Mr. Speaker, I think what my colleague missed in my comments were the amendments put forward by the Bloc and supported unanimously by his party to share that information with political parties.
I cannot fathom the reason for political parties needing to have birthdate information. My colleague suggests that maybe it is so they can send out birthday cards, but the purpose here is verification, and the bill calls for photo ID. The idea of sharing birthdate information for all political parties is worrisome for some of us, but as for going to the extent of sharing it with all political parties, the Bloc and the Liberals were the ones who pushed through that amendment. It was not in the bill.
Let me be very clear. This is about political parties having that information. I know that in the hon. member's previous employment as an ombudsman he would have been deeply concerned that this kind of information, which is private information from my perspective, would be shared. I hope he supports our amendment.