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

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

Madam Speaker, it would appear that members are still exercised about an issue that they have already agreed has passed. In fact, the Americans gave us notice some 16 months ago that the legislation that led to Bill C-42 would be implemented and put into effect in the United States last December.

This is not an issue of security. It is an issue of the government now trying to backtrack because it presented this last June and only now wants to put it into law. Just imagine being unable to protect Canadian sovereignty for all that period and then to come forward and say that it is a question of security. It is not.

The member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord has just indicated rather eloquently that this is a commercial issue. It is to prevent airlines from being sued for breach of privacy legislation by Canadians on Canadian carriers. It is an issue of sovereignty ceded to the Americans because of the government's incompetence and inability to negotiate what the Americans asked it to negotiate on 16 months ago.

I would like the member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord to elaborate on this. What this shows is that the $40 million spent on those special machines in 11 locations in Canada to provide greater aviation security meant nothing to the Americans and that the legislation to impose another $3.2 billion in aviation tax for security measures was unimpressive to the Americans, and therefore we have to go to this because our airlines will be exposed to harassment by Americans. That is what this legislation is about.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-42, which we examined carefully at the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. I would like to begin by congratulating all of my colleagues on the hard work they did in an effort to strike a fair balance between two conflicting yet fundamental notions. I was going to say “to get at the truth”, but that would not have been the right expression.

When I was a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and the Board of Internal Economy, we took a very similar approach. There we talked about the safety and protection of people and goods. In this case, this bill is about aviation security. At the time, following the tragic events of September 2001, we had to ask ourselves what kind of security was needed within the parliamentary precinct, here on the Hill. What kind of security check should pedestrians be subjected to? For vehicles, it was pretty easy, but for pedestrians, it was a different matter.

On the one hand, the people watching us here this evening, our fellow citizens, my colleagues and their family members must have access to the place that exemplifies democracy. On the other hand, security measures must be in place to protect people. It is not just parliamentarians who need to be protected, but also pages, security staff and everyone who works in the parliamentary precinct. That is enough of the analogy I wanted to make with security here on Parliament Hill.

I will not say that I suffered terrible insomnia or that I woke up at night in a cold sweat from anxiety, but I did put a lot of thought into this bill. I sometimes have the opportunity to go home to my riding by car. It is a 475 km drive from my office on Parliament Hill to my house. I usually use that time to decompress and reflect on many things.

When we studied this bill, we heard from opposite ends of the spectrum. We heard from those defending civil liberties, who stand up for the protection of personal information. There is a strong temptation, for a government or organization that receives personal information about people, to use it for inappropriate purposes. We joke about Big Brother watching you.

One of the fundamental elements of this bill is that it would have Canada provide the Americans with certain personal information about passengers on board aircraft flying over American territory. Those who defend civil liberties are very level-headed; they were not on a witch hunt. They told us that parliamentarians, members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, should think about the type of information that would be provided to the Americans.

As I mentioned in a previous speech, since the unfortunate events of 9/11 at the World Trade Center, no one has been crazy enough to say that the Americans got what they deserved. Anyone who says that has serious mental problems.

The young woman who worked for Xerox Corporation on the 85th floor, who was about the same age as our assistant clerk—the one who notes what we say off mike—and who was typing a report for her boss, did not deserve to have a plane hit her. She did not ask for that. She went to work that morning to support herself and perhaps to support her family.

Since that event, the Americans have been seized by panic, a phobia, a psychosis about terrorism. I am not an expert on terrorism. However, we should ask ourselves whether we believe that terrorists will again use the exact same tactics they used on the World Trade Center.

The planes that crashed into the World Trade Center were American planes making domestic flights. In addition, the terrorist pilots were trained in American flight schools in Miami, Florida. Since that time, the Americans have developed such an obsessive fear that they see terrorism everywhere. It is true that protection is needed and that we must always be vigilant.

Supporters of individual freedoms and civil liberties asked the committee to ensure that there were certain protective rules. Apparently, the information that we will be providing to the Americans under this bill could potentially be given to 16 other American agencies that do not necessarily need it. Supporters of individual freedoms and civil liberties expressed another concern: what guarantee do we have that this information will be destroyed?

I spoke about Big Brother. Personally, I am not a conspiracy theorist and I do not think that our information is put on file and that we are monitored. That is being paranoid. I watched the Super Bowl and, when members of one team formed a huddle, I did not think that they were talking about me. I knew that they were planning their strategy. We must not think that Big Brother is always watching us. However, this does not change the fact that the Americans will have our personal information. What guarantee do we have that this information will not be shared and that it will be destroyed after a certain period of time?

The Minister of Public Safety testified before the committee. I asked him, without getting angry—a rarity—what guarantee we have that the Americans will destroy this information after a certain period of time.

He replied that the Americans had told him so. How reassuring. What guarantee do we have that our hair will grow by the end of the week? The dermatologist said so. The Americans told him so. What a great answer.

