Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to work with the member for Edmonton—Leduc since 2002, on the industry committee and on private members' business, and I know his legislation is always thoughtful. However, on this particular bill, some issues need to be examined.
Overall, I see the strategy the member is pursuing here. He is trying to focus on a particular aspect of three different acts that has left a gaping wound in the public privacy of Canadians right now and the repercussions for individuals who are abusing the public trust in many respects. This is a serious crime because identity theft threatens not only adults, but also the youth in our society, especially as we see the use of text messaging and the Internet type of technologies expanded to their present capacities.
Prior to the last 10 years, this technology was less used in terms of business, commerce and personal use. It often was certain segments of society that used the Internet, email, web visualizations, as well as contact through different types of protocols. Now we have the use of voice-over protocols and a whole series of new technologies that are rolling out.
What we have witnessed is that the number of citizens who were able to use this type of information and technology has expanded significantly. Seniors are now able to use technologies such as never before because they have become a lot more proficient. The technology is much more accessible for individuals who are just becoming used to the system. People are becoming much more quickly involved in terms of using these technologies than in the past.
With this expansion, not only in the private sector but in the business sector as well, it requires changes in legislation. One of the difficulties we have with Bill C-299, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Competition Act, for personal information obtained by fraud, is what we need from the government at the end of the day, and this is not the responsibility of the member for Edmonton—Leduc because it is private members' business, but we need an omnibus review of the Criminal Code.
There is a series of updating that is required and this bill is a targeted piece of that update. I think it is worthy of support to move the bill to committee for second reading.
I must say that I am filling in for the New Democratic member for Windsor—Tecumseh who sits on the committee. I know the committee has a lot of legislation that is being tabled as private members' business, as well as government business. Hopefully the committee will get a chance to move this bill through the order so it can have a full review. Whether there is enough time to do so is a question in itself.
The issue of personal privacy is not new. The member went through a good examination of the details of the bill. I will touch on a few elements. One element concerned the data brokers. An important point to note is that the bill would bring into line the change in technologies that I noted. It was not unusual in the past to have individuals collect data information from people prior to the Internet and also the expansion of the Internet.
People do accumulate data information for purposes of marketing, although those with criminal intent do it for predatory practices. In my youth I worked for a telephone solicitation company. We made phone calls from a list of names that basically were out of the phone book. However, we eventually transferred that data to purchasing, decision making and tracking, whether there was an actual purchase of a circus ticket. If the person said no, we would track the person's reasons for saying no. Specific information was also used.
I know some of the information was sold or given to other types of companies. This was certainly a practice that was very valuable because the accumulation of that information can be very important, not just in terms of the type of customer we would get, but in terms of the contact. The list was certainly cleaned up in terms of new numbers, availability, a correct contact and was worth quite a bit for those trying to get customers.
I would like to outline a few specifics of the bill because they are important. The bill, as I noted, is an act to amend the Criminal Code to create the following criminal offences:
(a) obtaining personal information from a third party by a false pretence or by fraud;
(b) counselling a person to obtain personal information from a third party by a false pretence or by fraud; and
(c) selling or otherwise disclosing personal information obtained from a third party by a false pretence or by fraud.
It also amends the criminal offence of “personation with intent” to include fraudulent personation with intent to obtain any record containing personal information about a third party.
The bill would strengthen the Criminal Code and, as it has been identified, it would fill the hole or the void that is currently in legislation.
I know there was debate earlier about keeping the PIPEDA definition of privacy. What I interpret in terms of that, especially with private members' legislation and in particular this bill, is that to amend PIPEDA's definition of privacy would be a lot more complicated. We would have to amend that act to change the definition and a private members' act would then need to be amended later on to be consistent.
We have control of this right now but until the government actually examines or brings forth PIPEDA we need some type of way to proceed if the member's bill is to go forward. I think it is something that needs to be looked at.
I want to touch on another important point that cross-sections this in terms of privacy in general terms, which I hope members will take to heart. One point that is important to note is the one dealing with the patriot act and privacy. This bill in particular does have some elements related to the penalties of actually having data invasion and fraudulent use from the United States' perspective and having some type of Canadian repercussions so that companies are held more accountable when they do that, and then we have some international obligations.
What is important to note is that we cannot have that behaviour happening. I can understand that we do want to actually clamp down on those types of practices and we have an obligation to the rest of the world to do the same here but we are not addressing the larger picture. We have not and the bill does not address the issue of the patriot act. The patriot act, passed after September 11, 2001, has several clauses dealing with privacy. They basically allow the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, as well as other U.S. governmental agencies to access Canadian private information.
There have been a number of different subsequent responses to this. They have come from the provinces, in particular British Columbia. Quebec has been the latest and it intends to table legislation to deal with that.
Until the federal government brings forth an international treaty, we are susceptible to this privacy invasion. The privacy invasion is very important too because it also has the problem where our personal information is accumulated and taken by the American government. It is actually against the law for the company to disclose what happens to the information.
In the previous circumstance with which I was dealing, the CIBC decided to outsource its credit card data accumulation. It actually cannot tell Canadian customers, including myself, whether or not our information has been accumulated by any department of the U.S. government. Similar to that, there is no record of where the information goes.
The second point is that we do not know how that information is disposed of, treated or developed. What ends up happening is that we have a gaping hole that is not plugged.
I commend the member for bringing forth a private member's bill that does address some of the problems that we have on privacy. However, it opens up a larger issue, and perhaps the government is listening, that the Criminal Code is deficient at this point in time, not only in terms of protecting Canadian privacy from the elements of business and conduct on our side related to companies, but by individuals who use it for fraudulent purposes. The government has an obligation to protect the privacy of Canadians from American legislation.