Bill C-36 (Historical)

Library and Archives of Canada Act

An Act to establish the Library and Archives of Canada, to amend the Copyright Act and to amend certain Acts in consequence

Library and Archives of Canada Act

[Carole-Marie Allard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Madam Speaker, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, one of the fathers of Confederation, once said that there was a duty which especially belonged to Canada: to originate a history which the world would not willingly let die.

Today, 135 years later, I think that my colleagues in this House will agree with me that the people of Canada have fulfilled this duty magnificently. While our country is still quite young, we have numerous feats and accomplishments to celebrate in every conceivable sphere of activity.

Over time, our scientists, doctors, researchers, leaders and many other Canadians have distinguished themselves in various ways. They have enabled our country to make its voice heard among the community of nations.

It is with great pride that I rise today in this House to speak on a bill to preserve and further celebrate our rich history and unique heritage.

If passed, the Act to establish the Library and Archives of Canada, to amend the Copyright Act and to amend certain Acts in consequence, will give birth to a new agency, the Library and Archives of Canada, from the merging of the National Library and the National Archives of Canada.

Our government is amalgamating these two entities for one reason, and only one: to ensure the new agency will be a centre for information and knowledge management that will provide us, today and in the future, with unprecedented access to our documentary heritage.

In the throne speech of September 2002, our government made a commitment to ensuring that we would have access to our history by creating a new institution that brings together the National Archives of Canada and the National Library of Canada. As this bill demonstrates, our government fulfills its commitments.

With this bill, we want to amalgamate two institutions that are already playing a crucial role in the conservation and dissemination of our heritage and our history. We want to bring together the knowledge, the vision and the creativity of more than 1,000 employees to create a new dynamic and modern entity that will disseminate our stories, our images, our testimonies and our legends.

This new unified agency will be in a better position to manage the millions of documents and to respond to the various requests from experts and Canadians, in both our official languages.

The mandate of the Library and Archives of Canada will be based on the foundations of the current mandates of the two separate entities. Of course, its mandate will also be extended to allow it to work more easily in the interpretation and programming sectors and to make greater use of new technologies.

Over the years, the National Archives and the National Library of Canada have provided us with valuable services and have just about done the impossible to preserve Canada's impressive documentary heritage. Thanks to them, Canadians can now access more than 20 million books, government documents and publications, 340,000 hours of films, videos and sound recordings, 2.3 million maps and more than 20 million photographs.

The Library and Archives of Canada are nothing less than our collective memory and they constitute a real treasure for humankind.

People need to have seen an exhibition such as Reflections of Canada at the Canadian Postal Museum, which features all the stamps issued since the beginnings of our country, to understand the role played by the national archives of a country. The 12,000 stamps in this collection are a unique and original history book that summarizes the most glorious phases of the Canadian epic.

None of this would have been possible without the cooperation of the National Archives and other public institutions such as Canada Post. There are many examples such as these, both for the Archives and for the National Library.

Today, we want to see more of these types of initiatives so that Canadians from all walks of life, as well as people all over the world, can have access to valuable information on our country, Canada, its people, its culture, its society and its values.

As has already been mentioned by the National Archivist of Canada, Ian Wilson, and by the National Librarian, Roch Carrier, there is no doubt that these two institutions have converging roles and similar responsibilities. Their respective administrations already share the same building and perform four similar activities, namely, identifying, selecting and acquiring; describing and promoting; preserving; and making accessible collections.

Until now, it was mainly the type of documents that determined which of the two institutions would have responsibility. The National Library was responsible for the preservation of printed material, such as books and magazines, whereas the National Archives handled prints, microfiches, manuscripts and various other important documents.

In this area as in many others, new technologies have brought down the barriers that delineated responsibilities. Until microchips replaced microfiches, we had no other choice but to go with the flow and modernize our laws and the structure of our organizations to be able to meet the needs of Canadians. We must also make the widest use possible of the enormous potential provided to us by cyberspace to help us access information regarding our heritage. That is what we are proposing with this bill today.

In 2001 and 2002, the number of visitors to the National Archives website exceeded 2.5 million, a 30% increase from the previous year. As for the National Library website, it was accessed by 4.3 million Internet users, which represents a 20% increase.

The demand is there. It is strong and growing. We must meet this demand as best we can to bring our history to Canadians wherever they live in this vast country of ours. After all, the Library and Archives of Canada are not meant to be used exclusively by those who live in the national capital region.

This bill also provides that the new agency will concentrate more on programs which are designed for the public. For example, thanks to its many collections, this new institution will provide material for the Portrait Gallery of Canada which will open in the next few years.

The proposed legislation also provides that the Canadian heritage minister may establish an advisorycouncil to advise the librarian and archivistwith regard to new exposition and interpretation activities and the collection of non-governmental information.

The new agency will continue to develop its collections through the same mechanisms, that is legal deposit, recording, sampling, transfer of government documents, donations, acquisitions and administrative arrangements. But a new mechanism will be added. The new institution will be allowed to take from time to time a representativesample of the documentary material that is accessible to the publicwithout restriction through the Internet.

The Internet has become a true reflection of our society, and we are going to make use of it so that, 10, 50 or 100 years from now, historians will be able to get, thanks to these samplings, an accurate picture of the concerns, issues and culture in Canada at a given moment in history.

Obviously, to make this possible, we have to amend the Copyright Act to allow the agency to take from time to time representative samples of our documentary heritage for preservation purposes.

We have worked hard on this file with all parties concerned, so as to define a specific exemption to copyright for librarians and the National Archivist.

I wish to reassure the members of this House that we have not overlooked any details. We have taken our inspiration from the legislation of a number of countries. We also propose other changes in the Copyright Act in order to strike a fair balance between the needs of those holding copyright on unpublished works and the needs of the Library and Archives of Canada.

Since we made the last series of amendments to the Copyright Act in 1997, some Canadian authors' heirs have expressed their concern about the new criteria covering copyright duration for unpublished works.

After consultations with the Canadian Historical Association, the Bureau of Canadian Archivists, the National Archives of Canada, and The Writers' Union of Canada, we have reached a consensus by which there will be transitional periods depending on when authors died.

We also want the Library and Archives of Canada to become a centre of expertise within the Government of Canada for the management of government documents. At present, the National Archivist plays an important role in this field, advising government institutions concerning standards and procedures for the management of records.

The bill provides that the head of the new agency will retain this responsibility. But the government wants to go farther in order to ensure that all valuable historical documents are preserved for future generations. The Librarian and Archivist of Canada will thus have the power to require the transfer of any documents considered to be at risk.

In the private sector, the word “merge” often implies budget cuts, major organizational restructuring, and staff cuts. But in this operation, such is not the case. The budget and staff of these two institutions will remain unchanged. However, we should remember that certain valuable collections have been threatened by the decrepitude of the buildings housing them.

In the last budget we allocated $15 million to respond to certain specific, short-term needs and to conduct studies to give us a better overall view of our long-term needs and priorities. The new entity we want to create should also make it possible to have a clearer vision of the way forward.

Of course, we as parliamentarians have great respect for libraries and archives. The Library of Parliament, now undergoing renovations of extreme urgency, is a resource of inestimable value. It provides a wide range of services without which our work would be much more difficult.

The National Library of Canada provides the same type of services, but to a much broader clientele. After all, this library serves all Canadians from coast to coast.

As a parliamentarian, I have been on many committees, and I have put together many personal files. So it is easy for me to understand that the archives represent a wealth of information. They are a veritable gold mine for students and academics hoping to understand the debate on, for example, the Canadian flag or the second world war. And they are a rich source of institutional memory for those developing policy or seeking information on the Spicer commission or the Pépin-Robarts commission.

Given the value and the potential of the collections, I am sure that the House will agree when I say that it is important for a large number of Canadians to have access to them. Our institutions must keep up with the times and reflect the introduction of new technologies.

