Bill C-30 (Historical)

Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act

An Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts

Part 1 enacts the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act, which requires telecommunications service providers to put in place and maintain certain capabilities that facilitate the lawful interception of information transmitted by telecommunications and to provide basic information about their subscribers to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Commissioner of Competition and any police service constituted under the laws of a province.
Part 2 amends the Criminal Code in respect of authorizations to intercept private communications, warrants and orders and adds to that Act new investigative powers in relation to computer crime and the use of new technologies in the commission of crimes. Among other things, it
(a) provides that if an authorization is given under certain provisions of Part VI, the judge may at the same time issue a warrant or make an order that relates to the investigation in respect of which the authorization is given;
(b) provides that the rules respecting confidentiality that apply in respect of a request for an authorization to intercept private communications also apply in respect of a request for a related warrant or order;
(c) requires the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to report on the interceptions of private communications made without authorizations;
(d) provides that a person who has been the object of an interception made without an authorization must be notified of the interception within a specified period;
(e) permits a peace officer or a public officer, in certain circumstances, to install and make use of a number recorder without a warrant;
(f) extends to one year the maximum period of validity of a warrant for a tracking device and a number recorder if the warrant is issued in respect of a terrorism offence or an offence relating to a criminal organization;
(g) provides the power to make preservation demands and orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence;
(h) provides new production orders to compel the production of data relating to the transmission of communications and the location of transactions, individuals or things;
(i) provides a warrant to obtain transmission data that will extend to all means of telecommunication the investigative powers that are currently restricted to data associated with telephones; and
(j) provides warrants that will enable the tracking of transactions, individuals and things and that are subject to legal thresholds appropriate to the interests at stake.
It also amends offences in the Criminal Code relating to hate propaganda and its communication over the Internet, false information, indecent communications, harassing communications, devices used to obtain telecommunication services without payment and devices used to obtain the unauthorized use of computer systems or to commit mischief.
Part 2 also amends the Competition Act to make applicable, for the purpose of enforcing certain provisions of that Act, the new provisions being added to the Criminal Code respecting demands and orders for the preservation of computer data and orders for the production of documents relating to the transmission of communications or financial data. It also modernizes the provisions of the Act relating to electronic evidence and provides for more effective enforcement in a technologically advanced environment.
Lastly, it amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to make some of the new investigative powers being added to the Criminal Code available to Canadian authorities executing incoming requests for assistance and to allow the Commissioner of Competition to execute search warrants under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.
Part 3 contains coordinating amendments and coming-into-force provisions.

Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak about Bill C-55, which amends the Criminal Code to provide, in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in R. v. Tse, safeguards related to the authority to intercept private communications without prior judicial authorization under section 184.4 of that Act. I would like to mention the four main points included in the bill's summary.

(a) requires the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the Attorney General of each province to report on the interceptions of private communications made under section 184.4; (b) provides that a person who has been the object of such an interception must be notified of the interception within a specified period; (c) narrows the class of individuals who can make such an interception; and (d) limits those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

I am emphasizing these four points because one would expect to find these clearly defined points in the bill.

I would like to begin with an argument that was already raised by our justice critic and that is the definition of “police officer”. It is important that this term be better defined in committee. The definition has been narrowed. It reads:

“police officer” means any officer, constable or other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace...

We will have to provide additional clarification. I would also like to point out that the bill in fact updates the wiretap provisions that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. This reminds us of the saga of Bill C-30. Today, we find ourselves in the House with only a few days to study the bill. When the bill is sent to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, the number of days left to thoroughly study the bill will pose a problem. A timeline more in keeping with the importance of this bill should have been established in order to properly define the notions covered by this bill.

I would also like to mention that it is vital that this bill include mechanisms to provide oversight and accountability for the investigative measures. As I mentioned with respect to the four points, they must be well defined and there must be accountability. As English members say, there needs to be checks and balances.

We also mentioned that this bill must balance the need for surveillance with specific conditions and exceptional circumstances that have been well defined. These measures must only be used in exceptional circumstances. There must also be accountability for the frequency with which this mechanism is used and the methods used to inform people that they have been affected by this type of interception.

Another point must be clarified. I am the industry critic. The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology conducted a study of electronic commerce. We need not look any further to know that our world is ever-changing and that technology is evolving at incredible speed. New technologies are introduced every day. We are surrounded by all manner of electronic devices.

Section 184.4 of the Criminal Code mentions police officers, which, as I said, will have to be defined, because it also mentions “other person”. It states:

A police officer may intercept, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, a private communication if the police officer has reasonable grounds to believe that

I see “or other” there. I would like to know what this “other” refers to and what it includes. Industry Canada requested and held public consultations regarding the 700 MHz spectrum auction.

Some points were raised during these consultations. I am referring to the documents written by Chris Parsons, a man who follows everything to do with electronics very closely, particularly since the introduction of Bill C-30. Mr. Parsons—and others; this is public information—pointed out that the people who appeared to testify were asked to talk about providing information through other means, such as the Internet, for example.

I will read what was requested of the participants:

The consultation has asked participants to provide comments on a variety of issues. What I focus on are the proposals revolving around 'lawful intercept' conditions of licensing Canadian radio spectrum. These conditions are addressed in paragraphs...operating as a service provider using an interconnected radio-based transmission facility.

Then, witnesses, people from various associations—in the online sector, for example—asked whether it was realistic to ask them how they do things when the legislation is silent on the issue. Bill C-30 had yet to be examined, so people were wondering. For example, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association said:

The Department’s proposal to replace “circuit-switched voice telephony systems” with “interconnected radio-based transmission facility for compensation,” opens up several additional services to interception requirements, including internet services...

They went even further, saying that it was not up to them to act and that legislation needed to be put in place so they could understand where they stood.

That is why I wanted to mention those points. Bill C-55 is very important in the sense that everything in it must be clearly defined, particularly when it states that an officer may “intercept, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, a private communication” while respecting public safety requirements in exceptional circumstances. However, I feel it is very important, as do the people of LaSalle—Émard, that a person's privacy be respected.

That is very important. Oversight and accountability mechanisms must be written into a bill such as Bill C-55.

I believe that the members will agree that these requests are completely fair and justified, especially in the interest of the common good and peoples' rights.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from LaSalle—Émard.

