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

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member that certainly the irony is not lost on me regarding Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, in comparison with the long form census controversy. The lack of intrusion on the long form census and the so-called intrusion in this bill, I guess the ideology does not rub together. Nonetheless, I appreciate the member's comments.

I do appreciate the fact that in this particular case obviously there is more information which, under different circumstances, people would not want to sacrifice to any airline or any particular individual regarding their privacy. We find ourselves in a new age, a new era. Therefore, I think that the balance which needs to be achieved is close to being achieved here.

The House resumed from February 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, be read the third time and passed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act.

I can sum up Bill C-42 by saying it should be defeated. It is nothing more than data mining by foreign security services, primarily the United States, and is an unwarranted invasion of the privacy of Canadians.

Bill C-42 would amend the Aeronautics Act to allow for an exemption for airlines from the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act; thereby, permitting them to transmit to the United States department of homeland security personal information about airline passengers.

The U.S. department of homeland security could then run this information through a number of databases to determine if the travellers should be prevented from entering U.S. airspace. If the U.S. department of homeland security determines a person may be allowed into United States airspace, then the airline is given permission to issue a boarding pass. This is the process set up under the United States secure flight program which mandates that only those the U.S. department of homeland security allows may enter into U.S. airspace, regardless if those individuals are landing in the United States or not.

While the Conservatives like to point to name, gender and date of birth as being the only items of information required, the secure flight final rules state that airlines must also provide the following information if they possess it: redress number or known traveller number; passport information; itinerary information; reservation control number; record sequence number; record type; passenger update indicator; and traveller reference number.

All of these information elements are part of the air travel system for ensuring passengers move efficiently in their travels. It is information the airline would automatically possess.

Unfortunately, it is sufficient information to allow the department of homeland security to data mine the travel reservation systems used by all airlines as these databases are physically located in the United States and the U.S. patriot act requires that they be available to U.S. security agencies, without a warrant.

Included in this information are known medical conditions of passengers, who is travelling with the specific person, and even what they ate on the airline if they ordered a special meal.

Previous to Bill C-42, this information was passed to the U.S. department of homeland security only for passengers travelling to the United States. Through a non-binding diplomatic note, Canada had secured an exemption from secure flight for domestic flights.

As almost all flights within, to and from Canada pass through United States airspace, Bill C-42 would essentially allow the United States department of homeland security to determine who may enter and leave Canada by air.

Bill C-42 would also allow airlines to send personal information of passengers to foreign security services. What information would be forwarded is determined by requirements laid out in secret agreements with other countries. Details of these agreements have not been released.

However, it is known that Canada has signed or is negotiating agreements with the European Union, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and the United States.

Details of the agreement between the European Union and the United States, for the same information transfer, are troubling. That agreement allows the information collected to be retained by the United States for up to 40 years.

Under the secure flight final rule, the retention period for Canadians is seven days if no match is found in the data; seven years for a potential match; and 99 years for confirmed matches.

As I have already indicated, this information may be forwarded to the security service of a third nation without the consent or notification of the other signatory: the passenger.

The secure flight final rule also stipulates that no person may know what information is being held about them by the United States and may not correct that information if there are errors.

The United States already has such an agreement with the European Union. Under that agreement, the United States may unilaterally amend the agreement as long as it advises the EU of the change. There has already been one amendment whereby all documents held by the EU concerning the joint U.S.-EU agreement shall not be publicly released for 10 years.

This would preclude any access to information requests. In essence, Bill C-42 provides too much access to private information without any protection. As I have stated, it will allow data mining of Canadians' personal information by foreign security services.

The Conservative government seems to be inordinately influenced by what it seems to believe is a danger, that unless Canadians agree with the bill, the United States could close its airspace to Canadian aircraft. While this threat may result in pressure to pass the bill, it is very unlikely the United States would carry through with that threat. Still, Bill C-42 is being spun by the government as necessary for fighting terrorism. There is no example of how this data mining has caught a single terrorist or any other criminal.

