Bill C-377

An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (need to know)

This enactment amends the Parliament of Canada Act to specify that a member of the Senate or the House of Commons who applies for a secret security clearance from the Government of Canada is, for the purposes of the consideration of their application, deemed to need access to the information in respect of which the application is made.

Parliament of Canada Act

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise this evening and speak to Bill C-377, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act, need to know. I thank the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound for championing this important bill to rectify an oversight that hinders the work that we do here in the House of Commons and over in the other place.

Like the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, I too recently received security clearance, as have other members who have spoken to this bill. It was granted to us by the federal government for our respective roles. The sponsor of this bill received it for his work on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, known as NSICOP, and I received it for being on the special ad hoc committee tasked with investigating the Winnipeg lab documents and the espionage that took place there, which originated out of Beijing in mainland China.

The essence of this bill is simple yet important. It states that a member of the House of Commons or the other place, and I am referring here to the Senate as the other place, who applies for security clearance is deemed to need access to the information for which the application is made. That is it. It does not mean automatic access to classified information. It would merely establish a need-to-know basis for the application process. For example, when I was chosen by the official opposition to sit on the ad hoc committee looking at the Winnipeg lab documents, we were in the dark about how this was going to work, given that I would need to see classified information. The process was opaque, and we did not know where to go or where to turn. This bill would clarify that, and it is crucial for improving transparency and accountability, and for informing parliamentarians, as well as Canadians, about ever-changing and ever-evolving threats to our democratic institutions.

This is how the prevailing governing policy operates, and this is long standing. I have to say, listening to the Liberal Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, who just spoke, turning it into a political football and accusing members who support this bill of bad faith and Liberals of championing a system, that the approach of the Liberals is to treat parliamentarians like mushrooms: Feed them a load of bull, and keep them in the dark. That is the Liberals' approach when it comes to national security issues. On this side of the House, we think parliamentarians have a responsibility to oversee the executive, and I hope others do as well. At times, that does mean accessing classified information. The Government of Canada's current policy is problematic because it undermines the ability of parliamentarians to perform our essential function of government oversight effectively.

Recent testimony at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs highlights the need for the bill. Vincent Rigby, former national security and intelligence adviser, emphasized that increasing transparency by producing annual public threat assessments, responding to NSICOP reports, publishing intelligence priorities and sharing more intelligence with members of Parliament is important. Wesley Wark, a national security expert, stressed that Canadians lack awareness about national security, which could be improved through public hearings.

Now, before the Liberals get all alarmed that secrets will spill out, I sit on another committee. I chair the public accounts committee. Through the hard and diligent work of all members of that committee, this committee was the first committee within western countries to legally receive the vaccine contracts from the pandemic. We kept those documents secret. We reviewed them in camera, and the committee is set to table its report. It will do so in a way that respects those confidentiality agreements, and nothing has been leaked. Now, this didn't require classified information, but it did require going through a number of hoops that the government first resisted, although, by working together, we showed that these committees can do their work and keep classified information confidential. In this case, it was not so much national security but commercial interests that the government, as well as vaccine producers, were looking to protect. We wanted to, as they say, trust but verify, so we reviewed these documents.

The aim of this bill is to bridge the gap between the need for national security and the imperative of parliamentary oversight. Members of Parliament, as well as senators and representatives of the Canadian public, need access to critical information from time to time to hold the government accountable. That is what this is about. Even though this is a government that is on its way out, it is going to fight tooth and nail to the very end to prevent this from happening.

We should move ahead with this bill. We should pass this bill. I hope we have multi-party consensus to do that because the people in the chamber, elected officials, do not serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister. We serve at the pleasure of our voters.

Under the existing framework, the government typically restricts access to classified information of individuals who pass the personal security screening process and who need access to the information to perform their official duties. This need-to-know principle is fundamental to protecting classified information. Applicants for security clearances undergo rigorous vetting, where their entire lives are scrutinized to ensure that they are trustworthy.

However, just so people do not think this is some small cabal, from 2016 to 2023, nearly a quarter of a million security clearance applications were processed by the Government of Canada. At the exact same time, the government's policy operates on the assumption that members of Parliament and senators do not need to know sensitive information. That is its starting point, and that should change.

As such, passing this bill is crucial for improving transparency and rebuilding trust in our democratic process and institutions, particularly at a time when foreign interference is on the rise. The government would prefer to ignore that problem, and hope and pray that it goes away, but it will not go away.

This bill would ensure that parliamentarians have the necessary clearance to access sensitive information when requested by Parliament. This is not a blank cheque. For example, while I was in my role on the Canada-China committee, an order to produce unredacted documents related to the firing of two scientists at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg was denied by the government. An identical order through Parliament was also denied by the government, and then it went so far as to sue the House and the Speaker. It is outrageous and the first time that had happened in our country's history.

At the time, the government's position was that this information was so sensitive that only it could be trusted with it. It was later determined that this was an excuse put forward to protect the government from damning evidence of bureaucratic incompetence and ministerial malaise. Their incompetence has jeopardized our relation with other Five Eyes allies because we look like a bunch of bloody fools who cannot manage a level four, top secret lab, and we somehow let in not only officials from mainland China but also officials from the People's Liberation Army who specialize in biowarfare, but I digress.

We got that information, and Canadians can now see the incompetence of the government. It is important to clarify that this bill would not guarantee that every member of Parliament or senator would obtain security clearance. It does not grant members automatic top security clearance. As well, obtaining security clearance does not grant unfettered access to information. It merely allows the individual to be considered for access. It is an on-ramp. It is the beginning of a process, but just the beginning. Applicants must still pass the security screening process, which is stringent and thorough. I can say that. I went through it.

The bill would merely facilitate the application process, ensuring that parliamentarians who need to access that classified information for their duties can apply for clearance. The primary risk associated with this bill is political. If a member's application is denied, the reason for denial will remain private and not disclosed, maintaining individual privacy and security for members of Parliament.

In conclusion, this bill aligns with the unanimous recommendation of PROC to facilitate security clearance for parliamentarians who are not members of the Privy Council, ensuring they are adequately briefed on important national security matters. Ultimately, this bill will help parliamentarians. I hope it will pass.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am joining the debate on my colleague's bill, Bill C-377, this “need to know” piece of legislation that I support. In some of my work in the past, it would have been useful to have at least secret level clearance in order to be able to receive a briefing from the government or even to get information on what the current state was of parliamentary work.

In my particular case, as members will know, I am one of 18 parliamentarians who were targeted by APT31, which is a specific unit of the People's Republic of China. There are many of these APTs, but this is a specific intelligence-gathering organization responsible not only for digital surveillance but also for going after politicians and activists overseas as one of its target groups.

