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

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

moved that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to rise in support of Bill C-42, Strengthening Aviation Security Act. The bill before us today would help to ensure that Canadian business people and tourists who choose to travel by air can continue to access certain destinations in the fastest and most cost-effective way possible while also building on our ongoing efforts to enhance aviation security in conjunction with our international partners.

It also would allow Canadian air carriers to comply with the secure flight regime in the United States by providing passenger information to the Transportation Security Administration 72 hours before departing for destinations such as Latin America or the Caribbean. At the moment, airline carriers themselves are required to match passenger information against U.S. no-fly and selectee terrorist watch lists if their flight destination is to anywhere in the United States.

The previous government passed legislation in 2001 so that Canadian airline carriers could do this, although concerns have subsequently been raised about privacy issues and the number of false matches. Secure flight is expected to reduce the number of false matches by transferring responsibility for watch list matching from the airlines to the Transportation Security Administration for all U.S. domestic flights, as well as for all international flights to the U.S. and those which fly through U.S. air space. The TSA has also developed a comprehensive privacy plan to incorporate privacy laws and practices into all areas of secure flight.

The legislation before us today is important for a number of reasons. First, I want to point out that any nation, including the U.S. and Canada, has the sovereign right to control its own air space. International laws do recognize that airlines have the right to fly over any country in the world but they also recognize that each state has a right to regulate aircraft entering into, within or departing from its territory.

Moreover, the Chicago convention expressly recognizes that each state has sovereignty over its own air space. Article 11 of the convention requires compliance with:

…the laws and regulations of a contracting State relating to the admission to or departure from its territory of aircraft engaged in international air navigation.

Secure flight is therefore in accordance with the international rules of which Canada is a signatory.

As Canada's Assistant Privacy Commissioner noted at committee hearings on the passenger protect program and the U.S. no-fly list in the spring, it is important to note during this debate that the sovereignty of any state extends to its air space. As a sovereign nation, Canada could say that this country will choose not to comply with secure flight rules but that would force Canadian airline companies to access destinations, such as Mexico, by flying outside of American air space, substantially increasing travel times and costs.

What our government has chosen to do instead is negotiate with the American government and thereby receive an important exemption to the secure flight rules for domestic flights between Canadian cities which overfly through U.S. air space.

The second reason that this legislation before us today is important relates to our commitment to protect the safety and security of Canadians. In a perfect world, programs such as secure flight and passenger protect would not be needed. The truth is, however, that today we live in a world in which terrorist attacks do occur and the threat of an attack against Canada and Canadians either at home or abroad remains a real possibility.

Our government is unwaivering in its determination to keep all Canadians safe and secure. As a government, it is our highest responsibility and we take it seriously, especially with respect to air travel. We must remember that terrorism is not just something that happens somewhere to someone else. Intelligence experts in Canada and abroad have told us that civil aviation remains a favourite of terrorist attacks globally. This is because aircraft passengers and related facilities offer the kind of high profile targets terrorists seek and damage to a nation's civil aviation sector can be particularly crippling to a nation's economy and sense of security. We cannot and we will not be complacent. We must remain vigilant.

Since 2006, that is exactly what this government has been doing. Our government has worked to prevent global terrorism. We have strengthened aviation security and taken steps to protect the safety of air travellers through actions and measures, including a new passenger protect program, to keep people who may pose an immediate security threat from boarding commercial flights and a new air cargo security pilot test program. We have introduced legislation to starve terrorists of financing.

Our government has openly condemned groups with links to terrorism and has worked with the United Nations and our allies to prevent terrorism.

We have also introduced measures to allow the RCMP to expand criminal background checks for workers with access to secure areas in Canada's airports, people such as baggage handlers, catering crews and airplane groomers and flight crews, among others.

What is more, we took additional steps to strengthen aviation security in the week following December 25, 2009, when there was an attempted terrorist attack on a flight bound for Detroit. Those measures include strengthening explosive trace detection, new full body scanners and steps to develop a passenger behaviour observation program. It included funding of $1.5 billion over five years to help the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority strengthen the security of our aviation system and protect air travellers. It also included a full review into the spending efficiency and structure of Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

Most recently, our government announced the air cargo security program, a $95.7 million investment that will be phased in over five years building on the air cargo initiative unveiled by thePrime Minister in June 2006. Of course we share views through several multinational discussions on global aviation security. Because of the action our government has taken, air travellers today are safer and more secure than ever.

However, we cannot let our guard down. We cannot become complacent. We need to continue to strengthen security within our borders. We also need to continue to work with our international partners to ensure not only the safety of Canadians but also the safety and security of our allies and partners.

This is what Bill C-42 is all about. It is about working with our partners to enhance international aviation security while also ensuring that individual privacy rights are respected.

I would note in this regard that the American Civil Liberties Union has acknowledged that the present version of secure flight represents a substantial improvement over its precursors. What the group has emphasized is that the Department of Homeland Security will neither use commercial data to conduct background checks on travellers, nor create a risk score for passengers through secure flight.

The Department of Homeland Security also is minimizing data collection to only necessary data elements and greatly reducing the length of data retention by removing information on most travellers after seven days.

Bill C-42 is not a large piece of legislation but it is an important one. It supports the commitment I believe all of us share to protect the safety and security of air travellers. It supports the commitment I believe every Canadian shares to combat terrorist threats both at home and abroad. It also supports the commitment, which I believe we all share, to ensure that air travel remains safe and that Canadians can access destinations south of the border in the most efficient and cost effective ways possible.

I therefore urge all hon. members to work with the government to ensure that we pass Bill C-42 into law in a timely and fast manner.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his presentation on this particular bill. It is certainly a bill that will be debated here today.

When he speaks of the American Civil Liberties Union and says that there are significant improvements, could he describe what those significant improvements were to the homeland security procedures that would be followed to establish this information, as most of these procedures are based on secret agreements?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear my colleague across the floor sound as though he is in favour of this legislation.

As I have indicated, this legislation would give Canadians a far better opportunity to travel in North America, particularly across U.S. airspace. As I have indicated, there are agreements and most of this information will not last in any files beyond seven days.

This would give Canadians huge advantages. My hon. colleague is probably well aware, as I have already indicated, that sovereign nations have the right to protect the airspace above them and also to have the information validated of people travelling through it.

I welcome his support for this bill. It is a good bill and it would go a long way to helping air travel safety in North America.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the parliamentary secretary with regard to whether there is reciprocity here. Would the American airlines need to provide the same information for their, I believe, 1,000 or so flights a day that fly over Canadian air space on their way to Europe or other parts of the world?

I also would like to know if it is still the intention to provide this information for, essentially, domestic flights, point-to-point flights within Canada. Would the information on flights from Winnipeg to Toronto that fly over American air space need to be provided? I have read news reports indicating that those flights would be exempt under U.S. homeland security. I would like to know what the current status is of that information.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again I thank the member for his support for the bill.

We have an agreement with the Americans that point-to-point domestic flights that pass over American air space are exempt and it is not necessary to share the information for those flights.

My colleagues should know that the information that will be shared is no different than the information that is currently available on the passports of any Canadian entering into the United States, or other countries for that matter where passports are required, and likewise of anyone coming into this country from a foreign country who shows their passport. It is the same information that is available on a passport. This is not a case of some wild and crazy country demanding all kinds of information. It is just simply the same tombstone information that is available on a passport.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. colleague on the government benches that standing to engage in debate does not really show support for a particular bill. It is certainly something that I think he would probably learn after a while in this House.

My concern is quite clearly the arrangements that are made for these particular bills. The parliamentary secretary seems quite sure about the nature of these arrangements and how they will go forward. However, that is not really included in this bill. The arrangements for the collection of information or the information that is collected has nothing to do with the discussion that is taking place within this bill. The bill would simply enable the government to give information to another country.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have certainly been here long enough to know that we cannot expect the support of the NDP for most anything, including budgets that its members have not even read. I would just hope that the NDP members would finally come to their senses on some of these bills and support the bills going forward. It is not a big bill. Even they can read it. I hope they will and I hope they will in fact support it.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague and fellow member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

We have met many experts on the no-fly list, and they have told us that the American list has many errors. They were not sure if there were false positives on our list, but citizens' rights groups say that there are. There are 15- and 16-year-old kids on the list because they have the same name as someone else, and it was incredibly difficult to get these names off the list.

Given that the American list is a bit of a farce and that ours is far from perfect, does the member not feel that it is somewhat dangerous to give so much information and power to the United States?

I am a sovereignist, a separatist, and I would not like an independent Quebec to have to give information about my fellow citizens to a foreign country.

Consequently, as a Canadian, does he not feel that it is somewhat dangerous to give information about Canadian citizens to a foreign state that has yet to prove that it is thorough with its infamous no-fly list?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the intervention from my colleague. She is a valued member of the committee on which we both serve, but I would say to her that even if one was in Quebec, one would still like to visit other countries in this world. The United States has a sovereign right to get the information that is provided by one's passport.

As a matter of fact, this bill should reduce some of the errors that occur on the American no-fly list. It is the American no-fly list that she refers to, not a Canadian no-fly list. We have a different system than what the Americans have. This system, by providing the information to which they are entitled under international convention, will simply make things easier, simpler, and far more efficient for Canadian airline carriers to cross through American airspace.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take this opportunity to speak about Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, on behalf of the official opposition. This is a one-paragraph bill that makes a minor change to the wording of one section of the Aeronautics Act. However, these changes are significant in practice.

The bill would provide legal cover for airlines and travel agents to provide foreign governments with personal information about passengers when a plane they are on flies through a country's airspace. Currently, the act allows for this transmission of information only when a Canadian plane lands in that country.

Let me take a moment to go over the history of these provisions in the Aeronautics Act. The subsection in question is 4.83(1). It allows for the Governor in Council to make regulations regarding the transmission of this information. Subsection 4.83(1) only creates the legislative exemption to the Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

The supporting regulations remain the critical component of this piece of the framework. Schedule one of the regulations lists the category of information that may be automatically provided to an authorized foreign government. This includes basic information such as name, gender, passport number, et cetera. However, authorized foreign governments may request more specific information.

Schedule two of the regulations provides what detailed information may be provided to a foreign government. These details include the passenger's address; the passenger's phone number; the class of ticket, for example, business or economy; method of payment for the ticket; and whether the passenger in question paid for the ticket.

The final schedule in these regulations, schedule three, lists the government and agencies that are authorized to request or receive any of the information listed in either of the first two schedules. There is only one country and agency on the list, the United States and its commissioner of customs.

Where did these regulations come from? Introduced on November 28, 2001 during the 37th Parliament, Bill C-44 amended the Aeronautics Act to allow the transmission of this information to foreign governments. This was in response to new U.S. requirements for any plane landing inside that country. Subsequent U.S. legislation has required that any country provide their government with details of any passenger in a plane flying over the U.S.

The Liberal Party has very strong concerns about the erosion of Canadian sovereignty expressed in this bill. We have very real concerns about the privacy of Canadians and about the ability of the government to conduct foreign affairs to the benefit of Canadians.

Before the heckles start to arise from the government benches that Liberals are “soft on terror”, let me remind hon. members that it was a Liberal government that created the Anti-terrorism Act in the first place, and that it was a Liberal government that created the exemption in section 4.83. However, when the previous Liberal government tackled these issues, it always did so with an eye to protecting the rights of Canadians.

The most powerful and controversial provisions of the anti-terror bill came with a sunset clause. We recognized the heated and emotional environment that existed immediately after the tragic events of September 11, and Liberal lawmakers wanted to ensure that Parliament would revisit these parts of the law five years after that bill was made law. The balance between national security and personal freedom is a crucial balance for any government, and I, as well as my colleagues in the official opposition, am very concerned that Bill C-42 goes too far.

For starters, this bill is not designed to protect the national security of Canadians. It is designed to transmit information to other countries for flights outside Canadian airspace. Once this information is in the hands of a foreign government, we cannot control what they do with it.

In May of this year, Assistant Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier was speaking to the transport committee and said that the U.S. government, the only government currently authorized to receive this data, could keep the personal information of Canadians anywhere from 7 days to 99 years. She also stated that the U.S. can use that information for any purpose, even those not related to airline security such as law enforcement.

The U.S. Patriot Act, passed in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, is a piece of legislation that caused concern all around the world. It allows the U.S. government unprecedented access to, and control of, information about citizens from a number of countries. When a foreign government puts information, even information about that country's own citizens, in the hands of the U.S. government, it is consumed by the mechanisms in the Patriot Act.

We must be concerned about any law that allows information about Canadians not accused of any crime to be put in the U.S. intelligence machine. We could be creating a situation where the government helps to provide to a foreign government information that is used to prosecute Canadians, all without any formal judicial process. It should be clarified that these are not information-sharing agreements. Rather, this legislation would create a one-way flow of information out of Canada and into the hands of foreign governments.

By passing this legislation, we are creating a troubling legal framework. Members of this place must ask themselves if they want to create the legal framework for other countries to ask for this information. In effect, by passing this legislation and allowing the government to add other countries as it sees fit, we are saying publicly that we as a country are willing to provide this information to other nations. For example, I wonder if the government would be willing to add the United Arab Emirates to such a list and allow it to receive all this information about Canadians flying over its airspace.

Currently, only the U.S.A. is authorized to receive this information. However, the legislative framework in the Aeronautics Act is not exclusive to the United States. As I mentioned before, the Canadian government may add other countries to the list through order in council.

What happens when other countries start to ask for this privilege? It is no secret that the Conservative government is woefully inept when it comes to foreign relations. Let us take a look at its track record.

In the past few weeks the government managed to get our military kicked out of Dubai and embarrassed us at the United Nations by failing, for the first time in 40 years, to obtain a seat on the Security Council. We have gone from a country that is respected around the world to one that commits blunder after blunder, all culminating in our embarrassing loss of the seat last week.

The government's inability to handle sensitive diplomatic negotiations has led to a falling out with the United Arab Emirates. That relationship is critical to our efforts in Afghanistan, but the government and the Prime Minister's obstinate nature led to such an impasse that Canada is now scrambling to find another base for our troops.

For the past four and a half years, the government has eroded Canada's standing in the world, failed policy after failed policy.

Should we pass this legislation, how are we to know that the government will not botch another important diplomatic negotiation involving information transfer rights? What if another country asks for an information transfer agreement? Could we trust the Conservative government to protect our interests without destroying another important international relationship? I do not think so, and at this point I think most Canadians have these same doubts. The Conservative government has an abysmal diplomatic track record. As parliamentarians, do we want to give it one more angle, one more complication to misunderstand in the already complicated world of international relations?

Canada has invested billions of dollars over the past decade in security. Why after all these upgrades and all the spending do foreign governments still not trust Canada to ensure that only safe passengers fly? Our closest allies should be able to trust that, when the Canadian government allows someone to board a plane, that person has been cleared and is not a threat to their country or to ours. In allowing this information to be transferred, is the government not admitting either a failure of security or a failure of diplomacy?

Government is a difficult task. My Liberal colleagues and I know this first-hand. I spoke earlier of striking the balance between personal freedoms and national security. This balance is not found in the overwrought rhetoric that comes from the benches opposite me. It comes from careful consideration, from listening to experts and listening to Canadians.

Also important is Canada's sovereignty. If this legislation were enacted as is, Canadians on domestic flights may have their information transferred to another country. Canadians travelling to foreign destinations such as Mexico or the Caribbean would also have their information transferred to a third country.

The Liberal Party, and I believe all opposition parties, have some very serious concerns with the bill and with the erosion of Canadian sovereignty that is associated with it. We have concerns about the effects it will have on the rights of Canadians to privacy. We have concerns about whether this does anything to increase the safety of Canadians. Finally, we have difficulty with the ability of the government to navigate the subtle and complex arena of international relations.

The official opposition may support the bill at second reading in order to send it to committee, but this is no guarantee that we will necessarily support the bill further. If it does go to committee, the bill will need to be studied thoroughly. MPs and Canadians need to hear from authorities such as the Privacy Commissioner, the U.S. and other experts in security and civil rights before we can come to a final conclusion.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to question my colleague, the Liberal critic for transportation, on this issue. It has concerns for all of us.

As my colleague has pointed out, we have a very simple amendment to the Aeronautics Act, which has significant connotations attached to it. It is not so much within the bill, but within the ability of our government to enter into a multiplicity of agreements. Many of these agreements are not characterized in treaty, but in letters. Many of these agreements, which have already been entered into, do not represent any opportunity for debate about the nature of their intrusion upon the personal privacy rights of Canadians.

Does my colleague agree that the simplicity of the bill is really its downfall, that it does not give assurances to Canadians about the nature of what will follow from it?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it seems my colleague and I share similar concerns about the bill and the breadth of its scope in terms of allowing the government, without debate in the House but simply through order-in-council, to extend such agreements with other countries beyond the United States. Canadians flying over any country with which the government comes to an agreement would have their information rights forfeited.

As I said in my comments, given the government's dismal track record on diplomatic relations, I would certainly have a major hesitation in offering them a carte blanche in this access to privacy rights of Canadians.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I enter this debate a bit late. I have not heard the government position on this, but I listened intently to my colleague. The points he has raised are significant and almost alarming. It seems the government has developed the legislation almost in isolation. The shortcomings in the legislation seem glaring.

Where was the hue and cry for coming forward with this legislation? What was the motivation for the government to come forward with the legislation and what groups were consulted on it?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question is not surprising. The first we heard of this bill was a couple of days ago. We were certainly not consulted.

If it does pass second reading, and that is an “if”, then we will need to have a substantial number of witnesses at the committee. Rather than through the government, which has not been very communicative, we will, in a sense, brief ourselves on the bill when these witnesses arrive, assuming it passes second reading.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the problem we are finding with Conservative legislation is that often it is done very rapidly and without due regard to an effective process. The statement has been made in the House that it is often done on the back of a napkin. There may be some good elements in some of the legislation, but that is mitigated by the fact that there is a hasty and sometimes incompetent drafting process in which the government seems to engage.

How does the hon. member feel about the quality of legislation brought forward in the House? Does he feel that the intent of legislation is matched by either need or by the appropriateness of how this bill has been drafted? Does he think the Conservatives have it right this time or not?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of diplomatic relations, of which the latest example is the United Arab Emirates, the reputation the Conservatives have is dismal. Therefore, one of my primary concerns, given this dismal diplomatic relation, is the bill gives them unlimited power to engage in information giving, not sharing. It is a one-way flow of information from Canada to another country. With the stroke of a pen and an order-in-council, they can give out the private information of Canadians to any country they choose. That point is clear enough in the bill as drafted, so this would be one of my very major concerns.

However, as I said a few minutes ago, the only way we will really get to the bottom of what the bill would do and what its true implications would be, is if it gets to committee and we call a whole variety of witnesses who are experts in various areas, including privacy concerns. Only after that process, and not really thanks to the government, will we find out the true implications of the bill. At that point, we will know better whether we wish to support it.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I gather that my speech will be cut short by question period unless I request the unanimous consent of the House to delay members' statements. Rest assured though, I will not be doing that.

This bill deals with disclosing the identity of passengers flying over the United States who are not stopping there. Given that we have just started debate at second reading, I would like to say, on behalf of my Bloc Québécois colleagues, that we will be supporting this bill simply because we want to examine it more thoroughly in committee. I do not want to get into a long speech about parliamentary law, but typically the vote at second reading is about the principle of the bill.

We will vote in favour of the bill because we want it to be studied in committee. There we will be able to hear from witnesses who will share their diverse experiences and talk about the problems that this bill raises. To prepare for my speech earlier, I was talking to our colleague, the hon. member for Ahuntsic, who is the excellent Bloc Québécois public safety critic. She gave me the names of people who represent various groups that might be interested in providing testimony on this bill.

As I have already mentioned, the purpose of this bill is to allow airline companies to disclose information about their passengers to the countries whose airspace they will be using. That is slightly different wording from the former Bill C-44, which we adopted in 2001, when it was a question of stopovers and passengers in transit. It is appropriate for the country receiving the airline passengers to know the past and present of these individuals.

This bill talks about planes travelling through an airspace, which raises a few questions among members of the Bloc Québécois. We understand that this bill responds to a specific request by the United States. We recognize that the United States is a major trading partner, but that does not mean we have to blindly accept every request the U.S. makes. We saw what type of democracy the Americans had under George W. Bush.

The Bloc Québécois obviously recognizes that every country has the right to regulate its airspace, but the fact remains that we think this measure goes too far. As I was saying earlier, the identified passengers will not even land—or at least not during this trip—in the country that would be receiving confidential and substantial information. I hope I am not telling the House anything new, but planes travel through the air and not always through free or international zones. Sometimes, at 33,000 or 35,000 feet, planes travel through airspace subject to the sovereignty of certain countries, but the passengers of those planes will never touch the soil of those countries. They will only fly over those countries.

The bill gives the countries being flown over the right to receive personal information. We want to study this bill in committee to determine if that is really necessary. The Bloc Québécois wants to ensure that we are doing everything we can to avoid violating travellers' privacy. For instance, one of the questions we would like to ask the department's witnesses regarding the government's approach in this bill is whether the Canadian government tried to reason with the United States and ask it to justify this measure.

As vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, I will have the opportunity to ask such questions on this measure, which, as we all know, comes from the United States. We believe that the information available must be kept to the absolute minimum required. We are concerned about the lack of any guidelines, including for instance, ensuring that only the information requested by the United States will be transmitted. But that is not the case; a blanket disclosure can be made.

Will the transmitted information be determined by legislation rather than regulations? Should the transmission, if necessary, be conditional on the signing of a protocol between Canada and the country requesting the information? Such a protocol would govern how the information is used, stored and deleted. Furthermore, it could provide a mechanism to give the victims of errors an opportunity to correct their information, as well as a process to compensate them if necessary.

Lastly, we believe that passengers must be clearly informed, before they purchase their plane tickets, about the fact that certain countries will be receiving some of their personal information. Given these many problems, the Bloc Québécois reserves the right to oppose the bill at future stages in the parliamentary process. The responses we obtain in committee will determine how we decide to proceed during the clause-by-clause study of the bill and how we vote at third reading.

Mr. Speaker, since you are indicating that the time for members' statements is about to begin, I will continue after question period.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

When the hon. member resumes, he will have 12 minutes to finish his speech.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Earlier, when the bill was before the House, the hon. member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord had the floor. He has 12 minutes remaining for his remarks.

The hon. member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to make myself understood in this cacophony. We know that since 2001, in the wake of September 11, a series of measures has been implemented, in the United States in particular, to improve public safety.

Sometimes these measures infringed and still infringe in a real, tangible or perceived way on the right to privacy. In the aftermath came the implementation of what is commonly referred to in the airline industry as the no-fly list. Being on this list means being prohibited from boarding flights. In order for this list to be fully operational, it is important to know passengers' identity ahead of time. That is why, in 2001, at the request of the United States, the Canadian government introduced Bill C-44, which received the Bloc Québécois' support.

That bill was passed quickly. It authorized airline companies to disclose to local authorities all passenger information prescribed by regulation. The next words I am about to say are important, if not crucial, because they make a distinction between Bill C-44 and the bill currently before us. Bill C-44 allowed all information to be given to authorities in the country of arrival or transit, where the plane touches the ground, whereas Bill C-42 before us covers flying through a given country's airspace. That distinction is of capital importance.

The information requested was name, date of birth, sex, and sometimes, passport number. If, at first glance, access to that information seems innocuous, keep in mind the many problems with the no-fly list.

To show just how ridiculous the United States' no-fly list is, I want to mention two cases where the system went very wrong. One of the people whose name appeared on the no-fly list was Ted Kennedy, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, who died just a few months ago. In 2004, he was apprehended and interrogated five times at the airport, even though his name should not have been on the list. Despite his fame and influence, it took more than three weeks for his team of Congressional aides to get his name off the list. That was one of the mistakes that received the most media coverage, but it was not the only one. There is another example of how ridiculous this list is. Last May in the United States, the Thomas family was apprehended at the airport. Why? Because the name of one of the Thomas girls, who was six years old, was on the no-fly list.

People certainly realized there had been a mistake. It was still very difficult, though, to get on the plane. That is basically what I had to say.

I just want to repeat what I said before the members’ statements and question period, namely that the Bloc Québécois will vote for this bill in principle. We will agree to send it to a committee so that it can be studied seriously and in depth, with witnesses, specialists and experts. I want to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Ahuntsic, who is our outstanding public safety critic. She sent me an email suggesting the names of witnesses, groups and individuals who could enlighten the committee with their expertise so that Bill C-42 can be subjected to some serious analysis.

I want to be clear. The Bloc Québécois will vote at second reading in favour of the principle of this bill so that it can be sent to a committee. Regarding how we will proceed after that, though, we reserve the right to change our position on this issue if necessary.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address the last statement that the hon. member made.

He is a very learned parliamentarian and he is aware that, once passed at second reading, the bill is approved in principle, and in referring it to a committee, one cannot amend the legislation beyond the scope of the bill. However, his declaration at the end is to somehow reserve some right to do that if he feels that it is necessary based on the committee investigation.

I would like to ask the member if he can inform the House whether his reservations in fact are in the nature of being potentially contrary to the approval in principle that we would give it at a second reading vote and whether he would like to elaborate on the nature of his potential concern.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague that we cannot change the scope of the bill, which is to say its purpose, direction and objectives. But because it is a very short bill, we can change some things. By way of answer, I would like to read a statement by Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada:

Privacy is a critical element of a free society and there can be no real freedom without it.

Canada is currently on a dangerous path towards a surveillance society. We are beginning to think of more and more everyday situations in terms of “risk” and the previously exceptional collection and use of personal information are becoming normal.

We have been seeing excesses and abuses since 2006, when the Conservatives came to power. They have an approach worthy of Big Brother, the government that sees evil everywhere and wants to invade people's privacy and get its hands on personal information. That is what we have been seeing since the Conservatives came to power.

I am well aware that I am not giving a direct answer to my colleague's insightful question. We will see in light of the testimony in committee. The Bloc Québécois has some doubts going into this. It will decide after the fact whether or not its doubts are warranted, and it will also decide how it will vote at third reading.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, the ostensible reason why this bill has come forward now is the Conservative government has indicated there has been pressure from the United States to conform with this provision of providing information. We do not really know what information it is going to be asking for yet, but we are going to be giving permission for the Canadian government to provide it. This is in the nature of a threat.

The United States government is threatening to disallow Canadian flights to fly through its airspace unless this information is given. The fact is there are between 1,000 and 2,000 U.S. flights a day over Canada. Does he think the type of action the U.S. is taking on a much more limited number of flights than Canadian airlines are engaged in that would overfly U.S. airspace is justified and practical? If we were to incorporate the notion of reciprocity on information, would this be an incredible burden on the U.S. aviation industry?

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right to wonder about this. However, I respectfully suggest that we should not be looking at reciprocity or at the thousands of American flights that go through Canadian airspace and vice-versa. That is not the approach we should take.

The Bloc Québécois acknowledges that a sovereign country has the right to regulate its own airspace. We acknowledge as well that this request came from the United States and must be taken seriously. As I said in the first part of my speech, the United States is a major trading partner and a popular tourist destination for countless Canadians and Quebeckers, but we should still apply this provision in a way that is sensible and reasonable, not blindly, as the Conservative government does in many different areas, including this one. The Americans want it, so we do it.

In committee, we will hear from privacy experts. I will not be testifying before the committee. I do not claim to be an expert on privacy. We will listen to experts who will tell us whether this request is excessive and unreasonable, and if they say so, we will vote against the bill. In any case, we should not compare the thousands of flights through Canadian airspace to the much smaller number of flights through American airspace. I find it hard to follow my colleague’s reasoning on that point.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think there is some confusion here. Today and on other occasions, we always want to support bills so that they can be sent to a committee for further study. However, agreeing with a bill in principle means that we have already agreed with it, making it virtually impossible to study the bill in depth.

I hold the hon. member in high regard and would like to know whether he thinks it might be possible to study bills in more depth here in the House where members have to publicly provide their well-thought-out views for the consideration of the House before the bills can be sent to a committee.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question surprises me. He is a seasoned parliamentarian, a veteran of this House.

We might agree with the principle of a bill at second reading, but that does not necessarily mean we will support it at third reading. That is precisely why our parliamentary procedure dictates that after passing second reading, bills are referred to committee to hear from witnesses, specialists and experts.

If, because of his experience, my hon. colleague could claim the title of expert, he could appear before the committee, enlighten us and give us the benefit of his wisdom. That is why I do not see any contradiction in the Bloc Québécois' position. In 2001 we were in agreement, to some extent, with Bill C-44, in cases where landing and take-off did in fact occur.

We think this now goes just a little further. Does it go too far? Is it too much? What information will be disclosed? Was the same thing asked of other countries or was it only the United States? I cannot answer these questions today, which is why we are sending this bill to committee.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-42.

Before us we truly have a misleading bill. On its face, Bill C-42 seems pretty innocuous, with simple changes to the Aeronautics Act, a word here, a word there, which do not appear to provide much difference. What it really does is implement secret letters and memorandums of understanding, not treaties, to invade the privacy of Canadians by handing over our personal information to secret service agencies in foreign countries. Under the bill, just flying over another country is sufficient reason to hand over detailed personal information.

The government would have us believe that we need the bill to fight terrorism. The truth is the government needs the bill so it and other foreign organizations can compile detailed files on Canadians. It will tell us the information is only name and address, et cetera. In reality, what the government is getting ready to hand over is the passenger name record, which includes such vital pieces of security information such as what one ate on the plane, one's medical condition, among other things.

However, the government will not admit to this. In fact, we have a situation where the government is moving ahead with a variety of secret agreements with other countries that will provide the same information to other countries and not simply to the United States.

The government wants us to believe that it is working hard to protect our privacy. Cynically, with Bill C-42, it is stripping away the privacy protection of Canadians.

Perhaps there is a need for some information sharing on flights between countries. That is something the government has said there is a need for. How can we deal with that and maintain the basic principles of privacy for Canadians?

In 1998 the European Commission put forward six key principles, which must be included in any kind of arrangement that is struck with other countries in terms of sharing information. This was specifically tailored towards the aviation industry.

One of the principles is the purpose limitation principle. Private personal information should be processed for a specific purpose and subsequently used or further communicated only in so far as it is not incompatible with the purpose of the transfer.

Another principle is the information quality and proportionality principle, which is Information should be accurate and, when necessary, kept up to date. The information should be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purposes for which it is transferred or further processed.

This is extremely important to Canadians. If we hand over information about Canadians to another country, we need to have the ability to ensure that information is kept correctly and is kept up to date. If that is not the case, then we can come into situations where, in the case of a Canadian getting a pardon for particular offences, those are not included in that record.

There is the transparency principle. Individuals should be provided with information as to the purpose of the processing and the identity of those in control of the information in the third country and other information in so far as this is necessary to ensure fairness. In other words, it is part of the rights of people right to understand who else has information about them, where it is kept, what they are using it for, how long it is going to be kept, all those particular things.

The security principle is another one. Technical and organizational security measures should be taken for those in control of the information that are appropriate to the risk presented by the processing. Any person acting under the authority of those in control of the information, including a processor, must not process information except on instructions from the controllers. In other words, if the person collecting the information is not capable of upholding the security of that information, then that is not something we wish to see for the personal information of Canadians.

There is also the right of access, rectification and opposition principle. The subject of the information should have the right to obtain a copy of all the information relating to him or her that is processed and a right to rectification if the information is inaccurate. Further, in some situations people should be able to object to the processing of the information relating to them. In other words, when we take information from people, they should have an understanding of what that information is and the opportunity and the access to those who control that information if the information is not correct.

Then the final one is the restriction on onward transfers principle. Transfers of the personal information to further countries should be permitted only where the second country is also subject to the same rules as the country originally receiving the information.

We have a situation where, when we pass the information on to the United States, it may use it in one fashion. If it passes it on to another country, we understand how that information will be used in the third country and we accept and control how they use that information in that third country.

Bill C-42 does not include any of these protections. It has nothing about the protection of personal privacy in the putting forward of information about Canadians. In other words, under this bill there is an open season on information about Canadians being given to foreign countries.

Two weeks ago, we spent considerable time on an opposition motion talking about the use of the long form consensus. The government was very concerned about the collection of information from Canadians, even though that information was anonymous.

Here we have a situation where, not anonymously, with people's names attached it, we are giving information to another country without any understanding or any control of how that information is going to be used, in a public fashion.

The government may have an agreement behind the scenes about how that information is to be used, but that is not in the legislation. That is not in the law. The government or any further government following it will not be bound to do that with that information.

In defence of this bill, the office of the Minister of Public Safety said it had to do this to ensure Canadians do not face any undue delays in their travel plans. However do we really want to trade off a few minutes' delay for the total loss of our privacy? Is that what is going on here? I do not think so. I do not think that is really a reason at all why we should move ahead with a bill without any controls attached to it.

If we accept this at second reading, there will be no opportunity to insert a major change to this bill, which is required in order to protect Canadians, to make the primary function of this to protect the personal privacy of Canadians. I do not think that is possible. I do not think we will be able to accomplish that in any committee setting.

Not too long ago we went through this with the long form census. I wish the government would bring back the argument it was using then. I wish it would take those arguments and ask, “Does this not mean something to us? Did we not get up and pontificate on this particular issue? Did we not make this a point of principle for us, that the personal information of Canadians is personal, that it belongs to them, that there are privacy aspects to that?”

The government chose not to engage in that principle here with this bill. It chose not to put principles attached to the bill, which would guide the government and ensure that, if we chose and had to put it into a context of giving Canadians' information to another country, if we chose to do that, Canadians would understand how their information was protected.

On November 22, 2007, the government issued a press release saying it strongly opposed handing over to the United States, and one assumes other countries, the personal information of Canadians.

In that release the government said,

However, in light of our complementary security systems and the security cooperation of Canada and the United States, and the relative risk, we believe that there are excellent security grounds for the proposed Secure Flight Program to exempt all flights to, from and within Canada that overfly the United States.

Why did the government give in? It certainly would not have said that if it did not think it had some opportunity to negotiate a different arrangement. Remember, the flights that overfly Canada from the United States are considerably more and considerably more important to the United States than the flights from Canada that overfly the United States. That is clearly the case. Clearly Canada had the leverage to do something different with this bill.

My question is: Did the government even want to do that, or has it made a decision along with its secret negotiations with other countries around the world to share information? Has it made the decision that it is okay to share this information, that we want to give up this information, that we do not care about the privacy rights of Canadians, that we are going to leave them wide open?

A year later, just before they prorogued for the first time, the Conservatives assured the House that the secure flight program would not apply to Canadians. The government then told the House that the U.S. had indicated the secure flight program would be exempt for countries with a comparable security system. This was in response to a tame question from the government's own benches. We could not put it down to the minister not understanding the question because he had been given the answer directly. At that time the Minister of Transport said, “Our government is committed to respecting the safety, security and privacy of each and every Canadian”.

With Bill C-42 this commitment has gone straight out the window, flushed down the toilet, disposed of. This is the same government that killed the long form census just recently because it was too much of an invasion of privacy. This is the government that feels the long gun registry is too much of an invasion of privacy. The same government brings forward Bill C-42, which will make it possible for the personal and private information of Canadians to be sent out not just to the United States but perhaps to Panama, Mexico, the Dominican Republic or any other country the Canadian government deems appropriate.

It does not take much to fly over a country and give the Canadian government the right to hand that information over. Whether the current government does it or the next government, the rights of Canadians are not being protected.

In August 2007, the European Commission released an opinion on an EU-U.S. agreement on the processing and transfer of PNR by air carriers to the United States Department of Homeland Security. The opinion compared the 2007 agreement to others, and remember that the European Union does not fly over the U.S. nearly as much as Canadians do.

The opinion found that safeguards for private information are weaker than other types of agreements. Especially and specifically, the amount of information transferred is increased; the Department of Homeland Security may use sensitive information that has been excluded by previous agreements; transfers of information to foreign agencies were made easier and no longer subject to previous protection safeguards; and information under that EU agreement with the United States would be kept for at least 15 years and, in some cases, for 40 years.

The opinion also found that the new agreement contains an increased number of exemptions. Specifically, safeguards protecting personal information can be waived at the discretion of the United States.

So if we are following in the footsteps of the European Union in its secret agreement that is not public with the United States, we are going in the wrong direction.

The European Commission stated: “...the new agreement does not strike the right balance to uphold the fundamental rights of citizens as regards data protection”.

However, I am not the only one to oppose this bill. Roch Tassé of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group 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 American soil”. Mr. Tassé added, “What will happen if Canada invites the ambassador from a country such as Cuba?”

The Air Transport Association of Canada made its grievances known to America's Department of Homeland Security last December. Chief in ATAC's critique was that “the submission of Canadian passenger’s details by Canadian airlines violates Canada’s laws on the protection of personal information and electronic documents, as well as laws on aeronautics”.

We are changing the law, so this quotation might be a bit out of date, but the purpose of the law would protect information.

Interestingly enough, the government has already been handing over personal information about Canadians to foreign security services for some time, even if it was against the law. Take the case of Teresa Healy.

In June 2007, Ms. Healy, the lead researcher of the Canadian Labour Congress, was the subject of a prolonged interrogation by American customs officers at the Cornwall, Ontario, border crossing when she set off a radiation detector. After it came to light that the radiation was due to medical tests, they switched the subject of her interrogation to her 1991 arrest at a non-violent protest. No charges were filed at the time, but the customs officers had her digitized fingerprints at their disposal nonetheless. She said that they told her, “Do not worry about it; we are just keeping them in case you do anything else”.

That is the truly worrying issue here. This information can be held for years and used for purposes other than what it was first provided for. Now the government will tell Canadians it is taking steps to ensure the information handed over will be only kept for a few days. The reality is that, once this information is handed out, the monkey is out of the bag. That is it for that.

The only way we can ensure the privacy of Canadians is protected is to stop this information grab by the U.S. and other countries, but the government will not protect Canadians' personal privacy.

What should have been done when the Americans and other nations demanded that we violate the privacy of Canadians? If the government had the concerns of Canadians really at heart, it would have clearly said no, but the government cynically plays the game of let us pretend. Let us pretend we are protecting Canadian privacy, while all the time working to erode the very laws protecting our privacy.

What will Canadians get for this gross violation? Not much. Maybe they will get a slightly shorter waiting time to board an aircraft, but they will get an increased risk that they will be arrested or denied boarding, by mistake, by accident or for some unknown purpose.

The no-fly list has a very dismal record, and my colleague in the Bloc referred to a number of very prominent cases that fit under that, such as Maher Arar and the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

The likelihood is that this information is going to be used in an incorrect fashion. This bill, as it stands, is a poor attempt and a miserable little bill that does nothing to protect the personal privacy of Canadians in difficult situations that we face. If the government had come forward with a bill that showed it was serious about protecting personal privacy, I could support it. I could find some way to support it. However this is not a bill that can be supported in this fashion, and there is no opportunity to change the bill in committee to the degree that it needs to be changed. That is not on. So what are we to do here? What can we do with this bill?

My sense is to send it back to the government and get it to come back with a better answer.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Western Arctic for outlining some of the valid concerns around this particular piece of legislation.

I want to touch upon one of the six principles that the European Commission working party on data collection and transmission outlined in 1998, which he ably outlined in his speech. Specifically, I want to ask him a question about the right to access, rectification and opposition principle. This principle states that the subject of the information:

should have a right to obtain a copy of all data relating to him/her that are processed, and a right to rectification of those data where they are shown to be inaccurate. In certain situations he/she should also be able to object to the processing of the data relating to him/her.

The reason I want to focus on that particular information, of course, is that recently in Canada, where we do have control of the information, we saw some egregious violations of personal privacy through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

When it comes to information that could be passed on erroneously to foreign governments, my understanding is that the person who is the subject of that information has very little ability to correct that information with that foreign government and very little ability to get his or her name removed from lists that may prohibit him or her from travelling to other countries.

I wonder if the member for Western Arctic could specifically touch upon that aspect of this piece of legislation.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that fundamental to protecting someone's privacy is the right to understand exactly what information is being taken and kept by authorities.

In this situation, we are not dealing with criminal offences. We are taking information from every Canadian who flies in a plane. For 99.99% of people, that information will be of value to no law enforcement agency. It simply is on the record.

However, if it is transmitted wrong, or transcribed wrong, it can be an enormous burden on that Canadian.

The other night, I talked to someone who had applied for Canadian citizenship. When that person applied, he was accused of a number of things that were clearly mistaken. Later, he found out that information from the next applicant had been erroneously put on his account. When he asked to have that information removed, the government refused. It would put in a disclaimer, but it would not take the information off his record.

We must understand that when we give information to our government, it is tough to get it off the record. If we give it to the government of the United States, it will be impossible. That is not going to happen. It is going to remain there.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the irony is that we have already gone through the no-fly list issue. Now the question becomes whether there is a problem when Canadian business people and tourists want to go to a certain country, or have to fly over a certain area, and that foreign state requires that this information be provided.

This is the problem. I think this is what the parliamentary secretary spoke about earlier today when we began debate on the bill.

I ask the member if he has some thoughts on how to deal with a foreign jurisdiction that says it requires certain information if we want to travel in its airspace or land in that country. The information is security related and we need to know whether there are processes in place to safeguard the information, so that it is not used for any other purpose.

This is a very simple bill, but I want to understand clearly the member's concern about facilitating the transport of Canadians to foreign countries.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, there is continual air traffic between our two countries. The United States has many more flights over Canada than we have over the United States. Most of ours are on their way to Mexico, the Caribbean, or Latin America.

I think there was room to negotiate on this. There is linkage and there was room to negotiate.

What I question is the government's motives. The government has already started on agreements with other countries that do not apply the sort of pressure we may feel from the United States. Does that mean that the government agrees with the basic principle that it should be giving this information to the United States?

I think this goes beyond U.S. pressure to the attitude of the government toward privacy and information about Canadians being handed to other countries. That is where the problem lies.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about the long form census: how important it was that it be kept and how the government was saying that it does not want this information to go out. However, this information is needed by our communities in order to prosper and in order to know what programs and services they need to put in place.

At the end of the day, we are looking at a bill that would violate the right to privacy.