That is why I am pleased to take part in this debate. It is clear, when I consider this legislation, that it will ensure we can rely on a new, improved, modern cultural institution better able to protect and promote the documentary heritage of this country.

By merging the National Library of Canada and the National Archives of Canada to create the Library and Archives of Canada, this government is recognizing a situation that has evolved over the past few years. However, we are doing much more than that. We are also creating a new agency with modern tools to meet our informational needs in the 21st century.

Everyone familiar with these two institutions knows that they have been collaborating closely for many years. Already, these two entities share various administrative services such as finance, human resources, some facilities, security and information and preservation services.

Merging libraries and archives is popular in universities. Increasingly, university courses relate to both disciplines. Therefore, it is not surprising that the National Library and the National Archives of Canada initiated this merger.

In addition to the close collaboration between the National Library and the National Archives, there are other reasons to believe that the merger of these two venerable organization into one new and modern institution will be a good thing.

There is a constantly increasing requirement for Canadians to have simpler access to knowledge and information, particularly in the areas of heritage and culture. The explanation for this is the constant evolution of information technologies, which has whetted their appetite for rapid access to information in all of its forms. The new technologies also have a huge potential for storage, organization and consultation of documents.

We now have the capacity to digitalize books, newspapers, photographs, pictures, sound recordings and films. What is more, we can also create a single access point for all this material. The magic of the Internet can also facilitate the sharing of all these records with people here and elsewhere.

Technological progress has also redefined the conservation field. Better climate control, a better understanding of the composition of materials, more sensitive sensors and other new developments help us to preserve the most precious artifacts of our heritage for future generations.

This will put life back into our documentary heritage and will provide us Canadians with enhanced access to a vast quantity of information about ourselves and our country.

For this and a number of other reasons, I am proud to add my voice to those who support Bill C-36. I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the House to follow my example, so that we may meet the needs of Canadians wishing to learn more about their country.

I might add that Bill C-36 includes some other amendments to the Copyright Act, which are absolutely vital to the proper operation of the new agency.

As you know, copyright is a controversial issue and has been for some time. In the 19th century, Charles Dickens was annoyed because the Americans were getting around the British copyright legislation by copying his works and trying to make money off them. Today, the situation is somewhat reversed.

One of the key issues in today's debate on copyright is the need for governments to strike a balance between the needs of artists and the needs of consumers. In other words, how can they provide artists with protection so they are the only ones to profit from their efforts, while at the same time providing users with reasonable access to their works?

This challenge is even greater when it comes to artists who have died or whose works will never be or never were published. Unfortunately, this is exactly the type of situation that can arise for libraries or archives. Imagine if a collection of documents was donated by a Canadian, and a researcher discovered a short text that was never published in a collection of short stories or in a book. Does this discovery belong to the author's estate or to his or her descendants? That is the type of confusion this legislation seeks to avoid.

In 1997, during the last review of the Copyright Act, the Government of Canada ended the permanent protection of unpublished works by submitting them to the same general rules that govern copyright protection in Canada.

Now, unpublished works are protected for 50 years after the death of the author. A five-year transition period was established in 1997, for heirs of authors, to prevent the works from entering the public domain immediately. These amendments came into force December 31, 1998 and the unpublished works of authors who died 50 years prior to that date, 1948 in other words, will enter the public domain on January 1, 2004.

However, while certain authors' heirs have expressed concern regarding copyright protection, there are a number of people, including historians, archivists, genealogists and other stakeholders who have been calling for unpublished works to enter the public domain. The concerned parties undertook negotiations and arrived at a reasonable compromise. They then presented it to the government so that it could consider implementing it in this bill.

Accordingly, the legislation being debated here will make the following changes. First, unpublished works from authors deceased before January 1, 1930 will remain copyright protected until December 31 of this year.

Unpublished works of authors who died after December 31, 1929 and before January 1, 1949 will be copyright protected until December 31, 2017.

In both cases, all unpublished works that are published before the protection expires will be granted an additional 20 years of copyright protection from their date of publishing.

The changes I have just described extend copyright protection for unpublished works. However, we are also make an amendment to help historians, archivists, genealogists and other stakeholders.

Bill C-36 will also amend section 30.21 of the Copyright Act to remove certain conditions that the archives must abide by to make a single copy of an unpublished work. This type of copy is used for research or private studies.

Currently, under section 30.21 a copy of an unpublished work deposited before September 1, 1999 may be made only when the archives are unable to locate the owner of the copyright. The bill also provides that a record be kept of all the copies made under this section. As members can imagine, these conditions represent an extra burden for our archives.

The amendments proposed to the Library and Archives of Canada Act that we are debating today would eliminate these two conditions. I am very pleased to point out that this change has been supported by all the stakeholders who took part in the negotiations on this issue.

This is further evidence that the Library and Archives of Canada will have the mandate, the powers and the tools required to reach its objectives.

Our documentary heritage belongs to us all and it must be more readily accessible. The proposed amendments and the other changes mentioned by my colleagues will create an institution which will be highly appreciated and which will make us proud.

This is what is being proposed in this legislation. By recognizing the complementarity of the mandates and collections of the National Library and the National Archives of Canada and by building on that fact to create a new and more effective institution, the government is providing the citizens of this magnificent country with a new cultural institution which will reflect, stimulate, interpret and celebrate our national identity; an institution that will help Canada become a real knowledge-based society.

The proposal being debated today will herald a new era for Canada. With 130 years of experience in the collection, preservation and diffusion of the Canadian documentary heritage, the Library and Archives of Canada is the institution we need in the coming century.

We cannot change the course of history. However, we will be in a better position to face the challenges of the future if we know our past.

Thanks to the bill before the House today, the Library and Archives of Canada will be prepared to take up the challenges of the 21st century and will be able to preserve the many records of our collective history.

Therefore, I urge all members to support this bill, which will equip our country with the necessary tools to bring together in wonderful collections our books, prints and drawings, musical recordings, films, maps and digital documents of yesterday, today and tomorrow and make them more accessible to Canadians.

We Canadians will thus be in a position to carry out our duty as set out by D'Arcy McGee a century ago: to originate a rich history, in the knowledge that it will be preserved, celebrated and accessible to all.

[Jean Augustine, Liberal, for the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

moved that Bill C-36, An Act to establish the Library and Archives of Canada, to amend the Copyright Act and to amend certain Acts in consequence, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Public Safety Act, 2002

[Svend Robinson, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise to participate in the debate on Bill C-17, recognizing, as my colleague from Winnipeg North Centre pointed out, that this is the government's third attempt to push legislation through the House that would pose a profound threat to some of the most basic civil liberties and the privacy of Canadians.

We know that the previous legislation introduced in November 2001 was Bill C-42. That bill was met with a huge amount of opposition, including from New Democrats. The government tried again in the spring of 2002 with Bill C-55.

Each time the government has introduced and reintroduced the legislation, it has taken a little off the edges perhaps, reduced the scope of the legislation and changed the time limit a bit, but it has not recognized the concerns of Canadians that the bill is an assault on some of the most basic and fundamental rights and freedoms and that privacy rights are at the heart of that concern.

I want to pay tribute to my colleague from Churchill, the federal New Democrat transport critic, who has done such an effective job, both in the committee and across the country, in helping to make Canadians more aware of what the dangers are of this bill.

It is not just this legislation. I think we have to look at this legislation in the context of a broader package of bills that the government has brought forward in the aftermath of September 11. Prime among those bills was Bill C-36, the so-called anti-terrorism legislation, which was far in excess of what was needed to respond to the genuine concerns in terms of fighting against terrorism.

Clearly that was a profoundly and fundamentally flawed bill that introduced unprecedented new powers. This bill, Bill C-17, is in much the same light.