In fact, the U.S. Department of State has named about a dozen of these agents, or hackers. They are professional hackers essentially, but they are intelligence officers in the PRC. It would be useful for me to be able to apply to the Government of Canada in order to obtain a security level clearance so that I could actually get a security briefing. It has come to the point where this type of legislation is now needed. A lot of information is digital. It is not just in written format, but it is out there, and it would help us to do some of our parliamentary work.

What I do like about Bill C-377 is how short it is. It would basically only add one section to the Parliament of Canada Act about access to information and would add a clarifying section on our privileges as members of Parliament, which we are simply stewards of. We do not own them. They are not for us. They are for the benefit of members of Parliament in the future.

Bill C-377 would also protect senators in that other place, making sure the powers and immunities they enjoy are still protected, by us being allowed to apply for a secret security clearance from the Government of Canada. Again, for the purpose of that application, we would be considered as needing to know because we need to know.

Too often I have seen, at different standing committees, where officials either will skate around the question or will avoid the question entirely by saying that due to operational security reasons they cannot disclose the information. Even though we may sometimes offer, after the fact, to move a committee in camera, which means it is not in public, there is a transcript that is kept with the Journals branch, but it is only available 30 years after the fact. Even though the public does not have it, we cannot often use it. However, it is very rare, and I have actually never experienced it myself. I think I received one in camera briefing with FINTRAC at one point. One can go see it, because it was one of the publicly available meetings. We were given a public briefing and then a private briefing as well.

This bill, Bill C-377, would have perhaps given us the opportunity to follow up with the Government in Canada to find out more about what exactly is going on with particular files. It all starts with little things, when we start pulling at the ball of yarn, trying to get at the answers so we can better understand an issue, both from witness testimony and from government officials who come to tell us about the work they have been doing on behalf of taxpayers. For us to be able to hold them accountable, we need to know what they know. We need to know what information they have. I have noticed that when it comes to security agencies and to those responsible for national security issues, too often there is a block, and they will say that they cannot disclose it to us because we do not need to know.

My grandmother used to often say that one cannot empty the ocean with a spoon. She would say it in Polish. It turns out it is a Yiddish proverb as well. I sometimes feel like we are drowning in an ocean of information, trying to understand what is useful information and what is information that is not useful, not necessary, not relevant to the work we do. I think that is a big part of a member of Parliament's job, as well as that of senators.

The second part of it is then to realize what sensitive security information is required to do our jobs. I will go back to this APT31 group. I was the target of a digital surveillance campaign, specifically one attack, and I was not told by the Government of Canada that I had been targeted. The House of Commons cybersecurity did not tell me specifically that I was one of the targets. I had to find that out from IPAC, and then I had to find out from the FBI what exactly this digital surveillance was. I received a briefing from the FBI. I did not get a briefing from CSIS, from the RCMP or from House of Commons security to tell me exactly what it was.

I actually went to look for those emails, which were still in my inbox, unread, thankfully, because I did not know who they were from. I still had those two emails. Had I opened them, and had my browser settings been set to automatically open images, I would have been impacted by this digital surveillance campaign specifically. I would like to be able to go to the government and say that I need a security level clearance, that I need to know and that I would like to obtain more information. I would like to be able to ask the government what it can give me up to that level, let us say.

In that particular situation, I think it would have been useful for me to be able to have it. The proposed legislation would fix that; it would give me an opportunity to go to the government and ask for that clearance.

I remember being an exempt staffer. It feels like many years ago. I was dating myself with someone else, and it feels like it has been now about 16 years, so it was quite a long time ago, during the Afghan war. I know that the mover of the private member's bill is a combat veteran from Afghanistan, and around that time he was in Afghanistan. While I was at National Defence headquarters as an exempt staffer, I cleared the security level clearance for secret, but because I was born abroad, as I am a naturalized citizen of Canada, they actually had to send an agent to the Republic of Poland to do the further background checks so I would qualify for top secret-level clearance.

I thought, absolutely, that is the way it should be done. Whatever they need to do, they need to do. I accept it. I remember filling out all the forms, but in the many months that it took, I actually never cleared it because my minister was shuffled out of his portfolio before I was cleared for that information. I would always be excused out of the meetings where there was top secret-level information being discussed by other exempt staffers. I thought that it was perfectly acceptable and that was the way it should be, because I did not need to know, and I accepted that.

In a situation like this for parliamentarians, we are not very often told to leave a room because we do not need to know. I do not sit on the NSICOP committee, the way the mover of this particular private member's bill does, so I am not affected by that type of information that I might have to receive, but there are other situations, like the one that personally impacts me and the work I do as a parliamentarian involving this intelligence office, APT31, from the People's Republic of China, where I do have a need to know. I do have a need to know because it has impacted my work and it has impacted how I relate to human rights activists in Canada and diaspora groups. I also meet with legislators and former legislators who are sometimes members of the opposition, sometimes members of the government or out of government, or exiled to Canada.

I meet with journalists who are exiled to Canada as well. One of my favourite people to speak about is Arzu Yildiz, who is a very famous Turkish journalist and is very well known in Turkey. At least, she was well known, almost a decade ago now, when she reported on activities of the Turkish government and for all her troubles, she was basically forced into exile to Canada.

In my dealings with people like this, it would be good to be able to ask the Government of Canada, “I need to know. These are the types of people I am meeting with. Can the government share some information with me about their backgrounds?” I think we all have this experience if we are working with cultural communities and diaspora groups, working on legislation. We would like to have a bit more information available. What do our national security agencies know, and can they share it with us?

I am glad that the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound has proposed now that members of Parliament be deemed needing to know so we could get that type of clearance, and it would also be extended to members of the Senate. There are two Houses of Parliament, and the Senate plays an important role as well, making sure that, in the work that we do, we get it right. It is the House of sober second thought.

My grandmother used to always say to start with little bits and that we cannot empty the ocean with just a spoon. This is now that beginning. It would be increasing our capacity to obtain information that is valuable to us. We have Order Paper questions, but as public information, we can file access to information requests, which I do quite often. That is privately held information up until it appears on the Treasury Board Secretariat's website as a released ATIP. Sometimes these take several years. Some of my ATIPs are coming close to being eligible for a member of Parliament pension at this point, because I still have not obtained them, but Treasury Board Secretariat is working diligently to make sure they are further delayed. They know who they are.

I support the bill. I support initiatives generally like this, for more transparency and more access, so that parliamentarians who are not members of the cabinet can get access to information they need to know. There are a lot of constituents who simply expect it now. It is an expectation in our work that we do get access to more information from our government. Members of the cabinet know a lot more, and I think parliamentary secretaries do enjoy some more access than just plain backbenchers like me. We have a role to play in this democracy, and we should be able to play it fully.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-377. First of all, I want to acknowledge the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. We have worked on a few things together. I have a deep amount of respect for him and the work that he does in this place, so I am very pleased to be able to speak to this piece of legislation.

