Day puts national ID card back on the agenda

and the new standardized imperial freedom spreads across the globe like a virus...this does nothing to stop terrorism...of which we can only get manufactured threats and attacks...because the threat of actual, non state-contrived terrorism is not that big...

Day puts national ID card back on the agenda

Updated Fri. Feb. 17 2006 11:26 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

The new federal minister of public safety, Stockwell Day, is suggesting that a national identification card is inevitable for Canadians.

Day suggested in an interview with The Canadian Press that a government-issued national ID card, which Britain could begin to phase in by next year, is likely forthcoming for Canadians.

"At this point, I don't know what it should be called, to tell you the truth," Day said.

"I don't know if we'll call it that, but we want good, law-abiding people to have smooth and quick access at all border points - not just North American, but international."

Now that the United States has dropped its demand requiring Canadians to show passports to travel across the border, the proposal for a national ID card appears to be back on the table.

"We also want to be able to stop people who are a menace or a threat from getting in or getting out, so that's the overall goal," Day said.

Day told CP the topic came up again this week when he spoke on the phone with his U.S. counterpart, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Cherkoff.

"I think it's fair to say that in both Canada and the U.S. we do want some kind of enhanced security provision," he said.

"Whether that's some kind of a biometric approach, an enhancement on a driver's licence - all of that needs to be explored, so we do want to see enhanced technological capacity in that area."

The proposal of a national ID card was raised as a solution to prevent the abuse of the social insurance number, which was originally meant only for federal government documents.

It eventually evolved over the years for such uses as identification for cheque-writing.

The idea of such a card later re-emerged in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States.

Former Liberal Immigration minister Denis Coderre has always supported an identification card, saying it could combat terrorism and identity theft, and make it easier to cross the U.S. border.

He says a plastic card could include biometric information that a paper passport could not.

But his 2003 proposal did not receive a warm reception from the all-party immigration committee of the House of Commons.

It issued a report claiming a national ID card could cost up to $7 billion to implement.

The report also cited privacy concerns and technical problems in the developing field of biometrics, the use of physical traits such as fingerprints or iris scans to identify citizens.

This week, Coderre again issued a call for a national debate, saying it's only a matter of time before other nations follow Britain's lead.

"We have to have a real debate on this ... we cannot bury our head in the sand anymore," Coderre told CP. "Something is going on worldwide and we have to have that debate.

"Three years ago we were in the avant-garde, but right now we're trailing."

With a report from The Canadian Press

I don't know about Canada and Mexico, but here it wouldn't be that hard to just link our current state DMV's records. We don't need a national ID. Of course, the trick is to enforce the laws in place as they are.

All three nations need to work together to keep us all safe.