Bill C-46 (Historical)

Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act

The enactment amends the Criminal Code to add new investigative powers in relation to computer crime and the use of new technologies in the commission of crimes. It provides, among other things, for
(a) the power to make preservation demands and orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence;
(b) new production orders to compel the production of data relating to the transmission of communications and the location of transactions, individuals or things;
(c) a warrant to obtain transmission data that will extend to all means of telecommunication the investigative powers that are currently restricted to data associated with telephones; and
(d) warrants that will enable the tracking of transactions, individuals and things and that are subject to legal thresholds appropriate to the interests at stake.
The enactment amends offences in the Criminal Code relating to hate propaganda and its communication over the Internet, false information, indecent communications, harassing communications, devices used to obtain telecommunication services without payment and devices used to obtain the unauthorized use of computer systems or to commit mischief. It also creates an offence of agreeing or arranging with another person by a means of telecommunication to commit a sexual offence against a child.
The enactment amends the Competition Act to make applicable, for the purpose of enforcing certain provisions of that Act, the new provisions being added to the Criminal Code respecting demands and orders for the preservation of computer data and orders for the production of documents relating to the transmission of communications or financial data. It also modernizes the provisions of the Act relating to electronic evidence and provides for more effective enforcement in a technologically advanced environment.
The enactment also amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to make some of the new investigative powers being added to the Criminal Code available to Canadian authorities executing incoming requests for assistance and to allow the Commissioner of Competition to execute search warrants under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to speak to Bill C-46 on behalf of the New Democratic caucus. The bill amends the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, and is colloquially known as the investigative powers for the 21st century act.

New Democrats agree that we must be tougher on crime. We must be tougher on Internet-based crime. We have to have zero tolerance for child pornography or any offence targeted at children or any particularly vulnerable people in our society. In this regard, we support modernizing our laws to make sure that cellphones, email, the Internet and all modern forms of communication through which crimes may be committed are not a haven for criminal activity.

The New Democratic caucus is pleased to work with the government to ensure that these changes are made, but also that they are made in a correct manner so that they are effective and efficient and achieve the goals to which they are directed.

New Democrats support this bill in principle, but look forward to examining it in detail to ensure that it will be effective in combatting cybercrime while protecting the privacy rights of ordinary, law-abiding Canadians and in following long-held, cherished and established precepts of civil liberties and law in this country, which I will speak to in a few moments. There are a number of provisions in this bill that we think are positive and we are pleased to support.

First, this bill creates a new Criminal Code offence to prohibit people from agreeing to or making arrangements with another person to sexually exploit a child. I am going to pause there. That is a positive amendment to our Criminal Code with which we think it is impossible for any right-thinking individual to disagree. We would point out, however, it is probably the case that there are presently Criminal Code provisions which, arguably, cover such an offence now, but if it helps the police community, the judiciary and our prosecutors, and more important, if it makes it clear as a social denunciation by our society that it is absolutely unacceptable and intolerable that anybody would even think of sexually exploiting a child, then we think this is a positive amendment.

Another provision in this bill that we are pleased to support is the creation of another new Criminal Code offence for possessing a computer virus for the purpose of committing mischief. This pales in comparison to the previous amendment I just discussed. However, it does modernize our Criminal Code to take into account something in the digital world that has become a pressing problem and creates economic and social dislocation in our society.

Much of the rest of the bill is taken up with amendments to the definition of various terms to reflect modern technologies. As an example, the Criminal Code presently discusses the warrant system with respect to telecommunications. This bill proposes to modernize the language by making it clear that when we speak of telecommunications, we speak of things such as Internet transmissions, email transmissions, website visits and website creation, as well as cellular phone transmissions.

In that respect, we think this is a positive and long overdue amendment to the Criminal Code that will again help our judiciary and prosecutors and, indeed, everybody associated with the judicial system to expedite and make our warrant system better.

While we have not been presented with any compelling evidence that the current definitions are impeding police and investigations, we are not opposed to updating this language in our laws to reflect this new technological reality.

I will pause there to comment that many people in civil society and experts in the digital and technological world have pointed out repeatedly that there does not seem to have been a case made where any police force in this country has not been able to use the current definitions and provisions in the Criminal Code to get warrants in a case involving new digital technology. A number of organizations have repeatedly asked for such examples and, to my knowledge and understanding, not a single example has been forthcoming.

Nevertheless, sometimes it behooves Parliament to act in a proactive manner and to identify gaps in our law or needed improvements in our law without waiting for mischief to actually take place. In this respect, this is a positive step.

Concerns have been expressed by experts in the digital world, including those who have a particular interest in ensuring that citizens' privacy interests are always taken into account by Parliament, including the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and privacy commissioners of various provinces. They are concerned that this legislation has some deficiencies and may not strike the right balance between individual privacy and the legitimate needs of the authorities. The Privacy Commissioner has set forth a number of very helpful and valid benchmarks that will help us as parliamentarians as we consider this bill and other bills that touch on these areas. Let me mention some of these considerations.

