Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member of the opposition for the opportunity she has given me to set the record straight, since our government has been very clear. We are determined to protect the privacy of our veterans.
There is no other way to say it. Our government will not tolerate any violation of our veterans' privacy. Any inappropriate access of a veteran's file is completely unacceptable, and our actions to protect personal information speak as loudly as our words.
That is why, more than a year ago, we took decisive action to strengthen the protection of each individual veteran's privacy. That is why we went beyond the four recommendations in an October 2010 report by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and implemented an aggressive 10-point privacy action plan.
Just last week we announced additional measures under privacy action plan 2.0 to build an even stronger culture of privacy at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Our government will continue to act to protect the private information of our veterans. We have delivered by developing stringent new controls for employees accessing veterans electronic files, closely monitoring employee activity on our electronic network and strictly enforcing corrective and disciplinary measures for those who violate our veterans' privacy.
The measures in privacy action plan 2.0 go even further, providing targeted training on privacy principles, streamlining consent forms and ensuring new initiatives are compliant with privacy requirements.
Simply put, while the department conducts more than 20 million transactions with veterans' files each year, even one breach is unacceptable.
Our government remains committed to ensuring our processes meet the highest possible standards. We are doing all this because it is the right thing to do. All veterans deserve to know that the personal information they provide to the Department of Veterans Affairs is safe and secure and that it will not be inappropriately accessed. That is what our veterans want, what Canadians expect and what our Conservative government demands.