Bill C-10 (Historical)

Safe Streets and Communities Act

An Act to enact the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act and to amend the State Immunity Act, the Criminal Code, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and other Acts

Part 1 of this enactment creates, in order to deter terrorism, a cause of action that allows victims of terrorism to sue perpetrators of terrorism and their supporters. It also amends the State Immunity Act to prevent a listed foreign state from claiming immunity from the jurisdiction of Canadian courts in respect of actions that relate to its support of terrorism.
Part 2 amends the Criminal Code to
(a) increase or impose mandatory minimum penalties, and increase maximum penalties, for certain sexual offences with respect to children;
(b) create offences of making sexually explicit material available to a child and of agreeing or arranging to commit a sexual offence against a child;
(c) expand the list of specified conditions that may be added to prohibition and recognizance orders to include prohibitions concerning contact with a person under the age of 16 and use of the Internet or any other digital network;
(d) expand the list of enumerated offences that may give rise to such orders and prohibitions; and
(e) eliminate the reference, in section 742.1, to serious personal injury offences and to restrict the availability of conditional sentences for all offences for which the maximum term of imprisonment is 14 years or life and for specified offences, prosecuted by way of indictment, for which the maximum term of imprisonment is 10 years.
It also amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to provide for minimum penalties for serious drug offences, to increase the maximum penalty for cannabis (marijuana) production and to reschedule certain substances from Schedule III to that Act to Schedule I.
Part 3 amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to
(a) clarify that the protection of society is the paramount consideration for the Correctional Service of Canada in the corrections process and for the National Parole Board and the provincial parole boards in the determination of all cases;
(b) establish the right of a victim to make a statement at parole hearings and permit the disclosure to a victim of certain information about the offender;
(c) provide for the automatic suspension of the parole or statutory release of offenders who receive a new custodial sentence and require the National Parole Board to review their case within a prescribed period; and
(d) rename the National Parole Board as the Parole Board of Canada.
It also amends the Criminal Records Act to substitute the term “record suspension” for the term “pardon”. It extends the ineligibility periods for applications for a record suspension and makes certain offences ineligible for a record suspension. It also requires the National Parole Board to submit an annual report that includes the number of applications for record suspensions and the number of record suspensions ordered.
Lastly, it amends the International Transfer of Offenders Act to provide that one of the purposes of that Act is to enhance public safety and to modify the list of factors that the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness may consider in deciding whether to consent to the transfer of a Canadian offender.
Part 4 amends the sentencing and general principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, as well as its provisions relating to judicial interim release, adult and youth sentences, publication bans, and placement in youth custody facilities. It defines the terms “violent offence” and “serious offence”, amends the definition “serious violent offence” and repeals the definition “presumptive offence”. It also requires police forces to keep records of extrajudicial measures used to deal with young persons.
Part 5 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow officers to refuse to authorize foreign nationals to work in Canada in cases where to give authorization would be contrary to public policy considerations that are specified in instructions given by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
The enactment also makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is not a question of the NDP being against free trade. What we have always asked for is that trade be fair, and that labour and environmental standards be enshrined in trade agreements. That is a tenet of a social democrat. It is no good that the workers in this country benefit, if workers in the country that we are trading with do not benefit as well.

Let us look at Mexican workers. We were told during the free trade deals with Mexico that their living standards would rise and rise, and so would ours. Well, 400,000 people lost their jobs in Ontario, no rising there. I have been to Mexico a fair number of times, and I have seen some whose standard has not changed too much.

In trading with Panama, the reality is this is a country that is inadvertently a tax haven for nefarious organizations, such as the drug cartel. One would think that if Canada wanted to trade with Panama that it would be paramount that we get Panama to agree to stop being a tax haven for that type of activity. That should have been number one.

Number two, where are the labour and environmental agreements enshrined in this agreement? They are not there.

Number three, the fact is our colleague, the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster said very clearly that with the 11 amendments that would have strengthened the agreement, it would have gotten New Democratic support. However, every single one of the amendments was ignored.

I remember a Conservative committee that denied every amendment from a gentleman from Mount Royal on Bill C-10. Every single one of those amendments was defeated at committee. Yet, when it came back to the House for third reading, the government wanted to institute those amendments, but it could not do it. The government took it to the Senate, where the amendments that the gentleman from the Liberal Party proposed were then put in.

Why did the government do that? Just because it has a majority does not mean it has all the good ideas. Our colleague had some very sound and basic ideas to improve and strengthen the trade deal with Panama. They were rejected outright. It was not because the members of the committee understood what he was saying, it was because they were told to reject them. It is as simple as that.

If the government brings us back an agreement that includes labour and environmental standards, and ends the tax haven for drug dealers, maybe the NDP will support this initiative. Until that happens, the government should send it back. The reality is that on every single trade deal that has been out there, the NDP has been front and centre. We have been very clear that there is no deal unless labour and environmental standards are enshrined in the deal. There can be no side agreement, no bargain back here. They should be enshrined in the context of the deal.

That way, labour unions in Panama could collectively bargain with their employers and with their government to have the same rights that our trade unions have here in Canada in their collective agreements. That is the commonality we look for. We also want environmental standards to increase in both countries in order to improve the natural environment of both countries.

If the government does that, we should be able to enter into trade deals in order to assist businesses and workers. Unless that happens, there is really no deal on this side.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always better to follow the member for Winnipeg Centre because then everybody on the other side of the House is awake and I appreciate that.