The committee that studied Bill C-17 heard extensive evidence from a range of witnesses from across Canada. My colleagues who spoke earlier in the debate highlighted some of the points that were made. I would note for example the very compelling and eloquent evidence of the representatives of the Coalition of Muslim Organizations of Canada who pointed out that they were already concerned that members of their community were being targeted by law enforcement officers and others, and by border control officers both in Canada and in the United States, in the aftermath of September 11.

Certainly I, as a member of Parliament for Burnaby—Douglas, have heard from a number of constituents who were born in the Middle East, perhaps in Syria, in Iraq, in Iran or in other countries, who travelled to Canada, perhaps in some cases as young people, as children, and yet who have been treated in the most degrading and humiliating manner, being subjected to fingerprinting, photographing, treated basically as criminals. These people's only offence was that they happened to have been born in one of those countries.

That kind of racial profiling is totally unacceptable and yet Bill C-17 would open up the possibility for that to be expanded on a wide scale. That has been pointed out, as I said, by the Coalition of Muslim Organizations, both in its evidence to the committee and in the brief it submitted to the committee. Its brief particularly noted that the act would give sweeping discretion and authority to the Minister of Transport and to the heads of CSIS and the RCMP for significant abuses of power.

One of the greatest dangers of the bill is that there is a total lack of any effective parliamentary oversight. If we as parliamentarians were to vote for the legislation, we would be giving carte blanche to the Minister of Transport and to the heads of CSIS and the RCMP to exercise these very sweeping new powers.

The people from the Arab Canadian community, the Muslim community in particular who already have been targeted post-September 11, have rightly raised grave concerns about the impact this sweeping discretion in the bill would have. It would allow law enforcement agencies to basically go on fishing expeditions and violate the privacy of Canadians.

Parliament has agreed to the appointment of a privacy commissioner whose responsibility will be to report back to Parliament when there are attacks on the privacy rights of Canadians.

Privacy Commissioner George Radwanski appeared before the Standing Committee on Transport just a couple of months ago and said that the bill was a very dangerous piece of legislation. He put it in the context of other legislation and other powers that had already been passed. He noted for example the database of Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, what he called its big brother passenger database.

George Radwanski talked about the bill now before the House. He said:

Bill C-17, the Public Safety Act, will introduce a requirement that we, in effect, identify ourselves to the police when we travel. What I'm referring to here is the fact that when you board a flight these days, even a domestic flight, you have to show photo ID to the airline to confirm your identity.

The bill would make all passenger information available to CSIS and the RCMP, and it is not just about fighting terrorism. The legislation explicitly makes it clear that it goes far beyond that. It permits the RCMP to basically scan passenger information to seek a whole range of information that has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

What this amounts to in effect, as Radwanski points out, is self-identification to the police by law-abiding Canadian citizens. As he asked, why not when we took train, a bus, rent a car or checked into a hotel? Once this dangerous principle is accepted, the police in effect are being given powers that I believe are both unconstitutional and violate squarely the provisions of the Charter of Rights.

One of the most respected constitutional lawyers in Canada, Clayton Ruby, appeared before the committee studying Bill C-17 and made that very point. He made the point that the bill was totally lacking in any meaningful safeguards. He said:

So you've taken a narrow kernel of constitutionality...and it may or may not be wise...Wisdom is not my concern here, but constitutionality is. The idea that you can take that information and pass it on, without time limits, without restraints, for general law enforcement purposes...

That is not terrorism but general law enforcement purposes. He went on to say:

--is simply unheard of in this country. We have never done it. Perhaps more importantly, free countries just generally do not do it. Democracies generally do not do this.

Yet, the Liberal government, first in Bill C-42, then in Bill C-55 and now in Bill C-17 is insisting that it take on those sweeping and dangerous new powers.

My colleague for Winnipeg North Centre made reference to Ken Rubin and his evidence before the committee. Certainly Ken Rubin is one of the most knowledgeable when it comes to issues of protection of privacy and respect for the fundamental human rights and civil liberties of Canadians.

Another group that has been outspoken and has taken a leadership role on the issue is a group from my own province, the province of British Columbia, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, one of the most active civil liberties groups in Canada.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association as well appeared before the standing committee on Bill C-17. The association said that it was a draconian bill which was an attack on a free and democratic society. It pointed out that the bill went far beyond what was actually required to deal with the actual threat of terrorism. It said that much of what needed to be done did not need new legislation at all. In fact under the existing Emergencies Act, there are ample powers to respond to the kinds of concerns that have been raised.

There is always this tension between, on the one hand, the fundamental rights of Canadians as set out in the Charter of Rights and in a body of law and, on the other hand, this desire in the name of fighting terrorism to give sweeping new powers to the police. We as New Democrats argue that the government has failed terribly to achieve the correct balance.

I also want to note another provision of Bill C-17 and that is with respect to exclusion zones. There would be an order in council that would apply to an unknown area. We do not know exactly what that area would be, around Halifax, Esquimalt and Nanoose Bay. It could be used in other parts of the country as well, and we still do not know exactly what powers will be given with respect to these controlled access military zones of Bill C-55.

When it comes to Nanoose Bay, a growing number of British Columbians are saying that they do not want American nuclear powered submarines or American submarines that possibly carry nuclear weapons, in their waters. Yet the bill gives new powers to the government to provide for exclusion zones in these areas as well.

This legislation, Bill C-17, should be scrapped. The government should go back to the drawing board and recognize that we protect and value civil liberties in this country. We do not attack civil liberties and privacy as Bill C-17 does.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we had the curious scene of having the weekly business statement made in the lead off question and the lead off question made during business statements this week. Nonetheless, we all have very much confidence in the opposition House leader.

This afternoon we will continue with the opposition motion.

Tomorrow we will resume debate on the third reading of Bill C-13 respecting reproductive technologies. This will be followed by the report stage of Bill C-17, the public safety bill, as I indicated earlier, around 2:15 p.m.

On Monday we will commence report stage of Bill C-28. When this is completed we will return to the business not completed this week, adding Bill C-36, the archives and library bill introduced earlier this day.

On Tuesday evening the House will go into committee of the whole pursuant to Standing Order 81 in order to consider the estimates of the Minister of Health.

Next Thursday shall be an allotted day.

In terms of when we propose to consider the report stage and third reading of Bill C-24, the election financing bill, I understand the committee is doing tremendous progress, thanks in large measure to Liberal MPs on the committee, and we hope to deal with that shortly after the House resumes.

Library and Archives of Canada Act

[Don Boudria, Liberal, for the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-36, An Act to establish the Library and Archives of Canada, to amend the Copyright Act and to amend certain Acts in consequence

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

Criminal Code

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-32 appears to have broad support in the House. I appreciated the remarks from the members opposite. It is encouraging to see that when good legislation comes before the House we all come together and support it. I am very glad to have an opportunity to speak to the bill for the good reason that it is an excellent example of how Parliament does work very well.

Exactly a year ago a delegation of the Hamilton Professional Firefighters Association came to my office. It was a year plus one week; I think it was April 23, 2002. They came to make a representation on behalf of all firemen that the Criminal Code should be amended whereby people who set dangerous or deadly traps in order to harm firefighters responding to alarms would be subject to the maximum penalty that the law allows, life imprisonment, if that trap actually killed a firefighter.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read the proposed amendment that the professional firefighters brought before me in my office a year ago. They hoped to amend section 433.1 of the Criminal Code. That amendment would have read:

Every person who intentionally or recklessly causes damage by fire or explosion to property, whether or not that person owns that property, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life where the fire or explosion causes death or bodily harm to a firefighter who is acting in response to the fire or explosion.

The object of that amendment was to complement another amendment that they also proposed to the Criminal Code which read that every one who commits an aggravated assault, who wounds, mains, disfigures or endangers the life of a firefighter acting in the course of his duties would be subject to these offences under the Criminal Code.

