Mr. Speaker, I would say that there is no way that having a national identity card would alleviate those fears of identity fraud. There was a day when none of us really thought about that whole notion, maybe even five years ago.
However, I even find myself wondering, when I am on the Internet, if somebody is now scanning my computer as I am on it, do I have the proper firewall and do I have the proper protection against identity theft.
Certainly, this card would not ensure that there would be no identity fraud any more. I think it is false faith. The minister is asking us to put our faith in a system, in a technology, that has not even been developed yet and is saying that this is the answer, this will end identity fraud, when in fact he cannot verify that.
He is asking Canadians to take a giant leap of faith. I would say, wait a minute, let us stop and take a very close look at this first. Let us solve the problems with the systems we have now before creating another one which could then suffer from the same kinds of problems.