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.

Opposition Motion--Charter of Rights and Freedoms

[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.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Madam Speaker, clearly, the issues of the Internet and the different kinds of technology that are being used today gave all of us as parliamentarians concern some years back. In consultations with the police and other law enforcement people, there was an attempt to put together a bill that would start us down the path to offer protection where it was needed without having to be intrusive.

We put initiatives forward when we were in government, and we had lots of debate on them. That we put something forward does not mean that it passed. At least we put it forward and started that debate among Canadians and other parliamentarians about the direction in which we needed to go to ensure that Internet users were protected, and most importantly that people were protected, to ensure we would find ways of protecting against child pornography and all of those things that we were trying to do. At least we put it out there and started the debate and started to move in a direction.

No one is saying here that we are completely opposed to Bill C-30. Improvements need to be made to the bill. We are hoping that we will work together to ensure that the objective is achieved, that police officers have the instruments they need, but most importantly that we have the instruments to protect all Canadians, including our children.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity today to speak to our Liberal opposition day motion as we continue to try to foster debate in this House. Clearly it is not happening often enough that we can actually debate something without getting personal and taking shots at each other, and so on.

I would hope that we can continue for the next hour in a positive way, as we all raise issues that we are concerned about. Hopefully, we can get this off to committee and have some serious work done on it. It is not every day that we get a chance to stand in the House to defend, very importantly, a 400-year old, nearly universal legal concept.

After being hit with Bill C-30 and the outrage of Canadians in the last two weeks, it is important that we have this opportunity. What I am referring to, of course, is the notion called the “castle principle” in the law. Most are familiar with the saying that “A person's home is their castle”. That saying is based on this very idea, that people should be able to feel safe and secure within the privacy of their own homes. I think it is something that we clearly all want to feel.

The idea that governments have no right to violate arbitrarily the sanctity of the home was established in English law in the 17th century. This is not a new thing. In very basic terms, the castle principle came about to prevent tyrants and power-hungry security and government officials from violating basic personal freedoms for no valid or lawful reason.

Why does this particular government feel that this concept no longer applies? I certainly hope it does. I would imagine that when it comes time to do the work on the bill, the government will ensure that it protects them as well.

This ancient legal protection was eventually codified and strengthened in Canada's Charter of Rights and in various other legal statutes enacted over the years. In 1982, the Liberal government understood that privacy was a timeless and foundational right that needed and deserved attention and protection in our Constitution.

Despite assurances to the contrary, it would seem that the current government, either on purpose or by outright ineptitude, and I am not sure which it is, is prepared to ignore the history of these essential protections by laying Bill C-30 on the table in its present form.

At the risk of being labeled a pornography sympathizer, which is what happens when we object to anything to do with Bill C-30, I will say that I think Bill C-30 goes too far, is unnecessarily invasive and needless.

Giving the police and government the right to warrantless searches of private emails and web-browsing activity is conceptually the same as allowing police to view bank records, to monitor private mail and to snoop into the most private elements of a person's life for no particular reason. I cannot imagine that anyone in this House on any side would want that to happen.

Government keeps talking about backtracking and maybe that is not what was meant to happen. However, we have to deal with what Bill C-30 says.

Our motion, as I will refer to it later, tries to illustrate exactly the kind of Canada that we want to see continue and the kinds of rights and protections we want to see for ourselves, our families and the families of other Canadians.

I am a parent and a grandmother, but I believe that snooping around in anyone's email inbox will never help to prevent child pornography. I believe that diminishing or violating the basic rights of the Canadian public is inappropriate and an ineffective investigative tool. I believe that random incursions of people's privacy will not provide useful intelligence to the law enforcement community either.

“Show us the proof” is what we have been hearing all day on a variety of issues. The same goes for Bill C-30. That is exactly what we hope to hear at committee. We believe the government has taken the right step and will refer the bill to committee after first reading. Hopefully, some serious work will be done and a bill will come back that we all can support in this House.

If the police have a legitimate reason to snoop into my banking, email or web-browsing records, a judge would clearly allow for that lawful search to happen. This is the check and balance against the powers of the police and the government running over the rights of innocent citizens. I cannot understand why the police would be afraid to permit a judge to legally review a search request if it is in fact necessary and lawful.

Bill C-30 has many flaws that need to be corrected. Basic privacy must be protected. We are the gatekeepers in Parliament of that fundamental right. We cannot throw away 400 years of basic rights protection for arguable gain. If privacy rights can be shredded by the government, then what other rights can be taken from us next?

