Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a couple of comments and finish with a question.
The member referred often to the privacy commissioner. I happened to be on the committee that reviewed his appointment when he became the privacy commissioner. I remember asking the privacy commissioner the following question, “Since you are a journalist and journalism is not often associated with privacy rights, when exactly did you become interested in the privacy rights of Canadians?” He was honest in his answer. He said, “When they offered me the job”. Therefore I do not think we should just suggest that this one person is a guru in the privacy industry.
I am aware that we have substantive problems with regard to identity fraud, health fraud and the processing of people through security checks, whether it be border crossing at the U.S. border or whether it be at airports going on non-domestic flights.
The cost of identity fraud is about $2.5 billion. The cost of health fraud is estimated at $3 billion to $4 billion and maybe more, because we just do not know. Social insurance numbers exist far beyond the population of Canada. We have these problems.
The conclusion I would reach is that we have tremendous risk areas of cost losses or maybe opportunities lost because we are not correcting these problems. This provides an opportunity to recoup substantial revenues.
The members premise was that there is no relationship between the need to protect privacy and the threat of terrorism. I would submit and ask the member to comment whether she would not agree that if we were to eliminate the volume of checking of people who had smart cards that it would in fact free up the resources to do more comprehensive and effective security screening for those who do not have a card?