I will start by saying that I am very relieved. Like many of my constituents from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, I am relieved that Bill C-30 has died a quiet death.

Many of my constituents wrote to me to share their concerns about the ill-advised and dangerous Bill C-30. I am pleased that it is now behind us and that we can finally focus on the issues related to section 184.4 of the Criminal Code.

In all the time I have been a member in this House, this is the first time that the government has listened to reason and acknowledged that its first attempt was not the right one, since it did not correspond to the needs and wants of Canadians. I congratulate the Conservatives on that and urge them to start over more often. It is not so hard and everyone feels better afterwards. I urge the government to start over with the employment insurance reform. It feels so good to do the right thing.

But to come back to the matter at hand, let us be honest: this bill looks more like an appropriate response to what the courts have called for than did the former Bill C-30. This new bill is simply an update to the wiretapping provisions that the Supreme Court held to be unconstitutional.

This bill is before us as a result of a decision of the British Columbia Supreme Court, upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, that declared section 184.4 of the Criminal Code to be unconstitutional. That section allows peace officers to intercept certain private communications, without prior judicial authorization, if they believe on reasonable grounds that the interception is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm, provided that judicial authorization cannot be obtained with reasonable diligence.

The courts held that emergency situations existed, but that a balance had to be struck between measures to protect individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures and society’s interest in preventing serious harm. That is why the courts held that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code violated section 8 of the charter, since it does not provide a mechanism for oversight, and very specifically, it does not require that notice be given to persons whose private communications have been intercepted.

An accountability mechanism needs to be enacted to protect the important privacy interests that are at stake, and a provision requiring notice would meet that need. The requirement that individuals whose communications are intercepted be given notice would in no way interfere with police action in an emergency. It would actually enhance the ability of the individuals targeted to identify and challenge violations of their privacy and obtain a genuine remedy. That is part of the balance we must try to strike and it is precisely that balance that we must achieve. Safeguards have to be in place to prevent as many abuses as possible and provide our constituents with a guarantee that their rights and freedoms will not be violated by legislation that this House might enact.

One way to be sure of this is to follow the instructions the courts have given, in particular with regard to privacy.

There are points that respond directly to the decisions of the courts. For example, this bill requires that the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the attorney general of each province report on the interceptions of private communications made under section 184.4. It further provides that a person who has been the object of such an interception must be notified within a specified time, which is ordinarily 90 days but could be extended to three years in the case of terrorism and organized crime.

The bill also narrows the class of individuals who can make such interceptions, in addition to limiting interceptions to the offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code, which make up a relatively long list. In my opinion, these measures follow the instructions given by the courts, but we have to make sure that these provisions meet the charter requirements.

Like my NDP colleagues, I would like this bill to be referred to committee so that witnesses can be heard to give us answers to a number of questions, or at least provide some details on certain points. It would not be acceptable for amendments to the Criminal Code to once again be ruled unconstitutional by the court. It is our duty as parliamentarians to ensure that the rule of law is respected and that section 184.4 is amended in order to comply with the Constitution, the charter and Canadian laws. The benchmarks must be clear.

Needless to say, I have no blind faith in this government. Canadians have good reason to be apprehensive about Conservative privacy bills, because their record in this area is dismal. We must always work on behalf of the public and show respect for the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In view of their failed attempt with Bill C-30, that is to be expected. Many Canadians and stakeholders agree.

According to Michael Geist, Bill C-30 may be dead, but legal access is definitely not. He claims that when the government dropped Bill C-30, it introduced Bill C-55 to allow wiretapping without a warrant. He added that although the bill is disguised as a response to last year's Supreme Court decision in R. v. Tse, much of it is lifted from Bill C-30.

He is right. That is why we need to be vigilant. The court established new parameters to protect privacy and we expect this bill to comply with those standards. That is why it must be studied in committee.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent question. Unfortunately, my answer can be summed up in one word: arrogance. Since gaining a majority, the government has introduced the bills it wants and consulted no one, or next to no one. It may consult those who share its opinion.

However, the opposition's concerns, whether they are those of the public or of members of other parties, are not considered. We spent months hearing about Bill C-30 and trying to debate and improve it. The public and various opposition party members have clearly told the government about problems with the bill, but the government decided that it was right and that, because it has a majority, it did not need to worry about the opposition's opinion.

That is the situation today, 19 parliamentary days before the deadline set by the Supreme Court. We are still debating this bill, which should have been introduced months ago. Bill C-30 should have been abandoned or shelved a long time ago, and we should have taken up the task together. That was not done and that is why we are in this problematic situation today.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-55, a Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act.

This bill amends the Criminal Code to provide safeguards related to the authority to intercept private communications without prior judicial authorization under section 184 of that Act.

Bill C-55 requires the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the Attorney General of each province to report on the interceptions of private communications made under section 184.4; provides that a person who has been the object of such an interception must be notified within a specified time, which is currently done only where charges are laid; and narrows the class of persons who can make such interceptions.

This bill updates certain provisions of the Criminal Code relating to wiretaps that were enacted in 1993. The updating was ordered by the Supreme Court in R. v. Tse, in which it held that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code was unconstitutional and had to be amended by Parliament no later than April 13, 2013. The deadline is fast approaching.

In that case, the Supreme Court found that this section infringed the right to be protected against arbitrary searches and seizures, a right guaranteed by section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and was not a reasonable limit within the meaning of section 1 of the charter. That decision is based on the fact that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code does not provide a mechanism for oversight and does not require that notice be given to persons whose private communications have been intercepted.

Bill C-55 is a somewhat desperate last-minute attempt by the Conservatives to comply with the instructions from the Supreme Court by the deadline given. I say “last-minute” because as of today parliamentarians have exactly 19 days left in which to pass Bill C-55 at second reading, examine it in committee, pass it in the House and then repeat the process in the other place, before it ultimately receives royal assent and comes into force as the law in Canada. That is very little time for such an important bill, which could have negative consequences for too many Canadians if we do not take the time to analyze it thoroughly.

I can understand why, after falling flat on their face with Bill C-30, the Conservatives would be somewhat nervous about the idea of considering the electronic surveillance issue again, or indeed any issues relating to potential breaches of Canadians’ privacy, but Bill C-55 ought to have been introduced long ago.

Perhaps the Conservatives were trying to minimize the Minister of Public Safety's opportunities to insult potential opponents of Bill C-55. Who knows?