The committee members were split between two approaches. We met representatives from Canada's tourism industry and representatives from airlines. We organized a meeting with Air Transat, Canada's leader in vacation travel. When I was elected in 1993, I was the transport critic. We had Canada 2000, and since we were getting close to the year 2000, I think it became Canada 3000. They realized that the name would be outdated. Later, the company went bankrupt. Then we had Nationair, Nordair, Intair, which all shut down. Now, the number one company in vacation travel in Canada is Air Transat, a company whose head office is in Montreal, whose primary language of work is French and which has an important base in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal and a lot of pilots and flight attendants who are able to provide services in two, three or even four languages. Quebec is very proud of this.

We met with these people and they told us that, because the U.S. is a sovereign country, if we did not pass this bill, the Americans would prohibit us from flying through their airspace. Charter flights to the south or flights to London or Nice, for example, that leave from Halifax and take the Atlantic route do not fly through U.S. airspace. I am not picking destinations off the top of my head. Those are all destinations served by Air Transat. To go to Mexico or the Caribbean, for example, via the south corridor or the Atlantic corridor, the plane does not need to fly through American airspace. It is the same for Vancouver. Via the Pacific corridor, there is no need to fly through American airspace.

The people from Air Transat told us that if this bill is not passed, it will no longer be able to serve central Canada. It will no longer be able to offer flights from Calgary to Cancun, from Winnipeg to Puerto Vallarta or from Edmonton to Montego Bay, Jamaica, because those cities are in central Canada. They have no choice but to fly over the U.S. It would take four hours to fly to the Pacific Ocean and then fly south. A flight that normally takes three and a half or four hours with an Airbus 330 or 320 would take seven or eight hours. That makes no sense.

Something I thought of and have talked about before, but that bears repeating because some members were not here, is that we cannot forget that the Air Transat fleet includes Airbus 310s and 320s, and I believe it also has some Airbus 330s.

As it turns out, an Airbus with 350 passengers on board requires a little more time for taking off and landing. It is not like a Cessna that can touch and go and land in 150 metres. When landing in Montreal, depending on the runway being used—24 or 32—the pilot has to turn and fly over the U.S. It is the same thing in Toronto at Pearson airport. In other words, because of those flights, Air Transat would be doomed to bankruptcy.

As the Bloc Québécois transport critic, and with my colleagues who agree on this position, we had to take individual freedoms into account, but we also had to take into account feasibility and the viability of air carriers that have to use U.S. airspace. I moved an amendment that called for reciprocity. Many Americans fly through Canadian airspace and if the U.S. is requiring us to provide a passenger list, then we should be demanding reciprocity with the U.S. Unfortunately, my amendment was democratically defeated in the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. I accept that, but I find it unbelievable. If it is good enough for the Americans, why would it not be good enough for us?

In any case, we are at third reading stage and, in closing, I confirm that the Bloc Québécois is voting in favour of Bill C-42.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to once again speak about Bill C-42. I think that all the parties have shared their positions on this bill with the House.

Today, I would like to comment on some of the statements made by the Conservatives and New Democrats that I believe are incorrect.

I will start with the case of the Minister of Public Safety. I mentioned already to the parliamentary secretary that notwithstanding the fine words of praise by him regarding the healthy co-operation of the opposition, the minister said on Monday in regard to Bill C-42 that:

For our part, we have worked closely with the Americans to ensure this is implemented in a way that recognizes our security interests and the privacy concerns of Canadians.

Now it is up to the Liberal-led coalition to stop playing politics and support this needed bill.

I take exception to that language. As the minister's own colleague, the parliamentary secretary, had made clear, we in the Liberal Party and other parties, I believe, did work constructively from the beginning on this bill to make sure it was passed after an appropriate amount of scrutiny and several important amendments to strengthen the bill.

If I turn now to the New Democrats, in an attempt to scare Canadians about this legislation, they made numerous statements that I do not believe to be factually true. The first point I would like to mention is the statement made by the member for Vancouver Kingsway that this bill would allow the secret negotiation of data transfer with multiple countries. That is absolutely false. That member said in the House:

What information would be forwarded is determined by requirements laid out, and it is fair to say, in hitherto secret agreements with other countries. Details of those agreements have not been released.

That is untrue. The agreements are not secret. I can refer the member to part two of the U.S. Federal Register of October 28, 2008, which sets out the information and states:

For passengers on covered flights, TSA requires covered aircraft operators to request a passenger’s full name, gender, date of birth, and Redress Number (if available)—

It goes on to state that:

—passengers are only required to provide their full name, date of birth, and gender to allow TSA to perform watch list matching.

Airlines will also be required to provide the TSA with itinerary information about flights, but only so that the TSA can prioritize these flights in its matching process.

I would encourage the hon. members on the New Democratic benches to read the final rule so they can have a clear understanding of what the secure flight program actually is.

The member for Vancouver Kingsway was also wrong when he referenced other countries. This was one of the amendments that we made to the bill, which I think made it stronger. Originally, the bill would have allowed other countries to be added, along with the United States, to obtain information about overflights. However, we amended the bill so that only the United States was included. If any other third country wanted to receive this information, the whole thing would have to come back to Parliament and Parliament would have to amend the legislation further. It is totally wrong to talk about countries other than United States, because only the United States is covered in this bill.

