Madam Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the question from my colleague from Windsor West. I would like to focus on Statistics Canada's pilot project to collect banking information.
I want to remind Canadians that this pilot project was still at the design stage and that no data was collected from banks.
Statistics Canada understands Canadians' concerns. The chief statistician made it very clear that Statistics Canada will not proceed with this pilot project until Canadians' privacy concerns are addressed and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has done its work.
We are living in a society and digital economy that are evolving rapidly, and official statistics must reflect this reality. Quality statistical data helps us better understand important issues like housing, tourism and cannabis.
Understanding Canadians' participation in the digital economy is important. For example, information about how people spend their money and what they spend it on is used to calculate the consumer price index, the CPI, which is a factor in many important decisions that Canadians and Canadian businesses make, such as saving for retirement and employer-employee compensation agreements.
We count on Statistics Canada's world-class expertise to provide us with good statistics that enable us to make major evidence-based decisions. Statistics Canada has a solid reputation when it comes to protecting personal information.
I want to make it very clear to all members and all Canadians tuning in right now that Statistics Canada collected no personal information or data from banks as part of the pilot project on banking data collection.
As I stated, and as Parliament's chief statistician also said, the project is on hold until Canadians' concerns have been addressed.