Bill C-3 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (certificate and special advocate) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to add provisions relating to a special advocate to Division 9 of Part 1 of that Act. The special advocate’s role is to protect a person’s interests in certain proceedings when evidence is heard in the absence of the public and of the person and their counsel. The special advocate may challenge the claim made by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to the confidentiality of evidence as well as the relevance, reliability, sufficiency and weight of the evidence and may make submissions, cross-examine witnesses and, with the judge’s authorization, exercise any other powers necessary to protect the person’s interests.
The enactment eliminates the suspension of consideration of the reasonableness of a security certificate that occurs when the person named in it makes an application for protection.
The enactment also provides that, when a person is detained under the security certificate regime, a judge of the Federal Court must commence a review of the detention within 48 hours after the detention begins and then, until it is determined whether a certificate is reasonable, at least once in the six-month period following the conclusion of each preceding review. A person who continues to be detained after a certificate is determined to be reasonable and a person who is released under conditions may apply to the Court for a review of the reasons for their continued detention or for continuing the conditions if a period of six months has expired since the conclusion of the preceding review.
The enactment permits the appeal of a determination whether a security certificate is reasonable and of a decision resulting from a review of a person’s detention or release under conditions to the Federal Court of Appeal if the judge certifies that a serious question of general importance is involved.
It also permits a peace officer to arrest and detain a person who is subject to a security certificate if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the person has contravened or is about to contravene their conditions of release.
The enactment enables the Minister to apply for the non-disclosure of confidential information during a judicial review of a decision made under the Act and gives the judge discretion to appoint a special advocate to protect the interests of the person concerned.
It also contains transitional provisions and makes a consequential amendment to the Canada Evidence Act.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the pleasure of serving on the citizenship and immigration committee with the hon. member for Kitchener—Waterloo and other members in the House. I know that he is very seriously involved on this file.

He mentioned that there are six people right now under security certificates in Canada, of which five are out on bail and one is in jail. Could he give us more information on the length of stay under the security certificates? This has been shown to have been a problem in the past.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the length of stay has been anywhere from three years to seven years depending on what point in time they were released. Five have been released and only one is in custody. The only reason this person is in custody is because he does not have family in Canada. All sorts of other people came forward to act as sureties and he could have been out on bail as well.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity this afternoon to debate Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (certificate and special advocate) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act.

I want to make it very clear from the beginning that I am strongly opposed to this legislation and to the security certificate process itself. I believe that the process of security certificates should be repealed and abolished. It is a position I have taken since I have come to this place. I actually have a motion on the order paper calling for the repeal of those sections of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act pertaining to the security certificate process.

The bill represents nothing more than a tinkering with a process that is fundamentally flawed and which has been found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The security certificate process is part of Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, IRPA. It is intended to be an expedited deportation process to remove non-citizens, permanent residents, and visitors to Canada who are accused of serious criminal activities related to espionage, national security, terrorism and organized crime.

However, this is not how this legislation is being used. It is being used in serious ways not contemplated by its inclusion in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This section is being used to circumvent our criminal justice system. It is being used to detain individuals without trial and without conviction and to detain them indefinitely. It is being used to deport people who may face torture or the death penalty in other countries. It is being used to circumvent the rules of evidence and to allow for the use of secret evidence, thereby denying a fair hearing. It is also being used to deny accused individuals the right to know the evidence against them and mount a defence in court.

These are all serious issues and ones that go to the fundamental questions of how our justice system operates in this country. They are, in fact, all issues that we have fought long and hard to establish in a fair and just system. They would not be part of a fair and just legal system in this country. Yet, here we have a piece of legislation that is being used in exactly those ways.

In the first session of this Parliament, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration studied the security certificate process as part of an undertaking that we made to look at both the use of immigration detention and in particular the security certificate process.

I wrote a minority report entitled “Detention Centers and Security Certificates” on behalf of the New Democratic Party to the 12th report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I want to talk about some of the points that I raised in my minority report.

