as a warning as to what kind of direction we would be taking as a Canadian society if we embarked on this venture of a national identity card.

We have been told that the United States will become a lot stricter in its rules and requirements for allowing people to cross the border. A national identity card may be one way to respond to this. However it is ironic, while we are considering the use of this card, that within the United States there is no such discussion about a card. We have to wonder who is calling the shots here. Are we as a society willing to give up our privacy? Are we willing to abandon civil rights on the basis that somehow our Canadian passport is not a legitimate document to travel with across the border?

The NDP has very serious concerns about the card. We encourage members of the House to think about where this proposal will take us. We hope that members of the House will look at the substantial reasons around principle and substance that should make us incredibly cautious about moving in this direction. We should send a message to the minister who, according to various news reports, does not necessarily have the support of cabinet. In fact there may be voices on the other side that are very concerned about this.

We hope the debate today will allow an airing of opinions and positions and will send a message to the government that this is not the way that we should go. We should protect the privacy and the rights of Canadians. We should not allow this identity card to become the thin edge of the wedge. We should not go down a slippery slope to a different kind of society I think that none of us want to see in Canada.

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:45 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Roy H. Bailey Canadian Alliance Souris—Moose Mountain, SK

Mr. Speaker, while I was travelling in Europe recently, I found that a number of countries had these cards and had them for some time. In asking about the card, officials cited many benefits to it. However some officials took the same approach as the member has taken. It appears, however, that this card has become quite a common thing for people to carry, like we carry our drivers licence.

Why do countries in Europe look positively on the identity card, but we hear only negative things about it here?

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:45 a.m.

NDP

Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments. There has been some debate already about the benefits. One benefit is that it will help deal with theft. People lose their credit cards and other cards. If there are security measures around this card, it will somehow deal with that.

However the irony is when we place so much information in one card, from the point of view of someone who wants to steal that information, it becomes an even more valuable item to access. Even from a security point of view in terms of theft, which is supposedly one of the benefits, there are some very serious questions.

Just because these cards exist elsewhere should in no way compel us to embark on a similar course of action. We have a tradition in this country of respecting privacy and individual rights. We have documents and cards for individual purposes. I would ask the question back to the member. What is wrong with that system? Is that not adequate to deal with the purposes of travel, driving or other kinds of identification?

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:50 a.m.

Canadian Alliance

Howard Hilstrom Canadian Alliance Selkirk—Interlake, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am 100% opposed to the identification cards that the government wants all Canadians to possess. I refer back to the requirement of the government that all firearms owners to have a card of identification.

The Privacy Commissioner has indicated very clearly that the questions asked on the form to get personal firearm licence cards create a big government databank on individuals which is against the privacy rights of Canadians. That issue has not been fully addressed.

Is that the concern of the member with this motion today, that in fact the privacy and the civil liberties of Canadians are being trampled upon by the Liberal government?

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:50 a.m.

NDP

Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Speaker, coming back to the comments of the privacy commissioner, he has said very clearly that the burden of proof has to be on the government or agency which wants to intrude upon privacy. They have to clearly establish that it is for a particular purpose.

The member has raised the gun registry. Whenever a new card or a new system of registration is created, it must always be on the basis of some established need. The onus in terms of public policy is on all of us to demonstrate that exists.

The idea of a national identity card as a super card or a mega-card goes way beyond anything we have ever seen in terms of the need for individual cards or registration. We can argue on the gun registry, but we should be clear that the national identity card will go way beyond that in terms of whatever specific need has been demonstrated.

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:50 a.m.

NDP

Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB

Mr. Speaker, I am also opposed to a national identity card.

Recently, for example, a computer hard drive belonging to an insurance company and credit union in Regina was stolen. The company called its clients to tell them, “check your bank balance, because some money might be missing”.

Imagine if people had a card with all their personal information. If they lost their card, what might happen? It might fall into the hand of people who, with today's technology, would be able to decode all the information in the card. This offends the principle of privacy.

What does the member think of this kind of card containing all an individual's, a Canadian's, personal information and the right to privacy in Canada?

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:50 a.m.

NDP

Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has raised a very good graphic example of what already happens and how we have to be vigilant about the protection of data. That is under an existing situation. We have even had situations in the House where data has been shared between departments. That has been a huge issue at HRDC.

Again it really elevates and raises the concern of what would happen if we had a national card and some sort of centrally controlled databank and how that would impact on the privacy of people.

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:55 a.m.

NDP

Bill Blaikie NDP Winnipeg—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I think the member for Vancouver East has put the argument against a national identity card well and I hope to be able to elaborate a little bit on it, but first I want to reiterate what was said by the member for Vancouver East, that the NDP sees itself today as providing the House with an opportunity to hear people out on this emerging issue. It is an emerging issue in part because the minister has made it one by going around and talking about it in committee and elsewhere. Clearly he would like to hear not just from Canadians but, I presume, from other members of Parliament about this, and that is what this debate is about today.

I think we will find or I hope we will find that this is an issue that does not fall neatly into any sort of right or left categories, that there will be people on all parts of the political spectrum who will have concerns. Obviously as the NDP and as a left wing party we have concerns, but I would imagine that people on the right wing of the political spectrum would also have concerns about this to the extent that this increases the power of the state, et cetera. To the extent that Liberals have any principles at all, perhaps they could draw on whatever principles they have to come up with an analysis, but I am just not sure what those principles are.

