Bill C-17 (Historical)

Combating Terrorism Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions)

This enactment replaces sections 83.28 to 83.3 of the Criminal Code to provide for an investigative hearing to gather information for the purposes of an investigation of a terrorism offence and to provide for the imposition of a recognizance with conditions on a person to prevent them from carrying out a terrorist activity. It also provides for those sections to cease to have effect or for the possible extension of their operation.

Combating Terrorism Act

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill S-7 is the latest chapter in a long saga that began in the wake of September 11 and led to a number of legislative measures. Bill C-36, the Anti-terrorism Act passed in 2001, was the first salvo launched following the horrific events in New York which still strike fear in people today.

Obviously, the legislation was brought in not only to respond to this threat and to protect Canadians, but also to meet our international obligations, as dictated at high levels, to the UN.

Some of the provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act amended existing pieces of legislation such as the Criminal Code, the Access to Information Act and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorism Financing Act.

Other more significant changes were brought in, notably unprecedented changes to Canadian law. Those who were serving in the House at the time of the 2001 attacks perhaps can attest to the fact that this legislation was passed hastily and without due consideration.

Facing the unknown and a climate of dread, Parliament responded in a strong-armed, reflexive manner. There is a reason therefore why these provisions, crafted in the urgency of the moment, were subject to sunset clauses.

These so-called sunset clauses ensured that the more controversial measures would simply be temporary. That was for the better. The provisions in question pertained to preventive arrest and investigative hearings.

Had the desire arose to extend the life of these provisions, had they been deemed useful or relevant or had it been acknowledged that they had prevented an otherwise inevitable catastrophe from occurring, there would have been an opportunity to maintain them and make them permanent.

To do so would have required a resolution by both Houses of Parliament. A resolution was in fact tabled and rejected. Parliamentarians in their wisdom found that there was no valid reason to extend the life of these provisions.

Both Houses did their homework as far as these measures were concerned. Each one examined the most sensitive provisions of the 2001 Anti-terrorism Act. In October 2006, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security reviewed the legislation, most notably the investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions provisions. The other place produced an aptly named report entitled “Fundamental Justice in Extraordinary Times”.

Despite this flurry of activity, these questionable, freedom-destroying and fortunately temporary provisions expired as originally scheduled in 2007.

Since then, several attempts have been made to resurrect this long-settled debate: Bill S-3 in 2008, Bill C-19 in 2009 and Bill C-17 in 2010.

Each time, the same conclusion has been reached: the state currently has all the tools it needs to combat terrorism.

There was no reason to bring in these measures, even in 2001, and there is no reason to re-introduce them today.

The measures being debated today are not harmless. Among other things, Bill S-7 would re-introduce into Canadian law the phenomenon of investigative hearings that allow a peace officer to apply to a provincial court judge for an order to compel individuals to appear before a judge if they are suspected of having information concerning future terrorist acts. The provision would compel the individual to attend hearings and to answer investigators’ questions.

Another important measure that is being brought hastily before the House is the recognizance with conditions provision which includes preventive detention. It would give a peace officer the authority to arrest an individual without a warrant if he believes such action is necessary to prevent a terrorist act. The individual in question is subsequently brought before a judge, as soon as feasible, according to the wording of the bill, and may be imposed certain conditions, or may even be committed to prison for a term not exceeding 12 months.

From a human rights standpoint, these provisions are very restrictive. One could also argue that they are cause for great concern and that careful consideration should be given to the balance that must be struck between the real advantage they provide in terms of public safety and the cost to citizens, which undeniably in this instance is restrictions on a person’s fundamental rights. Admittedly, at issue are the rights of the individuals primarily concerned, but ultimately the rights of all citizens are affected as well.

Dramatist Henry Becque wrote that freedom and health have much in common and that we only appreciate their value when they are lost to us.

I am greatly concerned about the timing of today’s debate, about the fact that the government has chosen to move it up in light of what has happened. As noted earlier, the 2001 Anti-terrorism Act was passed hastily and this is not how debates on national legislation should unfold.

Today it would seem that an attempt is being made to recreate the same climate of fear and panic in order to hastily push through a bill that has serious implications for people’s freedoms.

It goes without saying that the people in my riding, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, want to live in safety. However, they also believe very strongly in the rights that belong to every individual. Many of them are going to wonder whether this is the right time to be debating the measures in Bill S-7, when people are recovering from the horrific, cruel and gratuitous attacks that took place last week at the Boston Marathon.

We do not need any added emotion for debating this bill. What we need is some distance, some reflection, and some calm and considered thought.

To me, there is nothing wise about the government precipitating this debate. I stress the word “wise”.

Is it really wise, the day after attacks like that, and with what we have in the news here in Canada, to be rewriting our laws and redefining our fundamental freedoms?

Perhaps it is the usual opportunism we see from this government, in its typical crudeness and poor taste.

We on this side firmly believe that this bill is contrary to the fundamental values of Canadians and the values on which our judicial system is built.

The unambiguous and unvarnished goal of these measures is to limit the civil liberties and fundamental rights of Canadians.

Those rights include basic elements of our judicial system that we take for granted: the right to remain silent, the right to a fair trial and the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty.

The principles of our law, whose origin lies in centuries-old customs and legal traditions, lay out individual rights that are unwavering.

While the draft we are presented with today includes a few sops that are supposed to reassure us, because they are in the form of additional protections, these proposals are very unconvincing overall.

We also oppose these measures simply on their track record: these methods are ineffective in principle.

Ultimately, we firmly believe the Criminal Code is an entirely satisfactory tool for investigating these suspicious people who engage in shady plans or whose goal is to threaten the public. Those are crimes and that is what the Criminal Code is intended for.

In fact, the provisions drawn up in 2001, which had a “sunset clause” that took effect in 2007, were never used. Those measures made people uncomfortable from the outset, in 2001, because they were inimical to liberty.

In 2010, a former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Reid Morden, said, on the question of the two measures I referred to earlier:

...I confess I never thought that they should have been introduced in the first place...

He raised the idea that these provisions had slipped into the act almost by mistake.

...and that they slipped in, in the kind of scrambling around that the government did after 9/11...It seemed to me that it turned our judicial system somewhat on its head.

He then stressed that law enforcement agencies already have the powers they need to do their job. They do not need additional powers. He concluded by saying:

I guess l'm sorry to hear that the government has decided to reintroduce them.

It appears that these measures caused misgivings among the forces of law and order, who wisely decided not to use these powers in their investigations.

Can someone really explain why these measures would be useful today, when they were not useful in the months following September 11, and that even the people who could have enforced them did not want to?

Finally, when some rights are under threat, all rights are under threat. Under the provisions of this bill, there is not much to ensure that citizens or anyone will not be falsely accused in the future for activities that have nothing to do with terrorism. Some activities may be considered subversive or dissident—slippery words that can be applied to peaceful activities in a democratic context.

Those who defend fundamental human rights are speaking up from all sides, telling us that these measures are unnecessary and that the price to be paid will be paid in civil rights, which is not a fair exchange for the proposed benefits. These measures are unwanted and unnecessary.

We saw this a few years ago when threats of spectacular terrorist attacks were foiled. We saw it again yesterday, when the admirable public safety professionals arrested two suspects who, it appears, wanted to disrupt the lives of ordinary people and do them unimaginable harm.

At this moment in time when terrorism has become part of current events, it is essential that we resist. We must resist terrorism in order to protect ourselves, prepare ourselves and defend ourselves. We must make our trains, airports, public spaces and gathering places safe and secure.

It is also essential that we, as a society, as communities and individuals, refuse to be terrorized by terrorism, and refuse to be manipulated or to change our behaviour and lifestyles. That is precisely what we should not do.

We must not be terrified by terrorism. To stand up to terrorism is to ensure that democracy and individual liberties for everyone in our country are never threatened by such people and their violence.

Since I have only a few seconds left, I just wish to express my astonishment at the Liberal Party's inconsistency. In 2001, the Liberals adopted the sunset clauses, but today they are not proposing any amendments of the sort. I cannot explain that.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting debate. I have been listening to a lot of the arguments that have been flowing around this place.

As a preamble to what I am going to say, it seems to me that we have another bill before us that we probably do not really need. The impression I am getting, via the events of today and the events that have happened in the past few years, is that we have sufficient means and sufficient legislation to work for the safety of our country.

The intent of the original Anti-terrorism Act was to update Canadian law to meet international standards, such as meeting the requirements of the United Nations, and as legislative reaction to 9/11. All the provisions of this act, except for the investigative hearings and the recognizance with conditions, remain law today.

The sunset clause was attached to the original bill because serious concern was expressed during the 2001 law-making process that these measures were largely unprecedented in Canadian law and could easily be used inappropriately.

What I find interesting is that, upon review of this legislation that was passed as a reaction to a specific event and in a state of panic, we have learned that there was in fact no need for that legislation.

As of the day of their sunset, a number of investigative hearings have been held. There were no instances when recognizance with conditions was required.

