Mr. Speaker, I would point out that while the hon. member selectively quotes groups that are in favour of his position, the Alberta government has taken a different stand on this.
I would say first that there are two debates going on side by side here. If the question is about information, if the question is, “Do you like information”, which I suspect many of the groups that he quoted are answering, I think I would say, “Yes, I do too”. I think all of us would agree that information is good, and I made that very clear in my speech.
Fundamentally we are asking a different question. We are asking the question that in our search for that information as a government, we have to balance both the need for information and privacy concerns at the same time, the freedom and rights of our citizens. We have said that there is a line there. New Canadians are another one of the vulnerable groups that the Liberal Party has referred to. When a census taker comes to the door of a new Canadian and that person says he or she is not comfortable answering the question about his or her religion and he or she will not do it, and the census taker tells the person that there is a $500 fine attached to that and the person says he or she is still not comfortable answering that question, we believe fundamentally on this side of the House that the new Canadian should have the right not to answer that question of the government without being threatened with a $500 fine or a threat of jail time. Obviously on the Liberal side they believe that is okay.
We will be having a good debate about this over the next few days. Apparently there is a private member's bill coming from the Liberal Party, and I am sure that we can give the Liberals a chance to defend that position, but again, fundamentally we do not believe that a new Canadian should be threatened with a $500 fine simply because he or she does not want to tell the government what his or her religion is.