Bill C-42 (Historical)

Strengthening Aviation Security Act

An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act

This enactment amends the Aeronautics Act so that the operator of an aircraft that is due to fly over the United States in the course of an international flight may provide information to a competent authority of that country.

Strengthening Aviation Security Act

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is my understanding that there is no reciprocity.

I find it absolutely amazing that the Canadian government is willing to give over information about credit cards and personal data without any assurance that information is secure or even accurate. It comes back to the whole problem of misinformation. As was the case with Maher Arar, people being denied access and refused the right to fly within their own country based on misinformation that they cannot correct. There is a stranglehold on the retention of that information and that quite simply should never be.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak once again in the House on what I have called before, and will call again, one of the most ill-advised pieces of legislation that I have seen in my time here in the House of Commons.

Bill C-42 amends the Aeronautics Act to require airlines in Canada to send personal information on passengers to foreign security services. In particular, Canadian travellers who are travelling to destinations that may touch U.S. airspace, but do not land in the United States, would have the decision over whether or not they are issued a boarding pass in Canada determined by U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

There is so much wrong with the bill that it is hard to know where to start, so I will start at the beginning. The passenger name record that an airline creates on each passenger when they book a flight to fly from Canada to Mexico, Cuba, Latin America or Europe contains the following information: the file that a travel agent creates when a vacation is booked, the name of the travel agent, credit card information, who is travelling with the passenger, the hotel, booking information for tours or rental cars, and any serious medical condition of the passenger.

This information that would have to be turned over to U.S. Department of Homeland Security could be retained by the United States for up to 40 years. We know this because there are similar agreements that contain this information. This information may be forwarded to the security service of a third party nation without the consent or notification of the other signatory.

No person may know what information about them is being held by the United States and may not have a chance to correct that information if there are errors. The United States has signed similar agreements with other countries that may unilaterally amend the agreement as long as it simply advises the other party of those changes.

In essence, once the passenger name record is logged by the airline and is sent to officials of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, they will make the decision as to whether or not the Canadian citizen who is going to board an aircraft in our country will be allowed to board or not.

That is something so fundamentally wrong on the surface that it is hard to believe that anybody would proceed any further than that. Imagine having a Canadian citizen's right to fly to a country around the world determined by U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Is there anything more preposterous? Is there anything more undemocratic? Is there anything more offensive?

Imagine Canadian citizens who choose not to go to the United States. They may make the deliberate decision not to go there. They have to have personal information about themselves transferred to security apparatus in the United States and decisions about whether they can fly or not determined by American authorities.

I have heard Conservatives in the House say “Well, what can we do? The Americans have asked for it. They will not let us fly over their airspace.” Let us examine that. First of all, Canadian airlines have been flying over U.S. airspace for decades and decades without having to send this personal information to the United States. That is number one. What is the difference now?

Number two, why can Canadian authorities not retain control, authority and responsibility of the security of Canadian airlines? Canadian soldiers are good enough to fight in Afghanistan right now. They are good enough to fight right beside U.S. soldiers. They are good enough to work side-by-side in NATO and to be trusted with that. But the United States does not trust Canada to maintain adequate security over our own aircraft?

I might also add that Canadian airlines and Canadian security apparatus have an outstanding record of controlling security in our country. I would go so far as to say that it is superior to the security arrangements in the United States.

Moreover, and here is the kicker, Canada sought and obtained an exemption from having to send information on Canadian citizens to the United States for domestic flights that fly over U.S. airspace. Let us stop for a moment and look at the absurdity of that.

If in fact it is true that the Americans need this information about Canadian travellers to fight terror or to make sure that these flights are secure, why is it not needed on domestic flights that fly over American states? That is ridiculous.

As a matter of fact, security steps and methods for international travel are actually superior and more in depth than security checks for domestic flights. One could argue that if we actually needed these steps, then the one place we would absolutely insist on there being passenger name information would be on domestic flights, but that is the one thing that the Americans said was not necessary.

I want to talk about the lack of reciprocity. What kind of government negotiates with a foreign state and allows that state to demand the personal information of its own citizens and does not insist on the same for itself? That is not negotiation. That is abdication.

What about the violation of Canadians' privacy? Canadians may want to take their families to Mexico. Many families have done that in the past 10 years. Do they run the risk of having their decision turned down by the United States?

What about Canadians travelling to Cuba? We all know that the United States has the Helms-Burton Act, which prohibits its businesses and citizens from having any kind of dealings with Cuba. Are we going to have the United States determine whether or not Canadian passengers can go to Cuba or Latin America? Canadians should know that it is not just Latin America. Of course, every flight to Latin America will fly over U.S. airspace. Many flights that go to Europe and other parts of the world also touch U.S. airspace.

