Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member respectfully disagreeing, but I respectfully disagree with the member.
It has always been a core belief of our side that the privacy of Canadians must be protected at all costs. It must be protected in terms of what they choose or do not choose. Hence, the short-form census, which continues to exist, plus the voluntary information that we sought from Canadians was a way to express that and for them to say that they would not be put in jail for doing this, that they would not be penalized excessively. There is this balance and that has to come into play.
Some people would choose the balance that was just described to us by the member, which is a balance that totally outweighs any relevance from this body where Canadians should be able to have that accountability. It takes them out of the equation. It makes this a completely independent body, let it do as it may, with no real accountability through the minister or for us as individual members to take our concerns to the minister and then for the minister to adequately address them. Because of the independence of this individual, he or she could say, “I don't have the time of day for this” or “I'm just doing what I think is best for gathering data and asking questions”. That is improper balance.