I get nervous when I read about free trade deals with countries like Panama. I come from a labour background, working for trade unions. I know when we reach agreements with other countries that have very poor labour relations records and very low wages, generally Canadians suffer. Canadian workers suffer, unionized or not, because we are now trying to enter into a race to the bottom. That nervousness is part of what drives me to want to speak to this bill.

The agreement with Panama does not correct the very shoddy state of the labour relations in Panama. We are not dealing with a country on an even footing. I appreciate the comment of my friend from Winnipeg Centre, that we do not always want to be on an even footing. We want to have agreements with countries regardless of whether they are our equals because we hope that our entering into these agreements will raise everyone's standard of living in both countries.

However, the experience I personally have had is that when there is a low-wage jurisdiction to send jobs to and there is nothing to prevent the products or services that come from that low-wage jurisdiction, Canadian corporations, even big multinational corporations based in Canada, are quick to send those jobs to those other countries, thus hurting Canadian workers. Even in knowledge-based industries, film and television production and in the newspaper business, we have seen jobs move out of Canada into low-wage jurisdictions like Panama because there is nothing the government has done to prevent it. There is no barrier whatsoever. With this bill, we would create even fewer barriers to a low-wage jurisdiction and one that has very little, if any, labour protections for organized labour in that country.

We spent quite a bit of time debating Bill C-10, which had in it some raising of the bar for people who were involved in drug trafficking, with a mandatory minimum five-year sentence those people. Even if that person is growing as few as six pot plants to alleviate symptoms from multiple sclerosis, he or she might go to jail for five years. The good news in that case is that person would not stay in jail for five years because he or she would likely be dead before that.

The problem is we are about to enter into an agreement with a country with a large part of its economic basis being the drug trade. How is it that we are opposed to the drug trade when it is in Canada, but we are in favour of entering into a deal with a country where probably billions of dollars, because there is no way of disclosing how much, is being laundered from the drug trade in that country? That gives me pause and it should give everyone here pause, that we should not be encouraging deals with drug dealers. That is just not on, as far as this side of the House is concerned.

There is no agreement on tax information exchange, so we do not even know the size of the problem. Both the Conservatives and the Liberals have agreed that the tax-doubling agreement is enough. It is not enough. It does not disclose any of the illegal income that is floating around in that country as a tax haven, a tax haven for drug dealers and drug cartels. We believe most of this income is from money laundering that cannot happen in Canada because we have good financial and taxation regimes that prevent it. Now we getting into bed with a country that permits it and will not even disclose it. The OECD had it on its grey list as one of the countries to not do business with, yet we are about to do that.

There are already too many drug dealers in my riding. What kind of a message does it send to those people who are doing harm to our community and our citizens when we are entering into an agreement with a country that is notorious around the world for being a haven for money laundering for drug dealers? I am sure there are a few Panamanians in my riding, although not very many. There are probably far more drug dealers.

Last summer we had the police task force on anti-violence and drugs in my riding. Our riding was showered with many more police officers over the course of the summer to try to weed out some of that drug problem. Yet we are saying that it is okay to do business with what essentially is a country that harbours and is a haven for the drug trade. That does not make sense to me and it should not make sense to my constituents either.

For example, last week I had a meeting in my riding with a bunch of youth from the York Youth Coalition. One of the young folks asked me what he should tell the kids in the riding who could not get jobs. Over the course of the past few years of trade deals all the manufacturing jobs have left the riding. In part, they have gone to the U.S. and to low-wage countries as a result of free trade deals that the government has signed with other countries. These kids who cannot get jobs, or if they do get jobs, they are for 20 hours a week at $9 or $10 an hour, discover very quickly that they can earn $300 or $400 in an hour standing on a street corner selling drugs. He asked what he should tell these kids. He said he told them that it is wrong to sell drugs, but he wanted to know what to tell them about how they could move forward in society, how they could expect to, at some, point make a living that would sustain a family when the jobs had disappeared.

As with my friend's riding of Winnipeg Centre, which had huge and burgeoning textile businesses, we used to have a litany of manufacturing that was part of Ontario's manufacturing industry, to the point where every June the manufacturers would line up in the high schools to solicit the kids graduating to come and work in their factories. The last time that happened was probably 30 years ago. Stores like Wal-Mart certainly do not line up in the high schools looking for kids. The kids come pounding on those doors looking for $10 an hour jobs. It is a very desperate situation where I am. We have only ourselves to blame as a result of some of these trade deals.

I am not saying that we, as an opposition, are opposed to anything to do with trade. That is not the case. However, we need to protect our interests. We need to protect the interests of Canadians in the deals that we do exercise with other countries. We need to protect the labour rights in those countries. We need to ensure that we are not in a huge race to the bottom in which our minimum wage will never go up because we now compete with minimum wages of $1 an hour or $1 a day, depending on the jurisdiction with which we are about to compete. There are no protections from labour unions in those same countries.

We have made proposals in the past to amend these agreements to protect the labour rights of Canadians and to protect environmental rights and they have been rejected by both the Conservatives and the Liberals. Therefore, these kinds of sensible applications need to be made to this kind of an agreement before we enter into it.

Financial Literacy Leader Act

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.

This is yet another in a series of governing on the back of an envelope from the government side. The government tried to amend Bill C-10, and discovered it could not. It then had to send the bill to the Senate to have some amendments made. Now it will come back to the House.

