Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise to speak on this opposition day. I would like to indicate that I will be sharing my time with the member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques.
First I wish to congratulate my colleagues from the party to the left—figuratively to the left, always to the left—the NDP, for the motion they introduced before us. That said, I will take the time to read it before discussing this issue:
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.
It is important, in my view, to debate this before the government implements this type of tool to identify the public. First, let us remember that on November 13, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration launched this idea of creating a national ID card.
Some citizens already have this card, landed immigrants or permanent residents for instance. Nevertheless, what the government wants to do with the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration's idea is to expand this measure, this identification tool, and to create a card. It will probably be an electronic card; that is what the government is saying. It is a smart card—a memory card—that would contain certain information about citizens.
Take fingerprints for example. This card would contain a person's fingerprints. Questions come to mind.
What are the government's true intentions with this measure? The government says that naturally it is to facilitate travel to the U.S., to make it so that Canadians will not have to have a visa to travel outside the country, especially to the United States.
We need to think about this. The government's idea raises some questions.
First, how should we define identity? Second, with respect to this national identity card, who is it for? Third, how important is it?
Let us recall a number of things, if this card is to exist. Let us not lose sight of the current system in which we are living. We, in this modern society, are not living in a police state. On the contrary, we live in a constitutional state, in a society that abides by the rule of law, which recognizes the right to anonymity, more specifically the right to privacy. This is recognized in societies that respect the rule of law, in societies such as ours.
Therefore, there is a real danger—I will quote the privacy commissioner in a moment—that we could shift from a constitutional state to a police state. I am sure that this is not the intention of the government, because we must protect the privacy of citizens.
I remind members that on November 1, 2002, the privacy commissioner said that in Canada, it has been well established that, and I quote:
—individuals do not have to identify themselves to police unless they are being arrested or unless they are carrying out a licensed activity such as driving.
He added, and this is exactly what I was referring to earlier in my comments:
The right to anonymity with regard to the state is a crucial privacy right.
Under the rule of law, protecting this privacy is fundamental. As far as I am concerned, it is clear that this type of national identity card could lead to a significant shift from a constitutional state to a police state, something that worries me as a citizen.
We all remember the HRDC megafile fiasco, where information on the public was gathered, to the great consternation of Quebeckers and Canadians. There was very strong pressure to abolish this centralized file. It is important to remember that the public mobilized on this issue specifically to put a stop to a centralized file, to put an end to a Big Brother state in a supposed democracy. So Quebeckers and Canadians thought that this centralized file violated their privacy.
The second important aspect relates to costs. In my opinion, the implementation costs of this kind of tool, that the state wants to use as a means of control and of centralizing information on its citizens, should be considered.
We must remember the past errors of this government. Think of the firearms registry, a program that should have cost only $2 million according to the government's estimates. But the costs spiralled upward. Instead of the estimated $2 million, this kind of program cost Canadian taxpayers over a billion dollars. This was a single-purpose program.
One may well be concerned about the cost estimate the government over there is going to give for a national identity card.
There is another aspect as well: the cost of identity fraud. It is wrong to say that this card cannot be counterfeited. We know the estimated annual cost to consumers, banks and credit card companies of card fraud is estimated by the Canadian Council of Better Business Bureaus at $2.5 billion.
We feel that there will be costs, not only the cost of implementing this program, this measure, but also the cost related to fraud. I think therefore that it is important to have a clear estimate of those costs.
The danger in this card is that it is not restrictive. There is a risk of this just being the first step on a slippery slope, with the government expanding its uses later on. The danger lies in the fact that we have a government that would put in place a measure that would start out just identifying citizens but could end up encompassing identification, medical records and banking information. This we are rejecting.
I will reiterate in closing the need for caution. Prudence and caution in a matter such as this are a far better route to take than excessive haste.
So, the reservations we have on this are many. I personally am completely opposed to the creation of a tool such as this one, which will eventually turn a constitutional state into a police state, where big brother can intrude on our fellow citizens' privacy.