In any event, the NDP believes that it is an initial step in the right direction, and that is why we will be supporting Bill C-55 at second reading so that it can be studied in committee.

As I mentioned earlier, this bill would make important and essential amendments to the Criminal Code to make section 184.4 consistent with the Constitution by adding a number of safeguards as directed by the court.

The NDP has been asking the government to take action for a long time in order to act on these recommendations. From this standpoint, we would like this bill to move on to the next stage. It is essential for the investigative measures provided in any bill amending section 184.4 of the Criminal Code to have oversight and accountability mechanisms that protect the privacy of Canadians.

I am aware of the fact that it is sometimes necessary to put aside individual privacy to protect human lives and property from serious and imminent harm.

On the other hand, one cannot simply cast aside the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Supreme Court of Canada has established new parameters to protect privacy. We expect Bill C-55 to comply with these new criteria.

However, analysis of the defunct Bill C-30 and its stinging failure makes it obvious that the Conservatives need to rethink their approach to privacy and personal information.

A close look at the Conservatives’ agenda in this area demonstrates clearly that Canadians have good reason to be worried about any government bills on wiretapping and privacy.

My New Democratic colleagues and I are aware of the public's concerns about wiretapping, and we share them.

When Bill C-55 is studied in committee, the NDP will work, as we always do, on behalf of all Canadians to guarantee respect for the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We want to ensure that Bill C-55 is in compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision in R. v. Tse to make section 184.4 of the Criminal Code constitutional and to achieve the necessary balance between personal freedom and public safety.

I invite my Conservative colleagues on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to work with the NDP to improve Bill C-55 to guarantee respect for the fundamental rights of all Canadians as set out in our charter.

We know that it is sometimes difficult in committee to get support for opposition ideas. However, this time, we all agree on the basic idea that the Criminal Code needs to be amended to comply with the Supreme Court directives. There are people with impressive legal expertise in every party. They understand this issue and have suggestions to make to ensure that public safety in this country is a given for everyone, but that people's fundamental rights are also guaranteed.

It is important that all of the parties work together on this task so that the end result will truly protect us by keeping Canadians safe from terrorist attacks and any other wrongdoing. However, we need assurance that personal rights will be respected as well.

The Conservatives do not need to get caught up in hyper-partisan debates, as they did when they introduced Bill C-30. There is no need for rhetoric and no need to label people as child pornographers—as the Minister of Public Safety did during debate on Bill C-30—if they dare raise the issues that remain in Bill C-55. They also do not need to wait for public and political pressure to get to the point where the government has no other choice but to abandon its own bill, as it did with Bill C-30.

After that huge debacle, I would hope that the Conservatives have finally learned their lesson and that they will be willing to work with members of the official opposition and the third party to fix enduring issues in the Criminal Code of Canada.

We in the NDP share the government's desire to maintain and ensure public safety, but we also care about respecting the principles of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in every bill that is passed in this House. Unfortunately, that does not always seem to be the case with this government, which would rather be called to order by the Supreme Court after introducing its bills, rather than legislating proactively and ensuring that its bills are constitutional before introducing them in the House.

This government could benefit from the advice and opinions of the opposition in order to ensure that Bill C-55 complies with the Supreme Court decision in the R. v. Tse case. I hope the government will be more open than it typically has been since winning a majority.

I heard many of the speeches given by my NDP and Liberal colleagues. They all regard this bill from more or less the same perspective, specifically, that it addresses something that has been a serious problem in the Criminal Code since 1993, but has never been resolved, not by past Liberal governments or by the Conservative government.

Now we have a makeshift bill here today that was introduced at the last minute to satisfy a court requirement. However, this bill was not necessarily 100% well thought-out and not all possible consequences have been considered. There is still some work to do.

We come here with a very open mind. We support this bill at second reading so that it can be improved at committee in order to ensure that it respects the criteria for the protection of privacy set out by the Supreme Court. That is the objective of all of my colleagues, including those who are members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and those on other committees. It is the objective of the third party.

I hope we will achieve this objective together through our work in committee, and I look forward to seeing the new version that results from our examination.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to rise and indicate that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.

I appreciated and enjoyed the presentation from the member for Halifax, who has the constituency adjacent to mine. I know that she and her constituents enjoy looking across at the wonderful constituency of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.

We were provided some wonderful information about the Supreme Court decision that led to Bill C-55. I do not have the capacity to engage in the type of legal analysis my colleague did. However, on the question of legislative procedure, there is a need for all members of this House to understand what their responsibilities are and to ensure that they follow through on those responsibilities, so that each and every piece of legislation tabled in this House does not leave the House unless it has been fully examined and vetted and until we have ensured that it is the best possible piece of legislation that it can be.

These are the laws of our country. These are the laws that affect all of our constituents. These are the laws that will continue to exist long after we have left here. It is incumbent upon us to ensure that we dot the is and cross the ts so that a piece of legislation does not leave here and immediately get struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada, for example, because we did not show due diligence.

Members should understand that this bill, which is a direct response to a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, is being introduced in this House with a time limit of 19 sitting days to deal with it. It is absurd that the government, in all seriousness, would expect members of this House to deal with a piece of legislation of this magnitude—one as detailed and specific as this is, and one with such serious ramifications for privacy and for the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Canada—in 19 sitting days. That means the justice committee will have about two days to examine this important piece of legislation.

Let us not forget that the current government does not have a very good record when it comes to issues of privacy or when it comes to introducing legislation and trying to ram it through this House.

We have already seen provisions in some of its justice legislation struck down and seriously questioned by some of the courts in this land. We know what happened to the bill that was supposed to take care of this, the bill that preceded this, Bill C-30, which was tabled approximately a year ago in this House. It was torqued up by the minister, who tabled it in such a partisan, mean and ugly manner that Canadians from one end of this country to the other responded with outrage at the manner in which the government and that minister were dealing with such a sensitive and important issue to all Canadians.

They spoke with one voice. They said that it was simply unacceptable that the Government of Canada would deal with a very important issue in such a partisan and irresponsible manner. It was later determined, as people sifted through the details of the legislation, that the government did not do what it said it would do, that it was flawed in so many ways that finally the minister and the government tried to kick it under the carpet, pretend they had never tabled it and that they did not know what people were talking about when discussing the infamous Bill C-30.