I think it is a very interesting one, particularly in the context of the work that I have done on PROC, a committee that was overseeing a study on foreign interference. As we were going through that process, what we heard again and again was that the members of the committee were not vetted and did not have the clearance to access information that would really make the process for us a lot more logical, a lot less partisan and more focused on the important issues we were dealing with, so this bill, Bill C-377, really would allow for parliamentarians to be vetted and to go through that process. However, it is really important to underline the fact that this would not give them that clearance unless they were to go through that process. It would mean that parliamentarians would be able to apply, to go through all the interviews and to have things checked out to make sure they could be trusted to have secret information that the government may not necessarily want them to see, or they may simply not have the appropriate clearance, which would block that pathway for parliamentarians. Therefore, whether a parliamentarian would actually get that clearance is based on their history and on their capacity to get that. This bill, Bill C-377, addresses that and allows for parliamentarians to get that done.

I think where this is really important, and Canadians need to think about this, is that we see a lot of drama sometimes in this place, which is largely based on hearsay. I know, as a parliamentarian, one challenge I have had with respect to the work put before me, especially around the foreign interference file, was that I was trying to understand what was happening without all the information. I understand that some of that information could not necessarily be shared. I think it is really important that Canadians understand that our relationship with other countries really matters. When we have information shared with us because of our partnerships with other countries, we must have a very clear process, and that needs to be protected because if it is not, it will lessen the trust other countries have in us and their ability to share information with us. Therefore, we need to assess all those things.

Even if we are able, at committee, to have all the members of the committee vetted, if somebody from a particular party cannot get that vetting, then if we were to have somebody sit in their place who is vetted, that would mean the committee could actually do some of that work, and there is a transparency at least to members of Parliament. When we talk about foreign interference, we know that is part of the challenge we have been facing. People who have been specifically targeted do not have the clearance and do not have a clear process in this place that allows them to know they are being targeted, which is horrible. I know, as an MP having gone through that process, I have been very concerned about who is being targeted, how we would know if we were being targeted and what that would look like.

The other part of this, and why I will be supporting this bill, Bill C-377, is that we know Parliament and government are already slow places. Things move far too slowly, and it really builds a sense of frustration sometimes for Canadians. Therefore, if we have a process whereby MPs and senators, who are either appointed or elected to their positions, could go out and do the appropriate tasks, could do the thorough assessment and could have that secret clearance, then they would be able to know information and would be able to clearly explain the process, but not the details. I think we have to be very aware of that. Parliamentarians would know things that they would not be able to tell, but they would be able to say that they saw it, that they know what is happening, and they would have information that might allay or grow people's fears.

In this day and age, where we see such a vast, changing reality, and I think of last weekend when I was at the NATO Parliamentary Association where we talked about the development of AI, what that means for military action and what it means to have that information sent out to all people in the world and to have our constituents included in that, we need to assess those things and understand them.

The world is becoming trickier. It is trickier for parliamentarians in our particular roles, and it is trickier for Canadians. When we look at this, we have to look at what is disinformation and what, in terms of trust, is being broken or poisoned by disinformation for everyday Canadians. It is a lot to try to understand all the different things that are happening, and it is hard sometimes to know what information is thorough, which is researched, and what is actually from bad actors selling disinformation specifically because they want to attack our democracy. This is not the only tool, and we could talk a long time about the other tools that we need, but this tool would allow parliamentarians to come together.

Right now, we do have NSICOP, which is one committee where all the people in it are cleared, and they have access to information. That is a good process. I have no problem with it, but we need to have that expanded to this degree. I think this bill, Bill C-377, really does a good job of talking about how we could do that. It would not fix all the problems, but it would certainly address some of them.

One thing I learned really clearly in the work I was doing around foreign interference is that particular communities are vulnerable to misinformation. I was particularly passionate because what I understood as I went through that process is that rural and remote communities are one of those areas that are more vulnerable to disinformation. The reason they are more vulnerable is that often their local media has been shut down as they do not have enough money to keep going, which means when information comes out that they may need to know, local radio stations or local newspapers may or may not be there to actually report it, and it does mean that there are particular challenges. We heard very clearly that some ethnic media was also having particular challenges.

When we look at this as a whole of building trust, we want to build trust with Canadians and build trust with our institutions of government. When we look at having parliamentarians be more aware, more accountable and have tools to do that work, these things all have to come together. I appreciate that it is one part, and we need to definitely see more.

As we move through this new world that we are facing, we have to look at how to educate everyday Canadians more about security measures, about what they look like and about why we have to follow them so that people understand where we should push and where we should not push. I think that is really important because those relationships, internationally, and that information can make us extremely vulnerable.

I also think we need to look at education. I know that some countries are doing a phenomenal job and are starting to invest more resources into educating kids from a very young age about how disinformation is spread and about the capacity of a green screen to make things that are not real look real. Some places have colleges and universities with courses in any kind of training, from becoming a scientist, to a carpenter, to a welder, to a business person, and they actually have components where they educate people about what is happening in the world, about how to decipher misinformation and about how to develop that critical thinking process, which is so important.

I look forward to supporting this bill, Bill C-377. I look forward to it going to committee to make sure it does all the things we want it to do. I also hope to see more work in this place around educating everyday Canadians as we go into a technology world that is changing so rapidly.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-377, introduced by the Conservative member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, raises extremely important but sensitive issues.

The member is correct in saying that the current situation is not working and needs to be improved. When we talk about parliamentarians' access to classified information, there are two conflicting principles. Both of these principles are important, and so we must find a way to reconcile them before our deliberations come to an end.

On the one hand, there is responsible government, which is the very basis of democracy. Ministers are responsible for everything that happens in their departments. Cabinet members are collectively responsible for everything that happens in government. They are not accountable to the Holy Spirit, but rather Parliament.

We have a parliamentary system, and Parliament is the boss. The government must be accountable to Parliament, to the representatives of the people. To do that, Parliament must have access to all the information it needs, including documents that are to be produced.

When classified documents are involved, the situation is more sensitive. Those documents are classified secret for a reason, and disclosing them can be dangerous. Doing so can expose the identity of confidential sources, which burns them. It can make impossible co-operation with the intelligence agencies in friendly countries, which is necessary for ensuring security both at home and abroad. It can set off an international crisis or even uncover military secrets that would make us all vulnerable; it could cause an ongoing investigation to derail.

