Bill C-42 (Historical)

Strengthening Aviation Security Act

An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act

This enactment amends the Aeronautics Act so that the operator of an aircraft that is due to fly over the United States in the course of an international flight may provide information to a competent authority of that country.

Strengthening Aviation Security Act

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to praise the member for Western Arctic for the work he does on the transport committee and in the House. He has been first and foremost in fighting for transportation safety in this Parliament. In the previous Parliament, he fought to stop the government's irresponsible plans around self-managed safety systems, or basically self-serve safety, the famous SMS systems, in the airline industry. He managed to stop the government cold from doing to the airline industry what it irresponsibly did to the railway industry. We certainly saw an increase in accidents and derailments in the railway industry.

His work there and now his work on Bill C-42 shows that he has the concerns of Canadian families from coast to coast to coast, since he represents the Arctic in mind. It is because of his incredible efforts in the House that more and more Canadians are becoming aware of what the government is intending to do with Bill C-42. It is ripping up personal information protection and allowing personal confidential information, in an unprotected way, to be given to other countries, like the Dominican Republic, which is an authoritarian government, or Panama, which ranks among the world's worst in terms of dirty money laundering and tax havens.

What the government could have done, to answer the member for Western Arctic's question, is put in place the principles around confidentiality and protection of private information, which include, most notable among the six principles that the European Commission has adopted, the restriction on aberrant transfers, that we can only transfer information to third parties or third countries when it is protected.

In this case, as we know, and as the member for Western Arctic has very eloquently raised in the House, the government did not do it. It did not get the job done. It did not even try to get the job done. It did not even try to apply any of those principles of protection of confidential and private information, not even one. That is why the bill is so bad. It did not even make the attempt to provide some protection of Canadians personal private information, including credit cards. It is clear that the government did not understand what it was doing, that it did not understand the implications and that now the current government really has to withdraw this bad bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about ripping up things. What the member is and has been ripping up are the facts. I would like to reiterate the facts for him. First, Canada asked for and received an exemption for domestic Canadian flights flying through U.S. air space. Second, the legislation only facilitates the sharing of information for flights to the United States or over U.S. sovereign air space to a third country.

If passed, any information that air carriers will be required to share with the United States are full name, date of birth and gender. This would amount to less information than is required to be included in a Canadian passport to cross the border. I do not understand what the member is trying to put forward, but clearly, if the information is confirmed not to be linked with terrorism, it will be erased after seven days.

I do not know what the member is going on about and the fearmongering that he is trying to cause, but clearly the information given to the United States is less information than that which is already given by individuals in a passport. What is the member on about now?

Would he please tell Canadians the facts because that is not what he has been talking about so far.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I like the member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca, even though he takes licence with the facts. We saw this with SMS and we heard the same promises. The government said that the bill was bad but it would fix it later in the regulations. That is apparently what he is doing now. He is saying that the bill is egregiously bad. In fact, any Canadian can go on the House of Commons website, look up Bill C-42, and find out what the government has concocted. It is a matter of real concern that the government is making some promises to try to fix what it did not do in the bill.

He raised the issue of domestic flights. This one paragraph bill rips up the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. It says that “an operator of an aircraft departing from Canada that is due to land in a foreign state or fly over a foreign state and land outside Canada” is subject to providing Canadians' private, personal information.

He has raised this red herring that flying from Vancouver to Winnipeg is exempt, and he is trying to say that this is some kind of victory. This is a bit disingenuous, just a bit. The Air Transport Association of Canada has clearly said that “the submission of Canadian passengers' details by Canadian airlines violates Canada's laws on the protection of personal information and electronic documents, as well as laws on aeronautics”.

We rest our case. The Air Transport Association of Canada agrees with us, not with him, and I think most Canadians agree with us, not with him.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that when we are flying over a country but not landing there, it has to be on a list requesting that information. The United States is on the list, but it has provided an exemption. My understanding is that it is the only country on the list.

Can the U.S. just withdraw that exemption? What stops it from withdrawing it?

