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.

The House resumed from September 21 consideration of the motion that Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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?

Combating Terrorism Act

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I note the member's definite commitment to seeking environmental, social and economic justice in his own community and across Canada.

It is a good question about the charter. Section 7 of the charter states that we have a right to life, liberty and security of person but we also have section 9 which states that everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. Twelve months without a charge, 12 months of just investigation, kind of smacks of arbitrary detention to me.

However, beyond the charter, we have the International Covenant on Political Rights which, in article 9.1, states that everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. It looks like our charter. It goes on to state that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. It looks like our charter. It goes on to state that no one shall be deprived of his liberty, except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedures as are established by law. It sounds like our charter.

We have domestic law that Bill C-17 seems to come up against, but we also have this international covenant where we have said out loud to the world that these are the rights that we respect, that this is the basis of our justice system and that these are the bases of human rights in Canada.

Bill C-17 goes up against our international obligations as well as our charter, which is part of our Constitution, the basis of all that is just and good here in Canada.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, it is almost a cliché to say that the events of September 11, 2001 changed the world, but Professor Wayne MacKay, a professor at Dalhousie law school, wrote in a article called “Human Rights in the Global Village” that this was only partly true because:

—terrorism has been an international force for many years. However, on September 11, 2001 the reality of terrorism was visited on the heartland of the United States and it became clear to all that even a super power was vulnerable to the forces of terrorism afoot in the world. The world may not really have changed as a result of “9/11”, but the way that the United States, and by association Canada, approach the world did. We have become more cautious and national security has become a value that trumps most other values--including human rights.

Like most people, I have a very vivid recollection of where I was when the planes hit the Twin Towers in New York City. I was starting my first week at Dalhousie law school and was in the student lounge, which was packed with other students. We were all utterly silent.

I am not really one for numbers. I can never remember if it is Bill C-11 or Bill C-392 or Bill C-9 in the 40th Parliament or the 38th Parliament, but I remember Bill C-36, the Anti-terrorism Act that was introduced in 2001. I remember it like I remember 9/11 because even though I was a fresh-faced law student eager to learn about this great big concept called the law, a concept based on human rights, justice and fundamental freedoms, I still knew that Bill C-36 was a departure from that base of justice and human rights.

As first-year law students, a group of us started a student association called SALSA, the Social Activist Law Student Association. SALSA was and continues to be, and it is still at Dalhousie law school, the coming together of like-minded students who are interested in seeking justice, environmental, social and economic justice. We want to see it realized in our communities.

When Bill C-36 was introduced in 2001, we did not know what to do, but we knew we had to do something. Therefore, we organized a panel of human rights and justice criminal law experts to talk about the bill and educate us on what was exactly going on and what the bill was trying to accomplish. Some of us wrote letters to the editor, others wrote op eds and we wrote to our members of Parliament.

There was a growing consensus then that the dangers of Bill C-36 were that it would trump our human rights and civil liberties in the face of national security and allow for government to act in the shadows shrouded in mystery and secrecy. However, the one thing everybody hung their hats on was the fact that there was a sunset clause in the act. That was the first time I had even heard the term “sunset clause”. The idea was that after a period of time, a review of the legislation would automatically be triggered by Parliament.

The current bill, Bill C-17, proposes amendments to the Criminal Code that would reinstate provisions from the Anti-terrorism Act of 2001 that expired under that very sunset clause in 2007. Very specifically, the bill relates to investigative hearings whereby individuals who may have information about a terrorism offence, whether it is in the past or the future, can be compelled to attend a hearing and answer questions. No one attending a hearing can refuse to answer a question on the grounds of self-incrimination, which is quite different than if someone is in a court facing Criminal Code charges.

The other issue is preventive arrest whereby individuals can be arrested without a warrant in order to prevent them from carrying out a terrorist act. It is detention based on what someone might do. The arrested individual has to be brought before a judge within 24 hours, which is fair, or as soon as feasible and the judge determines whether that individual can be released unconditionally or with certain conditions for up to 12 months. Also, if those conditions are refused, the person can be imprisoned for up to 12 months.

International human rights and domestic human rights are increasingly related when we look at the global village of today. What we do in Canada affects the greater and wider world and our actions have worldwide implications. Similarly, actions outside of Canada's borders can and do have an impact here.

As Greg Walton wrote in a piece for the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development:

Canada has an obligation to provide a model; we need to stand straight lest we cast a crooked shadow.

After my graduation from law school, I had the opportunity to work with Professor Wayne MacKay doing research and assisting with his preparation for the lecture that I spoke about, as well as his appearance before the Senate committee actually reviewing the anti-terrorism legislation back in 2005. While I was working with him, one topic of conversation that we kept coming back to was the idea of racial profiling.

Racial profiling has been defined by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which is a really good definition, as follows:

...any action undertaken for reasons of safety, security or public protection that relies on stereotypes about race, colour, ethnicity, ancestry, religion or place of origin rather than on reasonable suspicion, to single out an individual for greater scrutiny or different treatment.

Professor MacKay pointed out that before September 11 the issue of racial profiling was really about driving while black. A stark example of this comes from my home province of Nova Scotia with the story of Kirk Johnson, a boxer whose case appeared before the Nova Scotia Human Rights Tribunal. When Mr. Johnson was repeatedly, over years, pulled over by police in his expensive car with Texas licence plates, the tribunal found that actually race was a determining factor in the police's decision to pull him over again and again.

Since September 11, that phrase, driving while black, has actually been recoined as flying while Arab. Profiling is broader than just race now. It takes into account religion, culture and even ideology. Concerns about profiling based on race, culture or religion are real but they are accentuated by threats of terror. There is an alarming tendency to paint an entire group with one brush when in fact it is the act of individuals rather than religious or ethnic groups that are at fault.

We know about the uproar in the United States with the proposed building of a mosque six blocks from the site of the World Trade Centre. We think that kind of thing certainly could not happen here but here at home, on the day after the arrests of 17 terrorist suspects in Ontario, windows were broken at an Islamic mosque in Toronto. It can happen here and it does happen here.

At the Senate committee hearings in 2005 actually reviewing the Anti-terrorism Act, Canadian Muslim and Arab groups argued that if law enforcement agents were going to use profiling in their investigations, profiling needed to be based on behaviour, not ethnicity or religion. However, in a Globe and Mail article, a member of this House on the government side cited a different opinion when he said, “(y)ou don't send the anti-terrorist squad to investigate the Amish or the Lutheran ladies. You go where you think the risk is”.

Within the context of Bill C-17, we need to think about the real danger of imposing a sentence. I know it is not a sentence in the strict criminal terms of what a sentence is, but it is a 12-month sentence in prison based on something someone thinks a person might do. We can layer that with the fact that we know profiling is happening in Canada.

We know the Criminal Code works. We know there are provisions in the Criminal Code for a wide range of charges related to anti-terrorism. It is working. How do we know that? It is because these proposed sections that we are talking about in Bill C-17 have never been used. Therefore, why would we take that risk?

We have anti-terrorism legislation that has proven to be useful. The reason that these two provisions have never been used and were not renewed at the end of the sunset clauses is that they did not meet that balance between national security and human rights and civil liberties. There is a reason they expired with the sunset clause and there is absolutely no reason for us to bring them back to life today.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague the following question. I would like to know what he thinks of the change in the Liberals' position. In 2007, there was some unanimity about the fact that these provisions did not serve any purpose and should not be renewed or extended. However, the government has introduced the bill again, so we now have Bill C-17 before us. The Liberals have suddenly changed their position. Yet, there is absolutely nothing new here. There have been very few changes.

I wonder what my colleague thinks is going on with the Liberals? Is this a matter of simple demagoguery and security one-upmanship?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues who have contributed to the debate on Bill C-17. I am not going to say anything the Bloc Québécois has not already said about this bill, but I am going to provide a few examples to illustrate how inappropriate it would be to renew the sunset clauses, as is the government's intention in introducing Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions).

In any bill we debate the Bloc Québécois likes to see a certain balance. In this specific case, in any legislative measure on terrorism such as Bill C-17, there absolutely must be a balance between security and respecting other basic rights.

Earlier, I heard an NDP colleague talk about human rights and civil liberties. Indeed, pushing things too far in one direction or another causes problems. That is where the government needs to step in. For example, if we go in the direction of inappropriate security that violates our civil liberties, we can end up in a situation like the one at the G20 in Toronto. People who had gathered together for a peaceful demonstration were arrested in their dormitory. They had not even started demonstrating.