In the somewhat outdated words used in Bourinot, the old procedural guide that was consulted by the Chair during the Afghan prisoner crisis, it is important to preserve the roughly 140 years of collaboration between the House, the grand inquest of the nation, and the government, the defender of the realm. It is old language, but we understand the principle. When it comes to classified documents, there is no real mechanism that allows for this collaboration to work. This gap was made clear during the Afghan prisoner crisis and the Winnipeg lab crisis.

The Afghan prisoner crisis occurred under the Conservative government of Stephen Harper and the Winnipeg lab crisis under the current Liberal government. This is not a partisan issue. It is an institutional gap.

I want to say a few words about the story of the Afghan prisoners. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the United States felt it had been the victim of aggression. It invoked NATO's collective defence clause and asked its allies for help. This marked the start of the Afghanistan campaign, in which Canada took part.

In 2007, whistle-blowers made some alarming statements to journalists. Whenever the Canadian army took prisoners, it handed them over to the Afghan government, at which point they were tortured. This contravenes international law. Of course, it was extremely serious.

In 2009, there was another leak. A memo prepared by Canadian diplomats in Afghanistan confirmed the 2007 allegations. The special committee on the war in Afghanistan asked to see the memo, but the government denied its existence. The committee asked to see all the documents relating to the affair, but the government refused. It was the start of a tug-of-war. The government eventually released 4,000 pages of documents, but so much had been redacted that it was impossible to know what information they actually contained. Worse still, new leaks showed that the redacted parts did not contain information that needed to remain secret. They contained information that was simply inconvenient to the government.

The Speaker confirmed that the House had a right to know. The House declared the Harper government in contempt of Parliament and the government fell in 2011.

However, this did not resolve the matter. The Harper government, which managed to win a majority because the Bloc Québécois had been weakened, created a committee of former judges and parliamentarians, all with security clearance. In the end, 40,000 pages of lightly redacted documents were made public in 2014 and confirmed the allegations.

Canada had indeed handed over some prisoners to the Afghan government. They were subjected to torture. Canada knew it. Soldiers and diplomats had concerns about it. They are not to blame. However, the government turned a deaf ear. Seven years had gone by. The practice had long since stopped. The Canadian army's combat mission ended in 2011. It was too late to do anything.

The Winnipeg lab affair is quite similar. In 2019, we learned that two researchers were fired and deported to China, but the government refused to say anything more. This was the start of another tug-of-war. The House asked for documents, and the government refused. The head of the Public Health Agency of Canada was found in contempt of Parliament and was admonished by the Speaker. The Liberal government, however, doubled down. Worse still, it took legal action against the Speaker of the House and then dissolved Parliament.

Last week, after a committee composed of security-cleared former judges and parliamentarians reviewed the documents, the report was finally made public. Our worst fears were confirmed: These two researchers were spying for the Chinese government. Five years had passed since the information first came to light. Clearly, the system is broken.

There is the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, which the government legislated into existence in 2017. However, the story of the Winnipeg laboratory, which occurred two years after the committee was created, laid bare its limitations. Not only are its members bound to secrecy, but it does not report to Parliament. It does not really allow Parliament to do its job.

This is where Bill C‑377 comes in.

When it comes to giving access to classified documents, the government has two requirements. First, individuals must have security clearance. Second, the documents must be required in the course of the individual's work. In the case of civil servants with well-defined responsibilities, it is fairly difficult to determine whether they need access to a particular document. In the case of parliamentarians, it is more complicated. The government is accountable to Parliament for all its activities and the government should not have the right to decide what Parliament can legitimately investigate, which is essentially the situation we have now.

Bill C-377 proposes a simple solution. Proposed subsection 13.1(1) reads as follows:

A member of the Senate or the House of Commons who applies for a secret security clearance from the Government of Canada is, for the purposes of the consideration of their application, deemed to need access to the information in respect of which the application is made.

The bill respects the privileges of parliamentarians, so this is a step in the right direction. The government will no longer be able to decide, on a case-by-case basis and in a completely arbitrary manner, what a parliamentarian should have access to. However, Bill C-377 is missing something. Parliamentarians who have security clearance will have easier access to classified information. That is good, but they will obviously have to keep it to themselves. I do not know whether the House of Commons, as an institution, will be strengthened by this or how the situation will be any different from what we are experiencing with the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, whose limitations we have seen.

The United States has the Gang of Eight. The government regularly provides this group with confidential briefings and access to documents. Who is on that panel? For each house of Congress, it is the leaders of both parties, plus the individuals responsible for intelligence in both parties. They must keep the information to themselves, of course, but having access to it guides their work, both in Congress or in the Senate, and at committee. This approach, in addition to giving representatives and senators access to information, feeds the institution and guides its work.

However, such an institutional mechanism is missing from Bill C-377. That is why I just said the bill is missing something. It is nonetheless interesting, and I sincerely thank the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound for introducing it. The debate on this bill is important, very important indeed. The Bloc Québécois is approaching this in a non-partisan, open-minded way, because we are all interested. We remain open-minded, as we reflect and listen, which is the hallmark of a healthy parliamentary system.

The House resumed from April 15 consideration of the motion that Bill C-377, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (need to know), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

I'll end with this, Minister.

It was my ninth ceremony. I've been fortunate to be a member of Parliament for nine years now. I will say this: The support and the appreciation from union members towards our government on Bill C-377 and Bill C-525, the anti-scab legislation which we reversed, are deep. Members are very appreciative of what you've done and what we've done as a government.

Thank you, Minister.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak in support of Bill C-377, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act, which was introduced by my colleague, the hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.

This legislation would amend the Parliament of Canada Act to specify that when a member of Parliament or a senator requests a secret security clearance, that the member would be treated as being deemed to need to know the information for which the security clearance is sought. This is important because, as it presently stands, it is highly unlikely that any individual member of Parliament or a senator would receive a security clearance.

Unless a member or a senator already has a security clearance as a result of their profession prior to being elected or appointed, or has served as a member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, or NSICOP, the chances of a member of Parliament or a senator successfully obtaining a security clearance are almost zero. That is because security clearances are issued on a need-to-know basis. Essentially, the policy of the Government of Canada is that members of Parliament and senators do not need to know.

That may come as a surprise to Canadians. I would submit that it is problematic, which I will get into momentarily, but that is the policy. This bill would change that; it would amend the Parliament of Canada Act such that, for the purposes of processing security clearance applications, members of Parliament and senators are deemed to know. In short, it provides a presumption that when a member of Parliament or a senator applies, they be granted a secret security clearance. That is what Bill C-377 would do. That is all Bill C-377 would do.