What is to stop any other country from asking to be on that list? Would we have to provide other countries with information just for flying over them?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has raised an appropriate question.

It is not just that this personal information can now go to the United States, Mexico, or Panama, the drug haven that the Conservatives seem to love. We had a Panama trade bill earlier. Now we have disclosure of personal information going through to Panama. According to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Panama is tied for worst in the world in the laundering of drug money. The Hells Angels just love this Conservative initiative to build these relationships with Panama, but most Canadians should be concerned.

The member for Yukon is absolutely right to ask how this might be expanded. This is unclear, but we know the Conservatives' obsession with laundering drug money. This is something they will have to explain when they speak to the bill. They have not said a word about it in the House. I think they are ashamed, either that or the Prime Minister's Office has not sent the line that they are all supposed to read. But Conservatives will have to explain what is going on over there, why they are doing this, why they are obsessed with giving Canadians' personal information up to third countries, and why they want to give this information to the Dominican Republic and Panama.

It is all irresponsible. It is all inappropriate. That is why we are saying, in this corner of the House, that they should withdraw this bad bill. There is simply no justification for what the government is doing.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-42 and support my colleagues in the House of Commons.

The member for Burnaby—New Westminster is absolutely correct. With regard to safety management systems and other deregulatory matters, the government has put passengers at risk. It is attempting to say that it is doing this for security reasons, but that is certainly not true.

I want to start with the privacy aspects of this bill. The Patriot Act in the United States gives all kinds of liberties to the U.S. departments and agencies. However, one of the things that we need to put on the record is that the passenger name record is part of this agreement. That is what is required for these secret treaties that take place.

The PNR is a file created by the travel agent when someone books a ticket. It is a system created by the travel industry to facilitate travel, so that all bookings and other information are passed along as people move from one travel company to another. The PNR can contain information on credit cards, other passengers on the same flight, locations travelled to, phone numbers, medical conditions, and even food eaten on the plane.

That is what the PNR can provide, and the information can now be available to several countries that are now going to have access to travellers' personal information, with no stopgap.

One of the things I want to touch on is the U.S. Patriot Act. I think it is an important model to look at, because right now Canadian information can be accessed in the United States. The requirement of the Patriot Act is that the company cannot tell people when they are accessing that information. That information can be granted to the American law enforcement agencies.

There is no agreement or consent on how that information is used or scrubbed or where it goes. That is the reality.

It is interesting that the previous administration, the Liberals, outsourced the census data collection agency. We fought to keep it in-house, because Lockheed Martin had its data collection system in the United States.

In the end, all the Canadian census information, all the private information that we had under the control of the Privacy Commissioner, became null and void. Once it went to the United States to be assembled, there was no way it could be recovered. We could not know when, how, or where that information was going, because by law this cannot be disclosed.

CIBC, which has its data management evaluated in the United States, is vulnerable to having its information accessed through the Patriot Act. Once again, it is against the law for CIBC to notify customers that this information has been accessed.

That is one of the things that many civil liberty organizations have been fighting for years, and this is going to be happening under Bill C-42. All the information that is out there is going to be in their systems, and we will not know when or how it is used under the Patriot Act.

The European data collection systems operate under certain principles. At least they have some backstops for privacy.

It is interesting to talk about airline security, what is happening out there, and how this is going to help. I want to bring up a local case of airline security. It showed that some of the common sense solutions are not working. Even though the U.S. is a big proponent of infringement on Canadian civil liberties, they have serious problems in their own maintenance of airline security. None was more compelling than that of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the attempted bomber who landed in Detroit, Michigan, near my area, 40 kilometres away from the border.

It is important to note that he flew from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan. He had started in the Middle East. This was the famous underwear bomber who had to be tackled and subdued. He flew across part of Canada, too. He showed up at the airport and got a one-way ticket to Detroit, with no baggage and no winter clothing in the middle of winter.

American officials were tipped off a week earlier about the possibility and did nothing about it.

We heard nothing but deafening silence from the government about this security breach. It put Canadians at risk because the plane travelled across parts of Quebec and Ontario and back into Detroit. All these extra elements would not have made a difference, because common sense was not applied in this case. Instead of raising this with the U.S., we did nothing. That was unfortunate.

