Mr. Speaker, I have served on the committee the hon. member referred to for some nine years now, and I can say that we have had a lot of debates on a lot of issues.
I have looked at this. The member said that they have had time to consult on it. The New Democrats were saying no to it almost from the minute the bill entered this House, so it is somewhat inaccurate to say something otherwise.
I will provide a scenario for my constituents. Let us say there are two people with Canadian citizenship in a foreign country where there is some unrest and we know terrorism exists. They want to leave the country, so they go to the airport and see a CBSA official and state that, according to international law, as citizens they have the right to re-enter their country. That official must immediately agree, which is a good thing. However, the official then sees something that causes him or her to believe there is a possibility that these two individuals may have been engaged in a terrorist activity in that country and may be coming back to Canada.
Under the current legislation the CBSA official cannot go next door to where there is an RCMP officer to voice his or her concern so that something can be done about it, because the current legislation does not allow for that. All this bill would do is allow, under the Privacy Act, that official to talk to that RCMP officer to ensure that something is done about it to remove that fear. That is one of the simple things this legislation would do, and I do not know why the opposition is so fundamentally and ideologically against this bill.