This is also a profound violation of Canadian sovereignty. It has been pointed out by witnesses before both the transport and public safety committees that decisions over whether Canada can invite diplomats from certain countries, diplomats who would fly over U.S. airspace, could essentially be vetoed by the U.S. government.

Of course, the most profound violation of sovereignty is allowing a foreign government or institutions of a foreign government to determine where our own citizens can travel in the world.

We heard the government say when it abolished the long form census, a ridiculous move if there ever was one, that it thought it was not the state's business to know how many bedrooms people had in their houses, that it was offensive for the Government of Canada to know how many bedrooms a Canadian citizen had. At the same time, it signed an agreement with the United States that would sell out information on Canadian citizens, such as their credit card information or health status or where they were travelling, and give that information to a foreign government. That is ridiculous.

The government also likes to say that the primary duty of any government is to protect its citizens. That is not being done here. It is a sad day in Canada to see the Conservative government not protecting Canadian citizens, not protecting their freedom and their right to travel where they want to in the world. The government is failing completely in that regard.

I want to talk for a minute about the Liberals' shameful record. After speaking against this bill and sounding like they actually understood the privacy and sovereignty issues, the Liberals voted in favour of Bill C-42 at second reading. Every Canadian should know that when the Leader of the Opposition questions the government on why it is entering into security perimeter negotiations with the United States and selling out the privacy rights of Canadians, Liberals are voting for it. They are voting for this very bill that gives the U.S. Department of Homeland Security the right to determine where Canadians travel.

The New Democrats are going to stand against this kind of cynicism. We are going to stand up for Canadians, for privacy rights, for Canadian sovereignty, for fair dealing with Canadian citizens, and we are going to restore Canada's place in the world as a country of fairness, decency and democracy. We will stand up for our citizens to make sure their fundamental rights are respected.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are getting to the point where we have heard some of these arguments before.

The Privacy Commissioner was before committee and the member referred to what was going on in committee. He is probably aware that the Privacy Commissioner raised some issues of concern from the point of view of how we can mitigate the risk of information getting out, such as in the retention agreement and how long information would be kept and with whom it could be shared with, et cetera. All of these things are still ongoing.

What she did not say but we would have expected from the Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, an experienced and excellent official on behalf of the Government of Canada, was that this was a gross violation of the privacy rights of Canadians. That was not her position.

Therefore, I ask the member, if the Privacy Commissioner does not think it is a gross violation, why does he?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to tell my hon. colleague what his own colleague from the Liberal Party, the member for Willowdale, said:

The government seems far too interested in pleasing the Americans, listening to the Americans and adhering to American interests. I have nothing against the Americans, but in this situation we are sacrificing the interests of Canadians in order to please the interests of the United States. That is simply not acceptable.

That is what a Liberal MP will say in the House, and then the Liberals will vote for Bill C-42.

The Privacy Commissioner had serious concerns about the bill, but she was only one of about 11 witnesses whose testimony I have read, including Roch Tassé's. In fact, I will go over some of the testimony of the people who testified extensively on the bill.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. Perhaps the hon. member could bring forward some of that information in response to the next question.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague, who had many of his facts absolutely correct. I just have to question, though, as I am not quite sure if he might have seen the whole context.

We know that the Conservative Party will sell out civil liberties on a dime. The Conservatives would do that before getting up in the morning. We know what they think of people's personal liberty, but I am surprised at the hon. member's surprise that the Liberals would also be willing to sell out Canada's civil liberties, because was is not the leader of the Liberal opposition who previously stood up during the worst, darkest days of Bush's torture regime and defended coercive investigation?

We know the Conservatives do not mind using the rubber hose. That is in their DNA, but it was the Liberal leader who supported coercive investigation and said it was necessary, and so why would we think that the Liberal Party would actually care about people's privacy rights, about people's--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. I would like to give the hon. member equal time. I understand that the hon. member has a minute to respond.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, Canadians have known one thing over the last 20 years, that the Liberal Party of Canada will say almost anything to get elected.

The Liberals said they wanted a national child care program in 1993, in 1997 and in 2001. They said they would bring in a national housing program in 1993, 1997 and 2001. They broke those promises every time. They said they would abrogate NAFTA. They did not do that. They said they would repeal the GST. They did not do that.

It does not surprise me that the Liberal Party of Canada will say one thing and do another. That is exactly what Canadians know the Liberals to be and that is why they have lost seats and the percentage of the popular vote in every single election since 2001, at least that I have seen. That is because Canadians do not trust them. The Liberals want to talk like New Democrats when they are out of power and then govern like Conservatives when they are in power, and Canadians have their number. Canadians know that.