Some members of the NDP also mentioned that the data would be held for 40 years. That again is wrong. For 99% of flyers, the data will be held for no more than seven days. If there is a potential match, it would be seven years, and for confirmed matches to the terrorist list, the data could be held for as long as 99 years.

Before I wrap up, I want to touch for a moment on the question of sovereignty. My education is in economics, not political science, but I am fairly certain that the control of U.S. airspace is not a matter of Canadian sovereignty. I can assure members and anyone else who is listening that if the U.S. government attempted to decide the rules for Canadian airspace on the grounds that it was its sovereign right to do so, nobody would be more upset than the NDP. Indeed, I would be as well. Therefore, how can New Democrats demand control of U.S. airspace?

I am not a big fan of this bill, far from it, but I do understand that the U.S. has sovereign control of its airspace. That is a question of international law. It has put these rules in place and Canada must now respond. It is not a pleasant duty, but we have to recognize international law. We are governed by law, and under international law a country has control over its own airspace.

There are important issues, but I want to make sure the record is set straight so that all members of the House and the members of the Senate who will soon receive the bill can debate it with the facts before them, rather than the imagined facts constructed by the NDP.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I look forward to any questions.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his kind comments about the co-operation on this bill by the opposition.

I would like to mention a statement made in the House in answer to a question by the Minister of Public Safety. He was talking about Bill C-42 and he said:

For our part, we have worked closely with the Americans to ensure this is implemented in a way that recognizes our security interests and the privacy concerns of Canadians.

Now it is up to the Liberal-led coalition to stop playing politics and support this needed bill.

Given what he said about our co-operation, it sounds like the last comment by the Minister of Public Safety is something taken out of one of the crime bill folders or something of that nature.

There is a clear contradiction. Does the parliamentary secretary agree with the statement that the Liberal-led coalition should stop playing politics and support this needed bill?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to sponsor Bill C-42 for third reading.

I want to preface my remarks with the observation that our government appreciates the importance of the legislation before us today. Along with our government, I want to personally thank the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, which heard testimony from a wide range of witnesses including Canada's Privacy Commissioner. I also thank many of the members who are in the House today for their hard work on the bill in seeing it come to fruition.

I have followed the debate in the House as well as at committee with a great deal of interest. I believe we have arrived at the appropriate balance between protecting our security while also protecting the civil liberties and privacy rights of Canadians, which is a balance that our government has been committed to achieving since first elected in 2006.

I am sure all hon. members would agree that the debates so far have engaged comments from a number of organizations, media outlets and individual Canadians, and it is good to have that debate. Some of these comments have been very helpful and have influenced some of the helpful amendments agreed to at the committee stage.

Some comments shared at the committees were, however, less helpful and may, in some cases, have generated some confusion. We certainly do not want Canadians or our counterparts in the United States to be confused. I therefore appreciate the opportunity to set the record straight on a number of fronts and to clarify what Bill C-42 would and would not do.

First and foremost, Bill C-42 will in essence do what was done by the previous Liberal Government of Canada in 2001 as part of our country's response to the tragic events of September 11. It will amend section 4.83 of the Aeronautics Act so Canadian airline companies will be able to comply with enhanced aviation security measures that have been introduced by the United States strictly in relation to its sovereignty rights.

In 2001 the then Liberal government amended the Aeronautics Act so Canadian airline companies could provide the U.S. government with passenger information for all flights scheduled to land in that country.

Bill C-42 proposes to amend the exact same section of the Aeronautics Act so Canadian airline companies can provide the U.S. with information for flights that overfly U.S. airspace on their way to destinations such as Mexico and the Caribbean. This is in accordance with the U.S. government's secure flight final rule, which was published in 2008 in response to the recommendations of the 9/11 commission and the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act passed in 2004. Indeed, this directly applies to keeping the United States secure and keeping Canadians secure.

As all members already know, there are obvious security reasons why this is very necessary and why this government has moved forward with this initiative. As the final rule itself notes, flights which overfly the United States have the potential to cause harm due to their proximity to locations that may be potential terrorist targets, such as major metropolitan areas and critical infrastructure in the United States.

All countries in this world, including Canada, have the right under international law to determine who enters their borders, including who enters their airspace. Our counterparts to the south of the border have the legal right and obligation under international law to know who comes into their country, whether by land, air or sea. Canada has the same right and this Conservative government will do whatever it takes to enforce and protect Canadians and our legal rights of sovereignty of state. That point was put forward by the then Liberal transport minister in 2001 to pass the original amendments to the Aeronautics Act, which I would like to point out was accomplished in less than one month, and this holds true today.

As I said, the truth of the matter is international law recognizes a state's right to regulate aircraft entering its territory.

The Chicago convention to which Canada is a signatory requires compliance with:

The laws and regulations of each Contracting [state] relating to the admission to or departure from its territory of aircraft engaged in international air navigation, or to the operation and navigation of such aircraft while within its territory.