The bill is an unacceptable invasion of the privacy of Canadians by foreign security forces. I have heard from many constituents who are very concerned that such an intrusion is an unacceptable invasion of their privacy and undermines their sense of personal security.

I believe Maher Arar is an example of how this type of information can be misused. Canadians remember Maher Arar, a 34-year-old Canadian wireless technology consultant who was born in Syria and came to Canada with his family at age 17. Maher became a Canadian citizen in 1991.

On September 26, 2002, while in transit at New York's JFK airport en route to Montreal, Mr. Arar was detained by U.S. officials, and on the basis of information provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, he was interrogated about alleged links to al-Qaeda. Twelve days later, he was chained, shackled, and flown to Syria where he was imprisoned in a tiny cell for 10 months. During his captivity he was beaten, tortured and forced to make a false confession. Due to the unrelenting efforts of his wife, Monia Mazigh, and the help of Alexa McDonough, he was eventually returned to Canada in October 2003.

In January 2004, under pressure from Canadian human rights organizations, the Government of Canada announced a commission of inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials. In 2006, Justice Dennis O'Connor cleared Maher Arar of all terrorism allegations, stating that he was able to state categorically that there was no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar had committed any offence or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada.

The authorities at JFK identified Maher as knowing a person being investigated by the RCMP, but failed to further investigate the degree of this acquaintance. They made assumptions which were unjustified and they took action which would have been unjustified even if Maher Arar had been guilty of serious crimes.

Despite an apology and financial settlement from the Government of Canada in 2007, U.S. authorities refuse to accept Mr. Arar is innocent and he remains on the American no-fly list. Clearly, this is a terrifying example of how information can be skewed, misinterpreted and misused.

Many people have commented on the agreement being considered by the Government of Canada in regard to the proposed amendments to the Aeronautics Act. Ms. Chantal Bernier, assistant privacy commissioner in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada told the Standing Committee on Transport, Communities and Infrastructure in May 2010:

--privacy and security do not have to be at odds. In fact, they must be integrated. And they converge. They converge in this fashion: privacy commands that we collect as little information as possible, in a minimal approach, and as well in the effectiveness of security, in the sense that its effectiveness rests upon collecting only the information that is relevant...the right to privacy is a fundamental right that cannot be infringed upon, unless it is demonstrably necessary for the public good. It follows, then, that the collection of personal information can only occur when it is proven necessary, and it must be proportionate to that necessity...that necessity must be assessed on an ongoing basis by verifying that the collection of personal information is indeed effective and necessary in relation to the identified necessity. Finally, it must also be demonstrated that there are no less privacy-intrusive measures available to reach the same goal.

Comments to the transport committee by Edward Hasbrouck of Liberty Coalition, a U.S.-based civil liberties group, are chilling. Mr. Hasbrouck stated:

Unlike the case in Canada, where someone denied travel is given formal notice of that decision and has rights to appeal it, those no-fly orders in the U.S. are entirely extrajudicial. No one in the U.S. has yet obtained court review by any U.S. court of a no-fly order. It is U.S. government policy not even to admit that they have issued such an order, and that includes those denying passage on flights overflying the U.S. that were not scheduled to land. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is on the public record as saying that he believed that no-fly decisions should not be subject to judicial review, and the current U.S. administration has done nothing to repudiate that perspective.

While the consequences for anyone are very serious, including for those U.S. citizens trapped abroad who are currently unable to return home because they are not allowed to fly and have no other way to get back to the U.S., they are perhaps most draconian for refugees and asylum seekers. You should be very clear that the enactment of Bill C-42 would grant to the U.S. government de facto veto power over the ability of virtually anyone to obtain sanctuary in Canada--

This sounds very much like the case of Dawood Hepplewhite, a British man stranded in Toronto after being denied permission to fly home. His name is on the U.S. no-fly list. Mr. Hasbrouck went on to talk about how the data collected is used. He indicated:

These data are also used for purposes of surveillance of travellers. It is not the case that the information is simply used to make a onetime decision about whether to let you fly. All of your PNRs, even if you are not deemed suspicious and are allowed to fly, will be added to the lifetime travel history and compilation of data already being kept about you as part of the automated targeting system.