Any intrusions of our civil liberties must be minimally intrusive at all times. We must impose limits on the use of new powers and ensure that appropriate legal thresholds, including judicial oversight, remain in place for all court authorizations. We must require that draft regulations be reviewed publicly before coming into force. We must always include effective oversight whenever we are talking about expanding or creating new police powers, particularly when those relate to intercepting communications from our citizens.

We must provide for regular public reporting on the use of these powers. In particular, it would be considered very helpful to include a five year parliamentary review of this bill and others like it, which I will speak about in a moment, that also deal with Internet privacy and the need for us to modernize our laws in terms of technological and digital communications.

We look forward, as New Democrats, to working together to address these concerns and others during the committee study of this bill.

The current telecommunications provisions in the Criminal Code that speak of intercepted communications were drafted in a time when telephones were the primary mechanism over which certain crimes were being committed. It is called telephony, and in the telephony world our police forces used wiretaps. The digital world has changed the type of technology and the type of investigative tools that are needed to deal with crimes.

In terms of the content, we need to have laws that are geared more toward production orders and preservation orders so that when a crime is committed digitally, the information is not erased or overridden quickly in order to destroy the evidence of those crimes before there is a chance to intercept it. It is very important that we give our police forces the tools to effectively police and intercept these kinds of communications, which is one thing that this bill is geared to do. The provisions in this bill to create production orders and preservation orders in the digital world are sound and new.

However, there are some concerns about this bill that New Democrats have heard through our early consultation with people who are very familiar with the digital world, and in particular with crimes as they are being committed in that world. One concern is that the bill appears to lower the standard for getting warrants. At present, in order to get a warrant to get a telephone intercept, a police officer would have to appear before a judge and would have to provide information or evidence that would give reasonable grounds to believe that a crime was being committed or was about to be committed.

This bill uses different language. It departs from that long, well-litigated, well-known standard. It talks about having police officers appear before judges to get production orders or preservation orders based on a reasonable suspicion, having reasonable grounds to suspect that a crime may be committed.

Using different words, “belief” as opposed to “suspicion”, we of course know will result in a different standard before our courts. A number of civil liberty groups in this country have expressed the concern that this would result in a diminution of the standard test used to get a warrant. This matter is something that I believe the committee will be looking at very carefully, calling witnesses to appear before it who have expertise both in criminal law and in civil liberties jurisprudence, to ensure that Canadians' rights would not be unduly affected by this.

There is also a concern in the digital community that this bill, while positive in its own right albeit with some of the reservations I have mentioned, when combined with some of the government's other legislation, would represent a holistic problem.

I am not going to get into too much detail, but there is a companion bill to Bill C-46 before this House, and that is Bill C-47. Bill C-47 is a bill that would require telecom service providers to install equipment that would allow them to preserve data about their subscribers so that they would be subject to a warrant later on. In that respect, we on this side of the House, in the New Democratic caucus, think that may be a positive and necessary development in our law.

However, Bill C-47, as it currently stands, would also allow police, without a search warrant, to demand that those telecom service providers give the police personal information about their subscribers, including their name, their address, their Internet service provider, ISP, and the number in their cellphone that would allow it to be digitally tracked. That has raised grave and serious concerns, not only among experts in the digital community, but also with every Canadian who uses the Internet or web surfs, because that provision represents a serious departure from our law under which Canadians' personal private information ought not to be disclosed to the police without judicial oversight.

Now, the concept of having Bill C-46 and Bill C-47 together is something that we, as parliamentarians, have to be very cognizant of because, as all members of this House know, bills do not operate in isolation. Laws do not operate in isolation. One law may have impacts on another. In this respect, New Democrats are going to be working very hard to achieve a balance between preserving Canadians' privacy and ensuring that our police and our judiciary have the tools they need to effectively fight crimes committed over the Internet or in the digital world. Case closed.

Let there be no mistake. My friends on the Conservative side of the House seem to think they have a unilateral lock on concern for victims in this country. They seem to think that they are the only people who care about safety, or the only people who care about crime, or the only people who care about victims. I would point out that people on this side of the House, New Democrats, have always championed the most vulnerable people in this society and we have always supported laws that make our citizens safe in this country.

With the greatest of respect to my colleagues on the other side of the House, I think they are prepared to sacrifice civil liberties and privacy rights in order to achieve safety, whereas New Democrats believe that it is important to have a balance whereby we can live in a society that is safe, democratic, and secure for our citizens and at the same time respects the privacy and civil liberties of those citizens.

That is the balance that we believe needs to be achieved in this bill and when this bill is read in conjunction with Bill C-47.

We on this side of the House will be working hard in order to achieve both of those objectives.

I just want to move briefly into some of the details of Bill C-46 so that Canadians who are watching us here today or those who are interested in this bill can understand what it would really do.

Bill C-46 would allow for warrants to obtain transmission data, thereby extending to all means of telecommunications the investigative powers that are currently restricted to data associated with telephones. In other words, it would modernize our warrants and our production orders, bringing them from the telephone age into the digital age.

The bill would require the production of data regarding the transmission of communications and the location of transactions, individuals or things. Again, this would be a positive step reflecting the fact that in the digital world, crimes can be committed in a nanosecond and evidence of them destroyed in a nanosecond. Through the use of cellular phones and mobile computers, that data can be moved. We need to take care of that.