There may be excessive preventive measures when it comes to security. The same is true in the other direction. If terrorists or potential terrorists can use loopholes to execute their Machiavellian and diabolical plans, then we have to do something about that.

When we look at what has happened since these sunset clauses were established, we realize that they have never been used. That is why the government has come in a few years later with the intention of reinstating these clauses, but there is no evidence to support their usefulness.

Between December 2004 and March 2007, there were several debates and several committees studied this issue. The Bloc Québécois listened to witnesses, read submissions, and questioned experts, representatives of civil society and law enforcement officials. We have all the tools we need, therefore, to determine our position on investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions, the two points being considered in this bill.

Then as now, we in the Bloc Québécois feel that it is better to provide more guidelines on investigative hearings. That is the first point we want to make. It is obvious to us that this exceptional provision should only be used in certain specific cases to prevent actions involving an imminent risk of serious harm, and not in the case of acts that have already been committed. This does not mean that we are opposed to investigative hearings, but they should be confined to specific cases when it is essential to have them.

In regard to recognizance with conditions, we are still opposed to section 83.3 concerning preventive arrest and recognizance with conditions. This is a useless and ineffective process. These clauses have never been used in all the time they have existed. Not only are they ineffective at fighting terrorism, but the uses to which they could be put will always be a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of people, a clear danger to the rights of honest citizens.

I mentioned the G20 a little while ago. Justice will take its course, but there were clearly some abuses in the arrests that were made following the demonstrations. Some well-known agitators go to demonstrations of this kind, even if they are supposed to be peaceful, in order to create trouble. The police have a duty to arrest these people, and they generally do a good job in order to prevent things from degenerating into a riot.

Sometimes, though, the police get carried away, cross the barricades, and go after people who are there for perfectly legitimate reasons. This is still a democratic country. There are valid reasons, therefore, for going to demonstrations and expressing one’s disapproval of decisions the government has made or even decisions made on a global level. That is why these demonstrations occur. I think there was also a problem with this.

A number of experts testified that dangerous terrorist activities can already be averted effectively—even more effectively—through the normal application of the Criminal Code with none of the harmful consequences that preventive arrest may entail.

So we already have the tools we need. Our job as legislators is to improve the bills that come before us. We are never against that. We are always in favour of doing what we can to improve security, but to do that, we need to change a piece of legislation, amend it or add some clauses to improve and facilitate the work that our police forces do. When there is a lot of talk about these cases, it is because there is a problem.

The Criminal Code has all of the provisions required to implement measures to foil the plans of those who would commit terrorist acts. The mechanism we are talking about was eliminated in February 2007. Obviously, I am talking about the second point.

The investigation process should be reinstated only if major changes are made. Unfortunately, Bill C-17 does not do that. Preventive arrest has no place in our justice system because it can have such a devastating impact on people's reputations and because other effective measures are already in place.

Since yesterday, I have heard some of the government members' speeches, but I have heard no evidence whatsoever that any gaps exist or that the existing Criminal Code does not provide police forces with the means to counter the activities of those who would commit terrorist acts.

What I have heard is the Conservatives make malicious and sensationalist accusations against people who oppose Bill C-17, against those of us in opposition, the Bloc and the NDP. They accuse us of being practically pro-terrorism. Why bring back ineffective measures that have never even been used? There was a reason for the sunset clauses: the measures were made available to the police for a period of time to see whether they could be used effectively. But they were never used at all, so why bring them back in this bill? Furthermore, since sections of the Criminal Code already provide for effective action, why try to muddy the waters by proposing other measures?

Of course, we are always in favour of improving measures to make our streets and public places safer. However, the government is simply putting up a smokescreen, probably because they want people to see how important public safety is to them. We know that yesterday the Prime Minister listed public safety as one of his priorities, but Bill C-17 does not include any truly effective measures. And since these measures were ineffective when they were first introduced, I think it would be inappropriate to reinstate them today.

Since I am being told that I have very little time left, I will conclude by saying that it is always possible to improve our system and our safety, but it requires a balance as well as truly effective measures.

It is because of this analysis that we have decided not to support restoring this measure. Not only do we feel that this measure is of little, if any, use in the fight against terrorism but, more importantly, there is a very real danger of its being used against honest citizens. In addition, a terrorist activity deemed dangerous can be disrupted just as effectively through the current Criminal Code and existing measures.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would first like to thank the member for Burnaby—Douglas for his very thoughtful comments on Bill C-17. I think the member has spoken in this House every time this bill has been before the House. It is a measure of his concern and commitment which is certainly shared by my colleagues about the importance and the serious implications of this bill. I very much appreciate the history that he has given today and what he has reflected upon in trying to bring it forward in our Parliament.

One thing that strikes me in listening to his comments is that in today's Quorum, which has newspaper clippings from across the country, there is not one mention of this legislation being debated, but we can see page after page of stories on the gun registry. In talking about balance, if we could weigh those things, it makes me wonder how much the public is aware. People probably are not aware, other than those people who might be watching this debate on CPAC. When it comes to public awareness of this kind of legislation and the long-term impact it has on Canadian society and on our criminal justice system, I just do not think people have a clue. I wonder if the member could comment on that.

The member has spoken to this issue in the House a number of times. We have tried to get information out to let people know that this is coming up, that it is really serious and we need to pay attention to it. It is so unfortunate when we see all of the attention going to something like the vote on the gun registry and no attention going to this issue which of course will have a huge impact on everybody in Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak in this debate on Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions). The short title is the Combating Terrorism Act.

It is important that we review what this bill actually sets out to do, because sometimes when we are debating it, we lose track of this over the course of the debate, and people who might be listening could lose track as well.

Specifically, what this bill will do is establish investigative hearings under the provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act, whereby individuals who may have information about past or future terrorism offences can be compelled to attend a hearing and to answer questions. No one attending a hearing can refuse to answer a question on the grounds of self-incrimination. Information gathered at such hearings cannot be used directly in criminal proceedings against the individual, but derivative evidence may be.

The other significant provision of this legislation is a provision for preventive arrest, whereby individuals may be arrested without a warrant in order to prevent the carrying out of a terrorist act. Detention in this case would be based on what someone might do in a certain situation. The arrested individual must be brought before a judge within 24 hours, or as soon as it is feasible. The judge determines whether the individual is to be released unconditionally or released under certain conditions, recognizance with conditions, which are in effect for up to 12 months. If the conditions are refused, the individual may be imprisoned for up to 12 months.

The bill also contains a five-year sunset clause, requiring a resolution of both the House and Senate for it to be renewed.

This is indeed significant legislation, and it is not the first time we have seen it come before the House. It came out of the Anti-terrorism Act that was enacted after the 9/11 events. At that time, when there were serious concerns about what had recently happened, everybody was worried and fearful, which is not too strong a word to use, about what was actually going on at that time.

These two provisions were included in that legislation, albeit with a sunset clause requiring that they be reviewed within five years. If Parliament did not re-approve them, they would come to an end. In fact, that is exactly what happened. When they were put to Parliament, Parliament did not agree to their extension.

Since that time, there have been several attempts by the Conservative government to reintroduce these provisions into our criminal law, into the Anti-terrorism Act. One was short-circuited by an early prorogation of the House, and others have not been given the priority that, if they were sufficiently important, they should certainly have received.

This is not the first time, in my term as a member of Parliament, that we have debated these issues. I have to wonder why, if this is so important, it was not given a higher priority by the government. It belies the importance of these issues that the government has not made sure this legislation got through earlier.

I also have to wonder why this legislation is necessary. I do not believe that we are responding to any serious failure of the Criminal Code of Canada to deal with terrorism, or any of the crimes that might be related to terrorism in Canada. I have not heard that we have failed to convict people who have committed terrorist acts or who are considering terrorist acts. In fact, post 9/11, we have convicted people under the provisions of the Criminal Code, without using these special provisions of crimes related to terrorism. We have seen the group in Toronto. We have seen others who have been convicted. This would say to me that there is not a problem with the existing Criminal Code legislation, that there is not a problem in investigating and actually charging and convicting people in the usual process of crimes related to terrorism.

I have to ask, then, regarding these special provisions, which go way beyond the normal provisions of our justice system, and which violate fundamental human rights in Canada, why we would want to go down that road. To my knowledge, no proof has ever been presented to the House or to one of the committees of the House, that the current provisions of the Criminal Code are not functioning when it comes to dealing with acts of terrorism or conspiracy to commit terrorism. Why do we have these provisions before us?

