Bill C-377

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

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

Parliament of Canada Act

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to be careful and use judgment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let us begin this reflection.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first paragraph in the preamble states:

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

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

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

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

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

The next paragraph of the preamble of the bill states:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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