However, to see the Liberal members stand up and vote in favour of Bill C-42, an absolutely unacceptable violation of Canadians' privacy rights and an absolutely appalling abdication of Canada's sovereignty, is really something that I hope every Canadian from coast to coast to coast gets to see. I say this because when Canadians want to travel to Mexico, the only place that decision should be made is in their family room or kitchen. They are the only people who should be deciding where they as Canadians travel.

When the Conservatives say they will let the U.S. Department of Homeland Security do it, that is not good enough.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Madam Speaker, I cannot say I am pleased to have to stand here and speak on this bill on closure. This bill is one that I have had trouble with ever since it was introduced in Parliament and the whole time it was before the transport committee.

The Conservative government would like Canadians to believe that Bill C-42 is just about ensuring Canadians can fly to destinations in the sun, that we have to pinch our nose and vote in favour of this bill, which really sells out Canadians' freedoms and liberties.

It is surprising how the so-called standing-up-for-Canadians party is so quick to make a move like this.

However, the bill before us is just part of the sellout. The larger issue is the total sellout of Canadian sovereignty under the perimeter security deal, which, if this government has its way, we will likely not even see inside the House of Commons. It will never get debated here.

We know the reality is that this bill, which is a completely unnecessary invasion of Canadians' privacy, is just a stopgap until the government has instituted a perimeter security deal. My fear is that if the Conservatives have failed to stand up for Canadians when they negotiated this deal, just how supine will they be when it comes to selling out Canadian sovereignty as part of a perimeter security deal?

When the minister appeared before the committee on this bill, he said it had to be passed before the end of 2010 or the U.S. would close its airspace to Canadian flights. That did not happen. The minister allowed the Americans to bully him, or perhaps he was simply bluffing the committee. We called their bluff.

The Conservatives pointed out the exemption they obtained for domestic flights. It is laughable. The exemption is based on a non-binding diplomatic note, much as the rest of this is based on letters, not treaties. There is no clear indication of how any of this is set in the relationship between Canada and the U.S. What the exemption really shows is that this bill is not about security or fighting terrorism, but about allowing another country to determine who may come and go from Canada. It proves this bill is setting us up for the bigger perimeter sellout.

In researching this speech, I came up with some interesting statements. On privacy, I found the following quote from the website of the member for Langley on how Conservatives protect the privacy of Canadians:

One of the key duties of a government is to protect the rights and privacy of all of its nation’s citizens.

Given the government's total failure to protect Canadian's privacy through Bill C-42 and how it will deal with privacy and other information issues through the perimeter security deal, the member for Langley may have to amend his website.

On the Conservative Party's website, it is said that:

Under the strong leadership of [the Prime Minister] Conservatives are taking action for Canada’s sovereignty, safety and security—

Then there is this line from the Prime Minister's bio page:

As Prime Minister, he....stood up for Canada's sovereignty--

However, Webster's dictionary has the following as a part of its definition of sovereignty:

freedom from external control.

I have trouble thinking this is the case here. It seems that when it comes to protecting the rights of Canadians, the Conservatives have failed completely.

On February 9 of this year, the parliamentary secretary told this House:

—I will tell members what I do require, and what I think this government has required, from the United States. We have required that the Americans uphold and strengthen the vital cornerstones of our Canadian values, such as due process, the rule of law and the preservation of individuals' civil liberties, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and privacy rights.

My goodness, that is a long list. None of it appears in this bill. None of it is found anywhere within any treaty or any agreement between the United States and Canada that comes under this particular section.

What has the member done here?

When we start to talk about the perimeter security deal, most Canadians do not believe the Conservatives when they say they can be trusted to protect our rights.

Postmedia News reported on February 18, 2011, that:

Two-thirds of Canadians fear [the] Prime Minister...will "compromise" by giving up too much power over immigration, privacy and security to get a deal with the United States on border controls, a new poll has found.

The national survey, conducted exclusively for Postmedia News and Global Television, also finds Canadians are split over whether they "trust"...[the Prime Minister] to craft a deal that maintains this country's independence.

The poll by Ipsos Reid reveals Canadians want [the Prime Minister] to adopt a much more transparent approach to the "perimeter security" negotiations that are being held in total secrecy.

That is what Canadians think about what the Conservatives are doing.

There was also an online poll last week in theGlobe and Mail. Of the 67,000 respondents, 90% said that they did not think we should give up information in this relationship with the United States.

The day after the parliamentary secretary for transport made his claims about how the government was protecting the rights of Canadians, the leader of the Liberal Party wrote in the Globe and Mail:

The content of the proposal and the manner in which it came about raise serious questions about the government’s commitment to defending our sovereignty, our privacy and our rights as Canadian citizens.

It is too bad for Canadians that MPs are supporting Bill C-42. I think Canadians should raise serious questions about the Liberal commitment to defending our sovereignty.