It is unfortunate that the mandated parliamentary reviews of legislation made a number of recommendations that were not incorporated into Bill S-7. It is my understanding that the NDP proposed 18 amendments. It is not unlike what happened to us on the food safety bill. We came and said we would work with the government to improve the bill that was before us—necessary at that time—and it then rejected all of our amendments.

As our colleagues are probably already aware, we have proposed amendments that would improve transparency and strengthen reporting requirements, to minimize the negative impact of the bill on Canadians’ civil liberties. This is an important point. These amendments are based on evidence we heard, so we did not just make them up. As I understand it, we drafted amendments on the basis of evidence heard in committee that reflect the values that we believe are dear to Canadians.

Among the issues dealt with in these amendments, there is first the addition of a SIRC review of a possible co-operation protocol between the agencies, to ensure its effectiveness and its respect for rights protected by legislation before the offences relating to leaving the country come into effect.

Second, we want to ensure that the evidence gathered during investigative hearings cannot be used against an individual during extradition or deportation proceedings, and not just during criminal proceedings.

Third, we want to ascertain the right to legal aid provided by the federal government if the individual is to appear at investigative hearings.

Fourth, we want to ensure that annual reports include detailed information about all changes to the legislation, to policies or to practices in terms of exit information or exit inspections.

Fifth, we want the comprehensive reviews to cover the implementation of the four new offences relating to leaving the country and for the issue to be dealt with by elected members of Parliament, not just by the Senate.

Other amendments have also been proposed, but they were all rejected by the Conservatives. This is the key point.

As this House has already heard, this bill has been in the works for months. It came from the Senate and all of a sudden the Conservatives decided to bring it forward today.

We have received the answer to our question; we know why we are discussing this bill today. I do not need to belabour this point.

I would like to point out that the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh spoke against Bill C-17 in the House in 2010. He said:

When facing a crisis, we as political leaders feel that we have to do something even when all the evidence shows that the structures we have, the strength of our society, the strength of our laws, are enough to deal with it. We passed legislation in early 2002 to deal with terrorism when we panicked. We have learned in the last eight years that there was no need for that legislation.

My colleague, the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh, is a lawyer. He spent many years in the field. He was our justice critic. He is always the person to whom many of us look, to this day, for his judgment when it comes to the various laws here, and he has basically said that we do have sufficient legislation to combat what we need to combat in regard to terrorism.

I mentioned the actions of today, and I would like to congratulate and thank all those law enforcement officers and those men and women who have put together the roundup today, that they were able to penetrate a terrorist cell. I am not sure of the details, but as a citizen I would like to thank them for that effort. We have professional people on the ground who collaborate, not only with other law enforcement agencies in our country but with other countries, and that goes on. What we need to do is give them more resources, not fewer resources as is happening now. We need more resources to beef up our borders, to ensure we do not have illicit guns coming across the border, and to have people on the ground to penetrate terrorist cells and to work with their counterparts in other countries, so that we in this country can continue to feel safe.

Something that disturbed me, and this is a result of one of the committee hearings, is that Reid Morden, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, stated in 2010:

Speaking strictly on those two particular provisions, I confess I never thought that they should have been introduced in the first place and that they slipped in, in the kind of scrambling around that the government did after 9/11....

It seemed to me that it turned our judicial system somewhat on its head. I guess I'm sorry to hear that the government has decided to reintroduce them.

Police and security services have “perfectly sufficient powers to do their jobs” and “they don't need any more powers”.This is the former director of CSIS, saying this in 2010. As I flipped through my notes and tried to prepare my speech, that disturbed me.

I will sum up by saying that I believe, as do members of my party, that we have the legislation in place. If we are going to improve, we need to improve the resources on the ground so we can equip those men and women to combat the potential terrorism threats to our country, which I feel confident they are capable of doing.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand today in the House to speak against Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act. The genealogy of Bill S-7 takes us back to Bill C-36, the Anti-terrorism Act, which was tabled by the Liberal government in 2001. The original intent of the Anti-terrorism Act was to provide the Canadian legislative response to the events of September 11, 2001, 9/11 as we now know it.

There is no question that day should not and indeed cannot be forgotten. The images of passenger planes flying into those iconic towers repeat themselves over and over again in news, television and film, and undoubtedly in the mind as the memories of the many who were personally impacted by that act of terror.

I note with sadness that my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca and his partner have such memories to bear.

As these images repeat themselves, we witness the deaths of nearly 3,000 innocents, including 24 Canadians over and over again. That day we awoke to a new kind of threat and a new level of threat. Most importantly, we awoke to a new and profound sense of vulnerability, so we responded.

Several provisions of Bill C-36 became permanently enshrined in other legislation such as the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act, the Criminal Code and the Access to Information Act. However, several parts of the Anti-terrorism Act had sunset clauses expiring in February 2007. These provisions concerned investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions or preventive arrest provisions.

These measures were largely without precedence in Canadian law and for good reason. We believe that these provisions run contrary to fundamental principles, rights and liberties enshrined in Canadian law. The rights and liberties violated include the right to remain silent and the right not to be imprisoned without first having a fair trial. We believe that these are important restrictions on the authority of the state because in their absence there is not sufficient protection of an individual's freedom.

As per the terms of the Anti-terrorism Act, these provisions, in order to be extended, had to be adopted by way of resolution by both Houses of Parliament. However, the resolution was defeated soundly, 159:124 in this House, and these controversial provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act sunsetted.

We know that the efforts did not end there. Similar bills were proposed in 2008, 2009 and 2010 in the forms of Bill S-3, Bill C-19 and Bill C-17 respectively. It seems this is an annual, or almost annual rite. Now they are back.

Time has passed in the interim, a decade roughly since Bill C-36 was brought before the House, and time has been instructive. Since the passage of the Anti-terrorism Act, the recognizance with conditions or preventive arrest provision has never been used. The investigative hearing provision has been used once in the Air India case. Many consider that exercise to have had no positive effect, in fact quite the opposite.

Paul Copeland, a highly experienced and respected lawyer representing the Law Union of Ontario, speaking about this sole experience with the investigative hearing provision, said to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in 2010 that the Law Union characterized this episode “as a fiasco, and I think that's an appropriate description”. He went on to say about all the provisions examined:

The provisions you are looking at here, in my submission, change the Canadian legal landscape.... They should not be passed, and in my view they are not needed. There are other provisions of the code that allow for various ways of dealing with these people.

This seems to be the nub of the issue. Without such extreme provisions, without changing the legal landscape of Canada, without breaching the rights and civil liberties of Canadian citizens, we have successfully protected the safety and security of Canada and Canadians from terrorist attack. These provisions have proven over the course of time to constitute an unnecessary and ineffective infringement.

As the former NDP justice critic said in the House in 2010:

When facing a crisis, we as political leaders feel that we have to do something even when all the evidence shows that the structures we have, the strength of our society, the strength of our laws, are enough to deal with it. We passed legislation in early 2002 to deal with terrorism when we panicked. We have learned in the last eight years that there was no need for that legislation.

The only thing to add to that summation is that in the past decade we have learned that we did not need this act.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. As Denis Barrette, spokesperson for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, noted before the standing committee on Bill C-17 in 2011:

Since 2007, police investigations have succeeded in dismantling terrorist conspiracies using neither one of the provisions we are talking about today.

He concluded:

We believe that Canadians will be better served and better protected under the usual provisions of the Criminal Code, rather than others that are completely unnecessary. Reliance on arbitrary powers and a lower standard of evidence can never replace good, effective police work. On the contrary, these powers open the door to a denial of justice and a greater probability that the reputation of innocent individuals...will be tarnished.

We have borne witness to that in this country.

While these provisions have proven to have no effect on the fight against terror, they have had a profound social impact on Canada and many Canadians. On the eve of 9/11 this year, I showed a film at my local review theatre, the Fox in the Beach. The film is called Change Your Name Ousama. It was produced and directed by local filmmaker Fuad Chowdhury and focuses on a community in my riding of Beaches—East York called Crescent Town. Crescent Town is a very densely populated and diverse community, which is largely made up of Bangladeshi Canadians, most of whom are Muslim.

The film is not a point of view film. It was made for television and screened at the Montreal film festival. It includes significant interview footage, for example, of the assistant director of CSIS. It also includes footage of our Prime Minister in a fairly recent CBC interview telling Canadians that the major threat to Canada is still Islamicism. The film also tells the story of what it feels like to be one of about a million Muslim Canadians living in a political climate where their religion has been held to be a threat to the security of their country.

It is noted in the film by a University of Toronto academic that governments, through their actions, have the power to create stigmas and to marginalize communities. Of this we need, in this place, to be very mindful and sensitive. This is where the film gets its title. It was the advice, amidst the political fallout of 9/11, of a Muslim leader of Crescent Town to members of his community, “Change your name Ousama. Shave your beard. Do not wear your kufi”. In essence, “change or disguise your identity”.

Motivated as they have been, bills such as that introduced in 2001 by the Liberals and its partial reprisal today in the form of Bill S-7 have had that impact. They have left so many across this country and in my riding feeling like they have something to apologize for, as if the onus rests on them to demonstrate somehow that they are not terrorists.

