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.

Telecommunications Act

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am not nearly as old as I look. When I came here I was much younger, but then I had to sit through eight years of the Harper government and my hair turned white. I feel like I am one of the few who remember what actually happened then, and I watch this cultural amnesia play out day after day.

I remember Bill C-30. Stephen Harper decided that he wanted a law allowing the police to check people's phones any time they wanted for whatever reason, and the Conservatives insisted that the telecoms put in a back channel so they could spy on and listen in to ordinary Canadians. That was before we knew there were conspiracy theories, and the Conservatives have a million over there. They would think this had something to do with promoting vaccines, but this was Stephen Harper's attempt to criminalize ordinary people without a warrant.

I want to ask my hon. colleague about that. She talks about, God forbid, the Conservatives coming back. I do not know what would happen to the rest of my hair if that happened. Are they going to continue to promote the kinds of tactics that Stephen Harper used, which criminalized ordinary Canadians in their private homes by listening in to what they were talking about?

[Laura Tribe, Executive Director, OpenMedia]

Good morning. My name is Laura Tribe, and I am the executive director of OpenMedia, a community-based organization committed to keeping the Internet open, affordable, and surveillance-free.

I'm here today with Tim McSorley of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, who were unfortunately not invited by the committee to testify in these proceedings, but whose contributions OpenMedia believes to be critical for an informed discussion of Bill C-59.

OpenMedia's work on privacy and digital security dates back to Bills C-13 and C-30, but has focused more recently on the serious security violations introduced by the previous government's Bill C-51. The OpenMedia community's lengthy efforts on these issues include producing “Canada's Privacy Plan”, a positive vision for the future of privacy in Canada that was crowdsourced from over 125,000 contributors; over 300,000 people speaking up against Bill C-51; two national days of action against Bill C-51, organized in partnership with organizations across the country; over 15,000 citizen comments submitted to the government's national security consultation; and over 6,000 submissions to this committee's written consultation on Bill C-59.

Public Safety Canada's report summarizing the national security consultation results showed that Canadians are overwhelmingly in favour of increased protections for personal privacy. More than four in five responses indicated that their expectation of privacy in the digital world is the same as or higher than in the physical world.

As a result, when Bill C-59 was introduced, we were relieved; it was a sign that change was coming. However, the more we analyzed the bill, the more our worries returned. The changes are less substantive than we had hoped, and invasive new powers were even introduced.

Bill C-59 fails to adequately address the information disclosure provisions and terrorist speech offences brought in by Bill C-51, but also brings in new data collection, cybersecurity, and information-sharing powers that further threaten our privacy and security.

Today this committee has a chance to make this right. Over 6,000 Canadians submitted their concerns about Bill C-59 via OpenMedia's written submission to this consultation. Since then, in the past two weeks, we've had almost 10,000 more Canadians sign a new petition concerning the expanded cyber-operations powers proposed in the CSE act included within Bill C-59. It's addressed to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and reads:

“As a concerned Canadian, I am urging you to address the dangerous new powers being proposed for CSE in Bill C-59. Throughout the process of reforming Bill C-51, Canadians have been very clear on the need to scale back the drastic and invasive national security measures in the bill.

“Public Safety Canada's own 'What We Learned' report, which formed the basis of Bill C-59, confirmed that a majority of stakeholders and experts called for existing measures to be scaled back or repealed completely, and that most participants in the consultations 'opted to err on the side of protecting individual rights and freedoms rather than granting additional powers to national security agencies and law enforcement...'.

“The new active and defensive cyber-operations powers proposed in Bill C-59 for CSE are directly opposed to the wishes of the majority of Canadians. We asked for privacy, but instead we got an out-of-control spy agency with even more extreme powers than before.

“Security and privacy experts throughout Canada have expressed in great detail the issues with the proposed bill and the changes that need to be made to protect the privacy and security of Canadians. Experts have warned of the consequences of granting powers like these, powers that will be all the more dangerous given the lack of adequate oversight included in the bill.

“I would like to point you to the 'Analysis of the Communications Security Establishment Act and Related Provisions in Bill C-59' report, produced by the Citizen Lab and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, CIPPIC. The recommendations laid out in this report should be adopted by the SECU committee.

“In a world and time where digital technologies are being used by so many to threaten our digital safety, we need our government to be helping make the world better, not actively undermining our security.”

As of this morning, our petition has been signed by 9,633 Canadians. On behalf of these signatories, plus the over 300,000 against Conservative Bill C-51, and the other concerned civil society groups who have been unable to join these proceedings themselves, we respectfully ask that you make things right. We are asking you, our elected representatives, to stand up for our privacy and continue the work of repealing Bill C-51. Digital security is critical to Canada's infrastructure, economy, and future. Please do not compromise this in the name of fear or following other countries' bad practices to lead us in a race to the bottom. We need to be stronger than that.

Thank you.

Digital Privacy Act

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague really put his finger on the problem, which is rather widespread and applies to other bills besides the one before us today.

For instance, following public pressure, the government unfortunately had to withdraw Bill C-30 from the order paper. However, there was also Bill C-51 and Bill C-13 on cybercrime. Now we are talking about Bill S-4, which completely destroys Canada's privacy protection regime. It waters down the criteria for obtaining warrants and, in some cases, even allows authorities to access the personal information of Canadians without a warrant.

I wonder whether the member could tell us just how troubled he is that this government says here in the House and elsewhere that it wants to protect Canadians, and yet it introduces a number of bills, like Bill C-51, Bill C-13 and Bill S-4, that put Canadians' privacy at risk.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to speak to the very important Bill S-4. It concerns the sharing of personal information in the digital age. It deals mainly with the way in which we legislate against companies responsible for the loss or sharing of information. We know this is a very sensitive issue because we are in the digital age where more and more personal information is found online. We think first of banking information, and also of information that sometimes seems not that important, but that is nevertheless part of peoples' private lives. It is information that we share on social networks, such as photos.

This covers all kinds of of complex issues, such as copyright, that we have addressed in the House since the last election, and the dissemination of information pertaining to national security. We had an important debate on this issue during the debate on Bill C-51. We learned that information technology companies, or startups, had concerns about some of the bill's provisions.

Of course, we are all familiar with the infamous story of Bill C-30, where the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness at the time told us that we stood either with the government or with child pornographers. This example shows just how big an issue we are dealing with and the Conservatives' poor record in this regard.

First, I would like to mention something very important and very simple: the obligation to review the privacy legislation every five years. Obviously, this is very important given how quickly technology changes. Unfortunately, such a review has not been implemented. A number of bills were introduced in this regard, but they died on the order paper when the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament. There was, of course, Bill C-30, which is a whole other story, and there was also the bill introduced by my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville. That bill, which the government refused to support, sought to implement a robust privacy review process, give more power to the Privacy Commissioner and have clearer legislative provisions.

Bill S-4 includes similar provisions. However, they do not go far enough and there are still worrisome loopholes. One of the grey areas that I am particularly concerned about has to do with organizations, such as banks, that could share private information. These organizations are required to report a loss of personal information to the Privacy Commissioner only “if it is reasonable in the circumstances to believe that the breach creates a real risk of significant harm to an individual”. That may seem clear, but when it comes to legislative measures, we can see that there is a lot of leeway in how this provision of the bill is worded. The company could decide that no one's privacy was really violated and that there was no risk of harm to the individual and simply not report the privacy breach.

One of the flaws in this bill is the requirement for a court warrant, which my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville brought up earlier and which she included in her bill. The Supreme Court recently ruled that any invasion of privacy by the government and any request that the government makes to a private company that is in possession of our information require a mandate. There is no such requirement in this bill, which is extremely worrisome. That is why I made the link earlier to Bill C-51 and the debate on Bill C-30, which did not end up taking place because we managed to get the government to back down. The government seems to be on the wrong track and does not seem to take privacy seriously.

Its record is a great example of that. How many times does the House need to hear criticisms about mismanagement at the Canada Revenue Agency, for example, during question period or at every possible opportunity, whether it is when bills are introduced and petitions are presented or at press conferences?

This department is in possession of the most sensitive information on Canadians, such as their social insurance numbers and their tax information. The department has been the victim of data breaches, and the government does not seem to be taking any responsibility. That makes it hard for us to trust that the government will require private companies to comply with high privacy standards when it is not capable of doing so itself. This situation is extremely worrisome.

We know that this is a complex issue because more and more things are done online. As far as matters of national security are concerned, we know that as legislators we have work to do. We wanted to propose amendments to ensure that this bill went further and complied with the Supreme Court decision. Like a number of witnesses in committee, we question the constitutionality of this bill in its current form.

If I am not mistaken, the 18 amendments the NDP proposed were all rejected. True to form, the Conservatives did not listen to any of the testimony or pay any regard to the amendments proposed by all the parties. The amendments proposed by the NDP were all based on what the public had to say and on the very hard work of my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville, who was trying to get suitable provisions for 2015, not 2000. Technology changes and so does our reality, and we have to adjust accordingly.

In this context, there are a number of troubling aspects. First, this bill was introduced in the Senate, which, naturally, we criticize every chance we get. The Minister of Industry made an announcement about how he wants to proceed in the digital age, but instead of introducing this bill in the House himself, he introduced it in the Senate. That is one problem.

The second problem is that the Conservatives wanted to skip second reading and send the bill straight to committee. That is not a bad idea in and of itself. The NDP has asked for the same in order to study certain extremely complex files.

For example, we asked to take this approach for Bill C-23, which we called the “electoral deform” bill. Since the government wanted to go straight to committee, we thought it was willing to accept amendments and listen to witnesses, but that did not happen.

The third problem concerns another of the government's bad habits: the honour of the 97th time allocation motion was bestowed on Bill S-4 in order to limit debate. Unfortunately, at this rate, the Conservatives will have moved 100 such motions by the time the election is held. To be blunt, that is pretty shabby.

Although it is important to protect Canadians' privacy and to do what it takes, in 2015, to implement an approach appropriate for the digital age, recent Supreme Court decisions have cast doubt on the constitutionality of this bill.

This bill does not go far enough, and since the government wants to limit debate and does not accept the amendments and the work done in committee, we cannot and will not support this bill. I am very pleased to rise in the House to say that.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that I have about seventeen minutes left. I expect I will not use that, just to warn the next speaker who may be on the list, as I have spoken to this bill before.

Before question period, I was outlining that I was pleased but also troubled to speak to Bill C-13. I outlined that the Liberal Party is very supportive of the cyberbullying aspects of the bill, but troubled over the parts that are measures in the old Bill C-30 on lawful access, which so many Canadians spoke out against.

Efforts were made, and I am disappointed that the government did not accept those efforts by both opposition parties, to split the bill. It was not only the opposition members who wanted to split the bill; it was the new Privacy Commissioner and many others, including Carol Todd, who knows very well about the difficult and troubling aspect of cyberbullying.

The bill was not split. However, regardless, we do feel within the Liberal Party that cyberbullying is such a scourge on society that we are going to have to put not only a little water in our wine, but a fair bit, in fact, because we are very seriously troubled over aspects of the bill. This tends to be what the current government does. The Conservatives will put a couple of good points in the bill and add a whole lot of other material that should not be in that particular bill.

The Liberals believe that a balance must be struck between civil liberties and public safety, particularly when it comes to warrants that may be intrusive and overboard. We do not support the measures that were in Bill C-30, which the government had to withdraw because of Canadians' outrage. The problem is that some of those points are back in this bill. Some of this bill duplicates the rejected Bill C-30, such as word-for-word reproductions of the changes to subsection 487(c.1) of the Criminal Code; and all but one-word changes to subsection 492.1 and section 492 regarding warrants.

We are very concerned about efforts to reintroduce “lawful access”, which the Conservatives promised was dead.

Though the title is the “protecting Canadians from online crime act”, nobody would be protected under this act. In typical government fashion, this is all about punishment rather than prevention. Complex problems like cyberbullying require more than blunt additions to the Criminal Code. This omnibus bill touches everything from terrorism to telemarketing, and cable stealing to hate speech. It is an affront to both democracy and the legislative process in the way it was handled.

If it had been split, what could have been a bill on cyberbullying, which probably would have had the unanimous support of the House, is no longer possible. What is seen from us is reluctant support because we have to, regardless of the consequences, deal with the cyberbullying side. That is certainly why I am troubled.

I want to turn to a couple of quotes that outline the extent of the problem in terms of the way that the government has dealt with this bill.

There was an editorial in The Globe and Mail, on November 22, entitled “Not Without a Warrant”, from which I will quote:

Under current law, a wiretapping authorization will only be issued by a judge if police can show a “reasonable ground to believe that an offence has been or will be committed.” But under Bill C-13, wireless wiretaps can be authorized on the looser standards of “reasonable ground to suspect.”

The editorial goes on:

Why not make police applications for a wireless wiretap clear the same, high legal hurdle as a traditional wiretap? And why is the government burying all of this inside an unrelated piece of legislation covering the highly emotional topic of cyberbullying? Parliament should be debating and voting on each measure separately, on its merits. Once again, the Conservative government is engaging in unnecessary legislative acrobatics. Time to cease and desist.

I will read one more. This is an editorial, also on November 22, from the Ottawa Citizen, entitled “More than 'cyberbullying'”. I will just read a piece of it:

If the government wants to make cable theft a criminal offence, or increase police powers to track online communication, it is perfectly within its rights to propose those things. There is no reason to bundle it in with a bill that has an entirely different purpose. The announcement about the bill calls it “legislation to crack down on cyberbullying.” This suggests the Conservatives never learned the main lesson from the Toews' debacle, and are still trying to bundle and brand their legislation instead of simply defending it on its merits.

We are certainly not the only ones who are troubled about how the government approaches these bills, rams stuff through committee, and fails to give proper legitimate debate to each item on its own merits, so that at the end of the day this place can be proud, on all sides, of what we have passed.

However, as I said, the cyberbullying issue is of such an urgency that we cannot deep-six, if I could put it that way, that aspect of the bill that we do not like. We are forced to vote on a bill that we are troubled over, and, reluctantly, we will.

However, we will put a red flag on all areas infringing upon privacy that we are concerned about, and hopefully in a future Parliament we will see democracy break out in this place, where committees can do their job, as the founders of this country envisioned it would be done.

Let me close by saying that on the cyberbullying aspect, the Criminal Code is not the only instrument that needs to be embellished, if I could put it that way, in order to deal with the problem of cyberbullying. We believe that these legislative measures alone are insufficient to combat cyberbullying, and we urge the government to commit to a broader, more holistic strategy to deal with cyberbullying.

It would also include public awareness resources for parents and kids. In other words, there has to be an education campaign, a publicity campaign, whether it is police forces, or community leaders, or whatever, who go into our school system to talk about the problem of cyberbullying and how this new technological world that we live in can haunt us, and, in fact, is used to haunt certain individuals in society.

In order to save time, I will close my remarks. I appreciate having had the opportunity to speak at third reading of this bill.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, much like at second reading, I am pleased but also troubled to speak to Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

I am pleased that Parliament and the government are moving forward with measures to combat cyberbullying. It is, as many others have said, a scourge on our society and is especially troublesome, creating stress, strain and in some cases a loss of self-worth, among our youth.

As my colleagues, the critic for justice and the critic for rights and freedoms, have stated, we support very strongly that aspect of the bill. Support measures that would provide law enforcement with additional tools to combat cyberbullying is an area where the Criminal Code needs to be updated to reflect the realities of modern technologies and these times. Bill C-13 would do a reasonable job in bringing the Criminal Code up to date.

I will speak a little further on other measures we believe, beyond the Criminal Code, that must happen to really deal effectively with cyberbullying. The Criminal Code can only be one aspect. We need to take many more measures in prevention and awareness, et cetera, beyond the Criminal Code.

However, at the beginning I said I am pleased, but I am also troubled. I am troubled because tagged onto the bill were measures of the old Bill C-30 on lawful access that so many Canadians spoke out against. Efforts were made to split the bill at committee and yet, despite the urging of the new Privacy Commissioner and many other witnesses, including Carol Todd, the bill was not split.

I will complete my remarks after question period.

Report Stage

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak to Bill C-13.

I will put my speech aside, because I want to respond to the accusations just made by the member opposite. I am actually the chair of the justice committee, and as chair, part of my responsibility is to make sure that everyone gets a fair opportunity to be heard. I think members of the committee work very well together, to be perfectly honest.

The way it has worked and will continue to work at committee is that each party is able to submit the names of witnesses they would like to hear from. Based on the numbers we get, we ask members to prioritize who they would like to hear from, because time may run out.

If I recall correctly, there was no set time for this particular bill. If the committee did not hear from certain segments, it was because those witnesses were not recommended or brought forward. The committee did not call those witnesses not because the government was trying to do something inappropriate but because the witnesses were not asked for. The government cannot be blamed for not calling witnesses who were not asked for.

Conservatives had an opportunity to ask for witnesses. New Democrats asked for witnesses and the Liberals asked for witnesses. I take some offence that the member said this was not done appropriately. It was absolutely done appropriately. It was done in this committee in dealing with Bill C-13 and is done for all other legislation that comes to the committee.

I think the committee is operating well, and everyone has an opportunity to have their say. If parties, including my own, want to hear from witnesses, they can put them on the list. There will be a discussion as to how many meetings there will be on it, and then we will hear from those witnesses. That is how it has worked and will continue to work as long as I am in the chair. We will see if that continues.

I also want to respond to the issue of splitting this omnibus bill. I have the bill in front of me. It is in French and English, as all bills are. It is 53 pages long, plus 12 pages of explanatory notes. It is not a very big bill. If members can read it in both languages, that is great, but let us assume that most read in one language or the other. That would make it about 25 or 26 pages long. It did not need to be split, in my view. I think there is lots of opportunity to talk about all the issues. It is not a very difficult bill to grasp. I think someone could read it in a few hours.

There are a number of issues in the bill, but the process at committee did not limit members to talking about just certain parts of the bill. Members could have brought forward witnesses and we could have had a discussion, which we did, on all parts of that bill. I have to take some offence on the issue of what happened.

As we know, as the minister and the previous speaker on this side have pointed out, the bill would do a number of things, but in general, it would create a new offence for the distribution of non-consensual pictures on the Internet.

I did not know how big a problem it was, to be perfectly honest. I had not really experienced it in my office or had anyone come to see me. I took the opportunity to ask my daughters, who just graduated and are in university now. They were able to illustrate to me a number of actual cases, in their own high school, of young women who had had photos taken of them that were then posted on different people's sites as revenge or cyberbullying. This was a surprise to me.

That does not make the news. What makes the news is when it goes too far and the bullying is so egregious that someone, unfortunately, takes his or her life. Then it makes big news. This is a problem that is happening every day in every community across this country, so we needed to act.

There was mention of the previous legislation that was brought forward in Bill C-30, and appropriately so. The government recognized that there were some issues that needed to be dealt with, so we brought it back, took it off the table, and redid the bill.

We made changes based on the public and the response in this House in terms of the changes that needed to be made. I believe that those were made. Do we get credit as a government for making those changes? No, and the previous speaker criticized us, saying that we did not do it right in the first place.

I am sure that opposition members believe that they are perfect, and maybe even some of us think we are perfect on this side, but let us be honest. We had a bill in front of us, we recognized that there were some issues, we took it back, and we made changes and improvements. We addressed those problems and brought something back that we could all pass.

I am not sure what the NDP are doing. I heard from the last speaker that the Liberals are supporting the bill going forward, and I appreciate that.

I do not think as a government that we should be criticized for hearing the concerns and then making changes. I will agree that there were a number of amendments put forward, 30-some amendments, and one, on a review period, did pass, which I personally supported. I do not vote on the committee as the chair, but I do support that.

As we all know, it takes some time for legislation, especially with the Criminal Code, to get through the system, get in place, and get tested in practice. I think it will take some time before this piece of legislation is tested, and that length of time for the review is appropriate.

The other issue we heard a lot about was that the bill would give the police a lot more power than they already have. I think the issue on Bill C-30 was that it looked like the police could do things without a warrant. Well, this bill would clearly resolve that issue, in my view.

Bill C-13 clearly indicates that for preservation orders and for the police to be able to do their jobs in terms of attacking the problem of cyberbullying in particular cases, they need judicial support to move forward.

I think it is important to give the police those tools. In this electronic environment of the Internet, things move so fast, on or off, we need to be able to do that.

We experience that around here all the time. If a member of Parliament makes a mistake or does something on the Internet, and somebody catches it, a few hours later, if not less, it is gone. We have all experienced that in this House with members of Parliament doing things on electronic systems.

When it is a criminal activity, we need to have the police able to go after it quickly. We need to give them those tools to make that happen. I am very supportive of the opportunity for the police to be able to do their work.

We have been asked as a government to do something about the cyberbullying problem. This is not an easy area to legislate. We cannot legislate cyberbullying to stop. It is not that easy. I appreciate that we have looked at opportunities and issues in terms of addressing cyberbullying through our legal system, which is what this bill would do.

Bill C-13 would give the police better tools to track and trace telecommunications. It would streamline the process of obtaining multiple warrants so that the police could execute their jobs.

The witnesses we saw whose families were affected by cyberbullying were fully supportive of what we were doing. I want every member of this House to think about that. If it was their son or daughter whose photo was online and who was being bullied, would they want the police to be able to act to resolve the issue and have a penalty for cyberbullying? I believe the answer is yes, and it is yes for the vast majority of Canadians. That is why we need to support Bill C-13.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act, and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

The title is cited as “protecting Canadians from online crime act”, and I have to say at the beginning that I am constantly bothered by the way the government names its bills.

The naming of the bill goes to the heart of the way the government operates in titling its various legislation. There is a lot of spin and a certain amount of deception, because this bill would not actually protect Canadians from online crime in any discernible way. It would provide investigative tools to police and new offences, but all this assumed conduct would be in progress or would have already occurred; it would not be prevented by this legislation.

It has to be said, in fairness to the government, there is some preventive aspect in the fear of the penalties among people who would do these kinds of things. However, as is so often the case with the Conservatives, the title is exaggerated and, I would say, deceptive. Members have heard me say a number of times in this House that we have now had eight years of deception from the current government.

The principal incentive behind this legislation has been the growing problem of cyberbullying, which has led to some tragic consequences. There is no question cyberbullying is a scourge on our society and that cyberbullying is a particular strain on our young people. We could go through all kinds of cases of that, and other speakers have. The Liberals are supportive in principle of legislative measures that would provide law enforcement with additional tools to combat cyberbullying. This is an area where the Criminal Code urgently needs to be updated to reflect the realities of modern technologies.

We believe, however, that legislative measures alone, while helpful, are insufficient to combat cyberbullying, and we urge the government to commit to a broader, more holistic strategy to deal with cyberbullying that also includes public awareness resources for parents, kids, and the general public.

The Liberals introduced cyberbullying legislation in the last session that would have modified some Criminal Code offences to cover modern technology, as is done in Bill C-13. The Conservative members and the New Democrats voted against that legislative measure in the last session.

The Liberals, while in government, also introduced legislation that would have addressed new technologies back in 2005. The current government is only now figuring out that police need these tools to keep up with technologies that are increasingly a part of today's crime.

We believe that a balance must be struck between civil liberties and public safety, particularly when it comes to warrants that may be intrusive and overly broad. We do not support the measures that were in Bill C-30, the previous bill, which even the Conservatives had to withdraw because of Canadian outrage. Sadly, some of this bill duplicates the rejected Bill C-30, such as word-for-word reproductions of the change to subsection 487.3(1) of the Criminal Code and, except for one word, the changes to sections 492.1 and 492.2 regarding warrants.

We are very concerned about efforts to reintroduce “lawful access”, which the Conservatives promised was dead. Why the current government continues to tag on measures that push the envelope, so to speak, on privacy issues makes no sense to me. The immediate issue is important and cannot be lost, so we feel we have to support it, but why do the Conservatives play politics with everything, using cyberbullying to get what they wanted in the old Bill C-30?

My colleague, the member for Charlottetown, raised a question in the House in which he asked the minister to split the bill, but that was refused. That would have made a lot of sense, in that both aspects of the bill could have been studied in their own right and the cyberbullying aspect of the bill could have been dealt with very rapidly.

This omnibus bill touches upon everything from terrorism to telemarketing to cable stealing to hate speech, and in some parts is an affront to both democracy and the legislative process.

In particular, the bill resurrects elements of the old Bill C-30, Vic Toews' famous “either stand with us or with the child pornographers” bill when he was the previous justice minister. Many in this House will remember that.

The past justice minister, now the Minister of National Defence, promised Canadians on February 11, 2013, while killing Bill C-30:

We will not be proceeding with Bill C-30 and any attempts that we will continue to have to modernize the Criminal Code will not contain the measures contained in C-30, including the warrantless mandatory disclosure of basic subscriber information or the requirement for telecommunications service providers to build intercept capability within their systems.

He went on to say:

We've listened to the concerns of Canadians who have been very clear on this and responding to that.

I heard what the previous speaker said, and he dealt with this issue somewhat. However, there is a real question in this legislation as to whether the minister's words hold true or not. Again, it goes to the heart of why the bill was not split so that both aspects could be dealt with appropriately.

We must ensure that adequate protections are included in the bill to protect the civil liberties and privacy interests of ordinary Canadians. We are very concerned that with this omnibus bill, under the guise of cyberbullying prevention, the government is slipping things through the back door.

Ultimately, while we agree the Criminal Code must be updated to keep pace with technology, the hodgepodge bundling of bills is highly problematic. Some of it, such as the changes to the hate speech provisions and the introduction of the cable stealing offence, has been presented without any explanation of why the modifications are being made and without making any rational connection to cyberbullying.

We agree with the need to address cyberbullying and support the creation of a new offence for the unwanted distribution of intimate images. We also agree that some of the Criminal Code sections being modified are woefully out of date and must be amended to better reflect modern technology.

We strongly disagree, however, with the use of omnibus legislation that precludes nuanced discussion and debate on disparate issues. Moreover, we strongly disagree with the reintroduction of the universally panned legislation on lawful access from the old Bill C-30.

In short, we believe the provisions of the bill would unnecessarily infringe the civil liberties and privacy interests of Canadians. While we support this legislation, we want to place on the record that, as has happened in the past with the government's so-called crime agenda, the courts could ultimately find that many of the provisions of Bill C-13 would be illegal.

It would have served the government and Canadians well had the government accepted some of the concerns that were raised, allowed some amendments at committee, and, most notably, accepted the demand by my colleague, the member for Charlottetown, to split the bill, with the cyberbullying elements contained in a stand-alone bill rather than in what we are now debating.

Motions in Amendment

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to some extent to participate in the debate at this particular time, at the report stage.

I want to start by commending my colleagues, our justice critic and other members of the justice and human rights committee, who have worked so hard on Bill C-13 and introduced 37 amendments at the committee stage to try to take away some of the more onerous portions of this particular bill so that it would not, for example, spend the rest of its life in court being challenged constitutionally. It has taken a fair bit of effort and energy, I know, and patience on their part to do what they have done. I want them to know how much I appreciate it.

I want to, also, remind members that back on October 17, 11 months ago almost, I rose on a point of order to say that I was concerned about the issue that had been raised in my private member's bill, Bill C-540, making it a criminal offence to distribute non-consensual intimate images. While I had heard from the government in the throne speech and from utterances of the then minister of justice that he supported this in principle, I was concerned that the issue would get bundled up in a major piece of legislation, a controversial piece of legislation, and that it may get delayed or lost.

I sought unanimous consent at that particular time to consider Bill C-540 deemed read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I did so because everyone in the House, of all parties, to a person, said that they supported the idea of holding people to account, changing the Criminal Code to ensure that the non-consensual distribution of intimate images was a crime and that people were going to be held accountable. I then moved a motion to say, let us move this to committee right now. This is a serious situation. It's affecting families. It is affecting lives across the country. Let us deal with it now. There is a will here. Let us find the way.

Unfortunately, that was turned down by the government.

It is interesting. The government then brought in Bill C-13, the initial portions of which dealt with the same issue that my private member's bill did, a little more thoroughly, of course, but it dealt with it. However, then the government did exactly what I and many of us were afraid of. It tacked on a great deal of what was in the former bill, Bill C-30, which it had to yank off the table two years ago because it was so soundly repudiated by privacy experts and others from across the country. The government attached it to the back of the cyberbullying bill.

When it introduced the bill, it did so in the company of the parents of people who had committed suicide, who had taken their lives as a result of cyberbullying, and it said, “We're here to deal with this”. It did not talk about the other parts of it.

Of course, there was great hope in those families and by advocates across the country that the government was going to move forward on this. Lo and behold, as is too often the case with the Conservatives, we got involved in a very controversial debate. We began to learn more about what was really in the bill, and advocates and privacy experts from across the country began to raise concerns.

Even one of the parents, who stood with the minister when the bill was introduced, said at committee that even though she wanted the Criminal Code to be changed to make the non-consensual distribution of intimate images a crime and that there should be consequences, she could not abide what else was in the bill, the outrageous and invasive parts of the bills that would allow for information on the Internet to be more accessible to authorities.

As was talked about in the recent Spencer case, the Supreme Court said it was about barring Internet service providers from disclosing names and addresses. It said that Canadians have the right to be anonymous on the Internet.

Here we have a bill that has been cloaked as an attempt to deal with the heartbreak and anguish experienced by families across the country as a result of their loved ones being bullied mercilessly through the Internet. It is a bill that has been identified as being meant to deal with that, yet in fact it is much more.

I had the opportunity to talk today with another parent. I explained to that parent what had happened, how things have progressed, the concerns that we have with the bill. I explained that the NDP would not be supporting this legislation.

He knew this anyway, because of work we had done in the past, the support I have provided, and the things we were doing together with other people to build awareness and to try to deal with this scourge of teen suicide. He understands my commitment. He, too, is shaken by the infringement on privacy provisions that are part of this bill. I am not going to tell the House that he gave me a pass, but he understands my concerns. He appreciates that I have tried to work, and will continue to work, with him and others to deal with this problem.

The point is that we are here. It has been a year and a half since I introduced the private member's bill, and it is another year and a half into this serious problem. We have still not dealt with it.

I get discouraged sometimes in this House when it seems that we cannot get from one point to the other without creating all kinds of controversy and hard feelings, bitterness and division.

Right now, as we speak, there are people in communities who are helping to build awareness of why cyberbullying is wrong. They are coming up with strategies to identify when teenagers and others are beginning to experience feelings of depression and suicide.

One of the parents I spoke to said that the most gratifying thing that happens as he goes across the country talking to junior and high school students is when the 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds come up to him. They are saying there is a problem and that this is what they are doing about it. The students are telling him what they are doing because they recognize it.

This is what is happening in communities across the country. People are recognizing that they have to step up and do something, because unfortunately governments are not up to the task.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-13, which has already been debated for three hours today and has just come back from the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

A lot of hard work has been done on this bill. I am thinking, in particular, of the many witnesses who appeared before the committee. I am happy to hear that good work was done in committee.

However, the results of that work are perhaps not quite what we on this side of the House expected. Unfortunately, the amendments that were made to this bill were not sufficient for us to be able to support it at report stage.

I must first say that this bill may be a rather sensitive subject for some people. It may hit close to home and be a sensitive subject for some people because it involves bullying and there is often mention of the unfortunate incidents that were reported in the media. It is vital that we remember the importance of the work we are doing as parliamentarians to try to address this issue, which sometimes has tragic consequences. Bullying is a problem in our society that has evolved over the past few decades. Obviously, the Internet is one of the elements that has changed the problem of bullying. It is becoming easier to bully someone online today because we can easily access the Internet with our cell phones and computers.

This problem has evolved and has become quite a significant issue for our youth and also for adults. As parliamentarians, we must discuss this problem and try to solve it, even though there is no magic solution. We have to consider the underlying causes. My colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île often talks about the underlying causes. Furthermore, we must not believe that the solution to the problem is to create a Criminal Code offence and that all of a sudden there will be no more bullying. It is never that simple. It is therefore important to discuss this problem and other ways of dealing with it.

We were also somewhat disappointed with the process that led to the drafting of this bill. Members will remember that Bill C-30 was also introduced in the first session of the 41st Parliament and that there was significant opposition to that bill from civil society and the different political parties. It is unfortunate that Bill C-13 contains some of what was widely rejected in Bill C-30. I am talking about the provisions concerning the electronic surveillance of Canadians.

My impression is that the government is taking Bill C-13 and the issue of bullying—which is a very important and sensitive issue—and integrating certain parts of Bill C-30, which was very controversial, as I said. It was abandoned by the Conservatives after the uproar that followed its introduction. It is sad that they are using this tactic and are trying to do indirectly what they said they would not do. It was abandoned. It is disappointing to see that it is now being included in Bill C-13.

This issue could have been settled quickly, or at least more quickly. I do not think that we are going to solve the problem of bullying overnight. However, we could have at least moved in the right direction.

The hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour introduced a worthwhile bill. Unfortunately, it did not receive the Conservatives' support. However, one part of his bill did find its way into the Conservatives' current bill. I find that somewhat curious.

If I understand correctly, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice seems to have an explanation. He says that it is all well and good to add an offence to the Criminal Code, but it is also important to grant investigative powers to the police.

I do not remember when exactly during the process of studying the bill this happened—it may have been the day after it was introduced—but the Spencer decision provided some clarification. Unfortunately, the bill did not change, even in light of the decision, which defined the limits that can be placed on electronic surveillance and the amount of personal information Internet service providers can share about Canadians.

I believe that the government should have complied with the Spencer decision, but that is not the case, unfortunately. That is the main reason we are opposing this bill.

I would like to clarify the court's decision in Spencer, which had to do with providers sharing information. The decision clearly established that Canadians had the right to online anonymity and that the police had to get a warrant to find out Internet users' identity.

However, Bill C-13 creates a new policy that allows access to personal information with or without a warrant. This opens the door to obtaining personal information without a warrant even though the Spencer decision said the opposite. It said that a warrant was absolutely necessary to get personal information about a Canadian citizen on the Internet.

Internet service providers have access to that information. They can find that information and share it with law enforcement to investigate bullying cases, for example. The Spencer decision set boundaries for getting information by requiring a warrant. However, Bill C-13 opens the door to getting personal information without a warrant.

All of this is unfolding in an era when people have growing concerns about electronic surveillance because the government is monitoring our actions more and more. Not long ago, groups met peacefully to talk about issues or met in the streets to demonstrate. We know that the government, which has thousands of employees who monitor Canadians, would watch what such groups were doing during those completely peaceful meetings and demonstrations that could not have given anyone any reason to believe there was a threat to Canada's security.

This is unfolding in an era when people feel that the government is collecting more and more information about Canadians. We also have to set clearer boundaries about how this information is obtained and about Canadians' right to privacy.

I would be pleased to answer my colleagues' questions.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House for the second time to speak to Bill C-13, which addresses cyberbullying.

When the government announced Bill C-13 to combat cyberbullying, everyone thought it was a good idea. Perhaps the government had finally come up with a good idea. Everyone here knows that cyberbullying is taking a heavy toll on our youth. The people who work on the front lines—psychoeducators who work in high schools, street outreach workers and everyone else who works with youth—know how bullying can destroy lives, individuals and families. Some cases have made headlines, including the case of young Rehtaeh Parsons. Unfortunately, we know just how far cyberbullying can go. It can lead to suicide. No one in the House would say that we can remain indifferent about an issue as important as cyberbullying.

In the first speech I gave on Bill C-13, I emphasized the need to take action on the ground. I could even draw a parallel with the speech I just gave this morning on Bill C-36. The Conservatives often think they can use justice to solve all the problems inherent in a given situation. In the case of prostitution, for instance, inherent problems include poverty, exclusion and mental illness. The same is true when it comes to bullying. Some of the factors involved in bullying cannot be addressed through criminalization.

The provisions of Bill C-13, which makes it an offence to distribute intimate images, are a good start. In fact, the bill fits in with the bill introduced by my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, which aims to prevent the kinds of situations that unfortunately led to the suicides of several young Canadians over the past few years.

Upon closer examination of the bill, one can see that it refers to various subjects ranging from cyberbullying to terrorism, banking information, telemarketing and theft of a telecommunication service.

Most of the provisions have very little if anything to do with cyberbullying. This bill is similar to the Conservatives' previous Bill C-30, which allowed access to Canadians' personal information.

The parliamentary secretary said that it was debated extensively and thoroughly examined in committee. That is all wonderful, except that all the experts agree that the study should have been even more thorough when it comes to the provisions regarding access to information. That is why we asked that the bill be split. Unfortunately, because we ran out of time, the provisions on cyberbullying were not examined much, if at all. We focused on the access to information provisions.

This issue is very important for our young people, and I find it extremely unfortunate that the debate is centred around access to information. That has nothing to do with our young students or the young girl who is being bullied by her classmates or receiving hateful messages on Facebook.

Access to information will have no impact on this girl, or perhaps it will, unfortunately, if the government wants access to her private information, which would be too bad. This is not going to help young people who need their government to work for them and do something about this.

A number of experts said that Bill C-13, together with Bill S-4, might have extremely significant repercussions on access to our private information, including access without a warrant.

I also asked a number of questions about an oversight mechanism. I would like to point out that the Conservatives refused to adopt such a mechanism. My colleague from Gatineau proposed an amendment requiring the department to report to Parliament on the use of this type of power. I would like to note that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code has already been struck down by the Supreme Court, not because the mechanism allowed information obtained without a warrant to be shared, but because application of that section did not include any oversight mechanism or notification mechanism. According to the Supreme Court, the rights of people being wiretapped were intrinsically violated because they did not know they were being tapped. At the end of the day, without an oversight mechanism, we are giving the police and the government power without accountability. We can agree that we are giving nearly absolute power to the minister and police officers to access Canadians' information.

The Supreme Court was clear. I have not even touched on the Supreme Court's recent decision in Spencer, which reiterates that telecommunications companies do not have the right to turn Canadians' private information over without a warrant. It is a violation and it is unconstitutional because there is no oversight mechanism.

I made a comparison with section 188, which was not struck down by the Supreme Court. That section allows for warrantless wiretaps, but it includes an oversight mechanism. The department is therefore obliged to report to Parliament on warrantless wiretapping.

According to the Supreme Court, this is clearly unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the Conservatives refused to adopt our amendments on creating such a reporting mechanism, which is too bad. We can already see that part of the bill will likely be challenged in court or even deemed unconstitutional.

Who will be the main victims of that challenge? My colleague from Gatineau told us several times. The main victims of the Conservatives' incompetence at drafting bills and studying issues thoroughly are the victims of bullying. The main victims will not be parliamentarians, lawyers or judges. No, the main victims will be victims of bullying, who unfortunately will have to wait for a legal challenge—which could take years and could go all the way to the Supreme Court—before justice is served.

I would like to underline the fact that when the Minister of Justice held his press conference, he said that Bill C-13 only legislated on a specific issue, namely cyberbullying. I know of several articles that quoted him as saying that this was not an omnibus bill and that its only purpose was to legislate on cyberbullying.

However, this bill contains a clause that gives not only peace officers, but also public officers access to these powers. Several experts wondered who would have access to these powers. Who would have access to Canadians' information? Would it be only the police, and only in specific situations, or would it be public officers from Revenue Canada in other situations?

This bill is so badly written that, unfortunately, the main victims who will be denied justice will be victims of bullying. Is that really what the Conservative government wants?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, a hard-working member, whom I know is stellar in his service to his constituents. He does amazing work here in the House as well.

This bill is all about politics. It is about playing politics. We have parts of a bill that the current government said would never come forward again, and elements of that bill in Bill C-13 right now that are from Bill C-30. This bill, or kernels of it, originated with the NDP, as I said, by my hard-working colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.If this bill were separated, we could have passed it months ago. That concerns me. However, once again, the Conservatives would rather bury things that get into invasion of privacy.

Even the mother, in one of our most tragic deaths, says that this bill goes too far.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to rise and speak on a motion that I believe to be critical, so it saddens me that I will have to speak against it. It is Bill C-13, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

Let me give a bit of perspective. In that regard, I want to congratulate my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, who introduced Bill C-540 in 2013, following the tragic death of Amanda Todd and other victims of cyberbullying, including Rehtaeh Parsons. These deaths moved the nation. I would say that the feelings across the country were palpable. It did not matter whether one lived on the west coast, on the Prairies, or on the east coast; families right across Canada lived the pain that those families went through.

The bill put forward by my colleague was a fairly reasonable one. As members know, at that time the Conservatives introduced legislation as well, Bill C-30. Bill C-30 was from the minister of the day, who is no longer in the House. There was a huge, almost unprecedented reaction to that bill, especially through social media. Just to remind us all, Bill C-30 was called the “protecting children from Internet predators act”. That bill was rejected not only by the NDP, based on what was included in it, but also by privacy advocates and the public. That reaction forced the Conservative Party to back away from it.

I can remember some of the rhetoric from that time when it backed away from that legislation, which was ill thought out and an absolute invasion of privacy. At that time, I can remember hearing commitment from the government side that any attempts to modernize the Criminal Code would not contain the measures contained in Bill C-30. Now here we are on Bill C-13.

There are parts of this legislation that the official opposition heartily and happily supports. On more than one occasion we have suggested to the government that if it is serious about taking action on cyberbullying, it should separate the bill. We offered to expedite it through the House. It would have been law already.

However, once again I find the party sitting across from this side playing games with a very sensitive issue, producing a bill that has some good parts to it that we want to support but then throwing in parts that it knows will make it difficult for us to support the bill.

The NDP is never scared of hard work, whether it comes to standing up to speak on issues in the House and taking up allocated time spots, and normally filling in even for the government side because it does not take up all its speaking slots, or when it comes to committee work. In order to make this bill palatable and make it go through the House, the opposition put forward 37 amendments. They were all reasonable amendments that would have added some balance to the bill.

What is shocking is that the government did the same as it has done on bill after bill. It was its way or no way. It rejected every single one of those amendments.

The Canadian Bar Association came to present as well. I am not talking about a radical group here. I am talking about lawyers. The Canadian Bar Association expressed the same concerns as the NDP and other witnesses. It put forward 19 possible amendments to the bill, but not one of those amendments was taken into consideration.

Once again, the Conservatives are trying to bury things in a bill so they can get their agenda through, but at the same time they are trying to bury some legislation that is absolutely needed.

I have been a teacher all of my life. I am also a mother and a grandmother. The world has changed for our children. They are spending more time on the Internet or attached to their cell phones, although many of us are guilty of that too. They are socializing differently as well.

We have to look at modernizing the way we see bullying. It is no longer just about bullying in the playground, where a child is bullied physically or verbally, face-to-face. Cyberbullying allows for a certain amount of anonymity. We have seen the tragic results of that kind of bullying. We have seen its impact on young people.

It is upsetting for me today to speak against a bill that contains a component that I support. I would urge my colleagues across the way to take a second and consider that we could have the cyberbullying component in the bill turned into legislation quickly. We need to get off the ideological idea that we cannot have a simple bill that deals with one issue. We have to get off the ideological idea that other stuff has to be thrown in to get the ideological agenda done. It also gives those members an opportunity to stand up later and say that the NDP voted against this.

[Daniel Therrien]

Bill C-30 had some flaws and, just as Bill C-13, needed to be examined more thoroughly, in my opinion.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Do you feel that Bill C-30 was balanced?

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you very much. You answered my question.

You were the Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Public Safety, Defence and Immigration Portfolio. Those three departments are trying to obtain personal data and information on Canadians.

In your capacity as Assistant Deputy Attorney General, were you asked to provide your opinion and advice regarding Bill C-30 introduced by Minister Toews?

[Stephen Anderson, Executive Director, OpenMedia.ca]

Thanks for having me, and thank you for this opportunity to speak before the committee regarding Bill C-13.

I'm Steve Anderson, the executive director of OpenMedia.ca. We're a community-based organization working to safeguard the open Internet.

As you may know, OpenMedia.ca works with many other groups to lead the Stop Online Spying campaign, which successfully convinced the government to shelve the lawful access legislation, Bill C-30. Nearly 150,000 Canadians took part in that campaign.

Last year we started the Protect Our Privacy coalition, which is the largest pro-privacy coalition in Canadian history, with over 50 organizations from across Canada.

You know you've hit on a common Canadian value when you have groups ranging from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Council of Canadians, to small businesses, to labour unions, all joining forces on this issue of privacy. As it stands, we have a privacy deficit in Canada, and I'm afraid that Bill C-13 will only deepen that deficit.

I believe this privacy deficit is the result of a democratic deficit. If the government, including members of this committee, were listening to the concerns of Canadians, there is no way you would be paving the way for a range of authorities to have increased warrantless access to our sensitive private information.

To help bring the concerns of Canadians to this committee, I have crowd-sourced this presentation for you today. I asked Canadians online what they thought I should say, and I have done my best to incorporate their input into my presentation. I'll reference them from time to time.

I'll confine my presentation to the lawful access portion, as that is where Canadians have expressed the most concern and I think where I personally also have the most concern.

The Canadians I spoke to had three main concerns: first, immunity for activities that victimize innocent Canadians; second, accountability and oversight; and third, data security.

On immunity, which I'll talk about first, Bill C-13 in its current form provides communications companies that hand over sensitive information about innocent Canadians with absolute immunity from criminal and civil liability.

Recent revelations show that the government agencies made 1.2 million requests for customer data from telecom companies in only one year and that companies apparently complied with those voluntary requests most of the time. After learning of this, Canadians have been looking for more safeguards rather than weakening privacy safeguards.

At the moment, an unlimited swath of information can be accessed by a simple phone call to an Internet service provider. Government agencies don't even need to provide a written request, and we are told that some agencies even refuse to put their requests in writing to avoid a paper trail. This extrajudicial practice works, because there is a loophole that allows authorities to obtain voluntary warrantless access to law-abiding Canadians' sensitive information.

The disclosure immunity provided in Bill C-13 will make the privacy loophole even bigger by removing one of the few incentives for telecom companies to safeguard our data from warrantless disclosures.

Canadian citizen, Gord Tomlin, had this to say on the matter via Facebook:

If 'authorities' need information, they can get a warrant. It's not onerous, it's one of the checks and balances that is supposed to protect our system from abuse.

Danielle had this to say on the OpenMedia.ca website:

If accessing an individual's private information is not arbitrary but is justifiable, then a warrant can be obtained. Otherwise, it is expected that the law [will] protect us from privacy violations...

There were many more like that.

Providing telecom companies who engage in extrajudicial disclosure of Canadians' sensitive information is encouraging moral hazard. It's encouraging reckless and irresponsible behaviour.

I'll now move on to accountability and oversight.

Canadians find it troubling that Bill C-13 makes little effort to keep government agencies transparent and accountable. Most shockingly, there is no requirement that officials notify those innocent Canadians who have had their data stored in government databases. The lack of knowledge and consent by those victimized through surveillance and warrantless disclosure is frustrating to many Canadians.

As one Canadian put it:

I would like to see a requirement that persons whose data has been accessed, be informed of this fact and that there be a major penalty...if there is a failure to comply with this requirement.

The proposed lowering of the “reason to suspect” threshold for transition data warrants is also of concern to Canadians. We're talking about the collection of data—and let's be clear about this—that can reveal political and religious affiliations, medical conditions, the types of activities we engage in online and offline, and whom we socialize with. This is incredibly invasive stuff.

On the topic of accountability, several people also highlighted the costs associated with these data transfers and that they would have to pay for them, and that it would limit our digital economy.

On data security concerns, many Canadians are concerned with how secure data will be once authorities expand their collection through the measures in Bill C-13.

Given recent breaches at federal offices—the CRA and student loans, for example—many Canadians question if we can trust government authorities to properly protect their data from cybercriminals and identity thieves.

One person online said: The federal government, and indeed the vague category of 'public officials,' has a poor track record of protecting private information already. It's common occurrence in the Canadian news environment to hear about some government agency or officials losing the confidential information of Canadians such as last March's revelation the government had lost the student loan information of nearly 600,000 Canadians. Broadening the powers of officials to access this information only increases the danger that confidential information will end up in the wrong hands.

Bill C-13 also problematically expands the bureaucrats and agencies that can access our private information, including CSEC and CSIS, which are currently facing their own crisis of accountability, given the recent Snowden disclosures. I fail to see how that is connected to cyberbullying at all.

Bill C-13 does not, in its current form, provide effective measures to increase transparency, accountability, or reporting on warrantless access to private data.

In sum, I recommend that this committee remove the telecom immunity and weakening warrant standards, while adding new reporting and accountability measures to this bill.

I also want to join the growing numbers calling for you to split the bill up so that we can move on the cyberbullying portion, which I think there is growing consensus around, minus some reforms, and have a proper debate on lawful access.

As one person put it, “Any expansion of government powers needs to be linked to a compelling societal need.”

The lawful access section is not connected to cyberbullying. I don't think that connection has been made for Canadians in nearly enough detail.

I also think it's worth repeating what Carol Todd, the mother of cyberbullying victim Amanda Todd, told this committee. She said:

I don't want to see our children victimized again by losing privacy rights. I am troubled by some of these provisions condoning the sharing of the privacy information of Canadians without proper legal process.

I think both those on the front lines of law enforcement and Canadians want authorities to have the tools tailored to bringing a variety of criminals to justice. What this bill does at the moment is unnecessarily combine some of those tools with unpopular mechanisms that encourage mass disclosure of sensitive information.

I implore the committee to consider that just one database, the RCMP's Canadian Police Information Centre, has sensitive data on more than 420,000 Canadians. These people have no criminal record of any kind. Many have their information stored due to simply having suffered a mental health issue.

I'd also consider that a Canadian named Diane is one of more than 200 Canadians who recently came forward to say that their personal or professional lives have been ruined despite never having broken the law. Why? Because information about them has been wrongfully disclosed to third parties—in Diane's case, her employer.

Now consider the fact that in recent years federal government agencies alone have seen over 3,000 breaches of highly sensitive private information of Canadians. Consider also that this has affected an estimated 750,000 people.

In Diane's case, she was the victim of a false accusation, which was withdrawn years ago, yet it continues to affect her career. Diane's response after being victimized by this privacy intrusion and having her professional life unfairly curtailed was, unsurprisingly, disbelief, shock, and anger.

Now imagine that Diane was your family member or someone you know. You don't need to put them at risk like this. You can choose to split up the bill and make the necessary reforms whilst dealing with cyberbullying.

Why should Canadian victims be re-victimized by violations to their privacy? Why should those with mental health issues need to live in fear? They don't.

Canadians, including some of the government's biggest supporters, whom I'm working with closely on this matter, are wondering why the government is deepening our privacy deficit when other countries are beginning to rein in surveillance. They're wondering why you're mismanaging our data security.

In closing, as Jesse Kline wrote in the National Post last week, “When the Canadian public, parents of victims of cyberbullying, privacy commissioners and former cabinet ministers all voice serious concerns about a bill, it is a sure sign that something is wrong, and the government should listen.”

Thank you.

[Marian K. Brown, Executive Member, Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you, Ms. Schellenberg.

We hope that our input today will assist you in understanding how the draft provisions would function, if they're implemented, and of course in understanding what constitutional or charter issues may arise.

We are proposing numerous amendments that all have one of two main goals. Our first goal is to ensure that only truly intentional cyberbullying is prosecuted, and our second is to ensure that privacy interests are protected when data is seized.

Our written submission provides many details that we will not be able to cover today. What I will do now is give highlights of our recommendations on cyberbullying, on lawful access, and on the Competition Act.

First with respect to cyberbullying, as you know, the bill criminalizes a particular form of cyberbullying, which is the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. Distribution of sexual images of children is already prohibited by the child pornography provisions by the code, but the new section 162.1 proposed in Bill C-13 criminalizes non-consensual distribution of anyone's intimate images, not just young people's. In the CBA's view, this new offence is better suited to dealing with youth cyberbullying than using the child pornography provisions for youth conduct.

We're recommending some amendments that would more closely restrict the new offence to situations of truly intentional bullying. We echo Mr. Spratt's concern about the current wording of proposed section 162.1, which includes the alternative of recklessness. That could, in our view, criminalize conduct that is merely careless, and carelessness is an aspect of youth behaviour. Prosecuting someone who does not have the knowledge or intent required for a criminal offence would be a violation of section 7 of the charter.

In our written submission, at page 5 of the English version, we give an example of an adult distribution of images that would constitute reckless or careless conduct, but which is probably not the aim of this legislation. Because there are scenarios in which carelessness or reckless distribution under the current wording could incur criminal liability, we're recommending two specific changes to the wording.

Our recommendation 2, which appears at page 6 of the English version, is that the following phrase should be added to the offence section: “with intent to annoy, embarrass, intimidate or harass that person”. It's a much more specific formulation of intent. Our recommendation 4, at page 7 of the English version, is that the offence section be amended to remove the words “being reckless as to whether or not that person gave their consent”.

So we would take out the alternative of recklessness. In our view, those two amendments would ensure that only the distribution of images with a malicious intent would be prosecuted and would ensure that young people are not prosecuted for their merely careless or thoughtless distribution of images.

I'll turn now to our key submissions regarding lawful access. Seven of the eight main lawful access powers in this bill rest with the judiciary; that is to say that seven of those eight powers consist of judicial orders or warrants. The one exception is the preservation demand by an officer, whereby data is not seized without judicial authorization but is simply ordered to be held, so that it cannot be deleted, for a period of time.

So there is no warrantless seizure provision under this proposed regime, but the CBA recognizes that the issue of privacy in data is much broader than these particular Criminal Code seizure provisions. As we've heard from other presenters, perhaps the greatest concern is about law enforcement's obtaining data through the cooperation of service providers without the use of any of the eight powers that are covered in Bill C-13. Obtaining data outside of the Criminal Code purports to be authorized under PIPEDA, the electronic documents act, and other privacy statutes.

We feel it's important to comment that even if the lawful access provisions in Bill C-13 are made perfect, this will not eliminate arguments that PIPEDA and the other privacy acts perhaps should be more strictly applied. Even the very best drafted Criminal Code provisions will not diminish the arguments that voluntary cooperation between service providers and law enforcement should be more closely monitored.

Because of that bigger picture, two of the CBA's recommendations are quite broad. Our recommendation 8, at page 12 of our written submission, is that a single entity be created to monitor the impact of the seizure, retention, and use of personal information by Canadian law enforcement agencies.

Our recommendation 17, at page 24 of the English version of our written submission, is that the federal government conduct an independent comprehensive review of privacy interests in the context of electronic investigations.

Those sound very broad, but we're in a new world here. We're at a perfect storm of legal change and technological change, and it's no wonder that we're having difficulty with it.

Given the bill that you have to work with today, in our written submission we make several specific recommendations for amendments. We believe that three amendments in particular are key to avoiding violations of privacy interests under section 8 of the charter.

Our recommendation 9, at page 14 of the English version of our written submission, is that the officers' preservation demand, which is section 487.012—the only power without judicial authorization—should be limited to exigent circumstances, where data would otherwise be lost or destroyed before a judicial authorization can be obtained.

Our recommendation 14, at page 19 of the English version, is that the threshold for a transmission data production order—and that's section 487.017—should be raised from “reasonable grounds to suspect” to “reasonable grounds to believe” because transmission data may reveal private conduct.

Similarly, our recommendation 15, at page 20 of the English version, is that the threshold for a transmission data recorder warrant, section 492.2, also should be raised from “reasonable grounds to suspect” to “reasonable grounds to believe”, again because transmission data may reveal private conduct.

I'm going to say a few more words about transmission data. Our understanding is that it's not the same thing as metadata, which we understand to be data left by web browsing that can be located on a personal computer that is seized under a search warrant. We understand transmission data, as defined in this bill, to include not the contents of the communication, but only its origin and destination, direction, duration, time and date, size, and the protocol and type of the communication. That limited definition is very important because intercepting the contents of a private communication actually is a criminal offence under section 184 of the Criminal Code, unless a wiretap authorization is in place.

Bill C-13 cannot entail monitoring of the content of private communications.

I don't want to overlook the so-called immunity section, but unfortunately our working group did not discuss it in detail or make written recommendations about it. You've heard from other speakers about the terms of that section. All we can recommend is that you look closely and comparatively at the proposed section 487.0195, the existing section, which is old number 487.0114, combined with section 25 of the code, and you may wish for comparative purposes to also look at the immunity provision that exists for people who voluntarily assist with wiretap orders, which is section 188.2 of the Criminal Code. You'll see in that section that there is full civil immunity only for people who assist where there is either a judicial authorization or an interception in exigent circumstances. It's a more limited option for immunity.

Justice and Human Rights

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for allowing me the time to do this. I also want to thank my colleague, the Liberal member of Parliament for Charlottetown, who did an extensive amount of work on this, as well as the member of Parliament for Malpeque and the member of Parliament for Mount Royal.

The enactment would amend the Criminal Code to provide most notably for a new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images. As well, there would complementary amendments to authorize the removal of such images from the Internet and the recovery of the expenses incurred to obtain the removal of images, the forfeiture of property used in the commission of the offence, a recognizance order to be issued to prevent the distribution of such images, and restriction of the use of a computer or the Internet by a convicted offender.

We are talking about the power to make preservation demands and orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence, new production orders to compel the production of data relating to the transmission of communications and the location of transactions, individuals or things.

A warrant that would extend the current investigative power for data associated with telephones to transmission data relating to all means of telecommunications, or warrants that would be associated with telephones and the like, as I mentioned, a streamlined process of obtaining warrants and orders related to an authorization to intercept private communications by ensuring that those warrants and orders could be issued by a judge who would issue the authorization and by specifying that all documents relating to a request for a related warrant or order would be automatically subject to the same rules respecting confidentiality as the request for authorization.

Last, it would also amend the Competition Act to make applicable for the purpose of enforcing certain provisions of the 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 related to the transmission or communications of financial data.

It would also amend 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 that I spoke of earlier.

There are some messages that we would like to put out there regarding this. This has been a long time coming. It was first introduced in the House on November 20, 2013. Cyberbullying is a scourge upon our society, as we all know, and has been evidenced certainly in the last two or three years. This is a problem not just in Canada but around the world. The party is supportive, in principle, of legislative measures that would provide law enforcement with additional tools to combat cyberbullying.

This is an area where the Criminal Code urgently needs to be updated to reflect the realities of modern technologies.

We believe, however, that legislative measures alone are insufficient to combat cyberbullying and we urge the government to commit to a broader, more holistic strategy to deal with cyberbullying that would also include public awareness resources for both parents and kids to allow them to see the signs of cyberbullying which they probably would not recognize under normal circumstances.

We introduced cyberbullying legislation last session that would have modified some Criminal Code offences to cover modern technology, as is done in C-13, which the Conservatives and the NDP voted down. The Liberals introduced legislation that would have addressed new technologies back in 2005.

The Conservative government is only figuring out now that police forces need these tools to keep up with technologies that are increasingly a part of today's crime.

We believe that a balance must be struck between civil liberties and public safety, particularly when it comes to warrants that may be intrusive and overboard. We do not support the measures that were in Bill C-30, which even the government had to withdraw because of the outrage some time ago.

Some of the bill would duplicate the rejected Bill C-30, such as word for word reproductions of the changes, subsection 487.3(1) of the Criminal Code and all but one word changes to subsection 492.1 and subsection 492 regarding warrants.

We are very concerned about efforts to reintroduce lawful access, which the Conservatives promised was dead at the time. That is not necessarily the case now.

Though the title is the protecting Canadians from online crime act, nobody is actually protected under this act. In typical fashion, this is all about punishment rather than prevention. Complex problems like cyberbullying require more than blunt editions to the Criminal Code. This omnibus bill touches everything from terrorism to telemarketing, cable stealing to hate speech, and is an affront to both democracy and the legislative process in the omnibus form that has been in going on in for quite some time.

We have seen that through the budget bills and a lot of the legislation that has passed through the House, so we can only assume that this type of pattern will continue with this legislation. Therefore, we support the motion to have the bill split and the provisions relating to cyberbullying be contained in a stand-alone bill at committee.

We are proposing two amendments.

The first is an amendment that would provide for a statutory review of elements of the bill, including the voluntary disclosure provisions. The sunset clause is a part of a law statute and we can repeal the law part over a specified time period.

The second is an amendment that would require an actual basis a report by telecoms detailing the volume of information being disclosed without a warrant.

As we mentioned earlier, we talked about the splitting of this bill, and we certainly feel this is a way to go. This would be the most responsible thing to do in light of the omnibus nature of this legislation. I believe that by doing this, we would be taking a principled and responsible approach.

Again, I go back to our original message of cyberbullying, which is a scourge on our society. What we can do in the House is reflect by looking at stand-alone legislation dealing with that. Basically, by making this a stand-alone provision, it would go a long way in enhancing the debate. Given the fact that we have had so much debate in the past, so much opposition and that there has been so much talk in the public realm about this legislation, this is something we can support.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

moved:

That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that, during its consideration of Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, the Committee be granted the power to divide the Bill into two bills: the first consisting of clauses 2 to 7 and 27, related to cyberbullying; and the second bill containing all the other provisions of Bill C-13.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Châteauguay—Saint-Constant for seconding the motion.

As the saying goes, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

After second reading stage of Bill C-13, it seemed clear to me that it would be best to divide the bill because the bill had strayed from what it was meant to address, which is cyberbullying. It does much more than that. This bill has some 50 clauses, but barely seven or eight clauses on cyberbullying. The issues it addresses vary.

Members must understand why it is important to remove clauses 2 to 7 and 27 from the bill so that we can finish studying them right away. The rest of the clauses need to be studied much more carefully, as many people are telling us.

I made the request subsequent to a motion that did not receive the required unanimous consent of the House. I am trying again because we are now studying different parts in committee and have additional information.

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that we will be able to keep working much longer because the government has indicated that it wants the bill passed before the end of this session. That concerns me because there are not many meetings left. There are still many, many people who want to testify. I would hate to hear that the process is going to be fast-tracked for the most contentious clauses on terrorist activities, telemarketing and theft of a communication service. That is what I suspect will happen so that clauses 2 to 7 and 27 get passed. The bill also includes some of the provisions from Bill C-30.

There is also the issue of privacy and the fact that Canadians have already overwhelmingly rejected the provisions contained in Bill C-30. There is also a series of concerns about which of the provisions where included in Bill C-13, which ones were set aside, which ones were put back in with slight changes, and what kinds of changes are needed.

These are very specialized provisions. They are so specialized that it is rather odd in committee. Parents of victims are there on certain days. At those times we are truly reminded of why Bill C-13 was supposedly introduced. It completely changes how the committee works. The next day, the witnesses might be cyber experts or police representatives.

I do not think this request is crazy or illogical. It makes sense. I have a hard time understanding the government's insistence on passing a bill that contains provisions that are not necessarily widely accepted or that have not been approved by even a small segment of the Canadian public.

The mother of one victim, Amanda Todd, made statements to the committee that some found incredible. If anyone could have been expected to support Bill C-13 100%, it would have been one of the victims in this huge file, but this mother herself recognized that we should not have to choose between security and privacy. These two concepts are extremely important.

I am not saying that we should reject the provisions in Bill C-13 that deal with access to the private data of some individuals in this context.

We have to recognize just how important this is and give it the thorough study it merits, the way it should be done. We have not done that kind of analysis in a long time.

The committee received a letter, and I would like to read parts of it that I find particularly persuasive. I am not the only one calling for the bill to be divided in two, as we have asked in the motion. The letter was addressed to the committee chair, the very competent member for Burlington, and came from Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, whose stance is echoed by many of her counterparts. I would like to read parts of the letter because she puts a fine point on why we are making this request:

As the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, I am writing you to assist the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in fulfilling its duty to ensure that Canadians have both effective law enforcement and rigorous privacy protections. To find the most compelling testimony on this point, you need look no further than to the statement made before your committee on May 13, 2014:

“We should not have to choose between our privacy and our safety. We should not have to sacrifice our children's privacy rights to make them safe from cyberbullying, 'sextortion' and revenge pornography”.

As you know, these are the words of Carol Todd, whose daughter Amanda took her own life after being shamelessly bullied and abused by a person yet to be brought to justice. The federal government, this Committee, and Parliament as a whole each owe families like the Todd's, as well as all Canadians, their best thinking about both privacy and safety. The fact that over the last decade, the government has repeatedly failed to pass legislation updating police surveillance powers is a sad testimony to the government's failure to honour Canadians' reasonable expectation that they deserve and can have both.

The time for dressing up overreaching surveillance powers in the sheep-like clothing of sanctimony about the serious harms caused by child pornography and cyberbullying is long past. In my view, the government should immediately split Bill C-13 and move ahead quickly to deal with those provisions of the bill that directly address the proposed new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images...In the future, further consideration may need to be given to how best to respond to other forms of cyberbullying, for example, of the most unfortunate kind, recently seen on an Instagram account called “IF_U_ON_THIS_KILL_URSELF” (as reported on by Global News). In the meantime, the remaining surveillance-oriented provisions of Bill C-13—some 46 of its 53 pages—should be withdrawn and redrafted.

This work should be approached with reasoned thought and without imposing a time constraint—as this government so often does with everything it introduces in the House—so that we can arrive at and draft good provisions. This is not a trivial matter. We are dealing with people's privacy.

The goal here is to stop crimes, but that does not mean giving carte blanche to the government and police forces to do whatever they want, however they want, whenever they want. There are rules. However, in Bill C-13, those rules are not very clear, and experts do not seem to agree on them. The rules need to be studied and possibly amended, and that will not happen with Bill C-13 as presented in the House and in committee, or with the deadlines imposed on us, or with the commitments by the minister and his government to have this bill passed before the summer break.

It is absolutely cruel, when I see the list of all those who asked to be heard, including experts from across the country. They wanted to be heard on the issue so that we can give our law enforcement agencies the best tools to do their work properly, while respecting Canadians's right to privacy.

Canadians also have the right to be protected by the government. They are already protected by the charter. It has already been noted that Bill C-13 does not include anything on wiretapping. Under the Criminal Code, a person must be notified that they were wiretapped. What is more, there is absolutely nothing in Bill C-13 to indicate that the person concerned has to be notified that some of their information and data has been shared. There needs to be some sort of mechanism to inform a person that their data has been shared. There is the issue of immunity that was given to the telecommunications companies.

The real goal of Bill C-13 was to penalize behaviours that have to do with the distribution of intimate images. That is all. Clauses 2 to 7 and 27 have to do with crime related to the distribution of intimate images. That is not the only form of cyberbullying. It is the rest that shows what is really behind Bill C-13.

Our motion calls for an instruction to be given to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that, during its consideration of Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, the Committee be granted the power to divide the bill into two bills: the first consisting of clauses 2 to 7 and 27, related to cyberbullying; and the second bill containing all the other provisions of Bill C-13. It is not only experts who are calling for this action to be taken, but also the mother of one of the victims, a woman whom the government likes to quote regularly.

I think that she was very wise in making this recommendation. The government would not be showing weakness by supporting this motion. Rather, it would be showing that, for once, it is listening to people's recommendations. Our intention is not to reject everything in the second part of the bill, and I would not want to hear the members opposite saying that we do not want to give the police the tools they need. That is not at all the case.

What we want to do is to make sure that the tools that we give them are legal and that the application of Bill C-13, if it is passed without amendment, will not eventually lead to a case before the Supreme Court where another bill has to be rejected. Such an approach will just keep bringing us back to square one. That is not a good way to show serious concern for smart justice in Canada.

Give us some time. That does not mean giving us time to stall for nothing. It means giving us time to hear what experts have to say on the subject. Give us the time to analyze each clause without feeling like we have a gun to our heads because the work needs to be done in the next few hours, the bill needs to come back before the House by June 10 or the bill needs to be passed before the House breaks for the summer. That is not an intelligent way to pass a bill that is so important and that will have such a great impact. Many people are still not sure what the consequences of this bill will be.

We are not rejecting the bill. It simply needs to be examined more intelligently.

[David Fraser]

I tend to disagree with the interpretation of the statute that says lawful authority is anybody with a badge. Let me tell you what is routinely disclosed without a warrant in these sorts of cases. Many of these are reported in court cases. You just have to go the legal databases and search for PIPEDA requests.

The investigating officers have an IP address. They're able to obtain an Internet protocol address related to somebody of interest, and that can be because that person is believed to be sharing child pornography. Most of your activities that take place online expose your IP address to any computer that you connect to. So they have that IP address. They don't know who it is. They can determine, through public databases, what is the Internet service provider. They can go to that Internet service provider and say, “We have an IP address. We want to know who it is. We don't have enough information to convince a judge, but we're going to tell you that it relates to a child exploitation investigation or otherwise.”

Some Canadian telcos, if that request is in writing, will hand over that information. Other Canadian telcos will say to come back with a warrant because they're not comfortable that they're allowed to under PIPEDA. That's essentially the nub of it. None of them, to my knowledge, will hand over content. If you say “I want the content of the e-mail inbox of Joe Blow at whatevermail.com”, they're not going to get that without a warrant. We've heard in the debates over Bill C-30 that this is not private information. In fact it is. I believe you have a privacy interest in your activities online, and I think most Canadians would agree. Most of the debate, I think, turns on that particular question.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses.

Mr. Alhattab and Madam Guthrie, I particularly appreciated your comments with respect to restorative justice. I do think that's something that should appear much more on the agenda.

I share Mr. Fraser's view that the major problems with this legislation relate to the reincarnation of Bill C-30. Ms. Guthrie spoke to that at some length as well.

Mr. Fraser, I want to focus in on the section that you referenced, proposed section 487.0195, and on the warrantless, secret, non-consensual, voluntary disclosure of information. You spent some time talking about the types of information that are available on a reduced legal standard. I know that when you listed that information you weren't talking about the stuff that can be obtained without a warrant.

Just for the benefit of everyone here, what is available without a warrant? What can be lawfully voluntarily disclosed by telephone companies under the protection of PIPEDA?

[Steph Guthrie]

Thank you for having me here today.

I'd like to thank my fellow witnesses, who both had really eloquent and valuable things to say.

My name is Steph Guthrie. I am a freelance feminist and digital strategist. For the last year I have been speaking and writing at length about the issue that Bill C-13 claims to tackle.

While the bill's name in the press is the “cyberbullying” bill, the more specific problem that I think is addressed by components of Bill C-13 is actually known as “revenge porn” more specifically, a term that I hate for both its inaccuracy and its sexualized sensationalism. Whatever you call it, though, we're talking about sharing sexually explicit images without the consent of the person or persons depicted. While some such cases might involve hacking, in many cases the subject actually consented to share the images with one person for private use, such as a sexual partner, and that person then violates their trust and shares the image with others, despite the subject's in most cases obviously implied expectation of discretion.

The crux of the harm that is inflicted here is the violation of informed consent. If I share an image with another person privately, that consent is not transferable. Had I known that the other person might later share the image with others, I would be unlikely to consent to letting that person access the image in the first place. So any consent I provide to a person accessing that image is pretty clearly contingent on them keeping it to themselves.

For me, informed consent is an integral part of privacy. Indeed, in her influential privacy by design framework, Ontario Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian cites freely given and specific consent as a vital element of digital privacy. Cavoukian's principle can be applied to non-consensual intimate image sharing, which—let's be honest—is a really clunky and cumbersome way of describing what is ultimately cybersexual assault. A survivor of cybersexual assault did not provide specific consent for their image to be shared with others. The perpetrator simply treated their consent as transferable to any other use, any other disclosure.

As I'm sure some other speakers over the course of considering this bill will share with you, the results of this are devastating. It does mostly happen to women, although men are not immune, and it destroys their lives. The images follow them into their job interviews, on their first dates, and to the laundromat. In some cases the perpetrator of the cybersexual assault incites violence or stalking against the survivor, publishing their personal information and the dates and times of their professional engagements, encouraging their “fans” to make an appearance.

In any case, the assault constricts the survivor's ability to live life normally and comfortably because they are constantly living with the idea that the people they encounter in their day-to-day lives may know intimate things about them that they didn't consent to share. Even if the survivor knows they did nothing wrong, they still must deal with the judgments, misperceptions, and intrusions of others. For many survivors, their ability to move freely, safely, and happily in this world is limited.

I am fortunate to not yet have been attacked and tormented in this way, but I could be. It's common for authorities and the media to malign people who send so-called sexts as teenagers with poor judgment and poor impulse control. But that doesn't line up with reality. According to a Harris Poll in 2012, a full 40%—that's not a majority, but it was the largest percentage—of people who send these images are in the 18 to 34 age range; and 20% of all adults sext. In fact, a McAfee survey puts that number closer to 50%. I'm willing to bet that a lot more than 50% of us have trusted a romantic or sexual partner only to learn later that our trust was misplaced.

Cybersexual assaults can and do happen to a lot of us. When Rehtaeh Parsons died by suicide after months and months of torment from her peers and indifference from authorities following her own sexual assault, first in the flesh, then online, I heard Prime Minister Stephen Harper say: “...we've got to stop using just the term bullying to describe some of these things....What we are dealing with in some of these circumstances is simply criminal activity.”

While I join my fellow witness in favouring a restorative justice approach, at the time I was already a vocal advocate for legislation to tackle cybersexual assault, and was accustomed to hearing political and legal decision-makers blame the victim for it. So I was cautiously optimistic at Prime Minister Harper's remarks.

Then I realized, as many Canadians realized, that most of Bill C-13 is not really about what happened to Rehtaeh Parsons. Buried within Bill C-13 is a set of decent Criminal Code amendments to tackle cybersexual assault. Though I do see some minor issues with those amendments, which my fellow witnesses have already covered off quite well, and I can certainly refer to them in greater length during the Q and A, I do think that the base for good cybersexual assault legislation is there in Bill C-13. But you have to dig pretty hard to find it amid the many other sweeping amendments that more closely resemble the lawful access provisions found in Bill C-30 back in 2012. That was the time when Canadians were told that opposition to the bill was tantamount to supporting child pornographers.

While some of the more egregious elements of the former Bill C-30 have been removed from this latest incarnation—and I'm glad to see that—it still significantly expands the state's capacity for surveilling Canadians without the pesky oversight of our court system.

One of the most troubling provisions in Bill C-30 was that it mandated the disclosure of user information to police without a search warrant. The newly designed provision in Bill C-13 very cleverly softens this, instead stating that police can request information, and the person or organization to whom they direct their request can voluntarily comply. However, the very next provision in Bill C-13 removes all civil liability for anyone who discloses another person's information to police upon request. This granting of immunity removes much of the incentive for an Internet service provider, or anyone else, to deny the request.

As law enforcement officers and prominent figures of power and authority in our lives, it is also debatable the extent to which a person might feel compelled to provide the information to a police officer, even if technically they are volunteering to do so.

In the last week, a steady stream of damning media reports have indicated that the practice of voluntarily disclosing user information to police is already in full swing among Canadian telecommunications companies, with the state making over a million requests for user information in the course of a year—and that was back in 2011—all without warrants, i.e., without due process. All were quite obviously without users' consent.

Perhaps most of Bill C-13 isn't really about cybersexual assault, but I find it interesting that it violates some of the same privacy principles, such as freely given and specific consent. Most of us do not and would not give free and specific consent for the state to access any, and potentially all, of our data by way of our Internet service providers if we had any meaningful choice in the matter.

The consent we give is to our Internet service providers. If the police want our information because they suspect we are engaged in criminal activity, well, most of us would assume that is what search warrants are for.

Bill C-13 enshrines the idea of transferable consent in law, immunizing anyone who shares our information and violates our privacy without adequate legal justification for doing so.

While obviously different in many ways, the limitations on personal freedom imposed by Bill C-13 bear some striking similarities to those imposed by cybersexual assault. The state could be following us into our job interviews, on our first dates, or to the laundromat. The bill's provisions will restrict Canadians' ability to live life normally and comfortably because they are constantly living with the idea that the state, when they encounter it, may know intimate things about them that they didn't consent to share. Even if they know they have done nothing wrong, they must still deal with the judgments, misperceptions, and intrusions of the state.

For many Canadians, if Bill C-13 passes as written, our ability to move freely, safely, and happily in this world will be limited. That's why it pains me to say that after a year of arguing for legislation that criminalizes cybersexual assault, I cannot support this legislation as written. We should separate the components of Bill C-13 that deal directly with cybersexual assault from those that do not and debate them as different pieces of legislation. They are different issues.

Not only would this be in the best interest of Canadians, but I believe it would do greater justice to survivors of cybersexual assault than amalgamating their cause with another one that serves the state's pursuit of power more than it serves Canadians.

Thank you.

Safeguarding of Personal Information

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to conclude the debate on the opposition motion.

I will read the motion, because after hearing such garbage today, I was beginning to think that I was not talking about the right one. This is what the motion, moved by the hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville, is asking of the House:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should follow the advice of the Privacy Commissioner and make public the number of warrantless disclosures made by telecommunications companies at the request of federal departments and agencies; and immediately close the loophole that has allowed the indiscriminate disclosure of the personal information of law-abiding Canadians without a warrant.

I cannot believe that today, May 5, 2014, the Conservatives are going to vote against this motion. It is absolutely incredible. We heard all sorts of drama from the Conservatives about extremely important security issues. They shifted the debate from the opposition motion, which simply calls on the government to grant the Privacy Commissioner's request and make certain information public. It seems quite reasonable to me.

Today is the best possible day to be in the House. This morning, we debated Bill C-567, which was introduced by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and is all about access to information. This motion is completely justified in light of the context, but they are saying all kinds of things.

I would like to comment on a question that my colleague from Timmins—James Bay asked the last Conservative member who spoke. That member laughed in his face even though the question was completely relevant. It was about peace officers, not as the local paper defines them, but as the Criminal Code defines them.

I would like to give my colleagues opposite a little lesson about the Criminal Code. It is important to define the notion of “peace officer” accurately, because Bill C-13, the government's supposed cyberbullying bill, refers to that notion. That bill is about much more than cyberbullying and the distribution of intimate images.

According to section 2 of the Criminal Code, a peace officer includes:

(a) a mayor, warden, reeve, sheriff, deputy sheriff, sheriff’s officer and justice of the peace,

(b) a member of the Correctional Service of Canada who is designated as a peace officer pursuant to Part I of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, and a warden, deputy warden, instructor, keeper, jailer, guard and any other officer or permanent employee of a prison other than a penitentiary as defined in Part I of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act,

(c) a police officer, police constable, bailiff, constable, or other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace or for the service or execution of civil process,

(c.1) a designated officer as defined in section 2 of the Integrated Cross-border Law Enforcement Operations Act, when

(i) participating in an integrated cross-border operation, as defined in section 2 of that Act, or

(ii) engaging in an activity incidental to such an operation, including travel for the purpose of participating in the operation and appearances in court arising from the operation,

(d) an officer within the meaning of the Customs Act [or] the Excise Act...or a person having the powers of such an officer...

I could keep reading this definition until 6:15 p.m. It is not so far-fetched for my colleague from Timmins—James Bay to suggest that Mayor Ford could request certain information.

What is more, the NDP has been heavily criticized today for some of its requests. However, in La Presse this morning, there was an article by Joël-Denis Bellavance on the information we are looking for with the official opposition motion moved by my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville. Mr. Bellavance reported that the Privy Council Office also made a request of all its departments. The PCO wanted to know who these people were who made 1.2 million requests for information about Canadians. There are 1.2 million Canadians who are allegedly affected by these requests.

All day, the Conservatives have been telling us that this is terrible, that what we are asking for is scary and that the NDP does not know what it is talking about.

I even heard one of the ministers of state, a junior minister over there, say the times have changed.

I think we all know that. Information circulates quickly, I agree. Regardless of the fact that times have changed, there are still laws that apply in this country.

We all know that this Conservative government likes to intrude on Canadian taxpayers' privacy and could not care less about almost every law around. When this government gets caught, it takes a holier than thou stance or it suddenly takes a few strategic steps backward and comes back with what I like to call the Trojan Horse tactic. In other words, it disguises its approach in another way.

Everyone in the House remembers Bill C-30, introduced by my favourite minister, the former minister of public safety. I was going to say something unkind, but I will be careful. Thank God the public woke up and made a concerted effort to ensure that the government backed down. This goes to show that ridicule never killed anyone. However, sometimes it kills political careers, even though politicians will often end up becoming a judge somewhere. Everyone kept telling the former public safety minister what he was in the process of doing. They ridiculed his bill. Sometimes that is what it takes with this government.

Their concerns were heard. The Conservatives withdrew the bill and suddenly we had Bill S-4 and Bill C-13, which deals with cyberbullying. Who in the House would not want to protect victims? Who would not want to say at some point that we passed legislation after a number of young people committed suicide as a result of bullying? That is rather disgusting, although there are other unparliamentary words that could be used. It is problematic to rise in the House and say that, on the contrary, we are in favour of cyberbullying. However, once again, the Conservatives introduced five or six pages of text that were more or less accurate and then combined them with tons of provisions that amend all sorts of legislation.

Fortunately, the Minister of Justice told me that he would give the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights the time needed to examine those provisions. Perhaps we, the members of that committee, are not the best people to examine those provisions. Fortunately, we will be hearing from many experts.

I still believe that the motion that I moved at the beginning of the debate on Bill C-13 made complete sense. I proposed dividing the bill in two so that that we could do what we do best: examine the provisions of the Criminal Code and make sure that the new provisions regarding the distribution of intimate images fall within the parameters and meet the test of the Criminal Code.

Instead, we are going to be spending a lot of our time looking at the aspects of the bill dealing with privacy and how certain telecommunications providers will be able to disclose information without a warrant, or with a warrant but with a lighter burden of proof, and so on.

Unfortunately, since the beginning, this government has shown us that it has no credibility. Every week, there is a new drama featuring one of the people sitting in the front benches. At the end of last week—and it has continued into this week—it was the Prime Minister and his serious insinuations. Sometimes, not saying enough is the same as saying too much. He attacked the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Members on the Conservative benches are wondering why we do not trust them. Why are we suspicious when we get bills like Bill S-4 or Bill C-13? We are wondering what is behind those bills.

People have been debating this motion all day in the House. I repeat that it does not get any simpler than this motion, which calls on the government to follow the advice of the Privacy Commissioner. Who does not want to follow that advice? Who is against making public the number of disclosures, when even the Prime Minister's Office is quietly checking into this matter? The Conservatives are simply afraid of doing things. They want public information on our constituents, on Canadian taxpayers, but they do not want anyone other than themselves to have access to that information.

That is why the government does so much behind closed doors. The representatives of the people, here in the House, certainly have a right to know. We are getting questions as well. I hear from people, and I am sure that my colleagues in the House, even on the Conservative side, are hearing from people. I am shocked to see that many of these people, from the Reform Party of Canada and the Canadian Alliance, who made a point of calling themselves the voice of the people, are now the biggest puppets, sitting in their seats, terrified to rise and say that this makes absolutely no sense.

At some point we need to wake up and go back to our ridings to talk to our constituents, who are asking what is going on with their information, who has access to this information, when and why. Are there 1.2 million criminals somewhere in Canada? Is it because we have relaxed our rules so much that everyone—ISPs, telecommunications companies and others—feels justified in passing on information? The companies know that they will go unpunished if they freely share information on anything. That is dangerous.

Some people here in the House say that times have changed. That is true. I can do research. In fact, I do not claim to know all the sections of the Criminal Code, and I was able to find the section on the concept of peace officer right away, in two seconds. It was actually quicker than that as I think it took me one-tenth of a second to find the definition in the Criminal Code. Sometimes I tell young people or future lawyers that they are lucky because, in my day—I do not like to say this because it dates me, but it is a fact—when I did my research, I had to go to the law faculty library and open maybe 18 books before formulating an idea. Now, we just click on a button.

However, just because information travels at astronomical speeds, it does not mean that the privacy guarantees and protections granted to all Canadians under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms must be trampled by a government that does not care about protecting its citizens.

Opposition Motion—Safeguarding of Personal Information

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of the motion by the hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville.

The motion calls on government to make public the number, and just the number, of warrantless disclosures made by telecom companies at the request of federal departments and agencies. The motion also calls on government to close the loophole that has allowed the indiscriminate disclosure of personal information of law-abiding Canadians without a warrant.

To simplify, how many times have telecom companies handed out personal information about Canadians without a warrant to government? The government must find an immediate way to shut down the loophole that allows such personal information to be released.

We live in an incredibly connected world. Earlier this year I travelled to Tanzania, Africa, to tour Canadian development projects with a group called Results Canada. Its mission is all about ending extreme poverty, and I did see some extreme poverty. One of the images that will always stick with me is walking into a maternity ward at a rural hospital, or what they called a hospital. The maternity ward was crammed with nine or 10 beds, but there were two women in labour to a single bed.

The Tanzanians I met were the finest and best kind of people, a lovely people, but they were living with basically nothing. Still, almost every adult I came across, who could have absolutely nothing but the second-hand clothes on their back and be sleeping under a tree, still had a cellphone, and they looked at the screens as often as we do.

My point is that from Tanzania to Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador, my neck of the woods, the dependency on the Internet and on cellphones is universal.

Just this weekend I read an article by Stephen Hawking, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, on how artificial intelligence—and we are almost to that point—could be the worst thing to happen to humanity. It would be more or less the rise of the machines. I cannot even imagine a country being led by a robot.

Oh, wait; yes, I can.

Another article I read this weekend outlined how U.S. intelligence whistle-blower Edward Snowden has warned that entire populations, rather than just individuals, now live under constant surveillance. I do not know if it is to that point in Canada, but we do have some serious cause for concern.

Let us look at the numbers first.

In late April, we learned that government departments and agencies—the RCMP, Canada Border Services Agency, and CSIS, the Canadian spy agency—requested personal information from telecom companies almost 1.2 million times in 2011 alone. That is staggering. It is a jaw-dropping rate. As the previous speaker said, it is one request every 27 seconds.

However, the number of requests for personal information is most likely greater than 1.2 million, because three of nine telecom companies told the Privacy Commissioner how many times they granted the government's requests for customer data, not how many times the government asked for the data. It was how many times they gave the data.

It is reported that wireless telecom companies complied with the government's requests for customer data at least 785,000 times. The 2010 data from the RCMP show that 94% of requests involving customer name and address information was provided voluntarily without a warrant.

Here is another indicator or how often warrants were used or not used. Canada Border Services Agency obtained customer data from telecom companies 19,000 times in one year, but it obtained a warrant in fewer than 200 of those cases.

Do Canadians have a problem with telecom companies handing out their personal information left, right, and centre? Yes, we do. This is not 1984 or Brave New World. The idea of a Conservative Big Brother does not sit well with Canadians.

That said, it is generally understood across the board that police need information to catch criminals and to protect Canadian society. There is no time to get a warrant when a life is in danger, when a life is in jeopardy.

However, this is beyond that. At least 1.2 million requests for personal information, most times without a hint of a warrant, is a staggering statistic. The current Conservative government is paying to access our personal information, to the tune of between $1 and $3 for each request.

More than two years ago in this House, the former minister of public safety, Vic Toews, introduced Bill C-30, a bill to expand police surveillance of the web. At the time, he said “[You're either] with us or with the child pornographers”. That statement got the attention of all of Canada, and the immediate and appropriate backlash forced the Conservatives to back down, to walk away from the bill.

Since that outrageous bill was dropped and Toews was appointed to the Manitoba bench—but that is another story—the current government has introduced other legislation to this House that it says will protect the privacy of Canadians. In fact, the legislation may actually increase spying on Canadians without a warrant. The first example, Bill C-13, is a bill that is aimed at tackling cyberbullying and is expected to expand warrantless disclosure of Internet and cellular subscriber information to law enforcement agencies. Another example is Bill S-4, the digital privacy act, which would extend the authority to disclose subscriber information without a warrant to private organizations, not just law enforcement agencies.

The government has a bad habit of doing through the back door what it cannot do through the front door. The current government also has some hypocritical tendencies. On the one hand, the Minister of Industry argued that the long form census was intrusive, so the Conservatives eliminated it. On the other hand, this administration has no qualms and sees nothing wrong with invading the private information of Canadians and not telling them about what it is doing. It has repeatedly introduced legislation that would make it easier for Conservatives to snoop on Canadians.