The Liberal motion today is seeking to ensure that the government and all future governments will understand that personal privacy is not a luxury, particularly in the Internet age. Our Liberal motion is in three parts. The first part reads:

--(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; (c) that Canadians who have expressed deep concerns about Bill C-30 should not be described as being friends of child pornography or advocates of criminal activity--

Earlier today when my colleague from Random—Burin—St. George's was speaking to the Liberal motion and referencing Bill C-30, an individual from Calgary sent her an email saying, “Just wanted to let you know that I appreciated your intervention in Parliament today. Well said. This bill should be debated. As a network administrator and an IT specialist, I find this legislation ludicrous and costly”. That is what Canadians are saying. It is not something that is being invented by the Liberals.

Freedom of speech and privacy must permeate every level of government and national leadership must start right here with us. We must set the tone. We must never let the idea that only the guilty have reason to fear the erosion of basic rights to become the justification for that erosion.

The second part of the Liberal motion says that access to private information without limits, rules and judicial oversight is not appropriate. The government says that police need this to prevent crime and I cannot imagine why. I am left to wonder why the police and the government are so afraid of judicial oversight. The truth is that police have not been asking for this, but the government appears to be power hungry and stubborn and this time it has zeroed in on the privacy rights of Canadians.

These are important issues that we are debating. Our Liberal motion tries to set a tone for a very important bill that needs to be debated and discussed by all members in the House.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for York West.

I am very pleased to speak to the motion today because of the important principles that are so fundamental to Canadian democracy. The motion calls on the House to recognize the fundamental right of all Canadians to freedom of speech, communication, privacy and an affirmation of the need for these rights to be respected. It talks about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protection against unreasonable search and seizure. It mentions that any legislation put forward by the government must respect these provisions of the charter and its commitment to the principles of due process, respect for privacy and the presumption of innocence.

A lot of the debate on this today has centred on Bill C-30 and it will be that bill that I address my remarks toward.

I want to quote the interim leader of the Liberal Party because what he has said captures the balance that Parliament needs to find on the bill, and that is “The mark of a democratic society is how it balances collective security with individual rights and freedoms”.

I am not at all objecting to the idea of strengthening the ability for police officers to carry out their surveillance work and their investigative work in an age of Internet and electronic communications. Surely we do need to update these provisions that are in the laws and that is what the bill has sought to do. In fact, when the attorney general and solicitor general of British Columbia came to Ottawa saying that the province supported the need for new powers, I supported that. It is something we do need to do.

The question is whether this bill achieves that end? I will be speaking about the ways in which it does not find that balance and the ways it, either inadvertently or deliberately, changes the landscape for the public in terms of our security and our right to privacy of information. It makes changes through very vague language and vague concepts that are not well defined in the bill and that are open to subjective interpretation in terms of grounds for accessing people's information without a warrant.

People across Canada have been concerned about this. It is not surprising when most of the privacy commissioners across the country said that the bill went too far, that it was bad legislation. I will quote the federal Privacy Commissioner who said:

On the balance...the new Bill...contains serious privacy concerns...In particular, we are concerned about access, without a warrant, to subscriber information behind an IP address. Since this broad power is not limited to reasonable grounds to suspect criminal activity or to a criminal investigation, it could affect any law-abiding citizen.

That is a mild comment compared with the comments of the Ontario privacy commissioner who had a great deal of concern about the bill and called it an encroachment of surveillance as it was presently configured in the bill. She said that the bill was wrong. She said that it actually terrified her and could become the norm, that there was a huge downloading onto websites of information that service providers did because they were unable to serve the one-by-one requirements under the bill. That has happened in other countries. According to the commissioner, this is fundamentally wrong, it flies in the face of freedom and liberty and this freedom is not based on the state access to whatever information it wants on its citizens. This is how she characterized the potential result of the bill.

The state is supposed to have a reason for the collection of information from citizens. It is supposed to be limited and for particular purposes that are specifically identified to individuals. Her view is that this is under attack with the bill.

The bill creates a structure for this widespread surveillance. Again, I will quote the privacy commissioner of Ontario:

This is going to be like the Fort Knox of information that the hackers and the real bad guys will want to go after. This is going to be a gold mine.

She is also concerned about the new powers created for the police that are designed to obtain access to surveillance data, and about the whole framework that companies will have to put in place by installing equipment for real-time surveillance.

Given the response by privacy commissioners, who know what they speak of, it is not surprising that people in civil society became concerned and started to speak out. In Vancouver Quadra at the town hall I hosted last week, I can say that people were very concerned about the change in the tenor of privacy under the bill.

With these kinds of reasonable concerns it was that much more offensive and insulting when the Minister of Public Safety essentially said that either we agreed with the bill and the government or were on the side of child pornographers. That level of discourse we cannot allow to continue in this House of Commons. It has undermined any moral authority of that minister with the bill as presented.