What that basically refers to, Mr. Speaker, is the idea of setting a trap for firefighters responding to an alarm which might emanate from a premise that is engaged in some sort of illegal activity, presumably drugs or something similar. We have heard from earlier speakers that actual incidents occurred where sites where illicit drugs were being manufactured were deliberately booby trapped so that firefighters who responded to an alarm would be harmed or even killed.

What delights me as a member of Parliament is the fact that this was an initiative to change a law that came from the people, in this case the people were the association of firefighters, responding to a similar situation that was occurring in the United States.

I am happy to stand in the House and draw to the attention of the public that the government did indeed act. Again, as members have commented, what the government has done by Bill C-32 is it has amended section 247 of the Criminal Code and specifically defines the crime of setting a trap for the purpose to injure a firefighter.

What happens here, Mr. Speaker, is that if a person sets the trap, just the very fact that he has set a trap or knows that a trap has been set means that is an offence right at the outset and is liable to a term not exceeding five years. It further goes on that if this is done in a place where there is illegal activity, the term of imprisonment is 10 years. Better than all of that, and which reflects what the firefighters were after, is that everyone who commits an offence under section 1, that is setting a trap, and I am now reading from Bill C-32 “and thereby causes the death of any other person, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life”.

Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that is a very good legislative initiative. It is important to remind Canadians that this is Parliament--I will not just say government--this is Parliament acting as a result of representations by Canadians going not just to government MPs, but to Canadian Alliance MPs, to Bloc MPs and to Conservative and NDP MPs.

I well remember when I first came to Parliament nearly 10 years ago that it was quite uncommon for citizen groups to make representations to MPs in their offices, to lobby the MPs. The normal practice was to lobby government officials. In the 1980s under a previous government here in Ottawa, lobbying flourished and that lobbying was primarily directed toward bureaucrats.

I think if one change that has occurred here that has been a very positive change in the last 10 years it is the fact that more and more Canadians are recognizing that the appropriate people to lobby for changes in law, to lobby first, to get onside, is not even the government, is not even the ministers, it is come to the MPs first.

This was a classic example. The association of professional firefighters divided the job across the country. My group came from close to my riding and they were people who were already known to me and made these representations. And there we have it, exactly one year later the law has changed, and the law has changed in a way that I think actually improves the original proposal of the firefighters. I wanted very much to make that comment.

I wanted to comment also on another change that I do not think has been mentioned so far in this debate. That is the change to the Canada Evidence Act. In this change there are three paragraphs in the Canada Evidence Act that refer to information received from a foreign entity that pertains to the Security of Information Act, and then it goes on to make the connection to national defence or--and this is the change--it inserts the words “national security” where only the word “security” existed. Then it goes on to discuss the whole process of getting a certificate pertaining to this secret information.

The reason I wanted to mention that is that is a change that reflects an error or an oversight that was in our anti-terrorism legislation that was brought forward and passed in the House I believe about a year ago. That was Bill C-36. It was Canada's response to September 11, in which various very necessary changes were made pertaining to the protection of secrets, pertaining to the collection of information. This touched on the whole business of terrorist financing and so on and so forth.

When Bill C-36 was introduced, it caused, I thought, a lot of very healthy debate in the House because similar legislation to Bill C-36 was coming forward in Britain and the United States, the homeland security bill specifically in the United States. This was all to strengthen the ability of the police and the security services to deal with the terrorist threat.

The problem was that in bringing in laws that increase security, that increase police powers, there is always the danger that they will interfere unnecessarily with civil liberties. We had extremely active debate in the House on all sides in which MPs tried to balance the needs for increased police powers with not intruding any more than was necessary on civil liberties. I would like to say actually that I believe that Canada's legislation in Bill C-36 struck this balance better than occurred in the United Kingdom or the United States where I think that there were serious erosions of civil liberties in their parallel legislation.

The reason I am telling this story is that when Bill C-36 was in first reading and was dealing with changes to the official secrets act, which was changed to the Security of Information Act, there was a clause in which it defined potentially injurious information.

This particular definition is an important definition that affected all other aspects of the bill, or almost all other aspects. In defining potentially injurious information, the original Bill C-36 said:

“Potentially injurious information” means information of a type that, if it were disclosed to the public, could injure international relations national defence or security.

What was wrong with that clause and why it was so necessary to change it was that the definition of potentially injurious information which affected all kinds of information that was to be collected and distributed by the police services, simply said “national defence or security”. By not having the adjective “national” security and simply using the word “security”, it opened the door in this legislation to expanding police powers that would touch all manner of policing events or all manner of criminal or even quasi-criminal or non-criminal investigations. Security was far too broad a word and it was a dangerous word.

This is another example, I want Canadians to know, of this place working I think extremely well. Some of us behind the curtains actually, approached the minister of the day and pointed out the danger of this clause referring only to security and not to national security. I am happy to say that subsequently when the bill came to report stage, the government amended that particular clause and put in the words “national security”.

I cannot emphasize how enormously important that apparently small change was because it limited the expansion of powers to terrorist acts, to acts that affected the entire country, not to acts that may affect narrow police interests or narrow security interests. I thought that was a very fine reaction to the government and Parliament working at its best.

The reason why I am referring to this in Bill C-32 is I do not think people would otherwise have noticed that the government is continuing to make sure that the police powers do not go too far and that there are proper limitations on police powers, because in making that change to Bill C-36 the government would have appeared to have overlooked the fact that the Canada Evidence Act has a similar problem where the word “security” was used without the adjective “national”.

Therefore, one of the changes in this legislation is to make these changes to the Security of Information Act. This is our official secrets act. It is a very important act because we cannot have the government keeping secrets for any security reason. We cannot give the government huge powers to clamp the lid on things for any security reasons, as they have done in other jurisdictions. We are not a police state. We are a democracy and it is very important to define that it is national security, not all security. There we have it. That is the change that is in Bill C-36. Quite frankly, it is an excellent bill in other aspects, but that change alone I think is simply excellent.

If I have a little more time, I would also like to comment on another aspect of this change that I think may be otherwise overlooked in the bill. My involvement in this particular debate is that I am very interested in issues of secrecy and police powers. I think it is important to note that this bill also corrects another problem that existed in Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism legislation, in making a change to the Security of Information Act, again the original official secrets act. This change is a classic example. The drafters have to be very careful in legislation because just a simple past tense or present tense error can lead to a serious problem.

I draw everyone's attention in Bill C-32 to a change in section 21 which changes a single paragraph of the Security of Information Act. It basically says that there should be security of information on the identity of persons or bodies that have been approached to be confidential sources of information to the intelligence services of Canada. In other words, spies and human resource personnel for the gathering of intelligence.

In the original Bill C-36, they forgot to include those that may have acted in this capacity for Canada in the past. What we have here is a change to change the present tense to the past tense so that those who have given sensitive intelligence, police intelligence, or anti-terrorism intelligence to Canada in the past could continue to enjoy the protection of the Security of Information Act.

Budget Implementation Act, 2003

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the budget bill. Before I turn to some of the specifics in the portfolio of the Solicitor General I would like to make a few points in general on the budget itself.

I feel that the 2003 budget, being a balanced budget, is a people's budget. It is a true Liberal budget which deals with the areas of concern to Canadians. Be it health care, families and communities, policing and law enforcement for which I have responsibility, sustainable development, research and development, it is truly a Liberal budget. On top of that we are maintaining the kinds of tax cuts that were put in place in previous budgets which were a historic high in terms of tax cuts in this country, something even the other side asked for but is always demanding more no doubt.

I want to put the budget in perspective. I understand that the opposition parties have a job to do and have to be critical. They are a little over critical sometimes. I understand that sometimes they do not really mean it; they are just trying to play the part.