Herein lies a great tragedy. In Bill S-7, as with Bill C-36 before it, we have before us a bill that contradicts not just the legal heritage of this country but a fundamental social and political heritage that takes us back decades at least, a heritage of which we should be proud and protective. The heritage I speak of is the opportunity to maintain and exercise one's culture and religion in Canada freely and still be and feel fully Canadian. This social and political heritage is one that has made us a great place, a place where so many around the world long to come to live.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act. I want to state at the outset that New Democrats will be opposing the bill.

Since 2001, we have had an opportunity to revise the bill, which was adopted in reaction to a particular event that sent people into a state of panic. We have learned that there is actually no evidence to support such legislation. When these provisions expired in 2007, we found that there had been no investigative hearing and no situation that required a recognizance with conditions. Since 2007, the investigative hearing has only been used once as part of the Air India inquiry, but that led to no conclusive results. I am going to talk more about that later.

Bill S-7 has four objectives. The first is to amend the Criminal Code to authorize investigative hearings and authorize the imposition of the recognizance with conditions or preventative arrest. Second is to amend the Canada Evidence Act to allow judges to order the public disclosure of potentially sensitive information on a trial or an accused, once the appeal period has ended. The third is to amend the Criminal Code to create new offences for those who have left the country or tried to leave the country to commit a terrorist act, and finally, to amend the security of information to increase maximum sentences incurred for harbouring a person who committed or intended to commit a terrorist act.

I am going to focus on the investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions. I want to give some context here. New Democrats oppose the bill because it is an ineffective way of combatting terrorism and because it is an unnecessary and inappropriate infringement on Canadians' civil liberties. New Democrats believe that Bill S-7 violates the most basic civil liberties and human rights, specifically the right to remain silent and the right not to be imprisoned without first having a fair trial.

According to these principles, the power of the state should never be used against an individual to force a person to testify against himself or herself. However, the Supreme Court recognized the constitutionality of hearings. We believe that the Criminal Code already contains the necessary provisions for investigating those who are involved in criminal activity and for detaining anyone who may present an immediate threat to Canadians.

We believe that terrorism should not be fought with legislative measures, but rather with intelligence efforts and appropriate police action. In that context one must ensure that the intelligence services and the police forces have the appropriate resources to do their jobs.

I want to quote from Denis Barrette, a spokesperson from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, at the review by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on former Bill C-17, which was an earlier version of Bill S-7. Mr. Barrette said:

—the provisions dealing with investigative hearings and preventative arrests, which are intended to impose recognizances with conditions, are both dangerous and misleading. Debate in Parliament on these issues must draw on a rational and enlightened review of the anti-terrorism law. As we know, that legislation was rushed through Parliament after 9/11 in a climate of fear and under very considerable pressure from the United States....

At this point in time, what is the real objective need for these two provisions? From the time of their introduction in 2001 until their repeal in 2007, the only time they were used was in relation to the Air India case which, as you all know turned out, sadly, to be a total fiasco.

Since 2007, police investigations have succeeded in dismantling terrorist conspiracies using neither one of the provisions we are talking about today. Furthermore, since 2001—in other words, in the last 10 years—none of the investigations that resulted in charges or convictions required the use of these extraordinary powers, whether we're talking about the Khawaja affair, the Toronto 18 or, more recently, the four individuals in the Toronto region....

We know as well that these provisions could, as we see it, be abused. I am thinking here of the Air India case. We believe that Canadians will be better served and better protected under the usual provisions of the Criminal Code, rather than others that are completely unnecessary. Reliance on arbitrary powers and a lower standard of evidence can never replace good, effective police work. On the contrary, these powers open the door to a denial of justice and a greater probability that the reputation of innocent individuals...will be tarnished.

There are a number of concerns that have been raised with particular aspects of the legislation. It is important to note that sometimes it also gives Canadians a false sense of security. Again, what we need is appropriate resources to ensure that these activities are monitored and prosecuted where appropriate.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has a quote from the Supreme Court of Canada on national security from 2002.

The Supreme Court stated:

On the one hand stands the manifest evil of terrorism and the random and arbitrary taking of innocent lives, rippling out in an ever-widening spiral of loss and fear. Governments, expressing the will of the governed, need the legal tools to...meet this challenge.

It goes on to say, however:

On the other hand stands the need to ensure that those legal tools do not undermine values that are fundamental to our democratic society — liberty, the rule of law, and the principles of fundamental justice — values that lie at the heart of the Canadian constitutional order and the international instruments that Canada has signed. In the end, it would be a Pyrrhic victory if terrorism were defeated at the cost of sacrificing our commitment to those values. Parliament’s challenge is to draft laws that effectively combat terrorism and conform to the requirements of our Constitution and our international commitments.

Again, I think it is important that we balance the safety of Canadians and the need for Canada to play its role in combatting terrorism, domestically and internationally, with those civil liberty rights.

In an op-ed referring to Canada and 9/11, which was originally published on September 6, 2011, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association stated:

Prior to the attacks, we demonstrated a high level of commitment to certain core values -- rule of law, due process, equality, habeas corpus, presumption of innocence, and the absolute prohibition against torture. These values lay at the heart of our Constitutional and international law obligations.

We knew, from contemporary history, that the absence of such legal protections resulted in societies where exceptional measures became the norm. Such societies could devolve into accepting presumptions of guilt, secret trials, secret evidence, extrajudicial execution, arbitrary detention, torture, even ethnic cleansing and massacres. To prevent such devolution, Canadians knew that any incursion into civil liberties must be legally and demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society; unjustifiable incursions must be remedied.

It goes on to do an analysis about whether or not we, in Canada, can make that same claim today, and I will only read the sections that are actually applicable to this act. It states:

Our national security actions since 9/11 require our attention:

It talks about a number of things, including Afghan detainees and using immigrant and administrative processes and counter-terror initiatives.

However, the piece that I want to highlight is:

Canada seeks to re-introduce post 9/11 amendments to our Criminal Code that will enable interrogation and preventive detention without criminal charge. Civil liberties concerns include the undermining of due process, fair trial, and lower evidentiary thresholds to trigger proceedings.

These concerns are being raised on a number of fronts about the lack of due process.

Later on in its article, it acknowledges that:

...Canada has not taken the extreme legislative or administrative measures seen in other countries, including the United States, following 9/11.

However, it goes on to state:

But we have not always got it right. And when we fail to take timely action to provide accountability, transparency, and redress, we risk morphing from a state anchored on the rule of law and democratic guarantees, to a state that condones illegal actions and disregards human dignity.

Terrorists have little regard for human dignity, human life, human rights, or the rule of law. We cannot effectively fight terrorism and protect our national security if we operate from a paradigm that also disregards these objectives. If, as Canadians, we no longer shrink from the injustices of wrongful conviction; torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; racial profiling; arbitrary detention; impunity; then what exactly are we protecting?

I think that is a very good question, one that we need to ask ourselves as parliamentarians and as Canadians. I think that most Canadians would want to continue saying that we in Canada do protect those civil liberties, that right to due process.

I want to put into context where the Conservative government has missed an opportunity because the review of the Anti-terrorism Act was conducted over a number of years. Someone who did the analysis on it pointed out that the review that was supposed to happen at three years became the three-year review.

In 2007, the subcommittee on the review of the Anti-terrorism Act submitted a report. I want to quote from the minority report that was put forward by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh. I do not have time to read the whole report but many Canadians probably have not read that report and I just want to highlight a couple of the points that come back to the challenges we are facing with this bill before us.

In that report, the members noted:

Terrorism cannot be fought with legislation; it must be fought through the efforts of intelligence services combined with appropriate police action.

There is no act of terrorism that is not already a criminal offence punishable by the most stringent penalties under the Criminal Code. This is obviously the case for pre-meditated, cold-blooded murders; however, it is also true of the destruction of major infrastructures.

Moreover, when judges exercise their discretion during sentencing, they will consider the terrorists’ motive as an aggravating factor. They will find that the potential for rehabilitation is very low, that the risk of recidivism is very high and that deterrence and denunciation are grounds for stiffer sentencing. This is what they have always done in the past and there is no reason to think they will do differently in the future.

We must also consider that, when it comes to terrorism, deterrence has limitations. First, it will have very little impact on someone considering a suicide bombing. Second, those who decide to join a terrorist group generally believe that they are taking part in an historic movement that will have a triumphant outcome in the near future and that will see them emerge as heroes.

Therefore, one cannot expect that new legislation will provide the tools needed to effectively fight terrorism.

Legislation can, however, be amended if police do not seem to have the legal means needed to deal with the new threat of terrorism.

Consequently we must ensure that the proposed measure does not unduly disturb the balance that must exist between respect for the values of fairness, justice and respect for human rights, which are characteristic of our societies, while also ensuring better protection for Canadians and for the entire world community.

This is an important point. We have had the Supreme Court point this out and we have had civil liberties organizations point this out. It is the continuing need to balance the right to protect Canadians in terms of due process with our role domestically and on the world stage.