We talked about soliciting and the fact that we now have a no-call list. However, what about these other countries? What laws do they have with regard to the sharing of information? Once they have that information, what else will they do with it? Those are the concerns some of my colleagues have raised here in the House with regard to this bill. I wonder if we would be putting Canadians at risk in those countries.

Let us look at some of the countries on the list. Some of them have corruption problems, and we do not know what they are going to do with that information. I do not think a person's medical files, or how many Aeroplan points they have is anybody's business. Maybe putting that information out will result in false accusations of criminality, or maybe it could be passed on for identity theft.

I want to leave my colleague with some comments in that regard.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the question of how the information moves from one country to another, the European Commission has said it does not have control over this information in the agreement that was signed between the EU and the United States. That agreement is not public. The process by which they determined this is very interesting, and I am sure it could do with some more investigation. However, the commission said that there were no strings attached as to where the information could go after being shared with the United States.

We have a situation where information is going to move out, whether it is credit card information or information of other kinds. There are dangers there. There are dangers with shared information. We know that. We know that this is the case. However, we also know there is equally a problem with misinformation. As we move through a system, as we go from one country to another, who is to say that the transcription or processing of that information would even be accurate?

How do we understand the systems of the third country? How do we understand how it uses that information, how it holds it, and what this might mean to a Canadian caught up in a land where that information had been used improperly and they found themselves in a dire situation?

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

Mr. Speaker, I looked at this bill briefly when it was first presented on the last day that the House sat before it recessed for the summer. I would like members to think for a moment about the timing at work here.

The Conservatives entered the election in 2006 saying they would stand up for Canada. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that meant they were going to stand up for Canadians. Here we are now at second reading of this bill. But it was presented on the last day that the House sat in the middle of June 2010. I asked myself: Who is standing up for Canadians? What would this bill do? It is a very brief bill. It is a paragraph of some 14 lines.

The bill outlines four separate areas that deserve the attention of every member of Parliament who proposes or espouses to defend the interests of Canadians, whether on issues of privacy, sovereignty, commerce, or security.

The first statement in the bill says that, notwithstanding whatever is in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA, every Canadian operator of an aircraft is obliged to hand over any information in its control that is required by the laws of a foreign state. The carrier does not have an option. Imagine that.

We have been paying attention to the United States for such a long time in this debate that I have to use it as an example, but this does refer to the U.S. exclusively. The Americans have passed the Patriot Act, and under that act they justify requests for information that go beyond anybody's imagination. This bill says that it does not matter. Whatever protections Canadians think they have under PIPEDA, for example, or the Privacy Act, they have no longer, because the Americans, according to the competent authority that flows from the Patriot Act, have the right to ask for that information and to use it in any way they wish.

I am not paranoid by nature, notwithstanding the profession we are in, but the bill says “any foreign state” over which a Canadian operator of an aircraft flies. The operator does not necessarily have to land in that foreign state.

I want to change the boundaries of the discussion and think for a moment about someone who leaves Ottawa, Montreal, or Toronto to fly to Dubai. If I am not mistaken, if an individual flies on a Canadian aircraft that individual is probably going to fly over the United States, maybe Portugal, probably Spain, or alternatively, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and any of the Emirates. This legislation says that any of those countries can demand information from that Canadian operator. Without that information, any one of those countries can deny our aircraft the opportunity to fly over its airspace.

No one contests that every country has its own right to demand certain conditions be met in its airspace. I think that is called sovereignty, which I will get to in a minute. If we want to respect other countries' sovereignty, we must at least understand that we live in a grown-up world and that a few of the countries that I just cited might have an interest that goes beyond simply trying to find out if Paul Smith or Peter Szabo is actually on that flight. They might actually have an interest in promoting the affairs of their own carriers, and one of the ways to do it is to initiate a series of debilitating actions in law that require our carriers to go through a series of demands that they must satisfy. That would be the business world.

Here we have focused on the United States, forgetting, of course, that there are a lot of other countries over which Canadian carriers must fly in order to maintain a competitive and an economically viable business. We just said, with this piece of legislation, that if any of those carriers want to do business, they can, provided they can convince their passengers that they are up that proverbial creek without that paddle, because the Canadian government will not come to their defence. The Canadian government, under this bill, has completely washed its hands of anybody who boards a plane and flies outside of Canada. If passengers are prepared to expose their entire life, their business practices, whatever private matters they have to a foreign authority, they should not count on the Canadian government coming to their defence.

I know what they would say. They would say so what because that is already the case. The Canadian government is walking away from everybody who runs into trouble, whether they do it deliberately or whether they are caught in a jam abroad, so why should passengers be any different?

According to this bill, if people board a Canadian operated aircraft in Paris and they want to fly to Canada, if the English, the Irish and the Scots demand to have information on them, they cannot get a boarding pass until that aircraft operator provides that information to those three countries, because, of course, that is part of the route to get back into Canada.

We focused on the United States. I understand the problem with the United States. If people come from the interior of Canada, as I do, for example in southern Ontario, they have two options. If they want to travel down south, whether to Cuba, Mexico, Latin America, South America or anywhere else, they can go across the lake into Buffalo and use its airport and they do not need to worry about anything. They maintain their privacy. People could board a plane at Pearson and then have to go through this, because the Canadian government just said that their option is to go down the 401 or the Queen Elizabeth Way and go to a foreign country to board another carrier because the government will not help out its carrier. Why will the government not help them out? Because Canadian carriers are already bending over backwards and breaking the law to provide information for homeland security defence in the United States, otherwise they cannot do business there, or they will increase the costs to their business by taking a circuitous route to a further destination, i.e. they will not be competitive with the other carriers in North America.

What does the Canadian government do? Does it stand up for Canada and Canadians? No, it abandons them completely. This bill is a total abnegation 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 whatever passenger boards a plane in Canada to go someplace else or another place in order to come to Canada.

A border security agent is the person making decisions for what happens to Canadians either aboard a Canadian carrier here or abroad to come home. The Canadian government stands up for Canada where? It has given up on Canadians and has said ”to heck with that airline business, let the airlines do something else because we need to ensure that we comply with a foreign state's demands”.

The alternative is that it could negotiate. I heard one of the parliamentary secretaries say that we negotiated exemptions. I do not know who the “we” were. I thought the Conservative government wanted to wash its hands of everything that was Liberal, but the negotiations and that exemption took place under a Liberal government. I think somebody said that it was in 2001. I could have sworn it was a little later, but it does not matter. It certainly was not the Conservative government because it refuses to negotiate. It gave up on negotiation.

The government presented this in the middle of the last day that the House sat before it recessed so it would not have the scrutiny of Parliament on running and hiding from its responsibility to protect Canadian sovereignty, Canadian sovereignty, as expressed through commercial interests, through the harassment of the interests of Canadian carriers and through the privacy concerns of every Canadian. Even if Canadians do not understand or do not care about their own privacy, it is integral to what we think is a Canadian.

We have the right to maintain our own decisions regarding the dignity of information that relates to us as individuals unless we give it up. The Conservative Government of Canada just said that it was not worth a tinker's damn. I have it here in 14 lines. It said goodbye. The government does not think it is worthwhile and if there are foreign states that want it, the government will give it to them. If people think they would like to take the aircraft operator to court for giving up their privacy rights, it says here that they should forget it because they will not have a base in court on which to stand.

One of my colleagues from the Bloc was talking about the security issues and the problems of being on a no-fly list. The government made a big deal of having a passenger protect system. That is a no-fly list. People do not know how they got on that list. There are all kinds of ways. Only one person can take someone off that list and that is the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. However, let people try to get a hold of him when they are being prevented from boarding a plane. He has to contact people at homeland security and they do not answer the phone.

Is there a way to keep Canadians safe? We should think about that for a moment. When the Americans asked for this, they told everybody in Canada to forget about the nonsense of $11 million to buy 40 full body scanners because they would not make Americans feel any better about the kinds of people who board Canadian planes. That is essentially what they are doing.

Last spring, the Minister of Finance said that the government would raise another $3.2 billion so that it could invest a further $1.5 billion in air security. In other words, Canada would make a further investment in ensuring that the Americans think that whenever people board planes in Canada, they will be okay. What did the Americans say? They said, “We don't believe you”. I am being polite. They said, “We just don't believe you”.

What did we do? Did we protest? Did we negotiate? Did we go to them and tell them about all of these things that we were doing? Did we tell them that we had spent $11 million on 40 scanners and that we will be spending another $1.5 billion on securing our borders and ports to ensure that anybody who goes anywhere near American territory will be receiving a stamp of approval for safety and security that only Canada can provide and that America will respect?

Did the government do that? No, it did not stand up for Canada. Its current slogan is here for Canada. I do not know where it thinks Canada is. Is it not in our midst? Is it not to protect the interests of Canadians no matter where they go? Is it not to be there to negotiate with other neighbours here in our hemisphere? Should it not be telling them what we have done to ensure that our backyard is safe so they can feel safe and secure ?

No, it did not do that. The government came up with Bill C-42, which basically says that the government can beat anybody in a 100-yard dash as long as it is moving away from trouble. It is just insane.

I know some of my colleagues from the other parties think this will be remedied and rectified when it goes to committee. That will not happen. The patriot act goes into effect in December. The Americans warned the Canadian government last year that it had one year to comply or to negotiate.

The government said that there was a better tactic. It said that it would go to sleep for six months and then in June it would present the amendment to the Aeronautics Act that washes its hands of any responsibility to Canadians and Canadian businesses, and then it would send the bill off to committee. By that time, of course, the House will either have been prorogued or it will be close to Christmas and it will say that it has already been done and the message has been sent off.

That is not governance and that is not standing up for Canada or for Canadians. That is an abnegation and abdication of responsibility and authority. If the government asks Canadians for the right to govern this country, it is because it wants to do something that protects their interests and advances their progress. This does neither.

When we are so concerned about security issues, economic issues, privacy issues and sovereignty issues, the government, with this legislation, is taking the fastest route available to sell out on all four. I would have been embarrassed to have been the minister who had to present this legislation.

I was not happy then as the critic for transport to look for ways to be supportive. We always try to look for ways to co-operate. I was looking for the proverbial silver lining in this legislation. I wear glasses but I took them off, got a microscope and went through everything with a fine-toothed comb. I could not find that silver lining.

I was a little distressed to hear that everybody thinks that the silver lining will be in committee. Well, one of the people who will be called as a witness just happens to be a great authority on privacy issues. The Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Chantal Bernier, already came to the committee this past spring. She was asked what the Americans or anybody else would do with this information. As my colleague from the Western Arctic will recall, as he was sitting in that committee, she said that they could keep that information for from 7 days to 99 years. For what will they use that information? They could use it for anything they want.

Who is standing up for Canada? Who says that it is here for Canada? Who is being deceptive? Who is being duplicitous? Who is acting in a fashion that can only be called cowardly? I think Canadians are asking us to point in the direction of the Conservative government.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise on this particular issue.

I know my friend always has something to say on any issue, as we sat on the committee together. I wonder what he would suggest in this particular case.

If we were to reverse roles and instead of our southern neighbour, talk about our northern neighbour, Russia, flying over our sovereign Canadian space and challenging our sovereignty, would we expect them to comply with Canadian rules and regulations?

I am not saying that what the member said is not for some possibility correct or that we as a government would not amend some of the legislation that would come before us. Certainly the government would respect privacy rights of individuals.

However, I would ask the member opposite what he would suggest if the role were reversed. If we were challenged by Russian airliners coming across our space and we told them they had to comply because of the danger they might have against us, what would he suggest to that?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that I was asked that question, because it was raised during my discussion. I had the opportunity to be in cabinet. It is quite an onerous situation. It is a privilege that very few get, and I am pleased to have had it. This was an issue that came up while I was there.

As I said earlier in my remarks, the government has options. The very first option is to begin to negotiate to defend the interests of Canadians. That is the very first thing, and it is the second thing and it is the third thing. It is the ongoing thing that must happen. We must continue to negotiate. The moment we walk away from the table, we are left with this legislation.

As for Russia, I am also happy to hear that the member wants to use that as an example, because the Russians have never created this kind of a problem for us. It is the big, bad Russian bear, the bugaboo out there that everybody likes to conjure up whenever they want to justify something else. It is an old trick that the government has used.

The government used it just recently when it spotted, 200 miles off the Canadian border, a couple of twin-engine planes that the Russians were using for scouting in their own territory. The government said that was why we needed F-35s: “By George, we are going to spend $16 billion so that our guys can go out there and take care of that Russian menace”. There is no Russian menace.

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

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the member's speech on this bill, and quite frankly, I agree with him.

I asked the parliamentary secretary earlier what sort of negotiations were done, given that the Americans have potentially 2,000 flights a day over Canadian airspace, flying to Europe and other parts of the world, whereas Canada has only 100 or so, flying over American space. There is certainly a lot of room for negotiation there, because in terms of the Americans providing all that information to us on a reciprocal basis, that would be quite onerous on their part. They would think twice about trying to push this point with us if it were going to put a lot of pressure on them from their airlines and residents who are flying.

He did not answer that question at all. He avoided the question.

The question really is: did the government just roll over and avoid negotiating with the Americans and just accept the terms they were given by the Americans?

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

Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak for what the government has done or did not do on this. I can speculate on the basis of the modest experience that I have.

The member is quite right. There are two competing commercial issues at play. The American airlines go through Canadian airspace. Canadian operators go through American airspace. It is an unbalanced amount. They say they need the information for their security. We are not worried about any security or lack thereof coming from the United States. It is purely a commercial interest.

What did we do? As I said, one can either negotiate to promote and defend Canadian interests, be they commercial or private, or one can walk away. The government clearly walked away. It did not negotiate. For that, it is a shame.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his usual passion on most subject areas. Stefano and Matteo are probably very pleased to see his interest on this.

I am looking on my computer here for the current regulations that are in force.

My question for the member has to do with what kind of information an operator has. I know he has been vice-chair of the transport committee and these things may have come up.

However, it seems to me that there is a potential ripple effect or domino effect that I have a name, I have an address, and by the way, I have a credit card number. I have who is the usual passenger companion, what card was used and whether there are reward points, and so on. Those tend to open up and flower into probably a fair bit of information.

It is good to see this point about the information required specifically under the foreign laws, but I wonder if the member could express his concerns about the scope of information that may be available and that may put Canadians at risk.

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

My hon. colleague from Mississauga South is absolutely right. He focused on all of the market information that might be available to a competent foreign agency. What they do with that information is beyond our control.

What they are exploring, of course, is not just the personal information, name and address or whatever, but anything that comes with one's credit card and credit history. In fact, over the course of these last 24 hours we discovered that there are photocopying machines and companies that lease these things out that have access to every piece of information that one has ever put on that photocopier, going back to one's SIN number and to any kind of documents that relate to oneself.

They have been able to find out how much people earn, how many people they support with that money, what they have given to agencies, to charities, or in gifts, or what purchases they have made. The impact is limitless from a market point of view. Not only is it limitless, but the law says it is whatever they require.

It is not just what the carrier, the operator, has in his or her possession; it is what he may be required to have by a foreign state.

So a foreign country is making decisions for us. Goodbye Canadian sovereignty.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to rise in the House today and refute a number of the things the hon. member is saying. I listened as closely as I could. Most of his statement was 99% incorrect or not factual, so it was very difficult to listen really closely.

There is little basis in fact on what he said. There is little resemblance to reality.

The reality is this: When we became government, we changed the way we dealt with Americans. We have a respectful, straight-up relationship that was not there under the previous government that this individual was a member of.

An example of that is the fact that we took a long-standing trade irritant called softwood lumber and we settled that issue. We had a recent trade irritant called buy American and we settled that issue. We settled that because we have a stand-up, upfront, respectful relationship that you folks over there could have done any time you were in power for 13 years.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I just remind the member to address his remarks to the Chair and not directly at the member.

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

I suppose that a drive-by smear might be able to stick provided it was accompanied by facts. I did not hear any from the colleague opposite.

Just because he could not get any of the facts, it does not mean that they are not there.

By the way, with respect to how we dealt with the Americans, we said, “We treat you with respect and dignity, reciprocate”. On the softwood lumber issue, I do not know if “negotiation” has a new meaning for the Conservatives when they left $1 billion of the $5 billion on the table and said this was a great deal. We were negotiating to get all $5 billion. They gave away 20%. That is not very good.

If that is the way that the Conservatives look at negotiating with the United States, or indeed any other country, then the country of Canada would be well rid of them.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to Bill C-42 today. I would like to start with an analysis of the title: strengthening aviation security act. My question, given that this is how the government has entitled it, is how does this strengthen Canadian aviation security? How does it strengthen Canada? How does it strengthen the safety of Canadians going on such flights? My suggestion is that it does not in any way.

First of all, under the existing law we can already have airlines disclose the information of persons travelling on planes when they are landing in foreign countries. That is perfectly reasonable. Every sovereign state has the right to know who is coming into their country. I would expect no different for Canadians or any other country.

The government is now essentially trying to amend it so that if flights are going over a foreign jurisdiction, and let us be clear that we are talking about the United States and this is why we are having this discussion at all, if flights are going over the United States, even if they are not landing in the United States, private information on Canadians will have to be disclosed. How does it strengthen Canadians or in any way live up to the descriptive “strengthening aviation security act”? How does it strengthen aviation security for the benefit of Canadians to disclose this information when the flights are not landing in a foreign jurisdiction, period, and they are not landing in Canada? How is it even logical to say that this is strengthening protections for Canadians?

I would like to take a particular example in terms of our sovereignty. It is one thing to say in the circumstance of flights going over the United States and landing in some other foreign jurisdiction that information has to be disclosed. It does not strengthen anything for Canadians and it is still problematic, but that example needs to be compared specifically to the example of a flight leaving Toronto and landing in Vancouver. So if a flight goes over the United States to go from one Canadian jurisdiction to another Canadian jurisdiction, there are multiple concerns.

First of all, once again, how does this strengthen the safety of Canadians? It is not logical. It is not reasonable. It just makes no sense. Second, how is it that the Conservative government is willing to give up sovereignty, willing to give up privacy concerns, when there is a flight originating specifically, as this example indicates, in Toronto and landing in Vancouver and never landing in the United States? Please explain how that in any way strengthens the safety of Canadians.

Also, this is not even logical. How does that strengthen the safety of Americans?

Canadians need to know that the Conservatives are willing to give up our sovereignty. A flight from Toronto going to Vancouver never leaves the grasp of Canadian jurisdiction. At all times that flight will be governed by Canadian law. Those passengers will never get onto foreign soil. It is Canada--Canada, going over the United States, yet in those circumstances the Conservative government is willing to give up our sovereignty by giving private information about those passengers to a foreign government when those passengers will never set foot on foreign soil. How is that logical? It is not logical. We all know it is not logical.

The only thing that seems obvious is twofold. One, the Conservatives are not very good negotiators when it comes to foreign relations, and I will give a couple of examples that we have all been speaking about already. But two, for whatever reason, although they can be tough on Canadians and have no problem with not helping people through EI and various benefits, and when it comes to social and economic issues in Canada they have no problem being tough there, how can they not be tough when it comes to a foreign country, and particularly in this instance, the Americans? What are they afraid of?

We are a partner in Afghanistan. We are the Americans' largest trading partner. They trade 25% to one third, depending on the current statistics, to Canada. We trade 80% to the Americans. We are their largest exporter of oil and energy.

The Americans need us just as much as we need them. Why do we have to be afraid of them? If there is a reasonable request, as with any friend, we negotiate, we say yes and we work it out. However, when the request is not reasonable, we say no, we give our reasons and be respectful.

Once again, how does it strengthen and protect Americans to give information when the flights are going from Canada or to Canada or from Canada to a foreign jurisdiction? The only thing I can think of is perhaps, in addition to other concerns, the Americans do not trust the Conservative government, despite the fact that it has spent a lot of money, some people say billions, on screening mechanisms and other initiatives. Does that not work? It is not good enough? Does the government admit that they are not working, that the initiatives are broken, or that it has not spent enough money or it has not drafted legislation or regulations properly?

Why does this have to take place? Why do the Americans not trust the Conservative government to ensure that persons boarding Canadian flights will not be a risk? If the government's position is that the Americans should trust us, then, by definition and logically, its position should be they are overstepping their reach and we should simply say no in these circumstances.

On foreign affairs, I would like to know what specific negotiations have taken place between the Conservative government and the American officials on their request of Canada and Canadians. Why can the Conservative government not convince the Americans that the steps it has taken to increase airline security in Canada are good enough? Why does this private information need to be disclosed? Maybe the Americans cannot be convinced or maybe the steps are not good enough. It is the government's onus to tell us why the security measures in Canada are not good enough that we would need to then disclose to a foreign jurisdiction this private information. Frankly, Canadians deserve better.

We have the recent example of losing Camp Mirage. We have the case of the security council seat. When I was in my riding of Brampton West over the break week, I received a lot of calls from people who were both upset and embarrassed that we had lost that security council seat because of, as many commentators have written, the foreign policy of Canada was no longer Canadian. Our foreign policy is not what the world expects and has become used to, a progressive and involved one. What we have is a American republican foreign policy, which does not bode us well in the international scene.

In addition to the weakened sovereignty and to the fact that the amendment to the statute is not logical, we have other concerns.