It was ironic that afterwards the minister had to admit on public television that he had not read the bill and did not actually understand some of its provisions and the repercussions thereof. That was after he had made that very offensive statement we are all familiar with.

The bill has had a rocky start. It was not properly thought out and the consultations were not properly done with privacy commissioners.

I will also give a couple of examples of concerns that were raised by an Internet business CEO and president at my town hall very clearly.

Some of the previous speakers have talked to section 34. However, I am speaking about sections subsections 371(1) and 371(2). This is where the legislation creates a wide class of offences that are vague in description, using terms that could be interpreted by law enforcement with an extremely wide range of discretion. That is the nub of what people are concerned about.

Subsection 372(1) says:

Everyone commits an offence who, with intent to injure or alarm a person, conveys information that they know is false, or causes such information to be conveyed by letter or any means of telecommunication.

That is pretty subjective. How does one define an intent to alarm a person? That could be a phone bank calling the constituents of Mount Royal, asking if they knew that their member of Parliament had stepped down. That could be an alarming piece of information. Therefore, whoever made those calls would actually be committing an offence under this and would be liable to imprisonment for up to two years. I hope the members on the Conservative side of the bench really let that sink in.

That subsection is about conveying information that someone knows is false with the intent to alarm a person. That would be against the law and subject to a jail sentence. Think about how widely that could be interpreted.

Here is another one, subsection 372(2):

Everyone commits an offence who, with intent to alarm or annoy a person.

Has anyone on the Conservative benches ever sent an email with some intent to annoy someone? If so, it would be an offence if they were making an indecent communication. Who is defining what is decent and indecent? Some people think that a photo of clothing that is too tight might be indecent. What about a swear word? It might be considered indecent. If a member opposite sent an email or communication that was indecent but intended to annoy, he or she would then be committing an offence and subject to up to two years in prison. I think I am making my point that—

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

Madam Speaker, let me remind the member, first, that every attorney general of every province and territory of our country endorses Bill C-30.

As I stated in my earlier remarks, Chief Matt Torigian of the Waterloo Regional Police Service, who is the chair of the Canadian Association for Chiefs of Police, said, “We would also, en masse, be the first group to speak out on anything that has the potential to violate the integrity and the rights and freedoms of Canadians.”

The Calgary deputy chief of police said, “We really need to modernize this area of the law...We can’t create safe havens where criminals can ply their trade”.

The Canadian Police Association President Tom Stamatakis said, “Without this legislation we are asking our police to use pagers and typewriters to keep up with criminals using smartphones and tablets”.

It is clear. All we are asking is to update the laws of this land to give police officers the tools they need in the current environment with the telecommunications that we have.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this motion which points out the fundamental nature of privacy in Canadian law and calls on the government to ensure that the legislation it proposes engenders a respect for privacy. It is on this point that I will speak. I will highlight some of the ways in which Bill C-30 would reflect continuing respect for the privacy and civil liberties of Canadians.

One of the most consistent themes in Bill C-30 is privacy with precision. Every investigative power would have specific and appropriate privacy safeguards in place, calibrated to the level of intrusiveness of the techniques for which the power is designed. In plain language, the standard for authorizing an investigative technique would be directly related to its level of intrusiveness. Bill C-30 would move Canada away from a one size fits all approach where a single investigative power can authorize a wide range of investigative actions toward more specialized investigative powers drafted with particular investigative actions in mind.

I will give a few examples of how Bill C-30 would promote privacy with precision. The first of these is production orders. A production order is a court order that requires a third party who has possession or control of certain types of data or documents to deliver this material to the police within a specified period of time. Production orders are used in cases where it is more practical to have the holder of the documents or data retrieve information for the police rather than having the police conduct the search themselves with a search warrant. The use of production orders not only offers the police increased efficiency in protecting all of us, but also provides increased privacy protection for all Canadians. Third-party holders of computer data are best placed to be able to locate the requested information precisely and without inadvertently collecting information that is outside the scope of the request. Therefore, as an investigative technique, production orders actually help to minimize inadvertent intrusions on privacy. Production orders enhance privacy.

Production orders already exist in the Criminal Code. There is already a general production order as well as one that relates to a narrow set of financial information. Because of the broad nature of a general production order, it has a higher judicial threshold than the financial production order. To use a general production order, police must satisfy a judge that they have reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed and that the information requested would provide evidence of that offence. However, most investigations are not general in nature. Often the requirements of an investigation are quite targeted. In those cases, it makes sense to create specific tools that would allow police to obtain the specific data that they are looking for and which are designed to reflect the expectation of privacy associated with that kind of data.

