Bill S-7 (Historical)

Combating Terrorism Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act

This enactment replaces sections 83.28 to 83.3 of the Criminal Code to provide for an investigative hearing for the purpose of gathering information for an investigation of a terrorism offence and to allow for the imposition of a recognizance with conditions on a person to prevent them from carrying out a terrorist activity. In addition, the enactment provides for those sections to cease to have effect or for the possible extension of their operation. The enactment also provides that the Attorney General of Canada and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness include in their respective annual reports their opinion on whether those sections should be extended. It also amends the Criminal Code to create offences of leaving or attempting to leave Canada to commit certain terrorism offences.
The enactment also amends the Canada Evidence Act to allow the Federal Court to order that applications to it with respect to the disclosure of sensitive or potentially injurious information be made public and to allow it to order that hearings related to those applications be heard in private. In addition, the enactment provides for the annual reporting on the operation of the provisions of that Act that relate to the issuance of certificates and fiats.
The enactment also amends the Security of Information Act to increase, in certain cases, the maximum penalty for harbouring a person who committed an offence under that Act.
Lastly, it makes technical amendments in response to a parliamentary review of these Acts.

Combating Terrorism Act

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

moved that Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the second reading debate of Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act.

This bill, among other things, seeks to re-enact the investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions provisions that were created in the Criminal Code by the Anti-terrorism Act in 2001, but that expired in March 2007 because of the operation of a sunset clause.

The proposed bill also responds to recommendations of the parliamentary review of the Anti-terrorism Act which took place between 2004 and 2007 and includes additional improvements to the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act.

Terrorism is an ongoing phenomenon that is rooted in deeply held hatred and insecurity. It is characterized by conduct which seeks not only to kill or harm, but also to commit acts for the deliberate purpose of instilling terror in the general population thereby destabilizing it.

Terrorism targets not only the individual but society generally and is an ongoing dangerous presence that every democratic society must continue to combat. Since the horrific events of 9/11, the absence of terrorist violence on Canadian territory does not preclude the possibility of a terrorist attack. Canada's solidarity with the international community of nations in the fight against terrorism has rendered Canada a potential target.

The first line of any response to terrorism must come from Parliament. It is our responsibility to lay down the rules by which terrorism is fought. We are responsible for tracing the difficult line between combatting terrorism and preserving liberties in a way that is effective and gives clear guidance to those charged with combatting terrorism on the ground.

Terrorism confronts democratic societies with a formidable challenge. On the one hand, terrorism must be prevented, fought and contained and those who commit terrorism offences must be brought to justice. On the other hand, states combatting and prosecuting terrorists must remain true to the fundamental principles upon which democracy and a free society are based.

In enacting the Anti-terrorism Act in 2001, Parliament showed due regard to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a result, Canada's anti-terrorism provisions are notable for their safeguards and protecting fundamental human rights. These include the high mental fault or mens rea requirements that need to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt before a person can be convicted of a terrorism offence, such as knowledge or purpose. To date, these laws have led to several successful prosecutions in Canada, all the while preserving our fundamental values and the rule of law.

Bill S-7 continues in the same tradition. Bill S-7 seeks to re-enact, with some additional safeguards, the investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions provisions that expired in March 2007. These proposals incorporate some recommendations of the 2006 interim report of a House of Commons Subcommittee on the Review of the Anti-terrorism Act and the 2007 special Senate committee report on the Anti-terrorism Act, and include the Senate amendments made to former Bill C-17's predecessor, Bill S-3 in the 39th Parliament.

The investigative hearing provisions give a judge the power on application by a peace officer with the prior approval of the attorney general to require a person to appear before a judge and to answer questions about a past or future terrorism offence and to bring along anything in his or her possession. In order for the investigative hearing to take place, the peace officer must have reasonable grounds to believe that a terrorism offence has been or will be committed and reasonable grounds to believe that information concerning the offence or the whereabouts of a suspect is likely to be obtained or may be obtained, as the case may be, as a result of the order.

The objective of the hearing is to gather information from the person or to produce anything in the person's possession or control to assist in a terrorism investigation. Reasonable attempts must be made to obtain the information by other means and an individual has the right to retain and instruct counsel at any stage of the proceedings. Any information or testimony obtained during the investigative hearing or evidence derived from such information cannot be used in subsequent proceedings against the individual except in relation to a prosecution for perjury or for giving contradictory evidence.

Moreover, the Supreme Court of Canada has extended this last protection to extradition and deportation hearings. The provisions state that a person who is evading service of the order, is about to abscond or fails to attend an examination may be subject to arrest with a warrant.

However, subsection 83.29(4) incorporates section 707 of the Criminal Code, which sets out the maximum period of detention for an arrested witness so that there will now be clear limits as to how long a person arrested in such a case may be detained. Section 707 imposes 30-day detention periods up to a maximum of 90 days' detention for a witness who has been arrested and detained to ensure his or her appearance and giving of evidence.

The recognizance with conditions provision gives a judge the power, when certain criteria are met, to impose reasonable conditions on a person to prevent the carrying out of a terrorist activity. These criteria are that a peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that a terrorist activity will be committed and suspects on reasonable grounds that the imposition of the recognizance with conditions on a person is necessary to prevent that person or anyone else from carrying out a terrorist activity. A person who is ordered into a recognizance is required to keep the peace and to respect other reasonable conditions for up to 12 months. If the person fails or refuses to abide by the conditions, the judge can order that person to be imprisoned for up to 12 months. This penalty is comparable to the penalty for other peace bonds.

The recognizance with condition provision allows for a peace officer to arrest a person without a warrant in two circumstances: first, where the grounds to lay an information exist but there are exigent circumstances, or second, where an information has been laid and a summons has already been issued but the person has not yet appeared before the court. In both cases the peace officer must suspect on reasonable grounds that the detention of the person in custody is necessary to prevent a terrorist activity.

Once arrested, the presumption is that the person will be released once he or she appears before a judge. The person must be brought before a judge within 24 hours after arrest if a judge is available, or if a judge is not available, as soon as feasible thereafter. The onus is on the Crown to demonstrate why the person cannot be released pending the hearing, based on the specific grounds of detention set out in the provision. If the person is ordered detained by the judge, the hearing itself can be adjourned only for a further 48 hours. In his testimony before the Special Senate Committee on Anti-terrorism, Professor Kent Roach of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto stated that this 72-hour maximum period of detention is “restrained by comparative standards”.

Professor Roach also testified that he was pleased that the government had included reporting, parliamentary review and sunset provisions in the bill. I would like to talk for a few moments about these important safeguards.

Bill S-7 requires that Parliament review these provisions prior to the date they sunset. As part of this review process, Parliament would be able to examine the degree to which these provisions had been used successfully or unsuccessfully and would be able to make a determination, based on the available evidence, as to whether or not these provisions would continue to be needed. As well, the investigative hearing and the recognizance with conditions provisions are also subject to another sunset clause, which would result in their expiry after five years unless they were renewed by parliamentary resolution.

Finally, the proposals in the bill include annual reporting requirements by the federal government and the provinces on the use of these provisions, and the annual reports of the Attorney General of Canada and the Minister of Public Safety would include an additional requirement that they provide an opinion, supported by reasons, on whether the provisions should remain in force.

The special Senate committee noted in its observations in its final report the importance of Bill S-7 to Canada's ongoing efforts to prevent and deter terrorism both at home and abroad. The re-enactment of these important provisions would be an integral part of these efforts.

The Senate committee also adopted amendments to these two provisions. The first relates to the mandatory parliamentary review of the investigative hearing and the recognizance with conditions provisions. Whereas the English version had made it clear that the review was mandatory, the French version did not. As such, an amendment was adopted by the Senate committee to fix this.

The second amendment addresses the power to vary conditions imposed in a recognizance with conditions. The bill originally allowed only the judge who imposed conditions in the original recognizance to vary its conditions. The amendment now also allows any other judge of the same court to vary the conditions. This is in keeping with the scheme for investigative hearings and in other recognizance with conditions provisions in the Criminal Code.

While the terrorism threat continues, it is also evolving and transforming in ways that present new challenges. Another area of increasing concern and focus for this government is the recruitment of Canadians by terrorist groups, who urge them to travel overseas to fight and engage in terrorist activity, or these people may not have any links or connections to terrorist groups or activities and may in fact be acting alone.

The government recognizes that the complex nature of the problem necessitates a shared and comprehensive response. A primary responsibility of government is to protect all Canadians by detecting and countering the work of terrorists. We do this through intelligence gathering, criminal investigation and prosecutions, and our efforts in this area are guided by respect for fundamental human rights.

During the hearings of the Special Senate Committee on Anti-terrorism, witnesses from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, confirmed that their organizations were engaging communities in various ways to continuously build positive relationships in an effort to prevent radicalization leading to violence.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud testified that in the last year and a half there had been significant changes to the threat environment. He observed that it was increasingly complex and that political conflicts in other countries such as Libya and Syria might affect the security of Canadians both here and abroad.

CSIS Director Richard Fadden testified that CSIS was aware of at least 45 Canadians, possibly as many as 60, who had travelled or attempted to travel from Canada to Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen to join al-Qaeda-affiliated organizations and engage in terrorism-related activities. He indicated that those people represent a threat both to the international community and Canada.

Bill S-7 responds to this threat by proposing to create new substantive offences, those of leaving Canada or attempting to leave Canada to commit various existing terrorism offences. The bill seeks to put in place specific offences to leave Canada or to attempt to leave Canada to knowingly participate in any activity of a terrorist group for the purpose of enhancing the ability of any terrorist group to carry out or facilitate a terrorist activity; to knowingly facilitate a terrorist activity; to commit an indictable offence for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group; or to commit an indictable offence that also constitutes a terrorist activity.

The offence of leaving Canada or attempting to leave Canada to participate in any activity of a terrorist group would carry a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment. The other new offences would carry maximum penalties of 14 years' imprisonment.

These new offences would allow for the persons who go abroad either to receive training in terrorism or who wish to go abroad for such or to commit crimes in furtherance of terrorism to be charged with offences specifically tailored to catch this kind of harm. Moreover, these offences would provide for an appropriate level of punishment to be given for such conduct. In my view, these proposed new offences would help to strengthen the ability of our criminal law to combat terrorism and would send a strong deterrent message.

In addition, this bill proposes amendments to the Canada Evidence Act to reflect the 2007 judgment of the Federal Court in the case of Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. v. Canada. The amendments would allow the Federal Court to order that the applications it hears with respect to the disclosure of sensitive or potentially injurious information could be made either in public or in private. This amendment would increase the flexibility in the court process as well as enhance transparency.

Also, Bill S-7 responds to the final report of the House of Commons Subcommittee on the Review of the Anti-terrorism Act by reducing the duration of a certificate prohibiting the disclosure of information from 15 to 10 years. Pursuant to section 38.18 of the Canada Evidence Act, the Attorney General of Canada can personally issue a certificate prohibiting the disclosure of information for the purpose of protecting information obtained in confidence from, or in relation to, a foreign entity as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Security of Information Act, or for the purpose of protecting national defence or national security. After expiry, the certificate may be reissued by the Attorney General of Canada if the requirements under the Canada Evidence Act are met.

As well, under the Canada Evidence Act the Attorney General of Canada may issue a fiat to take over any prosecution where sensitive or potentially injurious information, as defined in the Canada Evidence Act, may be disclosed. This bill would also implement the House of Commons subcommittee's recommendation to require the Attorney General of Canada to table an annual report in Parliament on the usage of the fiat and certificate provisions. I would note that neither the certificate nor the fiat has been used to date.

Canadians expect their government to have in place the appropriate legal framework to prevent and deal effectively with terrorism and those who threaten our safety. Bill S-7 would be an important enhancement to Canada's counter-terrorism efforts and I urge speedy passage of this valuable piece of anti-terrorism legislation.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by my colleague from Delta—Richmond East.

I understand that the government is trying to stress the importance of reinstating two controversial security measures that were abolished four years ago. An independent group calculated that the fight against terrorism has already cost Canada $92 billion since 2001.

Why are these measures still necessary if we have not had any problems in the four years they have been gone? What has changed in that time?

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, last fall the Prime Minister signalled the government's intention to make efforts to re-enact the investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions provisions. They ceased to exist in 2007 and our government has been trying ever since to reinstate them. The investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions powers would provide police with valuable tools for investigating or preventing terrorism activity. This is a threat that has not gone away.

It would be a mistake to equate the lack of use of these tools in the past with there being no need for them in the future. This would give law enforcement agencies access to more tools to investigate past and potential acts of terrorism. One can take comfort in the fact, based on past experience with the previous provisions, that law enforcement officials have demonstrated caution and restraint in their use.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, is the parliamentary secretary aware of whether or not any of the witnesses during of the Senate proceedings specifically made the case for the necessity of reinvigorating these two provisions, versus invoking generally the idea that tools are helpful and that extra tools, therefore, are also helpful? Is there specific testimony explaining why these are necessary, when in fact they have never been needed before?

I understand the parliamentary secretary's answer just now, but was there testimony on the necessity of these provisions?

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there were several recommendations made by both the House of Commons and Senate committees in relation to this matter, recommendations that have been incorporated into the bill. Some of those recommendations by the House of Commons subcommittee include both provisions being extended for five years, that there be further parliamentary review before any further extension, and also that the bill clarify section 707 of the Criminal Code setting out the maximum period of detention for an arrested witness.

Moreover, the special Senate committee recommended from February 2007 that the annual reporting requirement also require the Attorney General of Canada to include a clear statement and explanation indicating whether the provisions remain warranted. That recommendation is included in the bill. An additional requirement would be that the Attorney General of Canada and the Minister of Public Safety must provide in their annual reports an opinion, supported by reasons, on whether these provisions should be extended. Other amendments made by the Senate to the former Bill S-3 have also been included.