We then had the lawful access bill, the awful access bill, which the government had to withdraw. It had to send the bill to committee so some amendments could be made to please Canadians.

Now we have this bill. It seems to be extremely poorly thought out. It does not actually deal with the recommendations of the task force, except to create a new bureaucracy. Canadians do not need another level of bureaucracy.

According to the bill, a position would be created, with no definition of what the person would do and with a very vague statement of consulting with stakeholders, which have not been defined. Are the stakeholders the big banks? Are they the payday lenders? Are they the big and powerful corporations that want better tax regimes? Who are the stakeholders in this?

The bill does not deal with the bulk of the recommendations that came from the task force. In fact, it only deals with half of one, which is to appoint a leader. The other recommendations suggested that the government spend money on making Canadians better able to deal with their day to day financial pressures. They are such things as integrating financial literacy into the Canada student loans program. That would require an expenditure. This proposed new individual would not have the authority to spend money.

There was the recommendation that government make financial literacy training programs for young Canadians eligible for funding through the youth employment strategy. Again, the bill would not do that. There was the recommendation that the Government of Canada, as part of the renewal of the urban aboriginal strategy, make financial literacy training programs for young aboriginal Canadians eligible for funding. Again, funding is not a part of the bill.

The recommendation to provide relevant financial information and education services for recent newcomers through the newcomers to Canada program, again, would require funding. In Toronto the funding for CIC programs is being cut.

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

Mr. Speaker, we all agree that financial literacy is important, that it is a good thing, but that is not the subject of today’s debate. The issue is whether or not this bill is going to strengthen financial literacy. And on that point I must say that I have many doubts about this bill.

As I said, we are supportive of financial literacy. Who would not be? We are deeply concerned about the lack of information in the bill. it is my hope that the government will clarify further detail in the course of this debate.

We can all agree that increasing the financial literacy of Canadians is an important goal for government, both federal and provincial. A more financially literate population would be a more prosperous population. But financial literacy is not the panacea that the Conservative Party seems to pretend it to be.

Far too often over the past six years we have been told by the government that problems like increasing post-secondary education costs and rising household debt can simply be solved by waving this magic wand of financial literacy. This is simply incorrect. There are a number of policy levers the government can operate to help solve the issues of rising household debt or runaway student debt. Increased financial literacy is one of them. My goal is not to downplay the importance of financial literacy but only to point out that it is not the only policy solution available to the government.

Let me turn now to the contents of the bill. I get the distinct impression that Bill C-28 was written on the back of an envelope, that the primary motive was probably to have an “announceable” for Financial Literacy Month last November, because it is virtually content-free. I will explain.

The bill and its supporting documents are completely devoid of any detail as to how the office of the financial literacy leader would even work. The bill does not specify if there would even be an office of the financial literacy leader or if he or she would simply be one more employee at FCAC.

Bill C-28 was a response to the recommendations of the Task Force on Financial Literacy. The task force was created as part of the 2009 budget. It reported back to the minister early last year. The task force had 30 recommendations. This legislation satisfies only a part of one of the recommendations.

The first recommendation was that the government create the position of financial literacy leader and that this person be charged with improving financial literacy across Canada. It also said the financial literacy leader should report directly to the Minister of Finance. Under this legislation this position would report to the commissioner of FCAC. Let us give the government half a point for getting recommendation 1 half right. Its total score then is one-half of one point out of thirty. If I were back in my professor days, I do not think that would be a passing grade.

The bill would also give FCAC the power to impose a levy on the banks in order to pay for its efforts in improving financial literacy. But it would also give the Minister of Finance the power to spend government money to achieve the same objective. As parliamentarians, we are yet again being asked to vote on a bill that causes the government to incur costs, spend money and perhaps tax banks without being given even a hint of the numbers involved.

Liberals, indeed all parliamentarians, should not have a problem with spending resources to improve financial literacy. However, we do want to know the order of magnitude these expenditures and the related taxes would be on. Are we talking about $100,000, $500,000, $1 million, $10 million? We have no idea, because there is nothing in the bill to tell us what this process would involve other than the naming of this one person. The question of how much things would cost is important because many of the other recommendations from the task force's report would require additional effort and financial commitment on the part of the government.

For example, recommendation 2 requires the government to establish an advisory board on financial literacy. The advisory board would help the financial literacy leader to develop a national strategy on financial literacy.

Recommendation 4 requires the national strategy to incorporate financial literacy in the school curriculums across Canada and at all levels of education. This would obviously require coordination with provincial governments and may I suggest the direct ministerial mandate asked for in the task force's first recommendation.

Recommendation 9 suggests that financial literacy material be delivered to Canadians through programs that reach Canadians directly, such as EI, CPP, OAS or the universal child care benefit. There are many such requirements and they will all cost money.

Surely the government must have some idea of the anticipated costs. Yet there is no mention of any of these recommendations or any actions to be taken or not to be taken in the bill. Therefore, we are all left totally in the dark as to what, if anything significant, this leader would accomplish, how much money it would cost and what the scope of the mandate would be.

This is not the first time that the House of Commons has been asked to vote on legislation without knowing the cost. The most prominent case that comes to mind is Bill C-10, the tough on crime compendium of bills. The government did not tell us what the additional costs would be for new prisons. We know from the Parliamentary Budget Officer that it is many billions of dollars. We know that some of those billions would be downloaded onto the provinces. The government did not come clean on that and it was a far more important case in terms of expenditure of funds than this would be. However, it is the same principle. The government wants us to pass legislation, but tell us nothing about what it would actually do and what it would actually cost.