This dissenting report goes on to say that the Criminal Code already contains this solid arsenal of provisions for combatting terrorism. The Anti-terrorism Act has simply added two more that no police force has yet seen the need to use. Further in the report, it states:

But the ATA is also dangerous, because it is a frontal attack on a number of fundamental principles that underpin our system of law, the system that distinguishes us most sharply from the ideology motivating the terrorists who confront us.

The report continues:

The Civil Liberties Union and the Canadian Association of University Teachers drew up a long list of such principles, including: the presumption of innocence; the right to privacy and to be secure against searches and any kind of invasion of privacy; the right not to be stopped, questioned, arrested or detained based on mere suspicion or on racial, religious or ethnic profiling; the right of every individual to a public, just and fair trial, and the right to appeal; the right to make full answer and defence; the right to be secure against arbitrary imprisonment and torture; the right to bail while awaiting trial, and to have the validity of detention reviewed by way of habeas corpus; the right of asylum; the right to information and to freedom of the press.

We must also learn from our overreactions in the past when faced with danger. As the danger recedes, we feel obligated to compensate the innocent victims of useless measures taken out of fright.

Not only did these measures do nothing to increase our security, but we devoted a great deal of energy to them that could have been better employed in fighting the real danger more effectively.

Sadly, Canada does have a history of reacting to something that ended up not being a threat to Canadians' security at all. The report cites:

One example is the way we treated Canadians of Japanese origin during the Second World War. In 1942, 22,000 people of Japanese origin were arrested and detained, and their property confiscated. 75% of them had been born in Canada. And yet, government documents finally made public in 1970 revealed that both the Department of National Defence and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were convinced that Japanese-Canadians in no way threatened the country’s security.

I want to repeat that. It states, “...in no way threatened the country's security”. As a result of that, of course, the federal government eventually made an official apology and some financial restitution and put some money toward creating educational, social and cultural programs and activities.

However, it is an example of a response to a frightening world situation that unjustly penalized many Canadians.

During the First World War, some 5,000 Ukrainians were interned and 80,000 others were required to report regularly to the police. A number were forced to endure harsh living and working conditions and more than a hundred died during their internment.

There are other examples of how Canada has behaved in a way that many of us would argue did not respect due process and the liberties that many men and women in this country have fought so hard for.

Later in the report, it states:

Respect for our values is an important element in the war against terrorism. At the plenary closing session of the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security in Madrid on March 10, 2005, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan declared once again, “[T]errorism is a threat to all states, to all peoples.” He added,

[Terrorism] is a direct attack on the core values the United Nations stands for: the rule of law; the protection of civilians; mutual respect between people of different faiths and cultures; and peaceful resolution of conflicts.

But he then went on to say,

[T]errorism is in itself a direct attack on human rights and the rule of law. If we sacrifice them in our response, we will be handing victory to the terrorists… I regret to say that international human rights experts, including those of the UN system, are unanimous in finding that many measures which States are currently adopting to counter terrorism infringe on human rights and fundamental freedoms… Upholding human rights is not merely compatible with successful counter-terrorism strategy. It is an essential element.

In the conclusion of the report, one of the things that was recommended was a parliamentary oversight committee. This report was back in 2007. It states:

Canada is unique among western nations in its lack of a Security oversight committee. Over the course of the review we heard testimony from individuals and organizations who stressed the importance of creating a mechanism for overseeing disparate national security activities. In 2004 an Interim Committee of Parliamentarians on National Security was set up to make recommendations to the government of the day, it presented a report to Parliament in April of 2005 and on November 24, 2005, the government tabled a bill (C-81) to establish a National Security Committee of Parliamentarians.

This dissenting report goes on to say:

We would support recommendation 58 in the majority report. We would, however, further strengthen the recommendation to ensure that any Committee has authority to oversee all security agencies. In the examination of the Air India tragedy and the events surrounding the deportation and torture of Maher Arar, to cite but two examples, we have seen and heard of too many problems created when information is improperly shared or withheld from one agency to another.

The National Security Committee must in addition to providing a review function, be empowered to oversee current polices and conduct to ensure their adequacies. We have throughout the course of the review heard that vast amounts of information are deemed of national security interest and therefore inaccessible to the public or judiciary. Therefore, the proposed National Security Committee must be able to examine this information and where appropriate provide a graduated scale for the release of previously classified information.

Of course, over the years we have increasingly seen a government that withholds information. This is not part of this bill, but we recently we saw a very public feud between the government and the Parliamentary Budget Officer because of the government's refusal to release information and there were threats of court action in order to get information that the Parliamentary Budget Officer needs to do his job.

The same can be said to be true of many of the government departments. One almost needs a full battery of people working on access to information and analysis of the different ways this information is presented because when information is available, it is not presented in such a way that it is easily understandable and many times there are huge difficulties even accessing information which should rightfully be available to parliamentarians in order for them to do due diligence in doing their jobs.

This minority report went on to make a couple of recommendations. I will not read them all, but it states in part:

While the purpose of the ATA review was to examine the existing legislation and, while we cannot write an entirely new law, we would recommend that the existing ATA be terminated. However, if a new law were to be drafted, the following considerations should guide the process:

That new legislation seek to provide the utmost protection to, and not oppression of, our citizens;

That the new legislation be guided by the spirit and principles of the Charter;

That new legislation would prohibit “evidence” garnered from torture domestic or international, in our courts or tribunal;

That there be an absolute ban on sending people back to their country of origin or any other country where there is a reasonable risk of torture or death.

The reason I raised that report from 2007 in the context of the legislation that is now before us, Bill S-7, is that we can see that Bill S-7 largely disregards some of the recommendations that were made, principally around due process. We have a re-introduction of the clauses that were sunsetted around preventative detention and investigative hearings.

It is on those grounds that the New Democrats will be opposing the legislation.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to talk about Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act.

This bill is one of a series of anti-terrorism acts that started in 2001 following the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Bill S-7, the Combating Terrorism Act, aims to reintroduce anti-terrorism measures into our legal system. Those measures have been controversial since they were introduced in 2001.

In my opinion, those measures were introduced in 2001 because everyone was panicking. Everyone considers September 11, 2001, to be a turning point. We are all aware that everyone panicked and that we did not really know how to react to the attacks.

If I asked, every member of the House would be able to tell me where they were and what they were doing when the attacks took place.

For my part, on September 11, 2001, I was 17 years old and starting my college-level nursing studies; I was in my psychology class, and the professor entered the room to announce that there had been attacks in the United States and that a plane had flown into the twin towers.

One of my colleagues, somewhat in a panic, said, “My mother is in New York right now.” Everyone panicked. We all remember that day; we can all say what we were doing when we heard the news.

When all this happened, I was in my first year as a student in Sherbrooke, which is closer to the U.S. border further south, and my father, quite a sensible, brave man—I am really proud of him—called me to say that if I could return to Abitibi if I wanted. He understood that I might feel safer further north. A man like my father, whom I fully respect and who is really brave, was concerned and even in a bit of a panic knowing that I was far away. Everyone panicked.

Nobody knew what was going on, and laws were passed quickly because something had to be done. Elected representatives panicked, and so did the people. Something had to be done immediately. The main anti-terrorism acts passed after September 11, 2001, stem from that.

The text of the bill before us would amend the Criminal Code. It adds to and amends the list of terrorist activities, increases the penalties provided, particularly for harbouring a person who has committed a terrorism-related offence, and amends the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act.

It is true that terrorism in many forms is a threat to our society, and we must address it. However, it is always a good idea, when discussing crime bills, to consider what constitutes the hard line and what is the intelligent and effective line because the two may be synonymous at times and not at others. Consequently, we must take the time to consider exactly what we want, and I believe we must always aim for the intelligent and effective line.

These days, the opponents of a democratic regime are less and less likely the conventional forces they previously were; they are much more frequently rebel groups or terrorists, who obey no rules or international conventions, no treaties or rules for parties at war.

However, if our opponents do not abide by those rules, is it not appropriate for us to ask ourselves whether we are prepared to abandon those rules in order to guarantee public safety? Sometimes we have to take the time to think and ask ourselves whether we are not selling our soul to the devil by accepting things that go too far for the sake of public safety.

So we must be very cautious when we talk about these things. For example, should we endanger the human rights and individual freedoms that are truly dear to our country, to our democracy, and for which people have fought, for which Canadian forces have fought several wars? Should we set aside the progress we have made? The answer is no.

Why? The Combating Terrorism Act raises this question: are we discharging our public safety obligations? Anti-terrorism measures have previously been taken, and all those provisions remain in effect today, with the exception of those respecting investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions. A sunset clause, which expired in 2007, was put in place with respect to those provisions because they were viewed as a short-term solution to an emergency and because concerns had been expressed at the time. So it is somewhat as I was saying earlier: following the events of September 11, 2001, panic set in. We took measures, without knowing whether they should be maintained, in response, as it were, to the climate of panic that had set in.