It is important to consider the serious nature of these provisions. They have a serious effect on what Canadians have come to know as basic human rights, basic civil liberties. The proposal to compel testimony from individuals, to force people to testify in court, violates the right to remain silent. It violates the right not to incriminate oneself before the law. That is a serious violation. It is something that most Canadians appreciate in our criminal law. Before we go down this road, we need to consider carefully why all this is necessary.

The investigative hearing proposals in this legislation would force someone to testify before a judge if he or she were suspected of having information about terrorist activity that has already occurred or that might occur. It directly compromises the right to remain silent, one of the fundamental principles of our justice system. The refusal to testify at an investigative hearing can lead to one year of jail time. It can also reduce the right to silence for persons who are questioned by the RCMP or CSIS: if they are uncooperative with a police investigation, the possibility of having to go to an investigative hearing can be used to compel cooperation and compromise their right to remain silent.

We have to realize that not everyone who chooses to remain silent in such circumstances is guilty, that choosing to remain silent is not an admission of guilt or proof of guilt. People may have legitimate fears and concerns. For instance, they might be concerned about their personal safety. Given the broad definition of terrorism in the Anti-terrorism Act, I believe that this provision is a problem. The definition itself has come in for criticism in the past.

This provision and the one on preventive detention are serious departures from our justice process. They could be used against people who are legitimately protesting or who are viewed as dissidents by our society. These provisions could be used to harass or even imprison such people.

A number of people today have mentioned the G20 protest and the mass arrests that were held. For the most part, they appeared to be carried out for preventive reasons. In my opinion, this process violated the rights to peaceful assembly, protest, and the expression of political views.

The whole question of investigative hearings raises another serious issue about how we do justice in this country. It puts judges in the position of having to oversee an investigation, which is a real departure from the normal process in our system. It is not the practice of our justice system and it is not something that most judges have experience with. It is a major departure since investigations in our system are normally undertaken by police authorities.

In hearings the Senate had on the previous incarnation of this bill, Jason Gratl, the president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, put this concern in this way:

The primary difficulty with investigative hearings is that they distort the functions of the judiciary and the Crown. In essence, the course of order-making power of the judiciary is brought to bear on an investigation. That power places prosecutors in the role of investigators, which is unlike their usual role. It also places the judiciary in a position of presiding over a criminal investigation.

This is a serious consideration that we need to look at with this legislation and this proposal.

There is also the matter of preventive detention. Preventive detention, or recognizance with conditions, is the other key part of the bill. It compromises a key principle of our justice system, namely, that one should be charged, convicted, and sentenced in order to be jailed. This provision would allow for the arrest and detention of people without ever proving any allegation against them. It could make people subject to conditions on release with severe limitations on their personal freedom, even if they have never been convicted of any crime. That is a serious departure from what we would normally expect from our justice system.

Some folks may say this is necessary, but I believe that jailing people because we think they might do something is extremely problematic, to say the least. It is easily apparent how such a measure can be abused.

There is a good example to be found in our practice already, and I think it is a very bad practice. It relates to the question of security certificates, which is a measure under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. We have seen this in the post-9/11 period. It was intended to expedite deportation of non-citizens. Under this legislation, we have seen it used as a method of detaining people, a method of preventive detention for people that the state suspected may have been involved in terrorist activity. The most recent cases were the five men who were detained for years, some up to eight years, without ever being charged or convicted of a crime.

I think this was a distortion of the intention of the security certificate legislation. I also think it was a process that violated basic human rights in Canada. Some of these men are still subject to release conditions as a result of the security certificate that this government issued against them and that the previous Liberal government initiated.

There are serious problems, and we have seen some of these problems emerge in the court processes that these men have been involved in over the years. In fact, a number of the security certificates have now been thrown out because of the length of time they have been used and problems related to evidence.

I have to emphasize that these people have never been charged or convicted of any crime in Canada. The security certificate process has had nothing to do with that. I think this is an indication of how a legal measure can be distorted. Security certificates were intended to expedite deportation for people who had violated the conditions of their stay in Canada. But they have been used for other purposes. That is something we need to consider when we are looking at extraordinary measures like the ones in this legislation.

I point out that there is no issue related to terrorism that is not already covered by the Criminal Code. I think the NDP's justice critic, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh has said this loud and clear on a number of occasions. The last time we were debating this issue in the House he put it very eloquently. I want to quote from his speech at that time. He said:

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 premeditated, cold-blooded murder; however, it is also true of the destruction of major infrastructure.

Moreover, when judges exercise their discretion during sentencing, they will consider the terrorist 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.

It is clear that there is no crime related to terrorism that is not already included in the Criminal Code. I can think of no circumstance of a crime committed as part of an act of terrorism that would not be dealt with in the strictest, toughest way by our courts. Some specific examples might be helpful. For instance, counselling to commit murder is already an offence under the Criminal Code. Being a party to an offence is also a crime. The crime of conspiracy is well established under the Criminal Code and deals with the planning of criminal activity.

Let us be clear. In the conspiracy category, no crime actually has to be committed for someone to be found guilty of conspiracy under the Criminal Code. A charge is possible even when no crime has been committed under the existing provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada.

We also have hate crime legislation that outlaws the promotion of hatred against a particular group, which may have some relevance in situations of terrorist activity.

The whole question of preventive detention also has an existing parallel in some ways in the Criminal Code. It should be noted that peace bonds provisions already exist in the Criminal Code and can be exercised where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person's life or well-being is threatened by another person. This provision has similar power to preventive detention, as discussed in this bill, but more significant safeguards are built into the Criminal Code provision.

No one has demonstrated to my satisfaction that this existing provision will not meet the needs of dealing with terrorist activity. It is crucial to be very clear about that. We have not seen any evidence that there is a failure of the Criminal Code to deal with acts of terrorism or the planning of terrorist acts in Canada. We have not seen that the existing provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada need these extraordinary measures, which are an affront to some basic and long accepted and long established, for hundreds of years, principles of our justice system in Canada.

We need to be clear that when it comes to dealing with terrorism and conspiracy to commit terrorism, we really need to focus on and put our energy into police and intelligence work. We have seen in the past that Canada was ill-prepared when it met the challenge of a terrorist act. The Air India bombing comes to mind. Canada did not have the ability to appropriately investigate that situation. Police authorities did not have the resources, staff or people with the skills they needed to appropriately investigate that kind of crime.

We have to make sure in this process that our police and intelligence services have the personnel and resources they need to investigate potential terrorist acts and to charge those responsible. That has to be the flow. We have to do the investigations and lay the charges and ensure the full gamut of our justice system is engaged in that process.

I do not think it is appropriate to say that we are going to do the investigation and come up with some evidence but shut down the rest of the process of charging and hopefully convicting someone who is alleged to have committed those crimes. The conviction is very necessary in all of that. For me that is one of the failings in the security certificate process.

We have to be aware that these provisions were first proposed in a time of fear, after the attacks of 9/11. People were not exactly sure what was happening at that time. We have to also be aware that legislating in a time of fear and uncertainty like the period immediately after 9/11 can lead to bad legislation. It can lead to unintended consequences, ultimately, such as labelling and stereotyping individuals and groups in our society.

There is much evidence that says when we do that kind of thing, we do not make good legislation. Denis Barrette, the spokesperson for International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, said at the Senate hearings on Bill S-3:

These laws are used in emergencies, where fear and panic are at the forefront—somewhat like what happened at the time of September 11, 2001.

Fear is never a good adviser. It is rather in moments of peace and quiet that the importance of preserving rights and freedoms should be rationally assessed. It is obviously important to defend them in difficult times, but we must plan for how to protect them in difficult times.

It is easy to protect rights and freedoms in peaceful times. We must provide for the unpredictable and ensure that, in a moment of panic, legislation does not result in innocent victims because it was poorly conceived or because it was dangerous or useless.

I believe that is what we have before us in Bill C-17, and that is why I strongly oppose this legislation.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), a type of anti-terrorism legislation. I am also pleased to explain to you, Mr. Speaker, and to all those watching us, the balanced position that the Bloc Québécois has always defended.

The hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin has championed this issue with support from our member for Ahuntsic. Those two hon. members have some experience in this. Let us not forget that the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin is a well known criminal lawyer. He was Quebec's attorney general at one time. He was the one who launched Quebec's Opération Printemps 2001, a large-scale operation to break up organized crime and criminal biker gangs in particular. Our colleague from Ahuntsic is a criminologist by training and we refer to her for information on fighting street gangs. She even played a role in the arrest of marijuana grow operators. We get our advice from people who fight crime for a living. Those are the people the leader of the Bloc Québécois chose to champion this issue and try, in a responsible manner, to fight terrorism. That has always been the Bloc Québécois' approach.