Bill C-46 would create the power to “make preservation demands” and “orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence”, which I spoke about a bit earlier. If data on these crimes can be created, that data can be erased. Sometimes police need the ability to go in and freeze the status quo, and that is a very important power that our police may need to have.

The bill would provide for warrants to allow the tracking of transactions, individuals and things, within legal thresholds that would be appropriate to the interests at stake.

Under this bill, police would be able to remotely activate existing tracking devices. Forty years ago a telephone line went into a house and that line did not move. Now, a cellular phone is mobile and it goes wherever the person who has it goes. It is important to modernize our laws to deal with that.

I am going to pause here to emphasize that we need to make sure that the legal thresholds for giving police these powers remain at the current levels, to make sure that police must still appear before a judge and must demonstrate before a judge that there are reasonable grounds to believe that a crime has been or is about to be committed so that Canadians' privacy rights are not restricted or impinged upon when it is unjust to do so.

The bill would create a new offence, which would involve someone using a telecommunications system, such as the Internet, to agree to make arrangements with another person for the purpose of sexually exploiting a child. The offence would carry a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment. I touched on that earlier. There is nothing more odious, in New Democrats' view, than a crime that involves the sexual exploitation of anybody, but in particular, a child.

Further, this bill would amend the Competition Act, for the purpose of enforcing certain provisions of that act, in view of new provisions being added to the Criminal Code concerning demands and orders for the preservation of computer data.

This bill would amend the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act such that it would give Canadian authorities responding to requests for assistance some of the new investigative powers being added under the Criminal Code and it would allow the Commissioner for Competition to execute search warrants under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

Overall, we think Bill C-46 would be a positive step that would help modernize our laws. It would help give our police the investigative powers they need to catch up to the digital world and the digital age.

New Democrats will support this bill as it moves forward to achieve that aim, while we remain at the same time a strong and unceasing voice to make sure that the privacy interests and civil liberties of Canadians are kept firmly at the forefront of our mind at every step of this equation.

We can have that balance in Canadian society. One of the reasons Canada is one of the best places on earth to live is that we have always managed to achieve that balance between safety, security and liberty and civil liberties and civil rights. New Democrats will continue to work hard to achieve this balance, and we encourage all members of this House to join with us in making sure that Canadians are safe and free.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the presentations and, in particular, to the very serious misgivings about this bill expressed by my NDP colleague.

I would like to bring to his attention the serious reservations expressed by the Ligue des droits et libertés and, if possible, have him comment on them. The Ligue is a Quebec organization that was established in 1963 to defend the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Quebec.

It has expressed very serious reservations about the bill especially the fact that it provides only limited, if any, protection against abusive seizures. For example, this organization says that the authorities will be able to obtain your subscriber information without a legal warrant, even though the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act recognizes that this information is private. It has also pointed out that, without a legal warrant and on the basis of a suspicion, an officer can ask a service provider to preserve the contents of all your communications. It is like asking the postal service to photocopy someone's letters just in case they may contain some information.

I would like to know what my NDP colleague thinks of these aspects of the bill.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his thoughtful comments and questions.

One of the confusing parts of the bill is that the government chose to introduce Bills C-46 and C-47 at the same time, and they interrelate.

It is quite complicated and difficult to untangle which particular clause deals with which particular bill.

One of my colleague's concerns was the ability of police to get subscriber information from telecom service providers without a warrant. With respect to my colleague, that provision is in Bill C-47, but he can be forgiven for being confused about that. We were all confused about that because of the way the government chose to combine these bills.

The bill before us, Bill C-46, does not, from our reading, contain any provision for police to get any information from anyone without a search warrant. That is Bill C-46.

However, with regard to Bill C-47, he is exactly right. New Democrats will be opposing Bill C-47 on that very basis. That bill allows police to get very personal information about people without a search warrant, and we will stand firm against that. However, this bill does not do that.

One thing the member is correct about though is that this bill does create the concept of a preservation order so that telecom service providers will have to, upon the request of police, preserve certain data. I believe the member is quite right to point out the serious privacy reservations we have with that. At committee I think we will be looking very carefully at that area.

I guess the difficulty is that with electronic crimes, evidence of which can be created and then erased, there has to be some mechanism, the argument goes, to preserve that data. Otherwise a crime can be committed and the data is gone.

Therefore we have to look for a way to see if we can balance that need with the need to protect Canadians' privacy rights. The member is quite right and I thank him for pointing out that very important balance that must be struck. We will work in committee to see if that balance can be achieved.

If it cannot be achieved, then we can always come back to the House at third reading and vote against the bill.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to commend my hon. colleague for his very informative and well-written speech. I am quite impressed.

I am also very pleased to hear that we as New Democrats will be supporting the bill in principle and examining it in more detail when it goes to committee.

We were pleased with some of the provisions in the bill that the hon. member talked about: the creation of a new Criminal Code offence to prohibit people from agreeing with or making arrangements with another person to sexually exploit a child; and the creation of a new Criminal Code offence for possessing a computer virus for the purpose of committing mischief.

