Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all my colleagues who spoke to this bill. I appreciate all of their interventions right from second reading through to the justice committee and to this debate here. My hope, obviously, is that this bill will pass, and I do have reason to believe that it may pass third reading, which is quite an achievement for a private member's bill. I am certainly very proud of that.
In my five minutes I want to summarize what the bill is about. It is an attempt to address one part of the problem of identity theft. Identity theft is a problem that is growing in our country, especially with a lot of the new technology, computers, e-mails, and the information that people give out electronically, whether they save it or transmit it, and with the companies that keep it.
The fact is that this has caused, in part, a lot of ease in terms of transactions and doing business but, unfortunately, it has led to a lot of people, with motives that are certainly less than wholesome, to take this information and, in certain cases, use it against these people.
Unfortunately, the Criminal Code has not been up to speed in terms of dealing with stealing a person's identity. My initiative here is to address one part of it called pretexting. As members have pointed out, pretexting, which is essentially pretending to be someone that I am not, to obtain identification information and then using that for criminal purposes.
I do want to point out the process. As members pointed out, I did start with personal information as it was in the Privacy Act. However, members of the justice department convinced me that it was better to use identification information. It was better to say criminal intent in the bill so that someone was not just collecting this information so they would not be caught under this legislation.
I think this is actually an example of a case where the process of Parliament worked when going from second reading to the justice committee. The bill was amended and supported unanimously by the justice committee. It was then sent back to the House for report stage and third reading. In fact, members from all sides of the House have had their input into the bill and have improved the bill. I thank all members for that, especially the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice who was outstanding in terms of all the work he did. I thank members from all parties for their input.
Often in the House we criticize government officials and bureaucrats. I do want to say that in this case the two people from the justice department, William Bartlett and Joanne Klineberg, were exceptional in terms of helping to improve the bill in terms of changing the definition from personal information to identification information and in terms of explaining what the government was doing in terms of looking at identity theft in a broader way.
I think it is correct what members have said in the sense that this is one part of the issue of identity theft. The problem needs to be addressed in a very comprehensive way. I am very glad that the government is actually looking at that and seriously looking to bringing forward a comprehensive package very soon on that initiative.
I want to re-emphasize for people what the bill is about. It is about dealing with pretexting, pretending to be someone that we are not, obtaining that information and then using that information and selling it online.
I should compliment and credit the Privacy Commission, Jennifer Stoddart. I do want to tip my hat to Maclean's magazine because this bill started with me reading an article in Maclean's back in 2005 where the personal telephone records of our own Privacy Commissioner had been obtained by someone over the Internet. The magazine had obtained them from someone called the data broker, who is someone who collects this information and sells it. The genesis of this bill and the idea really started there and so I should credit Maclean's. I also want to credit the Privacy Commissioner for helping with the bill and commenting on it as well.
I hope the bill does receive the unanimous support of the House, goes to the Senate and becomes law. It would be a big step forward in terms of addressing identity theft.
I also want to encourage the government to proceed with its plans to address the comprehensive package that addresses identity theft in general, recognizing the seriousness of the problem and the fact that Canadians deserve to have their identities protected.
