Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Edmonton—St. Albert for the speech he made a few moments ago.
I work with the member for Edmonton—St. Albert on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. He is very much interested in improving our Criminal Code and strengthening measures to protect the most vulnerable. The bill before us today, Bill S-4, deals with identity theft.
I do not intend to speak at length because the Liberal Party supports Bill S-4, which was in fact introduced in the previous Parliament. The bill was first introduced in the House of Commons, but this time around, the government introduced it in the Senate. We have discussed it in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and we believe these are reasonable and appropriate measures to address a problem that increasingly affects our seniors.
I had the opportunity to speak this morning with a man from my riding, Roger Dorion. He represents a group of francophone seniors. They are obviously very aware of the harm that identity theft can cause to a person. Those who traffic in stolen identities or try to steal identities or mail often choose seniors as their victims.
The bill basically sets out three new criminal offences to deal with identity theft. As my colleague from Edmonton—St. Albert noted, there are additional and new provisions around being in possession of stolen identity documents, not only having to use those documents for a further criminal purpose, but simply being in possession, for example, of redirected or stolen mail or a key to open a mailbox that is not one's own. At the root of identity theft, we often find tampering with mail. The consequences can be devastating.
The new offences are all subject to a five year maximum sentence. We think that is an appropriate balance to send a message to those sometimes involved in organized crime who think that identity theft represents an economic gain for them at devastating consequences to the victims of these crimes.
On behalf of the Liberal Party, I am giving the House of Commons today an opportunity to dispose of this bill as quickly as possible. We do not intend to start a long debate. We already discussed this bill in the previous Parliament.
I have spoken to our House leader about this and it is our hope that perhaps while other parties are speaking on Bill S-4, we might find a mechanism, by unanimous consent, to pass this bill this morning at report stage and third reading. It is a bill that has been around for a long time and we think there are other important criminal justice measures on the order paper today that we are anxious to debate and to move forward expeditiously.
From our perspective, any measures that can be taken by the government or other parties to ensure that this bill passes this morning or later today, including the third reading stage, the Liberal Party will be very co-operative.