At the transport committee on May 11, as has been mentioned earlier, the assistant privacy commissioner, Chantal Bernier, stated that, the United States would retain this information for as long as 7 days to 99 years. She also added:

—our understanding is that information collected can be disclosed and used for purposes other than aviation security, such as for law enforcement and immigration purposes.

Once the Americans have the information, they will use it for whatever they so choose.

Let us look at why this is a concern. What if the Americans decide they are providing information to other countries? Not all countries are equal, but the Americans are our good friends, and that is fine. However, what about other countries across the world to which Canadians would not want their personal information disclosed? What if we have Canadians who have been naturalized, who have come from foreign countries, who were refugees, who were persecuted, who were in some way hurt, whose families were hurt, who have families remaining in those countries that could be subject to blackmail or harm?

Once this information is out and the Americans have it and they choose to disclose it to a third country, Canadians could be at risk and for no logical or rational purpose. The fact that the Conservative government wishes to disclose this personal information in those circumstances could be harmful to Canadians who have come from other countries, specifically refugees who have been naturalized. This is a serious concern.

What about the precedent that this would create? The Americans are our good friends, but if we give them everything they want just because they ask—

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

It's their land.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I hear the parliamentary secretary saying “it's their land”. It is not their land. A flight between Toronto and Vancouver never lands on foreign soil. It is always under the jurisdiction of the Canadian government.

Let me get back to the precedent. Once we give our American friends whatever they want, even when it is not logical, what if other countries then ask? England is our good friend too. What about other countries that perhaps are not so reputable? Where are we going to draw the line? Who are we going to insult? Are we going to have diplomatic incidents or visa restrictions imposed on Canadians like what happened with Mexicans? How is the government going to guard Canadians from future foreign and diplomatic problems? The government will have less discretion to simply say no to this kind of request when it says yes to whatever the Americans ask for.

I would like members to look at the name of the act once again. It is called the strengthening aviation security act. I would ask the Conservative government to explain how this act and the amendments in particular would strengthen the protection of Canadians and protect Canada's sovereignty.

We are members of Parliament in Canada. We are not American senators or members of the House of Representatives. We have an obligation to Canadians to sometimes say no to our very good friends when they overreach.

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

Mr. Speaker, I hope, based on my colleague's comments and his colleague's previous comments, that they and their party will vote against this bill.

We are talking about a bill that would change the Aeronautics Act so that every time someone buys an airline ticket all the information given to the travel agent will be sent to the security agency. The law would implement a number of secret treaties that the government has recently signed with other nations. The government has signed or is negotiating secret treaties with Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Panama, the Dominican Republic, the European Union and the United States.

The Conservative government likes to conjure up fear. The Conservatives try to get people to believe that they need to change the laws here because they are at risk. They need to build more prisons because there are criminals out there who they are not aware of and who need to be put in jail.

There is a problem with the bill with respect to the retention of the information. Not only would we be giving out information to people we do not even know, but we would not have the opportunity to tick a little box saying that we allowed the information to be given out. That is quite problematic.

I also want to touch on his colleague's comments a while ago, because he talked about body scanners. To me, body scanners are an invasion of privacy. Not only are they an invasion of privacy, but we do not know how much radiation goes through those scanners and we go through them all the time. It is just like the Wi-Fi study that we are doing right now.

Does my colleague believe that Canadians would be at risk, that they could be targeted as a result of the information being provided?

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am in favour of all security measures that protect Canadians and any airline traveller. The point of this conversation today is whether this bill is logical and whether it actually protects anybody.

When it comes to her question, we do not know, but that possibility exists. If this information goes to the Americans, they are allowed to use it for whatever they wish. They are no blocks in terms of how we can control that. If they provide that information to a foreign country or once the precedent has been established by the Conservative government to essentially give other countries whatever information they want on Canadians, and they do that with other countries that may be a risk, yes, that potential for putting Canadians at risk is certainly there.

I use the example in particular, because I deal with constituents of mine who came to Canada as refugees. If people become a refugee in Canada and they actually get to stay in Canada under that, there is some problem because they have been at risk in some way in their host country. If they wish to go back and visit family members, or go to neighbouring countries, or whatever it may be, or they have family members who remain, even if they are not going there, in some way we do not wish to harm either those individuals who are now Canadians or their families, so the risk exists. In a free and democratic society, we always have limits, but those limits need to be based on reason. We cannot simply provide limits to the protections and freedoms of Canadians because the Americans or another country say so. We need to do it based on logic.

In these particular circumstances, I am still waiting for the explanation from the Conservative government as to how these amendments to the statute would actually protect Canadians as opposed to simply just giving in to our American friends.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member opposite that I would trust the rule of law that is imposed in Canada and the United States over almost any other nation in the world. I would suggest, first, I trust in the rule of law that is applied in North America by the court system that is independent and impartial.

However, as far as the fearmongering by the members opposite in relation to domestic flights that were, in part, negotiated to be excluded from this, I ask the member to check who negotiated that. Was it the previous Liberal government? No. It was this government that negotiated with our southern neighbours on many aspects of this and other treaties to make Canadians safer.

The member asks how will this make Canadians safer. I think it is clear from what happened in 9/11 that we are all subject to terrorism. We in this Conservative government will keep Canadians safe by negotiating and also sharing information that will otherwise put Canadians in peril. Let us be clear. Terrorism knows no boundaries. This government will keep Canadians safe.

As far as insulting our American neighbours, I ask that member go back in time to a national TV broadcast where one of the Liberal sitting members of Parliament stomped, jumped up and down, on a figurine of the United States president at the time. I am sure that did a lot to help our friendship with the United States, since the Liberals were in government at the time it took place. What happened to that member? Zero, zip. She continued to sit in the House and the Liberals did nothing.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have respect for my hon. colleague, but when I ask him to have the Conservative government describe how this legislation would protect Canadians, I do not think the most logical argument is that a number of years ago some member of Parliament stepped on a doll. I suggest that is window-dressing and rhetoric as opposed to answering the question.

When the member speaks about a previous government's bill, once again, that is window-dressing and rhetoric, since it is the Conservative government's bill, Bill C-42. This bill seeks to put these onerous restrictions on the privacy of Canadians by letting the Americans know all about these people on the flight, even the ones who are flying just across Canada.

For him to suggest somehow that his rational, logical argument in favour of the bill is doll stamping or that some years before somebody introduced some other bill, which is not the one we are discussing, that is not a rational response.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member has brought to the debate something fundamental about what the object is of this legislation, the strengthening aviation security act.

We do have a passenger protection program. The Privacy Commissioner issued a report in 2009 which concluded that there are even some problems with regard to the Canadian system of protection of that information, but that is the program under which passenger protection is covered.

This is not just about Canada and the U.S. This is about any country in the world that happens to have legislation requiring this information. For instance, if a flight left Canada and flew over Pakistan but did not land in Pakistan, the Pakistani government could say that it wanted to know the name of everybody on that plane, without having some sort of reciprocal requirement or objective. It really could get ugly and complicated as to how to coordinate all that information when there may be no contact between that plane and the government.

If a foreign government does enact legislation requiring information for aircraft flying over its land, how do we comply without--

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I will have to stop the member there because there is only a minute left for the member for Brampton West to respond.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is the point exactly. The point is that because the government will not, in a respectful and friendly way, stand up to our American neighbours, we are creating the precedent to put Canadians at risk because of the legislation that may be in force now or in the future in terms of foreign countries.

The hon. parliamentary secretary made a point that I wish to address further. He suggested that in some way this is going to help security. I will again ask a question that he did not answer. How is it that he believes this legislation is necessary? Have they not done enough to protect Canadians through the security measures that we have in Canada? That is the true question.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Before moving on, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, Offshore Drilling; the hon. member for Gatineau, Official Languages; the hon. member for Etobicoke North, Health.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Elmwood--Transcona.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-42.

I do not think we can trace this one back a number of years with different bill numbers because this bill was introduced on June 17, the last day of the spring sitting, as the member for Eglinton—Lawrence said.

To wit, the new transport critic for the opposition, the member for Markham—Unionville, made his presentation this morning. He said that he had only seen this bill two days ago. I believe he said he thought it looked okay and was good enough to be sent to committee where we would have to study it and improve it. Then the Bloc critic, who I believe is also new to the transport committee, also made a speech. He seemed to think the bill was ready for committee, as well.

Now after question period we have a new round of speakers. We had two very good speeches from members of the official opposition who seemed to be on the other side of the bill.

Given that we only have another 45 minutes of debate today and given that all the parties will be having their caucus meetings tomorrow, it might be a good idea for members of the Liberal Party to revisit their position on this bill. If the critic is seemingly in favour of the bill and two other learned speakers for the Liberal Party are against it, clearly they have an issue to resolve within their caucus.

I would also say that the government might take heed here and look at taking a second look at this bill before it is defeated. Perhaps they could withdraw it and come back with a better solution.

Earlier today I asked the parliamentary secretary whether or not any efforts had been made in the area of reciprocity. On a world basis we only have to look at the drama which has been unfolding over the last week in the fight with the United Arab Emirates. The United Arab Emirates have said that it is going to kick Camp Mirage, our staging base, out of the country in the next 30 days or so because Canada will not let Emirates airlines land any more flights in Toronto than are landing now.

Clearly there is a linkage in this discussion between Canada and the United Arab Emirates. This issue has now become public. There is a tie-in between the base and whether the United Arab Emirates is allowed to fly more flights to Canada. Let us not kid ourselves, every international issue has similar aspects to it. This issue would be no different.

The member for Western Arctic, our long-time critic on transport, told me this morning that roughly 2,000 flights originating in the United States fly over Canada per day, in Canadian airspace. If we multiply that number by the average number of passengers per plane, that is a lot of people on flights in Canadian airspace every day, going to Europe and other places around the world. In contrast, the number of Canadian flights flying in American airspace per day, according to the member for Western Arctic, is only in the 100 range.

The question we have to ask is would a government that was on the ball, looking out for Canadian passengers and Canadian airline interests not try to drive a harder bargain and try to negotiate? It could say that if we are going to provide the information on a 100 flights per day, which would add extra costs to our airlines and to our government, then we want the United States to reciprocate and provide us with the information on that country's 2,000 flights per day. After all, our airspace is sovereign, too. Quite frankly, we also want to know who is flying in our airspace. That is what it really boils down to.

For a number of years the United States, and I think other countries too, have demanded a list of passengers prior to their boarding an airplane. Even before 9/11, I remember when I was going to Australia, before boarding the plane in Vancouver, the passport information had to be processed.

I believe a lot of that had to do with the whole issue of refugees getting on a plane, flushing their documents down the toilet and arriving in a new country without any documentation. It is the airline that is responsible for the costs of flying the people back. That has been an issue with the airline industry for a number of years. The airlines resent that they have to pay the costs of transporting people back when the new country refuses to take them. They want to make sure they have all the information and get what is known as pre-clearance for passengers.

After many years of allowing airlines to fly over our territory, things are being taken to a whole new level in saying that we are not satisfied with the airport screening devices, the locked cockpits and the air marshalls on board and we now want to know at any given time who is actually sitting in those planes in our airspace. That is what I believe is behind this situation.

What do the Americans think is going to happen? Do they think that somebody is going to blow up an airplane while flying in American airspace? Is that what they are thinking? I am not really sure what the rationale is. The fact of the matter is that regardless what the demands are from the Americans, the Canadian government has a responsibility to the Canadian public to reciprocate, to say that if the Americans want our information, we will take their information, and to negotiate what types of information we want to collect and whether it is worthwhile collecting.

For some time we have been talking about the value of keeping the no-fly list. Senator Ted Kennedy was on the no-fly list. I know the member for Winnipeg Centre would be very motivated to stand and speak to this topic because his name was on a no-fly list and he had to sort it out. He was sorting it out with a government that has a series of rules that do not allow him to sort out the problem. That is my point.

People get tied up in knots. Senator Kennedy got tied up in knots trying to get his name off the no-fly list. The member for Winnipeg Centre tried to get his name off the no-fly list when his name should not have been on it in the first place.

Then there is the situation where a person gets on an airplane and literally breezes through all the security measures that have been put in place.

I think we all remember on December 25, 2009 there was the situation of a 23-year-old, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, everyone knows that name, who got on an airplane in Lagos, Nigeria and flew to Amsterdam and then Detroit. He committed all the sins that are supposed to be picked up.

This is what he did. He bought a round-trip ticket with cash. In the old days it used to be one way, but the geniuses running our security services finally figured out that people should not be buying one-way tickets with cash. That was a sure sign something could go wrong. He bought a round-trip ticket with cash.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was flying to Detroit at Christmas where there was a lot of snow but he had no carry-on baggage at all. He flew from Lagos into Amsterdam Schiphol which is the ultimate in secure airports. It has every type of screening device that one could imagine and this guy boarded a plane without a passport. This is yet another big breach.

We have spent untold billions of dollars developing a system to ensure the member for Winnipeg Centre cannot get on a plane, to ensure Senator Kennedy cannot get on a plane, to ensure a six-year-olds cannot get on a plane and tied ourselves up in knots, and yet this young 23-year-old makes fools of us all and walks right through the system. Had it not been for his own incompetence, he would have killed several hundred people.

We clearly need to start looking at security in a smarter fashion than we do right now. I go to a number of cross-border meetings with American politicians and the whole issue of toughening the border is always raised. We hear how we are torturing ourselves and torturing our own citizens because the bad guys are not lining up at the border. When crossing the Manitoba border at Emerson or a Saskatchewan border point, the people who are smuggling marijuana and drugs across the border are not lined up in their car taking this stuff across the border. They are walking the drugs or driving snowmobiles across the border.

If all the local politicians and residents in South Dakota and North Dakota know that and Manitoba and Saskatchewan know that, why are we continually trying to toughen the border? That is the thinking in Washington. The unfair misrepresentation of Canada for several years has been that the terrorists came through Canada. I know the government has had to fight that, as we all have when we are down there on trips. We need to make it clear to the Americans that none of the 9/11 terrorists came through Canada. I know it is a hard battle.

If the government is going to involve itself in negotiations with the Americans, it should at least stand up for the Canadian side of the arguments and try to argue at least reciprocity. The government should not introduce a bill in the House and somehow unilaterally say that it will start providing this information or that information to third countries. We do not even know how much information will be transferred. There is some discussion that somehow information on the PNRs will be transferred. I do not know if that is the case and I do not know what the information is in total on the PNR.

I can say that if a name is misspelled by one letter on a ticket, it is possible for the agent to correct that by simply putting a note on the PNR. There are all kinds of notes on customers' PNRs on a whole range of things. Therefore, if that is the information that is being passed on, then all of these notes are presumably being passed along with the information already there.

In addition to that, we presume that the Americans have access to passport information. I know that when Manitoba brought in the new drivers' licence-like passports, there was a big argument about how private the information would be and how much information would be provided to the American authorities.

I think the public wants to be safe and, if they understand that the information being provided is safe and they know there is a good reason for the information, they probably would be willing to give up that privacy issue in favour of being safe on the airplane. However, the history so far has not proven that to be the case.

It is almost like the Keystone Kops. We read stories about six-year-olds and eight-year-olds being on the no-fly list and then we have the Abdulmutallab situation where the guy walks through all our defences. After what he did last December, we had to put in full body scanners that cost several hundred million dollars a piece. We then find out that those scanners will not solve the problem because smart terrorists will simply hide the plastic explosives in body cavities.

Body scanners, which have been installed in some airports but it will take another 10 or 20 years to have them in all the airports, do not pick up on explosives that are put into body cavities. Guess what? That is what the terrorists will move on to and now we need to deal with that issue.

There is one airline alone in the world that has dealt successfully with the whole issue of terrorism and it is the safest airline in the world on which to fly. I flew EL AL Airlines a number of years ago, but at the time, in 1970, EL AL was probably the most unsafe airline in the world. It had several skyjackings. I believe it had planes blowing up in the Sinai desert in 1970. After that point, the Israeli government and the EL AL officials changed the way they dealt with security.

When I went over there in 1987, it was a totally different experience than flying with a Canadian or American carrier. They put people through a three-hour interview and examination process. They did not stop with just checking people's bags to see how much liquids they had in their bags. They actually asked people what they were going over there for. They more or less did a type of psychological profile on people.

When we discussed that issue with the Americans, they said that it would not work there. They said that in order to balance the need to move masses of people very fast, they had to sacrifice a little on safety.

I now want to deal with the issue of the trusted shippers program. I was totally shocked and surprised to find out that there are 1,000 trusted shippers in either North America or the United States who can ship things. These people are shipping packages that are sitting in the cargo hold of the planes and a very small percentage, if any, are being scanned, tested or checked. It is an absolute disaster waiting for a place to happen.

The whole business of the trusted shipper program must be looked into and tightened up on because sooner or later somebody will put a letter or a package through this trusted shipper program with an explosive device and we will be reading about the terrible horror story and asking why we did not do something in advance.

The government should be spending its time on trying to make flying safer than it is right now.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I heard quite a bit of misinformation and lack of facts coming from the member opposite. However, I have several questions for him.

Did the member know that this government asked for and received an exemption for domestic Canadian flights flying through U.S. airspace? That means Toronto to Vancouver, an exemption. This government got that exemption from the United States.

Did he know that this legislation only facilitates the sharing of information for flights to the United States or over the United States sovereign airspace to a third country?

Did he know that if passed, the information that air carriers would be required to share with the United States is the full name, date of birth and gender, which is actually less than what is on a Canadian passport today?

Did he know that passenger information that is confirmed to not be linked with terrorism will be erased after seven days?

Further, we all know that passports are required at every U.S. entry point. So this will be less information and it excludes domestic flights.

Let us be clear on something else. Did the member know, did the Liberals know, does the Bloc know that without these amendments that we are proposing, flights leaving Canada will no longer be able to travel over United States airspace?

That is the repercussions of the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberal coalition in standing up against Canadians and their wish to travel abroad. They should be ashamed of themselves for fear-mongering and spreading misinformation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I hear some of my colleagues say, “Who's doing the fearmongering in this place?” We have just heard some of it here.

Yes, we know that the exemption was given for airlines to fly point to point in Canada and go over American airspace. We know the exemption was there.

However, what is the difference? The fact is that somehow the Americans are willing to exempt airlines and allow these passengers, some of whom might be people who they do not want to fly over their territory, to do so. When we fly from Toronto to Winnipeg, we will be flying over the Great Lakes and American territory but that will be okay because the government got an exemption.

However, if we were to add a few more hours to the flight and go south to Mexico, that does not qualify. It is kind of a fine line that the member seems to be drawing.

The big issue is why the government did not get reciprocity. Why do Canadians not get to look at who is flying over Canada? Somehow our airspace is less important than theirs. Is that the way the government looks at it?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in listening to the debate, it is clear that there are more questions than answers.

In his speech, the member from Brampton asked how this would enhance the safety and security of Canadian passengers.

I must admit that I am sitting here and thinking about jurisdictions other than the United States and wondering whether or not military aircraft are subject to the same disclosure requirements. That would be kind of interesting.

I have also looked for the regulations. I have not been able to sort through them because there are many iterations of them, but the reasonable expectation of what information should be there and what is a reasonable information requirement by a foreign jurisdiction to ask for are questions that have not been answered yet.

I think we have been talking more about platitudes, that it would enhance the safety and security of Canadian passengers, when it seems to be putting more and more people under the microscope which may inadvertently with unintended consequences put them at some risk for other purposes. I think those are the concerns that members have expressed.

Before the government proceeds too much further with this, maybe it should start providing information. If we look at the legislative summary of the bill, it does not answer those questions. I did not see any briefing sessions for the members.

If the government is convinced that the bill is the right thing to do, it should properly inform members of Parliament so that they can do their job.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the member is on the right track. That is why I suggested he get together with his own Liberal caucus tomorrow and iron out where it stands on the bill. Its new critic, the member for Markham—Unionville, says he only saw the bill two days ago, while the member for Eglinton—Lawrence claimed to have read it the day it was introduced on June 17, the last day Parliament sat. So clearly, the Liberal caucus members are not really talking to one another about the bill. Then another Liberal member made a great speech, basically supporting the member for Eglinton—Lawrence. So, we have two Liberals who sound as if they do not like the bill and one who says he only heard about two days ago and it sounds okay to him and maybe we could sort out any problems it has in committee.

I think the Liberals are on the right track. I think they are going in the right direction. They can discuss it in caucus tomorrow.

The member's advice to the government is good, though. Maybe it should look at pulling the bill and coming back with something more palatable. I think it would give the Bloc the opportunity to have a breather too, because I think the Bloc critic today did not seem to clearly understand just where things were going with this bill either. So perhaps we will have another 15 minutes of debate, we will finish for the day and then it will be time to discuss this tomorrow in more depth.

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

Mr. Speaker, we talk about the accountability of the current government and of course there is absolutely none. We just have to look at the Minister of Natural Resources and the fiasco with the government buildings.