Therefore, yes, we have taken those recommendations into account.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill S-7, like a number of other government bills, suffers from a major problem: there is no balance between the idea of security and fundamental rights.

Given the government’s unending enthusiasm for making it appear that there is a crying need to amend sections of the Criminal Code, and for striking fear into people’s hearts, it is fortunate that the NDP is here to stand guard and make sure we protect certain fundamental freedoms that we have here. We are not saying that we support terrorism; we do not support it in any way. I am going to talk about the official position of the NDP on Bill S-7.

By the way, I am extremely surprised to see a bill that is as far-reaching as Bill S-7 be introduced in the Senate. Ordinarily, this kind of bill comes in by the back door, from the back benches in the House, but this time it is coming from the Senate. It was examined there and then introduced here. Let us not delude ourselves: this bill is not really coming from the Senate; it is coming from the Minister of Justice, who wants to amend some provisions of the Criminal Code.

Before getting to the heart of the subject, I would like to thank some of my colleagues who have done exceptional work on this issue, including my colleague from St. John's East, who was justice critic before me, and the critic who preceded him. I would also like to thank my colleague from Toronto—Danforth, who has done an excellent analysis of the subject and has provided extremely valuable support for me on this issue.

There is clearly a major problem in this bill when it comes to balancing security and fundamental rights. Let us not delude ourselves. We have put questions to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. How is it that provisions that expired four years ago have suddenly become extremely important and have to be implemented, when, to our knowledge and the knowledge of the witnesses who appeared before the Senate committee that examined Bill S-7, there have been no cases to date?

In answer to the question that my colleague from Toronto—Danforth put to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, there will be endless quoting of witnesses who appeared before the Senate and support the bill. Those witnesses did not say it is needed; they said “you cannot be too careful”. When we are dealing with concepts as important as international law, terrorism or civil liberties, that is not really the way to do things.

It is not that simple. To deal with terrorism and terrorist threats in Canada, you do not simply include some slightly tougher provisions in the Criminal Code or other legislation. Canada is already a signatory to a number of international conventions, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The present government, however, seems to be strangely unfamiliar with the concept of child soldiers. For once, the government would do well to listen to Senator Dallaire, who saw the implications this can have up close. We have all witnessed the tragedy of Omar Khadr. The attitude taken toward a Canadian citizen, toward someone we call a child soldier, is not really a model of good government. In short, these are thorny problems we are dealing with here.

The first thing we have to seriously wonder about is why the government is going through the Senate to make fundamental changes like the ones proposed in this bill. That is one of the problems.

I think it is important that members understand what is going on with Bill S-7. I am therefore going to give a bit of background.

It is interesting to hear the parliamentary secretary say that this expired seven years ago but that the fact it expired does not mean it was not necessary. This is not the first time the government has tried to enact a bill of this nature.

First, there was Bill S-7, which was introduced in the Senate on February 15. Basically, that bill amends subsection 7(2) of the Criminal Code, which describes acts that relate to an aircraft, an airport or an air navigation facility, are committed when the person who commits them is in Canada, and by operation of subsection 7(2) and paragraph 83.01(1)(a) constitute a terrorist activity. We see how technical this can get. It would add new terrorism offences to Part II.1 of the Criminal Code, which covers section 83.01 and the sections that follow.

I encourage the members of the House to read section 83.01 of the Criminal Code and the sections that follow it, which already cover many aspects of terrorism. That part is devoted entirely to terrorism.

This bill will also, in certain circumstances, enhance the existing sentences provided for by the Criminal Code that may be imposed on any person who knowingly harbours or conceals a person who has committed a terrorism offence. It will restore to the Criminal Code the provisions relating to investigative hearings, recognizance with conditions and preventive arrest in the case of a terrorist activity. A concept like this presents a problem, because our legal system presumes innocence until proof to the contrary is provided.

The desire to institute systems that compel a person to incriminate himself is a problem for me. We cannot hand a blank cheque to a government that, to date, has not shown that it takes these matters seriously or that it values human rights. It has given the impression of being tough on crime, but has not acted logically, and we have seen no need, based on the facts, to alter sections that are as important as these.

This bill also proposes to amend sections 37 and 38 of the Canada Evidence Act, to reflect some but not all of the recommendations made by the Subcommittee on the Review of the Anti-terrorism Act of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in its March 2007 report, in compliance with the judgment of the Federal Court of Canada in Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. v. Canada.

It would also amend the definition of special operational information in the Security of Information Act to provide that the identity of a confidential source that is being used by the government would be considered, under that act, to be special operational information. What we have to understand is that this is an attempt to reduce to a minimum the transparency and exchange of information that ensure that everything is done in a manner that is consistent with the fundamental rights of Canadians.

It would also, in certain circumstances, increase the penalty provided for the offence of knowingly harbouring or concealing a person who has committed an offence under section 29 of the Security of Information Act.

As I said, this is not the first time the government has attempted to do this. This is the most recent in a series of anti-terrorism acts that started with Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism act introduced in 2001. That shows that this bill can be introduced in the House of Commons. Was the government too worried that common sense would prevail here in the House, and so it preferred to have the Senate clear the way for it? I have absolutely no idea, but it is disturbing to see bills as far-reaching as this one start out in the other place.

Some of the provisions of this bill were subject to a sunset clause and so they expired in February 2007. We have to understand that the Anti-terrorism Act was passed after the horrible events of September 2001. We should not be surprised that in the aftermath of an event that devastated our entire planet, when people were asking what kind of world they were living in, a decision was made to take certain measures.

I am not being partisan at all when I say that it is always extremely dangerous to make such fundamental decisions in law when everyone is hitting the panic button and wondering how to resolve a situation that initially seems entirely incomprehensible. That goes without saying. That may be how humans and politicians react, but it is definitely not a good way for a lawmaker to react.

In 2007, this act included certain sections that had to be reviewed because they were so-called "sunset clauses", which means that a period of time is allowed for implementation and that a re-evaluation is necessary. At least I can commend the politicians of the time who had the brilliant idea to submit that, or to resubmit it, to both houses, because it had to be submitted to both houses. This bill must be passed by both houses. Once again, incidentally, I am convinced that my colleagues opposite will tell me that it is of little importance whether it starts in the Senate or in the House of Commons; it has to be submitted to one place or the other. This time, it started in the Senate. However, this is a substantive bill, these are substantive decisions, and the views of the elected representatives of the people are more important in this matter than those of appointees and friends of the regime.

This bill has been under review since 2007. All kinds of attempts have been made to reactivate the provisions in question. To extend or reactivate those provisions that expired in 2007, both houses of Parliament must pass a resolution. Such a resolution was defeated by a vote of 159 to 124 in the House of Commons in February 2007 because the controversial provisions had never been used.

In my view, this is the second most important question in this matter. Why have provisions that have not been used suddenly become a necessity, without us even receiving the slightest answer from the government about why we need them in specific cases? Perhaps there is a lack of trust when it comes to sharing information, but they share it with no one in any case. Then they talk amongst themselves and count on us to give them carte blanche so they can do virtually anything. I think that is a major problem. That is why it was defeated by a vote of 159 to 124 in the House of Commons in 2007.

In addition, both Houses were supposed to conduct a full parliamentary review, either jointly or independently. The House of Comments and Senate reports were submitted in 2006 and 2007 respectively. The original aim of the Anti-terrorism Act was to update Canadian laws to meet international standards, particularly UN requirements, and to provide a legislative response to the events of September 11, 2001, as I said earlier. All the provisions of the Anti-terrorist Act, except for that concerning investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions, remain in effect today.

Consequently, we must not believe our colleagues opposite when they tell us that it is as though we have nothing to protect Canadians against terrorism. I repeat, there is an entire section in the Criminal Code, not to mention other acts of Parliament, that applies to terrorism. The sunset clause was added to the original bill because serious concerns had been raised during the legislative process in 2011. Those provisions were the most controversial. A great deal of wisdom was expressed in this House regarding concerns raised about the need to adopt such amendments to the Criminal Code.

I carefully read the evidence of the various witnesses who appeared before the Senate. I repeat that no witness said, based on any facts, that it was necessary to adopt the provisions in question. Some witnesses clearly told the Senate committee that there were major problems with regard to the protection of children's rights.

What will we do about minors living in these kinds of situations? Who will have precedence? Will it be the youth courts, which usually have exclusive jurisdiction over children under the age of 18? Will those provisions take precedence? There is a great deal of concern here. What rights are there? What do we do about the right not to incriminate oneself? What need is there for us to impose this kind of direction on a system in which we have no evidence of this kind of need? That is my major concern in this matter.

I already know what comments we will hear in and outside the House: that the official opposition is in favour of terrorists, against Canadians and against protection and public safety. That is false.

The Criminal Code, which I wholly support, already contains a section that protects Canadians. The message I am sending to Canadians listening to us is this: you must not believe that there is no protection. We have a system that protects Canadians. We can definitely give our specialized anti-terror police forces authority to gather evidence in order to establish a case. However, that does not mean we must set aside concepts as fundamental as the presumption of innocence, the right not to incriminate oneself, the right to be told quickly what we are accused of and the right to defend ourselves against those charges. We are not living in a military or police state in Canada. We have a system in which the rule of law prevails and in which the presumption of innocence is central to our values. That is important.

Coming back to my basic message, there is no balance in this bill between security and the fundamental rights of Canadians. As such, we cannot support this bill since it is unnecessary and full of holes, it introduces concepts foreign to our Canadian values, and it risks causing many more problems than it solves.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her presentation relating to Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act.

On September 26, we tabled before this House a Canada-China nuclear safety agreement, which will not come before this House for debate but which is related to this issue of nuclear safety.

I am very concerned that the agreement is not sufficient for Canada to meet the terms of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in the sale of Canadian uranium to Chinese facilities. Under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, we must be able to verify at all times that Canadian uranium will not go to nuclear weapons. A one-page promise from China, to me, does not meet the terms of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

I wonder if my colleagues from the official opposition share those concerns.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we do indeed share these kinds of concerns. However, I would like to suggest that my colleague wait until I give my speech on Bill S-9 this afternoon. I do not want to give her a scoop because it is against my principles.

Right now, we are talking about Bill S-7, and Bill S-9 will be debated this afternoon. We do in fact have concerns about it, and we will see how all that plays out in Bill S-9.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned, on several occasions in her speech, that children's' rights are something that we really need to take into account. The parliamentary secretary also invoked Professor Kent Roach of the University of Toronto as being supportive. That was the impression left.

What does the member think about the following exchange where Senator Dallaire asked Professor Roach about juvenile protection for those under age 18. He expressed his worries on that point. Professor Roach replied:

Senator Dallaire, that is an important and troubling question. ...[T]he Youth Criminal Justice Act will take precedence, [so that] is accurate as far as it goes. However, if adult sentences are sought, then I think there is danger of disproportionate forms of sentence.

He went on to say:

Internationally, we lag behind many other countries because our official policy is that once a terrorist, always a terrorist. That is why convicted terrorists are all together in [one unit] at Ste-Anne-des-Plaines Institution, and that is why the security certificates have lasted as long as they have.

I think the issue of a youthful person raises an issue that we should be discussing more generally, which is rehabilitation.

He went on to elaborate. I wonder what the member thinks about those comments, which are actually comments expressing his concerns about parts of the bill.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do in fact see it that way. I was struck by various testimony given in the Senate. That testimony will certainly be heard again by the House committee responsible for discussing the issue, whether it be the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights or the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Kent Roach, the Prichard-Wilson Chair of Law and Public Policy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, gave evidence to the committee as an individual in support of the bill. This is another example that will be used by the government to say that all these great scholars, all these great legal minds, all these great defenders of public rights agree with the Conservatives. We are not opposed to motherhood and apple pie, but at the same time some parts of the bill pose huge problems. For instance, the idea of punishing young people instead of rehabilitating them is of enormous concern to Professor Roach.

If the government is serious, then it must ensure that the bill is amended or improved and that the questions that the subject matter experts have about it are cleared up and that these concerns are resolved, so we can say that we are no longer behind the times, because he said that we lag behind many other countries because our official policy is that once a terrorist, always a terrorist.

All the same, I am not naive. I practised law for 25 years. You see all kinds of people. Nevertheless, I am still optimistic that there are good measures that can punish and rehabilitate the same time and take people's unique differences into account. We should not treat a young person or child as we do a 50-year-old terrorist with a 30-year career as a terrorist behind him who works in the terrorism market. They are not the same thing. There are children who have been indoctrinated by their parents, and the parents are authority figures to their children. It is hard for a child to say no to his father or his mother. All of these cases must be studied in depth.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Gatineau is always very eloquent. She has outlined all of the measures that already exist that deal with issues that Canadians might be concerned about.

I also listened intently to her comments about what the House of Commons rejected five years ago and the fact that these measures have not been used for the last four years. Could the member comment on the timing of this? We have a government now that has shown huge financial incompetence on a wide variety of issues like the F-35s. We have seen government scandal, after government scandal, a big reaction from the public to all of the mean-spirited cuts that have caused problems in food safety and the Coast Guard as the member for Vancouver Kingsway points out. We are seeing a time where the government has made a mess of the governmental structures and yet, instead of bringing forward legislation that addresses all the concerns that ordinary families have, the Conservatives are trying to revive something that they have not used for four years.

Could the member for Gatineau comment on the timing of this and why the government is trying to put up a smokescreen rather than dealing with the fundamental issues Canadians are concerned about?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster asked an excellent question. As he said himself, it is a smokescreen. Personally, I think the legislation is a government smokescreen.