However, there are a few things that the member mentioned that we as New Democrats have concern with. I am talking about the thresholds and allowing the judge to have that balance.

I am wondering if the member could explain that in more detail for me.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague who does such a wonderful job representing his constituency. He has given much of his career to helping people in the community, particularly the children and families in need. I commend him for all the work that he does.

The concern that my colleague quite properly raises has to do with a change in the language in the bill around obtaining warrants by the police for intercepting or preserving digital data. It uses a very curious phrase. It talks about police appearing before a judge and demonstrating that they have reasonable and probable grounds to suspect that a crime has been committed.

The normative word that has been used in this country for decades for a normal warrant is to appear before a judge and demonstrate that one has reasonable and probable grounds to believe that a crime has been committed. The change of the word “believe” to “suspect” has some meaning. Civil liberty and privacy groups are concerned that this would be a reduction in the standard that police would need to demonstrate before they got an order.

Again, we are dealing with very sensitive material here. We are dealing with people's digital lives, their emails and the websites that they are visiting. This gets to the heart of a person's communications. My colleague from the Bloc made an analogy to Canada Post. This is our mail and our personal communications.

While all Canadians have an interest in ensuring we have effective tools to ensure we are not abusing those tools to commit crimes, we need to ensure there are rock solid lines drawn in the sand to ensure that anybody who is intercepting that material has demonstrated to someone in a judicial capacity that there are reasonable and probable grounds to warrant having that privacy interfered with.

That is why New Democrats have been working to understand why this change has been made in that bill and to understand what impact it may have. If it results in a diminution of Canadians' privacy rights with respect to their digital lives, we will oppose that change.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member made a comment regarding a possible five year parliamentary review of the legislation, which is a particularly good idea for a number of reasons. First, technology changes over a five year period can be very extreme, as we know. Even in one year, there can be major changes in technology.

I am interested in knowing what form this review would take and what sort of mechanism would be employed, or if we would simply be looking at a sunset clause here, which is often done in legislation. After five years, the legislation would expire and we would need to start over again at that time. Does he feel that a review mechanism would be better?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, with respect to my hon. colleague's very cogent question, the privacy commissioner herself has called for assurances that any proposals on surveillance as a concept of good public policy should have a number of concepts attached, and one of them includes a five year parliamentary review.

What I think her office meant by that is not a sunset clause but a parliamentary review so that parliamentarians can sit in the chamber five years from now, examine how these surveillance powers have been exercised and determine how the judiciary has interpreted these sections. As we all know, once these sections get litigated, a wording can sometimes take a turn that parliamentarians may or may not have intended.

I would think that the minister would be responsible for bringing such a review before the chamber. It is his and his government's legislation and they should bring it back to Parliament to ensure it is meeting its objectives.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-46, which would modernize investigative methods in relation to computer crimes.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-46 in principle. It will allow police forces to adapt their investigative techniques to contemporary technological realities, such as the widespread use of cellphones or the Internet, and it will facilitate the work of police officers without unduly infringing on basic rights. I will come back to that later and to the Ligue des droits et des libertés du Québec. The Bloc Québécois has always preferred that route for fighting crime and protecting the individual.

The Bloc Québécois feels that increasing the chance of being caught is much more of a deterrent than increasing the punishment, which often seems remote and abstract. However, this bill raises a number of concerns with respect to privacy, while any justification for infringement of privacy has not been fully demonstrated.

Given the importance of enhancing police powers to deal with the most complex forms of organized crime, the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-46 in principle. However—and this caveat is important—it will ensure in committee that any invasion of privacy is minimal, always necessary and very clearly defined.

As a number of my colleagues have already said, fighting cybercrime is a major challenge in today's world, which has 1.5 billion Internet users, not to mention those who use cellphones, BlackBerrys or other communication devices.

Before I go any further with this bill, I would like to digress and point out that the problem with access to Internet service is an increase in economic crime and crimes against individuals. At the same time, the fact that certain regions do not have access to high speed Internet represents a major problem. There should be a debate on this in the House. To a number of economic and social stakeholders in my region, access to high speed Internet represents an economic issue for the very development of rural regions and communities. It is now essential to some financial and trade transactions with other countries. It is distressing to see that a number of municipalities in my riding, such as Mandeville, Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon and Saint-Mathieu, do not have access to high speed Internet. Accordingly, a number of municipalities in the riding I represent want these services.

For years now, the Bloc has been calling on the federal government to establish a program to promote the installation of high speed Internet in the regions. The federal government has finally responded with the broadband Canada program, but I think more money needs to be invested in it.

I wanted to digress here, because, as we know, the Internet poses a problem for a number of people today. At the same time, many people and regions do not yet have access to high speed Internet.

I will return now to the bill before us. With the expansion of the Internet and digital technology, cybercrime has become a growing threat, as a number of my Bloc Québécois colleagues and members of the other parties have mentioned in the House.

To deal with it more effectively, the European Union, with the cooperation of countries such as the United States and Canada, developed the convention on cybercrime. Its purpose is to formulate a common criminal policy aimed at protecting society against cybercrime, through such means as more appropriate and stronger legislation and the promotion of international cooperation.