This similar issue has caught the attention of the government operations committee, which is currently conducting a study on how Parliament considers supply and more broadly how we as parliamentarians are presented with information on the government spending plan. I would certainly suggest that not knowing the cost of bills before we vote on them is just one part of this problem.

Back to the contents of the bill, there are other existing mechanisms at the disposal of the federal government to promote financial literacy. For example, the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education was created in 1974 as a non-profit, non-partisan organization with the goal of promoting greater financial literacy. It already has tremendous buy-in from government and from the private sector. A quick scan of its website indicates that its list of board of directors include prominent members of the private, post-secondary and labour sectors. On the government side, the CFEE has relationships with the federal Department of Finance and numerous ministries of education provincially.

I know this group from my earlier incarnation with the Royal Bank as their chief economist and I had several meetings with this group. I know that they were working diligently. However, it certainly is not obvious from the bill, which tells us virtually nothing, why the addition of one more body in the bowels of the federal bureaucracy would improve financial literacy better than the work being carried out by the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education.

In the end, the issue I have with the bill is that we simply do not know what the government is planning to do. We do know that it may involve taxing banks. We know that it may involve spending more government funds, but we have no idea how much. We do not know the size of this new organization. We do not know which of the other recommendations from the Task Force on Financial Literacy would be carried out. We know very little, virtually nothing about it.

As I said at the outset, improving financial literacy is an important task for the federal government. However, we have concerns on this side of the House that the newly created financial literacy leader would not be able to carry out his important task.

There is another side of this coin. We can talk about the need for greater financial literacy on the part of Canadians, but we can also talk about the problem of financial illiteracy on the part of the Conservative government.

I would like to say a few words on the financial illiteracy of the Conservative government. I think if there needs to be a course in financial literacy, the first ones to enrol in such a course should probably be the members sitting opposite.

My first example of Conservative financial illiteracy goes way back to 2006. Prior to the arrival of the current government in 2006, for many years Canadians had to have at least a 5% down payment on a mortgage. The longest mortgage they could get was 25 years. What did these financial wizards do in 2006? Instead of a 25 year maximum period, they made it 40 years.

Instead of a 5% minimum down payment, they made it zero. Brilliant. Magic. People could get a zero down payment mortgage for 40 years under the Conservative government.

Now, the problem is that this is like the subprime mortgages in the U.S. Eventually, they found out, but did not admit it because the Conservatives would never admit they made a mistake. They discovered they had made a mistake, so they put it back from 40 years down to 35 years, and they brought the minimum payment up from zero to 5%. Then they claimed credit for tightening the system.

However, the system is not back to where it was when the Conservatives arrived. It is still looser. That is the first example of financial illiteracy.

So I suggest that the Minister of Finance and some of his colleagues enrol in financial literacy 101. If they do, maybe their performance will improve.

The second example of financial illiteracy is the fact that the Conservatives were so lucky when they inherited a massive $13 billion Liberal surplus when they came to power. Then they proceeded to spend like drunken sailors. They are the biggest spenders in Canadian history, to the point where these Conservatives actually ate through all that surplus and went into deficit before the recession began.

That is a second reason for the Minister of Finance to enrol in that course which I shall call financial literacy 101. It is important to have a prudent fiscal policy. It is not good financial literacy to blow through a $13 billion surplus by spending madly when the economy is strong. One might have a deficit when the economy is weak, but one should not run through a surplus when times are good, with massive spending just before a recession begins.

I have a third example of this government’s lack of financial literacy. That is its plan for massive cuts in government spending at a time when the Canadian economy is very fragile. It is suggesting reductions on the order of $4 billion or even $8 billion in public spending and reductions of government services to Canadians. It will be doing this at a time when the economy is very weak.

Let us not forget that unemployment remains high; let us not forget that there is a crisis in Europe; let us not forget that the U.S. economy is extremely weak.

We are living in a world where the unemployment rate remains too high and where the level of risk is very high everywhere, compared with the past.

In this context of a hugely fragile weak economy, anyone who went through financial literacy 101 would know that this is not the moment to have massive cuts in government spending, massive layoffs of public servants and massive reductions in the services provided to Canadians. It is not a good idea.

Members do not have to believe me, I will invoke the name of Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF. The IMF is the mother of all fiscally prudent people. Typically the IMF calls for countries to cut. Christine Lagarde recently said that countries which have room, and this might not include Greece but it certainly includes Canada, should in the short run focus on measures to create jobs and support the economy, and in the medium term they should have a credible plan to balance the books and bring down debt. That is not me talking, that is the head of the IMF. The chief economist of BMO had said something similar, that making massive cuts at this time is as crazy as what Herbert Hoover did in the U.S. during the Great Depression.

As I said earlier, I think members of the government, maybe even the Prime Minister, might like to enrol in this course which we could set up called financial literacy 101.

If they do this, there will be at least three subjects. The first is that it is not smart to have mortgages amortized over 40 years with no capital outlay. That makes no sense. We saw this in the United States, but this government changed the system for the worse in 2006. Second, when you inherit a $13 billion surplus, it is not financially prudent to spend all of those funds when the economy is strong and to go into deficit even before the recession. That is not a good example of financial literacy.

That is what this Conservative government did: it did not demonstrate sound financial literacy. As I just said, it is not a good idea to make massive budget cuts in government investments and have monumental job losses in the public sector when the economy is weak and the global economic system is very fragile. That too is not a good idea.