I talked about the fundamental violations of due process and civil liberties that must not be tolerated in a free and democratic society. I said that the security certificate process denies permanent residents and foreign nationals the protection of section 9 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that states: “Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned”.

That was a fundamental starting point for my minority report. I believe the security certificate process is a fundamental violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I believe that was key to why the Supreme Court decided that it was unconstitutional.

In my minority report I also talked about how issues of terrorism, national security, espionage and organized crime should be dealt with through the use of the Criminal Code and not through a lesser immigration process. I said that if there is a problem with the Criminal Code's ability to deal with these types of crimes, then those problems with the Criminal Code should be addressed and fixed. I think this is a central point.

These are serious crimes that we are talking about. These are crimes of terrorism, crimes against the national security of Canada, crimes dealing with organized crime or espionage. These are serious criminal matters. In fact, we might be hard pressed to think of other criminal issues that are more serious than these.

Those are all issues that should be dealt with by the Criminal Code, not by an immigration deportation process. They deserve the most serious attention our justice system can give them. I believe that is through a charge under the Criminal Code of Canada.

I also talked in my minority report about how immigration detention should be used only for immigration purposes and should be of short duration immediately prior to legal deportation for violations of immigration law. If deportation is not possible alternatives to detention must be pursued immediately.

Immigration detention must not be used as a substitute for bringing charges and seeking conviction for serious criminal matters related to terrorism, violations of national security, espionage and organized crime.

I believe that IRPA deals with questions of immigration law and that anything that is included in IRPA should be a process related to immigration law. I firmly believe that when we use IRPA and its provisions to detain people who have been accused of serious crimes related to terrorism, national security, espionage, organized crime, then we are doing an end run around the Criminal Code and using a lesser process that was never intended to seriously address the accusations and allegations related to those specific criminal activities.

A lesser immigration process should not be used for serious criminal issues. I believe that is just plain wrong. Deportation should be related to a violation of immigration law and not serious criminal matters.

That it not to say that a serious criminal matter does not have an influence in deportation issues, but we should never be using the deportation features of the immigration act to deal with a criminal matter in the first instance. That is the way we have been using it in the current situation with the security certificates.

The minority report also said that given the seriousness of crimes related to terrorism, it is imperative that those accused of such crimes be able to mount an effective and full defence. This is not possible in the security certificate context where the accused and their lawyers do not know the evidence against them and are not able to test that evidence in a court of law.

I believe that is an absolutely fundamental criteria of dealing with a fair and just criminal justice system, and to circumvent that and to upset that process goes against a fundamental of our society that we have worked long and hard over many centuries in fact to develop and fine tune. There is no excuse for circumventing those primary components of that criminal justice system.

My minority report also said that Canada must never deport to torture and must be in full compliance with the United Nations conventions against torture and other cruel or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Evidence obtained by torture must never be admissible in a Canadian court or in any legal or immigration process.

Unfortunately, currently in the security certificate process, and I believe in the proposals that are before us, we do not have those assurances. We do not have the ability to test the evidence or the allegations to determine where those allegations came from, where that information was obtained, and how it was obtained. We know that any information obtained by torture is utterly unreliable, that people who are being tortured will say anything to save themselves and that information obtained in that kind of process should never be admissible in any kind of legal process in this country.

We need to make sure that that kind of guarantee is part of any legal process that we are considering. I do not believe that the current legislation or the proposals before us offer us that kind of assurance.

Canada must also ensure, I said in the minority report, that those who plot terrorist activities are tried, convicted and incarcerated, and not merely foisted on another jurisdiction through deportation. I think this is a very serious problem with the security certificate process.