Dr. Mark Salter, associate professor, school of political studies at the University of Ottawa, told the committee:

Governments want this information so that they can build profiles of not just risky passengers but safe passengers as well. Research clearly demonstrates that in the United States and the U.K., government agencies are trying to collect as much data about travellers as possible. Government agencies such as the U.K. Border Agency try to develop very sophisticated algorithms that predict not which individuals are dangerous, but what kinds of itineraries are dangerous.

What worries me about this particular legislation is that the data not only go to the destination country but may go to all states that the airline might fly over. That, I feel, is the significant change that this legislation brings, and it worries me a great deal.

Flights that use the polar routes from Vancouver to Hong Kong would have to go over Russia and China. Are we suggesting that they are reasonable destinations for the passenger data of Canadian citizens? Flights that go to Colombia or Brazil must overfly any number of Latin American countries. Flights to Dubai must overfly most European countries and some Middle Eastern countries. Is the Government of Canada confident that the destination for their data can provide adequate protection? Are Air Canada and other air providers confident of that as well?

I understand that one of the reasons for this legislation is to get around the requirements of PIPEDA for Air Canada to provide such data. What worries me is that neither the government nor other agencies have put protection in place for data that will now go abroad.

I think it is dangerous to sacrifice our privacy and our freedoms for the dream of zero risk or perfect security. This particular measure does not provide additional security for the aviation sector, and it places an additional burden on Canadian citizens who are flying...the use of this commercial data, because it is created by airlines for their use, poses clear risks to privacy and no clear benefit. There is no reciprocity among any of the other countries. We are simply making Canadians more vulnerable to the security services of other nations, and we are doing so for countries that may not have the same robust privacy legislation or commitment that we have in Canada.

Canadians' data should not be hostage to the most paranoid regime that an air company chooses to fly over. The proposed change to these data protection regulations to include overflight states dramatically increases the vulnerability of Canadians' data while offering no means of redress or appeal.

We can assume that citizens know when they travel to a particular country that they are consenting. They know they go through a visa process and a border process, so they know their data is being evaluated. However, Canadians would have no way of knowing which of the countries they flew over would get their data, what would happen to their data, or how to appeal the use of that data.

The proposed changes to the Aeronautics Act are dangerous indeed without any clear benefit to Canadians.

Nathalie Des Rosiers, general counsel of Canadian Civil Liberties Association, told the committee that there is an expectation of privacy protection by the charter. This bill would not meet a section 1 challenge because it has no limitations. It does not adequately protect the problems that may arise with the disclosure of information and so on.

The first point is that there is a constitutional vulnerability that should be looked at before we go too much further. There is no requirement in Bill C-42 or in the regulations of the U.S. Transportation Safety Act for safeguards to protect the information. There is no safeguard that the TSA will not pass information to other government agencies, such as law enforcement or immigration. There is no safeguard that the TSA will not pass this information to third countries. We know this has been a particularly difficult issue for some Canadians, Maher Arar being a case in point. There is no guarantee the TSA will not use the information for profiling Canadians to put them on its watch list or no-fly list.

Ms. Des Rosiers also reminded the committee that in the United States the no-fly list is under constitutional review. It has been challenged because there are too many false positives arising. The process has a described Kafkaesque quality in the way it does not allow people to know whether they are on it, how to get off it, and what evidence is on it.

That is the danger. The danger is that Canadian passengers will be put at risk of being stuck somewhere with no possibility of flying home. There is no guarantee that an innocent Canadian could not be mistakenly placed on the list. There is no guarantee that innocent Canadians mistakenly placed on the list will not be prevented from flying to or from or being detained in the U.S. or elsewhere without due process.

I have absolutely no confidence that surrendering information about Canadians to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is either safe or wise. Disclosure to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of personal information on passengers travelling to certain destinations, particularly Cuba, could lead to unpleasant consequences. For example, this information could be used to identify Canadian companies that do business with Cuba or to penalize travellers who have visited Cuba by consequently refusing them entry into the U.S.

