Canada鈥檚 chief statistician has defended attempts by Statistics Canada to obtain sensitive banking details of more than 500,000 Canadians without their consent.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner into the move by Statistics Canada, a few hours after the agency invited the commissioner to take a 鈥渄eeper dive鈥� into its program.

StatCan wants to access to a large sample of Canadian bank customer information as part of a new way to track financial data.

Statistics Canada鈥檚 chief statistician, Anil Arora, told CTV鈥檚 Power Play Wednesday that the agency wants to provide Canadians, businesses and decision makers with the best information.

鈥淭he fact is 75 percent, if not more, of all Canadians now transact online,鈥� he said.

鈥淭his is where Canadians live and transact today. So for an agency like Statistics Canada we can鈥檛 be stuck with just paper and pencil, we have to go to where the needs are. This is the only way that we can provide good timely information and to fill some of the important gaps in our economic understanding.鈥�

Data sought by Statistics Canada includes account balances, debit and credit transactions, mortgage payments and e-transfers. The agency has already obtained personal financial information from the TransUnion credit bureau.

Arora said the agency has seen a significant reduction in response rates for information through traditional means such as phone calls, so it is getting difficult to tell Canadians what is going on in the digital economy.

鈥淐anadians need to be assured that the privacy and confidentiality of the information they give us is exactly the same as we鈥檝e done for 100 years,鈥� he said.

Arora said StatCan has been working with the Privacy Commissioner鈥檚 office and the Canadian Banking Association for the past year and taken their recommendations into account.

He said the project was still in the 鈥渄eveloping phase鈥� and it has not collected a single record yet.

The issue was raised in Parliament on Tuesday, with deputy Conservative leader Lisa Raitt asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau if he would order Statistics Canada to 鈥渃ease and desist鈥� its attempt to obtain the data.

鈥淭his prime minister is telling Canadians that it鈥檚 OK for their government to understand all of their financial information,鈥� Raitt said.

Trudeau responded by accusing the Conservatives of running 鈥渁 war on science and facts鈥� at every turn.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer told Power Play on Wednesday that the move by StatCan was a 鈥渕assive overreach from the government鈥檚 power to peer into our personal information鈥�.

鈥淭he banks themselves were raising these complaints on behalf of their customers, most Canadians were completely unaware of what鈥檚 going on for some time,鈥� the Opposition leader said.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 believe the government should have the right to take this kind of information without your consent. If this was an individual or another company or a foreign government we would be calling this a hack, an outright violation.鈥�

Scheer added that the Liberal government agreed to pay $17.5 million last year to settle a class-action lawsuit for a data breach relating to student loans.

Arora assured Canadians that the agency has world-leading checks and balances in place to deal with the most sensitive personal information.

鈥淏ecause we knew about the sensitivity of this we invited the office of the Privacy Commissioner and said, 鈥楲ook, above and beyond this, what else should we do?鈥� We鈥檝e got those recommendations in place,鈥� he said.

Canada鈥檚 big five banks are telling customers that they have not agreed to divulge any of the information Statistics Canada is requesting.

With a report from 麻豆传媒 parliamentary correspondent Kevin Gallagher