Here is another example of hypocrisy. This country's information watchdog has said that it has been flooded with complaints that the current Conservative government is too often citing security in order to withhold documents requested under the Access to Information Act. The Conservatives are using the security excuse to withhold public information at the same time that the floodgates are open on the personal information and security of Canadians.

We live in an age where technology is advancing at an incredible pace and rate. Yet, the Privacy Act that is meant to protect the privacy of Canadians and keep government accountable has not been updated since 1983. That was before the Internet, Google, email, Facebook, and Twitter. Another act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, has not been updated since 2000, also before social media was born.

New Democrats believe that privacy laws should be modernized. We also believe they should be strengthened, not weakened, to better protect the personal information of Canadians. We also believe we can pursue bad guys and throw the book at them without treating law-abiding Canadians like criminals and violating their rights.

I will end with words from Edward Snowden, the former U.S. intelligence contractor, who said last week that state surveillance today is a euphemism for mass surveillance. He said:

It's no longer based on the traditional practice of targeted taps based on some individual suspicion of wrongdoing. It covers phone calls, emails, texts, search history, what you buy, who your friends are, where you go, who you love.

In so many ways, the Internet and social media are the new frontier. They are still the new frontier. It is our duty to ensure that laws and security do not fall to Big Conservative Brother.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of rising in the House on behalf of the people of Pontiac to support the opposition motion moved by my hon. colleague, who does an excellent job when it comes to protecting the privacy of Canadians in the digital age.

I will be sharing my time with the wonderful member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl, who tells me that his riding is the most beautiful in the country. However, I have to disagree with him because surely Pontiac is the most beautiful.

The subject of this motion could not be more important: the privacy of Canadians. The good people of the Pontiac are as concerned as other citizens that the increasingly technological world we live in should respect the privacy of individuals. This privacy may be breached in all sorts of ways today, but governments, as well as companies, have a fundamental responsibility to ensure that they protect the private lives of Canadians.

To me, the privacy of Canadians is sacrosanct. We are a G7 country where democracy has been stable, and we have a duty to our fellow citizens in this regard. However, we must remain constantly vigilant when the government begins to creep into the lives of Canadians. This is a slippery slope in any democracy, and certain inherent dangers exist in the sharing of private information with the government. This begs the question: what limits are imposed on governments today when they request information that is not voluntarily given by Canadians?

We have learned recently that Canadian law enforcement agencies have begun to request massive amounts of information on Canadians from telecommunications companies. Due to advances in technology, it is the telecommunications sector, and providers in particular, who collect massive amounts of data about their subscribers.

What is worrying is that this is not the first time we have heard this. In 2011, according to the Privacy Commissioner, telecommunications providers responded to 1,193,630 requests for the personal information of Canadians. That is an average of one request every 27 seconds. This does not even cover it, since only three of the nine major telecom companies actually informed the commissioner's office of how many times they granted the government's request for consumer data.

Of this staggering number of requests, figures provided to the office in late 2011 show that wireless telecom companies complied with the government's request for customer data, and the vast majority of these requests were done without a warrant or even information sent to the individuals concerned. No consent was sought, and no consent was given.

The situation is so bad, and so many requests have been made, that one major company actually had to install a mirror of their data on a network so that it could send this raw data traffic directly to the federal authorities requesting it.

A concerted government response is clearly required and urgently needed to protect the privacy of Canadians. Instead, seemingly to have an increased amount of information on Canadians, the government has actually eroded the protection of the privacy of Canadians since it formed government. Whether this has been on purpose or by accident, we can judge the consequences.

For example, it has consistently refused to update any of the laws that keep the government accountable with regard to the privacy information of Canadians. The privacy laws have not been updated since the 1980s. That was before Facebook. In fact, the Internet was in its infancy back then. We have to do better.

By allowing thousands of breaches of personal information, the government has also consistently shown itself to be incapable of adequately protecting Canadians' privacy within its own departments, as we have seen with the recent Heartbleed situation or as one can recall from the letter debacle at the CRA. Contradictions abound, because under the pretext of protecting the privacy of Canadians and while decrying heavy-handed government, the industry minister argued that the long form census was intrusive and eliminated it, yet the government sees nothing wrong with invading Canadians' private information without a warrant and without even telling them.

It has repeatedly introduced legislation that makes it easier for Conservatives and the government to snoop on Canadians. For example, we can remember the public safety minister's introduction of the infamous Bill C-30, known as the online snooping bill. Fortunately, Canadians were paying attention. They were outraged, and the government was forced to back down. Since then, though, Bill C-13, the government's cyberbullying law, though well-intentioned, includes lawful access provisions that would expand warrantless disclosure of information to law enforcement by giving immunity from any liability to companies holding Canadians' information if they disclose it without a warrant. This makes it more likely that companies would have to hand over information without a warrant, as there are no risks they would face or any criminal or civil penalties if they do so.

We can also mention Bill S-4, the new so-called digital privacy act, which would go even further and allow private sector organizations to hand over Canadians' private information. This again could be done without consent and without a court order to any organization investigating a breach of contract or potential violation of any law. This could also be done in secret, without the knowledge of the affected person.

We may, quite reasonably, ask why the government is not taking the privacy of Canadians more seriously. Where is the libertarian zeal that motivated so many of my colleagues on the other side of the House, the idea that government was too big and too intrusive in the lives of Canadians? The reality is that government has crept more into the lives of Canadians under the watch of this government than at perhaps any other time in Canadian history.

Many questions remain unanswered. The citizens of my riding would like to understand why breaches to their privacy are happening more and more frequently. The onus is on the government to prove there is enough crime or potential terrorism or other matters of national security to justify 1.2 million requests for personal information in a single year.

However, what concerns me the most is the lack of due process. It seems to me that when law enforcement agencies decide they want private information on citizens, at the very least there should be a good cause for them to seek it. In our current situation, that determination is assured by the warrant process. If a request does not meet the requirements of a warrant, then it should simply not be made.

Since I am short on time, I will skip ahead. Essentially, Canadians have a right to know who is snooping on them and how they are doing it. I just do not understand why the Conservative government does not simply come clean with Canadians and give them the whole picture of what is really going on. On our side of the House, we want this information to be provided to Canadians as rapidly as possible.

Canadians understand that law enforcement agencies need information to track down criminals.

However, the fact that the government is requesting Canadians' personal information from telecommunications companies without a warrant 1.2 million times a year is completely unacceptable. The problem with warrantless disclosure is that it is uncontrolled and results in information being disclosed much more frequently than is justified.

In conclusion, it is clear that our privacy laws need to be updated in order to better protect Canadians' personal information. These laws must not be weakened. We need to be able to take effective legal action against criminals without infringing on the rights of law-abiding Canadians and treating them like criminals.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are unable to protect people's personal information. They are responsible for thousands of their own violations and violations committed by various departments. How did the Conservative government have the nerve to introduce a bill such as Bill C-30 on online spying without a warrant?

Public pressure was required for the government to reverse that decision.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today on this very important issue. The New Democratic Party calls for accountability and an explanation on behalf of Canadians into the widespread spying and interference of Canadians' Internet use and their cellphone use under the current government.

What we are asking for today is eminently reasonable. We are asking simply to ensure the powers of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the member who represents us as a parliamentary officer, who represents the Canadian people, and that she have the authority to ensure that the laws of this land are being followed.

Now, we have a government, of course, that will do anything it can to obstruct the work of the offices of Parliament because right now the offices of Parliament are about the only bulwark standing in the way of the numerous underminings of Canadians' legal rights, and even the illegal activities that are being undertaken by the Conservative Party.

It has been said that one of the foundations of a democracy is to ensure maximum transparency for government and maximum privacy for citizens. However, the current paranoid and secretive government has flipped it. The Conservatives have maximum privacy for their black holes of administration where they refuse to answer the simplest questions, and they are getting maximum transparency on the lives of Canadian citizens to the tune of 1.2 million requests of telecoms last year.

Now that is a conservative number, and I say “conservative” in the way the Conservatives have begun to use this, because not all the telecoms bothered to even respond to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. That is a very disturbing trend.

What does the 1.2 million requests mean? It means that every 27 seconds someone from a government agency, who, we do not know; for what reason, we do not know; for what possible motive, we do not know; picks up a telecom and asks for information about the private lives of Canadian citizens, and gets it without warrant.

Let us debunk the excuses we have heard from the Conservatives on this.

First is the bogeyman excuse. Conservatives use the bogeyman all the time. The bogeyman is out there roaming the streets. The member for Oak Ridges—Markham the other day made it sound like his neighbourhood was a case of Shaun of the Dead. There are these violent criminals and terrorists all over the place and so the Conservatives have to be able to call up a telecom immediately to gather any information they need whenever they want it.

Those laws already exist and it is fairly straightforward to get information if a violent crime is occurring. However, we are being led to believe that the bogeyman is out there and the current government has to stop it.

How does the government define terrorists?

I think we should say that, in this whole piece on spying, we are dealing with the revenge of Vic Toews. I refer members back to February 2012 when Vic Toews branded the new anti-terrorism strategy, “building resilience against terrorism: Canada’s counter-terrorism strategy”.

The government was going to go after terrorists, which included domestic extremism that is “based on grievances--real or perceived--revolving around the promotion of various causes such as animal rights...environmentalism and anti-capitalism”.

If a person is against the Northern Gateway Pipeline, under the current government's framework, he or she is a potential terrorist. Therefore, the government can decide to follow his or her movements, as he or she is one of the bogeymen.

A concern about animal rights is not that of concern for animal rights such as our Prime Minister's wife who tells us that 1,000 murdered or missing women may be a great cause, but they are here for abandoned cats. The government is probably not spying on the Prime Minister's wife. However, someone else who might have concerns about animal rights, and it is in there, is a potential terrorist and worthy of picking up the phone.

One of the other excuses is that the Conservatives are not asking for anything that is not already the norm. It is just like picking up a phone book and looking up a number. Calling a telecom and demanding private information on Canadians is just like using a phone book.

The Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Ann Cavoukian, says that is a load of bunk. She said the following about getting even basic subscriber information such as ISP numbers:

...customer name and address information ties us to our entire digital life, unlike a stationary street address. Therefore, “subscriber information” is far from the modern day equivalent of a publicly available “phone book”. Rather, it is the key to a much wider subset of information.

Then the Conservatives say, “Don't you trust our police?” We certainly would trust the police. However, we also see that Ann Cavoukian has said that at no time have Canadian authorities provided the public with any evidence or reasoning that Canadian law enforcement agencies have been frustrated in the performance of their duties as a result of shortcomings in the current law. The privacy commissioners in their joint letter, also write to the Prime Minister saying, “The capacity of the state to conduct surveillance and access private information while reducing the frequency and vigour of judicial scrutiny” is the heart of the issue.

We all remember when Vic Toews stood up in the House and told Canadian citizens who were concerned about the fact that they were being spied on, that they were basically in league with child pornographers if they had the nerve to stand up for them. That was such a boneheaded move and it caused such a blowback on the government that they had to retract the legislation. Why would the Conservatives show intent on pushing that through? We now know, they were trying to legalize what has become the common practice. Their shadow world of spying on Canadians is not legal. Gathering this information without warrants is not legal. This is why they put forward Bill C-30, to attempt to deal with it. We all remember Vic Toews had one of those pieces, “The Minister may provide the telecommunications service provider with any equipment or other thing that the Minister considers the service provider needs to comply with” their ability to spy on Canadians.

That seemed like such a bizarre request at the time, but we have seen with the NSA and the widespread spying on American citizens and citizens around the world is exactly what Vic Toews was getting at, which is the ability to create mirror sites. The fact that we just learned in Der Spiegel that the NSA tapped the underwater cable network between Europe and U.S.A. to listen in on what ordinary citizens were doing on the Internet. The Conservatives have the same vision. They wanted to legalize that ability, and they were frustrated.

We are hearing the biggest excuse from the Conservatives. They realize the Vic Toews approach of accusing ordinary Canadians of being like child pornographers really did not work, but now they would reassure Canadians that they would fix it. They will fix it all right. They will fix it so that not only they will get to spy on Canadians, but anybody who wants to will be able to spy on Canadians: corporations can spy on Canadians, and all manner of very dubiously named authorities now will be able to spy.

Let us go through some of the issues on Bill S-4 and Bill C-13. According to Michael Geist, Bill S-4 will “massively expand warrantless disclosure of personal information”, because under Bill S-4, “an organization may disclose the personal information without the knowledge and consent of the individual...if the disclosure is made to another organization”. Not the laws of the land, not the RCMP, not anti-terrorism units, but if an individual is in dispute with a corporation over some contractual obligation, it can call their telecom, have their information handed over and they will not be told.

The Conservatives will certainly fix it. They will fix it to make widespread snooping of everything we do all the time perfectly legitimate for any corporation that just phones up and says it wants to know what they are doing on the Internet.

That is not all. Let us look at Bill C-13, which will give a public officer or a peace officer the ability to call telecom, demand information, and the telecoms will receive legal immunity for passing over this private information.

An interesting article in the National Post points out that Rob Ford will now be able to make these requests, because, oh, yes, he is a public officer, and under the act, if Rob Ford wants to find out what his neighbours are doing, interfering with the drug gangs in Rexdale with whom he might be friends, he would actually be able to make the calls.

The Criminal Code describes these peace officers, public officers, as including reeves of small towns, county wardens, who would be able to get information, and even people designated under the Fisheries Act. However, there is another element that is really important. Under the present laws, even with all this snooping that is going on, it has to be part of an investigation. The government would remove the caveat that says this snooping, this spying on the rights of Canadians does not have to have anything to do with an investigation. If the Conservatives want a fishing trip, if they want to keep tabs on them, they will be able to do so.

This needs to be dealt with. This is a government that is spying on law-abiding citizens and treating them as criminals, and it needs to be held accountable for this abuse of Canadians' rights.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

I disagree with you on that one, Minister. Honestly, I agree there need to be tools, but what I submit to you is that you might not have reviewed the aspect of the tool as much, especially in view of the backlash your government received against Bill C-30. As for cyber-intimidation, it is pretty much unanimous—everybody agrees there's a need to do something about it.

I go back to the core of my question. What type of review have you done to make sure that when you introduce a new concept—because I agree they do need a warrant, but you have changed the burden of proof....

It is no longer the same thing. Every lawyer who practices criminal law is familiar with the principle of having "reasonable grounds to believe". You are also familiar with it because you were a Crown prosecutor and a defence lawyer. Yet suddenly we are talking about "reasonable grounds to suspect". New concepts are being introduced here.

Did you have these concepts tested before introducing Bill C-13, which will have a lot of ramifications beyond cyberbullying and the distribution of images? In fact, this bill casts a very wide net.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, thank you for being here. Once again, this meeting has been shortened because of a time allocation motion by your government on another bill.

Having said that, I appreciate the fact that you seem to want to fix some of the bad impressions that Bill C-13 left with experts in the protection of privacy and other areas. However, the fact that all those voices were raised against the bill the same day it was tabled and that those people saw some concerning similarities between it and Bill C-30 suggests to me that, in practice, after the Conservatives have passed it in the House, Bill C-13 may not be as clear as you seem to believe. That concerns me a little and I end up asking the same question every time you come and present us with a new government bill.

The short title you have given to Bill C-13 is the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act. However, it touches on much more than online crime. In fact, it also includes a very limited section on distributing intimate images.

After drafting this bill, did you have it checked? I know you have your officials from the Department of Justice, but did you consult with your experts on the Constitution and the Charter to determine whether the bill would pass the tests we all know it will inevitably be subject to? It seems to be the fashion for the Conservatives to find themselves before the Supreme Court. Do you have assurances aside from just your personal perception that everything is hunky dory? Have you received serious legal opinions that give reasonable assurances that your bill will hold water in a very high percentage of cases, and not just in 5%, 10% or 15% of cases?

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question and comments.

She is absolutely right. Bill C-13 is a useful part of the fight against cyberbullying. The first problem is that the Conservatives already voted against a similar bill that we introduced.

The second problem is that this bill is a catch-all. It contains amendments to certain laws concerning financial data of banks, such as the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, as well as changes that concern telemarketing and the theft of a telecommunication service. It includes a number of the provisions of the former Bill C-30.

If Bill C-13 actually allowed us to seriously address cyberbullying, we would pass it quickly. Unfortunately, this is a catch-all that contains some very bad measures. That is what we have a problem with.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and pleasure to speak in the House to Bill C-13, from a couple of perspectives.

As the chair of the justice committee, I am looking forward to the discussion and debate we will have with the many witnesses who come forward on this important bill. Because of the issue of cyberbullying, the Government of Canada, and all of us, recognize the importance of Bill C-13 and taking a proactive approach on this.

However, before I get into that, I will admit that I did not know much about the aspects of cyberbullying. Therefore, over the last few weeks I have had the opportunity to talk to my daughters, who are 23 and 24, one of whom has just graduated from university. The other one is still in university, which is not that far away from high school.

We live in a relatively affluent community. There is no denying that Burlington is relatively affluent. I asked them what they knew about cyberbullying in their high school or this community. To my surprise, both of my daughters indicated there were two incidents within their own high school. Young women were photographed without their consent, in what I will describe as compromising situations, and those images were distributed throughout the high school. It did not result in the kind of tragedy that we have had elsewhere in Canada; however, it was an absolute form of bullying that I was not even aware of.

This issue, which we all agree is an issue, does affect all areas of Canada. There is no economic disparity in terms of lower-income people being more apt to experience higher aspects of cyberbullying than higher-income communities. It affects everyone. That is why this bill is important and needs to be comprehensive.

I know we have heard a few discussions from the other side about there being a motion to deal with a strategy. Strategies are great for collecting dust. From our perspective, we need action. This bill takes action.

We heard that there was a private member's bill from the opposition on a specific portion of cyberbullying, which is accurate. However, I think we have, in a more appropriate way, taken a more comprehensive approach to attacking this issue and applying the laws of the land to it.

I have not heard anyone say that this is not a complicated issue. Once in a while it has been said that there is a simple answer. There is no simple answer. What we are doing today will not end cyberbullying. I do not think that anyone is declaring a victory over cyberbullying.

However, these are the tools we need to attack this problem. We need to make it a criminal offence. We need to give police and the judiciary the tools to enforce this law. We need it so that when we do catch these individuals who are spreading inappropriate, non-consensual photos of youth, which is the example I will use because we are familiar with it—although it can happen at all ages, and the bill does not apply just to youth but to everyone—the country will have the tools to say that it is a criminal offence, something that we will not tolerate, and they will face a consequence for doing it. In addition, we will provide the police with the ability to do investigations, to collect evidence to sustain a criminal offence in terms of prosecution through the court system.

My hope is that as we attack this problem through the police, the judicial system, and our criminal court system, and that as those who are committing these crimes are found guilty, it will be a wake-up call to end cyberbullying. It is a process that will not happen overnight, but it is one that we need to start.

I want to talk for a few minutes about some of the myths we have heard regarding this bill. In one of the earlier speeches, someone said we are making the stealing of cable signals illegal. Guess what? Stealing cable is already illegal. People are not allowed to take cable without paying for it. That is already in the Criminal Code. All the bill does is to improve the wording, to capture that activity and the new ways of telecommunications and cable providing Internet services. That is what the bill would do. Stealing cable signals is illegal. Everyone in the House should know that and should not be questioning why it is in the bill.

A big myth about the bill is that it incorporates the controversial elements of Bill C-30, which rightfully was withdrawn by our government, in response to two things. One was regarding some activity that could take place that would not require a warrant. It was clearly in the bill, and it is not in Bill C-13. Every activity requires a warrant. That was the reaction we had, and we went through the bill and changed the process to reflect what we heard from the public and the opposition parties.

We should be congratulated on that, but that is not what happens around here. That is part of the problem with the House. When a government listens to the opposition and the public and makes a change, it should be congratulated and not criticized for making that change. That is not what happens around here. The government was told that it was not competent to know that in the first place, so it was criticized for making a change. Why bother making a change? In this case, making the change was the right thing to do, and that is why we did it.

There was another piece in Bill C-30 that dealt with the framework by which a provider of Internet services would have to have something so that we could monitor the traffic, basically. We got rid of that piece. It is not in the current bill, and that was part of what we heard in terms of a response to Bill C-13.

I have heard from the opposition members not to be reactive, to be proactive. This is exactly what Bill C-13 does. It is proactive activity that the police are able to undertake so they can do their job, so we can bring criminals who are attacking our young people to justice. Being proactive is exactly what Bill C-13 does.

The third issue we heard about is that this is an omnibus bill. We agree with making it a criminal offence, which is excellent, and everyone should agree with that. However, there are other parts in the bill that actually implement the criminal offence, that allow the police and the judicial system to charge folks, investigate, bring them to court, and bring them to justice, to end this horrific crime that is mostly done against young people.

We need Bill C-13. I am looking forward to the committee stage. It is my understanding that we have a tremendous number of witnesses to talk about the different issues. That is where the debate will really happen, in terms of witnesses telling us what could be better. We will have a discussion among the members of Parliament, ask good questions, and we will get the best bill we can to help protect the young people of this country.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about the provisions that used to be in Bill C-30, the “you're with us or you're with the child pedophiles” bill as the former minister of public safety referred to it. It would appear that many of those provisions have been put into this bill without a lot of analysis. We have an amalgam of a bill that everyone supports on cyberbullying with its controversial provisions of that sort dealing with public safety.

The bill will go to committee for which I am obviously grateful, but a lot more work needs to be done with it. Whether the government of the day, having tried once, failed and come back again, will accept amendments will remain to be seen. We live in hope.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak in support of this bill. In doing so, I wish to salute the leadership and thoughtful analysis that has been provided by my colleague, the member for Gatineau. As is so often the case in the House, I wish I could simply stand in this place and enthusiastically support this Conservative initiative, but once again the Conservatives cannot stop themselves from overreaching.

As others have noted in this debate thus far, the official opposition requested unanimous consent to have the bill divided into two parts and to allow the part that was initially introduced by my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, Bill C-540, the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, dealt with in one fashion, and ask that it be adopted as quickly as possible in committee because of all-party support. Why could this not be about that? Because it is about more than that. Other provisions from the defunct Bill C-30 should be studied separately, in the NDP's view, and given the attention that they so desperately require.

I am going to speak first about some of the cyberbullying issues, then focus upon what are called the lawful access provisions and the critique that so many people have made about those provisions, and then return in the few minutes available to the issue of cyberbullying, which is so critical.

Even in this fractured and divided Parliament, I cannot imagine many colleagues who would disagree with the need to better protect people of all ages from the distribution of intimate images without their consent. We have clearly heard from families, educators and law enforcement officials that there is a need to update the Criminal Code to address this kind of malicious activity. There seems to be no doubt about that. In fact, a few months ago I attended a presentation on Parliament Hill that was hosted by ResearchImpact, Canada's knowledge mobilization network group, that is seeking to maximize the economic, social, health and environmental impacts of research.

Among the presentations I heard in the Centre Block was one by a University of Victoria professor on a program that Professor Bonnie Leadbeater, a professor in the department of psychology at the University of Victoria, was involved in as a researcher. She is also the author and evaluator of WITS LEADS, an elementary school program, a program designed to bring together schools, families and communities to help elementary school children deal with bullying and peer victimization and to encourage adults to respond more effectively to children's requests for help.

This cutting-edge research by Professor Leadbeater and her peers has made a real impact across the country. In fact, for her work, Professor Leadbeater was awarded the Partnership Award by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research this past year. I am happy to see such important and applied research on bullying from my community and that it has had such national impact.

Therefore, it is unfortunate that the Conservatives are taking a straightforward issue that everyone supports and making it into something much more complicated than it needs to be. That is why the NDP has proposed the splitting of this bill, with all of its unanimous support, from those parts that are, frankly, much more controversial, as I will describe in a moment.

We all know that the initiative for Bill C-13 was the tragic events of the highly-publicized suicides of two adolescent victims of cyberbullying, Rehtaeh Parsons of Nova Scotia and Amanda Todd from my province of British Columbia. Frankly, the bill essentially repeats what my colleague, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, had already put in his bill, as I said earlier, so obviously there is no issue of support. However, the scope of the application of Bill C-13 is so much larger and targets a whole lot of other issues that have nothing to do with cyberbullying, issues like access to bank financial data, the Terrorist Financing Act, telemarketers and the theft of telecommunications services. These are all in the bill before us today.

It is the issue of access and warrantless disclosure of personal information from Internet service providers to “lawful authorities” that is at issue for this other part, the larger part of this initiative, and it is that I wish to address now.

Many experts on privacy law have expressed great concern over this initiative. A famous privacy lawyer in Halifax, David Fraser, has expressed it as “really cynical and disappointing”, to use his words. He says that there is a whole bunch of irrelevant and other stuff in here that is going to distract from the legitimate discussion of how to fine tune it and get it absolutely right. He is, of course, right.

I would like to focus on the very current critique of the bill by Professor Michael Geist who is perhaps one of our most famous academics and practitioners in this field.

Professor Geist, the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law, is a professor at the University of Ottawa. To say he has written prolifically on this topic would be an understatement. As recently as two weeks ago, he wrote the following:

The debate over Bill C-13, the government's latest lawful access bill, is set to resume shortly. The government has argued that the bill should not raise concerns since new police powers involve court oversight and the mandatory warrantless disclosure provisions that raised widespread concern in the last bill have been removed. While that is the government's talking points, I've posted on how this bill now includes incentives for telecom companies and other intermediaries to disclose subscriber information without court oversight since it grants them full civil and criminal immunity for doing so. Moreover, newly released data suggests that the telecom companies don't seem to need much of an incentive as they are already disclosing subscriber data on thousands of Canadians every year without court oversight.

This is not an opposition politician speaking. This is probably the leading academic expert on this matter in the country who is bringing this to our attention. No wonder there continues to be great concern.

Professor Geist goes on to talk about the work that the Privacy Commissioner is doing, the recommendations she has released designed to enforce privacy protections in the age of cybersurveillance and a report that includes recommendations for reform to our private sector privacy law to:

—require public reporting on the use of various disclosure provisions under PIPEDA where private-sector entities such as telecommunications companies release personal information to national security entities without court oversight.

That is what is before us.

Civil liberties groups and academics sent a public letter to the various leading telecom companies asking them to shed new light on this policy of data retention and sharing policies. The claim is that our role in the whole surveillance activity remains a bit of a mystery, but there can be little doubt that Canadian telecom and Internet companies play an important role as intermediaries that access, retain and possibly disclose information about their subscribers' activities. These are the kinds of concerns that have so many Canadians continuing to be concerned.

I would like to read another quote into the record from Professor Geist. He says:

In fact, Bill C-13, the so-called “cyberbullying” bill, includes a provision that is likely to increase the number of voluntary disclosures without court oversight since it grants telecom companies and Internet providers complete immunity from any civil or criminal liability for those disclosures....The privacy implications of this secret disclosure system are enormous...

I wholeheartedly support the initiative on cyberbullying. However, once again, I wish the government did not overreach and go into this area of lawful access, which causes so much concern in the communities across the country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for his eloquent speech.

I would like to come back to something he mentioned in the answer he just gave to the member opposite. The member opposite is criticizing the NDP for not wanting to pass certain aspects of the bill we are discussing today, which have been controversial since Bill C-30 was introduced. My colleague already addressed this issue in his speech.

The Conservatives' attitude toward today's debate is the same attitude they adopt every time we try to make amendments to a bill.

My colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord proposed a national bullying prevention strategy that was defeated by the Conservatives, who wanted nothing to do with it. What is more, my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour introduced Bill C-540, which received broad support. However, the Conservatives decided not to do anything about it and to instead develop a much more complicated bill to try to pass measures that Canadians do not agree with.

I would like my colleague to elaborate on how the NDP's approach is a much better way of finding a real solution than the Conservatives' divisive approach. I would like him to explain a bit more about the advantages of working together in the House, rather than trying to divide people, as we unfortunately see with all of the bills that the Conservatives introduce.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their welcome this evening. I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-13. This bill is close to my heart, and it deals with a sensitive issue that can also be emotional for some of my colleagues.

I commend the government for introducing this bill to create a national strategy on cyberbullying and cybercrime, which could also be included. The NDP will support any measures that combat cyberbullying, as such measures are in line with our principles on the right to privacy.

Such measures are almost exactly what we need, in response to rapidly developing technologies that are changing the way young people interact with each other every day. I said that the measures were almost perfect because this bill contains one measure that is in line with a measure that we presented in the House. The rest of the bill still has several flaws, which I will talk about in my speech today.

We also regret the fact that it took a number of high-profile cases, such as the ones in Nova Scotia and British Columbia, before our government finally decided to take action to combat cyberbullying and bullying in general. Bullying is not restricted to the Internet. It can happen in person every day, especially at school.

We also regret that the Conservatives refused to support the sensible, direct and simple Bill C-540, introduced by my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. It is odd that the content of the government's Bill C-13 is nearly identical to the bill we introduced that was not supported by the Conservatives. One has to wonder whether the Conservatives were playing politics. I will give them the benefit of the doubt. It is up to them to answer that question.

Two years ago, in the 41st Parliament, my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord moved Motion No. 385, which suggested that the government create a national bullying prevention strategy to address the issue of bullying in general—not just cyberbullying—but the motion was not supported by the Conservatives.

The Conservatives, who today are saying that they are the great protectors of our youth and that they want to fix the situation, actually had the opportunity to help us do that in the past. Unfortunately, they did not support us.

It is sad that the government sometimes seems to wait for tragic events to happen before taking action. We have also seen that with other files. We could prevent rather than react to these very tragic situations that often result in loss of life.

Therefore, we need legislation to prohibit the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. We support this part of the bill that will prohibit the non-consensual distribution of intimate images because we had proposed this same measure in 2013, about 10 months ago. The Conservatives did not support this measure then, but it is being reintroduced and we will support it. Had this been the only focus of the bill, we could have supported it right away. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

A number of things have also been included in Bill C-13, such as parts of Bill C-30. Members will recall that, in the first session of the 41st Parliament, if my memory serves me well, the minister of public safety—who is no longer an MP—introduced the now-defunct Bill C-30. This bill raised the ire of Canadians across the country. The minister was eventually forced to back down and withdraw the bill, dubbed the electronic surveillance bill. It was not well received by the public. As I was saying, the Conservatives eventually withdrew the bill.

Unfortunately, a number of the measures in Bill C-30, for which there was no consensus, are found today in Bill C-13. That is one of the reasons why we cannot support this bill in its current form. We will support the bill at second reading in order to try to fix the bill in committee. However, as we told the government, we would have been open to splitting the bill in order to study only the part that members seem to agree on and to pass it quickly. We could then have focused on the somewhat more contentious parts.

Bullying is a very important issue that particularly affects youth aged 12 to 14. According to research, they are the most likely age group to be victims of cyberbullying. This scourge has a serious impact on the mental health and well-being of young victims. Studies are painting a negative and troubling portrait of the impact that cyberbullying is having on our youth. It results in anxiety, poor school performance, hopelessness and helplessness. It can also lead to very tragic situations, such as those we have recently witnessed.

According to the 2012 impact report by Kids Help Phone, cyberbullying victims and offenders are almost twice as likely to attempt suicide, unfortunately. That is a very worrisome finding.

When talking about bullying, we do not always mention the negative impact it can have on the victims who often find themselves in a very difficult situation. They clearly need help right now. That is why we support the first part of the bill, which would give those responsible for enforcing the law another tool to crack down on this scourge. We could bring those who hurt others to justice.

In addition, we realize that this issue affects far too many children in Canada. We also need to work on prevention. Punishing those at fault is not the only answer. We need to be proactive about preventing bullying before it happens. That is a foreign concept for the Conservatives. Often, they present measures that punish those in the wrong. That is fine, but we also need to put plenty of effort into preventing cyberbullying to simply avoid having victims. If we successfully prevent it, we can reduce the number of victims because some crimes will not happen in the first place. It is more important to prevent it before it happens, especially given the negative impact it can have on the victims. That is all the more true today, in 2014. Young people are increasingly exposed to new technology through the Internet. This means that, in some cases, they are now being bullied not just when they are in the schoolyard but also 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I am ready to answer questions.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have absolutely no confidence in the government doing anything right when it comes to dealing with young people's safety.

Michael Geist, a Canadian research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, compared a number of provisions included in Bill C-13 to the controversial Internet snooping legislation. We know how divisive that was. Bill C-30 was killed by the former justice minister in the face of widespread criticism.

You had this mountain of opposition and you withdrew the bill. Now you bring it forward, and in it you bury something that is so important. It is all about protecting our young people from cyberbullying. That is playing politics.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today and talk to what I believe is a very important issue. The issue of cyberbullying is very real, it is tangible, and it happens every day. It affects the lives of thousands of Canadians throughout our great land. There is a responsibility for government to do its best to ensure that we have the tools that are necessary to make a difference. That is really what we in the Liberal Party want. We would like to see a comprehensive approach to dealing with the issue of cyberbullying. That is what is really important here.

The legislation is one part of it. The additional resources, ideas, budgets, and throne speeches are another part of it, where we see a government that wants to focus its attention on dealing with an issue that many Canadians are quite concerned about. They want the government to demonstrate leadership on such an important issue.

I listened to the member, and I posed a question specifically; I appreciated the frankness in the answer that he provided. However, the point is that we have before us a piece of legislation that deals with a number of changes. Some of those changes I do not think would do any service by being incorporated into the important issue of cyberbullying. We remember the old Bill C-30, which had some fairly significant implications regarding lawful access. The government gave assurances on that bill and it died on the order paper.

Why incorporate some of the things they have into this very important issue? It made reference to the cable industry and cable theft. I suspect that if we canvass the House we would find that there is a great deal of interest in the issue of cyberbullying today. It is nothing new. It has been there for many years. We can talk about the cyber.ca website, and I would recommend that people check it. People can draw fantastic information from it. We need to get more people educated about the process of bullying that takes place.

In 2005, legislation under former Prime Minister Paul Martin was proposed. We have had other members bring it forward. In particular I look to my colleague from Vancouver, the wonderful Liberal Party health critic, who has brought forward the issue of cyberbullying. This issue has been before us for a number of years, and it keeps growing in its seriousness and the importance for the House to take more action in dealing with it.

Today, we have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and a litany of other programs and applications through the Internet that are used as mechanisms to inflict hurt upon someone else. One cannot underestimate the tragedies that have been caused by the type of cyberbullying or harassment that is taking place every day.

When we look at this legislation in principle, I believe all members, but assuredly members of the Liberal caucus, are quite supportive of taking action that would assist us in dealing with that very important issue of cyberbullying.

However, Liberals want to go further than that. We want to challenge the government to look at refocusing some of its priorities. The member made reference to advertising commercials. There is a great deal of benefit in using advertising as a wonderful tool to educate our population, because not everyone listens to the 6 o'clock or 10 o'clock news. The member is right that purchasing advertising spots in sports and children's programming would be of great value.

Think of the hundreds of millions of dollars the government spends on advertising its budget, its economic program, or whatever we want to call it. It spends hundreds of millions of dollars on something of no real great value. It is a bunch of spin coming from the government on what it is doing. Why not use some of the hundreds of millions of dollars on good, solid programs that are going to make a difference, such as developing and paying for advertising in our multimedia world today to educate individuals about cyberspace? That is what we should be doing. We challenge the government of the day to be a bit more creative on that front.

We need to work with stakeholders. How can we develop a strategy to educate and encourage people to get a better understanding of such an important issue if we are not prepared to work with the different stakeholders in society? One example would be schools. In Manitoba, there is in excess of 200,000 students attending public school. What is being done to encourage some sort of programming that educates our young people? I do not want to have to rely on Facebook and independent thinking that takes place in a locked room where all sorts of mischievous behaviour could be occurring in terms of educating our young people. It has to be far broader than that. Schools, school divisions, and departments of education all need to play a role.

What about the private sector? We talk about harassment that takes place in the cyberworld. Vindictive attitudes and how quickly individuals attack potential victims by posting pictures or images or making statements on the Internet that have strong, profound negative impacts on people's lives are incredible. Only one level of government, the national government and the Prime Minister, has to realize just how important it is that it is set as a priority issue. Every day that goes by that the Conservative government chooses not to be more aggressively proactive on this issue, we are destroying lives because we allow it to continue to the degree at which it is moving forward today, at a very rapid pace.

Liberals welcome the idea of action, support action to deal with anti-bullying, and want more of a comprehensive, all-inclusive strategy that is going to change more than the criminal law. It is time that the Government of Canada starts working with stakeholders. We could make a much larger difference if the government became interested in doing that.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not suggest that there be theft of cable signals in this bill. It is a good example of this tendency to stuff a bunch of other things into a bill which is called the prevention of cybercrime as kind of a catch-all title for the bill. Therefore, it makes it very difficult for us as members of Parliament to debate and vote on bills when the government has a bunch of unrelated things put into the same bill.

As I have mentioned, in this case we have seen bills that were dropped, such as Bill C-30, brought back into this bill, admittedly in a better form. However, I am not sure what that has to do with bullying or cyberbullying.

There have been a lot of things mixed together in this bill, which makes it difficult for us to debate and make decisions on this. When we get to committee, perhaps there will be some opportunity to narrow the focus of the bill or improve the focus of the bill. I certainly hope that is the case.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I must start by thanking my NDP colleagues for allowing me to speak on Bill C-13 today, because as a result of the application of time allocation for what I think was the 58th time, many of my colleagues will not have an opportunity to speak on this bill. Despite all of my colleagues obviously being New Democrats, we are a very diverse caucus with different experiences, and we represent different kinds of ridings here in the House of Commons.

I have risen to speak in favour of Bill C-13, but I do so with some reservations.

Unfortunately, the bill is, in effect, yet another omnibus bill that mixes together many other issues with the one that should have been central—that is, bullying and cyberbullying. Instead we have a rather mixed bag of provisions instead of a focused response to the urgent challenges of bullying and cyberbullying.

Rather than trying to address all the issues in the bill, I want to focus my remarks today on two aspects: first, the need for effective action to combat bullying; second, the proposed amendment to the hate crime section of the Criminal Code which, surprisingly, also appears in the bill in clause 12.

Since 2011, we in this House have had several opportunities to act on the issues of bullying and cyberbullying, but unfortunately we have made little progress. Nearly 18 months ago my colleague, the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, put forward a motion, Motion No. 385, which called upon the federal government to develop a national strategy with concrete steps to combat bullying. Unfortunately, the Conservatives voted down the motion, dismissing it as a call for further study, when in fact it was a call for leadership from the federal government in the fight against bullying and cyberbullying.

Last summer, on June 17, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-540, which would amend the Criminal Code in order to make the non-consensual making or distribution of intimate images a criminal offence. At that time, we asked the government to expedite passage of the bill in order to try to prevent further tragedies like the suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons, which took place as a result of cyberbullying. Unfortunately, the government preferred to wait for its own bill, which has delayed action on this critical issue for nearly a year.

What we have before us now in Bill C-13 is much narrower than a strategy to combat cyberbullying, though it does have some provisions similar to those the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour proposed many months ago.

We are, of course, supporting the bill going to committee, precisely because some legislative action against cyberbullying is necessary, but again I want to emphasize that focusing on bullying after the fact can only be part of the solution.

Today I want to reiterate two points I made when speaking 18 months ago in support of our motion for a national anti-bullying strategy. They relate to the pervasiveness of bullying in our society and to its amplification by the existence of new technologies.

The prevalence and pervasiveness of bullying in Canada is truly shocking. In fact, bullying is happening around us all the time. In one analysis of Toronto-area schools, it was found that a student is bullied every seven seconds.

Egale Canada conducted a survey of homophobia and transphobia in schools across Canada. It found that 74% of transidentified students, 55% of lesbian, gay, and bisexual students, and 26% of non-LGBTQ students reported being verbally harassed. More than half of those reported that this bullying occurred on a daily or weekly basis.

One UBC study of students in grades 8 to 10 found that 64% of students reported they had been bullied. Even more saddening for me is their acceptance of that inevitability, because 64% of these same students said they found bullying to be a normal part of school life.

People are bullied for an almost infinite number of reasons, but almost all of those reasons are connected to hostility toward deviation from the perceived norm: for being too short, too tall, too fat, too thin; for where they were born, the colour of their skin, the language they speak at home; for having an accent, for the clothes they wear, for sexual orientation, for their gender, for their gender presentation, for what they are able to afford. The list goes on and on, but the result is always the same: creating a sense of exclusion for the victims of bullying.

As technology has advanced, so has the means of bullying, with social networking, smart phones, and the Internet becoming second nature to people in Canada, especially young people. So has utilizing these resources for bullying. As a result, bullying has become intensified and its impacts more widely distributed.

Bullying is no longer a problem that only happens at school, on the school bus, or on the playground. It is no longer just a workplace problem. It can now follow victims home and invade their lives 24 hours a day each and every day of the year.

The consequences of bullying and the effects of bullying need to be taken seriously. We all know that the impacts of bullying on youth can be drastic and long-lasting. Young people who are bullied are more likely to face depression. It is estimated that male victims of bullying are five times more likely, and females victims three times more likely, to be depressed than their non-bullied classmates.

People who are victims of bullying are more susceptible to low self-esteem and are more likely to suffer from anxiety and illnesses. Young people who are bullied are more likely to engage in substance abuse and self-harm, and in recent years we have seen the tragic rise in the trend toward youth bullycide. The list of those young people who have taken their own lives as a result of bullying is already too long, and unfortunately continues to grow.

The costs of bullying are found not just on its impact on individuals. Bullying has wider social costs. One study has found that of elementary school bullies, one in four will have a criminal record by the time they are 30 years old.

We can and must move beyond our platitudes and expressions of concern about bullying and not limit our responses only to actions taken after the damage has already been done.

We all know that these bullying behaviours are learned. People are not born with hearts full of hate. At the root of our response to bullying must be efforts to build a more open and accepting society. If there was a real intolerance for discrimination and hate, then bullying clearly would not be so pervasive.

We could make a good start by calling bullying what it really is. We need to recognize that most bullying is rooted in sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and classism. These are serious prejudices that most Canadians find unacceptable in theory, but for some reason they are deemed acceptable when they are expressed in the form of bullying.

The need for a broad strategy as well as for anti-bullying legislation is so obvious. Unfortunately, what we find in the rest of the bill is a mixed bag of only tangentially related provisions, some with no clear connection to the problem at all.

Some things in the bill have been brought forward from the previously failed Bill C-30, but fortunately in this version it looks as if the important principle of judicial oversight of police access to Internet communications may be preserved. I look forward to hearing from Canadians about this aspect again when the bill reaches committee.

One surprise in Bill C-13 was the inclusion of clause 12. This section proposes the addition of some important provisions to the hate crime section of the Criminal Code. I am at a loss to explain why this proposal has suddenly appeared in the bill, but I think it is a positive thing.

Bill C-13 suggests adding national origins, age, sex, and mental or physical disability to the existing provisions of the hate crime section of the Criminal Code. While the connection to the other aspect of the bill is not immediately obvious, as I said, I do believe this is a good thing, but what is missing from this section is gender identity. This House has twice voted in favour of adding gender identity to the hate crime section of the Criminal Code, yet it is not included in clause 12 of the bill.

My own private member's bill, Bill C-279, is still stuck in the Senate more than a year after being passed in this House, and while I remain hopeful it will be adopted soon, there is an obvious potential problem in the conflict between Bill C-13 and my own private member's bill. Unfortunately, if the Senate does pass Bill C-279, clause 12 of Bill C-13 would inadvertently undo half that progress. Bill C-13 in its present form would actually remove gender identity from the hate crime section of the Criminal Code if my private member's bill has already passed, so when we get to committee, we will be having a serious discussion about an amendment to add gender identity to fix this omission.

It was more than three years ago that this House, in a minority Parliament, voted to add gender identity to the hate crime section of the Criminal Code, and, as I said, more than a year ago we voted to do that in my own private member's bill, so I am hoping that this proposed amendment to the hate crime section was inadvertent in its omission of gender identity and that this omission can be fixed in committee.

Let me return to what I believe is the important question that should be at the centre of Bill C-13, which is that there is an urgent need for Parliament to provide national leadership in the fight against bullying.

Despite our concerns about the bill being an omnibus bill and despite many of the other things stuffed into Bill C-13, we are supporting sending the bill to committee so that we can continue the dialogue on the important issue of bullying and cyberbullying.

What is of concern to me, as I mentioned at the outset, is the attitude that has become prevalent on the other side of the House that when three or four members have spoken, it is time to end debate. The very root of the word “Parliament” means a place where we can talk about the important national issues.

I feel it is a great privilege to stand here and speak to Bill C-13 as a man who comes from the LGBTQ community, which suffers inordinately from bullying. I think I bring a perspective somewhat different from that of some other members of the House. As someone from Vancouver Island, where we have a lot of early adapters of new technology, I know we see huge problems of bullying and cyberbullying in local schools. Frankly, teachers are at their wits' end in trying to find ways to deal effectively with it.

One thing that has been common in the responses I have received is a warning that we not look simply to criminal sanctions for youth to combat cyberbullying and that criminalizing bullying for young people could in fact be a serious problem.

I come back to the idea that we cannot just focus on what happens after the bullying. We have to provide national leadership in coming up with ways to attack this problem before the damage actually takes place. Some may say that is not a federal responsibility, but it is in the sense that when bullying and cyberbullying reach their most vicious levels, they often result in criminal acts. Since the Criminal Code is the responsibility of this federal Parliament, then we do have a responsibility for crime prevention. I would argue very strongly that a national strategy to prevent bullying and cyberbullying is a matter of crime prevention.

On the other side of the House we hear a lot of discussion about victims. We share the concern for victims in Canadian society, but how can we do our best job in addressing the needs of victims? We can do that by preventing victimization. Once again, there is a responsibility for the House to look at what we can do to make sure that victims are not created through bullying and cyberbullying.

When we get to committee, I would ask members on the other side to keep an open mind about those other things that we can do. We do not need just to find criminal sanctions, although there are some things here that I agree are necessary and that will be useful in the most extreme cases, but there are many more things we can do to make this the Canada that we all love and believe is a great place that includes a space for all Canadians.

Unfortunately, the evidence of bullying and cyberbullying shows that is not always the case. Whether we are talking about immigrant communities and their desire to contribute to Canada fully or whether we are talking about the LGBTQ community and our desire to be accepted in Canadian society and play our role very fully or whether we are talking about those with disabilities who are often sidelined in our society, we have to take all the measures that we can to make our country more inclusive and make it one we can all be even prouder of than we are now.

How do we do that? I come back to this argument again and again. We put forward a motion calling for a national strategy to combat bullying and cyberbullying, and this is where Bill C-13 falls short. It has measures looking at what we can do after the fact to investigate criminal cases of bullying. It has measures to help apprehend those people who ultimately have performed criminal acts when it comes to bullying, but it does not have measures that would help reduce this problem in our society.

I will return to my concern over Bill C-279.

It is a difficult situation for some people to understand. My bill should have already passed through the Senate and should already be law. We now have a situation in which transgendered Canadians are subject to hate crimes and bullying and are the group most subject to violence of all groups in our society. If that private member's bill—which passed the House a year ago, as I said several times today—had already been passed, we would have some of the tools we need to combat the epidemic of violence against transgendered people in Canada.

Canada is not alone. Transgendered people are the most subject to violence everywhere around the world. I remain very sad that the Senate has taken so long to get down to business on passing Bill C-279. It held hearings and heard witnesses a year ago in June at the human rights committee. It essentially finished the process of examining the bill and found it acceptable; then, because of prorogation, the process had to start over.

I am at a loss to see why the bill has to go back to another committee, this time to a legislative and constitutional affairs committee. We have had the promise from the senators that they will take up the bill in committee soon; however, that promise was made in February and we are now in April.

I am emphasizing this in Bill C-13 because this is where the two bills come together: in clause 12 and those amendments to the hate crimes section of the Criminal Code that are in this bill but fail to include gender identity. We have this unfortunate grinding of gears between the two Houses here. If in committee we are able to add gender identity to Bill C-13, that would be a good thing, because as a government bill it would make its way through the Senate expeditiously. I have now begun to fear that Bill C-279 will face the same fate as the previous bill on transgender rights and that it will die in the Senate without action before the next election. If we can get half a loaf here in Bill C-13, I am prepared to work for that. I look for support from the other side in correcting what I hope was an inadvertent omission of gender identity from those amendments that are in clause 12.

When we go back to our ridings when Bill C-13 is in committee, I know that all of us will hear from members of our communities about the urgency of what we are doing. And I know we will hear again from the Conservatives about the urgency. However, I have to emphasize that we have had many opportunities since 2011 to actually take action on what I call “remedial actions”, those things that take place after the fact. Again, I remain disappointed that the Conservatives would not expedite the private member's bill from the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, and we could have already had the non-consensual distribution of sexual images in the Criminal Code by this time. We would not still be waiting for that to happen. Of course, we could have already had a committee that had prepared a national strategy with concrete actions to combat bullying and cyberbullying.

As we near the summer recess, I am hoping Bill C-13 will actually get through, but then it also would face the hurdle of the Senate. Would the Senate deal expeditiously with this bill? Would it actually get these provisions passed in a timely manner? I can only hope that it would, but the irony is that Bill C-13 would go to the Constitution and legal affairs committee of the Senate where my private member's bill is also supposed to be going. The chances of both getting through before we get to summer seems kind of small. We have both the broader group of all those who face bullying and the narrower group of those trans Canadians who are depending on the Senate to take effective action soon. However, that just does not seem to be the way the Senate proceeds.

Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I see that there has been a huge reaction to Nelson Mandela's death. I was saddened to hear the news. He unfortunately passed away after a long and full life.

I want to take this opportunity to say that the fight against apartheid was a great source of pride for Canadians. We could be very proud of our government, which was a leader in this battle. By making Mr. Mandela an honorary citizen, we paid tribute to him and to the great figures from this country who sought to defend and promote human rights.

I know that there will be more elaborate tributes, so I will speak to the wonderful bill introduced by my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville. I think it is wonderful because I admire that my colleague is looking to innovate, to get us caught up and to anticipate some very serious problems related to the major changes society is experiencing so rapidly.

I want to read the first part of section 10.01:

For the purposes of this section and section 10.02, “harm” includes bodily harm, humiliation, embarrassment, injury to reputation or relationships, loss of employment, business or professional opportunities, financial loss, identity theft, identity fraud, negative effects on credit rating and damage to or loss of property.

I read that section because I think it is important to understand that our world has changed considerably and has done so very quickly.

I have already mentioned in this House that I used to be an archivist. I therefore understand the importance and value of information, especially when it is nominative information. I worked in this field for a long time, and my job would have eventually included applying the principles associated with the protection of personal information. I would have done it as a professional, but the organization I belonged to as an archivist would have also fully applied these principles.

I am not that old, but I graduated quite a while ago, in the early 1990s. At that time, our tools were far more limited. The emergence of computers began to change things, but the possibilities were much more limited than they are today.

I also had the privilege to read notarial deeds from the first half of the nineteenth century. To give some background, many parents passed on a parcel of land to their descendants. More often than not, the heir was their son. They would place a clause in the deed requesting support from their son as the new owner of the land, because social programs did not exist at that time.

Since that time so long ago, our society has changed so much that we now totally depend on exchanging money to live. Things were different 150 or 200 years ago, when we could depend on the strength of our arms, the bounty of our land and our ability to obtain almost everything we needed without spending a single cent.

There has been a profound change over the last 15 or 20 years. The electronic means with which we carry out our transactions have not only become commonplace, but are also extensively used by all generations.

The Internet and the numerous sites that facilitate transactions and offer new ways to trade and barter create new opportunities. This is like the wild west. Anything is possible, both good things and, unfortunately, abuses by dishonest individuals. It is really deplorable that the government would neglect Canadians and contemplate spying on them through legislation such as Bill C-30. Instead, the government should have taken into consideration these new tools and imposed a requirement to take precautions and report incidents resulting from the loss, theft or unintentional or negligent transmission of sensitive data. In the case of lost or stolen sensitive data, the technology is now so quick that in just a few hours these sensitive data can be used to commit fraud or abuse or to damage someone's reputation. It can be used widely, to the detriment of the aggrieved individual. The hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville is taking a particularly important, crucial and laudable initiative to the great shame of the government, which should have done this itself.

Since the government was not taking action, the official opposition put forward a proposal and one of its brightest members proposed a solution widely supported by the testimony of leading experts. There are many of them. It is a great pleasure for me to put things in perspective and, more importantly, to call on the government to take a serious look at this bill in committee, because this is an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss. The Governments of Alberta and Quebec are already ahead of the federal government and have plugged some holes. If the federal government does not follow suit and correct the flaws that exist in the legislation, millions of people could potentially become victims. We are aware of the burden that having to comply with the act could represent for organizations. However, the potential harm can be so costly that I am convinced the impact and external costs of the government's negligence would ultimately exceed the costs that may be incurred to comply with the bill introduced by the hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville.

Again I congratulate my colleague for her initiative. I wish her well and I thank her on behalf of my constituents in Beauport—Limoilou.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague made some very interesting points in her speech.

I want to ask whether she is aware that there is a significant difference between Bill C-13 and the previous Bill C-30. For instance, all production orders, all search warrants, for retention of any of this information that would be important for the police and prosecutors in order to properly prosecute a case for cyberbullying, is subject to prior judicial oversight. I wonder if she could tell us whether she knows that or if she has a comment on that.

Also, I wonder if she could take a look at recommendation four of the Cybercrime Working Group report, which she referred to in her speech, and tell us which of those investigative powers she thinks is valid. The Cybercrime Working Group report said that all of those investigative powers were needed in order to support an offence of cyberbullying.

Could she take a look at those to see if she is prepared to accept them as part of the cyberbullying bill, or does she still want those separated into two different bills?

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-13 today, November 29.

There are various reasons why it is important that we sit here today and discuss Bill C-13. The most important reason is the respect that we all have for the fight against bullying, especially bullying directed at our youth.

No one in the House is against virtue or the idea that we must identify all the means and tools that could be used in the fight against cyberbullying.

I will be using my 20 minutes to talk about cyberbullying specifically. That is what the title of the bill makes us think it is about. However, Bill C-13 unfortunately covers more than just cyberbullying. It talks about numerous other ways and means to address a number of aspects of online crime, in addition to other things that have nothing to do with cyberbullying.

Allow me to explain. If members take the time to really read what is in Bill C-13, they will see that the section on bullying is only two pages long. This bill is more than 50 pages long, and it is clear upon reading it that it is yet another Conservative omnibus bill.

I will not hide my disappointment today at having to rise to speak once again to an omnibus bill. This is unfortunately not the first time one has been introduced in the House. We have had several omnibus bills in the past two parliaments—indeed, since this government won a majority. This is a sorry state of affairs, for many reasons.

The latest budget bills introduced by the Conservatives are examples of such omnibus legislation. We had bills comprising hundreds of pages that affected thousands of our laws totally unrelated to the budget. We had to deal with those. They were shoved down our throats. We tried to divide the bills into different parts, so they could be studied in the appropriate committees, but we did not succeed.

As an example, one of the budget bills contained a measure, introduced by the Conservatives, providing for the removal of protections for lakes and rivers in Canada.

Someone on the other side of the House will have to explain to me how removing the protections for our lakes and rivers relates to the budget. We tried to divide this section of the bill to send it to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, where it should have been studied. Unfortunately, the Conservatives refused.

Every time we have tried to introduce amendments to omnibus bills or divide them by seeking the unanimous consent of the House, the Conservatives have flatly refused.

I am extremely disappointed that Bill C-13 does not go deeper into cyberbullying, which is a sensitive issue that requires so much attention. It does not just affect young people, as we have seen in the high-profile media stories in recent years. Cyberbullying affects a large segment of the population. I will come back to this later in my speech.

It is extremely disappointing to see the Conservatives playing cheap political games in the House with legislation that should be passed unanimously. They are trying to add items and make us say yes to things that are in no way related to cyberbullying. It is incredibly disappointing to see the other side of the House engaging in petty politics.

In Bill C-13, the part on cyberbullying is a pretty close copy of what my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour introduced last June. That was a private member's bill, and everyone agreed with the principle of the bill. However, instead of examining it together and passing it quickly, the Conservatives decided to take part of what my colleague was proposing in Bill C-540 and add it to Bill C-13, along with some other elements.

Instead of concentrating on a bill on cyberbullying that was properly divided, the Conservatives opened up the floodgates and added some other things. They have made Bill C-13 into quite the concoction.

I also wanted to talk about another bill today. A few months ago, my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord moved a very interesting motion on cyberbullying. I cannot elaborate on it too much, because the motion had to do with more than just cyberbullying. However, I know my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord worked very hard on that motion. Almost all experts and public interest groups agreed that it was a very important motion. Unfortunately, the only party that voted against the motion was the Conservative Party. It is so sad that the Conservatives are refusing to discuss the private member's bill introduced by the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, which focused solely on cyberbullying, and that they so easily dismissed the idea of debating and adopting the motion moved by my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.

Cyberbullying boggles my mind. Honestly, it is so sad. No one can claim they have never encountered bullying. It is impossible. When I was attending Horizon Jeunesse secondary school in Laval, we had pagers. Cellphones did not exist yet. I am lucky because I was never bullied in high school. I was more of a social butterfly. I had all sorts of friends. I was never directly affected by bullying at school. However, I have friends who were bullied at school. It is serious. My brother was bullied. He would often have his lunch stolen. He was embarrassed and did not want to talk about it with my parents. Today, my brother is six feet tall and as strong as an ox, but, unfortunately for him, that was not the case when he was in high school. He was very cute and very nice. Perhaps he was bullied because he was too cute and too nice.

Those were the early days of the Internet. We did not have a computer at home. We had to do our research on the computers at the library. We could not afford a computer. We did not have to deal with cyberbullying, but bullying was all around me and part of my daily life. I saw what an impact bullying could have. Unfortunately, some students who were bullied at Horizon Jeunesse committed suicide.

Bullying at school is one thing, but when we are at home, we are protected. We are in a bubble. However, cyberbullying follows us 24 hours a day. We go home and use social media. Almost everyone has an iPhone or a BlackBerry in their pockets. We have access to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. We can access a host of social media very quickly. The impact is immediate and it follows us day and night. There is no break from it. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be a victim of cyberbullying when there is no getting away from it. It is very serious.

My colleague from Gatineau raised an extremely important point this week. She asked for the unanimous consent of the House to split the bill. I think this would be a way to show respect for people who are victims of bullying and cyberbullying. As far as cyberbullying is concerned, the consent is practically unanimous. As parliamentarians, we have to be respectful of the people we represent. We must split the bill. I sincerely believe that all members of the House want what is best.

The best thing to do in this case would be to split the bill, since there is unanimous consent on one part of the bill and because this is an omnibus bill with several parts that have nothing to do with each other. Let us focus on cyberbullying and fix that problem. Let us make sure that the authorities have the tools they need to address this problem. We can then come back to the rest of the bill the government has handed us—a rehash of the former Bill C-30—which addresses the completely different topic of privacy.

Let us focus on the two pages on cyberbullying out of the 50-some pages in Bill C-13. Let us pass these measures so that the authorities can make use of them as quickly as possible. That is how we can combat cyberbullying together.

Before I talk about privacy in more detail, I want to say that Laval does a lot of good things and I like to brag about them. A Laval organization called Volteface has found a unique way to address bullying and especially cyberbullying in Quebec. I cannot speak for the other provinces, regions or territories in Canada, but this is the only program of its kind in Quebec. Volteface is an alternative justice organization that finds ways to help build harmonious relationships by offering preventive activities and alternative conflict resolution mechanisms. It works with teenagers, victims, the general public, parents, schools and the community.

Volteface created an innovative tool as part of its “Ultimatum < Échap > LA CYBER INTIMIDATION” project. The organization is actually based in Shawinigan, but it operates in Laval. It has developed a partnership and focuses on high schools. The guide is intended for high school students, their parents and school staff. It offers information on how to prevent cyberbullying and talks about what kind of action is appropriate. This project focuses especially on youth and has been operating in Laval since Volteface created it. It is a very worthwhile program.

They are targeting young people because a number of studies indicate that, although people of all ages can be affected by cyberbullying, youth 12 to 14 are at greater risk. My daughter is seven months old, and I am already worried about the tween years. I do not know what social media will be like then, but I say to myself every day that time is flying by, and it seems as though she will be 12 or 14 so soon. The research also shows that girls are at greater risk of cyberbullying than boys, as proven by some studies. I can name them: there was Sengupta and Chaudhuri in 2011 and Tokunaga in 2010. Unlike traditional bullying, boys are more likely than girls to be involved in acts of bullying. We have the facts. This is extremely important.

I applaud a Quebec organization that is finding tools to fight cyberbullying and that is trying to engage groups most at risk of being bullied or bullying. We must educate both sides, those who are bullied and those who bully. It is extremely important.

With respect to the protection of privacy, which we have to talk about, this bill deals almost exclusively with that issue. Many experts believe that Bill C-30 is being brought back to Parliament disguised as Bill C-13. I will quickly talk about that.

Bill C-30 contained measures that were considered extremely serious infringements of privacy.

I remember that the public safety minister at the time, Vic Toews, who is no longer in the House, said that if we did not side with him, then we were siding with pedophiles. That was absolutely ridiculous because Bill C-30 was another omnibus bill. Come on. At some point, we must call a spade a spade. We are therefore concerned about the protection of privacy.

Oddly enough, the Privacy Commissioner was not consulted on any of the privacy-related measures contained in Bill C-13. There was no consultation. Moreover, the commissioner is saying that she is very concerned about the measures in Bill C-13.

The commissioner is most concerned about the new powers that will make it possible to obtain information about people's private lives and the high number of government employees who will have access to that information. This is a direct attack on privacy. However, I think we all agree that privacy is a fundamental right.

I would also like to take some time to speak about OpenMedia.ca, a digital media lobby, which:

...welcomed the measures on cyberbullying but expressed concern that the new legislation makes it easier for the government to spy on the activities of law-abiding Canadians. After reviewing the bill, OpenMedia.ca indicated that the bill contains only 2.5 pages about cyberbullying and 65 pages about online spying.

It is unbelievable, particularly since, yesterday, extremely serious allegations were made in the House against the Canadian government. Let me explain.

Yesterday, we learned that, while on Canadian soil, the Americans allegedly spied on all the heads of state who attended the G20 summit in Toronto, with the consent of the Prime Minister and this Conservative government. The Conservatives were therefore aware that this espionage was taking place and they approved of it. However, now they are saying that these are allegations and that they were not aware that this was happening.

Espionage is already being carried out with the Conservative government's approval, and now this bill will give the government even more ways to spy on law-abiding Canadians.

I know that many of my colleagues opposite really like to say that we have to respect Canadians' privacy, and I wholeheartedly agree with that. The right to privacy is a fundamental right.

Why are these measures reappearing in Bill C-13? Why is the government looking to put them back in when every group said that they were a terrible part of Bill C-30?

We also spoke about Bill C-13 yesterday. The Conservatives told us that they deleted the worst parts of Bill C-30 and put the least objectionable parts into Bill C-13. It is frightening to hear such things.

These measures are yet another attack on peoples' privacy. What has the government done? As usual, no one was consulted. The worst part is that the Privacy Commissioner is raising some extremely important points and some were already raised in relation to Bill C-30. The Conservatives wanted to stop talking about it. They said that it was over, that things had gone too far. However, those measures are resurfacing in Bill C-13. I am extremely disappointed.

I do not have much time left, so I will wrap up.

I am disappointed that the government did not decide to split this bill in two and focus specifically on cyberbullying. If the government insists on bringing back measures from Bill C-30, it should create another bill that does not address cyberbullying. Then we would have two separate bills.

The government has come up with another omnibus bill. This demonstrates a lack of respect for victims of cyberbullying.

I believe that our work as parliamentarians is extremely important. The committee study must be non-partisan. I look forward to seeing what will happen when this bill is studied in committee, but I am not overly confident.

I want the government to take the time to think about all those who have been affected by cyberbullying, reverse its decision and split this bill in two.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as usual it is a deep honour to rise in the House on behalf of the constituents in my riding of Davenport in the great city of Toronto on a piece of legislation that strikes to the heart of families right across the country.

As many of my colleagues have already said here today, witnessing the profound courage and commitment of both the Parsons and Todd families through this incredibly difficult chapter in their lives has been something that I think all Canadians have noticed and learned from.

I think when Canadians are faced with something of this magnitude that touches all of us in the way that this does, they rightly expect that we here park some of our partisan instincts and deal with the situation at hand.

One of the ways a majority Parliament can sometimes work is when members on the opposite side and the opposition present bills that really do connect with an important issue right across the country and that pretty much everyone here in this place agrees with. Sure enough, from time to time, the government adopts those ideas. I think it is fair to say that while we work toward being on that side of the aisle and having that party on this side of the aisle, in the meantime, we find ways once in a while to advance issues that we can all agree on, and I think this was one of those issues.

My colleague for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour tabled a piece of legislation in which we sought all-party unanimous consent, but we did not get it. That is one thing, but to have the government come back with a very similar bill is something altogether different. We can support that, but as usual with the Conservative government, it cannot resist its inclination to play politics with every issue. Every issue for the current government becomes a wedge issue and an opportunity to fundraise and hector the opposition.

We saw this with Bill C-30, the widely discredited online spying bill that the government presented. The minister in charge of it at the time badgered the opposition, and in fact, all Canadians who happened to disagree with his perspective and the wide breadth of the bill by saying that if one did not support Bill C-30, one stood with the child pornographers, which was an absolutely outrageous comment and effectively killed the bill.

The government also eventually declared that Bill C-30 was not going to come back. There were too many questions, not the least of which were the outrageous comments from the lead minister. There were also too many questions around privacy and civil liberties. We need to be clear that the foundation of a liberal democracy is the protection of civil liberties.

We see that in the bill we could have just dealt with the cyberbullying. I am sure members opposite on the government side would probably prefer to do that too. Canadians watching this would also be wondering why we do not just do that. The issues of cyberbullying are complex and critical, and they are happening right now as I speak.

This issue is far too important, too pressing, and too complex, quite frankly, to dump it into a boilerplate piece of legislation that contains all sorts of other issues. Maybe the government can explain to Canadians the link between cyberbullying and the inclusion in this law of a two-year sentence for the theft of cable television. That is in the bill.

We are trying to get to the nub of an issue that is affecting many of our young people and many of our families, and for some families it is affecting them in the most tragic of ways.

I am trying to contain my sense of outrage that we even have to discuss pulling this part of the bill out and having it as a stand-alone piece and voting on it immediately. However, the government did have that opportunity when my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour presented his cyberbullying bill in the first place.

When faced with such pressing issues around protecting our young people, it is tempting to consider lowering the bar in our pursuit of protecting people's privacy and protecting civil liberties. It is tempting to do that. I think that one of the reasons the government has thrown in all these other things that it would like to do is that, again, it is trying to play politics with this issue.

However, it is not just the opposition that has serious concerns about some of the other issues that are in the bill. The Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner, Madam Cavoukian, also has serious concerns about this, as she did with Bill C-30. It is the same with Canada's Privacy Commissioner, who had raised serious concerns about Bill C-30 and is going to carefully look at this bill as well.

I would sum up by saying that sometimes it is better for all of us that we park the partisanship in this place and deal with a pressing issue that affects Canadians and some of our more vulnerable young people from coast to coast to coast. By separating this part out of Bill C-13, we would be doing that. We would also be signalling to Canadians that we do take this seriously and that we want to act quickly to protect the young people of this country.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Chambly—Borduas for his excellent question.

He knows that, among ourselves, we often compare how we are treated. Experience tells us that people have no trouble accepting young people in politics, but they have some trouble accepting young women in politics.

Indeed, as a young woman who grew up in the digital age, I see something of myself in the stories we watch on television about Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd. I know girls who have gone through similar situations. My colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville said she was bullied when she was younger. I too have been bullied.

This is a crucial issue that we do not talk about enough. Young women seem to be targeted much more often than young men. That said, we must also talk about all forms of bullying.

I find it really unfortunate that the government did not seize the opportunity to focus on prevention and talk about this issue seriously. Instead, it tried to implement measures that were so unpopular they had to be withdrawn. It is truly unfortunate that we cannot address this issue because we are faced with the re-emergence of Bill C-30.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. He mentioned an interesting contradiction.

I agree that it does not make sense. I really want to clearly emphasize the fact that the NDP will remain vigilant regarding the inclusion of clauses that might be too similar to those in Bill C-30, which contained measures that went way too far in terms of Canadians' privacy. That is a priority for us. That is a top priority for my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville, whose constituency is next to mine. I know she has been working very hard on this file. It makes no sense to ask so much of Canadians. The member really illustrated the government's double standard, depending on whether the issue pertains to the government or to Canadians.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start my remarks on Bill C-13 by congratulating my many colleagues who work tirelessly for justice, the protection of all Canadians and respect for their rights and for individuals. It is truly high time for us to better protect ourselves from the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.

We are all shocked and saddened, and were truly heart-broken at the highly publicized suicides of teenagers who were victims of cyberbullying, including Rehtaeh Parsons, in Nova Scotia, Amanda Todd, in British Columbia, and so many others. We must prevent such tragedies from happening again, because these young girls are not the only ones to have been bullied.

Youth between 12 and 14 are most likely to be victims of cyberbullying, which can seriously affect their mental health and well-being.

According to recent studies, cyberbullying has an adverse effect on the social and emotional aspects of a young person's life and on their ability to learn. These young people suffer from anxiety, shorter attention spans, lower marks at school, feelings of despair and isolation, depression and even suicidal tendencies, as in these well-known cases, unfortunately.

I want to acknowledge that my colleague, the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, brought attention to the issue of bullying in the House with his motion to create a national bullying prevention strategy. I want to thank him for taking that initiative. His hard work to fight any form of bullying is truly admirable.

Earlier this year, the NDP member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour introduced a bill to make the non-consensual distribution of sexually explicit images an offence.

Unfortunately, instead of setting partisanship aside and expediting passage of these measures, the Conservatives refused to act on the motion and bill brought forward by my colleagues and waited until it suited them to introduce Bill C-13, a bill that contains a number of provisions that have nothing to do with cyberbullying and provides nothing meaningful for its prevention.

I would like to thank the NDP justice critic, my colleague from Gatineau, for the hard work she has done on this issue. She moved that Bill C-13 be divided in order to remove the parts of the bill that do not pertain to cyberbullying and address them in another debate. She moved for the bill to be split so that the provisions related to the non-consensual distribution of intimate images could be passed quickly since everyone in the House agrees on them. This would have allowed the other provisions, which were previously set out in the now-defunct Bill C-30, to be carefully examined separately in committee.

This would have allowed us to deal with the provisions of the bill that are not related to this very sensitive issue separately. That is what we must do in order to have a healthy debate on this subject, since the Conservatives are trying to include provisions on telemarketing and other things in a bill on cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a very important issue, and we need to deal with it.

For example, I would like to share with the House what Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, had to say on this subject. She said:

We can all agree that cyberbullying is an issue that needs immediate attention but it is very troubling to see the government once again trying to enact new surveillance powers under the guise of protecting children. Regrettably, the federal government is using this pressing social issue as an opportunity to resurrect much of its former surveillance legislation, Bill C-30.

It is important to remember the work of my colleague, the hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville, who fought hard against Bill C-30, which was a direct attack on the freedoms of Canadians and their right to privacy.

I am certain that she will ensure that the Conservatives are held accountable when the committee examines this bill, which unfortunately contains provisions that have nothing to do with cyberbullying and are of concern to many people in the digital community.

Bill C-13 covers much more ground than Bill C-540, which was introduced by my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. Along the way, it addresses many other issues, such as the financial data of banks, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, telemarketing and the theft of a communication service. It also includes some of the provisions of Bill C-30.

The New Democrats, privacy advocates and the public rejected Bill C-30, forcing the Conservatives to abandon it earlier this year and to promise that the Criminal Code would be modernized and would not include the measures contained in Bill C-30.

Now, privacy advocates are criticizing the provisions in Bill C-13 on lawful access to personal information and stressing the need to implement measures to protect Canadians' right to privacy against abuse. They say that certain specific provisions must be examined more closely, especially clause 20, which deals with the new procedures for obtaining a warrant.

The NDP proposes that the two very different parts of the bill be separated. It is clear that the Conservative government is just playing politics to pass its controversial provisions, under the guise of doing something for our youth. At the very least, we should carefully study this bill in committee, to ensure that it will provide police with the tools they need to protect our youth and to answer important questions about the other provisions included in the bill.

I will take this opportunity to talk about what the youth centre workers in my riding know well. They know this issue very well because they too often come face to face with problems that many people would rather not see. These workers are role models and friends to the young people who so desperately need them. They are on the front lines in their work with young people. I think we have to take their views into consideration. Here is what one worker at the youth centre in Saint-Canut, in my riding, had to say about cyberbullying.

She told me that a number of young people were victims and that very few resources were available to fight against cyberbullying. She finds it hard to control this type of bullying because everything happens so fast on social networks, bullies can remain anonymous and it is everywhere.

At her youth centre there is zero tolerance. If the computers at the youth centre are used inappropriately, there are consequences. She said that it was important for them to make their teenagers aware of the repercussions that this could have and to educate them in order to prevent cyberbullying. This is about confidentiality on the Internet and being careful about the comments and photos we post.

They encourage young people to file a complaint if there are abuses, but often, unfortunately, the police do not have the resources or the time to deal with this type of problem. According to her, it would be better if the complaints were taken seriously and processed as quickly as possible. Young people who commit this type of bullying have to know that there will be consequences for their actions even from behind their computer screen. She thinks it would be important to give police officers what they need to be quick and effective. The sense of anonymity and of not being able to get caught makes young people believe that they can do whatever they want on the Internet. That is what she told me.

Prevention, raising awareness among young people and giving police forces and youth case workers the necessary resources are key to fighting cyberbullying, in addition to the provisions contained in the first part of Bill C-13, the part that truly deals with cyberbullying.

This would help reinforce the legal framework. Nonetheless, it is a national strategy, like the one proposed by my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, which might have an impact on the other aspects.

I gather from this debate and the information from young people and stakeholders in my riding that some of the pages of this bill will help in the fight against cyberbullying. However, prevention and awareness raising are even more pressing.

This bill incorporates a patchwork of measures on telemarketing, theft of telecommunication services, and terrorist activities. These are direct descendants of measures in Bill C-30, the infamous bill the Conservatives had to go back on.

In closing, it is important to move forward in the fight against cyberbullying. As my two colleagues who spoke before me said, the NDP will be very active and very vigilant on this file.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to clarify one small point. I believe that my colleague was talking about the Privacy Commissioner, not the Information Commissioner. I think that it was important for her to be consulted.

When drafting a bill that has the potential to have very negative implications for Canadians' privacy, it seems logical that the Privacy Commissioner would be consulted. That is what she is there for. She does an excellent job of protecting Canadians' privacy. That should have been part of the government's plan.

I would like to point out that Ontario's Privacy Commissioner has raised concerns about this bill. I would like to quote her as this raises an important point in this debate:

We can all agree that cyberbullying is an issue that needs immediate attention but it is very troubling to see the government once again trying to enact new surveillance powers under the guise of protecting children. Regrettably, the federal government is using this pressing social issue as an opportunity to resurrect much of its former surveillance legislation, Bill C-30.

A number of commissioners have raised concerns about Bill C-30. If my memory serves me well, the government even said that it would consult the commissioner when dealing with this issue. It did not.

In my opinion, this really shows that privacy is clearly not a priority for this government.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly politics as usual for the Liberal Party. I will give the member this: certainly his comments are completely consistent with the Liberal approach over the last seven and a half years, which is to look for anything, any excuse, anything the Liberals can hang their hat on to oppose government legislation that would either crack down on crime or would update the Criminal Code, and in this case, go against cyberbullying. They are always looking for something, and the ironic part about it is the part that this individual is criticizing. He has got it way off base.

In terms of the bill, the old Bill C-30 that he referred to, the provisions that he and others criticized the most are not in the bill. The provisions here need judicial authorization.

I bring the hon. member's attention to one section that was actually passed by a Liberal government. He had a problem with the voluntary production of preservation orders. I would refer him to section 487.014, which says:

For greater certainty, no production order is necessary for a peace officer or a public officer enforcing or administering this or any other Act...to ask a person to voluntarily provide to the officer...

We are only adding it to preservation orders. What is this individual's problem? It is already in the Criminal Code.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the events over the past year have impacted all Canadians. The emergence of cyberbullying in society is troubling.

We agree with the government and victims that measures are needed to prevent and address cyberbullying. We, on this side, agree that we need action to properly provide a strong and fair response to those who perpetrate such hurtful acts against others online. It really is a tragedy to hear media reports of young people with their whole lives ahead of them believing that they have no other option than to take their lives. That is how deep and cruel cyberbullying can be. We should tackle this issue in a firm and focused manner.

Just last week, we marked Bullying Awareness Week. Indeed, there was a large summit held in my riding, an international summit, with social media companies and with young people from both sides of the border, which was organized by a well-known expert in this field Parry Aftab. Anti-bullying week and the summit to which I just referred provide us with an opportunity to reflect upon how our words and actions can sometimes have such a devastating impact upon others. This, I submit, holds true, not only for our youth but also the not so young.

As I have said in the House on a number of occasions, bullying is the reality for many people. Words do matter. Often, those words inflict great devastation upon young people. We know that what was once the sole domain of the schoolyard has now moved to the online world. The traditional bully, who typically sought out a victim at school, is now able to extend his reach online. The victim of bullying at school could, at one time, get some relief when he or she would go home, perhaps finding some respite in the confines of his or her room, a place where it was safe and away from the bullies. Not any more. The bullies can now extend that reach into that bedroom, using the Internet as a virtual schoolyard.

We know that some young people say terrible things to each other online. We can only imagine how hurtful it would be to arrive home, perhaps having an already rough day, only to go online and read something about oneself that is likely untrue or perhaps embarrassing. We can only imagine how hurtful and distressing it would be to read an online post or comment calling someone a “fag” or a “dyke” or suggesting that an individual is “weird”, “fat”, “ugly” or any number of hurtful and devastating comments.

We can only imagine how this would pierce the soul of a young person, many of whom are already vulnerable with the all too common challenges of growing up. This is the reality of Canadian youth, day in and day out. This is the ruthless side of technology and the use of the Internet.

That is why we sought to address this issue through legislation last year with a cyberbullying bill from the Liberal member for Vancouver Centre, which I will address again later.

We know that school can be tough, but bullying is not the exclusive domain of young people. I submit to my colleagues that we find bullying here, in this chamber. We often attack one another. We often do so for having a different opinion on such and such a matter. We exaggerate that which is often not worth exaggerating. We do not do a very good job of listening to each other and engaging in real debate. We seem to ignore or exclude the possibility that someone else might have a helpful solution or a proposal worthy of at least a hearing. It is possible to learn from one another.

Instead, as I have experienced in my short time here, having a different opinion is sometimes tantamount to siding with the criminals, and then we use the pretext of democracy to legitimize such behaviour. This is, frankly, the poor example we sometimes give to the public and to young people.

Earlier in my remarks, I indicated that there was an international summit held in Charlottetown on bullying. The organizers of that summit were actually invited into the House of Commons last week on the day of the announcement of this introduction of this legislation. I can say that on that day we did not exactly do our best job. When these constituents, who were here at the invitation of the Prime Minister, had a chance to observe the antics on the floor of the House of Commons, it is safe to say that as advocates against bullying, they were not impressed.

Today we are debating a bill that was supposed to address bullying and the emergence of cyberbullying specifically. However, for some reason, much of this bill has little to do with cyberbullying. I was surprised by this. I actually assumed that the Conservatives would have played this one straight and up front.

Bill C-13, we were told, was to address cyberbullying. It would appear, however, that the Conservative government knowingly used this highly emotional issue as a cover to include legislative measures that have nothing to do with cyberbullying. Conflating, for example, terrorism with cyberbullying does not make any sense. Furthermore, using the scourge of cyberbullying in order to resurrect elements of the infamous Bill C-30, a piece of legislative work wholly rejected because it was in effect an e-snooping bill, is wrong.

Members will remember that bill. It was a bill proposed just last year by Vic Toews, the former Conservative public safety minister. We are also given to understand that the former minister of justice and the current Minister of Justice sought to meet with victims of cyberbullying and their families as they prepared to introduce cyberbully legislation. I commend them for reaching out.

However, much of this bill has little to do with cyberbullying, and that is why we agree with the motion that was put forward by my colleague from Gatineau to split the bill at committee. We do so because all of us on this side had genuinely hoped that it was to be a stand-alone issue; instead, we have a bill before us full of content unrelated to cyberbullying.

We know the minister consulted victims of bullying and their families. I suggest that there will not be one member of the Conservative caucus able to coherently tell Canadians why providing, for example, big telecom companies with immunity to share private information of any Canadian to the government without a warrant has much to do with cyberbullying. There will not be one Conservative MP who could say with any sense of reliability that allowing telecom companies free range to divulge to Canada's security services anything they want at any time without any exposure to civil litigation or criminal charges is in any way tackling cyberbullying. As we heard earlier in the debate, that, in my submission, is the poison pill in this legislation.

The government seems to be using victims of cyberbullying for political and partisan reasons. That is why we agree with the proposal to split this bill at committee and deal with the cyberbullying aspects of it as a stand-alone bill.

When Vic Toews introduced his odious and unconstitutional e-snooping bill last year, a bill that would have allowed widespread government invasion into the privacy of Canadians without a warrant, he did so, to his credit, up front. He did not try to hide it—well, not too much. Faced with fierce opposition to such a massive assault on the privacy of Canadians, he famously said of the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, “He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”

At least Vic Toews was up front in his effort to attack the privacy of Canadians.

Again the minister has a bill before the House, the vast majority of which has nothing to do with cyberbullying. I am not sure that I got an answer to my question, but I hope the Minister of Justice will do the right thing and allow the Conservative members of the justice committee the option to split this bill so that we can deal with cyberbullying as a stand-alone bill. Numerous measures from the old Vic Toews' e-snooping bill have no place in this bill.

I know that the minister will resist the temptation to suggest that we are on the side of the bullies when we seek to split the bill to deal with the cyberbullying as a stand-alone bill. To that point, let me be very clear: there is not one person in this House of Commons who does not want to combat cyberbullying.

As mentioned earlier, my colleague from Vancouver Centre, a person of great distinction and someone who has worked with victims of bullying and their families over the years, proposed a bill just last year on the very issue of cyberbullying. When it came time to vote on her bill, the Conservatives voted against it.

Since there was no discernible reason for the Conservatives to vote against her cyberbullying bill, we are left to speculate that they did so because the bill emanated from an opposition party, in this case the Liberal Party of Canada. Now here we are today, dealing with a bill we hoped would not be politicized. Unfortunately, it contains just five pages on cyberbullying, with the remaining 50-plus pages containing unrelated measures.

I earlier commended the minister for reaching out to victims of bullying as he prepared this legislation. As the minister was consulting victims of bullying and their families this summer, I contend that not one of those Canadians would have asked the minister to give telecoms and Internet service providers the right to share online data with Canadians without a warrant and to make it a criminal offence to steal cable signals or WiFi. I would challenge the minister to produce evidence if he could suggest otherwise.

Why, then, did the minister not simply do the right thing and introduce a stand-alone bill that tackled cyberbullying and only cyberbullying? Why did the minister include matters so disconnected to the issue of cyberbullying?

There are measures in the bill that seek to address cyberbullying. That much is not in dispute. As my colleague from Gatineau pointed out, they are in clauses 1 through 7.

The relevant section is the one that deals with the non-consensual exchange of intimate images. It belongs there. It is an issue that needed to be addressed, and we do not take issue with it. In light of the recent tragedies involving cyberbullying, we should support the creation of an offence to deter the non-consensual transfer of intimate images. This new offence would criminalize this kind of malicious photo sharing that specifically contributed to the tragic circumstances in which Rehtaeh Parsons decided to take her own life.

We know that cyberbullying is all too common among children and teenagers. As we proceed with addressing this issue, we must acknowledge that, given the immaturity of children, we should support preventative and restorative measures and not just punitive measures. We do not wish to see the imprisonment of Canadian children and teenagers in large numbers, so while supporting the intention of the creation of this offence, we should be careful to emphasize the importance of including a summary conviction option to allow for sufficient prosecutorial discretion, as is currently the case. I believe and hope the government will be open to that.

We should also assess and be open to addressing cyberbullying through restorative justice and non-legislative methods, and we should do so in conjunction with the provinces.

I mentioned earlier that most of this bill has little to do with cyberbullying. The measures that actually relate to cyberbullying amount to about five pages out of a bill that is more than 50 pages in length.

The government wonders why Canadians do not trust it to be up front and transparent with respect to its real agenda. If those provisions I just outlined had been placed in a separate bill, we could have proceeded. We could have sent a stand-alone bill immediately to the justice committee for review and provided the much-needed opportunity for victims to lend voice to the merits of such a bill. We could have then agreed to pass the bill at all remaining stages, and I would suggest that we could have it passed by Christmas.

Instead we have a government bill that reintroduces odious and unconstitutional measures that Canadians rejected last year. Here are just some of the measures currently in the bill that have absolutely nothing to do with cyberbullying. These measures are recycled from the bill put forward by the former minister of public safety, Vic Toews. We were told this would not happen again in light of the reaction of Canadians. The former justice minister, now occupying the national defence portfolio, said:

We will not be proceeding with Bill C-30 and any attempts that we will continue to have to modernize the Criminal Code will not contain the measures contained in C-30.

The new bill proposed today contradicts that promise in 37 of the 47 clauses contained in the bill. That is why we wish to have the bill separated and to place those provisions related to cyberbullying in a stand-alone bill.

Let me outline the elements contained in the old Vic Toews bill that we were promised would never rear its head again. These measures are now in the bill before us.

They include updates to technology-related offences such as theft of telecom signals and unauthorized use of computers, which has nothing to do with cyberbullying; the power to make preservation demands and orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence, which has nothing to do with cyberbullying; new production orders to compel the production of data relating to the transmission of communications and the location of transactions, individuals, or things, which has nothing to do with cyberbullying; a warrant that will extend the current investigative power for data associated with telephones to all means of communication, which has nothing to do with cyberbullying; warrants that will enable the tracking of transactions, individuals, and things that are subject to legal thresholds appropriate to the interests at stake, including time extensions for warrants relating to organized crime and terrorism, which has nothing to do with cyberbullying; a so-called streamlined process of obtaining warrants and orders related to authorizations to intercept private communications, which has nothing to do with cyberbullying.

We reject using victims of bullying as a way to bring back the ghost of Vic Toews and his e-snooping bill. This was supposed to be a good day for young people and others who have been the subject of bullying online. This was supposed to be a day when this whole House, all of us, could stand in solidarity with victims of cyberbullying and support legislation that would help address its prevalence in Canada. Instead, we have politics as usual.

It is unfortunate that members who have a sincere interest and desire to address cyberbullying are being used as cover for the introduction of multiple items that have little or nothing to do with cyberbullying. The bill capitalizes on the tragic passing of teens victimized by cyberbullying to reinstate elements of legislation the government had previously withdrawn and had sworn not to reintroduce.

The current bill deprives members of a chance to stand in solidarity in addressing one of the problems affecting Canada's young people, namely cyberbullying, as a distinct and stand-alone bill. It includes provisions unrelated to cyberbullying that may infringe on civil liberties. It raises privacy concerns that ought to be referred to the Privacy Commissioner and legal experts, or perhaps be dealt with at committee prior to deliberation and debate in the House. The bill encourages telecommunications companies and Internet service providers to co-operate with the government in surveillance matters in a way that Canadians would find objectionable.