Bill C-30 proposes the creation of three new production orders that have been designed with specific investigative techniques in mind. We are proposing to create a production order for data related to the routing of telecommunications, which would be known as transmission data; a production order for tracking data; and a production order designed to trace specified communications.

This last type of production order would be a very important tool for addressing the complexities of modern communication. It would allow police to trace the origin of a communication that may have gone through several different telecommunication providers before it reached its final destination. It would protect Canadians from inadvertent intrusions into their privacy.

I cannot stress enough that all of these production orders would have important built-in privacy protections. For example, both a production order to trace specified communications and a production order for transmission data relate to transmission data. Transmission data is a term clearly defined in the Criminal Code to expressly exclude the content of communication. Not even the subject line of an email would be available using either of these powers. It is important to stress that. We hear about people being concerned that others would be able to access the content of our emails. Not even the subject line would be available for these powers.

Information in the possession or control of an individual that does not fall under any of the specialized production orders could be obtained by the police using the general production order. However, the police would need to satisfy a judge of the higher belief-based standard. The same applies today.

Important privacy safeguards have been included throughout Bill C-30. Each investigative power in the bill has been carefully designed to strike a balance between the safety and security and the rights and liberties of all Canadians, such as preservation orders. This kind of tool is essential to our ability to conduct effective investigations in an era where crucial evidence can be deleted in the blink of an eye. Police officers will be able to do their jobs without fear that the data they need will be lost or deleted either intentionally or inadvertently as a matter of regular business practice during the period it takes to obtain a warrant or production order for that data.

If a police officer does not get a court order or search warrant to obtain the preserved data before the demand expires, any data that would not be retained in the ordinary course of business would be destroyed. The data would not be provided to the police without a court order or warrant. Should the preservation demand need to be extended, police officers would have to obtain a preservation order from a judge or justice. The order would then give them up to 90 days to get a production order or search warrant to obtain the data that had been preserved.

If the police are unable to get the production order or warrant by the time the preservation order expires, the person in possession of the preserved data is required to destroy it unless his or her business practices otherwise require that it be retained. What this means is that only specific data would be preserved under this scheme for a limited period of time and only for the purpose of the investigation. An even more fundamental privacy safeguard of this scheme is that data which would not otherwise be kept by a business would be destroyed as soon as it was no longer needed for an investigation.

These safeguards exemplify our efforts to respect privacy throughout the bill and respect privacy rights under Canadian law.

With regard to respect for privacy, let me quote Matt Torigian, Chief of Waterloo Regional Police Service and president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police. His statement clearly rebuts the fears expressed by the opposition. He stated:

We (the police) would also, en masse, be the first group to speak out on anything that has the potential to violate the integrity and the rights and freedoms of Canadians.

These are just a few examples of how Bill C-30 would promote privacy. As I have noted, the government's approach is one privacy with precision, well-defined investigative powers with strong privacy safeguards that will have been carefully calibrated to a particular investigative context. Our government believes we have proposed legislation that will ensure Canada's laws adequately protect Canadians online.

We also, however, expect Parliament to conduct a thorough review of our proposed legislation to ensure that we do strike the right balance between protecting Canadians from crime while respecting Canadians' privacy rights. I would ask hon. members to exercise due diligence in that review.

I will highlight the need for this legislation. Chief Torigian has noted that Bill C-30 would require the same types of judicial approval as old-fashioned wiretaps and would in cases even increase the regulatory burden. However, as Chief Torigian said:

We need to ensure that investigative bodies in Canada have the necessary tools to safeguard institutions, public bodies and private individuals.

As a grandfather of nine grandchildren, I cannot overstate the need to update our laws so they adequately protect all Canadians from online exploitation.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the government has recognized that there are flaws in the proposed legislation it has brought forward. It has said that it will bring it to committee prior to second reading. In a sense, it is good that we are having this debate today. Otherwise we would not have had a debate on Bill C-30 before it went to committee.

The government has a nasty tendency to go in camera in committee. This stops the public from being able to participate or listen to what is being talked about. I wonder if the member can provide information to the House or assurances that the government will not have in camera sittings during the discussions of this important bill when it goes to committee. Can he provide Canadians that assurance?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga.

I will begin by thanking the hon. member for Toronto Centre for his motion. I will limit my response to the hon. member's contention that the collection by government of personal information without limits, rules and judicial oversight constitutes a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

That implies that Bill C-30 would provide the state with an unlimited authority to intrude on the privacy and civil liberties of Canadians. This is profoundly misleading. Bill C-30 was carefully crafted to ensure a continuing respect for privacy and civil liberties are maintained and/or strengthened. Bill C-30 has as its primary objective providing the police and national security agencies with the investigative powers they need to combat 21st century crime.