However, I want to put things in perspective. I will turn to a couple of media reports. Obviously, the business press is not always friends of the Government of Canada, that is for sure, but I will turn to the March 8 report on business in the Globe and Mail . The headline on the business page reads “Canada's job boom rolls on” and goes on to say “Flabbergasting employment gain comes in at more than four times the forecasts”.

The article by Janet McFarland states: “Canada's economy continued to far outstrip all economists' expectations in February, creating 55,200 new jobs across virtually all sectors”, and it goes on from there.

Robert Spector, who is a senior economist at Merrill Lynch Canada Inc., had this to say:

Canada is the only economy creating jobs in a meaningful way. It's got the only central bank raising interest rates, [and] it's the only G-7 country running a budgetary surplus.

That is pretty good news. Sometimes if we were to listen to opposition comments we would think nothing positive was happening.

However, let me turn to another newspaper, the National Post , which is certainly not a friend of the Government of Canada most times when we read its articles. Let us turn to the Financial Post page. The headline states on the same day, Saturday, March 8, “Economies out of step”. It states that the United States fears a double-dip recession and it talks about the difficulty the Americans are having. We certainly do not want them to have difficulty in their economy, but on the other side it states that Canada is on a roll, and that “job miracle stuns market, pushes dollar to three year high”. It goes on with something similar to what the Globe and Mail said, which was that this is the only country in the G-8 with a surplus.

That is pretty good news and we need to keep that in perspective. Our economy is doing well because of how the Liberal Party of Canada governed the country over the last 10 years. Let us not take that away from the Government of Canada today.

How did we get to this position? You know well, Mr. Speaker, because you were amongst us in the 1993-95 period when we had to make the hard decisions.

The government and this party made those decisions so that we could be in this position today where we have choices, the choices I talked about in having a real, true Liberal budget that deals with the concerns of Canadians in their homes, communities, social programs, economic development, and research and development. That is the kind of progress we want to see. We should be congratulating all the backbenchers, cabinet ministers, and the whole party right to the grassroots in terms of the kinds of decisions and progress that we have made to get to where we are today.

Let me turn for a moment to the Solicitor General's portfolio. Specifically, I want to deal with the issue of public safety and national security because there are individuals out there who do not believe we are doing enough. I believe that this country has a lot to be proud of in terms of its national security and public safety position. We have done a tremendous amount in the last three years.

I want to speak about the public safety and anti-terrorism funding provided in budget 2001 because those moneys are still rolling out and we are still building on those initiatives. In terms of what is coming out of that PSAT funding, $7.7 billion over five years, we funded the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police workshops for communications and training so that police and law enforcement officials could do a better job on the ground in terms of policing.

Mr. Speaker, I neglected to inform the House that I will be splitting my time with the member for Kitchener Centre.

We have provided funding to the provinces on public key infrastructure for secure communications. We have implemented new legislation. Training is already being provided to police and prosecutors through Bill C-36, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and I have listed a number of entities under that act who we do not want operating or being supported by any individual in this country. We have also implemented Bill C-24 dealing with organized crime.

On policing and intelligence we have set up integrated border enforcement teams. I have had the opportunity to visit a few of those. In that area we are working together with our counterparts in the United States and doing a better job in terms of policing at our border where the RCMP, local jurisdiction police forces, CSIS, customs, and on the United States side the American coast guard and their local law enforcement agencies, sometimes the FBI or the CIA, are working together to provide better security for Canadians at our border. We are doing an excellent job there.

We have set up integrated national security enforcement teams. At the Canada-U.S. border security side, we have set up new technology at border crossings. We have put in place better equipment for detecting explosives. We have made infrastructure improvements in terms of highway and commercial vehicle processing centres. On critical infrastructure protection and emergency preparedness, we have improved our laboratories. We have put in place heavy urban search and rescue equipment and we are working, with training and equipment, on improving our ability to handle chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear problems.

In this budget specifically, building on our public safety and security aspects, we have put in place an additional $50 million this fiscal year and $25 million next year for security contingency reserves. We have put in place $46.6 million over the next two years to continue the integrated proceeds of crime initiative. We expanded our first nations policing program by an additional $42 million and put $30 million a year toward a coordinated national enforcement approach to strengthen the investigation and prosecution of the most serious corporate frauds in market illegalities.

I also want to emphasize that we are continuing to adequately fund and improve the funding for the RCMP, CSIS, Correctional Service Canada and for the parole board.

We can all be proud of the job that the government is doing, in terms of public safety and national security for Canadians, so we remain at our place on top of the world.

Privilege

[John Williams, Canadian Alliance, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege to charge the Minister of Justice with contempt in regard to his release of material to the media that was intended for Parliament.

Yesterday, the President of the Treasury Board tabled the main estimates in the House. The estimates reported that the government was seeking more funds to keep the firearms registry running.

Despite the urging of the Auditor General, the government has failed to provide a proper accounting of the program, a program that the Auditor General considers a major crown project. Apart from an $18 million item under Department of Justice, contributions to provinces and territories, there is no mention of any other funding for the firearms registry in the estimates.

However some cost estimates and details not mentioned in the estimates were revealed yesterday in a government news release. The release reads:

Firearms Program Funding 2003-04 (Main Estimates)

Treasury Board material on the Main Estimates mentions $74 million for the Canadian Firearms Centre. What is this for?

It goes on to say that:

The $74 million is part of the $113 million sought in the Main Estimates for the Canadian Firearms Program. These funds are needed to operate and administer the firearms program for fiscal year 2003-04.

The $113 million figure is arrived at by adding the $74 million to the A-base estimate for the program ($35 million, which was included within the Department's Main Estimates figures for the 2003-04, tabled last year). The $113M includes employee benefits and accommodation costs.

I am not sure what the A-base is. The news release goes on to detail how it was spent.

The $113M consists of the following major elements: $21.5M to the “Alternative Service Delivery”; $8M to operate the Miramichi facility (costs for the Quebec processing site are included in provincial contributions); $16M in contributions to provinces that are administering the program (eg. Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, etc.); $11.3M to administer the program in opt-out jurisdictions; $4.6M for NWEST; $16M in other contributions to federal partners involved in the program; $14.4M for maintenance of the current Electronic Data Processing system and current business operations; and $9.2M for program administration.

The NWEST may be the Northwest Territories but I am not sure. The news release then goes on to provide details of the $74 million. The latter half of the release concerns itself with program funding of $59 million for 2002-03 supplementary estimates.

Mike Murphy, a spokesman for the Minister of Justice, reported to the National Post that the more detailed breakdown contained in the news release would be tabled in Parliament in late March. Mr. Murphy is admitting that the information in the news release is intended for Parliament and that Parliament will be provided with the information later.

Later in March would mean that the detailed information in the news release would be provided to Parliament when the reports on plans and priorities, or part IIIs of the main estimates, are tabled in the House as required under our rules. As you are also aware, Mr. Speaker, those reports are intended for the House.

The Minister of Justice has decided to release this information to the media one month ahead of providing it to Parliament. His spokesman has made the link between the information in the news release and information intended for Parliament in an interview with Bill Curry of the

National Post.

I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to a question of privilege that was raised by the member for Provencher on March 14, 2001. His question of privilege was in regard to the Department of Justice briefing the media on Bill C-15 prior to its tabling in the House.

On March 19, 2001 the Speaker ruled on the matter and stated:

In preparing legislation, the government may wish to hold extensive consultations and such consultations may be held entirely at the government's discretion. However, with respect to material to be placed before parliament, the House must take precedence.

We had another case on October 15, 2001. The opposition House leader raised a question of privilege with regard to Bill C-36. The National Post had reported the contents of Bill C-36 and indicated that it was briefed by officials from the Department of Justice. The article published on October 13, 2001 entitled “New bill to pin down terrorism” described the bill in detail and quoted officials from the department.

