Mr. Speaker, it is very fitting that yesterday, on the last day of Fraud Awareness Month, our government introduced identity theft legislation in the senate.
Law enforcement has identified identity theft as one of the fastest growing crimes in North America, with almost 1.7 million Canadian victims. The Canadian Council of Better Business Bureaus has estimated that identity theft costs $2.5 billion a year to both consumers and businesses.
Could the Minister of Justice explain if this legislation is similar to that introduced during the last Parliament that created three new offences for identity theft?