Nicolas Dufour

[Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, October 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to answer my colleague's question. When it comes to this issue, we should not simply talk about a patio door, but about a patio door that has been completely smashed in.

We all heard my colleague's question. Is it not nice to be able to exchange views with such brilliant individuals? I do not mean to put him on a pedestal, but this is the kind of thinking that we do in the Bloc Québécois, and it is because we have true debates that the bills and amendments that we propose are much more progressive.

I must admit that I share my colleague's concerns about this issue. This is why we want to refer the bill to a committee. Earlier, I mentioned the excellent work of two other colleagues of mine, namely the hon. members for Abitibi—Témiscamingue and for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. They will be able to propose amendments.

The issue of suspicion was raised. I must say that I am extremely concerned about giving such broad powers to the police. I certainly do not want to disparage the work of police officers. Their work is absolutely exemplary. These people are prepared to give their lives to protect citizens. However, the problem is that the bill does not include any specifics about these powers. An investigation targeting an individual can be launched without any judicial warrant.

There is a very fine line between privacy protection and the power of police to act. We will have to be very serious in dealing with this issue. We cannot be partisan as the Conservatives unfortunately all too often tend to be. In order to have a true discussion, they must set aside their ideology, because we on this side do not have one.

The public also has every reason to be concerned. Considering that the police could act without any valid grounds, merely on the basis of suspicion, it is easy to imagine the problems that this could generate. We are all human beings and human nature being what it is, man will do what man will do. If a police officer, for one reason or another—as we have seen all too often—decided to start checking on an individual who is at his computer or on the telephone for personal reasons, one can imagine the problem that this would cause.

Some police officers could totally lose it—and again we have seen that happen—and begin to investigate any individual, whenever they want.

There is something here that really scares me. We will have to define that fine line and this will be a very complex exercise. However, considering the colleagues that I have with me, and the quality of our debates, I am not at all worried.

[Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, October 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to address Bill C-46 on investigations and the Internet.

This is an interesting bill for a very specific reason. For the past little while, the government side has been introducing legislation to deal with crime, cybercrime and new technology used by criminals. One can think, for instance, of the identity theft bill, which the Bloc Québécois supports, and Bill C-46, which the Bloc Québécois will also be supporting. I will outline later our reasons for supporting this bill, but I will also mention the contraindications to this bill; it is a matter of dosage.

I must say that what is being proposed by the government side is interesting for a change. We can sense a desire to modernize, which is something of a novelty on the part of a Reform-Conservative Party. They should normally be acting like dinosaurs, but all of a sudden, we can see an increased effort to try and modernize some pieces of legislation. The problem is that subtlety is not their forte. Complications might happen, which they may not know what to do about. Hence the importance of thorough debate.

We cannot pass a bill as important as this one that quickly. A few short days are not enough to conclude debate, close the matter and immediately pass the bill. We will need time to examine the bill and consider its consequences. If this bill can be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice or the Standing Committee on Public Safety, for example, we will have to take the time to speak with witnesses and see whether some valuable amendments could be made.

I will confess that the Bloc is supporting this bill because of its importance and because of the fact that, increasingly, the world is turning to the Internet. More and more banking is done on the Internet, which could attract fraudsters to the net. There is another major problem, that of pedophilia. There is the risk of having to deal with the exploitation of minors and children. That sort of thing happens on the Internet. At least, with new legislation, there will be new equipment to go after sexual offenders, these predators—if I can put it that way—and catch them as quickly as possible and clean up the Internet a little.

We are all aware of the meteoric rise in the use of the Internet since the mid-1990s. Its use is constantly growing. I provided a couple of examples about pedophilia on the Internet, which can be and is misused. There is Internet fraud as well. I will establish a link with what we were debating last week regarding identity theft. With the arrival of sites such as Facebook, more and more information is available on the Internet. It can of course be improperly used. With this bill, we will at least have the means to deal with this sort of crime all the more vigorously.

On the subject of problems, we must not go to the other extreme. It is in this regard that I have some fears about the Conservatives, and perhaps more about the Reform and Alliance wing of the Conservatives. It would be easy to get carried away with this bill. The Ligue des droits et libertés in Quebec has expressed serious concerns regarding this bill, since confidential information obtained on people could be misused. The league says the government has to be transparent and the private life of people has to be protected.