These are opportunities to point out that we in Canada do some good things here, not to chastise the United States. This was an opportunity to let the Americans know that we protect privacy.

During the U.S. election several comments were made about the 9/11 attackers coming from Canada. Comments were made about Canada being weak on terrorism. The reality is that the terrorists had U.S. documents. They did not come from Canada. In fact, Canada played a significant role in 9/11 by allowing stranded airplanes to land. Many Canadian officials, volunteers, and members of fire departments went to Ground Zero later on. The U.S. continues to claim that we are weak on security. And we still do not have a full contestation. It is appalling at best.

I want to talk a bit about the European Commission's Data Protection Working Party. The commission set up six principles to guide it through the collection and transmission of personal information.

First, the purpose limitation principle states that private information should be processed for a specific purpose and subsequently used or further communicated only insofar as this is not incompatible with the purpose of the transfer. It is very specific in scope.

Second, the information quality and proportionality principle states that no excessive information should be provided, especially depending on flight information.

Third, the transparency principle requires that individuals be provided with information as to the purpose of the processing and the identity of those in control of the information in the third country and other information insofar as this is necessary to ensure fairness.

That is the one sticking point. It is a problem when dealing with the United States, our number-one trading partner.

Under the Patriot Act, this information can be accessed by government departments such as the FBI and the CIA. A judge could issue a release of information. We will not know how or when the information is used or where it goes. That is problematic, especially if one is not travelling to the United States. It is unfortunate. It is a situation that defies our historic aviation principles, and it is one that will expose people to data collection and privacy issues. Once again, we have no recourse.

Fourth, the right to access, rectification, and opposition principle states that the subject of the information should have the right to obtain a copy of all the information that is processed relating to him or her and the right to rectify the inaccurate information. In some situations the person should be able to object to the processing of the data relating to him or her.

Fifth, the person should be made aware of what the exposure will be and be able to choose whether or not to travel. They should know what they will be getting into if they are travelling. People can make a choice. People have a chance to have their say and make another decision if too much information is going to be exposed. Another means of transportation can be chosen, but there is a choice in the matter.

Sixth, there is a restriction on onward transfer principle. Transfers of personal information to further countries should be permitted only where the second country is also subject to the same rules as the country originally receiving the information.

There we have it. Once again, the Patriot Act is going to create problems for that, because it does not subscribe to any of those types of elements.

It is really important to talk about some of the civil liberties. Here is what some of the experts are saying.

Roch Tassé of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said, “The Americans will have a veto on every passenger that gets on a plane in Canada even if they are not going to set foot on American soil”. Mr. Tassé added, “What will happen if Canada invites the ambassador from a country such as Cuba?”

These are situations where we have lost our sovereignty.

Living in a border town, I can say that our American friends and cousins are our greatest allies and we have so many people with so many strengths who travel back and forth. Literally thousands of nurses go from Windsor to Detroit every single day.

Generally speaking, the relations are good, but I have seen applications of an extreme nature take place. It is ironic. We have in Windsor doctors who the province and the federal government will not let practise in Canada with the credential barriers that they have. They are actually practising in Detroit. They go over there every day and they save American lives. At the border, though, they are treated as a security threat. That is the reality.

The ironic thing is that, even right now, sometimes in Windsor when we cannot get a specialist or we cannot get an appointment and there is nothing in London, for example, we will actually then send a Canadian over to an American hospital, who can get treated by a doctor who is not qualified supposedly in Canada and we will pay a premium for it. It is the most absurd thing that is happening.

We have seen these situations take place where, individually, people get singled out.

We had a number of high profile cases in the U.S. where people were put on the no-fly list, even including American politicians. It is not out of the realm that it could happen. So I think Mr. Tassé's comments are very good.

The Air Transport Association of Canada also made its grievances known. It believes the submission of Canadian passenger details by Canadian airlines violates Canada's laws on the protection of personal information and electronic documents, as well as laws on aeronautics. That was its opinion of this bill.