The data preservation scheme proposed in Bill C-30, for instance, is an important investigative tool that would permit the police to order or demand the temporary preservation of computer data. It would not allow for the disclosure of this information without a warrant. Computer data is highly volatile. Telecommunication service providers, for example, routinely delete computer data as a matter of routine business practice. That is why it is imperative that the police have the power to ensure that computer data that might contain important evidence of a crime does not get deleted by a third party before the police have enough time to obtain it by using a judicially authorized warrant or production order.

Limited timelines are provided for the preservation of this information. After 21 days, the preservation demand, which would be made by the police and is intended to cover the time it takes to get the preservation order, would expire. The order, which would require judicial authorization, would then expire after 90 days. I do not know of anyone in the House who has had the opportunity to apply for a warrant in front of a justice. It takes a great deal of time and is not something where one knocks on the door and the justice simply issues it. Once that order expires, the bill would require that all data retained for the purposes of the investigation and not otherwise kept pursuant to regular business practices be destroyed. This objective is achieved in a manner that is respectful of privacy.

I will now elaborate with reference to the proposed transmission data recorder warrant and production order. The Criminal Code currently contains what is called a dialled number recorder warrant, as well as a production order for the same information. These tools allow investigators to collect and produce phone numbers, for instance the number of a phone used by a suspect in an investigation. The transmission data recorder warrant and production order would update the dialled number recorder warrant and production order in recognition of the fact that day-to-day communications are no longer restricted to the telephone. Rather, people now communicate using a variety of different technologies, such as email and text messaging. Technology has even advanced to the point where the lines between technologies have been blurred so that phone calls can be made over the Internet and cellphones can be used to search the World Wide Web.

It is clear that an investigative tool restricted to the collection of phone numbers is not only out of date but severely limits its usefulness. As a result, the new warrant and production order would now allow for the collection and production of data to traditional telephone numbers, but also found in the Internet world.

Like the existing warrant, the transmission data recorder warrant would be obtained when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the data being sought would assist in the investigation of a crime. Like the existing warrant, the data that could be collected using the warrant would be limited to routing data and telephone numbers. The content of the communications themselves would never be provided under this warrant. To ensure that this power is never used to gain access to the substance of communications, this is written into the definition of transmission data in Bill C-30.

If I were to conclude my remarks at this point, I might leave the impression that Bill C-30 is more or less privacy neutral, that it just maintains the existing safeguards and replicates those safeguards for new investigative powers. However, such an approach without more would fail to take stock of the profound effect that technological advances over the past few decades have had on privacy.

Judicial oversight would ensure an investigation strikes the right balance between individual privacy and the public good. Warrants would be tailored to ensure that the standards guiding that oversight fit with the type of technique at issue. Since tracking people clearly has more privacy implications than tracking cars or other things, the bill would make the standard for getting a warrant to track people higher than that for tracking cars or other objects.

Amendments in the bill would make it necessary for police to prove to judges that they have reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed and that the evidence would assist in the investigation before they are granted the warrant to track people.

Much of Bill C-30 is premised on the idea that each investigative technique the police have at their disposal should have a corresponding investigative power. That is why if data needed to be preserved for the purposes of investigation, Bill C-30 would create a specific way for the police to accomplish that. If the police then needed to obtain that preserved data, they could get a judicially authorized warrant or production order.

The bill in fact follows very closely on three previous bills that have been tabled in the House by Liberal members of the House in 2005, 2007 and 2009.

Our government has proposed legislation to ensure Canada's laws adequately protect Canadians' privacy online. We expect Parliament to conduct a thorough review of our proposed legislation to ensure we strike the right balance between protecting Canadians from crime while respecting Canadians' privacy rights.

Mr. Speaker, I hope my remarks have clarified some misconceptions regarding Bill C-30. I do hope, however, that Parliament will take the time to thoroughly study the bill to ensure that it achieves its purpose to better protect Canadians while also ensuring their right to privacy is protected.

Alleged Interference of Minister's Ability to Discharge Responsibilities

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to the question of privilege that the Minister of Public Safety raised in the House yesterday.

I will begin by saying that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons presented a well-researched, cogent argument in support of that. I do not think there is anything I can take issue with in regard to that presentation. However, I do have some concerns about the points that were made by the minister himself.

With regard to the material that did come from the parliamentary secretary, it was quite clear that in each case, when one is looking at the question of privilege, the facts of the case must decide whether in fact privilege has been breached. I believe that is again true in this case.

With regard to the points that the Minister of Public Safety made, he basically had three arguments supporting his position that his privilege had been breached. I will just do a quick summary.