What it says is, “We aren't going to convict you of this serious crime here in Canada. We're just going to try to get you out of the country, get you away from Canada to somehow protect us from you but to foist you on some other jurisdiction, to allow you to go unpunished for what you allegedly conspired here in Canada”. I think that is an absolute derogation of our responsibility as world citizens. It is a derogation of our responsibility to Canadians that people, who participate in such serious criminal activity as terrorists and as threats to national security, go unpunished somehow.

I just think that removing them without ever having charged them or convicted them of those serious crimes is totally counter-intuitive. Why would we allow them to get away with that and get them out of our jurisdiction where they might never be tried or punished for that? If we as a wealthy country do not have the resources to prove these serious allegations, why would we foist that onto another jurisdiction that may not have the resources or abilities that we have in this country to do that? It just does not make sense to do that. That is another reason why I believe that this process is fundamentally flawed.

As part of the minority report that I wrote to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration report on security certificates, I made some very specific recommendations, and I want to just talk about them as part of this debate.

One of the recommendations I made was that the use of security certificates be abolished and that sections 9 and 76 to 87 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act be repealed immediately.

I still fundamentally argue that is the route that we should be going in this country. We should not be using this secondary and lessor process to prosecute very serious criminal matters. If there are problems with our Criminal Code, then we should be addressing those problems and fixing that legislation.

My second recommendation was that evidence obtained by torture and provided by governments or police and intelligence agencies that practise torture should not be admissible in a Canadian court of law, or in any criminal or legal process or hearing, or in any immigration or refugee process or hearing. I think that is an absolutely fundamental requirement.

I have already spoken about how fundamentally unreliable evidence obtained by torture is and how fundamentally immoral it is to even consider condoning information obtained under those kinds of circumstances. Canada should be doing nothing that condones or would allow any other country or any other intelligence-gathering organization to use such tactics against anyone. I believe that any legislation that we debate in this place should make that absolutely clear.

The third recommendation that I made as part of that minority report was that immigration detention must only be used as a short term measure immediately prior to removal related to violations of immigration law. So, again, IRPA should be about immigration law. It should not be about a backdoor to dealing in a very inappropriate way with serious criminal issues, such as terrorism or threats to national security.

As part of my minority report I supported several of the majority recommendations that the committee report did.

One of the recommendations the majority put forward was that charges should be laid under the Criminal Code against permanent residents or foreign nationals who are suspected of participating in, contributing to or facilitating terrorist activities. I think the committee said that a preference should always exist for the use of the Criminal Code. I would go stronger but I did support that recommendation.

Another recommendation that the majority report made was that there should be no removal of permanent residents or foreign nationals to their country of origin or habitual residence if there are reasonable grounds to believe that they would be at risk of torture or death, or face the risk of cruel and unreasonable treatment or punishment. I think that is a very significant one.

We have seen already, just in recent weeks, that the current government may be willing to compromise that longstanding Canadian commitment of not deporting someone to face the death penalty. It may be chipping away at Canada's longstanding opposition to the death penalty in terms of the Canadian who is on death row in the United States and where we are not seeking to have that death penalty commuted. I think that this goes hand in hand with this kind of legislation that we are talking about as well.

Furthermore, there was another majority recommendation that police and intelligence services have appropriate resources to investigate allegations of criminal activities related to security, terrorism, espionage and organized crime, and to pursue appropriate charges under the Criminal Code.

I happen to believe these crimes are so serious that we should have every resource available to our intelligence and police agencies to have an effective prosecution of individuals who have engaged in that kind of activity.

I strongly supported this and proposed, during the discussions in committee, that this needed to be an important feature of the report. There is no excuse for being soft on those kinds of serious crimes. We need to pursue those allegations vigorously, but do it in the context of respect for our criminal justice system and without compromising the criminal justice system.

I should note that a similar minority report on the security certificate process was made by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, the NDP justice critic, to the report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security's subcommittee on the review of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The report was entitled, “Rights, Limits, Security: A Comprehensive Review of the Anti-terrorism Act and Related Issues”.