In other words, if you do not have any ideas, if you do not know what to do and if you do not know how to manage public finances, you try to scare people. You suggest that in Canada there are terrorists on every street corner, or just about. You just scare people.

As I have said before, since 2001, $92 billion has been spent on anti-terrorism measures. That is quite a lot of money. I do not even dare tell the House what could have been done with $92 billion in terms of addressing the inequalities in Canada, without jeopardizing the safety of Canadians. These provisions were not even used. It all costs money.

Thanks to this bill, we will probably have a chance to give in-depth consideration to all the billions of dollars that are being spent. We do not know where all this money is going, because there is no transparency on the government side. We do not know where the money has gone, what it has been used for, what measures required such astronomical amounts, what they prevented or even how they helped make the streets and Canada as a whole even safer than before. I have absolutely no idea where it has all gone.

This is indeed a smokescreen. If you do not know what to do and if you do not know how to manage taxpayers' money, you just scare people. You spend a lot of money and you make people think that you are doing something for them.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the response from the member for Gatineau. What we have here is a government that is, because of the debacles we are seeing in a wide variety of areas, the cutbacks in a whole variety of services, food safety, the Coast Guard, all of those things that protect Canadians and Canadian families, essentially trying to turn the channel.

Does she think it is appropriate that the government uses legislation from the Senate in order to do that?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, no, it is not appropriate. My whole speech is on this. If it is that serious and that important, we do not start it in the Senate. We start it in the House with the representatives of the people of Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this House today to speak about terrorism. As everyone is aware, it is an extremely important issue. Terrorism is a very complex and also quite a modern scourge that has afflicted the world for the past 50 years.

Before September 11, 2001, North Americans regarded terrorism primarily as someone else's problem. During the 1970s and 1980s, we watched what happened from time to time in Europe, the Middle East or Asia, on other continents primarily, and we thought we were immune to terrorism. Even when the horrible terrorist act happened in Oklahoma City, in the United States, for us it felt a little bit surreal and random. We told ourselves it was the act of a half-wit, a lunatic, an extremist who was not in touch with the real world; we told ourselves it was a one-time act. We did not expect this sort of thing ever to happen again.

Here in Canada, we thought it was perhaps also because in the United States, there were people with extremist opinions, and we thought that Canada was in many ways a more moderate country, a country that had no history of violence or political extremism.

The events of September 11 totally changed our perspective, which was rather simplistic and perhaps a little naïve. On September 11, the people of North America suffered a massive and profound crisis of conscience. Suddenly, we became aware in a way that deeply transformed us both individually and as a society. For the first time, we understood what it was to be the target of international terrorists and to experience a terrorist act, in broad daylight, in our own backyard.

We understood how the threat of terrorism is real for us as well, and no less real than it is for those living in countries where, so often in the past, we have seen terrorist acts, unfortunately. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, it was often something that affected Europe or the Middle East more than North America. We learned that it is not solely someone else's problem and that we must also protect ourselves, by tightening and strengthening our legislation and our public safety infrastructure to defend against terrorism.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that the Conservative government does not have a monopoly on concern for public safety, despite the image that it has so carefully cultivated over the past few years. In other words, the Conservatives are not any more concerned about the safety of Canadians than are the other parties in this House. They are not more fiercely opposed to terrorism than are the other parties in this House. This needs to be said.

Let us take the example of the bill passed by this House in 2001, before I was elected and before many of the other members here were elected. I am talking of course about Canada's Anti-terrorism Act, which was passed by a Liberal government. Bill S-7, which we are debating in this House today, can be seen as an amendment to Canada's Anti-terrorism Act.

The Chrétien government’s Anti-terrorism Act added new provisions to the Criminal Code, in particular part II.1 and sections 83.01 to 83.33, which specifically covered terrorism offences and made the following activities crimes: collecting property for a terrorism offence or participating in terrorist activities; facilitating terrorist activities; and instructing to carry out terrorist activities.

This means that the bulk of the work of updating the Canadian criminal justice system to reflect the new terrorist threats was done in 2001 by a Liberal government. It is worth pointing this out. As I said, when we listen to this government, we often get the impression that those on the other side of the House are the only ones who worry about the safety of Canadians, and no other government before them has done anything to try to protect the Canadian public better against terrorist acts.

The 2001 act introduced two specific provisions that my colleagues in the other parties referred to earlier, and it is worth reiterating them. The first provision allowed for investigative hearings: it allowed a person suspected of having information about a terrorism offence that has been or will be committed to be compelled to appear before a judge and answer questions where the answers would make it possible to intercept a terrorist act or find the person or persons guilty of committing a terrorist act.

The second provision of the 2001 Anti-terrorism Act gave authorities the power to require a recognizance with conditions, allowing a peace officer who believes that a terrorist act will be committed and who believes that the imposition of a recognizance with conditions will prevent that act, to bring the person before a judge within 24 hours so that a show cause hearing can be held to determine whether the person should be released or should be detained longer in certain circumstances.

Of course those new provisions were controversial. Naturally, they generated debate and prompted questions relating to the principles in the Canadian Constitution, and more specifically in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is to be expected, in a democratic society, that questions will be raised when measures of that nature, relatively harsh as they in fact were, are introduced.

In response to the concerns expressed both by the Canadian public and by legal experts, who were very knowledgeable about the Constitution and concerned that it be adhered to, the Liberal government of the day came up with two quite creative responses. It included what is called a sunset clause in the Anti-terrorism Act, which provided that the two provisions I have just described would cease to be in force five years after the act was enacted, along with a clause requiring that the law be reviewed by Parliament three years after it received royal assent.

The sunset clause idea is well worth considering. The two contexts are different, but this clause does bear some similarity to the notwithstanding provision in the Canadian Constitution. In other words, this is not something that can be used indefinitely; its existence must be justified periodically. This is quite a creative response to a thorny and difficult situation in terms of protecting the rights of Canadians under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

That is why the Liberal government included this sunset clause—so that these two provisions would come to an end after five years. As we know, the Conservative government tried to extend them, unsuccessfully, in 2007 and it lost a vote on this matter, as other members have pointed out.

At the time, the opposition voted against extending those two provisions, because the government had not taken into account the recommendations made by the House of Commons subcommittee that had thoroughly scrutinized those provisions.

I would like to quote the House of Commons legislative summary regarding the situation at the time of the vote:

For example, the subcommittee had also recommended that the revised investigative hearing provision limit its scope to deal only with imminent terrorism offences, and that section 83.28(2) be amended to make it clear that a peace officer must have reasonable grounds to believe that a terrorism offence will be committed before making an ex parte application and to make it explicitly clear that anything done under sections 83.28 and 83.29 is a “proceeding” under the code.

We also wanted to ensure that these provisions would apply only to anticipated terrorist activity. The Conservative government failed to take those two recommendations into account in 2007 when it wanted to extend those two provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act. This brings us to Bill S-7, which reintroduces the two provisions that disappeared after five years, as set out by the legislation in 2001.

From what I understand, once again, this government still has not taken into account the recommendations made by the House subcommittee that had expressed some reservations. I just read one a moment ago. So we are no further ahead in that regard.

I think this government needs to be a little more open to what Parliament recommends. We will have an opportunity to discuss this in committee.

It is important to point out that these two provisions, which are rather controversial—I am talking about investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions—already exist in Canadian law. Yes, they are controversial, but these principles can already be found in Canadian legislation.

For example, laws concerning public inquiries, competition, income tax and mutual legal assistance in criminal law matters provide for procedures similar to investigative hearings. They are investigative procedures that do not seek to determine criminal liability. Furthermore, criminal law provides for peace bonds similar to recognizance with conditions, which are imposed to prevent anticipated violent offences, sexual offences and criminal organization offences. The principle of investigative hearings already exists, to some extent, in Canadian law.

I must also point out that, in my opinion, these two measures, investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions, respect the charter. For example, in 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that investigative hearings were constitutional and stated that they must generally take place in public. There must be as much transparency as possible in the circumstances.

The court handed down this ruling in connection with an application for an investigative hearing order for the Air India investigation. The person who was the subject of the order challenged it under the charter, citing the right to remain silent and protection against self-incrimination. The B.C. Supreme Court held that the legislative provision was valid and that the witness's rights could be protected through conditions in the order.

The Supreme Court of Canada granted leave to appeal based on section 40 of the Supreme Court Act and in Re: Application under s. 83.28 of the Criminal Code, concluded that the investigative hearing was constitutional.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have left?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

There are three minutes left.

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

Mr. Speaker, the court ruled that section 83.28 of the Criminal Code did not violate section 7 of the charter—that is, the right to life, liberty, and security of the person—nor did it infringe the right against self-incrimination; that subsection 83.28(10) provided that evidence obtained during an investigative hearing, and evidence derived from such evidence, could not be used in criminal proceedings against the person who provided the evidence; and that paragraph 11(d) of the charter did not apply, because the subject of the investigative hearing order was not an accused. Moreover, the Supreme Court extended these protections to future extradition or deportation hearings, where warranted.

However, this does not mean that the bill is perfect. Certain specific elements could be added that would provide greater respect for the rights set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I am thinking of the idea of introducing a special advocate for ex parte hearings, which are conducted in the absence of the accused, as in the case of hearings for security certificates.

Special advocates are lawyers who are independent of government and, in the case of security certificates, are appointed by the court to protect the interests of persons named in security certificates during hearings from which those persons and their own lawyers are excluded. This is an idea that should perhaps be discussed in committee. A provision could perhaps be added to introduce this kind of special advocate for public hearings.

Secondly—and I do not think I will have the time to raise any other points—some members rose in this House to say that these provisions were not used, which means that we are not in danger and that there are no terrorist threats in Canada. In fact, we do not know one way or the other, because parliamentarians do not have access to this protected and privileged information to which the government has access. In my view, this is why we should strike a parliamentary committee, whose members would be sworn in, to hear the evidence in order to appreciate the information that is available to the RCMP and CSIS intelligence services.

At this point in time, we do not have access to this information. It is therefore difficult for us to judge the extent to which a threat exists and continues to exists, and so on. That is what I would propose.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as it is mostly members of the official opposition who have spoken to the bill, I think it is important to make a correction: no one in the House said that the fact that this provision has not been used is proof that there was no terrorism. It is very important to add that the existing provisions seem to have been enough.

I would like to ask the representative of the party that often wraps itself in the charter if we are to understand that the members of his party are voting in favour of Bill S-7 or whether, on the contrary, the fact that the committee's recommendations were not taken into account, including in the two cases he mentioned, indicates that they are not voting in favour of this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to apologize to the hon. member because that is not what I was trying to say.

We do not know whether the provisions are necessary because we do not have access to the data to which the government has access. It is therefore hard for us, as members of the opposition and even as members of the government, to fully understand the threat level that might exist for Canada and to therefore draw any valid conclusions. Still, we can draw some conclusions. We can debate the issue, but it is hard to know for certain whether these provisions are necessary.

We will refer the bill to committee. What is more, the issues I raised and that my colleague just mentioned in her question will be raised in committee. We will have the opportunity to see to what extent it is possible to take into account the House subcommittee's recommendations and include them in the bill through amendments in committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, it was a previous Liberal government that brought in the provisions in the wake of 9/11 and sunset them. We have had those provisions for extreme and unusual measures to deal with terrorism, which contravened our normal practice of criminal law. We have plenty of existing criminal law, as my colleague mentioned, to deal with these issues.

Why then would we bring back measures that we have not had for a number of years and that did not cause any trouble by their absence but could now become part of the fabric of Canadian law-making and creep into other areas of criminal investigation? I think it is dangerous. I would appreciate my colleague's comments on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, those measures have already been in the fabric of Canadian law and they will become part of that fabric again but only on a temporary basis because they will sunset.

This is obviously a complex issue. It is important to keep in mind that these measures do seem to be charter-proof based on what I understand of court decisions. We have to take that into account. We often get up in the House and say we cannot vote for this or that because it is against the charter, and that is all very well and good. That is the way it should be. However, when something is charter-proof, it becomes difficult to argue that we are tearing the fabric of Canadian society in an irreparable way.

I understand that these are serious questions and they have to be studied in committee.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely concerned about the last thing my Liberal colleague said in response to the question asked by the member from the Green Party of Canada. This type of response is worrisome because it suggests that the provisions that need to be reviewed are actually charter-proof. This is no small claim because the provisions must still be justifiable in a fair and democratic society. These provisions were never used, so it does not seem as though not having had them at all would have been a problem. However, we are talking about doing away with rights, such as the presumption of innocence and people's right to be quickly made aware of the charges against them.

It seems that the hon. member is making quite the claim. I would like him to retract that claim or explain himself better so that we are not left with the impression that representatives of a supposedly pro-Charter party are cheerfully setting it aside.

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

Mr. Speaker, I quoted a decision of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and it is important to note that the purpose of the investigative hearing is not to determine guilt. Strictly speaking, it is not a matter of presumption of guilt, because the person who could be guilty is not being targeted. I think this is a nuance that must be understood.

I know that my colleague, who is an experienced lawyer, is aware that distinctions must be made. It seems the court also made the same distinction.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was particularly intrigued by my hon. colleague's suggestion that the House of Commons may need a committee of sworn MPs to hear intelligence matters so that we could be better informed about the state of threats to the country. Such a committee does not exist, apart from an external committee for overseeing CSIS, the Security Intelligence Review Committee.

Could you elaborate on how you see this connecting with the issues in the bill. Are you suggesting that without such a committee we will never have enough information to be able to determine whether these provisions are needed? I would like to hear a bit more.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I just remind hon. members to direct their questions and comments through the Chair.

The hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis.

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

Mr. Speaker, there can never be too much information to inform point of view. I believe that firmly. There is always new information that comes forward and it is our duty as parliamentarians, and indeed as citizens, to access the greatest amount of information possible. Sometimes when we access that information, we change our minds. That is certainly how a democracy should work.

There was a bill before the House in 2005, Bill C-81, An Act to establish the National Security Committee of Parliamentarians. The intent of the bill was to create this kind of committee. SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, is not made up of parliamentarians so it is not directly connected to us here in the House, to the elected representatives of the people. It would benefit all parties if some of our representatives, under oath of course, could have access to a clearer picture of what is really going on.

Are we overreacting? Are we under-reacting? It is very hard for us to know. We read the papers. I have been sitting on the public safety committee now for over a year and I have not had an in-camera briefing on security matters.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my remarks today will be on a series of clauses in Bill S-7, clauses 4 through 8, which would add a number of sections dealing with the question of leaving or attempting to leave the country for purposes related to terrorism.

These proposed provisions that will make it a crime to leave or attempt to leave Canada to join a terrorist group or participate in a terrorist activity respond to very real concerns. Assuming the accuracy of testimony before the Senate, there are worries about a non-trivial number, even if a proportionately small number, of citizens or permanent residents contemplating leaving Canada for this reason or having already done so. There is reason to believe that male youth under age 18 or young men over age 18 in some diasporic communities are targeted, especially for recruitment to join in terrorist activities abroad. There is very much reason to be concerned.

All that noted, we are led, as we must always be when youth are highly likely to be the main subject of criminal law measures, to wonder if criminalization will be as productive a measure as its proponents hope. Let us assume that we all believe in preventive measures of a social, educational, mentoring sort alongside addressing root causes of alienation that lead to the kind of radicalization we are concerned about in this context. The question then becomes what the value would be of criminal charges against youth arrested at airports or other borders seeking to leave Canada.

At least for those under age 18, it is true that the Youth Criminal Justice Act will apply and that the act allows for holistic education-centred sentences, for example. That is a good thing, although everyone needs to be reminded of two caveats: one, that youth still receive criminal records; and two, that the Crown can always seek to apply for adult sentences. However, once one reaches that magic number of 18, we are left with the full-blown application of the criminal law. At minimum, we need to know that the approach of government is more multifaceted than reliance on these new Criminal Code provisions alone.

In this respect, there is one thing proponents have in common with those of us who are concerned about promoting non-criminal measures to divert people, especially youth, from radicalization of the sort that embraces violence, and that is prevention. If prevention could be achieved in ways short of the cumbersome and often clumsy invocation of the criminal law, I suspect that some productive consensus could be arrived at. The problem, however, is that it is very hard to design coercive measures to prevent a person's departure shy of using the criminal law while still remaining faithful to principles related to liberty and the rule of law that we cherish.

It might be thought that one way to use the criminal law in a way that falls short of full-scale criminalization would be for these new provisions to be used as the basis for detention by the Canada Border Services Agency and then arrest and charge by the RCMP, but then have the Crown decide not to prosecute. Keep in mind that when I say the Crown, I mean the Attorney General because these new provisions are among those in the Criminal Code that require the Attorney General's consent to prosecute.

When one reads the Senate committee records for Bill S-7, one gets the impression that there may be in part some who may mean, by the new provisions, this kind of idea in terms of the preventive purpose. If these new provisions allowed the state to prevent people, for example, youth, from joining terrorist enterprises while not resulting in criminal convictions and sentences, would this not be a defensible result? The answer seems clear. Criminal law will not be able to function within acceptable limits if it becomes a tool for disruption, whereby arrest is the end goal, but not prosecution. The more a system can be used with no real intention of prosecuting, the more it will over time be used in exactly that way.

For the Criminal Code to maintain its integrity, its implication must only ever be on the basis of good faith that each stage of decision-making is relevant, good faith that there is adequate evidence to sustain a prosecution. All this leads to the question of whether we actually do have a prosecution system in Canada that is willing and able to prosecute, considering that much of the evidence for the new offences will be produced from intelligence that CSIS and perhaps other agencies may well not be prepared to allow to go to court for fear of revealing sources and methods.

We know from the Air India inquiry how such considerations can inhibit effective prosecution. We have no reason to believe that the prosecution capacity has changed since the 2010 Air India report. Therefore, we may end up with a system that theoretically allows for proof of intention to leave the country for these purposes. We can all imagine the kinds of proof, ranging from emails, parents or community members, provision of information, information from foreign intelligence and so on. Therefore, a system that theoretically allows for proof of intention is possible but in practice may lead to charges being dropped because intelligence agencies will not want evidence made public. If so, we may inadvertently end up with the criminal law being used, in the way I talked about earlier, as a means to disrupt behaviour with limited prospect for use for its prescribed purpose of criminal prosecution. Therefore, in committee this may be an issue worth probing. Will the sort of evidence available actually usable before the courts?

Let us now look at another challenge, which is the interface of acquiring evidence of intent to leave the country for this purpose and logistics. This is the issue of how all of this will work at the point of exit from Canada.

At the moment, we all know there are no exit controls at all the borders, notably at airports, other than no-fly lists for those deemed to be a threat to aviation. Testimony before the Senate made it clear that co-operation protocols or memorandums of understanding would be needed among CSIS, the RCMP and the CBSA.

Mr. Fadden, the director of CSIS, went further and noted that would have to extend likely to CATSA, the agency of the Department of Transport that regulates security. How these protocols will be developed and what kind of accountability there will be for their operation remains a concern especially because the RCMP, a key link in the inter-agency collaboration that will be needed here, has been shown by both the Arar and the Air India inquiries to be an agency that suffers from lack of accountability and inappropriate oversight mechanisms. Yet, with the government's Bill C-42, we see that it has no intention of acting on the Arar commission's carefully thought through recommendations for RCMP accountability and oversight.

However, there are two comments by Director Fadden that most definitely will need to be followed up in the House of Commons committee after second reading.

I will turn to the first one. He said:

—I emphasize that we have not developed the protocols yet. What we will need to do is work closely with the Mounties and make sure [that] we are communicating at all times with border services.

The other complicating factor...is that Canada has no system for controlling exits. We do not even have a system to be aware when people are leaving. This will involve more than the CBSA; it may well involve CATSA, the agency of the Department of Transport that regulates security.

I should not say much more because I will get myself into a situation I will not be able to get myself out of.

We will need to better understand what is being considered, what is being referred to here by the director of CSIS. Is some form of cross the border surveillance system to clock everyone's exits being contemplated? That seems to be hinted at within the statement, especially the sentence, “We do not even have a system to be aware when people are leaving”. The suggestion is that such a system of awareness is some sort of requirement, a sine qua non for the protocols to be implemented to give effect to these new Criminal Code provisions.

One way to be aware of someone exiting the country is to already have identified them as having the intention that this criminal provision talks about and then to track them to the airport. However, that kind of specificity may not be what Mr. Fadden is actually alluding to.

To return to the question I have already asked once, are we looking at a more general surveillance system that CATSA, for example, would operate? We need clear answers on this in committee.

It might also be that a revision of the no-fly list is part of what is being contemplated as a general surveillance mechanism.

At another point in his testimony before the Senate, Mr. Fadden discussed why no-fly lists would not currently provide the mechanism: (a) for being aware of when someone is seeking to leave; and (b) for preventing that person from boarding the aircraft. Here is his observation:

The current structure of the no-fly list program is such that you have to be a threat to aviation....My understanding is that officials are preparing a series of proposals for ministers to try to make this list a little more subtle, but I do not know where they are on it.

Is it possible that the government is considering a mechanism to put people on a no-fly list based on evidence, at whatever standard of proof, that the person intends to leave Canada in a way that would violate one of these new leaving the country provisions? If so, we need to know much more about how this would work in relation to enforcement of these new provisions in the code, how people would be put on this list and how they could get off.

Would this be an alternative to arrest and possible prosecution under the criminal law provisions? If so, is this possibly preferable to direct intervention of the RCMP to arrest, followed by possible prosecution? I think in particular of how this would avoid criminalization of youth where the primary concern with respect to the kind of radicalization that leads them to want to leave Canada to get involved with terrorism.

At the same time, however, what we know about how no-fly lists currently operate in a zone of non-accountability leaves me deeply doubtful that this approach would provide a preferable preventive mechanism.

Just for example, the experience of Maher Arar and other Canadians like Mr. Almalki, Mr. Elmaati and Mr. Nureddin create real worries about what could happen to a Canadian who ends up on a no-fly list for reasons related to CSIS or RCMP speculation about intentions to engage in terrorism.

The Canadian government's purpose might be to stop the person from leaving Canada. Perhaps the purpose is to get youth to think twice before trying to leave Canada by another means. However, foreign intelligence agencies that might get access to our no-fly list might act very differently on that very same information if the person in question ever did leave Canada and then showed up on the radar screen of some country when seeking to use that country's airport.

The reason this is of such concern is that the connection between a person and terrorism within this new leaving the country criminal law provision can be very attenuated. Intentionally attempting to leave becomes itself a terrorism offence and the evidentiary basis for being put on a no-fly list as opposed to being brought forward for prosecution may be far below the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt within our criminal law system. Yet on such a possible thin basis, someone's name could enter into the interconnected global system of surveillance that could lead to preventive arrest or worse in other countries on that basis alone.

I emphasize that those are concerns prompted by an admittedly very brief reference from Mr. Fadden, but in the context it is potentially a very telling reference. We must be aware how collaboration and information-sharing works between intelligence agencies between countries. This is something I have had the chance to study in some depth several years ago when preparing a report for the settlement process in Mr. Arar's lawsuit against Canada.

Unless we have confidence in how people would get on this new, more subtle, to use Mr. Fadden's language, no-fly list and confidence in whether, how and with whom the names on that list and the reasons for being on that list are shared, there is much to be worried about with respect to Mr. Fadden's revelation about a more subtle no-fly list.

In any event, I think the point is clear that, based upon the testimony of the director of CSIS before the Senate, this needs to have detailed testimony and scrutiny in committee after second reading in this House.

I will now turn to a few comments, one, in particular, made by Minister of Justice when he was testifying before the Senate. He talked about how investigative hearings could produce the evidence to discern the intent of a person to leave the country for purposes of terrorism. However, we know that investigative hearing provisions, which are being proposed to be restored in the Criminal Code by this bill, state that testimony cannot be used as evidence in court against the person giving that testimony.

This leaves us with one of two possibilities with respect to what the minister was referring to.

The first is that he is actually thinking about using this mechanism as a mode of detention and arrest but not necessarily going to prosecution. We return, therefore, to the problem of use of the criminal law system to allow for disruption with no real prospect for prosecution.

More likely, however, the minister could not have meant that. He must have meant that investigative hearings will be used to question people about other people's intentions and, thereby, use that as evidence for the attempt to leave provisions of the Criminal Code. If so, this would have profound implications with respect to how often and to which people these investigative hearings would be used as evidence-gathering tools. We need to discuss this in committee.

The minister also suggests evidence of intention to leave the country could come out of the hearings that deal with preventive recognizance with conditions. Presumably, again he means someone else is brought to such a hearing about some impending terrorist act and information is then revealed about another person and that evidence is then used to prove that person intends to leave the country for purposes of terrorism.

We need to ask the minister and his officials what he meant by reference to those two sunsetted provisions, if they come back into law, as being mechanisms to gather evidence of intention to leave the country.

That raises another question. Would the proposed new clause 83.3, resurrected from the 2001 Anti-terrorism Act, allow for recognizance with conditions if someone can be shown to be on the point of leaving? Because this would be a terrorist act, when people attempt to leave, they are now engaging in a terrorist act according to the new provisions. They can then be required to stay and their passport taken away for up to 12 months. Is this scenario possible? Is this in fact a planned sequence? Does the government have this in mind?

Keeping in mind how the United Kingdom actually uses control orders to prevent departures from the country, the question has to be asked whether or not this is something the government contemplates. This is a question to pursue, again in committee.

I will conclude with the overall comment that there is much to look at in committee if we are to fully appreciate and make judgments about the utility of these new attempting to leave or leaving the country Criminal Code provisions.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, although my colleague from Toronto—Danforth claims to be a rookie, he gave an excellent speech. Judging from the content of his speech, he is far from being a rookie.

A number of witnesses appeared before the Senate committee, including Kathy Vandergrift, chairperson of the board of directors for the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children. She indicated the need to amend the bill to include mechanisms for people under the age of 18, given the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international agreements signed by Canada.

She said that she was concerned about the impact of detaining young people accused of going abroad to participate in terrorist activities. She said:

The Paris Principles emphasize using detention only as a last resort, not as the primary response to evidence of unlawful recruitment activities. Recent research in Australia documents the negative impacts of even short times in detention for the healthy development of young people.

I would like the hon. member to expand on this and to tell us whether or not he agrees with this point of view.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question and it includes a number of premises that I would endorse about the problem that appears to be part of the new bill.

The whole question of using detention as the absolute last resort with respect to youth is a principle certainly within the Convention of the Rights of the Child and within other principles of international law that have been developed to give a bit more content to children's rights. Last resort detention is a bottom line requirement.

To give the government its due, there is some reference in the bill to preventive detention, itself being a last recourse.

We need to ensure that these two things line up and the easiest way to do that would be to have specific and clear amendments that address the concern that my hon. colleague has just raised.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Toronto—Danforth for raising some very specific and ongoing implications of the legislation.

It also occurred to me that the process of intending to leave the country could become a terrorist act. In conjunction with that, if we look at clause 83.23, we then have by association others drawn in, “A person who knowingly harbours or conceals any person who they know to be a person who has carried out a terrorist act or facilitates it”.