It is important to note what this bill would not do. It would not guarantee that a member or a senator would be granted a security clearance. They would have to be vetted, just as any Canadian who applies for a security clearance must be vetted. If they are deemed untrustworthy, or if there are security issues or other red flags associated with the member or the senator, pursuant to the security clearance review process, they would be turned down. They would not obtain a security clearance. This bill would not change that.

Moreover, this bill is targeted insofar as it applies specifically to secret security clearances, and I emphasize “secret” security clearances. It does not apply to, and will not create, a presumption of issuing a top secret security clearance to members of Parliament and to senators. Further, it is important to note that just because someone has a security clearance, it does not mean they have the unfettered ability to obtain whatever information they want. Obtaining a security clearance merely gets one's foot in the door.

I would further note that this bill would importantly establish a certain level of uniformity with respect to how applications for security clearances involving members of Parliament and senators are dealt with because, at present, the process has been one that is ad hoc in nature. Members of NSICOP have security clearances, quite appropriately so. However, if members of NSICOP have security clearances, would it not also make sense for members who serve on committees such as the national defence committee, the foreign affairs committee and the public safety committee to also have security clearances, provided they are properly vetted?

The government has established, for instance, a special committee to review the classified Winnipeg lab documents. Members on that committee were granted security clearances. Similarly, with respect to reviewing the Afghan detainee documents, the Harper government established a special committee in which members again had security clearances. Therefore, there is no consistency and no uniformity, with the granting of such clearances being done on an ad hoc basis. I would submit that this is not desirable and can be improved; this bill would improve it by providing greater certainty and transparency around the application process.

As I noted at the beginning of my speech, I find it problematic that, as a general rule, members of Parliament and senators are unable to access security clearances. After all, Parliament deals with matters of national security and intelligence, which fall within its purview.

It is the responsibility of Parliament to hold the government accountable and to provide meaningful oversight on these matters. It follows that not having a security clearance and, therefore, not having the ability to access what may be pertinent information around national security and intelligence matters impedes the ability of members of Parliament and senators to do their jobs, to hold the government to account and to provide proper oversight and accountability.

In addition, there is value in members having security clearances, insofar as this enables them to better understand national security and intelligence matters. It creates a culture of greater awareness and enables a member to, in certain areas, perhaps fill in the blanks and have a better context with respect to national security and intelligence issues that they might be dealing with as, for example, a member of a parliamentary committee or a shadow minister.

In that regard, I cite the ruling of Speaker Milliken in April 2010 concerning the Afghan detainee documents. Speaker Milliken said the following: “In a system of responsible government, the fundamental right of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for its actions is an indisputable privilege and in fact an obligation.” He quoted, “The right of Parliament to obtain every possible information on public questions is undoubted, and the circumstances must be exceptional, and the reasons very cogent, when it cannot be at once laid before the houses.”

With respect to members of Parliament and senators being trusted with sensitive information, Speaker Milliken said:

The insinuation that members of Parliament cannot be trusted with the very information that they may well require to act on behalf of Canadians runs contrary to the inherent trust that Canadians have placed in their elected officials and which members require to act in their various parliamentary capacities.

I concur wholeheartedly with Speaker Milliken. This bill is an important step in the right direction to enhance transparency and accountability around national security and intelligence matters, as well as from the standpoint of better empowering members of Parliament and senators to fulfill their oversight responsibilities.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Conservative member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound is proposing that we examine Bill C-377.

It is an important bill that requires serious consideration. The bill summary states the following, and I quote:

This enactment amends the Parliament of Canada Act to specify that a member of the Senate or the House of Commons who applies for a secret security clearance from the Government of Canada is, for the purposes of the consideration of their application, deemed to need access to the information....

The whole issue of confidentiality is rather vague in the bill. Like my kind neighbour from Barrie—Innisfil, this morning, I received an email because I am a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. The committee had asked Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada for some information about TikTok because we are doing a study on that app. This morning, we got an email saying that it is none of our business. Come on. The question that has to be asked is whether parliamentarians, who have the privilege of obtaining information, should be able to get it. The answer is yes.

Now, let us look at how that should be done, what the guidelines are and what could be done.

What are we talking about here? If we want to define privacy, we are talking about a secret. What is a secret? A secret is what is not said. It is as simple as that. However, that includes things that we do not wish to say, things we cannot say and things we must not say. It can be a bit tricky.

Everyone agrees that the government must be accountable. However, it cannot be the sole judge of what it is to be accountable for. The member who spoke earlier cited the example of the special committee that studied the documents concerning the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. I was part of this committee. It was a good initiative, but, quite frankly, we had to twist the government’s arm for nearly two years before this came about. Yes, it was a good choice, but there were many bumps in the road.

The member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound wants to promote a bill aiming to rectify certain situations and to ask Parliament to act wisely when it comes to accountability. The topic of secrets is by no means new. According to Voltaire, “To say the secret of another is a betrayal, to say yours is a stupidity”. The current government seems to be taking a page from Voltaire.

What is a secret? For the purposes of our discussion, it is the redacted portion. The French term for redaction, “caviardage”, dates back to the time of Nicholas I in Russia. At the time, it meant to conceal or remove. I am going to stay with the idea of conceal. To redact something is to conceal it. Over the years that I worked in the ethics field and the months that I spent on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, I came to realize that redaction is one thing, but preventive redaction is another. Preventive redaction is when something is excessively redacted just in case. That is problematic.

According to an article that appeared in the spring 2022 edition of Foreign Affairs entitled “Keeping the Wrong Secrets”, the preference is to conceal more so as not to conceal too little. The article goes on to say that information that is kept secret often should not be. Certain information is treated like the Crown jewels, but at the same time we fail to even protect private data. This is all frustrating. The example cited in the article, which was positively ridiculous, had to do with a Christmas card that someone had redacted. Frankly, this makes no sense.

The sheer number of “overredacted” documents is huge. At the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, historians have come to tell us they cannot learn anything about the Second World War because the information is classified “Top Secret.” There are things that will always remain secret, but I cannot believe that the entire body of government decisions concerning the Second World War must be off limits. When documents are needlessly redacted, we cannot attain wisdom, we cannot do as our good friend Socrates suggested, which is “know thyself”.

If we do not know our own history, we cannot know ourselves as a population, as a people. There are things that must be kept secret, but for how long, for what purpose and from whom? These questions must be asked as part of the debate sparked by Bill C-377. That said, I understand that certain things, of an intimate, sacred, delicate or dangerous nature, must be kept secret forever. These are things we have always sought to keep secret.

However, the bill does not deal with the intimate, sacred, delicate or dangerous. It deals with classified information. We know from experience that there is a confidential level, a secret level and a top secret level. There is also a “for Canadian eyes only” level for certain documents. We can see that classified documents are often classified at too high a level. This prevents people who should know from being able to know. Of course, many pieces of information marked “Top Secret” come from a foreign source, such as a member of the Group of Five, and making the information public could well harm that member.