That is why we wish to have the bill split at the justice committee so that those measures, and those measures alone, that seek to address cyberbullying could be captured in their own legislation, free from the politics and division that this issue should avoid.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the Minister of Justice is reaching out. I see that one of his parliamentary secretaries is in the House. I am sure he heard the same words I did.

It is imperative that we take the time to really look at each and every one of these clauses.

There was no contradiction there. We said that the difference between 7 clauses and 47 was that it would take far less time to study the first seven clauses. That way, we could address the parents' need to see this issue debated.

Now the process will take longer. The government decided to incorporate elements that—while not necessarily the same as those that were in Bill C-30—are quite worrisome to groups other than victims of cyberbullying or parents of those who have committed suicide after being bullied online.

If there is unlimited time for hearing from various experts, then it is possible to split this into two. I hope that this will not be forgotten. I will take his words to committee with me, that is for sure.

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly support legislation to stop cyberbullying, and I think many of the provisions on cyberbullying in this bill are good and necessary.

However, like the member for Charlottetown, I am worried about whether the government is using this issue as a Trojan horse to increase our risk of being a surveillance state. I and many others feel that the government is trying to bring back Bill C-30.

My question is this. Yesterday, the United Nations human rights committee unanimously passed a resolution to protect individuals from unlawful surveillance. It happened to be a resolution on which the government worked with the U.S. to water down.

Does the member not think that, just as victims of cyberbullying deserve protection, people's privacy rights also deserve protection?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Sure.

Thank you for that question. I think it's an important one. My point on this is that what sparked this reaction were the deliberations under Bill C-60, Bill C-45, and...what was the first one? Bill C-30, was it?

Combating Counterfeit Products Act

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the enthusiasm is overwhelming. I am moved. Especially considering that we are coming to the midnight hour, the enthusiasm New Democrats have for the House of Commons, for democracy and even for debate is stirring and important, because there has been a certain lack of enthusiasm for debate coming from the Conservatives.

The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons will know the actual number. I think we are at 47 or so time allocation motions. On all of these bills, and this is one of those bills, we seek to find some comfort for the Conservatives, who are often looking for comfort, particularly when there is a lot of turmoil in their lives, much of it self-inflicted. They want these kinds of things to move at an orderly pace. We offer them an orderly calendar. A certain number of New Democrats will speak and allow the bill to go ahead, and they still shut down debate, even under those circumstances. One wonders what the motivation is sometimes. I think we are up to 47. Again, if the government House leader rises tonight, he will be able to remind us.

This bill is an important one. The Conservatives say that it is critically important. How critical it is in their minds begs the question, simply because it was first introduced on March 1 of this year, seven or eight years into their mandate and 27 years after the last time the bill was reviewed. My friend from the Conservatives earlier talked with some great expertise about the importance of this thing. If it were important, one would think it would be a priority, and if it were a priority, one would not think that the 11th hour of this particular sitting and session of the House of Commons would be the time they would move the bill. If this were devastating to the Canadian economy, to the intellectual property rights regime in Canada, our ability to trade with other nations and all of these things that have been talked about, it would be a priority, but it is not a priority. It is a panic. When things are panicked, mistakes are made.

It is important for my friends to realize that they cannot quite have it both ways. If they say that this is urgent and desperate and we need to move it through rapidly, then one says that there has been a majority government for two years. Other bills have been moved, some of certainly less consequence or even quality, some would argue. I am thinking of a few bills, such as Bill C-30. My friends will remember Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill, which the Minister of Public Safety so eloquently justified by saying to the opposition and to all Canadians that one was either with the Conservatives or was with the child pornographers. Do members remember that classic? That was a good one. They got rid of that bill. It was a bigger priority than this piece of legislation.

However, let us talk about the bill, because it is important. We will take a look at Bill C-56 and see what it actually would do.

New Democrats have been aware of the importance of protecting intellectual property rights in Canada. It is important both for our own industry and our ability to innovate and design leading-edge technology, as Canada has so often done in the past, particularly when we used to have things like industrial development strategies, but not so much with these guys. We had export policies that said that adding value to our resources in Canada was a priority for the federal and provincial governments, but not so much with that side.

We agree with the merits of this bill and agree with sending it to committee. We believe that we need to hear from the experts. We have one or two experts in the House of Commons who maybe spent a previous life looking at the intellectual property regime in Canada and around the world. I do not claim that expertise, and I think most members of Parliament would not either. We need to rely on the experts, and not just the industry experts, and this is important for us as New Democrats. While those voices are critical to the design and implementation of legislation, we need to hear from the border guards, who are the folks who are going to be potentially seizing some of these products. We will have a very challenging time distinguishing between the bootlegged products people have talked about and other products that would offer serious harm or threats to Canadians' safety and health.

My friend talked about toothbrushes and toothpaste that caused people harm, but it gets even more serious than that. There is medical equipment that is improperly made. It is counterfeit, and Canadians are exposed to this, because they trust the label on the brand. It is not about buying a sweater for a child and hoping that it is the actual brand. Some of these things are quite important. When buying brake pads for one's car, one wants to ensure that they are actually brake pads that will stop the car.

The problem with counterfeit is that it can so often appear as something that is solid and consistent and legitimate. The reason it is so effective is that it looks good.

We have been having a bit of a debate. I do not want to say that it has been a nerd fight, but we have been arguing about the numbers. The numbers do not really help out the government's case in terms of providing help for the border officials who are meant to guard our borders, not just from counterfeit products, which is important, but even more important, from illegal contraband and weapons. They come into this country, some would argue, through our ports, where 2% to 3% of all containers are inspected. That is not a lot, and with those types of odds, some smugglers will just take the chance of getting caught, because the ability to make money is so great.

We have heard from the CBSA itself in this year's report. This is not a report produced by the official opposition. This report is produced by the border agency. We have heard that the government has cut $145 million from the border agency this year. Excuse me, I want to get the number right. It is $143 million. I exaggerated. It is not $145 million but $143 million. I want to make sure the number is right. I do not want to upset anyone on the other side.

The CBSA's report on plans and priorities indicates a loss, not a gain of 1,000 and a loss. It indicates a net loss of 549 full-time-equivalent positions. If the CBSA is not telling the truth or has its numbers wrong, I would encourage those on the government side to help it out a little. The Conservatives are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. The facts of the matter are that there are 549 fewer full-time-equivalent positions. If we are going to ask them to do more with fewer staff, is the law worth the paper it is written on?

We need two things, of course. We need the tools. This is an update of the legislation, and New Democrats support the updated legislation. Things have changed since the last time we looked at these intellectual property regimes that are so important for businesses that are looking to innovate and trade. If we do not look at legislation often, we want to get it right. To the Conservatives who say that one hour of debate is good enough, that we can zip it through committee and get it back out the door and then wait 30 years to correct the errors we make, I say that it is not right.

Nearly 100% of the amendments the opposition moved were based on testimony from experts, from border officials, from those in industry and those who deal with intellectual property. We hope that there is some sort of new openness, because the Conservatives have rejected virtually everything we have offered before, because they can, not because they have any counter-argument.

I have been at the committee hearings where we quote witnesses everybody agreed with when they testified. We move the change the witness suggested. There is no debate or counter-argument from the Conservatives. There is a vote, they kill it and they move on. We just do it over and over again.

A number of pieces of legislation have moved through the House completely unamended. Some of these bills are hundreds of pages in length. They are technical bills amending other acts. Sometimes as many as 60 other acts of Parliament are amended by one bill. The government does not change anything based on the testimony it hears. The testimony we hear, in very specific and technical ways, offers another viewpoint.

It raises the question of what is going on. Why would a government claim to have a keen interest in helping manufacturers and innovators in this country protect their intellectual property and a keen interest in helping consumers, yet not allow border officials to have the tools and services they need?

If we hear from border officials that we should change something in the legislation and New Democrats happen to be the party offering the amendment to the bill, for goodness sake, I hope the Conservatives change some of their patterns and hubris and say that it does not matter which political party moves it. What matters is whether it is a good amendment and whether it is a good improvement. Going through hundreds of pages of laws without any changes smacks of a certain unfortunate level of arrogance.

On this legislation, let us make sure that the tools we are offering our border officials also match up with the planning priorities—not the stated planning priorities of the government, not the stated spending priorities, but the real priorities, with real money and training.

We have talked about giving border security officers new powers to play a discerning and defining role in investigating the products to make sure that they are contraband, or not. That requires new training. We all admit it, but we do not see in any spending priorities from the government actual resources for training. CBSA has to take it from something else.

To the government, to all members of the House, let us do what the House of Commons is built to do: study legislation, look at it, take our time and get it right. If we are only going to do this once every generation, and if it is so important for our industry, then let us make sure we get it right.

Second Reading

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the second reading debate on Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act. This is a legal policy issue that has preoccupied many Canadians, not only today but over the years.

Recent high profile cases in many parts of Canada have caused Canadians to question whether our laws in this area are strong enough or clear enough to ensure that the public is adequately protected when a risk to public safety exists.

In my remarks, I plan to outline the key milestones of Parliaments consideration of this issue. It is important to canvass the legislative history of the Criminal Code mental disorder regime in order to put today's debate into context, essentially to have a clear understanding of how Bill C-54 seeks to build on and improve the existing law.

What used to be referred to as the “insanity defence” was included in Canada's first Criminal Code, which was enacted in 1892. Even before then the defence existed at common law. It stemmed from a decision rendered in 1843 from the British House of Lords. The common law principle was known as the M'Naghten Rules, which stated:

—every man is to be presumed to be sane, and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his crimes, until the contrary be proved to their satisfaction; and that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.

The text of the first Criminal Code stated:

No person shall be convicted of an offence by reason of an act done or omitted by him when labouring under natural imbecility, or disease of the mind, to such an extent as to render him incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission, and of knowing that such act or omission was wrong.

This legislation continued to apply relatively unchanged and without much public debate for the first half of the 20th century.

In 1977, the Law Reform Commission of Canada produced a report to Parliament on mental disorder in the criminal process, which made 44 recommendations about procedures and dispositions for the mentally disordered offender. In order to consider and respond to the recommendations, the Department of Justice launched the mental disorder project in 1978. The review process led to the release of a discussion paper in 1983, exploring over 100 issues in the area of psychiatric remand, fitness to stand trial, the defence of insanity and criminal responsibility, just to name a few. A final report was produced in 1985, followed shortly thereafter by a draft bill that was introduced in the House of Commons by the then minister of justice John Crosbie.

The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code and the draft bill were the first formulation of what would eventually become the new Criminal Code mental disorder regime.

The proposed amendments sought to modernize and clarify the criminal law on mental disorder, strengthen due process and ensure the continued protection of the public. It proposed to change the law in a number of respects.

Under the law at the time, insane or unfit accused were held in strict custody under the pleasure of the lieutenant-governor of the province was known. There was not a requirement to hold a hearing and the lieutenant-governor's decisions, essentially the provincial cabinets, were not subject to appeal. Therefore, there were many gaps with respect to due process that needed to be remedied.

In 1986, the draft bill proposed to remove the role of lieutenant-governors in the process and to establish review boards in all jurisdictions, with uniform procedures to follow across the country. Another significant change in the draft bill was to replace the defence of insanity with the verdict of “not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder”. I will have more to say about that amendment in a moment.

Discussions and consultations with the provinces and territories on the draft bill and other intervening events resulted in the bill not being introduced until 1991 as Bill C-30. It proposed much of what was contained in the 1986 draft bill.

With respect to the previous defence of “not guilty by reason of insanity”, it is noteworthy to highlight the remarks of Kim Campbell, the then minister of justice, about that amendment. She said that a number of psychiatrists had indicated that persons found not guilty by reason of insanity deluded themselves into thinking that they had done nothing wrong and this presented an obstacle to therapy. She also explained that the previous wording was difficult for the public to understand how the accused could be found not guilty despite proof that he committed the offence. The “not guilty by reason of insanity” defence was therefore replaced with a verdict of “not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder”.

However, I think it fair to say that the public still has difficulty understanding a “not criminally responsible” verdict. I believe it is part of our job as parliamentarians to talk about the verdict and to help explain it to the public. Therefore, I would like to reiterate that the verdict of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder is not an acquittal; nor is it a conviction; it is a special verdict that the court makes when it has been established that a person committed an act or made an omission that constitutes a criminal offence. What has also to be established as a legal issue for the court to determine is whether the person suffered from a mental disorder at the time of the commission of the act, or the omission, that rendered the person incapable of appreciating what he or she did or of knowing that it was wrong.

When the court enters a verdict of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, it does not release the accused. The accused is referred to a provincial or territorial review board that is responsible for making orders to govern how the accused will be dealt with.

Bill C-30 introduced three possible orders that could be put into place, depending on the level of risk posed by the person. Only if the person did not pose a significant threat to the public safety would the person be discharged without conditions. If the person posed a significant threat to the safety of the public, the person would be kept in custody in a hospital or discharged with conditions. The choice between custody or a conditional discharge is determined in accordance with the level of risk posed to the public safety.

Bill C-30 also introduced the factors that must be taken into consideration in deciding which order should be put in place. The section provides that the court or review board shall take into consideration the need to protect the public from dangerous persons, the mental condition of the accused, the reintegration of the accused into society and the other needs of the accused. This is a key provision of the Criminal Code mental disorder regime, as it guides the courts and review boards in their decision-making. It was introduced in 1991 by Bill C-30 to provide criteria and factors that did not previously exist in the legislation.

As I mentioned in the beginning of my remarks, I want to take some time to canvass the legislative history of the Criminal Code mental disorder regime in order to put Bill C-54 in context and to better understand how it seeks to build on and improve the existing law.

With respect to this key decision-making process, Bill C-54 proposes to clarify that among the existing listed factors that the courts and review boards must consider when they make decisions with respect to the mentally disordered accused, public safety is the paramount consideration.

In clause 9, it says:

When a court or Review Board makes a disposition... it shall, taking into account the safety of the public, which is the paramount consideration, the mental condition of the accused, the reintegration of the accused into society and the other needs of the accused, make...[the disposition] that is necessary and appropriate in the circumstances....

Bill C-54 would also clarify what is meant by the phrase “significant threat to the safety of the public”. In 1999, the case of Winko v. British Columbia (Forensic Psychiatric Institute), the Supreme Court of Canada interpreted that phrase to mean a risk of serious physical or psychological harm to members of the public resulting from conduct that is criminal in nature but not necessarily violent. Bill C-54 would codify the Supreme Court's interpretation.

The mental disorder regime that was introduced in 1992 included new rules and procedures with respect to appeals. I mentioned earlier that the previous law did not provide either party with a right of appeal of a lieutenant-governor's decision. Last year, the Court of Appeal for Ontario identified a problem with one of the appeal provisions in this part of the code. The Criminal Code currently states that when an absolute discharge is appealed, the absolute discharge is automatically suspended. In R. v. Kobzar, the Court of Appeal for Ontario found this automatic suspension to be in violation of sections 7 and 9 of the Charter, but suspended its order to allow Parliament to pass an amendment to correct the defect. The proposed reforms would eliminate the automatic suspension of the absolute discharge and instead would grant the Court of Appeal the discretionary power to suspend the absolute discharge if the mental condition of the accused justifies it.

I support the effort to clarify this area of the criminal law. The reform seeks to improve the existing legislative framework that guides decision-making when courts and review boards hear matters involving mentally disordered accused persons. Bill C-54 would help ensure more consistent interpretation and application of the law across the country. That is a valuable goal.

In my view, the proposed reforms are reasonable measures to take into consideration the protection of the public and to ensure confidence in our justice system. Mentally disordered accused will continue to receive treatment and have their cases overseen by the courts and review boards.

I encourage all members to support passage at second reading of Bill C-54. This would mean that it would be referred to committee for further study.

Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Before I begin, Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the members opposite that Bill C-475 does not represent a comprehensive review of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and for that reason, it cannot be compared with the government’s Bill C-12, which does in fact constitute a thorough review and is much broader in scope. Therefore I would invite the members to learn more about this bill before criticizing it.

I am especially pleased today to speak to this bill which was introduced by my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville. Since being elected she has worked tirelessly on various issues related to the digital world. In particular, she fought against Bill C-30 and forced the Conservative government to kill its online spying bill. She also held public consultations on the North Shore on personal information protection as it relates to her bill.

Today, with Bill C-475, my colleague is calling for the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to be modernized to take into account the new digital reality. It is hard to believe that this legislation has not been modernized since it was first passed 13 years ago in 2000. Back then, there were no iPods, smart phones, Facebook or Twitter, and I did not even have an email address. It is time for the government to blow the cobwebs away and modernize this legislation to better protect Canadians’ personal information.

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act is based on the ombudsman model. The primary duty of the privacy commissioner is to investigate complaints concerning privacy breaches. The privacy commissioner has the power to investigate, to file complaints, to conduct audits and to publicly report on an organization’s personal information management practices. However, the act does not give the commissioner the power to make compliance orders, or in other words, to order organizations to amend their practices or face a fine if they fail to do so.

To clearly grasp the issue here, I would like to give a few examples that illustrate the need to give the Privacy Commissioner more powers. The commissioner recalled that in 2010, the retailer Staples had failed to delete all of the client data stored on devices such as laptops or USB hard drives that had been returned to their stores and were slated for resale. What is most disturbing is that this retailer had been investigated twice before and was still not complying with the commissioner’s orders.

Let us be honest here. The government created a watchdog who in essence has been muzzled. This watchdog does not have the power to enforce the act. This initiative by my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville would give the Privacy Commissioner the means to do her job.

Another example is Google Street View, which collected personal information such as email addresses, emails, usernames, passwords, telephone numbers and street addresses. The commissioner found that this practice constituted a serious breach of Canadians’ right to privacy. In this instance, the outcome was a little more positive. Google appears to have accepted the recommendations of the commissioner, who observed that the company was on the right track to resolving these major problems.

I should also like to mention the Edmonton-based site Nexopia, which describes itself as the largest social networking site for young Canadians. The site has over 1.6 million registered users, 80% of whom live in Canada. Nexopia.com users create profiles, engage in blogging, create photo galleries and post articles, artwork, music, poems and videos. The problem is that Nexopia does not have any kind of system in place to block public searches of the profiles of young users, and the website does not allow users to shield their profile from the public. You can see the problem.

These facts are troubling, considering that young people are often careless when it comes to their personal information and that they are targeted by many companies and some offenders. The commissioner conducted a thorough investigation, found that this organization was not in compliance with the legislation in a number of areas and issued 24 recommendations.

Following the release of her report, the federal Privacy Commissioner was forced to ask the Federal Court to make an order compelling Nexopia to stop retaining personal information. Since this action was launched, Nexopia has changed hands, and we are still waiting for the new owner to follow up on all of the commissioner’s recommendations.

Bill C-475 introduced by my colleague attempts to resolve much of the problem by amending the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act in two ways. First, it would give the Privacy Commissioner enforcement powers, the power to order an organization that has failed to comply with the act to take the necessary steps to comply. Any organization that refused to take action within the timeframe set by the commissioner would risk a fine of up to $500,000.

As well, the bill makes it mandatory to signal any data breaches that could harm an individual. If an individual's personal information has been compromised in a way that could harm that individual, the organization responsible must inform the privacy commissioner of the violation. The commissioner can then determine if the violation could harm the individual and may force the organization responsible to inform the individual that their personal information has been compromised. Non-compliance could result in a fine of up to $500,000.

We believe that this will help increase compliance with the law, reduce the cost of the current process, and reduce delays. It will also establish solid case law that will allow individuals and organizations to better understand their rights and responsibilities.

I would like to point out that three provinces already have laws that are basically similar to the federal law concerning privacy in the private sector. Unlike Ottawa, the provinces of Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia empower their commissioner to make binding decisions in certain circumstances.

As my colleague mentioned when she introduced the bill, it seems that there is a consensus among the public to increase fines for offenders. As the Commissioner said, it is important to note that Canadians are the heaviest Internet users worldwide, spending an average of 45 hours a month online.

We are also among the most avid users of networking websites in the world. I was not surprised to hear that half of Canadians are on Facebook. In light of those statistics, it is not surprising that privacy is an ongoing concern for Canadians.

The 2011 Canadians and Privacy Survey found that the vast majority of respondents are in favour of stiff penalties for organizations that fail to protect peoples' privacy. More than 8 out of 10 respondents want to see measures passed to name offending organizations, impose fines or take the organizations to court.

The Commissioner herself is calling for more power to fulfill her mandate. In her 2011 report, she said:

In recent years, we have seen very serious, large-scale data breaches. Data breach notification, in itself, may not be sufficient to create the kind of incentives necessary to ensure that organizations take security issues more seriously in the current environment. Many other countries are taking a harder line on breaches. For example, the United States has been a leader in this area and virtually all states have data breach laws. Meanwhile, a European Commission Regulation proposed in early 2012 included data breach provisions and very significant fining powers for European data protection authorities. Commissioner Stoddart has encouraged the federal government to explore strengthened enforcement options that would create stronger incentives for organizations to ensure personal information is adequately protected.

The report could not have been any clearer.

Why are the Conservatives so soft on those whose business practices are compromising Canadians' personal data?

As a final point, it is important to understand that the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and this bill apply to the use of personal information only in the private sector. Ideally, the proposed measures would also apply to government organizations.

I know in the past my hon. colleague has asked the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics to examine the possibility of opening up the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to resolve this issue.

In closing, it is unfortunate that the Conservatives oppose this, and I hope we can come up with a solution to this serious problem.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not very happy about being here. However, I am here because we need to stand up to this government, which believes that Parliament exists only for its benefit and that it is just a place concerned with the government's problems and accountability.

It is almost as if a new party came into the House today, as we listen to the Conservative House leader speak. It certainly is not the party that moved prorogation and killed legislation time and again. This new Conservative Party is suddenly interested in not defeating legislation. It could not be the same Conservative Party that has shut down debate in the House of Commons more than any party in Canadian history. It could not be a member of the same party who was speaking here today, talking about opening up debate. The Conservatives have invented a new world for themselves that is fascinating.

I am reflecting on my friend from Langley, who sought to speak in this House on what they call an S. O. 31 statement, which happens just before question period. It is a statement that lasts for about a minute. Usually members of Parliament get up and make a statement about their ridings about some issue that is important to them. My friend from Langley, who sits in the Conservative Party, was a parliamentary secretary, I remember, for the Minister of the Environment, a chair, a well-respected member of Parliament, and a friend. He sought to stand up and speak to something he thought was important to his constituents.

It was the old Conservative Party that shut down that member of Parliament and every other one who tried to get up and speak, because this new Conservative Party talks about wanting people to speak in the House and wanting to have debate.

While it is refreshing to hear it, I do not believe it, and I do not think Canadians are going to believe that suddenly accountability and democracy have broken out within the Prime Minister's Office. It is the office of this particular Prime Minister who, rather than face any uncomfortable questions from the media or the official opposition members today, or for the rest of this week, has decided that going to South America to sit with other trading partners from other countries we already have established trade deals with to talk about trade deals that already exist is much more important than asking questions about the Senate.

It must be a new Conservative Party that suddenly has on its agenda a legislative directive that the members need to sit longer hours and work hard on something that might be quite topical today, something such as the reform of Canada's Senate, which has been long overdue and long called for by Canadians and New Democrats who said that the place was fundamentally broken. There is no accountability. Unelected and under investigation is the new Senate.

I remember the old Reform Party. You probably do as well, Mr. Speaker. It came in riding from the west, from my part of the world.

I see a member across the way, who was one of the founding members of the Reform Party, calling it a beautiful thing. While I disagreed fundamentally with many of its positions, certainly its social positions, there was something on which I could see some common ground. That was to make Parliament more accountable and to reform the Senate.

The current government has now been in power almost seven long years. Is that right? The time goes slowly. In those six or seven years, the Prime Minister made a promise as one of his fundamental commitments to Canadians. Commitments should be treated sacredly, I believe.

We all get up at elections. We have party platforms and promises we make to Canadians. If we win, that platform and those promises become our agenda. That is what we would seek to do in office. It is simple. One of his promises, one of his agendas, one of his reforms was on the Senate. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they would see those Liberal senators down there taking their money, not really representing anybody, going on trips and maybe even defrauding taxpayers. Who knows? The Reform movement came in and said it was wrong and anti-democratic.

For a party that decided to put “democratic” right in the middle of our name, we take these questions seriously. We feel that it is accountability to the people we on the orange team represent. In a sense, we are watching this Prime Minister now play victim to what is going on in the Senate with senators he appointed exclusively and explicitly to raise money for the Conservative Party of Canada. Now this same Prime Minister claims victimhood and wonders how this happened. How did his chief of staff, who sits to his immediate left every day and knows his deepest, darkest secrets, whom he put in charge of major trade files and negotiations with other countries, cut a $90,000 cheque to a senator he appointed? However, obviously, the Prime Minister's hands are clean, and he has nothing to say about this. He believes that his hands are so clean that he is not going to answer any questions about it. He is going to go to South America to be in trade talks with countries we already have trade deals with. That is the new Conservative Party, which is the old one, the same one that has forgotten its roots.

Dear Mr. Manning is still with us, so he is not spinning in his grave, but he is definitely spinning. He was asked recently whether the Conservatives have lost their principles. He said, no, they have maintained their priorities. It is an interesting dodge of a question. Mr. Speaker, you have been around politics a bit. You know when a question is put directly and someone answers it indirectly.

I find it incredible that we have before us a motion that continues to abuse Parliament. This motion is designed simply to restrict debate and demonstrate to members of the House of Commons that the only reason Parliament exists is so that the government can do what it wants.

I remember a comment made by the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. When we were debating a time allocation motion, he said that their intention was not to put an end to debate or to censure it, but just to control Parliament.

It is incredible that a minister is admitting that the Conservatives just want to control the Parliament of Canada. It also reflects the Conservatives' esprit de corps. They want to control everything, not just the opposition and Parliament, but their members, as well as the media and the public.

The current vision of the Prime Minister and the government leaves the public with no choice and no voice. It is all about the kind of country that the Prime Minister wants to build.

We see a government moving this extraordinary thing, which will see, big deal, members of Parliament sitting until midnight.

New Democrats have been known, sometimes to our detriment, to be willing to force the calendar to the very last minute and sit all night, such as when the government moved anti-worker legislation against a very profitable Canada Post, which, I might add, in a parenthetical way, then lost money.

After the lockout by Canada Post, the government imposed wage contracts on those workers that were less than what the company was willing to offer. Then it said that it needed to shut down Canada Post offices around the country, as Canada Post was losing money because of the lockout it allowed them to do. The logic is inherently twisted on that side.

Remember the omnibus debates and the voting we had. I remember my friend from the Green Party moving a certain number of amendments to the bill, which forced the House to sit all night and vote, hour after hour. I remember some of my friends from Surrey who stayed in their seats for 22 hours.

No one has ever accused New Democrats of not being willing to come to work and work on behalf of our constituents. We may do some things wrong. We may sometimes fall short in some areas, but hard work has not ever been one of those things.

There is such irony in hearing a Conservative House leader who, with his Prime Minister, has prorogued Parliament, shut it down, and killed their government's own legislation time and time again, say to the Speaker that the problem is that they cannot get their legislation through.

It had been there for 12 months. After eight months, they killed it themselves and prorogued the House.

One prorogation was quite notable. The government looked to be in a bit of trouble. It was in a minority position. The world was entering into a very deep recession. The Minister of Finance, who claims to be the best in the world, ignored the recession and introduced what the Conservatives called an austerity budget at the very moment when the rest of the world, realizing that the economy was coming to a virtual standstill, was introducing budgets that did the opposite.

The finance genius we have sitting in the chair said, “Never mind what the rest of the world thinks about what is going on in the global economy; we know that Canada is not going into recession”, even as we were in the midst of a recession. He introduced an austerity budget to cut back billions in job creation, in grants and in all the things the Conservatives take credit for, such as unemployment insurance for a bunch of Canadians who were just being thrown out of work.

The opposition said that it was not a very good budget and suggested that we vote against that budget. The government panicked and prorogued. Canadians got a civil lesson in how Parliament works. They had never heard the word “prorogation” before. Then we got to learn.

The Prime Minister had to go to the Governor General. He sat there for a number of hours, perhaps being lectured about how undemocratic it was, when facing a non-confidence vote, to head down the road to the Queen's representative to ask for permission to shut it all down before he was thrown out of office. He was more worried about his job that day than about Canadians. That is for sure.

That is a government that killed its legislation in order to save itself, and did it time and time again.

Here is the trend that we worry about with today's motion. For a government that has broken the record by shutting down debate more times than any government in Canadian history, it has refused 99.3% of all the amendments that the opposition has brought to its legislation.

Let us look at that for a moment. The way a bill is supposed to work is it comes into the House and gets debated. There is a pro and con and the real coming together or clash of ideas to improve the legislation because no one is perfect. The drafters of legislation do not get it right. They are sometimes hundreds of pages long and very complicated. The House is meant to debate that. Then we send it to committee and hear from experts, not just members of Parliament who are not often experts in these areas, but people who work in the field. They are the social workers, the financial experts, the crime experts and the police. We hear those suggestions and write amendments based on those ideas. That is the way this place is supposed to work.

However, the government is saying that in 99.3% of those cases those experts are wrong and the government is right. It will not change a period, a comma, not a word in any of the legislation. Then lo and behold, time and time again, the legislation is challenged in the courts successfully. The legislation does not fix the problems identified and costs Canada and Canadians billions.

We all remember well Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill that would allow the state to look in on the Internet searches and emails of Canadians without any warrant. The government decided in its vigour for its tough on crime agenda that it would pass a law that said that at any point, at any time, Canadians anywhere could have their BlackBerrys and iPhones tapped by the government, that web searches on home computers could be looked at by the government and the police. There is no country in the world, outside of Iran and North Korea, that would even consider doing this. The Conservative government thought it was a fantastic idea. In trying to argue the case, it said that if we were not into exposing our Internet searches and our emails then we must be in support of child pornography.

Has any more offensive or stupid an argument ever been made on the floor of the House of Commons? It is offensive to basic civil liberties and decency, to the role of members of Parliament trying to do our jobs and to the Canadians who said that they were not sure they wanted the government looking at their email?

I look at the member for Yukon right now. I do not know what he is searching and I do not want to know. It is his privacy to look on his computer and do as he sees fit. That is a civil liberty I am sure he defends as well, but not his government.

Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill, was the flagship. The government rammed it all into one bill and said that it was such important legislation it would shut down debate on it too. Then whole sections of the bill were taken out. Why? It was because they were unconstitutional.

Now we know where that all comes from. Canadians actually pay for a service. Many members of Parliament may not know this, but when a government introduces a bill it goes to constitutional legal experts to determine if the new legislation goes against our constitution, our foundation as a country? If it does, it is a good idea to modify the law to ensure it does not get challenged in the courts, which costs upwards of $3 million to $5 million to taxpayers every time there is one of those challenges. The government did not check on Bill C-10. We know that because the people who work for the Government of Canada, who do this work, are no longer receiving references from the government.

The government is not even asking anymore. It is choosing ignorance. This is incredible. It is saying that it does not want to know whether the laws it writes are constitutional, whether the laws it writes as a government are for or against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is incredible. This is not a mistake. It is by intention. Therefore, we have these lawyers sitting in their offices, being paid every day, waiting for the government to refer the bills it introduces here to ensure they can survive a constitutional challenge. The government does not ask anymore.

Bill C-38, the first omnibus bill and Bill C-45, the second omnibus bill, were both challenged in the courts as unconstitutional. First nations are challenging it. I need to address this because the government House leader mentioned two bills that are being moved, so-called, on behalf of first nations. They are Bill S-2 and Bill S-8. One is matrimonial property rights. It sounds pretty innocuous. Most Canadians would say that matrimonial property rights for first nations women on reserve maybe protects their rights. Who is opposed to it? It is not just us in the opposition, but aboriginal women, every first nation women's group in the country. My friend across the way shakes his head, but I can show him the testimony that says the bill is no good for aboriginal women.

However, the Conservatives know better. With their shameful record on aboriginal rights and title in the country, suddenly they know better than aboriginal women, than first nations women. Bill S-8 is a bill to help first nations have clean drinking water because the record has been shameful.

Government after government has failed first nations communities. Thirty-five per cent of the people I represent in northern British Columbia are in first nations communities. The water conditions there are incredibly bad. We have to do something about it. There are fixes and there are ideas coming from those communities.

Instead the government moves the bill, handing all responsibility down to first nations in terms of cleaning up their own water mess, but none of the resources to do it. Are first nations supportive of it? No. Nor would any municipality or any province in Canada be supportive of legislation that rams down responsibility without any of the support, money or help to get that done.

Most of these first nations communities are living in abject poverty. Where does the government think they are going to get the money from? The government will not settle treaty with them in the west. First nations are having mining, oil and gas exploration and pipelines put everywhere and are receiving none of the royalties, none of the compensation and the government will not move treaty forward.

I was just in Gitxsan territory, speaking with the Gitxsan and the Wet'suwet'en, talking about basic child services, kids who are being abused in their homes and setting up a program that the federal government said that we should enact 20 years ago to allow first nations more rights and responsibilities to rescue those kids and help them kids integrate back into their communities.

Who is not coming to the table? The Conservative government. This is the government that on Bill S-2 and Bill S-8 suddenly said that it had first nations rights and title and priorities at heart, when it did not.

The place can work. Members can sense a certain amount of frustration in my voice, because Parliament can work. It is actually designed to work. I love our system. It is so superior to many other systems I have studied around the world, that have consistent congressional gridlock on legislation and on budgets. We can make things happen here.

However, with the power that is afforded a majority government, which is a lot, comes a certain amount of responsibility to use the power wisely and not abuse it. Yet time and again we have seen the government House leader and other ministers get up and say that they are not looking to limit the debate; they just want to control it. They reject virtually 100% of all the amendments and all the changes and suggestions they hear at committee because they know better and they have the votes to push it forward.

It is at such a point that the control has extended deeply into the government's caucus. Some of the more socially conservative members of the Conservative caucus are no longer free to speak, or are only free to speak on certain things, in certain ways, if the Prime Minister's Office allows for it.

In a small program that we run in northern B.C., initiated a number of years ago, I hold a conference call with all the detachment commanders from all the RCMP outposts that exist in my riding. It is a very large riding facing a lot of tough, difficult situations with policing. Once every two or three months I get on the phone with 12 detachment commanders and we talk about what is going on. We talk about what is happening in crime, what the drug use is like, what legislation is moving through the House that will help or hinder these hard-working, hard-serving officers.

I am not allowed to have that conversation with these RCMP officers anymore. I am not supposed to talk to them. As a sitting member of Parliament, I am not supposed to go to them. A number of them have come to me because they are friends and we have known each other for years. They offer good, on-the-ground advice about what is happening.

They say that they are sorry, that they cannot talk to me. They tell me that I have to phone the Prime Minister's Office in order for them to talk to me about what is going on in Prince Rupert, or what is going on in Dease Lake or Bella Coola.

It is insane. This is wrong. Government officials at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, who I have known for years and who I phone just for an update to see what is going on with our fish on the west coast, tell me that I am a member of Parliament from the opposition and that I need to phone the people in the Prime Minister's Office and that they will give me permission as to whether they can tell me what is going on in Canada's fishery.

This is not their government. This is not a Conservative government. This is Canada's government. We pay for these civil servants. We pay their salaries to do work on behalf of Canadians. Whether it is silencing scientists, shutting down access for members of Parliament to basic conversations, or shutting down debate in Parliament, the consistent voice from the government is that it will not be held to account.

This is bad. This is not just about the privilege all members of the House need to do their job. The government says there is some urgency, but there is not. There is no urgency when it comes to the government's mandate or agenda.

It is very strange for the government to say it is very open, when we see what is going on in the Senate.

We have senators like Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau. All current senators have potentially stolen money from Canadians. These are the same senators that the Prime Minister says are very good people. These are the same senators using money from the Canadian people to travel during an election and raise money for the Conservative Party. That is the new Conservative Party. I do not understand.

I remember the Reform Party of Canada and some reforms that Mr. Manning wanted to make. With the current party, it is the same story as with the Liberal Party and the Gomery commission and all the rest. I am both angry and sad.

The majority of Canadians did not vote for this government, which has a majority, but does not have the majority support of Canadians. Close to 60% of Canadians voted against this agenda, against this sort of arrogance. They voted not to have the kind of government that now uses brutal tactics, not against the New Democratic Party, but against Parliament.

Lastly, I think we need to have a referendum, which may not happen until the next election.

It bears some comment, not only with respect to the Senate scandal but even the motion today.

I watched the government House leader and the Prime Minister on television earlier. He actually allowed the media into his caucus room for a second, which was bizarre. The bully turns into the victim, that somehow this is put upon them, that they are somehow being victimized here.

What frustrates me is not just the work that we have to do as parliamentarians that is constantly thwarted by the government at committee stage, and my friend laughs, but how can it be possible that 99.3% of all amendments were rejected? The evidence is clear.

My friend can shake his head and laugh and treat this with disdain treat this with disdain or heckle out what seems to be a favourite tactic of some of my friends who cannot win the debate, but can simply sit in their seats and heckle, yell and try to put down a comment that hurts a little too much, that being that 99.3% of all amendments were rejected, that the witnesses were all wrong, that the government was always right and that the courts must be wrong too. Soon the Conservatives will call them activist courts like the Republicans do in the states. Members should watch for it because it is coming.

We believe this motion is fundamentally flawed in its abuse of this place and of all members. I do not speak just for the New Democrats or the folks down the way. I speak for the backbenchers who have been rubbing up against some of the limitations. What is sad about most of it and is most concerning is those who are not agitating against the Conservative government's control over its backbench and accepting it. I lament the most for those who are so comfortable reading the script from the Prime Minister's Office and repeating it like robots, feeling that is their work and whose expectations of what it is to be a member of Parliament are so diminished that they simply accept it, not those the media have called rebels who have stood up and stated that they want to have their own statement but the Prime Minister's Office has shut them down. They run under the blue banner, which is their choice.

I lament for those who seem so happy to get up and repeat the mindless dribble that is put to them by the Prime Minister's Office day after day. When they first ran for office, I wonder if they said that they wanted to be a member of Parliament to represent people and get to Parliament to speak with a strong voice of conviction on behalf of the people they represent and that in order to do they would read whatever was put in front of them by the Prime Minister's Office, written by a 24-year old intern who types out some sort of nonsense and makes up policies that the NDP does not have, making personal attacks on a regular basis as a substitute for honest and sincere debate? Was that really their expectation?

I wish I had some video evidence from some of those early debates because I know that is not what those members ran on. I know their nomination meetings did not look like that, nor did any of the debates they attended during the campaign. That is not what they said. They said that they would speak on behalf of their constituents, fight for them and still raise their voice, even if that meant it was contrary to what their government suggested.

I am sure that is what my friends across the way said. They are very nice people. I know a lot of these folks, as we have spent some time together. I know some of their inner thoughts about the way Parliament ought to be, and some of them lament it. However, it is the ones who do not who worry me. They are the ones who so comfortably slip into that straitjacket day after day. Maybe they just get used to it, but they are able to rationalize that there is some larger agenda that is more important than their having an independent and free voice.

They can keep yelling and you can allow them to if you wish, Mr. Speaker, but the truth often hurts, and the truth of the matter is that with a majority government, this member and his colleagues have chosen to vote for closure more than any government in Canadian history. With a majority, the Conservative government has refused the evidence, has refused the science time and time again, and that government is bad government.

The Conservative government appointed senators, and I am sure some fundraising went on for some of my friends. Maybe Ms. Wallin, Mr. Duffy or Mr. Brazeau came by and raised a few dollars, shook a few hands and got a few votes for my friends. Maybe there is a little bit of a tarnish on my colleagues, which is why they are calling out and why they are worried. It is because their base hates this. They hate the idea of entitlement and of an insider's game that goes on in Ottawa all the time, and that friends of the Prime Minister's Office get some sort of special treatment.

Talking about special treatment, how about a $90,000 personal cheque just cut off the back and handed over to somebody who may have defrauded taxpayers? Where is the Reform Party now? Where are the original Conservative intentions now? They are gone, bit by bit, eroded piece by piece. That is where it has gone, and it has all been subjugated to some idea that there is a better and bigger cause, that this grand scheme they are involved in somehow makes all of it justifiable.

Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, what these guys would sound like if the roles were reversed? If it were a Liberal government with senators getting cheques from the Prime Minister's chief of staff or a New Democratic government acting the way the Conservatives act, could you imagine the hue and cry and the calls for resignations every second minute? They would be losing their minds.

Now the Conservatives play the victim, saying that these senators were put upon them, that they didn't know what they were doing, that it is terrible. They only have a majority, both here and there. The Prime Minister has appointed more senators than any Prime Minister in Canadian history. How many did he say he would appoint? None, but he had to appoint some, and then it had to be justified. These are small and slow slippages, and this motion is a continuation of that.

This motion says that Parliament matters less and that those Canadians who have grown cynical about the role of MPs are justified in their cynicism. We say that is wrong. How do we turn to the young voters coming up? How do we turn to people who come to us and say that they might want to run for office one day? How can we say that their voices will matter when the government moves motions like this time and time again, shutting down debate?

As my friend the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development said, the Conservatives do not want to shut down debate; they just want to control it. Is this is how one entices people into a life of politics? Is this how one encourages young people to vote? Do we say, “Welcome to Parliament, where we are going to control debate and shut it down time and time again”? This is the Conservatives' call to action.

It is not a call to action, but a call to inaction. It is a call to cynicism. It is calling to people, “Do not look over here; nothing is happening here in government. Go on with your lives and other things that are more important and distracting.” The government is counting on people to have an attention deficit rather than realize that the decisions we make here in Parliament every day affect Canadians in every way.

If members of Parliament cannot do their work, as this motion suggests, and hold the government to account, it is bad government. It is bad government when it cannot find $3 billion that may be under a mattress or in a banana stand or wherever it happens to be, and when senators rip off taxpayers with no consequence whatsoever. We think the RCMP might have a role to play here.

What would happen if any of the Canadians in our gallery today or watching on TV defrauded the Canadian government of $500? They would get charged. However, if it is a Conservative senator, what happens? Oh, they just recuse themselves from caucus. Wow. They still get paid, they still have all of their privileges, but they cannot go to caucus meetings on Wednesday mornings.

Mr. Speaker, do you think that maybe that punishment is a little severe? I mean, having to recuse oneself from a two-hour meeting on Wednesday morning for defrauding taxpayers—boy, that seems pretty harsh.

Why the double standard? We used to call that the culture of entitlement. I remember a colleague of mine in this place, Ed Broadbent, asking a former Liberal minister who became head of the mint and was claiming packets of gum and coffee on his receipts, “Are you entitled to your entitlements, sir?” This person took a moment of authenticity and said, “Yes, I am entitled to my entitlements.”

The Conservatives railed at the Liberal entitlement, the culture of entitlement, the Gomery inquiry and all those terrible things that went down.

History repeats itself if one is not a student of history, and it seems that the Conservative Party has not looked at the history of this place or of other parliaments.

The fact of the matter is that debate in and of itself is not a bad thing. The exchange of ideas is not in and of itself a bad thing. Being wrong from time to time is not of itself a bad thing; learning happens in those moments, and the government needs to learn, because I can read off the list of the bills it had so fundamentally wrong that it had to withdraw them. The Conservatives had to say that they got it so badly wrong because they listened to none of the amendments that they have to fix it now, at the very last minute, or wait until it gets to the Senate and let the unaccountable, unelected and under investigation senators deal with it. That is no form of democracy worth defending, and the Conservatives know it. They know it better than most.

I will move that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after “Fridays” and replacing them with the following: “(b) when oral questions are to be taken up pursuant”—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for interrupting my colleague just at the beginning of his speech on the justification for the motion that he has just presented to the House, but we have a point of order that we need to raise because I think it establishes a couple of important things for you, as Speaker, to determine before we get into the context and the particulars of this motion.

Specifically, I will be citing Standing Order 13, which says:

Whenever the Speaker is of the opinion that a motion offered to the House is contrary to the rules and privileges of Parliament, the Speaker shall apprise the House thereof immediately, before putting the question thereon, and quote the Standing Order or authority applicable to the case.

This is the standing order that we cite, because we have looked at the motion the government has presented here today with some notice given last week.

This motion goes against the Standing Orders and certainly the spirit of Parliament. The government is not allowed to break the rules of Parliament that protect the rights of the minority, the opposition and all members of the House of Commons who have to do their jobs for the people they represent. This motion is very clearly contrary to the existing Standing Orders.

I have some good examples to illustrate this. In my opinion, there is no urgency that would justify the government's heavy-handed tactics to prevent members from holding a reasonable debate on its agenda. I say “agenda”, but for a long time now it has been difficult to pin down what this government's agenda is exactly. This is nothing new.

The motion comes to us today at a difficult time, but just because the government held a brief caucus meeting and is facing numerous problems and a few scandals, it is not justified in violating the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. No one would accept those excuses. There is no historical basis for the government to use the Standing Orders in this way. That does not work.

There are a few important things we need to point out. One is that it behooves us to have some explanation of what this motion actually does. For those of us who do not intimately follow the rules and history of Parliament, it can be quite confusing not in terms of the intention of what the government has read but certainly in the implications. It needs some translation, not French to English or English to French, but translation as to what it actually means for the House of Commons. That is why we believe a point of order exists for this motion.

The motion essentially would immediately begin something that would ordinarily begin in a couple of weeks, which is for the House to sit until midnight to review legislation. This is somewhat ironic from a government that has a bad history with respect to moving legislation correctly through the process and allowing us to do our work, which is what we are here to do on behalf of Canadians.

I am not alone in seeing that the government has shown the intention of having some urgency with respect to 23 bills, 14 of which have not even been introduced since the last election. Suddenly there is great urgency, when in fact it is the government that has set the agenda. The urgency is so great that it has to fundamentally change the rules of how we conduct ourselves in this place in response to an urgency that did not exist until this moment.

One has to question the need. Why the panic? Why now, and why over these pieces of legislation? Are they crucial to Canada's economic well-being? Is it to restore the social safety net that the government has brutalized over the last number of years? What is the panic and what is the urgency?

Context sets everything in politics, and the context that the government exists under right now is quite telling. Every time I have had to stand in this place raising points of order and countering the closure and time allocation motions that the government uses, I am often stating and citing that this is a new low standard for Parliament. I have thought at times that there was not much more it could do to this place to further erode the confidence of Canadians or further erode the opportunity for members of Parliament to speak, yet it has again invented something new, and here we are today debating that motion.

That is why we believe that Standing Order 13 needs to be called. It is because it is very clear that when a motion is moved that is contrary to the rules and privileges of Parliament—which is what I would underline, as it is the important part—the Speaker must involve himself or herself in the debate and ask that the debate no longer proceed.

The privileges of members of Parliament are not the privileges that are being talked about by our friends down the hall to falsely claim money that did not exist or privileges of limo rides and trips around the world. The privileges of Parliament that speak constitutionally to the need for Parliament are that members of Parliament have the opportunity to scrutinized and debate government bills.

Just before the riding week, we saw the government introduce another time allocation on a bill that had received exactly 60 minutes of debate. Somehow the Conservatives felt that had exhausted the conversation on a bill they had sat on for years, and suddenly the panic was on. We are seeing this pattern again and again with a government that is facing more scandal.

I was looking through the news today. Every morning I start my day with the news and we consider what we should ask the government in question period. There are some days when the focus can be difficult and one may not be sure what the most important issue of the day is. However, the challenge for us today as the official opposition is that, as there are so many scandals on so many fronts, how do we address them all within the short time we have during question period or in debate on bills.

I listened to my friend for Langley, who has been somewhat in the news of late on his attempt to speak on issues he felt were important to his constituents. We saw him move a new private member's bill today. He withdrew the former bill, and now he is moving one again. The New Democrats will support the bill going to committee for study because we think there are some options and availability for us to look at the legislation and do our job.

Whether it is muzzling of their own MPs and the Conservatives' attempt to muzzle all MPs in the House of Commons, or using private members' bills to avoid the scrutiny that is applied to government legislation, and one important piece of that scrutiny is the charter defence of the legislation and so, in a sense, the Conservatives are using the back door to get government legislation through and move their agenda in another way, or the omnibus legislation, which has received so much controversy in Canada as the government has increasingly abused the use of omnibus legislation, or the F-35 fiasco, or the recent Auditor General's report, or the former parliamentary budget officer who was under much abuse and the new Parliamentary Budget Officer who has asked for the same things he did, or infamously, prorogation, time and time again the pattern is the same. The government has complete disdain for the House.

Whether it be the scandals in the Senate, or the China FIPA accord, or the recent problems with the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, or the employment insurance scandals, or the $3 billion missing, or the 300,000 jobs that have not been replaced, the government keeps trying to avoid proper scrutiny out of embarrassment. However, the House of Commons exists for one thing and one thing alone, which is to hold the government to account.

The government will make some claims that the urgency right now is because there has not been enough progress on legislation. Therefore, the Conservatives have to hit the panic button and would have the House sit until midnight, which has consequences beyond just being a late night, and I will get into those consequences in a moment because they support our notion that it infringes upon the entitlements of members of Parliament to debate legislation properly.

The Conservatives' record shows, and this is not speculation or conspiracy, that when they ram legislation through, they more often than not get it wrong. That is not just expensive for the process of law making, but it is expensive for Canadians. These things often end up in court costing millions and millions of dollars and with victims of their own making. The scandal that exists in the Senate is absolutely one of their own making. The Prime Minister can point the finger where he likes, but he appointed those senators.

Specific to the point of order I am raising, this motion would lower the amount of scrutiny paid to legislation. It would allow the government extended sittings, which are coming in the second week of June anyway, as the Standing Orders currently exist, to allow the government to do that, but the Conservatives want to move the clock up and have more legislation rammed through the House.

Also, as you would know, Mr. Speaker, the order of our day includes concurrence reports from committee, which allow the House to debate something that happened in committee which can sometimes be very critical, and many are moved from all sides. However, they would not get started until midnight under the Conservatives' new rules. Therefore, we would study and give scrutiny on what happened at committee from midnight until two or three o'clock in the morning.

As well, emergency debates would not start until midnight. Just recently we had a debate, Mr. Speaker, that your office agreed to allow happen, which was quite important to those implicated. We were talking about peace and war and Canada's role in the world. It was a critical emergency debate that certainly went into the night. However, the idea is that we would take emergency debates that the Speaker's office and members of Parliament felt were important and start them at midnight and somehow they would be of the same quality as those started at seven o'clock in the evening.

The scrutiny of legislation has become much less important than the government moving its agenda through, which is an infringement on our privilege as members of Parliament. The Conservative's so-called urgency, their panic, is not a justification for overriding the privileges that members of Parliament hold dear.

As for progress, just recently we moved the nuclear terrorism bill through, Bill S-9.

We also had much debate but an improvement on Bill C-15, the military justice bill, to better serve our men and women in the Forces. The original drafting was bad. The Conservatives wanted to force it forward and we resisted. My friend from St. John's worked hard and got an amendment through that would help those in the military who found themselves in front of a tribunal.

We have the divorce in civil marriages act, which has been sitting and sitting. It would allow people in same-sex marriages to file for and seek divorce. All we have offered to the government is one vote and one speaker each. The government refuses to bring the bill forward and I suspect it is because it would require a vote. It is a shame when a government resists the idea that a vote would be a good thing for members of Parliament to declare their intentions on, certainly something as important as civil liberties and rights for gay men and women.

I mentioned earlier why, in the infringement of this privilege, it causes great harm and distress not just to Parliament but to the country.

I asked my team to pull up the list of bills that were so badly written that they had to be either withdrawn or completely rewritten at committee and even in the Senate which, God knows, is a terrible strategy for any legislation.

There was the infamous or famous Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill, which the Minister of Public Safety said something to the effect that either people were with the government or they were with child pornographers, which may be an example of the worst framing in Canadian political history. There has probably been worse, but that was pretty bad. The Conservatives had to kill the bill.

We have also seen Bill C-10, Bill C-31, Bill C-38 and Bill C-42, all of these bills were so badly written that oftentimes the government had to amend them after having voted for them. After saying they were perfect and ramming them through, invoking closure and shutting down debate, the Conservatives got to committee and heard from people who actually understood the issue and realized the law they had written would be illegal and would not work or fix the problem that was identified, and so they had to rewrite it. That is the point of Parliament. That is the point of the work we do.

We have also seen bills that have been challenged at great expense before the courts. Former Bill C-2, the tackling violent crime act, with huge sections of the government's main anti-crime agenda, was challenged and defeated in court.

Bill C-38, arbitrarily eliminating backlog for skilled workers, was challenged and defeated.

Bill C-7, Senate term limits, was after years just now deferred to the Supreme Court. It is called “kicking it down the road”.

Also, there are Bill C-6, Bill C-33 and others, and there are those that are being crafted and debated right now that are going to have serious problems.

The essential thrust of our intention is in identifying the rules that govern us, and specifically Standing Order 13. The government has time and again talked about accountability before the Canadian people and talked about doing things better than its predecessors in the Liberal Party, the government that became so arrogant and so unaccountable to Canadians that the Conservatives threw it out of office. History repeats itself if one does not learn true lessons from history.

As I mentioned, Standing Order 27(1) already exists, and it allows the government to do exactly what we are talking about, but not starting until the last 10 sitting days. The Conservatives have said that there is so much on their so-called agenda that they have to do this early, allowing for less scrutiny, allowing for emergency debates to start at midnight, allowing for concurrence debates that come from committees to start at midnight and go until two, three or four o'clock in the morning.

This is contrary to the work of parliamentarians. If the Conservatives are in such a rush, why do they not negotiate? Why do they not actually come to the table and do what parliamentarians have done throughout time, which is offer the to and fro of any proper negotiation between reasonable people?

We have moved legislation forward. My friend across the way was moving an important motion commemorating war heroes. We worked with that member and other members to ensure the bill, which came from the Senate, made it through speedy passage.

Parliament can work if the Conservatives let it work, but it cannot work if they keep abusing it. Canadians continue to lose faith and trust in the vigour of our work and the ability to hold government to account. We see it time and again, and I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you have as well, in talking to constituents who say that they are not sure what goes on here anymore, that it just seems like government will not answer questions, that everyday they ask sincere and thoughtful questions and the Conservatives do not answer. Bills get shut down with motions of closure.

Let us look at the current government's record.

Thirty-three times, the Conservatives have moved allocation on legislation, an all-time high for any government in Canadian history. Through war and peace, through good and bad, no government has shut down debate in Parliaments more than the current one.

Ninety-nine point three per cent of all amendments moved by the opposition have been rejected by the government. Let us take a look at that stat for a moment. That suggests that virtually 100% of the time, the government has been perfectly right on the legislation it moves. All the testimony from witnesses and experts, comments from average Canadians, when moving amendments to the legislation before us, 99.3% of the time the government rejects it out of hand. It ends up in court. It ends up not doing what it was meant to do.

Ten Conservative MPs have never spoken to legislation at all. I will note one in particular. The Minister of Finance, who has not bothered to speak to his own bills, including the omnibus legislation, Bill C-38 and Bill C-45, which caused so much controversy. He did not bother to stand and justify his actions. I find it deplorable and it is not just me, Canadians as well, increasingly so.

This is my final argument. We cannot allow this abuse to continue. This pattern has consequences, not just for what happens here today or tomorrow, but in the days, weeks, months and years to come and the Parliaments to come. If we keep allowing for and not standing up in opposition to bad ideas and draconian measures, we in a sense condone them.

We say that Parliament should become less irrelevant. We think that is wrong. We think what the government is doing is fundamentally wrong. It is not right and left; it is right and wrong. When the government is wrong in its treatment and abuse of Canada's Parliament, that affects all Canadians, whatever their political persuasion. We built this place out of bricks and mortar to do one thing: to allow the voice of Canadians to be represented, to speak on behalf of those who did not have a voice and to hold the government of the day to account. Lord knows the government needs that more than anything. It needs a little adult supervision from time to time to take some of those suggestions and put a little, as we say, water in its wine.

It has the majority. This is the irony of what the government is doing. In moving more time allocation than any government in history and shutting down debate more than any government in history and using what it is today, it speaks to weakness not strength. The Conservatives have the numbers to move legislation through if they saw fit, but they do not. They move legislation, they say it is an agenda and they hold up a raft of bills.

Opposition Motion — 2013 Spring Report of the Auditor General of Canada

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as always it is a great honour to rise in this House and represent the people of Timmins—James Bay. I will be sharing my time with the member for Welland.

We are here today to make the simple request that the government admit that it lost track of $3.1 billion and work with us by bringing forward the documents so we can find out what happened to the money. We have heard a number of fascinating euphemisms, such as the money is not lost, it just has not been found, and that the money is horizontal. Perhaps that means it is under someone's bed. We heard that it will materialize. Is the government just expecting it to appear at some given time? What that speaks to is the sheer level of defiant incompetence within the government.

I remember when the Conservatives replaced the Liberal Party in 2006 and made a promise to Canadians. At that time, Canadians were frustrated by the years of arrogance coming from the Liberal Party and the numerous scandals. The Conservative government at the time made a promise that it would come in and clean up Ottawa. It was a simple promise that it would bring a standard of ethics back to Ottawa.

That is not what has happened. What we have seen is a level of defiant immaturity on the most basic issues of public policy. It is like the government created this carnival circus of spite and mediocrity and has attacked all of the existing standards of transparent accountability essential to ensuring democratic foundations.

At the centre of a lot of these scandals, we see the present Treasury Board president who bragged about destroying Canada's long form census. At the committee hearings he said that if one person in the country objected, that would be enough to destroy this system that was a gold standard around the world for gathering information. Then the government came out with Bill C-30, which shows that it is more than willing to intrude on the privacy of Canadians. In fact, it thought it was perfectly fine to spy on Canadians. Again we see that its decision on the long form census shows a level of managerial incompetence that is staggering.

As well, the member took $50 million of border infrastructure money and blew it on the most outrageous and needless projects, such as building gazebos, investing money in a sunken boat, and putting a lighthouse in a forest in northern Ontario, while telling senior citizens living in poverty that he was sorry but the cupboard was bare and these are tough times. However, the member took money that was meant for border infrastructure security and blew it in his riding. We now find out there is $2.1 billion of secret contracts being shovelled out the back door, again happening under the Treasury Board watch. The government is not even meeting the basic guidelines. It is taking money without any sense of accountability.

Now $3.1 billion has gone missing and the Conservatives are saying not to worry because it was spent well, but cannot tell us where it was spent. That is not a standard for accountability.

Canadians watching the government wonder what is happening in this nation. People do not expect government to do everything. They expect the government to play a role at times when people need it, such as with respect to pensions, infrastructure and health care. The role of government is to maintain a good standard of public policy that is accountable, transparent and can meet international norms.

Canadians expect government to unify and bring people across this great country together. However, what we have seen in this carnival circus of spite and mediocrity is that sneering has replaced leadership and that the 140-character attack has replaced debate. We are seeing this sense of political mendacity being moved throughout every level of the government, including its committees and backbenches. I have not even mentioned the fact that it is spending millions of Canadian taxpayer dollars to keep tabs on its own backbenchers. The level of suspicion and wastefulness is staggering.

We also see attacks by the Conservatives on science and international institutions. Canada once had a reputation as a country that was the model of openness and decency. Under the current government, Canada is now becoming a stranger to the world, a place where the government responds with suspicion and distrust, and representatives of the United Nations are being ridiculed.

We see the Conservative backbench ridiculing members of the United Nations who are dealing with the fact that in the far North, in the riding of the Minister of Health, for example, people cannot afford food.

The government attacks. It attacks international institutions. It has shut down Rights and Democracy. It has shut down the Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. It has attacked, relentlessly, the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, whose primary job is to provide documents to Parliament.

The Conservatives have turned this House of Commons into a place where the role of the MP to hold the government to account has been shut down through efforts to shut down debate time and time again. What we are left with is this culture of arrogance where the Conservatives believe they are entitled to their entitlement. They believe that their friends, like Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau, can get away with things because they are Conservatives.

It is a level of arrogance that even outstrips something the Liberals had, and I think that is staggering. It is an insult to the Canadian people who were promised that the Conservatives would do government differently.

Now $3.1 billion is missing. That is incompetence. It is incompetent management when the President of the Treasury Board says that he does not know where the money is but that it is okay, and that we should trust them. That is not what should be done in accountable government. In any western nation that would be considered an abomination. The Conservatives have taken the Berlusconi model and just made it meaner. It is not an acceptable standard.

We are asking the Conservatives what happened to the money, and they cannot explain it but they tell us all the good stuff they are doing. Meanwhile, they continue with their cuts. They continue wasting money on their ads. They continue wasting money spying on their own members.

They continue wasting money going after civil rights activists, like Cindy Blackstock, spying on her, going to court to fight basic things that most Canadians would consider issues of decency and fairness. Those are words that do not belong in this government's lexicon. It makes me think of Andrew O'Hagan's recent article on Maggie Thatcher, where he said that her legacy was to make England a seedier and greedier place. The kind of attitude that we are seeing from the government, where it has taken the level of partisanship to the level of almost psychosis, is dividing Canadians to change the channel on the fact of basic incompetent mismanagement.

I would suggest that if we were to go into any Tim Hortons in any place in this country, and we asked people if it was okay that the government cannot find $3.1 billion and whether they trusted the government, I do not think we would find a single Canadian who would answer, “Yes.”

The contempt that the Conservatives have for Canadian taxpayers' dollars, with their friends like Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau and with their attitude of their secret contracts, refusing to say whether it is tendered, refusing to come forward and produce documents showing how money is spent, is an example of why the government has lost touch with the Canadian people.

What we are asking for in the motion is fairly straightforward. We want to know where the documents are. Is it a case like that of the President of the Treasury Board, who took $50 million from the border infrastructure and funnelled it through his constituency office, burying the paperwork, and got away with it? He buried the paperwork. He hid the paperwork. He said, “Sorry, there is no paperwork.” That was not true. There was paperwork. He did it on homemade forms.

Were the Conservatives filling out homemade forms? They can blame the former Liberals for being part of it, but they should have changed the system. If there was a problem when the Liberals were doing it, they could have changed it but they did not.

Now we see this level of mendacity and this level of incompetence being shown to the Canadian people in a level of arrogance that shows they do not believe they are accountable or need to explain what happened to $3.1 billion. It is simply not acceptable.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

It's pretty obvious that in this day and age a lot of the illegal activity takes place on the Internet. You've talked about the web, etc. In the past this government tried to put in Bill C-30, which gave some important tools. That has been pulled back. There were some concerns.

Are there certain tools that would be useful to you in countering this type of illegal activity in the way of Internet surveillance, etc.?

That is something that can't be answered in the time that's left, but I'll throw it out for thought.

Combating Terrorism Act

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. This is a very important debate because the one thing we all share in the House is an abhorrence of the senseless and cruel violence we saw in Boston and elsewhere. We know where the Conservatives are coming from. Their agenda has always been clear.

The issue I have is that earlier I heard the Liberals compare Bill S-7 to Bill C-55. For the last two days, the Liberals have been saying that if the police ask for tools, we should give them the tools. One of the problems with that is there has to be judicial oversight. When we look at Bill C-30, which the Conservatives brought forward and was a widespread bill to allow all manner of intrusions into people's online private interests without warrant, based on the supposition or desire of a police authority, we see Canadians rejected it because it was an unnecessary tool, yet the government came back with Bill C-55, which narrowly defined wiretap provisions under judicial authority.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks the Liberals think it is okay to have judicial authority and review on wiretaps but allow people and their relatives to be held without warrant without any kind of oversight provisions that we consider important.

[D/Chief Peter Sloly]

I support everything Chief Hanson just said.

When we were all in horse and buggies and didn't have superhighways, when we built those highways we built a Highway Traffic Act that supported the laws. Now we have the information highway. We don't have a legislative framework for the massive amounts of traffic and the speed and volume around which people use that highway. We need that legislation.

My only suggestion is that when you write the next version of it, whatever you call it, you bring in privacy commissioner people who understand the privacy legislation at the earliest point and have a discussion. It relates to some degree to what Chief Hanson is doing in Calgary, and what we're doing here in Toronto, and what Dale McFee did in Prince Albert.

The number one barrier to the success of hub service delivery models—coordinated service delivery, wraparound service delivery, whatever you want to call it—is not the willingness of police and public sector partners and not-for-profits to partner with each other and look at these cases from a prevention standpoint. It's the legislative inability to share information across those silos. Information sharing and the lack of a legal framework around which we can share information about individuals or families or communities that are displaying risk factors stop us from properly analyzing and assessing the risk and deploying the right combination of service interventions to prevent that risk from becoming a real problem.

Information sharing broadly, not just in the concept of Bill C-30, is an area that government and police leaders and community leaders need to put their minds to.

The ultimate solution for Dale McFee was that he didn't need to create new legislation, but he brought in the privacy commissioners and legal people who had expertise, and they realized existing legislation provided them enough latitude to conduct operations at a higher level. They were just ignorant of the law.

[Chief Rick Hanson]

Thank you for that question.

First, lawful access has to be addressed by this country. It has to be addressed by Parliament. We're so far behind the other countries. This is about safety. This isn't about the police wanting to troll, to go fishing in somebody's e-mails. I get it that in Bill C-30, clause 16 was written abysmally. I get it. That was bad. Clause 16 is what killed Bill C-30.

The reality is that if we don't create legislation that recognizes how technology has evolved and allows the police just to do their job.... Trust me. We have way more important things to do than to find out who's sending salacious messages to their girlfriend or wife. We don't care. But what we do need is the ability to get, for instance, ISP information without a warrant so that we can save people's lives.

This is a true story. Somebody died in Calgary because they had an asthma attack. They used their cell phone to call 911, and they couldn't get out. Now, if it's a land line, you get what's called ANI-ALI, the automatic number indicator and automatic location indicator, but because it was a cell phone we didn't have that information. So that person died because they couldn't give their location, even though they were at home. We couldn't get subscriber information for that cell phone in time to get medical help to that person who died. That's just stupid in a technologically proficient country such as Canada.

We get suicide threats where people say they're going to kill themselves. The efforts we have to go through to try to find out where that came from.... This is about saving lives and doing the right thing. Bill C-30 is gone. It's off the table. It's dead. There has to be a new, lawful access piece of legislation that gets clause 16 out of there and is rewritten in a different way, that gets us the authorities we need, the power we need, to go and save lives, whether it's about cyberbullying or anything else. There are certain steps we need to have before we can go to the next step with search warrants and other things, such as production orders.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both for being here. Those were two very good, useful pieces of testimony.

Chief Hanson, I want to start with you. This goes to what we have just been talking about: cyber and social media. Obviously it's used to the disadvantage of law and order. We had something called Bill C-30, which isn't there anymore, that was trying to address using social media to the advantage of prevention, and so on.

Without putting you too much on the spot—I'm not sure if you're familiar with Bill C-30, but I'm sure you are—do you see that as having potentially very useful, positive measures? What do we bump up against with respect to charter challenges, from your viewpoint, or to the judiciary providing a challenge to the use of that?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour, as always, to rise in the House and represent the great people of Timmins—James Bay, who put their trust in me to address issues in the House.

Today on the Hill outside Parliament, I was reminded why I love this country so much. I think of Parliament Hill, that great public space where people go to demonstrate, play drums, play Frisbee and, yes, smoke pot to draw attention on 4/20. This is a public space and in that great public space today, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people gathered in support of the people of Boston. It shows that, fundamentally, we are a world community and care for each other in those moments. I watched the crowd go off to the sounds of Sweet Caroline, one of the great songs I used to sing at weddings, but that is another story.

I thought of Fenway Park in Boston, where Neil Diamond showed up and sang Sweet Caroline, showing that Boston has great spirit and that senseless violence will not deter us from being a civil society. Whether it is the horrific killings in Boston or the crazy gun nuts in Newtown or Colorado, a fundamental principle of our society is that we are not going to let them win by growing in fear and undermining the basic principles on which our society has been based. That principle is based on the right of citizens to be protected from terrorists, but also from arbitrary arrest and detainment. That is the principle for which the House of Commons stands.

It is unfortunate that, as we saw the great outpouring of goodwill on the Hill, we see this debate being brought forward again in the House. I refer to The Globe and Mail editorial that stated:

The two-day debate in Parliament on the Harper government’s proposed anti-terrorism legislation smacks of political opportunism, and it is regrettable that it will take place. The debate politicizes the Boston Marathon bombings....

It goes on to say:

More worrying is the fact that there are aspects of the proposed bill that raise questions about balancing civil liberties with the need to protect citizens. A wise course of action would be to postpone the bill’s final reading so that any emotional fallout from the Boston bombings doesn’t colour an important debate about public safety in Canada.

It is incumbent upon us when we see this political opportunism in the face of such tragedy that we do not just bend with the wind when the Conservatives say to bend. Our colleagues in the Liberal Party bent long ago on this issue. We need to raise the fundamental issues that are facing Canadians. We are talking about legislation that takes away basic fundamental rights: that people can be detained without trials and be made to go before special investigative judges without the right to remain silent. Those are fundamental principles.

If Parliament is going to undermine those basic rights on which democratic freedoms are based, there have to be some damn good reasons for it to take place. These original measures were brought forward by the Liberal government in the post-9/11 era. In the horror after 9/11, many people said that our traditional freedoms were outdated, that in the 21st century, torture, rendition and detention without trial were what we needed to do to protect society.

We saw many abuses of citizens' rights in the public realm under this sense of fear and panic, and the Liberal government at the time went along with that George Bush analysis and brought in the provisions that are being brought back. However, even at that time they were so unpalatable to the Canadian public that it had to guarantee there would be a sunset clause, that they would only be in effect for a period of time. Within that period of time, those provisions were never found to be necessary; not once. Yet the Liberals still want to break the promise they made to Canadians when they said they would sunset these clauses because they were such a threat to basic democratic and legal rights.

Now the Liberals are saying, “Let us do it; let us forget that sunset clause; let us forget the debate that happened in 2007 when the House of Commons said that those kinds of provisions would take away from people the fundamental rights of legal protection”. The House of Commons rejected that in 2007 and the Liberals voted with New Democrats. Now they are going back to where they wanted to be.

This is the party that always wraps itself in it. It was them; they represented the charter. However, these are fundamental charter issues.

They used the word "terrorism". It is certainly a very loaded word and a very dangerous issue we are facing. However, the issue with this bill is that, as parliamentarians, we have to make sure due diligence is done so that innocent people will not be drawn up into this net.

It was really telling that we brought forward a number of amendments to try to fix the bill and to work with the government to fix the bill, yet the Liberal members brought zero amendments. They just went along to rubber-stamp it. One of the motions we tried to bring forward was the issue of recognizance with conditions, where a person could be held by preventive arrest based on the word of a peace officer. That person could be held without a warrant and without charges. A person who knew somebody who may be a threat could also be held.

We tried to clarify the language so that we were really clear about what was intended, so that it was terror suspects and not just average citizens who were out there protesting in the streets or would get caught up in a sweep. The government refused that amendment, because it said it wanted a broad sweep. That is something that my hon. colleagues in the Liberal Party are supporting. They are saying that would pass a charter challenge. I certainly do not think so.

What preventive arrest and recognizance with conditions really mean is that we have to look at where it has been done. In the post-9/11 era, Maher Arar was arrested without any real evidence, went through rendition and was tortured. That was done under the nose of the then Liberal government, which thought that was the price we had to pay for freedom. We found out later that Maher Arar was completely innocent.

The Liberals are saying this does not mean that, if individuals serve a meal in a restaurant to a supposed terrorist, they will be arrested without a warrant. That is a ridiculous example. A more telling example would be to look at England during the 1970s and the horrific bombing campaigns that hit London and Birmingham. The Parliament at that time felt it had to get rid of the basic principles of habeas corpus and detention and trial. They arrested numerous innocent people, including Annie Maguire, whose story I have already mentioned today. She was just a housewife.

Not only Annie Maguire but seven members of her family were put in jail for 15 years based on no evidence, because they were thought to somehow be associated with people who were terrorists. The people they were associated with, their cousins, were innocent. We saw that a great miscarriage of justice was done with the Guildford bombings. People's lives were ruined, but it was considered okay at the time because they were all a threat. The crime then, of course, was that they were Irish in England.

However, civil society is based on the rule of law. It is based on ensuring that those situations do not happen.

I want to just talk about the term "terrorist". I was called a terrorist. I was denounced by the government of Mike Harris as an eco-terrorist because I was standing up against a massive garbage dump that many of the frontbenchers supported. As a citizen, when I was speaking up and protesting, I was being called an eco-terrorist. We see that the government uses that word all the time. If a person does not like a pipeline, he or she is an eco-terrorist.

What about all the young aboriginal activists who are on the streets? What about the people at the G20, who came from all over and got off the buses to participate in their demonstrations at the G20, which is their fundamental right? Under this law, a peace officer could believe that these people are possibly thinking of terrorist activity, and they could be held in detention for 24 hours without charges. Then, the peace officers could decide whether to let them go.

We saw what happened at G20 and that is exactly what they were doing. They were detaining people. They were kettling people. Of course, they missed all the bad guys who were running up and down Queen Street with black masks on. I do not know how they missed them, but they managed to run from Queen and Spadina all the way up Yonge Street, and a lot of innocent people were detained.

We have to be careful and we have to define exactly what we mean.

If police officers or people in authority are allowed to decide that they do not like a person and they think he or she poses a threat, then that person could be detained without a trial. In this bill, a person could be held for 12 months without a conviction.

The government says it needs this. However, in the years that these provisions were in effect, they were never used once. Under article 495 in the code, already, an order can be brought to have people appear before a judge, and a judge already has the ability to detain them, without releasing them on bail if he or she feels they are a threat. Those powers already exist.

We are talking about new powers that are much more arbitrary, that are much more subjective, that allow for people to be picked up and held without charges. That is a fundamental threat.

I would like to quote Paul Copeland, a lawyer with the Law Union of Ontario, who said in his opinion the provisions we were examining in committee would unnecessarily change our legal landscape in Canada. He said we must not adopt them. In his opinion they are not necessary. Other provisions of the code provide various mechanisms for dealing with such individuals.

It is unfortunate that within the opposition, the Liberals did not think to even challenge, not even clarify. There are some other amendments that are very much needed but that the government refused. For example, Bill S-7 is a law of general application. It cuts right across. The Young Offenders Act does not supercede Bill S-7. That is very concerning.

What happens to people who are under 18? Can they be detained? Can they be held? That happened in the case of Annie Maguire in Ireland. To say it would not happen is absurd. It has happened. Canada has legal obligations under the international Convention on the Rights of the Child to protect children.

The Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children proposed amendments to the bill to ensure that the implementation for children under 18 would consider the convention on the rights of children, including detention as a last resort. The government did not accept those amendments, and neither did the Liberal Party. That is serious.

What we are told here, and I have been here for a number of years, is that we are soft on this. What I find the government is soft on is the basic principle of the rule of law. If someone says “Hey, let us get rid of the rule of law; it will be more effective”. Certainly it would be more effective. Totalitarian states are always very effective in a certain thing because they do not have the rule of law.

We are different because we have the rule of law. I will point to Bill C-30 in this last Parliament, where the government came in with massive provisions to allow it undefined legal authorities to demand personal information on Internet users and cell phone users without warrants. The government thought that was perfectly okay. It needed this, and if we did not support it, then it said we were soft on child pornography.

What an ugly statement, considering the fact that the one who came forward, who was very soft on child pornography, was the architect of the whole Conservative revolution, Tom Flanagan. Tom Flanagan was soft on child pornography.

However, average Canadians who wanted to protect their privacy rights were attacked by the government. The other provisions within Bill C-30 at that time were forcing telecoms to put in spyware so that they could track people whenever they wanted.

My colleagues in the Liberal Party said nothing about it, because those were actually provisions that were brought forward under the Liberals.

At that time we saw a huge backlash, publicly. It was very impressive. Canadians care about their privacy rights. Canadians are not soft on child pornography. Canadians are not soft on terrorism. However, they were not going to sit back and allow the government to undermine basic rights, including the issue that if individuals are going to wiretap, they need warrants.

Recently we have seen the government come back with Bill C-55, which is on wiretap provisions. The government recognized the need to have warrants.

None of this precludes the issue that already within the court system of this country, if officers believe a life is danger, they can act. They can act without a warrant. That is a reasonable provision. If something is an emergency, if a child's life is at stake, they can act and they can then explain to the judge.

However, we are talking about something different. We are talking about someone who feels that a bunch of young activists from Montreal who come to Toronto for the G20 and get off the bus could be up to no good, and it is perfectly okay to grab them and put them in detention for 24 hours and then decide to maybe let them go. Maybe the demonstration will be over by then.

CSIS has been keeping tabs on young, aboriginal activists. Will they be drawn up in this because CSIS wants a broad sweep? Those were their terms: they wanted a broad sweep.

I tell people back home to really reflect on what the House is being asked to push through. The provisions of law have served us for hundreds of years. They are not arbitrary. We did not just come up with them. They exist because we have seen the abuse of civil rights. We have seen the abuse of individual rights, and we need the clear rule of law.

Even in the case of terrorism, we in the New Democratic Party say that we need the tools. If the government wants tools to go after cyber-terrorists, it should bring in a bill that goes after cyber-terrorists, but it should not bring in a bill that allows it to grab any information on anybody it wants at any time just because. Just because is not good enough.

I find it unfortunate that in the wake of the Boston bombing, that incoherent, horrific act, the government has been widely seen to be trying to force this through. It is wrapping itself in the grief of Boston to push through a bill, with its friends in the Liberal Party, that is undermining the basic rights of Canadians without having ever proven just cause.

In the years these provisions existed under the Liberals, before the Liberals agreed to a sunset clause, they were never used. We see that within the Criminal Code we have numerous provisions to give police the powers they need to go after the bad guys.

We as parliamentarians do not need to be frightened, told by the Conservatives that we all have to jump when they say jump, otherwise we are soft. We are not soft, and we are not soft-headed, unlike our colleagues over in the third party. We stand for the rule of law in this country, and if the government tries to fundamentally alter the political landscape of this country, it needs to prove it.

Second, it needs to stop politicizing it so that when amendments are brought before the committee to ensure, for example, that children are not drawn up in this wide sweep, the Conservatives will say that it is reasonable and that they will protect children.

We asked for amendments to clarify what are terrorists so that a guy in a uniform is not just picking some kid out of a crowd because he looks like he is about to do something. That is not the rule of law. That is what exists in totalitarian countries, and it is the difference between us and them.

Paul Calarco, of the national criminal justice section of the Canadian Bar Association, put it very clearly at committee. He said:

There is no question that the prevention of terrorist action is vital to preserving our society. This requires effective legislation, but also legislation that respects the traditions of our democracy.

Unfortunately, the bill fails to meet either goal.

The issue is the investigative hearings. Someone could be brought before a special judge, and the right to remain silent, which is a fundamental principle, would be taken away without any justification, without a necessary explanation as to why the individual was being stripped of these rights. It would just be on the subjective word of a legal authority.

As well, there is recognizance with conditions and preventative arrest, not just of the people who are suspected but of people who may know them, people who may be their relatives. A peace agent could arrest an individual without a warrant if he or she believed it was necessary and could hold the person for 24 hours. People could then be held for up to a year.

It is incumbent upon us, in the aftermath of this horrific and senseless act in Boston, to say that in civil society, we will not give in to knee-jerk reactions. We will not give in to fear. We will stand with the victims, but we will ensure that they are not used to undermine the very basis of what makes us a civil and progressive and democratic society.

Business of the House

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to rise to ask the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons the usual Thursday question about what is on the agenda for the rest of this week and for next week.

This week's calendar has once again shown the utter lack of a plan from the government. Of the five days the House was sitting, four have been assigned as opposition days.

Yesterday, the one day the Conservatives actually chose to debate government legislation, they demonstrated once again their total lack of respect and fundamental disregard for Parliament and democracy by shutting down debate after only a few hours.

This was, in fact, the 31st time, in this Parliament alone, the government used the guillotine of shutting down debate, setting the all-time record for any government in Canadian history, in only two years.

The pace the Conservatives are on right now is that once every seven days, the government moves a motion to shut down debate on some bill or another.

Perhaps we will have a chance to discuss the new bill announced earlier this week. This bill has to do with the NDP motion presented on a previous opposition day calling on the government to amend the Canada Elections Act to prohibit tactics like the ones used in Guelph in 2011 aimed at suppressing votes.

As soon as the Conservatives announced that this new electoral reform act was coming, they had to immediately announce that they had to scrap that same plan, as they discovered so many flaws in their own legislation.

This may be reminiscent for Canadians, because they had to change fundamental mistakes in their own immigration bill, Bill C-31. They never even got to Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill. It never saw the light of day. The Conservatives had to wait until its omnibus crime bill got to the Senate before they could fix the fundamental flaws, because they so rushed it through this place with closure.

The government is totally out of ideas and out of gas. I beg the hon. House leader across the way to give us something, anything, that shows us that the Conservatives are doing something for hard-working families and Canadians in our economy.

The Criminal Code

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, which has been introduced in response to the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Tse.

This bill is now at third reading and the NDP will support it. The bill finally corrects a number of previous errors. In response to the Supreme Court's decision in R. v. Tse, it amends the Criminal Code to provide for safeguards related to the authority to intercept private communications without prior judicial authorization under section 184.4 of the Code. The bill makes three provisions in particular.

First, it 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. Second, it provides that a person who has been the object of such an interception must be notified of the interception within a specified period. Third, it narrows the class of individuals who may make such an interception and, lastly, limits those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

We are genuinely pleased that the Conservative government has finally introduced Bill C-55. I say "finally" because the government has dragged its feet on this matter.

This bill refers to the obligation set by the Supreme Court, which revealed a deficiency. There was an imbalance between the right to privacy under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the right to security. There was thus an intrusion of privacy. That is why this bill now strikes a balance between the right to privacy and the right to security.

We now have accountability. Now no one may engage in wiretapping at will, without being accountable. A person who has been wiretapped must be notified within 90 days. Why is this aspect important? Now if an individual who has been wiretapped believes that his or her right to privacy under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been violated, that individual may institute legal proceedings against the individuals in question and seek redress. That will help limit overzealous peace officers.

In addition, the number of individuals who may conduct wiretap will now be limited, a fact that also helps strike a balance.

However, the bill is also a response to a total failure by the Conservative government after it introduced its infamous Bill C-30. That bill constituted a direct attack on people's right to privacy and certainly violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was also drafted by the Conservatives in a wholly improvised manner.

It is very important that the NDP remind the Conservatives how crucially important and even essential it is for them to scrutinize all new bills they table in the House of Commons in future. Those bills will have to be well analyzed and checked, and reviewed by lawyers to be sure that they comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution of Canada.

As a result, the Supreme Court will not be required to hear lengthy and costly cases that waste the precious time of all Canadians. That is essential, and I want to recall that point so that the Conservatives learn a good lesson from it.

It is very important to go through all the stages in a democratic process properly. Unfortunately, the Conservatives have a bad habit of wanting to do everything at lightning speed without due regard to the democratic process.

I need only recall its bad budget implementation legislation, Bills C-38 and C-45, omnibus bills of 400 pages each that prevent us from doing our democratic job and from getting to the bottom of things, just as the notorious Bill C-30 did.

In that case, the bill does not make it through the process to committee stage and is neither examined nor evaluated. If there are any deficiencies or aspects that do not comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or are unconstitutional, we wind up with a botched job and have to turn to the Supreme Court to assert our rights.

That is why the judgment in R. v. Tse is important. I hope it will finally teach the Conservative government a lesson so that it acts in a systematic and democratic manner in future in order to ensure compliance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution of Canada.

I will go into slightly greater detail on the subject of Bill C-55. This bill requires that an individual whose private communications have been intercepted in situations of imminent harm be notified of the situation within 90 days, subject to any extension of that period granted by a judge. The bill would also require annual reports to be prepared.

The preparation of annual reports on interceptions of telephone surveillance is truly important in determining whether abusive wiretap has taken place and in being able to monitor such wiretaps. The requirement to prepare an annual report will help keep an eye on all that. The reports will also enable other authorities, such as the Office of the Auditor General, to monitor what is being done in that regard to ensure that the act and the spirit of the act are complied with, that there are no abuses of justice and that the privacy of Canadian citizens is respected. Annual reports must be prepared on the manner in which information intercepted under section 184.4 is used.

These amendments would also limit the authorization that police officers are granted to use this provision. As I mentioned, all peace officers currently have access to it. Its use would thus be limited to the offences set out in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

It is very important that there be accountability for this wiretapping. We know that there may be threats or moments when a security breach can suddenly call for warrantless wiretaps. At that point, however, there must be accountability because there must be no serious abuses or violations of citizens' privacy.

On that point, I consider it important to note again that the NDP believes it has a duty to ensure compliance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that public safety is not undermined.

To sum up, it is important to remember that this new bill is no more than an update of wiretapping provisions that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. The court also set new parameters for the protection of privacy.

We believe that the bill meets the standards, and that Canadians have good reasons for apprehension about the Conservatives’ bill with respect to privacy. As I said, their track record in this area is not very impressive. Fortunately, this bill brings balance to the earlier imbalance. We must continue to be vigilant, however.

The NDP will continue to be vigilant with respect to the Conservatives’ bills. In the past, we have seen abuses. We saw abuse in the infamous Bill C-30. We have also seen the familiar dichotomy that the Conservatives love to present, whereby everything is either black or white, but there is no grey, so that is completely false. Bills must be referred to committee for study.

I am happy that my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou has returned to hear my comments, because he quite rightly mentioned just now the importance of committee work, and how essential committee work is to a sound democracy. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Like my hon. colleague from Beauport—Limoilou, I know how very important this little-known work is. We meet with experts, and we propose amendments and additions to bills to ensure that they are as close to perfect as possible, that they respect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution, and that they will be worthwhile and improve the well-being of Canadians in our wonderful country.

In closing, we find Bill C-55 well constructed. We appreciate it, because it finally brings balance between privacy and the need for security. That does not mean that we support all of the Conservatives’ bills. On the contrary, they have introduced abusive and infamous bills in the past. Bill C-30 was a horror—need I say again— because it was an absolute threat to people’s privacy. It was a purely conservative bill in the ideological sense of the term. It was an ideological vision.

I know that members who sit on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights criticized Bill C-30 repeatedly. I further believe that my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou was a member of the committee at the time. No, not quite. However, I know that other colleagues, for example my colleague from Gatineau, worked very hard to criticize the infamous Bill C-30, which was a genuine threat to privacy.

Bill C-30 regrettably demonstrated that the Conservatives can often say outrageous things. Truly outrageous things were said in the House when Bill C-30 was introduced. There were incredible dichotomous comments such as “either you are in favour of security and safety or you are on the side of the pedophiles”. It was a horrible speech with no room for grey areas or other comments. After all that, they backed down on Bill C-30 and introduced a bill that made sense—Bill C-55. I do not often congratulate the Conservatives. They should make the most of it today.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. Obviously I agree with what she says. In the case of Bill C-30, there was a lack of vision, a lack of consultation and a lack of transparency. Fortunately, this piece of legislation was scrapped.

As far as Bill C-55 goes, it took the Supreme Court ruling on the unconstitutionality of the bill for the government to once again set about doing its homework.

Unquestionably, the invasion of privacy is a critically important consideration. Since this bill respects the rule of law and strikes a balance between privacy concerns and investigations that can be carried out, I think it is a step in the right direction and that is what is important.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her excellent discourse which once again was imbued with a certain sense of social justice. Speaking of justice, is she not concerned that this bill was drafted in reaction to Bill C-30 which was scrapped because it violated the right to privacy, further to a Supreme Court decision?

In point of fact, this bill prompted cries of outrage from civil society, even from members on the other side of the House. Consequently, 11 months were needed to produce Bill C-55 because the Conservatives were slow to introduce provisions in compliance with the Constitution and with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Is my hon. colleague concerned that the Conservatives are tabling bills without first ensuring that they are in compliance with the Constitution and the charter?