First was that parliamentary resources had been used to attack his position with regard to some incidents in his personal life and with regard to Bill C-30 that was the issue of contention, but it was more that parliamentary resources had been used in that regard that his argument was made.

Second, he argued that the threats that were coming at him, and there can be no dispute over that part of it, that is very clearly a breach of his privilege and the privilege of any member of this House faced with those types of threats, that he either withdraw the bill or additional information would be released, is a clear breach of his privilege and one that would cause us to very strongly agree that his privilege had been breached on the facts of this case.

His third point was on the opposition to Bill C-30, that the people who were opposed to it were clogging up his office. That is the part that most disturbed me. The position that we would be taking as a party is that that is not a valid argument in support of an argument for breach of privilege.

In that regard, Mr. Speaker, I would draw to your attention a ruling by your predecessor, Mr. Milliken, on June 8, 2005. There was a similar type of situation where the member was claiming that his office was being intentionally clogged, that his email and phones were being intentionally clogged on an issue of some import to whoever was doing the work.

The key point for Speaker Milliken was, I believe, the same as in this case. It is not the question of whether in fact that is occurring, although that is a factual matter that should be determined, the important point is whether it is the intent of the people who are trying to contact the minister or the member of Parliament to clog up his office and make it inoperable and impossible for other constituents to have access to the member of Parliament.

The test is: What is the intent of the calls coming in, the emails coming in and the faxes coming in? Intent is the key component.

With regard to this situation, it is quite clear that Bill C-30 is very contentious. We as an official opposition party have been adamantly opposed to it. The third party in the House is adamantly opposed to it. Lots and lots of Canadians are adamantly opposed to it. One of the ways of expressing that opposition is to attempt to contact the minister's office and tell him that this is a bad bill and give reasons for opposing it.

If you make a ruling, Mr. Speaker, that says that if the effect of what one is doing in trying to contact the member of Parliament, in this case the minister, is to clog up his office, it will significantly impact the ability of individual Canadians to express their democratic voice in opposition to legislation.

In this case, it is clear that the bill is so contentious that it is almost impossible to envision that that many calls, those many emails and faxes were coming in with the intent of clogging his office. The intent behind those was that Canadians were expressing their democratic right to oppose the bill. Canadians were telling the minister that they were opposed to the bill and they were giving their reasons.

It is quite clear that relying on that ruling from Mr. Milliken, the Speaker of the day, would not be a basis on which to make a finding of breach of privilege in this case. The facts speak to that quite clearly.

I want to repeat that we have no problem with the finding of breach of privilege because of the second point that the minister made with regard to the threats. That is not tolerable behaviour in our society, in this Parliament and in Canada as a whole. It is just not the way Parliament and our democracy function. Ministers and members of Parliament cannot be threatened in that way, so there is no question that there is a breach of privilege on that point.

On the third point, with regard to clogging his office, that clearly is not a basis for a finding of breach of privilege. I would invite you, Mr. Speaker, to make it specific that that is not a basis on which you could make a finding of breach of privilege, as did Mr. Milliken in that particular case of June 5, 2008.

The minister's first point is more problematic. He is arguing that the use of parliamentary resources to, as he put it, attack him surreptitiously, is more problematic. It is a grey area. The anonymity is the part that bothers me. If this had been done by one of my staff who had simply sent the minister a message using the resources that we have here on the Hill saying “At a personal level, I'm opposed to the bill”, there is no question that is permissible because the individual is just doing his or her job.

The grey area is the anonymity in the way this one was done. That one, Mr. Speaker, I will throw back into your lap and not make a suggestion. However, I do not think it is clear as to whether, because parliamentary resources are being used to communicate to a member of Parliament or to a minister, that automatically means a breach of privilege. I do not think that follows. It is the anonymity part of it that would be of concern.

Opposition Motion—Charter of Rights and Freedoms

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are similarities between the Conservatives and the Liberals. One similarity is that the Liberals did this in 2005 and the Conservatives are doing it now. They are treating law-abiding citizens like criminals with Bill C-30. Those are the facts.

I have a question for my colleague. We know that warrants not being required was part of the Liberal bill to access information. Would the Liberals be introducing amendments to the bill so we can eliminate warrantless identifiers?

[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.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to clause 17 of Bill C-30, which refers to the extenuating circumstances that police require to just get information, could she expound upon that? I think there is some confusion that police can get information without doing anything. There has to be extenuating circumstances. Could she explain that for the opposition?

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to this important motion, and to Bill C-30 as well, because this is basically a reiteration of the previous Liberal bill. We know Bill C-30 is actually flawed. We know the privacy commissioners and experts are all already worried that the personal information of Canadians could be obtained without a warrant, violating the rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens.