Our party has been involved since the very beginning of the process to review the Anti-terrorism Act. Between 2004 and 2007, the Bloc Québécois heard witnesses, read briefings, and interviewed specialists, civil society representatives and law enforcement agencies. During the Subcommittee on the Review of the Anti-terrorism Act's specific study of the two provisions in Bill C-17, the Bloc Québécois made its position on investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions clear.

Our party felt that the investigative process needed to be better defined. It was clear that this exceptional measure should be used only in specific cases in which it is necessary to prohibit activities where there is imminent peril of serious damage, and not in the case of misdeeds already committed.

We were also firmly opposed to section 83.3, dealing with preventive arrest and recognizance with conditions. Not only do we feel that this measure is of little, if any, use in the fight against terrorism but, more importantly, there is a very real danger of its being used against honest citizens. This is important, because it is part of a responsible approach. Some members here say they want to amend the Criminal Code, but really, the goal should be to actually improve the situation. But that is not the case here, as we can see in the position taken by the Bloc Québécois as a result of the analysis done by our esteemed colleagues, as I explained, the hon. members for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin and Ahuntsic.

I would like to quote the text, because it is very important. Amendments to the Criminal Code are often very complicated and contain many references. In a dissenting report, my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin very clearly explained his position and his viewpoint regarding these legislative amendments. It is worth reading, to ensure that all members and the people watching us at home understand better.

Again, I am quoting my colleague's text.

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.

This part of the text signed by my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin is important. It explains that we already have a criminal code, that there are laws in place and that judges have already convicted people who have committed such serious crimes as murder and have already established a way to set sentences and judge these people.

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.

Continuing with the logic of my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, I would say that it is important to understand that terrorists' perceptions and actions are different than those of ordinary citizens. I would add that we should not believe that they will be deterred by legislation. Therefore, we have to bear in mind the fact that their motivation is different than that of ordinary citizens.

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 Quebeckers] and for the entire world community.

Section 83.3, which provides for preventive arrests and the imposition of conditions, was advanced as such a measure when it was adopted.

Now, this provision has gone unused.

That is not surprising, given that police officers can use existing Criminal Code provisions to arrest someone who is about to commit an indictable offence.

Section 495 of the Criminal Code states that:

“(1) A peace officer may arrest without warrant

(a) a person […] who, on reasonable grounds, he believes […] is about to commit an indictable offence”

As my colleague's text mentions, clause 83.3, which would be added by Bill C-17, does not change anything, because the Criminal Code already contains section 495, which allows for preventive arrests.

The arrested person [when he is arrested under section 495] must then be brought before a judge, who may impose the same conditions as those imposable under the [Act]. The judge may even refuse bail if he believes that the person’s release might jeopardize public safety.

If police officers believe that a person is about to commit an act of terrorism, then they have knowledge of a plot. They probably know, based on wiretap or surveillance information, that an indictable offence is about to be committed. Therefore, they have proof of a plot or attempt and need only lay a charge in order to arrest the person in question.

Therefore, it is very important to understand that section 495 of the Criminal Code already does what Bill C-17 would do, but with evidence that makes it possible for a judge to render a decision.

There will eventually be a trial, at which time the arrested person will have the opportunity to a full answer and defence. The person will be acquitted if the suspicions are not justified or if there is insufficient proof to support a conviction.

It seems obvious to us that the terrorist act thus apprehended would have been disrupted just as easily as it would have been had section 83.3 been used.

In keeping with what my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin was saying, section 495 of the Criminal Code already exists, allowing for preventive arrest, provided there is sufficient evidence.

And concerning section 83.3, my colleague added:

However, it is this provision that is most likely to give rise to abuses.

Section 495 does not give rise to abuse if there is evidence, but section 83.3, as set out in Bill C-17, is vulnerable to abuse.

My colleague went on to say:

It may be used to brand someone a terrorist on grounds of proof that are not sufficient to condemn him but against which he will never be able to fully defend himself. This will prevent him from travelling by plane, crossing the border into the United States and probably from entering many other countries. It is very likely that he will lose his job and be unable to find another.

This is a predictable situation that could create injustice. And that is what my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin was arguing against.

He continued on, saying:

Terrorist movements often spring from and are nourished by profound feelings of injustice among a segment of the population. The fight against these injustices is often conducted in parallel by those who want to correct the injustices through democratic means and those who believe it is necessary to use terrorism.

The former made a positive contribution to the transformation of the societies in which we live today. They are often the source of many of the rights that we enjoy.

It is inevitable that political activity will bring the first and second groups together. Very often, the former will not even be aware that the latter are involved in terrorism. The planning of terrorist activity is by its nature secret.

The point is that we have to be careful. If we were to pass the proposed section 83.3, when we already have section 495 of the Criminal Code providing for arrest in cases with sufficient evidence, that would open the door to abuse.

We cannot give certain members of society cause to protest by taking away some of their rights. That is how terrorists operate. They try to convince segments of society that the only thing the current government and politicians want is to take away people's rights. That gives them an opportunity to say that the rights of individuals are not being respected and that society is unjust and unfair. That is one way to stoke terrorism. That is what the Bloc Québécois is warning against. We must always act responsibly.

In seeking to convict an individual, we must always have enough evidence of the kind that will hold up in our justice system, which was created by our predecessors and has worked well to this day. Section 495 of the Criminal Code currently provides for preventive arrest when the police can lay sufficient evidence before the court. We can do the work.

So why try to improve this kind of legislation for political and partisan reasons? That is pretty much how the Conservatives do business. They get people worked up by saying that they will come up with a bill to prevent something from happening—terrorism, in this case. But they are just adding fuel to the fire. It is perfectly clear that abuse can happen. Provisions like section 83.3 can be passed to enable the government to violate people's rights and show that our society is becoming less just, less tolerant. That would arouse hostility against our society. That is what the Bloc Québécois wants to prevent. We always try to deal with situations responsibly.

The Bloc Québécois has always stood up in this House to defend the interests of Quebeckers and to help the members of other political parties from outside Quebec understand what it means to be a Quebecker. That is what the hon. members for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin and Ahuntsic tried to do. That is what they do every day here in the House, drawing on their personal experiences.

As I said at the beginning, we are trying to make people see that Quebec has been very successful in certain areas, and one example is the fight against crime. The statistics speak for themselves. The Conservatives can try to change Statistics Canada's long-form census all they like and do whatever it takes to prevent us from getting the real statistics, in an attempt to impose their philosophy and ideology on all situations. But the reality is this: Quebec has a much lower crime rate than the other Canadian provinces and the United States.

Our society has made a conscious decision to try to understand and invest in the fight against poverty and rehabilitate criminals instead of trying every possible way to prove that crime exists, that more and more prisons need to be built and that tougher sentences are needed. This is what the Conservatives are doing by allowing everyone to have weapons without a firearms registry. They want to put more weapons on our streets, while believing there will be fewer criminals. I do not think that is the solution.

The Bloc Québécois has taken a balanced position regarding Bill C-17. We believe that the Criminal Code has all the tools needed to combat terrorism, as long as we are able to conduct analyses and investigations.

This is a society governed by the rule of law. It must be proven that a person has committed an offence before he is charged. That is the way things are done, but the Bloc Québécois has never had any qualms about reversing the burden of proof when necessary. And it has done so. The Bloc Québécois introduced the first ever reverse onus legislation in this House regarding profits made from the proceeds of crime. As a result—and thanks to the Bloc Québécois—criminals now have to prove that they came by their money honestly, otherwise it automatically becomes evidence of their guilt. That is a choice. These battles have to be fought, and they will be won—as my colleague said in his speech—when more power is placed in the hands of the police. But they already have these powers under section 495 of the Criminal Code, which enables them to carry out preventive arrests based on sufficient evidence.

Section 83.3 gives us an impression that preventive arrests could be made in the absence of sufficient evidence. We saw what happened with the Arar affair. I will not recount all the instances of Canadian police officers being hauled before the courts and being told that they have not done their job properly. Compensation has had to be paid out, among other consequences.

They are trying to change the laws in an attempt to gloss over a whole new approach to fighting crime, which includes making arrests without all the necessary evidence. This is a line that the Conservative Party dares to cross blithely and gleefully. We in the Bloc Québécois, however, are seeking out other approaches before we simply trample on people’s rights. I will not read out the list again, but if a person is accused of terrorism, it is no secret that they risk losing many rights, including those I referred to earlier. Now, should evidence turn out to be lacking—and if it were determined that an individual was not guilty and that there was insufficient evidence—the government would have no choice but to pay substantial amounts in compensation.

