Hon. Frances Lankin: Thank you for your report, Senator Dean. I am very pleased to see the thorough job that the committee did.

I wonder if you could comment if there has been any further correspondence or communication from people within the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada with respect to concerns they may have had or how those concerns may have been alleviated by encompassing and using the existing, known and tried-and-true legal standard threshold.

Senator Dean: Thank you for the question, Senator Lankin. I believe we did receive submissions from the Privacy Commissioner, and they have been received previously with respect to this concern. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner was supportive of moving to a standard that was clearer and more definitive.

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: I rise today in support of the adoption of the report. I just wanted to point out that section 99 of the Customs Act, which we are currently discussing, is entitled “Examination of goods.” It states, and I quote:

That means any act of Parliament administered or enforced by the officer.

To inspect a package, a bus, or to ensure that the right rate has been applied, the officer must have reasonable grounds to believe. I would be more convinced if the government changed these other sections of the legislation to say that, for all these other sections there has to be reasonable concern, but no. Regarding the computer, the thing most closely linked to your privacy, the one thing that contains all the data and can describe you more accurately than you can, we cannot decide that it warrants a lower threshold than all these elements that are necessary formalities to prevent a firearm from being imported to Canada.

We are told about pedophilia. It is important. It is serious, but we cannot allow computers to be searched under the guise of wanting to counter pedophilia by accepting a lower threshold than the threshold for allowing packages to be opened to verify whether there are firearms inside. The government is on the wrong track. If it wants to convince us that a lower threshold is possible — as suggested in Canfield by the Alberta Court of Appeal — then I invite the government to amend the other parts of the legislation to have the new proposed test apply everywhere. If there is no consistency in the legislation we cannot justify measures before a court. Thank you.

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