How will Canada ensure that the U.S. will not use the secure flight program to apply its Helms–Burton act which imposes penalties on foreign companies doing business with Cuba? Canadians and Canadian companies have had a long-standing and very positive relationship with Cuba. Millions of Canadians have visited Cuba, and I am sure would like to continue to visit Cuba.

Over and over we have heard the warnings from reputable experts and indeed the voices of concerned Canadians. Surely the government will listen to these warnings. We need to defeat Bill C-42. Canadians deserve better than the lacklustre leadership and absence of due diligence from the government. How can anyone trust a government, its ministers and a Prime Minister so willing to jeopardize their privacy and security?

In the words of our Privacy Commissioner, “the Canadian government has a duty to protect the privacy and civil rights of its citizens”. It is time the government understood that and did its duty.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member for London—Fanshawe. She gave an excellent comprehensive speech on all of the reasons that Bill C-42 is deeply flawed and should not be supported by anybody in this House.

I know the member has been listening to the debates in the House for months now. One of the issues that arose last summer was the government summarily decided that this country was no longer going to have a long form census.

We know from social service agencies and other levels of government that the information that is gleaned from the census is absolutely imperative to the planning work that these organizations do. What did the federal Conservative government say in response to that? It said that we cannot have a long form census because it is unbelievably invasive into the private lives of Canadians.

If it was so invasive to ask Canadians how many bedrooms they have in their homes, how can the government possibly support Bill C-42 which, as the member so clearly outlined, is much more intrusive? It tries to access very personal information, including health information, from Canadian citizens.

Perhaps the member for London—Fanshawe would like to talk about the census on the one hand and Bill C-42 on the other.

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

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Hamilton Mountain has made a very salient point in regard to the government's plans to eliminate the long form census. As she indicated, the government's decision is based on the notion that it is just too personal to reveal how many bedrooms or bathrooms might be in someone's household. By the same token, apparently it is not too private or too personal to reveal health information, travel plans, itineraries and the names of travel companions to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The question in regard to the census is a very important one. One of the key issues we have with the changes to the long form census is the removal of questions about unpaid work. The committee for the status of women has done many extensive studies into issues relating to women and employment insurance, women in regard to maternity leave. Very often a young woman, particularly one who has her own business such as a small cleaning business, may not be able to access maternity leave if her second child is born too quickly after her first child, and as we know, sometimes these things do happen. In addition, the kind of unpaid work that women do is very important to understanding the policies and programs that women need.

The elimination of the long form census says to me very clearly that the government is not interested in programs and policies that would help women.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. There are serious concerns about this legislation.

At committee the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said that after running a risk assessment for each passenger using data-mining technology, homeland security in turn issues a boarding pass result to the airline. The result instructs the airline to issue a boarding pass, deny permission to travel, or issue an enhanced screening requirement. These regulations give the U.S. access to a whole subset of information on air passengers who are not entering the U.S., but are merely overflying its airspace.

As we look at this government bill, I wonder if the member could think about how this connects to the security and prosperity partnership agreement that was turned down by Parliament. I wonder whether she sees this as an attempt by the government to subvert the will of Parliament again. In moving this forward, the government is trying to bring back pieces of the security and prosperity partnership agreement. Could she comment on that?

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has raised many points and I hope to touch on all of them.

Certainly, the so-called security and prosperity partnership was anything but secure and offered anything but prosperity. This whole notion that we are just one big happy family on the North American continent most definitely is shown to be less than accurate when we consider how we differ from the Americans.

We have, or we should have, an entirely different view about privacy and the security of the person. We most certainly have a different view of those elements without our nations that we need to be concerned about. I use the first and second Iraq wars as examples. There was a great deal of pressure from the United States for Canada to become involved in those wars. Fortunately, we had the sanity and the sagacity to avoid both of them.

The SPP, as the member indicated, was turned down not just by the Parliament of Canada but by the people of this country. They wanted to know their government was standing firm in terms of our security and that it was not willing to divulge anything in regard to personal information or the control it has over Canada's borders and decision making.