As we know, the Internet reaches beyond the borders of Quebec, Canada and, ultimately, the world. Anything is possible with the Internet. People everywhere in the world are within reach.

In order to harmonize the legislation of the various countries, the international convention establishes four broad categories of offences. First, there are offences relating to network security. An example of this might be offences against confidentiality. Then there are computer and content offences. This refers to child pornography sites, for example. Finally there are offences against intellectual property and related rights, such as the illegal reproduction of protected works causing a great stir.

Although Canada signed the convention in November 2001, it has yet to ratify it. The government is introducing this bill, but it has not even ratified a convention we signed in November 2001.

And so the bill before us today is, in a way, a next step to the convention. Why have we not signed the convention? This is a question we have to ask today.

The legal arsenal must be constantly readapted in the face of organized and international cybercrime, which uses digital technology and Internet resources as targets or means to offend.

Bill C-46 modernizes the tools used by police services to track criminals by creating the power to require the production of data relating to the transmission of communications and the location of individuals.

This bill also creates a power to make preservation demands and order the preservation of electronic evidence.

In other words, the bill establishes the new concept of transmission of data and also makes it possible to seize transmission data.

The bill would therefore permit the seizure of data and of the content of transmissions based on reasonable grounds to believe that a person has committed an offence.

A police officer acting without a judicial warrant, and based on suspicion, will be able to compel a service provider to preserve the content of all communications that took place previously between the individual and other persons. This is somewhat like asking the post office to photocopy all of someone’s letters.

The bill also allows warrants to be issued to track transactions, individuals or things.

The concern we have about this bill is of course the entire question of confidentiality and people’s liberty. This bill must not result in wrongful intrusion into the lives of people or into communications people might engage in. Those communications are confidential to that person and the other people with whom they converse over networks like the Internet. This is a major concern.

As well, and I think this is a very important point, Bill C-46 creates a new offence, subject to a maximum sentence of imprisonment for 10 years, that prohibits the use of a computer system to enter into agreements with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child.

The bill also amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to make some of the new investigative powers being added to the Criminal Code available to Canadian authorities executing incoming requests for assistance and to allow the Commissioner of Competition to execute search warrants issued under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

Overall, the purpose of the bill is to enable police forces to adapt their investigative techniques to modern technological realities. Facilitating police work, where it does not unduly interfere with fundamental rights, is an avenue the Bloc Québécois has always advocated for fighting crime. This is what must be taken into account, and we will insist on this when the bill is considered in committee.

The new investigative methods the police will be allowed provide for access to a very broad range of information. Obviously, that information must be dealt with in a way that also protects individuals’ privacy. Monitoring someone’s activities on the Internet provides a lot more information about their private life. That is the caveat we would state.

For example, as has also been pointed out by the Ligue des droits et libertés, this bill is a cause for concern about respect for privacy, given that the justification for such interference has not yet been demonstrated.

In this respect, I would like to mention the concern of Quebec's Ligue des droits et libertés that Bills C-46 and C-47 give Canadian authorities unprecedented means and powers that allow them to pry into the private lives of citizens. The government has not shown that existing investigative powers are inadequate. In a democratic society, it is the government's actions that must be transparent, whereas the private lives of citizens must be protected. Conducting surveillance activities on the strength of mere suspicion threatens the presumption of innocence. These are concerns that were raised by the Ligue des droits et libertés.

Moreover, this urge to unduly monitor our communications could trigger a kind of self-censorship and restrict people's freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

In short, the Ligue feels that the bill is a major intrusion into people's private lives. In a democratic society, it is the government's actions that must be transparent, whereas the private lives of citizens must be protected. This is why the Bloc Québécois will carefully review this legislation in committee to ensure that the powers given to the police are not excessive but, rather, are justified and clearly delineated.

It is very important to reconcile the fight against cybercrime with the rights of Internet users. That is what this bill is all about. In order to be acceptable to the House, the bill must necessarily deal with these two important issues. Indeed, freedom of association, freedom of expression and non-discrimination are all rights that must be respected.

The right to speak freely and to receive and communicate information or ideas without interference from public authorities is also important. We must not go to the other extreme, where people would no longer feel comfortable conversing and exchanging views on the Internet. As parliamentarians, we must find the best possible balance between these two fundamental rights, namely the right to privacy and the right to security.

I also want to stress the importance of prevention in an effective strategy against cybercrime.

Little is said here about prevention, but the government's strategy must necessarily be based on a multi-pronged approach. It must involve both the private and the public sectors.

How can we better protect our young people who communicate on the Internet? How can we better protect people who conduct financial transactions on the Internet? How can we ensure that the system is safe for people? How can we teach people to be careful? How can we convince our young people to avoid contacts that may sometimes be harmful to them and threaten their physical and mental well-being?

Here, in the House of Commons, we can put in place means to better protect Internet users. It is important to give the public, and particularly younger people, the tools and the means to protect themselves against cybercrime. A great deal of information must be provided on this issue. We must get people and entrepreneurs to adopt safe computer practices and to invest in prevention.

