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

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

moved that Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Madam Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to rise here today to support Bill C-46. This bill proposes amendments to the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. These amendments would serve to update offences and investigative powers, to ensure they are in line with modern technologies.

The Minister of Justice has already briefly outlined Bill C-46, but I thought I would take this opportunity to expand on a few particularly important and innovative aspects of these Criminal Code amendments.

As we have shown on many occasions, the safety of our communities, our families, and particularly our children is something that this government takes very seriously. As part of a responsible government, a member of Parliament and a citizen, I am concerned about the safety of our communities.

Before I continue, I would like to briefly explain what the lawful access initiative is all about. Lawful access has nothing to do with listening to private conversations or monitoring the Internet browsing or emailing habits of Canadians. This initiative aims to ensure that law enforcement and national security agencies have the technical and legal ability to keep up with changes in communications and computer technologies.

New technologies are powerful and useful tools. However, criminals and terrorists can use them to endanger public safety. Current technologies provide numerous benefits. We applaud innovation in computer science and technology. However, we recognize that modern technology can facilitate crime, such as the distribution of child pornography, and make police investigations very difficult and complex. This bill will help by providing law enforcement organizations with the tools they need to fight crime in today's environment. The bill updates various offences and creates new investigative powers.

Our justice agenda has recently been the target of criticism. We have chosen to take these actions because we believe that justice reform is necessary. Canada was one of the first countries to establish criminal provisions for computer crimes. However, no significant amendments have been made since 1990. As I said, technologies have evolved considerably since then, but Canadian laws have not kept pace with the changes.

These increasingly complex technologies are challenging traditional investigative methods, and criminals are taking advantage of the situation by using complex technology to carry out illegal activities and endanger our citizens. Fighting crime means overcoming major challenges. Modernizing legislative tools, such as the Criminal Code, is essential to enabling law enforcement organizations to investigate criminal activity effectively while protecting the privacy rights and civil liberties so important to Canadians.

Right now, law enforcement personnel can get a warrant to intercept communications on conventional phone lines. The legislative measures in this bill will bring the legislation up to date by including cell phones and other wireless technologies. These measures will require Internet service providers, ISPs, to have interception capability in place.

When law enforcement officials try to prevent a crime or conduct an investigation, ISPs do not give them all of the basic client information they need.

The measures in this bill allow them to obtain that information in order to protect children from online predators and to prevent other types of cybercrime. We believe that these measures are very important and necessary. We have to protect our children from these predators, especially as our children now surf the Internet at an increasingly younger age. These measures are very useful.

The proposed changes create a data preservation demand that requires an Internet service provider to protect and not delete information relating to a communication or a subscriber if the authorities and the police believe this information could help in their investigation.

Allow me to elaborate more specifically and in greater detail on preservation demands and orders, on modernizing the current provisions regarding warrants for tracking and on the new concept of “transmission data”. I think that each of these tools will have a truly positive influence on investigations in Canada.

Let us start with the new preservation demands and orders, which create new investigative powers for criminal offences under the Criminal Code and offences under the Competition Act. Their purpose is to ensure that volatile computer data is not deleted before the police have the chance to get a warrant or an order to collect the data for investigation purposes. The need for these types of tools is obvious in this day and age. Not only is computer data easily erased, but it can also be lost through negligence or simply through ordinary working procedures. A preservation demand or order will legally require a person to keep computer data that is essential to the investigation for enough time to allow the police to obtain the necessary warrants and orders to get the information. This tool will allow the police to begin the investigation without losing elements of the evidence when the loss can be prevented.

Some people might be concerned about the repercussions of these changes on the right to a reasonable expectation of privacy. They may have heard about the European data conservation systems and are worried that our legislation will import those systems to Canada. That is not what Bill C-46 is about in any way.

Data retention can make it possible to collect a large amount of data over a long period of time on all telephone and Internet subscribers, regardless of whether they are linked to the investigation. Bill C-46 does not provide for data retention. It provides for the preservation of data, which is completely different. This would allow for the preservation, for a limited period of time, of specific data related to a specific investigation and to specific individuals. It is important to note that the data will be handed over to the police only if a warrant or order has been issued. Furthermore, data that would not have been preserved as it is no longer useful to the investigation. That is quite a change.

This will ensure that the system put in place by this bill will not inadvertently lead to the type of retention that exists in European countries, as I have explained. So we can see that the preservation system we have created here is very limited and targeted. It was developed to be a temporary solution, so that the warrants and orders obtained by the police to gain access to information are not rendered useless because the data was erased in the time that it took the police to obtain the orders. That is what happened in the past.

Another important amendment proposed by Bill C-46 will update the current Criminal Code provision regarding the warrant for tracking. This warrant was created in 1990, over 19 years ago. The police were able to obtain and use the warrant to locate persons, vehicles or other objects. However, tracking techniques have changed dramatically. Their accuracy and persistence in locating objects has improved. This means that the current type of warrant is no longer suitable and may result in more serious breaches of privacy than before. Consequently, Bill C-46 proposes to increase the protection of personal information for the use of the most intrusive tracking techniques.

The bill establishes a double warrant system for this purpose. The police can obtain the first type of warrant in the usual manner: by proving to the judge that they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the warrant will assist in the investigation of an offence. They would use this warrant to locate objects, vehicles and transactions, as was done in the past.

When a more invasive technique for tracking individuals is required, police must obtain the second warrant, which provides greater protection of privacy than the first. Thus, there would be stricter requirements. According to Bill C-46, to obtain this warrant, the police will have to prove to the judge that they have reasonable grounds to believe—not to suspect, but to believe—that the warrant will assist in the investigation of the offence. Legally, this criterion is much more difficult to meet, and therefore it provides more protection of personal information than the warrant for tracking objects. This is an important legal distinction.

This approach to the tracking warrant provisions is very innovative because it provides stronger protection of personal information where it is really needed while retaining the current tool, which is effective for investigations where expectations with respect to the protection of privacy are not as high.

Lastly, I would like to talk about the new warrant for transmission data. For 15 years, police have been able to obtain a warrant under the Criminal Code for information such as the telephone numbers dialed to and from a suspect's telephone. That is what used to happen. Police could obtain such a warrant if they had reasonable grounds to suspect that the data could help them investigate a crime. Today, this type of data, which experts refer to as call identification data, include not only telephone numbers, but also technical data that all sorts of more sophisticated calling mechanisms can generate on a network.

The fact that the distinction between conventional telephones and the Internet is blurring also poses a problem for police in using the current warrant to obtain call identification data. For example, most cell phones can be used to access the Internet. And in a sense, the opposite is also true. Millions of subscribers use voice over IP to make calls on the Internet. The result is that technologies use IP—or Internet protocol—addresses in addition to telephone numbers; it is a sort of mixture. This has created a gap in what the current warrant can cover. The type of address data police need for their investigation can no longer be obtained using phone records or conventional equipment such as telephone number recorders.

And why should criminals be treated differently just because they use voice over IP to make calls instead of a conventional phone? That is an important question.

Clearly, we need a new legal concept that reflects 21st-century technology. Bill C-46 creates the concept of “transmission data”, which applies to Internet routing data as well as telephone numbers.

For the sake of clarity, I would add that this new concept applies exclusively to this type of data. “Transmission data” applies only to some parts of what is known as the “header”, which includes the email address and information about the email servers that transmitted the email.

This concept was carefully developed, specifically to exclude the contents of messages in order to minimize privacy infringements. This means that the police cannot use this power to read what people have typed in the “Subject” field. Moreover, the police will not be able to use this power to read what people have typed in the body of the email, which is very important.

Like the other amendments I just discussed, the power to intercept transmission data will provide the police with the investigative tools they need to fight crime in a world where techniques are constantly evolving. Like all of these tools, this power was specifically designed to fulfill this purpose with minimal infringement on privacy.

I repeat that our government wants to ensure that law enforcement officials have the tools they need to bring criminals to justice.

The proposed bill will ensure a fair balance between protecting public safety by giving police essential investigative powers and protecting the privacy and the rights and freedoms of Canadians.

I therefore urge all members to fully support Bill C-46, which will update our Criminal Code for the 21st century.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if I could ask the member to explain two things. First, since the bill was essentially introduced by a Liberal government in 2005 and has been reintroduced every session since by the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine as a private member's bill, why did the government take so very long to introduce it? It is not as though the police have not been calling for this for years.

Second, if the Conservatives finally understood that technology had changed and that the bill we tabled four years ago needed to be implemented, why on earth would they have introduced the bill at the end of the last session in the last week before the summer, not giving us the opportunity until today to actually vote on it? Why were they dragging their feet? Why were they delaying bringing in this legislation for which we have been calling for so long?

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, through you, here is what I have to say in response to my Liberal colleague.

Perhaps this bill was in fact introduced long before I arrived here. I was not here at the time. I have been a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights since 2006, and have never seen this bill. But perhaps it was introduced in the past.

I would like the member to understand that in the past two and a half years—since I have been a member of this House, so nearly three years—all I have heard is this: “election, election, election”.

We have never been able to have a normal, four-year term. For a bill to pass, it must be introduced, debated and passed. It takes time. In many cases, bills do not survive. We have introduced nine bills, none of which have survived.

So I understand and I sympathize with my colleague. Perhaps the bill before us today does resemble something they introduced in 2005. I do not know. However, when we look at things over the past five years, there have been four elections. It is therefore impossible for a government, any government, to get anything done under those conditions.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Madam Speaker, I find that comment by the member opposite very curious. I will start my comments by saying that I think he has forgotten who caused the last election. It was in fact the Prime Minister who walked over to the Governor General's residence and precipitated the last election, therefore killing every bill on the order paper, including a bill dealing with this very matter which was introduced by the Liberal member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine. I find the member's comment curious that he is blaming the frequency of elections, every single one of which the Conservatives precipitated in the last two instances, and using that as an excuse for why this was not adopted.

A point that bears mentioning is that in 2005 the Liberal Party introduced the modernization of investigative techniques act, which is essentially the same bill that we are working with here today. With very minor modifications, it is essentially the same legislation, so why would it take four years essentially to deal with the same bill that we had written so many years ago?

The member talked about things like voice over Internet protocol in terms of changes to Internet service provisions. All of those things were present four years ago when that work was done, yet the government refused to introduce it. Even recently, when this was brought back, the decision that was made by the government was to bring it in at the end of the last session. It was in the last week immediately leading up to the summer recess when suddenly this was a priority put on the order paper. It languished there for months and months and now the government is bringing it back. And the Conservatives have the audacity to try to talk about us delaying bills. The Conservatives themselves have had their crime bills sitting on the order paper, not only for months but in some instances for years, only to bring them back when they are a hit politically.

What they do is when there is a scandal, the most recent one being the cheque scandal, they decide to resurrect their crime bills that they have been ignoring for months on end. Suddenly it is an imperative national priority to deal with whatever particular crime bill they put on the table at that particular moment, when we all know that the real objective is to change the political channel away from whatever political troubles they are having. In this particular instance, it is the cheque fiasco. As this bill has been ignored and ignored and left to languish and we have been calling again and again for it to be dealt with, we can know that is essentially what their strategy is.

Now they have come to this bill and said that it is important to deal with it but only after we have been pushing for it for four years. I hope something does not distract them and we do not find this bill suddenly being lost yet again.

It is important to mention that the bill we have been advocating for the last four years is badly needed by police. Technology has changed and evolved in many different ways. While criminals have evolved with it, our legislation simply has not. For the last number of years while the Conservatives have been sitting on this, whether the criminals are involved in cyber fraud or are using technology like BlackBerries in the commission of crimes, to which the police cannot get access, the criminals have had a huge advantage against the law enforcement agencies.

One of the areas in which they have had a great advantage is in their anonymity. People are able to do things on line and police are not able to uncover who exactly they are, even if they know they are committing acts of a criminal nature. Police have been calling on us for years to change that and only now are the Conservatives bringing something forward to do something about it.

I have had many conversations with police, not just about things that were mentioned by the hon. member, but about other things, such as child pornography. Obviously child pornography is a deep concern and we want to root that out and give police every tool to be able to go after those individuals. I have also spoken with the police about instances where a criminal is known to have a particular phone and his whereabouts cannot be ascertained. The police want to be able to use the GPS tracking device in that device in order to figure out where the individual is. The current laws do not allow the police to do that.

I was talking to the chief of police in Calgary who was expressing deep frustration at the number of dial-a-dope operations. Individuals are using cell phones almost like a pizza service to deliver drugs to people's doors. When the police find these cell phones they are unable to access them because of the encryption software. The maker of the device is under no obligation to help open it up to reveal all of the phone numbers and the client base. It is a crime that is almost impossible to catch someone doing because it is locked behind that wall of encryption. That has been going on for years and the Conservatives have been refusing to give the police the tools they need to deal with it, even though solutions are present.

At the same time, it is important to mention that one of the things we are going to have to look at and study in committee is to ensure that there is balance. A number of people have expressed concerns that a law of this nature could be misused to allow access into people's searching history and people's personal messages or could be used maliciously by somebody to gain access to people's Internet search records and history. We have to ensure that balance exists. We have to protect individual rights to protect people's freedom to do what they want without somebody being able to go through willy-nilly, without warrant, their information. At the same time, we have to provide police with the opportunities to chase those individuals who we have reasonable grounds to believe have committed a crime.

It is worth mentioning as we talk about this bill, that the Conservative approach to crime is, I think, in general, disingenuous. We listened all day today to speeches by members about how the Liberal Party had held up a variety of bills. Of course, factually, that is entirely incorrect.

If we were to talk about the Liberal Party record in this session of Parliament in terms of bills that we have supported and helped to accelerate, I can list the following: Bill C-2, which was an omnibus bill which included provisions from Bill C-10, Bill C-32, Bill C-35, Bill C-27, and Bill C-22; Bill C-14; Bill C-15; Bill C-25; and Bill C-26. It is important to mention that in every instance we tried to get those bills accelerated and pushed forward.

That does not stop the Conservatives from talking about other parties holding up their crime bills. The problem is the facts do not match their rhetoric. In this specific instance and many others, the reality is the exact opposite of what they have said. In many instances, the Conservative crime bills have been languishing on the order paper, forgotten. They are sitting there waiting to be implemented. The Conservatives are not waiting for the right time for the public interest, not waiting for the right time to ensure there is adequate information to get the bills passed, but they are waiting for the right political moment to put the bills forward to try to turn the political channel.

If that were not bad enough, the other reality is that they are fundamentally letting down the Canadian public by only offering one solution to crime, and that solution invariably is to lock up people.