In conclusion, in terms of the mark that the bill deserves, it got 1 of the recommendations out of 30 half right, so is one-half of one out of 30, which is a failure. Also, in terms of the three subjects for a financial literacy class 101, which I recommended for the government, it fails on all three.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I do want to express my amusement, I guess is the best word, at the opposition House leader's great interest in the democratic process in the Senate. Of course, his party's position is that body should be abolished. The one benefit is that if he had his way, Bill C-10 would already be law today. That is something we hope will happen very soon.

Let me begin by thanking the hon. member for asking for the business of the House in the upcoming week. I am happy to provide it to you, Mr. Speaker, to him and, indeed, to all Canadians. This afternoon we will continue debate on Bill C-28, Financial Literacy Leader Act.

Continuing our week focused on jobs and economic growth, because that is what this week is about, tomorrow morning we will resume debate on Bill C-28, the financial literacy leader act, and in the afternoon we will debate the Canada-Panama economic growth and prosperity act, Bill C-24. That bill implements a free trade agreement that was signed almost two years ago, which will create new jobs for Canadians by opening new markets for Canadian exporters and workers. The bill was studied and passed by the international trade committee in a previous Parliament and has been debated on numerous days at second reading in this Parliament.

Monday will be the fifth allotted day, when I understand we will debate an NDP motion. I know members of the House would appreciate it if the opposition House leader could tell us what motion we will be debating at that time. I know I am certainly interested.

On Tuesday afternoon, we will begin debating the protecting Canada's immigration system act, Bill C-31. I also understand that the safe streets and communities act, Bill C-10, will be returning from the other place very soon. We will consider Senate amendments on Tuesday morning and Wednesday. The amendments relate to the civil remedies for terrorism portions of the act, which I understand enjoy support from all parties. Thus I would invite the opposition to agree to move quickly on those items that we all support, so that we can get those provisions into law as soon as possible.

As the House knows, the government committed to passing this bill within 100 sitting days, and we will keep that commitment. Thursday, March 8, will be the sixth allotted day of this supply period, which will also go the NDP, I understand.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as you can tell from my voice, I am going to be very brief this week, as opposed to some other weeks. At the outset I would like to note that we have now gone five full sitting days with no time allocation by the government. I want to encourage the House leader on the government side to continue to follow that pattern, perhaps maybe even give us some assurances today that he will follow that pattern.

I have to say, however, that his colleagues in the other House have not been quite so willing to follow that pattern, since I understand that either today or yesterday they began to move a motion for time allocation in the Senate on Bill C-10. I was expecting that we would see Bill C-10 on Tuesday next week. Will that still be the case or will it be coming later?

In addition to that bill, we have had indications from the government that Bill C-30 would be sent to committee before second reading, and I wonder if the House leader could advise us as to when the motion to send it to committee prior to second reading will be coming back to the House.

Justice

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives, as usual, are cherry-picking the facts. The minister knows that this rule also includes non-violent offences and such things as theft.

The independent Parliamentary Budget Officer was only dealing with one small part of Bill C-10 and concluded that the changes would be extremely costly and would punish fewer criminals for less time. It would cost 16 times more money to keep fewer criminals under correctional supervision. That is just nonsense.

This bill is expensive, it will not make our streets safer and nobody wants to pay for it. Why are the Conservatives forging ahead with something that is doomed to fail?

Opposition Motion--Charter of Rights and Freedoms

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-10 is in the Senate at the moment where the senators are adopting what we in the Liberal Party call the member for Mount Royal's amendments. We expect the bill to be improved as a result of that.

When we get to talking about Bill C-30, we hope that the very sensible Liberal amendments that will be put forward will be adopted in committee so we will not have to go to the Senate and backfill if members understand my meaning.

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

Madam Speaker, we support the principle of the bill, but the devil is in the details. We hope that those concerns will be brought forward at the committee hearings.

Members of the Conservative Party have raised concerns about the bill. I have not seen the members who raised those concerns engaged in the debate today. Maybe they are not allowed to raise those concerns in the House.

Some good amendments were put forward by our colleague from Mount Royal on Bill C-10 and they were dismissed totally by the government--

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

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Compton—Stanstead, so I will have 10 minutes to make an address with some questions and comments afterward.

We on this side of the House support this motion, the recognition of the fundamental right of all Canadians to the freedom of speech, communications and privacy, and looking for a clear affirmation on the need for these rights to be respected for all forms of communication. It invokes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a very important part of our Constitution.

The constitutional guarantee under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is very broad. One of the rights specified in the fundamental freedoms, in addition to the freedom of conscience and religion, is the freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.

We have in this day and age a media of communication which is a two-way street. There is that of the Internet, emails and electronic communication. We already have, for example, mail service through Canada Post. These are private communications that Canadians are able to make with one another.

When the state desires to interfere with that privacy and to carry out a search or surveillance of these communications, under our law there is a requirement that there be judicial oversight to provide a warrant in most cases, unless someone is caught in the act. No one can enter a person's house, for example, without a warrant, unless under hot pursuit of someone who has just committed a crime. There are protections for fundamental freedoms and legal rights, including the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. These are the kinds of fundamental rights that we have in our society.

People value their privacy. That is very clear. We have had the government go so far as to suggest that Statistics Canada was invading people's privacy by asking them how many bathrooms they had in their house. As a result the government brought in changes to the statistics forms that had been in use for many years by an agency that is sworn to secrecy and uses the information for statistical purposes only. Therefore, privacy is extremely important.