What I remember, and I suggest what many members on this side and many Canadians remember, was the second attempt, in part to deal with something that Bill C-30 was supposedly to deal with. The government tells us not to worry, that it has been dealt with it, that it has responded to what the Supreme Court of Canada has said, that it has been very specific, that it has limited it to the particular provision as it relates to section 184.4 and that it has it covered. Therefore, there is no need for members to be concerned or engage in a great deal of debate, so we do not need a lot of time.

The NDP critic, who gave such an eloquent and informative speech at the beginning of this debate, suggested that the government often introduced legislation with a sense of arrogance and knowing what was best: regardless of the members opposite and the constituents they represented had to say, the Conservatives were the ones who had all the answers, so when they brought in legislation that they said was good to go, we should say “fine” and let it go. However, that is not what we were sent here to do.

The government has shown that we have to be on our toes because it does not do its job. It has been raised in the House by members on this side on a number of occasions. They wonder why the government does not properly vet legislation. We understand that the demands of the Supreme Court are such that we are not, with completely certainty, able to say that a piece of drafted legislation will pass muster in the Supreme Court of Canada. Surely the government takes the time, and we have not had the answer, to ensure there has been some examination and sense of proportionality that any particular piece of legislation will pass muster in the Supreme Court of Canada, but it has not given us that assurance.

In terms of the legislation the government has presented to the House since May of 2011, much of it has been flawed in detail and substance. It sometimes seems that when the government produces legislation, it is more concerned with the title and politics of the legislation than it is with the details, the substance, the implications and the impact that changing the laws of our country will have on Canadians. That is very much a case of the government thumbing its nose at members of the chamber.

On initial review of this bill, we hope it will do what the government says it will in relation to the Supreme Court decision. There will be an examination of the bill at the justice committee. Let us hope we get the opportunity to examine the bill to ensure that when it heads out of the House, we have made sure it is in fact the best piece of legislation it can be.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, compared to Bill C-30, this bill is focused. It is looking at the specific issues of how we appropriately balance warrantless access to anything. I stress warrantless. It is not as though our police forces, even prior to the Criminal Code sections that were found offensive by the Supreme Court of Canada in the recent court case, did not have access, but the idea of warrantless access is inimical to democracy.

It is worrying to say there is not time to go to a judge to get a warrant before intruding in someone's affairs if there is otherwise no lawful access to that information. Clearly, in emergency situations such as kidnapping and so on, we want police to do everything they can to save lives. Does the hon. member for Halifax have any sense at this point whether the public report that would be required at the end of each year would be sufficient to meet the Supreme Court's concerns?

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to answer that question because I did not have time to address it in my speech.

I do not have answers to the questions I raised here today and I am not sure we are going to be able to get to them in about 19 days. I think this is negligent attention to parliamentary duty. I do not think the government has acted. It did bring forward Bill C-30. We see a lot of the provisions of Bill C-30 now in Bill C-55, but Bill C-30 was a total, utter, abject failure, and Canadians cried out against it. Rightly, finally, the government did withdraw that piece of legislation.

However, here we are. The clock is ticking. It has been practically a year, and now we have this legislation in front of us and we are just supposed to agree and vote for it. That is not responsible decision-making. That is not a responsible way to make legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the excellent, elegant, hard-working and resourceful member for Halifax. She will be using the second half of the time allotted for this speech, so we will have the opportunity to hear from her.

I am rising after the member for Gatineau, who gave a wonderful speech about this issue.

We will be supporting this bill at second reading. However, it is unbelievable that the government is introducing a bill now, even though it knew for a year that changes were needed.

The Conservatives did nothing for a year. They introduced Bill C-30, which the public clearly rejected. The government even tried to denounce those who were opposed to their ill-conceived bill. The government reacted, but luckily, pressure from the Canadian people eventually forced it to abandon the bill.

Now the Conservatives have introduced Bill C-55, only 19 days before the deadline of April 13, 2013, which was imposed by the Supreme Court.

We have 19 days in total to debate it at second reading and to examine it in committee. We have 19 days to hear from witnesses from all over and to do the clause-by-clause study in order to avoid problems and ensure that the Supreme Court does not have to deal with another botched bill from this government. We have 19 days to get to third reading, to consider proposed amendments and to have a final debate and vote. That is completely ridiculous, when we have known for a full year that the government had work to do on this.

Once again, the government did not do its job. This is not the first time. We on this side of the House see this as a real problem.

As the hon. member for Gatineau put it so well, this government's bills are botched, improvised, flawed and nonsensical.

When our work is not done in the House, when witnesses do not have time to come and share their expertise, and when members do not have time to do the clause-by-clause and amend a bill based on what witnesses tell us, what happens?

True to form, the government moves a closure motion, and the bill passes, even if it is a bad, improvised bill. Canadian taxpayers are then forced to pay judges to examine the merits of the bill.

When the government does not do its job and disrespects the opposition members, Canada as a whole pays the price. Now the Supreme Court has to examine several Conservative bills that are botched, flawed and improvised. In fact, the Conservatives introduced yet another botched bill here today.

The Conservatives continue to have an attitude of entitlement. They think that they can introduce any bill in the House and that it does not matter if it is flawed. As a result, we end up spending a lot more time and tax dollars to fix these botched bills than we would if the Conservatives were disciplined and did their homework properly from the start. I think that Canadians are fed up with this.

That is one of the many reasons why more and more Canadians are saying that they look forward to 2015, when they will be able to get rid of this government and bring in a government that will introduce well-written bills, listen to witnesses and amend its bills accordingly.

In a democracy, it takes time to listen to the opinions of people across this diverse country and to fine-tune bills.

The government is being irresponsible and taking that time away from us. Even if we could work together since the deadline is 19 days away, the reality is that, if the government refuses to co-operate and tries to impose its opinion, then we will once again end up with a Conservative bill that is likely to be challenged in the courts.

If the government refuses to co-operate and tries to impose its opinion, we will once again end up with a Conservative bill that will be challenged in the courts, as we heard this morning and as we have been seeing for months. That is not what Canadians want. They want us to take the time to do things right here in Parliament.

We now have 19 days to put forward this piece of legislation. We have 19 days to get through every single level of speaking, hear from witnesses and get through all of this work. All of this could have been avoided if the government had simply done its work a year ago. After the judgment came forward from the Supreme Court, the government could have moved forward in a responsible way. It chose not to.

