Deborah Grey

[Human Resources Development, May 19th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it would seem that someone has been fooling somebody. She talks about encrypted and secure. I do not think any Canadian believes that.

During the entire mandate of the government, privacy commissioners have been deceived. They just admitted in this report “We were wrong. We thought there was no single file”. They were told there was no single file. That simply is untrue. There really is a big brother database.

Why has the government been trying to hide the fact that this database exists?

[Human Resources Development, May 19th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the privacy commissioner's report said this: “Successive privacy commissioners have assured Canadians that there was no single federal government file or profile about them. We were wrong”.

That is unbelievable. The privacy commissioner says that they were not properly informed by the government over the years. Why not?

[Human Resources Development, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the privacy commissioner has been on TV the last day or two with serious concerns about this. Here is something out of the audit: “One administrator told the internal audit branch that the main method of finding out about changes to an employee's status or access rights is at the employee's going away party”.

Canadians want to know why a minister who bungled a billion of their dollars is now gathering the most private intimate details about their lives. Will we have to wait until the minister's going away party to find out?

[Human Resources Development, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thought HRD grants were highly secure too. Not even dead Canadians can be out of the clutches of this minister's database. Mr. Speaker, once you are on that list you cannot get off.

The privacy commissioner is worried about it and he still is, even though that came out in September. He said, “So much personal data on almost every person in Canada poses significant risks to our privacy”. The fact that so much sensitive information is in the hands of a minister who cannot even seem to balance a chequebook is downright scary.

At which point did the government decide to ignore the rights of Canadians' privacy?

[Human Resources Development, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the privacy commissioner has warned us that the HRD minister is collecting detailed private information on each and every Canadian.

The minister's own security audit warns that “a formal national information technology security awareness program has not been established at HRD”.

It is bad enough that such a database exists in the first place, but why is the minister not concerned that it might fall into the wrong hands?

[Human Resources Development, May 17th, 2000]

No. Mr. Speaker. What we would like is for the department to do the job that it was hired to do and not be so involved with political manipulation from the top. The minister needs to come forward with ministerial responsibility and accountability.

I will again quote from the document:

Additionally, hard copies of IT security-related documents are regularly distributed to HRDC personnel, however, their knowledge level of IT security policies and procedures is not good.

Either this minister takes responsibility or she does not. Will she stand in her place today and say that things are a mess under her watch?

[Human Resources Development, May 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, let us look at some irresponsible management. I have just uncovered another internal audit on the assessment of information technology security which was brought forward in September 1999. It is about information technology. The audit states:

Since few people know of the existence of the IT security policies and procedures, personnel knowledge of IT security standards and practices needs improvement.

This is the minister's own department. Could she stand up and defend the fact that her own department does not even need to know what it is doing in terms of information technology security?

[Human Resources Development, May 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the minister most famous for mismanagement and bungling is collecting sensitive information on 33 million Canadians. Tax and employment information, travel details, immigration and ethnicity details, information on families, disabilities, moving patterns and education are now under the control of the biggest bungler in this government.

Why does the government think that it needs to—

[Government Of Canada, May 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it might tell us about a House leader that is not able to shepherd things through the House properly.

The Liberals make Mulroney look like a slowpoke. It took him nine full years to invoke closure or time allocation on debate 66 times. It has taken this government barely six years to do it 67 times. It has done it one-third faster.

Here is another dandy quote. This one is a doozie. It is from a Liberal who flew a little too close to the sun. I quote:

It displays the utter disdain with which this government treats the Canadian people.

That was the Minister of Foreign Affairs back in his days of purity in the opposition. If shutting down debate 66 was utter disdain, what is 67? Is it contempt?

[Government Of Canada, May 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, he can get technical about time allocation and closure, but he knows perfectly well it means the same thing, that we are not allowed to debate in the House.

Let us see if he can guess who this is. I quote:

What we have here is an absolute scandal in terms of the government's unwillingness to listen to the representatives of the people in the House. Never before have we had a government so reluctant to engage in public discussion on the bills before this House.

That was the Deputy Speaker of this parliament. I guess he spoke too soon. Why did the Liberals have one set of principles in opposition and quite another in government?