I would agree. When we look at the bill and what it does, it circumvents some of the privacy elements that we have built into the entire system.

This comes ironically at a time when the government is killing the long form mandatory census and bringing in a new national household survey. It was interesting, because when the government first came out with this, the minister argued that this would violate the privacy of Canadians and the government wanted to protect their privacy. The long form mandatory census is against that. It violates an individual's personal privacy.

I called the Privacy Commissioner's office and talked to the deputy and asked, how many cases are there of privacy having been breached or how many complaints do we get on the census? There had been a handful over the last 20 years. It turned out, when I asked whether the census goes through a privacy system, they said yes. They actually work with the census group and with the Privacy Commissioner. It goes through an audit there and also at Treasury Board to ensure that no one's personal privacy is affected. They described their working relationship as excellent. There was no weight at all to the minister claiming that the census was affecting personal privacy. There was no evidence provided to the Privacy Commission. The commission was actively engaged, and in fact, it actually changed some of the questions or some of the techniques of the census so that privacy is protected. It did that a number of different times.

I am going to wrap up by thanking our transport critic for working on the bill. It is an important issue for ourselves because we believe privacy and civil liberties have been trampled on at different times under the guise of security.

But in the case I mentioned before, which was in Detroit, there are obviously other techniques that can be employed. Simply do not let people on with a one-way ticket, no luggage and no screening of any significance, and even bomb material on the plane.

In these types of situations, if we are going to be looking at exposing Canadians' personal privacy through secret deals, then there needs to be backstopped, clear paths of recourse developed to ensure that Canadians are going to be protected.

The government of the day never did anything about challenging the Patriot Act, getting some clauses or some elements in there, in the U.S., to actually deal with the Canadian situation to make sure, at least, that if there was going to be an exposure, there would be some protection for them, some accountability.

That never happened. So at the end of the day we are left with this type of mess where Canadians' privacy is certainly going to be threatened and put at risk. I think it is unfortunate, because a lot of people probably will not even know this happens, the exposure of their personal privacy. In this day and age, that is something people still want to keep maintained.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise and ask the hon. member a question.

I think the hon. member misses that this is actually about safety, security, and keeping people safe. When the hon. member's constituents go from Windsor to the United States, when they even try to walk, drive, or fly across the border into the United States, or maybe to go to Mexico or Central America, they need a passport. They are required to present that passport to the United States official at the border, who in turn can deny them the right of entry into that sovereign space or in fact allow them.

What I do not get is that the legislation we are proposing is actually in the same manner. It is for people who are actually going into the United States' sovereign airspace, into another country. They are required to give their name, gender, and birthdate, which is actually less than what is required with a passport. That is what I do not understand.

This government actually already received an exemption. I would think the hon. member and the NDP would stand up and congratulate the Conservative government for standing up for the people of Canada, for receiving a personal exemption for flights that are going into U.S. sovereign space but are actually just going to take off in Canada and again land in Canada. We received an exemption for that.

Why is the hon. member not up here today congratulating this government for a great initiative, finding an exemption for Canadian citizens and making sure that we are working with our partners in the United States to keep Canadians and all the people we possibly can safe from terrorism? Why is the hon. member not up there today congratulating us for this great effort?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not reward people for poor efforts. This is unbelievable.

I talked about the passenger name record, which is going to be part of this deal. Regulations in this bill can alter the data accumulation.

At least a person has a choice. If I go to Detroit right now, across from my riding, I know I am going to give up my passport. That is okay. It is the official document that the U.S. requires, but they do not ask me for my credit card number and other information such as that. That is actually in the PNR. We know that. That is the reality.

The same thing could happen where there are flights from Windsor that go to Cuba, so they have to pass briefly through American airspace. They are now going to be up in the air in terms of the provision of that information.

We all know the political situation between the United States and Cuba and how volatile it is, but here we have something that is working. It is actually creating jobs, providing access to a historical friend of Canada in terms of working together more co-operatively than other countries have, and is now going to be subject to the PNR for that.