A major feature of the legislation now before us in Bill C-3 is to add a special advocate to the process, a court appointed lawyer who would have access to the evidence and act in the interest of the accused, which is the way this is described. I believe the special advocate process or office is also a flawed process, a flawed institution. We have seen that there have been significant problems with the same kind of process of special advocates in other jurisdictions.

A special advocate from the United Kingdom, Ian Macdonald, has been very outspoken on the problems of the special advocate in that jurisdiction. I want to quote something he said in relation to his role as a special advocate. He stated:

My role has been altered to provide a false legitimacy to indefinite detention without knowledge of the accusations being made and without any kind of criminal charge or trial.

This is a very serious response from someone who has worked inside exactly the kind of system that is contemplated by Bill C-3.

Bill C-3 limits the ability of the special advocate to communicate with the accused about the evidence that he or she has seen. That is a huge flaw. There is an inability to test the evidence, a key aspect of our criminal justice process. There is the serious problem of turning allegations into evidence, which is a key part of a criminal trial in our country as part of our system and is absent in this process, a flaw also in the U.K. that was raised by Mr. Macdonald. It continues to be a flaw in this legislation.

Mr. Macdonald said to a parliamentary committee in the U.K. in 2005:

—you have a whole lot of mass of information and assessments without there ever being any need to make an effort to turn any of that into evidence. I think that has within it an inherent risk that you end up with quite shoddy intelligence and misleading intelligence.

We also need to test information presented in court by cross-examination and the calling of other witnesses, all of which are denied by this process.

In fact, Mr. Macdonald summed up his role as a special advocate by saying that he was called to provide “a fig leaf of respectability and legitimacy to a process which I found odious”. That is a very serious condemnation of that process.

This past July, the U.K. Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights issued a strongly worded report, describing the U.K. special advocate system as “Kafkaesque or like the Star Chamber”, nothing that we would want to emulate in this country.

If the government had been serious about the special advocate process, it would have taken very seriously a report last summer in our country by Lorne Waldman and Craig Forcese on the security certificate process. They made a very detailed set of recommendations about how that process might be used. In fact, they said that the Security Intelligence Review Committee, or SIRC process, might have more to recommend it than the U.K. special advocate process, which the government seems to have emulated.

I do not think the government has made a serious attempt to address the problems of the security certificate process because it did not take the recommendations of Messrs. Waldman and Forcese very seriously when coming up with this legislation.

Six people are still subject to security certificates in Canada. One is incarcerated still at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre, Hassan Almrei, and five others, Adil Charkaoui, Mohamed Harkat, Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohammad Mahjoub and Manickavasagam Suresh, are all subject to very serious conditions of release related to the security certificate process. In my opinion, for the reasons I have discussed, none of this is justified.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member and I have had the opportunity to meet with the people who are held under security certificates. We also visited the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre. In talking with them, I did not detect any terrorist. All the people involved are very staunch defenders. It is a real crime that these people cannot clear their name or go to court and have the government prove its case. Rather they are cast under this shadow. That is one comment.

Could the member elaborate on some of the shortcomings of the people who are held in the detention facility in Kingston and does he thinks it is appropriate to have one person essentially in solitary confinement?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have very serious reservations about the continuing incarceration of Hassan Almrei at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre, that special maximum security prison, within the walls of Millhaven maximum security prison which was built to house security certificate detainees. Mr. Almrei is the only prisoner left there and that raises very serious issues of solitary confinement.

It is not the kind of punitive solitary confinement that is undertaken for disciplinary action against a prisoner who has acted out in the correctional system. However, this system where there is only one person in prison in an institution is utterly inappropriate. It is something that should not be happening.

I know the member for Kitchener—Waterloo pointed this out earlier. I believe that Mr. Almrei remains the only prisoner in Kingston because he has no family members in Canada who can act as his jailers on behalf of the Government of Canada and the people of Canada.