The legal basis for requiring passenger information for all flights which fly over U.S. airspace is therefore very secure in international law and domestic law and the rights of sovereign states. This point was stressed by many witnesses during committee hearings.

What would Bill C-42 do? The bill would allow Canada to comply with international and U.S. law and it would provide Canadian airline companies with continued access to southern destinations without forcing them to fly around U.S. airspace. Imagine how expensive and difficult it would be or how many hours of additional travel it would be for Canadians travelling to southern destinations or even through Canada itself from point to point. In some cases, Canadian aircraft do overfly U.S. airspace.

The bill proposes to build on a number of initiatives already under way with our international partners to further improve aviation security, because this is a global issue.

Let me now turn my attention to what Bill C-42 would not do, or what it would not require Canadian travellers to do. Most Canadians watching today will be interested in this part.

I heard a discussion during committee deliberations related to the impact on airlines if the bill was not passed. If Bill C-42 does not pass, it could result in a devastating impact on airline companies in Canada, potentially killing jobs from coast to coast and jeopardizing the financial security of hard-working Canadian families in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, right across the country. This Conservative government will not let that happen.

As the National Airline Council of Canada noted in committee hearings:

—being denied access to U.S. airspace for overflight would be an unmitigated disaster for Canadian air carriers and our passengers...undermine the economic strength of the industry.

No one could be more clearer than that. This bill needs to be passed.

Bill C-42 has economic as well as security implications that would be very critical to our country if it did not pass.

Some suggestions were made during committee hearings that compliance with the U.S. secure flight program would force Canadians to give the U.S. government personal information such as race, religion or ethnic identifiers. The testimony from these people is pretty scary. In other words, there were suggestions that Bill C-42 might result in passengers being forced to give the United States information that could be used for racial profiling. That is wrong. That will not happen under this government's watch.

The U.S. final rule is very specific as well. It stipulates that airline companies must provide the U.S. government with a passenger name, date of birth, gender, redress number and certain passport and itinerary information only if it is available.

For passport information the final rule is very specific and states that air carriers must transmit to the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, the passport number, the country of issuance and expiration date of the passport. Itinerary information includes non-personal information such as flight number, departure time and arrival time.

The fully itemized list is on page 64,024 of the final rule for those hon. members who do not believe me and who want to check it out for themselves and want the source of this information. I encourage members of the NDP to look at the rule so they can quit fearmongering and scaring Canadians because it is not helping the debate at all.

Nowhere in the final rule is there any mention of any requirement for airline companies to provide information such as race or religion. Quite frankly, this government and the Prime Minister would not stand for it. Nor is there a requirement to provide information such as addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, frequent flyer numbers or meal or seat preference.

The second thing Bill C-42 would not do is force Canadian airline companies to provide the United States government with access to large amounts of passenger information which is personal or private in nature.

As U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson outlined in his recent letter to the committee, the only personal identifiable information being shared is name, gender, date of birth and, if available, a passport number. I thank the ambassador for that letter. It was very helpful indeed.

Let us move on to another issue to further provide clarity.

During committee hearings, I heard that Bill C-42 would require Canadian airline companies to pass along passenger information which could then be matched not only against the no-fly and selectee lists, but also arbitrarily and indiscriminately forwarded, for example, to police or immigration officials.

Again, the final rule, the U.S. rule, is very specific. It is laid out in black and white. It says that the purpose of collecting passenger information is to guard against possible aviation and national security threats. That is it. It is very clear. In fact, the Canadian government has asked for and received written assurances from the United States administration that passenger information will not be forwarded to other agencies except in extremely limited circumstances and then only for an aviation or national security purpose.

In his recent letter to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, Ambassador Jacobson states:

Secure flight information is not shared widely for law enforcement or for immigration purposes--

The letter went on to say:

Any information shared is limited to an individual or limited group of individuals for a specific investigative purpose related to terrorism or national security.

The ambassador points out in his letter that since the inception of the secure flight program, the transportation security administration has provided information about a traveller to federal law enforcement officials on only three occasions “to further a terrorism or national security investigation”.

How many people travel in our country or in North America? Hundreds of millions of people every year. Since its inception only three people have had that information passed on. This is after hundreds of millions of passengers have flown under the secure flight program.

Our government is committed to work with our international partners to help strengthen aviation security and to help strengthen the security of all Canadians to keep them safe. That is clearly our job and we are doing that job. We are committed to protecting the safety and security of Canadians and to crack down on terrorists wherever they may be, wherever they may live and wherever they may hide.

However, we are also committed to upholding the values and the beliefs which have made this the great country it is today. I believe even the NDP and the Bloc would agree with that.

We need to stay safe but we also need to uphold and strengthen the vital cornerstones of our way of life, such as due process, the rule of law and the preservation of individual civil liberties as well as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and privacy rights. However, it is a balance. We will protect these rights. We will uphold these Canadian values. Bill C-42 does exactly that.