I do not have any problem with the notion of tough sentences. We have to have harsh, stiff sentences for people who commit serious crimes. However, if tough sentences were the only answer, then places like Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Detroit would be some of the safest cities in North America. In fact, we know the opposite to be true.

The reality is that places with the stiffest sentences are more often than not some of the most dangerous cities in North America. Why? The Americans are being crushed under the weight of their own correctional system. They are literally in a position where there are so many people pouring into the prisons that they cannot possibly keep up with the costs of building all of the prisons, let alone the programs and services to ensure that people do not repeat offend. In fact, in California the situation has become so bad that its rate of recidivism is now 70%. They are creating crime factories. People go in for a minor crime and come out as a major criminal. It is like putting in a butter knife and getting out a machine gun.

That is the strategy the Conservatives are trying to bring here: a failed Republican strategy in dealing with crime that we know as a fact does not work. They are trying to apply it here to change the channel, to use it as a political game changer. If they are in trouble with the cheque fiasco, they talk about locking up people longer. If they are in trouble because a minister is caught in a fiscal indiscretion, they talk about locking people up longer. That is what they do.

I think most of them, I would hope most of them, realize that it is a disastrous strategy, that it leads to less safe communities, that it leads to billions of dollars in additional costs, and that it is exactly following down the road that even Republican governors say was a huge mistake to walk down. If anyone doubts that, I will point quickly to what has happened specifically with incarceration in the United States compared with Canada.

In 1981, before the United States began a similar agenda on which the Conservatives are now embarking, locking people up longer and longer, the gap between the rate of incarceration in Canada and the U.S. was much narrower. In Canada, 91 per 100,000 people were incarcerated, while the figure in the United States was 243 for every 100,000 people.

By 2001, Canada's rate had grown only slightly in terms of the number of people who were incarcerated, to 101 incarcerated for every 100,000 people, while in the United States that rate had soared to 689 for every 100,000, a rate almost 700% higher than that in Canada. In that same period of time, Canada and the U.S. had the same decline in their overall rate of crime. Imagine that.

The United States' rate of incarceration went up 500% over ours, and yet over that same period of time we had the identical reduction in the amount of crime. The only difference was that 500% more individuals were being incarcerated per 100,000 people, and it cost billions of dollars more.

In fact, if we continue to follow this model suggested by the Conservatives and we extrapolate to the same path that the Republicans took the United States, where they put them right to the brink, we are talking about roughly $9 billion a year in additional costs to have the same rate of incarceration.

As for the difference for public safety, well, unfortunately, I wish I could say it just kept it the same, that the only impact of that was the loss of $9 billion a year, but we all know that that $9 billion a year has to come from somewhere. We have already seen where the Conservatives' priorities are on crime. Let us take a look at the crime prevention budget.

Since 2005 the crime prevention budget has been slashed by more than 50%. That is actual spending. At the same time as they are increasing sentences and chasing after a failed Republican model, the Conservatives are slashing the money that is given to crime prevention. It is crazy. Anybody who would look at it objectively would say that this is a path to disaster, and yet that is exactly the road they have decided to head down.

There are opportunities here to be smarter on crime, to listen to police, to talk to them about what the real solutions are, to invest in prevention, to invest in making sure people turn down the right path instead of the wrong one. I had the opportunity to go around with the former chief of police in Regina and see a neighbourhood which is designated as one of the most dangerous in Canada. He was able to show me a home that had no septic system, no heat and where the child in that home was going to school hungry. That same child predictably, just scant years later, could be committing his or her first crime by starting to get involved in drugs.

For more than 60% of our inmates, addiction is the root cause of the problem and yet they do not get help. They get thrown into prison and forgotten about, and they come out worse because the core problem was never addressed. In this case it would be an addiction problem that sent them there. They go in for a minor crime, usually break and enter, and they have an addiction. They go into a system that is not providing them any rehabilitation services, and they come out and commit worse crimes. So goes the cycle. It is a constant cycle of things getting continually ever worse.

When we look at our prison system and we ask where these criminals come from, not often enough do we take a hard look at that. Imagine. Sixty per cent of those in prison face addiction issues. Over 10% face serious mental health issues. Not only are our prisons turning into crime factories, but the Conservatives are trying to use them as hospitals, by sending people with serious mental health issues into prisons. The prisons are so ill-equipped to deal with them that they are putting them in solitary confinement. They are often released directly from solitary confinement into the general population, only to reoffend again. Whether it is the facilities in St. John's, Grandview or different facilities across the country, we see this time and time again.

The reality here is we have a bill that has been called for by police for years. The government is only now finally bringing it forward, after its having been on the table since 2005. It is trying to use crime as a political game changer, misrepresenting what crime is really about and how to stop it, and at the same time it is taking us down a path that has been tried and failed before in the United States.

We need to do better than this. We need to be honest on crime and offer real solutions.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was listening to my colleague across the way and I have a couple of questions for him.

Number one, the past Liberal government clearly showed that criminals' rights meant a lot more than victims' rights. I wonder if his views have changed on that in any way. I hope they have towards the positive.

The other thing is I know most of us in this chamber know or are related to somebody in the policing business. I have a brother-in-law and lots of friends who are police officers. The one thing I hear constantly from policemen is that they work hard to make a case against a criminal; they go to court, and it is like pulling teeth to get someone convicted. They have to make sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. They do all this work and if they are fortunate, the criminal is put where he should be, behind bars, but then our system allows him to be out on the street in no time. I hear time and time again about the low morale in police forces.

Does the hon. member think he can address that problem? He has to have heard the same thing I have.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Madam Speaker, the problem is that my interests are in preventing a victim in the first place. Focusing only on punishing people who commit crimes is a model that has been tried and failed. We could look at it in Texas or in California, where the governor is saying that the system is collapsing under its own weight, and it is such a disastrous failure that they do not even know how to get back to where they were before they implemented the disastrous policies the government now has.

The reality is that wherever possible, we have to stop that crime from happening in the first place. When I talk, for example, about addictions, let us think about that number: 60% of prisoners are facing serious addiction issues.

I was on the Durham Regional Police Services Board. I had the opportunity to work with police officers every single day, and to talk with them about what the root causes of crime are. The root causes of crime come down more often than not to addiction problems. More often than not they come to socio-economic issues and socio-economic problems. We are creating crime factories, both in our prisons and in our communities. We are sending people down a path that of course does not guarantee crime. However, when somebody is born in a ghetto in Detroit, there is a chance they will get out, but if they have no hope, if they have hope stripped away from them, if they have no opportunity for a good education, if their only role models, the people who break through, are drug lords, the chances the person will be a criminal are pretty darned high. I say we need to shut down the crime factories and stop the crimes from happening in the first place.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, I see that the debate has gone off on a small tangent, but since we have gone there, I think that this bill will have to be very carefully examined. In any case, after listening to the previous speaker, with whom we obviously share a number of opinions, I have an additional question for him.

Considering everything that he believes, how can he agree to support the current government, which wants to take away a tool judges often use to avoid putting first-time offenders through the criminal process? I am talking about conditional sentences. When a judge felt that prison could be a valid option, these sentences made it possible for the judge to nevertheless impose conditions on that individual at home, allowing the offender to continue to work, raise a family, go to school, and to stay out of that place where crime prevails: prison.

How can he support the government on such a crazy initiative?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. It is a bit tangential but it is an important question.

Let us make no mistake about it. We believe that when somebody has committed a serious crime, there should be a sentence that reflects that. We have no problem with the notion that there are certain areas where it is important to remove judicial discretion because the nature of the crimes is serious enough to warrant sentences that reflect that. We support that notion and have no problem with it.

The problem I have is that the current government is slashing funding for crime prevention. It is slashing money and not investing in the things that reduce recidivism. Right now our rate of recidivism in Canada is 36%. If we continue along the route we are on, we only need to look at California to see where it will end. It has a recidivism rate, the rate at which people reoffend, of 70%.

There is nothing wrong with giving tough sentences. The problem is that if doing so is the only solution, it becomes a total disaster.

The focus has to be on stopping crime before it happens. That has to be our first priority, and there are 1,000 ways to do that before it gets to the point where somebody commits the type of offence that is so serious that we have to remove judicial discretion in order to send out the right message about the severity of that crime.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Ajax—Pickering for a very clear and lucid presentation.

I am just wondering if my colleague would consider that perhaps he is being a little too hard on the Conservative government. Perhaps some of what he outlined could be, as seen through the Conservative government's own kind of warped world view, a form of national housing strategy. Just as the Americans have tried to lock up an entire generation of young black men, the Conservative government seems hell-bent and determined to follow that folly and lock up a whole generation of young aboriginal men and women.

I would like to put on the record a statistic I recently read in a book by Pierre Berton. The book was about 1967, the last time Canada was happy. At that time, 100% of the inmates in the women's penitentiary in Kingston were aboriginal women. Every single inmate was an aboriginal woman.

I wonder if perhaps my colleague wants to reconsider his remarks and entertain the notion that perhaps this is the Conservative government's concept of a national housing strategy, to lock up a generation of young aboriginal people, given their overrepresentation in the penal system.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think I will leave that matter. I think probably the best way to respond to it is just to leave that.

Of course I am very concerned with the high proportion of aboriginals who are there, but I think the characterization by the member is not right, and I will not respond.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Hull—Aylmer, Automotive Industry; the hon. member for Don Valley West, Public Transit.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, the bill we are studying has a title that does not at all describe what it is about. It has various objectives that all have to do not so much with cybercrime, because it likely would have been given that sort of name, but with the use of not only computers, but virtual means of communication to help the police fight criminals who use these means.

The bill deals with a number of subjects. It includes amendments to the Criminal Code and several other laws. It is a complicated bill, with 72 pages but only 45 clauses. It has many explanatory notes, and some clauses are several pages in length. Consequently, it is a very long bill, and it is very late in coming. Once again, God knows that it was not the opposition that delayed the government's bill. The current government bears full responsibility for the recent delays.

This bill originated with the convention on cybercrime that was signed in 2002 following lengthy negotiations that had begun in the 1990s. The convention was drafted by the Council of Europe with the active involvement of Canada, the United States, Japan and South Africa. It is clear that in the mid-1990s, countries were well aware that criminal organizations were making extensive use of the new means of communication. Telegraph, mail and long-distance calls were things of the past, because criminals were using modern means of communication. In addition, new types of crimes were being committed on the web.

Obviously, we think mainly of child pornography, but also of all kinds of fraud. The horrible consequences of identity or information theft were also talked about. Moreover, they came up again last week when a new bill was introduced. In 1995, it was already clear that developed countries needed to enter into agreements to help each other fight such crimes and prosecute major criminal organizations. Wiretapping was agreed to with some reluctance. As we will see a bit later, the guidelines for wiretapping were much better than the guidelines the government wants to give the police under this bill for using these new means of communication.

Nonetheless, without wiretapping today, I do not think we could have penetrated major organized crime groups the way we did with the Hells Angels and the way we do with the mafia, whose structure is more fluid. It would have been difficult to penetrate major organized crime groups in general without the use of wiretapping.

All these countries felt that the police needed updated methods, but with limits on how much police action was necessary.

We do not want the government to control the web, the way China does, since the web was originally designed as a tool for scientists to allow them to communicate freely amongst themselves. However, those who used it for unlawful purposes needed to be stopped and caught.

The convention on cybercrime had little impact until 2001. We all know what happened on September 11, 2001. People again began to take an interest in electronic technology as well as the need to fight organized criminals that might be operating in a number of different countries using modern communication devices.

The person who spoke before me said that this type of bill had already been introduced in 2005 and that this was not new. I have not yet compared the current bill to the one from 2005. On the face of it, there does not seem to be much difference except for some changes to account for the evolution of the technology over the past few years. Why did the government not introduce this sooner? However better late than never. Since the government is introducing this bill, it can count on our cooperation for a serious study of it.

A serious study. That means that we start with the conviction that this legislation is needed to fight modern criminal organizations that may use these technologies and to fight new types of crimes made possible by modern communications. But we must also ensure that we do no more than is necessary. We have to strike a balance. The government speaks a great deal about this balance with respect to the protection of personal information. They talk about the protection of fundamental rights; however, in this case, we are dealing more specifically with personal information. Unfortunately, in other legislation, this objective was reflected more in the government's speeches than in specific measures proposed, with the ever-present tendency of increasing powers.

Organizations that defend human rights, in this case the right to privacy and confidentiality of communications, have raised a number of points that must be examined when we study this bill. It is difficult work that, of necessity, will take some time. The bill itself is long and has many complex provisions. By the way, this may be just the thing for those who suffer from insomnia. This type of legislation can easily put you to sleep. Moreover, the impact of certain provisions on others is difficult to gauge.

We want to take the time to thoroughly study the bill, examine all aspects and hear from police organizations, among others, although I have the impression that the government has probably heard a lot about it from them. I, too, have heard many things from police forces. Organizations concerned with protecting human rights have also undertaken the arduous task of studying this bill. They must be heard. They must be given, as must we, the time to reflect and to ensure that this legislation really does strike a balance.

The provisions of this bill will make it possible to track an individual's movements wherever they go. The provisions will make it possible, on mere suspicion, to access all of an individual's online communications, or information about each time they use a computer or the Internet. Someone will be able to see what certain people do, what they like, what they read, what they want to read, who they are in contact with.

In fact, modern methods allow the government to go beyond the possibilities in futuristic novels that scared us so much, like 1984 or the many other novels that described a future filled with totalitarian regimes.

I hope that the government will understand that the reason we want to carefully examine this bill is not because we are defending the rights of criminals, as the government side keeps senselessly claiming. We are not defending the rights of criminals. We are defending the rights of all individuals, even when they have been accused of a crime.

I think that the Canadian public as a whole expects us to do this. About 20 or 25 years ago, I remember that some cases at the Supreme Court foresaw that technology could make it possible to monitor a person's life, which I almost thought sounded like something out of a fantasy novel. I must say that these judges, who were much older than I was at the time, had a vision of the future that seems to be coming true.

We will have to pay very close attention to the system that gives the police certain permissions—the system of warrants—and to the justifications that will have to be provided in order to penetrate an individual's personal life so deeply. We need to ask ourselves if it is really worth it.

Something like this worries me about the current government. I see that they still plan on reinstating some provisions. In the Anti-Terrorism Act, some provisions were deemed to be so drastic that they would be re-examined in five years. That was done. We suggested that they be abolished. The previous Parliament refused to reinstate them, but this government still wants to go back to it.