In the face of these fundamental rights, we have a piece of legislation that challenges those fundamental rights and freedoms by giving powers to the state that it does not have now.

The privacy commissioners and experts are already worried about this legislation, that Canadians' personal information could be obtained without a warrant, violating the rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens. It does target what the Conservatives like to call law-abiding citizens, which is the vast majority of Canadians.

New Democrats believe that we can go aggressively after criminals and punish them to the full extent of the law without making false comparisons. We have heard in this House, to the shame of the government and to the shame of the Minister of Public Safety, false comparisons made to child pornographers and treating law-abiding citizens like criminals.

It is interesting that the most recent public opinion research on the bill which was released on February 24 indicates that 64% of Canadians reject the notion of requiring Internet service providers to give the subscriber data that would be required in the legislation to authorities without a warrant. That is not surprising to me. What is interesting for members opposite is that the highest level of rejection for Bill C-30 is in Alberta. Sixty-six per cent of Albertans are opposed to the provisions contained in Bill C-30 that impose these intrusions on people's privacy.

I find it interesting, not necessarily surprising, that when I look opposite and see what the breakdown in the House is of representation from Alberta there is 1 New Democrat and 26 Conservatives. Twenty-six members on that side of the House represent a province where 66% of the people reject the notion that the government ought to intrude in people's privacy in the way that Bill C-30 provides. That speaks volumes to how out of touch with the people the government is on Bill C-30. People value their privacy and their communication and they do not want the government snooping around without a warrant. That is the issue here.

I do not think it can be said that 66% of Albertans are in league with child pornographers but that is what the Minister of Public Safety has suggested to members on this side of the House. We are either with the government or we are with the child pornographers. We stand with the government or we stand with the child pornographers.

People made a mockery of that, even Margaret Wente who is not normally opposed to some kinds of Conservative legislation. She said that she was with the child pornographers. That is how she handled it, but obviously it was an ironic and sarcastic statement. I guess 66% of Albertans are with the child pornographers if the Minister of Public Safety is to be believed. I do not think that is the case. I think that is a case of law-abiding citizens of Canada, the majority of citizens of Canada, being concerned about their fundamental rights as guaranteed to them by the charter.

This is a worthwhile motion to have considered in the House as we are doing right now. We have legislation before the House that has not passed second reading and, as we have said, the government needs to scrap this legislation and go back to the drawing board and do the kind of consultations required.

As I said last week, the bill will go to committee which is where we will all have a chance to amend it. I do not have a lot of confidence given the hothouse nature of committees. We have seen how politicized they are. We saw happened to Bill C-10. It went to committee for consideration and, after hearing from dozens of witnesses, the time came for clause by clause study and what happened? We had all the witnesses to consider, all the suggestions that they made, and we sit down and have a two hour meeting. There are five parts to the bill, including nine previous pieces of legislation. We spent two hours discussing part one. Six or seven amendments were proposed and they were rejected by the government. When we went back the next day, we were faced with a motion from the government side saying that we would deal with all the rest of the bill today and that if it were not dealt with by 11:59 p.m. tonight it would be deemed to have been put and passed and sent back to the House of Commons.

That is the kind of thing that goes on in committees in the House. That did not happen because we had what is called a filibuster and started talking about how wrong that process was. Eventually, two days were devoted to discussing it, not very much. However, not one amendment proposed by the opposition was deemed worthy of consideration by the government. That is what happens in committee.

We say that Bill C-30 should be scrapped. The government should go back to the drawing board, listen to Canadians and listen to the privacy commissioners. They are there, by the way. They are public officials with the duty and obligation to act on behalf of Canadians to look at this legislation, not with a partisan eye but with an eye to the fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadians and a principle that says that we should only go so far as we need to go in order to protect the public safety of the people of Canada.

We support the rights of police and law enforcement officials to get warrants to do that. They can get a warrant to look at somebody's mail but they cannot look at somebody's mail without a warrant. They cannot get the kind of information they are asking for people without a warrant. This legislation would provide for warrantless searches, which are not necessary for the protection of the public, whether it be children or adults.

We support the motion today and we want to see it passed. We would hope that the government pays attention to Canadians and pays attention to the fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadians when redrafting the legislation and putting together something that it thinks will be acceptable to Canadians.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, the illustration the member gave was Bill C-10. Everyone in the House knows that Bill C-10 had been debated in various forms and that different parts made up the total of Bill C-10. Canadians expected us to get moving on many of those initiatives. That was exactly what needed to be done. It does not mean the amendments were not considered, but it is the obligation of government to implement its agenda when it comes to protecting Canadians.

The member commented about using talking points. I would just like to read from a news release from November 15, 2005, when the then deputy prime minister and minister of public safety, Anne McLellan, stated:

We consulted extensively to ensure this legislation strikes the right balance between the needs of police to maintain their investigative capabilities and the business considerations of the industry, while respecting Canadians’ privacy, rights and freedoms.

What has changed? This was introduced by the Liberal government of that day. Today the Liberals are trying to make it look like we are somehow intruding on the privacy of Canadians.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, I note the member made the very reasonable comment that Conservatives expected Parliament to conduct a thorough review of the bill to ensure it achieved the right balance, et cetera. It was exactly the same wording and statement made by the previous speaker on the Conservative side, so clearly there are some talking points.