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code.

First and foremost, this legislation will make it possible to comply with the Supreme Court decision in R. v. Tse, dated April 13, 2012. Our highest judicial authorities have thus determined that wiretaps in situations of imminent harm can be justified under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms without judicial authority, provided law enforcement is governed by an accountability mechanism.

Section 184.4, which became law in 1993 and allows wiretapping without a warrant, did not meet this requirement. For that reason, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and her colleagues declared it unconstitutional.

In their judgment, they emphasized that in certain circumstances, the interests of individuals may have to yield temporarily for the greater good of society. However, the Supreme Court justices deplored the fact that section 184.4 fails to provide a mechanism for accountability, and more particularly, notice to persons whose private communications have been intercepted, and contains no accountability measures to permit oversight of the use of the power.

It is important to note that this judgment gave the government a year in which to comply with their decision, which means three weeks from now. I wish to point out that the NDP has been urging the Conservatives for months to take action in this matter. I have some difficulty in believing that it took the minister’s officials eleven months to produce this bill. I rather tend to believe that, once again, instead of taking the lead, consulting interested parties and gathering suggestions from the opposition, the Conservative government decided to wait until the last minute to introduce its bill.

Be that as it may, we are assured that Bill C-55 meets the requirements of R. v. Tse. We found it necessary that this legislation should comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and respect Canadian legal principles. We also wanted it to address the concerns of Canadians about respect for privacy, and the balance between public safety and individual rights.

Bill C-55 will limit the warrantless interception of private communications to the offences specified in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

Consequently, the practice will be restricted to offences such as high treason, the possession or use of explosives, terrorist activity or corruption. We believe this section will make it possible to meet the requirements of R. v. Tse, to the extent that it provides a more restrictive framework for the application of section 184.4.

This bill will also limit the kinds of person authorized to conduct interceptions of this kind without judicial authority. Only police officers will be able to do so, which again places limits on aspects involving the privacy of Canadians.

Another very important aspect is that Bill C-55 requires the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the attorney general of each province to report on the interception of private communications made under section 184.4. A number of things will henceforth be made public that are not, as matters stand now. These include the number of interceptions made, and the number of persons targeted. We will also be able to obtain information on the offences in respect of which interceptions were made, the methods of interception used and the results of the interceptions.

The NDP supports this aspect, which has been put forward in response to the Supreme Court judgment. We have always argued in favour of healthy privacy practices and we constantly ask the government to be transparent in many respects. Clause 3 of the bill clearly addresses that position.

Lastly, Bill C-55 provides that any person who was the object of an interception shall be given notice in writing within 90 days. This last measure will also respond to the imperatives identified by R. v. Tse. We believe it goes without saying that individuals whose privacy has been affected by the application of section 184.4 of the Criminal Code are fully entitled to be informed of that state of affairs.

However, we are concerned about the procedures that could extend notification periods to up to three years. This is an aspect that will clearly be discussed in committee in order to preclude any judgment that would require parliamentarians to redo their homework.

In light of these aspects, I believe that parliamentarians in the House should pass Bill C-55 at third reading. First of all, this legislative framework addresses the loopholes identified by the Supreme Court judgment. As the notice issued by the highest judicial authority in the land will expire in three weeks, it is also essential that we move forward quickly with this updating of Canada's Criminal Code. Bill C-55 also strikes a fair balance between security imperatives and respect for privacy.

Lastly, the proposed amendments were supported in committee by several representatives, including the Criminal Lawyers' Association, the Canadian Bar Association and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. However, the Conservatives' obligation to move forward with Bill C-55 must send a clear message, particularly after Bill C-30 on the interception of electronic communications was withdrawn.

The security of Canadians is essential, but the right to privacy is also important. Our duty as parliamentarians is to strike a balance between those two things. Bill C-55 is a good example, one that proves it is possible to guarantee the security of our fellow citizens while providing an effective framework for the powers conferred on our security services.

However, it is unfortunate that the Conservatives defend purely ideological decisions until they are backed into a corner by public opinion, the players on the ground or judicial authorities. That is the real problem with this government. Our duty as the official opposition is to monitor the government's actions to ensure that measures such as those contained in Bill C-30 or section 184.4 are not secretly brought forward by regulation.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, of course we are rushing to do this.

Earlier in her speech on the bill, my colleague from Gatineau likened this to students preparing for a final exam at the last minute and then getting the results. This is what has happened here.

The point is what has happened has happened. We should have had more time. However, we are here and will support the bill because it certainly is an improvement on what we saw in Bill C-30 that had been introduced.

The member's observation is very important.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Saint-Lambert.

The way I understand this bill, it is a reaction to Bill C-30, which was introduced previously, and although it was thought that it would solve problems related to wiretaps, it did not, and proved to be a mistake. Therefore, we now have another bill, which tends to have a more balanced approach to this whole issue, as many of my colleagues have said.

I know we have heard it before, but I will reiterate that what this bill would basically do is amend the Criminal Code to provide a response to the Supreme Court's decision in R. v. Tse on safeguards related to the authorization to intercept private communications without prior judicial authorization under section 184.4. In other words, it would provide safeguards for when this kind of action takes place.

It would require 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. I am not a lawyer, but I am a Canadian citizen, so I understand that when this type of thing happens, it is important for people to know. If somebody is wiretapping my phone, then I should certainly know it has happened, whether it is justifiable or not. At least I would know and could react appropriately. That is a good point in this bill.

It would also provide that a person who has been the object of such an interception be notified of the interception within a specified period.

It would narrow the class of individuals who can make such an interception, which obviously makes sense, and would limit those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

In my analysis of this bill, it is very sound. This legislation is an updated version of the wiretapping provisions that the Supreme Court has deemed to be unconstitutional. It would establish new parameters for the protection of privacy, and my party believes this legislation complies with those standards.

In the R. v. Tse case, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that authorization of the emergency power to intercept without authorization by the court in situations of imminent harm could be justified under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Supreme Court held that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code, enacted in 1993, was unconstitutional because it did not include any accountability measures, and it gave Parliament until April 13, 2013, to amend the provision to make it constitutional. It seems we are sort of just under the wire, but it looks as if we will make it, as it is not yet April 13.

I would like to refer to some of the comments that my colleague from Gatineau made when she spoke on the bill a while ago in the House. She mentioned that the Supreme Court handed down a decision in the R. v. Tse case and urged colleagues in the House to read the decision before voting on Bill C-55. She said there is no real need to read all 50 pages of the decision, but at least the summary, because it gives a good explanation of the problem arising from the section on invasion of privacy. She said that, believe it or not, that is what it is called. In the Criminal Code the section concerns invasion of privacy.

Just as an aside, as a concerned citizen, I say it is important that if there is an invasion of privacy, there is justification for it and the person whose privacy is invaded knows exactly what is going on. Once again, this bill tackles that concern.

My colleague from Gatineau went on to say that the 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. She said the authorities must ensure that the circumstances in question actually constitute an invasion of privacy.

We live in a democratic society, not a totalitarian state. There has to be justification when there is an invasion of privacy.

She went on to say that most of the section provided some checks and required the Crown and the police to obtain certain authorizations, and that section 184.4 had proven to be problematic in this regard because it was rather unclear about wiretapping and that unless an indictment were filed against the people in question, they would never know they were being wiretapped. The way I understand it, this would be meant to fix that loophole in the Criminal Code.

What does section 184.4 of the Criminal Code address? It states:

A peace officer may intercept, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, a private communication where

(a) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that the urgency of the situation is such that an authorization could not, with reasonable diligence, be obtained under any other provision of this Part;

(b) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that such an interception is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm to any person or to property; and

(c) either the originator of the private communication or the person intended by the originator to receive it is the person who would perform the act that is likely to cause the harm or is the victim, or intended victim, of the harm.

The details of R. vs. Tse are as follows:

This appeal [concerned] the constitutionality of the emergency wiretap provision, s. 184.4 of the Criminal Code. In this case, the police used s. 184.4 to carry out unauthorized warrantless 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. Approximately 24 hours later, the police obtained a judicial authorization for continued interceptions, pursuant to s. 186 of the Code. The trial judge found that s. 184.4 contravened the right to be free from unreasonable search or seizure under s. 8 of the Charter and that it was not a reasonable limit under s. 1. The Crown has appealed the declaration of unconstitutionality directly to [the Supreme Court].

The appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court.

After debating this matter in the House, we sent the bill to committee. A number of witnesses spoke about the bill at a meeting held on March 6 of this year.

I would like to share what Michael Spratt, of the Criminal Lawyers' Association, had to say:

...the CLA is in favour of this legislation. The CLA generally supports legislation that is modest, fair, and constitutional, and Bill C-55 does an admirable job of incorporating the comments of the Supreme Court of Canada from the case of R. v. Tse. However, there are some areas that the committee may wish to examine and may wish to have some further reflection upon.

He added that:

Bill C-55 is a positive step forward in that it seeks to provide a better balance between the protection of the public and the protection of the public's privacy.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech.

Obviously, with Bill C-30, which fortunately was trashed, there was outrage from the public, who relayed their concerns about wiretapping and individual freedoms. However, Bill C-55 strikes a certain balance between personal freedom and public safety. He very eloquently talked about the importance of accountability. The bill sets out the duty to inform individuals targeted by interception and also the duty to report to Parliament, including on the use of interception under section 184.4.

Could my colleague comment on those two seemingly very important points?

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-55 on third reading today. We will now be able to witness the culmination of this process and, at last, correct a big problem in the Criminal Code.

Something was revealed in a court case. In R. v. Tse, the appeal challenging the constitutionality of the emergency wiretapping provisions under section 184.4 of the Criminal Code, police officers simply tried to use a provision in the Criminal Code. They no doubt did so in good faith, pending judicial authorization. They sensed that there was a relative urgency, but that urgency was unfortunately unfounded in the view of the judge who heard the appeal.

First, it must be understood that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code is an exceptional provision, which means that it is not to be used under just any circumstances. That is the most important point to bear in mind. Other sections of the Criminal Code—sections 186 and 188, if my memory serves me—make wiretapping options available to police officers so they can monitor communications in other circumstances without judicial authorization. Section 184.4 makes it possible to address the exceptional nature of a really serious emergency with immediate and significant consequences for an individual contemplated by the section. In such instances, it permits police officers to act on their own initiative without that other authorization.

We can all agree that this applies to only a very limited number of cases under the Criminal Code.

In R. v. Tse, as I said a little earlier, police officers had obtained judicial authorization to intercept communications under section 186 of the Criminal Code 24 hours later. Their action was therefore warranted. They had grounds to continue intercepting communications. They were able to show the judge that it was entirely justifiable. However, again according to the judge who heard the appeal respecting the provision's constitutionality, that did not prevent the officers who used section 184.4 when they began wiretapping from violating the right guaranteed by section 8 of the charter to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure.

The other very important aspect is that this was not a reasonable limit under section 1. This is important because the court ultimately held that the police officers had exceeded the authority granted them under section 184.4. Consequently, there was a problem. The government department appealed the ruling of unconstitutionality directly to the Supreme Court, which dismissed the appeal. That put an end to the debate.

The problem is that the government department had barely one year from that point to remedy the situation. I say “barely one year”, because in a few days’ time, the deadline will be upon us when section 184.4 could potentially be invalidated if the government fails to act. That is one problem. How is it that in March 2013, nearly one year after the government department was presented with the facts, it had yet to take action or introduce a bill like Bill C-55 to remedy the situation? That is the first question I have, one that calls attention to the government’s responsibility in this matter. That is a problem.

Bill C-55 raises another interesting consideration. As it now stands, section 184.4 authorizes a peace officer, in exceptional circumstances, to intercept, using an electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, a private communication when certain conditions are present.

However, the definition of “peace officer” is quite broad and extends to persons other than police officers. For example, the serving mayor of a municipality could be considered a peace officer. This was another problem that Bill C-55 was set to remedy. We are reasonably satisfied that in the bill, the term “police officer” is defined and that this definition is included in section 184.4, replacing the definition of “peace officer”.

This amendment limits the use of this very exceptional provision to those rare instances where no other measures are possible, for example, where it is impossible to obtain a warrant from a judge and where the situation is urgent. The amendment also limits the use of this exceptional provision to persons belonging to a very specific, authorized category of individuals.

In that regard, the bill is very satisfactory. After receiving some assurances from the government department, we expressed our satisfaction and voiced our support for this measure. The NDP was not alone in doing so. Various groups that testified before the committee also expressed their satisfaction at seeing section 184.4 amended to limit its use and clarify its exceptional nature. This is a significant step forward.

Another consideration raised in the appeal is the question of accountability in connection with the use of section 184.4. A very significant problem was flagged. The exceptional use of this measure can be limited to a very specific category of officers. However, some kind of evidence that this provision has been used must exist. A person who is the object of an interception under this section cannot be totally unaware that this measure is being used in certain instances. This is another important matter to consider. We must not lose sight of the fact that this provision or other means of court-authorized interception can be used in the course of an investigation, before a case goes to court. This means that if there are no accountability measures after the fact, the person who is the object of an interception will never know that his communications are being intercepted or will only find out about it by chance, depending on how circumstances play out.

This is something that the court found to be unacceptable and intolerable and that had to be corrected immediately. This is another measure of satisfaction. That is no secret; I have mentioned it before. Bill C-55 can be used as a procedural model for the government for presenting bills that are in an acceptable form consistent with the charter. This would make it possible for the government to get the approval of all members of the House, and that is the goal after all.

Clearly, the government will never be able to get the House's approval on every debate or every bill it introduces. That is part of doing business here and that is fine. That is not the problem. The important thing is that the government listens to and shows respect for the various opinions that are expressed.

The concerns that we raised with regard to Bill C-55 have pretty much been resolved. In terms of accountability, the Crown used an existing provision of the Criminal Code, namely, section 195, which is two pages long.

This section already provided for the following:

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness shall, as soon as possible after the end of each year, prepare a report relating to

(a) authorizations for which he and agents to be named in the report who were specially designated in writing by him for the purposes of section 185 made application, and

(b) authorizations given under section 188 for which peace officers to be named in the report who were specially designated by him for the purposes of that section made application,

and interceptions made thereunder in the immediately preceding year.

The bill broadens section 195 in order to cover section 184.4 and establish this accountability, which ensures that agents—police officers in this case—do not use section 184.4 whenever and however they want. I am not trying to suggest anything; I simply want to say that this creates a certain amount of self-regulation, which makes it possible to avoid potential abuse, something no one wants to see.

Clearly, the NDP is not alone in expressing its satisfaction with the addition of the section 195 reporting requirements. Michael Spratt of the Criminal Lawyers' Association said that he supported this. He said:

...given the distinction between section 184.4 and the other intercept provisions, something more than the section 195 requirement may be considered by this committee.

We will see how it works out in practice, but at least an essential basic framework has been established to keep the public informed, and for cases in which no charges are laid, those who have been wiretapped will be informed. This protection is perfectly legitimate.

While this is not exactly high praise, I must admit that the government did a good job, even though it was forced to do so as a result of R. v. Tse. There is no hiding the fact that its arm was being twisted. The government is unfortunately not a very good student. I want to remind the House of some unpleasant memories of Bill C-30, which was luckily set aside, but which is not yet completely dead. Sadly, it haunts us still.

Bill C-30 illustrates this government’s errant ways. It is a serious matter. The Minister of Public Safety managed to highly polarize debate by saying that anyone who had any concerns or potential quarrels with Bill C-30 was on the side of the pedophiles. This kind of behaviour on the part of the minister is inappropriate. It is absolutely unbelievable!

Let us hope that the Minister of Public Safety will in due course listen to reason. I hope that he will, because he has regrettably been stuck in a rut for many years now. It is very difficult for a person to change himself and improve his behaviour. It is a serious problem that definitely poisons debate and the atmosphere in the House and the committees.

I witnessed his behaviour first-hand at meetings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. When government members of this committee felt they were losing control of the debate, they would lose their self-control, hurl insults at us and ultimately paralyze debate and consideration of these bills. It was truly unbelievable!

It was really counterproductive and particularly ironic. In 2008, the Prime Minister, claiming that the House and committees were dysfunctional, called a general election, contrary to Canada's fixed date election legislation. The tables certainly turned. It would be funny if it were not so sad. But it was a fact of life and sadly, the people were taken hostage and had to bear the consequences.

I am now going to speak on another matter on which I would like to tip my hat to the government. I have a few compliments once again, but first, some criticism. Sadly, when I sat on various committees, I observed that the government too readily discredited witnesses whose opinions were inconsistent with what the government wanted. This is truly distressing. Fortunately, for Bill C-55, the witnesses were more or less in favour of its adoption, raising only minor details and observations about specific features of the bill.

I want to tell the House that during the examination of private members' bills brought forward by Conservative members, some witnesses were practically accused of crimes for disagreeing. I can tell this House that some witnesses were questioned about the fact that they had donated funds to the NDP, as though that were a crime. How is a lawful political contribution a crime? Can someone explain that to us? I find that completely unbelievable. This is one very specific example of something completely counterproductive that happened in committee. Unfortunately, the government repeatedly uses this kind of tactic to try to get its agenda approved, even though the law is basically a mess.

It is hard to criticize someone for defending their point of view when they are so sure they are right. On the contrary, I admire and respect people who defend their point of view and who are convinced, based on the information they have and their own personal experiences, that they are right, and who try to persuade a political opponent to adopt that point of view. That is completely understandable. Unfortunately, the current government has a tendency to become trapped in its own ideology, to lock itself in a room with just a bare light bulb, to stare at its own navel and try to force other people to adopt whatever opinion it thinks is the absolute truth.

After giving specific examples, after calling out the government on some of its inappropriate behaviour and after saying in good faith that there is a way for us to work together—we reached out to the government repeatedly—I hope it will regard Bill C-55 as an example to follow and that it will finally respect all Canadians, that is, all of the legitimately elected representatives who sit in the House, in order to work productively, rationally and respectfully, to hold real debates in the hopes of achieving better results.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to stand and speak to Bill C-55 on behalf of our party and on behalf of the constituents of Parkdale—High Park. We are glad to see that the government is finally responding to an important obligation, as illustrated not only through our Charter of Rights and Freedoms but also as dictated by the Supreme Court of Canada.

It is ironic that based on a Supreme Court decision, the government has until April 13, 2013, to comply, and it is scrambling to get this legislation passed. It is ironic, because I am the NDP's finance critic, and I have seen over the last year how the government has brought closure and time allocation time and time again to limit debate. I have seen how it has rammed through legislation on a whole range of Conservative priorities and how it has bundled seemingly disparate pieces of legislation into omnibus budget bills and has pushed them through the House with amazing speed.

Yet here is an obligation to protect civil liberties, an obligation to comply with our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and an obligation to protect the privacy rights and civil liberties of Canadians, and we have seen the government dragging its heels over the last year. I can only conclude that when it comes to protecting the oil industry, the government works with amazing speed, but when it comes to protecting civil liberties, it seems to not have the same amount of speed.

Nevertheless, we are glad to see Bill C-55 before the House, and we believe that it is essential that it be passed. The bill is about wiretapping. It addresses the public's concern that the ability of our security and police forces to engage in wiretapping is a right that is balanced between personal freedom and the need to ensure quick action when public safety is at risk. It is the ability of citizens to not have undue surveillance of them or to at least be informed if they are the targets of such surveillance.

What are we talking about with respect to wiretapping? This goes to section 184.4 of the Criminal Code. Under that section, a peace officer would be allowed to intercept and essentially wiretap private communications if the peace officer believed, on reasonable grounds, that the urgency of the situation was such that authorization could not be sought with reasonable diligence or obtained under any other provision, meaning that a delay would cause serious harm to public safety. It would also be allowed in a situation where the peace officer had reasonable grounds to believe that wiretapping, or an interception of private communications, was necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm to persons or property and that the originator of the private communication or the person intended by the originator to receive the communication was the person who would perform the act that would be likely to cause or harm the intended victim.

We are talking about a potential situation where a crime or public harm could take place and where there would not be the normal ability to seek proper approvals from the proper authorities.

This dates back to a 1993 law that has been tested by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found that, in fact, the law was overstepping the rights of Canadians under the charter. It gave the government a year, up until April 13, to correct the legislation. That is what we are dealing with today.

It is important that electronic surveillance, or wiretapping, is a measure that must include oversight and accountability so that the public is protected. The court has now said that we should expect nothing less.

We have studied the bill in the public interest and with respect to the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We note that the government had intended with a previous bill, Bill C-30, and with other pieces of legislation to extend the rights of the state to intercept private communications. I remember one quote from the public safety minister, which became rather famous, which was that if we did not support the bill on that matter, we were with him or with the child pornographers. That, of course, was horrifying to many Canadians who just wanted to make sure that their privacy rights were protected.

We believe that these changes are reasonable and that they are compliant with the Supreme Court decision. We note that there are many who have validated this position. They were heard at the committee studying the bill. The Criminal Lawyers' Association, the Canadian Bar Association, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and other organizations all testified that the bill would lead the government to comply with the Supreme Court decision, and they all supported these changes.

In essence, the changes would require 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, which I outlined earlier. They would provide that a person who has been the object of such an interception would be notified within a specified period. They would narrow the class of individuals who could make such an interception and would limit those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

Bill C-55 is an updated version of the wiretapping provisions the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional. The court has established new parameters for the protection of privacy, and we believe that the legislation complies with those standards.

Canadians have good reason to be concerned about other measures the Conservatives were putting forward that would expand the government's ability to intercept communications. Their record has not been terrific on this.

We are in favour of Bill C-55 in that it upholds the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We support these measures.

We are concerned that the government left the introduction of the bill for so long while it was gutting environmental provisions, changing the Navigable Waters Protection Act and cutting food inspectors and CRA investigators. These provisions were rammed through under its budget implementation act. Yet something the government is compelled to do through a Supreme Court decision it left until the 11th hour.

I see that my time is up. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this and to defend the human rights and civil liberties of our constituents and Canadians.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague on his speech.

In his speech, he referred to the R. v. Tse decision of the Supreme Court of Canada rendered on April 13, 2012.

I would like him to say more about how this decision took into account the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I would also like him to speak about the impact of this new iteration of the bill, Bill C-55, which complies with the rule of law—whereas Bill C-30 was the very opposite of this new bill.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park.

Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, provides safeguards related to the authority to intercept private communications without prior judicial authorization under section 184.4 of the Criminal Code. Among other things, this enactment 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. This was a glaring omission in the previous bill.

It also provides that a person who has been the object of such an interception must be notified of the interception within a specified period, which has yet to be defined. We are probably going to need another case before the Supreme Court to define that period. The bill also narrows the class of individuals who can make such an interception and limits those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code. I will spare hon. members the hundreds of offences listed in that section.

These measures are the Conservative government's answer to the humiliating failure, for the Minister of Public Safety, of Bill C-30, and to the Supreme Court decision in R. v. Tse. Despite the issues we have raised, we will support this new version at third reading stage, because the Supreme Court response provides enough new parameters to protect privacy, and because we really believe that this bill complies with those standards.

For the NDP, basic human rights are essential to ensuring that justice is done in this country. We are receptive to all initiatives that are in line with that. Unfortunately, Canadians have seen this Conservative government make many errors in judgment since it got, or rather borrowed, a majority in the last election. Consequently, they have good reasons to be concerned and even worried about Conservative bills that deal with their privacy.

The Conservatives' record in this regard is less than stellar. However, we remain convinced that Bill C-55, the Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act, respects the rule of the law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Which is more important? Protecting privacy to safeguard individual interests, or invading privacy by means of various provisions in the interest of national public safety? In both instances, where do the limits lie? These questions are essential to understanding today's debate on this bill.

Unfortunately, owing to a shortage of information about certain issues, we will not be discussing section 184.4, particularly its excessive scope resulting from the power it can give peace officers other than police officers. On this point, we do not believe that Bill C-55 contains enough definitions to delineate the scope of certain adjustments to the section in question. Who can be a peace officer? Can it be a private agency? Who precisely can it be? More details should have been provided about this to prevent the Supreme Court from having to redefine a number of matters in a specific case.

R. v. Tse challenged the constitutionality of the emergency wiretapping provisions allowed under section 184.4 of the Criminal Code.

The presiding judge ruled that this provision breached the right guaranteed by section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, namely that everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure. However, the Supreme Court justice in this case also ruled that emergency wiretaps without the authorization of the court could be justified under the charter. Which brings us back to the same question. What is more important, the right to privacy or national public safety? The answer is not clear. Eventually, we will need an answer.

According to the decision, section 184.4 of the Criminal Code is unconstitutional because it does not have accountability measures with respect to wiretapping. That is why the court specified a time limit for us, the legislators, to amend the provision to make it constitutional.

The proposed amendments are a direct response to this decision. The bill would require notification within 90 days to any person whose private communications have been intercepted in circumstances of imminent harm. The bill would also require the preparation of annual reports on the use of wiretapping under the section in question. The amendments would also limit police authorization to use this provision and would restrict its use to the offences listed at length in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

The key question in all of this is whether the power conferred under section 184.4 of the Criminal Code establishes a constitutional balance between an individual's right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure and society’s interest in preventing serious harm. We know, since 9/11, the Air India attack and a number of other major incidents that many issues have been raised with respect to wiretapping and the disclosure of information through these procedures.

Correctly interpreted, these conditions would ensure that the power to intercept private communications without judicial authorization can only be exercised in urgent situations in order to avoid serious harm. This clause strikes a fair balance between the rights guaranteed under section 8 of the charter and society's interest in preventing serious harm. The legislation does not provide for accountability though, in that it does not set out a mechanism for oversight of the police use of the power.

A troubling aspect of section 184.4 is the fact that a person does not need to be notified if their private communications have been intercepted. That is why section 184.4 violates section 8 of the charter. However, we feel that Bill C-55 is a sufficient response to Bill C-30 and to all of the questions that were raised.

To conclude, we have long been calling on the Conservative government to introduce a bill that responds to the ruling in R. v. Tse. This response is very last-minute. Why did the government wait so long? Why did it not listen to what all the witnesses in committee had to say about this issue again? Debate must take place here, but also in committee. We have a wonderful justice critic—the member for Gatineau. She does an excellent job on the committee and in her role.

Once again, why the last-minute response? Why not listen to the stakeholders? We know that technology is evolving so quickly that there will still be work to do in the coming years.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that Bill C-30 was a bit of a debacle for the government. Certainly Canadians and we in the opposition let the government know that it was. The question is why the government waited so long to deal with a relatively straightforward and simple issue of public safety. I am not really sure why that was.

I have a question for the government based on my hon. friend's question: will the government's priorities on justice bills be based on the charter and the Constitution rather than on a Conservative political agenda? I say that because Bill C-30 was certainly a political agenda, as opposed to thinking about what the ramifications would be for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or our Constitution.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his excellent speech and my other colleague who previously spoke to the issue.

They did a good job of illustrating the fact that Bill C-55 finally gives Canadians what they want and corrects a flaw that existed in the previous bill.

Bill C-30, which was introduced by the Conservative government, was horrible and threatened Canadians to a certain extent because it would have invaded their privacy.

Does my colleague not believe that the Conservative government should have shown more leadership and taken more care to ensure that Bill C-30 complied with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution?

Does he not think that we should from now on always ensure that the Conservative government respects the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it drafts legislation?

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are certainly pleased that the government members listened to Canadians and the concerns they had about Bill C-30. I do wonder, however, why the government dug in its heels for so long before admitting that it was wrong and working with the opposition to make it right. However, it has happened, and we are certainly pleased that it has.

To go on a bit further, I will add a couple of extra points concerning how this bill would work and why it is important that these changes have been made.

I talked about the added safeguards that constitute notification and reporting and I talked about the legislation ensuring that there would be 90 days' notice given after a person's private communication has been intercepted in situations of “imminent harm”, which are two important words.

There is also an annual reporting section in this bill, which is important. These amendments would limit the authority of the police to use certain provisions and would restrict their use to offences under section 183. The amendments would narrow the scope of the bill, which I also think is a good thing.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River, who very clearly stated the NDP's position on this issue, and explained why we were going to support this much more balanced and much fairer bill.

According to my colleague, how does Bill C-55 offer better oversight and accountability than what was proposed in Bill C-30?

Our strong opposition to Bill C-30 was due in part to the lack of fine detail in comments by the Minister of Public Safety. We had some concerns about the bill. Yet all those who opposed it were regarded as people who almost condoned pedophilia, whereas we were requesting greater respect for the right to privacy.

In Bill C-55, we now find mechanisms for oversight and accountability to ensure respect for the privacy of Canadians.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-55 today. I am thankful to my friend, the very hard-working member for Beauharnois—Salaberry, for her kind attention to it also.

The bill is really about striking a balance between personal freedom and public safety that was not achieved with the previous bill, Bill C-30. In the five years or so that I have been here, I cannot recall a topic or bill that has caused so much reaction from constituents. There may be one or two other bills that the constituents in my riding have been very concerned about, but reaction to this one in particular was certainly inflamed by the comments made by the Minister of Public Safety when Bill C-30 was introduced. I am pleased that something is now being done.

I am not sure whether the government is doing this now for political reasons or because the Supreme Court has said that it has until next month to have these amendments ready. In any case, Bill C-55 is certainly a welcome change and welcome difference from the previous bill, Bill C-30.

For those folks who might be watching at home, I want to talk about the bill for a second and give a bit of background.

This enactment amends the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court's decision in R. v. Tse in order to provide safeguards relating to authorization to intercept private communications without prior judicial authorization under section 184.4. Notably, the enactment 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 that section. It also provides that a person who has been the subject of such interception must be notified of the interception within a specified period. As well, it narrows the class of individuals who can make such an interception and limits those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code. On one hand it has been narrowed, but it is also now putting in the safeguards that Bill C-30 did not have to ensure that the personal freedom of Canadians is not infringed upon unduly while public safety is served.

This does strike a nice balance. That is why the NDP and I will certainly be supporting the bill at third reading.

In its simplest terms, this new legislation is simply an updated version of the wiretapping provisions that the Supreme Court has ruled to be unconstitutional. The court has established new parameters for the protection of privacy. We in the NDP believe that this legislation complies with those standards.

Canadians have good reason to be concerned about Conservatives' privacy legislation. It seems to not be front and centre or at least top of mind when legislation is put together, so the ruling of the Supreme Court was certainly welcome, and Bill C-55, which is a result of that ruling, is also certainly welcome.

The proposed amendments appear in direct response to the Supreme Court decision. They add safeguards that constitute notification and reporting under section 184.4 of the Criminal Code. Specifically, the legislation would require giving a person 90 days' notice—although there could be an extension made by a judge—after his or her private communications have been intercepted in situations of “imminent harm”, which are two very important words.

The bill also requires the preparation of annual reports on the use of wiretaps. These amendments appear to be in direct response to the court's instruction in this matter.

As a result, we support the bill. It is essential that such investigative measures include oversight and accountability.

We have certainly heard, and my constituents have heard, over and over again from this government those terms “oversight”, “accountability” and “transparency”. Certainly Bill C-30, the original incarnation of this bill, did not include any of those things. This new bill, Bill C-55, does, and as I said before, it is welcome.

When New Democrats look at the bill, we look at the public interest of the bill and respect for the rule of law. That is why Bill C-30 was a bill that we simply could not support: it failed on both of those counts. Bill C-55, after we have studied it, certainly would appear to do that, and we will be supporting it at third reading. Most importantly, it would meet the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We do not expect that there would be a further Supreme Court case on Bill C-55.

I will talk about section 184.4 of the Criminal Code. The Supreme Court decision stated:

Section 184.4 recognizes that on occasion 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.

With regard to Bill C-30, the court also stated:

In its present form however, s. 184.4 contains no accountability measures to permit oversight of the police use of the power.

I quote that because that is essentially what Bill C-55 would do. It would ensure that there would be safeguards for the public good, while at the same time protecting public safety.

A number of experts have indicated that they are pleased with Bill C-55 and the changes that have been made, and it comes just under the wire of when the Supreme Court said the changes needed to be made. I take it on faith that the government is presenting Bill C-55 in good faith, that it is not for political reasons, that it has listened to the Supreme Court decision and has made the changes accordingly. I do not yet know how the Liberals feel about this particular bill and I certainly look forward to hearing what they have to say on it.

I look forward to any questions members may have for me.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River.

I am very happy to take part in this debate on Bill C-55, which seeks to amend the Criminal Code following the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada.

It is refreshing to see that the Conservative government is today proposing a bill that is balanced and reasonable, for once. It is true that we have become accustomed to the opposite, in recent months. It is also rather encouraging to see that this time, the government is respecting the Supreme Court’s decision.

We are therefore pleased to support this Bill at third reading. Bill C-55 corrects some shortcomings in the Criminal Code. The effect will be to strengthen the right to privacy of all Canadians, without impeding the delicate work done by police officers and law enforcement agencies.

I would like to point out, however, that Bill C-55 follows the now famous Bill C-30. I say “famous”, but Bill C-30 is mainly famous for the fire it drew.

I will take the liberty of returning briefly to this famous, or should I say “infamous”, Bill C-30. Officially, it was designed to protect children against online predators. In fact, it gave law enforcement agencies the power to request personal information about telephone and Internet service subscribers, without a warrant.

The indignation was general, beginning with that of Canadians as a whole, who rightly saw it as a threat to their privacy.

On the pretext of tracking down pedophiles, the government was giving itself authority thenceforth to treat all Canadians as criminals. Without the commission of any offence, the private lives of thousands if not millions of Canadians would have been made public.

People thus no longer have control over the protection of privacy, since intrusion is achieved by such underhand means as their use of the Internet and of telephone services, the most commonplace communication media most widely used by Canadians.

The government was also criticized by Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and her provincial counterparts. According to Ms. Stoddart, if Bill C-30 had been passed, it would have enabled police officers to establish a picture of Canadians' online activities. For example, police officers could have identified individuals' interests based on the websites they visited, the organizations and associations to which they belonged and their geographic location. That is a bit much.

The government's initial reaction to the criticism is equally disturbing. The Minister of Public Safety responded to individuals who had expressed concerns about privacy protection by saying that they had a choice whether to stand with the government or with the pedophiles. That is completely ridiculous and disrespectful.

This government has the unfortunate habit of reducing all debates to a conflict between good and evil, without drawing any distinction. Listening to it, one would think that all Canadians who doubt the effectiveness of such an intrusive bill simply sanction the acts of pedophiles. That is a highly simplistic view.

When I stop and think of all the implications of that bill, I get chills down my spine. I do not believe I am the only one who does. That bill clearly made many members on the other side of the House very uncomfortable. As a democratic country, Canada long ago established that citizens' right to privacy is not negligible or alienable. The government's paranoia does not justify destroying that fundamental right.

Although it took a long time, the government ultimately decided to abandon Bill C-30 to everyone's great relief. Members on all sides of the House were delighted when the bill was dropped.

The day after Bill C-30 was scrapped, the member for New Brunswick Southwest said he was pleased with the government's new direction on this file, and I quote: “There is no justification in a free country with judicial oversight to force Internet companies to disclose information about their customers without a warrant.”

The member for Edmonton—St. Albert said, and I quote, “The government went too far.”

Bill C-55, which is before us today, is much more balanced. It updates provisions respecting wiretapping that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional.

The bill amends the Criminal Code to provide for measures to protect the power to intercept private communications without judicial authorization. In concrete terms, 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. That was not required before Bill C-55. That was therefore a shortcoming of the other bill.

Bill C-55 also provides that a person who has been the object of such an interception must be notified of the interception within a specific period. It narrows the class of individuals who may make such an interception and limits those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

We therefore support this bill because it is essential that these investigative measures include oversight and accountability mechanisms, which the Conservatives are not necessarily in the habit of applying and including in their bills. That is the court's view, and we expected nothing less.

Moreover, the requirement to notify people whose communications are intercepted would in no way impede police operations in emergencies, since it will be done after the fact. On the other hand, it would increase the ability of those targeted to track and object to infringements of their privacy, and obtain genuine redress if that was the case.

I have dwelt at length on the fact that Canadians have excellent reasons for apprehension about the Conservatives’ bills relating to privacy. Their track record in this area is not very impressive. We are therefore greatly reassured that Bill C-55 respects the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We must nevertheless remain vigilant. Political pressure recently led to the defeat of Bill C-30, but some of the measures it contained have reappeared in other federal bills. Canadians, and defenders of civil liberties, have won a fight against lawful access, but they are still on alert. There is no way of knowing if and when the government will try once again to attack Canadians’ rights to privacy.

The government was stubborn in its protracted pursuit of passage for Bill C-30. After that fiasco, can the government tell us whether its justice priorities will be based on the charter and the Constitution, rather than the Conservatives’ political program?

Because that is definitely what concerns us: Bill C-55 merely resolves one very simple issue, yet the Conservatives took a long time to introduce it. Other measures initially included in Bill C-30 may now be placed beyond the jurisdiction of the House of Commons.

The opposition parties must stay alert. We must ensure that Canadians are not threatened once again with the loss of their right to privacy through another Big Brother-style bill introduced by the Conservatives.

We therefore say yes to Bill C-55, but we must take great care to ensure that in future, all bills presented that relate to justice and public safety are consistent both with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution in order to be passed by the House of Commons.

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

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that protecting citizens' privacy is one of the foundations of liberal democracy. It is, again, one of the reasons that so many Canadians were up in arms over the legislation proposed in Bill C-30.

In reference to a comment that my hon. colleague just made, it seems to be the tendency and reflex of the government to not listen to parliamentarians, to shut down debate at committee and to introduce time allocation in the House. It seems to us that if it were not for the Supreme Court essentially holding the government's feet to the fire, it might not have come forward with this piece of legislation.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague might want to comment on this tendency toward not listening and not engaging with elected representatives in the House, who are here to bring their constituents' concerns before Parliament.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen time and time again that the government has to be led kicking and screaming into the arena of accountability and transparency. This was one of the many reasons that Canadians had such profound disagreements with the government over Bill C-30.

With regard to the piece of legislation we have before us, Bill C-55, in light of the fact that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has had to take the government to court to get documents, in light of the fact that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has complained that the government has been slow to release documents and in light of the fact that in the 40th Parliament the government was found in contempt of Parliament, I am wondering if the member for Timmins—James Bay has concerns about the reporting mechanism in the bill. Does he feel confident that the government is going to be forthcoming with the reports the legislation requires?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, section 184.4 of the Criminal Code was struck down by the Supreme Court because the lack of definitions was seriously problematic. To put it in context, we were dealing with a criminal activity that was brought to the court. This was not about spying on ordinary Canadian citizens, which some of my colleagues on the other side would like to be able to do. This was about a criminal act and still the Supreme Court said that even in the case of a criminal act, the rule of law must apply. Therefore, the government had to define who was eligible to get that information.

In order for Bill C-55 to be charter compliant and compliant with the Supreme Court, the government has to define who is eligible and under what circumstances this breach of personal information is going to be allowed. We do not have that same standard on Bill C-12 yet. The government wants to be able to force telecommunications companies and other private businesses to turn over data and subscriber information, but it does not define who is eligible to gather it. That is very disturbing because under Bill C-30, which was the other piece of this triad of puzzles we had before us, a minister was able to designate inspectors. Who were the inspectors that he was designating? That was a very bizarre and wide loophole the government was creating for itself.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to rise in this House on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay, who have put their trust in me to work on the issues of legislation before the House.

I am going to speak today on why the New Democratic Party is supporting Bill C-55 and what works about this bill, but also on the issues we need to look at and the prism that needs to be applied in terms of how the legislation was crafted, what it was in response to and how it ties into two other key pieces of legislation that this House has been asked to deal with.

One is Bill C-30 and the other is Bill C-12. Within each of the bills are key issues that reflect on the ability of the government to move forward with legislation and on how legislation is actually brought forward.

What is striking already, off the top of Bill C-55, is that it is a very narrow bill. It is simply addressing a section of the Criminal Code, section 184.4, that the Supreme Court struck down.

What we find is that legislation that is limited is usually more effective than legislation that is broad. Legislation is a very a blunt tool. Unfortunately, we have seen that the government likes to throw in all manner of legislation, often without thinking of the consequences or with very little regard for the consequences. We have seen one omnibus bill after another brought before the House without proper review and without a proper understanding of how they related to basic issues like charter rights.

I would like to say that I think the government is doing the right thing with Bill C-55 by having very narrowly defined legislation that addresses a major problem. I would like to think that the government thought this approach up on its own and that this is how it is going to start dealing with criminal matters and the reform of the criminal justice system, but that is not really what has happened here.

The government is responding to the fact that the Supreme Court struck down section 184.4 of the Criminal Code and gave it a deadline of April 13, which is only two weeks away, to address the problem.

I am going to speak a little about Bill C-55 and then explain how the implications of the Supreme Court legislation tie in to Bill C-30 and Bill C-12.

Under section 184.4, the Supreme Court ruled in R. v. Tse that police use of a warrantless wiretap to secure the safety of an individual is a correct step to take. If a life is at stake, law officers have the ability within Canadian jurisprudence to go in, get the evidence and secure a life. That is a long-standing practice within the Canadian law system.

However, the problem with section 184.4 is that there are no accountability mechanisms. What I find very interesting about the Supreme Court decision is that it says that even in the case of criminal activities—and what we were dealing with in this case was a kidnapping, a very horrendous attack against a citizen—basic charter rights still remain and have to be balanced.

The Supreme Court took the larger view and recognized that the spectre of criminality cannot be used to undermine the basic rights of citizens in this country. This is a concept that seems absolutely foreign to the Conservative Party, whose backbenchers jump up whistling and dancing every time they can come up with some extreme case of a criminal activity as a cover to allow them to undermine all manner of privacy rights, all manner of basic citizen rights. They have done it time and time again.

The Supreme Court has said no. The test of law in this country is what is reasonable versus unreasonable. What is reasonable is that if law officers know someone is at risk and need to get that information immediately, it is reasonable to go for the warrantless wiretap to gather that information without the judge's warrant, which can then be obtained later. What is unreasonable is to do that without any oversight mechanism.

Section 184.4 will clarify this, because it defines—and this is a very important thing again in dealing with Bill C-12 and Bill C-30—who is eligible, the police; how it is to be used, under specific circumstances; and why it is to be used, to protect the rights of citizens balanced against the right to bring safety to people who are perhaps under threat of criminal activity. The definition of how this breach of law would be allowed is crucial to Bill C-55.

When we look at Bill C-30, which was the bill that this was supposed to be a part of, we see that none of these definitions of the who, the how and the why are there. In fact, it is so broad that the privacy commissioners from across Canada, in an unprecedented response to the government, wrote against the government's attempt to undermine the basic civil rights of Canadian citizens.

Whenever the Conservative government attempts to do something that it knows will not pass a charter challenge or attempts to pull something that it knows the Canadian public will not stand for, it uses a bogeyman. The minister used perhaps the most baseless attack that has ever been uttered in the House of Commons when he said that anybody who was concerned about privacy rights or the individual rights of citizens in this country or who dared raise a question to him was on the side of child pornographers.

That was about as ugly as it can get. Of course, now we see who is on the side of child pornographers: Mr. Tom Flanagan, who said that it is a victimless crime. We see the right-wing media is concerned about Mr. Tom Flanagan, a very famous and very rich right-wing white man. It was his rights, we are now being told, that were somehow trampled upon. One reporter said that he thought it showed the fundamental shallowness of Canadians that they were outraged that Mr. Flanagan was defending the rights of child pornographers.

However, that was the kind of language being used by this minister to cover up the fact that there were major flaws in Bill C-30. If we tie it back to Bill C-55 in terms of the Supreme Court, the government must have known that none of its provisions would have passed the charter challenge because they did not meet the basic standards of jurisprudence.

Let us look at the lack of the who, the how and the why in terms of Bill C-30 as compared to Bill C-55. Bill C-30 may be brought back by the government; we are not yet sure. Under clause 33, the government would be allowed to designate an inspector to go into a telecom to demand information for being in compliance with Bill C-30.

The minister may designate inspectors, that is his choice, but there is no definition of what those inspectors are. Are they police? Are they private security? Are they political staffers? We do not know. Bill C-30 would allow the extraordinary ability of the minister to appoint inspectors. Under clause 34, these inspectors would be allowed to go into public telecoms to gather information on private citizens. That is clearly something that would never pass the charter challenge.

In contrast, in Bill C-55 we see that they have defined the right to ask for warrantless information to just the police, which is the proper place it should be. We should know who is able to gather that information on us.

What they wanted to do under Bill C-30 was allow warrantless access to subscriber information on the data use of anybody with a cellphone or an ISP address, which would pretty much mean 95% or 96% of the Canadian public. Unspecified persons could gather that information.

The privacy commissioners of Canada spoke out against this. They said that contrary to the Conservative Party's claims, it had nothing to do with being just like a phone book. Ann Cavoukian said that this was “one of the most invasive threats to our privacy and freedom that I have ever encountered”. About being able to demand and being forced to turn over this information, she said:

...customer name and address information ties us to our entire digital life, unlike a stationary street address. Therefore, “subscriber information” is far from the modern day equivalent of a publicly available “phone book”. Rather, it is the key to a much wider, sensitive subset of information.

That is what the Conservatives wanted to be able to gather.

The abuse of privacy rights did not end there. Under Bill C-30, they also wanted to force telecoms to basically build in back-channel spy communication, so that as they expanded their networks, they would have to build in the monitoring system to keep track of any citizen the government felt it should be able to look at at any time, again without any oversight and without citizens knowing they would be spied upon.

Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, said that what they were in fact doing, although they perhaps did not realize it, was creating a hacker's paradise. If we allow wormholes throughout the telecom system to allow police to spy on it, then certainly the hackers, who are usually about three steps ahead of everybody else on this—and we see massive international gangs using sophisticated cyberhacking—would be able to benefit much more than the police or security services.

In terms of the how, Bill C-55 limits the ability to get a warrantless wiretap based on the possibility of a threat to a person. Afterwards there would have to be oversight mechanisms and reports would have to be published and reported to Parliament so that we would know how these warrantless wiretaps are being used. Bill C-55 defines and protects this breach of the private rights of citizens, whereas under Bill C-30, the door was kicked down and all the basic rights of citizens were thrown out.

Of course we know that Bill C-30 was responded to in a massive and very exciting and positive response from the public, a backlash that said that we demand that our privacy rights be protected and defined under the rule of law in this country. It was an unprecedented backlash against the government. The Minister of Justice has been pretty much hiding under his desk publicly ever since. It is a good sign that we have a engaged citizenry here that knows the difference between what is reasonable and unreasonable.

In Bill C-55, the government is limited to gathering information under the reasonableness of protecting an individual who is facing threat compared to the unreasonableness of doing away with all manner of privacy rights whatsoever. In this manner, I would say that the Canadian public are foremost across the world in standing up for their rights, much more than the government, which has very little respect for the privacy rights of Canadians. In other democracies with privacy rights in the digital age and the age of big data and CCTV cameras, other citizens are steadily having those rights eroded, whereas in Canada we want to maintain those rights.

In Bill C-12, which is the other piece of legislation to compare Bill C-55 to, again we see the government showing no respect for the privacy rights of Canadians. There is no understanding of the importance of privacy rights. We certainly saw that with the massive data losses of private financial information on over 500,000 Canadians at HRSDC. We have seen other data breaches. We saw the government's cavalier attitude when, rather than warning citizens that their personal financial data may have been breached, its only desire was to protect the minister, and it kept the breach quiet for two months. Any manner of international gangs could have had that data, gone after people's credit and created massive widespread fraud, because that is what can happen if the public is not alerted.

Under Bill C-12, the government wants to change the reporting threshold for private business when these privacy breaches happen. This is very important in terms of defining how we protect the rights of citizens. Under the changes the government is bringing in Bill C-12, private companies that have our data, whether a bank, a Sony PlayStation, or all manner of online transactions, would only have to report the breach to the Privacy Commissioner if they thought there was a significant risk of harm. “Significant” is an extremely high bar to set. Meanwhile, all manner of abuse could happen underneath it.

Also, private businesses would be very wary about the idea of going public with the fact that they may have lost Visa card information or personal data information for 100,000 or 200,000 or 500,000 people, because it affects their basic online business model. Everything is now done online. However, we see the government telling private businesses that they only have to report a privacy breach if it might cause significant harm. That completely fails the basic test and the understanding of the importance of privacy rights in this country.

We believe that there has to be a very clear rule that if companies fear they have been hacked and that privacy data has been breached, it has to be reported to the Privacy Commissioner, who has such an extraordinary role to play in protecting and reviewing the evidence and deciding whether action must be taken.

However, we see that again the government is undermining the role of the Privacy Commissioner and we have to ask why. As more and more Canadians operate their businesses online and as our financial transactions occur online, the last thing we want to do is create a hackers' paradise in Canada, while the rest of the world moves further ahead of us. Ann Cavoukian has spoken about this.

It is extraordinary that Canada was once seen as the world leader in privacy data. Our Privacy Commissioner is definitely seen as a world leader, but our legislation is falling further and further behind where the Europeans and the Americans are going. As our Privacy Commissioner is asking for the tools to update, to deal with the cyberthreats and to deal with the protection of personal information in the age of big data, the current government is undermining the legislation.

How does that relate to Bill C-55? There are direct connections in the language among Bill C-12, Bill C-30 and what we have seen in Bill C-55. Bill C-12 would allow organizations and companies, including telecommunications companies, to disclose personal information to government institutions, perhaps the police or perhaps not, without the knowledge and consent of the individual when performing policing services. This is under subclause 6(6), but there is no definition of what “policing services” are.

Again, it is the language of Bill C-30, the lawful access and online snooping language, that would allow some undefined security person or force to obtain information on private individuals from telecommunications without defining who would be eligible to gather that information, whereas Bill C-55 would limit it to the police so that is very clear.

I agree with my colleague on the Conservative side and I am telling him that they are going to need to bring Bill C-12 to the same standard, where we define who is eligible to ask for that information. Without doing that, we will end up going before the courts again. If we define that it is the right of the police to ask for that information, then that would meet the test that would be laid out in Bill C-55, but Bill C-12 would not meet that test right now. The issue is that there is no oversight mechanism in Bill C-12. If they did ask for this ISP information on individual users, there are no mechanisms under Bill C-12 for reporting what was happening, and that would fail the test of Bill C-55.

It is clear that what the Conservatives had been attempting to do was to take Bill C-30, which was their desire to be able to snoop on as many people as they wanted as often as they wanted and however they wanted, and build in a number of other subsets in other legislation to make that operable. Bill C-12, which includes changes to the Privacy Protection Act, would certainly allow them to do that. However, being that we have had the public backlash on Bill C-30 and being that we now have defined Bill C-55 very clearly regarding the who, the how and the why of this being allowed, we would need to clarify the same mechanisms under Bill C-12.

We see that the Conservatives are on the straight and narrow right now. They did not want to come. They were dragged, kicking and screaming, and it is our job to ensure they stay on the straight and narrow. We want to work with them. It is hard for them and we will do our part to keep them on the straight and narrow. We will do that 12-step program of accountability and I want to work with my colleagues on that, but they just keep sliding off that wagon. They want to go after personal freedoms. They want to go after individuals. They want to do that spying thing. However, they cannot do it because we have the rule of law in this country.

We are asking them to come work with us and learn from some of their colleagues who might have a little more experience in some of these matters. Certainly the Supreme Court has laid down the test that has to be met. Now that Bill C-55 is in place, the problems with Bill C-12 are too clear to ignore. Then, what we need to do with Bill C-12 is to ensure that Bill C-30 will never come back and that the online snooping provisions of the current government will not come back.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. I appreciate that members are enjoying a rather spirited debate today. Having said that, I would like to remind all hon. members that the rules exist for a reason, and that is to make efficient use of the time in this place. It is also to show respect for their colleagues, both those who have spoken and those who are here listening to or participating in the debate.

The question period we have just gone through clearly strayed well beyond anything that had anything to do with Bill C-55, the bill before this House.

I will point out that on a couple of occasions when related pieces of legislation such as Bill C-30 were referred to, in the opinion of the Chair that was relevant in the context of Bill C-55, but many of the other matters have not been.

The time for questions and comments is complete. Resuming debate related to third reading of Bill C-55, the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this pertains to comments my hon. colleague made earlier, because what we are also talking about is the context in which the bill is being tabled. The context is Canadians' widespread disapproval of and anger over the government's proposed online spying legislation, Bill C-30.

The member in the corner, in defence of his own party's record when it was in government, said that people make mistakes. In fact, the Liberals introduced this kind of legislation in 1999, and then they tried it again in 2005, so they did not learn from their mistakes the first time or the second time. I am wondering if the member opposite could maybe answer this question: Is that why they are sitting in that corner over there?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to address Bill C-55. It is important right from the beginning to mention why we are debating the bill today. On April 13, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada sent a very strong message to the House of Commons, in particular to the Prime Minister, that section 184.4 needed to be amended. It made a sunset by saying that the Government of Canada would have one year to pass the necessary legislation to validate the Criminal Code.

What is section 184.4? It talks about a police officer's ability to intercept a private conversation in some fashion without having to get a warrant. That is what this is all about. The government has been aware of it for a number of years. The Supreme Court of Canada having made its decision on April 13, 2012, and having put a time limit on it has now forced the government to act on it.

I will talk about the lack of the timely fashion in which the government has made the decision to bring in the bill. However, prior to doing that, I would like to reflect on what I believe is very important to all Canadians.

All Canadians believe in private rights and want to ensure their rights are protected. At times we might get a little spooked. We see cameras popping up all over the place, whether it is photo radar cameras, speed cameras, cameras at high density intersections, or even nowadays on sidewalks or public buildings and public areas where people gather. Every so often I hear from constituents who want to talk about private rights. It is important for us to recognize that as individuals we do have private rights that need to be protected at all times.

I was a very strong advocate for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for many years. This year we celebrated 30 years of having the charter, which has stood the test of time. A vast majority, 90%-plus of Canadians, have grown to respect and believe in the charter as something that protects them.

I remember when my girlfriend, now my wife, and I watched the signing ceremony between Pierre Trudeau and the Queen in 1982. It was a special moment and it was something my girlfriend appreciated. It was important to me and I believe it was important to her. It is because we recognized how important it was that individuals had rights. That is why Bill C-55 is very important legislation.

I have had the opportunity to speak about it at second reading. Unfortunately, I was unable to be at committee, but I did to get to speak very briefly yesterday because we were limited to 10 minutes to the amendments brought forward. However, it is important legislation that needs to be addressed.

If we look at it from a historical point of view, whether it was Pierre Elliott Trudeau, or Jean Chrétien or one of Canada's best Attorneys General, the member for Mount Royal, it speaks so well on individual rights and the need to protect them. Quite often when individuals of that calibre stand and talk about individual rights, we need to listen because it is a very important aspect of being Canadian.

We turn on the news and we watch throughout the world where individual rights are virtually walked all over. There is a general lack of respect for individual rights throughout the world. I believe Canada has a leadership role in demonstrating to the world that we value the Charter of Rights.

A number of years ago I had the privilege and the opportunity to travel to Israel. When I met with one of the politicians there, he made reference to Canada's Charter of Rights and how he thought it was an important thing that Canada did in 1982. What we are doing here has an impact that goes beyond our own borders. That is why there is an onus and a responsibility for us to be very careful in behaving and acting on important legislation in a more timely manner.

Before going into some of the details of the bill, I will talk about why we have the bill. I made mention of the Supreme Court of Canada and also that the government knew about it well before that. The Supreme Court of Canada has in essence said to the government that it really has messed up. It did not have to go to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Conservatives had an opportunity to deal with the issue previously. Many parliamentarians here today will recall Bill C-50. I was not here at that time. That bill was an attempt to deal with what the Supreme Court of Canada was forced to deal with, but because the Conservatives prorogued the session, in essence killing all legislation before the House, that attempt was defeated.

That was not the first or second time. The most recent time would have been Bill C-30 from last year. That bill came with a great deal of fanfare. A lot of allegations were made and the overwhelming reaction was quite significant, to the degree that we saw the Government of Canada push the hold button, and that bill has never seen the light of day.

The bill was introduced almost a year ago, and it would have dealt with this issue, at least in part. It also would have dealt with other things, which raised the ire of hundreds of thousands of Canadians and opposition parties, definitely the Liberal Party of Canada. However, we saw the Conservatives failing to address what was a very important issue, and I will comment on that issue very shortly. Instead of doing the right thing, which would have been recognizing that Bill C-30 was going nowhere back in June, the Conservatives could have introduced this bill last fall, in September or October, and reviewed some of the other legislation that we were talking about then.

There were opportunities for the government members to deal with this legislation. It is not like there is overwhelming opposition to Bill C-55. In fact, the members of the Liberal Party have been very clear that we support the passage of the bill. We have done nothing to slow down its passage. We recognize that the bill has to be passed through Parliament by April 12 or 13 of this year. We have committed to working to do that.

However, we also believe the legislation needs to go through due diligence and through the process in a timely fashion.

What does that mean? It means the government and, in particular, the government House leader. This is another wake-up call for him. He needs to get his legislative agenda in order. He needs to perhaps meet with the Prime Minister and some of his other ministers and get a sense in what kind of legislation is coming down the pike into the House of Commons. If he did his homework, then at the very least the legislation we have today could have been, and should have been, introduced back in October last year, give or take a month. Had the Conservatives done that, there would not be this sense of urgency we have today to pass the legislation.

That decision, many of my caucus colleagues would say, was intentional. The government continued to hold back on introducing this legislation. I cannot blame them for thinking that. All we have to do is take a look at all the legislation that has been brought forward and the record number of time allocations on a wide variety of legislation. Remember those huge budget bills containing dozens of pieces of legislation amended through the backdoor of a budget. We can understand why members of the Liberal Party are a little skeptical in how the government chooses to bring in legislation.

The timing is a very important issue.

We have Bill C-55 today. It is expected the bill will pass. As I say, it does have the support of the Liberal Party and we will assist the government allowing the bill, ultimately, to pass.

However, we ask the government to take responsibility when it brings forward legislation, to take into consideration that the House of Commons has a very important role to play. When it brings a bill in for second reading, members of Parliament of all political stripes are should be afforded the opportunity to provide their contributions, whatever they might be. Even if it is a sense of repetition speaker after speaker, it has to provide for that and then allow for it to go to committee in a timely fashion where we can bring in different stakeholders.

I would like to think that under Bill C-55, in a normal process, there might have been a higher level of interest from the different stakeholders from coast to coast to coast with respect to what type of legislation they wanted to see. That would have been very productive.

There was an attempt. It could be very discouraging to move amendments inside the House since there has been a Conservative majority, a different type of Conservative Reform Party going back to the old Reform roots, possibly. However, there has been a different attitude. Even I have detected that. It can be a challenge to move amendments inside the House. I have seen amendments stonewalled. I remember when the member for Mount Royal attempted to move amendments in committee and, ultimately, at third reading and the government turned them down. It took the Senate in order to pass it.

If Bill C-55 were provided the opportunity that it should have been in allowing for not only that fulsome debate within the chamber but equally an opportunity to have stakeholders from across Canada contribute to the debate, I believe we would have had more of a contribution at that point in time.

It is important to allow for that. We are talking about are private communications that can be interrupted or listened to by the police without any warrant. That is very serious. I think many Canadians could have made presentations if it was felt that we had the time to listen thoroughly to our stakeholders or even affording opposition parties or individual members to consult on the legislation in advance.

From committee, we come now to third reading. The bill has been here for a couple of days. We in the Liberal Party want to see the bill pass. I suspect that the New Democrats will support us. However, the timing is a huge concern.

The bill requires appropriate ministers in Canada to report whenever they have an intercept. That means that a minister of justice in a province, such as Manitoba, Ontario, or wherever it might be in Canada, would be notified when an interception occurred in their jurisdiction. Those provincial entities would then be obligated to report to the House of Commons, through the Minister of Public Safety, and ideally, to have it tabled it in some form in the House. It is a very important measure.

We would like to think that the frequency of any police agency having to use clause 184.4 without a warrant would be very low. There is nothing wrong with trying to find and accumulate information that allows us to make valued opinions regarding its usage. We should be reviewing that, because we are talking about individual rights.

Where a person's rights have been overlooked because it is believed that it is in the public interest, that individual has the right to know that a wiretap was done without a warrant. We are not saying that we should give a person a call to say that the telephone is going to be tapped. Once it has been done, there is an obligation to let that individual know that it has taken place. From what I understand, that is being done within this legislation.

The bill would provide more accountability and oversight. It would narrow the number of individuals or offices that could actually use clause 184.4. Today, one could be a mayor of a municipality and have the authority to listen to a private conversation without a warrant. The legislation is saying that this is too wide. We need to narrow the number of individuals who can do that. Bill C-55 narrows it down to police officers.

It also limits the types of interceptions. It should be used very rarely. For example, in a situation where someone's life is at risk or a child has been kidnapped, we need to ensure that police officers have the ability to save that life or ensure that a child is not molested. Bill C-55 moves in that direction.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comment and his question.

In fact, he is absolutely right. The government says it wants a minimal state, to intervene as little as possible and let people do what they want. However, what it is doing is drafting bills that run completely counter to Conservative discourse and values. The government wants to be persnickety and impose more red tape and bureaucracy.

We saw this with Bill C-377, which also intrudes into the private lives of individuals. We saw it with Bill C-30, which gave the police forces a completely unlimited mandate so that they can go and see what people are doing, so that they can go into their computers and intrude into their private lives.

We know that there needs to be a balance between security and protection of private life. That is why the NDP supports the bill. However, the government is systematically going back on its promises and is even going against its own values and principles. Canadians are starting to realize this.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, over the last couple of years as we have been debating Bill C-30, it has been very clear that Canadians right across the country had very serious concerns about the intent and the reflex of the government with respect to protecting Canadians' privacy while pursuing criminals in the most expedient way possible.

Essentially it has taken the Supreme Court to put the government's back up against the wall in order to table this legislation. I am wondering if my hon. colleague would like to comment on the general reflex of the government around privacy issues.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for their moral support. I hope that my comments on Bill C-55 will stay on point. I would also have liked to hear my Conservative colleagues speak out about this important bill that their government has brought forward. Their silence today is deafening, aside from a few points of order that can be construed as attempts at badgering.

Fundamentally, the debate on Bill C-55 takes us back to the history of Bill C-30. Finally we have a Conservative government that has backed down and admitted the error of its ways, a government that has been forced to go back to the drawing board. This is not the first time the Conservative government has been taken to task, but it should happen more often. Unfortunately, we have a government that delights in improvising most of the time. It is guided by its ideology and completely blinded by certain libertarian or conservative principles, so much so that its actions are not guided by the facts, by science or by reality, but rather by personal views, as the justice minister pointed out.

Members may recall that Quebec’s justice minister had asked the federal justice minister some questions about a bill on minimum sentences for young offenders and in that instance, personal views had specifically come into play. In my opinion, Bill C-30 was also based on personal whims. It is a shame, really, because the privacy of our country’s citizens was threatened by the Conservative government, which adopted a very hostile attitude toward all those who dared call its bill into question.

Members may recall that the Conservative minister accused the opposition parties of siding with pedophiles simply because they criticized and opposed Bill C-30. Highly ideological stances like this adversely affect debate in Parliament as well as in our democracy.

It is important that I mention the employment insurance reform, which should have been based on impact studies illustrating the impact of the reform on a number of regions, on workers, and their families. It came to our attention that no impact studies were conducted. All’s well that ends well, however, when it comes to Bill C-30 because the bill was scrapped. This proves that when there is public outcry, and when people mobilize, the government can be forced to backtrack, even the Conservative government.

Let me come back to Bill C-55. It is fortunate that we still have courts in this country. It is fortunate that we have a Supreme Court of Canada to tell us which provisions need to be amended, because the Conservatives do not respect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I said this in my previous remarks. I also know full well that the private member's bill, Bill C-377, which is a direct attack on unions and workers’ associations, also appears likely to end up in court.

It is good that the courts are reviewing these Conservative bills as they are probably unconstitutional, invade privacy and violate the right to organize. It is fortunate that we still have courts in our society that force the government to amend legislation that is unconstitutional so that it complies with section 8 of the charter, for example, which is the case currently with Bill C-55.

We need to remember that the reason the bill is before us today is because a judge determined at trial that section 184.4—which is the section that is being amended—violated the right, guaranteed under section 8 of the charter, to be protected against frisking, searches, abusive seizure, and that it is not a reasonable limit under the first section.

Today, the situation is being addressed and our legislation is being amended to ensure that it is consistent with our values and principles as a society, which not only seeks to ensure the safety of its citizens, but also to protect their privacy.

In this debate, it is important to remember what section 184.4 of the Criminal Code is about. It reads:

A peace officer may intercept, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, a private communication where

(a) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that the urgency of the situation is such that an authorization could not, with reasonable diligence, be obtained under any other provision of this Part;

(b) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that such an interception is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm to any person or to property; and

(c) either the originator of the private communication or the person intended by the originator to receive it is the person who would perform the act that is likely to cause the harm or is the victim, or intended victim, of the harm.

It is important to know exactly what we are talking about but, for members of the NDP and most people of good faith, oversight and accountability mechanisms are also important. That is why the official opposition finds the provisions of section 195 and Bill C-55 acceptable; they give police officers less arbitrary power in certain situations.

In terms of public safety needs, we are aware that police officers must have these tools and access to them. However, such interception should not then be forgotten about. There must be follow up. That is why we are pleased to have these oversight mechanisms. We understand the concerns of those who were upset about the Conservative government's Bill C-30. This bill was a real attack on privacy given the authority it gave police to intrude on people's private lives.

We also must find a balance between the protection of privacy and the police forces' ability to do their work and maintain public safety. This balance has to exist even when the police are wiretapping and intercepting communications in order to protect the physical integrity of our constituents and prevent people from committing wrongdoings that could endanger the lives and safety of Quebeckers and Canadians.

It is all a balancing act. For once, we must admit that the bill before us is reasonable and balanced. I do want to reiterate that it was the court that twisted the government's arm and forced it to make changes. There is a deadline. Today we are debating this bill because we no longer have the choice. The court said that we had to resolve this issue by the beginning of April. We are lucky to even have this.

I would like to quote some testimony from committee. It demonstrates how the New Democratic Party feels. On March 6, 2013, Raji Mangat, the counsel for the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, said the following at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights:

...the BCCLA [her organization] is pleased to see that Bill C-55 will limit the use of section 184.4 to police officers. This is in our view a sensible and necessary amendment that supports the rationale behind the provision, to provide a means by which law enforcement can prevent serious and imminent harm on an urgent basis.

On that note, the BCCLA is also pleased that Bill C-55 limits the application of warrantless wiretapping to circumstances in which the goal is to prevent the commission of an offence. The addition of a notice requirement to individuals who have been subjected to warrrantless wiretapping brings section 184.4 in line with other provisions in the Criminal Code. The notice requirement provides transparency and serves as an essential check on this extraordinary power to intercept communications without judicial authorization.

The reporting requirement in Bill C-55 is also a welcome amendment, as it will enhance police accountability. Together, the notice and reporting requirements bolster accountability and oversight in the use of warrantless wiretapping, and the BCCLA [her organization] supports amendments to gather more data.

If I may, I would like to digress and speak about safety, particularly the safety of people in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie when it comes to the railways and pedestrian crosswalks. It is important to have measures that encourage active transportation so that people can safely cross the railways we have in Montreal. I support all the groups and elected officials who are lobbying for this. It is important for improving the quality of life of the people of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, clearly Bill C-30 was a nightmare for people. People were wondering who the bill could have targeted. In truth, just about anyone could have been targeted, from political opponents to environmentalists.

When someone acquires a weapon, usually they have a potential victim or target in mind. When such a destructive weapon is acquired, there is good reason to be worried about who the potential target might be.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from Laurentides—Labelle: I believe there was a translation problem.

However, the people in this House also need to be aware that a Conservative government minister is accusing the official opposition of siding with pedophiles. I am not sure that is parliamentary language either.

I would also like to hear my colleague from Laurentides—Labelle talk about the Conservative government's wish to invade people's lives through Bill C-30, which was fortunately scrapped because it ran entirely counter to Canadian and Quebec values and to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Conservatives are doing the same thing with Bill C-377, under which they would compel labour organizations to provide information concerning them.

What does my colleague have to say about the Conservative government's desire to invade people's privacy?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my colleague. I would also like to correct what my colleague opposite said. My colleague has always talked about the process the bill had to go through to get here, about the reason why we have reached third reading of that bill and about the fact that the government took so long. I very much respect your decision, Mr. Speaker.

I have a question for my colleague. Before Bill C-55 got here, the government spent a great deal of time drafting Bill C-30 and demonizing all those who opposed that bill.

The Conservatives subsequently admitted their mistake, reversed course and drafted Bill C-55 at the last minute. That bill is nevertheless a step in the right direction, since it is consistent with what the Supreme Court requested. I would like my colleague to comment on the process the government used to table Bill C-30.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi for his speech.

I would like to ask him a very simple question. I know that he has a legal background and training, and I believe he is still a member of the Barreau du Québec. I would like to know why it is important that laws presented to Parliament comply with the charter and that they first pass the test of the justice department's officials.

Why is it important for parliamentarians to be assured that the legislation they debate respects the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in view of the fact that Bill C-30 was introduced in the House and that Bill C-55 is the response to an unconstitutional provision of an existing law, namely section 184.4 of the Criminal Code?

Why is it important for our laws to respect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? That is my question for my colleague.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my hon. colleague, and what struck me was the fact that within Parliament it is the role of parliamentarians of all parties to work toward the development of good legislation and legislation that will stand a test in the courts.

Unfortunately, the government has time and time again ignored input from the other parties and also tried to defy the courts. With Bill C-30, the Conservatives were completely slapped back because it was such an intrusive, invasive attack on the basic civil liberties of law-abiding Canadians. We see with Bill C-55 that the Conservatives have gone for a much narrower range in terms of legislation that would actually pass the charter test.

Does my hon. colleague not think that the Conservatives would have been wiser, and may be wiser in future, if they actually learned the lesson that at the end of the day they are not supreme in this land, that it is still the Supreme Court, that they still have to work with other organizations and other parties to ensure that legislation would be to the benefit of all and not just for their attack ads?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech.

Since he is a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I would like to ask him a question about how the government has proceeded with other bills, including Bill C-30, for example.

How has the government proceeded and what could be done to improve this aspect? The opposition has proposed concrete solutions. I wonder if my colleague could talk about what this government could do better.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in the debate on Bill C-55.

First of all, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Gatineau and official opposition justice critic, as well as all of my colleagues, in particular the members for Brossard—La Prairie and Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, who have been working diligently to bring these matters forward.

I want to start by saying that we support this bill because we have the public good at heart. Respect for privacy, accountability, proper oversight, the rule of law and respect for the Constitution and the charter are extremely important to us.

The member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek noted that the government has moved time allocation close to 30 times. Time allocation is not used in committee, but causes that we espouse are systematically rejected along with many amendments that we bring forward. A climate of co-operation does not usually prevail.

Things were different this time as far as co-operation goes. However, the government had a knife to its throat, so to speak, because of the looming April 13 deadline. In R. v. Tse, the Supreme Court directed the government to provide safeguards related to the authority to intercept communications. The Court declared that interceptions made under section 184.4 without a prior court authorization were unconstitutional.

The bill requires the Minister of Public Safety and the attorney general of each province to report on the interceptions of private communications made under section 184.4. It furthers provides that any person who has been the object of such an interception must be notified of the interception within a specified period. It narrows the class of individuals who can make such an interception and limits those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

I would remind the House that this new Bill C-55 is simply an updated version of wiretapping provisions that the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional. New privacy safeguards have been put in place. We believe the bill meets the standards in this area.

The Conservatives have a less-than-stellar record when it comes to privacy. That is why we took steps to ensure that this bill respected as much as possible the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This bill comes on the heels of the Conservatives’ abject failure with Bill C-30. This piece of legislation failed to meet the charter test because it was not properly crafted.

The Conservative government is making a desperate attempt to comply by the April 13, 2013 deadline with the Supreme Court decision in R. v. Tse.

Section 184.4 of the Criminal Code provides for safeguards, notifications and reports. Firstly it would require that a person whose private communications have been intercepted in situations of imminent harm be notified within 90 days. Secondly, it would require that annual reports be produced on the use of wiretapping under section 184.4. These amendments would limit the authority of police officers to use these provisions and would limit interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

The problem is that the current section 184.4 violates section 8 of the charter. Not enough thought went into it. It does not contain accountability measures to ensure proper oversight of police officers as they exercise the authority conferred upon them.

The court therefore called for some accountability measures which were introduced in Bill C-55. Among other things, this is the reason why we support this legislation.

I would now like to turn my attention to the prior notification requirement. The bill also requires that persons who are the object of interceptions be notified. Section 195 also makes it a requirement to report to Parliament, including producing reports on the use of interceptions under section 184.4 of the Criminal Code.

For all of these reasons, we will be voting in favour of the bill because it attempts to strike a balance between personal freedoms and public safety considerations. However, the question is why it took the government so long to act. Bill C-55 is a step in the right direction, but why is the government not working together with the opposition at all times to resolve problems and improve proposed legislation?

Where justice is concerned, our priority is ensuring respect for the rule of law, for Canada’s Constitution and for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, not for any political agenda.

Michael Spratt from the Criminal Lawyers' Association testified in committee in March 2011. He supported this bill. He felt that it was fair and constitutional and did an admirable job of incorporating the Supreme Court of Canada's comments from R. v. Tse. Mr. Spratt confirmed that the recurring theme is the balance between the protection of the public and the protection of privacy.

The Canadian Bar Association submission to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights also indicated that, overall, the CBA is in favour of the amendments the bill proposes to comply with the ruling in R. v. Tse.

A representative of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, Raji Mangat, also said that this is a sensible and necessary privacy bill. She is pleased that Bill C-55 limits the application of warrantless wiretapping to circumstances in which the goal is to prevent the commission of an offence.

The notice requirement provides transparency and serves as an essential check on this extraordinary power to intercept communications without judicial authorization. This bill also includes reporting requirements in order to increase oversight in the use of warrantless wiretapping by police.

For all of these reasons, we agree with the committee witnesses that this remedies the problem. The government missed the mark with Bill C-30, but has made the necessary changes.

I am wondering about something and I will end on that note. Why does the government not work with our committee to improve other bills? The government should not just work with the opposition only when the Supreme Court puts a knife to its throat. The government must work with the opposition in the months and years to come. This would be a win-win situation for Canadians, as well as in terms of the rule of law and respect for the Canadian Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my hon. colleague, whom I have the pleasure of working with on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

My colleague, our party's official justice critic, raised all of our concerns related to how this government acts when it comes to bills, which quite often violate the charter. In this case, my colleague had moved a motion specifically in order to avoid situations like Bill C-30.

I wonder if my colleague could talk about the advantages of having a system in place and how important it is that MPs understand this system, in order to ensure that all bills comply with the charter.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek for his very good overview of this bill, Bill C-55, particularly the context in which this bill came forward.

I guess the comment and the question I have is that it is really shocking to me that the original bill, Bill C-30, which was brought forward in the House, finally had to be withdrawn because of the massive opposition, both in the House from us, the NDP, and also out in the broader community. People across the country rallied against that bill. It was commonly known as “spying on the Internet”. It was a bill that was way over the top and, of course, we all recall the remarks from the Minister of Public Safety at that time.

To me, the bill that is before us today serves as a very good example of why an opposition, and Parliament itself, is so important. If we had not been here, that original bill would have been rammed through by the government. It did everything it could to try to put pressure to put the bill forward. However, because of the massive public reaction, the government had to finally stand down.

I wonder if the member would comment on that. To me, it serves as an example of what the role of this Parliament, and the opposition, is all about.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi. I know the member well because I serve on two committees with him.

I am very pleased to speak again in the House on the NDP's views on this piece of legislation, Bill C-55. It would amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court ruling referenced several times here this morning in previous speeches.

The point that has to be reiterated is that this is all coming about with a very few days remaining to meet the deadline that was provided to the House by the Supreme Court. It stayed a decision for a year to give the government the opportunity to bring forward an improvement to legislation that is much needed. We have supported this legislation throughout the process, although we found the process daunting because of the delay that took place in getting it here. We supported the government because it is an important tool for our police services in this country.

However, on the counter side of that, it is very important for the official opposition to look cautiously at any legislation that authorizes people to look into people's lives in the manner that this would. This enactment seeks to amend Canada's Criminal Code, and the Supreme Court ruling talked about the need for safeguards for Canadians, because this allows for authorized, and I want to stress the word “authorized”, interception of private communications, done prior to judicial authorization as foreseen in section 184.4 of the act.

It is worth noting that the enactment states that it:

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;

and

provides that a person who has been the object of such interception must be notified...within a specified period;...

The assumption is that those persons have not been found to be taking part in any criminal activity, and thus they have every right to be informed; and if they were involved with criminal activity and are part of an ongoing investigation, there could be an extension.

It narrowed the class of individuals who could actually make such interceptions, and those limited interceptions to particular offences are listed.

I was speaking a few moments ago about the fact that we are within three weeks of a deadline supplied to us by the Supreme Court. There was the benefit of a year from the Supreme Court to act on this, and the government has not done so until the very last minute. I have to question what the delay is. Why did it take close to a year for the government to respond to this? This was not a great difficulty, from the standpoint that the Supreme Court identified the areas in which the government had to make changes.

I would go so far as to say that when any government or any party in government looks to put forward legislation, a significant part of the process is debate in this place. Another significant part is the opportunity for all parties to come together, which we did in the instance of Bill C-55 at committee, to look at it, to hear witness testimony, to do those things necessary to offer any piece of legislation the due diligence necessary to make it as good as we possibly could. That is the concern over the timeframe, the concern over the fact that we had a couple of days to try to do things that could have well extended beyond, had we brought in more witnesses. It is troubling because that impedes the due diligence we have to administer on behalf of those people who sent us to this place.

I tend to repeat myself in my remarks, because that troubled me to the degree that I felt it was worth repeating.

There have been other times in this place that the opportunity to debate and to consider various bills has been impeded. I would ask how many times the Conservative government has moved time allocation on bills. It is not the delay just in this particular bill, but in other bills. We must be closing in on 30 times that it has occurred in this Parliament. It has to be close to that by now. I hear other members agreeing.

We have seen budget bills and other legislation affecting services, which Canadians rely on, shut down or extremely limited by the Conservatives, at what appears to be almost every opportunity. It stifles the opportunity for us to make those bills better. It stifles the opportunity we have as members to point out what they have done well and what they have done not up to the standards Canadians expect. We get to do that in this public forum. That has been curtailed too many times.

Once again, that is part of my concern with this bill, Bill C-55, and how it got to committee after such a delay. It has the potential of impacting ordinary Canadians in a very negative way if the protections of which the Supreme Court has spoken to us were not put into place.

Bill C-55 is simply an updated version of wiretapping provisions the Supreme Court previously deemed unconstitutional. That is quite a statement when we think about it. Fortunately again for the House, the Supreme Court set the parameters of what it saw as the need to protect Canadians' rights.

I have to say that Canadians have good reason to be concerned about privacy legislation that comes out of the government. To date the government has not had what I see as a good record in that area. It is not encouraging at all.

There is an obligation on the official opposition to work for the public good in upholding the rule of law, our Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was in February 2012 that the Conservative government tabled Bill C-30. Members will recall that gave authorities the power to access personal information in a way to which the Supreme Court responded.

It raised very serious concerns across the country, as I recall, about personal privacy and fundamental rights. That was due to the manner in which it was constructed and the powers it was seeking to give out. I will add that it was kind of a compilation of previous bills that have been before this House, Bill C-50, Bill C-51 and Bill C-52 from a previous parliamentary session. The Conservatives were attempting to build on the original legislation from 1999 to provide public safety authorities with extensive surveillance powers over digital information. As I said a moment ago, there was a significant backlash from the people of Canada in regard to this.

Now we have the government with these much-needed changes, I will commend the government. It reached across to us in the committee. We did work better on that bill than we did on some others in the past. If we did not meet the deadline or the provisions required by the Supreme Court, then these emergency powers would be thrown out.

I began my remarks talking about the need for police officials of our country to apply these. In this particular case, these provisions are intended to happen at the worst possible time, when somebody is under physical threat of injury or harm. It was important for us to go a little deeper into it.

I am looking for what really needs to be summarized here, and that is the fact that our role is to ensure that the privacy rights of Canadians are balanced with the police officials' needs to investigate, particularly in a time where someone is under the threat of physical harm. I have to say that, working together, I believe we accomplished that. Thus, we will be supporting this bill.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we know this government has very little respect for privacy. We have seen this in the speeches made by my colleagues here, and in the bills this government has introduced. We also see that it has little respect for the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the rights and freedoms that are guaranteed to Canadians. From time to time, it introduces bills that are at odds with the Constitution.

I am very happy that this time, it decided to comply with the provisions of the charter and amend the Criminal Code so that section 184.4 protects individuals’ privacy, as guaranteed by the charter.

We know that section 184.4 applies to the interception of private communications, and the Supreme Court recently ruled on this subject. Bill C-55 adds measures that would require persons whose private communications have been intercepted to be so informed at least 90 days after the interception, and reports to be produced annually.

These measures are essential. The fact is that when you take away the need to obtain a warrant in order to intercept private communications in extreme situations where a life is in danger, it is important that there be oversight, with a system in place so that we know what happened and why someone found it so important to intercept those private communications without a warrant.

The NDP understands how important it is for the police to have the tools to respond appropriately in dangerous situations, but at the same time, we cannot neglect the rights entrenched in the charter. Even in cases involving criminals, even in extreme cases, we have to respect the law as it stands. We have to respect the principles of Canadian law, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution. It is essential.

While I am happy that this government is finally respecting the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in adopting these measures, I should emphasize that this government, given the espionage agenda we saw with Bill C-30 and with Bill C-12, amended this bill to make it consistent with the charter only after being compelled to do so by a Supreme Court justice. So this was not something it decided to do on its own; it was an obligation flowing from the Supreme Court decision. If this government truly had the interests of Canadians at heart, it would have done this itself, instead of waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the matter.

It should also be noted that this bill was introduced as the government was announcing the death of Bill C-30, which enabled designated persons, who were none too clearly defined, to gain access to personal information without a warrant and without judicial oversight.

Once again, this government tried to go after personal information, and to treat all law-abiding Canadians as criminals, with no warrant or judicial oversight. If this government wanted to, it would have said that it is important, when looking for information without a warrant, to have a reporting mechanism or something of the kind, so that people are accountable, that personal information is sought only in extreme cases, and that law-abiding people are not treated as criminals, in contrast to what Bill C-30 proposed.

While Bill C-55, following the Supreme Court decision, ensures respect for section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms when private communications are intercepted, Bill C-30 introduced measures that were inconsistent with the right we are guaranteed under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be protected against unreasonable search or seizure.

There were two bills. The first was withdrawn, and I am very happy about that. Canadians are also very happy that the government decided not to continue with Bill C-30. The second bill says that Bill C-30 was inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I hope the government will realize to what extent its own bill, its espionage agenda—I am going to call it that because this is not the first time we have seen attempts of this kind—seriously affected the protections Canadians are guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The people of Canada were opposed to the measures contained in Bill C-30. The government accused its opponents of siding with pedophiles. I was myself accused of being a friend to pedophiles because I opposed that bill, like millions of Canadians right across the country. It has nothing to do with being friends to pedophiles, and everything to do with believing in the protection of Charter rights and in the content of our Constitution. It is absolutely essential to protect the provision set out in section 8 of the charter. We cannot go against it, and the Supreme Court judgment demonstrates that.

If Bill C-30 had been passed, it would have empowered designated persons, again not specified, and selected by the minister, to require Internet service providers to supply names, IP addresses and email addresses without a warrant and without judicial oversight. The Supreme Court decision demonstrates the necessity at all costs of protecting the privacy of Canadians, and shows that the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the charter are not negotiable, contrary to what this government thinks. I trust it has learned its lesson.

I mentioned this already, and I would like to say it again. It seems that a little more reflection is needed on this. The government introduced Bill C-12, which still has not been debated, but which also contains measures regarding surveillance without a warrant. Instead of explicitly saying that it would allow the collection of personal information without a warrant, this bill expands the definition of people who have access to that information and who can consult Internet service providers, based on a vague, sketchy definition. The Privacy Commissioner even raised some concerns about that clause, which was included in the bill.

The mandate for online spying that the government has given itself is not finished. I hope the government has learned its lesson and that, in light of the Supreme Court decision regarding the proposal in Bill C-55, it will drop any attempts to spy on Canadians online, when they are obeying the law.

I want to emphasize that the government cannot cast such a wide net and treat all Canadians like criminals when they are online. Of course, there are criminals and people who disobey the law, and it is important that police officers have the tools they need to intervene. That said, the government cannot contravene the charter. It must respect all rights and liberties guaranteed in the charter.

Once again, I really hope the government has learned its lesson and that it will scrap its plan to spy on people online.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for his struggle on behalf of Canadians and their interest in their privacy rights, in particular with respect to the bills he mentioned, Bill C-12 and Bill C-30.

I cannot speculate on why the government has such callous and obvious disregard for the privacy rights of Canadians. I cannot account for the zealotry of the minister himself and, perhaps as my colleague suggested, the PMO, nor the disregard for the charter, the Canadian Bill of Rights and the other legislation that, frankly, obligates the government to bring forward legislation to the House only after it has been vetted for conformity with the charter.

There is obviously a trend here. I reflect on past speeches I have given and all of these issues ultimately go to accountability. Bill C-42 had the opportunity to provide the House with oversight of the RCMP, and the Conservatives ignored that. They go to Senate omnibus bills and so on and so forth.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague's excellent discourse on this issue. I have a number of questions that I will try to get to in the limited time I have.

I am concerned because what we saw with Bill C-30 was an attempt to use the spectre of crime, the very debate of the accusation of an ordinary citizen supporting child pornography because we dared question the wisdom of the minister.

Bill C-30 would have used the cover of crime to allow all manner of attacks against basic privacy rights, including the fact that the minister could designate persons, and it was not clear who those persons were, to go in and demand warrantless access to information from telecom service providers on undisclosed persons. Who knows, it could be a political staffer who would be able to go in to telecoms to demand ISP information. That was under clause 35 of Bill C-30.

We still have a bill in the House, Bill C-12, which is supposed to be protecting personal privacy data, but we see that is creating all manner of loopholes. Bill C-12 would allow telecommunications companies to disclose personal information to government institutions, and it is unclear exactly who in the government, without the knowledge and consent of individuals for the purpose of "policing services". This is under clause 6(6) of the proposed Bill C-12. The language is in there again to undermine the rights of ordinary citizens to know that there will be due process and oversight.

Why does my hon. colleague think the government is so fixated on undermining the basic legal private rights of Canadian citizens?

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Beaches—East York's presentation was, as always, thorough and helpful.

I am taking us back to the day that Bill C-30 was tabled in the House. It has become convenient to have revisionist history that the Minister of Public Safety was somehow off message when he attacked all of us in the opposition as either standing with child pornographers or with him. It is worth remembering that at first reading no one could find a copy of Bill C-30 in the opposition lobby that did not call it a bill for warrantless access. The use of the term “a bill for the protection of children from Internet predators act” was such a last-minute change that it was not even possible to find a single copy, other than the one that had been tabled for first reading.

My theory on those facts is that it was a PMO-approved bit of spin-doctoring and the mistake the Minister of Public Safety made was delivering the line with too much zeal.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today in support of Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code. I will be splitting my time with the member for Terrebonne—Blainville.

Finally, we have a helpful, useful intervention by the government, a crime bill we can support, not one laced with poison pills. That owes to the circumstances under which the bill comes before the House. It is really the force of circumstances in the form of a Supreme Court imposed deadline operating here, serving in a sense to take the matter out of the government's control.