That is what happened to the other five people who are out. They are out under such strict conditions of release that essentially their wives, in all cases, have been asked to be their jailers, to keep contact with them 24 hours a day, to be totally responsible for them on behalf of the Canadian people. That is in addition to ankle bracelets, security cameras and details of CBSA employees who follow them constantly on the very limited times they are allowed to leave their residences.

These kinds of conditions are extremely draconian and put incredible pressures on the relationships and the families of those people. Children are living under these kinds of circumstances in Canada, which is utterly inappropriate. Children who are Canadian citizens are subject to those kinds of conditions of house arrest because of the actions of their parents who have never been proven to be a threat against Canada. They have never been charged or convicted of any crime.

I have been very clear with Hassan Almrei and some of the others. I have said to Mr. Almrei in the number of times I have met with him personally at Kingston and when I talk to him on the phone that I have no way of knowing if he is the worst guy on the planet or somebody who is completely innocent and caught up in something in which he was not directly involved.

I also believe that no one else in the country knows that either. He has never been charged or convicted of any crime here, certainly any serious crime here. Until that is done, I will maintain that I do not know. All Mr. Almrei has ever said is if he has done those bad things, charge him so he can have a fair chance at proving him innocence and if he is not proven innocent, then he should do his time for serious crimes of this nature.

He is very clear about that. His supporters are very clear about that. I wish we in this place could be as clear about the importance of upholding our criminal justice system in this situation. When we compromise it for one person who we may have serious reservations about, we compromise our system completely.

As Representative Barbara Lee in the United States said when she voted against the American involvement in the war in Iraq, “Let's not become the evil that we so clearly deplore”. I believe this is one way we do that in our circumstances here in Canada.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with intent to the member for Burnaby—Douglas. He served on the committee when I was a member of it, from 2004-06, and we dealt with this issue of security certificates at that time.

We heard from many witnesses at the time. The committee travelled across Canada, discussing this issue and other issues of citizenship and immigration. We could not believe there would be people in Canada who were not charged and imprisoned. They were simply held without charges for unspecified periods of time.

We also had some recommendations in the committee report to look at these people and have them either charged and processed through the criminal court or released and returned to a country that was safe, or look at a third country alternative.

Could the member explain to us how his constituents view this, not charging anyone and detaining them for unspecified periods of time serves democracy today?

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

Mr. Speaker, whenever I talk with people about what happens under the security certificate process, their first reaction is shock and horror that something such as this could happen in Canada, that people could be detained five, six or seven years, or subject to house arrest for that period of time, never having been charged or convicted of a serious crime in Canada.

I think everyone who hears about this is outraged that this kind of process could be used in Canada. It is high time we focused attention on what happens in this process.

There is no excuse for this. It has not been shown that we cannot deal with these serious crimes under the Criminal Code. We have not had unsuccessful prosecutions. In fact, we have Canadian citizens now being charged under the Criminal Code for similar serious activities and that process is going through the court system. We have not circumvented the whole process to deal with them. We should not be doing that to deal with people who have been granted permanent resident status in our country. They are entitled to the same protections that I receive as a Canadian citizen.

I do not believe there is any appetite among Canadians for upsetting that kind of legal process, upsetting our criminal justice system in the name of some abstract idea of Canadian security, when it has not been proven that these people are any threat to Canadian security at all.

We need to prove that and we need to prove it in a criminal court of law. In this case we could then take the serious action against any individual who has been convicted of such crime and for which they deserve. Until that time, there is no excuse for the indefinite detention, which goes on for years, for limitations on their freedom, which go on for years, for limitations on the freedom of their family, which go on for years on end. It is completely inappropriate and not seen as something that is the Canadian way and not representative of Canadian values.

Some people will say that it has only been used 28 times since it was set up and there are only six people now under a security certificate. In my opinion that is six people too many when we are dealing with such a fundamental disruption of our freedoms and that of our criminal justice system.