The Speaker ruled that the case of Bill C-36 was similar to Bill C-15 and that there had been a breach of privileges of the House and the matter was sent to committee.

I would argue that the reports on the plans and priorities are material placed before Parliament and like legislation, if they are to be released, the House must take precedence.

The supply process deserves the same respect, integrity and protection as the legislative process. I would argue even more so than legislation because the estimates are the fundamental reason that Parliament exists.

The minister's attempt to appropriate money through a news release is an affront to Parliament.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, supplementary estimates (B) 2002-03 for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2003. were also tabled by the President of the Treasury Board yesterday. On page 82, the Canadian firearms program will receive another $59,447,000. In addition to that it also has with an asterisk, “Incremental funding to address operational requirements, Vote 1, at $16,436,000”. At the bottom the asterisk states:

Funds in the amount of $14,098,739 were advanced from the Treasury Board Contingencies Vote to provide temporary funding for this program.

If I go back to the 2002-03 main estimates, part I and II, the government expenditure plan in main estimates at page 1-54, for the vote 5 of the government contingencies for the Treasury Board it states:

Subject to the approval of the Treasury Board, to supplement other appropriations for paylist and other requirements and to provide for miscellaneous minor and unforeseen expenses not otherwise provided for, including awards under the Public Servants Inventions Act and authority to re-use any sums allotted for non-paylist requirements and repaid to this appropriation from other appropriations.

Note the word “unforeseen”.

We do know that the Minister of Justice has been telling us that he has been funding the firearms program through cash management after the government withdrew a request for $72 million last December.

I am raising this point with you, Mr. Speaker, at the earliest opportunity because supplementary estimates (B) were only tabled in the House yesterday. I have not been able to verify whether that $15 million was for the Canadian firearms program as the $72 million was in December 2002.

If we find that this money actually was used for the firearms program to replace the money that the government did not request in December 2002, it was not unforeseen. It was to replace a request that was withdrawn which is a significant difference. Unforeseen we can understand; to replace a request that the government withdrew from the floor of this House, for reasons we do not know, cannot under any circumstances be classified as unforeseen.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I am sure that you will find that the Minister of Justice is in contempt of the House for the total disregard for the historic and constitutional role of the House in financial matters and the business of supply. If you agree and if you do so rule, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.

Terrorism

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, we do things differently in this country. In fact, we do it more carefully and more securely in my point of view.

We have a process with restrictions that were placed on it by the House. There are severe restrictions when we name entities on the anti-terrorist list under Bill C-36. We are continuing to work on that list. We named three more entities yesterday. Regardless of whether or not they are on the list, our security intelligence services, our law enforcement services--

Supply

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member for Vancouver East has put the argument against a national identity card well and I hope to be able to elaborate a little bit on it, but first I want to reiterate what was said by the member for Vancouver East, that the NDP sees itself today as providing the House with an opportunity to hear people out on this emerging issue. It is an emerging issue in part because the minister has made it one by going around and talking about it in committee and elsewhere. Clearly he would like to hear not just from Canadians but, I presume, from other members of Parliament about this, and that is what this debate is about today.

I think we will find or I hope we will find that this is an issue that does not fall neatly into any sort of right or left categories, that there will be people on all parts of the political spectrum who will have concerns. Obviously as the NDP and as a left wing party we have concerns, but I would imagine that people on the right wing of the political spectrum would also have concerns about this to the extent that this increases the power of the state, et cetera. To the extent that Liberals have any principles at all, perhaps they could draw on whatever principles they have to come up with an analysis, but I am just not sure what those principles are.

I see that the minister is in the House and presumably he is going to respond in the debate. I thank him for his presence here today. I look forward to hearing what he has to say on the matter.

One of the things that disturbs me most about this is that I see a pattern developing here. I was the justice critic during the time of the introduction of the anti-terrorism legislation, Bill C-36 . I certainly had the feeling at that time from the then justice minister, now the health minister, when I listened to her in committee, that we were not doing this entirely of our own accord, that we were not doing this entirely for our own reasons.

Many times I would listen to the minister and it would seem to me that what she was saying was code for the fact that “we are doing this”, and in that case they were actually doing something and at this point the minister is only thinking about it, but he is thinking about it, it seems to me, because somebody else wants him to think about it. Here I am thinking of our neighbours to the south.

I know that certain elements of the anti-terrorism legislation were designed in order to please Washington and I wonder whether a similar thing is not happening here. Of course one of the other similarities is that sometimes we actually go further than the Americans themselves would. There were elements of the anti-terrorism legislation, Bill C-36, that went further than the anti-terrorism legislation that we found in the United States.

For instance, I think that the sunset provisions in some of the anti-terrorism legislation in the United States were actually better than the sunset provisions or so-called sunset provisions in Bill C-36. With respect to a national identity card we have a similar thing happening because here we have Canadians considering whether or not to have a national identity card, yet the issue is not really an issue at all in the United States.

In fact, I understand that the United States Congress, at least, is so wary of such an idea that it inserted a line in the bill that created the Department of Homeland Security which reads like this: “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize the development of a national identification system or card”.

If there is any truth to what I am saying the minister will have an opportunity to stand up and deny it, I suppose, although whether that will change my mind or not is another matter. But if there is any truth to what I am saying, that this is somehow in part responding to what the Americans want us to do, that somehow they do not feel a Canadian passport is good enough anymore at the border so they want Canadians to be able produce a national ID card, it is not the first time that we have gone further than the Americans themselves are willing to go when it comes to this whole response to the new environment created by September 11, 2001.

I think the government is once again set on this course. When listening to the minister it seems it is. Even though we are having a discussion and he wants to hear what people have to say, it seems to me that he is pretty intent on this. Once again we are striking the wrong balance between freedom and security and erring, I think, too much on the side of so-called security.

I say so-called security because it seems to me that there is not a whole lot of evidence that a national ID card will make anybody any safer and will prevent terrorism or be the kind of tool that is absolutely necessary for the detection of terrorists or whatever. Terrorists are terrorists and they know how to produce false ID. It will be ordinary Canadians who will have their lives most significantly changed by this if the government goes ahead with it. This is why we are very much against this idea.

We have the privacy commissioner, who is very concerned about this, and I think that if we appoint these people like Mr. Radwanski to be the privacy commissioner and to think deeply about these issues, we should pay attention to what they person has to say about these things. Clearly he is very concerned about the idea of a national ID card.

He is also concerned, and this is another area where the government is not listening to Mr. Radwanski, about the invasion of privacy that the government is contemplating through the legislation which would enable the government to collect data on where Canadians travel on every plane they take and keep that information for up to six years or something like that, I think. At one point, still, but not for very long if the government has its way, one would like to think that one could catch a plane, travel around the country and not have that information going into a data bank somewhere and being analyzed for a variety of purposes, not all of them necessarily for a good purpose. The existence of that kind of data at all, it seems to me, is unwarranted.

Here we have a pattern emerging, I guess this is what I am trying to say, we have a pattern emerging where, on the basis of what happened on that one day on September 11, 2001, we are transforming our whole way of life. We are transforming our notions of what constitutes appropriate power, power of the state. We are transforming our notions of privacy. We are transforming our notions of freedom. We are transforming our notions of security. I think the government is consistently getting it wrong on this and it is going to get it wrong one more time if it proceeds with the national ID card.

As a final point, one can only imagine how much this will cost. In the short term, if it happens quickly, it will be run by Liberals. When one thinks of what they were able to do in terms of mismanagement when it came to the gun registry, when it comes to this they could bankrupt the country. This could make the gun registry look like a molehill compared to the mountain that the Liberals certainly would be able to create with this. I do not know which company that is a friend of the Liberals this would be contracted out to, but--

Terrorism

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the official opposition, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the Solicitor General's statement regarding the listing of a further three entities pursuant to the Criminal Code.