It is the Supreme Court that has forced this amendment by way of its ruling in R. v. Tse, a case that dates back to April 2012. The case involved the issue of unauthorized wiretapping and, in response to the constitutional challenges raised, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that such a practice could be considered constitutional if the matter were authorized properly by way of legislation. Therefore, the Supreme Court gave the government some time to figure this out, a year in fact, and Bill C-55 is the response. It represents the government's effort to ensure such unauthorized interceptions of private communications be done constitutionally, and it succeeds.

This bill would amend the Criminal Code to provide required clarity, oversight and accountability to the rules with respect to wiretapping in circumstances alleged to be too urgent for prior judicial authorization. Oversight and accountability do not come easily to the government, so it is encouraging to see the bill in Parliament. In fact, it is something just short of a miracle perhaps in light of the progenitor to this bill, Bill C-30.

The history of Bill C-55 is interesting and worthy of comment. Indeed, it explains why the bill is before us at the 11th hour, and indeed the last minute thereof, to boot.

The Supreme Court decision that we are discussing today was rendered a year ago, and yet here we are rushing this through before the April 13 deadline, which is looming. I will not be too critical of that because the timing of the bill is very much linked to the content of it and, frankly, what would make it succeed and be worthy of our support. It is the urgency of the circumstances that seem to have rendered the bill uncharacteristically brief and straightforward. It is in a twisted and counterintuitive way that we perhaps owe the Minister of Public Safety some thanks for his tendency to a debating style that is reductionist in the extreme and that very often ends up posing distorted binary options. It is usually some framing of the issue that places sympathy for victims in opposition to a respect for civil liberties and constitutional freedoms. The case in point today was the minister's claim that people were either with the government or with the child pornographers.

That was the framing for the now dead Bill C-30, the so-called “lawful access bill”. I call it the case in point because Bill C-30 was really the government's first crack at responding to the Supreme Court's invitation to put in place a legislative framework that would render constitutional the unauthorized interception of private communications. However, it was both and alarming and cynical overreach that attempted to exploit all of our disgust and abhorrence for terrible crimes against children in an effort to bully Canadians into giving up their right to privacy in online communications.

It was dubbed the “protecting children from Internet predators act”. That bill would have allowed law enforcement agencies to access Canadians' personal information without a warrant at virtually any time for virtually any reason. It would have given the minister and the government unprecedented powers to access information and to force telecom, Internet, telephone and wireless providers to allow the government to spy on customers. Bill C-30 would have effectively criminalized all Canadians.

That is the legislation the Minister of Public Safety brought to Parliament a little over a year ago when he thought he had a bit of time to play games with the legislation. That is what the Conservative government thought was reasonable: unlimited and unaccountable access to private communication. Luckily, Canadians, Canadian privacy commissioners and civil society organizations were watching, and they did not like what was being proposed. Also lucky was the minister exceeded even himself with offensive hyperbole and sabotaged his own bill in the process. Yes, it is for that and that alone in a strange way that we owe the minister some thanks.

The lesson of Bill C-30, of course, is not lost on anyone. It is that with time to play and left to its own devices, the government will gladly snatch from Canadians their right to privacy. Therefore, we can be sure that Canadians are watching and guarding that right very closely, as are we. Thankfully, this bill is a far cry from Bill C-30. It stands in contrast and, in fact, is short, simple, direct and straightforward.

The task to be accomplished by way of the bill is to amend the Criminal Code to comply with the Supreme Court's 2012 order to change section 184.4 of the code to comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or to lose it. Section 184.4, as it is currently written, allows peace officers to intercept private communications in emergency situations where the officer or officers have reasonable grounds to believe the situation is one of imminent harm to life or property. The urgency of such situations necessitates actions before the proper judicial authorization can be obtained. There are times when this is an appropriate action that can prevent crime and protect Canadians and for this reason section 184.4 exists.

Where it has fallen short up to now is in the area of accountability, largely. Two things have been missing: first, a system of oversight to inform Canadians of when and how this legislation is used; and, second, a requirement to notify individuals whose communications have been intercepted within a period of time defined within the bill. The court found in the R. v. Tse decision that this gap in the legislation constituted a violation of the charter.

Bill C-55 would close this gap, perhaps not perfectly but through the use of four mechanisms. First, the bill would require that the Minister of Public Safety and provincial Attorneys General to make public a report on the use of section 184.4 to intercept private communications on an annual basis. Second, the bill would require that persons whose communications had been intercepted must be notified of the interception within a given period of time. Third, the bill would narrow the definition of who could conduct this surveillance and would change it from “peace officers” to “police officers”. Finally, the bill would specify the list of offences for which section 184.4 could be invoked to those offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

These four will result in an improvement to the section of the code that serves to both limit the use of warrantless wiretapping to certain individuals, circumstances and offences and to increase the accountability in cases where it is invoked. The Supreme Court of Canada has spoken on the issue and Bill C-55 is Parliament's answer and, in the our view, the right one. Enhanced accountability and transparency is something the NDP will always support.

We know from experience where a lack of oversight and accountability takes us. We get massive omnibus bills, tax bills and omnibus crime bills passed at the last minute, with no time for parliamentarians to vet legislation, as our constituents rightly expect us to do. We get bills like Bill C-30, which outraged the public, and the minister managed to shame himself in that process.

Bill C-55 would revive at least a bit of what the government had run over and left for dead, which is accountability, by requiring the Minister of Public Safety to report annually to Parliament on the use of section 184.4 and the frequency of warrantless wiretaps in emergency situations. It would also require provincial Attorneys General to make this information public as well.

This is the kind of legislation we need, not the kind that gives cabinet ministers or other officials unprecedented powers but one that upholds Canadian law and increases accountability of police to the public. This why my colleagues and I in the NDP will support the bill.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take this opportunity to speak on Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, alternatively cited as the response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Tse Act.

My colleague and our public safety critic, the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, outlined why this bill is necessary in his original remarks in the House. I will not go back and quote those reasons, but he certainly outlined very extensively why the bill was necessary and why we are now supporting Bill C-55 to overcome the problems that were actually created by the government itself in bringing in Bill C-30 and by the remarks of the minister at the time, which the previous speaker talked about, which created such great controversy in the country.

I might mention as well that about two weeks ago the member for Winnipeg Centre spoke at length on the fact that government bills are not reviewed by legal counsel to see if they meet the test of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He raised raised a point of privilege, in fact. What he was talking about, and I agree with him, was this regime's lack of testing legislation against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We have a Senate made up a majority of senators appointed by this Prime Minister. More senators have been appointed by this Prime Minister than any prime minister in Canadian history. It has become as if the senators who are appointed are loyal to the Prime Minister, and they are not doing their work as a sober second thought. The Senate is almost a rubber stamp to the government.

The next safeguard, as the member for Winnipeg Centre said, is the courts in the country, not only the Supreme Court but other courts as well. Legislation passed in this place, which we as members assume has been tested by Department of Justice legal counsel and others to see if it meets the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in fact has not been. Then legislation is in fact tossed back, and that is in part why we are dealing with this particular bill today.

We know we have a problem with the way the government operates in introducing legislation without first having it tested by legislative counsel on how the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to it, and I know, Mr. Speaker, that in your role as speaker you will be coming forward with a decision on what the member for Winnipeg Centre raised in his point of privilege on that matter.

I will get into the specifics of the bill in a moment. This bill, or rather the need for this bill, is symbolic of what is wrong with how this place is now functioning under the guidance of the current regime. I would call it the undermining of our democracy.

There are several areas that I have to mention. First, as noted, the government brings forward legislation that we know now has not been tested, as it is supposed to be tested, in terms of how it applies to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Therefore, without that application, it is definitely going to make more unnecessary work for the courts further down the line.

Second, in this place we see omnibus bills put forward with almost everything in them but the kitchen sink. As a result, parliamentarians are unable to take all the parts of a bill to the appropriate committee where members of Parliament who have taken on the responsibilities for specific issues—and I would not call them experts, but they are knowledgeable in those areas—can test that legislation. Instead, these omnibus bills coming forward cover so many areas that Parliament is not given the proper discourse, discussion and debate to find any problems, as we have seen is needed in this specific bill.

Third, another aspect we have seen all the time with this regime in the undermining of democracy is the use of closure. The government only allows a bit of debate and prevents the representatives of the people from doing the proper analysis and research and coming forward with amended legislation. It has introduced more closure motions to limit debate in its short term as a majority government than any government in Canadian history.

Our critic for justice has put forward all kinds of amendments for justice bills, but because they are coming from an opposition party, the government ignores them. It does not accept amendments mainly put forward by opposition parties, even when the amendments make improvements to the bill. That is a problem.

I see the parliamentary secretary for international trade shaking his head over there.

There is another undermining of democracy that does not necessarily show in the bill but that is clearly a problem around this place: at the committee level, when we move motions in committee, whatever they may be, the Conservative regime moves the committee in camera, in secret, so that Canadians cannot even see the simple debate on a motion as simple as asking the minister to come before a committee. What do the Conservatives have to hide? It is another aspect of the undermining of democracy.

The last point I want to make before I get to the specifics of the bill is with respect to the Senate. As I said a moment ago, the Senate has become a rubber stamp for the Prime Minister, because he has appointed most of the senators. I know that my senator is not even a resident of the province and region that he is supposed to be representing, which is a constitutional requirement. However, my key point with respect to the Senate is this: it is no longer the body of sober second thought; it is almost a rubber stamp to what the government does.

I make all those points on the undermining of democracy to point out that for bills such as Bill C-55, it is the undermining of democracy that allows a bill that does not meet the tests of the courts to be passed and become law in this country.

I will now go to the specifics of the bill. I would like to quote from a Library of Parliament report. As the House knows, the Library of Parliament does very good research. I want to quote from its report, because it is the best there is in terms of a summary.

Its report on the bill states:

On November 18, 2011, the SCC heard an appeal in the case of R. v. Tse concerning the constitutionality of the emergency wiretap provisions. In this case, police used s. 184.4 to carry out warrantless wiretaps when the daughter of an alleged kidnapping victim began receiving calls from her father stating he was being held for ransom. Approximately 24 hours later, the police received judicial authorization to carry out the wiretaps. The trial judge in the Supreme Court of British Columbia found that s. 184.4 contravened the Charter right to be free from unreasonable search or seizure.... The decision was appealed by the Crown directly to the SCC.

The Supreme Court then believed in its decision that section 184.4

...strikes a reasonable balance between an individual's right to freedom from unreasonable searches and society's interest in preventing serious harm, insofar as it allows warrantless interceptions to be used only in exigent circumstances. However, the Court found that in its present form, s. 184.4 violates s. 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure. It was the lack of any accountability measures, particularly notice to persons whose communications have been intercepted, that proved fatal. The appeal was therefore dismissed, and the SCC suspended its declaration of invalidity for 12 months

—in other words, giving time for this place to deal with it appropriately—

to allow Parliament to make it constitutionally compliant by adding safeguards.

That is the background on what happened. The Government of Canada had previously passed legislation allowing those warrantless wiretaps, and the Supreme Court is basically saying that safeguards need to be put in place.

To summarize what the safeguards in the bill are and why we support it, the safeguards are basically these: the bill 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. That is a good step.

The bill provides that a person who has been the object of such interception must be notified of the interception within a specified period, and I will get into that in a moment as well.

The bill narrows the class of individuals who can make such an interception.

Finally, the bill limits those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

Therefore, Bill C-55 adds three major safeguards to section 184.4 of the Criminal Code. It first restricts the use. It narrows the offences for which the wiretapping can be used, and they are spelled out in sections in the bill. Second, it names specifically the category of the people who can use those measures. Basically it narrows the category of people who can use it to police officers only. Previously it was debatable as to which people with authority could introduce wiretaps. It might be fisheries guardians or others who do not have formal training in the law or on the seriousness of wiretapping measures. The third point is that wiretapping measures could only be used to prevent an offence as listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

One of the most important questions for our party, for Liberals, going into committee consideration of this bill was why the use of section 184.4 would be limited to the offences listed in section 183. It was done despite the Supreme Court of Canada's advice to the contrary.

The Supreme Court specifically said:

There may be situations that would justify interceptions under s.184.4 for unlawful acts not enumerated in s.183.

However, the minister, to his credit, and department officials testified that this change was necessary to bring section 184.4 more in line with the rest of part IV. The change was also supported by a witness from the Criminal Lawyers' Association, who said that the narrower any provision of the Criminal Code can be, the better.

The definition of “police officer”, which we had a concern about, was also discussed at committee at length. The term “police officer” is obviously preferable to “peace officer”, for reasons that I think are pretty clear. It is not as broad. It is narrow.

However, committee members sought assurances that the definition of “police officer” in Bill C-55 could not be construed to include private security guards or mall cops, as they are called, for example. The minister clarified that this term has been interpreted a number of times by the courts. Therefore, it is not security guards, mall cops or commissionaires; it is Sûreté du Québec, Ontario Provincial Police, RCMP, and provincial law enforcement agents.

We accept the interpretation by the minister. We think, therefore, that the bill should be allowed to pass, because the minister, in his interpretation, is quite narrowly focused on what a police officer is. They are the only ones, in our understanding, who would have the ability to authorize the use of this power.

In the time I have left, it may be important, I think, to go back and review one of the key points, which is why the Supreme Court of Canada made the decision it did and to look at the safeguards put in place as a result of the Supreme Court decision.

Clearly, the Supreme Court, in its original ruling, basically said that there was a serious lack of accountability in the use of the warrantless wiretaps. It recommended that notice be given to the subject of an interception and that the notice be provided after the fact. That is kind of standard procedure. It happens in other areas with wiretaps.

Bill C-55, therefore, would require that either the Minister of Public Safety or the relevant provincial Attorney General provide notice of the interception, in writing, within 90 days of the day the interception occurred.

Extensions could be granted, but those would certainly be, in the case of ongoing interceptions, if it related to organized crime or to terrorism.

The other important point, and I will close on this point, is that reports from ministers at the provincial level or at the Attorney General level within the province, or from the Minister of Public Safety, ultimately—whoever is responsible—on the number of interceptions made under section 184.4, the number of notifications given and a general description of the methods of interception used for each of those interceptions must be tabled in the House and in others if it is their jurisdiction, outlining what those are.

For all those reasons outlined above, we, as a party, will be supporting Bill C-55, which we believe overcomes the concern of the Supreme Court of Canada as it relates to warrantless wiretaps.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rose in the House yesterday to address the question of privilege raised by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I think something is clear. We have recently heard a lot about Bill C-30 and other bills, including certain aspects of Bill C-10. Time will tell if I am right or not. Some legislation that is before the courts has already been overturned. This legislation did not all originate with the current government. I am laying it on thick. I am even laying it on the heads of our Liberal friends.

Even the member for Mount Royal said that, when he became Minister of Justice, he had some concerns about how this test was conducted.

Certainly, my trust level is at about 1%. Every time I read a bill now, I do not just read the content to find out if it will fulfill its purpose. Now, I am practically obliged to put on my hat as a lawyer specializing in constitutional law and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In fact, I must do the work that I did not think I had to do, because I had the minister's assurance. When a bill is introduced in the House, if it is not flagged as problematic, we assume it is okay. We can no longer make that assumption. Something has tarnished this assumption, and what we are going through with Bill C-30 proves it every day. This should worry all members of the House, in all parties.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question. She hit the nail on the head.

Does she think the trust between parliamentarians, legislators and the mechanism for approving the constitutionality of legislation is now somehow broken or reduced?

How does she see the relationship between parliamentarians, legislators and the fact that Bill C-30 was introduced in the House of Commons? Does she believe a bond of trust has been broken?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

It is my humble opinion, Mr. Speaker, that it would have been blatantly torn apart by the Supreme Court of Canada. We should carefully read R. v. Tse and what the court thinks about people's privacy under section 184.4.

This provision is a very important tool to combat serious crime and serious harm to individuals. Imagine what it would have to say about other situations.

I think this bill shows there is a problem with requiring the Minister of Justice to guarantee, for the benefit of the House, that bills introduced by the government or by the Senate are consistent with the charter and the Constitution. This raises doubts about whether this important work was done. I do not know who had their hands on Bill C-30, and I do not know if it was given to someone with no legal background, but there were some glaring problems with that bill.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very closely to my colleague's excellent discourse. We see here an attempt to deal with a Supreme Court decision that said yes, as is normal with Canadian law, it is possible for law enforcement officers to obtain data in order to save someone's life; however, there are the issues of accountability and oversight.

When we look at the government's previous Bill C-30, we see it completely disregarded the privacy rights not in the case of criminals but of ordinary citizens. It would have allowed undefined police services, whoever they might be, to gather all manner of private information without warrant oversight. The attempt to shut down debate by accusing anybody in Canada who was concerned about the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens of being supporters of child pornography is probably one of the most baseless slurs that has ever been uttered in the House of Commons.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague what she thinks would have happened had Bill C-30 gone to the Supreme Court, because it was such an outrageous abuse of the privacy rights and democratic rights of an enfranchised citizenry.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, those were probably the harshest and most hurtful comments I have heard in this House over the course of my relatively short political career. We do not always agree with the government, just like it will not always agree with us. However, there is a way to disagree respectfully. We are here to represent our own constituents.

Bill C-30 likely got away from them because the debate became personal and personal attacks were being made. The Minister of Public Safety personally attacked the people who opposed his bill, which was flawed. The Prime Minister realized this and relieved the minister of his responsibility for the bill. Then the government had to scramble to solve the problem.

It is not always easy. I think that if the government did things right the first time, it would not spend so much time and money trying to talk people into something that is ill-conceived. In the end it does the right thing, but the process takes so much sweat and hard work, starting on our side. We spoke out against these personal attacks on people who dared to ask questions about Bill C-30.

This bill has fortunately been thrown out. However, as my mother always said, many a true word is spoken in jest. I sometimes get the impression that this government's true colours shine through in every one of its bills.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question. Much like everyone on this side of the House, I find it a bit too easy for the government to downplay Bill C-30, as though it were a foolish mistake. That excuse worked up until last week. I felt insulted to have been associated with criminals and pedophiles. The entire debate completely shifted. It was shameful, and those who witnessed it were horrified. We are not the ones who counted Mr. Flanagan as a friend. I am tempted to use some unparliamentary language here, but I will refrain.

We feel that crime must be stopped, and we feel that it must be stopped effectively, not any which way and not with a piecemeal approach, as the newspaper headlines state.

Could my colleague elaborate on that?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, with his question, my colleague from Sherbrooke put his finger on the problem that resulted in the introduction of Bill C-55. It is very clear; it is obvious. The government can indeed say that Bill C-30 was withdrawn as a result of public pressure because that is true. I hope those who are watching us right now are happy realizing that it is possible to take action together when something is as absurd as Bill C-30. The problem was so obvious that it was extremely easy to raise a public reaction.

I cannot repeat it enough: section 184.4, which the government is trying to save following the decision in R. v. Tse, appears in a part entitled “Invasion of Privacy”. This is an exception provided for in the Criminal Code for extremely specific cases.

When the government, through the Minister of Public Safety, introduced Bill C-30, it launched an attack against anyone who would dare say anything against the bill. We were off to a very bad start. That behaviour triggered a popular movement such as we rarely see in matters concerning the federal government.

I said that my colleague from Sherbrooke had put his finger on the problem. For several hours now, we have been debating that deficiency, which was reported by a government employee, a Department of Justice lawyer concerned about the orders he was receiving from his superiors and his department. When a compatibility analysis of government or Senate legislation is needed, public servants are asked to cut corners.

This is an allegation. As a lawyer, I take note. Thus far, it is strictly an allegation, not a proven fact. However, it has to raise serious doubts. If we take our role as legislators seriously, this should immediately raise red flags.

Make no mistake about it: the problem with Bill C-30 was so obvious that the government decided to reverse course. We are not used to that with a government such as the Conservative government. The government is not very humble when it comes to admitting its mistakes. This is a major admission, and I believe a mea culpa is absolutely in order.

However, this situation raises the question that my colleague from Sherbrooke asked. Bill C-30 should never have passed the charter compatibility test. Is that clear enough? The government was bent on saying that that bill was the way to solve all surveillance-related problems, pedophilia-related problems and whatever other problems. It had cast a wide net.

It did not take a brilliant legal mind to realize that there were serious problems of invasion of privacy. It did not take a brilliant legal mind to realize that the government had to be stopped and told that Bill C-30 would not pass a court test. It did not even solve the problem raised in R. v. Tse. It was very broad. Thank goodness the government reversed course.

However, the question remains: how did this bill pass the compatibility test, which is mandatory? It is not the official opposition, the NDP, that says so, but rather the Department of Justice Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They provide that no legislation shall be introduced in the House where there are serious and reasonable doubts as to its constitutionality or compatibility with the charter. Bill C-30 is the most striking evidence that there is a problem somewhere in the Department of Justice in transmitting this analysis which has been conducted for the benefit of the Minister of Justice. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt.

I am not saying that his intention is to mislead the House. Telling us that this is the way things have been done since the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into force is not a compelling reason to say everything is fine. It is not fine at all, and no one seems very concerned about it. They just coast along, hoping that cases will not wind up in court.

I moved a motion in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to strike a committee that would analyze the question and assess the kind of directives that could be given so that legislators in the House could determine whether their role was being properly fulfilled. The question was discussed for two days, and I have to say that a Conservative colleague considered siding with us because he agreed that this was important. It does not matter whether we are left-leaning or not, everything must be done properly and we must take the time to examine the bill, failing which we may cast doubt on all bills introduced in the House.

Every colleague who sits on a committee must question the minister on the kinds of studies that have been done to ensure compatibility with the charter and the Constitution of Canada. We have some doubts that this is being done properly. Even a Conservative nearly gave in. Probably two days elapsed before he was intercepted by the party's higher powers, who told him not to get involved. The official response was that it had been done like that since the time the Liberals were in power. To me, it is no excuse to say that we can do something wrong because someone else did it just as wrong. I believe there has to be a readjustment, and Bill C-30 was a good example of that.

Bill C-55 has been introduced. I want this to be clear in people's minds: Bill C-55 is much more limited than Bill C-30, and it caused a shake-up when it comes to wiretapping and invasion of privacy.

Why did the official opposition go along with the minister and the government, who had to pass Bill C-55 at the eleventh hour? The decision in R. v. Tse is like Damocles' sword. The Court gave the government until April 13, 2013, to make the changes required by the ruling in R. v. Tse. As a result of the decision, section 184.4 had to go.

Some people, like me, truly believe in human rights and the importance of privacy and rights that are protected by the charter. I also believe that we must have this kind of provision in a free and democratic society such as ours. At the time, section 184.4 stated:

A peace officer may intercept, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, a private communication where

(a) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that the urgency of the situation is such that an authorization could not, with reasonable diligence, be obtained under any other provision of this Part;

Therefore, he must have reasonable grounds to believe that the urgency of the situation is such that it is impossible for this peace officer to obtain an authorization on the basis provided for in this section.

I will continue reading section 184.4:

(b) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that such an interception is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm to any person or to property; and

(c) either the originator of the private communication or the person intended by the originator to receive it is the person who would perform the act that is likely to cause the harm or is the victim, or intended victim, of the harm.

This section is very important in the context of police work. In addition, it is applied in exceptional circumstances. However, in R. v. Tse, the Supreme Court of Canada held that there were problems of accountability and that it was very likely, when applying section 184.4, that there was no reference to the fact that the person who has been the subject of a wiretap must be notified. A person could have been wiretapped without ever knowing it because they were never taken to court or charges were never laid against them.

That was the only way individuals would know they had been wiretapped and a communication intercepted.

The Supreme Court said:

In its present form, the provision fails to meet the minimum constitutional standards of section 8 of the Charter.

The Court was referring to minimum standards, minimum constitutional standards to bring section 184.4 into compliance with section 8 of the charter.

The Supreme Court went on to say:

An accountability mechanism is necessary to protect the important privacy interests at stake and a notice provision would adequately meet that need, although Parliament may choose an alternative measure for providing accountability.

The Supreme Court of Canada also considered whether section 184.4 was meant for not only police officers, but also what are known as peace officers.

Once again, I encourage people to read the definition of “peace officers”, which is several pages long. It includes municipal mayors, meter readers, and much more. Pretty much anyone who moves and has an official public service title falls under the definition of “peace officer”.

The Supreme Court reserved judgment on this because it was not the subject of the argument or evidence before the court.

I am glad that the Minister of Justice took this matter off the Minister of Public Safety's hands. That is one good thing because then he spent some time reading and trying to understand what the Supreme Court of Canada said on April 13, 2012, even though there was not much time left for that.

As an aside, when the parliamentary secretary said that they had done a thorough job of ensuring their bill was constitutional, I had to laugh because, up until February 11, the government's response was Bill C-30. That left very little time to come up with Bill C-55. Maybe that is why the government did not want to take any chances. For once, they figured that they could not be too careful, so they limited the definition of “police officer” and even removed the notion of “peace officer”. They also added accountability mechanisms with respect to the people whose communications are intercepted and to reporting to the House of Commons.

Is it perfect? No, as my Green Party colleague said. That is the conclusion we came to in committee. Much more could have been done. If I had been in charge of drafting this bill, I would probably have added a few things.

However, the House will have to answer this fundamental question. Would we rather get rid of section 184.4 and end up with no provision, or do we think that Bill C-55 answers the questions and carries out the orders of the Supreme Court of Canada?

To us, the answer was very clear. Some witnesses even came to tell us that they supported the bill. The Canadian Bar Association, the CLA, the groups that sent us briefs: they all agreed. Would they have added some additional provisions regarding the reports? The Supreme Court of Canada never said that Parliament should receive reports regarding the attorney general of Canada or the provinces. However, we looked into it and examined this issue. It is not easy, because it is difficult to move forward if there is no discussion.

This bill was rushed. Normally, if things were done properly, we would have taken the year that the Supreme Court gave us to consult and see what could have been done better, to see whether the provinces were with us and whether they had a problem with sending us the reports that they will have to provide. All of this was clear to us.

People in committee were clearly asked whether Bill C-55 in its current form was a suitable response to R. v. Tse.

The context in which the court only asked the person whose communications were intercepted to provide notice within a certain time, without specifying that time limit, fully meets the criteria established by the Supreme Court of Canada. Furthermore, time limits were specified and the concept of a peace officer dropped.

For once, things were properly anticipated. This does not mean that there will not be any challenges. On the other hand, the witnesses we heard said that these kinds of provisions are not applied often.

Yesterday, the Green Party member said that it would perhaps be necessary to withdraw the proposed amendment. I am relieved to hear this, because we were told the same thing in committee. A 24 hour time limit was suggested. It becomes difficult when you begin to examine these criteria. The danger is the tendency to treat situations that are not dealt with consistently in every part of the country the same.

Here in Gatineau, it is probably much easier to obtain the authorization of a judge than in a more remote part of Canada where a judge may not be present at all times.

Clearly the provision is only applicable if it is impossible to obtain authorization within a reasonable time period. The basic rule in terms of interception of communications will still be to obtain authorization and to have reasonable grounds for the wiretap. Furthermore, the person doing the wiretapping will have to explain why.

As a result of the amendments, there is now an obligation to inform the person under section 184.4. If a person, whether or not that person has been charged, feels that his or her privacy has been completely invaded, recourse is possible and the police agency in question will have to defend its decision.

However, even the experts tell us that this provision is not used frequently. The expert on the committee reported that there had not been any requirement of this kind for almost six years. Sometimes things need to be placed in perspective.

While I do not want to lecture anyone, I am going to do so anyway. I seriously believe that the government should be aware of just how dangerous a game this is. The provisions of section 4.1 of the Department of Justice Act and section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which anticipate this exercise, are designed to prevent these situations as much as possible.

All lawyers know very well, as I do, that it is sometimes difficult to tell a client that their case is a sure thing. However, if our priorities include decency, prudence and the public good, then we would be reasonably satisfied that this law met the criteria and principles of the charter and the Constitution. We would not raise a point that had only a 5% chance of meeting our constitutional obligations and tell people, as I was told in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, that if they are not happy they can take legal action. It really bugs me when I hear things like that.

We are here to help the public and yet we tell them that if they are unhappy about our laws, they should take legal action and claim that there was an infringement of human rights. We already have some serious problems with access to justice. Not everybody is in a position to take legal action.

The government is grateful that we worked with it. However, we did not necessarily work with the government. We worked for Canadians, for the people and for the police forces that have to make use of section 184.4, an essential factor in the exercise of a police officer's duties in investigations. This section could not be allowed to simply disappear solely because the government stubbornly decided to introduce Bill C-30.

I am not at all unhappy that the government backtracked on that. We hope that things will work out better with Bill C-55. This will no doubt not be the last time we have to discuss these invasion of privacy provisions.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, when the constitutionality of legislation is reviewed, a very rigorous process is always used. This procedure has been in place for many years. It has been used by our government as well as the previous Liberal government.

I also note that a number of decisions have been brought before the courts, which ultimately recognized the constitutionality of our legislation. Thus, a rigorous process is in place. I will not speak to Bill C-30, because, as I said, we are not moving forward on that.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.

What process must a bill go through in order to obtain the constitutional approval of public servants? Some would say that this process is not as clear or as effective as it should be.

How did Bill C-30 manage to get through that process and make it to the House of Commons, where we immediately saw that it was unconstitutional? How did that bill make it to this House, only to be withdrawn by the Conservatives, who then introduced Bill C-55, which is before us here today?

What was the process and why was such a process needed, when it probably cost taxpayers money since this had to go before the Supreme Court?

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my Conservative colleague some questions.

I would like to know why the minister waited so long between introducing Bills C-30 and C-55 if we are in such need of a bill like this in Canada.

I would also like to ask him if, like the NDP, he also disagreed with the minister when the minister made very disgraceful comments to the effect that anyone who opposed the original bill was siding with pedophiles.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-30 will not move forward. We listened to what the public was saying and we reconsidered. That does not mean that in the future we will not propose bills that give police the tools they need to protect the public. However, Bill C-30, as it was written, will not move forward.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for his speech. He said that the justice department paid close attention to constitutionality. As we know, the government's initial reaction to the R. v. Tse case was to introduce Bill C-30.

Could my colleague explain why Bill C-30 was so bad? Why did the minister push the bill so far given that it went against the will of the people but particularly given that it went against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and what the Supreme Court was asking for?

Motions in Amendment

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, today's discussion on Bill C-55 gives me another opportunity to congratulate the government for scrapping its ridiculous Bill C-30. The infamous Bill C-30 claimed to solve all the world's problems, but it showed that the Conservatives are unable to come up with a well-thought-out policy. It has now been replaced by the much more balanced Bill C-55.

The NDP feels that Bill C-55 is a suitable response to the court's demands, because it:

(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.

Of course, we in the NDP support this bill. However, I would like to point out a couple of things to this House. First of all, the Conservatives are forcing us to pass this bill in record time because the Supreme Court gave them until April 13 to amend the legislation. Yet the Supreme Court issued that request a year ago. So why did the minister wait until 20 sitting days before the Supreme Court's deadline to introduce the bill? That is not the most responsible way to treat such an important bill, nor is it a responsible way to govern.

Once again, the Conservatives are clearly trying to do whatever they can to project an image of competence and rational planning, but what we are really seeing in this House is the exact opposite.

The press release on this bill issued by the Minister of Justice states that, “the introduction of this legislation is part of the government’s plan for safe streets and communities....”

The Conservatives must really take Canadians for fools. Everyone knows that this bill is the result of a request from the Supreme Court. They did not really have a choice, and this is not the result of government policy. In fact, the government revealed its policy in Bill C-30, which was not at all what Canadians wanted, and the government had to back down.

It is nice to see that a good plan has been put forward, since the previous plan was so flawed.

In addition, the minister has the audacity to ask for our unconditional support of this bill.

I am sorry, but I am proud to say that my NDP colleagues and I will never give our unconditional support to a bill without thoroughly studying it first. We know just how irresponsible this government can be and we have seen its lack of respect for laws and justice. We also know that it is not very good at prior consultation.

Contrary to this government's irresponsible attitude, the NDP always wants to study anything, like this bill, that will have an impact on society, unlike the minister who views the formalities and procedures for complying with the Constitution and charter as luxuries. The NDP and I are aware of the public's concerns about wiretapping. We understand that very well, given that this government bases its position on vengeance and punishment rather than on justice.

After a rigorous study, we believe that this bill complies with the Supreme Court's decision. It even goes beyond that and strikes a genuine balance between personal freedom and public safety. This is a refreshing finding, particularly when we see how the Conservatives improvise here in the House from day to day. So this is a breath of fresh air, and the result of everything the public has done to combat Bill C-30. That was utterly incredible.

This also shows that, when the public mobilizes, it can force the government to do its job right.

The power to wiretap in emergencies is important for police officers. That is an undeniable fact. However, it is also true that these kinds of measures must be subject to an oversight and accountability mechanism.

Some Conservatives indiscriminately accuse us of trying to block the bill. I would like to remind them that the NDP submitted no amendments to this bill in committee because it was well drafted. The process was diligently followed. We examined the bill and we realized that the work had been well done and that no corrections had to be made. A number of amendments should normally be brought forward to make a bill acceptable from both political and constitutional standpoints. We in the House are often unsure whether bills are lawful.

In conclusion, although we deplore the way in which the debate was disrupted, the NDP has ensured that Bill C-55 respects, as far as possible, the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The NDP will therefore support the bill.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as we know, Bill C-55 is of great interest to me, particularly because it reveals and illustrates the extent of the Conservative government’s failure. The government always wants to move too quickly without showing any concern for our country’s most democratic and most important documents, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution.

On this topic, I would like my hon. colleague to explain how the failure of Bill C-30 and the recent introduction of Bill C-55 show that it is important, when drafting a bill, to take the time to ensure that it is consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canada's Constitution.

The fact that the Conservative government wanted to do everything in its power to push through Bill C-30, even though it respected neither the substance nor the spirit of the charter, is indicative of the government's lack of interest in and sensitivity to the importance of Canadian institutions.

That is the question I would like to ask my hon. colleague, particularly in view of omnibus bills like C-38 and C-45, which were put together very quickly and did not comply with the prescribed time limits.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is completely correct about what she just alluded to.

What I fail to understand is that we have a charter and it is very easy to check whether a bill is unconstitutional before introducing it and moving on. There are people who can check this out from a legislative standpoint.

I cannot understand why it took two bills, Bill C-30 and Bill C-55, to achieve this result and for people being wiretapped to be protected, like our system.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to take part in the debate on C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, in response to the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Tse.

As many of my colleagues pointed out during the previous debate, Bill C-55 is, I believe, a fair legislative measure that strikes a balance between protecting people’s privacy and preserving public safety.

The bill now before us at report stage amends the Criminal Code to provide safeguards related to the authority to intercept private communications without prior judicial authorization under section 184.4 of the Criminal Code.

Among other things, the bill would require 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. It also provides that a person who has been the object of such an interception must be notified within 90 days. Lastly, it narrows the class of individuals who can make such an interception and limits those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

In the decision in R. v. Tse, the Supreme Court of Canada found that a wiretap authority without a court authorization in situations of imminent harm could be justified under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, the court declared that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code, which was enacted in 1993, was unconstitutional because it contained no accountability measures.

Specifically, the court found that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code violated section 8 of the charter because it did not contain a safeguard such as the requirement to notify persons whose private communications had been intercepted. The court therefore asked Parliament to adopt the necessary legislative measures to make this provision constitutionally compliant. The court gave Parliament until April 13, 2013 to amend the provision in question.

Therefore, I am delighted to attest to the government’s efforts to comply with the court’s decision by bringing forward the requested safeguards within the prescribed time frame. The Criminal Code amendments that are being debated today will therefore directly respond to the guidance from the court by adding the safeguards of “notification” and “reporting” for section 184.4.

As I mentioned earlier, this amendment appears to achieve a reasonable balance between respect for Canadians' privacy and the security that the state must provide through its laws.

The bill proposes giving notice within 90 days to a person whose private communications were intercepted in a situation of imminent harm. It also requires the preparation of annual reports on the use of wiretaps under section 184.4. These amendments will also limit police authority to use this provision.

Like the experts who shared their views with the committee, I am of the opinion that the bill strengthens public safety while clearly limiting invasions of privacy. It also sets out a very strict framework for the use of wiretapping methods under section 184.4 and the related accountability.

The NDP believes it is absolutely essential that these investigation measures include oversight and accountability mechanisms that are clear and specific. We also have deep faith in our judicial institutions. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the interests of all Canadians, and it goes without saying that Parliament must comply with the ruling that was made according to our Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These are the very foundations of our democracy and we must respect them.

I join with my hon. colleagues in supporting this bill, responding as it does to a need in our society. In light of all the evidence heard in the House and in committee, there is no doubt that the proposed text is a fair compromise that reflects the expert opinions heard during the drafting and consideration of the bill.

Canadians have the right to be protected in extremely serious situations, such as abductions, bombings or other similar incidents. They also have the right to be protected from abuse by a poorly thought-out legal system, which may cause them harm.

The only thing I would like to point out is the fact that the government waited until the last minute to comply with the court's decision, when the official opposition has been calling for these changes for some time.

We all know that certain provisions were proposed in the now-defunct Bill C-30, but it was obvious that the government was going much too far in its desire to impose a law and order agenda on Canadians.

The opposition strongly criticized the flaws in Bill C-30 and its potential to create abuse when it was introduced in the House, and Canadians did not take kindly to this invasion of privacy in the name of Conservative ideology that panders to the Conservatives' electoral base.

As a result of political, media and public pressure, the Conservatives had no choice but to retreat and go back to the drawing board, consulting the players concerned. They came back with Bill C-55, a bill that is more thoughtful, more balanced and more likely to find consensus among the public.

However, it would have been more judicious and quicker to propose legislation like Bill C-55 from the start, in order to comply as quickly as possible with the court's decision.

Bill C-55 is proof that consensus, compromise, consultation and healthy debate in our institutions are not enemies of our democracy or of progress in Canada.

To conclude my remarks, I would like to invite the government to take the same action in all the bills it proposes and listen to the people, our fellow Canadians.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since we are talking about Bill C-55, I would like to add something important. In Bill C-30, and in the former act, the problem was the imbalance. We support Bill C-55 because it helps to restore balance. In the past, people were able to intercept telephone conversations without having to be accountable or needing to warn the person being spied on, which was inconsistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is why it is important to do things properly. It is also why the NDP will always take these matters seriously and respect the charter and the Constitution.

I would like my honourable colleague to comment on the fact that the balance between the charter and justice is being restored.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her excellent speech and the comments that she made about Bill C-55.

Throughout this early afternoon, I listened to what the other members had to say about the importance of this bill, which will remedy a flaw or close a loophole that the Conservatives left in Bill C-30, which is truly an aberration. The Conservatives ended up abandoning this bill because public pressure put them in their place.

The Conservatives are in the bad habit of doing things too quickly, without worrying about respecting the charter and the Constitution, for example. This is a problem that we do not mention often enough and a Conservative shortcoming.

I would like the hon. member to comment on omnibus bills such as Bill C-38 and Bill C-45, two bills that are nearly 800 pages long and that were examined very quickly. The government does not take the time to check whether it is abiding by Canada's key pieces of legislation, namely, the charter and the Constitution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to add my remarks to the debate on Bill C-55. As we have seen, the Conservatives are learning a hard lesson about the proper consideration that should be put into drafting a bill. Unfortunately, this is being learned at the expense of the taxpayers.

Hard-working Canadians know that to save time and money, it is important to do things right the first time. As the old saying goes, and my mom was a seamstress, so I heard this a lot, “measure twice and cut once”. That is a phrase I hope the Conservatives will keep in mind when it comes to drafting legislation going forward.

It is important to assure Canadians that this chamber gives proper consideration to any and every bill before the House, especially those that affect some of the rights and freedoms most cherished by the Canadian people. While I am thankful that the judges of the Supreme Court are able to reinforce our charter rights and declare legislation unconstitutional if it violates these rights, I am in agreement with my extremely knowledgeable colleague from Gatineau, who expressed concerns in her speech to this bill at second reading about sending people to court. Again, it is not because I do not have faith in the courts. I have every belief that our courts work to protect Canadians and defend the Constitution. In fact, the need for tabling bills like Bill C-55 reinforces my statement. However, the process of this roundabout way of making legislation is costly, and there are problems accessing justice.

If we do our job properly the first time, if we give a bill the proper consideration when it is drafted and make sure that it complies with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as the concerns of Canadians, we will avoid many of these issues. If we do our job to the best of our ability, then I have no issue with having to redraft legislation at the request of the court. It is the job not being done right the first time that I, along with hard-working Canadians, take issue with.

Before I speak further to the content of Bill C-55, we must reflect on its history. In 2012, the Conservatives introduced Bill C-30 as an attempt to resolve every conceivable problem related to surveillance. Thankfully, Canadians were not afraid to speak up to ensure that their rights and freedoms were protected from a government that sought to unreasonably limit them. Public opposition to this bill erupted in a swarm of online campaigns and a general backlash. To quote the B.C. Civil Liberties Association:

It incorporates many, many people into a web of suspicion that shouldn't be there. The growth of the database nation presents a grave danger to democracy.

It incorporates many, many people into a web of suspicion that shouldn't be there. This is what we are seeing over and over again from the Conservatives. They are basically trying to say that people on EI are criminals, because now they are sending police there. They are treating seniors with disrespect. They are trying to label people as if they were not abiding by the rules, and they are. It is the Conservatives who are not.

A poll conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion demonstrates that the majority of Canadians felt that the bill was too intrusive. The bill was not only very unpopular among members of the Canadian public, but it piled onto elements of the Criminal Code that are unconstitutional, as noted by the Supreme Court. This is reflected in the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R. v. Tse. In that decision, the judges of the court ruled that the emergency wiretap provision in section 184.4 of the Criminal Code was unconstitutional. The judges stated that accountability measures must be put in place. The court gave Parliament until April 13, 2013 to amend the provision to make it constitutional.

It is clear that Bill C-55 was drafted to respond to the concerns expressed by the courts, and at the eleventh hour, I must say. Specifically, Bill C-55 would require reporting on the interception of private communications made under section 184.4. It would narrow which individuals can intercept private communications. People who have been wiretapped would have to be notified. It would also limit the use of wiretapping to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

Finally, we would have some consideration given to accountability and notification. Both are necessary to protect the important privacy interests at stake. I am glad that Bill C-55 would consider the concerns expressed by the courts. We have to thank the Canadian public, which voiced its opinion on this.

It is a shame, however, that instead of considering these issues and trying to fix legislation that is already in place, we get bills like Bill C-30 that seek to further limit our rights and freedoms that are protected under the charter. Instead of ensuring that what we already have is working, the Conservatives attempt to pile on legislation that would further limit our rights and freedoms. This is the most ineffective and inefficient way to enact policy.

On this side of the House, New Democrats will continue to hold the Conservatives accountable with respect to the rights and freedoms of Canadians at every stage of the legislative process and will ensure that things are done right the first time. That is why I want to express my concerns about elements of Bill C-55. While the recommendations of the courts are being implemented, we must ensure that the bill is not simply an updated version of the wiretapping provisions the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional or the surveillance bill that the Canadian people so rightly opposed.

When considering this type of legislation, we want to make sure that we are equipping our law enforcement professionals with the tools they need to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. We want to do this in a way that limits the rights and freedoms of Canadians as little as possible. We want to ensure that the voices and concerns of the Canadian people are reflected in the legislation that is ultimately meant to protect them. As discussed by the Supreme Court, it is a matter of striking a reasonable balance between an individual's right to be free from unreasonable searches or seizures and society's interest in preventing serious harm. At every stage of the process, we must consider these conditions.

This is no easy task and is not one we can simply glance over. The Canadian public expressed its concerns about the former Bill C-30, and we are committed to having those concerns reflected in Bill C-55. As stated by the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law, Dr. Michael Geist:

Bill C-30 may be dead, but lawful access surely is not. On the same day the government put the bill out of its misery, it introduced Bill C-55 on warrantless wiretapping. Although the bill is ostensibly a response to last year's...decision from the Supreme Court of Canada, much of the bill is lifted directly from Bill C-30.

Of course, all members are aware of the campaign that helped Canadians share these concerns with their MPs and challenged members to defend privacy.

My office is always receiving inquiries regarding the protection of privacy. Canadians jealously guard section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms under which everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure.

However, no voter has ever come to the office to request that unreasonable limits be imposed on Canadians' right to privacy. With a government that is trying to pass laws that would allow it to spy on its citizens, Canadians have the right to be concerned.

On this side of the House, we will continue to oppose unreasonable search and seizure. The Conservatives must respect the reasonable limits that have been set out by the courts.

It is ironic that the Conservatives, who claim to want to reduce government intervention, are seeking to pass a legislative measure that will turn Canada into a country that is monitored in a Big-Brother-like fashion. Canadians are right to be wary of any legislative measure put forward by the Conservatives that limits the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the charter.

As we saw during the uproar in response to Bill C-30, Canadians are paying close attention on this front. Now it is time for the government to listen to Canadians as well as to the courts.

The NDP will continue to fight to uphold the rights and freedoms of Canadians. It is important that these rights and freedoms are given proper consideration before drafting and tabling legislation to ensure that things are done right the first time. We must ensure that the guidelines set out by the courts regarding this new bill are followed. We must ensure that it strikes a reasonable balance between an individual's right to be free from unreasonable searches or seizures and society's interest in preventing serious harm.

Finally, we must ensure that all of this is done right the first time. We owe it to Canadians to ensure that anything that goes through the House is given proper consideration, especially when it involves the rights and freedoms of the Canadian people. Given the history of Bill C-30 and the Supreme Court decision in Tse, we believe that the current bill, Bill C-55, strikes a balance between personal freedoms and public safety. We expect that consideration of this sort be implemented in all bills passed before the House so that we do not get more bills like Bill C-30.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I would like to thank my colleague for her very fitting question.

We are here today with this kind of bill before us because the previous government—a Liberal government—did not do its homework with regard to complying with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We can indeed see the problem quite clearly in this case. Bill C-30 is one example, but many bills have been passed. As I explained in my speech, the government drafts bills on the back of an envelope, as it were, without really verifying whether they violate the charter. What is really troubling is that it is ultimately taxpayers who must pay more because there are costs. The government is sued by other provinces or other organizations and then has to draft an entirely new bill.

My colleague from Gatineau, our justice critic, was very clear on that point and she even moved a motion. We wanted to study the mechanism in place because we felt it did not work very well. In particular, someone like Mr. Schmidt said that the government was not doing its job, that it was not determining whether its bills in fact complied with the charter. So there is a problem in this area. The government should do its homework and work harder to ensure compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague's comments. He is quite right about the first bill introduced to deal with this matter, Bill C-30.

I am wondering if he would talk about why it is important for the government to ensure, before introducing bills, that all the proper steps have been taken. First, its lawyers must examine the bill and the government must listen to the advice it receives. The problem should not be addressed when the bill is before the courts. Bills that make sense and that will work should be introduced.

Could the member talk a little more about the fact that the Conservatives may have problems with people who give them bad advice?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to speak about Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the government's response to the Supreme Court’s decision in R. v. Tse.

As my colleague explained, I now have the pleasure of sitting on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Before that I sat on the Standing Committee on Finance. Now, I have the pleasure of working with our justice critic, the member for Gatineau. Since becoming a member of this committee and working with her, I have discovered that her knowledge of the justice field is incredibly broad and that she does extraordinary work. As with all the files on which she has worked, she led the team very capably and clarified our position on Bill C-55.

Our position is clear: we are in favour of Bill C-55 because it is a step in the right direction. We have supported the bill at every stage because it resolves one of the legal problems in the Criminal Code. The R. v. Tse ruling made it possible to tell the government that the Criminal Code, as enacted in 1993, with the wiretaps provisions, was unconstitutional. I will discuss this unconstitutional aspect a little later on.

I believe the bill is a step in the right direction. It updates the wiretapping provisions that the Supreme Court of Canada had ruled unconstitutional. In the R. v. Tse decision, the Supreme Court of Canada found that an emergency wiretap authority without a court authorization in situations of imminent harm could be justified under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Certain amendments therefore had to be made. Section 184.4 of the Criminal Code was enacted in 1993 and was unconstitutional, primarily because it contained no accountability measures. I repeat, section 184.4 must be used only in exceptional circumstances. It is an emergency measure. Wiretapping is an infringement of privacy. However, in certain cases, such as in the cases discussed, it is a necessity, as it also involves public safety.

We as legislators must balance the two aspects: public safety with freedom and the right to privacy. Fortunately, this is what the bill does. The law as it was in the past made it impossible to achieve this balance.

The Supreme Court made a rather pressing and important point in its decision. According to the Supreme Court, the Criminal Code, as it stands, is unconstitutional. The court therefore directed the government to introduce a bill to address the problem. The Supreme Court gave the government until April 13, 2013, to enact amendments to ensure that the justice system can function legitimately. Unfortunately, when the government took power, it introduced many bills that it felt were more important, but did not really do what the Supreme Court asked of it.

I will return to Bill C-30, but I would like first to discuss Bill C-55 in more detail. The issue here is the reporting requirement for interceptions of private communications. This is important. We need to know what is going on and we need accountability. This bill concerns the requirement to report, which is important.

Bill C-55 provides that any person who has been the object of an interception must be advised within a period of 90 days to three years. Several questions were raised about the three-year time period, but after hearing witnesses, in particular those from the Department of Justice, we understood that there were reasons that made this acceptable. Of course, the time period will not always be three years. We hope that it will be shorter. However, we are reassured by the fact that those who have been under electronic surveillance will be advised thereof. The bill also restricts what categories of people can make such interceptions.

One of the problems with Bill C-30, which I would like to discuss further, is that it allowed almost anyone to do so, and placed certain obligations on telecommunications companies and so on. Now that has been clarified somewhat. The bill says that the police have the right to intercept communications. Witnesses raised questions about whether this should be clarified and whether it should go still further. Should it be a higher-ranking officer, such as a police supervisor? When we heard the witnesses and thoroughly analyzed the question, we found the definition adequate in terms of being understandable, particularly when applied more broadly to the Criminal Code.

I would like to say more about Bill C-30, because the Supreme Court requirement told the government to come back with a bill that was not unconstitutional by April 13, 2013. We are aware of the fact that it takes a great deal of time for a bill to work its way through the parliamentary legislative system.

The government began by introducing Bill C-30.

Bill C-30 required telecom providers in Canada to monitor user data and be prepared to hand over personal information to authorities without a warrant or judicial oversight. We saw that as a big problem, and a lot of members stood in the House and said that, including my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville, who is the NDP critic.

He is an incredible colleague who fought very hard. The public also helped us by expressing its opposition to this bill.

Canadians must not forget what the Minister of Public Safety said at the time.

On February 13, 2012, the minister, in answer to a question on Bill C-30, said:

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the opportunity to tell him that every province unanimously supported moving forward with the legislation that was introduced first under the Liberal government, by his party. As technology evolves, many criminal activities, such as the distribution of child pornography, become much easier. We are proposing measures to bring our laws into the 21st century and to provide the police with the lawful tools that they need. He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.

When we look at history, we know the government made a huge mistake with the bill, and it knows it. Bill C-30 was wrong. The fact that a minister could speak that way and then come back and say that maybe it was a mistake and the bill went too far, it was not maybe, it really did. When he spoke like that, it showed narrow-mindedness. If Conservatives want to collaborate and work on better legislation, especially after the Supreme Court told us to do it, we hope there will be better preparation by members opposite in the future.

The NDP was very pleased that the minister and the government admitted their mistake and realized that they had gone too far. There was no reason for them to attack the protection of privacy. The scope of their legislation was too broad and they were asking telecommunications companies to obtain information without a warrant. Canadians and my constituents were outraged. I heard this from many of my constituents.

OpenMedia came up with a campaign to go against it. Once in a while, the government actually listens to what people have to say, and I am glad it did. I wish the government would have done it before coming up with such a bill, but coming back with Bill C-55 is a good thing. The government has looked at what needs to be done. The Supreme Court was pretty clear that we needed to amend the law so that we followed what the charter said, which the government did. That is why we support it. It is really important that the rule of law, the Constitution and the charter be respected.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his speech and his new role on the Standing Committee on Finance of which I used to be a member. I know that my colleague will do incredible work there. I am now a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

As my colleague mentioned, hon. members will recall the comments made by the Minister of Public Safety with regard to Bill C-30. He said that anyone who did not support the bill stood with child pornographers. This shows that there is a lack of understanding and a problem with regard to openness and discussion.

The hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville talked about how flawed Bill C-30 was. The bill was supposed to make the corrections required by the Supreme Court ruling.

I would like the hon. member to comment on the Minister of Public Safety's views and on Bill C-30.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond for his question.

I think that there is cause for some legitimate concern. I did not talk about the case of the former Department of Justice jurist who said that, unfortunately, the groundwork was not being done at the department. That case is obviously running its course.

What is very disappointing is that the government continues to deny it and insists on fast-tracking flawed bills at all costs.

Bill C-30 was particularly disappointing. Fortunately, public pressure made the government back down. Bill C-55 fixes some things that Bill C-30 would not have fixed. Bill C-30 would have unfortunately created more problems than solutions.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his excellent speech.

I would like to point out that Bill C-55 is the Conservatives' latest attempt after their Bill C-30, if I am not mistaken, failed.

Why do the Conservatives have these kinds of failures? It is obviously because they try to fast-track everything. They want to move very quickly and not allow debate. The two omnibus budget bills are indisputable proof of that.

Does my hon. colleague think that the Conservative government should now ensure that all justice bills are in line with the charter and the constitution, instead of simply basing bills solely on its political agenda and short-sighted ideology?

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

Mr. Speaker, at the risk of repeating a lot of what has been said here today, I want to elaborate on a few things, notably part VI of the Criminal Code, which deals with the activity of intercepting communications and thwarting crime as a result of that.

The reason we are here is the decision in R. v. Tse. When it came down, it seemed kind of odd at the time. It was just on the other end of the fiasco we had with Bill C-30, when it was introduced in the House. At that time there was a huge public campaign to thwart Bill C-30 because of the overarching measures contained within it and how it went against the spirit of privacy. When it comes to section 8 of the charter, and the charter itself, the charter challenges would have been ad nauseam for a lot of this bill.

Why the government did not wait in this particular case until after the decision is beyond me. It knew it was coming. Nonetheless, as a result of that it brought the bill into the House and then took it back out because of the public campaign against it, I would assume. As a result, we now have this bill, which complies with the judgment that came down from the court case in April 2012.

Here we find ourselves at the last minute on the eve of April 2013. We were given ample notice and yet here we are, up to the last minute. Why the Conservatives would push the envelope like this, I am not quite certain. However, in doing that, Bill C-55 now looks at the decision that came down and how it goes against the Constitution.

Many of my colleagues have already brought up section 184.4, which in this particular situation allows the police officers to intercept imminent communications. In other words, in any particular situation they do not need the paperwork to get that done.

Section 184.4 was originally composed as follows:

A peace officer may intercept, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, a private communication where

(a) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that the urgency of the situation is such that an authorization could not, with reasonable diligence, be obtained under any other provision of this Part;

It goes on to state:

(b) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that such an interception is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm to any person or to property;

The final point under (c) of section 184.4 states:

(c) either the originator of the private communication or the person intended by the originator to receive it is the person who would perform the act that is likely to cause the harm or is the victim....

Here we have a situation where some people may feel we are circumventing the privacy issue for the sake of the immediacy of what is happening; we are able to intercept without certain legal authorities.

There is no doubt that for us and for millions of Canadians, on the surface this would cause a lot of concern, certainly for privacy. Police officers do not need that particular authorization under certain circumstances in order for them to intercept the communications, and therefore this is what we are struggling with right now.

The question was put forward and an opinion is now with us regarding this particular case.

The principal amendment addresses the fatal flaw identified by the Supreme Court. In this situation, Bill C-55 provides that after-the-fact notice be sent, as is the case for other forms of interception. That is what this is coming down to. The court decided this is not congruent with the charter because of the fact that the after-notice was not present in this particular situation. This is where the court has asked us to have a look at it and this is why we have Bill C-55. I certainly agree and voted in favour of it during second reading.

Essentially, this comes down to part VI of the Criminal Code. At the very crux of this is how we deal with the centrepiece of federal legislation on electronic surveillance by law enforcement agencies.

The court summarized the current scheme of part VI of the code as follows, and I would like to thank the Library of Parliament for providing some of this information, the legislative summary:

Part VI of the Code makes it an offence under s. 184(1) to intercept private communications. Sections 185 and 186 set out the general provisions governing the application and the granting of judicial authorizations for the interception of private communications.

There we have it. The interception of these private communications, electronic surveillance of a potential unlawful act, is written in part VI, and it talks about the legal authority to do so, whether it be authorizations or judicial authorizations. Section 184.2 is the other part of that, providing for judicial authorization with the consent of one of the persons being intercepted for up to 60 days.

Let us get to the crux of what we are talking about today. In 1993, Parliament introduced two provisions to permit interceptions without judicial authorization in two exceptional cases. Those would be section 184.1, which permits interception with a person's consent, and what we are talking about here today, which was ruled upon, section 184.4, which authorizes the power to intercept private communications in an emergency for the purpose of preventing serious harm. Neither of these two sections is subject to the requirement to report to Parliament or to provide after-the-fact notice.

This bill is going to change this, so that after-notice is sent to the particular people involved in the investigation, which is incongruent with other sections where other people were surveyed under judicial authorizations or had their communications intercepted.

The other part they got into on this particular case, which was very interesting, was about reporting to Parliament, as well as changing “peace officer” to “police officer”. As many of my colleagues have already pointed out, within the code itself, the idea or definition of a peace office as described is very broad indeed. We are talking about, as my colleague from the NDP pointed out, mayors, reeves and court officers. It is a very broad description. What has happened here is that the bill has taken it and defined it down to a police officer.

I will get to the amendments from my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands in a moment.

In doing so, the other part would be that the court examines the text of section 184.4 closely, with particular attention to phrases that limit its scope. The court concluded that Parliament had incorporated objective standards and strict conditions into the provision itself. That part was fine. The onus would remain on the Crown to show in any particular case that the conditions for the use of section 184.4 had been met. Nonetheless, as I pointed out, the court was concerned that there was no requirement that authorities notify individuals after the fact that their private communications had been intercepted. That is not congruent with other means of judicial authorizations to find and intercept people's private communications.

The final thing was whether to report to Parliament or not. In other places and in other sections, the court considered reading in a notice of requirement, but determined that this would not be appropriate. That is one of the measures it considered. However, because of the notification, the court ruled it to be against the charter. The section on reporting to Parliament was something it added. In it, the court says that “electronic surveillance under the Code is an effective investigation technique used especially by law enforcement agencies” and therefore requires a reporting to Parliament from the Minister of Public Safety and the Attorney General of Canada. Currently, they prepare an annual report on law enforcement's use of warrants for video surveillance and certain authorizations to intercept private communications pursuant to part VI. The ruling here is, and this particular bill addresses, that incongruent with part VI, it allows the reporting within Parliament procedure to continue as well.

I did not have much of a chance to talk about the amendments currently here. My colleague talks about the record keeping, which I have some trouble with, particularly because of the machinations involved. This is an immediate situation, in cases of using section 184.4, and I will therefore be voting against this particular measure, as well as other measures, which I am sure I will get into in questions.

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

,

seconded by the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Superior North moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-55, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing lines 10 and 11 on page 1 with the following:

““police officer” means any officer or constable employed for the preservation and”

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-55, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing line 18 on page 1 with the following:

“tion if the police officer has reasonable grounds, a record of which is subsequently made,”

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-55, in Clause 5, be amended by adding after line 27 on page 3 the following:

“(d.1) the number of interceptions in respect of which no proceedings were commenced and, for each such interception, the offence that the police officer sought to prevent in making the interception;”

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-55, in Clause 5, be amended by adding after line 35 on page 3 the following:

“(f.1) a description of the reasonable grounds recorded by the police officer in accordance with section 184.4 for each interception;”

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-55, in Clause 5, be amended by adding after line 38 on page 3 the following:

“(g.1) the number of interceptions in respect of which no arrests were made and, for each such interception, the offence that the police officer sought to prevent in making the interception;”

She said: Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleague, the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Superior North, for seconding these motions.

As the House will know, this legislation was brought forward in place of or at least after Bill C-30 was withdrawn. It was the so-called protecting children from Internet predators act. I do understand the reasons for urgency.

This legislation, Bill C-55, is in direct response to a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R v. Tse, in which the court found that the current emergency wiretap provisions failed the charter test. The court suspended its ruling for 12 months to allow the House to remedy those sections of the Criminal Code such that they would conform with the charter. The clock started ticking when the Supreme Court rendered its decision, which was April 13 last year. We have a small amount of time to correct those mistakes.

I want to start my discussion of the amendments I am putting forward by stressing that I also support Bill C-55. It is, overall, well crafted and meets the challenge of ensuring that this extraordinary power of the state to obtain emergency wiretaps without a warrant—and this is what we are talking about—which is quite an egregious invasion of the privacy of the individual citizen, is balanced and only justified in exigent circumstances when certain standards have been met. It is only charter compliant, according to the Supreme Court decision in R v. Tse, if there are adequate oversight mechanisms put in place.

My amendments go directly to the point that we do not want Bill C-55 to be struck down by a future court because we failed to put in place the adequate oversight provisions and because we failed to get the balance just right, based on the advice of the Supreme Court.

I am just going to take a moment to go back to the ways in which the Supreme Court of Canada's decisions around these matters have evolved in very recent years. It was not long ago that our major authority, the precedent from the Supreme Court of Canada that governed in this area, was a 1990 case, R v. Duarte, in which Mr. Justice La Forest 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 section 8 of the Charter.

It takes quite a bit of evolution within court decisions to ask how we justify sections 183 and 184 of the Criminal Code in allowing the state, without access to a warrant or even judicial review of any kind, to go forward and wiretap private communications.

That process is now settled in a new precedent of the Supreme Court of Canada in R v. Tse, in which the court ruled in the majority that yes, in these exigent circumstances, where, for instance, there is a kidnapping or another criminal event where a life is at stake and there legitimately is not time to get to a judge for a warrant, it is now going to be acceptable under the charter.

What is not acceptable under the charter is when these powers are not adequately supervised. I think that needs to be a foundational point that is stressed here. These are intrusions into the private lives of Canadians that in any other circumstance would be viewed as charter violations. This House must craft, very carefully, that rare exception when we are going to let the state intrude on our personal communications.

I am troubled, sometimes, when I hear the comment: “Why would we worry if people want to wiretap criminals? The only people who would be worried about that would be people who have something to hide”.

We need in this country to constantly remind ourselves why we prize the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms why western democracies, the British Empire, our common law, and centuries of practice and respect for the rule of law recognized that the state has no business knocking down a person's door. It is literally pushing through doors and breaking into houses and invading our privacy, which in an electronic era includes wiretapping.

We have to remind ourselves why civil liberties matter. We have to remind ourselves of this fairly constantly, because in not just this instance but in other laws passed through this place, we are seeing an erosion of our respect for the idea of civil liberties through resort to such rhetoric as “Well, only criminals need to worry” and “We shouldn't be so worried about criminals as we should be about victims.” A victim of an injustice of the state invading our civil liberties is no less a victim than the person mugged on the street. We need to pay attention to civil liberties. That is why I am putting forward my amendments.

The court ruled very clearly in R. v. Tse that the failure of the current Criminal Code provisions was a failure to have adequate accountability measures. The court did not set out what the accountability measures should look like with any degree of specificity, so Bill C-55 attempts to, and does, put forward accountability measures; however, will they pass the charter test in a future Supreme Court case? My submission to the House—and I urge other members to vote with me—is that we make the bill much safer and more secure against being struck down later by improving the accountability measures.

The amendments I put forward would ensure, for instance, that the intercepted communications would require an Attorney General report, which would include records of all those wiretaps for which no charges were ever laid and would require the police officer in question to memorialize the reasonable grounds he or she had at the time for seeking warrantless wiretap evidence. We would record and report as much information as possible to ensure that the oversight statutory process in Bill C-55 would meet any future charter challenge.

My amendments are based on recommendations primarily from three groups that testified before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights: the Canadian Bar Association, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and the Criminal Lawyers' Association. Those three bodies recommended, in the language I have used, the amendments I am putting forward today.

They strive to ensure that there be a requirement to publicly report the numbers of persons whose communications were intercepted but who were not subsequently charged. They include a requirement for the police officer's justification for the interception to be recorded and memorialized and would also ensure that if subsequent judicial authorizations were obtained on the same grounds as for the interception under section 184.4 of the Criminal Code, evidence obtained by a further section 184.4 interception may be ruled inadmissible.

The other piece I want to mention briefly is something that was not part of the res judicata of R. v. Tse but that was certainly significant obiter dicta, and that was the court's concern that the definition of “peace officer” was overly broad. I cite the decision of the court on this matter, and there was not a dissent. At paragraph 57 of R. v. Tse, the court noted it would agree that:

We, too, have reservations about the wide range of people who, by virtue of the broad definition of “peace officer”, can invoke extraordinary measures permitted under s. 184.4. That provision may be constitutionally vulnerable for that reason.

I am not saying that the Minister of Justice has not taken account of this obiter dicta. The revised Bill C-55 no longer uses the term “peace officer”. The revised Bill C-55, in clause 2, changes the term “peace officer”, which was overly broad and could include anything from mayors and reeves and so on, to “police officer”, but then in the definition adds an element of overly broad definition by saying:

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

I remain concerned despite the quite interesting testimony, and I thank the justice critic for the official opposition, who pursued this point with the Minister of Justice. I am less sanguine about leaving in the term “or other person”, so one of my amendments would remove the term “or other person” to further clarify the act and ensure that it is not constitutionally vulnerable.

I will conclude by saying that my amendments are put forward in the interests of ensuring that Bill C-55 will survive any future charter challenge and I recommend them to my colleagues.

Nuclear Terrorism Act

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.

It is my pleasure to rise today to speak on Bill S-9, Nuclear Terrorism Act.

Before I begin, I would like to sincerely thank my colleague, the hon. member for Gatineau, who is also the official opposition's justice critic. In my role as deputy critic, I have had the privilege of working with her. She is an extraordinary person and has done extraordinary work on this file, as well as on all the others she is responsible for. She is a true role model for hard work and I hope to emulate her.

Now, with regard to this bill, I agree that nuclear terrorism is a real threat to all countries, including Canada. It is important for us to consider it carefully and take the necessary measures. Thus, we are pleased to see the introduction of Bill S-9. I sat on the committee and I can say that, this time, we have been able to work with the government—I admit it—and with our Liberal colleagues.

Members of the official opposition have been able to work together to move the bill forward. When there are matters of importance to Canada, I think we can work together, and this is a fine example.

I would now like to speak more specifically about this bill. We must not forget that it leads to the eventual ratification of two international anti-terrorism treaties.

They are the 2008 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. The latter defines the categories of nuclear terrorism offences and the procedures for bringing offenders to justice. The purpose of this bill is to incorporate all these provisions into Canadian law, so that the treaties can later be ratified. One of the problems is that Bill S-9 comes from the Senate.

It was strange to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence ask his question and tell us that it is a priority for them, and so on. When we see that this comes from the Senate, we realize that it is not necessarily the government's top priority. We must keep in mind the dates of the treaties I mentioned: they date from 2005 and 1980 and came into force in 2007. There has been quite a delay in government action on this matter.

I will speak now about the bill's details: it is an attempt to eliminate legal loopholes when launching proceedings against those who commit acts related to nuclear terrorism. There is also an extraterritorial aspect to this bill, to extend the reach of Canadian law.

In the past, legal proceedings could fail because of a lack of legislation; this will solve that problem. Bill S-9 also provides for extradition in cases of nuclear terrorism, even where there are no bilateral treaties between countries, so that legal tools can have a longer reach.

Moreover, new Criminal Code offences are being created. It would be illegal to: possess, use or dispose of nuclear or radioactive material, or commit an act against a nuclear facility or its operations, with the intent to cause death; use or alter nuclear or radioactive material or a nuclear or radioactive device, or commit an act against a nuclear facility or its operations, with the intent to compel a person, government or organization; and commit an indictable offence under federal law for the purpose of obtaining nuclear or radioactive material or devices.

Because we are establishing certain international conventions to which Canada is a signatory, all hon. members will agree that this bill will update the Criminal Code and other Canadian legislation. That is why we agree with and support this bill. We have always supported it. When we hear members on the other side say that the official opposition does not work with them and does not move things forward, they really ought to look at the way this has worked.

This is an excellent example of something that should move forward.

Bill S-9 makes other changes to the legislation. Anyone who commits any of the new offences outside Canada can be prosecuted in Canada. This new provision will help ensure that we address the problem. As we have mentioned, nuclear terrorism poses a real threat, and we need to take the necessary steps in that regard. That is why we supported this bill and studied it extensively in committee. We asked some serious questions and obtained some good answers, particularly from people who work on nuclear issues at the Department of Justice. The examination was very interesting and informative.

Nevertheless, we have another criticism of this government. Since it said that this bill is important, and I myself have pointed out just how important it is, we have to wonder why it took so long for the government to introduce this legislation. The treaty was signed in 2005 and came into force in 2007, yet the government is only starting to talk about it now. It blames the opposition, as usual, but it is important to remember that this government has a majority and it controls the agenda. Since everyone agrees on this bill, it could even have introduced it when it had a minority. This file could have moved forward, and we could have resolved these issues. Unfortunately, this government has acted in bad faith.

In fact, when the Minister of Justice appeared in committee, he openly admitted that this was not a priority. Here is what the minister said:

On this particular legislation, this was part of the enumerated bills that I wanted to get to, but yes, most of the focus of the last year or two has been concentrating on cracking down on drug dealers and going after people in the child pornography business and people who sexually assault children. I know most of the efforts of this committee, and certainly of the government, were to push that, but this was always important to us. Again, because most of the activity was already criminalized, I wanted to get it through.

It is a priority, but if you're asking me what I've done with my time, my time has been pushing all the legislation that we have had.

Keep in mind that Bill C-30 made us waste a lot of time. The government had to backtrack so much that the bill was poorly done and was inconsistent with the intent. The government is not moving in the right direction and is not putting its priorities in the right place. We suffered because of that yesterday in the meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We had to whip through Bill C-55 without really being able to take the time to study it. We knew that we had a deadline because of the Supreme Court decision.

The government is not managing its time well. It improvises by introducing bills that, like Bill C-30, are purely ideological, have no legal basis and waste our time. Meanwhile, we have other bills waiting for us. We could tackle nuclear terrorism, but the government refused in order to move other bills forward, bills that ended up being called into question. The government realized its mistake and backtracked.

What does the NDP want? We are committed to multilateral diplomacy and international co-operation especially in areas of great concern, like nuclear terrorism.

We need to work together with other leading countries that are moving toward ratifying these conventions. Canada has agreed to be legally bound by these conventions, so it is important to fulfill our international obligations. Unfortunately, it took a long time for the government to act on this. Therefore, we must seriously address the issue of nuclear security and comply with our international obligations in order to better co-operate with other countries on countering nuclear terrorism.

Many issues have been put forward, and we would have liked to take action. Once again, the government took its time.

This is what Sabine Nolke, the director general of Non-Proliferation and Security Threat Reduction at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, said:

Furthering nuclear security, enhancing the physical protection of facilities, installing radiation detection equipment, especially at border crossings, reducing the use of weapons-usable materials, is one of the key tools to prevent these materials from falling into the wrong hands.

Those are all things we should act on.

Fortunately, Canada did sign these treaties, but the government once again took too long to update Canadian legislation to include all these offences. It is difficult to understand why the government held back a file that all parties agreed on.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

You wanted to avoid loopholes under Bill C-55.

My understanding is that, as long as things were working with Bill C-30, you felt that the situation has been taken care of rather well. Once Bill C-30 was withdrawn, you had to find something else to respond to the court's concerns and to the fact that the court found some provisions unconstitutional. That seems very clear to me.

As for the R. v. Tse decision, we were told that it was completely contrary to the Charter, specifically to section 8. The minister considered that the interceptions had to be constitutionally compliant, that people had to be aware that a report had been prepared, and so on.

What type of legal test are you using to ensure that the drafts are consistent with the R. v. Tse decision?

[Karen Audcent]

The draft of Bill C-55comes from Bill C-30. Previously, it was Bill C-50 and at the outset, it was Bill C-31. The only change that we made to the content of Bill C-30 in order to incorporate it into Bill C-55 was to include the restriction for police officers. The Supreme Court had indicated that it would be a good idea to do so, and the government wanted to reflect that.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Okay, but I think you may have misunderstood my question.

Bill C-55 is a response to the R. v. Tse decision. The title of the bill says so. The government might have used Bill C-30 and Bill C-12. Actually, many bills along the way could have tried to address the gaps identified in the R. v. Tse decision.

The government announced that it would withdraw Bill C-30 on the same day that Bill C-55 was introduced. Bill C-55 was tabled by the minister in the House less than a month ago. I think it was on February 11, 2013. It was then sent to committee on February 25, which is also very recent.

As you were working on Bill C-30, Bill C-55 was not in the picture. Could you tell me when you started to work on the drafting of Bill C-55?

[Karen Audcent, Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

We've previously included responses to the reactions in Bill C-31. Then there was Bill C-50. But those responses pertained to lower court rulings. Then came Bill C-30. The Supreme Court rendered its decision on April 13, 2012. So we've been working on responses to the Supreme Court decisions since then.

Prior to that, we were basing our study on the rulings of lower courts, because the British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec courts indicated that we had to examine this section of the Criminal Code because it raised constitutional concerns.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

Before this bill, there was Bill C-30. As my colleague mentioned, we are very glad that the government realized that a mistake had been made and took a step back. Now we have Bill C-55. And there were provisions from Bill C-12 that were supposed to apply. Is there any follow-through on that?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, minister.

Obviously, we are all aware of the time limit, since the Supreme Court of Canada gave April 13 as the deadline in R. v. Tse. So we have between now and then to do something.

The government took another approach. With its introduction of Bill C-55, it announced the withdrawal of the much-criticized Bill C-30. The government dragged its feet for some months, so now we are forced to study an important bill post-haste. You said yourself that it concerns the “Invasion of Privacy” part of the Criminal Code. So we are very aware of the matter we are legislating.

That being said, I read Bill C-55. Although the Supreme Court did not make a determination regarding peace officers, police officers and so forth, I can somewhat appreciate that the government, in its wisdom, did not wait to establish definitions. However, the provision says the following:

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

I am always a bit averse to those kinds of catch-all expressions. I'd like you to tell us who exactly “other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace” refers to. Does it go as far as to include private security guards? Does it include individuals employed to enforce other federal laws such as the National Defence Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and so on?

It might be advisable to define those things, because you may have opened the door to a complicated side issue, in your efforts to address the Supreme Court's ruling.

International Trade

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a number of countries have rejected this unacceptable agreement. The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement—ACTA—was drafted behind closed doors and would incriminate the daily users of cultural content. This agreement will turn our border officers into instant copyright experts, without the adequate legal support.

Canada must seriously study the problem of counterfeiting. However, the failure of Bill C-30 means that Canadians do not have faith in this Conservative government.

Is Bill C-56 not simply a way to support ACTA through the back door?

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

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague mentioned, Bill C-30 was a complete disaster. Canadians strongly opposed that bill. However, Bill C-55 appears to be a step in the right direction.

Can my colleague explain why we have only 19 days to debate this bill? Why is the government improvising on this?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

As are the witnesses; that is a very good point from my colleague in front. The witnesses and stakeholders are also bringing forward recommendations, and we are utilizing some of those. However, right now we are seeing a continuation of deny, deny, deny and the Conservatives saying that everything they are doing is great, while we see perfect examples like Bill C-30, which was not a good piece of legislation. We need to continue to debate this in committee.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague brings forward a very valid point in his question. A lot of pieces of the legislation will need to be dealt with and talked about.

I agree that we need to be open-minded. I am sure those of us on this side of the House will be when we go to committee. When the members of Parliament who sit on the justice committee attend the justice committee hearings on this, we will be open-minded because we will have to try to resolve this very quickly.

I was talking to some of the validators earlier, like Michael Geist. There are some very serious concerns from stakeholders in the community that this bill may be bringing forward some of the issues and problems we had with Bill C-30.

We need to ensure that anything to do with Bill C-30 is done and this is addressing the Supreme Court decision. However, when we have 19 days before this has to be completed because of the Supreme Court decision, it makes us wonder why we are again debating something in the House at the eleventh hour.

I hope we do go to committee with an open mind to try to get a lot of the issues we are concerned about resolved.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues for that great round of applause as I start my speech.

I am very pleased to rise today to stand up and talk about our points relating Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision.

I know that we are coming to this with 19 days to go before it is supposed to be taken care of. As New Democrats, we recognize the importance of this and will be supporting it at second reading. We are in favour of sending this legislation to committee for review.

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to provide, in response to the Supreme Court's decision, safeguards related to authorization to intercept private communications without prior judicial authorization under section 184.4 of the act.

Notably, the enactment states that it:

(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 was talking earlier about how this really has come down to 19 days. I believe my colleague from Winnipeg North asked this question repeatedly today. The Conservatives have had a year to act on this. Why now, in the eleventh hour, are we having to deal with this so quickly? If they are truly looking at what can make great legislation, it is the debate and involvement of all members of Parliament from all sides.

However, once again, we see the Conservatives bringing forward legislation at the eleventh hour so that we all have to come together very quickly to try to pass something that we, of course, want to give due diligence and a good once over. Unfortunately, we have seen from the Conservatives time and time again the lack of opportunity for debate.

How many times is it now that the Conservatives have used time allocation to shut down debate when it comes to important bills? I believe that we are up into the 20s if not the 30s. We have seen budget bills and other legislation affecting the services Canadians rely on shut down at every opportunity. It is unfortunate that we once again have to come to an eleventh hour conversation to ensure that we can get legislation to committee.

This new legislation is simply an updated version of the wiretapping provisions the Supreme Court deemed to be unconstitutional. The court has established new parameters for the protection of privacy, and we expect this legislation to be in compliance with those standards.

Canadians have a good reason to be concerned about the Conservatives' privacy legislation. Their record in this area is not very encouraging. We need to continue working for the public to uphold the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

If we go back, not too long ago, we had the inception of Bill C-30. Back in February of 2012, the Conservative government tabled Bill C-30, which would give authorities the power to access the personal information of Canadians without a warrant. That bill raised serious concerns about personal privacy and fundamental rights and freedoms. Bill C-30 was a compilation of three bills that made up lawful access in the last parliamentary session: Bill C-50, Bill C-51 and Bill C-52. The Conservatives were then building on legislation first spearheaded to propose providing public safety authorities with surveillance powers over digital information in 1999. This led to a huge uproar from people from coast to coast to coast who were concerned about this legislation and how it would enable law enforcement to access a citizen's personal information without a warrant.

Right now, we have seen the Conservatives quickly change their tune in this new bill they have brought forward. With the government trying desperately to comply with the Supreme Court ruling within the prescribed time frame, which is April 13, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the authorization of the emergency power to intercept without authorization by the court in situations of imminent harm could be justified under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Supreme Court held that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code, interception in exceptional circumstances, enacted in 1993, was unconstitutional because it did not include any accountability measures. The court gave Parliament until April 13, 2013, to amend the provision and make it constitutional.

The Conservatives have proposed amendments that appear to be a direct response to that decision in that they add safeguards to constitute notification and reporting under section 184.4 of the Criminal Code. The legislation would require giving a person 90 days' notice, subject to an extension granted by a judge after his or her private communications had been intercepted in situations of imminent harm.

These amendments would limit the authority of the police to use this provision. All peace officers can avail themselves of it at present and would restrict its use to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code. The proposed amendments appear to be a direct response to the court's instruction.

If we are to look at those in a little more detail, 184.4 outlines:

A peace officer may intercept, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, a private communication where

(a) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds—

Reasonable grounds is very important.

—that the urgency of the situation is such that an authorization could not, with reasonable diligence, be obtained under any other provision of this Part;

(b) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that such an interception is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm to any person or to property; and

(c) either the originator of the private communication or the person intended by the originator to receive it is the person who would perform the act that is likely to cause the harm or is the victim, or intended victim, of the harm.

If we look at R. v. Tse, this appeal concerned the constitutionality of the emergency wiretap provision in section 184.4 of the Criminal Code.

In this case, the police used section 184.4 to carry out unauthorized, warrantless 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. Approximately 24 hours later, the police obtained a judicial authorization for continued interceptions pursuant to Standing Order 186 of the code.

The trial judge found that section 184.4 contravened the right to be free from unreasonable search or seizure under section 8 of the charter and that it was not a reasonable limit under section 1. The Crown appealed the declaration of unconstitutionality directly to this court. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal.

Section 184.4 permits a peace officer to intercept certain private communications without prior judicial authorization if the officer believes, on reasonable grounds, that the interception is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm, provided judicial authorization could not be obtained with reasonable diligence.

In principle, Parliament may craft such a narrow emergency wiretap authority for exigent circumstances. The more difficult question is whether the particular power enacted in section 184.4 strikes a reasonable balance between an individual's right to be free from unreasonable searches or seizures and society's interest in preventing serious harm. To the extent that the power to intercept private communications without judicial authorization would be available only in circumstances to prevent serious harm, this section strikes an appropriate balance. However, section 184.4 violates section 8 of the charter, as it does not provide a mechanism for oversight and, more particularly, notice to persons whose private communications have been intercepted. This breach cannot be saved under section 1 of the charter.

When we look at all of those details, what do we truly want as New Democrats? What should we all want as parliamentarians? To start off, we are in favour of the legislation as presented being sent to committee for review. It is essential that we play our role as members of Parliament. It is essential for us to investigate measures that include oversight and accountability, which is also the court's opinion, and we expect nothing less. We will work for the public to uphold the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Members do not have to take my or the NDP's word for it, as there are many others out there who validate it. Michael Geist in OpenMedia said:

—Bill C-30 may be dead, but lawful access surely is not. On the same day the government put the bill out its misery, it introduced Bill C-55 on warrantless wiretapping. Although the bill is ostensibly a response to last year's R v. Tse decision from the Supreme Court of Canada, much of the bill is lifted directly from Bill C-30.

As I mentioned earlier, Bill C-30, an act to enact the investigating and preventing criminal electronic communications act and to amend the Criminal Code and other acts, which was also referred to as the protecting children from Internet predators act, did many things. There was a lot to be said from coast to coast to coast about many of things presented in that bill.

At the time, we supported making changes to ensure that the police would have powers to address the emerging threats posed by cybercrime, and we supported efforts to bring policing into the digital age. However, a number of that legislation's provisions unnecessarily eroded the privacy rights of ordinary citizens. We believed that we could aggressively go after criminals at the time of Bill C-30 and punish them to the full extent of the law without making false comparisons to child pornographers and treating law-abiding Canadians like criminals.

To reiterate, Mr. Geist has mentioned some of his concerns with Bill C-30 that are emerging again with Bill C-55. If people like Mr. Geist are thinking this, then of course we need to get Bill C-55 to committee to review all of the things that were previously in Bill C-30 and that may now be in Bill C-55 and that Canadians from coast to coast to coast may be upset with.

To mention others' views on Bill C-55, Chris Parsons from the blog “Technology, Thoughts, and Trinkets” states:

—the Canadian government struggled to explain the legislation—and the need for all of its elements—to the public. In the face of public dispute over the legislation’s need the government sent the legislation to Committee before Second Reading. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police strongly supported the government, as did individual police chiefs from around the country. This extended to calls for examples of where the legislation would have helped to resolve criminal cases; to date, though, few substantive examples were found.

That sums it up right there.

Political pressure recently, in our opinion, led to the failure of Bill C-30. However, some of its measures have been reiterated in other federal legislative proposals. Civil libertarians have succeeded in their fight against lawful access, but it is important to note that some aspects of Bill C-30 were transferred outside the parliamentary process a few months ago, but the failure of Bill C-30 does not mean the non-parliamentary processes will be stopped as well.

Parliament is generally informed of the use of wiretapping so it can be aware of the frequency and the circumstances of its use. However, when 184.4 is invoked, there is no disclosure obligation. There is no need to let anyone know. The court stated that a requirement to keep records of the use of wiretapping, under 184.4, would also increase accountability, but would not be necessary if there was an obligation to provide prior notice.

In summary, we will support the bill at this time. We are in favour of the legislation getting to committee for review. However, it makes us want to ask some questions. It makes us wonder what precautions the government has taken to ensure the legislation is truly in compliance with the Supreme Court's ruling. We truly need more than 19 days to understand if this will be in compliance. Yes, we want to act quickly on this, but not at the eleventh hour.

Can the government explain how the Department of Justice's assessment of the legislation's compliance with the charter and the Constitution was carried out? Why has the government waited so long to address a relatively simple matter relating to freedom and public safety? We are pleased that the government listened to the public on Bill C-30 , and Bill C-55 seems to be a step in the right direction. However, why did the government dig its heels in for so long rather than admit it was wrong and work with the opposition to resolve the problem? As members of Parliament, we are here to work together to resolve problems. What measures from Bill C-30 has the government brought back and are now outside the scope of the House of Commons?

Those are some of the things we truly need to have addressed, now in this debate, the debate that we will carry on and the debate that we will have when the bill gets to the committee stage. Many of those questions will need to be answered. We hope we can get the answers from the government for those questions when we get to committee. Unfortunately, what we have seen time and time again is that is not the case. I can talk about committees that I have sat on where we have brought forward legitimate amendments, ideas and propositions and every one of them has been denied. The Conservatives do not accept amendments, they will not listen to reason and for some reason, they just do not get that we are all trying to do this together. We are in this together to try to make laws and legislation better from coast to coast to coast for Canadians.

At the end of the day, I hope this time—and we are always hoping that a glass is half full—that when it gets to committee, if we have amendments, if we recognize that something was missed in trying to deal in such a quick fashion on the Supreme Court's ruling, that we can work together to resolve it and get this done quickly.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my colleague’s speech. She stated that Bill C-55 was different from Bill C-30, which, as we know, was a spectacular failure for the Conservatives. As my colleague just mentioned, this is proof that the Conservative government is a slow learner.

However, the Supreme Court of Canada asked the government one year ago to amend section 184.4 to make it constitutional. Unfortunately, we have only 19 days to do so. I would like to hear my colleague’s comments on this matter.

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

Mr. Speaker, all opposition members are disappointed to find themselves faced with a bill of such importance that should have been brought before this House a long time ago. We find ourselves with 19 days in which to give the bill serious consideration and ensure it is correctly formulated and meets expectations.

Why was the bill introduced only 19 days before the deadline set by the Supreme Court of Canada? Perhaps if the Conservatives had not introduced an aberration like Bill C-30, we would not be here today with only 19 days left. This is an excellent example that shows that if we work well, if we listen to the experts, if we consult Canadians and if we transcend partisanship, we can perhaps bring in good bills that provide solutions to problems and that do not need to be drafted, redrafted, overturned and then introduced in the House only 19 days before the deadline.

Work that is well done is good for all parliamentarians and all Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech.

She emphasized the fact that, while the bill before us today is not like Bill C-30, it must still be studied in committee so it can be amended and improved.

Does she think that this bill can benefit from the recommendations that will be made in committee?

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to take part in the debate on Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, also known as the Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act.

Before I speak in more detail to Bill C-55, I would like to provide some background on the reasons for this bill.

In its ruling in R. v. Tse, the Supreme Court stated that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code, entitled “Interception in exceptional circumstances”, which was enacted in 1993, was unconstitutional because it did not include any accountability measures. The court gave Parliament until April 13, 2013, to amend the provision and make it constitutional.