I also note the amendment to Bill C-42, supported by the government, that will mandate a review of the legislation after three years. That is not a bad idea. It is certainly one that the government thinks has some positive aspects to it and one that it will support.

I also want to highlight the amendment supported by the government that stipulates in the act that passenger information will not be passed to any government other than the United States government for overflight purposes.

Parliamentary approval, meaning that everyone in this place has to approve, is required should another country request passenger information for any overflights. There will also be a mandated review of these particular pieces of legislation.

Bill C-42 is very necessary. I think every Canadian agrees it is necessary. It is vitally important to our national airline carriers, the Canadian public and to our tourism industry.

I know that all hon. members understand how important it is for Canada to continue to work with our international partners to further strengthen aviation security, so all members of the House and all Canadians can travel the world in safety and comfort with an expectation that our privacy rights, our persons and our families are going to be protected and kept safe.

I therefore urge all hon. members to give speedy passage to Bill C-42, as we did nearly 10 years ago for the previous Liberal legislation to amend the Aeronautics Act. This would ensure that Canadian airline companies can continue to access destinations such as Cuba, Mexico and South America in the most cost-effective and efficient way possible.

In conclusion, I want to thank the Liberal members who helped so much on the bill as we arrived at some good compromises. As well, I want to thank the Bloc members and I especially want to thank the NDP who have not, up to this point, filibustered anything and who have actually had some contributions which I would consider valuable.

We will see what happens later on, but I encourage all members to pass the bill so that we can move forward with the safety and security of Canadians in an efficient and cost-effective way for Canadians.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

moved that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, be read the third time and passed.

The House resumed from February 3 consideration of Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Public Safety

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that hon. members, like me, have many constituents whose travel plans could be negatively impacted without this bill.

Bill C-42 introduces a straightforward technical amendment, without which flights leaving Canada would no longer be able to travel over American airspace.

For our part, we have worked closely with the Americans to ensure this is implemented in a way that recognizes our security interests and the privacy concerns of Canadians.

Now it is up to the Liberal-led coalition to stop playing politics and support this needed bill.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our government introduced legislation to amend the Aeronautics Act to ensure that Canadians can continue to travel over U.S. airspace.

Similar amendments were brought in under the previous Liberal government. Yet now the Liberals and their coalition partners are threatening to kill Bill C-42.

Could the minister remind the House why this straightforward technical amendment is needed?

Strengthening Aviation Security Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, the census issue may be an interesting example of privacy issues and the no fly list is another interesting example.

However this is taking Bill C-42 as a proxy to campaign on platitudes of “We are good and everybody else is not so good”.

The member asserted that credit card information would be required to be disclosed under Bill C-42. Could the member advise the House as to exactly where in the bill or in the regulations that is prescribed because that is contrary to the evidence that was given to the standing committee that reviewed this bill in detail?

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am glad my colleague from British Columbia touched on the fact that the Conservative government got rid of the long form census because it was too invasive to Canadians, that we knew too much about Canadians, where they live, how many people were in their homes and where they worked, all good statistics that could be used by doctors, hospitals and municipalities.

In Bill C-42, the government would allow all kinds of information, even more information than was in the long form census, to go to these foreign countries.

I would like the hon. member from B.C. to try to explain to me why the change in the ideology between the long form census and Bill C-42 from the Conservative government?

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

Madam Speaker, it is important for all members to speak to Bill C-42 because, even though it has not received a lot of media attention and journalists have not been writing the kinds of articles they should be writing about its implications, it does have implications for the average Canadian from coast to coast to coast.

I hope that as a result of the debate that has grown over the course of this week that we will see more interest from our Press Gallery and from our national journalists on this important question because Bill C-42 would have an impact everywhere in the country.

I will begin my remarks where the member for Ottawa Centre left off on what this bill actually says. It says that:

--an operator of an aircraft departing from Canada that is due to land in a foreign state or fly over the United States and land outside Canada or of a Canadian aircraft departing from any place outside Canada that is due to land in a foreign state or fly over the United States may, in accordance with the regulations, provide to a competent authority in that foreign state any information that is in the operator’s control relating to persons on board or expected to be on board the aircraft and that is required by the laws of the foreign state.

The bill states that someone's personal information can be handed over. That is not a small issue, particularly as we go through some of the personal information that will be handed over to the secret services of the United States and other foreign states. It is not information that any Canadian would want to have shared widely.

We know the extent to which security services share this kind of personal information. All of us see the chaos that is occurring in Egypt. We know that the secret service of the Egyptian government is one of the potential recipients of this kind of personal information. The information will not be held in any sort of secure place. It can be held for up to 40 years. We are talking about personal information that is completely out of the bounds of what is normally considered to be personal information protection.

The privacy question is completely gutted by this bill, and perhaps that is the reason we are not hearing many Conservative voices rising up to defend it. This bill is, quite frankly, indefensible. I think the Conservatives, particularly in light of what they purported to put out on a census, will have some great difficulty defending to their constituents what is a significant massive handover of personal information.