Before they were eliminated, these measures were never useful. Before 2007 they were never necessary. They were used only one time, and it was not a success. But now the government wants to reinstate these same measures, which were never used in a situation that was considered to be an emergency situation at the time.

In more recent cases, it was not necessary to use these specific measures. The existing provisions in the Criminal Code were more than sufficient. We are in the process of bringing these individuals to justice, under the provisions and conditions that already exist in our Criminal Code. In 2007, when these measures came to an end, the House rejected the resolution to extend these provisions.

Our desire to be seen as doing something about law and order is making us lose sight of the notion of justice. Our system must not become focused on law and order instead of justice.

If we look at the application of our laws, we can see that the current provisions are already sufficient. Furthermore, the committees responsible for examining this issue heard the testimony of a number of stakeholders who said that existing Canadian laws were enough. For example, during the 2011 study by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on the old Bill C-17—which was the earlier version of Bill S-7—Denis Barrette, the spokesperson for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group; Ihsaan Gardee, the executive director of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations; Ziyaad Mia, the chair of the Advocacy and Research Committee of the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association; and James Kafieh, the legal counsel for the Canadian Islamic Congress, spoke out against this bill. They said it was unnecessary and violated a number of civil liberties and human rights.

Mr. Speaker, I will share more of what these people said when we continue our study of Bill S-7 and you give me 10 more minutes.

Public Safety and National Security

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in relation to Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions).

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

Abolition of Early Parole Act

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, after the last speech, I think we have heard it all now. Apparently England hosted the G20 summit and spent $50,000 for security. That was an exceptional feat. Certainly, if they were able to hold a summit and spend $50,000 on security, then yes we do have something to learn from them.

The victims of Earl Jones in Quebec are calling for action. Victims of white collar crime from coast to coast are calling for action. The victims said yesterday that they are petitioning all political parties in Ottawa to stand up for the victims of Earl Jones and to do the right thing and act now and support the passage of Bill C-59. Those parties even include the Liberal Party and the NDP.

Let me quote a letter that one of Earl Jones victims sent to the NDP member for Outremont:

We don't want to see this man out on parole as early as next December.... Please work with the other parties to come to a good conclusion for all of us that have been victims—

The letter continued that criminals who preyed on the most vulnerable members of our society should not be released just to save a buck. Was the cost of keeping criminals behind bars worth it? Absolutely.

That is an important comment, because we have heard a fair bit from members about costs, but that is a comment by a victim who says that in some cases perhaps the costs of reparation are suited to the victims.

I would not mind commenting on a speech from yesterday given by the member for Ajax—Pickering. In his speech he advocated 10 times for keeping white collar criminals out of prison. He quoted former U.S. congressman Newt Gingrich at least four times. He seems fixated on Newt Gingrich. The member made reference to the U.S. State of California six times. Not surprisingly, he mentioned victims zero times. As a member of the public safety committee, I have grown accustomed to members on the other side not referring to victims.

Another thing that I heard from the last speaker and from others is that we need to get this bill to committee, that we need to have a debate, that we prorogued this and we prorogued that. However, the fact of the matter is that all of these bills that would help victims, that would fight crime, that would get tough on criminals, just like the bill we are talking about today, could have been dealt with long ago.

Bill C-39 had its first reading back in June. It was referred to committee on October 20. We could have dealt with Bill C-39 before Christmas, but the coalition was more intent on a witch hunt against the RCMP, the Canadian Forces and the Toronto Police Service, the men and women who go to work every day to provide safety and security to our families, friends and neighbours. That was the coalition's priority. Last fall that was what it spent its time focusing on, when it could have focused on legislation that would have actually done something for victims. We could have got tough on crime.

We can go down the list of bills before the public safety committee right now. Bill C-5, the bill dealing with the international transfer of offenders, has been sitting in committee since the fall. It has been at committee for months. Bill C-17, the bill dealing with combatting terrorism, has been before committee for months as well. All of these bills could have been dealt with and been brought back to the House and been voted on and gone all the way to royal assent long ago. Bill C-23B, the bill to eliminate pardons for the most serious crimes, is still hanging around. No action has been taken. They are dragging their feet. Bill C-39 would have addressed the very issues we are dealing with today, but has evolved into Bill C-59.

When the opposition, specifically the Liberal Party, start talking about this and that and the other thing, these are the facts. They can be checked. They are all on the record.

The fact of the matter is that Bill C-39 could have been dealt with long ago. It was first read in the House in June. As I said, it was referred to committee in October, and because of the coalition's agenda and the witch hunt against the RCMP, the Canadian Forces and the Toronto Police Service, we have not heard much of these bills at all.

The government is trying to advocate on behalf of victims by pushing this agenda forward. However, it is being roadblocked at every turn and every step of the way .

Another point I would like to come back to is the costs. We have heard questions about the costs of this and the costs of that. I would also like to talk about victims. I have never heard anything from the coalition about costs when it comes to bills. This is the first time. It is great to hear. It is enlightening that it is starting to look at costs. It may want to consider the costs of the tax hikes it is proposing. However, that is a whole other topic for debate.

These schemers and fraudsters are not fools; they are highly intelligent individuals who are lacking moral fibre and who prey on their victims. They realize that if they are caught, they will get out. They know that. Therefore, when we look at costs, we have to complete the loop and follow the full circle and realize that once these fraudsters and schemers know that accelerated parole is no longer available for them any more, they will think twice before they go down the path of Earl Jones. There is no doubt about that.

Unfortunately, the coalition does not want to talk about that, as it does not suit its argument. As with everything else that I have mentioned in debate this afternoon, it does not suit its needs. However, the facts are right here; the facts can be checked. The fact is that when someone like Earl Jones or Lacroix knows that there will no longer be accelerated parole available, they will think twice. The next offender out there will take a long hard look and a second thought.

While we are talking about parole, let us take another look at what some of these changes will do.

Here is the current situation. Fraudsters who fleece hard-working Canadians of their savings are guaranteed to have their cases reviewed in advance by the Parole Board of Canada, so they can be paroled earlier than other offenders. That does not sound fair to a victim. White collar offenders, who might have destroyed the lives of hundreds of Canadians, are not in fact even required to apply for parole.

Can one imagine that? We have members here who are against this and are having an issue with it. We are just trying to say that we should have some fairness, that we should think about the victims before we send someone back out into the public.

The offenders do not need to lift a finger when they are trying to get back into society. Offenders who qualify for accelerated parole are not required to notify the Parole Board of Canada. In fact, the current Corrections and Conditional Release Act requires that the Correctional Service of Canada refer the cases of the offenders who are eligible for accelerated parole to the parole board before their day parole eligibility date so that they will be released as early as possible.

The other tragedy in all of this is that we do not hear one word from the victims. They are not allowed to make impact statements as to the effects of these offenders' actions on their lives, even the ruination or vaporization of their 30 or 40 years' of savings for their retirements with their families. That is shameful.

This bill needs to be passed today.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, my question is with regard to the expediency behind moving the bill to committee.

I would like to point out the lack of speed with which the Liberal Party coalition on the other side deals with bills. Bill C-5 has been in committee since the fall. Bill C-17, the terrorism bill, has been lingering in committee, as has Bill C-23B, concerning pardons for offenders. All of these bills have been in committee for months and months and yet there has been no action from the opposition to help us move them along. Instead, in the fall those members spent time going on a witch hunt against the RCMP, the Toronto police department and other good men and women who do a job every day.

I wonder if the member could say why she has not been able to push the law and order mandate to get these things through. That is what we are trying to do and every day we fight roadblocks from her party and the critic for public safety.

Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to participate in the debate on the motion to prevent debate on the content and substance of Bill C-59. I find it rather odd that the Bloc has supported the government's attempt to stifle any attempt at debate on the substance of this bill.

No one in the House can accuse the Liberals of not supporting the idea of eliminating parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served for economic crimes. Two years ago, my colleague from Bourassa, our candidate in Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert and our member for Lac-Saint-Louis participated in a press conference with several of Earl Jones' victims to call on the government to quickly bring forward a bill to eliminate parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served, especially for criminals who commit major fraud and have multiple victims.

No one can accuse the Liberals of not supporting that idea. I think it is really dishonest of the government to make that kind of accusation when it knows very well what the Liberals' position is. This was pointed out by my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

Now I would like to talk about the debate and the fact that the Conservatives and the Bloc members want to limit the scope of the debate. Just seven months ago the members of the Bloc rose in the House to criticize the government for doing the exact same thing it is doing now with Bill C-59. The government moved a motion to block debate.

Last June, the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain rose in the House to criticize the government for moving a motion to block debate on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. The Bloc member for Hochelaga also rose to oppose a government motion to block debate on Bill C-9, the Jobs and Economic Growth Act, by imposing time allocation.

We are opposed to this time allocation motion because we believe that Bill C-59 addresses a very important issue. Furthermore, for two years now, the Liberals have been calling on the government to eliminate parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served for economic crimes like those committed by Earl Jones, Vincent Lacroix and others.