Parliament has until April 13, 2013. That leaves 19 days until the deadline imposed by the Supreme Court of Canada, 19 days during which Parliament will sit and can work on this bill. I will come back to that point, but it is important in terms of the context of this debate.

What is section 184.4 of the Criminal Code? What exactly does it cover? What is the problem? Here is what the section states:

A peace officer may intercept, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, a private communication where

(a) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that the urgency of the situation is such that an authorization could not, with reasonable diligence, be obtained under any other provision of this Part;

(b) the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that such an interception is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm to any person or to property; [and here we are talking about serious harm, and I will come back to that]

(c) either the originator of the private communication or the person intended by the originator to receive it is the person who would perform the act that is likely to cause the harm or is the victim, or intended victim, of the harm.

In other words, section 184.4 of the Criminal Code allows a peace officer to intercept certain private communications without prior judicial authorization if the officer believes on reasonable grounds that the interception is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm, and provided that judicial authorization could not be obtained with reasonable diligence.

We are dealing with something that is pertinent, and we believe it is important. If a peace officer has—first—serious reasons for believing that—second—serious harm may occur and that waiting for authorization to intercept conversations could prevent the officer from intervening in time to prevent the harm, then we are dealing with something very important.

We agree that some peace officers must have this latitude in certain circumstances. However, Bill C-55 must strike a balance between, on the one hand, allowing peace officers to do their very important job, which is to protect society and the community, and, on the other hand, guaranteeing the right to privacy and not to be wiretapped without prior knowledge, or without knowing the reason. We doubt the bill can do so because no one can say whether or not a peace officer has reasonable cause for intercepting a communication.

That is the dilemma. How far can peace officers go in doing their job while protecting the individual's right to privacy?

The Conservatives' first response to this dilemma was Bill C-30. We have heard all about it because it caused an outcry from the public, the media, corporations, entrepreneurs and a number of public safety organizations. In short, there was a huge protest against the Conservatives' Bill C-30. They were forced to drop it because evidently it was very troubling and there was cause to be troubled.

The problem persisted. Section 184.4 violated a section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This issue definitely needed to be addressed and a solution needed to be found.

I am going back a bit. Section 184.4 threatens the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it does not provide for a monitoring mechanism and particularly because it does not require that notice be given to individuals whose private communications have been intercepted. Such a violation cannot be validated by the application of section 1 of the charter.

This is similar to what I was saying earlier: we are looking for that balance. Here, a section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is dear to the hearts of all Canadians, is being violated by a provision of the Criminal Code, and that cannot be allowed to continue.

That is how we have come to be debating Bill C-55. An excerpt of the bill reads as follows:

(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...

We have here a sort of regulation requiring reporting on any interceptions. The bill goes on to say:

(b) provides that a person who has been the object of such an interception must be notified of the interception within a specified period...

The individual does not necessarily have to be notified the following day or the following week. This bill would once again regulate this potential surveillance by stating that it must be declared and that individuals under surveillance must be notified within a specified period.

(c) narrows the class of individuals who can make such an interception;

This is also important. We must clearly define who may conduct such surveillance.

Lastly:

(d) limits those interceptions to offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code.

This is another measure that regulates interceptions.

I will support Bill C-55 at second reading, for all the reasons I have mentioned, so that it can be examined in committee.

There is a problem. The Supreme Court of Canada has given Parliament a deadline to correct things. So let us get to it and carefully examine Bill C-55.

Earlier I spoke about Bill C-30, which became a scandal across Canada. I would like to say that Bill C-55 is nothing like Bill C-30. What we have before us is different, and that is encouraging.

This bill gives us, as parliamentarians, a better foundation to work with so we can fix the part of the Criminal Code that the Supreme Court of Canada has asked us to fix.

However, investigations must absolutely include oversight mechanisms and accountability measures. That is what the court said. I agree, as does my party, the NDP. We must ensure that Bill C-55 respects the rule of law, the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

That is why we think it is necessary to carefully examine this bill in committee. We must ensure that Bill C-55 is not another Bill C-30 and that all of the provisions are addressed properly.

Earlier, the minister told us not to worry, that Bill C-55 respects the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution. But he did not tell us how he verified that. I hope that he did not take the same measures he took for Bill C-30. We can take little comfort if he did.

Who was consulted? What measures were taken to ensure that Bill C-55 respects the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

That is important, and not just hypothetically speaking. It is important because this would not be the first time the Conservatives have introduced a bill without listening to the experts and without following democratic processes and procedures. Such bills must then be dismantled, shelved, debated, reworked and re-introduced. It is a waste of time for parliamentarians and it is an inefficient way to work. The Conservatives introduce flawed bills that anger the people and sometimes scare them as well.

We need to examine Bill C-55 seriously and ensure that the work is done well, in the interest of all Canadians.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been following the debate all day, and I certainly know that the courts have established new parameters for the protection of privacy. We and all Canadians would expect the House to follow those parameters.

Most Canadians who were here for the debate on Bill C-30 have good reason to be concerned about the Conservatives' privacy legislation, and their record in this regard is far less than encouraging. The member started to talk about that in some detail, but for folks in my community of Hamilton Mountain that is probably the number one concern: How can we be assured that our privacy is protected, even though we understand there may be times when law enforcement officials need to be able to access some of that information? There has to be accountability. There has to be oversight. How can we make sure we are actually living within the spirit of what the courts are demanding of us?

I wonder if the member might want to take a couple more minutes, because I know his time here was brief, to talk about those issues in more detail.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today to address Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code. I want to talk a bit about the specifics of the bill and the NDP's thoughts on this bill and then move to what is the bigger question, which is the balance between protecting the privacy of citizens and collecting the information we need to make proper policy decisions. Again, I will go through the specifics and then move to the bigger question. Although New Democrats support this bill in general and think it should go to committee for more scrutiny, the government has perhaps an unbalanced or inconsistent approach to these issues that is worth discussing.

Bill C-55 concerns safeguards in relation to authorization to intercept private communications without prior judicial authorization, basically wiretapping, or the state intercepting private communications. This bill requires the federal government and provincial Attorneys General to report interceptions of private communications, requires that the person who had his or her private communications intercepted be notified and narrows the class of people who can make such interceptions. They seem to be reasonable measures that would all be considered by any other country or government around the world that has to undertake these kinds of measures.

These measures seem reasonable to New Democrats, and we will be supporting this bill at least at second reading. We will see what kinds of shenanigans the committee members get up to, but we will make sure the committee has enough time to go through them.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard.

Wiretapping is really what this bill is all about. Though we are calling it intercepted communications, we are really talking about wiretapping. Wiretapping has quite a long and sometimes dark history in Canada, and its proper use deserves our full and careful attention. In fact, the creation of our current Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, has its origins in this whole issue. As agents of the state, police and RCMP, in this case, illegally collected information on citizens during the 1970s. There was such an outcry, mainly from Quebec, that a number of task forces looked into it. They said the RCMP had too much centralized power, so we needed a separate security service, and that is why CSIS was established.

The problem in this case was that the RCMP overstepped its bounds and collected hundreds of hours of illegal wiretaps from Quebec citizens. Some were worthy, but others were to collect information about people at the whim of state agents, in this case the police. Records also show that this practice had been going on for quite some time, as well as outside the boundaries of Quebec. After quite an uproar across the country, CSIS was created. We have been wrestling with these issues and will always wrestle with where the boundaries lie between privacy and collecting necessary information. We need to take care that these past injustices, the misuse and maladministration of justice, do not happen again and that wiretapping only be used in legitimate circumstances and that the practice be as transparent as possible.

Returning to the text of Bill C-55, let me be clear that this bill is simply an updated version of previous Conservative-initiated wiretapping laws that the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional. This is not a new initiative and, in fact, we are just cleaning up a bit of a mess. Due to this mess, the courts have established new parameters for the protection of privacy, and we need to ensure that this legislation meets these new requirements. We need to make sure the committee gets this right and that it is given ample time to ensure it gets it right this time.

New Democrats want to make sure the committee gets the time, especially when the government is crafting the post-committee version of this bill, because the Conservative record shows that Conservatives are prone to make mistakes in this area.

I want to talk about the whole idea of balancing the need to collect information from citizens to make policy, whether it is security, economic assessments or policy decisions in other areas, and the citizen's need for privacy and the right to protect private communications.

The government really needs to make sure it gets the balance right. We saw before that Bill C-30 was judged too intrusive. It went too far in terms of prying into the private lives of citizens. However, I want to talk about the other side, too, where the Conservatives have erred in terms of perhaps not being clear on what information is important to collect or what they are willing to do in terms of making proper policy decisions.

There are certain members of the Conservative Party, the libertarian wing, such as the member for Nepean—Carleton, who would say that the state has no business, at all, in the lives of citizens. We know that, in its pure form, cannot be true; otherwise that would be anarchy.

What we need to do is make sure we strike the right balance. I am afraid the Conservatives have got it wrong on a number of occasions. For example, the Conservatives have used the excuse of privacy to abolish the long form census. The effects of this action will be felt throughout Canada for years to come. Using the kind of smokescreen of protecting citizens' privacy, we have abolished a tool that has been in use not just in Canada but in almost all countries around the world to inform policy decisions.

Without the long form census, we still have the short form census, which is still mandatory; however it contains very little information. The long form census, which goes to a smaller proportion of the population, collects very valuable information. For example, being somebody who used to work in city planning, I know that cities need these things to plan properly: where to put a new school or what languages should be highlighted in that school. That information comes from the long form census.

Businesses looking to target a particular neighbourhood, wondering if the business will do well there or not, will not be able to target markets with any accuracy without this information. Without the long form census, policy makers will have to fly blind in many areas without these valuable statistics.

We are going to be feeling the ripple effects of not having the long form census for many years to come. Many community members felt very strongly about this, and in fact the head of Statistics Canada felt so strongly that he resigned when the long form census was abolished.

This is what I mean by balance. The Conservatives are keen to wiretap people and to really open that up and not have it be transparent. However, on the other side, Conservatives are not willing to allow the state to collect the information it needs to make proper planning decisions.

Some of my colleagues in this House have raised the spectre of the Conservatives abolishing other surveys with mandatory requirements. We have had the long form census abolished, and the reason given on the other side was that it had a mandatory reporting requirement.

For example, we have the labour force survey, which is mandatory. We have business surveys and agricultural surveys, which are also mandatory. My question for the Conservatives would be where they fall on these issues. Will the government use the name of privacy in vain in order to abolish these critical surveys, or will it cave in to its radical libertarian wing?

It is not just an imbalance between protecting privacy and the state gaining information it needs to make policy; it is also that it is a very inconsistent application. There is no single rule that the government is using in terms of making its policy decisions.

If we abolished the labour force survey, we would probably be kicked out of the OECD. This would not allow us to calculate our unemployment rate, and we would not be able to accurately report to international organizations with any accuracy.

Maybe when the Conservatives are asking questions when I finish my speech, we could have a bit of a debate about where they see the balance between protecting privacy and collecting proper information.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

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

We have known for quite some time now that certain provisions in the Criminal Code needed to be amended. In fact, the Supreme Court decision in R. v. Tse was handed down more than 10 months ago, nearly a year ago, in fact. The decision was very clear: the provisions of Criminal Code section 184.4 had to be amended. We know this; we have spoken a great deal today about the provisions that allow for private communications to be intercepted without prior authorization.

I would like to clarify something at the outset. We in the NDP have no problem with the fact that, sometimes, in order to save lives, in matters of public safety and so on, private communications must be intercepted before prior authorization can be obtained. However, when this is done, and because it is really on the borderline, there must be safeguards in place.

In R. v. Tse, the Supreme Court stated that the existing safeguards are not sufficient to ensure that there is no abuse or undue interference in a person's private matters or that the basic principle of the right to privacy is always respected. As one of my colleagues said, when we see what has been happening recently in surveillance organizations such as CSIS, where there have been serious issues and questionable appointments, it is even more important to have a rigid, clear legislative framework.

In short, the court asked Parliament, the government, to fix the problem, which absolutely had to be done. But what did the government do? It came up with Bill C-30, a terrible bill that was poorly designed and included all sorts of things but did not provide more safeguards. Instead, it increased the power to intercept private communication.

We on this side of the House opposed Bill C-30, and we were not the only ones. Many Canadians across the country strongly opposed it. My office received hundreds of emails and letters from people who were opposed to Bill C-30.

When we opposed it, we were called every name in the book. We were told that we were siding with pedophiles, and so on. Those responsible for the file treated us with their usual haughtiness and arrogance, but as it happens all too often with this government, its arrogance backfired. As the expression goes, when one spits into the wind, it blows back into one's face. That is more or less what happened with Bill C-30.

We graciously admit that Bill C-55 is a little better. That said, we have a small problem with the fact that the Conservatives want it passed so quickly. The Supreme Court ruling on R. v. Tse was handed down on April 13, 2012, and at that time, the court gave us one year to correct the situation.

Almost one year has passed, and the government is finally introducing a bill that is moving in the right direction to correct this situation. That leaves only 19 sitting days to debate this bill at second reading, send it to committee, have it return to the House for third reading and carry out the rest of the process. That is a very short timeframe, and it is truly typical of this government, which is always so short-sighted. I work on international files a lot and I am always fascinated at the lack of foresight of this government. You would think that a year would be long enough for the government to have seen this coming. Are the Conservatives so shortsighted that even a year is too long to plan? That is rather frustrating.

Maybe the government is hoping that the bill will pass easily. In case we were not clear before, we will be clear now. We believe that this bill is necessary, that we must ensure security, but we must also ensure that privacy is protected. We do not have a problem with that.

The problem arises when it comes to doing things right. Many people have concerns about the bill as it stands. Let us look at several examples. The bill talks about peace officers that can intercept communications. However, the term “peace officer” is not defined. Could a private security guard be a peace officer?

The bill deals with the issue of the time required before a person must be notified that his or her communications have been intercepted. Should this be 30 days or 90 days? Can this be extended for up to three years, as it is proposed in certain cases? Where is the happy medium?

There is another even more fundamental problem. What have we done to ensure that the legislation really responds to the Supreme Court case? What evaluation mechanism have we put in place to ensure that, in six months or one or two years, we do not find ourselves before the Supreme Court once again? This government seems to think that the executive branch does not have to answer to anyone and that it is above the law. That is not true. The charter and the Constitution are more important than the Conservatives' or any other party's political agenda.

The committee will have to take a close look at these concerns. Canadians have every reason to be apprehensive about a Conservative privacy bill. The Conservatives have a dismal track record in this area. Regardless, it is never a good idea to speed through bills. It is important to act, but we must do things properly. We have only 19 sitting days left to get this job done. We will roll up our sleeves and work hard.

The government's rush to get this passed unfortunately shows its lack of professionalism and lack of respect for Parliament, which in itself shows a lack of respect for Canadians, who have every right to expect Parliament to work diligently on such important issues.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie.

The NDP will vote in favour of Bill C-55 at second reading so that it can be examined in committee and so that its weaknesses can be remedied, since therein lies the problem.

This is a good bill, particularly in comparison to its predecessor, Bill C-30, which fortunately was withdrawn. I do not think that the government really had any choice.

We, in the NDP, think that it is reasonable for Canada to have the means to protect its laws, its people and their property. We agree that emergency situations may require the intelligent use of a police force to combat crime.

However, unfortunately, the devil is in the details and they are many. We must clarify them and provide solutions. The NDP will do so in committee.

The bill has many weaknesses. One of our concerns is that the government has a serious problem with the application of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The number of bills that this government is introducing that the Supreme Court considers to be ultra vires is becoming indecent.

Someday, this government is going to have to understand that the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are not going to be struck down just to please it; the Supreme Court is not going to take pity on it and is not going to say someday that it accepts the charter being violated, to please a government that plainly does not understand it. That is not how it works.

As Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” This government is plainly afflicted by that syndrome. It systematically makes the same mistake all over again by violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it hopes that someday those violations will be accepted by the Supreme Court. That is not how it works.

In this case, we have to pass this bill urgently. We will have a short time to examine it, essentially because of a judgment given nearly a year ago by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Tse, declaring section 184.4 of the Criminal Code to be invalid. I would note that that section authorizes peace officers to intercept private conversations without seeking a warrant from the court.

The Supreme Court said at the outset that in exceptional urgent cases, where people and property are in immediate danger, it is to be expected that a democratic society will take measures to defend itself. However, it also said that this reasonable violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms must not open the door to any form of repression. That is the point at which it says that under section 184.4, the government is going too far.

Personally, I say that this must be limited. We must limit rights by stating clearly that the situation is exceptional. We must remedy the situation by informing the person who has been the subject of an unauthorized wiretap and have the continuation of the wiretap approved by a judicial authority.

In fact, section 183 of the Criminal Code provides a list of the events that will open the door to the use of section 184.4. That is a good thing. The application of that section must be guided by section 183.

A police force must not be allowed to go on a fishing expedition—to give itself the right to wiretap because it thinks that maybe someday something is going to happen. That is not authorized by the Supreme Court.

Collecting Canadians’ confidential information is no small matter. What is troubling is that this same government has a well-known tendency to lose confidential information about Canadians.

It accidentally forgot 500,000 files of students who received loans and bursaries. It lost information about aboriginal communities. It has lost a lot of information. It would be nice if this government took things a little more seriously.

We will be uncompromising when it comes to restricting rights. We will never allow democracy to be killed for the purpose of preserving democracy. That is the issue here. Under the rule of law in a democracy, people are accountable to justice and the law. We are debating this bill because section 183.4 does not meet the Supreme Court's criteria. It does not meet the criteria of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bill C-30 definitely did not.

The close connection between Bill C-30 and Bill C-55 is regrettable. It is precisely this relationship that NDP members are going to keep a close watch on in committee. The question that then arises is whether we must sacrifice democracy in order to save it. The NDP's answer is very clear and intelligent: no.

The Supreme Court opened a door. It said that it wanted us to review section 184.4 and directed us to ensure that rights and freedoms were respected. There are some potential problems, such as replacing peace officers with police officers—which is fine—and other persons. However, “other persons” can mean anyone. At least this was limited to peace officers before. Now “other persons” can mean people who are not even peace officers. That is a problem and it is unacceptable.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service—CSIS—agents are not police officers within the meaning of the act. Members of the Canadian armed forces who work at the Communications Security Establishment Canada—CSEC— are not peace officers within the meaning of the act. Moreover, those who work for Echelon have the same problem. All exchanges with Interpol are therefore problematic.

It is therefore important to revise section 184. However, it requires proper oversight by police watchdogs. But then there is the problem of the scandal involving Dr. Porter. He was appointed to the highest level of our country's security institutions despite being wanted for fraud and corruption. The only qualification he had for work in intelligence and security was being a friend of the Conservative Party. I believe that friendship with members of the Conservative Party is a flawed criterion.

It is therefore important to make sure that the RCMP, CSIS and CSEC are properly monitored by oversight organizations that will tell their members, “Here is the act; you are required to follow the guidelines set out in this act.” We mentioned the problem of “other persons”, how oversight of them is important, and that this oversight should be performed by serious entities staffed by qualified people, not by Conservative Party campaign fundraising friends. There is also the problem of “other means”, which is very vague. Wiretapping is mentioned, but there is also the interception of private communications. Are the notes we write to prepare a speech or a sermon a problem?

In conclusion, I want to say that in democratic countries—and in London specifically—the phone hacking scandal in which journalists listened to conversations was a problem. In France, President Sarkozy used security services to get rid of some opponents. In the United States, intelligence services were misused to solve the problem. That is the problem with Bill C-55. That is what the NDP wants to do to protect Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to say a few words on Bill C-55.

There are many thoughts I would like to share with members, albeit we are somewhat limited in terms of time.

I want to pick up on two or three themes. I always take great exception when the government does things in a fashion that ultimately is disrespectful to the functionality of the House.

It is a privilege to be a member of Parliament, and I value the role I get to play. I thank the constituents of Winnipeg North for allowing me to represent them. I am also very grateful for the Liberal Party allowing me to respond to the different bills and so forth.

When I look at what the government is doing here, I find it is once again somewhat disrespectful. We need to recognize that the Supreme Court of Canada made the decision that precipitated the legislation before us. This decision was not made a month ago or two months ago. This decision was made back in April 2012.

The government has known for months that it needed to change the legislation. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that could justify the delay it has taken in introducing Bill C-55.

What the government has done through procrastination is put the House of Commons in a position where, if we want to respect what our Supreme Court has ruled, there is pressure on its members to pass the legislation not only through second reading, but also committee, third reading and so forth, before April 13 of this year.

Today is the first opportunity to debate the bill. It is a significant issue. One has to question why the government—former Reformers and now Conservatives, as the members call themselves—has taken a different approach to dealing with legislation.

Members will recall the two massive budget bills in which the government, through the back door, made amendments to dozens of pieces of legislation. I am somewhat surprised that the government did not include this change. I guess the minister responsible did not think about it, or maybe he did not get the message from the PMO that the budget bill was coming forward. I am glad that at the very least the minister did not take advantage of the budget bill.

The government has been bringing in a record number of time allocation motions. I have a fairly lengthy list, and I will not go through the entire list. Some of these issues of time allocation were quite significant, whether it was on back-to-work type of legislation, the gun registry, a pension plan, the Canadian Wheat Board, Air Canada, Bill C-31, Bill C-27 or numerous other bills.

All of these deal with opportunities that members of Parliament have to provide due diligence and go through the legislation in a timely fashion to ensure the legislation is debated and that ideas will stem out from those debates, ultimately seeing it going to the committees and allowing them to do their jobs. Hopefully the government is then sympathetic to recognizing that its legislation quite often needs to be amended. Amendments come from many members on a wide variety of legislation.

Therefore, today we have a very short window. I suspect time allocation will be placed on this bill. However, there is a high sense of co-operation from opposition parties. On behalf of the Liberal Party, the Liberal Party critic was able to address the bill earlier today and indicated that we were very comfortable in seeing the bill go to committee. We recognize the importance of that.

That does not excuse the government of its irresponsible behaviour in not providing the House the respect that is necessary when dealing with legislation. It should be held accountable for taking so long in bringing this legislation before us.

However, the Liberal Party will behave responsibly and do what it can to get it to committee. We hope the government will be sensitive to possible amendments to the legislation. We recognize the bill does deserve attention at committee and understand that hopefully there will be some changes brought forward.

There are four things that Bill C-55 attempts to do.

It requires the ministers of public safety and emergency preparedness and the attorney generals of each province to report on the inception of private communications made under section 184.4. That is a positive request. It is something that the Supreme Court did not require. It is a reporting mechanism and there is great merit for it.

Bill C-55 provides that a person who is the subject of such an interception must be notified of the interception within a specified period of time. We must give thought to what the appropriate amount of time is. Hopefully that will come out in committee. We are very much aware of the importance of our charter and the protection of our privacy. There has to be a balancing of the public good and life-threatening situations and so forth. However, there also needs to be protection for individuals who ultimately might be subjected to a warrantless wiretap. I suggest the committee would do well to have some dialogue as to whether it should be 90 days or less than that and what the arguments and concerns are. It would be interesting to hear what the stakeholders would have to say on that point.

It would narrow the class of individuals who can intercept a wiretap. My understanding is that it is more general today. What the government wants to do is narrow it to include police officers. Hopefully, we will have some dialogue at committee stage regarding contracting out. Many municipalities hire private services related to security and policing. How will they be incorporated, or will they be incorporated?

Again, there is an opportunity with respect to the limits of those interceptions for offences listed in section 183 of the Criminal Code. We can appreciate that when that type of authority is issued, we should be very careful in terms of when and for what circumstances it would be utilized. Two things that come to mind are life-saving measures or kidnappings. These are the types of things where timing is of the essence. There might be a requirement for us to ensure that law enforcement officers are able to get the necessary information as quickly as possible.

The minister and others have talked a lot about section 184.4. That is really what we are talking about and that is what the Supreme Court made its ruling on. In going through some notes and, in particular, comments by judges, I thought I would share two that are really important to recognize and are related to section 184.4, which deals with the warrantless wiretapping provisions.

The first quote was said by one of our court judges:

—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.

I find that to be a most appropriate statement. This is why I raised this a few minutes ago. It is important for us to take a look at the most appropriate time frame. When someone's telephone conversation is being tapped into and the individual is not aware of it, what is an appropriate amount of time between the law officer making a recording of a conversation and the individual's right to know that recording was in fact made? From what I understand, the bill suggests 90 days.

The judge has correctly pointed out the importance of this to the public. We need to recognize that it outweighs the private interest. However, in the same breath, it is still important the private interest be protected in some fashion.

The second quote is as follows:

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.

I wanted to read those quotes because I believe very passionately in the charter. I believe the vast majority of Canadians over the years have recognized how important it is to protect and refer to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because we have taken ownership of that over the last 30 years. We need to do what we can to always reflect on that.

Earlier today, I had the opportunity to ask a number of members a very important question that many took for granted, and I want to use a couple of examples.

I am the critic for citizenship and immigration. I have been frustrated by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and some of the legislation he has brought forward. The question I posed to members earlier was related to the obligation of government ministers, with regard to the changes they are proposing at the draft stage, to get a better sense of whether these changes would meet the requirements of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or pass a constitutional challenge. This has been an important issue for me because it has been raised in committee on several occasions. In fact, there is a group of lawyers and doctors in Toronto that is going to the Federal Court questioning the constitutionality of the decision made by the minister to cut back health care services to some of the most vulnerable in our society.

We have challenged the minister on that and it is now going to a federal court. We are not confident that the minister knew what he was doing when he brought in that change. Through Bill C-38, the minister made changes that ultimately excluded hundreds of thousands of skilled workers. Again, we questioned that. Not only does it come across as a very cruel and inhumane policy change, but when the minister brought in the change it was, and is being, challenged by a federal court. In fact, there was a ruling made by one court in Ontario indicating that the minister was wrong. I am not sure where this is at within the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, but that is another issue.

Then we had the issue of detention, which is where committees really are of benefit. We had a minister who was going to put people in a detention centre without any real right of appeal for a year, but at committee stage we were able to make some serious changes to that proposal. However, it took a whole lot to do it. Again, we had presenters at committee who said that this would not meet a constitutional challenge. That is important.

In looking at the justice area, I always thought that Bill C-30 was an interesting bill when it was introduced. I understand that the government has now withdrawn Bill C-30, but one of the arguments in that regard was that it did not go far enough in its provisions to give police officers wiretapping power over Internet services. Now Bill C-30 has come to a standstill, with the government backing off from it for a wide variety of reasons. That said, I question whether or not the current section 184.4 is something that would have been able to deal with many of the measures suggested in Bill C-30. Is that one of the reasons the government is not moving forward with the legislation? If so, one could question why it brought forward the bill in the first place. What happened regarding the exploitation of children on the Internet? Is that issue addressed in section 184.4? I am interested in knowing the answer, as I do know there was an attempt to deal with that issue in Bill C-30.

When I look at Bill C-55 as a whole, I do see merit in it going to committee, where I am interested to see what will take place. Hopefully, there will be some discussion relating to Bill C-30 because there might have been possible amendments to it that would benefit Bill C-55. Canadians are concerned about the exploitation of children over the Internet. I do not know to what degree Bill C-55 could assist in extreme circumstances in dealing with that issue.

We look forward to the bill going to committee. I hope and trust that the government will look at bringing legislation in a more timely fashion to the House and allow members the necessary diligence, without being rushed to pass bills to meet a deadline such as the Supreme Court's decision.

[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.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister of Justice for rising in the House to explain Bill C-55. We appreciate it.

We all know that we are on a tight deadline. April 13, 2013 is not that far off. The Supreme Court rendered its decision almost a year ago, and it basically told the government to get its act together. Bill C-55 was introduced a few days ago.

It reminds me of my university days. We would wait until the last minute to do our work, which sometimes yielded great results because we could come up with some great things at the last minute. However, there were also instances where we did not have enough time to ensure that there were checks and balances in place. I would like to ask the Minister of Justice a question about that.

This is an urgent situation. Since the government did an about-face by abandoning Bill C-30—which it felt would fix the issue—and since the Minister of Justice took on the task of making Bill C-55 more palatable, did he also take the time to speak with experts in his department to find out if the proposed amendments are in line with the Supreme Court decision in R. v. Tse?

Telecommunications

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, although the Conservatives have decided to scrap their horrible Bill C-30 on Internet snooping, we wonder if they will manage to plant their controversial measures in another bill.

Bill C-12 contains hidden measures that would allow the government to obtain personal information without judicial oversight.

If the Conservatives are really serious about abandoning their Internet snooping bill, then why did they not withdraw Bill C-12 as well?

Business of the House

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise here today to ask the hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons what his government plans to debate for the rest of the week and when we return after the constituency week.

Although we continue to debate a variety of bills that the government has included on the calendar and we continue to debate opposition motions, it is not always easy to really understand what the government is planning—unless of course it does not have a clear plan.

One thing that is clear from dealing with the government is that it does not seem to be much about action but all about talk.

I remember their introduction, with great fanfare, of Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which would be quite useful to those who have potentially had their identity exposed to theft. It was introduced September 29, 2011, 493 days ago and has yet to be debated.

Then there is the infamous Bill C-7, Senate Reform Act, which the government claims to all who will listen that it cannot get it through Parliament. It has been 358 days since we have had an opportunity to debate that.

Who cannot forget Bill C-32, Civil Marriage of Non-residents Act, which the government refuses to bring forward for debate and a free and fair democratic vote in the House.

I wonder if all of these are going the way of the infamous Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill, which the Minister of Public Safety so infamously torpedoed with his comments. It was left to die on the order paper.

Can the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons tell me what his plans are for the remainder of this week as well as the next? Does the government have anything representing an agenda whatsoever?

Public Safety

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, those who joined forces with the NDP to protect the right to privacy declared victory yesterday when Bill C-30 was declared dead.

It was rather pathetic to see the Minister of Justice join the ranks of the worst criminals who opposed the defunct bill.

In a rare moment, a Conservative minister admitted he was wrong and listened to the criticisms from politicians and those who use the Internet.

Will the Minister of Public Safety admit his mistakes and apologize to those he insulted?

Business of the House

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise on behalf of the official opposition to ask the government about its plans for the House for the rest of this week and next week.

During this first week, it has become clear that the government's legislative agenda is neither clear nor ambitious. That may be a good thing considering the irresponsible legislative agendas the Prime Minister's office usually has to offer us. The only part of the agenda we saw yesterday was yet another government time allocation motion, the 28th such motion since the beginning of this session. This is yet another attempt to undermine our democratic process.

I would like to ask my hon. friend across the way if his government intends, for the remainder of this week and the beginning of next, to call Bill C-32, an act to amend the civil marriage act? This was a bill that was introduced on February 17, 2012, and an act that we have committed to see expeditiously through this House for debate and standing vote.

Or, will the government finally call Bill C-30, that much unloved Internet snooping bill that seems to be continually sitting in Conservative legislative purgatory, never to see the light of day?

I am also curious if the minister has an update for this House and for Canadians about the current situation in Mali and this Parliament's opportunity to debate Canada's role in Mali.

Questions on the Order Paper—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised on November 29, 2012, by the member for Charlottetown regarding the relevance of the government's response to written question Q-465.

I would like to thank the hon. member for having raised this matter and the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for his comments.

In raising his point of order, the member for Charlottetown contended that the response provided to his written question Q-465 had no link to the question asked. Specifically, he had requested certain information related to all websites accessed by the Minister of Justice and the Minister for Public Safety on government-issued computers and devices within a specific two-week period. The answer received explained, by way of reference to Bill C-30, that the information requested would not be provided. Asserting his right as a member of Parliament to ask questions to hold the government accountable, the hon. member argued that the government does not have the right to decide which questions to answer and which ones to ignore.

In response, the parliamentary secretary reminded the House of the ruling that the chair gave on November 27, 2012, which can be found at pages 12536-7 of Debates, on the appropriateness of answers to written questions.

As to the appropriateness of the answer provided, members are well aware that it is a well-established practice that Speakers do not judge the quality of government responses to questions, whether written or oral. In fact, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, at page 522, states:

There are no provisions in the rules for the Speaker to review government responses to questions.

That being said, I did state in the November 27 ruling to which the parliamentary secretary referred, at page 12536 of Debates, that “As always, however, the Chair remains attentive to these matters and is ready to assist in any way it can in ensuring that written questions continue to serve members as an important channel of genuine information exchange”.

I think all members would agree that members of the House have the right to expect that reasonable answers be given to reasonable questions, particularly given the critical role of written questions in our parliamentary system.

In a ruling on June 14, 1989, at page 3026 of Debates, Speaker Fraser provided an interesting comment on government responses to questions, stating:

It should be understood that there is no obligation on the Government to provide a perfect answer, only a fair one. A Member in framing his or her question would accept part of the responsibility for the quality of the answer.

As I reminded the House on November 27, 2012, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, at page 522, states that “It is acceptable for the government, in responding to a written question, to indicate to the House that it cannot supply an answer”. At the same time, it is expected under our practice that the integrity of the written question process be maintained by avoiding questions or answers that stray from the underlying principle of information exchange.

As is stated in O’Brien and Bosc, again at page 522, “no argument or opinion is to be given and only the information needed to respond to the question is to be provided in an effort to maintain the process of written questions as an exchange of information rather than an opportunity for debate.”

For reasons already given, the Chair is not in a position to delve into the content of answers to written questions. However, as Speaker, I have a duty to remind the House that our written question process is intended to be free of argument and debate. To protect its integrity, I enjoin those submitting questions and those preparing answers to bear that principle in mind, remembering that it remains acceptable for the government to say in response to a question, simply, “We cannot answer”.

The Chair hopes that all those involved in the written question process will bear this ruling and my ruling of November 27, 2012 in mind so that every effort is made to ensure that information is exchanged in such as way as to serve the needs of members while protecting the integrity of the written question practices that have served us so well for many, many years.

I thank all members for their attention.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order arising from an order paper question that I submitted. The question that I posed was quite simple and, for the record, I will read the question and the answer provided in their original parliamentary form. The question reads:

With regard to websites accessed on the personal departmental desktop computers, laptop computers, mobile phones, tablet computers, or other internet-enabled devices issued to the Minister of Justice and to the Minister of Public Safety: (a) what are the URLs of all websites accessed on said devices between 12:01 a.m. on February 1, 2012, and 12:01 a.m. on February 14, 2012 (all dates and times inclusive), listed by ministry; and (b) at what times were those websites accessed, listed by ministry?

The answer, as provided by the Conservative government, reads:

Bill C-30 does not modify the fact that such information would have to be obtained pursuant to a court order or other lawful authority. Therefore, the information requested will not be provided.

However, as an example, under the proposed legislation, Bill C-30, the following is what would be available to law-enforcement officers.

It then proceeds to list the name of the Minister of Public Safety and the member of Parliament for Provencher, his address, his email address, his telephone number, his IP address and his service provider, Public Works and Government Services Canada.

The response given by the ministers has no link to the question asked. In fact, I was provided answers to questions which I did not pose. I made no mention of Bill C-30 in my question. I did not ask for the IP address or the email addresses of the ministers. I certainly did not request their phone number, mailing address or the name of their service provider. What I did ask for was specific information related to websites accessed by the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety from their government issued laptops, desktop computers, tablets and other devices provided and paid for by the taxpayers of Canada. These are not personal instruments of communication. They are the property of the government, paid for by taxpayers. They are not exempt from disclosure.

On this point, we know from media reports that regular accountability audits are conducted by the Government of Canada with respect to the computer usage of public servants, the same public servants who work for ministers. These audits are done to ensure public and government business is being conducted properly and that the websites accessed by public servants are material and relevant to their work. If that type of accountability is necessary for public servants, why not for ministers? It would be difficult to imagine what specific national security provisions would need to be invoked, or should I say invented, that would prevent the public from knowing if ministers access, for example, websites like CNN or even, one can imagine, the CBC?

The government does not have the right to decide which questions to answer and which ones to ignore without explicit legislative authority. Such authority does not exist in this instance.

The failure of the Conservative ministers to answer my question posed under the rules of the House of Commons is a matter of great concern. When I posed my question I was direct and specific. The ministers in question completely avoided answering my direct question and t instead chose to provide answers that had nothing to do with my question. The answers provided are, to be frank, bizarre.

The right of a member of Parliament to ask questions to hold the government to account is fundamental to the very notion of accountability in democracy. I, therefore, request that the Speaker check into this matter and consider providing me with an extra question while the minister revisits and prepares a new accurate answer.

Business of the House

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know you look forward to this with some expectations.

I am honoured to rise on behalf of the official opposition to ask the government what it has planned for the House for the rest of this week and for next week.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the government House leader appealed to you to reject the idea of allowing separate votes on separate questions facing this House. He did so on the grounds that the amendments would not be accepted by the government anyway. What is the point of us trying to fix bad Conservative bills? According to the Conservative government, reviewing and amending bills is some sort of annoyance that it wants to do away with entirely.

However, the truth is that the government has had a terrible record of getting its own legislation right. It is a bit like trying to unpack a Russian Matryoshka nesting doll. Let us review.

Bill C-4 was panned by so many critics that we lost count. It was left to die on the order paper by the Conservatives.

Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill, was panned by the opposition. We tried to amend it but the Conservatives rejected the amendments. They then tried to make those very same changes later on, which you, Mr. Speaker, had to reject. The changes finally got made in the unelected and unaccountable Senate down the way.

Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill, was so bad that, once explained by the Minister of Public Safety to Canadians, the Conservatives refused to even acknowledge that it was ever in existence. That was some bit of political spin, “You're either with us or you're with the other folks”.

Bill C-31 was panned by the opposition and others. The Conservatives had to amend it at the committee themselves.

Bill C-45, the monster budget bill and the second omnibus bill, actually includes many provisions to fix the first monster omnibus bill in the spring.

This would all be funny if it were not so serious and would have such an impact on the lives of Canadians.

Lastly, I want to say how disappointing it is that the government chose to be partisan instead of saving lives in the developing world, when it voted against Bill C-388 yesterday. This bill would have made it easier for Canada to send generic medications to those who need them most. What an unacceptable decision on the part of the Conservative government.

What does the undemocratic leaning Conservative government have in store for Canadians next?

Protection of Children

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

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from residents of Ontario, particularly the town of Glen Morris.

The petitioners call on the House to look very closely at Bill C-30, the so-called Internet surveillance act, labelled “Protecting Children from Internet Predators”, which is not the purpose of the act. They call on the House to in fact protect the privacy of Canadians, review the act and ensure Canadians know that they are not being spied upon without proper access and warrants.

Business of the House

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome my hon. colleague across the way back to this session. It is as boisterous as when we left it.

In an effort to provide some hope for Canadians that Parliament can work together, my Thursday question this week cites legislation that the NDP, the official opposition, would be keen to work with the government in getting these bills to committee stage. I will name them specifically and see if my hon. colleague can make some mention of them: Bill C-21, political loans; Bill C-30, the lawful access, which has only five more hours of debate until it goes to committee before second reading; Bill C-32, the civil marriage act; and Bill C-37, the victims surcharge act.

The opposition is interested in working with the government to see all of those go through to committee stage and seeks to start this parliamentary session in a hopefully more productive tone than the one that we ended with last session.

Telecommunications

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition urges the House of Commons to not pass Bill C-30 and to reject any proposals that would allow the authorities to obtain the private information of Internet users without a warrant.

[Michael MacDonald]

The powers that are found in the current draft bill, Bill C-30, are one part of the critical puzzle of all efforts to combat terrorism, keeping in that strict interpretation, yes.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I think I can oblige, as I'll ask a couple of questions precisely on that.

I think Mr. Rathgeber is correct. It seems to be little touched upon in the resilience strategy.

In the cyber infrastructure discussion, there's no mention of a bill that the ministry was obviously sponsoring at the same time it was preparing this report, and that's Bill C-30 on Internet surveillance. Now it's called the child predator something or other act, but in fact it covers all crimes and any criminal investigations where there's Internet data relevant to crimes. It's not only about child predators. That's one of the things we've learned in the whole episode.

I have a quick question. Because you're attempting to have a fairly integrated, holistic approach, is Bill C-30 integral to the counter-terrorism strategy set out in this document?

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

Surely you know, Minister, that a lot is going to be put on the shoulders of the Privacy Commissioner. She will supposedly be required to scrutinize the measures that you've introduced under Bill C-30. Now she'll have to vet agreements with non-traditional partners, yet her budget has been cut. So how is she going to get all of this work done?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to take a few moments to thank you for being here and also for the quality of your presentations and your answers. This is really a very interesting meeting. The subject is fascinating and your comments make it all the more relevant.

A number of years ago, I was struck, as many are, by George Orwell's novel 1984. In the novel, the all-powerful government takes on the form of Big Brother watching over people's lives. The picture you are painting gives us the impression that the government could actually be a Big Brother. When the Conservatives introduce a bill like Bill C-30, we get chills up our spines, and with good reason.

But my impression is that we have a whole lot of “Medium Brothers” in the form of large Internet companies. They are getting to know our lives, to watch us, to know what we like and do not like, what we buy and do not buy, what interests us and what does not. Then they can go into action.

Is it your impression that online social media have become a bunch of Big Brothers?

[Dr. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair, Internet and E-commerce Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

Good morning. My name is Michael Geist. I am a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where I hold the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law. I was a member of the national Task Force on Spam, and I currently serve on the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's expert advisory committee, but I appear before this committee today in a personal capacity representing only my own views.

My opening comments will identify several areas for potential government action, but I want to provide a bit of context with three key caveats.

First, which I think may be stating the obvious, is that social media is an enormously important and positive development. The number of users is staggering and its role as a key source for communication, community, and political activity grows by the day. The opportunities presented by social media should be embraced, not demonized, in my view, and government should be actively working to ensure that it incorporates social media into its policy consultation processes.

Second, Canada has played a leadership role, to a certain extent, in the use and regulation of social media. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada was the first to conduct a major privacy investigation into Facebook and has led on other issues with respect to social media and Internet companies.

Third, while we have had some influence through those investigations, Canada has not led in creating the social media services used by millions around the world. I believe that the failure to articulate and implement a national digital economy strategy comes back to haunt us in these circumstances, where the ability to place an unmistakable Canadian stamp on social media is undermined by the policy failures that have done little to encourage the development of Canadian e-commerce and social media.

With those caveats, what is there to be done? I'd like to focus on four areas of interest.

First, I think we need to finish what we've started.

The government has introduced and even passed legislation that can be helpful in addressing some of the concerns that arise from social media, yet these initiatives have stalled short of the finish line. Anti-spam legislation, for example, received royal assent in 2010, yet has still not taken effect as final regulations have not been approved. In fact, Industry Canada officials now indicate that it could be well into 2013 before the regulations take effect. Given the amount of work that went into this legislation, I find it shocking that it has been left in limbo.

Moreover, Bill C-12, the PIPEDA reform bill that seeks changes arising from the 2006 privacy review continues to lag in the House of Commons, with there frankly seeming to be no interest in moving forward with the bill. Indeed, I'd argue that the bill is even now outdated, and a full PIPEDA review to address emerging concerns such as order-making power—as you just heard—and damages, and tougher security breach requirements than those found in the bill is needed. In fact, the Bill C-12 security breach reporting rules are primarily bark with little bite, given the absence of penalties for failure to comply.

Successive governments have promised a digital economy strategy for years and have failed to deliver. The strategy has come to be known as the “Penske file”, a reference to the Seinfeld episode that involves working on an imaginary file. While other countries are now years into implementing their strategies, in Canada we still lag behind.

I think it also should be noted that these issues must increasingly be addressed in concert with the provinces. The line between federal and provincial jurisdiction on many of these issues is blurry, and legal challenges against federal legislation is a real possibility. Work is needed to begin to develop minimum standards that can be implemented at the provincial level, should federal leadership be challenged in the courts by companies seeking to circumvent their privacy obligations.

Second, the devil is in the defaults. In many respects, social media and Internet companies are the most powerful decision-makers when it comes to privacy choices. As my colleague Professor Ian Kerr says, the devil is in the defaults. In other words, the choices made by leading social media companies with respect to default privacy settings are the de facto privacy choice for millions of users. Given the increasing pressure to generate revenues, we can expect that those default choices are going to change in more aggressive ways to make use of user data.

There are examples of companies that are doing good work in this area. Twitter recently implemented do-not-track options that won plaudits from the Federal Trade Commission in the United States. Google offers its users transparency tools so they can obtain detailed information about what information is collected, some of the ways Google uses it, and how they can modify some of their privacy choices. The company has also been transparent about law enforcement requests for information and copyright takedown demands.

There needs to be continued work on these defaults, as well as initiatives to provide users with greater information and transparency, and steps to ensure that companies live by their privacy commitments.

Third is the issue of lawful access. The introduction of Bill C-30 brought with it an avalanche of public outrage and concern over proposed Internet surveillance legislation. While much of the focus was on mandatory warrantless disclosure of subscriber information by telecom service providers, the potential for social media and big data Internet sites to serve much the same purpose cannot be overlooked.

A recent investigation by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada into Nexopia, a Canadian social network, identified hundreds of law-enforcement requests for customer name and address information, frequently for accounts that should have been deleted months earlier. Social media, as we've heard, generates a treasure trove of personal information that must enjoy full privacy protection and court oversight before disclosure. Indeed, documents that I recently obtained under access to information indicate that Public Safety is thinking about how these rules are applied to social media sites and services. I believe that Bill C-30 needs to go back to the drawing board to effectively account for these privacy concerns.

Fourth is the question of new legal issues, which Professor Scassa has identified a number of. I would argue that while much can be done to use or augment existing rules, social media and Internet sites do raise some unique issues that may require targeted responses. In the interest of time I would like to quickly identify two.

First is the issue of “do not track”. As you may know, cookies can be used to trace the web-browsing habits of users, including when they visit third-party sites. For example, Facebook inserts a cookie on user browsers that traces your activity as you surf the Internet. Any site with nothing more than a Facebook “like” button, as found on Conservative, NDP, and Liberal websites, means that Facebook records a visit to that site and retains that information for months. A growing number of sites, including Yahoo, AOL, and Twitter, respect the functionality found in Firefox browsers that allows users to choose not to be tracked. Google has said it will implement similar technology in its Chrome browser.

However, many sites have been slow to adopt the do not track option, and Facebook has thus far declined to do so. Given the failure of the industry to self-regulate, it is appropriate for government to step in with stronger measures to ensure that this form of user choice is implemented and respected.

Second is the growing problem of social media misuse. For example, in recent months there has been an increasing number of stories of employers requiring employees to provide their Facebook user ID and password as a condition of a job interview. Seeking the same information with direct questions would typically be prohibited, so this is used to circumvent long-standing standards and principles within employment law. In response, the State of Maryland recently passed a law banning employers from requiring employees or job applicants to provide access to their personal digital and social media accounts. Several other states in the United States are working on similar legislation, and I believe that Canada should follow suit.

Thanks very much for your attention.

Public Safety

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying what complete misrepresentation that member of Parliament has just displayed, which shows why that party is over there in the corner with a reduced amount of seats. Canadians recognize that the Liberal Party unfortunately has lost complete touch with the Canadian people.

The government will send Bill C-30 to committee for major review before proceeding further. The fact of the matter is that this legislation was introduced by the previous Liberal government with fewer privacy safeguards.

We have answered this question. We have indicated what our government is prepared to do.

What is very disturbing is what appears to be complete hypocrisy on the side of the Liberal third party in regard to this issue. It is disturbing to hear that member talk about the bill and this issue with complete disregard for what his party did previously on this issue.

As I said, the bill will be sent to committee before we proceed any further. We are listening to Canadians on this issue and we will continue to listen.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, on February 17, I asked the government the following question.

Madam Speaker, my question is for the government's chief spymaster who is so intent on snooping into Canadians' private emails and the laptops of the nation. However, Conservatives are not stopping at emails. The minister's bill would allow government agents to enter on an Internet service provider when they wanted, without a warrant and demand to see absolutely everything and even to copy it all.

My question was:

Why does the government see every Canadian as an enemy of the state and why has the minister given Conservative agents absolute power to pry?

As one might imagine, I received a non-answer from the government, in fact from a senior minister. Instead of getting an answer, I received a rant and an attack against the NDP.

The question really was in relation to the provisions of Bill C-30, which was introduced with much fanfare in February of this year and now seems to have disappeared from the order paper.

The concerns expressed by Canadians across the country were consistent. This legislation was designed to enable the government to gain a level of surveillance that has not been seen in this country ever.

However, the government's clear view is that anyone who criticizes its actions, questions them in any way, is described as an enemy, as a radical, as being un-Canadian. Members may remember the Minister of Public Safety's ludicrous remark that one is either with the government or with the child pornographers. These are the kinds of intemperate, belligerent and disgraceful characterizations the government uses against Canadians who raise even legitimate and appropriate questions against the government.

Although this legislation is off the order paper, the Minister of Public Safety seems to have made it clear recently that it will be coming up again in the fall.

This legislation and the elements of intrusion, which have nothing to do with the real issues, should have been the end result of serious consultations, a process the Conservative government seems to know nothing about. The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development the other day in her comments on employment insurance said she consulted. Premiers have come out and said they have not been consulted. As far as we know the unemployed have not been consulted.

Do ministers think consultation means sitting down with a business partner or a friend and having a glass of wine? That is not consultation. If the government is going to do consultations, they have to be wide open, transparent and public. That is not what the government has done.

The government is not just using surveillance and basically spying on people as an attack on democracy. The government monitors and cuts funding to organizations that disagree with it. We just need to look at the KAIROS funding. That organization has done tremendous work internationally. There have been cuts to peace and development. The public service has expressed fear, with public servants scared to even use their own personal email and Facebook as a result of the government's tactics.

Instead of acting like a legitimate democracy, the Conservative government is instilling fear in people with the kind of attitude it is portraying toward Canadian citizens.

Telecommunications

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the other petition I am presenting today is on the so-called lawful access legislation, Bill C-30, which the government has not brought back into the House.

We do not know where it is, but the people in my riding hope that when it does come back it will have significant changes. One of the major changes needed is to the following. In the current configuration, telecommunications companies would be compelled to maintain people's private and personal information, and law enforcement agencies would be able to access that without a warrant. That greatly disturbs and concerns members of my riding.

Privacy

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition from 30 or so people from Sherbrooke who oppose Bill C-30. They are asking that Bill C-30, which would make it possible to spy on Internet users without a warrant, not be passed.

Such access to the personal information of Internet users violates the rights and freedoms guaranteed by section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and unfairly treats all law-abiding Internet users like criminals. These people are opposed to Bill C-30. I have the honour to present their opinions here today.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm glad to have the opportunity to address you, Commissioner, and your colleagues and I thank you for being here today.

As I've listened to your testimony and read the reports, I have to admit I marvel at the scope of your mandate. It's a big job and I commend you on the work you do. I think we're all thankful to have you in the role of carrying out the tasks at hand.

You've spoken today after eight years in your job and the changes you've witnessed, certainly in technology, which affects your role every day just as it affects our lives. We see it in the Internet and all the different spots. My colleagues opposite like to reference Bill C-30, a bill that's coming before this House and one that has raised intense concern on their side.

You mentioned that you have some concerns with that legislation and, I presume, with its predecessor legislation as well, going back to the previous Liberal government. I'm sure you'll be attending committee and will bring your thoughts forward. I look forward to that because I think you'll bring productive and beneficial input into that debate; that's something that I hope you will do.

As an aside, or as an extension of that, in the report on plans and priorities, one of the concerns I had was how you manage the change, day to day, in your organization. I notice that you mitigate some of the risk by implementing your change management strategy or talent management program. Is it enough to keep pace?

Additionally, because this is probably the last question you're going to hear today, as you think about the change management strategy, are you able to do enough to keep pace with the change that's coming at you? In addition, in the short and medium term, what major issues do you see facing your office, and again, coping with those within your department?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

In answer to Mr. Rathgeber, I have to say that I read this provision in its entirety. So I want to draw his attention to the definitions in section 319(7), which specifically states that "identifiable group" has the same meaning as in section 318. Sometimes, you have to read the whole thing. So do not worry, I did my homework before expressing my views on this issue.

I appreciate my colleague's comments but I am still as concerned. In order to make sure that Mr. Rathgeber understands, I will add that in the definitions given in the last subsection of section 319, it is specified that "identifiable group" has the same meaning as in section 318. This is why I said that women are excluded. This is indeed the case.

That being said, you have to realize that Bill C-30 is just that, a bill. We know there are several problems with this legislation. I do not think our committee will deal with it. So we hope this point will be corrected because it is obviously an oversight.

This is all I have to say. We can get back to this issue if the day comes when I start to make mistakes about definitions in legislation. This does not happen very often.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to reiterate that our government is very concerned about human rights, and the protection of human rights. This is something for which I think Canada has an enviable reputation in the way we have stood up for them.

Mr. Scott is quite correct that the Canadian Human Rights Act, taken in its totality, is a good piece of legislation and it's one we have come to rely on.

However, amending section 13 does not deal with many of the issues raised by the witnesses today, such as multiplicity of venues, the inability to order costs where it has been brought frivolously. There are many problems with the way that particular section has wound its way through the tribunal and commission processes.

If it was missed before, I have a comment on this. I want to point out that Bill C-30, which has already been introduced in the House, as part of the non-exhaustive list, puts “sex” in again for both sections 318 and 319. That is specifically where the protection for women will come, which is something I know we share a concern about.

We are taking measures already to improve the Criminal Code provisions. There was a lot of thoughtful comment today, which I suspect we will all be giving a lot of thought to moving forward in terms of what we can do legislatively to protect Canadians.

I think we are headed in the right direction.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I think, honourable member, that's a very plausible explanation. We don't always know ourselves why there are more complaints or fewer complaints and so on.

Just recently, complaints from the private sector have been going up, as have, I believe, those from the public sector. We're asking ourselves why this is. Hits to the different websites have been going up. I think that's possibly in relation to a lot of the discussion around Bill C-30 recently. Canadians are very concerned about their privacy rights.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you.

In this current climate, a sword of Damocles is hanging over our heads. I am talking about Bill C-30, which the government wants to use to provide the Competition Bureau, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and law enforcement agencies with direct access to personal data through Internet service providers. I have a feeling that will increase your workload considerably.

What kind of consequences do you think pieces of legislation such as Bill C-30—which enables Internet providers to directly search Canadians' computers—will have on your work, in terms of protecting personal, private and confidential citizen data? In addition, considering the cuts to your budget, how will you deal with that type of situation?

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Ms. Stoddart and Ms. Bernier for joining us today.

Ms. Stoddart, when you talked about CATSA, you highlighted a problem regarding protocol compliance by private companies with contracts for passenger screening. You mentioned certain gaps in their methods of data disposal and incident report safeguarding. In Bill C-30, the reliance on private companies to collect and safeguard personal information is apparent. Are you concerned by this increased reliance? Is that a current trend?

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Yes.

Also of course there's the whole issue of a balance of probability standard over reasonable doubt, the fact that tribunals, appropriately, can hear hearsay evidence. I mean, there are many issues with it here, working its way through a tribunal process. You also identified the multiplicity of venues, which can be very problematic.

I think all of these factors have gone into our thinking on our side of the House in supporting this private member's bill.

Also, I think it is important to mention that the government has already introduced Bill C-30, which does bring amendments to section 319 of the code to expand the list of activities or groups in the Criminal Code.

I was very interested in your comments on improvements that can be made, and also the way it plays out in provincial jurisdictions. We, obviously, cannot tell the provinces how to do this, but I think groups such as yours have a huge role to play in making those suggestions.

Improvements that could be made, or even the addition of other specific offences, as I think you mentioned, David, are things that I would very much want to see us take into consideration. I hope you will continue to give us your advice in that respect.

I also noted the comment that we have to recognize that despite our best efforts, these actions have not gone away. In other words, we have to be ever-vigilant.

My question to you, or maybe it's more of a comment, is this. Do you see yourselves as being able to play an active role in continuing to advise us on ways that, through the Criminal Code process, we may be able to better deal with this kind of attack?

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

I have a question on Bill C-30. Your counterpart in Ontario, Ann Cavoukian, has been quite critical of Bill C-30, and she's been quite vocal. Do you share some of her comments regarding Bill C-30?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Okay, thank you.

I'm pleased that 32 of the 34 recommendations that you made previously were fully or substantively instituted. That's good news.

I'm also pleased to hear that Google is cooperating so well. I'm not meaning to give props to Jacob Glick and Google here in Canada, but I can't remember the last time I used another search engine online. I'm glad to hear that they're returning the loyalty that Canadians have extended to them with a cooperative spirit. That's good to hear.

I wanted to ask another question. Mr. Angus talked a little bit about Bill C-30. I know that's not what you're here specifically to address. Of course, notwithstanding the fact that I don't believe Canadians should be providing any more information than what they absolutely are required to by law, I think...as you said, governments have a duty to protect that information; they require it for the operation of government. At the same time, I'm always concerned that there is an element within society that uses rules like privacy laws to hide illegal activity, to hide themselves amongst otherwise law-abiding citizens, and to use those protections that we fight for, that I think all parties fight for and have always fought for. They utilize those protections, those privacy laws, to do criminal acts.

It's never going to be easy to determine...and I think it's true to say there are sacrifices we all must make in order to make sure our law enforcement officers and so forth have the ability to track down those who would otherwise seek to exploit our privacy laws to break the law. You talked about having a conversation with Canadians—I'm paraphrasing—to justify why these changes need to be made. Have you been approached by groups or police and law enforcement that have talked to you about some of that rationale, about some of the things they're seeing? My local police chief came and talked to me, and it was very disturbing what he indicated to me about the challenge they're having tracking down, specifically, people who are trafficking in child pornography.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madam Stoddart, thank you for your excellent reports. In our business we read many reports. Often it seems reports are just data, but sometimes we come across a report like yours, which has a clear vision of the issues of privacy, the state's role, and the rights of the individual. I think it's a very powerful statement.

You state that security and privacy are not opposing values. You also state:

...the state also has an obligation to treat individuals with respect—to preserve their dignity and to safeguard their personal information.

This is not a mere frill or a “nice-to-have”; it is fundamental to the trust relationship that must exist between citizens and their government.

I think that's a very clear and powerful manifesto with which Canadians would agree. The question is how to ensure that this trust relationship is not eroded.

I'm particularly concerned, for example, with Bill C-30 and the lack of protocols that will exist in terms of being able to collect and hold personal data. People have raised concerns about Bill C-30. I know that you've raised concerns. The minister, Vic Toews, said that people who raise concerns are on the same side as the child pornographers, which I find to be a very offensive statement about the issue of privacy.

What are your concerns about the lack of protocols in Bill C-30 to protect the privacy rights of citizens?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Carroll, as you'll know from your decades of political experience.... I believe you've worked for a number of MPs—Bonnie Crombie, you mentioned, and Joe Volpe, whose leadership campaign raised people from the dead....

Many Canadians in public life have gone through family breakdowns, and I'm proud that my party, the Conservative Party, has maintained a high ethical standard. We've never engaged in circulating divorce records of our political opponents—never—but there have been many.

If your smear campaign has served any purpose, I hope it will be to shame the Liberal Party into demanding better from its staff and, more importantly, reflecting on its own internal culture of rot, which produces activists who undertake things like you did.

I want to thank you for your appearance today. I think we've gained a number of answers today. But I'm left with an awful lot of questions as well, because it's very clear to me that you've indicated, for example, that everyone in the Liberal office—you said everyone—had access to these files. I can't see what purpose a file like this would serve in the Liberal Research Bureau other than to be used for the exact purpose that you used it for. I would think it was done with the full knowledge of the leadership of the Liberal Party, that files like this were being compiled with the intention of at some point turning someone like you self loose with them, to use them in the fashion you did. I'd also suggest that if the Liberal Party truly wants to demonstrate....

You know, I read a file from 2002, a newspaper story, from when Kevin Bosch first arrived on the Hill. It talked about how Mr. Bosch came with files full of personal information, attack information, on opposition MPs.

I believe this has been a culture within the Liberal Party for some time. I think you were picking up on that culture. I think you were using resource materials that, you've indicated, you don't even know where they came from, but they were readily available to every staff member in the Liberal office.

I can't help but believe, and I don't think anyone who's impartial in this room can help but believe, that those files were compiled in the Liberal Research Bureau for any reason other than to do exactly what you did with them.

As I pointed out, the Liberal Party itself in 2005 brought a bill similar to Bill C-30 to assist police in tracking this kind of crime that we see in our streets. Marlene Jennings twice championed it as a private member's bill, and I believe Francis Scarpaleggia demanded that the government support that bill and bring it forward at the time.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Okay.

I suppose, as parliamentarians, there seems to be a learning gap between the traditions of this place and how things are communicated and the new tools that are available to anybody with an email account. One of the tools that you used was characterized—and forgive me, I don't want to impugn you—as a form of character assassination. A minister of the crown's personal life was put into a very public space, at which point it could not be very well controlled. These tools are incredibly powerful.

What connection do you make back to the legislation that was being discussed in the context of this controversy, specifically Bill C-30?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Well, the dots do exist. You said that you put the tweet out there. It was retweeted by Mr. Trudeau. Yet you have no idea how that possibly happened.

I think you had a grand total of two followers on your @vikileaks30 account, and yet it managed to somehow appear on the most popular Liberal member of Parliament's radar screen to be retweeted. I think that leaves some questions to be asked.

I understand that you've played the victim card here today. I get that. I understand what it's like. But when you push the send button out into the multiverse or the twitterverse, or whatever it happens to be, you take those masks off. Your contention is that nobody should have to, that we should have free rein to do whatever we want in complete anonymity on the Internet. I think that was where you were coming from with Bill C-30. But I digress.

I would agree with you, Mr. Carroll: you are a victim. You were thrown completely under the bus by your party, by your leader who said that this information had absolutely crossed a line.

I just want to know, had anybody communicated with you before being told such that affidavits on people's personal lives should be in an unlocked filing cabinet in an office where, I would assume, staffers come and go rather quickly? You were only there from August until February. My guess is that you were not the first one to come through that office or the last one to go who had access to this information. I don't know who would have a catalogue of all of this information or how you would come to magically know about these affidavits being there.

It bothers me to know that any information about any particular individual member of Parliament is being researched to this level of detail. You've somehow tried to minimize it by stating that the quotes we take from the public media and rebroadcast during members' statements are somehow the equivalent of making a trip to a courthouse in Manitoba to get an affidavit for somebody's court proceedings.

It's a little bit different, Mr. Carroll.

Am I out of time, Mr. Chair?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay.

I didn't ever look at Vikileaks, but there was a huge online media backlash against Bill C-30 and, in particular, the actions of Minister Toews and the rather flagrant disregard he seemed to show for average Canadians with his accusation that anybody who believed in privacy rights was somehow a child pornographer. I think that struck a lot of Canadians and gave rise to justifiable anger by Canadians to push back, and we saw a huge online response.

What was it that separated Vikileaks30 from the massive online Twitter response that we saw? What was it that you were setting out to accomplish?

[Adam Carroll, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I congratulate you on being elected chair of this committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, committee.

On March 6, 2012 the Speaker ruled the Vikileaks matter closed and found no further reason to investigate. Nevertheless, despite the Speaker's ruling and the procedures of the House, some members of this committee have persisted that I appear.

Indeed, Mr. Chair, your predecessor rightly ruled against the Conservative motion initiating this inquest, but these members showed you and your predecessor the same degree of deference they accorded the Speaker, usurping his and your authority with their own. In doing so they demonstrate disregard for this committee's mandate and the many responsibilities clearly set out in Standing Order 108(3)(h), none of which include the use of House of Commons resources.

Furthermore, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, page 1048, is prescriptive when it comes to the authorities of committees. It states: [Committees] have no independent existence and are not permitted to take action unless they have been authorized/empowered to do so by the House.

The Speaker ruled, the chair ruled, the House of Commons Procedure and Practice ruled. So let me remind everybody that under normal circumstances we would not be here today.

However, I agreed to voluntarily appear for two simple reasons. First is my respect for Parliament, and second is to bring this matter to a close.

I will provide a brief summary about what I did and what motivated me to act. I will then be prepared to answer questions related to the supposed reason for this meeting, my use of House of Commons resources. However, I want to be very clear about a few things. I am Vikileaks30. I, and I alone, am the author of that Vikileaks posting site. I was never ordered nor asked to do it. I never discussed my actions with any member of Parliament, including the interim leader of the Liberal Party. I acted on my own. All information posted was already on the public record, obtained from accessible sources.

Now allow me to recall some of the chronology for the purposes of context. On February 13, 2012 Minister Vic Toews, in addressing his online spy bill, infamously challenged all Canadians to “either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” Like most Canadians I was deeply offended by the minister's aggressive and needlessly polarizing language.

The following day, February 14, 2012, Mr. Toews introduced Bill C-30, but not before changing, seemingly at the last second, the title of the bill to the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act.

I'm not alone in believing that Bill C-30 is a sweeping piece of legislation that will allow the Canadian government to routinely invade the privacy of Canadians by monitoring their activity on the Internet. For many Canadians like me, personal privacy is a fundamental civic and human right. It goes to the very core of our personal dignity and identity.

I was raised in a culture that cherishes freedoms and rights, a people who have, in living memory, learned the hard way what is at risk if we do not stand up for our rights and our freedoms.

Given the haste with which bills are passed under the current government, and given its refusal to consider amendments to its bills, it seemed that this bill was all but passed. I felt compelled to urgently bring public attention to the threat Bill C-30 would pose to our rights and our privacy.

I took an approach that, put simply, argued that if the minister felt strongly that he should know everything about us, perhaps we should know a little more about the man who wants unrestricted access to our information. To make the point further, everything I posted was from publicly available documents. If publicly available information could in its retelling be uncomfortable, imagine what could be done with one's private information.

Indeed, none of the information posted was secret or private. In fact, most of it had already been published in various media. Divorce details, for example, had been reported dozens of times. This was especially the case in 2008 when the minister was rumoured to be soliciting support for a judicial appointment.

The same day the bill was introduced, February 14, 2012, I assembled publicly available affidavits, a list of notable quotes, election overspending court documents, and proactive disclosure data. From my home I set up a Twitter account called Vikileaks with the address @vikileaks30, a direct reference to Bill C-30. I transcribed portions of the affidavits and other documents. From this list of brief quotes I made five postings that evening. The record of these postings will show that these were done in the evening, after work hours.

On February 15, 2012, I quickly and easily cut and pasted a few dozen more postings from my list. I concede that these were done at work. That evening, at home, I created a spreadsheet detailing expenses as well as details from Mr. Toews' election overspending conviction. Again, this was all publicly available information.

On February 16, 2012, I made approximately two dozen postings on Vikileaks.

It was also on that day that I received an email, which I later learned was from the Ottawa Citizen, fishing for my IP address. The next day, February 17, 2012, the Ottawa Citizen published its story on the IP addresses. It was clear that a witch hunt had begun.

Innocent people were needlessly and unfairly accused, including the NDP and a specific employee of the House of Commons. To avoid further harm to them and others, I shut down the account, but not before I made it clear that the wrong people were being targeted.

It was also on that day that the Speaker's office initiated an investigation, although no laws had been broken nor was there any evidence that any policies had been breached. In fact, there are plenty of examples of House of Commons IP addresses being used to edit Wikipedia pages, both to vandalize and to whitewash them. There are also numerous examples of House of Commons resources being used to attack the actions of other members of Parliament, but to my knowledge, the Speaker's office has never investigated those activities.

The irony is not lost on me that the Speaker of the House used his powers to trace my personal IP address and my personal online activity. This is precisely what the online spying bill will do to everybody.

Before I conclude, I want to thank my family, my friends, my lawyer Paul Champ, and the many Canadians who have reached out to me with their support. It has been a very difficult time for me personally, for reasons known and unknown. However, I want to point out again that all of the information I posted was from publicly available documents. Everything I did was perfectly legal. I take full responsibility for my actions.

Ultimately, I hope my experience prompts further awareness of the threats to our personal privacy and the critical importance of defending our freedoms and rights. Bill C-30 is not gone. The reaction of Canadians has forced this government to delay their plans, but the bill is still sitting on the table and will most likely be back. And when that day comes, I urge Canadians to stand up to this government and fight for our collective right to privacy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I have two minutes left. My understanding is that the YouTube video was posted as a reaction to what Mr. Toews said in the House regarding Bill C-30. He seemed to intone that a large number of Canadians were engaged in criminal activity because they used the Internet.

A lot of people reacted to that quite negatively. There was some fair comment that was done, and perhaps there were some comments that passed the line. I think in the particular case of this YouTube video, it passed the line.

I'm wondering, though, as a security threat to information systems, where is it? Where is the security threat?

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, as we all know, in a little more than 40 minutes, the Minister of Finance will table this year's budget and I am sure all members are looking forward to that event.

Economic action plan 2012 will be a very strong, low tax, low debt plan that will include measures to create and secure jobs, economic growth and, most important, long-term prosperity for all Canadians.

In recognition of how important this budget will be, we have decided that we will schedule debate to follow immediately on the four following days: Friday and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.

There may not be the same level of suspense around this vote as in previous years, but on Wednesday, all members will have the opportunity to vote for jobs, growth and long-term prosperity and support our budget. Once the opposition has seen the budget, I am confident that their constituents will expect them to do just that.

On Thursday, we will continue debate on Bill S-4, the Safer Railways Act. If we have time, we will resume debate on Bill C-15, the Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act.

The opposition House leader had a long list of bills on which he inquired about their status. Insofar as our legislation to improve Canada's immigration and refugee system, that has been debated now some five days in this House and we look forward to it being debated further. It is a very important bill, not just for the strength of our immigration system but also for our economy. We will continue to take steps to ensure our immigration system meets the security, safety and economic needs of Canada.

In terms of Bill C-30, I think he is well familiar that it is our intention to have that debated and sent to committee before second reading and, in so doing, being able to allow a broad ambit for the committee to consider amendments of all types. I think that responds to the particular concerns that he raised on that.

In the case of Bill C-30, Bill C-4 and the immigration bill, we can see from the program I have read that there will not be an opportunity, barring some dramatic progress on other legislation on the final day, to deal with those bills before the Easter break, so we will have to wait until after that.

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

Mr. Speaker, before I go to the question, I have a point to make. As we know, we will have the budget later today. What we have seen repeatedly is a breach of the long-standing tradition of the Westminster Parliament of not putting out in advance information that is in the budget. However, we have seen it repeatedly done by the government, not just in this budget but in prior ones.

My first question for the government House leader is whether that will be a continued practice and, if it is, why do the Conservatives not just do away with the sham of any confidentiality around the budget.

My next question is this. Could the government House leader confirm which four days will be dedicated to debate the budget? We have had various indications from him. If he could, we would ask that he be more specific at this time, assuming that it will start tomorrow.

Also, the government should accept the fact, as expressed by all Canadians, that Bill C-31 would dismantle our immigration and refugee protection policies and that the minister obviously does not understand the impact of that legislation.

Can the hon. member opposite confirm that the government is dropping that bill, yes or no?

We also have Bill C-30 outstanding, which is the so-called lawful access bill. It was up for debate at some point but it seems to have disappeared off the radar, along with Bill C-4. Both of them are quite misguided pieces of legislation. I am wondering if the House leader can tell us if the government will go ahead with these bills or come to its senses and either send them back for rewriting or just drop them completely.

Finally, there is a motion, which all parties in this Parliament accepted, with regard to the voter suppression scandal and it calls on the government to rapidly look at amendments to various pieces of legislation that would prevent that type of scandal and abuse of the democratic process from happening in the future. Is the government proceeding with any legislation and, if so, when will we see it?

Justice and Human Rights

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on the report that was just presented on organized crime.

The New Democrats, since 2009, have been working collaboratively with other parties on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights with the objective of recommending new strategies. There are, in fact, some 699 criminal organizations in Canada, 83% of which are engaged in illegal drugs, such as cocaine, cannabis and synthetic drugs, in that order. We have consistently promoted an effective and balanced approach to combatting organized crime.

In that regard, although we support most of the 35 recommendations in the report, we supported, along with the government, passing Bill C-2, the megatrials bill, in June 2011.

However, we do have some concerns about this report, which is why we have filed a supplementary report suggesting that the government has proven, unfortunately, that, with overreaching bills such as Bill C-10 and Bill C-30, it is putting overreaching ideology ahead of level-headed legislation.

We are opposed to the mandatory minimums proposed in the report and we are concerned about the lawful access provisions that support Bill C-10. We are concerned about the lack of judicial oversight recommended and the unnecessary expansion of powers that are contained in the report.

However, regardless of that, we do support, in general, the report but have filed a dissenting report.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Anonymous not only called for the removal, in its entirety, of Bill C-30, but also Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act. It is clear to me, at least, and I believe to those of us on this side of the table, that there was a threat against the legislation, not against anything else. I think that's the fundamental issue we have to deal with here. There is a group out there trying to prevent a government of the day from introducing and passing legislation.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

The question I wanted to get to is quite fundamental. It appears to me quite clear that despite your observations about the minister's musing about you're either with us or with the child pornographers, Anonymous was not reacting to that; they were reacting to the bill. They don't want any bill that might be able to uncover the guise of their own anonymity. They were reacting to Bill C-30. They made no reference in any of their comments to Minister Toews about his musings on either being with us or with the child pornographers.

My question, then, is simply this: do you not believe that the threat was based on the legislation introduced rather than on anything he might have said in an offhanded comment?

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

I don't know if it's the same question or not, but I wanted to follow up on this issue of an offence versus a threat. I want to consider a few excerpts that were posted on the Internet to try to give you a handle on this.

Anonymous tells Minister Toews they're not bluffing, and that they'll give him seven days to reflect upon his personal and political crimes. Anonymous then demands Minister Toews' immediate resignation, as well as the scrapping of Bills C-30 and C-11 in their entirety. They say they “know all about” Minister Toews and threaten to release more information during Operation White North unless he accedes to their demands.

I recognize those are not physical threats, but it appears to me that they are clear threats against our democracy. If a person or a group can threaten to subvert the legislative agenda of any government, is that not a threat?

[Dr. Ned Franks, Professor, Queen's University, As an Individual]

I'm always surprised, sir, but it's an honour to be here. I prepared some remarks which, with the permission of the committee, I will read, because I tried to be very precise in my expression of things.

My observations on the privilege issue raised in the House of Commons by the Honourable Vic Toews, the Minister of Public Safety, on February 27, 2012, are those of a non-lawyer and an outside observer of the unfortunate events that occurred in the House of Commons in recent weeks. These events are too well known to be recapitulated here.

Mr. Toews raised three issues of privilege: one, the use of House resources for the so-called Vikileaks30 account on Twitter, which he claimed was used to attack him personally, thereby degrading his reputation and obstructing him from carrying out his duties as a member of Parliament; two, an apparent campaign to inundate his office with calls, emails, and faxes, which he contended hindered him and his staff from serving his constituents and preventing constituents with legitimate needs from contacting their member of Parliament in a timely fashion; three, the videos posted on the website YouTube by the so-called Anonymous on February 18, 22, and 25. These videos contained various allegations about the minister's private life and made specific and disturbing threats against the minister.

On the first, the Speaker ruled on March 6 that in view of the unequivocal apology of the interim leader of the Liberal Party, he was prepared to consider this particular aspect of the question closed.

On the second, the Speaker concurred with an earlier ruling by Speaker Milliken, which was that while the member had a legitimate grievance because the normal functioning of parliamentary offices had been affected, the members involved and their constituents had still maintained the ability to communicate through several means, and he thus could not find a prima facie case of privilege.

On the third issue, which to Mr. Toews was the most troubling one, the Speaker ruled that:

...when duly elected members are personally threatened for their work in Parliament, whether introducing a bill, making a statement, or casting a vote, this House must take the matter very seriously.

He concluded that the online videos did, indeed

...constitute a direct threat to the minister in particular, as well as other members. These threats demonstrate a flagrant disregard of our traditions and a subversive attack on the most fundamental privileges of this House.

The House referred the matter to the procedure and House affairs committee for investigation.

My remarks here will deal with only a few of the issues this important matter of privilege raises: first, the context and events that led to the anonymous threats against the minister; second, the issue of harm versus offence in this sort of verbal assault; third, the peculiar difficulties facing the House in pursuing this matter; and fourth, what punishment the House can impose if it makes a finding of a breach of privilege.

First is the context and events. This issue began with the introduction into the House of Commons of Bill C-30. Its long title when it was introduced and received at first reading was An Act to Enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts. Its short title, as introduced, was the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act.

Mr. Toews was posed a question in the House: Mr. Speaker, the government is preparing to read Canadians' emails and track their movements through cellphone signals, in both cases, without a warrant.

How can we trust them not to use private information to intimidate law-abiding Canadians...?

In response, the minister stated:

We are proposing measures to bring our laws into the 21st century and to provide the police with the lawful tools that they need.

He added that the questioner

...can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.

Ms. Elizabeth May told the House that when the bill was first given to the opposition, its short title was the “Lawful Access Act”. The government had subsequently changed the short title to the more inflammatory Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. Ms. May wondered if there was a point of order in this change. The Speaker found that there was not. A cynical observer might suspect that the government made the last change to the bill's title so that the minister could utter his one-liner that the questioner “can either stand with us or with the child pornographers”.

Opposition members of Parliament, much of the media, and many others found the minister's comment offensive.

Meanwhile, Vikileaks published the court record of Mr. Toews' divorce case on the web. Several government ministers accused the NDP of releasing the court document. Subsequently the interim leader of the Liberal Party, Bob Rae, informed the House that one of his party's staffers had leaked the information and that this staffer had been fired.

A point of privilege raised by Mr. Toews relates to only a very small part of this long and complicated story, which is the anonymous threat of bodily harm to the minister on a website outside the purview of Parliament. The matter that is the subject of this privilege investigation came to Parliament as one of a long series of events instigated by Mr. Toews' comment that the choice was to stand either with us or with the child pornographers. Nevertheless, it was a product of that statement.

It is worth noting that there were flaws in this bulky piece of legislation, that it deals with far more issues than child pornography, and that the original title, “Lawful Access Act”, more accurately described its contents than the title “Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act”.

Now I'll make some comments.

First, the minister's claim that a member can either stand with the government or with child pornographers, to say the least, denies the parliamentary principle that it is the duty of Her Majesty's loyal opposition to oppose and not acquiesce meekly to all proposals of Her Majesty's government. It was an unnecessary, aggressive, and inflammatory comment, in my view.

Second, I wonder whether there is a serious and identifiable harm involved in this matter or whether the threats made on the Internet are simply offensive. I take no sides on this; I do want to suggest that for an action or utterance to be found to constitute a breach of privilege, it should come closer to meeting the test of causing a harm rather than the lower threshold of being simply offensive.

Third, if the House determines that there has been a breach of privilege in this matter, what sanctions can it impose? At the time I write this, Parliament has not been able to identify the anonymous perpetrators of the web material at issue. Can the House find that there has been a breach of privilege committed by a person or persons unknown? Even if the perpetrators are unmasked and found guilty, what happens then? The House can put persons found in contempt of Parliament into custody, but this has been done rarely, and only in the distant past.

Fourth is the risk, arising from these events, of reducing public regard for Parliament and politics. The concept of and administrative studies on the tone at the top refer to how an organization's leadership creates the tone at the top and an ethical or unethical atmosphere in the workplace. The tone at the top has a trickle-down effect on employees. If top managers uphold ethics and integrity, so will employees, but if upper management appears unconcerned with ethics, employees will feel that ethical conduct is not a priority. In short, employees will follow the examples of their bosses.

In the question of parliamentary privilege examined here, the public is the parliamentary equivalent of employees. The tone at the top, as shown in the words and behaviour of MPs, affects public respect for and trust in their Parliament and parliamentarians. In my view, and I regret to say this, the tone at the top has not been entirely high in this issue.

Thank you.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you.

I just want to go back to a question that was asked earlier about Bill C-30.

I know the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Ann Cavoukian, has been very vocal and has expressed a lot of concerns. Just to clarify, you haven't reviewed Bill C-30? Do you have no comment at all on Bill C-30?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

Finally, we have two bills before the House that could have huge implications for Canadian privacy rights: the update to the PIPEDA, Bill C-12; and then Bill C-30, Minister Vic Toews' snooping law.

Have you done any analysis of the potential impact on your department in terms of information?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for your appearance here today.

Minister Toews, you mentioned in your opening statement that you believe not just ministers but all members of Parliament should be concerned about some of the threats issued by the group Anonymous. In just a moment I'll get to the level of concern you believe should be held by parliamentarians.

If we can, let's clear up a little unfinished business. In the threats of Anonymous, the primary reason for posting these videos on YouTube was based on their opposition to Bill C-30. In their videos they demanded that you resign and/or remove Bill C-30 in its entirety. Do you have any plans to do either of those?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, colleagues.

I sincerely wish that the circumstances surrounding my appearance today did not exist. On February 29, I rose in the House on a question of privilege to ensure that the activities seeking to intimidate me with respect to my duties as a member of Parliament, duly elected by the people of Provencher, were appropriately addressed by the House. This intimidation has been aimed at me solely for doing the most basic duty of a parliamentarian—namely, introducing legislation within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada.

Such intimidation should gravely concern all parliamentarians. We have a special obligation to our constituents to act without fear on the principles that they elected us to defend. This is why I'm pleased that your committee has taken up this serious matter.

As you know, on February 14 of this year I introduced Bill C-30, the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. In the days and weeks that followed, I and my office received a great deal of communication from Canadians. As I stated in the House, these ranged from the supportive to the critical and indeed to the humorous.

Specifically of concern were videos posted on YouTube publishing various unfounded allegations about my personal life and threatening to do more if I did not take specific action with regard to Bill C-30. Clearly the actions and threatened actions contained in these videos constitute an attempt by the creators of the videos to intimidate me with respect to proceedings in Parliament.

The online group called “Anonymous” that posted the videos hides behind masks and their claim to anonymity. It is their threats that clearly attempt to intimidate me and in fact all parliamentarians as we carry out our democratically elected responsibilities.

I am prepared to debate, and we must engage in vigorous debate, on matters before Parliament, but these online attacks launched on both me and my family have crossed the line.

Mr. Chair, all parliamentarians need to be concerned.

On February 29, the Liberal House leader repeatedly stated that there were clearly threats made against me, in fact going as far as stating, “...yes, indeed, there clearly are threats being made.”

The Liberal House Leader also cautioned the Speaker in finding a prima facie breach of privilege, and then stated that these threats “...do not constitute a breach of privilege.”

O'Brien and Bosc state that:

Any disregard of or attack on the rights, powers and immunities of the House and its Members, either by an outside person or body, or by a Member of the House, is referred to as a “breach of privilege”....

I would remind the chair and all committee members that in the videos published, there was a broad threat to all parliamentarians. I quote:

And to the rest of the Parliament of Canada: you would do well to mind your words about Anonymous. Any attempt to score political points by claiming we are associated with a particular political party will not be met kindly. Your party affiliations are utterly irrelevant to us.

Quoting again:

To the rest of those who support Bill C-30, do not believe for a moment that you are untouchable.

Mr. Chair, the Liberal House leader and all Canadians should be concerned about the threats posed to our democracy by online bullies and thugs who seek to intimidate duly elected members of Parliament. It is on this aspect that I encourage you to focus your study.

Let me be clear: I will not be intimidated by thugs who hide behind masks and anonymity. Our democracy demands that elected officials be free to debate any and all matters. I firmly believe that all members of this House must be able to serve their constituents, introduce legislation, and debate all matters free from intimidation, obstruction, and interference.

The fact of the matter is that today threats are directed at me for a bill that has drawn much public debate. Tomorrow it could be any of you, either government or opposition. In fact, there are those of you on this committee who have introduced legislation in the House, both from government and opposition. We have seen private members' bills that have produced vigorous debate, with strong positions being taken on both sides of the House.

One only needs to look at this 41st Parliament. Bill C-377 is a bill that would require the public disclosure of the finances of labour organizations. Heated debate and strong positions have been taken on this bill.

Bill C-276 and Bill C-279, Liberal and NDP bills respectively, seek to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include gender identity and gender expression. While not yet debated in this House, similar bills have been introduced in previous Parliaments, and strong positions were taken.

Whether or not an MP introduces legislation, all MPs take positions on motions, legislation, and House and committee debates. Mr. Chair, that is exactly what we should be doing. That's why we were elected. Canadians expect this.

I do not believe that members of Parliament should be held hostage, afraid to do what they feel is right, for fear that unnamed thugs might threaten them. Canadians deserve better. I was pleased that our Speaker upheld the 1973 ruling of Speaker Lamoureux, wherein he stated that he had no hesitation in reaffirming the principle that parliamentary privilege includes the right of a member to discharge his or her responsibilities, as a member of the House, free from threats or attempts at intimidation. Attacks on the personal life of a member of Parliament, while not appropriate, can be judged by the public where there is public accountability. The threats of nameless, faceless thugs who seek to intimidate legitimate democratic proceedings should concern all parliamentarians, and indeed all elected officials in our great country.

Mr. Chair, in your committee's deliberation I encourage you to view this question of privilege as a matter than concerns all parliamentarians, not just me.

I look forward to discussing this matter further and to answering any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the Marine Transportation Security Act and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act.

While I listened to the debate on Bill C-31 with great interest, I noticed a very disturbing and continuing trend by the Conservative government. Attention must be drawn to the irresponsible and undemocratic procedural tactics used by the government during this debate.

Through Bill C-31, the government has continued to display its fervour to obstruct the parliamentary process. On Monday, March 12, the government broke its own record for silencing debate. The Conservatives' mind-boggling 18th declaration against democratic debate in the House of Commons is an affront to the majority of Canadians who did not vote for the Conservative Party in the last election.

The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism falsely claims that his government has the authority to ignore the opposition because it received the majority of seats in the last election. By unnecessarily limiting debate, the government is directly stifling democracy.

Canadians elected members of Parliament of all parties to defend their interests. It is reprehensible when this government prohibits the representatives of all Canadians from making their views known. The only explanation for such action must be that the Conservatives are afraid that too much debate will expose the many flaws in their illogical legislation.

This is not the first time the government has introduced a time allocation motion but the 18th time in under a year. Time allocation is only one procedural method that the government has abused to deny Canadians proper, transparent and democratic debate.

Previously the Conservatives twice prorogued Parliament, preventing members of Parliament from representing their constituents in the House of Commons. It is not only in the House that the government has prevented open debate. In committee, we see the Conservatives dangerously abusing motions to go in camera far too often. What is the government trying to hide? It is a good question. Why does it fear transparency? Why can it not be honest with the Canadian people and debate the validity of their ideas instead of abusing procedural tactics?

Furthermore, Bill C-31 undermines the study on biometrics now under way at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I am surprised that the minister would include biometrics in the bill, not because biometrics are without merit but because the committee has not finished its study and therefore has not issued a report to Parliament. It seems the minister intends to subvert his own Conservative colleagues and the rest of the immigration and citizenship committee who have been working diligently at committee to hear from Canadians on this very important and very vital topic.

Canadians have a right to be heard. Unfortunately, the government does not have the time to listen. Sadly, this is not the first time the minister has undermined the work of the immigration and citizenship committee. The committee was previously studying the backlog of immigration. Midway through the study, the minister announced a freeze preventing people from sponsoring family members to immigrate for at least two years. Through his actions, the minister has displayed a complete disdain for the witnesses and their testimony heard at parliamentary committees. Clearly, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism thinks he knows best and does not listen to those who testify at committee. People come to committee to be heard and provide input into this most important discussion, yet they are not given the opportunity.

Now the minister has abandoned Bill C-4 before the Standing Committee on Immigration and Citizenship could even study it, even though his own government used its majority to push the bill to committee for study. Go figure.

I find it striking that a minister of the crown could have such disdain for the committee under his portfolio. While the bill does not allow for the unconstitutional detention of those under 16 years of age, it does in fact violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms throught its use of warrantless detention for up to a year for those 16 years of age and older. I must ask the same question my colleagues have throughout this debate. What would happen to a six-year-old child whose parents were being unconstitutionally detained after a family arrived in Canada?