I see that the minister is in the House and presumably he is going to respond in the debate. I thank him for his presence here today. I look forward to hearing what he has to say on the matter.

One of the things that disturbs me most about this is that I see a pattern developing here. I was the justice critic during the time of the introduction of the anti-terrorism legislation, Bill C-36 . I certainly had the feeling at that time from the then justice minister, now the health minister, when I listened to her in committee, that we were not doing this entirely of our own accord, that we were not doing this entirely for our own reasons.

Many times I would listen to the minister and it would seem to me that what she was saying was code for the fact that “we are doing this”, and in that case they were actually doing something and at this point the minister is only thinking about it, but he is thinking about it, it seems to me, because somebody else wants him to think about it. Here I am thinking of our neighbours to the south.

I know that certain elements of the anti-terrorism legislation were designed in order to please Washington and I wonder whether a similar thing is not happening here. Of course one of the other similarities is that sometimes we actually go further than the Americans themselves would. There were elements of the anti-terrorism legislation, Bill C-36, that went further than the anti-terrorism legislation that we found in the United States.

For instance, I think that the sunset provisions in some of the anti-terrorism legislation in the United States were actually better than the sunset provisions or so-called sunset provisions in Bill C-36. With respect to a national identity card we have a similar thing happening because here we have Canadians considering whether or not to have a national identity card, yet the issue is not really an issue at all in the United States.

In fact, I understand that the United States Congress, at least, is so wary of such an idea that it inserted a line in the bill that created the Department of Homeland Security which reads like this: “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize the development of a national identification system or card”.

If there is any truth to what I am saying the minister will have an opportunity to stand up and deny it, I suppose, although whether that will change my mind or not is another matter. But if there is any truth to what I am saying, that this is somehow in part responding to what the Americans want us to do, that somehow they do not feel a Canadian passport is good enough anymore at the border so they want Canadians to be able produce a national ID card, it is not the first time that we have gone further than the Americans themselves are willing to go when it comes to this whole response to the new environment created by September 11, 2001.

I think the government is once again set on this course. When listening to the minister it seems it is. Even though we are having a discussion and he wants to hear what people have to say, it seems to me that he is pretty intent on this. Once again we are striking the wrong balance between freedom and security and erring, I think, too much on the side of so-called security.

I say so-called security because it seems to me that there is not a whole lot of evidence that a national ID card will make anybody any safer and will prevent terrorism or be the kind of tool that is absolutely necessary for the detection of terrorists or whatever. Terrorists are terrorists and they know how to produce false ID. It will be ordinary Canadians who will have their lives most significantly changed by this if the government goes ahead with it. This is why we are very much against this idea.

We have the privacy commissioner, who is very concerned about this, and I think that if we appoint these people like Mr. Radwanski to be the privacy commissioner and to think deeply about these issues, we should pay attention to what they person has to say about these things. Clearly he is very concerned about the idea of a national ID card.

He is also concerned, and this is another area where the government is not listening to Mr. Radwanski, about the invasion of privacy that the government is contemplating through the legislation which would enable the government to collect data on where Canadians travel on every plane they take and keep that information for up to six years or something like that, I think. At one point, still, but not for very long if the government has its way, one would like to think that one could catch a plane, travel around the country and not have that information going into a data bank somewhere and being analyzed for a variety of purposes, not all of them necessarily for a good purpose. The existence of that kind of data at all, it seems to me, is unwarranted.

Here we have a pattern emerging, I guess this is what I am trying to say, we have a pattern emerging where, on the basis of what happened on that one day on September 11, 2001, we are transforming our whole way of life. We are transforming our notions of what constitutes appropriate power, power of the state. We are transforming our notions of privacy. We are transforming our notions of freedom. We are transforming our notions of security. I think the government is consistently getting it wrong on this and it is going to get it wrong one more time if it proceeds with the national ID card.

As a final point, one can only imagine how much this will cost. In the short term, if it happens quickly, it will be run by Liberals. When one thinks of what they were able to do in terms of mismanagement when it came to the gun registry, when it comes to this they could bankrupt the country. This could make the gun registry look like a molehill compared to the mountain that the Liberals certainly would be able to create with this. I do not know which company that is a friend of the Liberals this would be contracted out to, but--

SupplyGovernment Orders

11 a.m.

Liberal

Sarkis Assadourian Liberal Brampton Centre, ON

That's a bit too low. Come on.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11 a.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

We didn't think you were a cheap artist.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11 a.m.

NDP

Bill Blaikie NDP Winnipeg—Transcona, MB

Oh, they seem a little sensitive about that, Mr. Speaker. I do not know, maybe it has something to do with recent history.

In any event, one of the things that we all have to be concerned about is not just the principle but also the practicality of it. One can certainly imagine what kind of cost overrun might be involved here. I do not know whether the minister is going to give us an estimate today, but I guess we would have to check the record to see how much we should multiply that estimate by in order to come up with what the real cost will be down the road.

I say this only half in jest because we do know that there was a very, very serious cost overrun when it came to the gun registry. I wanted to put that on the record, but my main point of course is the objection in principle to the idea of a national ID card and to the invasion of privacy that this would represent. It is part of a pattern in which the government has been involved since September 11, 2001. I would ask the minister to consider very seriously not just the arguments that we have made but the arguments that many other people are making about whether or not this is in fact an advisable way to proceed.