We would prefer that the Criminal Code remain unchanged, since it already has provisions for preventive arrest. We feel that Bill C-17 goes too far.

That is our colleagues' dissenting opinion on this issue. And I would again like to commend my colleagues, the members for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin and for Ahuntsic, for enlightening us all. All members of this House would do well to lend them an ear and learn about the responsible and intelligent approaches favoured by Quebec when it comes to fighting crime.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in 2007, as my colleague was saying, all of us—including the Liberal Party—voted against extending these provisions. Now all of a sudden the Liberal Party has changed its mind even though Bill C-17 does not introduce any fundamental changes. These provisions are still useless, because other provisions already exist in the Criminal Code to allow agencies and police officers to take action, whether with regard to investigative hearings or preventive arrest.

Does my colleague understand the Liberals' change of heart? I am still trying to figure out whether it is just one-upmanship in a world where everyone tries to come across as protecting public safety by fuelling the fear of terrorism and the fear of crime. It is nothing more than grandstanding. I do not know who is better at it, the Liberals or the Conservatives.

That is how I interpret all of this, but perhaps my colleague has another way of looking at it.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand on behalf of the New Democratic Party of Canada and speak loudly and clearly against this misinformed legislation.

The fundamental issue presented by Bill C-17 before the House today engages some very alarming and critical matters.

Fundamentally the bill engages these concepts, and that is due process in law cannot be respected by offending due process in law. Civil rights cannot be protected in our country by violating civil rights. Freedom in Canada cannot be supported by abridging the freedom of every Canadian in the country.

These comments cut to the heart of this matter and I will come back to these concepts later on in my speech.

Bill C-17, an act to amend the Criminal Code, was introduced twice in the House before. It contains provisions found in former Bill S-3, which was as amended by the Senate Special Committee on Anti-terrorism last year.

The bill proposes amendments to the Criminal Code that would reinstate the anti-terrorism provisions that expired under the sunset clause in February 2007. The bill essentially proposes two critical matters. First, it provides for the appearance of individuals who may have information about a terrorism offence and compels attendance before a judge for an investigative hearing. It contains also a provision that deals with the imprisonment of those people for up to 12 months without charge.

Investigative hearings whereby individuals who may have information about a terrorism offence, past or future, can be compelled to attend a hearing and answer questions. Under the legislation, no one attending a hearing can refuse to answer a question on the grounds of self-incrimination. While information gathered at such hearings cannot be used directly in criminal proceedings against that individual, derivative evidence can and could be used against that individual in further criminal proceedings against that person.

Second, the bill provides for a form of preventative arrest whereby individuals may be arrested without evidence in order to prevent the carrying out of a terrorist act. In other words, the bill provides for detention based on what someone might do, not what he or she has done. The arrested individual must be brought before a judge within 24 hours or as soon as feasible after that.

In that case, a judge would determine whether that individual is to be released unconditionally or released under certain conditions, in other words, recognizance with conditions for up to 12 months without charge. If the conditions are refused, the individual may be imprisoned for up to 12 months without charge.

Bill C-17 contains a five year sunset clause, which requires a resolution of both the House and the Senate for it to be renewed.

The seriousness with which the bill attacks our civil liberties in our country is established by the fact that it has to contain a sunset clause to come back before the House. This shows that the government does not have the confidence to put these provisions into law for a permanent period of time, and that should be alarming to every member of the House.

Clause 1 C-17 would amend the Criminal Code and is similar to the original Anti-terrorism Act, section 83 of the Criminal Code, which forces individuals who may have information about a terrorism offence to appear before a judge for an investigative hearing. Again, the objective of this is to compel that person to speak under penalty of imprisonment. I want to deal with that matter first.

Every student in the country knows about the right to remain silent and the right not to give evidence that may be used to incriminate one in a future proceeding. Such a right is a cornerstone of a free and democratic society. Yet this legislation would violate that historic right that can be traced back centuries into British parliamentary democratic tradition.

I want to pause and say that civil liberties are something that every Canadian holds sacrosanct and civil liberties are something that ought to be protected vigilantly in all circumstances.

The erosion of civil liberties does not happen in profound or drastic fashion. History has proven that the erosion of civil liberties happens incrementally and that every society that has descended into dictatorship or authoritarianism has begun with a gradual erosion of civil liberties. People do not wake up one day and find that their Constitution is eviscerated or that their civil liberties are evaporated. What history has told us is that, little by little, governments intervene and they start taking away people's civil liberties. That is why, as members of Parliament in the House, as the representatives of the people and the guardians of civil liberties in our country, every member of the House has an obligation to oppose any legislation that would derogate from Canadian civil liberties, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or any other constitutional right that we have.

I also want to talk about the right to appear at a hearing and the right to remain silent.

This summer the Conservative government moved to end the long form census because it felt that the state had no right to ask people incriminating questions such as how many bedrooms existed in the house. It has said repeatedly that Canadians have to be protected against a government that would ask them questions for the purposes of gathering research, questions that help determine social policy in our country. The government said it was offensive and was a violation of the rights of Canadians. Yet the first act the government has put forward in the House after the summer recess would force Canadians to come before a judge and compels them to answer questions, in violation of their historic constitutional right to remain silent and not incriminate themselves.

Am I the only Canadian who finds that to be the most hypocritical contradiction that probably has existed this year? What kind of government cannot see the contradiction between purporting to stand up for the rights of Canadians not to be asked offensive questions, but then hauling them before a judge and forcing them to answer questions, violating their constitutional rights in the bargain?

There are not constitutional rights engaged when Canadians are asked questions on a census. The government said that we could not ask Canadians questions in the long form census that might result in Canadians being imprisoned for refusing to answer. This legislation would imprison people for refusing to answer. I would like to hear a member from the government explain that contradiction to Canadians.

The legislation would also does something else that is extremely offensive and something that all parliamentarians ought to protect and oppose vigilantly, and that is the concept of preventive arrest. That is the concept of arresting people not based on what they have done, not based on evidence, but based on mere suspicion about what they might do.

Could such a power be exercised by a government? Canadians might ask if any government would exercise such a power irresponsibly. We have an example where it did exactly that recently.

This summer in Toronto, at the G20 hearings, authorities of the state arrested 1,100 Canadians for simply walking in the street and expressing their views. Why did it do that? It did that for preventive reasons. We know that because for 900 of those 1,100 Canadians, when they appeared in court several months later and the state was forced to actually back up those arrests, the state withdrew the charges. What happened this summer? Eleven hundred Canadians had their civil rights violated, their right to assemble publicly and peacefully and to express themselves under multiple sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The government and the state took away those rights because of preventive reasons. It took away the rights of those Canadians to express peacefully to world leaders gathering in our country how they felt about issues affecting the world and the government and organs of the state violated the rights of Canadians in that regard.

We do not have to talk hypothetically or talk about fictional examples. I think every Canadian watched with disgust and horror when police rounded up Canadians, penning them in and holding them for days on end so their expressions would not be heard by world leaders. Then after the event was over, they were let out and the charges were dropped. That is what preventive arrest looks like, and the bill wants to enshrine in law a concept of preventive arrest.

I want to talk a bit about the Liberals, because the Liberals have a long history of talking about civil liberties and then acting against them. I have already mentioned that in World War II it was a Liberal government that rounded up Japanese Canadians and interned them based on nothing but their ancestry and violated their civil liberties. It was a Liberal government in 1970 that rounded up Quebeckers without charge and detained them and violated their civil liberties. After 9/11, it was a Liberal government, in a rush to look tough, brought in the Anti-terrorism Act that had a number of serious incursions into Canadian civil liberties.

For the Liberal Party of Canada, civil liberties are not something that we protect only when it is easy to protect them. Civil liberties ought to be protected when they are needed most to be protected, and that is in a time of difficulty. Anybody can stand up for civil liberties in a time of easiness and peace, but what really separates those who believe in civil liberties from those who do not is how they act when times are challenging.

I also want to talk about the government's portrayal of the provisions of the bill as being critical. This is the third time the government has moved to introduce this legislation in the House, and twice before, this legislation has died because the government let it die: once when it caused an unnecessary election that by the way violated its promise of fixed election dates; and second, when it prorogued the House.