We talk about law-abiding citizens on this side of the House and on that side of the House the Conservatives talk about law-abiding citizens when it comes to guns. I am trying to get some sense from the government. If the Conservatives felt that the gun registry was so intrusive for law-abiding citizens, why are they tabling legislation such as Bill C-30, which is even more intrusive? It just does not make sense.

On the other side of the House, the Conservatives say that if members are not on their side, then they are on the side of pornographers or they are not on the side of law-abiding citizens. What are they trying to do? Does this not contravene the Charter of Rights?

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respond to the motion. As my previous colleagues have stated, the hon. Minister of Justice is required to inform the House of Commons of any legislation introduced that is not compliant with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I would like to emphasize this point. The Minister of Justice believes that Bill C-30 does not violate any of our charter rights.

Does that mean Bill C-30 will have absolutely no effect on the privacy rights of Canadians? Of course not. Any legislation that gives police new investigative powers will necessarily impact upon the privacy of Canadians. What is important, however, is whether the impact on privacy is justified to ensure the public safety of our country.

Our government firmly believes that we have proposed legislation to ensure Canada's laws adequately protect Canadians online, without breaching their constitutional rights. All of the new powers were carefully tailored to ensure that the proper level of scrutiny, whether it is transparency or oversight, was built into the specific powers sought.

I would like to remind hon. members on the other side of the House that similar legislation has not only been tabled by previous Liberal governments, in 2005, 2007 and 2009, as stated by others in this place as well, but the Liberals have supported these same changes with weaker oversight and weaker protections for privacy.

Bill C-30 is about providing police officers with the tools they need to fight crime today. It is about modernizing investigative techniques so they can catch those who would exploit technology for criminal purposes.

Thirty years ago computer crime was mostly a local crime that could be policed and prosecuted more or less in the same manner as traditional crimes. The Internet has changed that. The Internet is ubiquitous and so is computer-related crime. It knows no borders and we cannot investigate and prosecute it without the assistance of our international partners.

In fact, among the many things that Bill C-30 would do, it would allow Canada to ratify the Council of Europe convention on cybercrime. In order for Canada to ratify international treaties, it must first bring its law into conformity with the requirements of the instrument. In the case of this convention, for example, it requires a member state to have the ability to preserve computer data. Bill C-30 would respond to the requirement by creating the preservation order in Canadian law.

This convention, otherwise known as the Budapest convention, is the pre-eminent international treaty dealing with cybercrime. Canada was among the countries that negotiated this treaty and was instrumental to the inclusion of the child pornography provisions contained within it.

By putting Canada in the position to ratify the Budapest convention, Bill C-30 would do two things. First, it would answer our need for increased international co-operation in this area. Second, it would enhance the safety of Canadians by providing our police officers with the tools they needed.

The convention, which requires states to adhere to relevant international human rights standards and to create certain baseline substantive offences and procedural powers, also provides states with a mechanism for international co-operation. This increased ability to co-operate with our friends in the area of cybercrime, and especially child pornography, will increase our success rate in capturing criminals who use international borders to stymie investigations.

Finally, 32 countries have already ratified this convention, including two of our most important partners, the United States and the United Kingdom. Further, Australia, another important Canadian ally, has been asked to accede to the convention. The importance of this convention is underscored by their participation.

Canada's ratification of this convention will extend the reach of Canadian law enforcement around the globe as more and more non-European countries seek accession. This ability will ensure that more cybercriminals are brought to justice and will make Canada a safer place, especially for our children.

I would like to reiterate what I have previously said. This legislation is not new to Parliament. I find it very ironic that the Liberal leader would table a motion in the House that criticizes legislation that his party previously supported and tabled when the Liberals were in government. As I have already stated, the previous Liberal legislation had weaker protections for the privacy of Canadians.

The Liberal Party is the last one that should lecture Parliament on how to better protect Canadians, while also ensuring the respect of their privacy. This is another clear example of the fact that the Liberals are completely void of values, principles and ideas. They simply adopt whichever position they think is popular on the issue of the day. This is not what Parliament is elected to do.

Our government expects Parliament to have a thorough debate and conduct a thorough review of our proposed legislation to ensure we strike the right balance between protecting Canadians from crime while respecting Canadians' privacy rights.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Delta—Richmond East.

I am pleased to rise today to address the motion. Bill C-30 provides law enforcement and national security agencies with the necessary tools to conduct their investigations in a world where telephone calls and ordinary email are being replaced by constantly changing communications technology. Even though its main objective is to ensure that the criminal justice system keeps pace with these changes and new criminal techniques, the government is paying attention to the concerns expressed about privacy and certain investigative techniques.