We have to be careful and use judgment.

It takes judgment, but the Winnipeg report basically consisted of 600 redacted pages, pages that were redacted by the ad hoc committee. When we see 600 pages redacted under the pretext of national security and in the end there are only 13 or 14 pages left, then no wonder we have questions about the “overredacting” at issue, the “overclassification” or the excessive secrecy, if you will.

Unfortunately, keeping too many secrets leads to mistrust. Not keeping enough secrets, of course, is unworkable. Too many secrets breed mistrust, and, in today's world, with its echo chambers and the conditioning created by some social media, this leads to defiance. We saw some of that defiance in the streets last winter in front of Parliament, but that is not the only form of defiance.

Let me come back to Bill C‑377, a bill to provide access to documents under two conditions. First, individuals must pass a personnel security screening process. That makes sense. Second, they must need access to the information for the purposes of their work. Of course, it is easier to define the scope and parameters of that work for public officials than it is for parliamentarians. In the case of a parliamentarian, it may be more complicated, but it can still be done.

As I said earlier, the government is accountable to Parliament for all of its activities. It should not have the right to decide on its own what needs to be kept secret from the get-go. That is a first recommendation.

Bill C‑377 takes this into account by proposing subsection 13.1(1), as follows:

A member of the Senate or the House of Commons who applies for a secret security clearance from the Government of Canada is, for the purposes of the consideration of their application, deemed to need access to the information....

The proposal is good, but let us just say that it seems an automatic approach that could go awry at times. Bill C-377 considers parliamentary privileges. It is a step forward, but it could be dangerous.

One thing I do like about this bill is that the government will not be the sole judge of its own secrets. That is a very good thing. However, it does not mean that information should be handed over lock, stock, and barrel simply upon request. That could be dangerous.

My colleague spoke earlier of the Winnipeg lab. I sat on the ad hoc committee that studied that issue, which was made up of parliamentarians from four parties. I will say again that the committee was struck as a result of a wild discussion. Nevertheless, we four parliamentarians were able to issue an opinion on the redaction in question and that opinion was submitted to three judges for arbitration. To my great surprise, their verdict was identical to that of the committee members. The document was released “unredacted”. There was no national security issue concerning that document. There was certainly some embarrassment, along with some shame and discomfort, but no national security issue.

As La Rochefoucauld, another soul I greatly admire, said, everyone agrees that a secret must be inviolable, but we do not always agree on the nature and importance of the secret, and we consult only ourselves on what we should reveal or withhold. That is the dilemma here. The problem is that the government itself decides what should be kept secret.

As a second recommendation, I propose that steps be taken to put an end to overclassification and preventive redaction. Redaction keeps us from knowing who we are and what happened, and it exacts a great cost in terms of maintaining the secrets in question.

With Bill C‑377, we have an opportunity to initiate a discussion on the very concept of secrecy. That kind of reflection is healthy for democracy. It can only make parliamentarians more confident, while boosting Canadians' confidence in parliamentarians and government, which admittedly could really use it.

Let us begin this reflection.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-377 and the important issues therein.

The role of Parliament is crucial to protecting our democracy and holding government to account. Since 1867, members of Parliament have upheld the principles and practices of Canadian democracy, and we must ensure that they are able to continue to do so in the future. That is why the government takes the issue of transparency very seriously. In fact, in 2017, we announced the national security transparency commitment and made a number of changes within the National Security Act. The national security transparency commitment is about integrating our core democratic values into our national security activities.

Canadians need to understand what the various departments and agencies that are working tirelessly to protect each and every Canadian do. Canadians also need to understand the legal structure required to protect our national security, and how difficult choices are made every day. Finally, it is important that we engage with Canadians openly so they understand what issues have an impact on our national security. I am proud to say that the government has made great progress since the announcement of the national security transparency commitment and continues to advance that work tirelessly to ensure that everyone in Canada understands the issues at play and how we are working to protect Canadians.

The national security transparency advisory group was created in 2019 to help the government deliver on the national security commitment. The role of the NS-TAG is crucial as it provides advice to the deputy minister of public safety and other government officials on the implementation of the national security transparency commitment.

The National Security Act, 2017 also created the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, which is an independent body that is external to government. NSIRA has the mandate to review all Government of Canada national security and intelligence activities to ensure that they are lawful, reasonable and necessary. NSIRA can also investigate public complaints regarding key national security agencies and activities. The NSIRA's reports provide invaluable information to parliamentarians and Canadians, and are a way to inform them of the lawfulness of the government's actions.

I want to make it clear that no government department or agency's national security and intelligence activities are exempt from scrutiny by NSIRA, and by extension, by parliamentarians and Canadians. To be clear, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Communications Security Establishment's activities are not exempt from this scrutiny. The national security transparency commitment and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency provide important means of enabling public transparency and expert scrutiny of national security and intelligence activities.

There is also a third component that is vital to making an effective accountability framework for national security and intelligence activities, which is parliamentary oversight. The sponsor of the bill before us is right to highlight the important role that parliamentarians play. Recognizing this important role, the government enacted the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, 2017, which created a committee of parliamentarians made up of members of either House to scrutinize the national security and intelligence activities across the federal government.

The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians can look into intricate details of national security and intelligence agencies' activities. The committee may also undertake strategic and systematic reviews of the legislative and policy framework for national security and intelligence activities, including studies of expenditures and administrative decision-making structures. This is important work, and its importance is reflected in the committee's powers. To enable it to do its work, the committee has the right, under its enabling legislation, to access information needed to conduct its reviews. There are only limited exceptions to this right of access, where there is an absolute need, such as to protect the identities of human sources and witnesses protected under the witness protection program.

There are a number of aspects of the committee's legislation that I want to emphasize. The first is that the mandate of the committee, its powers, its right of access and its safeguards are legislated. It is vital that there be clear guardrails for processes that deal with the security of information and bring it near the vigorous debates we have in this place.

The second is that the committee has membership from multiple parties. We can all appreciate how important it is that the processes for managing sensitive information remain non-partisan. The multi-party nature of the committee is vital to its credibility. This also reflects the care that must be taken when dealing with sensitive information. When sensitive government information enters into the parliamentary space, it must be provided in a transparent, fair and non-partisan manner to ensure that there are not allegations of misuse.

Third, I want to note the care that is taken to ensure the security of information entrusted to members of the committee. Each member of the committee is a person permanently bound to secrecy under the Security of Information Act, meaning they may be prosecuted for disclosing special operational information. Members also swear an oath of secrecy and obtain a security clearance.