The issuing of boarding passes and homeland security being able to give a thumbs up or thumbs down on any passenger should make the blood of every Canadian boil. How dare it? Who is homeland security that it can tell a Canadian citizen if he or she may or may not fly? I find that to be profoundly disturbing.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure my colleague has a few more things to say on this subject and I will give her that opportunity.

This is exactly what she indicated. Every Canadian's blood should boil over this issue because it is really intrusive. Imagine three travellers being told at an airport that one of them is unable to board the flight. That has happened.

Perhaps the member would like to make a comment with respect to our colleague from Winnipeg who is on the no-fly list. How does one get off the no-fly list? We know he is not a terrorist. Why is he on the list?

This bill would actually make it worse.

Perhaps my colleague would like to comment with respect to whether someone could win a charter challenge on this.

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

Mr. Speaker, the whole issue of a charter challenge is salient to this argument. If the government is foolish enough to try to push through Bill C-42, I would hope that there would be a number of charter challenges.

As I indicated in my remarks, if a person is on the no-fly list or the U.S. Department of Homeland Security does not like the person or has misinformation about the person, the person has no way of determining what the information is and whether or not it is accurate.

In the case of my colleague from Winnipeg, I suppose there are those who would say it is just as well he be kept out of the United States. Many Americans might view it that way. However, it is his right to travel. It is his right to have that access. The fact that he has a name very similar to probably millions of others who fly should not mean that he be detained or denied and his privileges taken away.

I was thinking about the reaction of Americans themselves to the security in airports in the United States. Last Thanksgiving a number of Americans decided that they had had enough of full body scans and the disrespect they felt they were receiving at the hands of their government. As I indicated in my speech, all of these excessive measures do not seem to have increased security. The American passengers revolted. Perhaps it is time for Canadians to stand up to a revolting bill that serves no positive purpose.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act. This act seeks to create an exception from the application of another statute, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA, for operators of aircraft.

In our opinion, this bill should be defeated, as it is nothing more than data mining by foreign security services, primarily of the United States. It is an unwarranted invasion of the privacy of Canadians. This invasion of privacy is backed up with the threat that U.S. airspace will be closed to Canadian aircraft unless this bill is passed.

Currently, the Aeronautics Act exempts airlines from PIPEDA's restrictions on disclosing personal information without consent when the laws of a foreign country require disclosure of information about anyone onboard a flight landing there. Accordingly, passenger information for any Canadian flight that will land in a foreign state, whether or not the flight originates in Canada, can be disclosed to a foreign government without restriction by the air carrier. Such disclosure would not require the consent of the passengers or the triggering of normal exceptions in PIPEDA.

Bill C-42 amends this section to expand its ambit. It would now apply not only with respect to foreign states in which the flight is landing, but also to any foreign states the flight would travel over. Accordingly, whether or not the foreign state that a flight lands in requires the disclosure of any personal information, an air carrier, under this bill, would be able to provide disclosure without consent if the laws of a foreign state on the flight path required it.

The U.S. secure flight program already has Canadian airlines passing on passenger information, including full names, date of birth, gender and, if available, passport numbers and itineraries to the U.S. government 72 hours prior to departure of the flights scheduled to land there.

Now the U.S. government is attempting to expand this approach by making the program international through the implementation of mandatory reporting requirements, which would see the disclosure of sensitive personal information on all flights passing through designated U.S. airspace. Therefore, Bill C-42 is an attempt to placate these American security concerns related to foreign individuals flying over United States airspace.

Let me make this clear. It means that under the new provisions of Bill C-42, Canadian citizens would be subject to the disclosure of their personal information on all flights passing over the U.S. on the way from Canada to a third country, such as a planeload of Canadians heading to Mexico, Cuba or Jamaica. I could rhyme off many places that Canadians fly to in the winter months.

Moreover, according to Roch Tassé of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group:

The Americans will have a veto on every passenger that gets on a plane in Canada, even if they are not going to set foot on American soil.

Mr. Tassé added:

What will happen if Canada invites the ambassador from a country such as Cuba?

