Mr. Speaker, on October 19, 2007, I had the opportunity to ask a question during question period which dealt with the issue of invasion of privacy or ethnic or religious profiling. There had been some indications that this kind of activity had been going on with Conservative members of Parliament.
It causes some grief for Canadians to know that if they are dealing with their member of Parliament, some of the information they may happen to provide, whether it be in terms of getting passport assistance or maybe some issue with the Canada pension plan, may end up on a political mailing list. There is more information on those forms that in fact Canadians would prefer not be used for some other improper use.
This is what I would consider to be unethical behaviour and quite frankly is inexcusable. I want to amplify simply by reminding members that within the Government of Canada, throughout the various agencies that operate under the auspices of the government, there are privacy rules and they are very important, and probably the one most relevant to members is the electoral list. I can tell members that I visited the Elections Canada website today just to refresh myself on the rules to indicate how serious this is.
It says that the privacy of all the information on the electors list is protected by the Canada Elections Act and by the Privacy Act. The information can be used only for electoral purposes and improper use of the information is an offence. Electronic and procedural safeguards have been put in place to ensure the security of that information because privacy of the individual information is important.
Under the law, the voters list can be shared with the political parties and members of the House of Commons each year, so that they can communicate with their electors, but it only includes names and addresses.
However, the incidence of what we found was that the information being collected from other encounters with people within a member's riding was being collected for alternative uses and in fact improper uses. So I wanted to raise that as an example of how important it is within our system.
I also wanted to relate to the House another example that came across my desk. It is a card, and I have a photocopy of it here, which came from a Conservative member. It is a survey. It asks: “Are you supportive of the federal budget?; Am I [the member of Parliament] on the right track?; Is the Prime Minister on the right track?”.
On the other side, where it has the return address, it says “No postage required”. That is actually written here. Then it also has these boxes to tick off: “Add me to your mailing list; I am interested in learning more about the Conservative Party; I am interested in volunteering”. This is, clearly, for partisan purposes, for party purposes, and not for electoral purposes. It is on an envelope which is clearly going to be distributed without paying postage. Again, this is unethical activity.
There is no question in my mind that there is ample evidence that the Conservative Party has been using information from electors or from residents in their riding for unethical purposes. It is unfortunate and it must stop.