As I discussed when Bill C-4 was debated here in this House, in the Supreme Court's 1985 Singh decision, the highest Canadian court ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies, not just to Canadians, but to anyone who steps foot in Canada, whether or not they arrived legally.

Within Bill C-31, as was included in Bill C-4, are provisions that would enable the government to arbitrarily name refugee groups as designated foreign nationals and permit for the legal and unjust detention of said groups for up to 12 months, regardless of whether they were legitimate refugees or not. Section 9 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, under the heading of Legal Rights, ensures that everyone has a right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. Section 11, under the same heading, states that any person charged with an offence has the right to be tried within a reasonable time.

Liberals do not support an erosion of our constitutional rights, and for very good reason. The path the Conservatives are pursuing is a very slippery slope that would end in the trampling of the rights and freedoms of Canadians, similar to the warrantless search and seizure in the government's Bill C-30.

In addition, Bill C-31 would entrust the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism with far too much political power over our refugee system. Enabling the Minister of Public Safety to determine which groups were irregular arrivals while simultaneously enabling the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism to personally designate safe countries of origin would give the ministers far too many discretionary powers and would offer no accountability or appeal system to protect refugees from the Conservatives' politically motivated agenda.

Canadians from coast to coast to coast are concerned with Bill C-31. I have heard from constituents throughout my riding of Random—Burin—St. George's, as I am sure other members of Parliament have heard from their constituents, that this is a serious piece of legislation. It is a flawed piece of legislation that must be addressed by this Parliament.

To quote a constituent of mine from St. David's, Elin Steele says:

I am particularly concerned that decisions such as designation of “safe” countries be left to the Minister as I do not believe the level of expertise is there. I am concerned that we, as a country, are not only living up to international obligations and standards, we are not living up to our perceived status, domestically and internationally, of fairness, justice and compassion.

My constituent is right to talk about the reputation that we have as Canadians. She talks about the reputation we have in this country. She is seriously concerned about what is going to happen to that reputation and how we will be looked at by those who are looking to Canada as a safe haven. Not only has Ms. Steele written to express her concerns, but other constituents throughout Random—Burin—St. George's have, as well. What I have given here is an example of the kind of concern that exists throughout our country. If it exists in Random—Burin—St. George's, it undoubtedly exists in other parts of Canada.

As with Bill C-4, Canadians do not support the trampling of their enshrined Charter of Rights and Freedoms, nor do they support the trampling of anyone else's enshrined charter of rights. We believe in caring for others. We believe in reaching out to others. We believe in letting them know that Canadians are caring and that they are welcomed here.

The Liberal Party will continue to stand up for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and oppose this dangerous bill. This bill that is so flawed that we have to make our views known, we have to try to get changes to the bill. Liberals believe that there must be judicial oversight and an appeal process to enshrine the internationally guaranteed rights of refugees.

Safe Streets and Communities Act

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will continue where I left off.

As a result of changes in conditional sentencing, the federal government will bear additional costs of about $8 million, and the provincial and territorial governments additional costs totalling about $137 million. Yet the government indicated that there would be no cost to either the federal government or the provincial and territorial governments with respect to this element of the legislation.

Indeed, instead of appreciating the evidence, the government sought to discredit both the Parliamentary Budget Officer and his report, saying it relied on “wild assumptions”. However, the PBO report is peer reviewed, and it notes that its figures “are likely under-estimates. [And] they also include no additional capital costs related to the building of new prisons”. We know that we will need to build more prisons to deal with the fallout of this legislation.

Fifth, and relatedly, there has been insufficient consultation with the provinces and territories and, indeed, the municipalities, where these costs will be imposed at the expense of the delivery of government services. This is particularly true in the case of Quebec, whose youth justice model, a preventive, rehabilitative and protective one, is being replaced by a punitive, incarcerative, and ineffective one.

Moreover, the government pre-emptively dismissed the Quebec model, which had brought about the lowest recidivism rate in Canada, and, equally, dismissed attempts by the Quebec Justice Minister, Jean-Marc Fournier, to mitigate the damage through a series of proposed amendments, while not providing any evidence supporting its legislative scheme.

I am proud to rise here today as a member from the province of Quebec, which has one of the best youth criminal justice systems in the world, a system that many other jurisdictions look to as a model to emulate.

It is inconceivable that the government is trying to deny our program's significant results, while saying that Quebeckers were consulted and support this bill. I say “inconceivable” because surveys clearly show that Quebeckers do not support Bill C-10. I say “inconceivable” because the Quebec justice minister, Jean-Marc Fournier, came to Ottawa several times to explain why he thought this bill was unacceptable, which is the general consensus among most Quebeckers.

It is inconceivable that this government continues to claim that it has the support of the provinces on this issue, when it is patently obvious that Quebec never agreed with Bill C-10, does not agree with it now, and will never agree with it. The Government of Quebec has made it clear that the province will not pay the costs associated with this bill. Other provinces have taken the same position.

What is needed at this point is a federal, provincial, territorial, municipal dialogue in order to address the question of cost and respective burdens as discussed yesterday in my meeting with the representative of the Canadian Association of Police Boards.

Sixth, even in its approach to deterring crime, something all parties want to address, the legislation introduced new mandatory minimums and enhanced existing mandatory minimums. However, Canadian studies and evidence from other jurisdictions show that these penalties do not deter crime. They increase the chance that the offender will reoffend. They are unfair, inconsistent and grossly disproportionate. They invite further constitutional challenges. They have a differential and discriminatory impact on vulnerable groups already suffering from poverty, deprivation and disadvantage, such as our aboriginal peoples. We are witnessing a disproportionate representation of aboriginal people in our prisons, particularly younger aboriginal people. Further, 34% of our aboriginal women are already in prison.

Let me reiterate, this is not a personal conclusion. It is one that is anchored in studies the world over, from the United States, South Africa, from whence I have just come and which discussed and critiqued mandatory minimum sentences, New Zealand and the like. That conclusion is also found in volumes of social science research and evidence.

Perhaps the strongest evidence against mandatory minimums comes from the United States. Legal experts have increasingly critiqued their use. Indeed, just this past month a coalition of American law enforcement officials, judges and prosecutors called upon the Senate of Canada to reconsider the mandatory minimum sentences in Bill C-10 concluding:

We cannot understand why Canada's federal government and some provincial governments would embark down this road.

Indeed, the Ontario court ruling in the Smickle case several weeks ago is proof of this point. The judge struck down a mandatory minimum in that case, saying that its imposition would be “fundamentally unfair, outrageous, abhorrent and intolerable”.

For a government that touts itself as being so concerned with cost cutting, it is surprising that it would embark on a criminal justice plan that would have it defending multiple charter claims at great expense to the Canadian taxpayers without enhancing the integrity of our system and without serving as a deterrent or being fair in its application. Indeed, it is surprising that the government would insist on continuing debate on Bill C-10 without hearing everything the courts have to say on this matter.

Simply put, these laws have helped to fill prisons without increasing public safety. They are seriously constitutionally suspect. It would be highly inadvisable for us to enact legislation with such constitutionally suspect provisions.

Seventh, there has been the abuse of process and abuse of Parliament, as reflected in the raison d'être for this debate and the time allocation. Simply put, the government rejected all amendments proposed by the opposition, including some 40 amendments I introduced in committee and the House, anchored in my own experience as a former minister of justice and professor of law.

I do not say this to be self-serving. These included amendments which I introduced based on expert witness testimony to improve the legislation, to eliminate prospective breaches of the Charter of Rights, to check abuses of executive power, to protect the rights of victims, to provide for treatment rather than incarceration for mentally ill offenders, to address the damage of mandatory minimum sentences, to address prison overcrowding, to protect privacy and to provide for consistency between the English and French versions of the bill.

The government could have at least allowed for debate on these proposals rather than rejecting them out of hand. I do hope that the day will come that, for the sake of the protection of the victims and for the safety of our citizens, some of the more egregious portions of this bill will be amended properly by subsequent Parliaments, while others will be rightfully struck down by the courts.

Eighth, the government did not allow for any discussion of the privacy concerns in the legislation reflected in the letter of the Privacy Commissioner to the head of the justice and human rights committee. Accordingly, there are numerous privacy concerns that remain unaddressed and un-redressed by this legislation. Certainly this is nothing new for a government that has such little regard for Canadians' privacy as one can see in its other legislative proposals, such as Bill C-30.

Ninth, in the government's rush to adopt the legislation and unwillingness to listen to opposition amendments, internal inconsistencies in translation between the English and French versions of the legislation still remain. It is regrettable that we are adding errors into the Criminal Code simply because the government viewed time allocation and haste in adoption as being more important than ensuring the quality of our laws and the integrity of our processes.

Tenth, the manner in which debate was shut down in Parliament, in the legislative committee, in report stage, again this week, as well as the manner in which amendments were summarily rejected and those offering them were accused with the arrogant and offensive rejoinder that the opposition supports criminals and not victims, was all a standing abuse of Parliament and the democratic process. We were required to inhibit discussion with our constituents, something which prejudiced members of Parliament from all parties. The Minister of Justice has said that this bill and the nine bills contained within it were before us in a previous Parliament. The justice for victims of terrorism act was never before this House. Further, there are many members of this House who were not MPs in previous Parliaments. Why should they not have had the right to discuss this legislation? Why should their input not have been solicited? Why should they not have been able to consult their constituents?

Some of these bills were never debated in this House. The justice for victims of terrorism legislation was never even tabled in this place. Given the compelling nature of this bill, once tabled, it deserved more debate so that the important precedential resonance of this legislation could have been appreciated.

Eleventh, this omnibus bill is about principles and priorities. Indeed, it is about values. Simply put, if we spend billions of dollars on building unnecessary prisons while crime is receding and on incarcerating more people for longer periods of time, then that money cannot be used to invest in a social justice agenda of childcare, health care, crime prevention, seniors or social housing.

It is clear that as a result of this omnibus bill we will have more crime, less justice, skyrocketing costs, fewer rehabilitation programs for offenders, less protection voiced for victims and less protection for society. I have said this before, and it particularly resonates today. Adopting this legislation, apart from the justice for victims terrorism act, would mark a sad day for Canadian criminal justice, a betrayal of the very mandate for safe streets and safe communities that all of us in this House share.

Opposition Motion—Elections Canada Act

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Compton—Stanstead.

I am pleased to have an opportunity to rise today to share my thoughts on an important issue that goes to the heart of the legitimacy of this House, democracy.

Old habits seem to die hard with the Conservatives. One year later, almost to the day, another scandal on electoral fraud has broken out. I am starting to have serious misgivings about the democracy in which we live.

It discourages me when I see the extent to which this electoral fraud seems to be par for the course for this government. Over recent years, this government has tried an increasing number of strategies that push the limits as to what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in Canadian politics. The government was found guilty only last year of electoral fraud during the 2005–2006 election. This five year dispute, categorized as “administrative” by the Prime Minister himself, smacks of growing contempt by this government towards Canada's democratic institutions.

This perception has been reinforced by the behaviour of this Prime Minister during last year's debacle. As reported by numerous university professors, who were signatories to an op-ed published in La Presse on April 25 of last year, and I quote:

His most virulent attacks were reserved for the judges that he described more than once as “activists” who meddle in politics. In saying this, it is in fact he [the Prime Minister] who was politicizing the administration of justice. This is a dangerous and slippery slope at the bottom of which it is not judges who have the most to lose. [...] When the time has come that judges have to fear the criticism, and even the reprisals of political leaders, the rights of everyday citizens will hold hardly more weight than those of the state. Never before have our leaders dared to venture in this direction.

A press review by Manon Cornellier published in Le Devoir on March 3 demonstrates the furor with which Canadians are reacting to this new scandal.

Canadians are fed up, frustrated and indignant. Their confidence in the electoral system has been even further shaken. Who can blame them when increasingly scandalous revelations are being systematically disclosed? How can the government accuse the opposition parties, which are representing the real concerns of Canadians, of orchestrating a smear campaign, when we are aware of the dubious tactics employed by this government?

The general indignation felt by Canadians in all regions of this country shows the extent to which Canadians are becoming increasingly cynical about politics and about our government. I am particularly concerned by the serious consequences that this growing feeling will have for our future generations.

I am pleased to be one of the 20 or so young members of this House, because I hope that our involvement in politics will restore hope to Canadian youth. We have to let them see our commitment, and above all our integrity.

How is that possible when this government continues to act so inconsistently? It abolishes the firearms registry. It changes the census rules, citing the violation of people’s privacy, among other things, but has no hesitation about introducing a bill that is potentially dangerous to individual rights and freedoms: Bill C-30. It is completely baffling.

We must acknowledge, at all costs, that this scandal shows us that the electoral landscape is no longer the same in Canada. The age of innocence, of trust, has unfortunately come to an end. Canadians are witnessing a scandal that shows just how much some people will play with the electoral system in order to prevent people from participating in an institution that is fundamental to our rights and freedoms. This is serious, it is sad, it is disappointing and it is deplorable.

In Canada, there used to be good faith, over and above our political differences. We all agreed that respect for democracy and freedom of expression was fundamental. Clearly, that is no longer the case. The election fraud scandal shows us that there are players who will not hesitate to subvert the system in order to give voters false information and harass them.

This is not just an issue of robocalls. It would have been the same scandal if the method used had been an email or a letter. It is election fraud, which is deplorable, and the use of communication methods to misinform voters and affect their participation.

The NDP is proposing something very important in today’s motion. The NDP is proposing that we take strong action to find the guilty parties and restore Canadians’ confidence in the electoral system.

This is a bold motion whose only purpose is to give the Chief Electoral Officer additional powers so he can get to the bottom of this scandal. Canadians all across the country would think that a motion like this is essential. I am pleased to learn that the government is going to support it. However, this government has proved that it is afraid of the outcome of an investigation, afraid to discover who is responsible for the election fraud that insulted so many Canadians. Why such cowardice on the government’s part?

Losing the confidence of the electorate is the real issue here, because losing the confidence of the electorate means losing one’s own legitimacy in this House. If the people view their own electoral system—the pillar of the democratic foundation of this country—with cynicism, and observers are worried about respect for the independence of the judicial system, how can we allow machinations like these to be repeated? It is the responsibility of the government to prevent scandals like this from taking place. This is one more example in a long list of cases of mismanagement of public funds.

I thought of my constituents as I rose today. They are the ones who are the biggest victims in all this. This is an affront to the fundamental rights of people to participate, express themselves and organize in a democratic and participatory community. Thanks to their right to vote, the people of Terrebonne, Blainville and Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, just like the people of Guelph, Nipissing-Timiskaming and elsewhere, have the chance to directly influence federal politics just once every three or four years. It is a very important time for them, because an election makes them think about their collective future, their dreams and their values. Those thoughts, that discussion, that participation are sacred. Voting means having the right to think and express oneself. The five-week election campaign is when the greatest number of people get involved.

My constituents are very concerned and rightfully so. What are they going to think about the quality of our democracy from now on? How can I tell them with confidence that their fundamental right to democratic expression will be respected in future?

I want to point out that in Terrebonne, Blainville and Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines there are a number of veterans who risked their lives to give us this sacred right. There are women—and today is International Women's Day—who fought for the right to vote. In this House, unfortunately, we are in process of debating whether that right to vote was violated. I find that unbelievably sad. People were outraged when Maurice Duplessis had dead people voting for him. I wonder which is worse: doing that or preventing the living from voting.

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, I stood here in the same place last week and acknowledged that the government had gone a whole five sitting days without moving a time allocation motion and I encouraged the House leader of the government to continue that practice. Therefore, I am quite disappointed standing here today.

They moved not just one time allocation motion on Tuesday, but they moved two such motions. What they are doing is truly undemocratic. I urge the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons once again to put an end to this practice immediately.

For the coming week, there are a number of issues that are outstanding and unclear so I will list them.

I understand that we have a confirmation that Bill C-10 will come before this House for debate tomorrow and that the vote on Bill C-10 will be put off until Monday evening.

I further understand that Bill C-31, the attack on refugees bill, will come before the House on Tuesday. I would ask the House leader if that is still the case and if it will be before the House for the balance of the week.

With regard to other legislation, I will repeat a question I had earlier for him but never got an answer to. Where is Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill? When will that be back before the House? Will we ever see it again or is the government just going to dump it?

Finally, could I have a confirmation for the House that the final supply day, which was originally scheduled for Monday, has now been put over to Wednesday and all the votes that will flow subsequent to that will be Wednesday evening?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I'm getting there right now. This was our concern about opening this Pandora's box. It is not clear whether they are attacking a former Liberal, House of Commons resources, or anonymous attacks. This is the issue here. Twitter lives in the anonymous realm, and Facebook less so, but Facebook is the use of parliamentary resources.

The House allows us to have Facebook on our apps as well as Twitter, because it is seen as a legitimate form of public relations with our constituents. That is something we use. We use Twitter. We use Facebook. We use cellphones. We use e-mail. These are all legitimate resources.

With Facebook, you can set up a fake page; you can create any number of fake personalities and run a Facebook page. You can do that to attack a member of Parliament. You can do it to undermine the credibility of a political opponent. Twitter is almost entirely in the realm of anonymous. People set up all kinds of names under Twitter accounts and write all manner of spurious things. I have nothing against Twitter, but I had a gentleman write to me the other day who said he can't call his dog in 140 characters and asked how could he get involved in an intelligent discussion.

It's not our purview to decide whether Twitter is an addition to the parliamentary political discourse or a dumbing down of it. The question has to do with using House resources for new media. We've opened a Pandora's box. Now we're going after House use of Twitter, which has clearly been identified as legitimate. My honourable colleague says it's Facebook, which can be used in the exact same way, and we're now looking at that.

I think people back home are going to get worried about the intrusiveness of government. This goes back to the intrusiveness of Bill C-30, of government deciding to shut down Twitter accounts to be able to investigate. We've all agreed that it has been a very seedy little side story about the minister, with allegations or documents flying about an unsavoury divorce. Now, once again we're forced to discuss it, but that could have been done on Facebook.

This is where we need to really understand where we're going. Political staffers and bureaucrats are online all day. They're using House resources all day. When I'm at my desk, Facebook is often open. We're now talking about the use of House resources in new media.

We've had numerous instances when anonymous sources have been traced back to IP addresses in the House of Commons. Posting online comments, digital troll comments on news sites, changing the appearance of public commentary on a newspaper—all these activities have been traced back to the House of Commons. It would be understood that either a political staffer or a civil servant is hiding his or her name and is trying to undermine someone from another party. That has happened. We know that biographies on Wiki have been changed, and they're traced back to people who have been bombing the Wiki sites. They're traced back to IP addresses in the House of Commons.

We will be in a discussion of the House, going back to the original issue—the issue of anonymous attacks and House resources. What my honourable colleague has done—I don't blame him for trying—is open the door to a whole Pandora's box. If we are going to identify a former Liberal staffer—

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

I was in no way impugning or disagreeing with the Speaker over the ruling. I was simply pointing out that the Speaker has made a ruling and it seems that the members of this committee would like to challenge the ruling of the Speaker. That's what I'm hearing, and that's what I'm seeing the Conservative members of this committee do, to challenge the ruling of the chair.

Less than an hour ago, the Speaker made a ruling on a question of privilege, raised on February 27, 2012, by the minister of their own party, the Minister of Public Safety, Mr. Toews, regarding cyber-campaigns, following the minister's tabling of Bill C-30, an act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and other acts.

The Speaker, in his ruling, said:

I am now pleased to rule on the question of privilege raised on February 27 by the Minister of Public Safety regarding cyber-campaigns following the introduction in the House by him of Bill C-30....

I would like to thank the minister for having raised these matters, as well as the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, the House Leader of the Official Opposition, the member for Toronto Centre, the member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, and the member for Westmount–Ville-Marie for their interventions.

The Speaker went on to say:

In raising his question of privilege, the minister raised three issues, each of which he believed to be a contempt of the House.

The first concerned the use of the House resources for the so-called vikileaks30 account on Twitter, which he claimed was used to attack him personally, thereby degrading his reputation and obstructing him from carrying out his duties as a member of Parliament.

The interim leader of the Liberal Party then rose to inform the House that he himself had intended to rise on a question of privilege, having been informed on February 26 that it was an employee of the Liberal research bureau who had been responsible for the vikileaks30 site. The interim leader offered his unequivocal apology and that of the Liberal Party to the minister.

In view of this unconditional apology made personally by the member and on behalf of his party as a whole, and in keeping with what has been done in similar circumstances in the past, I am prepared to consider this particular aspect of the question of privilege closed.

I also wish to inform the House that the House of Commons policy on acceptable use of information technology resources was applied in this case, given that an unacceptable use of House IT resources occurred.

The minister also raised the matter of an apparent campaign to inundate his office with calls, emails and faxes. This, he contended, hindered him and his staff from serving his constituents, and prevented constituents with legitimate needs from contacting their member of Parliament in a timely fashion.

As the member for Windsor—Tecumseh reminded the House, my predecessor, Speaker Milliken, was faced with a similar situation in 2005 in a matter raised by the former member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell.

In his ruling on June 8, 2005, Speaker Milliken concluded that, while the member had a legitimate grievance that the normal functioning of parliamentary offices had been affected, the members involved and their constituents had still maintained the ability to communicate through several means. Thus, he could not find that it was a prima facie case of privilege, as the members were not impeded in their ability to perform their parliamentary duties.

Having reviewed the facts in the current case, I must draw the same conclusion on the second aspect of the question of privilege.

This brings us to the third and what I consider to be the most troubling issue raised in the question of privilege, that of the videos posted on the website YouTube by the so-called Anonymous on February 18, 22 and 25. These videos contained various allegations about the minister's private life and made specific and disturbing threats.

The minister has stated that he accepts that coping with vigorous debate and sometimes overheated rhetoric are part of the job of a politician but argued that these online attacks directed to both him and his family had crossed the line into threatening behaviour that was unacceptable. He contended that the threatened actions contained in these videos constituted a deliberate attempt to intimidate him with respect to proceedings in Parliament.

In House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, it states:

It is impossible to codify all incidents which might be interpreted as matters of obstruction, interference, molestation or intimidation and as such constitute prima facie cases of privilege. However, some matters found to be prima facie include the damaging of a Member's reputation, the usurpation of the title of Member of Parliament, the intimidation of Members and their staff and of witnesses before committees, and the provision of misleading information.

In spite of the able arguments advanced by the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie, the Chair is in no doubt that the House has full jurisdiction to decide the matter.

As is noted at page 108 of O’Brien and Bosc:

Speakers have consistently upheld the right of the House to the services of its Members free from intimidation, obstruction and interference. Speaker Lamoureux stated in a 1973 ruling that he had “no hesitation in reaffirming the principle that parliamentary privilege includes the right of a member to discharge his responsibilities as a member of the House free from threats or attempts at intimidation.”

Those who enter political life fully expect to be able to be held accountable for their actions to their constituents and to those who have concerns with the issues and initiatives they may advocate.

In a healthy democracy, vigorous debate on issues is encouraged. In fact, the rules and procedures of this House are drafted to allow for proponents and opponents to discuss, in a respectful manner, even the most difficult and sensitive of matters.

However, when duly elected members are personally threatened for their work in Parliament, whether introducing a bill, making a statement or casting a vote, this House must take [this]...very seriously.

As noted by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House...threats or attempts to influence a member’s actions are considered to be breaches of privilege.

I have carefully reviewed the online videos in which the language does indeed constitute a direct threat to the minister in particular, as well as other members. These threats demonstrate a flagrant disregard of our traditions and a subversive attack on the most fundamental privileges of this House.

As your Speaker and the guardian of those privileges, I have concluded that this aspect, the videos posted on the Internet by anonymous, therefore constitutes a prima facie question...and I invite the minister to move his motion.

The minister did move a motion to refer the matter to the proper committee, the procedure and House affairs committee.

So obviously the Speaker has ruled on three aspects of this privilege: one, two, and this third one. In his ruling—and I respect the Speaker's ruling—he is referring it to the House affairs committee to look at the third aspect. But what we're debating here today is a motion by Mr. Del Mastro to go into the first one, which has already been ruled on by our Speaker. I find it very disturbing that a committee would try to take on something like that.

As I said, the Speaker has ruled on this. The committee has no authority to be looking into this matter any further. The leader of the Liberal Party has apologized unequivocally for the actions of a staff person.

As a former staff person, I know what it's like to be on the staff of a political minister. Sometimes you push the envelope and you step outside your bounds, and this is what happened here. This particular staff person has done this and we have apologized for that. It was a heartfelt apology. I would like to quote the apology by the member for Toronto Centre, who said:

I do not share many things with the Minister of Public Safety all the time but one thing I do share with him is a sense of longevity. One of the things that makes public life difficult is when political attacks become personal. I have tried, but have not always succeeded, in my political life to make it very clear that matters of personal and private conduct are not to be the subject of political attack or political reference.

I concurred with the leader of the Liberal Party when he said that. Life is very difficult in this place when you try to do your job and the political becomes personal.

Getting back to the House of Commons Standing Orders, categorically on this issue, this matter has been ruled on, and this matter has been dealt with. Standing Order 10 states:

The Speaker shall preserve order and decorum, and shall decide questions of order. In deciding a point of order or practice, the Speaker shall state the Standing Order or other authority applicable to the case.

Safe Streets and Communities Act

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

Sexual predators. We are on the side of sexual predators in this case. Not only that, the Minister of Public Safety thought it was okay to suggest that people practising criminal law and defending people, which is their right to do, were standing on the side of the criminals and that was the choice they made in their careers. That is the Minister of Public Safety in a government that is supposed to believe in the rule of law. The rule of law includes, I must remind him, the presumption of innocence.

In our criminal system, the government does not decide who is guilty and puts people in jail, and neither do the police. The Minister of Justice does not decide who is guilty and put people in jail. The Minister of Public Safety does not decide who is guilty and put people in jail. They do not have the right to do that in our society. Does anyone know why? It is because we have the rule of law.

We talk about Libya and ask that it develop the rule of law. In Afghanistan, the rule of law is what we are all about. We want the judicial system to work. We only want people to go to jail who are prosecuted in accordance with the law. We want judges to be free of corruption. We expect them not to carry out the will of their political masters. We want free and fair court systems. That is the rule of law. We want that in Libya and in Afghanistan. We have asked some of our young men and women to die for that.

However, when we are in the House, people are pointed at from across the way and told that they practise criminal law and chose to use their career to act for criminals. Members will underscore mockingly that it is an honourable thing. If we read it on paper, it looks fair enough, but that is not the way it was put, as if there is something wrong with somebody ensuring that the rule of law operates.

As I told my friends many years ago when they were wondering why I was practising law, one of the jobs of people practising criminal law was to ensure that the laws we have operate fairly for everybody and that nobody goes to jail unless he or she has been proven guilty in accordance with the law. A defence lawyer would ask if the law had been followed, if the person were truly guilty and if there were proof beyond a reasonable doubt. An individual charged with an offence does not have the means to defend himself or herself.

An old saying in the legal profession, which every lawyer and probably everybody else knows, is that a man who defends himself has a fool for a client. I have even seen lawyers defend themselves and prove that aphorism to be true because they did not have a clue how to defend themselves. They were not paying attention to the law. They were more concerned about their own particular issues as opposed to what defences were there. We have a system of justice in this country that is based on the rule of law. The lawyers who defend the people who are charged are there to ensure that people do not go to jail unless they ought to, unless they have actually committed the offence and it can be proven by a court. All of this is part of our judicial system.

We have a government that implicitly disrespects the rule of law by attacking opposition members for practising law in this country. Since when did it become reprehensible to act as a lawyer, to defend the rule of law and to ensure that people who are charged with offences have a proper defence? We have a legal aid system in this country because we recognize that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the right to liberty, require that an individual who is charged with an offence has a proper defence. We do not have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for nothing. It is not just a piece of paper. To disrespect that by disrespecting the whole process is absolutely wrong.

Despite being accused by the other side of standing with child pornographers, in the case of Bill C-30, or defending criminals, there are some aspects of the bill now before us that we do support. However, in order to avoid the prolongation of the issue, we proposed that certain aspects of Bill C-10 be taken out and fast-tracked, that they be given special consideration and that the bill be split. We moved that in this House and I spoke to it.

However, instead of recognizing that this proposal was an effort to speed the passage of part of this bill, which is what I said, the government deputy House leader stood and said that it was a delaying tactic. I do not know how it is a delaying tactic to say that we take a section and pass it right away. The section was part 2 of the bill. There were a couple of sections. One related to creating the new offence of making sexually explicit material available to children, part of what is called grooming in the offence of sexual predators against children, and there was a new offence of agreeing to commit a sexual offence against a child.

We considered that those new offences were important and we wanted to see them implemented immediately. It also would increase the mandatory minimums that were already there. We believe those sections should be brought forward and passed immediately. As we indicated, there is a consensus on certain aspects of this legislation that we wanted to separate and pass but we were put into the position, with an omnibus bill, that either we accept all of it or none of it.

We wanted to see the speedy passage of the provisions of part 2 that related to sexual offences against children. However, that did not stop the Conservatives from saying that whenever they bring in legislation that is designed to protect children against sexual predators that the opposition votes against it. They continue to say that kind of nonsense over there but it needs to be on the record that we sought specific and immediate passage of that particular aspect of the bill.

We had experts before our committee from the Barreau du Québec, for example, who talked about the concerns they had regarding Bill C-10 and the cost implications and the failure of imprisonment in reducing the incidence of crime.

The government calling the bill the safe streets and communities act is a very apolitical title. However, the Barreau du Québec has taken the position that Bill C-10 has come at a time when figures from Statistics Canada show that crime is on the decline in Canada. Its figures show that the crime rate in 2011 reached its lowest level since 1973, and that violent crime also was declining to a lesser degree than crime generally but, nevertheless, declining.

The Barreau du Québec said that it was obvious that the national crime rate has been falling steadily for 20 years. It suggested that the reason it was now at its lowest point since 1973 was primarily because the sentencing system currently seeks a balance between denunciation, deterrence and rehabilitation of offenders and that proportionality and personalization of a sentence were fundamental values of that system.

We were told that this legislation would produce less safe streets and here is why. Numerous studies have shown that imprisonment does not reduce the incidence of crime. Public Safety Canada has released the results of a study dealing with the impact of imprisonment on recidivism for offenders serving prison terms. That is how many of them go back. It is the revolving door that the minister talked about. We need to know whether recidivism and the revolving door will be reduced by these measures. The conclusions of the study showed that for most offenders prisons did not reduce recidivism.

Therefore, to argue for expanding the use of imprisonment in order to deter criminal behaviour is without empirical support. The use of imprisonment may be reserved for the purpose of retribution and selective incapacitation of society's highest risk offenders. The cost of the implications of imprisonment need to be weighed against more cost efficient ways to decrease offender recidivism and responsible use of public funds. Evidence from other sources suggest more effective alternatives to reducing recidivism than imprisonment.

There has also been a lot of evidence suggesting that keeping prisoners in jail longer makes them more hardened against society and more likely to commit crimes. If we take away or reduce the emphasis on rehabilitation and focus on punishment, people will come out of prisons more angry, less rehabilitated and more likely to commit crimes.

Another aspect of the bill that I have not touched on is in relation to international prisoners, Canadians who are incarcerated abroad, the International Transfer of Offenders Act found in the bill.

We have a treaty system with other countries whereby if a Canadian citizen is serving a prison sentence in Mexico, the United States or in another country that is part of the treaty, the Canadian citizen can apply to serve his or her sentence in Canada. Up until recently, that has been a pretty automatic expectation, not only for the prisoner but also for the country where the prisoner is now serving a sentence.

For example, we have a number of Canadians who are in prison in the United States.They are serving time for various offences, whether ordinary run-of-the-mill criminal offences or drug trafficking. They can apply to the U.S. and Canadian governments to serve their sentence in Canada. When they come to Canada, they are then subject to Canadian corrections laws and rules with respect to how much time they serve, the availability of rehabilitation programs and all of the things that go with that. These provisions have been in use for many years. However, we have a new situation now.

The government, the Minister of Public Safety and his predecessor have taken it upon themselves to refuse to allow people to come back to Canada. However, people could come back eventually. The government could not deport them. If they served their time in the United States or Mexico, they could get on a plane or a bus and come back to Canada. No one would know necessarily that they had been in prison somewhere else. They could show up at the border as Canadian citizens, show their passport or birth certificate and come in. No one would know where they were or if they were a risk to society. They could come to Canada unless they were serving an indeterminate life sentence or three sentences of 50 years, which they give out in the United States sometimes.

There is a public safety aspect to this. If they serve their sentence in Canada, they are subject to our parole system, our supervision, the mandatory release provisions, a halfway house and everything that goes with that. They are integrated back into the community and are given rehabilitation programs.

However, the current government and this minister have taken it upon themselves to refuse them for what appears to be arbitrary reasons. The Federal Court does not seem to agree with the decision that the minister is making. The Federal Court is telling him that he failed to follow the legislation and the act. It is issuing orders to the minister to review and reconsider these motions because the existing law requires that there be a reason.

In the bill before us, this is slipped in from part of a previous bill that the Minister of Public Safety brought in once before. Proposed changes to the act would give the minister virtually unlimited discretion when it comes to the international transfer of offenders. These provisions would make legal what was previously illegal and contrary to the existing act. The Federal Court of Canada has told the government and this minister on several occasions now that they are not following the legislation as it exists.

What is the answer? Is it to follow the legislation and do the right thing to ensure that the government is acting in accordance with the principles that ensure that Canadians have an opportunity to come back to Canada to serve their time? No, the Conservatives' answer is to change the legislation to make legal that which was otherwise illegal.

Now the Conservatives have added that the minister, in determining consent to the transfer of a Canadian offender, may consider the following factors. The list is here. Many of these factors were already on the previous list. The list talks about whether, in the minister's opinion, the offender is likely to continue to engage in criminal activity after the transfer. This is tantamount to saying that the minister can decide whether, at some point in the future, that person would engage in criminal activity. Is that not what the Parole Board is for? Is that not what we have a corrections system for? Is that not the whole point?

Therefore, if an offender were serving six years in the United States, he or she could come back to Canada and do as he or she pleases. The minister would not even know that the offender is in Canada. There would be no record of the offender's activity in the United States. The minister would not know that the offender exists. Yet, if an offender applied to be transferred back to Canada, the minister could decide whether the offender were likely to continue to engage in criminal activity after the transfer. That is a consideration that the minister would be entitled to give.

The bill includes a long list. The Conservatives might as well leave the list out, because at the end of the list under (l) is “...any other factor that the minister considers relevant”. We may as well get rid of (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i), (j) and (k). We may as well say, “in determining whether to consent to the transfer of a Canadian offender, the minister may consider anything he or she considers relevant”. That is the essence of clause 136 of Bill C-10. That is what we would be doing here. We would be giving the minister unlimited discretion, with no policy and no guidelines, except a series of factors that he may or may not consider and then any other factor that he or she considers relevant.

That is irresponsible. It is irresponsible to give power to a minister to have control over whether an offender who is in the United States comes back to Canada or not. That is not a proper guideline. It is not a judicious framework for a minister of the crown of the Government of Canada, in a country of 33 million people, to have one man or woman decide, based on anything he or she considers relevant. Where is the opportunity for judicial oversight of something that involves the liberty of a Canadian citizen? That is what we are talking about.

When a person is sentenced to jail, if someone thinks it is wrong, he or she can appeal and go to court. In this case, the minister would have control over whether a person served his or her sentence in Mexico, the United States or back in Canada. How would the minister use that discretion? Based on what? Is it based on any arbitrary factor? Is it relevant that a person is known to a member of Parliament who thinks that he or she is a decent person and will come back to Canada and be a good person? If the minister thinks it is relevant, perhaps it would be. Is that the kind of society we want, where the minister could withhold consent based on anything that he or she considers relevant? Not for me, not for the members of the New Democratic Party.

There are other factors there. Some of those factors are quite relevant. However, the history of the use of this section has been to recognize that this is of value, not only to the individual involved but to Canadian society. Our friends to the south and the American government are not too happy that Canada is not accepting people. It is part of the understanding that we will take our citizens back if they are in jail in the U.S. and the U.S. will take its citizens back if they are in jail in our country. That is the understanding. The Americans are getting a bit concerned that Canada is not fulfilling its side of the bargain. I do not think there is anything written down that says we must. However, it is a matter for international relations between Canada and the United States to ensure that we operate in accordance with the understanding where there is good reason to. I do not mean that we have to follow every tradition just because it has always been like that. Where is the reason to say “for any factor the minister considers”? It is only there for one reason. It is there to protect the minister from the reach of the judicial oversight of the Federal Court of Canada. The government seems to be content to do that.

Where is the rule of law in that? The Conservatives will say they are obeying the law. Yes but they would have just changed it to make sure that the courts could not have any oversight. They would be following the law they had just made. That is what we see in the government. If it runs afoul of the law, if the Federal Court says it is doing something wrong, the Conservatives use their slim majority, which they call a strong mandate, to put through legislation that changes the law. If Conservatives do not like the law or they feel constrained by the existing legislation, then they change it. That is what we have.

I want to talk about the amendments because there are changes before us by way of the Senate. They are roughly related to the changes that were brought to the committee by the member for Mount Royal, but have been changed in some way.

I want to talk about how the State Immunity Act actually works. We do not have a lot of faith in this legislation. It had different lives in earlier Parliaments. It was at one time a bill called an act to deter terrorism and to amend the State Immunity Act. Conservatives went off that approach because it would not have any effect on deterring acts of terrorism against Canada and Canadians. The short title of the bill was the justice for victims of terrorism act. That perhaps comes a little closer to what the bill tries to do which is to give a right to Canadians to sue states or non-state actors for acts of terrorism.

It has been called a diplomatic minefield by some commentators. The way the act is written, it forces Canada to name countries that have sponsored terrorism. We cannot say we are suing country X because it has financed a particular organization that conducted a terrorist act that affected me or my family.

With ordinary torts, if we want to sue someone in our jurisdiction, we go ahead and sue them. However, we have to prove that they did the act. That person does not have to be on a list of people that some other body has put there. In this case, there is a list that is determined by the Government of Canada. Having that role of the minister of foreign affairs and the government to draw up and review that list from time to time is a diplomatic minefield.

For example, countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan are commonly seen as incubators of terrorism. Yet listing them could cause significant diplomatic problems as the Canadian government seeks to support the governments of these countries. Therefore, they are not put on the list. If Pakistan is supporting the Taliban, for example, and the Taliban commits an act that can be called terrorism under this legislation inside Afghanistan and a Canadian soldier or a civilian is injured, the relatives of that person cannot sue Pakistan even if they could prove that there was a direct relationship between the Pakistani government or military and the action of a particular group, unless Pakistan were put on a list.

We now have a government with the right to put a list together. Who is on the list? Which countries would be there? What is the experience of listing countries in other countries?

Other countries, such as the United States, have had a list. The U.S. experience is based on similar legislation, which has been in place for more than a decade. Only the listed countries can be sued. Currently, the listed countries are Cuba, Iran, Syria and Sudan. Interestingly, North Korea, Iraq and Libya were originally listed, but have since been delisted. Therefore, if a plaintiff were suing Libya in retaliation, say for example for the Lockerbie bombing, and was in the middle of a lawsuit and then Libya was delisted because the Americans decided they wanted to develop friendlier relations with Moammar Gadhafi, which they did in the mid-2000s, all of a sudden the lawsuit would be gone based on some action by that government to change the list.

A common problem that was identified, based on these torts, was that the defendants refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the American courts. As such, the defendants, whether it be the country of Iraq, Libya or whatever, would not appear. Then default judgments would be rendered and the debtor countries would ignore or refuse to pay. What is the point of having a lawsuit to get a judgment when the assets of the country are not accessible because it has refused to pay and is not part of the jurisdiction?

Therefore, recovery has become a major problem in the United States because many of these countries have limited assets held in the United States. In fact, the executive branch of the U.S. has been very reluctant to allow frozen assets to be used for this purpose and made available. What happened over time was as Congress attempted to create avenues for recovery, the executive resisted efforts over concerns of retaliation from the other countries against U.S. assets, for example, inside countries like Libya or other places. It was concerned about retaliatory measures and losing leverage over the country concerned, as well as potentially violating international law on state immunity. There was a whole quagmire of problems.

For example, in 1981, as a result of the Algiers accords, American embassy staff who were being held hostage by Iran were released. However, the hostages were then barred from initiating civil suits. Hostages had been taken in Iran, released by the agreement, but then as part of the deal, the government agreed that the hostages could not take civil action against Iran or the groups. The U.S. Congress sought to provide a right of action to those hostages through various laws. The executive resisted because of the international implications of such an accord being violated. Then Iraq changed the circumstances, causing the Bush administration to delist Iraq.

Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was listed as a state that could be sued. A number of lawsuits had been successful wherein the plaintiff sought recovery by seizing Iraqi assets. However, after the invasion of Iraq by the U.S., the American government no longer had an interest in allowing such assets to be taken as it wanted them to be used for the benefit of the Iraqi people in rebuilding the country. Therefore, the victims of terror, or terrorist acts, who had been successful in suing Iraq would not get any redress. The assets, or whatever they had gained from their lawsuits, would now stay in Iraq because it suited the American government. As such, Iraq was retroactively delisted and many plaintiffs were unable to recover the money granted to them in judgments. That has been part of the U.S. experience with these political lists that are determined by the cabinet. All of these amendments, with one exception, implicitly recognize that these lists are key to whether a plaintiff can actually sue under this section of Bill C-10.

There would also be a situation where there would be limited seizable assets in Canada for any countries that might be expected to be listed on such a list. Victims would find themselves competing for the few if any assets available for recovery. The concerns outlined above with respect to retaliation appear to have come true in the American situation, as equivalent measures have been introduced in Cuba and Iran in consequence. What has happened is that not only the countries themselves do not have significant assets in Canada for action, but there are retaliatory measures in the countries that are put on the list.

We have a situation with the legislation that has been put forward that is well-meaning. In fact, there were proposals to make significant changes to it.

We heard from the Canadian Coalition Against Terror, which proposed that this whole approach be changed altogether, allowing suits against any foreign state that did not have an extradition relationship with Canada. In other words, it called it a negative list as opposed to a positive list. It was concerned as well that placing a country on a positive list would expose Canada to ongoing political and diplomatic pressures. It said that the U.S. experience showed that factors unrelated to whether a country sponsors terrorism sometimes would become the determining factors. It would make the process unprincipled and would undermine the credibility of the government, the listing process and the bill itself.

The group went on to say that by not listing countries that objectively should be listed, Canada would be effectively be declaring them as non-sponsors of terror, which would undermine the deterrence object of the bill.

We have a situation where we have very complex legislation requiring very complex litigation. The difficulty is the bill then effectively becomes symbolic, although the government denies that.

The Toronto lawyer who works with the Canadian Coalition Against Terror admits that the litigation would be quite complex: classified information would be involved; the links between terrorists entering the states in question would have to be proven, which would be difficult; and showing causation would be challenging. For example, a government may provide funds to an organization involved in numerous activities from health care to terrorism and tracking where specific funds go could be time-consuming, costly and impossible. The complexities and difficulties associated with these types of lawsuits were acknowledged by the government, but its claim was that it was not just a symbolic gesture, but it recognized the great difficulties involved.

We have legislation that is fraught with political and diplomatic problems, ineffective solutions in terms of remedies and recovery and something we think is unwieldy and difficult for Canada to operate in a principled way, as I have discussed.

When we deal with the specifics of the individual states that are put on a list, that causes a lot of problems. The Canadian government would be in a much stronger position with the legislation if it took the stand that the courts would make that determination. It would be in a stronger position if it could take a stand on the terrorist sponsorship by a particular foreign state if the courts would make that determination. The government is affected by various other relationships with that state.

As pointed out with the American experience, things that have nothing to do with whether a state is sponsoring terror comes into play, such as the Iraqi experience, where even when people had judgments against the state of Iraq, they had no opportunity to get any redress because the government delisted the state. People who had been successful then got nothing, after having gone through the effort of ensuring they had a lawsuit.

The bill, as has been noted by the minister, includes a large number of provisions in various acts. Of the nine acts involved, four are public safety acts, four are Criminal Code related acts, one is the state terror legislation, the new tort. There is another on immigration, and I do not know why the Immigration Act is included.

As a result of the legislation, we have a piece that appears to be unrelated, but nevertheless is a part of it because it is an omnibus bill and the Conservatives figured they could add it and get away with it. That measure would give immigration officers another discretionary reason why they could refuse to allow an individual to come into our country, based on the instructions by Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. The minister could authorize officers to refuse work permits to foreign nationals who might be at risk of being subject to humiliating, degrading treatment, including sexual exploitation. We are not opposed to the visa application process being used as a tool to prevent human trafficking and to prevent exploitation. However, the emphasis should be part of a larger process. In an effort to prevent exploitation, the legislation is very vague and would be ineffective by itself in stopping trafficking. It would do nothing to strengthen the rights of workers in Canada, which is the source of the problem, and what would truly protect workers from exploitation.

We see examples of exploitation. The bill has been around for awhile in other forms and seems to have been mounted in response to some exotic dancers who were given visas to work in Toronto. The suggestion was that this was a cover for other activities and that this bill would now give discretion, under instructions from the minister, to refuse people entry into Canada if it was thought they would be subject to exploitation.

If people are eligible to get a visa to come to Canada and the fear is that they would be subject to exploitation, surely they should have the protection of Canadian labour laws that prevent them from being exploited in Canada. If there is a danger that people coming to Canada would be exploited, then the answer is to let those people come to Canada and ensure that their freedom of movement and their ability to choose employment are not compromised by criminal and exploitative activity. That is the dream.

People coming to Canada are not coming to be exploited. They are coming here because they may be given some information that their role or their job is one thing and then someone may try to exploit them once they get here. What is the answer? Is the answer to leave them where they are? Is the answer to say that they are entitled to come to Canada, but we will ensure that our laws protect them? We have a problem with the focus of the legislation being on this exotic dancer notion. However, all foreign workers are vulnerable. One example is live-in caregivers. We have a lot of them in our country. Agricultural workers, for example, are subject to potential exploitation.

Temporary labourers are another group that we have lots of experience with in this country going back to the building of the CPR. They are subject to exploitation. Temporary labourers are some of the most exploitable workers in Canada, but the bill is not likely to assist them because it is not part of a significant effort by the government to clamp down on the exploitation of workers in general. Indeed, I do not think the Conservative government takes that issue seriously at all.

We have support for our position on the bill from many different groups across the country. For example, the Canadian Bar Association expressed its concerns with several aspects of the bill, both in media and press releases and in a 100-page brief presented to committee. It is concerned about mandatory minimums and the government's over-reliance on incarceration, and the constraints on judges' discretion to ensure a fair result in each case. It is concerned about the bill's impact on specific already disadvantaged groups and mentioned in its brief the effect on aboriginal Canadians.

In its extensive brief, the Canadian Bar Association talked about the changes to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, for example, including the provisions that would add to mandatory minimum sentences with respect to drugs. The association said it was opposed to the passage of what was then called Bill C-15 and opposed the same provisions appearing in Bill C-10 dealing with the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. It believes that the public safety concerns could be better met with existing legislative tools. The association stated:

We believe the bill would not be effective, would be very costly, would add to strains on the administration of justice in Canada, could create unjust and disproportionate sentences and ultimately would not achieve its intended goal of greater public safety.

Now there is a statement:

—[The bill] would not achieve its intended goal of greater public safety.

I am not saying that because the Canadian Bar Association has said this that it is gospel. I am a former member of the Canadian Bar Association, as are many members of the House. This is an organization of lawyers across the country who represent not just one side of the bar but also prosecutors, defence counsel, people who work in the Department of Justice or justice departments and public prosecution services across this country as well, who are in the courts day in and day out prosecuting crimes, and people on the other side who are defending the accused. As our system is built around the rule of law, there are people who ensure that our system works, that people are innocent until proven guilty. There are two types of lawyers, and together they put this submission forward. When they say they do not think the bill would be effective in achieving the goal of greater public safety, that has to be taken seriously.

When the association talks about the mandatory minimum sentence with respect to marijuana plants, for example, it says that the bill would require mandatory minimum sentences even though the circumstances of the offence and degree of responsibility varied significantly.

The penalties in the bill are based on arbitrary factors and do not meaningfully distinguish the levels of culpability. For example, the clause that poses escalating mandatory minimum sentences for the production of marijuana is geared to the number of plants produced. If it is six plants or more, the sentence would be six months. The mandatory minimum would be nine months for the purpose of trafficking or the plants are on someone else's land. Then there is a one-year sentence for 200 plants, but less than 500. We are almost telling the judge to look at the list, with the number of plants on one side and the mandatory minimum on the other.

This in fact is an affront to the judges of our country. Many of them would say that one of their most important functions is to determine what an appropriate sentence is for a particular crime. This legislation says that the deciding factor is how many plants are involved. If a person has five plants, there is one sentence; if they have six plants, there is another; if they have 200 plants, there is another; and if it is on someone's else's land, it goes up even further, even if someone had only sprinkled a few seeds over a back fence and was growing the plants on that other person's land.

I can see why people do that. They might do it thinking they might not get caught, which is probably the idea. However, because it is on someone else's land, there is a higher mandatory minimum than if it happened to be on the own person's land. Does that make sense?

I am sure members here and all those listening are wondering if that makes sense or not. I go along with the Canadian Bar Association, which says that is arbitrary. It is totally arbitrary and has nothing to do with the degree of responsibility, the degree of guilt, the degree of punishment that is required.

When the Canadian Bar Association says this, it gives some bolster to the common sense of people who say there is something wrong with this picture when penalties have this arbitrary nature. For some reason, the government does not have faith in the judges who are appointed to decide what is fair and reasonable.

There is the case in Toronto of a judge who was dealing with a young man who had a loaded pistol in one hand and a computer in the other when the police broke into this apartment. The situation is actually rather ludicrous. I think the person was in his shorts with a computer in one hand and a loaded pistol in the other, and he was taking a picture of himself with his computer so he could put it on Facebook.

I have to confess I have no idea why someone would want to do that.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to talk about the effects of Bill C-10 and the amendments we have brought forth from the Senate, which are up for consideration.

These amendments deal particularly with one aspect of the act, the provision for a new international tort, called the justice for victims of terrorism act. In essence, it allows Canadians to sue countries or terrorist groups for the consequences of acts of terrorism. It is a new tort altogether for Canada. It never existed before. We debated this in committee but not very much in the House. However, there are now six amendments coming back from the Senate.

It is interesting that when we talk about the process involved with this particular piece of legislation and what the Minister of Justice just said concerning the acceptance of the amendments, this particular aspect is quite instructive as to the approach taken by the government with this bill. It has put together, as the minister said, nine bills. Four had been previously introduced by the Minister of Justice himself and four in a previous Parliament when there were other members of the House, not the approximately hundred new members here today. Four were introduced by the Minister of Public Safety and one by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

This particular bill went to committee. The member for Mount Royal, who participated quite actively in this aspect of the bill in committee, had proposed a number of well-thought-out amendments. We had heard experts testify before the committee, which I will go into a little bit later. That member has a degree of expertise in legal matters, having been a law professor for some 30 years at McGill University and being a recognized expert in international humanitarian law. He brought forward a number of thoughtful amendments that in his submission to the committee were intended to improve the bill. To suggest that they got short shrift is an understatement. We spent two hours of a committee meeting discussing those amendments, and none were accepted. They were all voted down, apparently under instructions from somewhere outside the committee, and we got nowhere.

The next day we came back, after having discussed eight clauses of the bill. The bill was quite extensive, having some 208 clauses. Eight of them had been discussed at the first meeting in a sincere attempt to improve the bill, but were not listened to. We came back the next day at 8:45 for a two-hour meeting to continue discussing some 200 further clauses in the bill, which included some nine different pieces of legislation, as the minister just said, and we faced a motion that the matter be dealt with that day. There was no warning, no consultation, no discussion or consideration.

We had listened to numerous witnesses over a series of meetings up to then, with expert witnesses from the Canadian Bar Association, the police associations, and also correctional officers, experts and academics in the corrections field and child law field. We heard from the Barreau du Québec, with its expertise and work in the criminal defence and prosecution bars, similar to what we have with the Canadian Bar Association. We had an enormous amount of material to consider and a whole host of suggestions, many of which were embodied in amendments presented to the committee through the usual process for consideration.

However, from the approach taken by the government, we faced the prospect of having one day for the first eight clauses and another day for all of the rest. If the legislation were not dealt with by 11:59 p.m., it would be deemed to have been brought forward, passed and sent back to the House for consideration. That is the kind of approach the government took with this legislation, despite the minister's claim here this morning that he wanted to listen to all the proposals and amendments and everyone who had anything to say. In fact, we went through that process and discovered in the end that everyone was going through the motions. They were moving their mouths and tongues, but no one on the other side was using was their ears and actually listening to what was being said. That is very unfortunate in a democratic country.

As I had occasion to say in joining the debate on whether we would deal with the legislation in one day or not, this seems to be Parliament where the other side thinks that because it has a majority of some 11 members, a razor thin majority as the member for Winnipeg Centre says, it has the right to do anything it wants at whatever speed it wants and claim that it has a strong mandate from the people of Canada.

As I said to the committee, I was here in the 33rd Parliament when the right hon. Brian Mulroney was prime minister. I believe there were about 295 members in the House at that time. Sitting on the government side with the Progressive Conservative Party were some 211 members out of some 295 members in total. However, in that Parliament, when legislative committees met, they had discussions and heard from witnesses and amendments were moved by the opposition and were accepted. I moved a number of amendments to a particular piece of legislation to establish the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. Those amendments were accepted in committee. We travelled, we heard from people and amendments were proposed by government and opposition members. There was a collaborative approach in recognition that the people on the committee were elected to Parliament and had the knowledge and wisdom to bring something to legislation.

That seemed to be totally absent in our committee, and certainly in the approach taken by the current government here. I say that only as a preface to the substantive remarks that I want to make here, because there are substantive issues and problems with the proposed legislation, Bill C-30.

The minister talked about mandatory minimum sentences. Here there is a small anomaly, which I have to acknowledge, on the part of our party. The NDP, generally speaking, is opposed to mandatory minimums, and I will go into the reasons why. However, on our part, there were two exceptions to that in the last Parliament. One was regarding sexual predators against children. We believe there is a strong consensus in this country on mandatory minimums for sexual offences against children, the Internet predator offences that are contained in the bill and sexual assaults generally against children. The second was regarding the provisions contained in the gun bill, that is, in regard to the use of guns in the commission of a crime. Mandatory minimums should be imposed in those circumstances to send a very strong message that the use of guns for crime in this country is not tolerated at all.

However, I think there is even a lesson in that. We supported that as a party, but I think we learned our lesson about a month ago when a supreme court judge in Ontario had occasion to recognize a significant problem with the mandatory minimum sentence of three years. In this case, someone had had a loaded gun in his hand when the police had broken down his door when looking for someone else. Under the provisions of the Criminal Code, a mandatory minimum sentence of three years was required in this case. The judge had no choice under the law but to issue a mandatory minimum sentence. However, in that case, and I suspect it is going to be appealed, the judge declined to impose the mandatory minimum, although the law provided for that as the sentence.

The judge, because of the circumstance of this fellow taking a picture of himself and putting it on the Internet, and for some reason people feel the need to do that, showing he was some sort of tough guy and holding a gun in his hand, she decided that to impose a mandatory minimum of three years in jail would amount to what would be considered, under the Criminal Code, to be cruel and unusual punishment and she declined to impose that sentence. Whether that will stand up under appeal, we do not know. However, I would be very surprised if the prosecutor did not appeal the case to the Court of Appeal for Ontario to ensure that law was as the judge stated in that case.

There is the issue of mandatory minimums, and a lot has been written about that. There is a general sense that there is something wrong with the notion of mandatory minimums. The government has decided that this is a principal tool of Parliament to impose sentences on people who contribute to particular crimes. However, our society is based on the notion that judges determine what is an appropriate sentence in a particular case because they have the opportunity, in real time, to determine what is an appropriate sentence in a case.

The minister talked about people appearing in committee and being concerned about having strong sentences for offences. I guess if we asked Canadians whether they or their families had been victims of crime and should the penalty fit the crime, everyone would answer yes. I do not think anyone would say that a punishment should be too strong or too weak, but that the punishment should fit the crime. People agree with that. People who have been victims of violent crimes obviously think the punishment ought to be very high.

Our system of civilization demands that we have a punishment that fits the crime, which involves not just the person's actions but also the responsibility of the individual for the crime and all of the surrounding circumstances, including the history of the person. Someone who commits a crime in one particular circumstance may get a stiffer sentence than some other person who committed the same crime. Why? Perhaps the individual was a repeat offender, or had a history of crime, or the victim was particularly vulnerable or there were aggravating circumstances that surrounded the crime. We cannot have the legislature deciding all of the circumstances. That is not our job.

Principally the Criminal Code says that the maximum penalty shall be a certain amount and then it is up to the judge to determine what sentence fits that crime, a particular offender and the circumstances that surrounded it. This is the principle of justice that prevails.

For example, some amendments were proposed to try to ameliorate some of the arbitrary sentences put forward. We talked about the experience in the United States, which has quite a lot of mandatory minimum sentences. We talked about the reasons why they were negative. The opponents to mandatory minimum sentences, which the committee heard, said that they had little or no deterrent or denunciatory effect. That is particularly true for children. That is why changes were made to the Youth Criminal Justice Act regarding stronger sentences for young people. They have little or no deterrent effect. Experts told the committee that.

The problem with mandatory minimum sentences is that they maintain rigid penalty structure limits on judicial discretion, thereby preventing the imposition of just sentences by having a mandatory minimum.

There is also the concern that the rigidity of mandatory minimums would result in some grossly disproportionate sentences. The case in Ontario of the individual with the loaded gun taking his own picture is an example of that.

In addition, opponents assert that mandatory minimums can make it difficult to convict defendants in cases where the penalty is perceived as unduly harsh. That involves a couple of factors. Sometimes, people who are charged with crimes may be persuaded to plead guilty if they feel they will be treated by the courts in a manner consistent with the actual severity of the crime. However, if they face a mandatory minimum, they will plead not guilty, seek a trial and they may be successful. The rate of acquittals in situations where people go to court trials can be quite high. If we have a jury and the jury is aware of the mandatory minimum, it has been less willing to convict in certain cases.

There is also a concern about the fiscal consequences of the penalties, increasing the burden on prosecutorial resources and substantial increases in prison population. We have heard from across the country that this would place a significant burden on provincial resources throughout the country.

Then the concern was that mandatory minimums would exacerbate racial and ethnic biases in the judicial system if they were applied disproportionately to minority groups. We already have a significantly disproportionate population of aboriginal people in our jails. They represent about one-fifth of the population of Canada in our jails, or more than that.

These are some of the reasons that people oppose it in principle.

In this case, we see even mandatory minimums for possession of six plants of marijuana. That would get a person a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in jail. More than six plants would get a person nine months in jail if there were an aggravating factor involved, and the minister talked about grow ops. One of the aggravating factors would be the plants growing on somebody else's land. That is aimed at renting a house and starting a grow op.

What if it is not a grow op at all? What if it is somebody who throws a few seeds on a farmer's field or on somebody else's land in the woods? Throwing a few seeds on someone's land in the forest is an aggravating factor. Therefore, if people threw half a dozen seeds and half a dozen plants grew, they would be subject to nine months in jail for something like that. That is horrendous. To put people in jail with all the other offenders is a very significant and severe punishment.

The Canadian Bar Association talked to us about this issue. Attempts were made, through amendments in committee, to have some safety valve for judges in dealing with mandatory minimums. However, they were not permitted. There was a lot of talk about the United States and how terrible things had happened with mandatory minimums, and it is very true. The United States has the highest rate of prison population as a percentage of the population of any country in the world. I have the Canadian Bar Association saying “by far the world’s highest incarceration rate”. A lot of that is attributed to mandatory minimums, the “three strikes you're out” laws in California and the various areas heavy sentencing policies. However, even in the United States, judges may depart from the mandatory minimums in defined circumstances, including where the offender did not have a significant criminal history or did not use violence or a weapon or cause serious bodily harm to any person.

Also, in the United Kingdom there are two formulations of an exemption provision in relation to mandatory minimums. These provisions are there to allow what is referred to as a particular circumstance that, “would make it unjust to do so in all the circumstances”. That is by far a much easier test than the cruel and unusual punishment provisions in our Charter of Rights.

Provision to ameliorate the effects of mandatory minimums, particularly in some of these matters where they are enacted in quite an arbitrary manner, were rejected in the committee and in fact were given very short shift. As we have heard today, the minister has adopted a policy of harsher laws, which he states is aimed at reducing crime, organized crime, and responds to what the Canadian people want. That is one view.

It is becoming increasingly clear that this approach, which I would call the “war on drugs”, the terminology that gets used in the United States and sometimes in Canada, needs to be taken in order to reduce organized crime and to prevent the proliferation of drugs in our society. However, there is another view, and we heard that in committee from witnesses from the Canadian Bar Association, people who have a great deal of history and experience with the drug trade and criminal law generally. They suggested that this approach did not work. It does not work in the United States or in Canada. In fact, it leads to a proliferation of criminal activity.

Last week, which is a little late in this debate because it was after the House, the people's democratic House, dealt with the bill, which was then before the appointed Senate for consideration, the Global Commission on Drug Policy issued a statement to the right hon.Prime Minister of Canada and to the senators in the Senate asking to reject mandatory minimum sentences. The Global Commission on Drug Policy is the author of this. It is talking particularly about Canada.

I mentioned some of the problems we have with the sentencing for cannabis. I will read the last sentence. It states:

The clear path forward to best control cannabis in Canada and other jurisdictions throughout the world is to move away from failed law enforcement strategies and to pursue a public health approach aimed also at undermining the root causes of organized crime. Canada has the opportunity to take a leadership role in implementing such policies. And it would be completely in keeping with Canada’s global reputation as a modern, tolerant and forward-thinking nation.

Who makes up the Global Commission on Drug Policy? It is signed by six commissioners. Members will recognize some of these names.

Louise Arbour is a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She resigned that position when she was appointed as the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to prosecute war crimes. That was a very significant position and a recognition of her stature, knowledge and ability. It was also a great honour for Canada to have her take that position. She was also a former United Nations high commissioner for human rights. She now serves as the president of the International Crisis Group for Canada, which is a very important player in international affairs.

That group offers very high level, considered and valuable advice to countries on how to deal with international crises such as we had in Libya, Afghanistan, Iran and other places where we are trying to find solutions that do not involve the heavy use of military force but work with existing nations to try to resolve international crises.

It is significant that a Canadian is on this commission. There is also Richard Branson, a well-known entrepreneur, founder of the Virgin Group of companies. Virgin Airways is one of his businesses and he is involved in various others. He is a commissioner. The other commissioners are: former president of Brazil, Fernando Cardoso; former president of Switzerland and minister of home affairs, Ruth Dreifuss; the former minister of foreign affairs of Norway; the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; and the former president of Colombia, César Trujillo, who is also the former secretary general of the OAS.

These are very significant, high level, international players with experience and knowledge of how countries should deal with matters such as drug policy. There is a bit of a change that is being put forward which has been seen not only by these individuals, but by other countries.

They say in their letter:

Building more prisons, tried for decades in the United States under its failed War on Drugs, only deepens the drug problem and does not reduce cannabis supply or rates of use....Many Global Commission members have first-hand experience with the violent illegal markets that emerge in drug-producing regions, where corruption, organized crime and violence are inevitable consequences of cannabis prohibition that cannot be successfully addressed by strengthening anti-cannabis law enforcement. We hope that Canada—where both production and consumption are an issue—remains open to new and better ideas.

I did mention the people who signed this letter, but the commission said in its letter that it also includes: the former secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan; former United States secretary of state George Shultz; the business expert I mentioned, Richard Branson; the former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker; and also the former president of Mexico.

Mexico and Colombia have significant histories with the drug trade and they know of which they speak. This is really only about cannabis and not about drugs in general, but what is suggested is that the approach Canada is taking to cannabis, as contained in the bill and elsewhere, is in fact wrong and that a harm reduction approach should be pursued.

They suggest, and I am not saying I agree with everything, that there be a new regime involving taxation and production regulation. We agree with the decriminalization of marijuana and that this approach is not working.

I do not think anybody has any details worked out yet. Instead of going down the path of further driving marijuana production into the arms of significant organized crime with legislation like this, it will make it more possible for what the police officers sometimes call the low-hanging fruit, the people who are easy to catch, the people who are not exactly involved in any significant way at the higher levels of operations, but the people who are closer to the street and closer to very modest involvement to be eliminated. They will be put in jail. They will be taken off the streets. What will happen then? The people with the guns and significant organized criminal activity will increase, not decrease.

The Canadian Bar Association, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, and experts come to our committee and say, “This is called the safe streets and communities act, but in fact the consequences of the measures that you are bringing here are going to make our streets less safe and literally have more criminals on the streets. Why is that?”

The minister does not seem to understand. He finds that laughable. However, we are told by experts such as Professor Nicholas Bala and others that if a young person is put in jail for a significant period of time, he or she is not deterred by a longer sentence. He said that young people do not think about the consequences of their actions. They do not think about the sentence for something they are going to do. That is one of the functions of being an adolescent. They are working on things like trying to think ahead. Some people are impulsive when they are teenagers.

I see the member for Winnipeg Centre nodding his head. I imagine he was impulsive as a teenager, as we all were.

Alleged interference of Minister's ability to discharge responsibilities--Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I am now prepared to rule on the question of privilege raised on February 27 by the Minister of Public Safety regarding cybercampaigns following the introduction in the House by him of Bill C-30, An Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts.

I would like to thank the minister for having raised these matters, as well as the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, the House Leader of the Official Opposition, the member for Toronto Centre, the member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, the member forSaanich—Gulf Islands, and the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie for their interventions.

In raising his question of privilege, the minister raised three issues, each of which he believed to be a contempt of the House.

The first concerned the use of House resources for the so-called vikileaks30 account on Twitter, which he claimed was used to attack him personally, thereby degrading his reputation and obstructing him from carrying out his duties as a member of Parliament.

The interim leader of the Liberal Party then rose to inform the House that he himself had intended to rise on a question of privilege, having been informed on February 26 that it was an employee of the Liberal research bureau who had been responsible for the vikileaks30 site. The interim leader offered his unequivocal apology and that of the Liberal Party to the minister.

In view of this unconditional apology made personally by the member and on behalf of his party as a whole, and in keeping with what has been done in similar circumstances in the past, I am prepared to consider this particular aspect of the question of privilege closed.

I also wish to inform the House that the House of Commons' policy on acceptable use of information technology resources was applied in this case, given that an unacceptable use of House IT resources occurred.

The minister also raised the matter of an apparent campaign to inundate his office with calls, emails and faxes. This, he contended, hindered him and his staff from serving his constituents, and prevented constituents with legitimate needs from contacting their member of Parliament in a timely fashion.

As the member for Windsor—Tecumseh reminded the House, my predecessor, Speaker Milliken, was faced with a similar situation in 2005 in a matter raised by the former member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell.

In his ruling on June 8, 2005, Speaker Milliken concluded that, while the member had a legitimate grievance that the normal functioning of parliamentary offices had been affected, the members involved and their constituents had still maintained the ability to communicate through several means. Thus, he could not find that it was a prima facie case of privilege, as the members were not impeded in their ability to perform their parliamentary duties.

Having reviewed the facts in the current case, I must draw the same conclusion on the second aspect of the question of privilege.

This brings us to the third and what I consider to be the most troubling issue raised in the question of privilege, that of the videos posted on the website YouTube by the so-called Anonymous on February 18, 22 and 25. These videos contained various allegations about the minister's private life and made specific and disturbing threats.

The minister has stated that he accepts that coping with vigorous debate and sometimes overheated rhetoric are part of the job of a politician but argued that these online attacks directed to both him and his family had crossed the line into threatening behaviour that was unacceptable. He contended that the threatened actions contained in these videos constituted a deliberate attempt to intimidate him with respect to proceedings in Parliament.

In House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, it states:

It is impossible to codify all incidents which might be interpreted as matters of obstruction, interference, molestation or intimidation and as such constitute prima facie cases of privilege. However, some matters found to be prima facie include the damaging of a Member’s reputation, the usurpation of the title of Member of Parliament, the intimidation of Members and their staff and of witnesses before committees, and the provision of misleading information.

In spite of the able arguments advanced by the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie, the Chair is in no doubt that the House has full jurisdiction to decide the matter.

As is noted at page 108 of O'Brien and Bosc:

Speakers have consistently upheld the right of the House to the services of its Members free from intimidation, obstruction and interference. Speaker Lamoureux stated in a 1973 ruling that he had “no hesitation in reaffirming the principle that parliamentary privilege includes the right of a member to discharge his responsibilities as a member of the House free from threats or attempts at intimidation.”

Those who enter political life fully expect to be able to be held accountable for their actions to their constituents and to those who are concerned with the issues and initiatives they may advocate.

In a healthy democracy, vigorous debate on issues is encouraged. In fact, the rules and procedures of this House are drafted to allow for proponents and opponents to discuss, in a respectful manner, even the most difficult and sensitive of matters.

However, when duly elected members are personally threatened for their work in Parliament, whether introducing a bill, making a statement or casting a vote, this House must take the matter very seriously.

As noted by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, threats or attempts to influence a member’s actions are considered to be breaches of privilege.

I have carefully reviewed the online videos in which the language used does indeed constitute a direct threat to the minister in particular, as well as other members. These threats demonstrate a flagrant disregard of our traditions and a subversive attack on the most fundamental privileges of this House.

As your Speaker and the guardian of those privileges, I have concluded that this aspect, the videos posted on the Internet by anonymous, therefore, constitutes a prima facie question of privilege and I invite the minister to move his motion.

Business of the House

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

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

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

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

Alleged Interference of Minister's Ability to Discharge Responsibilities

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in response to the question of privilege raised on Monday, February 27, by the Minister of Public Safety and also to the consequent intervention by the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

In reviewing their remarks, I have concluded that their argument is really composed of three distinct complaints and my remarks will deal with them as such.

I would like to say at the outset that I understand the minister's embarrassment at having the details of his personal life brought into the realm of public discussion.

The introduction of Bill C-30 caused quite a ripple across the country. Millions of Canadians voiced their discontent and expressed their opposition to this legislation. The fact we are here today debating this issue is a testament to that.

The first part of the minister's complaint deals with the issue of the Twitter account Vikileaks. Mr. Speaker, as you will no doubt recall, my leader addressed the involvement of a Liberal staff member earlier this week and offered an unreserved apology on this point. That being said, we would have hoped that the minister would accept this apology regarding Vikileaks and consider the matter closed. However, if he insists on dragging out the matter, I would like to mention a few things.

First, he purports that House of Commons resources were used to create the account. I should remind the minister that this is not a matter of privilege, but a matter reserved for the Board of Internal Economy. An excerpt from the Parliament of Canada Act dealing with exclusive authority, in subsection 52.6(1), explains the following:

The Board has the exclusive authority to determine whether any previous, current or proposed use by a member of the House of Commons of any funds, goods, services or premises made available to that member for the carrying out of parliamentary functions is or was proper, given the discharge of the parliamentary functions of members of the House of Commons, including whether any such use is or was proper having regard to the intent and purpose of the by-laws made under subsection 52.5(1).

The effect of this section in the act is clear. The matter of the use of House resources is the sole and exclusive domain of the Board of Internal Economy. If the minister still thinks there was a cost incurred by the creation of the Twitter site, I recommend that he take it up with the board. I have no doubt, Mr. Speaker, that you and the entire board will deal with this issue in the appropriate manner.

If the minister still thinks his reputation was affected as a result of the release of this publicly available document and that this in itself represents a breach of privilege, I would refer him, and indeed all members, to page 111 of O'Brien and Bosc where Speaker Fraser's 1987 ruling states:

The privileges of a Member are violated by any action which might impede him or her in the fulfilment of his or her duties and functions. It is obvious that the unjust damaging of a reputation could constitute such an impediment. The normal course of a Member who felt himself or herself to be defamed would be the same as that available to any other citizen, recourse to the courts under the laws of defamation with the possibility of damages to substitute for the harm that might be done. However, should the alleged defamation take place on the floor of the House, this recourse in not available.

In this ruling, Speaker Fraser wisely reminds members that where there is a normal avenue of recourse, the courts in the case of defamation, this normal avenue should be pursued. Given the resignation of the person involved and the clear apology by the member for Toronto Centre, we consider this matter closed.

The second complaint dealt with the threats from the international group that calls itself “Anonymous”. This was the main argument put forth by the minister and expanded on at length in the parliamentary secretary's speech. I think it is appropriate to note right off the start that, yes, indeed, there clearly are threats being made. However, before your finding a prima facie breach of privilege I think it bears careful consideration here that we fully understand what we are dealing with.

First, who is this group called Anonymous? Put simply, it is an international cabal of criminal hackers dating back to 2003, who have shut down the websites of the U.S. Department of Justice and the F.B.I. They have hacked into the phone lines of Scotland Yard. They are responsible for attacks against MasterCard, Visa, Sony and the Governments of the U.S., U.K., Turkey, Australia, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand.

This is not at all in the same league as Vikileaks. We are not dealing with the actions of a sole staff member from another party. This is an international criminal organization.

I am forced to ask what would be accomplished by sending this matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Beauchesne's fifth edition notes the problem of dealing with these matters on page 23, where it states:

Direct threats which attempt to influence Members' actions in the House are undoubtedly breaches of privilege. They do, however, provide serious problems for the House. They are often made anonymously and it is rarely possible for the House to examine them satisfactorily. The common practice today is to turn the responsibility for investigating them over to the ordinary forces of the law.

By that Beauchesne's clearly means that these threats would be dealt with by the police and the courts.

This brings us to another point. Sadly, in this day and age, threats against ministers and indeed the Prime Minister occur all too often. One only has to step outside and see the Prime Minister's security motorcade to understand that the RCMP believes there are credible threats made regularly against the Prime Minister. I do not believe that the Prime Minister simply enjoys being escorted by multiple vehicles while sitting behind four inches of bullet-proof glass.

Presumably these threats are made by people who feel wronged by the government in some way. These are not threats by neighbours or angry people who were cut off in traffic by the Prime Minister. In other words, this is not some personal grudge but one related to his role as the Prime Minister of Canada.

Yet these threats have not been brought to this House to be handled as breaches of privilege. These threats are dealt with, as they should be, by the police, the RCMP and presumably by CSIS where needed.

As pointed out earlier in Beauchesne's, it would not be appropriate to bring these issues here to the House since little could be accomplished by studying these threats in committee. In fact the mere suggestion sounds rather silly. These are threats made by criminals and should be handled by the police, plain and simple.

The second reason these are not dealt with in the House is that they are, in essence, threats made against the Government of Canada, not the member for Calgary Southwest. His role as the local MP is of little relevance to those who make those threats. It is his role as Prime Minister that sadly makes him a target.

Similarly in the case of the threats by Anonymous to the Minister of Public Safety, these threats are directed at the minister in his role as Minister of Public Safety, not as the member for Parliament for Provencher.

In essence, these are threats against the Government of Canada made by criminals. Joseph P. Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, is instructive on this point. On page 191 he states:

—parliamentary privilege is concerned with the special rights of members, not in their capacity as ministers or as party leaders, whips, or parliamentary secretaries, but strictly in their capacity as Members in their parliamentary work.

Anonymous has threatened to release information about the minister if he does not withdraw Bill C-30 and step down as minister. This is clearly a threat, but they are not asking the member for Provencher to vote against a bill, speak against it or take some other action as a member of the House, or even for the member for Provencher to step down as an MP. They are asking the minister to withdraw a bill from Parliament, the House and the Senate, and to step down as a minister of the crown.

Again, these are clearly threats made by criminals, yet they are threats against the Government of Canada, and as such should not be dealt with as matters of privilege but instead be investigated by the RCMP to ensure that these criminals are brought to justice. It is not an appropriate role for the House to supplant the normal criminal justice system, and I would caution that a finding of prima facie breach of privilege may do just that.

Finally, to the third and final complaint, which dealt with the issue of being inundated by phone calls and such, thus preventing him from performing his duties, I would like to quote from Speaker Sauvé's ruling given on July 15, 1980, cited on page 117 of O'Brien and Bosc. It states:

While I am only too aware of the multiple responsibilities, duties, and also the work the member has to do relating to his constituency, as Speaker I am required to consider only those matters which affect the member's parliamentary work. That is to say, whatever duty a member has to his constituents, before a valid question of privilege arises in respect of any alleged interference, such interference must relate to the member's parliamentary duties. In other words, just as a member is protected from anything he does while taking part in a proceeding in Parliament, so too must interference relate to the member's role in the context of parliamentary work.

Indeed, it was for this very reason that we have not raised a question of privilege regarding the efforts of the New Democratic Party to systematically attempt to clog the phone lines of the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain. I say “systematically” because they are using a system of robocalls to call constituents in the member's riding and telling them to simply press a number on the phone to be connected immediately to the constituency office, thereby flooding it. These types of underhanded, dirty tricks by the NDP are unfortunate and certainly no way to do politics and are motivated by either a sense of revenge against the member or perhaps a dire warning against their own caucus members. In any event, while they may clog the phone lines of the constituency office for a time, they do not constitute a breach of privilege, which is why we did not raise it.

Mr. Speaker, in your ruling pertaining to the question of privilege raised by the member for Mount Royal on November 16, 2011, you stated:

There is no doubt that he has been bombarded by telephone calls, emails and faxes from concerned and confused constituents. However, the Chair has great difficulty in concluding that the member has been unable to carry out his parliamentary duties as a result of these tactics.

In his May 5, 1987 ruling Speaker Fraser stated:

Given all the circumstances in this case, I am sure that the Minister's capacity to function as a Minister and Member of this House is in no way impaired.

In conclusion, the only one of the three complaints that even approaches a breach of privilege is the matter dealing with the group Anonymous. While that instance clearly does involve threats and intimidation, these are made against the minister in his role as a minister, not as a member. As such, they do not constitute a breach of privilege. While they are a matter of concern for all members of the House, they remain threats made by criminals to a minister of the Crown, and as such are better handled by the RCMP and other appropriate authorities.

Opposition Motion--Charter of Rights and Freedoms

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to speak to the opposition motion. I am a little perplexed by the motion, but my inclination is to support it.

I listened to the debate all day and it seemed that members on both sides of the House were more intent on debating Bill C-30 as opposed to the actual motion, and they do not have that much in common. However, I will talk briefly about the bill that is referenced in paragraph (c) of the five proposals contained in the Liberal motion and that is with respect to the constitutionality and compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

As a member of the House and of both the public safety and the justice standing committees, I am quite confident that Bill C-30 is charter compliant. Is it a perfect bill? No. Is perfection ever going to be attained when one balances national security and police issues with respect to weeding out child pornography and child predators versus privacy rights? No. We will never obtain perfection because that is a very delicate and precarious balance. We have to make reasonable accommodations for privacy. Privacy must be protected because Canadians expect that their privacy will be protected.

Let me dispel a couple of myths. One of the biggest myths is that somehow the police will have the right to search without warrant the private emails and browser histories of what sites individuals have visited. That is absolutely false. The only information that will be provided without warrant is basic subscriber information which is limited to customer name, address, email address, telephone number, Internet protocol address and the name of the telecommunications service provider. As members who have studied this issue know, that information is already voluntarily provided by the telecommunications providers. Some take longer than others and some provide different information. The bill would make it standard, mandatory and on a more time efficient basis.

With respect to the actual motion that is before the House and on which we will be voting in just over 30 minutes, the motion itself is supportable. Of course legislation ought to be charter compliant. I would suggest that Bill C-30 is charter compliant. It is not perfect. It tries to balance Canadians' needs and the expectation of privacy versus the needs of police to provide security for citizens.

The government has taken the nearly unprecedented step of referring Bill C-30 to committee prior to second reading debate in the House so that Canadians can have an even more fulsome debate than normal trying to balance the rights of privacy versus the needs of national security. It is a good bill. It is not a perfect bill, but we are going to make it better.

On the wording of the motion, the motion is supportable.

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

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

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

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Madam Speaker, we support the Liberal motion because we support the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we know that Bill C-30 breaches the fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadians as well as their privacy in a number of ways. In particular, the authorities will be able to investigate an individual without a warrant, and there is no protection against abuses. Furthermore, the Prime Minister himself has recognized that this bill has a number of shortcomings.

Yet, I find it odd that this very bill was introduced previously by the Liberals several times—or at least twice. What has changed so that the Liberals now completely oppose this bill, which we find completely intrusive and contrary to a number of aspects of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

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

Madam Speaker, I think it is important to remind members that every provincial and territorial attorney general across Canada supports this legislation. In addition to that, police officers across this country are supporting this legislation. The president of the Canadian Police Association, Tom Stamatakis, said: “Without this legislation we're asking our police to use pagers and typewriters to keep up with criminals using smart phones and tablets”. Earlier today I also quoted the chief of police for the Waterloo Regional Police Service. He is also the president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police.

These police officers are asking for these changes. Thus I have two questions. Does the hon. member think that our police officers and police chiefs are out of touch? Or what sinister motives does he think motivate our police officers to ask for the changes that are included in Bill C-30?

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

Madam Speaker, I am delighted that so many of my fellow MPs are here to listen to my speech.

I would say first of all that Bill C-30 is legitimate in what it ultimately wants to accomplish, which is to assist police authorities in uncovering and pursuing criminals. No one can disagree with that aim but it has never been the reason the bill has provoked so much public outcry.

How we can uncover and pursue criminals is very much the question today, but if we do it by infringing on people's most basic rights, then we have a problem.

In Canada there is a charter, brought in by a Liberal government some 30 years ago. This document is very important. In fact, its content is paramount in any consideration of the Criminal Code of Canada. The charter is the guarantor of the most basic rights and freedoms of Canadians. As an aside, I personally regard the charter, whose 30th anniversary we will celebrate in April, as such an important document that I took a copy of it with me on my second space flight in 1996 to then be able to present it to the prime minister, which I did.

In Bill C-30 as currently written we have a potential violation of the charter, specifically as regards unreasonable search and seizure. More fundamentally, this is also about the privacy of individual Canadians, something that we all cherish and must be extremely vigilant to preserve. Our task is to achieve the right balance between civil liberties and police oversight.

In this context, I must remind this government that it was the first to speak out when it decided that protecting the rights of Canadians with regard to the firearms registry was of the utmost importance. We all remember the government's indignation when individuals had to provide certain personal information when registering a long gun. We also remember the government's position on the census.

I can remember coming here several times in the summer of 2010 to discuss the census issue, particularly the fact that the government wanted to take the compulsory long form census and turn it into a voluntary national household survey. Why? It was because the census was going to be an attack on people's personal privacy, as I remember the Minister of Foreign Affairs mentioning, in wanting to know how many bathrooms people might have in their houses. I remember how indignant he was about that kind of information. Yet we know that the bill as presently written is very much at risk of trampling on citizens' most basic rights to privacy, by inappropriately authorizing access by police authorities to sensitive personal information without a warrant.

I do not want the police knowing whom I phone, email or text, and when and how often I do it, unless the police have some sort of authorization to track me. This presupposes some sort of warrant to ensure that such checking of Canadians by police does not get out of control. I am very open to looking into ways of expediting such warrants, but I want there to be some protection from potential abuse. It also presupposes that we have to incorporate measures once a warrant is issued so we do not leave the process completely open ended.

Some Conservative members have dared to suggest that the personal information collected could be found in a telephone book. Could anything be more innocent? What a pathetic attempt to trivialize something as important as privacy.

Amendments must be made to Bill C-30 in order to ensure that a balance is achieved between the right to privacy and public safety, of course. I would even go so far as to say that the process transcends this bill because it pertains to the fundamental balance of our country and what that should mean to all Canadians.

We are dealing here with the essence of our fundamental values, the very ones that are found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. How can the minister ignore this reality?

Our position is clear: all parliamentarians have a duty to recognize the fundamental right of every Canadian as set out in the charter and to recognize every Canadian's fundamental right to privacy.

I know that Bill C-30 will be sent to committee before second reading and, needless to say, I support this step, which validates our position. However, this is just the first step, and we must now be vigilant in order to ensure, on behalf of Canadians, that this is not just a smokescreen.

Will the government set aside its ideological modus operandi in order to adopt a modus vivendi in the interest of all Canadians? We must take the time required to conduct an in-depth examination of this bill. We will have to hear from many witnesses and experts, and I hope that we will not accept half measures when it comes to legitimately respecting procedures.

We need to recognize that, given these realities and what they mean, the Liberals' reasons for introducing this motion today are quite legitimate. The democratic nature of a society is measured by the manner in which it balances the protection of public safety with civil liberties and individual rights and freedoms.

The Conservatives want to destroy the data about long gun owners, but at the same time, they are planning to collect much more personal information about some Canadians. This bill is a major violation of individual rights and freedoms. We will ask the government to seriously consider the amendments that the Liberals propose in committee in order to ensure that the right to privacy of law-abiding web-surfing Canadians is maintained.

The Liberals are currently consulting experts, including federal and provincial privacy commissioners, with a view to formulating sound amendments to this bill. Even Conservative backbenchers have recognized that this bill goes too far and is a violation of Canadians' privacy.

The Minister of Public Safety's now-infamous suggestion that those opposing the bill stand with child pornographers is disgusting. The minister has not yet apologized in the House. The minister's comment is in the same category as disturbing remarks uttered repeatedly by government members slandering anyone who does not share their opinions, calling them Hitler or Taliban supporters. That kind of remark undermines the parliamentary process and the entire political system.

It is important to bear in mind that police forces already have plenty of tools in terms of investigative powers, tools that could be enhanced in an effective, structured operational framework that meets the needs and expectations of Canadians.

Not only do the current provisions in Bill C-30 go against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but they will be very expensive, and my hon. colleagues can be sure that the cost will be passed on to consumers. Such a broad measure as the minister is proposing will also put an additional burden on wireless and Internet service providers.

Everything depends on the government's willingness to accept the amendments needed to make this an effective bill, particularly concerning the obligation to secure warrants from a judge beforehand.

These amendments must be presented, debated and voted on in a truly transparent context in which all Canadians can witness this bill's progress. To that end, a full debate, complete with testimony from stakeholders on all sides, is absolutely crucial.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in this opposition day debate on the motion concerning privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

We are talking today about Bill C-30 which of course we all know has been before the House. We heard the unfortunate statements of the Minister of Public Safety when he was asked by a member from this party about the bill, when he was challenged about it two weeks ago. He suggested that in fact we are either with them and the bill, or else we are with the child pornographers. That was a very unfortunate start, and a very unwise and unfortunate thing to say.

This is a significant piece of legislation. It is important to get the right balance, but it also important to have the right balance in this discussion and not bring such inflammatory language and outrageous statements to us, suggesting that people who are opposed to the bill, law-abiding Internet users and law-abiding computer owners, are in fact somehow on the side of child pornographers. It is outrageous. To suggest that those people who are concerned about maintaining the right of privacy are somehow in cahoots with people who are doing horrible things is unfounded, unjust and unwise. This debate really did get off on the wrong foot.

There has been a great deal of opposition to this bill. There was a great reaction to the comments from the Minister of Public Safety. In fact, we know that even a few of the Conservative backbenchers were expressing their concern that this bill was going too far. They obviously must have heard from an awful lot of people, as I did and as most members in the House did, who were upset at what the government appeared to be trying to do.

This was certainly perceived by many Canadians as intrusion into the private lives of Canadians without judicial oversight. That is the key point here, what kind of oversight there is going to be. I think that most of us, if not all of us, can understand why this legislation has to be updated. The world has changed in the past year, technologically, and it has certainly changed a lot in the past six years and in the past decade or two.