Yet again, we have the Conservatives basically asking the NDP to fix the mistakes they have made. Very many Canadians are looking forward to the day when we will not have to have Conservative mistakes fixed, when we will have an NDP government that can bring forward legislation that actually meets that test and receives the consent of the population.

I want to talk about the broader justice agenda. Bill C-55 is part of it. It is symptomatic of just how bad the Conservatives are on justice issues. We had crime prevention programs in the country that were doing a remarkable job. Crime prevention programs are a good investment for Canadians. When we put $1 into crime prevention, we save $6 later on in policing costs, court costs and prison costs. For every buck put into crime prevention, we see a $6 return. More importantly, we do not see victims, because the crime is never committed in the first place. That has always been the foundation of how the NDP has approached justice issues.

What did the Conservatives do? They gutted crime prevention programs. They destroyed them across the country. In my area and elsewhere, Conservatives have gutted the funding that would allow crime prevention programs to stop the crime before it is even committed, to stop having victims because the crime is not committed, saving $6 in policing costs, court costs and prison costs for every $1 spent on crime prevention.

The Conservatives have done far more in a negative way for Canada. The whole issue of putting more front-line police officers in place was a commitment made by our former leader, Jack Layton, and by the Conservatives before the last election. What have the Conservatives done? Nothing. They have failed on that front-line policing duty.

Most egregious, and there is only one way to put this, is the Conservatives' complete lack of respect for our nation's police officers and firefighters in terms of the public safety officer compensation fund. Members will recall that six years ago, before the Conservatives were elected, they voted for and committed to putting in place a public safety officer compensation program so that when our nation's police officers or firefighters are killed in the line of duty, killed protecting the Canadian public, their families are taken care of.

Since that time, I have talked to families who have lost their homes, kids who have had to quit university, and spouses who have had to try to put something together to keep the family together, because the Conservatives broke their promise to the nation's police officers and firefighters. For six long years now, firefighters and police officers have been coming to Parliament Hill. For six long years, the Conservatives have given them nothing more than the back of their hands. That is deplorable.

In 2015, when an NDP government is elected, what we are going to see is respect for the nation's police officers and firefighters. We are going to see in place a public safety officer compensation fund. We will never again see the families of our nation's police officers and firefighters left to fend for themselves because the federal government does not respect them and does not care about them.

We in the NDP take a different approach on these issues. We actually believe that bills should be brought forward in the House of Commons in a respectful way. We should hear from witnesses, improve the legislation, and make sure that it is not the type of legislation that is then subject to court challenges just to fix the mistakes the government has made.

We would take a more mature and more professional approach to justice issues. Like so many other Canadians, I can hardly wait for 2015.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question but I am curious. He just told us what he would do if he were the Minister of Justice. We are not there yet, but I have a question for him in his capacity as an MP who works on the justice file.

We know that Bill C-30 was introduced and practically caused an uproar. The NDP wants to ensure that the new Bill C-55, which we are discussing today, is in line with the charter and the new parameters set out by the court for protecting people's right to privacy.

What does my colleague think we should do while examining Bill C-55 to ensure that the charter and the right to privacy are respected? What procedures need to be followed? What should be done before the bill is passed?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very disappointed by the government's actions on this issue. It keeps making the same mistakes and then takes a long time to pick up the pieces.

I am also shocked to hear why the government took so long to introduce this bill. I think it is because it wanted to distance itself as much as possible from the Bill C-30 controversy.

As for the Liberal government, I was not in cabinet seven years ago. I was not privy to the discussions surrounding a similar bill that was debated at the time. Unfortunately I cannot comment on that government's motives.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-55, the bill we are debating today, needs to be seen against the backdrop of Bill C-30, the government's Internet surveillance bill introduced in February 2012. When Bill C-30 was tabled it crashed and burned, largely because the government failed to do its homework. Mainly, the government did not charter-proof the bill or listen to telecommunications service providers about the impracticality of some of Bill C-30's key provisions, nor did the government properly gauge Canadians' views about such a bill in advance of introducing it.

Finally, the Minister of Public Safety's mishandling of the beginnings of the debate in the House on Bill C-30, namely his hyperpartisan reaction to anyone who raised reservations about the controversial and likely unconstitutional aspects of the bill, added oil to the fire and de facto shut down the public conversation, thus foreclosing the possibility that the bill's problems might be remedied through amendment in committee; though many people doubt that the bill could have been salvaged even that way. In short, the minister's rhetoric killed the bill in its legislative tracks. One wonders also if the bill's fatal flaw, its inconsistency with charter principles, was tied to the rumour that the government no longer vets legislation against charter requirements in the drafting phase prior to tabling in Parliament.

The government's decision to withdraw Bill C-30 raises a series of questions.

First, was Bill C-30 needed in the first place? Second, if it really was necessary for public safety, why did the government withdraw the bill, given it has a majority in Parliament? As we have seen with budget legislation, the so-called stable majority Conservative government can and will do what it wants with its majority. To the government, the word “majority” means never having to say “compromise”.

Third, given its decision to withdraw Bill C-30, does the government have the courage of its convictions, whatever their merits?

The fourth question is related to the first. Does the current Criminal Code provision, namely section 184.4, provide law enforcement agencies with sufficient means to investigate and apprehend those who seek to exploit children on the Internet? By withdrawing Bill C-30, the government's answer to that question seems to be “yes”. I will come back to section 184.4 in more detail in a moment.

Another related question that comes to mind, in light of the government's new focus on the costs of policing, is whether the Conservative government is in fact investing enough to give police the resources it needs to fight cybercrime. This may be the real crux of the issue: money for policing. By not sitting down with the provinces to discuss extending and replenishing the police recruitment fund, is the government undermining the current capacity of the police to fight cybercrime? Is the government abandoning communities and leaving them more vulnerable? For example, the police recruitment fund was used in Quebec to beef up the cybercrime division of the Montreal police department. What will happen when federal funds dry up? Is the RCMP spending enough on cybercrime, or are fiscal constraints being imposed on it by the Conservative government, hurting its valuable work patrolling cyberspace, not to mention fighting the ever-complex problem of white-collar crime?

