Mr. Chair, I want to pick up on a couple of things the hon. member said. He talked a lot about identity theft and I think that is a very serious problem.
I think people are a lot more guarded today than they were a few years ago about what they do with information they get in the mail and just throwing it in the garbage. We know how easily it can be picked up and used by someone for criminal activities.
The member also said something that I think is very true. He said that we would be hard-pressed to find a working adult in Canada who does not have a credit card. I would certainly agree. In fact, we can barely get by these days without a credit card if we want to rent a car. There are all kinds of services that we need where we need to have a credit card. This takes us into the other part of the debate that we have been having here tonight, which is the issue of privacy and security.
I wonder if the hon. member would comment on what I know has been expressed by members in the NDP and particularly the member for Windsor West who has been raising issues of credit cards as it impacts on our right to privacy.
We know that under Canada's privacy laws and particularly under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act that a bank cannot collect, use or disclose personal information about customers without their consent. I think we all agree with that.
We are now very aware and very concerned about how information, when it is subcontracted to a company that may be doing its business in the U.S., is now subject to the U.S. patriot act. We have had a couple of very high profile examples in the last few weeks and even months. I think a lot of people are very concerned about whether or not Canadian laws are actually protecting our information when information is going through other routes into other processing centres, particularly in the U.S., and would then be subject to the patriot act.
I wonder if the member would comment on that and identify whether or not he also has concerns about that.