Currently, Internet users are often careless. Many people turn on their computer and enter important information on the Internet, without worrying enough about possible consequences. We must change this mentality. In order to do so, we must inform the public of the dangers related to the use of Internet services. We must promote public awareness and, of course, we must provide tools to better use a technology that is now very much part of people's lives.

In conclusion, we are going to support this legislation, but with some reservations.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé for his comments on this bill. They were clear and simple, to ensure that the people listening at home can understand the purpose of this bill.

I think that the people who are listening to today's debate at home are wondering what impact this will have on their privacy. Does the government want to go further? Does the government want to invade their privacy even more? That is what people are wondering. And it is not just the public wondering whether the government wants to interfere in their private lives.

Even Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has concerns and has expressed them. I would like to know what my colleague thinks was behind this comment by the commissioner:

Privacy is a critical element of a free society and there can be no real freedom without it.

Canada is currently on a dangerous path towards a surveillance society.

This is what the public understands. They understand that there could be more surveillance of any aspect of their private life. She went on to say:

We are beginning to think of more and more everyday situations in terms of “risk” and the previously exceptional collection and use of personal information are becoming normal.

In conclusion, I would like to know what my colleague thinks about the fact that the commissioner does not fully support this bill, because she believes that we are currently on a slippery slope with respect to surveillance. I would like to hear what my colleague thinks about the Privacy Commissioner's views on surveillance.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his excellent question. He has always been very dedicated to representing the people in his riding in all every area of activity, whether it be industry or the Internet. I would like to congratulate him for his efforts.

To answer his question, this bill makes it possible to seize transmission data, that is, data relating to the persons with whom and devices with which a person has communicated, after obtaining a warrant based merely on reasonable grounds to suspect.

So then it is possible to get all of the information disclosed on the Internet, simply when a police officer suspects that some information put there might be criminal. That requires a level of justification that, in our view, is not very stringent. And yet knowledge of all the sites and people with whom a person communicates often discloses private things, such as their social networks, their areas of interest in terms of their future, their career, and their professional activities. This information is confidential. Often, it may be a matter of concern to the public of Quebec. If a person has not committed crimes, and someone, based on a suspicion, can see all of the communications transmitted to other people through an activity on the Internet, there is a degree of danger in that regard. That is our concern.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, like the Ligue des droits et libertés, I am concerned about wrongful seizures.

In the bill, we see that even without a warrant, and based solely on suspicion, a supplier of products could be asked to preserve all of their communications. That is a matter of considerable concern, because we know that in the past there have been abuses committed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police against people who, like me, hoped to have a country one day. It is of great concern to me to see things like that included in a bill. We could not be certain that our rights would be preserved and respected.

I hope the bill will go to committee and be amended. It is very important to preserve these rights and freedoms.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Laval for her excellent question. She has indeed been fighting for many years to have a country. With her, we carry on that struggle here in the House. She is very dedicated to that cause.

I would reply to her that this bill, as she said in her comments, offers only limited and virtually non-existent protections against wrongful warrantless seizures. The authorities could obtain your subscriber data, even though the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act recognizes that that information is private.

Here is another example. With a warrant, and based on suspicion, an officer will be able to ask a service provider to preserve the content of all your communications for a virtually unlimited time. That is like asking the post office to photocopy all the letters someone sends by mail. This presents a danger. I agree with my colleague from Laval. In committee, the Bloc Québécois will pay careful attention to these questions. The battle against cybercrime is important, but so is protecting individual citizens.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech. There has been a lot of talk over the last two hours about the importance of maintaining a balance between the right to privacy and the right to safety. The Ligue des droits et libertés says that the trend toward the undue surveillance of our communications could result in a certain amount of self-censorship and could undermine freedom of speech and thought.

Could my colleague explain once again how important the discussion will be in committee and how important it will be to debate such things as the powers conferred on the police? What powers should be conferred on the police and what powers would be excessive? Could my colleague explain once again how important this issue is and how important the discussion in committee will be in this regard?

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Saint-Lambert shares the concern of all Bloc members who have addressed the House. The right to privacy is also very important, as she pointed out.

I gave a few examples. This bill would give judges the ability, for instance, to order the preservation of computer data if they had reasonable grounds to suspect that someone had broken the law of a foreign country. This provision does not require any similarity between the foreign law and Canadian law. Could this provision enable authorities in countries where abortion is a crime, for example, to get the evidence they need to convict a woman who had an abortion in Canada? This question must be asked. These are issues that the Bloc will obviously raise when the bill is sent to committee for study because confidentiality is important to people who surf the Internet.

We agree that cybercrime must be controlled. It is growing all the time in various guises, whether economic and social crime, violent crime or cyber-bullying. These are all crimes committed on the Internet and we have to protect ourselves against them while also protecting the confidentiality of people who surf the Web.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-46 today.

At the outset, I note a quieter tone in the House today than when the debate began on this bill yesterday. We had a number of attack dogs from the government's side getting up and accusing members of the opposition, particularly the Liberal opposition, defenceless though it was, of trying to initiate an election, a $300 million waste of time, and blaming the Liberals for the fact that somehow this bill was finally getting debate when in fact this bill, in its previous incarnations, had been around for a number of years now, actually going into past Parliaments.

