Madam Speaker, I think that this is another great example of a case where the horses have already escaped from the barn. In fact, the Liberals had a majority government here 10 years ago. They had ample opportunity to deal with this issue.
We were quite aware in those days that the banks were looking at a smart card system. They were looking at phasing that in and they actually had figures, which anybody could get, that indicated the cost of the problem. Every year, the losses due to identity theft regarding credit cards were going up and up, and yet the banks were ignoring it because it was simply a cost of doing business.
This encouraged the fraudsters because they basically knew that they could get away with it. My colleague talked about the real estate industry. We are talking about $2 billion to $2.5 billion on the credit card side and even more on the real estate side. This bill does not deal with that.
When is the government going to come to terms with this issue and not wait another five years before it deals with the real estate side of it? That is an even bigger developing issue. Once the fraudsters know that they can get away with it, they get even more organized and more determined. They do more and more of it. We must put a stop to this.