Finally, the act also provides a pathway for members to make Parliament aware of anything concerning they find. The committee provides reports to the Prime Minister, and when it does so, changes may be required to protect information. This is appropriate to ensure that sensitive information is protected, but the extent of the changes and the reasons for changes must be noted when the report is made public.

There are significant challenges to dealing with classified information in a way that enables transparency and accountability while also ensuring that what needs to be protected remains secure. The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act reflects that there needs to be care taken within the management of information. Simply providing access to parliamentarians is not enough; it needs to be done in a way that is transparent, non-partisan and secure and that provides proper mechanisms for concerns to be brought to Parliament's attention.

In addition to the NSICOP, the government has also established ad hoc processes. For instance, in 2021, when opposition parties in the House of Commons asked for the production of government documents from the Public Health Agency of Canada in relation to the March 2019 revocation of security clearances for two scientists at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, we established a process to ensure that parliamentarians had access to this sensitive information.

On June 2, 2021, the House of Commons adopted an order for the production of sensitive documents held by the Government of Canada in relation to that incident. In 2022, the leader of the Government and leaders of the opposition parties signed a memorandum of understanding that outlined the mechanisms for parliamentarians to both access and safeguard the requested information. An ad hoc committee composed of select members of Parliament was established, and committee members were provided with full access to all documents requested in the June 2021 House order.

In addition, the Treasury Board standard on security screening allows for any individual to be security screened by a government department, should there be a need. This applies even if the individual is not an employee, and so can be applied to a parliamentarian.

There are already many mechanisms in place to provide parliamentarians with access to sensitive and classified information. I have just highlighted the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, as well as ad hoc approaches that have been adopted for special circumstances. These procedures and approaches require careful thought about what information is being provided to whom, and under what safeguards.

Most importantly, it is vital that there be effective, credible and transparent ways to bring information of concern to Parliament's attention, after removing information that would harm Canada's national security. It is not enough to simply provide a security clearance. Attention must also be provided to the entire process of providing, analyzing and releasing information to ensure an effective means of ensuring government accountability and contributing to public trust. The government has put in place processes that do just that, and as needs shift and evolve, the government will continue to ensure that they function properly.

I appreciate the member opposite's interest in ensuring that classified information appropriately flows to parliamentarians. I share the intent of ensuring that proper processes are in place, and I am thankful that they are. I urge all members to consider whether an additional proposal is needed and whether it appropriately considers the protection of information that is provided.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

moved that Bill C-377, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (need to know), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, before I get into my speech, I want to take a moment to recognize the passing of some important people who we have lost in the last week and a half.

On April 4, we lost Bob Mitchell, father of Corporal Mitchell who was killed in action on October 3, 2006, in Afghanistan, and father of Mark who passed from cancer just a few months after that in 2006. He was the husband of Carol and papa of Cameron, Ryan and Jaelyn. There have been no bigger supporters of our veterans than Bob and his wife Carol. My heart goes out to Carol in particular for the continued sorrow she faces, but I know she will still be there for our members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

As well, on April 7, we lost Shawn "Lenny" MacDonald suddenly, father of Brandon and Kaitlin, and son of Kaye. He was a well-connected and important member of our community who we unfortunately lost way too soon.

April 8 was the 17th anniversary of the loss of 22B, my six soldiers in Afghanistan who were killed by an IED: Donnie Lucas, Aaron Williams, Brent Poland, Christopher Stannix, Kevin Kennedy and David Greenslade. I will never forget them.

On April 8 of this year, the father of one of my best friends, Ben Miedema, of Kingston by-way of Cloyne, passed away. He was the husband of Carla and father of Denise, Emily, Felicia, Geoff and Ian. Both his sons Geoff and Ian are still serving members of our Canadian Armed Forces.

I offer my deepest condolences and sympathies to all of their families and friends. May they rest in peace.

We are here today to speak to my first private member's bill, Bill C-377, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act, need to know.

I will cover what this bill would do, what it is not and, most important, the why, not only to address the threats to our democracy but to minimize the politicization around national security in our country.

I have been dealing with classified information for over 25 years, specifically highly classified information since 2007, my first tour in Afghanistan, dealing with the incredible electronic warfare capabilities and signals intelligence capabilities we possess within the military. For the last couple of years I have had the pleasure to sit on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, but this issue was apparent to me for years before I was elected.

What is this bill? The crux of it, and literally the bill itself is one sentence, is:

A member of the Senate or the House of Commons who applies for a secret security clearance from the Government of Canada is, for the purposes of the consideration of their application, deemed to need access to the information in respect of which the application is made.

What does this mean? It means that for the purposes of applying for a security clearance, one has a need to know. However, it does not mean that one will have access to classified information. I will get into that later.

Why is it so important to pass the bill? To improve transparency and accountability, as well as education not only with respect to the ever-changing threats to Canada and our democratic institutions and processes, but for Canadians and parliamentarians to ultimately rebuild trust in our democratic processes and institutions.

I will try to explain this in the rest of my speech through the lengthy preamble, which is much longer than the actual bill itself.

The first paragraph in the preamble states:

Whereas members of the Senate and the House of Commons play a key role in holding the Government of Canada to account and, in order to be able to fulfil that role, they must have sufficient access to critical information, including the facts and rationale underlying key government decisions;

Let us look at the testimony we have heard at PROC in recent weeks.

We had Vincent Rigby, who served as the national security and intelligence adviser from January 2020 to June of 2021. He stated that transparency needed to be increased by producing annual public threat assessments, responding to NSICOP reports, publishing intelligence priorities and, most important, sharing “more intelligence...with members of Parliament.”

Wesley Wark gave testimony at the same committee. In his view, Canadians lacked literacy about national security, a deficiency which could be improved by holding public hearings on national security, as these could increase public understanding and education about his aspect of governance.

I would argue that this is bigger than just the Canadian population. This is about Parliament too, and as the representatives of Canada, both elected in the House and those appointed in the other place. I will get more into how Parliament and the government have handled highly publicized issues a bit later in my speech.

The next paragraph of the preamble of the bill states:

Whereas the Government of Canada typically restricts access to classified information to individuals who pass a personnel security screening process and who need access to the information in order to perform their official duties (the “need-to-know” principle);

What is “need to know”, and how does it work? How do we protect classified information? First, people need to have a job and a reason to do it. Ultimately, that is why I am bringing this forward, to have that debate and make the case that Parliament has a need to know, not all the time and not to everything. However, we as parliamentarians have a need to know, but just because we have that need to know, we have to demonstrate that we are trustworthy, and that is done through the security clearance process.

