I am going to do so as soon as things quiet down here.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure you can call members to order, so that they can be a little more attentive or respectful of those who are speaking. Perhaps you could do that.
Under the Criminal Code, the mere possession or collection of personal information is not a crime. Put that way, it may seem very obvious. However, there are flaws in the Criminal Code which facilitate identity theft. For example, the mere possession of personal information on one of my colleagues does not make me a criminal. Similarly, when I go to the convenience store and the clerk copies my debit or credit card, it is not considered a crime. Not at all. This is surprising, considering that credit or debit card theft often begins when we deal with someone whom we should normally trust. However, that is not always the case.
Bill S-4 has the advantage of correcting such flaws and of making it a crime to possess and collect personal information in certain situations.
The Bloc Québécois supports this legislation. Despite what the Minister of Justice said about it earlier, the Bloc Québécois prefers to take the time to debate bills. Indeed, bills are not perfect, and this is particularly true with this one. It will not solve everything, as we will see later on. Some problems will linger on in many ways. Moreover, we know that some of these problems can only be solved by other levels of government. For example, the Quebec government must get along with the federal government in order to settle the issue of identity theft. As we know, the federal government is not very inclined to get along with provincial governments, including the Quebec government. We can see it with a number of issues. It is not able to get along with other governments. This will make it even more difficult to implement this legislation, which requires other measures that do not necessarily come under the Criminal Code to settle this matter.
I said that the various levels of government had to work together to fight identity theft. But the Conservative government is incapable of working with the Government of Quebec. We have seen this in connection with the plan to help the manufacturing and forestry industries. We have seen how the goal of reforming federal institutions is to reduce Quebec's weight within Canada. We have also seen it in connection with the implementation of the Kyoto protocol. I do not know why I say the “implementation of the Kyoto protocol”. I should say the “non-implementation of the Kyoto protocol”. I have not seen any implementation of this international protocol, at least, with the Government of Quebec. This government is incapable of agreeing with other levels of government and has a great deal of difficulty agreeing with the Government of Quebec.
This may seem surprising when we consider the not-so-distant political allegiances of the Premier of Quebec, Jean Charest, who was a member of this House and a member of the Conservative Party. He was even the party leader. Now, because he is the Premier of Quebec, the Conservatives can no longer get along with one of their own. This is surprising, but it is unfortunately true, and I feel it is deplorable.
Generally speaking, the Conservative government is incapable of working with anyone other than itself. But we in the Bloc Québécois recognize that amending the Criminal Code is not enough to solve the problem of identity theft. Other measures need to be put in place, such as public education, which is extremely important. This is the best way to detect identity theft. For example, when we go into a corner store, the best way to detect identity theft is to watch what the clerk does with our credit card. When we go to a gas station to fill up the car, if we hand the attendant our credit card and wait for him to come back with it and a slip for us to sign, we are putting ourselves at risk.
Such things were done 5, 10, 20 or 30 years ago, but we must no longer do so today. In my opinion, the best thing to do is to get up and go with your credit card, hand it over, and watch every move the clerk makes with your credit card. We need to be more responsible with our things.
It is important to be careful. It is everyone's duty to remain informed, to question things, to protect themselves and to ask questions. When someone says he or she works for a business, we are entitled to have doubts. We are entitled to have doubts when that person does not have his employer's email address. We have the right to doubt someone who claims to have an employer whose telephone number, his land line, does not go into the company's main line. We are also entitled to have doubts when that individual gives us only a cell phone number. We are entitled to have doubts when that individual does not appear in the employee directory of the company or organization in question. We are entitled to have doubts and ask questions when the individual asks to meet at our home or office, instead of setting up an appointment in his own office. Even if that person has a business card or an email address with the logo of the company he claims to represent, we are entitled to have doubts and to ask questions, especially when we are giving that person confidential information.
Not only is it our right to be prudent, it is our duty. It is the duty of every consumer, client and individual who does not want to fall prey to identity theft. The people we disbelieve are entitled to be offended, but we are just as entitled not to worry too much about their feelings.
What is identity theft? I will take advantage of this opportunity to say a few things about it. Identity theft is deliberately taking another person's identity for the purpose of committing a fraudulent act, such as accessing the victim's finances or committing a crime or misdemeanour anonymously. According to that definition, when Conservative members hand out government funds by using cheques emblazoned with the Conservative Party logo, that is a kind of identity theft. We will explore that further.
Almost all of these definitions refer to the illegal use of another person's personal information. Personal information can be obtained in many ways—I talked about some of them earlier—from direct and not necessarily illegal methods, like going through people's trash, to highly sophisticated phishing techniques. Other ways to collect personal information include stealing identity cards or credit cards, redirecting mail, false pretences—pretending to be a person authorized to collect information, hacking into databases, using skimming devices to capture credit and debit card information, and stealing PINs by looking over a person's shoulder when he is entering his PIN or other information at an ATM. Some thieves have even been known to watch the cameras installed in places where people enter their PINs.
We also have to consider the inappropriate disposal of records. All offices must take even greater care than before and there must be appropriate records disposal, whether by shredding or other means.