In late November the Solicitor General stood in the House to announce the addition of six entities to the list initiated on July 23, a list that contained a meagre seven terrorist organizations.

On December 11 the Solicitor General rose again to announce that Hezbollah was finally being added to the list but only after enduring two weeks of relentless pressure from the official opposition and from the foreign affairs critic.

Since July 23, when the Solicitor General first announced the listing of terrorist organizations, the Canadian Alliance as well as many organizations and concerned citizens criticized the government for failing to list Hezbollah as well as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Tamil Tigers, all known terrorist entities as identified by the United Nations.

We have repeatedly condemned the government for the inordinate amount of time that it took to compile the initial listing at a snail's pace at which names were being added on an ongoing basis.

Bill C-36, the Anti-terrorism Act, received royal assent in December 2001. After more than a year, we now only have 19 entities listed as terrorist organizations while the United Nations has listed over 200. Furthermore, Jemaah Islamiah , responsible for the largest terror attack since 9/11 in Bali, and FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia, are still missing from that list.

I therefore take great exception to the Solicitor General's contention that the government has acted “swiftly and decisively”. This is not the case. The Subcommittee on National Security, a committee convened since 9/11, is a prime example of the government's lack of commitment. To date, that committee of which I am a member has only met five times. Since this past summer we have only had two meetings. Meanwhile the Senate committee on national security and defence has been travelling across the country. It has produced numerous reports. Most recently, it released a report on January 20, a report on security at Canada's airports.

The Senate committee has found that “side door and back door” security is extremely poor and much more needs to be done to tighten up security at Canadian airports. Effectively, the Senate committee is doing the work of the House, perhaps doing much of the work of this department.

I also take exception to the Solicitor General's statement that the government is working together with the United States to protect our common beliefs. An article in the Globe and Mail on January 31 said that the government was seeking a blanket exemption for Canadians from new U.S. rules requiring records to be kept on everyone entering and leaving the United States.

The article said:

The entry-exit issue is shaping up to be the next major irritant in Canada-U.S. relations.

I would suggest to the Solicitor General that rather than seeking exemptions, the government should emulate the United States security measures and immediately initiate an exit-entry control system in this country.

If, as we have said repeatedly, the government is truly committed to fighting the global war on terrorism, the Solicitor General should be doing so much more, such as identifying and listing entities at a much quicker rate for the security of the country. He should be significantly increasing the resources of CSIS. He should be significantly increasing the resources to the RCMP for the security of this nation. The Solicitor General, working with the transport minister, should be tightening airport and port security. Failure to take such action clearly threatens the safety and security of Canadians.

We would encourage the Solicitor General to speed up the process to assure that Canadians are kept adequately safe. That is the responsibility of the Solicitor General.

[Richard Marceau, Bloc, Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, given the importance of this issue, it is disappointing to see the shortness of the statement of the Solicitor General on terrorists, terrorism and innocent civilian victims.

The opportunity given to ministers to make statements in the House is usually a solemn occasion marking a major change in government policy. However, the Solicitor General's statement, far from meeting these criteria, shows the government's flippancy when it comes to fulfilling its responsibilities in the fight against terrorism.

This is not serious. In the fall of 2001, Bill C-36 was rammed through Parliament as if terrorism were a new reality. Then, it took the government almost a whole year to realize that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas are terrorist entities. Yet, for years now, they have been claiming responsibility for suicide attacks. Normally, it should not have taken close to a year to add these organizations to the list.

The addition at this point of these six entities to the very short list of organizations having direct or indirect ties with terrorist activities in Canada or abroad is stunning.

It seems to us that merely mentioning the name Hamas should be enough to trigger thoughts of terrorist activities in the Middle East and all over the world. The same is true of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

It would have been interesting to know why the government suddenly woke up today. This would have given some substance to the minister's statement.

Since the government singled out these organizations and put them on its list of terrorist entities, I am surprised that Hezbollah is not mentioned anywhere. We are fully aware that, as charities go, this entity is nothing like the Knights of Columbus.

Generally speaking, we feel that the government, particularly with Bill C-17, formerly known as Bill C-42 and Bill C-55, has not managed to strike a balance between public safety and individual rights and freedoms. The comments made by the Privacy Commissioner are evidence of that.

In conclusion, the Bloc Quebecois is pleased that these entities were added to the government's list, but it is disappointed to see the Solicitor General using a piecemeal approach on such an important issue. We would to know when the list will be made longer, to paraphrase the Solicitor General, and we would like to know why it is currently not as complete as it should be.

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in response to the Solicitor General's statement regarding the listing of a further six entities pursuant to the Criminal Code.

It is somewhat of an understatement to say that the Solicitor General's claim that the government “moved quickly to implement the anti-terrorist plan” is a misnomer.

Bill C-36 received royal assent on December 18, 2001, yet it took the Solicitor General seven months to bring forward the first group of entities to be listed as illegal terrorist organizations. It took seven months for the government to determine that al-Qaeda was in fact a terrorist organization. It has now taken an additional four months for the government to finally determine and list Hamas as a terrorist organization, a fact that has long been recognized by the United Nations as well as many other countries.

Hamas, the Tamil Tigers and Hezbollah are among the over 200 organizations identified by the United Nations as terrorists. In July when the first seven entities were listed we, as well as many others, publicly criticized the government for failing to list Hezbollah. There have been ample justification and evidence, such as the 1983 truck bombing of a United States marine barracks in Beirut and the 1994 bombing of the Israeli cultural centre in Buenos Aires, proving that not only is Hezbollah a terrorist organization but it is one of the most violent. Hezbollah is known for using terrorist tactics, such as suicide bombings and missile attacks, to promote its agenda of imposing an Iranian style Islamic rule in the Middle East.

It is a well-known fact that Canadian intelligence agencies say that Hezbollah has operatives in every major city in the country and that it has been using Canada as an offshore base for a decade. In its 2000 report on international terrorism CSIS reported that Canada was a primary venue of opportunity to support, plan or mount terrorist attacks.

Just recently Senator Bob Graham of the senate intelligence committee in the United States described the leader of a Canadian cell of Hezbollah as making bin Laden look like a schoolboy. According to the United States, Canada is proving to be a true haven for Hezbollah and not only will the government not ban this known terrorist organization, we will not extradite Hezbollah members to the United States to face justice as it is requesting.

If the government were in fact truly committed to the global war on terrorism, the Solicitor General would ensure that the list is complete and that it does not take such an inordinate amount of time to bring forward those names and entities. Clearly, our intelligence agencies, particularly CSIS, are overwhelmed by the tremendous workload thrust upon them since September 11. By the CSIS director's own admission, more resources are needed if we are to determine and list all terrorist activity.

I implore the Solicitor General to list Hezbollah, to recognize that it is a threat to world peace and to the safety of Canadians.

Parliamentary Reform

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in this debate I would like to offer my observations on judicial nominations, on the issue of take note debates and on the role of a parliamentary secretary and the appearance of ministers at committees.

The first is with respect to judicial nominations and the prerogative of the Prime Minister at this point to make judicial appointments without the supervisory role of Parliament. This comes out of some history where a prime minister did not have to be overly worried about the social views of a potential nominee for a judicial appointment because judges were expected to operate in the realm of what was called black letter law.

Black letter law is a very narrow view of what the common law says on any particular issue. There are limitations on what is or is not admissible as evidence. There are limitations on what can be considered and how one interprets the law. Therefore, the prime minister of the day could sit back, relax and not anticipate that a judicial intervention into an area of social policy would significantly impact the prerogatives of Parliament.

That brings me to the issue of the supremacy of Parliament. Historically the supremacy of Parliament in the area of social policy direction was just that. It was supreme and courts merely interpreted what Parliament must have meant in the circumstances.