In other words, what concerns me is that when this government talks about a balance between individual rights and the necessary powers of state, it always thinks more about the powers of state. We should therefore be entitled to expect that there will be—and I hope there will this time—productive discussions, and that those who want to defend individual rights, those with questions about the scope of police powers, will not again be treated as though they are defending the rights of criminals, when that is not what we are trying to do.

Indeed, they need to clearly understand what we are trying to do. I think they really do understand, but they prefer to pretend that they do not. One thing is certain: as long as we continue seeing crime bills modelled on the American example in recent years, we will oppose them, because we know that that is not the right approach.

The member who spoke before me gave some figures that confirm the trends I have noticed.

It depends somewhat on what years we look at, but the trend is always the same. The United States currently has the highest incarceration rate in the world. It is a democratic country. Does it also have the lowest crime rates? Not at all. It also has one of the highest homicide rates, that is, three and a half times higher than Canada and, I might add, five times higher than Quebec. Quebec, like some of the maritime provinces, has focused more on rehabilitating young offenders, and its police officers also have a different attitude. Instead of always promoting force and the use of force, they have focused more on developing community police forces that are involved in their communities, that dedicate much of their resources and energy to prevention. I would not say they dedicate as much energy, because when you are the only one responsible for preventing crime, it takes a great deal of energy. Indeed, we note that these provinces have lower homicide rates that those who do not seem to care as much about prevention.

As long as the Conservatives keep on aping the Americans and introducing minimum sentences left, right and centre in bills, a model that does not work and that 22 states are currently backing away from, we will keep on raising objections.

Moreover, I know why they have introduced their “get tough on crime” provisions and minimum sentences. It is because such measures are popular, but the Conservatives should remember that there have been great leaders of the Conservative Party. The fact that I have questioned him harshly does not mean that I do not respect Brian Mulroney's great qualities and what he did. In his speech celebrating the 25th anniversary of his coming to power, he said something that struck me. He said that just because something is popular doesn't mean it is right. He said that government should not make policies just to please people, but that it had to have a vision that sometimes went beyond popular opinion. Politicians had to take measures that gave their vision life, because when one is in government, one knows things that ordinary people do not.

The Conservatives do not seem to realize that there is a science that allows us to measure the impact of criminal actions. That science is criminology. The government's only justification right now for proposing new legislation with minimum sentences is that it is listening to the people. The only thing that matters to them is their popularity.

I do not think that is the right approach. In matters of health we would not say we will take a certain measure because it is popular or, since most people do not believe in the vaccine, we will not have a vaccine. In health, we rely on science. Relying on science in matters of crime means relying on criminology. Criminology is not one of the hard sciences, no more than psychology. However, just because it is not a hard science does not mean it is not a science, that it does not have solutions to our problems, or that it cannot judge some solutions to be better than others.

As long as the Conservatives introduce legislation like this, which responds to a real need, they can count on our support and our help to improve it.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech that touched on cybercrime. We will support this bill because it strengthens a number of police powers, thus facilitating investigation. I would like my colleague to talk about prevention. We hear about cybercrime and cyberbullying. Thanks to a new means of communication, the Internet, people are committing all kinds of economic crimes and crimes against children. This medium is relatively new to many of us. It has not even been around for 100 years. We have been using it for about 20 years.

Does he believe that people, children and adults alike, are sufficiently informed to protect themselves from the kinds of crimes that can be committed via the Internet? Are there other preventive actions the government and the House can take to better protect people?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, there are two perspectives to consider. The first is the public perspective and the second is the family perspective. Of course parents have to be aware of what their children and teenagers are looking at. They may not always succeed, but I think that families should talk about what their kids are learning.

The public perspective is similar. Early on, crimes committed via the Internet were never punished because they were never discovered. That is why we need surveillance measures. I myself have often proposed setting up on-line reporting sites for people to report child pornography. We need measures like that, but that is not really what we are talking about here. We are talking about the fact that law enforcement personnel need to be able to get inside these new technologies to track the criminals who use them and possibly prevent crimes.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Madam Speaker, one of the things I wish to advise my colleague is that for many years there was a bill before the House of Commons on child Internet pornography. It was first introduced in 1995 by Mr. Chris Axworthy, who was a long-time member of Parliament and became the attorney general of Saskatchewan.

The government was asked to introduce legislation through this bill or any bill it wished that would make ISP providers partially responsible to monitor their sites and when they noticed any that may have child pornography, they would be required to report it to the authorities. That is basically the bill in a nutshell, as well as certain amounts of time offenders would have to serve.

Child Internet pornography, in my own personal view, is one of the most despicable crimes perpetrated upon unsuspecting children. I have worked with OPP and RCMP officials on this and when I speak with them, they get quite emotional and concerned when they speak about what they have seen on these sites.

As a Parliament we need to do everything we possibly can in order to ensure that we mitigate, reduce and eventually stop this action. I know people are concerned about privacy rights. In fact, most ISP providers I have spoken to do not like me very much because of the fact that a bill such as this would force them to be partially responsible to monitor their sites.

I would like to ask the hon. member, who I know is an extremely intelligent and well-versed person on justice issues, not just in Quebec but in Canada, what does he think about asking ISP providers to be partially responsible, through legislation, to ensure that any pornography on websites can and will be reported to the authorities so they can do their job properly?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is certainly the type of solution legislators come up with. We think that such matters can be solved with laws. However, I doubt that those working in the computer field and ISP providers are qualified to spend long hours poring over these sites.

That is why I have always called for reporting sites, among other things. Such sites are useful not only in cases of pornography but also in those involving potential killers. I am thinking of the horrible events at Dawson College, in Montreal, where young Anastasia was murdered. In the days that followed, some people contacted the police to report a certain site. The police arrested three or four people.

I truly believe that people know that they are doing something illegal. We could draft another bill to tell them that it is illegal, but we have to provide the tools to deal with them. I believe the best way is to use hackers, those who like to go from one site to another on the Internet. They have to be informed that they can contact the police if they stumble across a child pornography site or the site of a gun-crazed maniac, which could foreshadow a massacre. Although I have been told by the Sûreté du Québec that they have officers to respond to such complaints, I have never known the government do this with the RCMP or other forces.

Our objective is to identify the best solutions. At times, it may be legislation, but quite often it is also the enforcement of the legislation, the actual police work.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am proud to rise in the House today to speak about the important piece of legislation which updates criminal offences for the new technological environment and gives police officers the tools to conduct their investigations in a world which has moved beyond old-fashioned telephone calls and snail mail.

The world is changing and so is the way we communicate. It used to be that we could find a pay phone on every city block. That seems quaint to us now. Now we just reach into our pockets or our purses for our cellphones and make our calls on the spot. It used to be we could send a letter to a friend in England or other parts of the world, and it would takes days or weeks to get there. Now we can turn our computers on and send a message in a matter of seconds. We can do it while we are in a coffee shop or while we are walking down the street or even in the House of Commons.

The world is changing in other ways, too. We do not have to go to a store anymore to buy a new pair of shoes. We can sit in our living rooms and buy them online from a store in Paris. When we want to do research on World War II, we can haul out our old dusty encyclopedias or we can look it up on the Internet. We can look at whole books online. Even if people prefer to go into the library to pull a book off the shelf, they will probably look it up on a computerized card catalogue first.

Not only are the new technologies useful and efficient, but they are also unavoidable. They are present in every aspect of our lives. It is clear that criminals are taking advantage of the new technologies as much as anyone else. They use these technologies to facilitate their criminal activities.

Criminals use email and websites to distribute child pornography. Members of organized crime use mobile phones to plan their drug deals. Hackers can access bank records by electronically spying on computer activity.

New technologies give rise to new crimes and they provide new ways of committing old crimes. They create key evidence of crimes, old and new. Most importantly, for the bill before us, they create new electronic forms of evidence.

So, it is obvious that police officers need a way to obtain this evidence to do their jobs. They could be stuck in a telephone world while criminals operate on the Internet. That is why the Minister of Justice tabled Bill C-46, the investigative powers for the 21st century act on June 18.

We need the legislation to give police officers the tools they need to investigate crimes, whether they are facilitated with a traditional land-line telephone or a laptop. We need the legislation to give them the tools they need to collect evidence no matter what form it takes. We need legislation to prevent the Criminal Code from lagging behind the criminals. We need the legislation to ensure that our investigative techniques are as modern as the crimes they are investigating.

I am pleased to say that Bill C-46 does exactly that. Let me say a little bit more about Bill C-46. This bill does a few different things, some of the most extensive changes found in this bill are the Criminal Code amendments. Some of these amendments create new offences. For instance, the bill criminalizes certain forms of child sexual exploitation facilitated by the Internet.

There are also updates to some existing offences to ensure, for instance, that crimes traditionally committed using regular mail will now be punishable if they were committed using email. Finally, the bill creates and updates investigative powers to ensure that the tools available to police can meet the requirements of modern investigations.

I will talk more about these Criminal Code amendments in a few minutes. Before I get into that, I would like to briefly address the other legislation amended in Bill C-46.

Bill C-46 will also update the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to allow us to co-operate with global partners more effectively in the fight against cyber crime and other crimes that exploit modern technologies. These changes will ensure that Canada's treaty partners have access to new investigative tools in the Criminal Code.

The Competition Act would also be amended to ensure some of the important investigative tools created in this legislation are available to its investigations under that act.

One of my colleagues will go more into detail about some of these amendments when I am finished. Right now, I would like to tell members a bit more about the Criminal Code amendments themselves. As I mentioned, some of the amendments update the offences in the code, while some of them update investigative powers.

I will begin by telling members some of the important changes we have made in the area of child sexual exploitation.

The first one is communication for sexual offences against a child. Bill C-46 would create a new offence prohibiting people from using the Internet or another method of telecommunication to make arrangements with another person to sexually exploit a child or to agree to such arrangements. An offence of communicating with a child in order to communicate a sexual offence against that child was adopted in 2002. The police have found this offence to be a good tool in the fight against sexual exploitation.

However, concerns have been raised about this provision not going far enough to tackling this very pressing issue. Therefore, the proposed offence would add to what we already have by prohibiting communications between adults for the purpose of facilitating child sexual exploitation. This improvement would help police in conducting undercover investigations of child sexual exploitation crimes. A person convicted under this provision would face up to 10 years of imprisonment.

The next amendment concerns false information, indecent communications and harassing communications. As I mentioned, the Criminal Code would also be updated to ensure that new technologies are reflected in a number of existing offences. For instance, the crimes of false information, indecent communications and harassing communications were previously recognized only when committed using old technologies, such as the telephone and telegraph. Now, these crimes would be punishable when committed using email, text messaging and any number of other mediums.

These amendments would be useful in the fight against cyber bullying, an issue that has become particularly worrisome of late. Cyber bullying is 21st century bullying. It is bullying using email, text messages or posting threats and defamatory messages on websites. It is an issue that has affected many Canadians, school children and teachers. Although the Criminal Code currently contains many useful provisions for fighting cyber bullying at its worst, these amendments would provide incremental tools for those situations that the Code does not quite reach yet.

Those are just two examples of the kinds of updates we have made to our Criminal Code offences, but new technologies affect the criminal law in many different ways.

Many traditional crimes often leave evidence in electronic form. The police must be able to capture this evidence in order to complete their investigations. Therefore, we have created a series of new investigative powers to deal with the aspect of changing technology. These powers are designed to target electronic evidence, yet tailored to ensure minimal intrusions on privacy and civil liberties.

Preservation demands the preservation orders. Two of the tools we have included in our package are the preservation demand and the preservation order. These would require the person subject to the demand or order to preserve a specific set of data long enough for police officers to get a warrant or court order to obtain the data. I would like to emphasize that preservation should not be confused with the types of data retention schemes we see in Europe and elsewhere.

This bill does not require Internet service providers, or ISPs, to collect everyone's information and keep it on hand indefinitely--

Suspension of sitting

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. member.

Apparently the translation is not working for those who are listening to the French. We will therefore suspend the sitting for a minute or two to restart the interpretation system.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 5:26 p.m.)

(The House resumed at 5:40 p.m.)

Sitting Resumed

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I will speak in English just to check if the system is working. The translation is coming through.

Can everyone hear me in both languages?

All right.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Desnethé--Missinippi--Churchill has 10 minutes left.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Madam Speaker, what a preservation demand or order would do is require a person or business that is not the target of the investigation to preserve and prescribe a set of computer data for a limited amount of time in order to conduct a specific investigation.

We might want to think of this as a do not delete order because it is simply asking that the person preserve or save information already in their possession when a demand or order is made for a short period of time. This kind of tool is vital for our ability to conduct effective investigations in an age where crucial evidence can be deleted with a stroke of a key.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. Some confusion remains with the sound system. I understand that when we are speaking English, the French translation is working.

When I speak French, is there an English translation?

It seems to be working.

I apologize to the member for Desnethé--Mississippi--Churchill River. Once again, please continue.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the preservation demand and the preservation order would provide police with enough time to go to a judge and get the warrants or orders they need to obtain this evidence. They can do this without fear that the highly volatile data they need will be lost or deleted, either inadvertently or in the manner of regular business practice during the sometimes long periods it takes to obtain a warrant or production order for that data.

Also, as I have mentioned before, we have built important privacy safeguards into these powers to ensure an appropriate balance is struck between providing for the safety and security of all Canadians in ensuring that their rights and liberties are respected.

Although a court order is not required for the preservation demand, the duration of the demand is limited to 21 days. This means that if a police officer does not get a court order or a warrant for the preserved data before the demand expires, the data will simply be deleted. The data will not be provided to the police without a court order or warrant.

The police can also obtain a preservation order from a judge or justice. The order will give them up to 90 days to get a production order or warrant to obtain the data that has been preserved. Again, if they do not get the production order or warrant by the time the preservation order expires, the person in possession of the preserved data is required to destroy it unless his or her business practices otherwise require that it be retained.

What this means is that specific data will be preserved only for a limited time period for the purpose of an investigation. Data that would not otherwise be kept by the businesses would be destroyed as soon as it is no longer needed for an investigation. This safeguard is an example of our efforts to respect the privacy of rights throughout the bill and is consistent with Canadian privacy law.

We have also updated the production order regime to tailor it to the needs of modern investigations. A production order is a judicial order that requires third parties to provide police with documents containing certain data in connection with an investigation we currently have to production orders in the Criminal Code.

There is production--

Suspension of Sitting

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. The technical problems continue with the translation so we will need to suspend again. If the system is fixed in the next few moments, we will continue. If we are unable to repair the system, we will suspend until 6:30, at which time the votes will be taken and we will do that in both languages manually here on the floor.