I thought it was something that the government should refrain from doing because the reality is that it is this government that actually passed legislation for fixed election dates some two or three years ago and then went about ignoring its own legislation. Just shortly after it passed the legislation, it desperately looked for ways to circumvent its own laws and called an election one year ahead of schedule last year, causing that same $300 million useless expense that it is blaming the Liberals for right now.

Given that today we are in a much calmer environment here, this is an example of all three parties working together and I believe this is yet another bill that the government is going to see action on. The NDP will be supporting this bill to get it to committee and I would say that as with any bill, there are questions about particular parts of the bill, interpretations of the bill, and those are issues that we will deal with at committee.

I firmly believe, after having a number of years in elected office, that it is always better, if possible, to support a bill at second reading to get it to committee, provided that one is voting for the principle of the bill at second reading. It has to be, in my view, a pretty bad bill not to get support at second reading.

When the bill gets to committee, that is the time to look at the clauses of the bill on a clause by clause basis, try to make amendments and changes that we want, and then at that point, when it comes back to the House, decide whether or not we can support the amended bill.

With regard to the general concept and the general principles involved in this bill, there is no question that this bill is one that merits support and that should be passed to committee.

Bill C-46 is an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. The bill sets out to provide police with updated powers to investigate, execute warrants, and charge individuals who are using digital technology to commit crimes. Specifically, the bill addresses gaps in the Criminal Code dealing with search warrants and production orders to permit police to obtain transmission data, which include text messages, files and photographs from telephones.

As well, Bill C-46 proposes to broaden the scope of warrants to allow tracking warrants, which would permit police to remotely activate existing tracking devices found in certain types of technology such as cellphones and tracking devices in some cars, and would also continue to permit the police to install a separate device that would allow for tracking. One of the members from the Bloc, earlier this morning, talked about criminal gangs stealing expensive cars, that those cars could be tracked overseas and recovered through this legislation.

In addition, the bill would create a new preservation order that would require a telecommunications service provider to safeguard and not delete its data related to a specific communication or a subscriber when police believe that data will assist in an investigation.

The bill proposes modifications to the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, and it widens the scope of assistance that Canada could provide to other countries in fighting cybercrime. Amendments to the Competition Act would provide the Competition Bureau and police with adequate tools to investigate computer-related crime.

Finally, Bill C-46 proposes the creation of two new Criminal Code offences. A new offence would be created to prohibit anyone from using a computer system such as the Internet to agree or make arrangements with another person for the purpose of sexually exploiting a child. Currently, the Criminal Code prohibits anyone from using the Internet to communicate directly with a child for the purpose of facilitating child sexual exploitation, but it does not prohibit people from agreeing or making arrangements with another person to sexually exploit a child.

As well, a new offence would be created making it a Criminal Code violation for possessing a computer virus for the purpose of committing mischief.

New Democrats agree that we must be tougher on crime and we should be certainly tougher on Internet-based crime and that in fact we should have a zero tolerance for child pornography.

Canadians also need to know that when they use the Internet or they use email what their privacy rights are.

The bill appears to reintroduce warrantless searches which would allow police to conduct searches without proper oversight. We are already hearing serious warnings from people like the Privacy Commissioner. I asked one or two questions about that this morning and she has some very important observations about this area. That is something, once again, that we are going to have to deal with at the committee stage.

We also have some concerns that the stakeholders have to be properly consulted. I know that at committee we dealt with another bill a few months ago, the charities bill, which is a bill that had been through several incarnations, and through several parliaments. We are still finding that only a small number of charities actually even know that the bill exists.

It seems hard to believe that if the government is doing its job that it would not be sending out letters to thousands of charities across the country telling them that such a bill is before the House and it is in their particular interest to make representations and get involved in the process. I think that is the sort of problem that we all face that we can only dig down so far with legislation. We only have so much time to do the consultations and sometimes it is hard to shake out and stir up the stakeholders to get them involved. However, that is something that we definitely want to do on this bill.

We think it is very important to modernize these laws. It is not only this law that needs modernization. There are many laws that we have on the books which go back to the horse and buggy days. We have to upgrade and update these laws to get them into the computer age. That fact is that even in five or ten years the technology can change so much that we are basically playing catch up. That is what I find as a legislator that we seem to be always playing catch up from a legislative point of view.

We need to get tough on criminals like Internet predators while still allowing ordinary Canadians privacy when sending e-mails to friends and family.

The previous Bloc member asked a question just minutes ago about that very point. It is a very difficult balance between the privacy issues, protecting people's privacy and certainly having the public protected. That is the exercise that we have to deal with at this particular time.

New Democrats agree that we must be tougher on crime, tough on Internet-based crime and have zero tolerance for child pornography. We support modernizing our laws to ensure that cellphones and the Internet are not a haven for criminal activity. We want to work with the government to ensure that these changes are done right.