I think it is a shame that some would have people believe that the Liberals do not want to protect victims. That is simply not true. When the government introduced Bill C-21 on economic crimes and it was referred to committee, the Liberal justice critic proposed an amendment to the bill to eliminate eligibility for parole after one-sixth of the sentence in cases of economic crime. The Conservatives and the Bloc defeated the motion.

Every MP is entitled to his or her opinion on bills that we are called on to debate in the House. It is a fundamental aspect of the democratic process. The operative word here is “debate”, and the collusion between the Conservatives and the Bloc is preventing us from acting as responsible parliamentarians.

We would like to hear from experts. We want to know how this bill will truly address a gap in the law, how it will do justice to victims, how this bill will improve the chances of rehabilitation for those who once lost control of their lives.

Perhaps we should indeed eliminate parole after one-sixth of a sentence for offenders who have committed serious economic crimes and left a number of victims.

However, for non-violent criminal acts that are not fraud, we believe that evidence has shown that parole after one-sixth of a sentence has been very effective and that the rate of recidivism is much lower.

We will never know what the experts might have said since this closure motion eliminates any chance to consult experts. With this government so eager to control everything, it has become somewhat of a tradition to just pass a bill without any idea of the facts that might call it into question.

The Liberals are against this closure motion. It is not justified, and we regret that the Bloc has decided to join the Conservatives to limit the debate on this bill. As far as the substance of the bill is concerned, in the past and still today, no one could accuse the Liberals of not showing their support for eliminating parole after one-sixth of the sentence for economic crimes.

In order to illustrate the government's intellectual dishonesty, I would like to present a chronology of the Conservatives' failures in their so-called fight against crime.

I am referring here to the various bills that have died on the order paper for all sorts of reasons or that have remained in the House or at committee indefinitely.

Here they are. Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued; Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), died on the order paper before the House had a chance to vote on it; Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime), also died on the order paper. It is certainly not the opposition that forced the government to prorogue Parliament.

Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act and the Identification of Criminals Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, died on the order paper, and Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, on the faint hope clause, died on the order paper before being brought back this session. One committee meeting was held on Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, before it died on the order paper. Bill C-52, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), which is related to Bill C-59, the bill we are dealing with today, died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued. Bill C-58, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, died on the order paper. The prorogation of Parliament killed many bills.

Among the bills introduced by the Minister of Public Safety was Bill C-34, the Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, which also died on the order paper. The bill to deter terrorism and to amend the State Immunity Act died on the order paper. Bill C-43, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Criminal Code, died on the order paper. Bill C-47, An Act regulating telecommunications facilities to support investigations, died on the order paper. Bill C-53, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (accelerated parole review) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, died on the order paper. Bill C-60, An Act to implement the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America, died on the order paper.

To date, no meetings have been held to discuss Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Criminal Code. Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), was given first reading 51 days after Parliament was prorogued, and the committee still has not met to discuss that bill.

Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), was fast-tracked at committee in just one meeting and still has not reached second reading. Bill C-22, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, was given first reading 64 days after Parliament was prorogued, and the government delayed it for 26 days at report stage because of the debate on the short title.

Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to the National Defence Act, was given first reading 89 days after Parliament was prorogued, and we are still waiting for the next step. Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (interception of private communications and related warrants and orders), was given first reading after 94 days, and we are still waiting. First reading of An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act took place 243 days after Parliament was prorogued. Bill C-53, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (mega-trials), was given first reading and nothing more.

Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sexual offences against children) only made it to first reading. Bill C-5, An Act to amend the International Transfer of Offenders Act was introduced at first reading by the Minister of Public Safety 15 days after prorogation. Two committee meetings were held and nothing has happened since. As for Bill C-23B, An Act to amend the Criminal Records Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, we are still waiting. After a few meetings on the subject, the minister was supposed to come back with amendments that he felt were necessary in order to make the bill more comprehensive and definitely more respectful. Bill C-39, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts was introduced for first reading 104 days after prorogation and we still have not met in committee to discuss it. Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act was introduced for first reading 232 days after prorogation and there it remains. Bill C-52, An Act regulating telecommunications facilities to support investigations was also introduced for first reading 243 days after prorogation and we are waiting for the next step. The Senate introduced Bill S-7, An Act to deter terrorism and to amend the State Immunity Act for first reading 49 days after prorogation and we are still waiting for the next step. Bill S-10, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts was introduced for first reading in the Senate 60 days after prorogation. Bill S-13, An Act to implement the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America was introduced for first reading 237 days after prorogation.

I am pointing this out to prove that it is not the opposition parties that are slowing the process down. For all sorts of unknown reasons, the government introduces these bill and then goes no further with them.

To conclude, I would like to question the justification for Bill C-59 and the fact that the Conservatives and the Bloc felt this was urgent enough to warrant this closure motion, which is an affront to parliamentary dialogue.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the comments of the member in this chamber, and I am a bit surprised, because he is actually engaging in substantive debate around the bill to which the time allocation motion applies. However, what is really before us in the House today is the time allocation motion itself and the government cutting off the amount of time for debate on the bill.

We should not be debating the merits of the bill itself at all, yet I just heard the member say that all kinds of crime bills have been stalled at committee.

Let me give the House a number of the bills that have now passed through the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights: C-4, C-5, C-16, C-17, C-21, C-22, C-23A, C-23B, C-39, C-48, C-50, C-51, C-52, S-2, S-6, S-7, S-9 and S-10. Can the member really suggest that the crime agenda of the government is being stalled?

Some of us would argue they are the only bills we have been dealing with in the House. I wish the member would return to what we are really debating here tonight, and that is the time allocation motion, not the substance of the government's crime agenda.

Standing Committee on Finance

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am saddened today to feel the obligation to rise to address comments with regard to the question of privilege raised by the member for Kings—Hants on February 7.

It is like the movie Groundhog Day. Anyone is familiar with that movie knows it was very successful. American actor Bill Murray relives the day over and over again until he learns his lesson.

It appears the government is reliving the same thing and forcing all other members of the House of Commons and Canadians to relive the same days we experienced back in 2009-10 with regard to a request from the special committee on Afghanistan for the production of documents from the government. The government resisted that. It took a question of privilege to be raised in the House. It took comments from many members of the House. It took considerable reflection and study on your part, Mr. Speaker, before you made a ruling that there was a prima facie case of privilege in that regard.

Yet, again, we are faced with the exact same situation today.

If I look at the timeline, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance tabled its 10th report on Monday, February 7. The member for Kings—Hants, pursuant to that report, raised the question of privilege of which we are now all aware.

I want to concur with the arguments raised by my colleague for Kings—Hants, as well as those raised by my colleagues from Mississauga South and Windsor—Tecumseh on the issue.

However, I wish to note a number of points. I also wish to address, in particular, the issues of cabinet confidence and the requests with regard to all the justice bills. It is important to do so, particularly with the time of events and the government's response to date to the committee's requests for the production of documents. We have not yet heard the government's response in the House with regard to the question of privilege.

On November 17, 2010, the Standing Committee on Finance passed a motion, ordering the Government of Canada to provide the committee with five-year projections of total corporate profits before taxes and effective corporate tax rates from the 2010-11 fiscal year until the 2014-15 fiscal year, inclusive. The November 17 motion also ordered the government to provide the committee with certain financial information pertaining to justice bills, which I will enumerate.

As all members in the House know, I am the justice critic for the official opposition. Therefore, all the information, all the documents requested through the motion of the finance committee have direct pertinence to the committee on justice and human rights. Those justice bills were Bill C-4, the youth criminal justice bill, Bill C-5, Bill C-16, Bill C-17, Bill C-21, Bill C-22, Bill C-23A, Bill C-23B, Bill C-39, Bill C-48, Bill C-50, Bill C-51, Bill C-52, Bill S-2, Bill S-6, Bill S-7, Bill S-9 and Bill S-10.

The motion specifically requested:

—detailed cost accounting, analysis and projections, including assumptions, for each of the bills and Acts, conducted in accordance with the Treasury Board Guide to Costing.

Members are now aware, by the issue of privilege raised by the member for Kings—Hants, that the motion established a deadline of seven calendar days, which ended on November 24, 2010.

On November 24, Finance Canada replied to the committee, and I will read the department's response in its entirety because it is quite important, particularly to any Canadian and any member sitting in the House who takes his or her work as an elected official representing Canadians, a sacred duty in fact, to know the response. It said:

Projections of corporate profits before taxes and effective corporate income tax rates are a Cabinet confidence. As such, we are not in a position to provide these series to the Committee.

The department claimed it was not in a position to provide these documents to the committee because, according to the government, these documents were a cabinet confidence. That is the heart of the matter. Do the documents requested constitute a cabinet confidence and, if so, are they excluded from the rule of the House of Commons, the power and authority of Parliament, to require documents to be provided?

As the House knows, because it has been mentioned by others in the House who have commented on the issue of privilege raised by the member for Kings—Hants, the government has yet to speak to this issue. I understand that one of the parliamentary secretaries has said the government is taking note of all of members' comments in the House, relating to the issue of privilege, and will respond in due course.