We will suspend again, resuming once the problem is fixed or resuming at 6:30 for the vote.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 5:45 p.m.)

(The House resumed at 5:59 p.m.)

Sitting resumed

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. Colleagues, it is my understanding that the sound system is functional now. It is my understanding that the translation is working from English to French. Is the translation coming through in French?

Is there an English translation when I speak French? Very good.

Colleagues, it is my understanding that half of the microphones are now working, every other microphone. It is my understanding that this will be sufficient for us to proceed and it is also my understanding that the translation is working in both English and French. We will give this one more try. If it works, then we will proceed until 6:30, when the vote will be taken as scheduled. This is the last try. If this does not work, we will suspend and we will then wait until 6:30, when we will still proceed with the vote, doing the translation manually.

With that, I give the floor to the hon. member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that I have not set the record for the longest 20 minute speech in parliamentary history. I will keep on going.

We currently have two production orders in the Criminal Code. There is a production order for financial information as well as a general production order for any other types of data that might be needed in furtherance of an investigation. In this bill, we have created more specific production orders for more specific types of data. This will allow police officers to target exactly what they are looking for in an investigation with tools designed to reflect the expectation of privacy associated with the data being sought.

We like to call this kind of tailoring privacy with precision. Instead of using one big hammer to hit every size of nail, we are providing several hammers that are precisely suited for specific types of nails. In addition to the two production orders that we currently have, we are proposing to create production orders for the transmission of data and tracking of data. We will address these concepts in more depth in just a few moments.

We have included a production order to trace specified communications, which is a really interesting tool because it allows police to trace the origin of a communication that may have gone through several different service providers. It is a very current tool that addresses the complexity of modern communications.

We have made some changes to the powers of the Criminal Code that will make investigations more effective while taking into account people's rights to privacy. One of these changes has to do with tracking warrants. Police have been able to get tracking warrants for over 15 years now. As one can imagine, technology has changed a lot in that time.

Where we were once able to track people with only a moderate amount of accuracy, there are now technologies that exist that can track objects or people much more closely. We are proposing to increase the threshold necessary to get a tracking warrant in situations where one is going to be able to track people more closely. This means that now, when police officers apply to the judge or justice for a warrant to do this more continuous and accurate type of tracking, they will have to meet a stronger test to convince the judge that the tracking warrant is needed.

However, the existing lower threshold warrant will also be retained to allow police to obtain less privacy-invasive tracking information. Specifically, police will continue to be able to obtain information related to the tracking of objects, vehicles and transactions at the current lower level. This dual approach will allow police to retain the efficiency of the lower threshold warrant while increasing the privacy protections in situations where there are greater privacy interests at play.

We have also updated what is currently called the dial number recorder warrant. The name in itself should explain why this tool needs to be updated. When we think of dialing, we think of old analog-type telephones, but people do not communicate with these types of telephones anymore. We communicate with cellphones, text messaging, email and numerous other methods that are emerging faster than I can keep track.

We need to be able to capture the routing information that these new technologies produce. The transmission data recorder warrant would allow us to do just that. Where we could previously get the phone number that someone was dialing, we would now be able to get parallel updated forms of communication and destination information like email addresses as well. The warrant would provide for a much needed update with respect to new technology, since technology has moved well beyond simple telephone dialing.

I want to emphasize that we would not be getting the content of people's emails, text messages or phone calls under this warrant. We would not even be able to get the subject line of the email. We have other provisions in the Criminal Code to deal with access to the content of private communications and this bill does not affect those processes.

This bill allows police officers to get information about where a communication is coming from or where it is going, but that is the only information they are getting with this warrant. We have taken privacy very seriously in creating this legislation. There is nothing in this bill that would allow police to obtain information without a current court order or authorization. There are important privacy safeguards built into the preservation demand and the preservation order. Each investigative power has been carefully tailored to reflect the expectation of privacy associated with it.

Before I conclude, I would like to take a minute to discuss the global nature of many of these issues and the importance of ratifying the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime and its additional protocol on xenophobia and racism.

As I mentioned before, it is clear that technologies like cellphones and the Internet have had a huge effect on our lives. We also know that these technologies have, in a sense, made the world a much smaller place. Thanks to the Internet, it has become possible to commit a crime in Japan while sitting comfortably in an armchair in Sarnia.

The international community started thinking about these issues relating to computer crime back in the mid-1980s when personal computers started appearing in people's homes. Since then, the use of the Internet has become widespread, once again changing the rules of the game. The international community has been studying the challenges posed by these developments and working on solutions.

I am pleased to say that this bill would allow us to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime and its additional protocol on xenophobia and racism, which are the only existing instruments at the international level to combat computer-related crime. Ratification of this convention would allow us to co-operate with other signatory countries in the investigation of cybercrimes when, for instance, a Canadian falls victim to a crime committed in France. The convention would also help us access evidence that, due to the nature of Internet technology, can actually be found on a different continent.

Again, one of my hon. colleagues will tell the House a little more about the convention in a few minutes, but for now I would like to leave everyone with a few thoughts.

We have created an effective and efficient set of tools, which will allow police to conduct complex investigations in a modern world. As we know, this government is committed to combating crime in all its forms. We have also been particularly active in the fight against organized crime and the sexual exploitation of children. Bill C-46 is an important contribution to all of these battles.

We conducted extensive consultations when creating these amendments with all kinds of people and organizations. We heard from privacy advocates, police, industry, and regular folks who really care about the safety of their communities, as well as the protection of their rights. With their input, we have created legislation that achieves the right balance between promoting Canada's safety and security, and protecting the rights of Canadians.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my question with a little background by saying that I have always been inspired and very interested in speeches in the House where people draw upon their previous experience before arriving here. Many people bring compassion and some very reasoned arguments as a result of their previous experience.

I thought one of the interesting parts of the member's speech was about cyberbullying, which is close to my heart because in this century, certainly with the advent of technology and social networking on the Internet, that is a very pertinent issue.

I would like the hon. member to draw upon his previous experience as a front line officer, as he has in his speech, and perhaps provide the House with an example of why this bill is needed now.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I served in the RCMP for the better part of 18 years and was stationed throughout Saskatchewan. As technology evolves, so do policing techniques and investigations.

When I first started in the RCMP, we did not have the technology of computers as we do today. As technology has evolved, I have seen a different type of bullying coming across policemen's desks. At first, we would get a phone call from a mother or father who would be upset over bullying. They would call because their child had been assaulted or bullied on the school grounds.

The unfortunate part is that what I have had to investigate today is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is basically text messaging or other forms of verbal abuse toward another student or individual. It could be by a group of people bullying one child. Many times that one child has no avenue. I have seen action being taken by the schools, and they are helpless without having this bill passed, to battle cyberbullying. This legislation is needed and we need to get it through to help protect the future generations of Canadians.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River. I know that was the first 20-minute speech that he has made in the House of Commons, and he made it a memorable one for multiple reasons. I think it was one of the longest 20-minute speeches in the history of the House because of technical difficulties.

Given the member's police background, I would like to ask him a question that I think the public would be vitally interested in. If this bill were to become law, would the police be able to monitor everyone's Internet activity, email content or cell phone use? It is a very simple question.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, how will my privacy be protected? The Government of Canada is strongly committed to maintaining the rule of law in all of the legislation.

None of the lawful access tools, production orders, preservation orders, interception orders and search warrants can be obtained in the absence of lawful authority. A person's reasonable expectation of privacy will continue to guide how the federal legislation will be updated.

In addition, the government will ensure that such authority will continue to be exercised, bearing in mind that privacy and human rights laws such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Privacy Act, and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act must be adhered to.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I also applaud my colleague for his first 20-minute speech and for doing so well under those circumstances.

My question comes out of the experience I have had on the privacy and ethics committee. My understanding of this is that there is a careful balance we have to take between having lawful access to communications and protecting one's privacy.

I heard something in the speech about a lawful access initiative, and I was wondering if the member could just expound on that a little more and give us comfort that this act gives the appropriate powers for monitoring, but at the same time protects our privacy.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, what is proposed in this new legislation?

The proposed legislation will update certain existing Criminal Code offences and investigative powers, as well as create new powers to meet the demands of today's computer and telecommunications environment.

The proposed legislation will, among other things, update current Criminal Code provisions to allow police to obtain transmission data, also referred to as traffic data, that is received and sent via the telephone or the Internet and will require the telecommunications service providers to preserve, for a certain period of time, data related to those communications or to a subscriber if that information is needed in the investigation of an offence.

Under the legislation, it would also be an offence for two or more persons to agree to arrange or commit an offence against a child by means of telecommunications.

One thing I saw in my policing career was Internet luring, and this is totally unacceptable. During my police tenure, I at times saw how a family was divided and torn apart because their child who had been playing on the computer had formed a conversation with an unknown offender. That offender tried to lure that child out of his or her home to meet in a neighbouring community, or in that community itself. That is why this legislation is very important to help protect our young children and also to protect our communities.

Our mandate was for safer homes and safer communities, and I feel that this legislation will come forward and will protect all Canadians as a whole.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am fascinated by this discussion because all Canadians are implicated in it in some sense because we are all living in a digital realm. All our kids are on the Internet. We recognize the need to make sure that police have the tools they need.

The member says that provisions will be in place to ensure that the normal rule of law, in terms of warrants and privacy, will exist, and yet there is a provision for telewarrants. In other words, if it is inconvenient to have a written warrant, it can be obtained verbally. I find that a very odd and possibly huge loophole to slide into the legislation.

I would ask the member to explain to me why it is that in this day and age, as hooked up as we are, we should have a provision so that if it is inconvenient to get a written warrant or to type anything or to send a fax, one simply needs to make a phone call and there will be access immediately. That seems to me to be a bit beyond what we would have under normal jurisprudence.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I spent many years getting search warrants manually. It takes days to do a proper and thorough investigation. I have been in circumstances where I requested a telewarrant through a normal phone line but it was declined because we could not get the necessary information. That becomes a Canadian problem. We cannot protect the community if we are declined a telewarrant.

I feel this legislation will come forward and will cover all the bases needed to address the safety of Canadians.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of my party to signal that we have done a fairly thorough review of Bill C-46 and will be supporting it at second reading to go to committee.

I do want to be clear, and I think it is obvious to anyone who peruses the bill, and it is a lengthy one, that it is a significant step forward in bringing a number of our procedures and much of our criminal law into the 21st century.

It has a number of short provisions in it. In the past we did not have technological terms that would allow us to lay charges or in some cases get warrants to pursue investigations simply because the term computer, for example, was not in the particular section of the code that was the subject of the investigation.

We have other changes, setting aside the technological ones, that are fairly short amendments, whereby we are again expanding the scope of a number of crimes to reflect the reality of cyber crime, crime that is based on the use of technological equipment.

It is very important that we make those changes and bring things up to date because we know of a number of investigations that have gone on and have failed and of a number of charges that have been laid and have failed simply because the terminology in the code was not up to modern-day standards.

From that perspective, it makes a lot of sense to have this. In fact this bill is quite overdue in terms of when it should have been on the law books of this country. Those amendments have been planned for some time.

I want to say that there are some other relatively short amendments, and I want to note one in particular that is to clause 6. This is the section of the code that deals with hate propaganda and hate literature, and we are including an additional group in the identifiable group that would be the subject of an attack based on certain criteria. Right now the wording mentions colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation. We are adding to that list “national or ethnic origin”, because there have been a couple of cases in which that was the motivation for the attack by the hate-mongers and we could not charge them because the group in question did not fit within the definition of identifiable group.

That is a significant update, a significant change. It will allow us to catch people who publish and disseminate that kind of literature and that kind of hatred. That is an improvement. We have several more like that.

I want to make a few comments about some of the reservations. We heard one of them in the last questions from my colleague from Timmins—James Bay. There are provisions for amendments to the Competition Act more specifically than to the code, which will allow for telewarrants, so the police officer or the prosecutor would not actually physically stand in the presence of a judge. They would obtain a warrant through some form of telecommunication.

In terms of the design, it appears they would do that in the normal way. They would prepare written material, submit it to the proper judicial officer, and if so justified, they would receive the warrant. They could do it by fax, a combination of telephone and fax, or by computers, over the Internet.

There is a third way that is of concern, and it was raised by my colleague, the member for Timmins—James Bay. There are provisions in here whereby one will be able to seek a warrant through a telecommunication mechanism without putting anything in writing. I have to say that does cause me some concern. The test for that is that one can seek it where it is impractical to submit a request in writing.

I am concerned about that because it potentially could be open to abuse where people argue. As we heard from the last speaker, it sometimes takes a long time to get a warrant but that is the way our system works and it has worked quite well in terms of ensuring that the judicial officer has in his or her possession sufficient information to allow for the incursion into usually private residences, commercial establishments and now, more commonly, computers and that whole world.

We need to be very careful that we do give our judicial officers sufficient information. I must say that it is somewhat hard to imagine, on a consistent basis, being able to do that without submitting a reasonable amount of written text to the judicial officer. Again, it does not need to be by fax. It can be over the Internet. However, it can simply be speaking to a judicial officer over the phone and recounting the reasons why a warrant is needed and why it is impractical.

Another concern I have about the section is that it is not clear as to who determines the impracticality. We do not know whether it is the police officer or the prosecutor seeking it, and if it is the judicial officer, what do those officers need to do to establish that there is no criteria as to what impracticality means? I think that again is open to some potential abuse.

When I first started practising law, we did not have the provisions in the law to obtain warrants for wiretapping. It was just blank. In fact, I was involved early in my career with a couple of cases where we actually challenged the police forces who we believed were conducting illegal wiretaps. It was shortly after that that the legislation came into play.

However, I remember the debates that went on in this House at that time and, more generally, in legal circles, where we were debating what criteria had to be met for those kinds of warrants. When I look at the debate that went on at that time and the ultimate criteria that we put into play as to what we had to meet in order to get those kinds of warrants, I have not heard that debate today in the House, and I do not see the criteria in the legislation.

That is an area of concern for us and when it gets to committee we will be investigating that more thoroughly to see if there are ways we can, not only accommodate this type of amendment, but also provide some guidelines for our judiciary as to when they would allow for a warrant to be issued, in effect, over the telephone, without anything in writing in front of them.

It is really important, with the exchange that now goes on where the prosecutor and oftentimes the police officer appear in front of a judge or a justice of the peace to get a warrant, that the exchange that goes on of a personal nature is fairly crucial for the judge to make his or her decision, and that is much more difficult over a telephone.