By extension, if planning to leave the country to go overseas for what is alleged to be a terrorist activity, such as camp training, would this sweep bring in others who, in normal context, would be seen to be doing an innocent activity?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that, in fact, was discussed a little in the Senate hearings.

The general principles of the Criminal Code that connect one offence to other acts, such as complicity, various forms of aiding and abetting, they all apply. The question of a broader circle of people being drawn into the criminality that these new provisions would enact is very real.

The official government witnesses before the Senate committee tiptoed around this. They acknowledged that it was a real issue but there was a sense that we did not really want to criminalize other's assistance.

Now, of course, all the intention standards would have to be there. If one innocently helps a person leave the country by helping out with the person's passport but does not know why the person is leaving, then there is no connection. However, the moment one knows why, one would absolutely be drawn into the orbit.

One of the witnesses, I believe it was Mr. Fadden but it might have been another witness, commented along the lines that we should not be naive about how many people actually do assist others to leave for this purpose.

The idea of a wider circle beyond the person leaving does appear to be in contemplation.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his great contribution to this debate.

I would like to focus on the principle of the presumption of innocence, which is a foundational principle of our legal system. Does the member share some of my concerns about how this may question this fundamental principle?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, confining myself to the leaving or attempting to leave the country provisions is not so much a question of presumption of innocence but the problem of proving intention in these circumstances to something that will be quite far removed in time. The underlying concerns for the principle of the presumption of innocence within our procedural criminal law system do circle back on concerns about what kind of evidence would be adequate to actually effect the detention at the border, then an arrest and then a prosecution. Would there be some kind of slippage toward less and less onerous standards of proof that might in the end not lead to prosecution but would certainly lead to detention and arrest? That would be my concern.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. In his view, does the Criminal Code currently contain the necessary provisions to investigate individuals who engage in criminal activities and to detain anyone who might pose an immediate threat to Canadians?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I feel like I am in my law classes where a student asks me a question about something to which I do not know the detailed answer.

What I do know is that the Criminal Code does contain provisions that allow for a measure of preventive actions. The sections that deal with what we call peace bonds in English, do allow for preventive actions. We also have all kinds of measures that allow for arrests on the understanding of the arresting officer or agency that a criminal offence is about to happen.

We have to keep in mind that, for example, in the case of the Toronto 18, the kinds of arrests that were effected there were preventive in the sense that, apart from what was going on at the planning stages and the forays in the forest, the actual acts that we understand they were thinking about doing had not occurred. The system seemed to have allowed that to be detected. That has to do with the basic police and intelligence work that does allow for arrest when someone has started down the preparatory path of committing a crime. It is not just a matter of prevention where nothing has been done. People can be arrested and charged when they start down the path even if they have not been completed the path.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill provides for increased penalties for those who harbour persons carrying on terrorist activities in this country, but are the factors that have led those people to support terrorists taken into account? Is the fact that certain persons are threatened and somewhat compelled to do so considered? For example, a family may be threatened in order to compel it to harbour such individuals or to remain silent. Does this bill draw a distinction based on the reasons that lead individuals to support terrorists?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we would turn to the general criminal law and for various defences that would be available, including the defence of duress. That would enable people to say that they had no choice but to do what they did in harbouring. However, it is a pretty onerous standard and so it is not easily available if someone feels constrained versus actually threatened. If they are threatened, then they would have a defence.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to talk about Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act.

This bill is one of a series of anti-terrorism acts that started in 2001 following the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Bill S-7, the Combating Terrorism Act, aims to reintroduce anti-terrorism measures into our legal system. Those measures have been controversial since they were introduced in 2001.

In my opinion, those measures were introduced in 2001 because everyone was panicking. Everyone considers September 11, 2001, to be a turning point. We are all aware that everyone panicked and that we did not really know how to react to the attacks.

If I asked, every member of the House would be able to tell me where they were and what they were doing when the attacks took place.

For my part, on September 11, 2001, I was 17 years old and starting my college-level nursing studies; I was in my psychology class, and the professor entered the room to announce that there had been attacks in the United States and that a plane had flown into the twin towers.

One of my colleagues, somewhat in a panic, said, “My mother is in New York right now.” Everyone panicked. We all remember that day; we can all say what we were doing when we heard the news.

When all this happened, I was in my first year as a student in Sherbrooke, which is closer to the U.S. border further south, and my father, quite a sensible, brave man—I am really proud of him—called me to say that if I could return to Abitibi if I wanted. He understood that I might feel safer further north. A man like my father, whom I fully respect and who is really brave, was concerned and even in a bit of a panic knowing that I was far away. Everyone panicked.

Nobody knew what was going on, and laws were passed quickly because something had to be done. Elected representatives panicked, and so did the people. Something had to be done immediately. The main anti-terrorism acts passed after September 11, 2001, stem from that.

The text of the bill before us would amend the Criminal Code. It adds to and amends the list of terrorist activities, increases the penalties provided, particularly for harbouring a person who has committed a terrorism-related offence, and amends the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act.

It is true that terrorism in many forms is a threat to our society, and we must address it. However, it is always a good idea, when discussing crime bills, to consider what constitutes the hard line and what is the intelligent and effective line because the two may be synonymous at times and not at others. Consequently, we must take the time to consider exactly what we want, and I believe we must always aim for the intelligent and effective line.

These days, the opponents of a democratic regime are less and less likely the conventional forces they previously were; they are much more frequently rebel groups or terrorists, who obey no rules or international conventions, no treaties or rules for parties at war.

However, if our opponents do not abide by those rules, is it not appropriate for us to ask ourselves whether we are prepared to abandon those rules in order to guarantee public safety? Sometimes we have to take the time to think and ask ourselves whether we are not selling our soul to the devil by accepting things that go too far for the sake of public safety.

So we must be very cautious when we talk about these things. For example, should we endanger the human rights and individual freedoms that are truly dear to our country, to our democracy, and for which people have fought, for which Canadian forces have fought several wars? Should we set aside the progress we have made? The answer is no.

Why? The Combating Terrorism Act raises this question: are we discharging our public safety obligations? Anti-terrorism measures have previously been taken, and all those provisions remain in effect today, with the exception of those respecting investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions. A sunset clause, which expired in 2007, was put in place with respect to those provisions because they were viewed as a short-term solution to an emergency and because concerns had been expressed at the time. So it is somewhat as I was saying earlier: following the events of September 11, 2001, panic set in. We took measures, without knowing whether they should be maintained, in response, as it were, to the climate of panic that had set in.

Before they were eliminated, these measures were never useful. Before 2007 they were never necessary. They were used only one time, and it was not a success. But now the government wants to reinstate these same measures, which were never used in a situation that was considered to be an emergency situation at the time.

In more recent cases, it was not necessary to use these specific measures. The existing provisions in the Criminal Code were more than sufficient. We are in the process of bringing these individuals to justice, under the provisions and conditions that already exist in our Criminal Code. In 2007, when these measures came to an end, the House rejected the resolution to extend these provisions.

Our desire to be seen as doing something about law and order is making us lose sight of the notion of justice. Our system must not become focused on law and order instead of justice.

If we look at the application of our laws, we can see that the current provisions are already sufficient. Furthermore, the committees responsible for examining this issue heard the testimony of a number of stakeholders who said that existing Canadian laws were enough. For example, during the 2011 study by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on the old Bill C-17—which was the earlier version of Bill S-7—Denis Barrette, the spokesperson for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group; Ihsaan Gardee, the executive director of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations; Ziyaad Mia, the chair of the Advocacy and Research Committee of the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association; and James Kafieh, the legal counsel for the Canadian Islamic Congress, spoke out against this bill. They said it was unnecessary and violated a number of civil liberties and human rights.

Mr. Speaker, I will share more of what these people said when we continue our study of Bill S-7 and you give me 10 more minutes.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue will have 11 minutes to conclude her speech and another 10 minutes for questions and comments when the House resumes debate on this motion.

The House resumed from October 15 consideration of the motion that Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

When this issue was last before the House, the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue had 11 minutes left.

The hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before running out of time on Monday, I was speaking about the witnesses who oppose this bill because they believe it is pointless and violates various civil liberties and human rights. They appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in 2011, when it was studying Bill C-17, the previous version of Bill S-7, in another Parliament.

This is what Denis Barrette of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said:

The coalition believes that the provisions dealing with investigative hearings and preventive arrests, which are intended to impose recognizances with conditions, are both dangerous and misleading. Debate in Parliament on these issues must draw on a rational and enlightened review of the anti-terrorism law.

The first provision makes it possible to bring individuals before a judge in order to provide information, when the judge is of the view that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the individual has information about a terrorism offence that has or will be committed. A refusal to cooperate may result in arrest and imprisonment for up to one year. Furthermore, the provision dealing with investigating hearings gives the state a new power of search. Not enough is being said about this. The fact is that this provision can compel an individual to produce an object before a judge or tribunal, which will then pass it on to the police.

Furthermore, the current provisions encourage racial profiling and profiling on religious, political and ideological grounds. In its report on Canada in November of 2005, the U.N. Human Rights Committee noted its serious concerns with respect to the excessively broad definition of terrorist activity in the Anti-terrorism Act. The committee stated...“The State party should adopt a more precise definition of terrorist offences, so as to ensure that individuals will not be targeted on political, religious or ideological grounds, in connection with measures of prevention, investigation and detention.”

This shows that alarms were already going off about a number of problems in Bill C-17 with respect to civil liberties and how such a bill could be used. These problems remain in Bill S-7. This bill clearly has a problem balancing security and fundamental rights. What worries me is that I see no valid reason for these provisions.

These provisions have been expired for five years, so how can they all of a sudden have become so important and necessary, when they never proved to be useful when they existed? None of the witnesses was able to think of a case that would require this kind of law. None of the witnesses said that these provisions were necessary. On the contrary, witnesses clearly told the Senate committee that there were major problems with respect to human and children's rights.

I would like to talk about what Ihsaan Gardee of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations had to say:

We are mindful of the increased emphasis on public safety and national security in response to the threat of terrorism during the last decade.... We are also cognizant of the real risks to our free and democratic society posed by overreaction and fear when they are used as the basis of public policy and legislation. At the end of the day we risk eroding the foundational values upon which Canada rests, while not making us any safer from terrorism....

We strongly disagree with those who would suggest that attaining a balance between human rights and security is an insurmountable task. In addition to sharing many of the concerns others have raised regarding the proposed legislation, Canadian Muslims have particular misgivings regarding how...Bill C-17 [could] have a disproportionate impact on members of our communities that may be considered discriminatory.

[...]

With regard to the impact on individual freedom and liberty, after 9/11 every major criminal terrorism-related incident, from the Toronto 18 to the case of Momin Khawaja, has been disrupted and prevented without the need for preventive detention or investigative hearings.

I repeat: here is another witness who is saying that the measures set out in this bill are not useful and could even carry risks.

Let us go back to the statement made by James Kafieh. He said:

We also need to bear in mind that not everyone who chooses to remain silent in such circumstances is guilty, and that choosing to remain silent is not an admission of guilt or a proof of guilt. People may, for example, have legitimate concerns for themselves, their families, and their communities.

Such an extraordinary measure as investigative hearings should only be used for the purpose of preventing an imminent act of terrorism. It should never be used as an investigative tool for past acts. The present text of [the bill]...allows for investigative hearings for past events, for which the imperative of safeguarding of innocent life from imminent attack is wholly absent. This is, in itself, an escalation.... Such an escalation shows that we are already witnessing creep in the use of such provisions before the court.

He also said:

This [bill] allows for the arrest and detention of people without ever proving any allegation against them. It could also make people subject to conditions on release with severe limitations on their personal freedom, even if they have never been convicted of any crime. Anyone refusing to accept and comply with the terms of the recognizance may be imprisoned for up to 12 months. The legislation does not limit the number of times this provision may be reapplied.

How is this consistent with our Canadian values and the principles upon which our system of justice is founded? ...The most recent cases of five men who were detained for up to eight years without ever being charged or convicted of a crime should give us all cause for concern.

That is food for thought for our discussions on this type of bill. When it comes to combatting terrorism, we cannot just simply add slightly tougher provisions to the Criminal Code without understanding why. The fact that Canada is already a signatory to a number of international conventions that address this makes these measures unnecessary.

In 2001, when these provisions were being discussed, the aim of the Anti-terrorism Act was to update Canadian laws to meet international standards, particularly UN requirements. All the provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act, except for that concerning investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions, remain in effect today, which is what we are discussing today and what is being presented in Bill S-7.

To be perfectly clear, all the provisions of the original Anti-terrorism Act have remained in effect except for the two that expired in 2007, which were never used and which parliamentarians felt did not need to be renewed because they did not prove necessary.

Now, we are dealing with a Conservative government that says that the NDP is against making the country safer when it comes to combatting terrorism. In truth, this bill does not add anything substantive in terms of security. What is more, this bill will undermine fundamental human rights and freedoms. In my humble opinion, this represents a real risk. Canada already has a legal arsenal to combat terrorism, including international treaties, a complete section of the Criminal Code that deals with this, and a whole host of laws.

Furthermore, another provision in this bill would amend the definition of “special operational information” in the Security of Information Act. Under this change, the identity of a confidential source that is being used by the government would be considered to be special operational information. This would reduce the transparency of information.

Considering this government's track record when it comes to transparency, reducing it any further on such a delicate subject would really worry me.

In short, I oppose this bill because we already have very effective measures in place. This measure would be ineffective and pointless in the fight against terrorism.