Then there is the loss or theft of a PC or other data storage device such as a BlackBerry. Virtually everyone has the same password. We have to change our password as well. Even here in the House, most people have the same password because it is the easiest one to enter with one hand.
Another way to obtain personal information is through unscrupulous employees in certain organizations. We heard the examples of clerks at corner stores and attendants at gas stations. However, there are so many other ways to provide information. Sometimes, people naively provide information but those receiving the information are not honest and know very well how to use it.
The purpose of the bill is to combat identity theft such as the unauthorized collection and use of personal information for criminal purposes. Names, dates of birth, addresses, credit card numbers, social insurance numbers and any other personal identification numbers can be used to open a bank account, get a credit card, have mail forwarded, subscribe to a cell phone service, lease a vehicle or equipment, or even sell a house one does not own.
Three new core offences are created by Bill S-4 and they all carry a maximum sentence of five years.
The first offence, and it is crucially important, is obtaining and possessing identity information with the intent of using it in a misleading, deceitful or fraudulent manner in the commission of a crime. I believe that the key word is “obtaining”. A few years, when I learned that intentionally making a copy of a credit card, in a corner store for example, was not a criminal offence, I was quite surprised. It began in the corner store or the gas station and I believed that it absolutely had to change.
The second offence involves trafficking in identity information and targets those who give or sell information to a third party, either knowing that this information could be used for criminal purposes or being reckless about it.
The third offence involves the unlawful possession or trafficking in government-issued identity documents that have information pertaining to another person. The third aspect is added as a core offence. I will re-read it, but it seems to me that the cheques issued by the Conservative MPs on behalf of the government could be included when we talk about the unlawful possession or trafficking in government-issued identity documents that have information pertaining to another person. We might be tempted to consider that a criminal offence.
Other amendments have been made to the Criminal Code: the new offences of redirecting or causing to be redirected the mail of another person are created; the new offence of possession of a counterfeit Canada Post key is created; and additional forgery offences, such as trafficking in forged documents and possession of forged documents with the intent of using them, are created. The bill also redefines the offence of personation with the notion of “identity fraud“; specifies the meaning of the expression “fraudulently personates any person”; and adds the offence of possessing instruments for copying credit card data, in addition to the existing offence of possessing instruments for forging credit cards.
In addition, the bill introduces a new power that would allow the court to order the offender, as part of the sentence, to make restitution to a victim of identity theft or identity fraud for the expenses associated with rehabilitating their identity, such as the cost of replacement documents and cards and costs related to correcting their credit history.
The bill provides for two exemptions from prosecution for forgery: the first for an individual who produces false documents for secret government operations and the second for our public officers, that is to say our law enforcement officers, who create and use secret identities in the course of their duties. I repeat, Conservative MPs are not exempted.
However, first and foremost, there must be cooperation with Quebec and the provinces. I would say that is where the problem lies. The Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, maintains that the real solution to the problem of identity theft rests with civil proceedings. She said:
It is easier to prove and the procedures are easier for the citizens to understand. Small claims court, for example, could provide easily accessible measures that would put the brakes on the booming identity theft industry. Naturally, this means that the federal government must work closely with the provinces because much of what is happening in the area of identity theft falls within provincial jurisdiction.
The Bloc Québécois recognizes that simply amending the Criminal Code will not solve the problem of identity theft.
A number of solutions to the problem of identity theft are in the hands of the provinces by virtue of their constitutional powers in matters of property and civil law. However, this Conservative government seems incapable of working with the provinces. There are many examples.
The Conservative government refused to work with Quebec and the provinces on a real assistance plan for the forestry and manufacturing sectors. The government rejected outright a series of unanimous demands by the National Assembly which requested, among other things, that the government implement the Kyoto protocol, abandon its plans for a single securities regulator—a plan rejected by all provinces except Ontario, abandon its reform of Parliament, and reinstate the court challenges program.
The last four items I mentioned were unanimous demands from the Quebec National Assembly. On four occasions, all 125 members of the Quebec legislature rose in the National Assembly to discuss and debate each one of these issues: the Kyoto protocol, the Quebec securities commission, parliamentary reform proposed by this government, and the abolition of the court challenges program by this government. On these four issues, the 125 members of the National Assembly, elected by the people of Quebec, were rebuffed by this government.
How can this government work with the Government of Quebec, when it dismisses every single unanimous request of the Quebec National Assembly, regardless of political allegiance or diversity of opinion? Yes, there are sovereignists in the National Assembly, but there are also federalists. And the government does not even listen to them. It does not listen to anyone.
How can we work with this government to implement a real strategy to eliminate identity theft?
The Conservative government has succeeded in upsetting all the provinces with its reform of seat allocations in the House of Commons. Senate reform has upset a majority of provinces as well. Equalization payment reform has been a bitter pill—and that is putting it mildly—for Quebec, Ontario and the provinces with offshore oil resources.
So the Conservative government, which should be working with the provinces to combat identity theft, has instead retreated to its corner and made a few changes that are necessary but that have a limited effect on the problem in question.
The government seems to be in more of a hurry to give the impression that it is doing something than to develop a coherent strategy for effectively combating this plague. And then, before handing the provinces new responsibilities for enforcing the Criminal Code, did it even bother to make sure that they had the resources to enforce the new identity theft provisions?