However, that was then and this is now. We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms which has given judges a far greater scope to shape social policy. A judge can put a particular social policy through a charter lens and read an interpretation into a particular piece of legislation. Probably one of the more outstanding examples is that of sexual orientation, where clearly Parliament thought about putting that into the charter and chose not to, but subsequent various judicial interpretations read sexual orientation into various statutes and pieces of common law.

This has resulted, as some say, in what is called a dialogue with Parliament. The charter interpretations are a text that dialogues with this body. Some have interpreted it as more of a monologue and that the judges are having the final say. I am more of the view that there is some give and take, some push and pull between Parliament and the judges. As I say, reasonable people can disagree on the role of the supremacy of Parliament. I think it is fair to say that the supremacy of Parliament has somewhat been eroded by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I raise these background issues in the context of the appointment of judges because when judges were merely black letter law judges we really did not have to worry about what their social views were. Now we do have to be concerned about what their social views are. Their views on particular areas can shape social policy and shape it in directions that possibly Parliament would not necessarily wish to go. That argues for a review of the nomination of judicial appointments by Parliament.

What is the problem with this? I suppose the problem we all look at is the circus that we see in the United States with the congressional reviews of judicial appointments. We see that certain members of congress turn it into, shall we say, a mini-business to ferret out the dirt on various nominations. No stone is left unturned. No embarrassing marijuana conviction or sexual liaison is left to where it should be, namely the private realm of those individuals. Rather it is paraded by the media before the public and it destroys the reputations of very good men and women.

I think there is an intense reaction to this circus that we see to the south of us, these rather graphic examples of turning good men and women away from letting their names stand for judicial appointment. The irony here is that rather than in fact expanding the democratic process, it is actually a turnoff. We see this in voter apathy and in resistance on the part of American electors to engage themselves in congressional elections.

So the issue is this: How can we review a nomination thoughtfully, responsibly and carefully and find out the views of these men and women on important social issues while not turning it into a circus that essentially forces them to withdraw their names from nomination? The short answer to that is, I do not know. Presently we have a system that is very secretive. It is almost like electing a Pope. Possibly we should outfit the Peace Tower to emit black or white smoke on the selection process.

It is not without its politics. I have been practising law for a long time and have some feel for the intensity of politics that goes into the selection of judicial appointments. It is a high art form. It is very intense and I would say very elegant, but it is also very ruthless. Politics is involved in judicial selections, except that the public has no say at all.

The legal community has its own criteria and its own way of doing its self-selecting, but that is based upon its own views of what a competent judge should be. I would argue that by and large the men and women who serve on our benches are very capable people and give very good service to the public. Nevertheless, the public has no say in their views.

So how the people's representatives, those of us in this Chamber, would not turn this process into a circus is the only hesitation I have in this particular issue, but in my view it should be examined. These appointments are of great significance to Canadians.

The second point I want to make is with respect to take note debates. Personally I like take note debates. I like those opportunities. I think they are important debates. What I do not like about them is, first, the short notice that we get. I would like a bit of time to reflect on whatever the debate issue might be. The second issue is that I do not particularly like speaking at 3 o'clock in the morning. It seems that we lay on these take note debates and they go on and on. I do not think that people are at their best at 3 o'clock in the morning. I am certainly not.

The third thing I do not like about take note debates is that there is no formal way in which the government responds to the content of the debate. These debates are usually on very important issues. One example is whether we do or do not go to war. When I first arrived here I assumed, basically on a historical reading, that it was Parliament that decided whether we did or did not go to war. Much to my surprise, Parliament has not decided in a long time, probably since the Korean war, whether we go to war or go to peacekeeping missions. Frankly, I think that the people should have a say. After all, it will be their sons and daughters who are going to be killed or injured in these hostilities. I frankly think the take note debate should be something more than simply a comfort zone for the executive.

On the point about excluding parliamentary secretaries from committees, I do not think that is necessarily a good idea. Properly instructed, a parliamentary secretary can inform a committee of the views of a minister and the views of a department. I appreciate that some parliamentary secretaries are overly partisan and overly zealous, but possibly with some instruction that can be changed.

Finally, on the point about a minister being present for clause by clause, I was there for Bill C-36, probably one of the most important bills that this Parliament has engaged in. While the parliamentary secretary did an able job on 167 amendments, I thought it appropriate that the minister be there to put forward those amendments.

These are my views on those three issues. I appreciate the opportunity to make these comments.

Question No. 21

[Paul Devillers, Liberal, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-17 adds three new offences to the Criminal Code to address the communication of false information likely to lead others to reasonably believe that terrorist activity is or will be occurring. It also deals with any act that is likely to lead others to reasonably believe that terrorist activity is or will be occurring.

These new offences fill a loophole in criminal law. There is much concern about not only clear threats to public safety, such as incredible acts like sending anthrax spores by mail to unsuspecting addressees, but also numerous hoaxes intended to scare, fearmonger and disrupt daily life by causing, for example, a building to be evacuated.

Under such circumstances, several provisions of the Criminal Code may apply, for instance section 372 on false messages, section 430 on mischief, and even section 264.1 on uttering threats. These are essentially general provisions however. They do not deal specifically with hoaxes regarding terrorist activity.

As for sentencing, to ensure that the sentence reflects the diversity of behaviours targeted and is proportionate to the seriousness of the prejudice to society, the maximum provided for is imprisonment for five years, ten years or life, depending on whether the accused is charged with the basic offence or there are aggravating circumstances such as death or injury to a person.

Bill C-36, the Antiterrorism Act, covers several offences related to real terrorist activities. Take for example, the new sections 83.19 on facilitating a terrorist activity and section 83.22, on instructing to carry out terrorist activity.

At this time there are no provisions that deal specifically with terrorist hoaxes. Establishing offences for this type of activity falls under the commitment made by Canada to adopt comprehensive measures to fight terrorism and completes the provisions of Bill C-36.

After the events of September 11, 2001, provincial officials asked that provisions be added to the Criminal Code to solve the serious problem of terrorist hoaxes.

The federal government listened to this legislative request and followed up with two new offences in Bill C-17, the Public Safety Act, 2002, to address terrorist hoaxes. These offences complete those included in Bill C-36, the Antiterrorism Act, to implement the UN International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings and to provide a penalty for the use of explosive devices or other deadly devices.

The provisions making hoaxes a criminal offence would distinguish between persons committing a hoax by conveying false information regarding explosive or other deadly devices and those who show false explosive or other deadly devices. In both cases, the offences must be committed with the intent of causing persons to fear death or bodily harm.

Hoaxes regarding terrorist activity have a detrimental and paralyzing effect on the freedom and safety of people and society, whether their authors intend to cause people to fear bodily harm or damage to property.

Extending the scope of these offences to include an “intent to cause any person to fear...serious interference with the use or operation of property” would maximize the deterring effect of the new incriminating provisions, while complying with appropriate parameters.

Finally, providing harsher penalties for those whose hoaxes have caused a real injury is in line with the more general criminal justice objective which consists in imposing penalties that are “proportionate” to the behaviours sanctioned by the criminal law. Such an approach has already been adopted in other provisions of the Criminal Code, including those that deal with assault and criminal negligence.

Consequently, the revised provisions on hoaxes are based on the definition of “terrorist activity” in Bill C-36 and they now establish a separate criminal offence for those who provide false information that is likely to cause a reasonable apprehension that terrorist activity is occurring or will occur, and those who commit an act that is likely to cause a reasonable apprehension that terrorist activity is occurring or will occur.

In both cases, the person who commits the offence must also have the criminal intent of causing a person to fear death, bodily harm, substantial damage to property or serious interference with the lawful use or operation of property.

The maximum penalty for this offence is five years of imprisonment. If the hoax does cause bodily harm, the maximum penalty is 10 years of imprisonment and if it causes death, the maximum penalty is imprisonment for life.

For these reasons, we think that Bill C-17 should have the support of all members of the House.