There is absolutely no excuse. There has been no proof that such a process is necessary. Until that time, I will continue to add my voice. I am very proud of the New Democrats who will stand and very clearly vote against the legislation. It does not meet our standards in terms of upholding basic values of the importance of our criminal justice system, basic values of human rights, which we have fought for time and time again. We cannot compromise those without a fight.

In this corner of the House we are prepared to mount that fight and speak clearly and passionately about the importance of the values of human rights to Canada, to Canadians and to people around the world. If we make these kinds of compromises, how can we hold others to account for the compromises they constantly make when it comes to human rights and the just process?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Richmond Hill, Afghanistan; the hon. member for West Nova, Airbus.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to speak to Bill C-3, clearly a piece of legislation that is extremely important to all of us as parliamentarians but also very important for Canada.

It is an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, certificates and special advocates. Listening to my colleague from Burnaby and knowing how passionately he feels about this, I recognize and recall from some time past his opposition to these kinds of things. I must say I applaud his commitment but look at it from a very different point of view.

This bill that is before us will amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to create the role of special advocate.

The very core role of the special advocate would be to protect the interests of the subject of a security certificate by challenging the public safety minister's claim to the confidentiality of information, as well as its relevance and the weight of the evidence, something that is important. We have been clearly pointing out that there were areas in the previous legislation that needed to be improved and this is a good beginning.

The special advocate may also make written and oral submissions to the court and cross-examine government witnesses. These responsibilities would have to be performed within closed court proceedings. It is quite similar to the British system, as my colleague from Burnaby pointed out.

The special advocate's responsibility though is to protect individuals interests in proceedings where evidence is heard in the absence of the public, and of the persons and their counsel. Clearly, these are areas of new jurisdiction for our country, but areas that have been necessary for us to go to make sure that Canadians in Canada are protected.

The bill also provides that any individuals detained under the certificate regime must have their detention reviewed by a judge of the Federal Court within 48 hours of the detention beginning. That is also a very important aspect of the legislation, to ensure that the adequate evidence is also there, and people are not just randomly held, as some people would like us to believe.

Any persons who are still detained six months after the conclusion of the first review may apply for another review of the very reasons for their continued detention. It is another avenue where it is not just a closed door. They will have an opportunity to provide evidence and to defend themselves.

The bill permits a challenge to the Federal Court of Appeal of reasonableness, and I think that is a key word throughout this legislation, of a security certificate, or the results of a review of a person's detention, or the release, should that happen, under conditions.

Again, as my colleague from Burnaby pointed out, some of those conditions may not be the best, but we are always having to keep in mind the safety of our country and security of Canadians, providing the appeal judge certifies that a serious question of general importance is involved.

It also permits a peace officer to arrest and detain persons who are subject to a security certificate if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the persons have contravened or are about to contravene their conditions of release. That is a very important part of this legislation as well because people will be given the opportunity, under certain conditions, to have a degree of freedom, but if for some reason or another a police officer or someone else has reason to believe that they may flee, then they may need take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the individuals in question are where they needed to be.

Bill C-3 also enables the minister to apply for the non-disclosure of confidential information during a judicial review of a decision made under the act, and gives the judge discretion to appoint a special advocate to protect the interests of the person concerned.

Just to give some background to the many Canadians who are watching this debate, or we would like to think are watching this debate, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously on February 23 that the process for determining the reasonableness of security certificates violates section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, hence the reason that we are currently dealing with this legislation.

I always believe that the more time we take to review something the better the legislation will come out and clearly the Supreme Court has point out some areas that needed to be looked at and reviewed. I believe, at the end of the day, it will only make it that much better, that much stronger, and that much more effective piece of legislation.

We also know that none of us want to see innocent people have their rights abused in Canada. I think that by the time the committee finishes studying the legislation, when it comes back to the House, it will be that much more effective, keeping in mind some of the comments that some of my colleagues have raised about their concerns about abuse of the process.