Although the government has apparently negotiated an exemption for domestic Canadian flights that enter U.S. airspace, the expanded disclosure of the personal information of citizens to foreign governments is troubling, especially considering that the creation and maintenance of the U.S. no-fly list has been described overwhelmingly as a disaster.

For instance, reports have indicated that children and even infants have been mistakenly included on the no-fly list. Of course, the most famous case is that of the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, who was declared a terrorist due to incorrect information being included on the no-fly list. In Canada, the Arar case should serve as a warning as to how the sharing of incorrect data can lead to horrifying results.

With this in mind, how are Canadians going to be assured that their personal information will be kept confidential?

Furthermore, how are Canadians going to be assured that this information will be used in the prescribed manner?

Although there appears to be an agreement in place with the U.S. stipulating that any information collected that is unrelated to terrorism will be erased after seven days, what assurances do we have that these measures will be taken in a timely and efficient manner? If the maintenance of the no-fly list is any indication, there is a significant chance of the confidential personal information of Canadians being mismanaged.

That is the truly worrying issue here. This information has the potential of being held for years and being used for purposes other than what it was first provided for.

The government will tell Canadians that it is taking steps to ensure that the information handed over will only be kept for a few days. The reality is that once this information is handed over, we will have no control over it. The only way that we can ensure that the privacy of Canadians is protected is to stop this information grab by the U.S. and other countries. We must strongly assert our conviction that although security is a primary concern when regulating the aviation industry and those who have access to flights, this does not mean that security concerns trump the privacy rights of Canadians.

The New Democrats understand the need to balance privacy and security concerns in order to protect individuals from security threats while ensuring that individual liberties are not infringed in the process. However, the broadening in scope of the disclosure of personal information fails to properly meet this balance.

Why should Canadians believe that this expansion of information sharing with foreign governments is in the best interests of Canada and Canadians, especially considering the mismanagement of the collected information that has been prevalent under the U.S. no-fly list?

What will Canadians get in exchange for this gross violation of their privacy? Not much. They may get a slightly shorter waiting time to board an aircraft. However, there will also be an increased risk that their confidential personal information will be mismanaged, which, in the past, has often been the reality.

Why is the government willing to engage in the collection and dissemination of personal information in this instance when it was more than willing to dismantle the mandatory long form census on the basis of its supposedly intrusive collection of personal information?

The reality gap posed by the government needs to be exposed. Why are there grossly different standards for the collection and dissemination of personal information? The government cannot have its cake and eat it too in this case. Either it agrees with the collection and dissemination of confidential personal information or it does not. Which is it?

I would like to quote my colleague from the Western Arctic, our critic for transport and infrastructure, who stated:

On the face of it, this bill seems pretty simple. It seems it is just changing a couple of lines in the Aeronautics Act. However, this bill has many more ramifications. What we have seen from the government is a failure to address the ramifications prior to putting the bill forward....

Canadians will give up their information, but they will give up more than their information....

We heard testimony about the passenger name record. Most of the information accessible to Canadians will be transferred. It will not simply be names and passport numbers and dates of birth; we will be giving the United States the opportunity to examine the full passenger name record. This is a very serious business, because it brings in much more information. We have heard many examples in the media over the past months of individuals whose information has been used in a manner that has caused them to have difficulty when trying to enter the United States. We have set up a system that can create much discord among passengers who are travelling over the United States.

In August 2007 the European Commission released an opinion on the EU and U.S. agreement for the processing and transferring of personal information by air carriers to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The opinion compared the 2007 agreement with others. The opinion found that the agreement's safeguards for private information were weaker than in other types of agreements and, specifically, that the amount of information transferred was increasing and that the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, might use sensitive information that had been excluded by previous agreements. It also found that the transfer of information to foreign agencies was made easier and was no longer subject to the previous protection safeguards. Information would be kept for at least 15 years in some cases. In other cases, it was found that information was kept for 40 years.

This opinion also found that the new agreement contained an increased number of exemptions from the safeguarding and protecting of personal information, safeguards that could be waived at the discretion of the United States. The European commission stated, “—the new agreement does not strike the right balance to uphold the fundamental rights of citizens as regards data protection”.

