Mr. Speaker, we have already admitted that the bill has been 10 years in coming; in fact, we needed it about 10 years back. The legislation is only part of the problem. The real problem, and I think the member alluded to it, is the area of preventing identity theft in the first place. The real way to prevent that is to deal with the whole issue of the smart card programs. The member talked about biometrics, whether it is a fingerprint or an iris scan. Three or four years ago, the British government was using the biometric iris scan process at Heathrow airport. I am not sure how successful it has been, but it is being done. Fingerprints are another biometric that can be put on a smart card.
The whole issue here is that the government has to encourage industry to start rolling out the smart cards. The government has to roll out its smart cards as well and get card readers in the police cars and wherever the readers need to be so that the cards can be read. Through that process, which is going to prevent people from stealing identities in the first place, we are going to solve the problem.
The legislation is great. It is 10 years overdue. Let us get it passed. The bottom line here is that the government has to play a role in encouraging the technological development of the smart card system in Canada. By the way, it has been around for 10 years; we are just very slow to develop it.