On December 1, 2010, one full week after the deadline of November 24, 2010, the committee received a reply from Justice Canada regarding projected costs of the justice bills. I will read the response by Justice Canada in its entirety. It said:

The issue of whether there are any costs associated with the implementation of any of the Government's Justice bills is a matter of Cabinet confidence and, as such, the Government is not in a position to provide such information or documents.

That is interesting because in justice committee, of which I am a member, when we have repeatedly asked the minister for the cost analysis of a government bill before the committee, the minister has never stated that he could not give us that information because it is a matter of confidence. I would challenge members to check the transcripts of justice committee. What I did hear was he did not have the information with him or some befuddled answer that did not answer the question.

On December 7, 2010, after the government had refused to provide the information ordered by finance committee by the established deadline, the member for Kings—Hants provided the committee with written notice of a motion by which, if passed, the committee would draw the attention of the House to what appeared to be a breach of its privileges. That has been done. The committee adopted the motion and the member for Kings—Hants rose in the House to speak to the issue.

On December 10, the committee received an additional response from the Department of Finance Canada in answer to its motion ordering the production of documents relating to the projections regarding corporate taxes before profits.

In response, the department stated:

To the best of its knowledge, the Department of Finance has determined that [the] "series" or projections of corporate profits before taxes or the effective corporate income tax rates have never been previously disclosed. These projections are from a comprehensive economic and fiscal projection that constitutes a Cabinet confidence.

To reiterate, according to the second or additional response of the Department of Finance to the finance committee, the Department of Finance, acting on behalf of the government, claimed that these projections have never been previously disclosed and constitute a cabinet confidence.

As pointed out in this chamber before, but which bears repetition, I would suggest to any Canadian to Google the phrase, “Corporate tax profits before taxes”, and restrict their search to the domain of the Department of Finance Canada. That Canadian would get exactly two results: the HTML and PDF versions of “The Economic and Fiscal Update“ from November 2005. In that update, we find precisely the information that the Department of Justice, in its December 10 additional response to the finance committee, claimed had never previously been disclosed because it constituted a cabinet confidence. In fact, it was disclosed in the November 2005 economic and fiscal update that was issued by the previous government comprised of the Liberal Party of Canada's elected members of Parliament.

Therefore, the assertion on the part of the government, through its Department of Finance, justifying its refusal to obey, respect and act on the order of the finance committee to produce the documents is an outright fabrication.

The government department could have said that in the past the information had been released, but that the policy had been changed with a new interpretation of what constituted a cabinet confidence and, as a result, would not be releasing those documents to the finance committee. However, that was not the reason given by the department, by the government, for refusing to release that information. The reason given to the committee for not providing that information, that it is a cabinet confidence, is pure nonsense.

What is the state of legislation regarding cabinet confidence?

As mentioned, one can look to the Access to Information Act and the law of evidence act, and one will find that the government does not have a leg to stand on, and in fact does not have two legs to stand on.

Any reasonable Canadian reading the pertinent sections of the Access to Information Act and the law of evidence act would see that the two responses given by the Department of Finance and the response given by the Department of Justice are nonsense.

As I said, we know that in 2005 the previous government recognized that projections of corporate tax profits before taxes were not covered by cabinet confidence. Such projections are not considered a cabinet confidence when, as is the case with Finance Canada's revenue model, these projections are used by the department in a manner not exclusively related to cabinet operations.

What has changed between 2005 and 2010-11? On what grounds is the government now claiming that these projections constitute a cabinet confidence when there was no such assertion in the past and governments in the past have in fact provided and disclosed that information?

The costs of the justice bills are also important because the Department of Justice, as well, replied to the finance committee by claiming cabinet confidence as a justification for not releasing that information to the finance committee.

We know that due diligence would have required that cabinet consider the cost implications of each justice bill before making a decision to proceed with each bill. We know that under normal practices, an analysis of the cost implications of each justice bill would have been included with the memorandum to cabinet prepared for each justice bill.

Why do we know this? We know it because the Liberal Party of Canada has formed government in the past. We know that when we came power the government that preceded us, the one formed by the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, had done that as well. So these are normal practices. These are practices of a prudent, diligent and competent government.

No diligent, prudent and competent government would consider an issue, whether amendments, or a justice bill bringing in new legislation to the Criminal Code or amending existing sections of the Criminal Code, because that constitutes government policy, would do so without informing itself of the cost of those changes.

That is what previous governments have done, because those previous governments, whatever their faults, have followed prudent, diligent and competent practices with regard to taking decisions on issues brought before cabinet.

As I said, we know that under normal practices, an analysis of the cost implications of each justice bill would have been included with the memorandum to cabinet prepared for each justice bill.

Now let us look at the legislation that deals with what is, or is not, cabinet confidence and whether or not something that falls into cabinet confidence can be accessible.

If one looks at section 69 of the Access to Information Act, it tells us that such analysis and background information is not, and I repeat, not, a cabinet confidence, if the cabinet decision to which the analysis relates has been made public.

A cost analysis of the implications of a justice bill should have been included, and I believe was included, in the memorandum to cabinet, as it is on each and every justice bill.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege in relation to the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Finance.

In our system of responsible government, the government must seek Parliament's authority to spend public funds. Parliament, in turn, has an obligation, a responsibility to hold the government to account and to scrutinize the government's books.

Recently, this government impeded the work of the Standing Committee on Finance by hindering its attempts to better understand the federal government's budget projections.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, Standing Order 108 empowers committees to send for persons, papers and records. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, describes Parliament's right to order the production of documents as a right that is “as old as Parliament itself”.

On November 17, 2010, the Standing Committee on Finance passed a motion ordering the Government of Canada to provide the commitment with five-year projections of total corporate profits before taxes and effective corporate tax rates from the 2010-11 fiscal year until the 2014-15 fiscal year, inclusive.

The November 17 motion also ordered the government to provide the committee with certain financial information pertaining to justice Bills C-4, C-5, C-16, C-17, C-21, C-22, C-23A, C-23B, C-39, C-48, C-50, C-51, C-52, S-2, S-6, S-7, S-9 and S-10.

Among other things, the motion specifically requested:

detailed cost accounting, analysis and projections, including assumptions, for each of the bills and Acts, conducted in accordance with the Treasury Board Guide to Costing.

The motion established a deadline of seven calendar days, which ended on November 24, 2010.

On November 24, the Department of Finance replied to the committee with the following. I will read the department's response in its entirety. It stated:

Projections of corporate profits before taxes and effective corporate income tax rates are a Cabinet confidence. As such, we are not in a position to provide these series to the Committee.

The government provided no further information to the committee before the deadline.

On December 1, 2010, one full week after the deadline, the committee received a letter from the Department of Justice regarding projected costs of the justice bills. Again, I will read the department's response in its entirety. It stated:

The issue of whether there are any costs associated with the implementation of any of the Government's Justice bills is a matter of Cabinet confidence and, as such, the Government is not in a position to provide such information or documents.

On December 7, 2010, after the government had refused to provide the information ordered by the committee by the established deadline, I provided the committee with written notice for a motion by which, if passed, the committee would draw the attention of the House to what appeared to be a breach of its privileges.

On December 10, 2010, perhaps in response to the written notice I had written on December 7, the committee received an additional response from the Department of Finance.

In its response, the department stated:

To the best of its knowledge, the Department of Finance has determined that “series” or projections of corporate profits before taxes or the effective corporate income tax rates have never been previously disclosed. These projections are from a comprehensive economic and fiscal projection that constitutes a Cabinet confidence. As a result, the Department of Finance has not been in a position to provide these "series" to the Committee.

This response appeared somewhat dubious. For, if any member of the House or if any Canadian wishes to Google the phrase “corporate profits before taxes” and restrict their search to the domain of the Department of Finance's website, he or she would get exactly two results: the HTML and PDF versions of “The Economic and Fiscal Update” from November 2005, in which they would find, on page 83, that the previous Liberal government had actually published projections of corporate profits before taxes from 2005 until 2010.

At this time, I would like to seek unanimous consent to table page 83 of “The Economic and Fiscal Update” from November 2005.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to engage in this particular debate.

I want to pay tribute, first of all, to all those members of Parliament who have already intervened. Some of them were critics of mine when I was the minister of immigration. I know that the current Minister of Immigrationwill relish the thought of having a former minister make some submissions. He will probably say that nothing has changed.

However, people have made some pretty insightful suggestions. The people who come to mind, of course, are the member for Laval—Les Îles, the member for Burnaby—Douglas, who just spoke, the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges, who has yet to speak but who was an ardent critic of mine and of immigration, and of course, all other members of the Liberal Party who used to be the greatest critics of the system and the substance of the system, as we have gone through. I doubt that there is another topic, another department, that has more experts in this House than this one.

I am going to add my voice, humble though it may be, on this issue, simply because I agree with the member for Papineau, our critic on this matter, that the bill should go forward to committee, where it will get the appropriate scrutiny from all those people who have a wealth of experience and expertise. That will give the Canadian public a feeling of comfort that what they are getting is a bill that has really received the scrutiny of this House and Parliament.