Then there is the line from the Liberal transport critic, which shows how much backbone the party has in protecting Canadians.

As I said in my speech, this is not a law that I particularly like because it does raise concerns about privacy and issues such as those raised by the hon. member. However, for practical purposes, I think we have little choice but to pass the bill. The Liberals had a choice. They could have protected Canadians but, no, they wanted to side with the Conservatives, and we can expect them to continue to work with the Conservatives on this particular issue.

Then there is the line from the member for Willowdale who said:

--we are now being held hostage. If a Liberal government had been asked to do this, we would have asked how we could work this out so we did not accede to this and sacrifice the privacy of Canadians.

It is not too late. If the Liberal Party would go against this bill, we would force the Conservatives back to the bargaining table with the United States to work out a better deal on this bill.

Then we have a line from the member for Eglinton—Lawrence who said, “This bill is a total abdication of our sovereignty responsibility”.

Can anyone imagine letting a foreign authority, not the government but a competent authority within the government of another country, determine what it must know about whether passengers board a plane in Canada or go someplace else or another place in order to come to Canada?

Canadians will be watching the vote on this particular bill.

What about the Bloc? Surely, it must defend sovereignty. Its critic said:

As the Bloc Québécois transport critic, and with my colleagues who agree on this position, we had to take individual freedoms into account, but we also had to take into account feasibility and the viability of air carriers that have to use U.S. airspace.

Once again, we see that the choice being made is between freedom and liberty, the rights of Canadians and a supposed infringement upon the commercial movement of aircraft.

When it comes to protecting the rights of Canadians, there is one party in this House that puts Canadians ahead of profits. Which party is that?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

The Conservative Party.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I heard the hon. member across the way say “the Conservative Party”, but quite clearly the only party in this House that is actually standing up on this bill over and over again is the New Democratic Party.

The reason we have taken such a strong opposition to this bill is that all through the process we saw the Conservatives fail to get a proper deal for Canadians. My colleagues have talked about all of the things they could have worked on to make a difference in this bill but they did not do that because their hearts were not in it. They chose to sell out Canada. They chose not to do the work to protect Canada. Why did they do that? They did it because they were looking at this larger perimeter security deal. In their minds they felt that by integrating further into the United States we could increase the profits of our companies and sell out our grandchildren.

Today, the choice is apparent. What we do not know and will not find out is what this complete perimeter security deal means to Canadian travellers, to Canadians and to the future of this great country of which I am very proud to be a representative.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, on November 18, when the Privacy Commissioner appeared before the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, she tried to clarify that the requirements under the no-fly list and that legislation did have some privacy concerns. She said:

However, C-42 differs from the measures listed above in that it will not result in the introduction of any new domestic aviation security programs nor will it involve the collection of additional personal information by Canadian government agencies.

Rather, it will allow American or other authorities to collect personal information about travellers on flights to and from Canada that fly through American airspace and this, in turn, will allow American authorities to prevent individuals from flying to or from Canada.

I think the Privacy Commissioner has added to the debate from the standpoint that the no-fly list issues, the Maher Arar issue, et cetera, are different cases from Bill C-42 and that there are no conclusions on behalf of the Privacy Commissioner that there are breaches of privacy rights of Canadians. I wonder if the member would want to comment.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Madam Speaker, quite clearly this bill would open the door for the U.S. to use the information that it is provided for any purpose. Even the U.S. ambassador in his letter stated that in most cases the information would be used for security purposes. The door was not closed on that one.

The testimony we heard from one U.S. witness indicated that within the homeland security bill there is no protection for aliens on information. Therefore, when we turn information on Canadians over to the U.S., we are doing it with no protection at all.

I would like to see the Privacy Commissioner go through this again and understand the precise nature of what we are creating with this bill and the type of direction we are taking for the country. When we start to talk about a perimeter of security deal and the sharing of information from Canadian security services with the United States on an ongoing basis, what will that lead to?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is clear that the government messed up in the negotiations. It made a very poor deal. The government could have gone for reciprocity and caused the Americans to back off when demanding information on their 2,000 flights a day versus the 100 that we have to give them.

The government has admitted that the Americans were prepared to let it keep the information but the government was not prepared to spend $500 million or so on the computer system that would need to be set up to keep the information.

The bottom line is that we should get our existing systems working better. We have a no-fly list that does not work. We have the member for Winnipeg Centre on the no-fly list. Former Senator Ted Kennedy is on the no-fly list. We need to clean up that list first.

We also need to get the trusted shipper program working. The American Pilots' Association says that we have 1,000 trusted shippers who are not so trusted because they are sending all sorts of packages and letters onto the airplanes that are not even checked. There is a huge exposure there but we are ignoring that while we are chasing stuff that really does not--