Now that the Internet is in place, particularly since 1995, criminals adapt very quickly. If they can get away with frauds and scams by using the Internet and do it in an offshore place where there are really no laws against what they are doing, or they can hide and not suffer the consequences, then they will do that. We need to adapt to these changes by giving our police forces the tools they need to catch up to the criminals and stop them before they get away with their crimes. We in the NDP are very interested in combatting cybercrime.

We are pleased with a number of provisions in the bill and one is the creation of a new Criminal Code offence to prohibit people from agreeing or making arrangements with another person to sexually exploit a child. Another one is the creation of a new Criminal Code offence for possessing a computer virus for the purpose of committing mischief.

As I indicated before, much of the bill is taken up with amendments to definitions of various terms to reflect modern technologies. We have not seen any compelling evidence yet that the current definitions impede police in their investigations but we are certainly not opposed to getting the updated language in there to reflect the realities of today.

I mentioned before that the Privacy Commissioner had some opinions about the legislation. She has called for assurances that any legislative proposals on surveillance be minimally intrusive. She has called for a limit on the use of new powers and ensure that appropriate legal thresholds remain in place for court authorizations. She also has asked that the draft regulations be reviewed publicly before coming into force and that we include effective oversight. I am not exactly certain what she has in mind there but oversight, in any type of government legislation, is good.

We only need to look at the lack of oversight in the eHealth file, which started out as, and still is, a very positive and solid idea, but 10 years after the start of the eHealth programs, not only in the federal government but in the provincial Governments of Ontario, there is absolutely nothing to show for it. I could even go back further to the Manitoba government before 1999 where it spent $50 million on an eHealth program and yet, at the end of the day, there was absolutely nothing to show for it.

The federal government feels that 16% of Canadians will have electronic health files by perhaps 2010. The cost is about $1.6 billion and that $1.6 billion was supposed to cover the whole country. I must ask a rhetorical question. How do these programs get out of control? I have always been a very big supporter of e-government files, d eHealth files and e-commerce files. In fact, when the legislation was introduced in Manitoba in 2000, the most comprehensive e-commerce legislation in the country, I was the MLA in charge of putting it all together.

At that time, we were trying to promote e-commerce but people were reluctant to buy things online. It was just the very beginning of the process. I remember getting a piece of consumer legislation in that legislation, which I think, to this day, only exists in Manitoba, and that was the requirement that if someone bought a product or service online and, as the consumer, did not get that product or service, then the credit card company was responsible for reimbursing the consumer. That was peculiar to Canada at the time but I took it from one of two or three American states that had that legislation at the time. Ten years ago, we put that piece of consumer legislation and several others dealing with electronic commerce into an omnibus bill dealing with electronic commerce to promote the idea.

However, at the time we could never have even comprehended what in fact would happen over those ensuring years. As a matter of fact, we had the best government-secured system in the country in terms of security. Our people were so good that when they left the Manitoba government we were paying them maybe $100,000 a year, which we thought was excessive. However, one of them went to work for the Bank of Montreal and I think his salary was $300,000 a year. He lived in Toronto anyway, so he made $300,000 a year and simply walked to work, as opposed to flying back and forth to Manitoba every week for $100,000. That is just to show members how important Internet security actually became at about that time.

Members will recall that there were viruses afloat in those days that crippled the British government. The B.C. government was down for a day or two. I think Manitoba was the only government that we were aware of that withstood all of these cyber attacks. I used to get printouts and reports, certainly not a daily basis but any time I wanted them, which would show how many attacks the government would have.

I think any of the members of the government can talk to their online people and can get that information themselves. They can go back and ask how secure our government's system is. They can ask about the number of attacks, the type of attacks and where they are coming from. I think they might be surprised to see those results. They might be positively surprised now because those attacks may be dropping. I have not followed the file as much as I did in the past years.

When Reg Alcock was here he was a big champion of e-government and pushed the file. He obviously lost track of that eHealth file somewhere because it is not producing the results that he would have hoped for. However, his heart and his head were in the right place. He certainly pushed Prime Minister Martin on that whole e-government file. I would guess that the file has been essentially forgotten under the Conservative government. It is just a guess at this point, but my guess is that the Conservatives have gone for simply retrenchment and have taken out no real new initiative since Reg left that particular file. I checked into the secured channel just about a year and a half ago and they were basically retooling the whole concept.

The government has a duty to get its systems and services online as quickly as possible and make them transactional so that people can get proper service. In Manitoba, we have student aid applications online. We did not want students driving 100 miles to Winnipeg to stand in line at the student aid branch for an hour to fill out an application and then drive all the way home again, so we put the application online.

All government services should be put on line. Not only should the government have the applications on line, but it should make them transactional so people can pay for the service with their credit card and have a much happier experience dealing with the government than having to wait in line at government offices. This is something that I do not hear much from the government on and I think we should be looking at that. I intend to ask more questions about that in the future.

What sort of oversight will we have on the bill? I sure hope it is a better oversight than what we had on the eHealth file and other files where there were boondoggles in the government.

I think the five year parliamentary review that was suggested by the Privacy Commissioner is a good idea. However, I need to know whether there will be a review after five years, which is a great idea, or even a sunset clause after five years given the great changes in technology that could happen over a period like that.