These are the tough questions that the government needs to honestly ask itself. The safety of our communities and families depends on the answers to those questions.

Bill C-55, which the Liberals support, is a response to the Supreme Court's decision in Regina v. Tse, rendered by the court last April. The Supreme Court's decision on the constitutionality of section 184.4 of the Criminal Code came shortly after the government's controversial tabling of Bill C-30 in the House. In other words, the court was deliberating on some of the issues at the core of Bill C-30 at the time the government introduced the bill. This raises the question of why the government did not wait for the Supreme Court's decision before rushing to table Bill C-30. The government could have benefited from the wisdom of the court in its final drafting of the bill. Furthermore, given that the Supreme Court, in April 2012, gave the government a full 12 months to rectify problems with section 184.4 that made the section unconstitutional, why did the government wait until the very last minute, namely two weeks ago, to deal with this matter?

As mentioned, the Tse case was a test of the constitutionality of section 184.4 in its existing form. Section 184 of the Criminal Code deals with emergency wiretapping or wiretapping in an emergency situation.

Section 184.4 is about the interception, without the normally required warrant, of private communications, including computer communications, in exigent circumstances—that is, in circumstances where interception is immediately necessary to prevent serious harm to a person or property, and a warrant cannot be obtained quickly enough to prevent the imminent harm; in other words, in situations where every minute counts.

In the Tse case the police in B.C. used section 184.4 to carry out unauthorized interceptions of private communications when the daughter of an alleged kidnapping victim began receiving calls from her father stating that he was being held for ransom. The case brought before the Supreme Court was an appeal by the crown of a trial judge's finding that section 184.4 in its current form violates the charter.

The question the Supreme Court was asked to address was whether section 184.4, as currently written, contravenes the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure pursuant to section 8 of the charter relating to privacy rights and, if so, whether this section's constitutionality is salvaged by section 1 of the charter, which allows a charter right to be circumscribed if it is deemed reasonable to do so in a free and democratic society.

In the earlier landmark decision Hunter v. Southam Inc., the Supreme Court determined that a warrantless search is presumptively unreasonable. In other words, the presumed constitutional standard for searches or seizures in the criminal sphere is judicial pre-authorization—that is, obtaining a warrant.

In Regina v. Duarte, the Supreme Court found that:

...as a general proposition, surreptitious electronic surveillance of the individual by an agency of the state constitutes an unreasonable search or seizure under s. 8 of the Charter.

However, as the court said in its decision in Tse:

Exigent circumstances are factors that inform the reasonableness of the search or authorizing law and may justify the absence of prior judicial authorization.

Thus, in principle, it would seem that Parliament may craft a narrow emergency wiretap authority for exigent circumstances to prevent serious harm if judicial authorization is not available through the exercise of reasonable diligence.

Thus, section 184.4 is based on the accepted principle that, to quote the court:

...the privacy interests of some may have to yield temporarily for the greater good of society—here, the protection of lives and property from harm that is both serious and imminent.

To further quote the court in the Tse decision:

Section 184.4 contains a number of legislative conditions. Properly construed, these conditions are designed to ensure that the power to intercept private communications without judicial authorization is available only in exigent circumstances to prevent serious harm. To that extent, the section strikes an appropriate balance between an individual's s. 8 Charter rights and society's interests in preventing serious harm.

This reasoning is consistent with Justice Lamer's observation in Godoy, which states that “dignity, integrity and autonomy” are values underlying the privacy interest; however, the interests of a person in need of police assistance are “closer to the core of the values of dignity, integrity and autonomy than the interest of the person who seeks to deny entry to police who arrive in response to a call for help”.

The court's main finding in Tse is that section 184.4 is unconstitutional because of the absence of a requirement to notify the person whose communications have been intercepted of the fact of that interception. This is in contrast to judicial authorizations obtained under sections 186 and 188 where the subject of the interception must be notified within 90 days.

While the court refused to rule on the need to tighten the definition of “peace officer” under section 184.4, arguing it lacked “a proper evidentiary foundation to determine the matter”, it did express “reservations about the wide range of people who, by virtue of the broad definition of 'peace officer', can invoke the extraordinary measures under s. 184.4”.

The term “peace officer” currently includes mayors, bailiffs, prison guards et cetera.

The Liberals nonetheless support the government's initiative in Bill C-55 to narrow the class of individuals who can make an interception under section 184.4. to mean police officers only, meaning an officer, constable or other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace. However, we wish to know if this narrowed class also includes private security guards of the type contracted more and more by municipalities to fill the reduction in their regular police coverage, for example, when regional municipalities cut police budgets or reassign police to other geographic areas.

Similarly, while the court ruled that there is no constitutional imperative for the government to report to Parliament on the use of section 184.4, we believe the requirement in Bill C-55 that this be done is a positive step, obviously, as it provides an important safeguard needed to balance the interests of the state in preventing harm and prosecuting crime with the obligation to protect section 8 charter rights.

Finally, we are a bit puzzled, however, as to why Bill C-55 limits section 184.4 interceptions to the large number of offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code. True, it was the opinion of Justice Davies, the trial judge in Tse, that section 184.4 should be limited to offences enumerated in section 183. However, the Supreme Court disagreed, in the appeal:

There may be situations that would justify interceptions under s. 184.4 for unlawful acts not enumerated in s. 183. We prefer the conclusion of Dambrot J. in Riley...that the scope of the unlawful act requirement is sufficiently, if not more, circumscribed for constitutional purposes, by the requirement that the unlawful act must be one that would cause serious harm to persons or property.... No meaningful additional protection of privacy would be gained by listing the unlawful acts that could give rise to such serious harm. The list of offences in s. 183 is itself very broad; however, Parliament chose to focus upon an unlawful act that would cause serious harm. We see no reason to interfere with that choice....

...the serious harm threshold is a meaningful and significant legal restriction on s. 184.4 and is part of this Court’s jurisprudence in a number of different contexts....

...this threshold is also consistent with the police practice surrounding s. 184.4.

It appears that Bill C-55 is an admission by the government that police forces already dispose of necessary legal powers to act to intercept incidents of cybercrime involving children or terrorism for that matter. We are thus a bit puzzled as to why the government went ahead and introduced Bill C-30 only to withdraw it.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her passionate speech.

Bill C-30 was a disaster, as someone said earlier.

