Mr. Speaker, it is too bad that the member does not listen to lawyers, because he would know that there is the concept of hot pursuit, which is a situation in which police officers believe that a crime is in process and they do not have time to get a warrant. In those opportunities they are allowed to proceed with a warrantless search, and I am surprised the member does not know that. Those are the two different possibilities of a warrantless search.
The point here is that Canadians believe our police officers and our law enforcement agents need the tools required to catch criminals. All of us in the House agree with that. However, general respect for our law and our general legal system require federal authorities to go before a judge and demonstrate to that judge why Canadians' expectation of privacy should be violated before that is done.
It is not up to Canadians to have to justify why they deserve privacy; Canadians have that as a matter of right. It is up to the state to justify why it intends to violate Canadians' privacy.
I would guess that if 1.2 million requests by the government for information on Canadians were done without a warrant, then many of those examples were probably done without just cause and violated Canadians' privacy. That is wrong.