Since the government won its majority last May, there has not been, as far as I know, a single bill that was reviewed at committee in which the majority Conservative members accepted any of the amendments, ideas or results of the thorough review, including Bill C-10, a massive, complex bill with many amendments offered. All were rejected at committee.

Could the member please tell us why any member of Parliament in the opposition parties should actually believe there will be anything different this time?

Justice

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians want real answers, not empty rhetoric. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has shown that just one of the provisions in Bill C-10 will cost Quebec $40 million.

The Conservatives want to pass the cost on to Quebec. Even worse, the bill is completely ineffective. Quebec will pay more and put fewer criminals behind bars.

Given that Quebec and many other provinces have already said that they will not pay, who is going to foot the bill?

Opposition Motion—Charter of Rights and Freedoms

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver Centre.

It is with pleasure that I stand today to address what is an important motion. I hope and suspect that Conservatives, along with New Democrats, will join us in recognizing just how important it is with regard to our charter and privacy-related issues.

The bill that we are obviously citing at great length is Bill C-30, and we do that for a good reason. Even the government would acknowledge that it blew it. The government received overwhelming kickback from the public in regard to how it messed up in terms of what it proposed in Bill C-30.

The Prime Minister is not known to back down even when he is wrong. He has had an awakening of sorts in regard to just how outraged Canadians are with respect to this issue. We do give him some credit for acknowledging that outrage and how he is now prepared to send Bill C-30 to committee.

One of my colleagues reminded me that under the Conservative government committee meetings end up being held in camera. The Conservatives hold them in camera because they do not want the public to know what is being debated inside a committee. When the government says that it wants a meeting in camera, that is just a nice way of saying the public does not get to participate, that it does not get to listen to what is being said behind those closed doors. No government has ever had more in camera sessions in such a short time span as the new majority Conservative government.

We know how stubborn the Conservatives are when it comes to making changes. We can tell them that they have made mistakes, but would they recognize those mistakes? It takes a great deal of convincing.

All we have to do is look at Bill C-10. The Liberal Party brought forward amendments at committee stage, but the government voted against those amendments. It did not want anything to do with them. What happened? Conservative senators brought in the amendments because the government, in its stubborn way, did not recognize how important those amendments were. I am sure the government is a bit embarrassed now.

We are glad that the government has seen the wisdom of bringing Bill C-30 to committee before it is debated in the House. That is why there is strong merit to looking at today's opposition day motion as a statement. I look forward to a Conservative member standing and assuring us that there will not be any in camera sessions when Bill C-30 goes to committee, that the meeting will be open to all those individuals who want to follow the debate. We anxiously await hearing that sort of commitment.

The Conservatives talk about the rights of victims as if they have a vested interest in protecting the rights of victims. Just because they repeat it many times does not necessarily mean they have any more interest in the rights of victims than members of the opposition. Not only are we interested in the rights of victims, we are also interested in protecting people from becoming victims in the first place. That is why we believe in addressing some of the issues that fight crime. We do so to prevent victims in the first place. The Conservatives do not own the moral high ground when it comes to protecting the rights of victims.

The Conservatives say that they want to protect law-abiding citizens. I would suggest that one of the ways they could do that is by supporting the Liberal Party motion before us today.

I will read what the motion says so that members can reflect on it between now and the time to vote.

That the House recognize: (a) the fundamental right of all Canadians to the freedoms of speech, communication and privacy, and that there must be a clear affirmation on the need for these rights to be respected in all forms of communication; (b) that the collection by government of personal information and data from Canadians relating to their online activities without limits, rules, and judicial oversight constitutes a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

If the Conservatives are sincere when they say that they want to protect law-abiding citizens, I would suggest that voting for this motion would go a long way in protecting their rights.

The Internet has grown as a tool in many different ways. I think that we underestimate the role it plays in the lives of Canadians. I have heard statistics that Canadians have access to and use the Internet like no other country in the world. We have seen the benefits of the Internet. We can look at the social groups of Facebook and others to see how well utilized they are. We can appreciate how many people today bank online and purchase online. The Internet is used every day by a vast majority of Canadians. It has become a part of our lives.

It is interesting that NDP members and Conservatives have joint speaking notes. They bring up those speaking notes because they are a little sensitive to the Liberal Party being practical and wanting to protect the rights of individuals. Therefore, they pull out their speaking notes, whether New Democrat or Conservative, to say that the Liberals proposed in 2002, 2005 and 2007. I think I might have even heard another year.

Gee whiz, yes, the Liberal Party does have a proactive approach to bringing legislation forward. The difference is that we are also open to ideas, amendments and changes, which is something the current government has never demonstrated. Hopefully the NDP will never be provided the opportunity to govern. I will not preclude what Canadians might ultimately decide, but I have seen NDP administrations in my own province and I can talk about disappointments in this area.

They talk the line of wanting to protect the interests of Canadians. Well, the Liberal Party has overriding concerns and we would say to members of other political entities, Green, New Democrat or Conservative, to go back before 2002. They should go back to 1981 and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees privacy.

The vast majority of Canadians want just cause and having to go to a judge, which could take a half hour or whatever amount of time it takes. We do not underestimate the capabilities of law enforcement or our courts. There are wonderful people who work within our law enforcement industry and court infrastructure who can expedite the process. They can make it happen quickly if the need is there. Let us not override how important it is to protect the rights of individuals to their privacy.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.

I rise to speak to the Liberal opposition day motion introduced by our leader, calling on the House to recognize the fundamental right of all Canadians to freedom of speech, communication and privacy. The motion is in response to the Conservative government's invasive Bill C-30.