When we see a bill such as this one, it is basically a clear threat to our freedom and an invasion of our privacy. Maybe my colleague would like to speak a bit about what happened with the no-fly list, how Ted Kennedy ended up on it, how the information that is being provided and the wrong information that sometimes is put on there would actually impact a person, and why we are so dead against this type of information going out to these other countries.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not think I have been to Washington once over the last 10 years when I have not been told by a member of Congress that he or she has had some problem at the airport that should not have happened, dealing with this flight situation. So clearly the system put in place, Homeland Security, has become a huge monster. Some might say it is bit out of control. We do not know if it is achieving results. I do not have the statistics. I had them before, on the growth of this agency. However, the number of people and the amount of money this agency eats up in a year is just unbelievable. It is incumbent upon governments like the one here to stand up to those agencies, because they will put pressure on us. They have to have checks and balances in their own system, where United States senators and congressmen actually stand up and take a stand against their own Homeland Security and say that it has gone far enough, it is out of control and it is spending too much.

We have no problem with security, as long as it is smart security. We do not want to be running off, spending huge amounts of money on systems that do not necessarily work. Thickening a border when the criminal elements are simply walking across it or driving around it on snowmobiles is not the answer. We are just tying up our own good hard-working citizens in knots over something that should not be done. We have to keep forcefully putting this message across to the Americans, because at the lower levels, at the state levels, those local officials get it. Those local elected officials in South Dakota and North Dakota understand that thickening the border is not where the national government should be going. So, there are allies out there; the government just has to start talking with them.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must admit that I have been fascinated by this legislation.

I was checking some of the blues of members who have spoken, particularly the critic for transport, and one of the questions that has come up is with regard to the kinds of information that might be there under the control of an operator. The summary actually includes things such as name, gender, passport number, et cetera; however he stated that the authorized foreign governments may request more specific information.

Bill C-42 particularly states that, if the foreign jurisdiction has passed a law requiring it, that information be provided if a plane not only lands in that jurisdiction but also flies over it. Much of the discussion has been with regard to our relationship with the United States, but most of the members who have spoken and raised some concerns on this have tried to answer a couple of questions.

Number one, what does it mean when this bill says that this is going to be known as the Strengthening Aviation Security Act? In itself, it does not. It has nothing to do with strengthening aviation security. What it does is grant an exemption to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA. It basically provides that opportunity whereby the operators will be able to disclose personal information that otherwise would be prohibited under PIPEDA.

The bill is very short, and I do not want to repeat what other members have said about it, but we have talked in the context of the United States. We know about the no-fly list, we know about all the terrorist issues and we are basically trying to identify whether or not there are any risk elements here. I suspect that we could, but I am not so sure that there may not be some unintended consequences of expanding the information required to be provided to what would be required under the legislation of a foreign jurisdiction.

The United States may very well ask for much broader information than simply a name, address, passport number, et cetera. There may be other information that may logically flow. I guess the enabling part of this is that it refers to information in the custody or control of the operator, being the airline. I wanted to raise that concern.

The fact is that there have been questions, and if we look at the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, we see that he said this is basically to make sure that Canadians who want to travel to other countries are safe and secure and that they are able to travel, because if we do not comply with the requirements of a foreign jurisdiction, then that flight may not be able to go there. That means that businesspeople cannot go and do their business. That means that tourists cannot go there.

However if we carry that to its logical extension, if any country were to say, “Sorry, you are not going to be able to fly over our jurisdiction, or in fact land here, unless you provide this information”, all of a sudden the relationship between two countries becomes very problematic. In fact it could raise an enormous amount of difficulty in terms of trade and other activities.

One of the questions I raise is with regard to military aircraft. Does that mean a foreign jurisdiction can say, “I want to know everybody on the plane. How many troops are on there?” This is information that would be in the control of the operator, if we take this literally. I am hoping, and I am pretty sure, that somewhere in the rules of the game the government is playing on this, there is an exclusion with regard to that.

The title with regard to the citation is the Strengthening Aviation Security Act. The protection issue actually is handled under what is called the passenger protect program.

The legislative summary says that the Aeronautics Act is the authority for the federal government program called the passenger protect program, formally known as PPP and informally known as the no-fly list, under which Transport Canada provides aircraft operators with a list of names of potential passengers that must be checked before issuing boarding passes. That is referred to as the specified persons list.

There has been much discussion about this program. In fact, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has done an audit of the passenger protect program of Transport Canada and made a number of observations, and I found, interestingly enough, that it had sufficient concerns that it indicated it would review this again in 2011. Even with regard to the existing program, the Privacy Commissioner has indicated there are some areas of concern.

If we broadened the scope of this and we start dealing with other jurisdictions that may have a variety of information requirements for whatever reason, we have to ask ourselves whether or not it opens up a bigger ballpark of activity than currently exists.

I am not satisfied that this simply is a bill that relates to the United States, because if it were then it would have been specifically dedicated to addressing the United States and not foreign states.

Even though the bill is about 14 lines and forms the entire clause, the amendment to this legislation is only about 20 words. It adds the words “or fly over a foreign state and land outside Canada” and adds the words “or fly over” a foreign state in accordance with regulations. Those words alone would not mean anything to anybody. In fact, reading this clause, even with the amended words in there, is probably not going to answer all the questions because we have to see the context in which this clause fits.

In clause 2 of the bill, subsection 4.83(1) is being amended and it refers specifically to subsection 7(3) of the act. We need to have the act in front of us as well. Not only that, but the bill also refers to the regulations. If we look for the regulations on the statutes website, we will see there are piles of regulations, and I still have yet to be able to find the specific regulation that relates to the particular clause being amended.

I get the sense from what people have said so far that the government seems to think this is something it has to do to comply with U.S. requirements. However, there may be some unintended consequences. I am not convinced, and I do not think a lot of members are convinced, that the government has thought this through as it relates to other jurisdictions. We understand sovereignty of air space.

Canadians were a little concerned even when the United States required information be provided when Canadian aircraft flew over American airspace even though it was going between two Canadian points. All of a sudden the scope of information being provided becomes a very intrusive concept to Canadians, considering the problems we have been having in terms of maintenance of records and the privacy issues that have been swirling around in the media of late, like people's medical records with regard to Veterans Affairs officials.

Whenever members have questions of this kind of breadth it raises the point: Why is it that the government did not take the time to properly brief members of Parliament as to the who, what, where, when and why?

Why is it that the legislative summary, for instance, is very weak in terms of the content? It spends more time talking about the passenger protect program than it does about this legislation.

It does not address some of the analysis. It talks a lot about PIPEDA and the importance of PIPEDA protecting privacy, but it does not deal with identifying the specific information, as defined, that would qualify as being in the custody or control of the operator.

That kind of fundamental information would seem to be important enough to articulate in debate, to provide in briefing sessions, to present in order to earn the support and the confidence of members. It is amazing how even the smallest bills with the smallest amendments seem to cause the most difficulty for members, and it is simply because there are questions that are unanswered.

I do not think it is helpful to say that the opposition parties are getting together and are not for anything. I am sorry, but we have had many bills that have been introduced and for months never called for debate. If things are important, the priority of those matters should be raised when that debate starts by the spokesman on behalf of the government, and it did not happen. It did not happen in the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety. It gave just two brief points. It glossed over a few other things, saying not to worry, to be happy, to remember that this is the United States and this is safety and security.

However, as many members have pointed out already, the bill does not improve the safety and security of Canadian passengers travelling. Privacy is the issue, and the parliamentary secretary who spoke on behalf of the government on this did not raise the significant points of privacy under PIPEDA that were the substance of the amendment to the bill, which would provide an exemption under PIPEDA.

I am a little frustrated that the government would like to come back to members and say this is our problem, not the government's. I would simply suggest to hon. members that I believe the problem is the government, and I would be happy to continue this speech at a later time.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member will have about seven minutes when this returns for debate.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from October 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate on Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act or, the short title as suggested by the government, the strengthening aviation security act.

We know the government has been very creative in selecting short titles or nicknames for some of its legislation. This is one of the least creative it has come up with. There are probably some other possibilities that should have been considered, certainly from a New Democratic perspective. We might have called this the compromising Canadians' privacy act, or the caving in to U.S. security interests act or the dumping Canadians' personal information into an American black hole act. There are a number of other possibilities. Given those suggestions, it is very clear that New Democrats have very serious concerns about the legislation and that we do oppose the bill.

The bill would amend the Aeronautics Act to exempt airlines from the obligations set out in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA, to allow information in the airlines' control about passengers to be shared with a foreign state.

Currently this information is only shared when a Canadian plane is scheduled to land in a foreign country. However, the bill would expand that to cover any Canadian plane that is due to fly over a foreign country. We are primarily talking about Canadian flights to the United States and over the United States, and certainly over the United States, and it is the United States that is driving these changes.

It is also done in the context where we know that the United States has not always appropriately or justly used the information it has received. I think for all of us the case of Maher Arar comes immediately to mind in that circumstance.

We know there have very serious problems. The situation that Mr. Arar found himself in was a horrible situation and it arose from this kind of transfer of passenger information to a foreign authority.

The bill does not currently cover flights of Canadian aircraft between Canadian destinations that fly over another country. When I fly back and forth from Vancouver to Ottawa, often the flight will go over the United States. Right now, information about the passengers on those flights is not shared with the Americans. However, one wonders when that will happen. I suspect that is the next ask from the Americans when it comes to sharing passenger information. I expect it is not far down the list of demands that the Americans will make of us in this regard. I think that will be a huge concern to Canadians, not that the current proposal is not a real concern to them, because it is.

By proposing to exempt Canadian airlines from the obligations they must currently meet under PIPEDA, the government is throwing out the key operative principles of PIPEDA, which were established to protect the privacy of Canadians, principles such as accountability, identifying purposes, consent, limiting collection, limiting use disclosure and retention, accuracy, safeguards, openness, individual access and challenging compliance. There are 10 principles and they are outlined in great detail in schedule 1 of PIPEDA.

For instance, the first principle is “Accountability” and is described as:

An organization is responsible for personal information under its control and shall designate an individual or individuals who are accountable for the organization’s compliance with the following principles.

It goes on to outline four subsidiary principles from that one on accountability, relating to how an organization handles the information under its control.

The second principle in schedule 1 of PIPEDA is “Identifying Purposes”, which is explained as

The purposes for which personal information is collected shall be identified by the organization at or before the time the information is collected.

Therefore, there is a requirement around clarity of what is around the sharing of that information.

The third principle in schedule 1 attached to PIPEDA is “Consent”. It says:

The knowledge and consent of the individual are required for the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information, except where inappropriate.

The fourth principle is “Limiting Collection” of information. It says:

The collection of personal information shall be limited to that which is necessary for the purposes identified by the organization. Information shall be collected by fair and lawful means.

This one goes on to be elucidated with further sub-principles.

The fifth principle, “Limiting Use, Disclosure, and Retention”, is described as:

Personal information shall not be used or disclosed for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except with the consent of the individual or as required by law. Personal information shall be retained only as long as necessary for the fulfilment of those purposes.

There are some pretty particular requirements in PIPEDA around that principle.

“Accuracy” is the sixth principle. It says:

Personal information shall be as accurate, complete, and up-to-date as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used.

Again, it is further elucidated in the schedule.

“Safeguards” is the seventh principle in PIPEDA. It says:

Personal information shall be protected by security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information.

Therefore, organizations are required to safeguard and make appropriate arrangements for the protection of that information.

The eighth principle is “Openness”. It says:

An organization shall make readily available to individuals specific information about its policies and practices relating to the management of personal information.

The ninth principle is “Individual Access”. It says:

Upon request, an individual shall be informed of the existence, use and disclosure of his or her personal information and shall be given access to that information. An individual shall be able to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the information and have it amended as appropriate.

The tenth principle is “Challenging Compliance”. It says:

An individual shall be able to address a challenge concerning compliance with the above principles to the designated individual or individuals accountable for the organization's compliance.

PIPEDA has a very detailed outline of the kinds of principles that should be part of any process of sharing the personal information of Canadians by organizations in the private sector, which airlines are required to comply with currently. What this law seeks to do is grant an exemption to that schedule for airlines with regard to passenger information.

Instead of developing an agreement with the United States that addresses these principles and complies with PIPEDA and showing where security requirements might require some change or safety might require a compromise, what we are presented with in the legislation is a blanket override of PIPEDA. There is no subtlety to this. It gives the government the ability to negotiate something with the United States or another country that completely ignores the requirements of PIPEDA around the sharing of the personal information of Canadians, and I do not think that is appropriate.

PIPEDA outlines some important principles that should be considered and struggled with. It may well be that there is an appropriate compromise to be had in a case of national security, but we will not that out of the process that is elucidated in Bill C-42.

When we look at the current Aeronautics Act, there are a lot of places in the act where the minister has discretion in the name of national security. In that circumstance, where there is a combination of an override of the principles established in our law about the personal information and privacy of Canadians and it is combined with an override by the minister, which is hugely discretionary, there is a huge potential for problems and one that goes much too far, especially when we look at the record of the current government.

The government has shown on many occasions that it is always ready to compromise the rights of Canadians in the name of the fight against terrorism. It seems like we just have to say the “T” word and all kinds of other things are expected to fall away, things that we hold dear. Rather than a careful reasoned approach to coming up with policy around national security and safety sometimes, the government goes to an extreme. We have to look at the situation of the security certificate cases. A provision in the Canadian Immigration Act, which was intended to allow for expedited deportation of non-citizens and non-permanent residents, has been used in some cases for indefinite detention, not the purpose for which it was intended.

When we look at some of the specific cases that have been argued and taken to court, we can see that, even when the government extended and re-issued security certificates in the name of national security and the concerns it had about individuals' attachment or participation in terrorist organizations or terrorist activity, the government did not follow the process very appropriately. It did not review all of the information at hand. It did not make available all of the information that was available. In one particular case it did not update its files on the individual involved.

The concern for security allowed all kinds of other sloppiness to happen in that process. I think it was pretty damning of the former minister of public safety and his actions in regard to the re-issuance of security certificates in the court judgment to which I am referring.

There are problems with how the government has approached the use of information in the situations where it has determined it believes there is a question of national security. We have to make sure that all information is taken into consideration in those cases.

Another example might be the use of full-body scanning at Canadian airports, and more intrusive forms of full-body scanning are on the way. We know that backscatter technology, which has been developed and which is being implemented in some American airports, gives a sharper, more defined image than the very basic image the current technology that is in use here in Canada. It is already available and being deployed in some places in the United States.

Canada jumped on that band wagon, probably at the urging of our American neighbours. We have invested heavily in full-body scanning equipment; I think it is millions of dollars. Probably if they had their choice, Canadians would have preferred the kind of scanners that go into hospitals rather than these airport full-body scanners. That is a question about how we use the technology and how we make decisions around security.

It is interesting to look at the example of Israel. An Israeli airline security expert appeared before a parliamentary committee to say that he had great doubts about the value of this kind of technology and did not see Israel moving to adopt that technology. He said Israel thought there were more effective means of ensuring passenger safety and airline safety that did not go down that road.

Again, it seems as if we jumped on a band wagon to appease our American neighbours and their concerns about safety and security. Why would we do this? That is a good question, why we continue to adopt the American agenda, why we do not take our own particular course and why we do not try to negotiate something different with the Americans.

I think there is a concern with regard to the transfer of data to Americans, that the Americans might prevent Canadian airlines from flying over the United States on the way to another destination and that this would increase the cost and be very inconvenient for the airlines and for Canadian airline passengers. There has been some suggestion that they are holding that out as a possibility if we do not comply with this demand for passenger info for Canadian airline flights that are not planning on stopping in the United States, that are not destined there.

I hope that is not the case. Certainly that idea has been floated. The reality is, as my colleague has pointed out, that there are far more U.S. flights flying over Canada to other destinations without stopping in Canada than Canadian flights flying over the United States to other destinations. In fact it is something like 2,000 U.S. flights flying over Canada when only 100 Canadian flights fly over the United States. That is the proportion.

So it is a bigger issue, in some sense, for Americans. What is the reciprocity? Are we demanding similar information from the Americans, or do we see any need to do that? Why would we ask for that personal information about American airline passengers? I think that is the real question. If it is something we do not see the need for, why are we kowtowing to the Americans' demand for it?

The European Commission is also looking at this issue, and last month it released proposals for negotiating an agreement with the Americans and other countries regarding the limits on the transfer of passenger name record data, which is the basic information that we are talking about here. It is the information that airlines collect about us when we fly.

We have to wonder why it would be necessary for airlines to share, for instance, what kind of meal we ordered on the plane, and if we are ordering a special meal of some kind, how this is appropriate or is any kind of information that is necessary to national security or a national security arrangement.

Canada also has an agreement with Europe on the passenger name record issue, but apparently it has to be renegotiated due to the expiration of certain legal commitments. That is something that is either being engaged in or will be engaged in soon.

As I mentioned, last month the European Commission outlined some principles that any PNR, passenger name record, agreement should observe.

I want to go over them so we can see what the Europeans are demanding in their agreement with the United States and other countries. The first principle they are looking to enshrine in any agreement is the protection of personal data, aiming to protect the rights of passengers. They are saying that this data should be used exclusively to fight terrorism; that categories of this information that are exchanged should be limited to what is necessary for that purpose and be clearly listed in the agreement; and that passengers should be given clear information about the exchange of their PNR data and have the right to see their PNR data and the right to effective administrative and judicial redress. This is to help ensure full respect for privacy, that any violation of privacy will be remedied.

They are pointing out that decisions having adverse effects on passengers must never be based on an automated processing of passenger name record data. A human being must be involved before a passenger is denied boarding. This is their attempt to avoid racial and religious profiling of passengers.

I think that is a very crucial one, that this just cannot be some computer generated process but that actual real people must be involved when there is a negative decision involved.

The Europeans are also seeking to have in the agreement that third countries must ensure a high level of data security and an effective independent oversight of the authorities that use PNR data. They are also saying that PNR data cannot be stored longer than necessary to fight terrorism and third countries should limit who has access to the data gradually during the period of retention.

They are also saying that PNR data may be shared by the third country with other countries, in a process called onward transfer, only if those countries respect the standards laid down in the PNR agreement between the European Union and the third country and only on a case-by-case basis.

I think this is a really crucial aspect of this. What happens with the information about Canadians that is provided to, say, the United States? Is that information then available to be transferred to another country, which may not meet the standards that Canadians want to ensure and may not even meet the standards that Americans have agreed to for the treatment of the personal data of Canadians? I think that is a very crucial consideration that we should be insisting on as well.

The second principle that the Europeans are using in terms of negotiating these agreements is the modalities of transfer of the PNR data, which aim to provide legal certainty to air carriers and keep costs at an acceptable level. We have to worry about what costs are involved for airlines.

They are also talking about standards on monitoring the correct implementation of the PNR agreement. And reciprocity is another principle, which I have already mentioned.

We can see that the Europeans are making some very clear demands. Yet here in Canada we are debating legislation and we have no idea what demands our own government is making. The government is asking for a blank cheque to make these changes, to negotiate this agreement, and we have no idea where it is going with it.

I think there are very serious problems. Canada's privacy commissioners in the past have called for written agreements that can be examined, and that was a very serious question when they were looking at the passenger protect program in 2007. We need to make sure we have the detailed and specific agreements and the detailed and specific legislative authority for the provisions of those agreements.

I think we compromise the principles of PIPEDA at our peril. That is what this legislation seeks to do.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas on this issue, and it amazes me to discover, from his speech and from what else we have learned about the bill, that the government intends to enter into an agreement on the use and transfer of data without Canadians having any idea where this information is going to go.

If we happen to go on a holiday to Mexico and are flying over the United States, with no intention of even being in the United States, information about us is going to be made available to the American authorities and there apparently are no guarantees from anyone as to where this information will ultimately go, how long it will be kept or to whom it will be given.

This runs counter to the principles contained in not only our own privacy legislation but, as other countries have determined, the same thing goes for the United Kingdom. The House of Lords' European Union Select Committee had a similar problem with the issues in the agreement between the U.S. and the EU in terms of informing passengers about what happens to their data and specifics about what can be collected, what happens to it and who the data should be going to.

This seems to be required by elementary requirements of privacy. Whether the entire PIPEDA applies is another question, but to just exclude it and say that there is nothing in its place seems to me to be ignoring the privacy rights of Canadians in a very reckless way.

I wonder whether the member has gotten any assurances from the government that that is not going to be the case.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do think it is a really serious issue that there is too broad an exemption in this bill from the provisions and principles of PIPEDA, and when we combine that with the fact that in the Aeronautics Act there is broad discretion for the minister of transport, it is a very problematic combination that will lead to a situation where Canadians really do not know what is happening with our information.

We remember the situations that cropped up when the no-fly list was implemented and the number of people who were delayed at airports or subject to questioning, who missed their flights, who were detained for hours when they were trying to travel and the problems they had clarifying the information, correcting information, and whether they ever really knew if that was done, why that was done or who to approach about it. There were all kinds of problems that arose with the implementation of the passenger protect program.

We should learn something from the implementation of the no-fly list or the specified persons list. There were real problems that came up there, and there will be real problems that come from this proposal to share more personal information of Canadians with countries such as the United States, just because a Canadian is flying to a holiday in Mexico or the Caribbean and the flight happens to go over the United States.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would really like to hear from somebody as to how this bill is actually going to increase passenger safety with these measures. The fact of the matter is that the bad guys should not be on the plane in the first place, based on the no-fly list and all the security we have in place at the airport.

