Renewal.
Evidence of meeting #62 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was 1844.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #62 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was 1844.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice
Basically, what happened in terms of notification was that we just used the same model—
4:35 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice
—the same wording that existed for the judicially authorized authorizations. The Supreme Court of Canada even noted that there were previous attempts by the government to address the same type of problem and had proposed notification requirements.
The Supreme Court of Canada was aware of the previous bills that were proposed and the court noted the fact that there might be other ways to correct this constitutional deficiency. The government has proposed, two or three times already, providing a notification requirement and the court said that the notification requirement would make the law constitutionally compliant.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
That's basically my question. You're reasonably satisfied that it is charter compliant.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice
Yes.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
You've done the test. You've seen the jurisprudence on the equivalent clauses before and so on, so all that work has been done. We can be assured that it has been done.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice
Yes.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice
We basically followed the advice of the Supreme Court.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
I know that I'm bugging all of you with my questions about the report, but what is wrong, on a transparency basis, with having the Minister of Public Safety report to Parliament on all the interceptions, even those that have not gone so far as to have court cases? Actually, those are the ones that bug me, because they tell me that somebody was under wiretap or whatever sort of interception, but nothing came of it, and we don't know. It might be interesting for Parliament to know how often it has been used and how many of those cases
ended up to criminal prosecutions.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice
Thank you.
I think on this issue we would disagree with the Canadian Bar Association, because the provision in the bill actually requires, in the amendment to subsection 195 in proposed paragraph (2.1)(a), that the report set out “the number of interceptions made”. So those are all of the interceptions made, not just the ones that resulted in a charge. Proposed paragraph 195(2.1)(d) of that subsection says “the number of notifications given under section 196.1”.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice
It's included—
4:35 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice
—because there's already an obligation to report all interceptions and all persons who are notified, whether or not.... What the report does is go beyond that to say, can you also state—
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
That's excellent. From the report we'll be able to say, well, there are 300 done—
4:35 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice
That's right.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
—and for those who are detailed with criminal offence charges, we can do the subtraction and say there were 100 that did not....
4:35 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice
Yes.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
Are there any further questions for the officials?
Seeing none, thank you very much for your attendance. Thank you for supporting the minister: good work on this bill. As I said, we'll have witnesses on Wednesday to discuss this, and then we'll be doing clause by clause.
Before I close, I'll note that we have two witnesses confirmed, and may have three. I will be a little flexible on the time because there are only seven clauses. We'll make sure that everybody gets a chance to ask questions of those witnesses. Then we'll do clause by clause and go forward from there.
With that, thank you very much. I'll adjourn the meeting.