So already there is a problem with this bill, which will have to be debated in committee. Witnesses will have to be heard and serious work must be done, as the Bloc has done each time in legal matters. To echo what my NDP colleague said earlier, we in the Bloc have always been smart on crime. I think we have one of the best critics on the subject in our colleague, the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. He was minister of public security in Quebec for many years and it was he who fought the hardest against crime, among other things. The Hell's Angels at the time, are an example.

All of the knowledge and intellect of the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin could shed fantastic light in committee, where witnesses could be called and amendments worked out. This bill is consistent, but needs fine tuning. I am known to be a perfectionist. We will have to make improvements in committee.

I have been listening to my other colleagues’ speeches since the beginning of the day. I am not just a perfectionist, I also have a good ear and am a good listener. One of the areas that could be tackled most easily with this bill is cyberpedophilia. Unfortunately, people do not use the Internet only for good purposes. I was surprised recently when I read statistics about Internet usage. Nearly 90% of Internet sites and Internet pages are related to pornography. This is shocking. Obviously cyberpedophiles have no qualms about using the Internet to distribute child pornography files. We have a duty to combat this vigorously, to make sure that we eliminate this atrocity to the extent possible; we are all in agreement. This is the example that came up most often in the case of this bill.

My colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue has done just as good a job as my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin when it comes to justice and public safety issues. He was just saying that we could put chips in cars. Very often, when a car is stolen, it is broken down into parts that are sent to the four corners of the world, and this makes tracing a difficult task. It is very hard to find the car or the parts intact.

At least, we are seeing modernization of some laws, as I was just saying. This is no longer the era of highway robbery and of trains being derailed so the cars could be robbed. The Jesse James's of this world belong to the past. But it was a somewhat more romantic era, if I may say so. Nonetheless, we are seeing bandits making wide use of the Internet, in our day, to achieve their ends. Bank thefts are becoming increasingly complex. These people have an extraordinary ability to reinvent themselves. I have always been told that government reacts rather than acting, but it is clear that the government has finally decided to act, and to introduce this bill.

As I said, it will be extremely important to move this debate to committee so we can examine all facets of the bill. My fear is that the Conservatives want to pass it too quickly. We have seen this in far too many justice-related files. They say they are tough on crime. I will not say what I think of this tough on crime analogy, but in some cases we can very clearly see that it is completely bizarre.

Just now, my colleague drew comparisons with the United States. In particular, I am thinking of the minimum sentences the Conservatives are trying to shove down the opposition parties’ throats. We can see that the American Republicans have tried such sentences, and where it has got them.

Bill C-46 amends the Criminal Code. Among other things creates a new concept called “transmission data,” which would extend to all means of telecommunication the investigative powers that are currently restricted to data associated with telephones.

As I said, this is no longer the era of mere telephone wiretapping. We have to look at all information exchanged on the Internet. I will draw a parallel. I certainly would not want to get involved in the election about to be held at the municipal level in Quebec, but when there is collusion, we often see that the Internet has been used to exchange information about price fixing.

It is apparent, therefore, that these kinds of dishonest, fraudulent conversations are not carried out solely on the telephone any more or in dark little rooms. We have reached the point now where people can easily commit fraud from their offices over the Internet.

This bill also creates, therefore, the power to compel the production of data relating to the transmission of communications; it creates the power to require the production of data on the location from which individuals operate; it creates the power to make preservation demands and orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence; it allows for warrants to be issued, subject of course to legal thresholds appropriate to the interests at stake; and it makes it possible to track transactions, individuals and things. The police will be able to remotely activate tracking devices. These are exactly the kind of things that can become problematic and should be considered in the implementation of the bill.

As I have been saying and as the Ligue des droits et libertés said, we must be careful that the government itself does not use the legislation at some point for the wrong reasons. Far be it from me to suggest that the government might currently have some nefarious ideas. We have seen, though, what they are sometimes capable of. The bill will also create a new offence with a maximum punishment of ten years in prison for the use of computer systems like the Internet to agree or arrange with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child.