When people apply for that security clearance process, again, depending upon the level, it is actually a very arduous process, or it can be. In fact, I could give a multi-hour speech on how we need to improve the process of security clearances. Ultimately, people applying for it are basically opening up their whole life to the national security apparatuses to vet them and to ensure they are trustworthy to have access to classified or sensitive information.

I will give a bit of a sample, so listeners can understand how many security clearances have been processed since 2016. I put an OPQ in that I got a response to last May. Here are the key departments that applied: DND, over 65,000 applications for secret level security clearances and, in that time frame, two were denied; ESCD, 8,916 applications and 14 were denied; Bank of Canada, 2,400 applications and one was denied; and NRCan, 8,900 applications and six were denied. Overall, just shy of a quarter of a million officials, bureaucrats, people within the government, applied for security clearances from 2016 to 2023, and only 23 were denied.

That gives us a scope of just how many people have access to this information and how many need to know within the bureaucracy.

As I mentioned earlier, just because people have that security clearance does not mean they get access. A good example is that during the convoy protests that were occurring in Ottawa, I still had my top secret security clearance. I maintained that when I released from the Canadian Armed Forces. I made the case in the House that if the government was lacking that trust with the general public and there were concerns over what the threats were, etc., why would the government not share that information with privy councillors, former privy councillors, who had already been vetted, or a number of the members of Parliament who had a security clearance of some sort.

I am going to skip to the last paragraph of the preamble, because it fits better in my speech. It states:

And whereas Parliament considers that a member of the Senate or the House of Commons must be able to apply for a secret security clearance and, if the member passes the personnel security screening process, to be granted that security clearance;

I want to ensure that this is clear. It means people can apply, but it does not mean they will pass. In fact, I would argue that there are potentially individuals within both our chamber and the other place who may not pass. Who knows why? I do not have access to that information and, frankly, it is none of my business. Most of the time, in my past experience, where people fail to get security clearances, it is because they do not really want it or they are not honest when they are doing the process. The question is this: Is there something out there that a foreign state or somebody could hold over them and basically blackmail them, which questions their trustworthiness to have access to that information?

My bill, if it passes, will not guarantee that everybody in this chamber and the other place will get access to classified, sensitive information. That is not what this does. It is the first step in allowing, and I will get into it, important debate and discussions around issues that are highly sensitive or important.

One other note I would like make is that privy councillors, government members, do not have security clearances. In fact, one of the least vetted people, and it is not a shot on the current Prime Minister who has been vetted, is the current Prime Minister, because he had the privilege of becoming the leader of his party and ultimately the Prime Minister without being a former privy councillor.

When someone is a privy councillor, being appointed by the prime minister to sit as a cabinet member, the system vets him or her. We would hope that when the current Prime Minister was going through that process, he was being vetted and that if there were a flag that the apparatus would have flagged it to the prime minister of the day, Mr. Harper, if there had been any issues. My point is that privy councillors do not have a security clearance in the traditional sense of those of us who served in law enforcement or in the military and went through the whole process, or somebody who has had the privilege of sitting on NSICOP, for example.

What are the real risks to my bill? Really, there are no risks other than the political risk to someone who applies and is denied if that information were to ever become public. However, again, that is not something that would be released; it is privacy information and not information that is tied to having access.

Why is this so important? The next portion of my preamble gets into it. It states:

...in the face of threats to world peace and security posed by nefarious state and non-state actors, the Government of Canada needs to make challenging decisions relating to national security, which it must do in a manner that is consistent with its constitutional duty to be accountable to Parliament and that respects the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights;

I am not going to focus on all the threats. So many committees and even the latest government defence plan update and the NSICOP report cover the threats. I do not think I need to really explain that, but I want to focus on the accountability and transparency side.

I am going to read a few quotes from the conclusion part of Top Secret Canada: Understanding the Canadian Intelligence and National Security Community, edited by Stephanie Carvin, Thomas Juneau and Craig Forcese, in which states that the Canadian “national security community” as a whole “has traditionally not been very transparent.” It further states, “In a democracy, first, transparency is—or should be—an end in itself.” It also states:

There is also a strong pragmatic and utilitarian case in favour of greater transparency.... Law enforcement and intelligence agencies need the buy-in of the society they seek to protect: when they have the trust of the population, it is far easier to gather information, to build and maintain collaborative ties with key communities, and, ultimately, to do their jobs. Yet when security agencies [the government] are closed and perform poorly in terms of transparency, it is more difficult for citizens to trust them, and it opens space for erroneous information, misperceptions, and conspiracy theories to circulate. This reinforces a dynamic of mistrust and suspicion.

The final paragraph of the book states, “ a challenge for government”, and I would say for Parliament, “remains to deepen the public’s understanding of the workings of the national security sector.” It goes on:

Canadians (and indeed, their political leaders) must have context to avoid swinging wildly from indifference to panic when security events occur. Likewise, transparency and national security literacy help citizens tease apart real scandals from the noise. More generally, Canadians shall need to develop a renewed understanding of the hard dilemmas that frequently arise in securing a free and democratic state.

I will not read the last couple of points in the preamble, but they really focus on allowing that access. That is what this speech will do. Again, it talks about two examples, under the current government and in the previous government. We had the Winnipeg lab scandal and the Afghan detainee files issue under the previous Harper government. How did Parliament address those issues? They formed ad hoc committees at the last minute and created a lot of undue politicization of that whole process. Whereas, if we had members already cleared, we could speed up that process and help downplay the politicization. We have seen this most recently, even with the foreign interference issue.

In conclusion, I want to get to what PROC passed unanimously last week in its recommendation 3. It states:

That the government work with recognized parties’ whips to facilitate security clearances, at Secret level or higher, of caucus members who are not Privy Councillors...who shall be taken as satisfying requirements for a “need to know,” to ensure that they may be adequately briefed about important national security matters, including foreign intelligence threat activity directed toward Parliament, or their party or its caucus members.

Considering that PROC has already unanimously passed what my bill is basically calling for, I could seek unanimous consent to have my bill pass at all stages. I will not, because the importance of my debating this is that it is to improve the education of Parliament and Canadians.

I look forward to any questions my hon. colleagues may have.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-377, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (need to know).

Madam Speaker, my bill would basically introduce and formalize a process to enable parliamentarians to request a secret security clearance from the Government of Canada by deeming that they need access to the information for the purposes of processing that request.

Currently, individual parliamentarians have limited probability of obtaining a security clearance unless they possess one from a previous career or have the privilege of sitting on one of the special committees.

Ultimately, this bill would increase Parliament's ability to take national security and intelligence issues seriously while facilitating Parliament's ability not only to hold the government to account, but also to increase Canadians' trust in our federal democratic processes and institutions.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)