Bill C-55 (Historical)

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

An Act to amend the Criminal Code

This enactment 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. Notably, the enactment
(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.

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

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, just on a quick point of clarification, I appreciate the parallels the member drew with Bill C-12 and ensuring that the “officer” is defined as a “police officer” and not just a “peace officer”, but my understanding from the decision from R. v. Tse is that it has more to do with the notification of the person whose communications were intercepted. That was the breach. There was an add-on after that about defining the police officer and such. However, I would like the member to comment on this further, because he is onto a good point.

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and would like to ask him a very simple question.

Does he feel that it is important to strike a balance between police access to information to solve crimes or conduct investigations, and the privacy of Canadian citizens? Why is this balance important? Does the bill allow for a mechanism like this that would enable the authorities to conduct investigations while respecting the rights of Canadian citizens?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his excellent work as chair on the ethics committee, which has been dealing with some of these issues. These issues are very timely for the Canadian Parliament and for members from all parties to actually begin an open debate on them.

We have a situation now where more and more of our lives are spent online. We do everything online. The economic, social and democratic potential of living online is an unprecedented opportunity in the history of our civilization. However, at the same time, the unprecedented threats and international cybergangs that are beyond the rule of law are able to hack and steal information.

We need to ensure that police have the tools, but the balance goes to this test in Bill C-55 of what is reasonable and unreasonable. It is reasonable to ensure that we craft legislation that provides police with the tools needed to go after criminals and stop these kinds of activities. However, it is unreasonable to say that because people now live in the age of Facebook and Google their right to privacy and to maintain who they are is wide open and the government should be able to spy on them at any given time, whenever and however it wants. That is the unreasonable test. The reasonable test is crafting narrowly defined legislation to provide the tools necessary to address the changes in the cyberworld.

[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, what is at the heart of this issue is the fact that regardless of our political stripes, we are in the House of Commons to create legislation. We are legislators who must represent the best of Canadians. The legislation must stand the test of time. For what we create as laws now, certainly in 30, 40 or 50 years we expect that legislation should be able to hold its own.

Unfortunately, at committees of the House of Commons the basic rule of law has been continually undermined by a government that is starving MPs of the basic data they require in order to review legislation. The fact that we have forced closure again and again on debate means that legislation that has problems, that could become seriously problematic, that may not withstand a charter challenge, is not being reviewed adequately.

Therefore, we will support the bill going forward because the Supreme Court has forced the government to address this issue. Conservatives would not have addressed it otherwise. However, we are very concerned about the reporting mechanisms because we see that it is a government that seems to be the exact opposite of what we would want in western society, which is an open, transparent government and maximum privacy for citizens. The government has flipped it upside down to have absolute transparency on the rights of citizens and NGOs and on groups that oppose it, while demanding absolute secrecy for its ministers and party officials.

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's question because one of the reasons Canadians are so fundamentally frustrated with the political life today is that they see the nasty, dumbed-down atmosphere of it. Even reasonable amendments are generally rejected. Reasonable grounds for debate are continually shut down, yet we are told about all the party hacks who flip pancakes for the Liberals and Conservatives and were elected to the Senate. We are told not to worry, because they are there doing sober second thought.

I have not seen much sobriety in that House in a long time. In fact, senators basically act as sock puppets for the regime at hand. We never see them doing any real review of the issues. Therefore, Canadians are asking what gives. We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on these guys who are not doing their jobs. Thank God for the Supreme Court.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read a third time and passed.

Response to the Supreme Court of Canada decison in R. V. Tse Act

[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.

[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 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, 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.

[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?