I am much more concerned about the trusted shippers program, the 1,000 or so companies that are part of the trusted shippers program, because in fact mail, parcels and other packages are routinely put on planes every day. Right below where we are sitting on that plane are all kinds of mail, none of which has been scanned. If we want to look for a real security problem, that is a big area that has to be looked at both in Canada and the United States.

Here we are running around, trying to appease the Americans with information on people on 100 flights to the United States, for what reason? We do not even know that giving them the information is going to be of any value in increasing safety. In fact the Americans have 2,000 flights a day going over Canada. Has anybody over here in the government figured out yet that we should be asking the Americans for reciprocity, that if we are going to give them the information on passengers on 100 flights a day over the United States, we want information in its 2,000 over Canada, because we have sovereign airspace as well, and if it wants its planes to be flying around Canada, avoiding our airspace, then it will have to put up with all the complaints it is going to get, thousands and thousands, to its elected people in Congress and to the airlines, because it is going to be inconveniencing the passengers?

We have no problem doing things that make sense and that make people safer, but where is the proof that this is going to happen in this case?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the proof is. I certainly have not heard it in the debate so far on this legislation and I certainly have not heard it from the government.

The member is quite right to point out that we would probably have already intercepted the bad guys before we shared the information with the United States about a flight flying over its airspace with no intention of stopping in the United States.

He is right to raise the shipping concerns, because that may very well be the weak spot in our security system.

The member talked about reciprocity, whether we should be getting the information about the thousands of U.S. flights that go over Canada. I am not sure that is really the issue. We need to ask ourselves, do we need that information? Is it just to collect that information? Why would we want to have that kind of information about American citizens, American airline passengers? What would Canada do with all of that information? Why should we be collecting that information? Do we really have any interest in that information, or are we just collecting it because the U.S. is collecting it?

That might be the way to draw attention to this issue. That might be the way to get American citizens who are concerned about their privacy and the integrity of their own personal information interested in this issue. However, I am not sure that it is the kind of principle on which we would want to base this kind of legislation.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of the New Democrats against what I think is a bill that is so thoroughly flawed in principle and execution that every right-thinking Canadian would demand that his or her MP vote against the bill.

This is Bill C-42, which would amend the Aeronautics Act. Let me just say very simply what the bill does. The bill would require airlines in Canada to send information on their passengers, Canadians who are boarding Canadian aircraft, simply if that aircraft flies over a portion of the United States and does not even land in the United States.

For Canadians who are familiar with airline routes, many times a day Canadians get on aircraft, perhaps even flying from one Canadian destination to another, that may go over American airspace.

My colleague is talking about that perhaps being exempted by the bill, but for flights that are going from a Canadian destination to a foreign destination that does not even touch the United States but simply flies over its airspace for a portion of that, we would have to send information about our passengers to the United States.

What information would be forwarded is determined by requirements that are, up to now, laid out in agreements that we have not even been able to see as parliamentarians. We have a bill before the House that would fundamentally violate Canadians' privacy rights over some very important pieces of information, which I will tell the House about in a moment, and we do not even know exactly what parameters surround that information or what that information would consist of.

What we do know is that Canada has signed or is negotiating agreements with the European Union, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Panama, Dominican Republic and the United States, and that details of the agreement between the European Union and the United States for the same information transfer are troubling.

That agreement allows the following. The information forwarded will be the passenger name record, which is the file the travel agent creates when we book a vacation. This is the kind of information that the passenger name record can include: our credit card information, who we are travelling with, our hotel, other booking information such as tours or rental cars, any medical condition of the passenger that may have been disclosed, dietary preferences, our email address, our employer information, our telephone information, our baggage information, and again, with whom we may be travelling.

This is the kind of information that this piece of legislation would permit Canadian airlines to send to American security authorities without those Canadian passengers even knowing about, even if those Canadians have chosen not to fly to the United States. A Canadian could get up and say that they do not want to go to the United States, that they will not fly there, and they still may be subject to having highly personal information about the passenger being sent to American security authorities simply because that aircraft touches American airspace.

This information collected, as we know in some of these other agreements, can be retained by the United States for up to 40 years. The information may be forwarded to the security service of a third nation without the consent or notification of the other signatory.

No person may known what information is being held about them by the United States and may not correct that information even if there are errors. The United States may unilaterally amend the agreement as long as it advises the EU of the changes. There has already been one amendment whereby all documents held by the EU concerning the agreement shall not be publicly released for 10 years, and that is clearly an attempt to avoid access to information requests.

Those are the kinds of details that exist in agreements that we know of and we have every reason to believe are the kind of details that would exist if this very flawed bill were to become law.

Again, as has been pointed out by my colleague, the government has a penchant for coming up with little nicknames for its bills, and this bill has been described by the government as the “strengthening aviation security act”. A true description of the bill would be the “violating Canadians' privacy act”, because that is exactly what the bill would do.

I want to talk a little about this, because we do not hear the government going out to the public talking about it. I have not heard the Prime Minister or any cabinet minister tell Canadians that the government is secretly negotiating a deal that would see flight information about Canadians transferred to the United States government, even if one chose not to fly to the United States.

I am going to mention two very pivotal words that I think ought to be in every parliamentarian's mind as we discuss this bill. One is “sovereignty” and the second is “privacy”, and there is a dramatic effect in violating those two principles of Canadians' rights.

If a person has the same name as someone on a list, he or she may be questioned, delayed, or even barred from flight. Even if one's name does not match, Homeland Security has told the airlines that the person may be denied a boarding pass, or if the person already has a boarding pass, he or she should be watched.

These are the kinds of real life examples and impacts that this legislation will have on Canadians.

I want to talk about what some eminent Canadians who study these issues have to say about this bill. Ms. Chantal Bernier, the Assistant Privacy Commissioner of Canada, testified before the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in May and said:

[P]rivacy 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.

Let us just pause here. How is it possibly relevant to the United States to know the dietary preferences, the medical conditions, the home telephone numbers, or who a Canadian rents a car from if he or she flies from Canada to Mexico for a holiday? How is that any of their business? How does that enhance security?

The Assistant Privacy Commissioner of Canada also said:

The first [principle] is that 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.

What necessity has been demonstrated? We do not know, because this again is an agreement negotiated in secrecy.

Before we violate Canadians' right to privacy, Canadians have a right to know upon what basis that privacy is going to be infringed. Let us get the onus correct here. Canadians do not have to demonstrate why we have a right to privacy, the state has to demonstrate why it seeks to take that away. We have no evidence to suggest that there is any reasonable basis as to why Canadians need to give their information to American security institutions if Canadians are not even flying to the United States.

I want to talk about what Roch Tassé had to say when he testified before the public safety committee. He is with the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group. He said:

These regulations give the U.S. access to a whole subset of information on air passengers who are not entering the U.S. but merely overflying its airspace. The program gives the government of a foreign country a de facto right to decide who gets to travel to and from Canada, since the vast majority of Canadian flights to and from Europe and all the flights, of course, to Latin America and the Caribbean will overfly U.S. territory.

Let us stop and think about that. Every single flight to Latin America, every flight to the Caribbean, and most flights to Europe would be caught by this legislation and Canadians would have to send their information to the U.S.

He also said:

There are other concerns related to Canada's sovereignty. For example, half the cabinet of Evo Morales in Bolivia are persona non grata in the United States, so if Canada were to invite one of those ministers for a diplomatic meeting in Canada it is ultimately the U.S. that would decide if that minister has the right to come to Canada after being invited by the Canadian government. The same could apply to refugee claimants from Colombia, who, even if they were admitted by Canada, could be denied the possibility of leaving their country by the U.S.

Disclosure of personal information to the Department of Homeland Security on passengers travelling to certain [controversial in the opinion of the United States] destinations, particularly Cuba, could lead to very unpleasant consequences. ... [T]his information could be used to identify Canadian companies that do business with Cuba or penalize travellers who have visited Cuba by subsequently refusing them entry to the U.S.

He asked:

How will Canada ensure that the U.S. does not use the secure flight program to apply its Helms-Burton Act, which imposes penalties on foreign companies that do business with Cuba?

His organization pointed out that it had received testimony from several Canadians who have already been intercepted as false positives by the U.S. list in Canadian airports and have been told by the Department of Homeland Security that the secure flight redress mechanism does not apply to them because the incident did not even occur on U.S. territory. Once again, that leaves Canadians with absolute restrictions on the right to travel with no mechanism for redress.

I want to talk a bit about safety and security. The government, which touts this bill as somehow strengthening security, is the same government that earlier this year cut the funding to provide armed police patrols in Canadian airports. This week the government announced that it was cutting the funding that had up to 50 air marshals on Canadian aircraft.

What keeps Canadians safer, sending private information about Canadians to the Americans when they are not even going to the United States, violating Canadians' privacy, or actually having patrols in our airports and air marshals on our aircraft? Shockingly and astonishingly, the government cut the latter two things and is selling out Canadians' privacy interests.

Ever since 9/11, we have said that we want to protect our way of life and that we do not want to give in to terrorism that would seek to disrupt the traditional rights that we enjoy, the right to privacy, the right to freedom, the right to rule of law and the right to live in a modern, mature democracy, because to do so would then, in a perverse way, allow those who practice terrorism to win.

If that is true, and that phrase has often been said by members on the government side, then let us apply that lens to this. Here we are, nine years after 9/11, and we are debating legislation in the House of Commons that would violate Canadians' privacy rights and force Canadians to send information about their personal lives to the United States security institutions when they are not even going to the United States.

This bill would effectively allow the United States to determine when Canadians can leave Canada to fly to many destinations in the world that have nothing to do with the United States. This bill violates Canadians' freedoms, mobility rights and rights to privacy and it is all done in the name of security and keeping us secure. We cannot sacrifice freedom and privacy in the name of protecting liberty. It is a vicious cycle. It does not make sense and it is illogical.

As was pointed out by Madame Bernier, we can have respect for rights, for privacy, for freedom and for mobility, and concoct an effective security mechanism in this country. This bill does not do that. This bill is a one-sided assault on Canadians' privacy, freedom and mobility.

The issue of reciprocity has also been raised and the fact that the Americans, according to what we can discern from this legislation, have put pressure on Canada to agree to these very one-sided and very unfair provisions that violate Canadians' privacy rights. We do not even know if Canada has secured a reciprocal agreement from the United States, not that I think that would make this any better. It does not make Canadians feel any better to know that American citizens may have had their privacy rights and their free movement also truncated by legislation.

What all Canadian and American citizens share in common, I believe, is that we stand up and fight for our rights to live in a free, democratic society and that we fight for our rights and respect our rights to live in a country where our privacy is respected and cherished. We do not want to give up those rights, whether we live in the United States or in Canada. This bill, which would violate those very principles, is put before the House of Commons with hardly a whimper from the other side.

I must point out what is a bit puzzling for me. The Conservatives tend to use and toss around words like “freedom and human rights” quite a bit. The Prime Minister is in Europe today talking about those very concepts in the Ukraine. He actually mentioned human rights and freedom and here we are in Canada debating a bill in the House of Commons that would violate Canadians' personal private right to control information about themselves and may potentially limit their mobility by a decision of a different government that is not even democratically accountable to its citizens. Therefore, a decision made by homeland security in the United States may determine whether someone in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto or St. John's can actually fly to the Caribbean for a holiday at Christmas. If that is a wrong decision, people would not even know and they have no mechanism to redress it.

There is a concept called responsible government and a concept of no taxation without representation. This violates those principles as well. Citizens need to have the ability to influence the policies that impact on their daily lives and that is why this bill violates that and it violates Canadians' right to sovereignty. If we make a bad law in the House of Commons, Canadians have the ability and the right to remove us from office and replace us with someone else. However, how does a Canadian get at an American politician who might make a rule or a law or implement a decision of homeland security that Canadians have no way of knowing about or even addressing? That is fundamentally unjust.

This bill, which would amend the Aeronautics Act, ought to be sent right back to the trash heap from whence it came. Canadians have a right to know exactly what agreements are being negotiated between the Canadian government and any other state about their private information and about any information that may impact or impede their ability to go where they want to go in the world.

It has already been pointed out that we have had real life examples of this. We have the case of Maher Arar. Lest Canadians think that something bad cannot happen to them, Maher Arar was picked up by authorities in the United States and sent to Syria where he spent 10 months in what has been described as a grave-like cell. The Canadian government in 2007 had to pay him over $10 million of taxpayer money because his rights were violated. Why? It was because information was used by the United States against a Canadian citizen and that person suffered torture and unbelievable harm as a result of that.

Has the government learned from that lesson? I do not think so, not if it tables legislation here that would enshrine potentially thousands of Maher Arars. Any Canadian travelling from a Canadian airport would run the risk of having his or her name and personal information similarly misunderstood and misapplied by the American security institutions with no avenue of redress. Again, that is wrong.

I want to point out again that this is not for a Canadian citizen who is flying to the United States. If that were the case, the present Aeronautics Act already allows information to go to the U.S. security apparatus if people are flying to the United States, which is reasonable because Canadians can choose not to fly to the United States if they do not want their information to go there. However, this would allow the United States to get information about a Canadian, notwithstanding that the Canadian is not flying to the United States but is choosing to fly somewhere else in world. That is astonishingly misconceived.

Canadians want to live in a secure country but they do not want to sacrifice their fundamental liberties to do so. Once again, we can live in a country where we rationalize our need for security and safety and our respect for our fundamental rights that we have as Canadian citizens living in a mature western democracy. In fact, as parliamentarians, that is exactly what we should be doing. We should always be seeking to ensure that balance is maintained.

Benjamin Franklin said that those who would sacrifice their liberty to gain a little security deserve neither.

I hope that when government members read this legislation they will go to their cabinet ministers and the minister responsible and tell them that this bill would violate our liberties and harm our constituents. Any time a constituent wants to fly to Mexico or somewhere--

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Thunder Bay--Superior North.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as usual, the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway is well informed and quite erudite. I am quite impressed. I thank him for doing such a good job of describing what is happening and the implications of this bill.

I wonder if he would be willing to share his opinion on why such a silly bill is being promulgated. Is it that the Conservatives are more concerned about the wishes of foreign countries than they are about Canadians' right to privacy? Is it that the Conservatives are paranoid on this issue? Worst of all, is this a deliberate strategy, learned from George Bush and Dick Cheney, on how to instill false panic among Canadians so that they will not notice the largest deficit in Canadian history and the loss of Canadian democratic rights?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I remember a time in this country when Canadians were proud of the fact that their government charted an independent course on the world stage and where we acted with respect and maturity but had no problem telling other countries that we will fight for and protect Canadians' rights.

I remember a time when Canadians expected their government to stand up to attempts by governments, the U.S. government in particular, to violate Canadians' expectations of sovereignty. I cannot explain exactly why that does not seem to be a priority for the Conservative government.

The Conservative government has left a Canadian citizen languishing in Guantanamo Bay. It is the only government in the world that has let one of its nationals stay in an illegal U.S. prison in Cuba and not do anything to repatriate that person.

[An hon. member]

A Canadian child.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

A Canadian child at the time.

The government has failed to repatriate many Canadians convicted of crimes abroad. It wants to make it easier to refuse entrance to those Canadians to serve their sentence in Canada. Never before in my lifetime have I seen a time when the Canadian government is less interested in standing up for Canadians and protecting their rights on the world stage. This bill is further evidence of that.

This bill has been described as nothing more than a data mining exercise for U.S. security institutions to get information rapaciously about any person in the world so Americans can think they are secure. However, there are other principles besides security in this world. There is privacy, liberty, freedom, respect and sovereignty. I would commend the government to pay attention to these principles as well.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the course of this debate, we have heard quite a bit about the fact that rules are already in place that help to provide for the security of Canadian citizens. According to this bill, we would be taking this one step forward, whether it is the creation of a no-fly list or whether it is providing security information to other countries, and, invariably, the United States of America keeps coming up as one of the places that could use or possibly abuse this information. We juxtapose that with personal liberties and the fact that we respect privacy in this country and, I gather from my colleague, this bill would truly violate those liberties that we hold so dear.

With the current rules in place, how would this bill make it that much more insulting? I am not saying that I do not disagree with that but would the member just bare down the details of the bill on how this would be an insult to our personal liberties and freedoms?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is obvious from a reading of the bill itself. It requires Canadian airlines, which currently control information about their passengers, to send information to the United States about every passenger, whether or not the aircraft is going to land in the United States. The plane may only touch U.S. airspace.

Under the current Aeronautics Act, information about the passengers is sent to the American authorities if the plane is going to land in the United States. That is reasonable.

But requiring Canadian airlines to give passenger information to American security institutions when the plane is not even going to land in the United States may have the effect of compelling the airline to refuse to board a person because the Americans will not let the person fly over their airspace.

In effect, the American government will determine when a Canadian citizen can fly to a non-U.S. destination.

I cannot explain it any simpler than that. It is a profound violation of Canadians' mobility rights, a fundamental abdication by the Canadian government of its responsibility toward its citizens. The government has a duty to facilitate Canadians' ability to travel where they want unless there is a good reason not to do so.

This bill eviscerates the notion of responsible government as well as Canadians' rights of privacy and sovereignty. What Canada should do is say to the United States, “With respect, we will not give you information about our Canadian citizens when our citizens are not even coming to your country”.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I have a practical question which I presume all Canadians would want to have answered.

What exactly is the effect of this list of information? Does this mean that the Americans can prevent a person from boarding a plane that will overfly the United States? Who is it going to apply to?

We have practical questions, complaints, and concerns from citizens. For example, if a couple shows up on a flight to Florida with their three children, and the husband has a criminal record that might be 40 years old, and the American authorities have information about the criminal record but no record of a subsequent pardon, is this man at risk of being deplaned while the children and spouse carry on? Information might be considered inconsequential in Canada but not in the U.S.

Can the member give us any assurance that this is innocuous? The member forBonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor said it would make no difference. My concern is that it makes practical differences, but we do not yet know what they are.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I can quote the Liberal transport critic, who said, “Canadian sovereignty has gone right out the window with this bill. You're going to be subject to American law”.

In answer to my hon. colleague from St. John's, the practical answer is yes. Yes, it means that a Canadian could be prevented from boarding an aircraft because of what the Department of Homeland Security says.

If a person's name matches someone on an American no-fly list, the person may be questioned or barred from that flight. Even if the person's name does not match, Homeland Security tells the airline in Canada whether or not the person can be issued a boarding pass.

Talk about an abdication of sovereignty. We are letting the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. decide who gets to board an aircraft in Canada to fly from Canada to a country other than the United States. The consequences of this could be devastating.

Canadians cross the border every day to the United States, and we are stating to experience more risk of being denied entry to the United States because of information we know nothing of, with no mechanisms of redress.

The United States is trying to reach into Canada and control our travel to countries other than the United States. This is wrong. It is a violation of our sovereignty. It is a violation of Canadians' privacy. It is a fundamental question of Canadian sovereignty, and I would hope that the government stands up for those principles, as it likes to claim.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, for many Canadians who are unemployed because of Conservative government's actions, and who are taking a breather from hitting the streets to look for work by watching the House of Commons on CPAC today, what they have seen is a common theme.

Earlier today, the Conservatives were trying to foster the trade bill with Panama, a country that tied for the worst in the world in the laundering of drug money. The government essentially wants to give the regime in Panama a vote of confidence and allow Canadian companies and individuals to launder money in Panama.

Here it has gone one up. Clearly, the Conservative government has jumped the shark. This was the government that was supposed to be strong on privacy, strong on crime issues, and what we are seeing is that it is encouraging money laundering. Now, as my colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, said earlier, it is ripping up the rule book on the Privacy Act.

This is not a long bill. This is a bill of exactly one page, but what it says should be of some concern to all Canadians who want their personal information protected.

Regarding section 4.83 of the Aeronautics Act, this bill says, “Despite section 5 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act”, despite what currently exists, which is personal information protection and electronic document protection, it is throwing all of that out the window. Now when an aircraft leaving Canada either lands in a foreign state or flies over the foreign state, all the information that is on the passenger name record is available to the foreign state.

Let us recap. The government has thrown the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act out the window. If a person is landing in a foreign state or flying over the state going somewhere else, it is open season on that person's information.

It is hard to believe how irresponsible the government is becoming. It is not just the corruption allegations that we are hearing daily. It is not just the incredibly bloated deficit, the inability to control spending, the fake lake, or the inability to deliver any programs that actually improve the lives of Canadians. It has not destroyed health care yet, but it would like to if it were given the opportunity. It is not just that. It is that now it is doing things that are--

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, order. I would ask the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster to come to order when the Speaker asks him to.

The hon. member for Wetaskiwin is rising on a point of order.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I respect the opinions of all members. We parliamentarians are allowed to speak on matters that are important to our country, to our constituents. However, a matter of relevance should be brought to question the hon. member's comments. I believe that he is speaking off the cuff in an attempt to filibuster this bill. If he could get back to the relevance of the bill before the House, that would be great.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I thank the hon. member for Wetaskiwin. I am sure the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster will keep the rules of relevance in mind as he finishes his speech.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my comments are relevant, but it is not something Conservative members like to hear. They will be hearing it more and more, however, from the public in their ridings. When we look at the implications of Bill C-42, when we couple it with all of the other inept actions of the current government, Canadians should be really concerned about what is going to happen to their personal information.