If these powers are so critical, the government has to explain why these powers have never been exercised. It is almost nine years later and I cannot find a single example where anybody was put before a judge and where these powers were actually enforced. However, I can tell the House that under our present Criminal Code, which has provisions for conspiracy and provisions that give our police officers the powers they need to investigate any kind of terrorist act, there have been successful prosecutions. We can have a vigilant country that investigates and works to prevent terrorism and respects civil liberties at the same time. We do not have to sacrifice civil liberties in the name of security.

This brings me to my next point. What Canadians want in our country is our way of life protected. What Canadians want is to be free from any kind of terrorist activity that would violate our freedom and our civil liberties. We cannot sacrifice our civil liberties in the name of protecting them.

Ensuring public safety is essentially about protecting the quality of life of Canadians. We hear the government say that all the time. Quality of life can be defined in many ways. If we talk to our family members, neighbours in our community, I would dare say they would define quality of life in a variety of ways. However, I think every Canadian would agree that we would define quality of life by the right to live in peace, the right to pursue liberty and happiness and the right to be protected against offensive incursion into our liberties by our state.

While Canadians are in favour of protecting Canada against terrorism and of having a country that is secure, we are also in favour of freedom and civil rights. Security means feeling safe. It means feeling that our country and communities are safe and that we can safely go out into our streets. However, it also means that we need to feel that our federal government, our provincial government and the courts in our country are protecting us, and this means protecting our civil liberties and our civil rights.

This legislation also engages another fundamental right, which is the right to be presumed innocent. It is not for a Canadian to be compelled to go before a court and be compelled to answer questions under threat of imprisonment. The right to be presumed innocent is the right to sit back in silence and enjoy the fact that the state has to prove a case against an individual. The minute we start making incursions into that right, we are going down a slippery slope, the end of which we know not. That is why it is so important to be vigilant in protecting our civil liberties.

As I said before, we lose these rights incrementally, just a little bit here and a little bit there. Before we know it, there is moderate infringement of our civil liberties. Then we go a bit further, and pretty soon there is substantial infringement of our civil liberties.We go a little further, and before we know it, there is profound violation of our civil liberties. I would ask all my colleagues in the House to join with New Democrats in saying that we will not go down that path. We want to live in a country where we have concrete rights.

My hon. colleague in the Liberal Party talked about rights being in collision and about balancing rights. He said that if people go home unhappy, that suggests that we have the appropriate balance. With the greatest respect, I could not disagree more.

When it comes to fundamental civil liberties, there is no balancing. When it comes to civil liberties, there is no collision. When it comes to civil liberties, there is no keeping everybody unhappy. When it comes to civil liberties, we either have them or we do not. We either live in a country where we have the right to be presumed innocent, or we do not. We either live in a country where we have the right to remain silent and not give evidence that may be used against us, or we do not. We either live in a country where there is no such thing as preventative arrest and where the state must justify putting a Canadian in prison based on what he or she has done or might be doing, or we do not. I do not see any collision there. I do not see any balancing there. The minute we start talking about balancing civil liberties, we are on the path to erosion.

I say that for a number of reasons, but primarily I say that because we cannot protect civil liberties by offending them. We cannot advance freedom by abridging it. We cannot improve human rights by derogating them. We must stand up for these civil liberties. This bill would do only a couple of things, but they are significant things.

I also want to talk briefly about some comments made recently with respect to torture, because I think they are tied to civil liberties.

Recently, the head of CSIS, Richard Fadden, said that the state might rely on information that may have been derived from torture if it is felt that it might be helpful in preventing some sort of episode in Canada. Canada either opposes torture or it does not. We cannot say that we oppose torture except when the information might be helpful. By the way, all information derived from torture is inherently unreliable. One can never say that information that is a product of someone inflicted with physical torture is ever the truth. The only way to stand up against torture is by taking a firm stand against it.

Why do I bring that up in the context of this debate? It is because it is just a slight opening. We might say that we are against torture, except in this one circumstance. No. This is 2010 not 1610. We do not consider it acceptable in this world or in this country to subject someone to physical torture as a means of getting information. The way to say so is to say that we will never rely on it. It is unequivocally wrong.

It is the same thing with the provisions in this bill. It is wrong, and I urge all members of the House to join with the New Democrats in opposing this flawed and extremely dangerous piece of legislation.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin for his speech. I have a question for him. He was a prominent attorney in his first career. He was one of Quebec's best-known attorneys, and he is still an attorney.

I would like to know whether the Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions) violates the right of the accused to consult with an impartial lawyer of his or her choice. Under the current Canadian system, lawyers must respect solicitor-client privilege.

Does this law not violate one of the fundamental rights of the accused, solicitor-client privilege?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak this morning to this important bill. I also am pleased to be back in the Chamber after a summer recess that was very successful in terms of democracy, of hearing from the public and of coming back here, as I think all parliamentarians have, with a joint sense that we must make this place work. We must make it more co-operative, more intelligent and more reasonable and open.

With that in mind, I am drawn to the comments of Andrew Cohen in this morning's Ottawa Citizen who said that backbench MPs and individual MPs have no power, have no independence, do not think, do not debate and pretty much are the stuff found under rocks. However, I beg to differ in a non-partisan moment.

In two days we will be voting on a backbencher's bill that has engaged all of the public one way or another in debate. Many current members in the House and those in past Parliaments have worked very hard and quietly on issues of importance to them and their constituents. Overall, with all due respect to question period and the reforms therein proposed and the highlights on the news every night from this Chamber during that time, it bears repeating that most of the serious work in Parliament is done in committee and in cross party, cross the aisle negotiations with respect to laws that hopefully make this country a better place and, as I bring it back to this debate, a safer place.

Bill C-17 is a perfect example of a bill that has been bandied about in various incarnations dealing with the security of the public, which is one issue that does not divide anybody in the House. We all want the public to be safe and we all want public security. We may differ, however, on the means to achieve public security.

The debate itself has been discussing two important tools. Whether we agree they are needed is the hub of the debate but it bears repeating as to what they are.

In response to threats of terrorism and in the period just after 9/11, there was much debate about what we would do if we were faced with future terrorist threats, attacks or rumours of attacks or threats to our country and to our people. It was not a unilateral decision but it was felt by this Parliament that two inclusions should be made to our over 100-year-old Criminal Code. For the people who wrote and enacted the Criminal Code in the 1890s, probably the nearest thing to a terrorist attack was the War of 1812 or the raid in St. Albans, Vermont in 1865. That was probably in the psyche of most of the people who wrote the code way back when.

Let us look back to 2001 to the communities like Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, Moncton and Halifax that welcomed plane loads of people diverted by the terrorist attacks in New York, which we recently commemorated earlier this month. What was the mentality of the Canadian public and parliamentarians with respect to public security? Something needed to be done. As Canadians and parliamentarians, we felt under attack. We felt ill-equipped to handle the next perhaps imminent threat of terrorist activity. We as Canadians felt, because of concerns made known at the time, that our border was porous and that somehow we had something to do collectively in a remote guilt sense for the occurrences in New York and other places on that day.

Parliament, therefore, decided to inculcate the Criminal Code with two tools to be used if necessary, one being the investigative hearing. In the Criminal Code of Canada an investigative hearing would allow authorities to compel the testimony of an individual without the right to decline to answer questions on the basis of self-incrimination.

The intent would be to call in those on the periphery of an alleged plot who may have vital information, rather than the core suspects. These are the people on the periphery, who would have an overwhelming incentive to lie to protect themselves, the actual accused. It was an attempt, working in concert with CSIS and our investigative security-based individuals, to find out more information to prevent terrorist attacks and terrorist incidents. That was to be inserted into the Criminal Code of Canada, a very new provision.

The second new provision was the preventive arrest provision, allowing police to arrest and hold an individual, in some cases without warrant, provided they have reasonable grounds to believe that the arrest would prevent future terrorist activity. Those were introduced in 2004. In the context of 2001, the context seemed reasonable. The context was that we were protecting our community. We were protecting our nation.

There were many safeguards built in to those provisions, and I might add that it was a Liberal government that brought in these provisions, so I do not think it lies in anyone's mouth on any side to say that Liberals are not concerned with terrorism. This was Liberal legislation, and like all legislation that was new and that dealt with the collision between the need for public safety and the primacy of individual rights, it is the collective versus the individual. Like all of those debates and all those pieces of legislation, the collision always results in imperfection because no one goes home completely satisfied with the result.

The key part of the legislation was the so-called sunset clause. At the end of five years, the legislation would sunset and would be no more. The provision was put in place clearly because parliamentarians, particularly members of the Liberal caucus and members of the government, and committee reports and minutes are replete with speeches to this effect, realized that this collision between the public security goal and the private rights goal would result, potentially, into an intrusion into the latter, so they said, “Let us sunset it. Let us see if it is needed, if it is used wantonly, without regard for personal rights, if it is used at all, and if it can be interpreted by the courts or refined through practice”.