I know that the Minister of Immigration has counted on the support of members of Parliament from the official opposition to get some of his issues through the House, and I know that he looks forward to continuing that kind of relationship. I am sure that other members on this side of the House will be only too happy to collaborate in a fashion that will produce a desired outcome.

Many of us here have a tendency to be academic or expert on some things, because that is the way we are in this House. We stand here and we pontificate on things.

I would like to give members a bit of a human element.

I have a young grandson. He is probably watching right now. If he is, I want to be able to point to him. I do not know if he is or not. That little boy, who is going to turn five tomorrow—his name is Stefano—had the good fortune of having, and still has, four grandparents who were born abroad. Each and every one of those four had the kind of difficulties we constantly debate in this House with respect to immigration. Their issues were, and continue to be for those who are like them, issues not of process but of substance. They want to know that the current government, the Government of Canada, actually seeks them out and wants them to come here.

Stefano and his brother--I think they are watching this right now; I hope they are, because I want to say happy birthday to Stefano--have the good fortune of having grandparents who had the good fortune of being able to come to this country to be part of the building of everybody's dream. That is what immigration is. It is not a process. It is about the realization of an ambition and a dream that individuals and their families have for fashioning a future not just for themselves but in co-operation with and in collaboration with a collective in another place, a place that they will turn into their home. Canada has become a home for so many people from so many other places.

I am one of them. I had the good fortune of having parents who had the wisdom to move. They wanted to move. It was a challenge for them. They had to deal with consultants. I did not know. They did not call them consultants then. It was just somebody who gave them a hand who said , “If you go to the Canadian Embassy, you might be able to go to Canada, because they want people. They want people who are going to build Canada. They want people who want to become part of a country that is going to be something more than what we have here, no matter where 'here' is.” Along the way, there were people who took advantage of their desire to have a better life for them and their kids.

We do not want people to take advantage of those who want to come and build this country. The reason we do not want that is not because we have compassion for people in need. It is not because we feel sorry for those who are victims of the unscrupulous. It is not because we think it is wrong for someone to take advantage of another. It is because we think that is inconsistent with those values that make us Canadian.

We do not want people's first experience with this country to be one where they come into contact with those who profess to be expert on how to enter this country and make those people pay dearly to come here.

We do not want our offices to turn into nothing more than processing centres for those who would sell expertise whether real or not as the one expression of Canada that they must then overcome when they come here.

I said a few moments ago that I agree with my colleagues that the bill should go forward and let the committee deal with this. I know that the minister will be happy to hear this.

However, I look at the bill and we have now had four and a half years of a government, some of whose members had become the same kind of experts that I talked about a moment ago. If there was a problem in the process, we have had this amount of time to actually deal with correcting the measures in process. This House cannot simply be one that is dedicated to process. This House has to be representative of the collective ambition of the Canadian public for its country.

For all those who were born here or who came here, we used to call them naturalized Canadians, we have evolved. We do not call them that any more. For all those who were born Canadians and those who have become Canadians, they are all part of that collective ambition that wants a place in the world in which all Canadians can feel they have a portion, a stake, a share in the country that everybody would like to emulate or be a part of.

We need to discuss in this House what that immigration plan is for Canada, how it fits in with the industrial strategy, the social strategy, the political strategy of a country that is evolving, that is developing, that is still becoming. It is not just being. It is not just there. Every day brings a new challenge. Every day brings a new goal. Every day brings a new struggle for people to identify with, to overcome and then to reap the satisfactions associated with saying that we have accomplished something for ourselves and with and for our neighbours.

The bill says that we are going to take care of those people who abuse the system by giving bad advice.

It seems to me that a former minister, the Hon. Elinor Caplan, used to be criticized a lot by her own caucus colleagues when we were on that side of the House some 12 years ago. She talked about this precise matter. She said, “We have to stop those snakeheads, those human smugglers from abusing people abroad and from abusing relatives of those people here in Canada. I am going to travel abroad. I am going to go to Beijing”. That was becoming a big source area for many of our immigrants. She said, “I am going to go to other places, like India and the Philippines, because that is where most of the people are coming from. I am going to see if I can get the co-operation of those governments in order to pursue those who are so unscrupulous that they would take advantage of their people”.

Keep in mind this is about taking advantage of people who would become part of Canada but who are not yet a part of Canada. This is about dealing with people who would try to abuse or take undue advantage of a Canadian system in order to abuse people who are outside our borders even more.

I noted that the minister agreed with that, in essence, in response to a question from my colleague from Laval—Les Îles. He said that we have to co-operate with foreign authorities in order to pursue and prosecute those who take undue advantage of others, even if it appears to be more acceptable in other places than it does here, because, of course, we have the rule of law. It is one of the values that draws people to this place. In other places that particular value is less ingrained and so people work within different parameters.

We say we are going to get rid of unscrupulous consultants. Some of my predecessors and some of the current minister's predecessors tried the same thing. One of the measures undertaken at the time was to provide educational material to those who would have become consultants, in other words, have them work with the department and the legal societies in order to come up with a body of expertise that would be acceptable to our functionaries abroad and in Canada.

We even went so far as to give them their own regulatory authority. Do you know what that means, Mr. Speaker? I know you relish this sort of thing. What happens is governments say that they have to put together an organization, but people are mature enough, educated enough and responsible enough to make the decisions to make that organization function properly, in other words, for their members but also for the people that they would serve.

Why do we say that? We say that because there is a basic principle of law in all western societies that is called caveat emptor, buyer beware. But we try to make sure that all the vendors adhere to a particular policy, a particular set of standards that make us proud but reinforce as well all of the values that we build as a society as we invite more and more people, like Stefano's grandparents, to come to this country and to build it. That is what we do.

We established a set of laws to make sure that nobody contravenes Canadian legislation, but we give them regulatory authority so that they can govern themselves. That is what they wanted and that is what we gave them. We worked with them.

The law societies, of course, were not completely sure that they wanted to have the consultants in place. However, there is a fine line between accepting the criticism as valid from one group against the other. It must be recognized there is a competitive spirit between the two of them. What they need to do is look at that market. I think last year some 230,000 people were given their permanent residency to this country and there were tens of thousands more who had to go to those people for the expertise to develop their applications for other types of visas. One can understand there is a commercial issue here.

I listened to the debate this morning on Bill C-17. I listened to it yesterday as well. There are those who are still following the debate. I see there are some very hardy folks in the gallery and my compliments to them for trying to fashion out what it is that parliamentarians do when they talk about building laws that fashion this country and give us a Canadian identity. My compliments to them for spending at least a few minutes to hear what it is that we have to say.

Bill C-17 talked about building a new regulatory framework in order to make sure that we could fight off the terrorists that we see everywhere. As one member of the NDP from Vancouver indicated, it was in essence beginning to limit the civil liberties in order to fight off the perceived evil that is out there. The Minister of Justice said yesterday that it was not all that bad because it is the law the Liberals had when they were in government after 9/11 and which lapsed in 2007.

If one wants to accept there was a crisis that created a need for legislation, that crisis must have lapsed by 2007 because there was a sunset clause built into the bill. It is now three years later. One is tempted to ask what the crisis is. The crisis is that the government needed to give an impression that notwithstanding all the other economic and social difficulties in this country, its priority would be the creation of a psychological environment that says we are under threat and these tough guys are going to put in legislation that lapsed some three years ago.

It might offend some people who think that civil liberties should be maintained, but after the $1.2 billion boondoggle at the G20 summit and the turning of Toronto into an armed fortress for the sake of a 72 hour photo op, the Canadian public is right to be skeptical about whether this is the message to have.

Some might ask what that has to do with this bill. For those people who are still watching, they should think about what the bill says. It is no longer about the process that I talked about a moment ago. This is Bill C-35, which means there has only been 34 other bills presented since the government got elected in 2008. Imagine that. For all of that time we have been dealing with legislation that did not come from the government. Where is the government's vision of Canada? However, the title of the bill is the cracking down on crooked consultants act.

What are we doing now? We are trying to consolidate all of the issues associated with process under the direction of the Minister of Immigration .

I know that the minister's heart is in the right place when he wants to talk about reforming the entire system, but please, this sort of thing makes it absolutely difficult to take the government's initiative all that seriously. It brings all of those functionaries who are outside the bureaucracy into an ambience where they are responsible to the Minister of Immigration for the kind of livelihood they earn. What is even worse is it tells everybody they represent that the ultimate person, the ultimate individual that controls what happens with their applications is actually the Minister of Immigration.

How can we have any kind of confidence in the independence of representation when everything they do is dependent upon the Minister of Immigration? That is like going to a different set of bureaucrats. That is a little like asking CRA officials to authorize who will fill out our income tax forms, and if we want to do it ourselves, we really cannot.

We need to make the process more fine tuned. But the biggest issue here, and I hope that my colleagues will keep this in mind, is what is it that the government of the day proposes for immigration other than nipping and tucking at some of the processes and procedures that have already been nipped and tucked to death?