The other major concern is the bill would, in two areas, place additional pressure on people who provide computer services, service providers, in that we would have two provisions for requirements to produce material and, coupled with that, requirements for the computer service operators to preserve material.

I have seen some commentary in the public media from service providers who are concerned about heir ability to do that. This would not be a problem for large service providers, the large companies, but it may very well be for the small ones. Are we going to allow for a relatively comfortable period of phase-in where they need to add additional technology if they do not already have it? That still remains a question mark. Will it be, in some cases, just too expensive? Would this put people out of business by simply asking for a preservation order from them, which comes only from the police and then they go get the warrant for production?

As I have said, I have heard those concerns expressed. One of the ways to deal with this may be to allow for a phase-in period when they can get their computers and the new technology up to snuff to meet the requirements of this.

The final point I would make is the point raised by one of my other colleagues in a question, which was about our ability, with these amendments, to give additional tools to our police officers and prosecutors around what are cyber crimes. Some of that is cyber bullying, which is an issue that has already been raised today, but it also expands our ability to deal with child pornography over the Internet. It would give some additional tools to the police for that purpose, which is another reason for supporting this.

With those two reservations that we have been able to identify, we will be supporting the bill but we will be looking at ways of perhaps improving it in committee. In committee, we may also identify additional problems with it but we believe overall that this bill certainly takes us in the right direction with regard to those additional tools that our police officers need.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

When the House returns to this matter the member will have eight minutes remaining.

The House resumed from October 26 consideration of the motion that Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise here today to speak to Bill C-46. We will probably study Bill C-47 either later today or tomorrow. Bills C-46 and C-47 are very closely related to each other and, for those watching us, have to do with cybercrime.

It appears that the Canadian government has finally entered the 21st century and wants to address the very serious problem of cybercrime. Before going into the details, I would like to give some background. There was a convention, if we can call it that, known as the convention on cybercrime. That convention was the subject of many meetings. In fact, there were 27 different versions of the convention on cybercrime before the final version was drafted and signed by many countries, including Canada, the United States, Japan, South Africa, and even the Council of Europe. All the countries that signed the convention undertook to introduce one or more bills to implement the convention on cybercrime. That is precisely what the government is doing here today.

We can examine the technical details of the bill in committee. Yes, the Bloc Québécois agrees that Bill C-46 should move forward and be referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. This will also probably be true for Bill C-47.

Bill C-46 should allow police forces to adapt their investigative techniques to modern technologies like cellphones, iPods, the Internet, as well as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter that link today's online world. This bill will give police forces access to such technologies.

When a bill like this is introduced there is one thing the government and parliamentarians must not forget: the bill must not infringe on basic rights even though we are trying to properly equip our police forces to deal with crime. All of this is being done in response to what happened in 2001. Even though we know that work on cybercrime began in 1995, the events of September 2001 had a substantial impact. That is when governments realized they did not have the means to intercept certain communications. Before and after 1995, and even before and after 2001, surveillance was used. It was very easy to realize you were being followed. We are not talking about a James Bond movie here. We are not nearly as sophisticated as the show 24, where the characters are totally equipped to deal with crimes of this nature. We needed to find tools to help deal with cybercrime and make them available to our police forces.

Cybercrime is very subtle and very insidious. It is everywhere today. The members opposite, especially those from the Conservative Party, talk about the luring of children or what some people attempt to do with computers, namely slowly but surely approach children to have sexual encounters.

It is much more than that. I am not saying that the luring of children is not a serious crime, far from it. This is an extremely serious crime. There are also other crimes that are much more subtle, including identity theft and the planning of major crimes. Just look at the London subway bombings. They were planned right here in Canada. Somewhere near Toronto, attacks were being planned with global targets. Here in Canada, the police thanked an individual whose assistance was instrumental in foiling a crime about to unfold in Great Britain.

Cybercrime has become a global phenomenon. Today, we cannot simply say that cybercrime only occurs in Canada, Quebec, or Ottawa and the surrounding region. Cybercrime is a global phenomenon and it has to be addressed globally. That is the purpose of Bill C-46 and Bill C-47, which we will study in the coming days.

There is something worrying me. We will have to carefully study the intrusion into the personal life of an individual. I hesitate to say this because the line between the intrusion into the rights of an individual versus the protection of society is increasingly blurred. We will have to keep a very close eye on this as we study the bill. We must ensure that citizens do not run the risk of being more vulnerable to an intrusion into their private lives. I do not think that anyone in this House is against adapting legislation to the new realities in technology and crime.

I believe that it is abundantly clear that criminals, especially those working on the Web, are brilliant for the most part. Anyone who can use such tools as Facebook or Twitter and the whole Internet is intelligent enough to hatch a good plan for a crime.

We are very close to that reality when we see someone using their cell phone, sending coded messages and providing information over the Internet. We have to follow this up. I will give the example of the transfer of “illegal” funds to tax havens. I spoke about this when debating Bill C-42 and Bill C-52. Today, criminals who use computer technology are increasingly smart. Thus, police forces must be equipped to deal with them. That is the objective of Bill C-46.

Technologies do not just benefit criminals and are also available to police. The Bloc Québécois believes that it is important and rather urgent for police to be equipped to detect not just crimes that have been committed, not just those about to be committed, but those that are being planned. We have to be one step ahead of the criminal planning a crime and able to intervene before an offence is committed. That is the objective of Bill C-46.

However, we must avoid allowing the police to use their investigative tools to gain access to a very large amount of information—it goes that far—but we must also monitor some peoples' activities on the Internet to learn more about their private lives. It goes far beyond listening to telephone conversations. This bill goes much further than that.

However, we must find a balance between the fundamental rights to privacy and safety. That is what this is all about. Is the right to privacy more important that the right to safety? That line is easily crossed by police officers or unscrupulous individuals.

We must remember that some police offers were convicted of having used the computer system of the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec to monitor a spouse's new friend and watch over the movements of that individual. Those police officers were convicted because they had taken private information.

We must be very careful, and this will probably be the most important debate over the next few months. The Ligue des droits et libertés has raised some concerns. We must be careful, we must be prudent, we must be aware, and we must realize that there could be some slip-ups. When it comes to truly addressing security concerns, is protecting the rights of individuals less important than protecting society? That is a debate that will have to be held when the time comes to examine the bill in committee.

It is clear, and I would like to share a little about what the Ligue des droits et libertés has said. According to the Ligue, the bill constitutes an unprecedented invasion of privacy. It has brought up the following points. The government is presenting its bills as a way to make the necessary changes to traditional investigative powers for electronic surveillance to adapt to new communication technologies. But there is no comparison between the information transmitted through a telephone conversation and information that circulates freely.

Moreover, unlike telephone conversations, which leave no trace unless they are recorded, modern communications leave a trail in computer memories that can be detected long after the fact. That is a very important point, and I hope that nobody in this Parliament or in Canada or Quebec believes that once an email has been sent, it is over and done with. Unfortunately for them, I have bad news, because when people send an email using their computer or even their BlackBerry, there is always a trail. Their hard drives retain information about every email ever sent, and that information can be retrieved. That is where we find ourselves in a grey area.

But the Ligue des droits et libertés adds that everything we do in our everyday lives could come under police investigation. They will have access to lists of the websites we visit, emails we send and receive, credit card purchases, purchases of all kinds—clothing, books, winter gear—our outings, our movements abroad and in Canada, gas purchases, on-line and ATM banking transactions and medical information. Naturally, the list might get even longer.

We have to be prudent. I do not necessarily share all of the concerns expressed by the Ligue des droits et libertés, but they are urging us to be prudent. As parliamentarians, we have to use our judgment. We have to tell police forces—the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec, the Ontario Provincial Police and other police services in large municipalities—that there are lines that must not be crossed once Bill C-46 is passed.

I firmly believe that one thing is for sure: police forces must have the tools they need to deal with crime in the 21st century. Yes, armed robberies and bank heists are still happening, although less frequently according to the latest statistics. We still hear about corner store hold-ups and all kinds of other assaults. But there is now a new kind of crime called cybercrime. We have been looking for ways to fight it since 1995. We have to make sure we have the tools to do that.

I listened closely to what the Ligue des droits et libertés said, and I feel that we have to be careful. The Ligue says that the bill provides little or no protection against unreasonable seizures without a warrant. The authorities will be able to obtain subscriber data even though the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act recognizes that this information is private. This is provided for in Bill C-47, but the authorities could still obtain this information. Without a warrant and on the basis of a suspicion, an officer will be able to ask a service provider to keep the contents of all your communications. It is like asking the post office to photocopy all your mail in case something should happen. I feel that people may go a bit too far sometimes, but this serves as a reminder that we must be cautious. I do not necessarily share the views of the Ligue des droits et libertés, but as politicians, we have to listen to both sides of the story.

The Ligue des droits et libertés also says that with a warrant obtained on the basis of a mere suspicion, an agent will easily be able to compel the service provider to turn over all its lists and so on. I believe that this is a bit dangerous, and we will have to address it when this bill is studied in committee. The Ligue added that with a warrant, which can be obtained on the basis of reasonable grounds to believe—less stringent conditions than for wiretapping—the content of your communications could be intercepted.

Certainly, what the Ligue des droits et libertés is saying is important. It is calling on parliamentarians to be careful when we print and pass legislation, but especially when we apply it. Once the law is passed, it may be too late to amend it. I will say one thing right now: police forces must be equipped to deal with cybercrime and 21st century crime. It is clear that crime prevention is one promising solution. The police will need to be able to prevent such crimes, and that takes equipment.

Obviously, the authorities have to try to uncover a plot before it is carried out. Once a crime has been committed, it is a little late to intervene, even if the criminals are brought to justice. In closing, if the authorities can thwart the crime before it is committed, I believe that this bill is a step in the right direction.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague. There is no doubt this bill provides police forces with additional tools. What bothers me is the question of striking a balance between basic human rights and privacy. I think we do need to give police the tools they need to arrest criminals, but I also read what the Privacy Commissioner said about this:

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 makes us all think of Big Brother. I have a question for my colleague. How can we ensure that this bill really gives police forces sufficient guidelines so that privacy and basic human rights are respected?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Trois-Rivières for her question.

I will not beat around the bush. This will probably be the greatest challenge facing the committee that examines this bill, that is, trying to set guidelines to balance individual rights and the rights of society, and indicating how far police forces should go. Indeed, as the Supreme Court put it so well, the police cannot go on a fishing expedition. They cannot intercept just anything or do anything they want under the pretext that possibly, perhaps, something might be happening. No, guidelines are needed.

As legislators, we definitely must tell police forces that they cannot cross certain lines. I agree with Ms. Stoddart that the greatest challenge with respect to this bill will definitely lie in its implementation. We will probably need detailed definitions of the tools that will be available to the police to prevent crime. Indeed, with this bill, police will go from being involved in arrests, and therefore the punishment of crime—since police generally become involved after the crime is committed—to the prevention of offences about to be committed, since police will be able to intervene before the crime is committed. That is what cybercrime is all about. That will be the challenge.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech. If memory serves me correctly, in 1948, George Orwell wrote the book 1984. He wrote about a society that is quite similar to the one the Conservative government wants to give us. In 1958 or 1959, Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged, which also described a similar society. Yann Martel, a very prolific Quebec writer, has been sending books to the Prime Minister and the 38th book he sent was a book by Ayn Rand.

Does my colleague not think that our Prime Minister and the government should learn from the past, from what already exists, instead of trying to get us to pass bills on law and order quickly without taking into consideration everything that might happen as a result of these bills, all the consequences these bills might have on society, on all individuals and on all human beings?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Laval. She is absolutely right. I do not think that we should be too hasty in passing this bill. Yes, we should pass it here in the House so that the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security—which is where it will probably go—or the Standing Committee on Justice—it does not really matter—can study it. That is where the real work will be done.

My colleague is absolutely right. We cannot have cameras all over the place watching everything and everyone for no particular reason. Where exactly do we draw the line? Somewhere between the rights of the individual and the rights of society. The line is a very thin one. The Supreme Court has urged parliamentarians to exercise prudence before making laws that infringe on the individual rights set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The debate in the coming months will focus on that. I have tremendous respect for my Conservative colleagues, and I hope that they will not try to rush this bill through. Clearly, we have to take the time to work on it properly. The Convention on Cybercrime has been in the making since 1995. It has taken 27 attempts to get to what we have now. I am sure that we can take a month or two to examine this bill properly.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was very impressed with the speech by our colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue. I think that the concern he expressed about the need to protect privacy and civil rights in general in a bill like this is exactly right. There is another thing, though, that is very important and that is the need to ensure that the authorities have the effective means to control crime in the hyper-technological society in which we live.

Will this new bill give the police more effective means to control such crimes as money laundering or transfers to tax havens?

Do such provisions exist in this new bill? Could my colleague tell us a bit about that?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question. He is perfectly right. I will say what I said before, namely that this bill will be studied by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I sit on the committee and will be very concerned with a close study of this bill.

The following is an excerpt from what I have read. The bill also allows “for warrants”—that is to say search warrants or warrants in cyberspace—“to enable the tracking of transactions, individuals and things…. Police would be able to remotely activate existing tracking devices”.

That is dangerous and someone is going to have to explain it to me properly. I think, though, that this provision will make it possible to track money before it leaves Canada and disappears somewhere in the islands or in tax havens. We have to be able to track this money, and hopefully, this bill will make it possible. They also want to be able to track cars. Therefore, chips will be placed in them. How many luxury automobiles have been stolen and are now somewhere in the Emirates, in Russia, or somewhere else? Henceforth we will be able to track them with chips, locate them virtually anywhere, and send search warrants to get them in Russia or elsewhere.

I have been talking about vehicles, but it could be something else. That is a good thing. We should be careful, though, not to cross the line between individual rights and the protection of society. The RCMP already said that it was ready and was expecting this bill. I am looking forward to its appearance before us to explain how it intends to do this.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to represent the good people of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission and to speak in strong support of Bill C-46, which proposes changes to the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act in order to bring criminal offences and investigative powers up to date with 21st century technologies.

Bill C-46 is an important piece of legislation. We are all very well aware that technology has been changing rapidly over the last couple of decades. Some my age or thereabouts have a hard time keeping up with the technological changes. These changes have changed the way that crimes have been committed and the type of evidence that police need to gather when investigating such crimes. Developments in technology have changed the nature of the crimes themselves, as well as the nature of the investigations required to combat them.