If there had been an attempt to get at least what Europe has in place, a structure to actually have some backstops to this, maybe we could start to look at that. Instead, no, they just said, “Here we go. We are okay with this”; they did not even go any further from that.

For that matter, we are simply not going to reward a poor effort or no effort at all.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether my colleague from Windsor West has looked at all of the efforts that the government says it has made to provide the Americans with a sense that the Canadian public travelling across American airspace is actually a secure and safe one.

Has he even looked at the $3.2 billion that the Government of Canada is taxing passengers in order to invest in new technologies to ensure that they are individuals who have no malice of intent? On that $3.2 billion tax by the Government of Canada to buy products that are supposed to convince Americans that Canadians are actually good people, is he not impressed with the fact that the Canadian government would have taxed Canadians to that extent, given that message to the Americans, and then walked away from the negotiating table because the Americans were not impressed?

Does he not think perhaps the Conservatives should tax us even more and squander even more money to provide a message to the world that Canadians are people of no malice of intent, and when they are passing over airspace, they have the security and the approval of their own government and they have the respect of their own government, even if the Government of Canada today has no respect from Homeland Security in the United States? Has he looked at that at all?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes, I have looked at it, Mr. Speaker, because when the Liberals brought this tax in, we raised concerns about the volume of the tax, the amount of it, the accountability, where it was to go, and there is a lengthy history of a series of problems around this initiative.

What is interesting, though, is that when we add all these layers that we have on our side, we have not gotten any respect back for it. At the same time, we have a government here that refuses to stand up for Canadians when it is necessary, so that at least at some point in time we can push back when our own security is put at risk, false statements are made, or new things are brought in.

At the border, we have seen all kinds of stuff. At the land border crossings, there have been fees and charges, a whole series of things that never existed before. They are just extra taxes on Canadian businesses that are stifling in terms of some processes at the border.

The reason I brought up Abdulmutallab's case, the Christmas Day terrorist attack, is because even the Department of Homeland Security's Janet Napolitano admitted that their system did not work. Why did the system not work? This fancy stuff did not work because they did not act on the actual call that came in that said he was unstable. There are indications in the reports that he looked dishevelled at the airport and another person bought his ticket. He got on with a one-way ticket, with no luggage and no winter gear, to go to Detroit, on the other side of the globe.

We do not challenge these things, but it went across Canadian airspace for quite a distance. What did we do? We did nothing. When we do nothing, we get no respect. When we get no respect, at the same time, we end up having to agree to these things. We have to get some respect back in this matter.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member for Windsor West would like the record changed. When he said he did look at the bill when it was first brought in by the Liberals, I think he meant the Conservatives. I am sure he will want to correct the record.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I stand corrected.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I am sure the House appreciates that clarification.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's comments with respect to the bill and I share his concerns.

We have a government across the way that tries to make itself look accountable, but it is not. We just have to look at what it has done with respect to information pertaining to veterans.

All of a sudden, we see a bill that wants to share information with other people, other countries. We know what happened with the no-fly list, how some people actually end up on that no-fly list by, basically, misinformation. We know what happened with the do not call list with respect to the system that was put in place, and now people are actually getting more calls, at times, than before the do not call list.

We understand about the PNR data in the bill. I want to ask my colleague whether there was any indication of how there would be some prevention of this information being misused.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is the whole thing. When the patriot act came into play, we did not object to anything. We did not demand a separate treaty, which is what was necessary. The provincial Governments of British Columbia and Quebec have tried to get their own treaty for the protection of information but many experts in the field believe it would not be strong enough and would not cover the challenge. It also would not cover all of Canada, which is what we needed.

We needed to have a separate treaty that dealt with how information expunged by the patriot act would be used and the processes where Canadians would have recall and the processes as to how that information would be expunged or destroyed once an investigation had taken place.

We have none of that because we did not do anything about it. Therefore, when we have situations like this taking place where a bill comes in and the U.S. demands to have information about people, even though they may not even be landing in the U.S. and are tens of thousands of kilometres above the United States or partially across its borders, we must provide that information because of the PNR.