Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to the NDP opposition day motion which states:
That, in the opinion of this House, the introduction of national identity card offends the principle of privacy and other civil rights of Canadians and this House therefore opposes its introduction.
I am proud that it was our House leader, the member for Vancouver East, who introduced the motion, seconded by the member for Winnipeg--Transcona. Both have spoken very well on the subject and have articulated clearly what some of the NDP's reservations are about the introduction of such a measure.
I thank my colleague from Windsor--St. Clair for sharing his time with me and for so eloquently speaking to this subject just a moment ago.
I will open my remarks, as have some of the other members, with a quote from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, George Radwanski, not just because he puts the point so well but because it gets up the noses of the Liberal MPs so effectively. Some clearly disapprove of Mr. Radwanski's comments. His comments irritate them, so it is all the more reason for me to dwell on them extensively in my speech.
In 2002, Mr. Radwanski in a speech to the Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs said that in a free society:
We need to make loss of privacy the exception, not the new way of doing business. And we need to have an attitudinal change that both recognizes the threats and places limits on them. 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. Every such proposal should be calmly and carefully assessed on its own merit. It should be tested against four key criteria.
It is important to put these tests forward here today. We must ask ourselves if the introduction of national identification cards will meet these tests to see if the cards are truly necessary or if there is merit to them.
The first test that Mr. Radwanski suggested is, is there a demonstrable necessity to address some specific problem? What is the goal, what is the objective, what is the Liberal government seeking to achieve? We have not really heard clearly from the Liberal members to date, other than the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration who pointed out that for the narrow purposes of the immigration file, he sees the need in terms of immigration.
Second, is it demonstrably likely to be effective in addressing that problem? We have heard members, such as the member from St. John's, Newfoundland, who seriously doubt whether the introduction of the card would even achieve what few specifics the Liberal government was willing to share with us. It was pointed out as well the very real concern that the introduction of the card by the government's own estimates would cost about $3.6 billion and that is if everything went perfectly smoothly. If recent examples are any indication, such as the disaster of the gun registry, we could expect cost overruns of god knows how much over that $3.6 billion.
Surely it is not demonstrably likely to be effective in addressing even the narrow range of problems that have been brought to our attention by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
Third, is the reduction in privacy proportional to the benefit to be derived? Most of us would argue that in a free society the minimizing and trivializing of the issue of privacy is not equal to any benefit that might be derived.
Fourth, is there no other less privacy invasive alternative that could accomplish the same purpose? In other words, have we exhausted every other avenue of recourse to achieve the goals as outlined or the reasons that ID cards should be put forward? I would say that the answer is no, that we have not exhausted this idea.
We have seen member after member rise today to express concern at the loss of privacy, the erosion of our personal freedoms, and the very things by which we define ourselves as Canadians. We have heard very little from the government side as to why these cards would be necessary, other than a professed convenience. We would be lumping all of the other forms of ID into one information card.
Some people are offended even more than I. People were speaking to me in the lobby, asking why we would stop at this national ID card, why not have a microchip implanted under our skin and we could pass by some kind of a screen and the government would have all the information it needed on all of us. Another even more cynical person said we should have a tattoo of a bar code on our forearm and it could be scanned. Maybe having it across our foreheads would be more applicable, especially in the case of the member for Winnipeg South. It would cover up part of his expansive forehead.
Many people view the introduction of a national ID card in much the same vein as these comments about a microchip or a bar code. I guess it is clear from all of the speakers here that Canadians are not willing to forfeit any of the personal freedoms we enjoy as Canadian citizens, especially when no one has made the case as to why it is necessary to do so. We should always tread very carefully when we go down the slippery slope of the erosion of personal freedoms in this country. In the absence of a compelling argument as to why it is necessary, we probably will follow the lead of other countries like Australia and the United Kingdom which have considered this issue, contemplated it, given it serious debate and rejected the idea.
I suppose that using our opposition day motion is pre-emptive in a way. We are hoping to convince the ruling party that Canadians stand fairly united and have reached a fair consensus that this is an intrusion into their personal freedoms that they are not willing to accept.
Other speakers before me have mentioned valuable comments from one of the country's leading constitutional lawyers, Morris Manning. He recently joined immigrant and multicultural groups in denouncing the proposal for a national identity card. He said that Hungary's constitution bans it and it has been ruled illegal in the Philippines. These are countries that contemplated the introduction of such a card. As I said, the government of Australia nearly collapsed over plans to introduce such a card 15 years ago. Mr. Manning warned the immigration committee chair that the ID cards would increase racial profiling, would do little to combat terrorism or identify fraud, and would invade people's privacy by creating a huge database of information.
As a Manitoban, I have a graphic illustration of how personal data can be compromised. When the Filmon Tory government was in power, it privatized and contracted out, sold if you will, the health data on Manitobans, the private personal information about their personal health. The government contracted that out to a private firm, much against the hue and cry of many Manitobans.
That firm, as companies will do, then merged and was sold to another American firm. Now my personal health information is in the hands of a private company in Houston, Texas. I do not know if it is going to sell my personal health information to a drug company that might want to solicit me to buy a certain product, or sell that database to a magazine subscription company. How do we know, once it gets into that realm, if it is really secure?
There is no perfectly secure database system that cannot be compromised. The more important data that is put on that card, the more interesting it is for those who would have nefarious purposes for that card to access that information and steal it. It makes it a target for those who have the wherewithal to compromise the cards.