What is the kind of information that the Conservative government wants to hand over to the United States secret service and other foreign secret services? It begs the questions: why is the government not standing up for Canadians? Why has it not tried to negotiate any sort of agreement that takes into consideration the concerns that the Privacy Commissioner has brought forward?

Concerns have been raised by the Privacy Commissioner. A number of my colleagues in the Liberal Party said that her concerns do not matter but I have to disagree. It certainly does matter when the Privacy Commissioner raises a whole series of conditions around this exchange of information and the government does absolutely nothing to protect that personal information. That is a cause for great concern.

What is in the information that can be exchanged? As my colleague, the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore said, we are talking about a passenger's name record that can include credit card information, who the passenger is travelling with, the passenger's hotel, the booking information concerning the trip and also medical conditions. Medical conditions and credit card information then get sent abroad.

The government has not in any way tried to change that. The government seems to be trying to ram this legislation through. The Minister of Public Safety stood in the House in December and said that the bill needed to be passed by December 31 or the earth would collapse, the roof would fall in and all planes would be grounded.

I was on a plane yesterday and what the Minister of Public Safety said was complete balderdash. That has not happened.

The government needs to step back from what has been an hysterical attempt to ram the legislation through and start to justify why it wants to share credit card information and confidential medical information with foreign secret services regardless of the fact that it has no idea where the information will end up.

The information can be stored legally up to 40 years. We are not talking about information that is transferred and then destroyed according to very strict protocols. We are talking about information that is gone forever. Our personal information and the personal information of other Canadians across the country is out there. It is gone. This is a statement of fact and yet the Conservatives have not tried to justify in any way why they did not endeavour to put in place protocols that would allow for the destruction of that information on a very strict and time sensitive basis.

The other element here is that Canadians cannot find out what information is held about them and, if that information is inaccurate, they cannot in any way change that information. Personal information is sent to the United States and to other foreign governments and the information is held for decades in conditions we have no knowledge of and no control over. It is information that can never be corrected and we can never find out what that information is about.

It is absolutely absurd, when we look at the components of what is actually in the bill, that we have a government trying on the one hand to defend this wholesale transfer of Canadians' personal information, their credit card information, their medical information and other information, and, at the same time, it is the same government, as the member for Winnipeg Centre said earlier today, that wanted to shut down the census because it thought information like the size of a person's house was too sensitive to share.

What is wrong with this picture? The census is a valuable tool. The mandatory long form census was used to give governments an accurate idea of what was happening in the population, whether Canadians were moving to larger homes, whether more people were living within the same residence and to what extent government policies impacted people's housing arrangements and incomes. Those kinds of elements are vitally important for the government to act in the public good.

The Conservatives were screaming hysterically against the mandatory long form census and now they are bringing in a bill that would transport vastly more personal information all over high heaven, to security services wherever; the Egyptian secret service or the American secret service, and that information can be thrown about for decades without any sort of checks and balances or any type of controls.

The government either does not understand how hypocritical that looks to Canadians or it has been playing politics all along with the census information and is now playing politics in a very clear way with Canadians' personal information.

We have seen with the no fly list how the kinds of mistakes that are made can lead to people simply being unable to board flights. We have seen it with fine upstanding citizens, such as Senator Ted Kennedy, members of Parliament and well-known celebrities, who, through no fault of their own, found themselves on a no fly list and are completely incapable of getting themselves off the list.

Instead of trying to fix that, we have a government that is going into vastly darker, deeper recesses of the kinds of information sharing that is irresponsible and clearly not in the interests of Canadians. That is why in this corner of the House the NDP is standing up for those ordinary Canadians and saying no to this wholesale, irresponsible transfer of Canadians' personal information.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, our party's concern with Bill C-42 is not news to other members. I should correct the record. I mentioned a moment ago that other parties had not put forward amendments. They have. I would consider them minor. A review of a process that is flawed should be addressed at the beginning, not after three years.

I want to go back to a debate we had in the House on Bill C-31. It addressed concerns around the electoral process in our country. I remember well the debates around the bill at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs The bill looked at how we could streamline the electoral process in this country. Our party was the only one to push against the provision for the government to allow birthdates of Canadians to be put on the voters' list. It had never been utilized before. It was fascinating to watch. People I thought were libertarians, people who believed in the protection of Canadians' privacy, simply caved on the issue of whether or not birthdates should be on the electoral list. It was the two other opposition parties at committee who welcomed this change.

Their colleagues were not aware that we would have birthdates on the electoral list. Thankfully, the Privacy Commissioner intervened, at my request, which was not initially allowed at committee. The committee thought we had heard enough from Ms. Stoddart, however, she had not been able to intervene on this new provision for electoral lists. She provided her opinion that this was a sellout of privacy of Canadians, that they should not have their birthdate on the electoral list.

It was astonishing to see the two other opposition parties allow this to go through. The provision was killed but not because of opposition from the government or the other two opposition parties. Our party fought against it. Why? It is a very basic principle that the privacy of Canadians is paramount. There are times when there is a need for authorities to have information on Canadians, but imagine having one's birthdate and address on a list for all to see.