This bill violates civil liberties and human rights and, once again, does so unnecessarily. In particular, it violates the right to remain silent and the right to not be jailed without a fair trial, two rights that are absolutely fundamental in Canadian society.

The provisions we are debating here today were invoked only once, and unsuccessfully. This perfectly illustrates the fact that we already have all the tools we need to combat terrorism. Thus, there is no reason to pass legislation that threatens our civil liberties.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, and I would like to ask her a question.

I recognize that Bill S-7 creates an imbalance between security and fundamental rights.

She said that we have the Criminal Code and international treaties and that therefore unreasonable legislative measures like the ones put forward in Bill S-7 were not the most appropriate way to maintain a balance.

What other methods could she see being used in this bill, whether in terms of the police or intelligence services?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, at this point, the Criminal Code and the various pieces of Canadian legislation already adequately address our anti-terrorism requirements.

There is no need for the provisions set out in Bill S-7, because I think at this point our police have the means to act.

Last Monday, I said we would have to think about it. Are we ready to sell our souls to the devil? Are we ready to accept provisions that run counter to our fundamental rights to ensure, in theory, greater security even though we are really not any safer? The question must be asked.

With this bill, we are going too far. We cannot sacrifice our rights to justify security needs that are in fact useless.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue for her presentation.

The points she raised are essential to this debate, primarily with regard to international law and human rights. Having taken part in a number of international debates for more than 25 years, I would appreciate it if she would elaborate on this issue in light of human rights and if she would tell us how the bill is going to affect these concerns.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, according to one of these provisions, it would be possible to keep somebody in detention without a trial. In my view, this makes absolutely no sense. It is a basic principle of the justice system in any great democracy in the world: you cannot detain a person without a trial, without giving him an opportunity to defend himself and without his even knowing why he is there.

It seems to me that this is one of the major flaws in this bill, and this is why I am not recommending that people support it.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to congratulate my New Democratic colleague for her excellent, well-documented and substantial comments about concerns that, in my view, are fair and legitimate.

I would like to ask her a question about the overall direction being taken by the Conservative government and about what is revealed in this bill. It amounts to one more bill that restricts civil liberty, and that aims at oppression and repression. Some repression is of course needed, but caution is in order. Our police officers should have the resources they need, but are we dealing with a government that wants to interfere in the private lives of Canadians? What is more, where are we on bill C-20? I do not know where it stands. It is as if it has disappeared. It raised legitimate concerns.

And yet the government is systematically moving towards limits on fundamental freedoms and respect for human rights.

I would like my colleague to tell us whether she believes we are witnessing some form of neo-conservative bifurcation by the government on the other side of the House.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when I began to speak on Monday, I explained that the provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act had been introduced following the events of September 11, 2001. The fear and panic in response to an obviously terrifying event at the time were understandable.

However, the Conservatives tend to continually try to use this fear to make people believe that there are dangers when there are not. The current Criminal Code has all the provisions required to combat terrorism appropriately. This fear is being used to get people to accept measures that are inconsistent with the fundamental rights of all Canadians, and that is truly dangerous.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend's comments about the bill. One of the things I note is that the added powers given to the police have never been used or have been used very rarely, but this does cost a lot of money.

I might be wrong, but I think that far more people have been harmed by tainted meat in this country than by threats of terrorism because this act was not in place from 2007 until today.

We are spending our money unwisely, I believe, by not spending it on protecting Canadians from tainted meat but on imagined terrorism instead, or on eliminating personal liberties in the guise of protection against terrorism.

Would the member like to comment?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is indeed the case. As my colleague mentioned, this bill is useless. None of the measures have thus far been of any use. None of the measures that expired in 2007 were ever used.

We know that these measures were not used, and yet we are spending time in the House talking about it, when people were contaminated by E. coli bacteria and their health was at risk. I would imagine that might appear somewhat strange.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague to explain that the government is making increasing use of the Senate to introduce bills in the House of Commons, when they should normally be introduced by elected representatives of the people.

It strikes me that this bill should have come from the Department of Justice, but curiously, the government chose to use the Senate.

What does she think about this way of using the Senate to introduce bills?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find it exceedingly odd that the Senate was used. This bill should have come from the government, from the House of Commons.

Besides which, Bill S-11, Safe Food for Canadians Act, is on the way. I happen to think that we have discussed food safety enough. Here again, the bill comes from the Senate.

I find it altogether incomprehensible that these bills are not coming from the government. I do not know what planet the Conservatives are living on, but it strikes me that it should have come from the House of Commons.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour for me to debate the bill known as the Combating Terrorism Act with my colleagues.

The main objectives of this bill are: to amend the Criminal Code in order to provide for investigative hearings and preventive arrests; to amend the Canada Evidence Act to allow judges to order the public disclosure of potentially sensitive information about a trial or an accused once the appeal period has expired; to amend the Criminal Code to create new offences of leaving or attempting to leave Canada to commit a terrorist act; and to amend the Security of Information Act to increase the maximum penalty for harbouring a person who has committed or is likely to commit an offence.

More than 10 years have now passed since the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001. These events turned the whole world upside down. As a result, international co-operation has been strengthened in order for the global community to better protect itself against terrorist acts.

A number of western countries implemented policies and laws to protect themselves against terrorism. Canada was no exception. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the government hastily passed Bill C-36, which was followed by Bills S-3, C-19 and C-17 in later years. The Conservatives introduced all bills after Bill C-36.

The attacks had a much more insidious effect: everyone felt threatened by terrorists, who were hiding everywhere, and it was necessary to sacrifice freedoms for security. All of a sudden, people felt far less safe and a climate of fear began to take hold.

Since coming to power, the Conservatives have spent a great deal of time creating an atmosphere of fear, suspicion and insecurity with respect to national security. They have led Canadians to believe that there is an ever-present danger to our major urban centres. In my opinion, the political objective of the government's approach to safety is to obtain increased police powers for the state from the Canadian people.

When a tragedy such as a terrorist attack occurs, it is easy for a government to fall into the trap of acting quickly and forcefully. It is understandable since, after all, the government is responsible for the safety of its citizens.

I would like to quote the former justice critic and current member of Parliament for Windsor—Tecumseh, who clearly described the government's willingness to act when catastrophic events occur. He said:

When facing a crisis, we as political leaders feel that we have to do something even when all the evidence shows that the structures we have, the strength of our society, the strength of our laws, are enough to deal with it. We passed legislation in early 2002 to deal with terrorism when we panicked. We have learned in the last eight years that there was no need for that legislation.

The bills that the Conservatives introduce and the speeches that they give leave me feeling completely baffled. They are asking us to give them the tools they need to protect us. In exchange for their protection, they are asking us to give up a few of our civil liberties. It is not true that freedom and security are mutually exclusive. It is possible to strike a fair balance between freedom and security by making thoughtful decisions that take these two variables into account.

The Conservatives do not believe that. I will explain why. The Conservatives' idea to adopt such a policy emanates from somewhere and that is from beliefs that are deeply rooted in their right-wing ideology. According to political studies, there are often many types of beliefs. This includes fundamental beliefs, which are often associated with basic rights. One's personal safety is, in my opinion, one of these fundamental beliefs. Anyone under the influence of fear will act to protect him or herself. In fact, in our laws, we recognize the legitimacy of the right to defend ourselves.

The Conservatives are dealing in fear. They want to put Canadians on the defensive so that they will then give the government more power in exchange for certain civil liberties.

The official opposition's role is to make sure that the government does not use worst-case scenarios to mislead the public and give itself extraordinary powers. Furthermore, the Conservatives have been implying that if opposition members do not agree with their very restrictive policies, it means that we do not care about public safety and that we cannot be trusted when it comes to national security. I think that the Minister of Public Safety has insinuated that many times.

To my Conservative colleagues I will say that I have worked to make Canadians safe. I also used to be the deputy critic for public safety and I care very much about the safety of all Canadians. Our party would take the necessary and appropriate measures to effectively protect Canadians. Unlike the members opposite, we care about the most fundamental human rights and freedoms, and these must be taken into account when introducing bills or policies that could threaten certain rights and freedoms. We do not take this kind of thing lightly.

The key thing is to never contradict the Conservatives. They firmly believe that an attack is imminent and that police forces need more tools from legislators to be able to combat terrorism. They will reject all facts and arguments that do not corroborate this belief. They focus only on those that support what they believe. How many times has the government refused to listen to scientists and experts, whether on environmental or social policy matters? If something does not support their position and ideology, they reject it outright, regardless of the facts, and the fight against terrorism is obviously no exception.

It worries me a lot to see that the government completely ignores experts in various fields. Public policy is no longer based on common sense. Good public policies are based on facts and on expert and stakeholder opinions. That is how it should work. That is what it means to govern in partnership, a concept that the Conservatives do not seem to care much about.

In my opinion, the worst is that the government is playing right into the hands of terrorist groups by restricting Canadians' civil rights. Terrorist groups attempt by their actions to cause greater collateral damage than the attack itself. So they try to draw media attention to the savage nature of their terrorist attack in order to spread a climate of fear among all nations. That is where the government may be tempted to limit its citizens' liberties. When that happens, the terrorists have achieved part of their objective. From that point on, all security-related political actions are influenced by terrorism and the fear that it caused.

How does that relate to Bill S-7? The purpose of this bill is to grant the government extraordinary powers with respect to terrorism. Those powers are not justified by the threat level or by Canadian society's values respecting civil rights and freedoms, particularly since the Criminal Code contains a series of sections on terrorism and security.

As I mentioned, Bill S-7 is the most recent in a series of anti-terrorism legislative measures introduced since Bill C-36 was tabled in 2001. In this bill, the provisions respecting preventive arrests and recognizance with conditions, two provisions included in the bill, were subject to a sunset clause that expired in February 2007. And there was a reason why that type of provision was inserted. It was that the House had serious concerns, including the possibility that those provisions might be abused.

When the House revised the Anti-terrorism Act, we saw that there had been no investigative hearings or situations requiring recognizance with conditions. The Conservatives wanted to renew the bill in 2007, but they needed the consent of the House, which they fortunately did not obtain. The House decided not to renew those provisions. In fact, only one investigative hearing has been held since 2007, in the context of the Air India attack, and that produced no conclusive results.

And now the government is back with its phoney majority to pass a bill that the House previously rejected because it ran counter to Canadian values. It has also not bothered to include all the recommendations of the Subcommittee on the Review of the Anti-terrorism Act. It selected only what suited it.

What is the rush? Why are these measures suddenly necessary? They expired nearly six years ago, and the act has never been used for this purpose. Naturally, the Conservatives' response to these questions is that just because these measures have not previously been used does not mean they are unnecessary. They will use the ticking time bomb argument and offer all kinds of Jack Bauer-style scenarios.

I will briefly describe those two measures to put this bill in context and sum up what is stated in section 83.28 of the Criminal Code concerning investigative hearings.

A peace officer may, with the prior consent of the attorney general, apply to a provincial judge for an order that any individual who might have information concerning a terrorist act appear before a judge. If the order is made, the person must attend for an examination, answer all questions and bring with him anything he has in his possession relating to the order. Investigative hearings are used to obtain information, not to prosecute individuals. Accordingly, the answers given at one of these hearings may not be used against an individual in criminal proceedings, except in the case of prosecutions for perjury or the giving of contradictory evidence.

Section 83.3 of the Criminal Code deals with preventive arrest under the heading “Recognizance with Conditions”. That section is formulated to include preventive detention. A peace officer may arrest a person without warrant if he believes it is necessary in order to prevent a terrorist attack. The individual who is detained must then be taken before a provincial judge within 24 hours after being detained or as soon as possible, to show cause for the detention. The peace officer must then apply to a provincial judge, with the prior consent of the attorney general, to order that the person appear before a judge to determine whether it is necessary that the person be required to comply with certain specific conditions.

If a judge finds that the person must enter into a recognizance, the person will have to undertake to keep the peace and abide by other conditions, such as giving up control of his firearms for a period of up to 12 months. If the person refuses, he may be committed to prison for a term not exceeding 12 months.

As parliamentarians, the question we have to debate this afternoon is whether the provisions set out in Bill S-7 are necessary and appropriate to protect the safety of Canadians. During the first hour of debate, my colleague from Toronto—Danforth asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice whether there had been any testimony at the Senate hearings in support of reinstating the provisions set out in this bill. In her answer, the parliamentary secretary did not refer to any such testimony.

The reality is that in police investigations since 2007, terrorist conspiracies have been dismantled without having to use any of the provisions set out in Bill S-7, nor did those investigations call for any extraordinary powers to be granted. Whether in the case of Khawaja, the “Toronto 18” or, more recently, the four people in the Toronto region, none of the provisions of Bill S-7 have been necessary.

I think this is conclusive proof that our police forces have the tools they need to protect the Canadian public. We have to continue to support our public safety officers so they are able to keep doing the good job they have done to date.

We will be opposing this bill because it is a completely ineffective way to combat terrorism and because it infringes our most fundamental rights and freedoms. This bill demonstrates the Conservatives’ total failure to grasp the connection between security and liberty.

The way the provisions of the bill are written could have serious consequences for law-abiding people. Bill S-7 would make individuals who have never been charged with a terrorist act liable to imprisonment for as long as 12 months, or make them subject to strict conditions of release.

The provisions of this bill could be invoked to target individuals participating in activities such as demonstrations or acts of dissent that have nothing to do with any reasonable definition of terrorism. Is the government aware of that or is it knowingly doing this?

The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations has raised an interesting situation I would like to share with my colleagues. It says that it is still unclear how the distinction will be made between acts associated with terrorism and other criminal acts. For example, the recent firebombing of a Royal Bank branch in Ottawa, just before the G20 summit, was treated as criminal arson, and so no charge was laid under the anti-terrorism provisions. However, the people who committed that crime could have been charged with terrorism.

