The Senate

Honourable senators, I seek leave to allow this item, adjourned in the name of Senator Black, to remain in the name of Senator Black for the balance of his time following my intervention.

Honourable senators, I want to briefly speak about what I think is a really important motion on the part of Senator Simons to investigate a sovereign, domestic, verified traveller program for Canadians.

The problem it solves is one I faced this morning. Last Thursday, I thought I put my NEXUS card in a very safe place as I left security, but I found out when I boarded the airplane that I must have put it somewhere else. Therefore, I used another piece of ID to board the airplane. I searched through everything only to find that I had left it at security. I was very lucky that I was able to phone them and request them to hold it for me, and I picked it up this morning on my way through the airport.

Regardless, the thought of losing my NEXUS card, and of the lineup we often see, and are stuck in, every Thursday night, when so many people are leaving Ottawa, was absolutely terrifying. Being without those verified traveller cards is a very real problem.

I spent 20 years travelling virtually every week to the U.S. However, after 9/11, when the queues at security were regularly an hour at any airport you happened to be at, I never thought twice about going to the Halifax airport and handing over my facial recognition information, my iris scan — and I think about you, Iris, every time I think of that — and my fingerprints to the Canada Border Services Agency. I didn’t think that information about identification and so on was going to be shared with Homeland Security or about the long-term implications of that.

I think all of us have recognized over the past 18 to 24 months how important it is for us to have sovereign control over our data. That’s something that too few of us thought about before one person started to have considerable influence over our access to American technology and abruptly shut off individuals’ access to that technology — to payment services and to other essential services we all need on a daily basis.

We have changed a lot in a very short period of time, and we have seen the justification for some people not wanting to get a NEXUS card while still wanting the ability to be a verified traveller and to move safely across Canada when they travel for business or recreational activities.

We have woken up to the reality of keeping control over our own information. We have started to think long and hard about what services we access. We regularly hear Canadian leaders speak about the importance of digital sovereignty.

The world has very much shifted, and this motion proposes something that is timely for the moment. It gives us the ability to access that verified service, to quickly pass through airport security in a timely manner and to avoid wasting so much of our day arriving an hour or more earlier to our flight than everybody else. For those times when we are running late, we could get through quickly and not have to worry about missing our flight.

One of the questions I have heard regularly when listening to why anybody would be against this has been with respect to the cost. Is it going to be an expensive service to implement? Is it really worth it? Are there enough people who would use the service?

When the Parliamentary Budget Officer, or PBO, looked into it earlier this year, they found that it would cost about $7 million to run this program over a five-year period in Canada with the build-up of volume over that period. I think it would be very low-maintenance after that period. I consider the peace of mind it could give to Canadians who regularly travel across our country — to have access to this service that they don’t now have access to. I consider the improved effort of our airport security services, no longer putting focus on everybody at the same level but, perhaps, on where it needs to be. They could be more attentively focused rather than just generally across the whole service.

It addresses an important issue of inequality and gives Canadians who rarely, reluctantly or don’t travel to the U.S. the ability to have the same access as the rest of us who, like me — and I guess it was almost 11 years ago — signed up for the service without thinking twice. We might think twice today. That ability is really about having sovereign control over the data — the identity and contact information — that is gathered and retained, control over the administration of the program and Canadian control over deciding who is given access to this card. It won’t just be in the hands of, basically, another country.

Domestic equity is crucial in this situation, and I encourage colleagues to support Senator Simons’ motion. I think it’s meant for the moment.

Thank you very much for listening for a moment.