Many times we lob a ball into the air called legislation and really hope that the courts get a chance to interpret it, to get it right, one might say, but we do try to make legislation work. In this case, the sunset clause was allowed to sunset, despite attempts to bring the debate back to Parliament. At the very end of the time for the period to run out, a debate was held and the sunset clause was not removed, or the legislation was not permitted to continue, so we are without these tools. This is where we are today. This is the debate today, whether we should have these tools in our Criminal Code with respect to terrorism or suspected terrorism.

A bill which eventually worked its way through the Senate of Canada, with good recommendations from senators and Commons committees before that, a bill known as Bill S-3, correctly and accurately assessed the situation since the original enactment of these provisions. These provisions are found in the Criminal Code in sections 83.28, 83.29 and 83.3. These are the conditions for investigative hearings, which define at some length the modalities as well as recognizance with conditions and arrest warrants for the anti-terrorism legislation.

It is not just these three sections. It is a misnomer to think that we just put these three sections in. There are some 25 pages in section 83 dealing with terrorism. They deal with seizure of property and all sections that have not been challenged or rescinded. It is only these sections dealing with individual liberties that have been touched.

Bill S-3 made some improvements to the regime as it was. There was an increased emphasis on the need for the judge to be satisfied that law enforcement has taken all reasonable steps to obtain information by other legal means before resorting to this.

There was one key consideration: the ability for any person ordered to attend an investigative hearing to retain and instruct counsel. A person so apprehended should have the right to counsel of their choice. There were new reporting requirements for the Attorney General and the Minister of Public Safety who then must now both submit annual reports which not only list the uses of these provisions but also provide opinions supported by reasons as to whether the powers needed to be retained.

There should be flexibility to have any provincial court judge hear a case regarding a preventive arrest.

And, finally, the five-year end date, unless both Houses of Parliament resolve to extend the provisions further, would be put in; that is, another sunset clause.

These amendments made their way through Parliament and, at the risk of not having a completely happy audience, then the P word intervened and we were sent home to go through yet another election. That is sad. That is too bad. But that has been debated before. We know that we do not like prorogation, it interrupts our business, but we were on our way.

Remember now these provisions were put in and as I said, we often want to hear what the courts have to say about them.

Well, an important decision of the Supreme Court of Canada took place in 2003 and 2004. The hearing was December 2003 and the decision was in the middle of the year 2004. The court, made up of the current chief justice and almost all the existing judges now, with the exception of New Mr. Brunswick's Mr. Justice Bastarache, who has since retired, concluded that the provisions put in, particularly 83.28, investigative hearings, were constitutional, but there were a number of comments made in that decision which no one could take as a complete endorsement of the legislation.

While they upheld it, it is important, I think, to note that three justices of the Supreme Court, remember, one has left the court, dissented and found, for instance, using their language:

The Crown's resort to s. 83.28 [which was an investigative hearing] of the Criminal Code in this case was at least in part for an inappropriate purpose, namely, to bootstrap the prosecution's case in the Air India trial by subjecting an uncooperative witness, the Named Person, to a mid-trial examination for discovery before a judge other than the Air India trial judge.

They went on to say:

The Named Person was scheduled to testify for the prosecution in the Air India trial, but because the Crown proceeded by [a different method known as the] direct indictment, neither the prosecution nor the defence had a preliminary look at this witness [who was detained from the investigative hearing]. Section 83.28 was not designed to serve as a sort of half-way house between a preliminary hearing and a direct indictment.

What we have here are the players and the justice system ending up using a tool that was there for, quite frankly, maybe a different purpose. The players and the system had used a certain way of proceeding in a criminal case. They saw this tool lying on the shelf and they used it.

The court, in its majority, said, sure, we can do that because public security is the number one aim here. However, it did lead to the feeling that we, as parliamentarians, in sort of a renvoi or a send-back, have been told by the court that we did not draft perfect legislation when we drafted these pieces and it had been used somewhat indirectly for the purpose in question because of a prosecutor's choice to go a certain way, which I cannot second guess because the Air India trial was a very complicated matter, involving numerous informants of high publicity content throughout Canada. So, I cannot second guess the prosecutors, but they used it for a purpose that led three justices of the Supreme Court to say that is not what this was intended for.

The majority of the court, however, went on to say it is allowable, that section 83.28 does not violate section 7 of the charter and it does not violate section 11(b) with respect to counsel.

I find that a bit strange and I allow for the fact that because the person was not a person under arrest but a witness, by the clear letter of the law the individual would not have a right to counsel. I like the changes that have been submitted by the Senate, by members of the committee and the House that say yes, counsel of the choice of the detained person should be permitted.

We went further in the House and in the Senate than the majority of the Supreme Court that would have allowed such a use of section 83.28. In other words, we have improved, through the recommendations and now the bill being presented, what the Supreme Court thought was allowable with respect at least to the right to counsel.

The court said:

--a judicial investigative hearing remains procedural even though it may generate information pertaining to an offence...the presumption of immediate effect of s. 83.28 has not been rebutted.

It took the law of Canada to be serious. It took the tools in the tool box regarding anti-terrorism as serious and upheld the use of it, and we are down to numbers almost with respect to the Supreme Court, even when good, smart thinking, and now three members of the Supreme Court said it was misused, essentially.

Where are we, then, with the need for this legislation? There are opinions on either side, but let us remember the legislation originally introduced was to combat terrorism. Besides 9/11, which was traumatic for everyone in North America and the world, the prime instance of terrorism and trying to combat it resulted in or came out of the crash of Air India flight 182 and the following study of it by John Major, who was a former Supreme Court justice.

I know Liberals want to send it to committee and examine what was done with Bill S-3, the precursor acts. We want to put safeguards into any proposed legislation and keep the balance right between the need for public security and the primacy of individual rights. That is a given.

I told a little story about how we are interpreting laws based on the one instance of a prosecutor using a certain tool, which led the Supreme Court to say in a divided way, “Yes, it's okay, but you should be more careful than the committee improving the act”. The bigger picture that has been missing in the debate so far is what use is this if our security services do not talk to our police services and our police services are not in sync with the court officers who ultimately direct that this tool be used?

The report of John Major is very instructive in that regard because he says terrorism is both a serious security threat and a serious crime. Secret intelligence collected by Canadian and foreign intelligence agencies can warn the government about threats and help prevent terrorist attacks. Intelligence can also serve as evidence for prosecuting offences.

There is a delicate balance between openness and secrecy and that is what this debate is all about. We have to focus more on terrorism threats from the national security level than this tool, which the Supreme Court of Canada has already said is allowed.

Finally, I would close by saying that the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, on behalf of this party, said we do not need this because we have not used it. I have a sump pump in my basement and I may never use it, but if I have a flood I want to have that sump pump there. I want to be ready for something that may happen in the future.

For my dollar's worth, I think this should go to committee and we should look seriously at what the dissent in that Supreme Court judgment said, what the majority said and this time, with the benefit of its advice and the advice of John Major, we should get it right. We should have those tools on the shelf.

The members who say we do not need them should be happy that we do not need them because it means that we have not had a terrorist threat. However, if we have a terrorist threat, I want those tools to be on the shelf for prosecutors to use, if needed, to keep our country safe, which is the goal we are all here to pursue.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Pardon me, but I gave you your turn. You give me my turn.

Mr. Speaker, it is a fundamental offence to the people who have suffered. The government and these members talk endlessly about the rights of victims and the concern for victims. In this place is where we protect the victims, where we work together, or should work together, to protect them. In this debate, on something so fundamental as the rights of Canadians, the long gun registry is tossed in, the long form is tossed in. Anything to score crass political points is tossed into this debate.

Are they really standing up for Canadians? I do not think so.

In our history as a country, we have failed Canadians. We have failed people from around the world. There have been times in this country, in the second world war, where we detained our own citizens. Subsequently, we had to apologize. In my home community of Hamilton, in the spring of this year, there was a gathering of folks well into their eighties, remembering how they were interned and how their fathers and grandfathers of Italian descent were interned. That was a mistake that seemed to be right at the time, because people were fearful.

Again in 1970, watching television one night, 48 hours after Mr. Pierre Laporte and another gentleman from the British consulate were taken hostage, we had the War Measures Act proclaimed against Canadians. It was not against those people who today might be called terrorists. It was against Canadians. They went into the law offices. They went into offices of labour unions and took files that had absolutely nothing to do with it. That was a time when there was free rein in this country to do whatever one wanted, in the name of the War Measures Act.