What do we need to make sure we do when it comes to Bill C-55? What process do we need to go through to ensure that this bill complies with the charter and the parameters set by the Supreme Court for protecting privacy?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster for his question. The answer is simple, and yet very profound at the same time.

This government is a little arrogant. I am trying to be polite, because, in reality, they are extremely arrogant.

With Bill C-30, the Conservatives were sure they had solved every problem on the planet. They did not take the pulse of the nation, even though they boast about knowing what Canadians want. They then saw what happens when the public takes an interest in an issue and the government does something that affects fundamental rights like individual rights and the right to privacy. I have never seen such a strong reaction.

I am very active on social media, including Twitter and Facebook. It was incredible. Everyone will recall the famous “#TellVicEverything” hashtag. It was enough to inflame public opinion. I am not naming any members by saying that.

The Conservatives could have simply acquiesced and reversed their decision. After all, we are here to represent the people. There is no shame in admitting that we are wrong and made a mistake. We all make mistakes; it is only human. A fault confessed is half redressed.

The Conservatives struggled for months to find a way to get out of this without having to admit that they were wrong. Because of this lack of humility, the government now has only 20 days to comply with the Supreme Court ruling.

No one on this side of the House will be to blame if we do not manage to deal with this in 20 days. They are the ones who are putting us in this position, and everyone needs to realize that.

We will do our best to help the Conservatives get out of this, but they will need a dose of humility, something that has been lacking along the way. Their lack of humility is what got them into this situation.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the Minister of Justice that when one is seeking support from people, it helps to be nice to them.

Indeed, it is going to take quite a bit of mental gymnastics to ensure that a bill as important as Bill C-55 is given the attention it deserves. I cannot believe that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada is asking the 307 other members of this House to simply take a leap of faith and blindly accept this bill because we have an obligation imposed by the Supreme Court.

On this side of the House, we in the official opposition plan to work very hard on this. I can tell the minister that we will support this bill so that it can be sent quickly to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

This will not stop us from doing our job in committee, as we always do, as the minister knows very well. We do not do this in order to systematically oppose the government. I hope I will not hear this from any Conservatives for the next 10 days, which is how long members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will have to examine Bill C-55. I am very serious. The Supreme Court of Canada has set a deadline. We are not the ones asking for a favour here; rather, the government is, if it wants to meet the deadline.

I cannot believe that the brilliant legal minds at the Department of Justice took 11 months to draft Bill C-55. The fact is that the Conservatives made a serious mistake at the outset. They introduced Bill C-30 thinking that it would solve every conceivable problem related to wiretaps. I cannot exactly blame the Minister of Justice, since it was not his file. Rather, it was the Minister of Public Safety's file.

The Conservatives had to backpedal and introduce this bill with just a few weeks' notice. The members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights are meeting today, but they will not be studying this bill. They are meeting on Wednesday, but they will probably not study this bill then either. That leaves two days at most. On this side of the House, we promise to look at this bill closely and we will do our best to finish our study of it in time.

However, I would ask the government to be more open than it has been since we arrived in this House, since the 2011 election.

The official opposition makes some very good suggestions sometimes that would prevent the government from looking bad and ending up yet again with a case like R. v. Tse. In its ruling on that case, the Supreme Court said that there was a problem with the legislation. The government can keep saying, and rightly so, that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code already existed, that this provision has been around since 1993, before it came to power.

I am not really interested in knowing who to blame. I just want us to settle this issue. The Supreme Court was very clear. It pointed to the problem and to the aspects that were inconsistent with the charter. It set its findings aside for one year to give the government a chance to deal with this major legal void.

Often, that is why I ask the minister or his officials whether any serious, in-depth studies have been done before certain bills are introduced. From a distance, these bills may be well-meaning, but up close they create more problems because they are drafted so quickly. This will come back to haunt the Conservatives maybe not tomorrow, next month or in the next six months, but someday.

When I was a lawyer, I tried to prevent any future problems by anticipating problems that could come out of any document I wrote. As legislators, we should do the same.

We should not believe, as a Conservative colleague told the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, that the courts will set things right if we make a mistake. I found that really ironic coming from a member of the Conservative government, which does not really have the greatest respect for what is known as judicial authority. When it suits them, the Conservatives rely on judicial authority to fix everything and set things straight.

However, I do not want to send people to court. This is not because I do not have faith in the courts. Quite the contrary. However, I know that it is very expensive, that the situation is not clear-cut and that there are problems accessing justice.

In this context, if we do our job properly in the House, if we draft bills that comply with our charter and our Constitution, we will solve many of the problems. After that, the courts will do their job, based on the circumstances.

The Supreme Court handed down its decision in R v. Tse. I urge all my colleagues in the House to read the decision before voting on Bill C-55. There is no need to read all 50 pages of the decision, whether in French or in English, but at least read the summary. It gives a good explanation of the problem arising from the section on invasion of privacy. Believe it or not, that is what it is called. In the Criminal Code, the section concerns invasion of privacy. However, according to the Supreme Court of Canada, this section is justified in the very specific context of certain offences. Section 183 of the Criminal Code explains in what context this section applies.

I would point out to my colleagues and to those watching that we are not referring to minor offences. We are talking about extremely serious situations such as sabotage, terrorism, hijacking, endangering safety of aircraft or airport and possessing explosives. I could repeat them all, but there is a good list in section 183.

This section on invasion of privacy pertains to very specific cases that must be considered within the context of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The authorities must ensure that the circumstances in question actually constitute an invasion of privacy. Most of the sections provide for some checks and require the crown and the police to obtain certain authorizations. Section 184.4 has proven to be problematic in this regard because it is rather unclear about wiretapping. Unless an indictment was filed against the people in question, they would never know that they were being wiretapped. This problem therefore needed to be resolved. The Supreme Court gave directives to follow in such cases.

The Supreme Court often has more respect for the government than the government has for the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court still provides very general solutions and leaves it up to the government to draft bills.

Some clauses require more reflection and debate. I am not sure that the definition of “police officer” set out in clause 3 of Bill C-55 responds to the question that the Supreme Court of Canada will have to consider. The Supreme Court refused to rule on this specific issue because it had not been discussed before the court. Since the Supreme Court is very respectful of its role, it said that it did not have enough information to make recommendations to the government regarding this definition.