The bill also amends the Competition Act—this is ironic because it is precisely what I was just talking about in regard to the collusion on Montreal Island—to make applicable for certain provisions of the act the new provisions being added to the Criminal Code respecting demands and orders for the preservation of computer data and orders for the production of documents relating to the transmission of communications or financial data.

Finally, the bill amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to make some of the new investigative powers being added to the Criminal Code available to Canadian authorities executing incoming requests for assistance and to allow the Commissioner of Competition to execute search warrants under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

As I said, the Bloc Québécois is in principle in favour of Bill C-46, whose purpose is to enable police forces to adapt their investigative techniques to contemporary technological realities, such as the widespread use of cellphones and the Internet.

I would like to draw another connection. Not only criminals use these kinds of communications but increasingly also terrorists, who use such things as the Internet and cellphones to carry out their plans. We can therefore fight on both fronts.

Facilitating police work, where it does not unduly interfere with fundamental rights, is an avenue the Bloc Québécois has always advocated for fighting crime. This approach has certainly proved itself in Quebec. The Bloc Québécois also thinks that increasing the likelihood of getting caught is a much greater deterrent than increasing the punishments, which often seem pretty remote and abstract.

I must say that when I see criminals, of whatever sort, who are warned that they will get a sentence of 15 or 20 years in prison for something like cocaine trafficking, they do not seem very worried about it because they are focused on what they stand to gain. Criminals may well think it would be pretty good to sell cocaine for a few years for the $10 million or so they would get.

So it is much more a question of increasing police presence and better equipping the police to fight crime. It is this that will really deter criminals rather than simply warning them they will get a 10-year sentence, because no criminal thinks they will be caught until the means are in place to catch them.

However, as I was saying, this bill raises a number of concerns regarding respect of privacy, whereas there has been no justification provided for such infringement. Given the importance of strengthening police powers to fight the most complex forms of organized crime, the Bloc supports the principle behind the bill.

I wish to reiterate my full confidence in my colleagues from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin and Abitibi—Témiscamingue. I am sure that they will do some extraordinary, meticulous and exemplary work in committee to ensure that there are as few intrusions into people's private lives as possible, and that those intrusions are always necessary and very well delineated.

If I am permitted a few minutes, I may perhaps put the whole thing in context and recall to some extent the origins of the spirit of the bill. It all comes from the Convention on Cybercrime, which underlies Bill C-46 and Bill C-47, which we will study a little later. The bill before us draws largely on it. The convention was formulated by the Council of Europe with the active involvement of Canada, the United States, Japan and South Africa.

Under the terms of its preamble, the convention aims to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, inter alia, by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation. It is structured, more specifically, around three regulatory lines, that of harmonization of domestic laws, the establishment of appropriate means in order to facilitate the conduct of investigations and criminal proceedings on electronic networks and, finally, the establishment of a rapid and effective system of international cooperation.

On the subject of cybercrime and the Internet, the letters, www, stand for the World Wide Web. And we know why—because it is truly world wide. So, a criminal can easily be based in South Africa and commit crimes in Canada or Europe. Hence the importance of cooperating multilaterally with other countries to acquire the means and to work together to stop these criminals.

In order to harmonize domestic laws, international conventions on cybercrime set out the offences in four broad categories. First, there are offences relating to the security of networks, namely offences involving confidentiality, integrity, or data or system availability. There are also computer-related offences, namely falsification and fraud and then offences relating to content, namely child pornography, as I was saying earlier. Finally, there are offences relating to infringement of intellectual property and related rights, such as the illegal reproduction of protected works. In the case of offences relating to the dissemination of racist or xenophobic ideas and to trafficking in human beings over the networks, there is an additional protocol.

To facilitate investigations and prosecution in cyberspace, the convention contains a series of provisions that the signatories will have to approve. These provide, among other things, for the preservation, search and seizure, and interception of data stored on a computer system. Finally, to promote international cooperation, signatories will be permitted to act on behalf of others in acquiring electronic evidence. This will not give the signatories the authority to conduct transborder investigations, proceedings or searches, but a network of national contact points will be established to provide constant and immediate assistance with ongoing investigations. This goes to show the value, as I indicated, of multilateral cooperation in that regard.

