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.