This short bill rips up the Privacy Act. This short bill says that if we just fly over a foreign country, never mind whether we land there, all of a sudden our personal information can be passed over to the foreign state, whose laws we do not know.

Who is the current government signing this deal with? It is signing it with the United States. But it is also signing it with Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Panama. These are not countries known for their openness. In fact, Mexico rates very low on the international scale of corruption, the Dominican Republic is not a democracy, and Panama is now tied for worst in the world, according to the IRS, for laundering drug money. Yet, the Conservatives want to give the Panamanian secret service open access to Canadians' private information. That is brilliant, but not at all corresponding to what they said.

Back in 2007, the government, before it jumped ship and decided not to pay any attention to Canadians' wishes, issued a press releasing saying how strongly it opposed doing what it is doing today. It said it opposed handing over the personal information of Canadians to the U.S. It also said that the consent to give access to personal privacy records was central to Canadian privacy standards. A year later, before that first prorogation, when the government was on the ropes, it assured us that this type of program would not apply to Canadians. It said that the U.S. had said that a program of this nature would exempt countries like ours with comparable security systems.

This was in response to planted questions during question period from the government's own members.

At the time, the Minister of Transport said they were not going to go that route. The minister said, “Our government is committed to respecting the safety, security and privacy of each and every Canadian”.

Today, with Bill C-42, the government has thrown that out the window. All of its pretensions, all of its promises, like the promise to have prudent financial management, or the promise to respond to the needs of rural and northern Canadians, have been ripped up. Now we see that the commitments made in 2007, 2008, and 2009 have been ripped up and replaced by this bill, which would do the exact opposite.

What is in the passenger name record that is now being handed over to intelligence agencies in places like Panama and the Dominican Republic, simply for the act of flying over? If we want to fly over those states, the current Conservative government is saying our records are free game.

This is where it gets very interesting and very worrisome for those Canadians who value their privacy.

I know the member for Wetaskiwin will want to jump up on this, but for the government to ditch the long form census, to rip it up because of so-called privacy concerns, when it is willing to do this, is an absolute crock. It is pure hypocrisy. On the one hand, the government says it is going to rip up the long form census. On the other hand, the government says it is going to give people's personal information on the passenger records to the secret service of Panama. There is no problem at all.

For Canadians who are not aware of this, the passenger name record is a file that is created by the travel agent when the ticket is booked. This system was created by the travel industry to facilitate travel. The booking information is passed along. It is considered confidential and private. That is why in this bill the government is ripping up the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, because it is protected information now. It can contain credit card information, who a person is travelling with, where a person is staying, the person's home address and other contact information, any medical conditions the person suffers from, even what the person ate on the plane. That is the passenger name record that is protected by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which would be ripped up by the government.

Now the government is saying that personal information would be shipped to the Dominican Republic's secret service or the Panamanian secret service for the simple act of flying over part of a country to get to somewhere else. Is that absurd and irresponsible? Absolutely, but that is what the government is purporting to do in this bill.

It will be interesting to see over the course of the next few hours whether any Conservative members are going to have the guts to stand up and try to defend this action. This is in direct contradiction to the promises they made prior to the election campaign and in direct contradiction to the promises they made subsequently, even in response to Conservative members' own questions.

Does this bill that rips up the privacy act correspond in any way to the prudent collection and protection of personal information? It does not. It would be worthwhile to take a few minutes to talk about what the government should be doing and what it has not done.

For example, the European Commission has established principles for data collection that must be observed. These principles include, first, a purpose limitation. Private personal information has to be processed for a specific purpose and subsequently used or further communicated only in so far as it is not incompatible with the purpose of the transfer, in other words, one purpose. That is not contained in this bill in any way.

Second is the information quality and proportionality principle. The information should be accurate and kept up to date. The information should be adequate, relevant, and not excessive in relation to the purposes for which it is transferred and further processed.

That is not in this bill at all. There are no safeguards at all. There is one paragraph on ripping up the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act with respect to air travellers, but there is nothing that replaces or puts into place any protections subsequent to that.

Third is the transparency principle. Individuals should be provided with information as to the purpose of the processing and the identity of those in control of the information in the third country.

This bill does nothing of the sort. It is transferred wholesale and the individual would not even be aware that if he or she flew over Panama his or her personal credit card information may be given to the Panamanian secret service.

Fourth is the security principle. Technical and organizational security measures have to be taken by those in control of the information appropriate to the risk presented by the processing.

Again, there is not a single word of protection and security of that information in this bill.

Fifth is the right to access rectification and opposition principle. The subject of the information should have the right to obtain a copy of all the information relating to him or her that is processed and a right of rectification of the information that is inaccurate.

There again, there is not a single word regarding that European Commission principle on data transfer and personal information in the bill.

Sixth is the restriction on outward transfers. Transfers of personal information to further countries should be permitted only where the second country is also subject to the same rules as the country originally receiving the information. That is perhaps the most important.

Here we have a bill that rips up protections offered to Canadians and does not provide any of the principles that are best practices worldwide. I mentioned the European Commission. These are best practices in any industrialized first country. Yet the transfers of the personal information is given over to the Panamanian government, or to the Panamanian secret service, or to the Dominican Republic and its secret service. As we know, that country is not a democracy and yet it is included in this bill and there are no protections at all.

All six of the principles of personal information protection, security and data management are violated in the bill. It is not as if the Conservatives missed by a few words, that they almost got it right, that they really tried to protect Canadians' personal privacy and just missed one of those principles because they did it too quickly, as they do with many of their crime bills on the back of a napkin. They mess up and then the bill goes to committee and the member for Windsor—Tecumseh endeavours to fix the errors. Sometimes we are able to fix them, but sometimes the Conservatives do not co-operate. But we are not talking about missing it by an inch, or a foot, or a metre, we are talking about missing it by a country mile. The Conservatives did not include a single one of the six principles of personal information protection, not a single one. They ripped up the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and did not replace it with anything. It is open season.

If people fly over Panama, their information is gone and there is not a single element of protection in this two clause bill. The Conservatives did not seem to understand the problem, except when we go back to the commitments made over the last three years. They obviously understood in 2007 when they committed not to do this. They obviously understood in 2008 and 2009 when they said they would not do this. Now it is 2010 and they toss this bomb on the floor of the House of Commons for all Canadians who are concerned about their personal information being spread far and wide and there is not even an explanation.

The Conservatives have not stood up in the House and tried to defend or explain this bill. Maybe it is because the Prime Minister's Office has not issued its one page of speaking notes. Still, one has to wonder when they do something so irresponsibly, not ineptly in this case, because they have not responded to any of the data management protection, any of the personal information protection. They have not responded at all. They have just acted as if people can hand over their credit card information and it is okay if a Panamanian secret service agent has it. It is no problem at all, say the Conservatives.

In this corner of the House we tend to review legislation very critically. We go through it word by word. In this corner of the House we are not standing for that kind of irresponsible behaviour.

There is a wide range of people who have spoken against the bill and have raised concerns about it. I want to mention two.

Roch Tassé of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said about this bill that the Americans will have a veto on every passenger who gets on a plane in Canada even if they passengers are not going to set foot on American soil. Mr. Tassé asked what would happen if Canada invited the ambassador from a country such as Cuba, if we now have to share that personal information even if the plane is just flying over the United States. What could the consequences be?

More important, the Air Transport Association of Canada has said:

The submission of Canadian passengers' details by Canadian airlines violates Canada's laws on the protection of personal information and electronic documents, as well as laws on aeronautics.

That is why we are seeing this bill today. Because it violates Canada's laws, the government through some subterfuge is trying to get this through the House of Commons hoping that opposition members will not be concerned about what is a wholesale handover of Canadians' personal information.

In this corner of the House, NDP members always stand up for ordinary Canadian families. We are the ones who stand up. We are the ones who have read through this document. We are saying that this is irresponsible, inappropriate and we are not going to stand for it.

The fact is that the government has put forward a bill that removes personal information protection, removes that key component and yet in no way replaces it with any of the principles of data management, of personal information protection. The fact that the government is doing this is highly irresponsible. It is something that the NDP will oppose.

As our critic, the member for Western Arctic, has said so eloquently in this House, we are not going to allow information, such as credit card information, whom people are travelling with, where they are staying, their home and other contact information, medical conditions, even such details as what people ate on the plane to be dispatched wholesale, left, right and centre, without any due regard to protection of personal privacy or protection of personal information. We are simply not going to stand for that.

Finally, I am going to cite a comment from a United Kingdom House of Lords' European Union Select Committee report on the passenger name record:

We believe that the use of PNR data for general law enforcement purposes...is undesirable and unacceptable.

We have had comment after comment from people who are concerned about protection of privacy rights and people who are concerned about personal information protection. We have had very eloquent comments from a number of members of Parliament, particularly from this caucus. There has been a very strong reaction. What the government should be doing with this bill is it should be taking a step back. This is a violation of its promise and commitment to Canadians, and it should withdraw this bill. We certainly hope it will do that having heard the comments about this atrocious bit of legislation.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

There will be 10 minutes for questions and comments consequent on the hon. member's speech when debate resumes on this bill.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

When this matter was last before the House, the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster had the floor and he had concluded his remarks. There are 10 minutes remaining for questions and comments consequent upon the hon. member's speech.

The hon. member for Western Arctic.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's excellent speech really touched on the main issue.

The main issue, and our contention with the bill, is the failure of the government to provide protection for privacy issues within the potential agreements that could be signed with a number of countries around the world. The agreements would be signed in secret without any accompanying understanding of how our privacy rights are protected.

Could my colleague perhaps elaborate further on this situation and how we could alleviate it and what kinds of changes could have been instituted to the legislation to make it more palatable?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to praise the member for Western Arctic for the work he does on the transport committee and in the House. He has been first and foremost in fighting for transportation safety in this Parliament. In the previous Parliament, he fought to stop the government's irresponsible plans around self-managed safety systems, or basically self-serve safety, the famous SMS systems, in the airline industry. He managed to stop the government cold from doing to the airline industry what it irresponsibly did to the railway industry. We certainly saw an increase in accidents and derailments in the railway industry.

His work there and now his work on Bill C-42 shows that he has the concerns of Canadian families from coast to coast to coast, since he represents the Arctic in mind. It is because of his incredible efforts in the House that more and more Canadians are becoming aware of what the government is intending to do with Bill C-42. It is ripping up personal information protection and allowing personal confidential information, in an unprotected way, to be given to other countries, like the Dominican Republic, which is an authoritarian government, or Panama, which ranks among the world's worst in terms of dirty money laundering and tax havens.

What the government could have done, to answer the member for Western Arctic's question, is put in place the principles around confidentiality and protection of private information, which include, most notable among the six principles that the European Commission has adopted, the restriction on aberrant transfers, that we can only transfer information to third parties or third countries when it is protected.

In this case, as we know, and as the member for Western Arctic has very eloquently raised in the House, the government did not do it. It did not get the job done. It did not even try to get the job done. It did not even try to apply any of those principles of protection of confidential and private information, not even one. That is why the bill is so bad. It did not even make the attempt to provide some protection of Canadians personal private information, including credit cards. It is clear that the government did not understand what it was doing, that it did not understand the implications and that now the current government really has to withdraw this bad bill.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about ripping up things. What the member is and has been ripping up are the facts. I would like to reiterate the facts for him. First, Canada asked for and received an exemption for domestic Canadian flights flying through U.S. air space. Second, the legislation only facilitates the sharing of information for flights to the United States or over U.S. sovereign air space to a third country.

If passed, any information that air carriers will be required to share with the United States are full name, date of birth and gender. This would amount to less information than is required to be included in a Canadian passport to cross the border. I do not understand what the member is trying to put forward, but clearly, if the information is confirmed not to be linked with terrorism, it will be erased after seven days.

I do not know what the member is going on about and the fearmongering that he is trying to cause, but clearly the information given to the United States is less information than that which is already given by individuals in a passport. What is the member on about now?

Would he please tell Canadians the facts because that is not what he has been talking about so far.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I like the member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca, even though he takes licence with the facts. We saw this with SMS and we heard the same promises. The government said that the bill was bad but it would fix it later in the regulations. That is apparently what he is doing now. He is saying that the bill is egregiously bad. In fact, any Canadian can go on the House of Commons website, look up Bill C-42, and find out what the government has concocted. It is a matter of real concern that the government is making some promises to try to fix what it did not do in the bill.

He raised the issue of domestic flights. This one paragraph bill rips up the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. It says that “an operator of an aircraft departing from Canada that is due to land in a foreign state or fly over a foreign state and land outside Canada” is subject to providing Canadians' private, personal information.

He has raised this red herring that flying from Vancouver to Winnipeg is exempt, and he is trying to say that this is some kind of victory. This is a bit disingenuous, just a bit. The Air Transport Association of Canada has clearly said that “the submission of Canadian passengers' details by Canadian airlines violates Canada's laws on the protection of personal information and electronic documents, as well as laws on aeronautics”.

We rest our case. The Air Transport Association of Canada agrees with us, not with him, and I think most Canadians agree with us, not with him.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that when we are flying over a country but not landing there, it has to be on a list requesting that information. The United States is on the list, but it has provided an exemption. My understanding is that it is the only country on the list.

Can the U.S. just withdraw that exemption? What stops it from withdrawing it?

What is to stop any other country from asking to be on that list? Would we have to provide other countries with information just for flying over them?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has raised an appropriate question.

It is not just that this personal information can now go to the United States, Mexico, or Panama, the drug haven that the Conservatives seem to love. We had a Panama trade bill earlier. Now we have disclosure of personal information going through to Panama. According to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Panama is tied for worst in the world in the laundering of drug money. The Hells Angels just love this Conservative initiative to build these relationships with Panama, but most Canadians should be concerned.

The member for Yukon is absolutely right to ask how this might be expanded. This is unclear, but we know the Conservatives' obsession with laundering drug money. This is something they will have to explain when they speak to the bill. They have not said a word about it in the House. I think they are ashamed, either that or the Prime Minister's Office has not sent the line that they are all supposed to read. But Conservatives will have to explain what is going on over there, why they are doing this, why they are obsessed with giving Canadians' personal information up to third countries, and why they want to give this information to the Dominican Republic and Panama.

It is all irresponsible. It is all inappropriate. That is why we are saying, in this corner of the House, that they should withdraw this bad bill. There is simply no justification for what the government is doing.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-42 and support my colleagues in the House of Commons.

The member for Burnaby—New Westminster is absolutely correct. With regard to safety management systems and other deregulatory matters, the government has put passengers at risk. It is attempting to say that it is doing this for security reasons, but that is certainly not true.

I want to start with the privacy aspects of this bill. The Patriot Act in the United States gives all kinds of liberties to the U.S. departments and agencies. However, one of the things that we need to put on the record is that the passenger name record is part of this agreement. That is what is required for these secret treaties that take place.

The PNR is a file created by the travel agent when someone books a ticket. It is a system created by the travel industry to facilitate travel, so that all bookings and other information are passed along as people move from one travel company to another. The PNR can contain information on credit cards, other passengers on the same flight, locations travelled to, phone numbers, medical conditions, and even food eaten on the plane.

That is what the PNR can provide, and the information can now be available to several countries that are now going to have access to travellers' personal information, with no stopgap.

One of the things I want to touch on is the U.S. Patriot Act. I think it is an important model to look at, because right now Canadian information can be accessed in the United States. The requirement of the Patriot Act is that the company cannot tell people when they are accessing that information. That information can be granted to the American law enforcement agencies.

There is no agreement or consent on how that information is used or scrubbed or where it goes. That is the reality.

It is interesting that the previous administration, the Liberals, outsourced the census data collection agency. We fought to keep it in-house, because Lockheed Martin had its data collection system in the United States.

In the end, all the Canadian census information, all the private information that we had under the control of the Privacy Commissioner, became null and void. Once it went to the United States to be assembled, there was no way it could be recovered. We could not know when, how, or where that information was going, because by law this cannot be disclosed.

CIBC, which has its data management evaluated in the United States, is vulnerable to having its information accessed through the Patriot Act. Once again, it is against the law for CIBC to notify customers that this information has been accessed.

That is one of the things that many civil liberty organizations have been fighting for years, and this is going to be happening under Bill C-42. All the information that is out there is going to be in their systems, and we will not know when or how it is used under the Patriot Act.

The European data collection systems operate under certain principles. At least they have some backstops for privacy.

It is interesting to talk about airline security, what is happening out there, and how this is going to help. I want to bring up a local case of airline security. It showed that some of the common sense solutions are not working. Even though the U.S. is a big proponent of infringement on Canadian civil liberties, they have serious problems in their own maintenance of airline security. None was more compelling than that of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the attempted bomber who landed in Detroit, Michigan, near my area, 40 kilometres away from the border.

It is important to note that he flew from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan. He had started in the Middle East. This was the famous underwear bomber who had to be tackled and subdued. He flew across part of Canada, too. He showed up at the airport and got a one-way ticket to Detroit, with no baggage and no winter clothing in the middle of winter.

American officials were tipped off a week earlier about the possibility and did nothing about it.

We heard nothing but deafening silence from the government about this security breach. It put Canadians at risk because the plane travelled across parts of Quebec and Ontario and back into Detroit. All these extra elements would not have made a difference, because common sense was not applied in this case. Instead of raising this with the U.S., we did nothing. That was unfortunate.

These are opportunities to point out that we in Canada do some good things here, not to chastise the United States. This was an opportunity to let the Americans know that we protect privacy.

During the U.S. election several comments were made about the 9/11 attackers coming from Canada. Comments were made about Canada being weak on terrorism. The reality is that the terrorists had U.S. documents. They did not come from Canada. In fact, Canada played a significant role in 9/11 by allowing stranded airplanes to land. Many Canadian officials, volunteers, and members of fire departments went to Ground Zero later on. The U.S. continues to claim that we are weak on security. And we still do not have a full contestation. It is appalling at best.

I want to talk a bit about the European Commission's Data Protection Working Party. The commission set up six principles to guide it through the collection and transmission of personal information.

First, the purpose limitation principle states that private information should be processed for a specific purpose and subsequently used or further communicated only insofar as this is not incompatible with the purpose of the transfer. It is very specific in scope.

Second, the information quality and proportionality principle states that no excessive information should be provided, especially depending on flight information.

Third, the transparency principle requires that individuals be provided with information as to the purpose of the processing and the identity of those in control of the information in the third country and other information insofar as this is necessary to ensure fairness.

That is the one sticking point. It is a problem when dealing with the United States, our number-one trading partner.

Under the Patriot Act, this information can be accessed by government departments such as the FBI and the CIA. A judge could issue a release of information. We will not know how or when the information is used or where it goes. That is problematic, especially if one is not travelling to the United States. It is unfortunate. It is a situation that defies our historic aviation principles, and it is one that will expose people to data collection and privacy issues. Once again, we have no recourse.

Fourth, the right to access, rectification, and opposition principle states that the subject of the information should have the right to obtain a copy of all the information that is processed relating to him or her and the right to rectify the inaccurate information. In some situations the person should be able to object to the processing of the data relating to him or her.

Fifth, the person should be made aware of what the exposure will be and be able to choose whether or not to travel. They should know what they will be getting into if they are travelling. People can make a choice. People have a chance to have their say and make another decision if too much information is going to be exposed. Another means of transportation can be chosen, but there is a choice in the matter.

Sixth, there is a restriction on onward transfer principle. Transfers of personal information to further countries should be permitted only where the second country is also subject to the same rules as the country originally receiving the information.

There we have it. Once again, the Patriot Act is going to create problems for that, because it does not subscribe to any of those types of elements.

It is really important to talk about some of the civil liberties. Here is what some of the experts are saying.

Roch Tassé of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group 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 American soil”. Mr. Tassé added, “What will happen if Canada invites the ambassador from a country such as Cuba?”

These are situations where we have lost our sovereignty.

Living in a border town, I can say that our American friends and cousins are our greatest allies and we have so many people with so many strengths who travel back and forth. Literally thousands of nurses go from Windsor to Detroit every single day.

Generally speaking, the relations are good, but I have seen applications of an extreme nature take place. It is ironic. We have in Windsor doctors who the province and the federal government will not let practise in Canada with the credential barriers that they have. They are actually practising in Detroit. They go over there every day and they save American lives. At the border, though, they are treated as a security threat. That is the reality.

The ironic thing is that, even right now, sometimes in Windsor when we cannot get a specialist or we cannot get an appointment and there is nothing in London, for example, we will actually then send a Canadian over to an American hospital, who can get treated by a doctor who is not qualified supposedly in Canada and we will pay a premium for it. It is the most absurd thing that is happening.

We have seen these situations take place where, individually, people get singled out.

We had a number of high profile cases in the U.S. where people were put on the no-fly list, even including American politicians. It is not out of the realm that it could happen. So I think Mr. Tassé's comments are very good.

The Air Transport Association of Canada also made its grievances known. It believes the submission of Canadian passenger details by Canadian airlines violates Canada's laws on the protection of personal information and electronic documents, as well as laws on aeronautics. That was its opinion of this bill.

I would agree. When we look at the bill and what it does, it circumvents some of the privacy elements that we have built into the entire system.