At the time, we called it a theft kit for identification fraud brought about by the Government of Canada. That is really what it was. For those who want to steal an identity, whether it be for false credit cards or whatever, all that is needed is a birthdate and an address.

We fought against it. Thankfully, we were able to get a clear opinion from the Privacy Commissioner. That made a huge difference, to the point where that provision was eventually dropped. We relied on her office and her opinion to do that. The government fought against having her evidence brought forward at committee. Members sitting on that committee know of what I speak.

Here we are again looking at a bill that would compromise Canadians' privacy. I am astonished that instead of getting this right to ensure that Canadians' privacy will not be compromised, we are going ahead full bore.

The government has recycled countless bills through prorogation, elections, et cetera, simply so it can reintroduce them and claim it is moving ahead, usually on crime legislation. It is all politics, all the time. A bill as important as this gets very little debate, very little attention from the government and not a lot from my friends down the way in the opposition. In one case an opposition party thinks the bill is great and would push it through as quickly as possible.

Someone has to stand up for privacy in this country and in this Parliament. If we do not do that, we have to go to our constituents when the bill is passed and tell them we looked at this in Parliament and we are sorry their names were compromised and ended up on a no-fly list. We were told it would not happen on flights from Windsor to Vancouver.

It is not good enough. We have to be thorough. We have to be careful when we are talking about issues of privacy. This is very different from the Canada Elections Act. The elections act was an abuse of privacy. Ms. Stoddart talked about it in her testimony and we debated that in the House and at committee. This is about another government having access. It is one thing to have Parliament acquiesce and provide that information to Elections Canada that ends up being in the hands of anyone who has access to those lists, but it is another thing to provide that information to another government. With all due respect, it matters not which government. This is a question about our sovereignty. This is a question about who gets to decide the privacy of Canadians.

As mentioned by my colleague from the north, we are putting into law provisions that would allow, in this case, the United States, access to information that normally would not be given to it when a flight is just going from A to B within our own country. It is astonishing that we would go through the process so quickly with a government that makes no bones about the politics of keeping bills going for Parliament after Parliament. When it comes to an issue as important as the sovereignty of Canadians, it wants to get it through as quickly as possible.

We need to understand what is at stake here. We are not talking about being “soft” on terrorism. That should be thrown out immediately. If we are going to talk about provisions around security, let us look at where investments are being made. Let us look at border security. Let us look at shared information with regard to law enforcement. We have been very critical of the lack of investment in that area. Let us look at cargo inspection. If we really want to get at the issue of security, then we should put our investments in the right place. This is the veneer of security, at a cost. The cost is the vulnerability of Canadians' privacy.

In the first part of Bill C-42 the government did not do its usual play on language and nomenclature. I usually do not read the exact text because it sometimes is not as engaging as one might want to have in debate, but this is important. Proposed subsection 4.83(1) states:

Despite section 5 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, to the extent that that section relates to obligations set out in Schedule 1 to that Act relating to the disclosure of information, and despite subsection 7(3) of that Act, 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 or of a Canadian aircraft departing from any place outside Canada that is due to land in or fly over a foreign state may, in accordance with the regulations, provide to a competent authority--

Those are the other guys.

--in that foreign state any information that is in the operator’s control....

Let me be clear about the first part. It means that we have to amend our privacy rights for the bill to go through and it compromises Canadians. That is wrong.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, which is very important legislation.

We have finally heard other opinions in debate about the legislation, and I want to congratulate the members of the Liberal Party for joining the debate. It would be nice to hear from some Conservatives, but it has been interesting to hear the various points of view.

The last member who spoke, someone I have great respect for, said that we would have to go along with the bill because we had no choice when it came to negotiating on issues of security with the United States. On that very issue, I would take him on. I believe we have a choice and the government has a choice. The government has a choice about whether we should stand up for the privacy rights of Canadians. I believe the bill diminishes the privacy rights of Canadians.

The key part of the bill is to exempt airlines from the provisions of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act so they can provide personal information about passengers on Canadian airlines to American security agencies. I think this is a very serious concern to Canadians. Just how much of our personal information will get into the hands of U.S. security agencies and where does it go from there? Who else is it being shared with? There are all kinds of questions that we need to be ask.

Rather than saying it is not a privacy issue, though I think it is, it is also an issue of sovereignty. How do Canadians make decisions about their personal information and do we have to fold every time the United States seeks to increase the security of its borders, which impacts Canada? We see that time and time again.

I wish the Conservative government was as aggressive on this issue as it is on the issue of the census, which is a no-brainer. It will defend the right of Canadians not to tell census takers how many bedrooms or bathrooms they have in their homes, but when it comes to sharing our personal information with American security officials, it is open season. It is incredibly ironic we have this debate about the legislation and that we should just holus-bolus roll over and send the information south.

The government claims to be great defenders of the privacy of Canadians, that somehow it is too intrusive to ask people how many bathrooms or bedrooms they have, when most of us know how that information is used and how much the personal privacy of the people who provide the information is protected in our country. It is an incredible irony to me that the same government is responsible for both of those positions.