I gave the example of a criminal who could very well send data—or commit a Criminal Code offence—from South Africa to Canada. The idea of going over there to arrest him is therefore far from our minds, but if we are at least able to provide information to local authorities, send them the data, we will be much more likely to catch him.

So, the cybercrime convention is the result of a lengthy process undertaken in 1995. The document underwent 27 drafts, because of the need to take into account reticence on the part of several consumer associations, warning against the serious danger of breaching privacy.

The Chair is signaling that I am running out of time. That is unfortunate, because I could have gone on for hours. My hon. colleagues will no doubt put very good questions to me, and I will gladly answer them.

[Criminal Code, October 20th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher for his excellent question.

My colleague sits on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates and I can assure the House that he is in a very good position to know the extent of the federal government's chronic inability to negotiate with the provinces, despite its promise to respect provincial and federal jurisdictions and to lead by example. In fact, the government is doing the exact opposite. My colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher sees it every day, just like every other Bloc Québécois member, and that is why we are sovereignists.

The federal government must also lead by example on this file. It must not only be able to negotiate with the other provinces. Let us not forget that this bill also has enormous repercussions for other provinces in terms of civil rights, for example. Therefore, the government must also lead by example.

The federal government is proposing to penalize people who make fraudulent use of identity documents such as social insurance cards. However, it is not doing enough to protect and strengthen the integrity of the social insurance number. In June 2006, we learned that the Auditor General estimated there were 2.9 million more social insurance numbers in circulation than the estimated number of Canadians aged 30 and over.

So we have a government that, on top of being incapable of negotiating with the provinces on a wide variety of subjects, is incompetent. That is why we voted in favour of a non-confidence motion.

[Criminal Code, October 20th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question. I am not at all afraid of saying my age. I am 22 years old. The member is putting a lot of pressure on me by asking me to explain to young people, in 30 seconds, how important it is to be cautious when using networking websites such as Facebook. It is not the kind of awareness campaign one can do alone.

My colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel hit the nail on the head when he said that our generation may be a little bit too trusting. We do not have this kind of fear, we are less afraid of fraud, we feel more protected, we think that those things will not happen to us. We feel totally immune to that, but we are wrong to feel that way. Actually, it is the exact opposite. Our generation—perhaps mine more than yours—is probably the one that will be greatly affected by that because we use those websites, like Facebook, that are information-sharing sites. What we have on Facebook is information on who we are, as I was saying earlier, our name, our age, our address, all those things. It is extremely dangerous and it makes the work of identity thieves a lot easier. We really need to raise awareness among our younger generations to make them understand that they should be extremely cautious and should not, under any circumstances, give out personal information such as their social insurance number or credit card number.

[Criminal Code, October 20th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question.

I see that he is well-informed about this subject. I must admit that there will have to be an agreement among the various levels of government about this. As my colleague emphasized, it is extremely unfortunate that there are some failures in this, and that people do nothing but pass the buck back and forth. Such behaviour can be a problem. While departments or police forces are wasting time passing the buck back and forth, the fraudsters have time to escape or hide. We will have to make sure that, in the bill, we stay out of all provincial jurisdictions. Given the excellent work being done by the Sûreté du Québec on this issue, I have no doubt that it will be able to do its job thoroughly.

[Criminal Code, October 20th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the brilliant presentation made by the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue is going to be a tough act to follow. After hearing his speech and that of my colleague, the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, one might think that there is very little left to explain about this bill. However, since I am a very resourceful person, I did find something to add to this debate.

This is a very interesting discussion, particularly considering the ever increasing use of new technologies. For example, 15 or 20 years ago, online purchases accounted for a very small percentage of transactions, but they are now exploding.

As my colleague for Abitibi—Témiscamingue mentioned earlier—and I am going to refer to his comments throughout my speech because, again, he made a brilliant presentation—it is even possible to order a pizza with a credit card. Considering all the means that we use, one can see the situations that could lead to identity theft, given the personal information that must be provided to make the transaction. For example, in the case of a credit card, a signature is required. If an individual appropriates someone else's identity, he can do really despicable things in terms of fraud and theft.