This comes ironically at a time when the government is killing the long form mandatory census and bringing in a new national household survey. It was interesting, because when the government first came out with this, the minister argued that this would violate the privacy of Canadians and the government wanted to protect their privacy. The long form mandatory census is against that. It violates an individual's personal privacy.

I called the Privacy Commissioner's office and talked to the deputy and asked, how many cases are there of privacy having been breached or how many complaints do we get on the census? There had been a handful over the last 20 years. It turned out, when I asked whether the census goes through a privacy system, they said yes. They actually work with the census group and with the Privacy Commissioner. It goes through an audit there and also at Treasury Board to ensure that no one's personal privacy is affected. They described their working relationship as excellent. There was no weight at all to the minister claiming that the census was affecting personal privacy. There was no evidence provided to the Privacy Commission. The commission was actively engaged, and in fact, it actually changed some of the questions or some of the techniques of the census so that privacy is protected. It did that a number of different times.

I am going to wrap up by thanking our transport critic for working on the bill. It is an important issue for ourselves because we believe privacy and civil liberties have been trampled on at different times under the guise of security.

But in the case I mentioned before, which was in Detroit, there are obviously other techniques that can be employed. Simply do not let people on with a one-way ticket, no luggage and no screening of any significance, and even bomb material on the plane.

In these types of situations, if we are going to be looking at exposing Canadians' personal privacy through secret deals, then there needs to be backstopped, clear paths of recourse developed to ensure that Canadians are going to be protected.

The government of the day never did anything about challenging the Patriot Act, getting some clauses or some elements in there, in the U.S., to actually deal with the Canadian situation to make sure, at least, that if there was going to be an exposure, there would be some protection for them, some accountability.

That never happened. So at the end of the day we are left with this type of mess where Canadians' privacy is certainly going to be threatened and put at risk. I think it is unfortunate, because a lot of people probably will not even know this happens, the exposure of their personal privacy. In this day and age, that is something people still want to keep maintained.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise and ask the hon. member a question.

I think the hon. member misses that this is actually about safety, security, and keeping people safe. When the hon. member's constituents go from Windsor to the United States, when they even try to walk, drive, or fly across the border into the United States, or maybe to go to Mexico or Central America, they need a passport. They are required to present that passport to the United States official at the border, who in turn can deny them the right of entry into that sovereign space or in fact allow them.

What I do not get is that the legislation we are proposing is actually in the same manner. It is for people who are actually going into the United States' sovereign airspace, into another country. They are required to give their name, gender, and birthdate, which is actually less than what is required with a passport. That is what I do not understand.

This government actually already received an exemption. I would think the hon. member and the NDP would stand up and congratulate the Conservative government for standing up for the people of Canada, for receiving a personal exemption for flights that are going into U.S. sovereign space but are actually just going to take off in Canada and again land in Canada. We received an exemption for that.

Why is the hon. member not up here today congratulating this government for a great initiative, finding an exemption for Canadian citizens and making sure that we are working with our partners in the United States to keep Canadians and all the people we possibly can safe from terrorism? Why is the hon. member not up there today congratulating us for this great effort?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not reward people for poor efforts. This is unbelievable.

I talked about the passenger name record, which is going to be part of this deal. Regulations in this bill can alter the data accumulation.

At least a person has a choice. If I go to Detroit right now, across from my riding, I know I am going to give up my passport. That is okay. It is the official document that the U.S. requires, but they do not ask me for my credit card number and other information such as that. That is actually in the PNR. We know that. That is the reality.

The same thing could happen where there are flights from Windsor that go to Cuba, so they have to pass briefly through American airspace. They are now going to be up in the air in terms of the provision of that information.

We all know the political situation between the United States and Cuba and how volatile it is, but here we have something that is working. It is actually creating jobs, providing access to a historical friend of Canada in terms of working together more co-operatively than other countries have, and is now going to be subject to the PNR for that.

If there had been an attempt to get at least what Europe has in place, a structure to actually have some backstops to this, maybe we could start to look at that. Instead, no, they just said, “Here we go. We are okay with this”; they did not even go any further from that.

For that matter, we are simply not going to reward a poor effort or no effort at all.

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

Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether my colleague from Windsor West has looked at all of the efforts that the government says it has made to provide the Americans with a sense that the Canadian public travelling across American airspace is actually a secure and safe one.

Has he even looked at the $3.2 billion that the Government of Canada is taxing passengers in order to invest in new technologies to ensure that they are individuals who have no malice of intent? On that $3.2 billion tax by the Government of Canada to buy products that are supposed to convince Americans that Canadians are actually good people, is he not impressed with the fact that the Canadian government would have taxed Canadians to that extent, given that message to the Americans, and then walked away from the negotiating table because the Americans were not impressed?

Does he not think perhaps the Conservatives should tax us even more and squander even more money to provide a message to the world that Canadians are people of no malice of intent, and when they are passing over airspace, they have the security and the approval of their own government and they have the respect of their own government, even if the Government of Canada today has no respect from Homeland Security in the United States? Has he looked at that at all?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes, I have looked at it, Mr. Speaker, because when the Liberals brought this tax in, we raised concerns about the volume of the tax, the amount of it, the accountability, where it was to go, and there is a lengthy history of a series of problems around this initiative.

What is interesting, though, is that when we add all these layers that we have on our side, we have not gotten any respect back for it. At the same time, we have a government here that refuses to stand up for Canadians when it is necessary, so that at least at some point in time we can push back when our own security is put at risk, false statements are made, or new things are brought in.

At the border, we have seen all kinds of stuff. At the land border crossings, there have been fees and charges, a whole series of things that never existed before. They are just extra taxes on Canadian businesses that are stifling in terms of some processes at the border.

The reason I brought up Abdulmutallab's case, the Christmas Day terrorist attack, is because even the Department of Homeland Security's Janet Napolitano admitted that their system did not work. Why did the system not work? This fancy stuff did not work because they did not act on the actual call that came in that said he was unstable. There are indications in the reports that he looked dishevelled at the airport and another person bought his ticket. He got on with a one-way ticket, with no luggage and no winter gear, to go to Detroit, on the other side of the globe.

We do not challenge these things, but it went across Canadian airspace for quite a distance. What did we do? We did nothing. When we do nothing, we get no respect. When we get no respect, at the same time, we end up having to agree to these things. We have to get some respect back in this matter.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member for Windsor West would like the record changed. When he said he did look at the bill when it was first brought in by the Liberals, I think he meant the Conservatives. I am sure he will want to correct the record.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I stand corrected.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I am sure the House appreciates that clarification.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's comments with respect to the bill and I share his concerns.

We have a government across the way that tries to make itself look accountable, but it is not. We just have to look at what it has done with respect to information pertaining to veterans.

All of a sudden, we see a bill that wants to share information with other people, other countries. We know what happened with the no-fly list, how some people actually end up on that no-fly list by, basically, misinformation. We know what happened with the do not call list with respect to the system that was put in place, and now people are actually getting more calls, at times, than before the do not call list.

We understand about the PNR data in the bill. I want to ask my colleague whether there was any indication of how there would be some prevention of this information being misused.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is the whole thing. When the patriot act came into play, we did not object to anything. We did not demand a separate treaty, which is what was necessary. The provincial Governments of British Columbia and Quebec have tried to get their own treaty for the protection of information but many experts in the field believe it would not be strong enough and would not cover the challenge. It also would not cover all of Canada, which is what we needed.

We needed to have a separate treaty that dealt with how information expunged by the patriot act would be used and the processes where Canadians would have recall and the processes as to how that information would be expunged or destroyed once an investigation had taken place.

We have none of that because we did not do anything about it. Therefore, when we have situations like this taking place where a bill comes in and the U.S. demands to have information about people, even though they may not even be landing in the U.S. and are tens of thousands of kilometres above the United States or partially across its borders, we must provide that information because of the PNR.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak this afternoon to Bill C-42 and to follow my colleagues who have spoken so eloquently and thoughtfully on this bill, particularly the critic for our caucus, the member for the Western Arctic who understands this public business in a way that many of us could only hope we could.

He made his own excellent speech making a case for slowing this process down, really thinking it through and perhaps finding other ways of responding to some of the very real challenges and threats that are out there today that do not require throwing this huge net out to catch so many people for absolutely no reason and cause them all kinds of inconvenience when they want to go on a vacation or go to another country for a wedding or funeral.

I have seen in this place over the last number of years, from particularly the present government but the previous government as well, where we get brought into a culture that is developing in the United States, particularly since 9/11. We understand the difficult situation and the reality of 9/11. We know there needed to be a response but the response that we made and continue to make is one that I believe indicates that the terrorists won. If the terrorists wanted to throw a cloud over society, over the free movement of people and goods and over the kind of relationship that we were developing in North America between Canada, the United States and Mexico, they could not have done it better.

We keep buying into a culture of paranoia, fear and, as so many of my colleagues have said here over the last couple of days, of misinformation.

How many times do we need to hear another American politician say, very publicly and in the media, without any thought whatsoever it seems, that the terrorist who hit the United States on 9/11 came through Canada's borders and that we were somehow responsible, that we somehow played a part and that we somehow were negligent with the security that we implement at our border?

We know that is just not true in each incident. Thank god we have good ambassadors to the United States who pick up on those things and go after those misinformed American politicians who go out there, probably for personal political gain, to make these statements that are so wrong and so false and cast us in this very difficult, challenging and problematic light.

We heard another U.S. senator just last week make the very same statement. After all of these incidents, after challenging them so publicly, after our ambassadors went after those folks and told them they were wrong and after us making our case time and time again, we still have another American senator saying very clearly and confidently that somehow the terrorists of 9/11 came through U.S. borders from Canada and that somehow we had a responsibility for that.

This culture of fear, paranoia and misinformation does not serve any of us well. We see it in our own ridings, particularly those of us who have to deal with constituents who find themselves crossing the border to go into the United States.

I live in a border community and I see many constituents not being able to get across the border anymore. It is not because they have done anything wrong or that they are bad people. It is not because they have a track record of misbehaviour or criminal activity. It is because sometimes there is a mistake or they have the same name as somebody else born on the same date and information pops up on the computer, because everything is computerized now it seems, that indicates a red flag.

Some of those people in Sault Ste. Marie are often on their way to a medical appointment in London and go down through Michigan and over through Sarnia. They may be on their way to a family wedding or even a funeral of a loved one or a friend and they are challenged at the border and must come back. Oftentimes, these people come to my office asking me to deal with this in a matter of half an hour or an hour. Sometimes if I write a letter assuring the border officials that these people are legit, bona fide, and plead with them to give these people a break, cut them some slack and allow them to go across to the wedding, or whatever it is they have to do, and I give my personal assurance that they will return to Canada, they can sometimes get through.

Just as problematic and difficult is putting together these lists that we are calling for in Bill C-42. It is frightening. People who cross the border from Sault Ste. Marie to get to Michigan were perhaps in their teens back in the sixties and may have smoked a little grass. Those people may have a record, some may even have been pardoned but all of a sudden there is a red flag on their record and they cannot cross the border. After 20 or 30 years of good living, hard work, getting up in the morning and feeding their kids, paying their rent, paying taxes and being good citizens in our country, they are all of a sudden fearful, because of this culture of paranoia, that they will not be able to cross the border anymore.

People would be totally surprised at the insignificance of some of the incidents that pop up and that these people get challenged over. I could tell stories that would make people cry in terms of the treatment or the challenge that people confront, or the heartbreak because they cannot get across for a day or two to attend some personal event that is happening in the life of an individual or family. That is wrong.

We need to sit down with our neighbours to the south to figure out how we can catch people who may have wrongful intent, and we can do that. As a matter of fact, we have always done that and we have been very successful at it. That is why the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11 did not come from Canada. They were from inside the United States. We do a good job of looking after our border. We know who is living in our country and we have good people working in our security systems.

However, we continue to buy into more and more of what is often referred to as the thickening of the border, more and more of this new way of gathering and sharing information and the new technology that comes with that which is creating more and more inconvenience for ordinary citizens who just want to go about their business and are now afraid.

I have dealt with the problems of several people who came to my constituency office who were on the infamous no-fly list. We were successful in most cases but it took us forever.

People are absolutely stunned when they arrive at the airport and ask for their boarding pass and are told by the person behind the counter that there is a red flag and that they are on the no-fly list. They have absolutely no idea why. Sometimes they lose out on a trip they were going to make with their wife and family, a trip often paid for but one for which they cannot get their money back, because they are on the no-fly list and cannot get across the border.

That is just the beginning of it. To try to get them off that list is almost a Herculean task. What an effort. It goes on forever. First we have to find out who is responsible for the list and to whom we should talk in order to get the person's name off the list. We would think that after we had done it once or twice, we would have it figured out and there would be some kind of a shortcut to take to get this resolved, but no, that is not the case. In every instance, it is this long, drawn-out, prolonged, difficult, back and forth exercise. Sometimes it seems as though we are involved in espionage simply in trying to clear the name of a constituent. We are talking about members of the community who have lived the good life, who have kept their noses clean, have gotten up every morning to go to work, have paid their bills and taxes. We are talking about people who simply want to go through American airspace to another country for a little vacation or on business and who now may find themselves, even more than before when there was just a no-fly list, on another list that will stop them from doing what they want to do.

Someone asked just a few minutes ago what the problem is here, that we all have passports and we can just show our passports and away we go. I have to say that the experience in my office is that even with a bona fide Canadian passport, people can still get stopped. People can still get challenged at the border. People can still get turned back, because somebody somewhere has found something else that pops up, that is above and beyond the passport. With this new regime that we are considering here today, who knows what else might be out there waiting to catch people?

Some people may remember the western hemisphere initiative. We can tell this to our kids some day and they will wonder what we are talking about. There was a time in the relationship between Canada and the United States when people could actually flow freely back and forth across the border. People could go from Sault Ste. Marie, Canada to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. People married each other; because of the free flow we almost thought we were of similar citizenship. We really did. We were neighbours. Then all of a sudden one day we woke up and we were told that in a year or two we were going to need passports. We had to plan for that and it was a difficult experience.

I remember all the trips that colleagues from my caucus made to Washington to speak to senators, to tell them how foolish this was, how it was going to catch so many people and how it was going to affect the free flow of people and trade. We were told not to worry, that it will all be okay, that it will sort itself out, that in time we will not even notice that we have to show a passport. In my own instance and in my own community, this has become a huge problem.

Just with the traffic that flows back and forth nowadays on the bridge in Sault Ste. Marie from Ontario to Michigan, the numbers have plummeted. They have gone down significantly. I suggest it is because of some of this new public policy that we and our neighbours to the south have put in place.

I am sure it affected other industrial sectors, but it has certainly affected the tourism industry. We have a ski hill in Sault Ste. Marie with the best snow in the whole of the U.S. Midwest and into Canada. Searchmont ski hill used to bring in between 50,000 and 70,000 people a year to ski, particularly if it was a good winter. They are not coming as readily anymore because even though Canadians have become more and more accustomed to using a passport, our American friends have not, and they are not coming across the border. They are not coming here to ski, to stay in our hotels and to spend money anymore.

The snow train in Sault Ste. Marie used to bring in 100,000 people a year. We are lucky now if we get 40 people and the number is going down. It is terrible. It is shocking.

This is our economy. This is our bread and butter. This is what puts food on the table for workers in our neck of the woods. They work on the train. They keep the tracks clear. They provide the entertainment. It is a huge industry in Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma, and it has deteriorated significantly over the last couple of years as we have begun to experience the infamous western hemisphere initiative. Tourism is down.

I expect that if we bring in what we are talking about here under Bill C-42, right now it is Americans who are not coming here, but if people from other countries have to pass through American airspace and have to get on a list and be prior approved, the numbers will plummet even further.

What happened to the notion of free trade and fair trade, the free flow of people and the free flow of goods and services for a tourism industry in Canada and in northern Ontario that is as good as, if not better than, anywhere else in the world?

We are creating regimes here of public policy, of oversight, of throwing nets out that are catching people who perhaps we did not intend to catch. It is affecting us in a very negative and hurtful way.

We continue to make it more and more difficult. More and more with our public policy we are moving toward an integration with this American culture of paranoia, fear and misinformation.

We started out following on the coattails of the Americans as they were paranoid about the possibility of being attacked by other rogue regimes that might have rockets and nuclear weapons. They came up with the star wars idea which they wanted us to buy into. We said no. We looked at it and thought about it and looked at what it was going to cost and how successful it might be in the end. Some thoughtful, intelligent people look at it, and thankfully as a country we said no to star wars and it went away. We do not hear much anymore about that anti-missile net that we were going to set up to catch missiles from rogue countries.

Then we were invited by the Americans, again in their heightened state of true paranoia, to join them in the war in Iraq that was about weapons of mass destruction. At the end of the day we found that the weapons did not exist. Thankfully, we can give credit to the hundreds of thousands of people across this country who marched, rallied and gathered in town squares to say that this was not the right thing for Canada to get involved in. They were telling the Americans not to do it. They were telling the Brits not to do it. More important, they were telling our government not to follow suit, that it was not in our best interest and it was going to turn out bad.

After a few years of assessing that incursion, that war on Iraq by the Americans, we have decided that it probably was not the world's best moment. It probably was not the Americans' best moment.

It turned out that it was probably a good and smart decision, in keeping with the tradition of Canada as peacekeepers in the world, as a third entity that can bring a position to the table that might resolve conflict as opposed to adding to it.

Then we went on from there to passports. Now we are looking at--

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie has raised a few very important, serious issues, because they address themselves to the question not only of security but of internal security as well.

I wonder whether he has a reflection on what transpired at the beginning of the year. Remember now, we are all gripped and seized with the issue of criminality, whether it is on the ground or in the air.

The hon. member will know that there was a particular report that received a lot of attention here in Canada, via some of the daily press, regarding an expert who was coming here to attend a conference on the expansion of international criminal elements from a particular criminal organization vested in southern Italy, that there were tentacles here in Canada that were a threat to the peace and security of Canadians and Americans. I wonder whether the hon. member saw that. I know he follows this.

I wonder whether he has any reflections on the reasons that the Government of Canada refused to give that technical expert all of the protection that he receives whenever he travels anywhere else in the world and offers the benefit of his expertise for the safety and security of citizens everywhere around the world. The Government of Canada is presenting legislation to comply with an American act without negotiating, but in that instance, it had a specific situation that would have cost it nothing except to provide a couple of bodyguards. Why did the government walk away and say no? Why did some local off-duty police officers have to provide that individual with security here in Canada?

I am wondering whether the hon. member makes the connection about the intent of the Conservative government to stand up for its citizens and its system. Has he come to the conclusion, as many of us have here, that the Conservative government is a sound bite legislation government? It makes a lot of sound, but no bite.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, indeed I do remember that story. I found it odd, to say the least, that in that instance we would not be doing all that we could to make sure the person was made to feel safe in our country. We pride ourselves in being a country that does that kind of thing.

I reflect back on the billion dollars that was spent this summer to protect six or seven world leaders at a big meeting in Toronto. Yet for the small amount of money that it would have cost to extend a courtesy to that expert we brought in, it was a little strange not to do it.

Yes, it speaks to me of a narrowness in scope when it comes to these kinds of things. When the Americans say we should do something, we jump to it, saying, “Yes, sir, three bags full, sir”. We seem to think that if we do not, we are going to be punished.

I think all members, opposition and government, should be sitting down together and looking at what we could do that is in the best interests not just of security, but also in creating a world where we all feel comfortable, and where we can move around without being accosted every time we cross a border to go on a vacation. It is rather odd.

The hon. member raises a good point and makes a good case.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie for his concerns about this bill.

The hon. member referred to the tourism industry in his riding of Sault Ste. Marie, which is very close to mine. I remember reading a lot about the problems the tourism industry is having in Sault Ste. Marie, specifically as it relates to the ski hill operations, because Americans are not coming to Canada for a lot of reasons.

This is another reason that they would not come to Canada. This allows data mining of Canadians' personal information, and a lot of information that is unnecessary for the government to have.

I would like the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie to explain to me what this does to the tourism industry, not only in Sault Ste. Marie but right across Canada.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when we consider for a second, and the member for Windsor West will I think appreciate and understand this, the rigmarole that people have to go through to get across that border, particularly from Canada into the United States, in a jurisdiction that is supposedly the freest in the world, the interrogation, the sometimes harassment, the hours that they spend at the bridge going through one or two or three processes of inspection, who would want to come back and do that more than once or maybe twice? That is the reality.

I know people from the States who have come to Canada and I have relatives who live in the States. They are more and more anxious about coming over to Canada any more, even if it is to spend a day skiing or to visit family, because they worry about what is going to happen to them on the way back as they cross through that border.

So, add on top of that this new layer of scrutiny when we now simply fly through American air space and we begin to see why this is not good public policy.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

The vote stands deferred until the end of government orders later this day.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division at second reading of Bill C-42.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if you were to seek it, I believe you would find unanimous consent to apply the vote from the previous motion to the current motion, with the Conservatives voting yes.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is there unanimous consent to proceed in this way?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

The Liberal members will be voting yes.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

The members of the Bloc Québécois will be voting yes, except for the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP is voting no to this motion.

[Helena Guergis, Independent, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will vote in support of this motion.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #106

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

It being 6:25 p.m. the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.