The Supreme Court was quite clear. The government does require a mechanism to remove individuals from Canada who pose a threat to national security. That clearly was a large part of that legislation that was introduced initially, that there did need to be some sort of mechanism so that people could be removed. I believe Canadians want that ability to do that.

However, the system as it is currently must be reformed. The court had particular concerns with respect to secrecy of the judicial review system which prevents individuals from knowing the case against them and hence impairs their ability to effectively challenge the government's case.

I think we can say that it was not just the court that had concerns about that particular area of it. It certainly goes against a lot of things that we believe in in Canada and keeping the secrecy issue is a very difficult thing.

It is all about a balance of being able to protect our country and to respect our security issues. At the same time we cannot disregard the fact that we have a charter in our country and we have human rights that we respect. We want to make sure that things are done properly and that we do not have to hide in shame because we did not do something properly when it comes to something as important as international or security issues.

We on this side of the House, as the official opposition, welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court on the security certificates in February which provided Parliament a year to address the issue. That year will soon be up and it is only now starting to be dealt with.

It is very unfortunate that the government took so long to come forward with replacement legislation that Parliament now may be rushed to ensure that legislation is in place before the one year timeline expires in February 2008. Add on to that, this is an important piece of legislation. We dealt with it before under strenuous difficult times. It is important that we do this right and that we make sure that we are going to maintain the safety our country, as well as not abusing human rights and stepping on other people's rights.

The Supreme Court agreed that the protection of Canada's national security and related intelligence sources does constitute a pressing and substantial objective, but it also found that the non-disclosure of evidence at certificate hearings is a significant infringement on the rights of the accused. I believe most Canadians and most of us as parliamentarians will have to admit that we had some concerns in that very area. Finding the right balance is the challenge.

In other words, the government must choose a less intrusive alternative, notably the use of a special advocate to act on behalf of the named persons while still protecting Canada's national security. I go back to the issue of a balance and how that important that balance is for all of us.

The immigration security certificate procedure still allows suspected terrorists as well as refugees and landed immigrants accused of human rights violations or serious criminality to be detained and deported from Canada. The safety of Canadians and Canada is a priority I know for all of us as parliamentarians.

The Liberal party will support the bill at second reading, voting in favour of sending the bill to committee for an in-depth study. We will take the time to study the new bill, to make the necessary improvements at the committee stage, and hopefully we will still be able to not be too far off from the timeline that we have been given to get this done.

It will mean a lot of work by a lot of parliamentarians in the House very quickly in order to ensure that we are following all of the obligations that Canada has when it comes to fighting terrorism. It is something that is extremely important for all of us and we want to ensure that we have covered all the bases that are necessary.

We do not want to have legislation that does not meet all of the requirements and that again would be challenged in the Supreme Court and possibly struck down. I think as we move forward to committee now many of us will work on this legislation to ensure that there is that balance that all Canadians will want to see.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the member eloquently explain the situation the way it is right now and what she is really looking at. It sounds like we are in favour of taking this bill to committee so we can further review it.

My concern lies with the time we have as of the ruling. The Supreme Court ruled in February 2007 and February 23, 2008 comes very quickly when we have a Christmas break and return near the end of January. In the hon. member's view, will we have substantial time to look at all the alternatives, amend the legislation, and bring it back for the final reading in the House?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague has a huge amount of interest in this issue. To answer his question, it will be difficult. There is a very short timeline. Possibly, parliamentarians will have to work over January if we are to meet that February 2008 date. However, I suspect it will not be the first time we have not met a date requirement and we will have to ask for an extension.

We should remember that while we are moving forward in all of this, many people around the world are watching Canada and how we will deal with the legislation. Will we make sure it is respectful of human rights, respectful of the charter and respectful of all of the things that matter so much to us as Canadians?

