Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the usual intelligent and astute question. The member for Halifax does a wonderful job, and brings a nuance and wisdom to the debate in the House which is all too uncommon.
The best way to answer is to raise the very first question that is raised by our national Privacy Commissioner, a civil servant whose job is to aid Parliament in making sure that we take into account Canadians' privacy interests in every piece of legislation we consider. Her first question is this: How is the current regime of judicial authorization not meeting the needs of law enforcement and national security authorities in relation to the Internet? She urges Parliament to ask and answer that question and have a full understanding of that question before we take a leap and pass legislation that would seek to violate Canadians' right to Internet privacy.
On the Internet now, email is like mail that people received at their door 40 or 50 years ago. Canadians would not tolerate the police grabbing that mail, taking it to the police station, ripping it open and reading it without any kind of judicial oversight. Why does the government think it is any more acceptable to do that simply when that mail is in an electronic form? It just does not make sense.
Canadians are rightly concerned about this. We want to get good control and have police investigative mechanisms to control Internet crime. There is no doubt about that. All members of the House agree with that, but we do not have to sacrifice civil liberties to do that. I urge all parliamentarians to work together in a spirit of co-operation so that we can meet Canadians' expectations. No one wants to live in a country where our rights are violated as a condition of having safety. As I said before, we deserve neither if that is the case.