Should we be concerned about our information going south? Time and time again we see that information crops up in places where it is a real problem. This morning we heard the member for Winnipeg Centre say that he was on the no fly list, that he could not get on a plane in Canada easily. It has changed now because he misspells his name to alert the airlines and security officials that he is the member of Parliament from Winnipeg Centre, not the guy who should be on the no fly list. What kind of bogus approach is that?

A Canadian member of Parliament cannot get his name off of the no fly list. What chance does an average citizen have? That is just one of the problems with this kind of security apparatus that has been established. When a mistake is made, it cannot be corrected.

I have a friend who is in exactly the same position as the member for Winnipeg Centre. He has to make the same kind of run around the no fly list because it has created havoc with his ability to travel, totally unjustly. There is no way of correcting that in the system. There is no way of finding out why a person's name is on the no fly list.

People are justly concerned about their personal information and what happens when it gets into the hands of a security agency that they have no ability to access, to appeal to or to make changes.

We see it in other ways. It is not exactly a parallel to the situation we are debating today, but it is another instance of what happens when a security agency outside of Canada gets hold of our personal information. Recently, a woman from Toronto was denied access into the United States because a U.S. customs and border protection officer at Pearson airport denied her entry for medical reasons because he had access to her medical report. He knew that she had attempted suicide in 2006. Apparently he knew this because police records were available to him that showed the police had attended at her house because she had attempted to do violence to self.

Why does this American agency have information about a non-criminal activity from the metro Toronto police? Why would it have what is essentially health information about this Canadian woman who is trying to travel to the United States? Why would the Americans deny her entry on the basis of that information?

She had to go through a whole rigmarole. She had to have a medical examination by a state department physician that cost her an additional $250. Then that report had to be screened before she was eventually allowed into the United States.

This is just another example of what happens to our personal information. In my opinion, from what I have read in the media and heard from her lawyer, this information should never have been made available to a foreign security agency. It has no relevance to her interest in travelling to the United States. There is no security issue with her travelling to the United States. Yet it was raised in that circumstance with her at the airport while she was trying to travel to the there.

No one can seem to allay my fear that this is the kind of thing that will become more common. More information will be shipped south about Canadians wanting to travel to the United States and even when they are not trying to travel there. It is very worrisome.

Another example is this. Most of us who travel at least have had pause to consider the placement of the full body scanners in Canadian airports. We have seen these expensive machines cropping up at all of our security checkpoints in airports. There are real privacy concerns about the kind of imaging they produce, the full body scan. Recently a new generation of these machines have been unveiled that gives an even finer, more exact naked image of the person being screened. I think people have legitimate concerns about that.

Today there is a report that the machines are being modified so not all images would be viewed by the person doing the screening, only those where there is an identified problem. One wonders why that feature was not built into the system from the get-go rather than weeks or months down the road when people raised concerns about it. It speaks to the enthusiasm for new security measures that are not tested appropriately and not thought through.

Again, why do we have these kinds of expensive scanners in airports? I have not seen the evidence that says the old scanning system was somehow flawed or that there had been incidents of major concerns, especially in Canada, that would cause us to need this new technology. Every time I see one of those I wish it was a scanner in a hospital rather than at the airport. If we could sink that money into scanners for medical purposes, I think Canadians would be extremely enthusiastic.

Somehow, because the United States started putting them at security checkpoints in its airports, we had to do it in Canada. I do not think we did it for our own reasons. I think we did it because the Americans wanted it. Once again, they said “hop” and we hopped and put them in here at the expense, aggravation and diminution of the privacy of Canadians. The perception of the Americans of their security needs demanded it. I do not think that is acceptable. It is not acceptable from a privacy standard or a sovereignty standard.

This goes back to the misapprehension that somehow the 9/11 attackers came from Canada. We know they did not. However, Canada accepted 30,000 people who were trying to fly into the United States without question. We landed them here, welcomed and took care of them when the United States would not let them into its country.

That says something about the difference between how we approach a security problem and how the Americans approach a security problem. I want us to remember that when we approach any kind of legislation that deals with the security demands of the United States and the sovereignty and privacy concerns of Canadians.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-42 has to do with Canada complying with a request by the United States to have air carriers disclose basic information on people flying.

The member's premise, and I have heard him repeat this several times, is that if the U.S. is going to do that to us, then we should do that to the U.S. That is not part of the bill. It is not the kind of discussion we should be having. It could be something that could be asked of the government in question period. The Minister of Transport or whomever could be brought before committee and asked about it. Let us discuss the process of how we do these things, because this is not part of the bill, and I am not sure whether or not it is part of what we need.

We would define our needs, and if we had thought we needed to know that information for public safety reasons, then we would have made that request. The case has not been made, apparently. The need has not been expressed, apparently. Consequently I am not sure that the argument holds that if the U.S. has asked us to do it, then we had better get the same information back. I am not sure, but we do not even play in the sandbox like that.

Thus I disagree with the member's premise. The question is an interesting one and it should be asked in the proper forum.