Mr. Speaker, the result is we will become a police state. This is the craziest thing I have ever heard.
When I talked about doing the research with Professor MacKay on terrorism and privacy rights, one other thing we were looking at is the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. It actually has to report names of people with bank accounts that have names matching a certain list of “identified terrorists”. It is really quite incredible because it ends up forwarding hundreds and possibly thousands of names every year of people who have vaguely similar names. Good luck to anyone living in this country whose first name is Osama.
We have this situation where names are being forwarded, people's bank accounts are being shut down or they are being told they cannot board an airplane because they happen to have the same initials of a known or suspected terrorist. It is craziness.
The worst part about it is there is absolutely no recourse. All of us in this room believe that if we were falsely accused of something we would at least have the right to stand up and say, “No, that is not me. That is not what happened.” There is no right to that. People cannot imagine being told they cannot fly. People cannot imagine being told they cannot go back to their home countries. Actually, people are not allowed to bring forward evidence to disprove what is being said about them.
These situations are happening all over Canada and the U.S. There is no redress. There is no way to challenge it. There is no way to bring forward evidence. We are just doing whatever it is the Americans want us to do. There is no charter right. We are absolutely just S.O.L., if I can say that. We are out of luck.
It is absolutely ludicrous.