Mr. Speaker, on November 22, I asked the Minister of National Revenue, Prince Edward Island's representative at the cabinet table, to explain the reasons her department decided that it is in the best interests of Canadians to have the document centre located in Borden-Carleton privatized.
The concern I raised is that privatizing the record centre, ending the relationship with the Government of Canada, which has direct control over these critical, important and private documents, could, in fact, create a problem in terms of security.
The termination of the Borden-Carleton centre with the Government of Canada is part of the government's attack on front-line services that are critical to Canadians, an attack that has most severely targeted Atlantic Canada as a region, and an attack by the government that is felt in every province and in a growing number of Atlantic communities.
What the minister from P.E.I. has done is ensure that more than 70 positions will be eliminated or replaced somewhere with minimum wage jobs by workers with no affiliation with the Government of Canada.
The submissions made to CRA by Canadians often consist of documents of a highly sensitive and personal nature. Most importantly, they could be medical records. When I asked the minister to explain her actions, which will risk sensitive documents, including medical records, the minister declared that “we do not keep medical records”.
Actually, Canadians must submit documents on a regular basis for tax and benefits purposes. CRA files, in fact, do contain medical records. The minister was wrong. The minister confirmed that the purpose of the privatization of the Borden-Carleton facility was to do records management at a lower cost.
How low will the Conservative government go? Is it willing to privatize to a facility paying minimum wage? Is the minister from P.E.I. willing to allow the private sector to move records off Prince Edward Island, away from the island, with the loss of those jobs as well? Does the minister not realize that paying decent wages and benefits lessens the risk to the security of the system? Citizens' records are important. To put records at risk is just not sensible.
On February 2, 2013, in response to a letter I sent to the Minister of National Revenue, the minister stated that her officials had consulted the Privacy Commissioner and Justice Canada with respect to the control of these sensitive documents.
What is interesting is that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has acknowledged that on December 12 it would be making a decision. However, according to the Union of Taxation Employees, which had called for an investigation by the Privacy Commissioner, that investigation, as of today, has not been concluded.
The question remains: Why has the government taken this action to privatize or close this facility? Why did the minister not give us the proper information on what the Privacy Commissioner is really doing and where that investigation is at?