Mr. Speaker, I was quite interested in the remarks of the member. I have served with him on other committees and know that he takes these issues very seriously.
Has he had an opportunity to examine the Quebec government's privacy statements and privacy law? I have had an opportunity to meet with some of the public servants in Quebec who work on these issues of government information and how efficiencies are brought about. Quebec has quite a strong privacy policy but it also has a system that reconciles its protection of individual privacy with the use of tools, like unique identifiers and such, to deliver better services to citizens.
That is the nature of this debate from my perspective. There is always a problem moving in a new direction, particularly a direction that reformulates how governments do business. On the one hand, one response to that is to not do it, to run away and be afraid. Some of the things the member has said about fear of government and government processes are very high on that list. I will speak about this when I speak in more detail on this.
However I note that there has been some interesting and creative work done by the government in Quebec. Has the member had a chance to meet with the officials there to get a sense of how they reconcile both the need to access better health information to do better planning and provide better social policy and at the same time provide a guarantee of the right of personal privacy or the right to private life? It is a very difficult problem for legislators.