As I mentioned earlier, Roch Tassé of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group has said, “The Americans will have a veto on every passenger that gets on a plane in Canada, even if they are not going to set foot—” on any state or any part of the United States.

The Air Transport Association of Canada, ATAC, made its grievances known to the American Department of Homeland Security last December. Its critique was that the submission of Canadian passenger details by Canadian airlines violated Canada's laws on the protection of personal information and electronic documentation, as well as the aeronautics laws.

With the passage of Bill C-42, the handing over of this private information will no longer violate Canadian law. The only way to ensure that we can protect Canadians' personal information is to stop this information grab by the United States.

It is the opinion of New Democrats that this bill should be defeated, as it is nothing more than data mining by security services, primarily of the United States, and is an unwarranted invasion of Canadians' privacy. This invasion of privacy is backed up with the threat that U.S. airspace will be closed to Canadians who want to travel abroad by simply passing over, not going into, the United States.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, this issue links to the ongoing work by the government on a perimeter security deal. Quite clearly these issues are related.

The Liberal Party has come out very strongly against the sharing of information that may or may not be within the perimeter security deal, yet at the same time it is voting for this bill. The Liberal members want to have their cake and eat it too.

I want to know how my hon. colleague feels about this particular direction the Liberal Party is taking on this. It feels strongly that we should not be sharing information willy-nilly with the United States under the overflight provisions, yet when it comes to something like this where we could probably have negotiated a better deal on the overflight provisions, and still probably could, why is the Liberal Party behaving in this fashion?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I truly wish I had a crystal ball so I could give my hon. colleague an answer, because there have been many times when we have scrutinized for some of those decisions.

However, it comes down to the fact that we are here right now to try to defend and protect the rights of Canadian passengers and their personal information. I hope the Liberal Party will see the light and vote against this legislation, because it truly is worrisome to think about the potential impact of such personal information being out there for 10 years or, as I said in my speech, the evidence that such information has been kept for 40 years.

We will continue to stand here and talk about the implications of this bill for Canadians and their personal information. We will let the public know through this debate and other ways that we are against this type of legislation.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, very few people in this place, or in the country for that matter, would disagree with the hypothesis that we have to do everything possible to protect the rights and privacy of Canadians in all matters and that we have to look at the exceptions in a reasoned fashion.

We know that every country has the right to protect its own airspace and land space and to require certain information if people want to go there. To broadly deal with this as if it is a total violation of the privacy rights of Canadians may be a stretch.

Would the member confirm for the House his understanding about what information would actually have to be disclosed as part of the requirements that the U.S. has laid out in its statement?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is correct in the sense that we are having this discussion to ensure we find ways of protecting the information that is going to be provided.

From my understanding as to what the bill would be allowing foreign security services and governments to gather relates to more than just date of birth, passport numbers and itineraries. It would relate to health status, health card numbers and all the things which could have an impact on what people do not want foreign countries to know about them.

The importance of keeping this information within our own country, which is our right, is what we are debating now. I am sure all colleagues in the House want to ensure that the information of Canadians is protected.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the conversation that has taken place, the speech by my colleague and the question posed. When Liberals were speaking to the bill, one would think they were opposed to the bill. They were saying it imposed on the private information of people, yet they are saying they are going to support it. This is the type of flip-flop we have heard from the Liberals and on the government side.

If we look at this legislation, we have to look at what the European Commission said in 1998. It said that in order to do something like this, there would need to be six key principles that would have to be included: the purpose limitation principle; the information quality and proportionality principle; the transparency principle; the security principle; the right to access rectification and opposition principle; and a restriction on onward transfers principle. We see none of that in the bill.

In defence of the bill, the public safety minister's office said that it had to do this to ensure that Canadians did not face any undue delays in travel plans. We have seen what undue delays in travel plans do. Maybe my colleague could comment on this. When people book flights to Cancun or Cuba, they may have to call the United States to see if they can fly. Does he think it is right for people to have to ask the U.S. for permission to take a trip?