If Canada is to remain a truly democratic society, it must strike the correct balance between security and civil liberties and individual rights and freedoms. As written, Bill C-30 does not ensure a balance among those principles.

At the outset, the Conservatives demonstrated their disregard for Canadian civil liberties and individual rights. Rather than sit down and discuss with Canadians and have an honest debate about the strengths and weaknesses of Bill C-30, the government attempted to irresponsibly frame the debate in rhetoric.

The Minister of Public Safety even went so far as to berate one of my colleagues, who was merely bringing the concerns of countless Canadians into the debate, by telling him that he, “can either stand with us or with the child pornographers”.

Attempts to demonize opponents of Bill C-30, many of whom are in my riding as well, and characterize them as friends of child pornographers is not only reckless, but completely unwarranted. The Minister of Public Safety still has not apologized for offending those Canadians who have difficulty with some of the aspects of Bill C-30.

Understandably, Canadians from coast to coast to coast do not trust the government with their personal information. After all, the Conservatives do not exactly have a glowing track record when it comes to managing the personal information of individual Canadians.

Through creeping individual's Facebook accounts and using personal profile information to restrict Canadians from attending public election rallies, sifting through personal medical records of veterans who asked too many questions or inappropriately using voter identification databases to make robocalls that are all about election fraud, the government has worked hard to earn the mistrust of Canadians.

In its current form, Bill C-30 forces Internet service providers to track, save and hand over Canadians' personal subscriber information, including their email and IP addresses, upon request without a warrant. This means that the Prime Minister's people would now have the legal right to monitor the emails of Canadians and track their movements online without any kind of judicial discretion.

The Conservatives destroyed the critical long from census because they claimed it was too intrusive into the personal lives of Canadians. Yet they now propose legislation that encroaches deep into the lives of Canadians and treats all Internet users as criminals. There are innocent Canadians out there.

The public outcry from Canadians and the Liberal Party, following the introduction of Bill C-30, forced the government to admit its legislation was far from perfect and it took the unusual step of shepherding its own legislation to committee before being debated so it could be fixed. The government has said that it will consider amendments from the opposition, and we welcome that.

Unfortunately, that is the same government that has abused its majority at committees to conduct business behind closed doors, making committee business the most secretive it has ever been and requests to do otherwise continue to fall on deaf ears. If the government forces the committee behind closed doors, it can oppose the reasonable and fair amendments that Liberals will be proposing without any public oversight, and this is a serious concern.

Sending Bill C-30 straight to committee for amendments is an important first step in admitting that Bill C-30 is highly flawed, but actions speak louder than words. The true measure of the Conservative government's commitment will be tested and witnessed during the committee proceedings. If the Conservatives truly believe that Canadians have the right to determine how their personal information is handled, then the Conservatives should be forthcoming and accept Liberal amendments at committee.

Canadians, including my constituents in Random—Burin—St. George's, are listening with interest and taking note of the debate over Bill C-30. One of my constituents aptly described the bill when he said, “This bill is a total invasion of privacy”.

Another constituent wrote to tell me that he was concerned about the legislation. He said, “This would be a breach of the basic human rights of all Canadians. It almost goes without saying that giving this kind of power to any institution is ripe for potential abuse”. He goes on further to state, “Not only that, we citizens, will have to pay for it out of our taxpayers wallets. There is also the dangerous potential of criminals having another gateway for hacking into people's accounts”.

Another constituent wrote to me to say that he was equally concerned about the legislation, writing “The online spying ("Lawful Access") bills are poorly thought out, and irresponsibly allow a range of authorities to access my personal data without a warrant”.

A different constituent from my riding went further saying, “Unchecked mass surveillance is a breach of my fundamental right to privacy”.

These are just a few examples of the correspondence that I have received. It is what Canadians are saying, and I am sure all members in the House are hearing the same thing from coast to coast to coast. I have yet to receive a letter in support of Bill C-30.

Privacy is a fundamental freedom enshrined in our charter and Canadians have every right to be worried about heightened surveillance of their online activities. Warrantless use of personal information is an inappropriate violation of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Liberals are seriously concerned that the lack of judicial oversight in the bill relating to subscriber data and that forcing ISP and telecomm providers to have the capacity to trace all communications in their system could create a very slippery slope.

For example, Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, agrees. Her office, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, is charged with overseeing compliance with both the Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Exercising her mission to protect and promote the privacy rights of individuals, last October she wrote the Minister of Public Safety detailing her concerns with the government's lawful access proposal. She said:

I am...concerned about the adoption of lower thresholds for obtaining personal information from commercial enterprises. The new powers envisaged are not limited to specific, serious offences or urgent or exceptional situations. In the case of access to subscriber data, there is not even a requirement for the commission of a crime to justify access to personal information – real names, home address, unlisted numbers, email addresses, IP addresses and much more – without a warrant.

Apart from what we are hearing from Canadians throughout the country, this is coming from the Privacy Commissioner.

The government must ensure the protection of the online privacy rights of law-abiding Canadians. Again, there are innocent Canadians out there. The warrantless tracking of Canadians' online activity would unfairly treat all Canadian online users as criminals.

Through Bill C-30, the omnibus crime Bill C-10, Bill C-4 and others, the government has raised serious questions about whether they respects the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Liberals will be focused at committee, finding logical solutions that strike the correct balance between public safety and privacy.