Earlier, I referred to online shopping, which is expanding at an incredible pace. I must say that I personally make great use of new technologies. I am not the only one. People may be too naive or ill-informed. For example, because it is on the Internet and some business logos seem to guarantee the safe use of credit cards, people trust these sites, without even double checking and trying to find out which company provides that guarantee of security, or to determine whether there are indeed firewalls to prevent theft.

Unfortunately, we realize all too often that Internet sites are not safe enough to make purchases without any concern. There are of course good systems that can do the job but, unfortunately, they are not used enough and this is why we need legislation like this bill.

Despite the fact that the Bloc Québécois has been talking about this issue for years—and I am thinking of the member for Hochelaga and the work that he did in this regard at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights—the government was, as usual, slow to act. But at last it did propose a bill which, all in all, made a lot of sense. There was not a lot to add to it. It was almost perfect. It only needed some fine tuning.

Earlier, I mentioned that identity theft is quickly becoming a major problem. The hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue said that it represented close to $50 billion annually. I think we all agree that this is not peanuts.

For the past few minutes, I have been talking about credit cards, but there are many other examples. There is the theft of a debit card PIN number and, later on in the bill, there is even a reference to retina image. As we can see, for once the government is trying to get a bit of a lead over technologies, even though it had a very hard time to do so.

We can also see that identity theft can go very far. It is no longer merely about having someone else's social insurance number, as was the case some 30 years ago. Today, there are so many tools, whether they relate to payment options or communications, among others, that the amount of personal information that can be stolen has increased significantly.

Let us take for example the social networking site Facebook. This is a new technology that has been in place for a few years already.

These sites are very widespread. What is available on these social networking sites? People can enter their name, address, date of birth, telephone number, and so forth. This is a mine of information for identity thieves who collect it online and use it for nefarious purposes.

I am not opposed to these social networking sites, far from it. They have their place, but it is easy to see how people can sometimes naively put information on the Internet thinking it will only be used for good purposes. Unfortunately, this is not always the final result. People with evil intent can take advantage and use the information against the owner. It is very sad.

It is worthwhile taking some time to explain this to the people watching us. I can never say often enough how important education can be as a tool in the fight against identity theft. We have an excellent tool here in this bill, although not much will be achieved if we fail to add public education and awareness to it.

I just mentioned Facebook. When we use other online tools, for example, MSN Messenger, they make the effort to remind us not to give our PINs or credit card numbers to just anyone without protecting ourselves and knowing to whom we are giving them. We have to be very cautious. People should be reminded, therefore, to be very careful in this regard.

Even if we are very cautious, as I myself usually am, sometimes mistakes are made, and that is where this bill comes in. I want to use myself as an example to show how easy it is for anyone to be taken in. Once this summer, when I used my debit card it was cloned. This is not confined, therefore, to particular classes in society. Everyone is affected. Anyone in the modern world can have his identity stolen without even realizing it. I will not give the name of my bank, so as not to make people jealous, but thank heavens that it moved quickly to contact me and block this fraud.

Perhaps I can remind people what identity theft is. It is deliberately assuming the identity of another person, generally in order to commit fraud, such as accessing the finances of that person, or committing some crime or infraction anonymously. Almost all these definitions refer to the illegal use of the personal information of another person. This information is obtained in various ways, ranging from direct, not necessarily illegal activities such as searching garbage pails to very sophisticated phishing techniques.

The other ways of getting personal information are the theft of ID cards or credit cards, the redirection of mail, by false pretences such as pretending to be authorized to obtain certain information, and the use of devices to collect information from credit cards or PINs. When fighting crime, we must always be aware that our adversaries, the criminals, are very ingenious and innovative.

Being enormously interested in this subject, I have watched a lot of documentaries, particularly on how this works in the United States. Canal D screens some very good documentaries to provide a little education, to engage in prevention and to remind the public to be vigilant. These documentaries show how people are able to put false tops on the usual boxes where we enter our PINs. These people manage to put another little box—that looks like the original—right on top of the box, and it can record the codes we enter. Once they have our debit card numbers, it is no problem to clone our cards.