We are sitting here today, looking at another place in history, another opportunity to say to ourselves that maybe, just maybe, because we have not used this since we put this act into place, it may not be necessary.

Earlier today, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh was talking about the War Measures Act. He said that we have learned in the last eight years that there was no need for that legislation. The justice minister said today that we might need it.

If it were not for the fact that we are dealing with fundamental human rights and liberties, there might be some merit to this and some logic to the argument, but these two sections of the anti-terrorist legislation contain a serious incursion into rights that have existed in this country since pre-Confederation, rights that go back 400 or 500 years.

As this debate continues in this, Canada's home of law and justice, our House of Commons, I want to give a brief history lesson that puts in place what the member for Windsor—Tecumseh was talking about. This is going to sound strange in the beginning, I assure everyone.

What happened in the year 1215? What was the major event of 1215? Of course none of us sits around thinking about it, but it was the Magna Carta. It was issued in that year and then issued later in the 13th century, a modified version. At the time, it had removed certain temporary provisions. Is everyone now hearing the words “temporary provisions”?

The bill that we are addressing, Bill C-17, had a sunset clause. I often find fault with the official opposition, but it did one thing right in the moment of fear following 9/11 when we were wondering what we should do as a country. Opposition members knew they were going to try to put into place legislation that would allow incursion into the rights of Canadians. When they did that, they said maybe it was not something that should be permanent, so they put in a sunset clause. The Supreme Court of this country ruled on it, as everyone will recall, and that is part of the reason we are here today.

I want to take everyone back to the Magna Carta. The charter was first passed into law in 1225 and then again in 1297 with the long title, “The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, and of the Liberties of the Forest”, which remains in the statutes of England and Wales.

People will remember that in 1215 King John was the king of England. It was his barons who forced him to proclaim those certain liberties. It is amazing that he had to accept that his will was not arbitrary. He accepted that no free man, which was the language of the day I say to my sisters here today, could be punished except through the law of the land. That is a right that exists to this day. That is the right that our veterans have fought for in conflict after conflict. It is enshrined in law in almost all the democracies of the world. No free man could be punished except through the law of the land.

What do we have today? In the name of terror, terrorism, or whatever the latest word is, we are going to change the law of the land to take away, permanently, the rights of Canadians. In Parliament, our home for establishing laws for Canada, following 9/11 we strayed from the goals of the Magna Carta. Maybe, just maybe, we began acting a little too much like King John and others who would seek too much control.

We saw a similar thing occur in the United States. I can still recall, following 9/11, the picture of the Congress and the Senate gathered together. They had been under attack. Several thousand people died and it was a country that was very worried about what was coming next, and rightfully so.

Nobody in this place will try to minimize the fact that there are people in the world who seek to do destructive things. The hardest balance that any government has to make, the one that faced this House of Commons about nine years ago, was to balance rights against protecting the people.

We have had nearly 10 years now where it has not been needed. Even though the sunset clause did not run its course properly, we could get into the why of that, but I think I will pass on that.

Where once the king, or in our case, Parliament, was tasked with protecting the liberties of its citizens, the government of the day set out to legally circumvent the rights inherent to all Canadians.

The Magna Carta was forced on an English king by a group of his barons. It was done in an attempt to limit his powers.

Here we are today, doing the reverse of that. We are trying to increase the subversive kind of powers of government, those powers that we do not want to have hidden behind doors.

In this place I have defended Omar Khadr repeatedly and called upon the government to do the right thing in Omar Khadr's case. My point is that if we look at Guantanamo Bay and how the United States government moved to Guantanamo to avoid being subject to the laws of its country and they still call it a democratic country, we are here today talking about doing something similar. We are not setting up a hidden place; we are doing it in the House, no doubt. However, in the year 1100, there was a Charter of Liberties, when King Henry I had to specify particular areas where he would allow his power to be impinged upon, or be pushed back, or be controlled. That was at the behest of the people, one more time.

The people in my riding who have talked to me repeatedly about the injustices that we saw with the Japanese in World War II, the Italians in World War II, the Komagata Maru at the turn of the 20th century and other mistakes that were made in Canada say, “Beware. Be cautious. Be careful. Do not so cavalierly give away the rights of Canadian citizens”.

In the 13th century, to refer again to the outcomes of the Magna Carta, nearly all of its clauses had been repealed by that time. We should think about that for a second. We had, back in the 12th and 13th century, a move toward rights and freedoms for people, and over the next centuries they were repealed and pulled back.

However, there were three main clauses that remained part of the law of England and Wales, and to a great extent they are to be found elsewhere in the world because they are the fundamental basis of so many important things in law.

Lord Denning described it as the greatest constitutional document of all time, the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of a despot.

They were thinking in terms of a monarchy, but when a government, any government, gives itself too much control, it is setting itself up for that accusation.

In the year 2005, in a speech, Lord Woolf described the Magna Carta as:

the first of a series of instruments that now are recognised as having a special constitutional status.

The three things that were important were the right of habeas corpus, or the Habeas Corpus Act; the Petition of Right; and the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement.

However, if we think in terms of habeas corpus, if we think in terms of what I started this speech talking about, the right of a person, a Canadian, to know the evidence against them, to face their accuser in a court of law, and to have the apprehension of that individual done in conformity with the laws of Canada, we had the situation recently of the Toronto 18. We had the apprehension of those folks. It went through the process and we had a turn of guilt in one instance. We have had, right here in this community, other arrests that have taken place.

I want to go back again to the charter as an important part of the extension of history's process that led to the rule of constitutional law in the English-speaking world.

I keep talking about the foundation of our rights. In practice, the Magna Carta in the medieval period did not, in general, limit the power of the kings. However, by the time of the English Civil War, it had become an important symbol for those who wished to show the king or queen that they were bound by law.

What does this ancient document have to do with limiting the power of kings, and how has that happened within the structure of Bill C-17?

It seems that with the government, on this issue, as with the previous Liberal government, the rights of Canadians were denigrated and dismissed in the name of the war on terror. To the credit of the Parliament that sought to limit the rights of Canadians under the Anti-terrorism Act, the government added the sunset clause, which was referred to earlier, to see an end to these abuses in the year 2007.

Today the Conservative government argues that it needs the same oppressive tools again, those that we find today in Bill C-17. I would argue that the provisions of the Canadian Criminal Code are effective enough. Again, I refer to the Toronto 18. We had arrests and we had convictions in those cases.

In Canada we are not required to give testimony that incriminates us. Being a child brought up in the 1950s, I always called that the fifth amendment, because I did not realize that we were referring to the United States. It is a fundamental aspect of justice. One is not required to incriminate oneself.

We have rights under habeas corpus. We have the right to a speedy trial, to see the evidence against us, and to meet our accusers face to face. I would ask whether the members present are prepared to sacrifice the rights given to free people that have been in place since the time of the Magna Carta, that have evolved over the history of this country and other primarily English-speaking countries, the so-called British Empire countries.

Those are our roots. That is who we are. Again, the question is whether we will allow the government to become like the court of a kingdom that represents the interests of the king. Do we know any kings in this place? Will we stand with and for great Canadians everywhere?

In terms of the change in this country and the change that has happened to Canadian citizens as brought about by this government, there is a change in the fundamental direction and attitude of services provided and the protection of Canadian citizens, such as the G20 protection of Canadian citizens. I am sure that we will hear much more about it in this place. We saw protestors marching. In amongst those protesters there were people misbehaving. There were people breaking the law, but we saw wholesale arrest and detainment. I know the story of one lady who was picked off the line, put into a police car, driven for four hours, and then released.

Are we going to allow people to be picked off the streets, detained with no charge, and released and told they are free to go because the event is over? That is what happened at the G20.

On behalf of the constituents of Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, I am supposed to trust a government to allow that G-20 type of activity to take place. It was a peaceful march, and they could have easily apprehended those people who were the problem that day. If it was allowed to go to the place it went, how am I supposed to trust the government with more powers and more authority?

I say that if we pass Bill C-17, what we are actually doing is giving away fundamental rights of Canadians and opening them up to the kind of abuse, in a broader way, we saw at the G-20.

I will conclude today by saying that I stand here proudly with the rest of my friends, and particularly with my friend from Windsor—Tecumseh, who gave such an eloquent speech earlier today. I almost tried to give the same speech again. It was so tempting, because he spoke directly to the heart of this issue.