In many ways these changes have also made the world a smaller place. It used to be the case that overseas communication took days or weeks, sometimes even longer than that.

It was not all that many years ago, Mr. Speaker, you might recall that I lived in the Philippines for a number of years. I lived several hours north of Manila, the major centre. The only way to get information back and forth to my family and friends was the old-fashioned way, by letter. We did not have a telephone where I lived. In fact, there were no telephones in the town. People had to go to Manila.

The only way I could make a phone call was to drive to a neighbouring slightly larger town about an hour away, stand in line, wait for a telephone booth, hope the operator could connect me at the appropriate time and then pay quite a bit. Now in the Philippines I am told that per capita there are more cell phones than in Canada. Anywhere people go there now, they are able to be connected throughout the world. That is what has been happening.

Money can be moved from a bank in Singapore to an account in Switzerland by a person in Saskatchewan, of all places, without any trouble at all. These technologies have opened up a world of possibilities for Canadians and Canadian businesses, but they also create new challenges for law enforcement and criminal justice. Because of the global nature of these challenges, global solutions are needed.

Investigators face some of the most significant challenges brought about by these technologies.

Before I talk about the international nature of the problem we face and how this bill responds to it, let me talk in more general terms about cybercrime.

What is cybercrime? There is no universally accepted definition. It has had a number of definitions. It certainly includes crimes perpetrated over the Internet but also any crime in which computer-based technology is used, things as relatively harmless as spam, some would say, to much more important and serious things such as the exploitation of children.

Internet child pornography, for example, has become a $2.6 billion industry. The latest RCMP estimates indicate that there are 60,000 identified IP addresses in Canada accessing child pornography. People may be surprised to know this but the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children documented that 85 children are reported missing every hour, not every day, every week or every month, but every hour, totalling more than 750,000 missing in a year. Many cases involve luring schemes facilitated online.

There is identity theft, which is very serious. In fact, in 2006 almost 8,000 cases were reported in Canada.

There is securities manipulation where wrong information is put online and the price of securities, stocks and so on go up or down in relation to that information. The markets are manipulated in that way.

There is the serious threat to critical infrastructure. It is estimated by some that the next threat to national security will be either the disruption of electronic commerce or the creation of an emergency situation.

All of these things are very costly. There are social costs certainly, but there are economic costs as well. We do not know how much these things cost. There really is no way to add them all up.

A study released earlier this year by McAfee estimated that hacking, Internet fraud, denial of service attacks and high tech mischief cost the world economy more than $1 trillion a year in lost business revenue, which is a huge cost. There is no reason to think these things will decline so we need to take them very seriously.

Some of this material was taken from a website put out by the Global Centre for Securing Cyberspace, interestingly based in Calgary, Alberta. Its mission is to proactively protect people, property and commerce from cyberspace-enabled attacks through the facilitation of cross-sector collaborations with law enforcement, government, industry and academia. There are some very helpful resources on that site that I would recommend to my colleagues and to anyone listening to this debate. People will find some very helpful things on the site if they are at all involved with the Internet or the computer.

Some of these attacks in cyberspace, cybercrime, can come from outside Canada. Our authorities need to be able to co-operate with authorities in foreign countries to investigate these crimes and to bring the criminals to justice. In order to make this co-operation effective, we, along with our international partners, need to have available a standard set of tools capable of facilitating these investigations in the new technological environment.

We believe that the ratification of the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime and its additional protocol on xenophobia is an essential component of enabling these types of internal and international investigations. This convention is the only international treaty that is specifically designed to provide the legal tools to help in the investigation and prosecution of computer and Internet based crime, as well as more general crimes involving electronic evidence.

In conjunction with the necessary amendments in Bill C-46 to the Criminal Code and the other acts, ratification of the convention would put Canada in a position to effectively conduct modern investigations with an international component. Ratification of the convention would also assist foreign signatory countries by allowing them to access the Criminal Code's new investigative tools in appropriate cases.

I would like to read some paragraphs of the preamble of this convention so members will get a sense for what it is all about. It states:

Convinced of the need to pursue, as a matter of priority, a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime...;

Conscious of the profound changes brought about by the digitalisation, convergence and continuing globalisation of computer networks;

Concerned by the risk that computer networks and electronic information may also be used for committing criminal offences and that evidence relating to such offences may be stored and transferred by these networks;

Recognising the need for co-operation between States and private industry in combating cybercrime and the need to protect legitimate interests in the use and development of information technologies;

Believing that an effective fight against cybercrime requires increased, rapid and well-functioning international co-operation in criminal matters;

And this is an interesting one:

Convinced that the present Convention is necessary to deter action directed against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer systems, networks and computer data as well as the misuse of such systems, networks and data by providing for the criminalisation of such conduct, as described in this Convention...

And so on.

It is an important convention. Canada was involved in the development of it, along with the Council of Europe. It does a number of important things, each of which plays a part in enabling investigations.

The first thing it does is it requires signatory states to adopt a minimum set of standards for computer-related crimes. For instance, the convention requires that countries criminalize illegal access to computers. This is basically a hacking offence. It also requires the criminalization of illegal interception, data interference, system interference and misuse of devices.

Now, to be clear, most of those activities are already criminal offences in Canada. The few gaps that remain would be closed with the rest of the amendments proposed in the bill that we are debating today.

The types of crimes we are talking about here are exactly the kinds of crimes that do not respect orders very well, and that is why we need co-operation from our global partners to fight them. We need to ensure our partners are not letting their own citizens hack into Canadian computer systems. We also need to ensure that we all have similar laws to ensure we can prosecute crimes in Canada that have connections to other countries.

The convention covers other types of crimes committed using computers. For instance, the convention prohibits the distribution of child pornography over the Internet, a crime that we have been working hard to fight here in Canada. The convention's additional protocol on xenophobia and racism also broadens the scope of the convention to cover criminal behaviour relating to hate, racism and xenophobia disseminated over computer systems.

We need to do our part and encourage other countries to join us in these important fights. Ratifying the convention and its additional protocol is a necessary step in that direction.

There is another side to what the convention does, which is equally important. The convention also creates a set of investigative tools that every state party will need to fight the kinds of crimes we have just been talking about. These are really important investigative tools in a world where data can be deleted in the blink of an eye. The convention requires that all its signatory states have this kind of mechanism in place. This will be of significant help to our international investigations.

As one can imagine, cross-border investigations are more complicated than domestic ones, which means that they can go more slowly. In order to ensure that vital data in a foreign country is not lost, we need to work with our partners so we will all have such tools available to us.

The convention would also require that we adopt a number of other important investigative powers and that these same tools be adopted by our partners. This common approach to the investigation of computer crimes will speed up the efficiency and effectiveness of cross-border investigations immeasurably.

The convention would also create some new ways of co-operating on these investigations. For example, it would require that each country designate a point of contact that would be available 24/7 to give immediate assistance in these kinds of investigations. This type of mechanism would vastly increase the efficiency of cross-border investigations, which can be quite complicated to conduct.

As members can see, the ratification of the convention on cybercrime is a vital component of Canada's fight against cybercrime and its ability to investigate crimes in the modern world. The amendments in Bill C-46 would go a long way toward addressing these issues, but to make our fight against these crimes truly effective, we need to recognize their increasingly global nature.

Together, ratification of the convention and the amendments in this bill would ensure that we can respond to some of the difficult challenges that new technologies currently pose to the criminal law and criminal investigations.

I encourage all members in the House to give Bill C-46 their full support.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, at the conclusion of his speech, my colleague talked about modern investigations. One could conclude that Canadians might want to jump to the next conclusion and be concerned about what this might mean for law enforcement. Would law enforcement officials be able to monitor everyone's Internet, email or cell phone use if that happened to be the case?

I know that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans understands how important it is to maintain a proper balance involving public safety, privacy and our rights and liberties.

I was wondering if my colleague could take a moment to comment on that. Does he see that as a concern in the bill if law enforcement is able to monitor everyone's email, Internet and cell phone activity?

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raised an important issue that was raised in the House earlier today and earlier in this debate as well.

The whole notion of lawful access, which is one of the terms being used, is not about eaves-dropping on private conversations or monitoring web surfing or emailing habits of Canadians or even being permitted to read those. If this bill becomes law, law enforcement agencies will not be able to accept private communications or obtain transmission data without being authorized to do so by law. That is an important point and it needs to be clear.

Throughout the bill, transmission data is talked about as a concept, and that is about being able to look at header data rather than the content of an email itself. Privacy is protected in this bill.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Ligue des droits et libertés has expressed serious reservations about this bill. We would like to move forward with this bill but we must be careful.

For example, one provision of the bill would allow a judge to issue a preservation order for data if there are reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed under the law of a foreign state. Unfortunately, not all countries have the same rights and freedoms as we have in Canada.

This week, we heard about a man from Saudi Arabia who spoke about his sexual experiences on television. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. In a number of countries, homosexuality is a criminal offence. Does that mean that, if we accept these provisions, someone from another country could condemn a homosexual who came here to have a relationship with someone from Quebec or Canada and that this provision would be used to obtain information about the meeting of these two people? Would this person be prosecuted when they returned to their country? That worries me.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard her concern but I did not hear a question there.

All I can say is that this government and, I think, all Canadian governments are strongly committed to maintaining the rule of law in all of our legislation in the way we conduct business and in the way we expect Canadians who are governed by these laws to conduct their business as well.

The legislation includes a number of tools that are needed in the society in which we live today in this technological age. All of the access tools, the production orders, preservation orders, interception orders and search warrants would be required to be granted with lawful authority under the protection and governance of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Privacy Act, and so on.

These are very important conditions in Canadian law. I understand her concern, which she might want to raise at committee, but it is not a concern that I share.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed the member spoke briefly on the issue of privacy when asked an excellent question by a member on this side. I am concerned somewhat about the privacy issue because I have heard comments from my constituents. I know this Conservative government has stood up for privacy issues for Canadians and the privacy rights that they have.

I am particularly interested in the drafting of the bill itself and whether, in the drafting of this bill, the government looked at the issue of privacy and the issue of protecting privacy rights of Canadians in particular.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right. Those are important considerations and the government is taking them very seriously.

In fact, there have been consultations on this for quite a while. In addition to our involvement with the convention, which I referred to in my speech, the Government of Canada has been consulting on this. It had some consultations in 2002 under a former government, again in 2005, and then, in preparation for the introduction of this bill, there have been some consultations at multiple levels. The issue of privacy has been one of those issues that has been front and centre in those consultations and discussions in order to ensure we get that balance exactly right.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly recognize and acknowledge my colleague's comments regarding the fact that it is a changing world and there is the need for new tools in the 21st century.

Does the member have an example that he could share in terms of something that might happen and how these tools could facilitate justice for the victims?

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of things. There are those things that are very tragic, such as Internet luring, for which we do not have all the tools we need. When my colleague spoke on this yesterday, he referred to that in his work as a police officer and how these new tools would have enabled him in his work to deal with something like that.

There is also cyberbullying, which has become a pretty serious thing. Receiving threatening or harassing emails is something that goes on and, in fact, maybe some of us receive those from time to time, but that is part of our job. However, it is a serious thing and a growing problem. It can even become a very serious problem, such as securities manipulation and so on, that could put our economies in jeopardy. The tools that are a part of this would help our law enforcement agencies be better able to combat those.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be speaking in support of Bill C-46, which seeks to provide necessary amendments concerning evidence. In many ways, this legislation is a long time coming. I believe that it allows policing authorities and our court system to operate in the 21st century. Criminals are committing their crimes in the present tense. We cannot live in the past.

My history with this bill began earlier this year when my community was reeling from a spate of gun crimes. It seemed that every other day yet another shooting had claimed the life of someone. In the past, most citizens believed that gang violence only affected those who were involved in gang culture. There was less public outcry because of this.

How that changed over the course of this year. Not even innocent women, children or senior citizens were safe from a stray bullet or from feeling the grief of losing a loved one to this terrible increase of killings in our community. I needed to know what could be done, so at that time I spoke to Kash Heed, the current minister of public safety and solicitor general in British Columbia, along with my friend and former colleague, Mr. Wally Oppal, and MLA John van Dongen, who was the minister of public safety and solicitor general in British Columbia at that time.

All three of them were very frank about how they felt about the current legislation. They had lived and breathed these issues in the courtroom and they have listened to the police officers on the front lines of this battle in British Columbia. I have spent a great deal of time listening to these front line officers and first responders as well. I knew that the recommendations that Mr. van Dongen, minister Heed and Mr. Oppal would give me were sure to be grounded in reality, a reality that the current legislation does not reflect.

That is why this bill is so important. The Liberal Party of Canada was lucky enough to have Wally Oppal and then B.C. solicitor general John van Dongen come to Ottawa to present a whole slate of legislative recommendations. This bill represents job one from what we have heard.

First and foremost, by extending the definition of transmission data to all means of telecommunications beyond telephones goes a long way to addressing a situation we are all familiar with in the House. Members only need to look at the holsters on their belts or in their pockets to know what I am talking about. I am talking about the BlackBerry.

We all have to face one thing here. We may try to be ahead of the curve, but we should face the fact that criminals are at least as sophisticated as we are. They talk on these tools. They email and send PIN messages to each other. They know their way around police surveillance because right now in a court of law anything they say or write will be inadmissible.

We could argue that we in the House are asking for legislation that allows our email correspondence and PINs to be admissible. Yet, the Conservative government's own legislation on freedom of information for the government stops short of email correspondence. I leave it to the members on the other side of the House to explain this point to Canadians, especially because they were the ones who made such a big noise about transparency and accountability when they were first elected.

As we have seen over the last year, of course, transparency and accountability have taken quite a beating in the cheque republic we are all living in now, but let us hope that with this legislation the government is moving in the right direction at least within the Criminal Code.

There is another part of the bill, however, that I would like to be a bit more serious about at this time. It refers to an issue that I think every member of Parliament in the House would agree goes far beyond partisan interests.

The stiff penalty that this bill would bring in for those who use the Internet to exploit a child makes this bill, without a doubt, one of the most important reforms we as members of Parliament can champion.

As a parent of two daughters and a young boy I can say that I, along with my wife Roni, like most Canadians view this very modern form of evil as a family's worst nightmare.

As a member of Parliament I know we all, no matter what party we belong to, come to the House to work for our communities, but what no one riding can speak for is the community that exists online and the importance we must place in ensuring the highest standards of conduct to protect the innocent.

This amendment is really about bringing our justice system into the century we are all living in now, the world our kids will inherit. Let us ensure they can grow up in a world where we can guarantee their safety when they are online as well.