Some of the other ways to procure personal information include the loss or theft of a personal computer or other data storage devices containing confidential information that could be re-used to commit fraud, and the complicity of an unscrupulous employee working within an organization.

To get back to the bill, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of it, and like other parties in the House of Commons, we would like to see it studied quickly. The faster this bill is studied, the faster it can be passed and the faster we can start taking action against this crime which is claiming more and more victims.

As I was saying and can never say enough, this is not strictly limited to one class of society or one group of people. Everyone in Canada is a potential victim of fraudulent identity theft at any time of day or night, and at any time of year.

However, the battle against identity theft also requires coordinated action by the various levels of government. The Bloc Québécois acknowledges that amending the Criminal Code will not be enough to resolve the problem of identity theft. Other measures will have to be introduced by the government, as I was saying earlier, to educate the population, raise its awareness and increase its vigilance.

There is the matter of regulation so as to provide an improved management structure, for example the storage, disposition and other use of information by companies. I was saying earlier that when we make purchases on the Internet, for example, we agree to provide companies with our credit card numbers. So it is absolutely necessary to educate the population to be curious about the company to which we are giving our credit card numbers. We have to do some research to find out if it has a history, if it has had problems with data storage before, or if it has been a victim of theft in the past. We may have trusted a company enough to provide it with our credit card number, but if the company itself is a victim of personation or theft, then we have a problem which is not necessarily our fault or the fault of the individual or the company. So it is really necessary to be informed, to pay attention and to be vigilant.

There are also measures that target the uniformity and enhanced security of processes for issuing and verifying identity documents. Unfortunately, the federal government has a bad track record on personal information management, but that is another subject. So the bill aims to combat identity theft and the unauthorized collection and use of personal information, usually for criminal purposes. A person's name, date of birth, address, credit card number, SIN or social insurance number, and any other personal identification number can be used to open a bank account, obtain a credit card, forward mail, subscribe to a cellular telephone service, or lease a vehicle. So one can see the full scope of the crimes that can be committed using personal identification numbers or personal documents.

The bill thus creates three new basic offences, all of them liable to a maximum sentence of five years. It refers to obtaining and possessing identity information with the intent to use it in a fraudulent, dishonest or misleading way as one element of a crime.

There is trafficking in identity information. There is also another offence. For example—and to be sure, I would never do this, Mr. Speaker—people can clone debit cards and take money out of their victims' bank accounts. One need not go that far to be a criminal. I could simply take another person's information, possess it and transfer it to someone else who would use it illegally. The middle man between the criminal and the victim would also be punished. I would like to reassure the House once again that I have no intention of stealing anyone's debit card.

This bill will create another offence: illegal possession of or trafficking in government-issued identity documents that contain information about another person.

Further amendments to the Criminal Code include creating a new offence for redirecting a person's mail or causing it to be redirected; creating a new offence for possessing a counterfeit Canada Post mail key; creating additional forgery-related offences, such as trafficking in forged documents and the possession of forged documents with the intent to use them; redesignating “personation with intent” as “identity fraud”—this adds clarity to the legislation; clarifying the definition of “fraudulently personating another person”; and adding the offence of possessing instruments for copying credit card information to the existing offence of possessing instruments for forging credit cards.

Consequently, if a person has tools to forge credit cards, that person is considered to be a criminal. However, now, simply possessing information will become a criminal act.

The bill also introduces a new power that would enable the court to order the offender, as part of the sentence, to make restitution to a victim of identity theft or identity fraud for the expenses associated with recovering the stolen identity, such as the cost of replacement documents and cards and costs related to correcting their credit history.

For victims of identity theft, it is not just the financial loss that presents a problem, but the whole process of taking back their identity, which can be very expensive, long and painful.

I said earlier that when it happened to me, my bank acted quickly and I was not out of pocket. But the problem is that you have to be able to find all the information you have lost, which can be an extremely long process. The average person simply does not have the time to go looking for all that information. It can be extremely difficult for a person to obtain a new SIN, cancel and reactivate credit cards and deal with all the complexity and the paperwork involved.