Need I remind my Conservative colleagues of who Maher Arar and Mr. Almalki are? They are Canadian citizens who were detained, deported and tortured because we had falsely accused them of terrorist activities.

Is this the kind of policy that this government wants to adopt? Regressive, outdated policies? The Conservatives need to listen to Canadians and perhaps relearn our basic Canadian values, for they seem to have forgotten them.

This bill applies to people who have not committed any terrorist acts per se. Also, in order to now justify all of the tools available to national security agents and for any strategic issues, there are several forms of terrorism and as many tools that can be used depending on the kind of terrorism—environmental, economic, religious, nationalist, and so on.

The recently released anti-terrorism strategy is proof that this government is targeting broader groups. That document gives examples of terrorist groups and includes things like occupy and environmental groups. The government has said on a number of occasions that environmental groups are extremists, perhaps even terrorists. That is why I think the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations is an interesting example, since it demonstrates that the application of these anti-terrorism measures will affect everyone differently.

This is not the best way to combat terrorism. The best way to fight terrorism is not by passing extraordinary legislative measures like the ones proposed in this bill, but rather to collect information, and that is the job of police forces.

The existing Criminal Code provisions are more than adequate to investigate people who engage in terrorist activities or to detain someone who poses an immediate and credible threat to Canadians. The Conservatives know this, but they want to prove that they are tough on crime, even at the expense of our individual rights and freedoms.

Neither I nor any NDP member can support this bill.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I warmly applaud the speech by our colleague from Châteauguay—Saint-Constant. Since 2006, we have seen many things being gutted, including environmental legislation, social rights, workers' rights and some constitutional rights. I would like to hear my colleague talk a little more about that. In his view, how does this bill go even further in denying our constituents' civil and constitutional rights?

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

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank my colleague for his question.

He pointed out some undeniable facts and truths, one of them being that the government seems to always be trying to attack the rights of unions and unionized workers. It wants to attack the most fundamental of rights, as Bill C-20 shows. Apparently, the government has now put that bill aside, because of the public discontent created by the idea that it would give police the power to listen to or spy on the conversations we have on the Internet or in email.

With this bill, the government is launching a shameless attack against the most fundamental of our freedoms: our individual freedoms. We must strongly condemn this attack.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite made reference to the Toronto 18. In double-checking, it was June 2, 2006, when these individuals were apprehended. At that time, we did have the provisions that provided for the investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions measures in place. However, that expired in 2007, which t is why these provisions are being reintroduced at this time.

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

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

I think she mentioned the exact date, which was 2006. What is more, when the individuals who were about to commit acts of terrorism were arrested, the extraordinary provisions introduced in 2002 by the then Liberal government were not used. Those extraordinary provisions to combat terrorism were completely useless. These special measures were not used in the case of the Toronto 16. As I was saying, the police used all the provisions available in the Criminal Code to stop this group that was preparing to commit terrorist attacks.

The uselessness of the provisions was demonstrated by the fact that the police completely ignored them. The police did not use these special measures.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague about preventive detention.

Under the bill, a peace officer can arrest an individual without a warrant if the peace officer believes that doing so is necessary in order to prevent a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, considering how easy it is to access the Internet these days, that individual could be a 13-year-old.

Does my colleague think that the child's rights are being respected when a 13-year-old is arrested without a warrant and detained for up to 24 hours before he is brought before a judge and knows what is happening to him?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her excellent question.

A section of our Criminal Code defines the powers of arrest that police officers could use to keep someone from committing any crime, whether it is a crime of terrorism or not. Therefore, based on the current provisions, a police officer could arrest a person who intends to commit any type of crime.

However, when it comes to the situation my colleague mentioned, that is, arresting a person under the age of 18, some issues and questions were raised in the Senate committee about the notion of “last resort“, a principle that is part of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as other international treaties that strengthen children's rights.

To give the government its due, the bill that alludes to preventive detention is also a last resort measure. This means there has to be a balance, which does create a problem. That was not considered in the final drafting of the bill.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech. I would like to reiterate that the New Democratic Party is in favour of protection against terrorism. My colleagues have been adamant on that point. We also stand up for human rights and we are good stewards.

Since 2001, the government opposite has spent as much as $92 billion to combat potential acts of terrorism.

I would like my colleague to summarize for us, in his own words, why this bill, to use a strong image, is taking this belt and braces approach and why it is going to do more harm than good.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi for his question.

He has raised a number of points in his question, including the fact that enormous sums of money have been spent and it is extremely difficult to ascertain how effective they have been, since this is a completely closed government that constantly prevents parliamentarians from doing their job by concealing costs. It is therefore extremely difficult to determine how this money was spent.

Furthermore, yes, the provisions it includes are going to create additional expenses, and it will be extremely interesting to determine at the Standing Committee on Justice or the Standing Committee on Public Safety—we will see where the bill is examined—how much more might be spent on these pointless legislative measures that our public safety officers have absolutely no need of.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know whether my colleague could say a few words to the groups that are concerned about the fact that this bill is drifting into racial or religious profiling.

What are his comments on the concerns raised by some of the groups?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue for that excellent question.

In fact, there are several questions that can be asked regarding the profiling that some people might be subject to. I did not make a note of the people who testified at the Senate committee on this question, but witnesses who are experts on Islam expressed their concerns about this bill, which the police could use to target certain people in particular, including certain Muslims.

I think there have been a few cases in the past, including the case of Maher Arar. Because he was Muslim, Mr. Arar was targeted when he was on a trip to his country of origin. He found himself at the centre of major charges because of a mistake made by our police. Mistakes are always possible, unfortunately. We have to try to keep them to a minimum, but these Islamic groups have raised a number of questions.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, Aboriginal Affairs; the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway, International Trade; the hon. member for Western Arctic, Aboriginal Affairs.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in this House about Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act.

The official opposition is opposed to this bill because it will not solve any of the problems related to terrorism and it rides roughshod over civil liberties and values that are very dear to Canadians. Once again, the Criminal Code would be amended by the government, when there are already provisions that make it possible to protect society by investigating and detaining persons who commit offences. I am referring here to part II.1 and sections 83.01 to 83.33 of the Criminal Code. Moreover—and this is what is most worrisome, in my opinion—this bill creates an imbalance between security and the most fundamental rights that exist in society.

I will remind members of the four objectives of Bill S-7. First, it would amend the Criminal Code in order to include investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions. Second, it would make changes to the Canada Evidence Act. A judge could order the public disclosure of potentially sensitive information concerning a trial or an accused person once the appeal period is over. Third, new offences would be created in the Criminal Code concerning individuals who have left or attempted to leave Canada for the purpose of committing a terrorist act. Finally, the Security of Information Act would also be amended. The maximum penalty for harbouring an individual who committed or is liable to commit a terrorist act would be longer.

To begin with, one wonders why this bill was introduced in the Senate at first reading. That is always a legitimate question, and I hope that later in this debate, the government will give us an answer. Moreover, I would point out that my hon. colleague, the member for Gatineau and the justice critic for the official opposition, asked the same question in the House on October 15.

Secondly, I am confused about what motivated the government to introduce Bill S-7. I am going to read the remarks made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice in the speech she gave on October 15, 2012.

Since the horrific events of 9/11, the absence of terrorist violence on Canadian territory does not preclude the possibility of a terrorist attack. Canada's solidarity with the international community of nations in the fight against terrorism has rendered Canada a potential target.

I am troubled by such statements because, since 2007, nothing has happened in Canada. The country has not been subject to terrorist attacks. Leading Canadians to believe that our country could be a target for terrorist acts and then using that argument to put in place a legal arsenal that is very questionable in terms of our civil liberties and legal rights—we will talk about this later—is not the right approach. The NDP believes that terrorism will not be fought on the legislative field but, rather, by improving intelligence gathering and the sharing of information among the various intelligence agencies.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice went on to say the following:

It is our responsibility to lay down the rules by which terrorism is fought. We are responsible for tracing the difficult line between combatting terrorism and preserving liberties in a way that is effective and gives clear guidance to those charged with combatting terrorism on the ground.

Once again, I would like to express my disagreement with the hon. member. I repeat: this bill creates an imbalance between fundamental rights and security.

I would like to draw the House's attention to some provisions of this bill that could infringe on the rights of children. I would also like to talk about those that would be a welcome improvement in terms of intelligence gathering and the sharing of information among the various intelligence agencies in Canada, which are found in clauses 4 to 8 of this bill.

First, I am going to read the words of the hon. member for Gatineau with regard to Bill S-7 and the youth criminal justice system. These questions should be of great interest to all members of the House.

What will we do about minors living in these kinds of situations? Who will have precedence? Will it be the youth courts, which usually have exclusive jurisdiction over children under the age of 18? Will those provisions take precedence? There is a great deal of concern here. What rights are there? What do we do about the right not to incriminate oneself? What need is there for us to impose this kind of direction on a system in which we have no evidence of this kind of need?

A distinction must be made between a habitual criminal and a young person whose parents have forced him or her to commit a crime. That is not at all the same thing. I have the same questions for the government again today.

Based on Senate committee evidence, the bill clearly violates Canada's international obligations regarding the protection of children's rights.

Kathy Vandergrift, chair of the board of directors of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, has expressed some reservations about detaining minors, especially considering the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international agreements signed by Canada. She suggested amending the bill to ensure that it complies with international laws that apply to people under the age of 18. She said, and I quote:

The Paris Principles emphasize using detention only as a last resort, not as the primary response to evidence of unlawful recruitment activities. Recent research in Australia documents the negative impacts of even short times in detention for the healthy development of young people.

I would now like to focus on one particular aspect of clauses 4 to 8 of the bill. Those clauses create a new Criminal Code offence: leaving Canada or attempting to leave Canada for the purpose of committing certain terrorism offences.

My hon. colleague from Toronto—Danforth very clearly explained the problems associated with those provisions. I would like to quote something he said in this House on October 15, 2012, regarding border security and controls. This issue is of particular concern to me, since my riding of Brome—Missisquoi has an airport and border crossings.

At the moment, we all know there are no exit controls at all the borders, notably at airports, other than no-fly lists for those deemed to be a threat to aviation. Testimony before the Senate made it clear that co-operation protocols or memorandums of understanding would be needed among CSIS, the RCMP and the CBSA.

Mr. Fadden, the director of CSIS, went further and noted that would have to extend likely to CATSA, the agency of the Department of Transport that regulates security. How these protocols will be developed and what kind of accountability there will be for their operation remains a concern especially because the RCMP, a key link in the inter-agency collaboration that will be needed here, has been shown by both the Arar and the Air India inquiries to be an agency that suffers from lack of accountability and inappropriate oversight mechanisms. Yet, with the government's Bill C-42, we see that it has no intention of acting on the Arar commission's carefully thought through recommendations for RCMP accountability and oversight.

Perhaps the government could provide some answers today to this important question raised by my honourable colleague.

I want to list the risks and flaws associated with this bill. This bill would allow individuals who have not been charged with any crime to be imprisoned for up to 12 months or subjected to strict recognizance conditions. The NDP believes that this is contrary to the core values of our justice system. The provisions of this bill could be used for purposes other than to combat terrorism, such as to target individuals engaged in protest activities.

In closing, this bill to combat terrorism raises too many key questions with regard to protecting our fundamental rights and our civil liberties. The presumption of innocence, the right not to incriminate oneself, the right to be told quickly what we are accused of and the right to defend ourselves against those charges are essential concepts in a society where the rule of law prevails.

Accordingly, the NDP firmly believes that neither combating terrorism nor preventing terrorism should jeopardize these fundamental rights and civil liberties. For all these reasons, the NDP is opposed to this bill.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite made a number of references to concern for our youth. However, there are provisions in the bill to protect our youth, particularly against this growing phenomenon of foreign terrorist groups recruiting our young people.

The bill seeks to make it a crime to participate in any activity of a terrorist group, facilitate a terrorist activity, commit an indictable offence for the benefit of a terrorist group and commit an indictable offence that is also a terrorist activity.

Why would the member opposite not want to implement provisions to create deterrence to our youth being recruited by foreign-based terrorists?

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my honourable colleague for her question.

Again, by focusing on the idea that there is terrorism and recruitment by terrorists, we go astray and we begin to engage in racial profiling.

My questions about the rights of youth have to do with the fact that a young offender is a young person in trouble who needs help rather than punishment. That is why we ask questions first, not later.

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

Mr. Speaker, we all recall the terrorist attacks of 2001. It was difficult for everyone. I was attending a rural university. Everyone was appalled by what we saw on television.

I would like to know what the member thinks about the following comments by Mr. Barrette:

The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group and the Ligue des droits et libertés believe that the provisions dealing with investigative hearings and preventive arrests, which are intended to impose recognizances with conditions, are both dangerous and misleading [for a liberal society].

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for her question. It is dangerous and misleading to tell people that the threat of terrorism is imminent. What happened on September 11, 2001, is a tragedy, but it happened in the United States. I cannot imagine that it would happen tomorrow morning in Canada.

Nothing has happened in the past four years. There has been nothing and things have been quiet. I cannot understand why, all of a sudden, we want to scrap our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and forget about the rights it guarantees for children and adults alike. I believe that we have the tools we need with the Criminal Code, special statutes and international treaties. We need only invest in the police and intelligence services. That would be more useful than spending millions of dollars on phantom threats.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi for an excellent and compelling speech today.

The hon. member, like others who have given speeches that focus on the issue of civil liberties and legal matters, has put forward a very compelling case that the police already seem to have the necessary tools to combat terrorism, using existing procedures and laws.