I would like to say in closing that I really do not have any problem with the main points in the bill at all. Indeed, I know from my side of the House when a crime bill works for Canadians we see no reason in slowing down the process. Of course, we will never hear that from my colleagues across the floor, but a quick look at our record on crime bills that make sense tells that story.

The fact is, as I mentioned earlier, we do not have the luxury of living in the past tense because criminals are taking advantage of how our laws have not modernized. We have to move with the times and allow our police and our court system to let justice prevail. Though there may be finer points with the bill that could stand a closer look, that is what we are here for.

I am sure I speak for all of us in the House when I say that if we truly mean it when we say we want to make Parliament work, there is no greater priority than making it work for the justice system.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly an honour for me to speak in favour of BillC-46, the investigative powers for the 21st century act which aligns with the government's priority of getting tough on crime, including the Internet and other computer crimes. It also responds to many of the issues surrounding organized crime.

The justice committee has undertaken a comprehensive study of organized crime, and at every venue and at every hearing we hear about the need for the police to have the exact type of tools that BillC-46 provides.

With the amendments put forward in Bill C-46, which amends the Criminal Code among other acts, including the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act and the Competition Act, Parliament would provide police officers with more precise and less cumbersome investigative techniques which they need and have been asking for in the 21st century to do their work in a more effective and efficient manner.

Crime is becoming more sophisticated. Criminals are becoming technocrats and police need to keep up with technical advances that organized crime has been developing.

In addition to updating certain existing offences that are facilitated by the Internet, including child sexual exploitation, Bill C-46 proposes to create new production and preservation orders to address today's computer and telecommunications environment.

Investigative powers must be tailored to modern technologies. Investigations may be compromised if they are not. In addition, these changes assist in ensuring that established privacy protections put in place to protect the rights of all Canadians are maintained in the face of these ever-developing new technologies.

Bill C-46 would update the existing dial number recorder warrant, which currently allows police to obtain data relating to dialed telephone numbers. The proposed transmission data recorder warrant would allow police to obtain data in relation to the routing of an electronic communication, including communications by email or by cellphone in real time. Police would also be able to obtain historical data of the same kind under such a production order.

The existing requirements for obtaining dialed telephone number data would continue to apply to the data obtained under the transmission data warrant. As with the existing warrant, the updated powers would explicitly exclude access to the content of the message.

The existing tracking warrant would similarly be updated to provide for both a production order for tracking data and a warrant for the real-time collection of that tracking data. These updates would create a two-warrant system, which would better recognize the different expectations of privacy that persons have in relation to their personal location and that of their vehicles, transactions and other things.

Computer data by its very nature is volatile. As a result, there is a risk that it will be lost in the time that it takes for police to get a warrant or order to obtain that type of evidence. Police need a way to ensure that computer data necessary to an investigation is preserved during this time and during the fullness of the investigation. The new preservation demand and preservation order is simply a do not delete order, requiring the custodian of the computer data to ensure the preservation for a limited period of time, and of specific data related to a specific communication or to a specific subscriber. This data will only be preserved for the purpose of conducting a specific investigation.

It is crucial to understand that any disclosure of information under all of these legislative proposals would be pursuant to a judicial authorization. That protection is not being changed by these amendments to the Criminal Code.

We need to ensure that pursuant to a judge's order, investigators can obtain the kind of information they need, but no more and nothing else. We must ensure that any intrusion into privacy only goes as far as is necessary. These new measures guarantee privacy with precision and strike the appropriate balance, I submit, between law enforcement needs and privacy protections.

The proposed legislative amendments are required to meet our domestic imperatives. However, they would also allow Canada to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime and its additional protocol on xenophobia and racism. In the international context, this treaty is not only one of its kind and will allow Canadian law enforcement to avail itself of the international cooperation that the protocol permits.

I can assure the House that the legislative proposals put forward in the bill would not only contribute to getting Canadian law enforcement officers the tools they need in the 21st century but they also demonstrate Canada's commitment to cross-border and hemispheric security in the Americas, and assist in meeting international expectations for Canadian participation in the global fight against cybercrime.

Lawful access is not about eavesdropping on private communication, or monitoring the web surfing and emailing habits of ordinary Canadians. It is about ensuring that law enforcement and national security agencies have the technical and legal ability to keep up with new developments in information and communications technology.

New technology is a useful and powerful tool. However, in the hands of criminals, terrorists and organized crime, this same technology can be used in ways that threaten public safety and national security. That is why the Government of Canada is committed to updating Canada's laws to keep pace with these ever emerging technologies. While Canada was one of the first countries to enact criminal laws in the areas of computer crime, there have been no substantial amendments since the 1990s. Technology has evolved considerably since then and Canada's laws have to keep pace.

These increasingly complex technologies are challenging conventional investigative methods and criminals are taking advantage of this situation using sophisticated technology to help them carry out their illicit activities that threaten the safety and security of Canadians. To overcome these challenges, legislative tools such as this bill and amendments to the Criminal Code must evolve so that law enforcement can effectively investigate criminal activities while ensuring that Canadian's privacy laws and civil liberties are always respected. The proposed legislation will update certain existing Criminal Code offences and investigative powers as well as create new powers to meet the demands of today's technological cybercrime environment.

The proposed legislation will accomplish five things. First, it will update the current Criminal Code provisions to allow police to obtain transmission data, also known as traffic data, that is received or sent via the telephone or Internet. Second, it will require telecommunication service providers to preserve, for a limited period of time, data related to a specific communication or subscriber, if that information is needed for the investigation of an offence. Third, it will make it a specific offence for two or more persons to agree to arrange to commit an offence against a child by means of telecommunication. Fourth, it will modernize the current tracking warrant provisions to better recognize Canadians' expectations of privacy. Fifth, it will update the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act so that the proposed new investigative powers in the Criminal Code are accessible to Canada's treaty partners.

This bill deals with data preservation and not data retention. When requested to do so through a preservation order, ISPs would only be required to preserve specific data already in their possession with respect to a particular suspect. Data preservation would ensure that volatile information vital to an investigation was not deleted before the police were in a position to access the specific data by way of a judicially authorized search warrant or a production order. These proposed amendments would not require ISPs to retain data relating to all of their customers' Internet activities.

Privacy will be protected by these amendments. The government is strongly committed to maintaining the rule of law in all of its legislation. None of the lawful access tools such as production orders, preservation orders, interception orders and search warrants can be obtained in the absence of lawful authority. A person's reasonable expectation of privacy will continue to guide how the Canadian government operates and how its legislation will be enforced.

In addition, the government will ensure that such authority will continue to be exercised, bearing in mind privacy and human rights contained in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. The issuance of warrants will continue to require judicial authorization. No lawful access, production orders, preservation orders, interception orders, or search warrants can be obtained in the absence of lawful authority.

It is with a view to maintaining the privacy of Canadian citizens and keeping up with the sophistication of the new breed of high-tech criminals that I ask all hon. members to support Bill C-46.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member seems to be very knowledgeable about this particular bill and, I suspect, the whole e-government file itself. I am not sure if the hon. member can answer, but could he give us an update on what is happening with the government's program on e-government, particularly the secure channel? Does he have any information that he could impart to the House as to what the status is of the government's secure channel program?

We know a little about the e-health situation. Only about 17% of the health records are online at this point and somehow a billion or six hundred million are missing, and I would certainly like to get into that at some point.

However, could the hon. member tell us anything about the secure channel, or about the e-government file, and any progress the government might have made in the last four years?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before I go to the hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert, I would remind members that we are discussing Bill C-46. With that, the hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think you have answered the question for me. Bill C-46 is a safe street and safe community initiative that fits with the government's law and order agenda. Electronic health records and e-secure channels are beyond my area of expertise.

The member's question is a good one, but it has very little, if anything, to do with Bill C-46.

[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.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Official Languages]

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague opposite for taking the time to speak to this issue. However, I must say that I was very disappointed yesterday to hear the member criticize the government for the tone that was injected.

I want to remind the member of something that one of his own colleagues said, the member for Winnipeg Centre, when we were discussing the comments of a member of the Liberal opposition. The member for Winnipeg Centre compared the government's push toward tough on crime legislation to the plight of African Americans during the 1960s who were suppressed and targeted by racists. I could not believe my ears that this would come from an NDP member in my home town, but he suggested that the government's tough on crime legislation was actually designed to put more aboriginal people, my family, my cousins, my aunts and my uncles, behind bars. It was atrocious and scandalous.

I believe it is important to address comments like that made by NDP members in the House, which is why we stood so strong against what was said.

The other thing I heard the member say is that he believes there should be tough legislation on things like child pornography. Members of his own party voted against the human trafficking bill. Some members of his party decided they would not support protecting Canadian children and women.

I am sorry but I need to ask the member a question. How are we to believe him when he stands before us and says that he believes we need to get tough on crime and yet his party takes actions not to protect our children, women and aboriginal people? How can he stand before us and say that he cares about tough on crime legislation?

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

Madam Speaker, the member certainly took us on a trip to various subjects.

The reality is that we in the NDP have said, over and over again, that we believe that being smart on crime is better than being what she calls tough on crime. We only use the example of minimum sentences. They have been tried in the United States, which now has a lot of rich prison owners because the prisons were turned over to private entrepreneurs.

Governor Schwarzenegger in California must now release thousands of people on early parole because he cannot afford to keep them any more as the state has run out of money. The crime rate in the United States is way higher than it is in Canada. That is an example of ideology trumping smartness. We need to deal with issues that actually work.

Winnipeg actually got some action on auto theft by establishing immobilizer programs for cars. A task force was set up within the police service to chase down car thieves, get them off the streets and put them in jail. Car thefts went down to the point, although we are not there yet, where one day this year there were no car thefts at all. To me, that is smart on crime, I do not know how many times we need to say that but the hon. member for Saint Boniface, obviously, does not get the concept.

The government should be looking around the world to see what works. Why is the incarceration rate in Sweden only 77 per 100,000, 177 per 100,000 in Canada and 700 per 100,000 in the United States? She is looking the wrong way. She should be looking to Sweden and not the United States. It is not that the United States does not have some good features but let us pick some good features of the U.S. system that actually show results and work.

However, those people are blinded. They have their blinders on and they create their crime bills based on what they do for their polling results. When they get great polling results, they bring in more of these types of bills. They do not care whether they work or not, it depends on what they do for their polls.

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

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois has always been in favour of facilitating the work of police officers, when it does not infringe on basic rights, as one of the best ways to fight crime. We also think that increasing the likelihood of getting caught has a much more dissuasive effect that increasing the punishment, which can often seem pretty remote and abstract to fraudsters.

My colleague seems to share that view. He said just a while ago, and I would like to hear him again on this, that as technology develops, cybercrime is increasing and will continue to do so. He said he would be interested in reviewing the Criminal Code more often in this respect. He also said it was important to keep the public informed about what is in the bill. I would appreciate it if he could expand on this.

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

Madam Speaker, I missed the first part of the member's question, but I certainly got the second part of it. It seems to me that in technology, we are dealing with an ever-increasing rate of change. Years ago, the Pony Express was replaced by the telegraph system and the telegraph system was replaced by telephones. Those changes took place over 50 to 100 years, but computer changes are happening in a much smaller timeframe. The Internet has been around for quite a long time, but it was not until 1995 that people started getting their first emails. That was the case for me. Until then, a computer was just a computer. Before 1983, there were not really any PCs around. The use of the Internet did not start until 1995 and beyond.

Think of the explosion in the computer world. A company as huge as Microsoft dominated that particular sector of the market and was outsmarted by the people at Google. When a company like Microsoft cannot keep ahead of the curve, how are we supposed to do it?

Trying to keep ahead of these people is part of the problem we face as legislators.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have a couple of questions and I hope my colleague can answer both.

He alluded in his speech to the possibility of having a five-year review or perhaps sunsetting this legislation. I would like him to expand on that because I think he had more to say in that regard,

He made indirect reference to some notable boondoggles, namely e-health and secure channel. I wonder if he would be able to explain why the government is not making any particular progress in terms of e-government.

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

Madam Speaker, those are two very good questions. Regarding the whole issue of the five-year parliamentary review, I am not certain what form the review would take. The suggestion was that we put the minister in charge of it, but we know that ministers can take forever to get something like that done. Maybe there is a more impartial way in which the review could take place.

The sunset clause is of particular interest, because at that point, the law would expire and there would be no other option but to reintroduce it and start from scratch. I would have to defer to the legal beagles, and there are a lot of them in the House, to tell me whether that would work. Either option is good. I think that the member is on the right track.

In terms of the boondoggles, I am not holding any one government responsible for them. We have seen boondoggles under Liberal governments and Conservative governments. I am trying to get to the bottom of how it happened. With all the brain power involved in the project in the first place, how did the project get out of control? That is what I am really interested in finding out and I think that the Auditor General's report will probably tell us a lot.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to address Bill C-46 on investigations and the Internet.

This is an interesting bill for a very specific reason. For the past little while, the government side has been introducing legislation to deal with crime, cybercrime and new technology used by criminals. One can think, for instance, of the identity theft bill, which the Bloc Québécois supports, and Bill C-46, which the Bloc Québécois will also be supporting. I will outline later our reasons for supporting this bill, but I will also mention the contraindications to this bill; it is a matter of dosage.

I must say that what is being proposed by the government side is interesting for a change. We can sense a desire to modernize, which is something of a novelty on the part of a Reform-Conservative Party. They should normally be acting like dinosaurs, but all of a sudden, we can see an increased effort to try and modernize some pieces of legislation. The problem is that subtlety is not their forte. Complications might happen, which they may not know what to do about. Hence the importance of thorough debate.

We cannot pass a bill as important as this one that quickly. A few short days are not enough to conclude debate, close the matter and immediately pass the bill. We will need time to examine the bill and consider its consequences. If this bill can be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice or the Standing Committee on Public Safety, for example, we will have to take the time to speak with witnesses and see whether some valuable amendments could be made.

I will confess that the Bloc is supporting this bill because of its importance and because of the fact that, increasingly, the world is turning to the Internet. More and more banking is done on the Internet, which could attract fraudsters to the net. There is another major problem, that of pedophilia. There is the risk of having to deal with the exploitation of minors and children. That sort of thing happens on the Internet. At least, with new legislation, there will be new equipment to go after sexual offenders, these predators—if I can put it that way—and catch them as quickly as possible and clean up the Internet a little.