The bill provides for two exemptions that would protect individuals who make false documents for covert government operations against prosecution for forgery and would allow public officers, that is law enforcement officers to create and use covert identities in the performance of their duties.

As I said, identity theft is an extremely serious problem. According to the Minister of Public Safety, identity theft is one of the fastest-growing forms of crime in Canada and the United States. In 2004, the costs associated with identity theft were close to $50 billion, as my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue mentioned. Identity theft is costly not only for the consumers who are duped, but for the banks and businesses that find themselves with a problem. If a fraud artist buys $2,000 worth of merchandise from a business that then discovers that the credit card used was falsified, this will create a huge problem for the business, which cannot afford the financial loss due to theft.

In 2002, the Canadian Council of Better Business Bureaus estimated that consumers, banks and credit card companies, stores and other businesses lost $2.5 billion because of identity theft.

As I said, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of passing this bill as quickly as possible. The victims are not just individuals, but businesses as well.

[Post-Secondary Education, October 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, this government claimed to be different from the Liberals, but it is acting the same way. All the provinces have to be treated equally. There is no room for difference. That is what the Prime Minister himself said in connection with harmonizing taxes. For student assistance, as with Jean Chrétien's millennium scholarships, the current government is requiring Quebec to conform with the Canadian system.

Why is this government insisting on imposing its new bursary program on Quebeckers, who are calling for the unconditional right to opt out with full compensation?

[Bill C-311--Climate Change Accountability Act, October 8th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I listened very carefully to the speech by the member for Papineau. I will admit that I was a little surprised and even confused about what he said.

I completely agree with part of his analysis, when he said that the Conservative government does absolutely nothing, has no plan, has no clue, and essentially has no interest in the environment.

The problem I see is that the only thing that the Liberals have ever proposed was a carbon tax. After that, they ran out of ideas. The Liberals did not give us a concrete plan, no tangible initiatives regarding their commitment to the environment. Need I remind members that it was under the Liberals that Canada had the highest increases in greenhouse gases?

I have a question for the member for Papineau. I am in no way questioning his support of environmental issues, but when I listen to him, I hear sovereignist rhetoric. Does he agree with the fact that Quebec must speak with one voice in Copenhagen, and that it must defend its own plan because Quebec is the only province in Canada to have a plan for the environment?

[Business of Supply, October 1st, 2009]

Madam Speaker, like my Conservative colleagues, I clearly see we are dealing with a Liberal Party leader. His speech contains some glaring contradictions with what he has told us.

On the one hand, the Liberals tell us they do not want an election and they want to try to find ways to solve our problems. On the other hand, they are the first to move a no-confidence motion against the Conservative government.

The big problem is that they have absolutely nothing to propose. Take Quebec as an example. When we look at the Conservatives and the Liberals, we see two faces with one vision. They are both in favour of creating a single securities commission in Toronto. They are both in favour of reducing the number of seats in Quebec, in favour of Ontario and Alberta. The leader of the Liberal Party supports the development of the oil sands. Proof of that lies in the fact that the Alberta government sent him a letter telling him that he was the oil sands' biggest advocate.

The more I look at the Liberals and the Conservatives, the more I realize that they are all the same.

[Business of Supply, October 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, because he did not get the unanimous consent of the House, my colleague could not finish his brilliant presentation. He barely had time to mention one extremely important issue, namely, the environment.

We are well aware that the environment is not at all a priority for the Conservatives. Over the years, our country has become the caboose of the international community, when it comes to the environment. We are among the G20 countries that invest the least in that sector. We recently learned that only a very small amount of the money earmarked for renewable energies has actually been spent. It is obvious that the Conservative government has no intention to innovate in that area, it has no intention to invest in clean and renewable energies. I find it extremely unfortunate, because we in Quebec decided a long time ago to go green and to act accordingly. We have resources that allow us to develop renewable energies. Earlier, my colleague told us that the Lower St. Lawrence region had been abandoned. Without a carbon exchange, the town of Rivière-du-Loup is losing close to $1 million annually. As we can see, the Conservatives still do not understand that the environment and the economy easily can be—and must be— promoted together.

I wonder if our House leader could elaborate on this.