For that reason, we made considerable efforts to consult Canadians and stakeholders. These consultations went on for years and included discussions with the federal and provincial privacy commissioners. This allowed us to craft the bill before us today. I can assure you that each of the investigative powers set out in the bill was carefully developed with privacy considerations in mind.

We are talking here about new measures that precisely guarantee the privacy of personal information. However, it seems that some people fear that the bill will change the fundamental way in which Canadians' privacy is protected and that it will give the police wide-ranging new powers that will give them free access to our private lives.

These concerns are unfounded. In certain cases, people may have misunderstood the complex proposals designed to take into account increasingly modern means of telecommunications. I would like to assure all the members of the House and all Canadians that the purpose of Bill C-30 has never been to intercept Canadians' private communications and telecommunications. Bill C-30 was never designed to monitor Canadians' Web activity or to prevent them from sending emails anonymously. The purpose of Bill C-30 has always been to ensure that law enforcement agencies are able to stay on top of new communication technologies.

In response to these concerns, I would like to present some facts. Since the 1970s, Canadian police have been able to intercept private communications when given a court's authorization to do so, under the Criminal Code. In such cases, the judge has to be convinced that justice would be best served if the communication were intercepted and that the police tried other investigative methods but were unsuccessful. It is only in rare and urgent circumstances, such as a kidnapping or bomb threat, where time is of the essence, that law enforcement agencies are able to intercept private communications without a judge's authorization.

The bill does not change this approach at all. In fact, the bill proposes additional protective measures that go above and beyond the provisions of the Criminal Code related to the authorization of interception in exceptional circumstances, which are set out in section 184.4.

I would like to clear up another misconception, namely that law enforcement agencies and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service will be able to obtain basic subscriber information. Law enforcement and national security officers are already authorized to request subscriber information from service providers. However, that information is shared by the service providers on a strictly voluntary basis and there are very few monitoring and review mechanisms at this time. This approach is problematic because some service providers hand over the information on request, while others take a long time doing so or simply refuse to co-operate.

As a result, we have a discretionary and inconsistent system across the country, which threatens the safety of Canadians. The bill proposes a fair and uniform process that will facilitate access to basic subscriber information when needed. It also provides for a solid reporting and verification system, which is currently lacking.

Access to basic subscriber information, such as names and postal and electronic addresses, is especially important when computer technology is involved, because criminals use the Internet to conduct their activities anonymously.

A 2011 investigation into a case of child exploitation on the Internet in my province, New Brunswick, was delayed by more than six months because the authorities had difficulty obtaining basic subscriber information from a service provider. When they finally obtained the desired information, the authorities learned that an adolescent from the region had been the victim of abuse by the suspect. This type of situation is unacceptable.

With Bill C-30, not only will we prevent this type of situation, but we will be implementing various mechanisms to ensure the accountability of those who access the basic subscriber information. Again, this is a measure that does not yet exist.

The bill will require the authorities to keep a log of all requests for access to basic subscriber information, to conduct verifications and to produce regular reports.

What is more, the bill reinforces the role of watchdogs like the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada in ensuring an audit of the agencies under their jurisdiction.

The bill also compels the authorities to issue a written notice when using wiretapping in their investigations in exceptional circumstances and to produce a report in that regard.

These obligations already exist for other activities, including wiretaps authorized by the Criminal Code, and it is only logical to also implement them in this case.

As for electronic surveillance, in addition to ministerial approval, checks and balances are already in place to ensure accountability for the law enforcement agencies that exercise these exceptional powers. For instance, the individuals designated under sections 185, 186 and 188 of the Criminal Code must obtain authorization from a judge in order to intercept private communications, and this goes for each case under investigation. Evidence must be submitted under oath during any criminal proceedings that result from investigations. The Minister of Public Safety must present an annual report on any interceptions relating to an offence for which proceedings may be commenced by or on behalf of the Attorney General of Canada. This report, based on the information provided by police forces, must be presented to Parliament pursuant to the legislation.

Any time important rights are at stake, such as a person's reasonable expectations of privacy, it is in everyone's interest to know when and how investigative powers like the one in question are used.

Collecting data and statistics regarding the exercise of these investigative powers will help us to inform the public and determine usage practices so we can amend them as needed.

We do not have to choose between safety and respect for our rights. We need to find a balanced, happy medium. Our government believes that this bill achieves this balance. However, we also believe that Parliament has a duty to examine this bill in order to ensure that this balance was in fact achieved. We hope it will be examined in a non-partisan environment without any misinformation from the opposition parties.