We are all aware of the meteoric rise in the use of the Internet since the mid-1990s. Its use is constantly growing. I provided a couple of examples about pedophilia on the Internet, which can be and is misused. There is Internet fraud as well. I will establish a link with what we were debating last week regarding identity theft. With the arrival of sites such as Facebook, more and more information is available on the Internet. It can of course be improperly used. With this bill, we will at least have the means to deal with this sort of crime all the more vigorously.

On the subject of problems, we must not go to the other extreme. It is in this regard that I have some fears about the Conservatives, and perhaps more about the Reform and Alliance wing of the Conservatives. It would be easy to get carried away with this bill. The Ligue des droits et libertés in Quebec has expressed serious concerns regarding this bill, since confidential information obtained on people could be misused. The league says the government has to be transparent and the private life of people has to be protected.

So already there is a problem with this bill, which will have to be debated in committee. Witnesses will have to be heard and serious work must be done, as the Bloc has done each time in legal matters. To echo what my NDP colleague said earlier, we in the Bloc have always been smart on crime. I think we have one of the best critics on the subject in our colleague, the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. He was minister of public security in Quebec for many years and it was he who fought the hardest against crime, among other things. The Hell's Angels at the time, are an example.

All of the knowledge and intellect of the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin could shed fantastic light in committee, where witnesses could be called and amendments worked out. This bill is consistent, but needs fine tuning. I am known to be a perfectionist. We will have to make improvements in committee.

I have been listening to my other colleagues’ speeches since the beginning of the day. I am not just a perfectionist, I also have a good ear and am a good listener. One of the areas that could be tackled most easily with this bill is cyberpedophilia. Unfortunately, people do not use the Internet only for good purposes. I was surprised recently when I read statistics about Internet usage. Nearly 90% of Internet sites and Internet pages are related to pornography. This is shocking. Obviously cyberpedophiles have no qualms about using the Internet to distribute child pornography files. We have a duty to combat this vigorously, to make sure that we eliminate this atrocity to the extent possible; we are all in agreement. This is the example that came up most often in the case of this bill.

My colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue has done just as good a job as my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin when it comes to justice and public safety issues. He was just saying that we could put chips in cars. Very often, when a car is stolen, it is broken down into parts that are sent to the four corners of the world, and this makes tracing a difficult task. It is very hard to find the car or the parts intact.

At least, we are seeing modernization of some laws, as I was just saying. This is no longer the era of highway robbery and of trains being derailed so the cars could be robbed. The Jesse James's of this world belong to the past. But it was a somewhat more romantic era, if I may say so. Nonetheless, we are seeing bandits making wide use of the Internet, in our day, to achieve their ends. Bank thefts are becoming increasingly complex. These people have an extraordinary ability to reinvent themselves. I have always been told that government reacts rather than acting, but it is clear that the government has finally decided to act, and to introduce this bill.

As I said, it will be extremely important to move this debate to committee so we can examine all facets of the bill. My fear is that the Conservatives want to pass it too quickly. We have seen this in far too many justice-related files. They say they are tough on crime. I will not say what I think of this tough on crime analogy, but in some cases we can very clearly see that it is completely bizarre.

Just now, my colleague drew comparisons with the United States. In particular, I am thinking of the minimum sentences the Conservatives are trying to shove down the opposition parties’ throats. We can see that the American Republicans have tried such sentences, and where it has got them.

Bill C-46 amends the Criminal Code. Among other things creates a new concept called “transmission data,” which would extend to all means of telecommunication the investigative powers that are currently restricted to data associated with telephones.

As I said, this is no longer the era of mere telephone wiretapping. We have to look at all information exchanged on the Internet. I will draw a parallel. I certainly would not want to get involved in the election about to be held at the municipal level in Quebec, but when there is collusion, we often see that the Internet has been used to exchange information about price fixing.

It is apparent, therefore, that these kinds of dishonest, fraudulent conversations are not carried out solely on the telephone any more or in dark little rooms. We have reached the point now where people can easily commit fraud from their offices over the Internet.

This bill also creates, therefore, the power to compel the production of data relating to the transmission of communications; it creates the power to require the production of data on the location from which individuals operate; it creates the power to make preservation demands and orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence; it allows for warrants to be issued, subject of course to legal thresholds appropriate to the interests at stake; and it makes it possible to track transactions, individuals and things. The police will be able to remotely activate tracking devices. These are exactly the kind of things that can become problematic and should be considered in the implementation of the bill.

As I have been saying and as the Ligue des droits et libertés said, we must be careful that the government itself does not use the legislation at some point for the wrong reasons. Far be it from me to suggest that the government might currently have some nefarious ideas. We have seen, though, what they are sometimes capable of. The bill will also create a new offence with a maximum punishment of ten years in prison for the use of computer systems like the Internet to agree or arrange with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child.

The bill also amends the Competition Act—this is ironic because it is precisely what I was just talking about in regard to the collusion on Montreal Island—to make applicable for certain provisions of the 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.

Finally, the bill 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.

As I said, the Bloc Québécois is in principle in favour of Bill C-46, whose purpose is to enable police forces to adapt their investigative techniques to contemporary technological realities, such as the widespread use of cellphones and the Internet.

I would like to draw another connection. Not only criminals use these kinds of communications but increasingly also terrorists, who use such things as the Internet and cellphones to carry out their plans. We can therefore fight on both fronts.

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 approach has certainly proved itself in Quebec. The Bloc Québécois also thinks that increasing the likelihood of getting caught is a much greater deterrent than increasing the punishments, which often seem pretty remote and abstract.

I must say that when I see criminals, of whatever sort, who are warned that they will get a sentence of 15 or 20 years in prison for something like cocaine trafficking, they do not seem very worried about it because they are focused on what they stand to gain. Criminals may well think it would be pretty good to sell cocaine for a few years for the $10 million or so they would get.

So it is much more a question of increasing police presence and better equipping the police to fight crime. It is this that will really deter criminals rather than simply warning them they will get a 10-year sentence, because no criminal thinks they will be caught until the means are in place to catch them.

However, as I was saying, this bill raises a number of concerns regarding respect of privacy, whereas there has been no justification provided for such infringement. Given the importance of strengthening police powers to fight the most complex forms of organized crime, the Bloc supports the principle behind the bill.

I wish to reiterate my full confidence in my colleagues from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin and Abitibi—Témiscamingue. I am sure that they will do some extraordinary, meticulous and exemplary work in committee to ensure that there are as few intrusions into people's private lives as possible, and that those intrusions are always necessary and very well delineated.

If I am permitted a few minutes, I may perhaps put the whole thing in context and recall to some extent the origins of the spirit of the bill. It all comes from the Convention on Cybercrime, which underlies Bill C-46 and Bill C-47, which we will study a little later. The bill before us draws largely on it. The convention was formulated by the Council of Europe with the active involvement of Canada, the United States, Japan and South Africa.

Under the terms of its preamble, the convention aims to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, inter alia, by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation. It is structured, more specifically, around three regulatory lines, that of harmonization of domestic laws, the establishment of appropriate means in order to facilitate the conduct of investigations and criminal proceedings on electronic networks and, finally, the establishment of a rapid and effective system of international cooperation.

On the subject of cybercrime and the Internet, the letters, www, stand for the World Wide Web. And we know why—because it is truly world wide. So, a criminal can easily be based in South Africa and commit crimes in Canada or Europe. Hence the importance of cooperating multilaterally with other countries to acquire the means and to work together to stop these criminals.

In order to harmonize domestic laws, international conventions on cybercrime set out the offences in four broad categories. First, there are offences relating to the security of networks, namely offences involving confidentiality, integrity, or data or system availability. There are also computer-related offences, namely falsification and fraud and then offences relating to content, namely child pornography, as I was saying earlier. Finally, there are offences relating to infringement of intellectual property and related rights, such as the illegal reproduction of protected works. In the case of offences relating to the dissemination of racist or xenophobic ideas and to trafficking in human beings over the networks, there is an additional protocol.

To facilitate investigations and prosecution in cyberspace, the convention contains a series of provisions that the signatories will have to approve. These provide, among other things, for the preservation, search and seizure, and interception of data stored on a computer system. Finally, to promote international cooperation, signatories will be permitted to act on behalf of others in acquiring electronic evidence. This will not give the signatories the authority to conduct transborder investigations, proceedings or searches, but a network of national contact points will be established to provide constant and immediate assistance with ongoing investigations. This goes to show the value, as I indicated, of multilateral cooperation in that regard.

I gave the example of a criminal who could very well send data—or commit a Criminal Code offence—from South Africa to Canada. The idea of going over there to arrest him is therefore far from our minds, but if we are at least able to provide information to local authorities, send them the data, we will be much more likely to catch him.

So, the cybercrime convention is the result of a lengthy process undertaken in 1995. The document underwent 27 drafts, because of the need to take into account reticence on the part of several consumer associations, warning against the serious danger of breaching privacy.

The Chair is signaling that I am running out of time. That is unfortunate, because I could have gone on for hours. My hon. colleagues will no doubt put very good questions to me, and I will gladly answer them.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague delivered an eloquent speech. I think he did a very good job of explaining the basics of the bill so we all understand. I would like to congratulate him.

I believe that most of those listening will have understood one problem. That problem is suspicion and the fact that a police investigation can be initiated based solely on suspicion.

This bill is not just opening a door, it is opening a very big patio door. Investigating someone based on suspicion alone is very serious business. Any suspicion at all for any reason whatsoever can lead to the investigation of a person who may have nothing at all to do with the reason for suspicion. Broad investigations based on suspicion can be a problem.

I believe that, as parliamentarians, we have to eliminate that possibility at the outset. If we give the police the power to investigate anything at all based on suspicion, there will be no end in sight. As I said before, the Privacy Commissioner does not agree with this approach. It opens a huge door. We want the committee to make sure that door does not give the police carte blanche.

I would like my colleague to comment on the notion of suspicion and the tremendous latitude it gives to police.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to answer my colleague's question. When it comes to this issue, we should not simply talk about a patio door, but about a patio door that has been completely smashed in.

We all heard my colleague's question. Is it not nice to be able to exchange views with such brilliant individuals? I do not mean to put him on a pedestal, but this is the kind of thinking that we do in the Bloc Québécois, and it is because we have true debates that the bills and amendments that we propose are much more progressive.

I must admit that I share my colleague's concerns about this issue. This is why we want to refer the bill to a committee. Earlier, I mentioned the excellent work of two other colleagues of mine, namely the hon. members for Abitibi—Témiscamingue and for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. They will be able to propose amendments.

The issue of suspicion was raised. I must say that I am extremely concerned about giving such broad powers to the police. I certainly do not want to disparage the work of police officers. Their work is absolutely exemplary. These people are prepared to give their lives to protect citizens. However, the problem is that the bill does not include any specifics about these powers. An investigation targeting an individual can be launched without any judicial warrant.

There is a very fine line between privacy protection and the power of police to act. We will have to be very serious in dealing with this issue. We cannot be partisan as the Conservatives unfortunately all too often tend to be. In order to have a true discussion, they must set aside their ideology, because we on this side do not have one.

The public also has every reason to be concerned. Considering that the police could act without any valid grounds, merely on the basis of suspicion, it is easy to imagine the problems that this could generate. We are all human beings and human nature being what it is, man will do what man will do. If a police officer, for one reason or another—as we have seen all too often—decided to start checking on an individual who is at his computer or on the telephone for personal reasons, one can imagine the problem that this would cause.

Some police officers could totally lose it—and again we have seen that happen—and begin to investigate any individual, whenever they want.

There is something here that really scares me. We will have to define that fine line and this will be a very complex exercise. However, considering the colleagues that I have with me, and the quality of our debates, I am not at all worried.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, as always, I am fascinated by the lucidity of my young colleague. However, I think he has kept some of his naïveté, but there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is important for a member of Parliament to keep some degree of naïveté.

I would even push my suspicions a bit further with regard to the drafting and the passing of this bill. We have seen in the past—unfortunately, my colleague is too young to remember—serious wrongdoings on the part of CSIS and the RCMP. And these wrongdoings were not attributable to individuals; they stemmed from mandates given by duly elected politicians.

Right now, with the government we have that puts key people in key positions in all our institutions, I am afraid we are heading toward a state that will not be very interesting. I am even afraid that there will be attempts to prevent people from expressing themselves freely over the Internet. It scares me. I think we must be careful of that.

I want to ask my young colleague if he has the same fears.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, as for my naïveté, I always remember that John F. Kennedy said that in politics, you can lose your illusions, but not your ideals.

With regard to what my colleague from Laval is saying, I would give the example of the Patriot Act, which George Bush introduced in the United States after the September 11 attacks. We saw how that law was misused. It was based on lofty principles and patriotic ideals. The government said that the purpose of the Patriot Act was to protect the people and ensure that no one would ever commit terrorist acts on American soil again. The problem is that we saw how the Republican government used that law. Far too much power was put in the hands of politicians, who used it to further their own personal interests. That is the danger.

I would like to talk about the October crisis of 1970. I am too young to remember it; in fact, I was not even a gleam in my parents' eyes. In a way, the government raided the sovereigntist movement for the simple reason that these people had views that contrasted with those of the federal colonial government. What did the government do? It arrested the leaders of the sovereigntist movement, the union leaders, the business people, the defence lawyers. It arrested everyone who was likely to oppose what the government decided. Then it introduced martial law.

For a government that does not always have good ideas, as the Conservatives have demonstrated, this bill places far too much power in certain people's hands, and that can have an adverse effect. I want to tell my Conservative colleagues that we are not opposed to the bill. We are not opposed to the spirit of the bill. We are opposed to the adverse effects this bill may have. There is a difference. I hope my Conservative colleagues will be able to set aside partisanship and draw the line with us to protect people's privacy.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, earlier I raised the issue of suspicion, as did my colleague.

At the government level, nothing would prevent someone from asking the police to investigate a colleague on the mere strength of suspicions. Things could go even further. If suspicions did exist, police forces could investigate each other such as, for example, CSIS and the RCMP. There would be no end to this. There will be abuse and this is what we want to prevent. If, in committee, we can thoroughly review this issue and see the impact of relying on suspicions and what we want to achieve at the government level, then we may have something concrete.

I wonder if my colleague could elaborate on this.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Repentigny has about 50 seconds.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am going to be very brief. I fully agree with my colleague. I am certainly not pretending to be a lawyer. In fact, I am still very far from having that training.

However, when we look at the issue of suspicions, there is no doubt that the process can be very biased. As I said, we are talking about human beings who have suspicions. A man has emotions. Unfortunately, this may sometimes lead to terrible consequences.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)