This will be examined in committee. The members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will be able to ask representatives of the Department of Justice and the minister questions about how the definition was developed and what the basis for the definition was. The bill is not really clear on that. We will certainly have some good discussions in this regard.

I would also like to draw hon. members' attention to the provision that sets out the possibility of renewing certain authorizations for three months to three years. I am no longer talking about section 184.4.

I would like to reiterate that I am talking about the section that pertains to invasion of privacy. Is it reasonable to renew such authority for three years? These things should be discussed.

These bills sometimes appear to be straightforward at first glance, but prove to be more complicated when we really get into specifics.

And since the devil is in the details, I think that as legislators we have a duty to at least do our job seriously. If we do not, in six months or a year, the Supreme Court of Canada will render a decision that shows we did not do our job. It will take a look at what we did so it can determine what the legislator's intent was. It sometimes uses the debates from the House or the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

The legislator here refers to us. We must stop thinking that the legislator is some separate person within the confines of Parliament. The legislators are all of us, here in the House of Commons. If the Supreme Court wants to know the legislator's intent, it will look at what was said during the debates.

If the records show that there was no debate because the government waited until the very last minute to push a bill that has huge repercussions in terms of invasion of privacy—we are talking about invasion of privacy here—we must all, as good legislators, do our due diligence.

The bill will not be needlessly stalled, but I repeat to my colleagues opposite that they are the ones who need to get this bill passed as quickly as possible. They do not even have enough time to move the closure motions they love to use to prevent us from debating the bill, because in the time it will take to debate those motions, the bill will not even have had the time to get to committee or back to the House.

The Conservatives need the official opposition to help ensure that this bill passes. On behalf of the official opposition caucus, I can say that we are not in the habit of blocking something simply for enjoyment. We leave that kind of attitude to the members opposite. However, my colleagues and I will not sit back and listen to them say that the NDP supports criminals. If I hear anyone say that, I swear, I will talk so long at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that the Supreme Court will have time to replace seven out of nine justices before I am done.

Let us all do the work that we were sent here to do and let us be serious about it, so we can assure people that the Criminal Code has a section on the invasion of privacy. In the R. v. Tse case, all the necessary safeguards were in place to say that this is acceptable in a free and democratic society, considering the seriousness of the offences covered by section 183.

These are just a few of the points that need to be seriously examined in committee—but with good questions and good answers, and not by playing silly games or being secretive and pretending that everything was carefully considered. We must look for solutions.

Bill C-55 will probably pass by the deadline set by the Supreme Court, but I repeat that the government waited until the last minute. It should be ashamed of playing games with something as serious as this. I will not hold it against the Minister of Justice, since he had been steered in the wrong direction. The Conservatives started out on the wrong track with Bill C-30, and it took time for them to admit that and to withdraw that bill.

It is like finding out that a bad TV show was pulled from the lineup. Bill C-30 was finally pulled from the lineup. Thank goodness. It was replaced to a very small extent by Bill C-55. I do not want the people listening at home to think that Bill C-55 is a carbon copy of Bill C-30. That is absolutely not the case. It does what needed to be done. It amends a very specific section of the Criminal Code—section 183 and following—to answer the questions and carry out the orders of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Some of my colleagues will likely talk about the various provisions, but I want to speak to section 184.4, which is amended by clause 3.

That is quite possibly the most critical section in the decision in R. v. Tse, because it is exactly what the Supreme Court was referring to.

I would also like to draw the members' attention to something else that bothers me, and that is the clause about reporting authorized interceptions. Clause 5 of the bill covers authorizations and extensions for up to three years. Extensions are set out in clause 6 of the bill, specifically in the amendment to section 196.1. The clause mentions the initial 90-day period and states that an extension can be granted under subsection x, y or z for up to three years.

We should be looking into those aspects because they could have some serious implications. The definition of “police officer” should also be addressed. It is somewhat worrying, given what the Supreme Court said:

In the absence of a proper record, the issue of whether the use of the section by peace officers, other than police officers, renders this section overbroad is not addressed.

The Supreme Court is always careful to respond only to issues that are before it. Since the issue of who has the right to wiretap—in this case, peace officers—did not come before the Supreme Court, much to its credit, the court said that it would not rule on the issue. Generally speaking, the Supreme Court is not there to provide legal opinions, except when the government, regardless of which party is in power, lacks political courage and decides to go through the Supreme Court to be told what it has the right to do, whether it be with regard to the Senate, same-sex civil marriage or even Quebec's right to secede. These are some examples that come to mind.

This is often the strategy used by governments that do not want to stick their necks out. They hope that the Supreme Court of Canada will wave its magic wand and solve all of our country's political problems, which does not often happen, because the Supreme Court is actually very respectful of political power, our power to enact legislation. That is exactly what the Supreme Court did in this case.

The wording of the new definition of “police officer” seems a bit odd to me. It does not seem to be written in a typical fashion. It says:

“police officer” means any officer, constable or other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace

As I lawyer, I must say that the expression “[any] other person” is vague, and I never like to see this type of expression in provisions of the Criminal Code pertaining to invasion of privacy. Does this refer to security guards? This brings up so many questions for me.

What I would like to show my colleagues is that a bill that seems so benign and that is described by the minister as being “very straightforward” can be more complicated than we think. It is our job to point that out, particularly since this bill responds to a request from the Supreme Court of Canada that we go back to the drawing board. In my opinion, if we do not want the Supreme Court of Canada to give us another “F” for “fail”, we should at least take the time needed to do that.

I am ready to answer questions.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the minister. In terms of any sort of justice agenda, we have seen the cutbacks to crime prevention programs the government has made, its refusal to keep its commitment to putting additional police officers on the street and its systematic refusal to put in place a public safety officer compensation fund, even though Canadian police officers and firefighters come to the Hill year after year and continue to get the back of the hand from the government. It is fair to say that we do not take lessons from the government on criminal justice issues.

The question that has come up, which the member from Gatineau and others have raised, is why the government is putting forward this bill at the last moment. It knew that Bill C-30 was problematic. There was a big push-back from the public. Yet even though it had almost a year to bring forward provisions, it is doing it a few weeks before the deadline expires. It seems to be improvised on the back of a napkin.

I would like the minister to stand and explain very carefully to the Canadian public why it is putting forward this last-minute bill on something the government has known about for almost a year.