I noted the comments of Police Chief Frank Beazley of Halifax. He indicated that there is a need for police to have the ability to look at these things. I take his concerns seriously. I share his concern about the ability to prevent crime from happening. I think it is fair to say that, rather than suggesting that someone who opposes this bill or has questions about it is on the side of child pornography. I do not believe there is a member in this House who is on that side. I believe that all of us strongly want to condemn and combat child pornography. Let us have this discussion in a serious sombre way.

We need to have a discussion about what the bill should and should not do, and how it should go forward. We believe it is currently flawed. My leader said earlier today that we on this side would never say that we do not believe there are grounds, times and ways in which the police and other investigating officers have a right to access information which is held by a service provider. He went on to say that the key issue is whether the House is prepared to say to Canadians that it can happen, but it cannot happen without prior judicial authorization. It is really a very specific issue.

Of course it is a complicated bill. There is much more to it that we could talk about. It should be examined, and that is fine. In fact that is how a government should approach things. It should bring forward a bill, which gets to committee if the House decides to send it to committee, and it should be examined there. Members should take a strong interest. Members from all sides, even from the government side, should look at it very critically.

That is the responsibility we have as members of Parliament. I want to refer to what the Minister of Public Safety said today. He has taken a much more moderate tone, thankfully. He said that he believes in the principles of due process, and has respect for privacy and presumption of innocence. Those are fundamental principles. He said that he believes that in his view Bill C-30 adheres to those principles but that we need to update our laws, while striking the right balance.

There is much of that with which we can agree. He says that he wants the balance between combatting crime and protecting privacy. We agree with that. Our sense is that too often the Conservative government's idea of balance is what we may consider a little too far to the right. It is not exactly a balance, in our mind, with what the Conservatives started with here and certainly with the way the minister reacted to being challenged on this.

Therefore, why not get it right? The Conservatives should have had it right before bringing in the bill. The minister ought to have known what was in the bill. We saw that when he was questioned about it and he did not know about a particular provision in the bill and then discovered it was. That is not an indication of a minister who has done his homework, has prepared himself and has carefully gone over the bill that he is responsible for bringing to the House. It seems to me it is important that the Conservatives stop playing political games.

Let us examine the motion moved in the House today. It asks the House to recognize the fundamental right of all Canadians to freedom of speech. That is very important. It also calls for recognition of freedom of communication, which we are enjoying right now. This has changed a great deal in our lifetime. There were no cellphones or computers 30 or 40 years ago, and we could not exchange emails as we do today. The means of communication have completely changed. This must be reflected in the law and, at the same time, we must protect Canadians' rights.

The motion also asks that the House recognize “that there must be a clear affirmation on the need for these rights to be respected in all forms of communication”. It also suggests “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”.

My question is as follows: how can we ensure that Canadians are protected and that there is oversight of government and police activities, while providing police with the tools they need?

I hope the government will seek a good balance and be open to the comments and arguments made in committee. I remember when our party formed the government. We often had great debates within our party. During committee meetings, Liberal MPs were free to express themselves and, from time to time, they were against the government's position. In a committee considering a bill, it is very important that the members consider their responsibilities toward the public. When we are sworn in as MPs, it is to serve our constituents, but also our country. We have a responsibility to seek the best bills and to make amendments that are going to improve them. Those are challenging and serious responsibilities and we have to take them seriously.

Today's motion also states 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”. That seems obvious to me. I am glad the minister has stopped making such characterizations and, in future, I would like there to no longer be such unfair and abusive responses.

The motion also states “that the Charter is the guarantor of the basic rights and freedoms of all Canadians”.

I hope that the government will support this motion. I find it hard to see any reason why it would not. There are some things we can all agree on, and I hope this is one of them. We shall see.

As I was saying, I am anxious to hear the speech by the hon. member for Westmount—Ville-Marie, who will follow me after the period for questions and comments. I hope all hon. members of the House will support this motion. I see no reason why they would not.

When Bill C-30 is reviewed in committee, I hope there will be a good debate and that there will be openness to amendments.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Madam Speaker, my answer will be brief, since now is not the time to give any details about the amendments we plan to propose regarding Bill C-30. However, I know our critics have a long list of them, which we will share in due course.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her wonderful question. Freedom of expression is the right of an individual, a group, a nation, a population, to build their culture and society and to hope for a better world. This means dialogue and communication between individuals, the right to proclaim one's existence loud and clear. I exist, I exist, and I am entitled to my opinions. I was born on this planet and I have the right to express myself loud and clear. I have the right to my political, personal and religious beliefs. I have the right to my sexual orientation. I have the right to live and thrive in Canada and Quebec, my beloved Quebec, and my beloved region, the Eastern Townships.

This is a fundamental right that must be protected. Bill C-30, as it is currently drafted, will not achieve this. I hope my colleagues across the floor will accept some very reasonable amendments.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Madam Speaker, I agreed to speak to this motion here today for several reasons, one being to demonstrate the importance of freedom of expression. Freedom of expression and opinion is fundamental to the reality of our nations and our peoples today. This freedom is governed by certain fundamental rules that allow people to express themselves and to thrive in a civilized society. As an artist, when my freedom of expression and opinion is breached, I cannot help but fight back. The way Bill C-30 is now drafted, it is really hard to know just how badly these arbitrary, abusive rules could infringe on people's privacy and the privacy of artists.

Artists today often communicate over the Internet. They even create works collectively over the Internet. If a text is not to the liking of an inspector—that is the word used in Bill C-30—the authorities could seize that text or the computer belonging to an artist in the process of creating something, whether literary, musical or theatrical. I find it very worrisome that a government would give itself such powers.

I will to come back to the hon. member for Toronto Centre's motion because it includes a number of things that are extremely important to the lives of all Canadians. Given our charter, it seems imperative to me that the House recognize that all Canadians have the fundamental right to freedom of expression, freedom of communication, and privacy. However, the fact that we have come to a point where we must clearly state that these rights must be respected in all forms of communication is rather absurd for a so-called civilized country. I do not understand how Canada has come to this point in 2012. What happened to the nearly 150 years of history and evolution of Canadian society?

The expression of rules of human rights and freedoms dates back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly, in which Canada participated. This first modern text was intended to be a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this declaration constantly in mind, would strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures—not outdated and regressive measures—to secure their recognition and observance.

I would like to list several of the principles that helped to shape a number of other texts, including the Quebec and Canadian charters. They are that:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion [on any topic]...

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest...

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference...

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

A number of these basic principles are included in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it, “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”.

Under section 2 of our charter, everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

(d) freedom of association.

Those rules are essential for a society and the people in it to flourish.

However, over the past few weeks, Canadians have expressed deep concerns, in various ways and media, about Bill C-30. They are concerned about being accused of being friends of child pornography or advocates of criminal activity just because they do not share the same opinion as the government. It is an aberration. If I were to write my opinions in a document and send it to my colleagues, it could be intercepted and I could be found guilty of an offence because the government wants to use the Criminal Code to increase invasions of privacy.

Bill C-30 would require Internet service providers with the necessary means to allow national security and law enforcement organizations to use their authority to intercept communications.

Artists and many social activist groups communicate over the Internet. Is this a continuation of the paranoia we saw a few years ago at the G8 and G20?

Part VI of the Criminal Code, which includes sections 183 through 196, lists the rules that apply to invasion of privacy in cases of interception and spying. I am not an expert in this field, but the Criminal Code refers to the authorization to intercept a private communication by means of any device used to intercept this communication. Individuals can be found guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for five years.

We are in a bad way if we no longer trust the authorities in place. The individuals who form a nation and a people must feel safe in their country, particularly when it comes to freedom of expression and association. That is vital. As I was saying, the communications of public interest groups, social activist groups and communities with specific needs could be intercepted and their computers and equipment, which are very important to them, could be seized.

I will now come back to the arts, which I wanted to speak about. From Robert Johnson to Jimmy Hendrix, artists have sung about the right to freedom; from Moses to Martin Luther King, leaders of all nations have wanted to free their people and have advocated freedom of expression and, above all, freedom of choice and social justice. That is what we are discussing today in the House, which considers itself to be modern and democratic. On all the stages of this world, whether musical or political, leaders have strongly condemned the injustices afflicting the people. Our former leader was one of them. Like him, I will continue to speak out until our voices are heard by the decision-makers, who are ignoring the legitimate calls for rights and freedoms.

The Who sang, “Long live rock, I need it every day”. I need freedom of expression every day because it is my right, and I want to enjoy this right until the moment I die.

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

Madam Speaker, the member indicated that we on this side of the House are out of touch.

I would ask the hon. member if all of the police chiefs that have responded to Bill C-30 are out of touch. Is the Vancouver deputy police chief, Warren Lemcke, out of touch when he said, “We can't monitor your e-mails. We can't monitor your phone calls. We can't monitor your surfing unless a judge allows us to do that”. He goes on to say, “I can tell you there are organized crime groups that shop around for certain TSPs because they know they can hide better”.

Jocelyn Ouellette, the New Brunswick chief of police said, “I can assure you that this department supports any tool put at our disposal to fight the heinous crime of child exploitation”.

I want to remind members and the viewers that is about protecting children.

Doe the member think those police chiefs are out of touch as well?

[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.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the tone of my colleague's remarks.

However, I want to get some more understanding of the Liberal motion today. Does this member believe that the efforts by Liberal MPs in 2005, 2007 and 2009 were on bills consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, per the debate today? Does he agree with the Privacy Commissioner, who has expressed some concerns about Bill C-30 but also that the legislation tabled by this government is an improvement with respect to privacy rights over the legislation tabled in 2005?

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

Mr. Speaker, I find this quite interesting. Here is a party that actually tabled similar legislation back in 2005 and again in 2007. In 2002, it also launched consultations on lawful access.

In looking at this, one of my questions for my colleague is about the census. When we look at the information that would be deciphered as a result of this bill, I wonder if he could comment on whether he finds it outrageous that we have a government that gets rid of the census and then tables legislation that allows access to the private information of Canadians.

My further question is whether Liberals, because they tabled legislation on this before, will be supporting Bill C-30.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure the debate is actually finished over here. As a child, I used to think that sitting in the corner of a room had no excitement whatsoever. Since coming here to the House of Commons, the corner of this House is quite exciting, quite frankly. The debates are quite vigorous, if not to say less entertaining.

I am grateful to be allowed a few moments to speak to this particular motion. I do want to extend my congratulations to all who have spoken here today on this particular measure that has been thrust upon us in the past little while and, certainly, created a lot of attention across this country. The electronic data that has moved around this country and the world, for that matter, regarding this bill has been quite substantial and come at a time when we should probably have this debate before considering the bill at committee, in this case before second reading.

A lot of people have asked me about the ramifications of that. I say that I applaud the government for sending the bill to committee before second reading because, fundamentally, by doing so it is now allowing substantial amendments to be made before second reading. The problem otherwise, if it goes to second reading first, is that if we have a debate in the House and vote on it, we then have to accept the principles of the bill. The majority of the House would do that. Subsequent to that, any amendments coming forward could be ruled out of order by the Speaker if these go against the fundamental principles and the scope of the bill in question, that being Bill C-30.

Therefore, I am glad that the current motion is being debated today, because without that motion we would not have had the opportunity to debate the bill in the House before it went to committee. The government says it wants to expedite this, to put it through committee and to have a fruitful conversation about this. Certainly, I would like to have this debate in the House before we send the bill to committee, because if we send the bill to committee before second reading, it means that we then have the ability as the House of Commons to enact legislation with major amendments that cannot be quashed by the Speaker or anyone else in the House. The procedure dictates that we can make substantial changes. Why not have a debate in the House that precedes anything going to committee?

The House recognizes the fundamental right of all Canadians to the freedoms of speech, communication and privacy, and that there must be a clear affirmation of the need for these rights to be respected in all forms of communications.

We all know, as my hon. colleague for Lac-Saint-Louis pointed out earlier, that the technology involved here is evolving now on a monthly basis. We talked about every 10 or 15 years when I first got here in 2004. In those days it was changing every four or five years. Now it seems to be changing every year, certainly in the aspect of social media. We saw Facebook thrust upon the world in a very short period of time, and now of course Twitter as well in this situation.

When I first got here, politics was judged by eight-second soundbites. Now politics and political discourse are judged by 140 characters or less, so we can see how we have gone from the realm of broadcasting to the realm of social media. Now breaking news is a part of the Twitterverse. It is not necessarily a part of the 24/7, 500-channel universe any more. We have now pushed ourselves into that.

However, let us bear in mind that the social media is doing something in addition to what was done in the old days of the 500-channel universe. Not only do we receive information at a moment's notice when it happens, or instantaneously, we are also now providing that information instantaneously, at a moment's notice, in the heat of the moment, whatever it may be. Nonetheless, we are not using traditional ways, with the exception of telephone, I guess, of sending information to people with whom we are in contact. We are now using electronic media to such a great extent that a lot of information is being put through private companies such as ISPs, and thus a vast amount of our lives, secret or not, is now transported through electronic data. Therefore, the ability to look into this is a lot more invasive than it used to be, if indeed the intention is to get all of the information that is out there about a particular person.

Sometimes people disseminate information that does not pertain to their intent. Per the example used earlier by my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis, someone with a cellphone can transport pictures at a protest and the authorities have the ability to look into the transmission of these photos at particular protests, even when the person concerned is an innocent bystander and not an active participant, and not doing anything nefarious, but simply present and transmitting what is happening.

I return to the motion that we moved in the House: “That the House recognize...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; that the Charter is the guarantor of the basic rights and freedoms of all Canadians; and that the Charter is paramount to any provision of the Criminal Code of Canada; and accordingly the House calls on the Prime Minister to ensure that any legislation put forward by his government respects the provisions of the Charter and its commitment to the principles of due process, respect for privacy and the presumption of innocence”.

The point about the presumption of innocence is a good one, because it seems to have been lost in all of this. When the Minister of Public Safety caused a huge fuss in the media about our being either on the side of them or others, that is what I fear about discourse and debate in the House. We now state things in absolute terms. In other words, we are saying to people that it is a black and white situation when in fact it is not. We are dealing with a very complex piece of legislation that has to receive a fair amount of discussion, debate and input from those across the country to allow us to have strong opinions, but at least our strong opinions are well-informed.

The throwing around of labels at the very beginning of debate is what bothers me. I use that as an example, but let us not kid ourselves and instead recognize that all 308 members of Parliament have fallen into that trap on occasion. We need to be honest with ourselves. Sometimes we have to pull back from that. Sometimes a simple apology is overdue and perhaps sometimes we should have that mature debate to allow ourselves to delve into the issues. I hear members talk about mature debate all the time, but for some reason it never happens. They may have a point: it is time for us to practise what we preach. Having this debate in the House on these particular measures is worthy of note. A debate in the House before we send it to committee and second reading is essentially what we are aiming for.

I congratulate the member for Toronto Centre for doing such and I congratulate anyone who speaks to this issue because it is of great importance.

Several experts have highlighted some of the key components of the legislation that are troublesome. On the one hand, we do want the police to have the tools to exercise their jobs. I know many police in my riding would agree with that and would like to have these tools. Then we have section 8 of the charter, which we are referring to when we say that people have a right to privacy in this country. Some of the people who have written about that include Michael Geist, who says:

While some of that information may seem relatively harmless, the ability to link it with other data will often open the door to a detailed profile about an identifiable person. Given its potential sensitivity, the decision to require disclosure without any oversight should raise concerns within the Canadian privacy community.

Jennifer Stoddart, as my hon. colleague from Random—Burin—St. George's pointed out as well, also had the same reservations about it.

The intent of the bill is one that has to be looked at as well. When the government puts out a public safety message and allows a transition period of 18 months and reduces the requirements for smaller service providers for the first three years, that is all great and fine, but not only do we have the ability to do this technologically but we also need the ability to debate it and make sure that we are doing the right thing before we realize that we have to go back and make changes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, during the break back in my riding many citizens raised a whole bunch of questions, primarily why the government supports being able to spy on Canadians. I just want to reassure people, particularly in my riding, that the bill proposes the exact opposite. Bill C-30 ensures the government can protect Canadian interests and online privacy by enabling law enforcement to have the tools to track down and prosecute those who would spy on Canadians.

Hackers, as we know, are hacking into people's personal information. As I mentioned in my speech, as we continue moving forward with electronic health records, we need to make sure that information remains secure. Bill C-30 would do that.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak to the motion, which calls upon the government to respect principles of due process, privacy and the presumption of innocence. Our government firmly believes in these principles.

I would like to recognize the member for Toronto Centre for his apology in the House yesterday and for bringing this motion forward today. We know that the Liberal Party attempted to introduce lawful access legislation in the past and that it is a concern of great importance for all Canadians. Let us recognize what the debate is really about. We are not here to debate a bill that allows law enforcement to spy on innocent, law-abiding Canadians without judicial oversight because that is not what Bill C-30 proposes. The core issue is far more important. The core issue is how we as members of Parliament protect the interests of Canadians in a world that is moving forward and toward the Internet. Let us stop to think for a moment about the importance of the issue.

Recently it was revealed that Nortel Networks had been hacked and seriously compromised. Intellectual property, bidding documents, business and marketing strategies, research and development and research papers were all alleged to have been compromised. While we often reflect on the fact that Canada is a country rich in natural resources, we sometimes overlook that we are also a country rich in intellectual property. Where is much of Canada's intellectual property found and stored? Online.

Recently we learned that the website of the Association of Chiefs of Police had been hacked and accessed. The fact is that hackers have demonstrated they have no problem accessing our personal information, even personal information belonging to law enforcement. There are seniors in my riding who have lost their life savings to online fraud. Working families have been victimized by online identity theft. Worse, innocent children have been targeted by deviants. In some areas of this country we have witnessed teenage suicide as a result of cyberbullying. Today these unfortunate incidents are the exception, but what about tomorrow? These crimes are becoming more common, not less.

Let us also recognize that more and more Canadians depend on the Internet for their banking and investments and it does not end there. E-commerce is creating jobs across our country. Existing businesses have found new customers, but it does not end there. Many regions are moving toward electronic health records online. This not only creates huge efficiencies in our health care community, but it can also greatly enhance patient care, more so in the emergency room environment.

Even we as members of the House increasingly rely on the Internet and electronic means to help us do our jobs. This is not a partisan issue. This is a reality.

Canada as a country is increasingly moving online, but as we move online, our ability to secure, police and protect our citizens is falling further and further behind. In fact, we must recognize that as it stands today, our law enforcement community currently has more tools to investigate a basic hit-and-run accident than it does to investigate serious online crime. Let me expand on that thought for a moment.

If a vehicle is observed to be in a hit-and-run accident and the suspect vehicle licence plate is recorded, it is understood that with that information, law enforcement, without a warrant, can obtain basic information about that vehicle, such as who the owner is and where the owner resides, and basic contact information. This type of information is used to further investigate an incident. We understand that law enforcement has the ability to obtain basic personal information without judicial authorization, but we also understand that this basic contact information available to law enforcement that can help locate a hit-and-run driver does not, I repeat does not, enable law enforcement to access personal communications without a warrant.

Should the same basic tools that are available to law enforcement in the real world not be available to fight crime in the online cyberworld? These are ultimately the questions we need to be asking in this debate, because the types of tools that have been available to Canadian police in mainstream society for many decades, fully subject to the Criminal Code of Canada and judicial oversight, do not currently exist online. That is ultimately what this debate is about.

We as parliamentarians have an obligation to protect Canadians and our national interests. The life savings of our citizens, the innocence of our youth, the intellectual property of our research and development sector, our e-commerce and soon even our health records depend on our ability to safeguard that information.

I have read Bill C-30 and I believe it would update our laws to help safeguard the interests of Canadians. It also would provide a balance that would recognize the privacy rights of personal communications while providing basic contact information which law enforcement could use to investigate crime.

Over the recent break, I had a chance to speak with many citizens, including a group of retired police officers, about this bill. Being able to gain basic information is critically important. It helps to solve crime. Bill C-30 would ensure that basic contact information would be available to our law enforcement. In some cases that information would be freely volunteered and in other cases it would not. I recognize there needs to be more consistency in this area. It is also important to be able to secure evidence before it can be deleted or destroyed, and that is addressed by Bill C-30. Those processes also involve judicial oversight. Most importantly, the bill would ensure that providers of online Internet services would ultimately acquire the technology to deal with Internet crime once it arises, which again would be subject to judicial overview.

Is there a cost to achieve this? That is a perfectly reasonable question. Absolutely there is, but there are also costs to remaining with the status quo and doing nothing. Think of our national research and development and our vast intellectual property. For decades our country has invested in innovation and technology.

In my riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla, we have the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre which has been working in partnership and has developed new food packaging technology which is very important for the agricultural sector. This will greatly increase the shelf life of produce and extend shipping times and open up new markets. This has huge economic potential for many regions, not just my own. We must be able to protect our intellectual property and capital.

I submit those costs required for our Internet providers to be able to take action against online criminals far outweigh the investment required. We must ensure that we have online technology in our great country that can take action to protect Canadians. Some critics suggest we should be concerned about granting new powers to the police. However, when we read Bill C-30 it is clear that the changes being contemplated in the bill would not actually create new powers for the police at all. Rather, they would ensure that existing policing tools, which have existed in some cases for decades, would also apply to the online community. The question we should be asking is why some interests think the Internet should be a safe haven immune from any type of oversight whatsoever.

In closing, I will leave this thought with the House. Our future is increasingly online. Perhaps that is one point in the debate on which all of us can agree. If we are truly to protect the interests of Canadians and keep our country strong, then I submit we must overcome our partisan differences and respect that protecting the private information of Canadians online is in the national interest of our great country. The criminals, hackers, the anonymous of the cybercrime world have already proven they can access that information without incident. Is it not time that we ensured that law enforcement had these same basic abilities as well? I submit that it is. I would like to thank my colleagues in the House for being part of this important debate.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla.

I am pleased to be able to rise today and join this debate on the motion by the interim Liberal leader. I am also pleased to have the opportunity to try to correct the avalanche of rhetoric, misinformation and lack of understanding that has been levelled at Bill C-30, which the member for Toronto Centre has based this motion around.

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

I want to reiterate that point. I believe all of us in this House have the same goals in mind: we want to protect Canadians and to make sure that criminals are not able to access the Internet and use it to harm the most vulnerable in our society, especially our children. At the same time, we want to protect Canadians' privacy. I think this is a great opportunity for us to show leadership and together to make the changes, if they are necessary, to keep the tools the police need while striking a balance with privacy.

I go back to my point that the Liberals have supported this type of legislation for 10 years, albeit with weaker privacy protections in fact. Liberal MPs have tabled legislation on three separate occasions, in 2005, 2007 and 2009. Obviously, the members opposite realize that they can table legislation, that is, private members' bills, even if their party is not in government. Indeed, in 2007 and 2009 private members' bills on this were introduced by Liberal members of Parliament and were fully supported by the Liberals.

Once again, this is a very disturbing example of a double standard. The NDP members have been very consistent in their opposition and I give them credit for that, though I wish they would be a little more accurate in their debating. However, the Liberals have been completely inconsistent. It really is disappointing. It appears that the Liberals do not have ideas of their own and are constantly making decisions based on whatever way the wind is blowing and whatever they see as politically expedient. It is disturbing for democracy and for Canadians, wherever they may stand on this issue.

I will begin by clearing the record. This bill is not about police snooping or spying on Canadians. It is not about accessing their chat logs or web visits, nor is it about reading emails or looking at their Facebook pages. This is about equipping law enforcement officers with the tools they need to do their job to protect our children and our families from harm.

Let us be clear. The opposition have made some outrageous allegations, such as that the police will be trolling law-abiding Canadians, looking for information, reading emails and looking at their web activity. This is outrageous. It is completely inaccurate and, sadly, it has taken the debate on this bill to a very disturbing and destructive level. It has been personally destructive for certain members in this House. It has been destructive for democracy. I am hoping that today we can turn a new page and speak about the bill truthfully and debate it with respect, and maybe agree to disagree. We can take it to committee and make modifications. However, I am hoping that we can turn a new page and have a respectful and honest debate where people are not personally attacked. Sometimes families are hurt very badly by what goes on here.

I also just want to mention that I have been able to speak with a number of police officers, police chiefs and police forces dealing with online criminal activity. When I speak to police officers, they tell me they need resources and that they are still reeling from the Liberal cuts of the 1990s, including the decision to shut down RCMP Depot.

I want to outline why police are speaking with one voice, including front-line officers, officers who are on the ground, and police associations. They are speaking with one voice on Bill C-30 and looking to all of us in this chamber to stop trying to score cheap political points by fearmongering and using terms such as “prisoner bracelets” in talking about this bill. Police want us to bring the level of rhetoric down and not fearmonger but rather talk about this in an honest way again. Canadians have asked police to do a very difficult job, especially in tracking and trying to combat child pornography, for example. They need the tools from us to do their jobs.

Law enforcement officials from across the country have come together with the request that we provide them with 21st century tools and technologies to fight 21st century criminals, and not leave them handcuffed while criminals have their way.

Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association, said it well when he said that right now we are asking police to rely on “typewriters and rotary phones while criminals have smart phones and tablets.”

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police endorsed lawful access legislation when it was first introduced by former Liberal minister of public safety Anne McLellan over a decade ago. Canadians recognize the incredible growth in technology which has occurred in recent years. The Liberals' argument that somehow, because technology has gotten even smarter, faster and more advanced in the last few years, we do not need smarter and more advanced laws is completely ridiculous. It is because of that that we need to have laws in place and tools for police.

Law enforcement officials are being asked to protect the people and the communities of this country with legislation dating to the 1970s and the days of the rotary phone. Police require lawful access to communications and information in time-sensitive investigations into online child sexual abuse but also in cases of organized crime, drug trafficking and terrorism.

It is also important in certain non-criminal areas, like attempted suicide and missing persons cases. In such cases, basic subscriber information is the starting point in an investigation and perhaps the key to saving a life. There are those who suggest that a court order be sought in every single instance, that every request for basic subscriber information have a court order.

I would ask that all of us consider this snapshot of the state of online child sexual exploitation in Canada. According to the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre or NCECC, in the last 30 days alone there were 7,890 Canadian IP addresses from Internet forums involved in sharing or distributing child pornography online. That is just in the last 30 days, and those are just the ones that were accessed by the NCECC.

Consider if telecom service providers refused to provide basic subscriber information. This would translate into 7,890 requests for production orders. A straightforward production order is estimated to take up to three days of work, which translates into 23,670 days of work for those 7,000-plus production orders. We are talking about addresses that are directly involved with producing and distributing child pornography in Canada.

On the other hand, when service providers comply promptly, the same information can be obtained in a matter of hours. More time spent chasing down court orders for basic customer information is less time assessing files and, more importantly, less time rescuing our kids.

Imagine the burden on our justice system and resources if police had to get a warrant every time they needed this basic information, which is the equivalent of information in a modern phone book or a licence plate. If someone drives past a police checkpoint and the police run a licence plate number, they will get more detailed information than the information that would be detailed through this bill.

Between 2009 and 2011, there has been a steady increase of approximately 1,000 reports per year of child pornography referred to the NCECC from Cybertip, domestic and international law enforcement agencies and the public. Bear in mind, one report can have 1,000 Canadian IP addresses attached to it. The fact is that as technology advances, these types of crimes become easier and faster for criminals.

It is also very important to note that while we have been debating this, yesterday the interim Liberal leader, the mover of this motion, confirmed that one of his senior staff members, Adam Carroll, had engaged in negative and very personal attacks on the Minister of Public Safety. I am very glad to see that this individual resigned, though only, it appears, after he was caught by you, Mr. Speaker.

However, it does leave some serious unanswered questions. Did Adam Carroll and the Liberal Research Bureau use taxpayers' dollars and resources in order to conduct this sleazy secret campaign? If so, how much? We hope that—

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

Madam Speaker, in the context of his very helpful comments about Bill C-30, I ask the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis about the following.

I put it to him that in the last number of years we have seen a sequence of decisions that have undermined the charter, the rule of law and respect for these institutions, beginning with the elimination of the Law Reform Commission, including the elimination of the court challenges program, as well as the government's ignoring of the decision of the courts relating to the charter rights of Omar Khadr.

In that context, I wonder if we are seeing, as this opposition motion seems to suggest, a lack of understanding of the critical importance of the charter in our daily lives.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, in 2002, when the Liberal government at that time launched its consultations on lawful access, it received feedback from the Privacy and Information Commissioners. Some of the feedback said:

The proposed measures go far beyond what is necessary to maintain existing capabilities and authorities in the face of modern communications technology.

With that feedback, I wonder why the Liberal government continued down the path of creating legislation measures and why now today the Liberals criticize the current legislation, Bill C-30, which is in front of us. In their legislation, it contained warrantless access provisions and intercept ready standards for TSPs. I wonder if my hon. colleague can comment on why the sudden change in tune and approach here.

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

Madam Speaker, I find today's debate interesting. We are learning many things. I would like to begin by talking a bit about the nature of technology.

Bill C-30 is fundamentally about technology, very complex and rapidly evolving technology that we use daily, but which we do not always fully understand.

However, Canadians are beginning to understand that digital communications technology and its associated everyday practical applications, like email, the Internet and hands-free communications through portable devices such as smart phones is eroding individual privacy. There have been two distinct reactions to this fact.

On the one hand there are those who say this is disconcerting, that we need to act to prevent further erosion of privacy in this brave new world of electronic communications. On the other hand there are those who say to get used to it, that there is nothing we can do. They say that we have to learn to live with this new way of being and communicating, that in the end no one really cares about the details of our private lives. They say that we are all in the same boat, that we should let go of our concerns, adjust and adapt.

The latter view will strike someone who has been refused a job because of his or her careless and sophomoric Facebook entry years ago as patently naive to think that we should just learn to live with the new breaches of privacy.

I will digress to talk about the inherent nature of technology. This understanding is based on my reading many years ago of a book by a famous Canadian political philosopher, George Grant, entitled, Technology and Justice.

What I took from that book is that technology is not neutral. Many will say that this is obvious, that this is commonplace, that technology can be used for the good or it can be enlisted for less noble ends. For example, nuclear technology can be used for medical diagnosis and energy production to supply hospitals, homes and businesses with power, or it can be used for mutually destructive war. I think we all get this. I think that is obvious to all of us.

Grant's argument goes a bit deeper. Technology is not neutral in the sense that it is not simply developed to satisfy a curiosity or to be left on the shelf. We are not talking about pure research, which is often about scientists playing with ideas and discovering the unexpected simply to satisfy their curiosity. A theoretical physicist might say that is what occupies his or her day. It is simply the exploration of ideas and the playing of ideas for the sake of it, and then something drops out of it unexpectedly.

We feel compelled to use technology once we have it. In fact, that is why we develop it in the first place, to fashion our reality, to fashion our environment, to suit our practical needs and interests.

Obviously in developing technology most of us feel that our goal is a noble one, even when we drift into using technology for questionable or downright destructive ends in retrospect.

Technology is meant to be used. It is intended to be used to manipulate or control our reality for our own self-interest as human beings, for our benefit as human beings, whether we are talking about medical treatment to make people healthy or to transform the Alberta oil sands into profit, thus benefiting our balance of trade.

Let us look at computer technology. Computers allow for compiling databases. This was one of their first uses. Computerized databases are useful. Once we have the capability to do so, as some lament, we want to catalogue everything. We want to collect information, sometimes just for the sake of it, until we figure out what to do with that data. We do not need to go far to see how databases are used, and sometimes quite aggressively, to attain a specific goal.

Political parties use databases to contact voters, build support and raise money. These databases have the capacity to be used in an underhanded way, as we are seeing emerge in the current Conservative robocall scandal, but that is not the main point of my discussion.

As in the case with society as a whole, technology has changed policing. Policing used to simply be about catching law-breakers or first deterring crime by the fact of a police presence, like a cop on the beat. Now, in the words of David Lyon, the world-leading surveillance studies scholar:

As with database marketing, the policing systems are symptomatic of broader trends. In this case the trend is towards attempting prediction and pre-emption of behaviors, and of a shift to what is called “actuarial justice” in which communication of knowledge about probabilities plays a greatly increased role in assessments of risk.

What the above quote means is that modern policing is more and more about data collection, necessarily through surveillance and building profiles through data collection and then tracking individuals who could theoretically pose a problem for public security.

That is all well and good. We want to prevent crime. We want the police to be proactive and vigilant in preventing crime. However, the new technologically sophisticated crime prevention tools also come with side effects. Some of these we may not want to live with or otherwise want to constrain through rigorous, effective and wise laws, or by standing up to hold the government to account when it introduces legislation that is rooted in this human fascination with the power and possibilities of technology in allowing us to control our surroundings.

Proponents of greater state surveillance say that we have nothing to be worried about if we are not doing anything wrong. However, that attitude, apart from sounding like it comes from big brother's two-way television monitor, ignores the fact that individuals can suffer the consequences of surveillance even if they have done nothing wrong. We only need to think of Maher Arar and others who have been unjustly detained at the border or at airports and who were completely innocent. Surveillance technology has placed them in the wrong category, under the wrong tab, in the big brother database, even though they had nothing to hide.

This is where modern surveillance technology can lead us if we are not careful to constrain and control it through good laws that protect our charter right to privacy and our right to live in a healthy free-thinking democracy. These new Internet surveillance technologies can catch the innocent in its ever-expanding web.

Christopher Parsons, at the University of Victoria, has described how this can happen. We need to consider the following scenario, and I will quote because I do not think anyone could have put it better. He says:

In college/university/your private life you...communicate with individuals who have, or presently do, agitate peacefully against certain state [behaviours]. You may or may not be aware that those individuals behaviour...[or perhaps you know nothing about it]. [In any case,] you...engage in discussions with those people online, either on websites that those opposed to certain state behaviours, or in the comments section of newspaper articles, or other electronic formats. Should the police be interested in tracking the individuals invested in an issue (e.g. legalization of marijuana [or] protest against federal decisions concerning Sri Lankan immigrants...[with whom you have been talking] [your]...subscriber records for all who have participated in the online discussion. Now, let’s...assume that you were not supportive of opposition to an official government position and...aren’t necessarily of direct interest to authorities. Regardless, your subscriber data and that of everyone else engaged in these discussions might be requested by the police. No warrant is required to provide this information. ... They would get the same information for every participant of the discussion. With this information they could turn to whomever provided the email account, as well as contact the ISP who provisioned the IP address at the specific time that you posted your message. With information from the email provider they may be able to definitely identify the ISP that you use and, from there, your name, address, and so forth. ... [You] will never know that [you were] added into such a database because the service provider could not legally disclose that the information had been released and, as a result, [your] life prospects may change for legally associating and speaking with those who were similarly engaged in legal speech and association.

Some people will say that they would never have these kinds of discussions online, only over the phone. Bill C-30's provisions, allowing the state to obtain six pieces of subscriber information without a warrant, still leaves a law-abiding citizen vulnerable. If people have a cellphone and are downtown shopping and they happen to walk by a protest, such as a G20 protest, stop with a friend to observe this because it is something they do not see everyday; or they visit an occupy camp; or were a passive spectator in the 2011 Vancouver hockey riots, their cellphone's identity may be captured by police. This can happen because police can use a technology known in the U.S. as a Stringray IMSI catcher, which is a piece of equipment that emulates a cellphone tower and captures IMSI numbers within several kilometres of the capture.

IMSI means international mobile subscriber identity number. This number can be taken to a mobile phone provider and used under clause 16(1) of Bill C-30 to obtain one's name, address and Internet protocol number. In other words, the cellphone subscriber can find his or her information sent to police and entered into a police database.

As a result of clause 23 of Bill C-30, the telecommunications service provider would be prohibited from disclosing to a subscriber that his or her basic subscriber information has been submitted upon request to a law enforcement agency. As Christopher Parsons concluded:

The capacity to acquire IMSI numbers en masse, combined with legal powers to compel subscriber information, creates the perfect framework for mass fishing expeditions based on where citizens are physically present.

Some might say that the police would never track people in this way nor would they go to the next step of gathering information on people's friends and acquaintances. However, the evidence confirms otherwise. In fact, at the Vancouver Olympics, people who were conducting legal actions and protests of the games became the targets of a surveillance apparatus that followed their entries on web forums even though disclosed memos obtained in the lead up to the Olympics found that no specific credible threat existed.

Furthermore, he states:

Surveillance and intelligence gathering did not solely focus on citizens involved...but also their contacts, friends, students, former partners, and academic and professional acquaintances.

Efforts were made to recruit neighbours, friends and acquaintances to spy on suspected activists.

This concern about Bill C-30 opening the door further to the state being able to track protestors who are legally voicing their views in a democracy was the motivation and the essence of my question for the Minister of Public Safety on February 14 when the minister, through his answer, triggered a national firestorm by his disproportionate answer to that question.

Proponents of expanding the surveillance powers through the adoption of Bill C-30 claim that these powers would be used to investigate the most serious crimes only. However, this is not what the experience in other countries shows. In other jurisdictions, similar powers have been used to investigate less serious offences.

According to Nestor Arellano, there is no shortage of research which indicates that the implementation of an online surveillance regime in the European Union and the United States has been fraught with flaws, abuse and costs ultimately shouldered by Internet service providers tasked by government to essentially snoop on their customers.

More than 10 years ago, the United Kingdom passed the regulation of investigatory powers act to extend law enforcement agencies access to communication systems to help police battle crime and terrorist related activity. Under a voluntary code of practice, ISPs retain data such as content of email servers, email server logs, IP addresses, SMS messages and others from six to twelve months. Reports from the interception commissioner, which provides a yearly assessment of interception of communication traffic, indicate that a growing number of interception errors are occurring. In 2007, there were 24 interception errors and breaches found, which the commissioner deemed to be too high, according to Mr. Parsons.

In 2009, there were 36 interception errors and breaches attributed to the general communications headquarters of the secret service, Her Majesty's Revenue Agency and Customs Agency, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Scottish government, the metropolitan police counterterrorism command and the National Technical Assistance Centre. During that year, there were a total of 525,130 requests for communications data that resulted in 661 reported errors.

A report released by the U.K. civil liberties group Big Brother Watch paints a troubling picture of how law enforcement agents handle data that passes through their hands. The organization found that, between 2007 and 2010, 243 police officers and staff received criminal convictions for breaking the country's data protection act; 98 police officers and staff were terminated for breaching the data protection act; and 904 police officers and staff were subjected to internal disciplinary procedures for breaching the data protection act. In one notable case, no less than 208 officers and staff received legal caution for viewing computer records related to a high profile crime. In another, a staff member was dismissed for discussing police information on Facebook. Numerous others were found to have access to criminal records and personal data for no obvious policing purposes.

In the United States, the problem is more significant, according to Parsons who says that the country “suffers from endemic inappropriate surveillance”. He said that the National Security Agency reportedly runs a warrantless wiretapping system with the assistance of major telecom providers, such as AT&T. A large amount of the surveillance conducted by state and federal agencies goes unreported.

This leads me to my conclusion. Privacy is fundamental in a healthy democracy, which is why our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms contains section 8. Section 8 of the charter provides everyone in Canada with protection against unreasonable search and seizure. This right provides Canadians with our primary source of constitutionally enforced privacy rights against unreasonable intrusion from the state. Typically, this protects personal information that can be obtained through searching someone in a pat-down or entering someone's property on surveillance.

Why is privacy fundamental? If law-abiding citizens feel they are being spied on, they begin to withdraw from the normal activities of life, like expressing themselves freely and legitimately, including nowadays through digital communication. When they withdraw, the seed of fear grows and whenever there is fear there is potential for manipulation by those in charge. Those in charge, who, understandably, like their powerful position, will drift, perhaps unconsciously, toward using that power to accumulate even more power. They will always do so under the pretense that the additional power is being used for the good. Those same people in charge, at least the less discerning and perhaps more sincere ones, will believe in their hearts that the system of increased state power they are building is for the larger good.

We hear from proponents of Bill C-30 that we must emulate other countries. However, we are not Europe and we are not the United States. We have the most modern rights charter of any of those countries. We are highly evolved and often ahead of the pack when it comes to respect for individual liberties. As Parsons has said, there is no need for cross-jurisdictional envy in these matters.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, in light of Bill C-30, it is absolutely crucial that we reopen the debate on the importance of privacy protection. The opposition parties understand the need to modernize our legislation; however, Bill C-30 goes too far and directly infringes upon section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects us against unreasonable search or seizure. When a minister proposes bills like this, we need to have a debate and I am happy we are talking about this issue here today.

Many civil society stakeholders, privacy commissioners, my colleagues and I wrote letters to the Minister of Public Safety to share our concerns and those of our fellow citizens regarding clause 16 of the previous version of this bill, Bill C-52. The minister had the opportunity to correct his bill. We told him about the problems we saw with it and about our concerns. Did he make any changes? Yes, he made some. We heard the minister say so earlier in his speech; clause 16 reduces the number of identifiers from 11 to 6. That is true, but as my colleague from Surrey North pointed out, the minister also added provisions to the bill in a rather backdoor fashion. Paragraphs 64(1)(q) and 64(1)(r) give the government the power to prescribe and add identifiers to the list. Has the bill really been corrected? No. Only superficial changes have been made. I have a serious problem with this.

When we shared our concerns about this bill, we also spoke about judicial oversight. There was not enough. We had a problem with giving access to Internet users' private information without judicial oversight. Has the government alleviated this concern? I would say no. Yes, the government has put a system in place, but it is an internal audit system. For Canadians who are concerned about the protection of their privacy, this is just a semblance of judicial oversight. It is not enough, and Canadians are not satisfied with these measures.

If the minister had taken the time to read our letters and listen to the concerns of Canadians and privacy commissioners, he could have fixed these mistakes. Instead, he is covering them up by sending the bill to committee. He also accused us of supporting child pornography. We see a minister who had the opportunity to fix his bill and to protect our right to privacy but did not do so.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms exists for a reason. It must be respected. The protection of privacy exists for a reason. It is set out in section 8 of the charter. It is the House's responsibility to make decisions. And when it does, it must take into account what is written in the charter. It is our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It must be respected, particularly when we are making decisions and laws in this chamber.

When I see bills like Bill C-30 introduced in the House, I wonder whether this government really respects the charter. In fact, this is not the first time that the Conservatives have introduced a bill that goes against the legislation that protects our rights and freedoms. Rather than listening to the opposition and to Canadians who are concerned about their privacy, the Conservatives accused us of supporting child pornography. They accused mothers, fathers, grandparents, privacy commissioners and their former colleague, Stockwell Day, of supporting child pornography.

In a democracy like ours—I know that these days it is feeling less like a democracy than usual—it is unbelievable that a government can accuse its own voters of supporting child pornography because they are against a bill. I thought we were living in a democracy and we had the right to speak out against things and protest.

We are living in a high-tech world. Everyone has a BlackBerry, an iPhone, an iPad, laptops. We carry our cellphones with us. Through this bill, the government is giving itself a tool that can determine our geographic location at all times. The government is telling us that the same information is available in the phone book, but the last time I checked, the phone book did not provide my geographic location at all times. It had my address, my phone number and my name, but not my Internet protocol address or my Internet service provider identification number.

It is a real problem: our minister is telling Canadians that this is the same information that we find in a telephone book, which is absolutely not true. This is information that will allow the government to take away the anonymity of the Internet user. These days, the Internet is used as a discussion forum, a forum where people can discuss their concerns.

I want to thank the House for this discussion. I hope that all hon. members of the House will stand up and support this Liberal opposition motion to protect the privacy of their constituents, those who elected them.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to the motion put forward by the member for Toronto Centre. The motion asks the House to recognize the fundamental rights 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 and that the House recognize that the collection by government of personal information and data from Canadians relating to their online activities, without limits, rules, judicial oversight, constitutes a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Of course I will support the motion.

The motion asks to affirm the basic rights and freedoms of all Canadians as identified in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, it saddens me that the member for Toronto Centre was compelled to put forward a motion that asks us, the members of the House, to affirm what as legislators we should be protecting everyday, what should be the guiding principle of work everyday in the House. The member was compelled to introduce the motion because of the reckless and ill-conceived Bill C-30, a bill which contains a serious violation of the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Canadians.

When members stood in the House and asked the Minister of Public Safety to reconsider this reckless legislation, the minister said, “He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers”. We are often warned that rights and freedoms are not permanent, that we only keep them if we stand up and fight for them. However, when members of the House stand up and fight to protect these rights when they are being threatened by their government, we are accused of being sympathetic to child pornographers.

I think many Canadians realized because of that moment, if they did not already, that the government was a different kind of government than we had seen before, a government that was not only willing to attack the basic rights and freedoms of Canadians, but would also bully and threaten, in the worst way, when it was questioned about this attack.

I support the motion, but I lament that the government has created the conditions, the situations where this kind of motion is necessary in the first place.

Canadians should pay very close attention to this, not only to the bill but to what appears to be a complete disregard for the basic principles of democracy, rights, freedoms and respect for free and fair electoral process. The Conservatives pled guilty to election fraud just a few months ago. Now we hear the Conservative campaign may have been involved in widespread voter suppression, yet more election fraud.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Terrebonne—Blainville.

Last Friday, I had a chance to attend a citizenship ceremony in my community of Surrey, British Columbia. It was a very special day for those attending their citizenship.

I, too, remember a special day for me about 20 years ago when I became a Canadian citizen. There were about 85 people, elderly, young, in all walks of life, and they came from about 20 different countries. Many of them told me that they came here for a better life. A number of them came from war-torn countries. Others came from lawless countries and some may have come from countries where there might be police brutality. Many had escaped these terrible situations to adopt Canada as their new country. I could see the pride in the eyes of the would-be new immigrants.

As a part of preparation for citizenship, the new Canadians learn about our Charter of Rights. It would be fair to say that most of them expect the government and the governing party of Canada to respect the Charter of Rights.

I had a chance to address the new citizens at the end of the ceremony and encouraged them to get involved in politics and the political process in Canada, if they were not already involved. I encouraged them to exercise their right to vote. I can only imagine what those new citizens feel when they see headlines about this new country they have worked so hard to become a citizen of saying that those rights and freedoms are under attack by the sitting government and that the governing party is already guilty of election fraud, perhaps even widespread voter suppression and, more seriously, election fraud.

In May, I was elected to represent the people of Surrey North in the House. I and all members of the House have been given a wonderful opportunity and a phenomenal responsibility. New Democrats are standing up to protect the basic rights and freedoms of Canadians and the serious erosion of privacy and expansion of unchecked surveillance powers contained in Bill C-30.

I challenge the members on the other side of the House to do what they know is right and reject Bill C-30. They should think about the responsibility they have and what our rights and freedoms mean and do what they know is right.

This motion also calls on the House to recognize the charter as paramount to any provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada and for the Prime Minister to ensure that any legislation put forward by the government respects the provisions of the charter and its commitments to principles of due process, privacy and the presumption of innocence. Without the principles of due process, adequate judicial oversight, respect for privacy and the presumption of innocence, our judicial system and, ultimately, our democracy stops working.

I ask members on the other side to seriously consider not only supporting this motion but understanding the gravity of the threat to our rights and freedoms contained in Bill C-30. I also ask them to consider the responsibilities they have as legislators and as members of a governing party that has shown a very serious lack of respect for not only our rights and freedoms but also our democracy. We should not have to stand in the House and speak to this motion but here we are today because of the actions of the government. Canadians deserve better.

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, the NDP wants police officers to have the tools they need to tackle new threats. We believe that it is possible to hunt down criminals without treating law-abiding Canadians like criminals.

Will the government remove all provisions relating to obtaining personal information without a warrant from Bill C-30?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to address the motion before us today. During the past weeks there has been much attention on Bill C-30, the protecting children from Internet predators act.

Contrary to the implications of the interim Liberal leader's motion, our Conservative government strongly believes in the principles of due process, respect for privacy and the presumption of innocence. Bill C-30 adheres to those principles. Through Bill C-30 we seek to update Canada's laws as they do not adequately protect Canadians from online exploitation. We want to update our laws while striking the right balance between combatting crime and protecting privacy. That is why we will send this legislation directly to a parliamentary committee for a full examination.

Over the days and weeks, since we introduced this legislation nearly two weeks ago, I have listened with great interest to the comments of several hon. members and have also been quite intrigued by the remarks of several individuals and groups which have appeared in the news media, both those opposed and those in support of Bill C-30.

All of us know full well that healthy debate is one of the cornerstones of our parliamentary democracy. Indeed, it is the cornerstone of our democracy, but all of us also know that to be healthy, a debate must be informed by facts rather than speculation and unwarranted fearmongering. It must be informed by actual facts rather than personal attacks and half-truths.

As the interim Liberal leader clearly knows, our government strongly believes in the principles of due process, respect for privacy and the presumption of innocence. The fact that this motion seems to imply otherwise is not surprising.

Just yesterday, the interim Liberal leader apologized for one of his senior researchers who was responsible for a smear campaign against me. As I said yesterday, I take no issue with an open attack on the floor of this House in which the source of the attack may be seen by all. I do take strong issue with the idea that taxpayer dollars would be used to secretly attack a member of this House.

Despite yesterday's revelation and apology, the Liberal Party and the interim Liberal leader owe Canadians some answers. Did the senior researcher for the Liberal Party, Adam Carroll, use taxpayer resources and if so, what was the cost? Is the Liberal Party of Canada going to reimburse this amount to the House? What involvement did the member for Papineau have in this campaign? When did he first know a Liberal staffer was involved? Upon making this discovery, what did he do to prevent the smear campaign from advancing? Indeed, what did he personally do to advance and promote it?

Despite this smear campaign, I will continue to do my duty and carry out my responsibilities in respect of this legislation on behalf of our government. I am therefore very pleased to have this chance to speak to the real facts about Bill C-30 and to set the record straight on a number of fronts.

Canadians deserve to hear a reasonable dialogue on issues which affect their lives and ensure their overall safety, a dialogue based on reason rather than hysteria, a dialogue based on facts rather than the outlandish conspiracies put forward by the member for Timmins—James Bay. I therefore want to focus my remarks today on what Bill C-30 will do and then speak about what it will not do, in other words, what is in the legislation and what is not, what is fact and what is fiction.

I have spent the better part of my career advocating for the safety and security of Canadians. As a prosecutor, as a child protection lawyer, as a federal and provincial attorney general, and in my current job as Canada's Minister of Public Safety, I have made it my goal to put the rights of victims ahead of the interests of criminals.

Over the years it has become more and more clear to me and to countless thousands of other Canadians that our laws were falling far behind the technology used by criminals. The frustration that police have experienced through the years is palpable.

After I entered politics, I heard the same story from law enforcement officials so many times that I began to wonder if the problem would or could ever be fixed. Even so, soon after my appointment as federal justice minister in 2006, I was introduced to the concept of lawful access, which dealt with the challenge of fighting crime and investigating threats in an era of new communications technology. I was struck by the reality that our approach to the Internet has been shaped for a previous generation, one grounded in equipment like the telex machine.

This is a concern that we have heard from law enforcement and security agencies right across this country, as well as our international allies. I might add at this point that our international allies have, in fact, adopted this legislation. In that respect, Canada is not going ahead of any other of our fellow western democracies. In 2009, Chief Constable Jim Chu of the Vancouver Police Department said that our laws were “originally written in the era of rotary phones”. Bill C-30 would repair this.

Bill C-30 is not the first attempt to update our laws. The problem is well known. As acknowledged by the interim Liberal leader, even the Liberals knew it. The Liberal Party introduced similar bills on three separate occasions and its present position on Bill C-30 clearly proves that the Liberals are a value-free, principle-free, idea-free party that will accept and adopt whatever position they think is possible on the issue of the day. Liberals have been supporting legislation such as this for 10 years, with weaker protections for privacy. Our government introduced similar bills twice, once in 2009 and once in 2010.

To the disappointment of many, and despite the tireless efforts of people like Paul Gillespie, formerly of the Toronto Police Service and now the head of the Kids Internet Safety Alliance, and Roz Prober of Beyond Borders, none of these attempts resulted in the passage of these necessary amendments to the law, as these bills all died on the order paper. I am sure that many hon. members have heard Mr. Gillespie speak passionately about the emotional toll that child exploitation investigations take on front-line officers. Each day these officers are confronted by the bleak reality that thousands of children are sexually abused in graphic, unimaginable ways. The reality is that police simply do not have the tools to effectively fight these crimes. This is true not only in cases related to child pornography but also identity theft, online organized crime, and many Internet scams and frauds.

More than a decade ago, police spoke up and told the government of the day that they lacked the tools to keep up with changing technology. Here is just one example that illustrates the ongoing frustration and problems with the current system. It comes from Kingston Police Detective Constable Stephanie Morgan. Detective Morgan received information via the Internet that a person might attempt suicide. When she approached a telecommunications service provider for help in locating that person, she was prevented from proceeding further. She said:

In that case, the Internet service provider refused to give us that information because of the person's privacy. To this day, I don't know who the person was who sent the message, I don't know if they were in distress or if they later committed suicide.... I think that would not have happened if this legislation was in place.

Let me give a second example. Hon. members may have heard of the case where, as part of a massive worldwide investigation of child pornography, Germany alerted Canadian law enforcement officials that 200 IP addresses using Canadian Internet service providers were associated with online child exploitation. The RCMP requested information from these Canadian Internet service providers to help them identify potential suspects. Unfortunately, the RCMP was unable to identify the account holders associated with 47 specific IP addresses due to a lack of co-operation from some service providers. That meant that 47 leads reached a dead end and that today countless children remain at risk.

A third example is an international criminal investigation that involved 78 Canadian IP addresses linked to the purchase of child pornography. In this case, requests for customer names and addresses were submitted to the relevant Internet service providers. However, this basic subscriber information was again not provided by all the service providers. As a result, 18 suspects have not been identified and today remain free to jeopardize the safety and security of young Canadians.

These are not isolated cases. Last year alone, 62 requests for basic subscriber information made by the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre in Ottawa were refused. It is simply unacceptable.

That is why, on February 14, I reintroduced legislation that closely resembles the efforts of the previous Liberal government, but with important improvements that better protect the privacy of Canadians. I might point out that this legislation has the support of all provincial and territorial attorneys general and public safety ministers. The Liberal flip-flop on this piece of legislation is simply unbelievable.

Bill C-30 allows police to request six kinds of basic subscriber information to assist with the kinds of investigations that I just spoke about. However, just as critically, it makes police 100% accountable through audits and obligations to report to federal and provincial privacy commissioners.

Let us look at the first part, that relating to basic subscriber information.

Basic subscriber information is essential for criminal and national security investigations, as well as for responding to non-criminal community needs such as assisting families to find runaway youths. We have improved on previous versions of this legislation by reducing the number of basic subscriber information points that police could request of service providers, from 11 in the Liberal legislation down to 6. This information is clearly stated: name, address, phone number, email address, Internet protocol address, local service provider identifier and nothing more. This is the modern day equivalent of a phone book and phone book information.

Bill C-30 would put in place a system of checks and balances that simply does not exist today, including the fact that officials would have to be designated to make subscriber information requests. Only a limited number of officials would be allowed to be designated to request basic subscriber information, either five individuals or 5% of an agency's workforce, whichever is greater. It would be set out in the law that all requests for basic subscriber information would have to be made in the performance of a duty or a function of the agency in which the designated official is employed.

For internal auditing purposes, officials would be required to record the purpose of each request for basic subscriber information. The police, CSIS and the Competition Bureau would conduct regular internal audits to ensure that their practices and procedures for requesting basic subscriber information complied with the legislation. All findings of these audits, including any concerns and actions taken or proposed, would be provided either to the Minister of Public Safety or the Minister of Industry, as well as the review body responsible for that organization, such as the Privacy Commissioner.

Basic subscriber information does not include information pertaining to the websites a person has visited, or the content of emails or phone calls either made or received. Police will continue to obtain judicial authorization, or a warrant, before requesting this type of information from service providers, as they do today. There is no change to the law in this regard. Bill C-30 would create no new powers to access the content of emails, web browsing history or phone calls beyond the powers that already exist in Canadian law today.

Law enforcement and national security officials will continue to rely on lawful authority before they are allowed to intercept communications. This has been the case for the last 40 years and will continue to be the case under Bill C-30. I emphasize this point because so far there has been a great deal of misinformation spread about this component of the legislation.

As I mentioned earlier, law enforcement officials today can already intercept private communications in very exceptional circumstances without first obtaining court authorization. It simply recognizes that there are situations and some cases where action needs to be taken quickly, in such cases as kidnappings or bomb threats, where an immediate interception could help save lives. Furthermore, this legislation proposes to add robust safeguards to the laws that will increase accountability and transparency.

Some have accused me of not reading a bill that I have been involved in shaping for over half a decade. Ironically, when I read most media coverage of Bill C-30 I am struck by just how poorly the bill is understood by many writers.

That is why our government intends to send this legislation directly to committee for full examination. I hope that all Canadians, and especially members of Parliament and the media, will read, discuss and reflect on the bill. The fact is that stakeholders, victims advocacy groups, police associations, all attorneys generals and public safety ministers in this country have asked for and support these changes, as do many ordinary Canadians.

As I have said before, the proposals we are putting forward are not new or even revolutionary. The focus of Bill C-30 is not to create new interception powers. It will not compromise the privacy of Canadians or put an undue burden on businesses. What it would do would be to bring our country's legislation out of the Cold War era and into the 21st century, along with other western democracies around the world.

This legislation would provide law enforcement and CSIS with the updated tools they need, while providing maximum flexibility for industry and creating rigorous safeguards to protect privacy. It strikes an appropriate balance between the needs of law enforcement and CSIS, the competitiveness of industry, and the privacy of Canadians.

We told Canadians during the last election that we would continue to crack down on crime. We have delivered on that. We told them that we would address the needs of the victims of terrorism by allowing them to sue the perpetrators of terrorist acts and their supporters. We have delivered on that. We have done a lot. We are doing a lot.

I look forward to continuing the debate on Bill C-30 both at committee and in the House.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Madam Speaker, like a lot of Canadians, I am also appalled at the introduction of the Bill C-30 by the Conservatives. It would treat law-abiding citizens like criminals, and that is wrong.

I am fairly new to the House but I have done a bit of research. I found out that this lawful access bill was introduced by the Liberals not only in 2005, but again in 2007. What has changed in this legislation that the Liberals are now opposing it? Why are they flip-flopping on this? What are the reasons?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

moved:

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; (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; (d) that the Charter is the guarantor of the basic rights and freedoms of all Canadians; and (e) that the Charter is paramount to any provision of the Criminal Code of Canada; and accordingly the House calls on the Prime Minister to ensure that any legislation put forward by his government respects the provisions of the Charter and its commitment to the principles of due process, respect for privacy and the presumption of innocence.

I appreciate the chance to discuss this important question in the House. I think we would all agree that the introduction of Bill C-30 has caused a powerful reaction around the country. It is important for members, in discussing this issue, to engage not only each other but also the public in a serious discussion of what the issues in this legislation really are and why it is important that we in the House indicate our understanding and support for the principles in the charter, for the role of the courts in asserting the role of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and in our understanding that there may well be objections to the legislation as it is currently drafted. Those objections need to be treated with respect and civility and not with simply a curt dismissal that somehow they represent a lobby on behalf of criminal activity in the country.

I will begin by reading into the record the words of Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin in a recent case, the Gomboc decision. That case dealt with the question of the access by police to information with respect to the use of electricity in a particular place because of the suspicion that the house was being used as a grow op. The reason for reading this into the record is not that it says anything about that particular case but that it is a reminder to all of us as to the importance of the issues that we are discussing.

Chief Justice McLachlin stated:

Every day, we allow access to information about the activities taking place inside our homes by a number of people, including those who deliver our mail, or repair things when they break, or supply us with fuel and electricity, or provide television, Internet, and telephone services. Our consent to these “intrusions”, into our privacy, and into our homes, is both necessary and conditional: necessary, because we would otherwise deprive ourselves of services nowadays considered essential; and conditional, because we permit access to our private information for the sole, specific, and limited purpose of receiving those services.

A necessary and conditional consent of this sort does not trump our reasonable expectation of privacy in the information to which access is afforded for such a limited and well-understood purpose. When we subscribe for cable services, we do not surrender our expectation of privacy in respect of what we access on the Internet, what we watch on our television sets, what we listen to on our radios, or what we send and receive by e-mail on our computers.

Likewise, when we subscribe for public services, we do not authorize the police to conscript the utilities concerned to enter our homes, physically or electronically, for the purpose of pursuing their criminal investigations without prior judicial authorization. We authorize neither undercover officers nor utility employees acting as their proxies to do so.

The issues that are raised in the legislation are significant. I want to state for the record, because we all need to be clear on this issue, that the purpose of the legislation is to extend the investigatory power of the police over methods of communication in the Criminal Code of Canada. It is not only about child pornography. The short title of the act is, candidly, a misnomer. It is not really what the act is all about. Yes, it covers child pornography but it also covers any kind of criminal activity. Indeed, it covers activity that is covered by the Anti-terrorism Act and the Competition Act, as examples. This really has to do with extending the power of investigation and intrusion into very extensive matters covering all methods and means of communication.

Let us be clear. Under the current provisions of the Criminal Code, which has the support of all members of the House, we grant to our police officers and our security officials under the CSIS Act the power to watch what people are doing. If they then feel that there is criminal activity under way, we grant them the power to ask a judge whether it is possible to, in the case of the current Criminal Code, intercept phone calls and other forms of communication. No one on this side of the House is suggesting for a moment that it is inappropriate, in circumstances where there are clear and probable grounds to believe that a criminal act is either being performed or is about to be performed, for the police to ask for the powers to look at what is happening. That is not inappropriate.

We are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the charter this spring. It has set out some of the protections for privacy and some of the concerns that the House of Commons and the Senate had with respect to entrenching certain critical individual rights. It is important for us to recognize that the charter simply expresses and codifies what, in effect, has been the law of Canada and indeed the common law throughout countries that follow the common law, and the Criminal Code, which applies to all jurisdictions in Canada and has been our jurisprudence for hundreds of years, which contains limits on the powers of the state to intrude into the privacy of people's homes. If we are to break through that line and cross over that frontier, we have to have the approval of the courts before we can do so.

The issue which is raised most directly by Bill C-30 is really the issue contained in clauses 16 and 17. These provisions pertain to, in clause 16, written requests, and, in clause 17, oral requests.

Clause 16 states:

On written request by a person designated...every telecommunications service provider must provide the person with identifying information in the service provider’s possession or control respecting the name, address, telephone number and electronic mail address of any subscriber to any of the service provider’s telecommunications services and the Internet protocol address and local service provider identifier that are associated with the subscriber’s service and equipment.

Section 17 allows not just any authorized person but any police officer, if he or she has reason to believe on reasonable grounds that the urgency requires the information right away, to get that information simply by making a phone call and saying, “We need this information right away”.

There is room surely for a legitimate debate about whether or not obtaining that information is in fact a breach of privacy.

We have the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but before the charter, there was a principle underlying our legal system, what I would call a basic right, that the state cannot intervene in the private affairs of individuals without the authorization of a judge. That is clear. That is the problem we have with this bill. We see the need for a civil debate in which all participants clearly acknowledge people's right to privacy. In addition, with sections 7 and 8 of the charter, it must be clear that the law specifically protects individual rights and privacy.

The debate today can go in many different directions. I think it is very important for the House to treat the views of those people who are concerned about this legislation with a degree of understanding and respect.

We on this side would never say that we do not believe there are grounds, times and ways in which the police and other investigating officers have a right to access information which is held by a service provider. In the same way, a telephone company would have to allow for interception of a telephone call. As well, if criminal activity is taking place on the Internet, or by means of a cell communication, or by some other digital means, of course, it is reasonable for the police to have access to that information in order to know what is going on.

The key issue is whether the House is prepared to say to Canadians that it can happen, but it cannot happen without prior judicial authorization. It is really a very specific issue. However, when we look at all the other provisions of the bill, it is complicated. It is a long piece of legislation.

We welcome the fact that, in response to this literally unprecedented wave of objection to the bill, the government has decided to put it into committee before calling it for second reading. I think that is a good idea. I would argue that would be a good idea for a lot of other legislation as well. We would be glad to see that done on other occasions. I say to the government that we think it is important to do this.

On our side, we are strongly committed to having this discussion, at least to recognize that there is a legitimate basis for concern on the privacy argument. If we were to simply reject that right to privacy, we would be flying in the face not only of the charter, but of the charter as it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada in literally dozens of decisions it has taken since the House voted on the charter in 1981.

I hesitate to even mention this point, but I happen to be sitting not very far from where I was standing when I voted in favour of the charter and the patriation of the Constitution. I am not going to quote my own words from that time, but I invite the member opposite to read the speech. I recommend it to him in terms of his level of enlightenment.

I have heard members sitting in this House criticize the charter. When those people say that the charter is something which works on behalf of criminal activity but not on behalf of others, that is simply not true. When we are arguing on behalf of privacy we are not arguing on behalf of criminal activity. We are arguing about the boundaries of the distinction between what is private and what the state has reasonable grounds to have access to. What are the tests that the state has to meet in order to cross that line?

The courts have said there are tests that people have to meet. The courts do insist that the police follow these sets of rules and regulations. Yes, in circumstances they can be difficult and onerous. Yes, if the steps are not followed properly then there are decisions that are made, in effect, to say that there has to be a new trial because the rules were broken with respect to what was admissible as evidence. There is a name for that in our society. It is called the rule of law.

We did not give the courts some sort of new role that they did not have before in the charter. The courts always had the role and the responsibility of saying that when legislators go too far, or when legislators are unwise in how they proceed, then there needs to be a step back. There have been lots of times in Canadian history, long before the charter, when the courts said we could do this, but not do that.

Perhaps there are some members opposite who remember the infamous Alberta press bill, where the legislature under the intellectually precedent government of the one opposite, the Social Credit Party of Alberta, said the press had to give the government side of every story they were running. The press had to provide for the alternative official position in order to allow for balanced reporting. The Supreme Court of Canada said there was no way they could demand that, as it was an infringement of the freedom of the press and an infringement of freedom of speech.

In Quebec, long before the charter, Premier Duplessis personally said that Mr. Roncarelli, because of his association with the Jehovah's Witnesses, could have a restaurant but the restaurant could not have a liquor licence. The Supreme Court, in a very famous judgment, said he could not do that. He could not use a completely irrelevant argument in order to stop somebody from pursuing his legal rights.

What the charter was intended to do, and I believe on balance what it has done, is essentially entrench and formalize the rights we have always known were there. The charter is an effective guarantor. Frankly, Parliament has to be a guarantor as well.

It is important for us in the House to understand what is at stake in these discussions. It has to do with our common commitment to the rule of law, our common commitment as a Parliament to the law of Canada, which includes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and our common commitment to civility in how we treat the people who are on the other side.

There is no reason why the government should be voting against this motion. There is no reason for anyone in the House to vote against it. It states in a very balanced way the principles of the charter, the issues that are at stake here, and why it is so important for us as Canadians to deal with this issue in an intelligent way.

The police have to be able to do their job. We need to be able to deal with acts of violence, acts of terrorism, child predators and crimes inflicted on children. However, we need to do it in a way that fully conforms with the rule of law in our country.

Of course we will be following this debate with great interest. But as I have said, today's motion is clear: yes to private rights, yes to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and yes to the important concept that we can all agree to a necessary balance, the necessary role of the courts, respect for individuals and a civil debate on this issue.

There has been a lot of emotion around this debate. It is important for us to understand where some of that emotion comes from. We need to be able to deal with these issues with mutual respect and to study the bill carefully. I can assure the government we in the Liberal Party, in our role in the opposition, are going to be doing that in a responsible way. We will continue to work for a criminal code and a working police force, and the protection of Canadians that also guarantees the rights that all of us have to privacy and the rule of law.

Alleged interference of Minister's ability to discharge responsibilities

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have a further submission dealing with my colleague, the hon. member for Provencher, in his intervention on a question of privilege just a few moments ago. My comments will be restricted to a question of privilege regarding the group Anonymous and not on the Wikileaks issue, which we just clarified a few moments ago.

I am rising to provide the Chair with additional submissions with respect to the question of privilege, as I mentioned a few moments ago. My hon. friend has put before the House a submission that his rights as a member of Parliament have been breached with respect to freedom from obstruction, interference, intimidation and molestation. In particular, his freedom from intimidation in connection with the proceeding in Parliament has been breached, amounting to a contempt.

Moreover, Sir, I submit there is a second contempt in relation to the obstruction of the hon. member for Provencher through an interference of nepotism and an accusation of criminal activity.

The classic definition of parliamentary privilege can be found at page 75 of the 23rd edition of Erskine May's Treatise on The Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament. It states:

Parliamentary privilege is the sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively … and by Members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions, and which exceed those possessed by other bodies or individuals.

A more pithy summary of privilege can be found in Mr. Speaker Lamoureux's decision at page 5338 of Debates for April 29, 1971, where he stated:

In my view, parliamentary privilege does not go much beyond the right of free speech in the House of Commons and the right of a member to discharge his duties in the House as a member of the House of Commons.

Citation 93 on page 25 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules & Forms, sixth edition, states:

It is generally accepted that any threat, or attempt to influence the vote of, or actions of a Member, is breach of privilege.

Citation 99 on page 26 of that same publication adds:

Direct threats which attempt to influence Members' actions in the House are undoubtedly breaches of privilege.

While some parts of the situation are time tested, other characteristics of this case present novel aspects to contemplate. On the one hand, responding to threats is among the first matters of parliamentary privilege dealt with in Canada. Page 198 of the second edition of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada tells us of an incident in 1758 where the Nova Scotia House of Assembly proceeded against someone who made threats against a member.

Although the framework of privilege has largely solidified through centuries of common law statutes and even the Constitution, it continues to have sufficient flexibility to adapt and be applied to a changing environment, such as televising proceedings, as noted at page 63 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition.

Page 225 of Maingot advises:

While privilege may be codified, contempt may not, because new forms of obstruction are constantly being devised and Parliament must be able to invoke its penal jurisdiction to protect itself against these new forms; there is no closed list of classes of offences punishable as contempt of Parliament.

That speaks to the novel aspects in this case where we are dealing with publications on the Internet, particularly with videos on the website YouTube. The YouTube videos of the so-called Anonymous include comments which are, I submit, threats and even blackmail. These comments seek to induce the Minister of Public Safety to undertake certain actions in respect of a bill he has introduced and sponsors.

Before I press further into my submissions, I want to make it very clear that I do not seek to bring ordinary free and democratic expression or critical speech into what is being considered here.

Page 235 of Maingot offers an articulate review of the balance to be considered. It states:

—all interferences with Members' privileges of freedom of speech, such as editorials and other public comment, are not breaches of privilege even though they influence the conduct of Members in their parliamentary work. Accordingly, not every action by an outside body that may influence the conduct of a Member of Parliament as such could now be regarded as a breach of privilege, even if it were calculated and intended to bring pressure on the Member to take or to refrain from taking a particular course. But any attempt by improper means to influence or obstruct a member in his parliamentary work may constitute contempt. What constitutes an improper means of interfering with Members' parliamentary work is always a question depending on the facts of each case.

The February 18 video of Anonymous said, in respect of my hon. friend, that, “you will cease your efforts...immediately. If you do not...you will soon find yourself not only mocked, but jobless and despised.

The video went on to suggest that my hon. friend, “is bound to have many skeletons in his closet. Some of these have already been brought to light and we have no doubt that this is only the tip of the iceberg”. The video later inferred that he would not be allowed “to have any secrets of his own”.

The February 18 video also included a broad swipe at all hon. members by threatening, “Let this be a warning to any politician....Your actions will not stand. You cannot run. You cannot hide”.

In a subsequent video published on February 22, after disclosing a number of items of personal information in respect to the hon. member and of individuals close to him, Anonymous rhetorically asks:

Do we have your attention? How does it feel to have personal information about your family in the hands of people you know nothing about, with no control over who disseminates it or how it will be used?... Let it be known this is only a taste of the information we have access to. And this is only the beginning.

Later in the video, there was another broad threat to all members of this House. I suppose that this very intervention I am making will come within the ambit of this threat to the effect that, “to the rest of the Parliament of Canada: you would do well to mind your words about Anonymous”.

In the most recent video on February 25, a further threat to the hon. member for Provencher was uttered to the following effect, “You have seven days to reflect upon your personal and political crimes. After that, the Canadian people will also be made aware of just how disgustingly unscrupulous and corrupt you are.”

As I will review later, there have been false and misleading statements meant to malign the hon. member. We should expect more of the same.

In this weekend's video, there was yet another threat aimed generally at all hon. members:

And to the rest of those who support Bill C-30: do not believe for a moment that you are untouchable. Anonymous has received information implicating many of you in both political and personal scandals....Let the next seven days serve as a period of reflection for the entire House of Commons. Ask yourselves, how many more scandals can you afford?

To summarize the various quotes, they are more than just intimidation or threats. Quite frankly, they are blackmail.

In a ruling on September 19, 1973, Mr. Speaker Lamoureux on page 6709 of the Debates stated that he had:

—no hesitation in reaffirming the principle that parliamentary privilege includes the right of a member to discharge his responsibilities as a member of the House free from threats or attempts at intimidation.

Speaker Bosley, on May 16, 1986, at page 13362 of Debates held that the threat or attempt to intimidate cannot be hypothetical but that it must be real or have occurred.

For his part, Mr. Speaker Parent, on March 24, 1994, at page 2706 of Debates said:

Threats of blackmail or intimidation of a member of Parliament should never be taken lightly. When such occurs, the very essence of free speech is undermined. Without the guarantee of freedom of speech, no member of Parliament can do his duty as expected.

In that instance, a prima facie breach of privilege was not found because the threats were associated with an appeal then pending at the Ontario Court of Appeal.

On page 143 of Erskine May, it says, “The House will proceed against those who obstruct Members in the discharge of their responsibilities to the House or in their participation of its proceedings”.

Indeed, Mr. Speaker, your own decision on December 13, 2011, at page 4396 of the Debates, also turned on the principle of whether there was an impact on parliamentary duties. This brings me to whether or not these threats arise from a “proceedings in Parliament”. The circumstances before us today arise from Bill C-30, which was recently introduced and now sits on the order paper as an order of the day. Pages 91 and 92 of O'Brien and Bosc quote two definitions of this term “proceedings in Parliament”, from Erskine May on Australia's Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987. May's definition states that:

An individual Member takes part in a proceeding usually by speech, but also by various recognized forms of formal action, such as voting, giving notice of a motion, or presenting a petition or report from a committee, most of such actions being time-saving substitutes for speaking.

The Australian statutory definition contains the expression “all words spoken and acts done in the course of, or for purposes of or incidental to, the transacting of the business of a House”.

Page 80 of Maingot addresses the point that:

—two of Parliament's constituent elements, the House of Commons and the Senate were established for the enactment of laws, those events necessarily incidental to the enactment of laws are part of “the proceedings of Parliament”.

The introduction and sponsorship of a bill cannot get closer to the process of enacting a law. Therefore, I would submit that the threats and accusations are quite clearly relating to a proceeding in Parliament.

While I am making references to Australia, that is one case when the Commonwealth which shares features to this case, particularly with regard to generalized threats to all hon. members.

On May 4, 1993, the President Sibraa of the Australian Senate ruled that page 19 of Hansard on two related questions of privilege. On one of the matters the president said:

The essence of the matter raised by Senator Walters is that a person has allegedly threatened to publish certain supposed information concerning Opposition members of parliament if the Opposition members adopt a certain policy in relation to X-rated videos.

The subsequent Forty-third Report of the Committee of Privileges, in December 1993, described the threats identified by Senator Walters as: first, an alleged threat “to 'out' Liberal party figures if the party adopted what it claimed was a leaked policy document proposing a sex industry crackdown” and second, an accusation regarding a “potential release of security film of a coalition member at a sex shop”.

The president found that:

The possible contempt of parliament contained in the matter raised by Senator Walters is that of seeking by threats to influence senators in their conduct as senators. This is one of the well known contempts of parliament...

The alleged threat is directed to Opposition members generally and not to any particular person, but it is well established that the threat to unnamed members, or to a group or category of members, or to members in general, can be a contempt just as can a threat to particular members.

The alleged threat as reported and also directed to Opposition members of Parliament generally, and does not distinguish between members and senators. If the threat as reported were made, it could be regarded as being directed to senators as well as members of the House of Representatives. This is so particularly having regard to the fact that senators could, and probably would, participate in the formulation of any policy relating to X-rated videos.

The formulation of such a policy by a group of senators clearly falls within their duties as senators and their conduct as senators...A threat such as the one reported obviously has the potential substantially to obstruct senators in the performance of their functions.

In the event, after hearing submissions and evidence, the committee concluded that, in view of the further details it acquired, this particular case “did not have the effect or tendency of substantially obstructing senators in the performance of their functions”, although the committee did find the actions of those responsible to be “inept and offensive”, and part behaviour which was “cavalier and unprofessional”.

One area I should address is the identity or source of the threats and the ability to make a specific charge. Citation 99 on page 26 of Beauchesne's states that:

Direct threats which attempt to influence Members' actions are undoubtedly breaches of privilege. They do, however, provide serious problems for the House. They are often made anonymously and it is rarely possible for the House to examine them satisfactorily.

In his September 19, 1973, ruling, Mr. Speaker Lamoureux found, at page 6709 of the Debates, that the instance raised by a member could not be a prima facie question of privilege because the member did not know the identity of the person at the other end of the telephone conversation which gave rise to the complaint.

Nonetheless, the unknown identity of those responsible for breaching privilege did not deter Mr. Speaker Milliken in his October 15, 2001 ruling, at page 6085 of the Debates, from stating:

There is a body that is well equipped to commit such active inquisition, and that is the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which has a fearsome chairman, quite able to extract information from witnesses who appear before the committee, with the aid of the capable members who form the committee of the House

I have no doubt that the hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London is an even more fearsome inquisitor than his predecessor 11 years ago. I believe that the same principle about the role of committee holds equally true today, that is to say, any unanswered questions can be resolved there.

As for how one could start to get to the bottom of this, I have some thoughts. I am sure others do too. However, my prevailing thought is that it should go to a committee to sort out this approach, hear from appropriate experts and go from there.

Mr. Speaker, I would commend to you the decision of your immediate predecessor from October 6, 2005, at page 8473 of Debates. The Chair wrestled with a novel question related to new statutory and Standing Order provisions pertaining to the Ethics Commissioner and that the officer of Parliament's conduct in respect of an investigation of the hon. member for Calgary East.

In those circumstances, Mr. Speaker Milliken opined that he was prepared to find a prima facie case of privilege, “to afford the House an opportunity to pronounce itself on how it wishes to proceed”.

Indeed, Mr. Speaker Jerome asked, in his March 21, 1978 ruling on page 3975:

Does the act complained of appear to me at first sight to be a breach of privilege?

...or to put it shortly, has the Member an arguable point? If the Speaker feels any doubt on the question, he should....leave it to the House.

Mr. Speaker Lamoureux also took this perspective of a member getting the benefit of the doubt on October 24, 1966, at page 9004 of Debates and on March 27, 1969, at page 853 of Journals.

In the present novel circumstances, I think the same course of action is equally appropriate.

Before concluding, I want to turn briefly to the other source of contempt in this argument: the unjust damaging of a member's name as constituting an obstruction.

In the February 22 video, “Anonymous” accuses the hon. member for Provencher, through an inference by using sarcastic language, of nepotism in respect of an employee of a member of the other place.

Again, on February 25, it was said that, “It is widely known that you have engaged in criminal activity to further your political career, as you did in 1999”.

It needs to be clear that the hon. member has not been convicted of any criminal offence.

These statements are not only misleading but are false and can only be viewed as an attempt to discredit the reputation of my hon. friend.

Mr. Speaker Fraser's ruling on May 5, 1987, at page 5766 of Debates stated:

The privileges of a Member are violated by any action which might impeded him or her in the fulfillment of his or her duties and functions. It is obvious that the unjust damaging of a reputation could constitute such an impediment. The normal course of a Member who felt himself or herself to be defamed would be the same as that available to any other citizen, recourse to the courts under the laws of defamation with the possibility of damages to substitute for the harm that might be done. However, should the alleged defamation take place on the floor of the House, this recourse is not available.

Nonetheless, Mr. Speaker Milliken issued several rulings with respect to the damaging of a member's reputation, including some decisions with respect to mailings by a member into another member's constituency, as well as the previously mentioned case on comments made by the Ethics Commissioner.

Given this departure from Mr. Speaker Fraser's view, but more so the inseparable nature of the accusations from the threats contained in the video published by “Anonymous”, I would submit that the Chair should find this to be further ground for finding a prima facie case of privilege.

In closing, the Chair is faced with a case where those who have legitimately held concerns about some business before Parliament have gone about expressing their opposition, and seeking to secure actions in view with their thinking, in an utterly despicable manner.

Extortion and blackmail are not part of legitimate debate. Threats against MPs to vote one way or else are unbecoming of the Canadian political discourse. Not only are they awful and inappropriate, they cross a line. They are a contempt of this honourable House.

The ancient privileges of Parliament were first meant to secure the independence of members' actions free of the interference of the Crown. They subsequently broadened to encompass freedom from interference regardless of the source.

As an institution, we cannot allow this reckless and irresponsible behaviour to go completely unchecked. The first step would be to find a prima facie case of privilege so that the hon. member for Provencher may offer his motion to refer the matter to a committee where the facts can be investigated and the issues studied so that we may, as a House, respond to such behaviour now and in the future.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege to bring to your attention activities which I believe to be a contempt of this House.

On Tuesday, February 14, I introduced Bill C-30. In the days that followed I received a great deal of communications from Canadians in regard to this legislation. These ranged from the personally supportive to the critical and indeed to the humorous, but a handful were deeply threatening. It is with those in the last category that I take exception and rise in the House to seek determination of my rights as a parliamentarian.

First, on Friday, February 17, I indicated by letter to your office that news reports revealed that the vikileaks30 account on Twitter had connections to the House of Commons IT system.

The fact that House of Commons resources appear to have been used in an attempt to anonymously degrade my reputation and obstruct me from carrying out my duties as a member of Parliament is, I contend, a contempt of the House. I take no issue with an open attack on the floor of this House, in which the source of the attack may be seen by all. I take strong issue with the idea that House resources would be used to secretly attack a member of the House.

I will await the results of your investigation into that matter. I reserve the right to make supplementary or new arguments should that be appropriate in view of the finding.

Second, videos posted on the Internet on February 18, 22 and 25, published various allegations about my private life but also made specific threats, all of which are clearly stated to be in reaction to my sponsorship of proposed legislation tabled in the House, namely Bill C-30.

I will continue to do my duty and carry out my responsibilities in respect of this piece of legislation, including seeing a motion moved to refer the bill to committee where it can be discussed and debated in an open forum.

Nevertheless, the actions and threatened actions contained in these videos constitute an attempt by the creators of the videos to intimidate me with respect to proceedings in Parliament. The fact that these videos contained threats and have attempted to intimidate me in my role as a member of Parliament for Provencher I contend is a contempt of the House.

Third, I would like to address the fact that there is a campaign to inundate my office with calls, emails and faxes. This campaign is hindering my staff from serving the people of Provencher and I contend is a contempt of the House. Individuals who have real and legitimate needs have been unable to contact their member of Parliament in a timely fashion.

As you know, Speakers have consistently upheld the right of members to serve constituents free from intimidation, obstruction and interference. Speaker Lamoureux stated in a 1973 ruling that he had no hesitation in reaffirming the principle that parliamentary privilege includes the right of a member to discharge his or her responsibilities as a member of the House free from threats or attempts at intimidation.

Mr. Speaker, it is important that we engage in debate in this House. Sometimes that debate may be vigorous, including heated rhetoric. I have served as an elected official since 1995. In that time I have been called many things and, while occasionally distasteful, I have accepted it as part of my job. However, the online attacks launched on both myself and my family have crossed the line.

Attacks on the personal life of a member of Parliament, while not appropriate, can be judged by the public where there is public accountability. This should concern all parliamentarians. Members of Parliament must have the freedom and ability to effectively represent our constituents in the House.

I understand that the hon. government House leader or the deputy House leader will be making further, more detailed submissions in support of this question of privilege.

Should you find that there is a prima facie question of privilege here, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion.

Public Safety

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has to fire the 20-year old and get some better talking notes because the wheels of the Conservative Party bus have fallen off.

They have ministers who obviously cannot even read their own bills. Let us look at the Minister of Public Safety who says he now needs an explanation for the more egregious aspects of Bill C-30. Why? It is because he did not have the decency to read the details of this intrusive snooping bill.

How can Canadians trust a minister who cannot even read his own legislation?

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, since introducing Bill C-30, the Conservatives have backpedalled when faced with a wave of criticism from the public and the NDP. There is no provision to protect Canadians from invasion of privacy. Contrary to what the minister of public insecurity would have us believe, he wants to allow access to Internet users' personal information without a warrant.

Why does the minister want to treat Internet users like criminals?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the government confessed it was wrong to try to track without warrant every use of email, cellphones and the Internet, but Canadians will be forgiven if they do not trust the government.

Would the Prime Minister guarantee today that he will refer the subject matter of Bill C-30 to a parliamentary committee for full reconsideration, without the limitations of Standing Order 73(1), without time allocation or closure and without secret proceedings behind closed doors? Will the Prime Minister commit to that transparency?

Ending The Long-Gun Registry Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my friend the hon. member for Yukon whether he finds any contradiction in the fact that the Minister of Public Safety has attacked the long gun registry as an invasion of privacy, but has now proposed in Bill C-30 to put forward a registry with private information?

Will the hon. member for Yukon also oppose Bill C-30, as I intend to do?

Public Safety

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the government said the anonymous long form census which never had a security breach was too intrusive, but now, without due process, it wants every Internet transaction recorded. It wants access to every BlackBerry and cellphone. However, it denies access to the secret machinations of Conservative MPs behind closed doors in parliamentary committees.

The Prime Minister implied a few moments ago that he would entertain amendments to Bill C-30. Do we have his guarantee that amendments will in fact be welcomed in the parliamentary committee?

Short Title of Bill C-30—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Further to the point of order raised by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, I would like to provide clarification concerning the introduction of the government bill during this morning's routine proceedings.

Following the introduction of Bill C-30, An Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts, there was an error in a limited number of courtesy copies distributed to the House. These have since been replaced with the correct version. I want to reassure the House that the bill, as introduced, was in its correct form and, therefore, is properly before the House.

I regret any inconvenience this may have caused members.

Short Title of Bill C-30

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order with regard to the tabling earlier today of Bill C-30. I would refer to Standing Order 68(1), which states:

Every bill is introduced upon motion....

It further states, in Standing Order 68(3), that:

(3) No bill may be introduced either in blank or in an imperfect shape.

I raise this looking for guidance. The copy of the bill that was distributed throughout the opposition lobbies referred to the bill as having a short title that was “the lawful access act”. However, having been briefed by the minister's staff and representatives of the Department for Public Safety and the Department of Justice, we were informed earlier this morning in private, but without any copies of the legislation, that the bill was to have a short title, “protecting children from Internet predators act”.

I checked and found that the versions were distributed to all members of Parliament, at least to the opposition benches. I do not know whether the Conservatives received the proper copy. It appears to me that there is a significant chance that Bill C-30 was tabled in a way that violates Standing Order 68(3) and, therefore, was imperfect in its tabling and should be withdrawn.

This is a novel question for me in my brief time in the House but it suggests that it was a last minute public relations change to move from the short title “lawful access act” to “protecting children from Internet predators act”.

I raise this issue with you, Mr. Speaker, to have your guidance as to whether the imperfection in the way the bill was distributed to members affected the imperfection in the way it was delivered to the House itself.

Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-30, An Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)