Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 52 to request an emergency debate today on the urgent matter relating to the disclosure by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada on January 11 that the department had lost the personal records of 583,000 Canadians who participated in the Canada student loans program between 2000 and 2006. According to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, this is one of the largest data breaches in Canadian history.
The House of Commons needs to debate this issue because the loss of this data means that the private and confidential financial information of almost 600,000 Canadians is at risk and there exists a real danger of identity fraud.
Furthermore, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development has been unable to tell the House of Commons how long the hard drive containing the data was missing from her department, exactly what information was lost, why social insurance numbers were included in this data, why the RCMP was involved and why it took two months to inform the public.
In addition, the House needs to debate the issue of protection that HRSDC is providing to these Canadians. There has been much confusion as to what credit and identity protection services the government is actually paying for with Equifax, one of the two major credit bureaus in Canada. As well, why is the government not paying for the equivalent coverage with TransUnion, the other major credit bureau, as recommended by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada?
There are reports that many of the approximately 600,000 affected people have not yet been contacted by HRSDC even though it has been almost three months since the drive was first noticed missing.
According to recent media reports, less than 5,000 individuals have signed up so far for the free credit monitoring service provided by the government, and I reinforce free for most.
Knowing how many of these people have yet to be contacted and the reasons for the delay in being contacted is very important. The possibility that a large number of the affected people are still not aware that their personal information has been breached is unacceptable.
Canadians, and more specifically the people affected in this data breach, need to have confidence that their government is doing everything it can to find out why and how this historic breach occurred, and more important, how the government is going to immediately protect them from the risk of identity fraud.
Canadians should not have to pay for the mistakes of the Conservative government. I respectfully ask that you, Mr. Speaker, grant my request so that hopefully questions will be answered and solutions found to the satisfaction of those affected.