Listening to the concerns of my colleague from Burnaby, and I am sure there are concerns on all sides of the House, we are uncomfortable with the previous legislation. We are probably still uncomfortable with Bill C-3, while recognizing that fighting terrorism is something we all have to do. The government has to have the tools necessary to take whatever action is necessary to ensure we are safe as a country and that we are working with other countries around the world to prevent the continuation of terrorism.

It is critically important that we get the bill to committee. We hope this week it will go through and the committee can start work next week. Knowing the way parliamentarians feel, I expect they will put a lot of hours into looking at this on all sides of the discussions and arguments that no doubt will be there on behalf of many individuals.

Where we are going with it is an improvement to the process. A special advocate will be a good approach. We need to get the bill to committee, work on it, and get it back into the House to be approved. The sooner we do that the better for Canada.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I notice that in Bill C-3, one of the compromises, I suppose we could say, made by the Conservative government when it introduced the bill is that there will be special advocates as part of the security certificate process. It claims this will be enough to ensure that someone is representing the rights and the concerns of the accused and that at least the special advocate will be told the nature of the charges and why the person is being detained.

However, my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas points out that in the U.K. and New Zealand, where they do have special advocates for people being held, that it has been woefully inadequate. In the U.K., a special advocate in fact has resigned in protest recently, citing that he felt that his office was being used as an excuse to detain people unfairly. In other words, the special advocate did start advocating on behalf of the people detained and resigned.

Does the party of the hon. member agree that the special advocate is not an adequate compromise to ensure the rights of the detainees are being represented?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess time will tell. I would like to think that we would look at and learn from the U.K. model and the New Zealand model. I would like to think that we would make sure that in one way or the other the rights of the individuals being detained are paramount.

This is not a question of government interference. There should be an arm's-length ability for a special advocate to have full access to whatever evidence is put forward to detain an individual. If the advocate does not feel that it meets the proper requirements, it should not just be an opportunity to detain somebody and throw away the key because we have questions about whether or not they are a threat to the country.

I would only assume that these things are not done lightly. I can assure my colleague, from some previous experience in life, that security certificates are not things that we sign off on easily. There is a huge amount of responsibility there.

I would hope that we would learn from the U.K. and New Zealand models to make sure that the role of special advocate proposed in this legislation includes the tools and the ability and the arm's-length firmness to be able to stand up to the government or to parliamentarians as a whole and say that there is not enough evidence and an individual's rights are being abused. I expect that we would all make human rights paramount. I am sure that we do not want our rights abused, nor should we be abusing anyone else's.

I would hope that we learn from the U.K. and New Zealand models and make our special advocate, as a result of this legislation, even better and that we continue to look at it and find ways to strengthen this legislation.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there were a number of people in the Toronto locale, 18 in total, I believe, who were charged with terrorism. They were very sensational charges. The government did a lot to manage the news on them. Those folks were not charged under the security certificate section, but they are being charged with terrorist activities and under the Criminal Code.

Since this incident happened in the member's geographic district of the GTA, could she tell us anything about these 18 people?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, police in our major cities have a huge responsibility to do the right thing when they are dealing with crime and various other activities. When they have concerns about a particular group of people, they often will spend up to 18 months working on that group. Just because people are affiliated with a group, it does not mean they are necessarily part of that group or that they are terrorists.

The police have a difficult job. We have a difficult job. It is a question of finding balance and respecting an individual's rights.

Some of those people were detained and subsequently released, but I think that once people have been detained and have had that label put on them, it is very difficult to have it removed. I think that stigma would be with them forever. I think it is always a question of being cautious before laying charges and of making sure we have all the information we need.

As for Bill C-3, at committee we will have a chance to find out what we are talking about as far as reasons for detaining someone and taking away his or her liberties are concerned. Maybe we need to specify more clearly the reasons why someone should be detained. These are the kinds of things that we can talk about at committee to make sure that this legislation is vented properly and that it achieves what we want it to achieve, which is to ensure that we are all fighting terrorism together, that Canada remains a safe place, and that we are doing our part in the fight against terrorism around the world.