Privacy  Mr. Speaker, if this is only a pilot project, I can only imagine what the full monty will look like. The new European privacy law gives citizens full control of personal data held by banks and financial services, that is, the right to say no to requests to share that data with third party organizations.

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, my question is for the chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. It is a crime to destroy government documents under the Access to Information Act. That crime is much more egregious if those documents have been requested in a legal proceeding.

Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act  Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's shared concern and disgust at the events in the synagogue in Pittsburgh, the continuing threats to our holy places of all faiths in Canada and the amount of time, effort, security and money that needs to be expended to guarantee the security of these vulnerable holy meeting places.

Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act  Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. The science and technology accomplishments in Israel at the great universities, like the Technion, Haifa University, Tel Aviv University, the Bar-Ilan University and the co-operation with Canadian universities in Toronto and Montreal in the development of artificial intelligence is spectacular, and there is great opportunity.

Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act  Madam Speaker, it is an honour to speak to Bill C-85, an act that would amend and strengthen a free trade agreement between Canada and the only democracy in the Middle East. I speak with particularly passionate solidarity with Jews in Israel, around the world and in my riding of Thornhill tonight because this debate is taking place in the shadow of the hate-driven outrage in Pittsburgh on the weekend.

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, on November 20, 2015, James Cudmore, the CBC's military affairs reporter, broke a story. The first sentence read, “The new Liberal government is delaying approval of a deal to convert a civilian cargo ship into a badly needed military supply vessel.” On December 21, Mr.

Ethics  Madam Speaker, the Conflict of Interest Act says, “a public office holder is in a conflict of interest when he or she exercises an official power, duty or function that provides an opportunity...to improperly further another person’s private interests.” We know ministers often hire journalists for their communications skills to promote government policies.

Elections Modernization Act  Madam Speaker, it has indeed been a pleasure to work with my hon. colleague in these recent months on the ethics committee on the study of Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ here in Canada, which revealed the huge vulnerability of the Canadian democratic electoral process through new media.

Elections Modernization Act  Madam Speaker, that was a deflecting question. I believe the larger question comes back to the fact that the government, in its mandate letter to the Minister of National Revenue, gave her pretty clear direction on the CRA audit of questionable Canadian charities that were Canadianizing American charitable dollars to be used by third parties.

Elections Modernization Act  Madam Speaker, I will pick up where I left off before the Liberals imposed a legislative guillotine to cut off debate. My greatest concern about Bill C-76 is the Liberal claim that it would combat and control third-party spending. It would not properly address a problem that could have been easily solved if, and this is a big if, the current Liberal government had actually wanted to solve it.

Elections Modernization Act  Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleagues on this side of the House have addressed the fact that this piece of legislation has come to the House extraordinarily and unacceptably late. This should have been presented a year ago. The fact that it was so clumsily assembled is reflected in the fact that the Liberal government put forward almost six dozen amendments of its own to try to correct this clumsily written piece of legislation.

Elections Modernization Act  Mr. Speaker, free and fair elections are the fundamental essence of a democracy. While we know that more than half the world's population today lives under autocratic, dictatorial or otherwise democratically deficient regimes, Canadians, until recently, could be fairly confident that elections here were the gold standard in terms of freeness and fairness.

Government Accountability  Mr. Speaker, in 2004, former prime minister Paul Martin responded to a Conservative request and released hundreds of pages of cabinet committee records related to the advertising scandal. The documents requested today are clearly essential to the legal defence of Rear Admiral Norman in a case that reeks of political interference.

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, the Ethics Commissioner has announced that his office is considering investigating the Liberal member for Ottawa West—Nepean. Ironically, the member sits on the ethics committee. Does the minister believe that the member for Ottawa West—Nepean should continue on the ethics committee while the Ethics Commissioner considers and conducts an investigation?

Ethics  Mr. Speaker, the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons is very clear when it says, “A Member shall not use his or her position...to influence a decision of another person so as to further the Member's private interests or those of a member of...her family”.