It is not as though that because these things have not been invoked and been useful legally that they have no impact. There is clearly a social impact in having these laws come before the House for debate and put on the books.

On the eve of September 11 of this year, I showed a film in my riding entitled, Change Your Name Ousama, which talks about the stigmatization of the Muslim-Canadian community in this country.

I am wondering if my colleague would have any comments on the social implications and impacts of such laws, like the one we are debating today, on certain communities in this country.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

I am not an expert on Islam, but I do know that, in Montreal, Muslim communities feel ill at ease. September 2001 was a long time ago. Yet, when something happens elsewhere in the world, they feel as though they are targeted and victims of discrimination.

If it passes, will Bill S-7 heighten paranoia? I would say yes, and the fundamental rights of the people targeted will decrease in the same measure. Muslims and people of other faiths contribute to Canada's economy and culture. For the most part, they are not violent people. To answer the question, I would say that we do not need to pass Bill S-7. We should instead invest in collecting intelligence and training police. That is all.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed my colleague's presentation. Social and environmental terrorism were mentioned in previous remarks. The speakers could have added aboriginal terrorism, while they were at it. They are fond of this term, on the other side of the House.

My colleague spoke of the imbalance in this bill between security and fundamental rights. I would like him to say more about this.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his brilliant question. It is indeed possible to speak about social, environmental, and aboriginal terrorism. However, Aboriginals—since we are talking about them—are one of the three founding peoples of our magnificent country. There are Anglophones, Francophones, but there are also Aboriginals who—we too often forget—were here before us.

There should be no racial profiling. Everybody's fundamental rights must be respected. When it comes to the economy, Aboriginals have for some time been put in reserves, and enough is enough. Progress has been made with recent decisions, and Justice Wagner, who is starting his career at the Supreme Court of Canada, has recognized this. Aboriginals are a plus in Canadian society.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, during his speech, my colleague spoke frequently about the importance of focusing more on intelligence gathering in order to prevent terrorism.

I would like him to speak more about coordinating information among intelligence services. Provincial authorities, departments, or other bodies may be in possession of information. The fact that all this information is spread among several different entities may mean that a situation that should otherwise attract attention goes unnoticed. If the person handling the situation had all the information at their disposal, they could choose to act in accordance with the current provisions of the Criminal Code.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent question.

In any fight money is important, but so too is information. Information received by intelligence services must be coordinated, but until such time as somebody has been accused, the information must be kept confidential.

It is, therefore, very important to coordinate information and to respect confidentiality until such time as formal charges have been laid.

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

Mr. Speaker, before beginning my speech on Bill S-7, I would like to say something. Given that the government considers this bill so important and so significant, I think it is a shame that I find myself once again this week making a speech about it. On Monday, I spoke about Bill S-9. Both of these bills were introduced by the Senate.

I was elected on May 2, 2011, in a democratic electoral system. I was not appointed to a seat on an honorary basis just because I was a close friend to the Conservatives. Ministers should spend less time discussing bills before Senate committees and spend more time reporting to House of Commons committees and providing evidence to duly elected members.

We are opposed to Bill S-7. I would like to tell the government that, instead of getting the so-called other chamber to pass its bills, it should do so itself. If terrorism is so important to the government, why does the Senate have to take the lead after several years and introduce Bill S-9?

The government always says that talking is all well and good, but it is taking action. That is not true, because obviously the Senate is doing the government's work. Either the government does not want to admit that its resources are inadequate, or its priorities are different than it says, for instance, in terms of Canadians’ security.

Bill S-9 deals with food safety. According to the Minister of Agriculture, food safety is one of the government's priorities. If food safety is a priority for the government, why did the Senate have to draft the bill?

I would like to know why the government does not face up to its responsibilities instead of letting the Senate do all the work.

I would now like to begin my speech on Bill S-7, which concerns the important issue of terrorism.

Nowadays, people will cry terrorism at the slightest provocation, but the concept remains vague. It is used quite frequently to create a climate of insecurity. In fact, it is meant to create a climate of fear. As I said yesterday, the Conservatives have often used the concept of terrorism whenever they felt like it to justify the policies or decisions they made that were criticized by the public. The concept of terrorism creates fear, and more fear; it is a vicious circle. This is exactly what Bill S-7 does; it nurtures a climate of fear. It is a rather twisted approach and a concept that remains vague and is meant to make us believe that our rights and freedoms are much better served if they are taken away from us.

Moreover, I would like to point out that these provisions expired four years ago. We have not required these provisions over the past four years. Why bring them back now? They have expired but, when it comes to priorities, the government is well known for making flagrant errors in judgment.

Let us be clear: nobody in the House, especially in the official opposition, supports terrorism. We understand the importance of keeping Canadians safe, and it is one of our top priorities. What we are criticizing here are the provisions contained in Bill S-7. We are critical of this bill's failure to strike any balance whatsoever between two equally important concepts: security and fundamental rights.

The government constantly engages in petty partisan politics by pitting two important notions against each other in order to create confusion in the minds of Canadians and force them to choose between two principles: fundamental rights and security. Yet, this government should guarantee both these principles.

The two principles are at the very heart of our democratic society. The government should ensure that they are upheld without putting one ahead of the other.

The NDP believes that it is important to take strong action against terrorism while also, as I said, respecting the rights and freedoms that are at the heart of our society, our system of justice and our democracy.

In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, the Government of Canada responded, as it believed it should, and under extreme pressure from the United States, to what was an exceptional event. The legislation that was passed, although very strong, contained sunset clauses—and for good reason.

In the days and months that followed the attacks of September 11, the United States, with George W. Bush at the helm, declared war on terror. What I wish to stress here is that changes were made to some civil rights in the name of the war on terror, such as indefinite detention for presumed threats to national security, the creation of prisons, and even the legalization of torture, all shameful examples of the failure to respect fundamental human rights.

For example, the Geneva convention on the treatment of prisoners of war sets out fundamental rights. Omar Khadr is a case in point. He was imprisoned in Guantanamo as a mere teenager, which flies in the face of international law.

Canada's involvement in international conventions should never, under any circumstance, be taken lightly. It is very easy to forget our international obligations when the government chooses to do so. Child soldiers should never be imprisoned. This is an internationally recognized principle that Canada should stand up for, without exception.

Canada's involvement in this regard helps to combat terrorism while at the same time assisting in the eradication of child soldiers. Two such fundamental principles should never be pitted against each other. We have a charter of rights and freedoms. The United States may have a point of view that is different from ours, but here in Canada, our rights and values should prevail over any outside decision or influence. That is why it is important not to succumb to Orwellian paranoia, like our neighbour to the south.

The provisions regarding preventive arrest and interrogation techniques were subject to a sunset clause and expired in 2007. It is now 2012. These provisions were included in the Criminal Code for good reason. The balance between the need for security and civil rights is essential. We do not need others to tell us what standards we want to adopt, particularly when those standards infringe on our fundamental freedoms.

The NDP is of the opinion that Bill S-7 violates civil liberties and the most fundamental rights, particularly the right to remain silent and the right to not be imprisoned without a fair trial. I would like to remind the House of this.

Perhaps, over the past few years, the government members have forgotten to read our magnificent Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I strongly advise them to do so just to refresh their memories with regard to our values, the values upon which the Canada they hold so dear is built. The weight of the state should never be used against an individual to force him to testify against himself. Self-incrimination is internationally recognized as an illegal and undemocratic principle.

The Criminal Code contains the provisions required to investigate people who engage in criminal activity and to detain anyone who may pose an immediate threat to Canadians.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I do not accept the fact that government members are telling me to be quiet while I am giving my speech. I was elected, and I have the right to speak in the House.

The battle against terrorism cannot be conducted by means of legislative measures, but rather through intelligence and appropriate police action.

There is no need to pass Bill S-7; the Criminal Code already provides all the tools that are needed, and it contains provisions to combat terrorism. I have a serious problem with establishing a system that forces people to incriminate themselves. Contrary to the recommendations of the Subcommittee on the Review of the Anti-terrorism Act, witnesses clearly told the Senate committee that there were major problems in terms of the protection of children.

There is Bill C-10 and criminal justice for minors, the status of aboriginal children, and poverty among immigrant children: we have been singled out and criticized repeatedly for our violations of children's rights. Once again, the government should be ashamed to have been singled out as a democratic industrialized country that violates children's rights. And yet again, the government would like to pass legislation that would violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is shameful. The government members should be ashamed to be smiling as I remind them that they are violating children's rights.

It is also noteworthy that since 2001, over 10 years ago, none of the investigations that have led to charges or convictions has required the use of these extraordinary powers. There is still doubt about how, for example, a distinction could be made in practice between a terrorist act and other offences. For example, the incendiary bomb at the G20 in Ottawa was treated as a criminal offence and not an act of terrorism. The Criminal Code can handle such acts very well.

Bill S-7 would make people with no criminal charges against them liable to imprisonment for up to 12 months or subject to strict release conditions, and the NDP believes that this contravenes the fundamental values of our justice system. That the provisions were only ever invoked once, and the only time they were invoked it was a total fiasco, illustrates that the police have the tools they need to combat terrorism with existing procedures, without any risk to our civil liberties or justice. The provisions of this bill could be invoked to target dissidents or people involved in demonstrations.

I see a trend here. The Conservatives want to prevent people from protesting. I remind members that the right of association is a fundamental right protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is not the first time that the government has tried to restrict our fundamental freedoms and civil liberties. I remind them that the Canada they love so much was created with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and they should be ashamed of trying to take away the freedoms that people fought for.

This legislation shows a lack of balance between security and fundamental rights, and the New Democratic Party cannot vote for such a bill. We must give serious thought to the issue of terrorism, but we must also protect our rights and freedoms.

I would like to conclude my speech by saying that this bill shows a flagrant lack of respect for Canadian values. This is an ideological bill that threatens Canadians and their freedoms. The Criminal Code already contains all of the provisions needed to fight terrorism, and the government should be ashamed of trying to take away our civil liberties to further its own ideological and political agenda.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, just as we saw in the asymmetric warfare conducted in Afghanistan, so too is terrorism a constantly evolving manifestation. What the bill seeks to do is to prevent an imminent attack and to provide the tools necessary to do so.

The member opposite spoke at length about the need for balance. Why would she want to put the balance of power in the hands of the terrorists?

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

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, since 2001—over 10 years ago—none of the investigations that have led to charges or convictions has required the use of these extraordinary powers the government is trying to give itself.

I do not need a lecture from a member who made a speech in this House and mixed up the Canadian and American constitutions. She is not even familiar with Canadian fundamental freedoms. She does not even know the Canadian Constitution. I do not need any lectures from her.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for her speech. She spoke at length about children's rights. I am especially concerned about that aspect of this bill.

We are talking about the risk of brainwashing teenagers or even the risk of children being enlisted to engage in terrorist activities.

First of all, does my colleague believe there are any non-legislative measures in place to avoid this problem? Also, does she believe that non-legislative measures would be more effective than legislative measures?

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

Mr. Speaker, the concept of child soldiers is clear. Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child is someone who is under 18. Any child who is captured during an armed conflict, regardless of whether or not he is part of a terrorist group, is considered a child soldier.

I would remind the government that it signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child—and proudly boasted about it, too. However, when it comes to applying the principles of protecting children's rights, we clearly see the government's ideology behind all of that.

Regardless of whether a child is brainwashed into committing violent acts, a child is a child. It is our duty as a society to protect children. Legislative measures that turn children into criminals and throw them in jail will never be good legislative measures.

How can we put a child in prison and then expect to be able to help that child? It makes no sense. Legislative measures are not the right way to address the use of child soldiers in armed conflict.

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

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate the hon. member for La Pointe-de-l'Île. I am glad she responds occasionally to the insults coming from across the floor, since those members often laugh, chat or heckle when she is trying to speak to the House.

Can the member tell us if she believes that the fear of a potential terrorist act or paranoia can cause collateral damage and restrict the individual and collective freedoms of Canadians?

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

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, terrorism is a major problem. Nevertheless, a major problem, whether we are talking about terrorism or drug trafficking, should never undermine the values that Parliament is built on.

I am reaching out to every MP who was democratically elected under the Canadian flag, under the banner of our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to ask them whether they are truly prepared to reject the freedoms that people fought so hard for. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a guarantee.

Does their paranoia make them believe that people would be better off without their fundamental freedoms? Are they prepared to tell Canadian soldiers who fought for our values that they fought for nothing? It is outrageous.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for La Pointe-de-l'Île. If I understand correctly, Bill S-7 will leave the door wide open to injustices. It will tarnish our international reputation, which has already been battered by this government.

Can the hon. member tell us what values unite us as Canadians? She said that we fought for these rights. I should know, because I am a member of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. I know that many countries do not have a charter of rights and freedoms like the one we have in Canada.

Can the hon. member for La Pointe-de-l'Île tell us what unites us as a people? Will Bill S-7 divide us rather than bring us together?

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

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague knows, because he is a lawyer, section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms says that fundamental rights guaranteed under the charter are subject only to such limits as can be justified in a free and democratic society.

My question is for the government, which has many lawyers among its members. Is a violation of our fundamental rights, which were won by people who fought for them, justified in a free and democratic society? I do not believe so.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the hon. member thinks the position of the NDP is due to its job-killing carbon tax.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives probably think so. That clearly shows the government's perspective. It is ready to invent all kinds of reasons to put its right-wing agenda ahead of Canadians' interests.

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

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about personal security in the country, the other side seems to forget that there is far more danger to the residents in my riding from handguns than there is from terrorism. In fact, there were four funerals this summer of young men in their teens and early twenties as a result of handgun violence, all of them were from Somalia.

Our border is quite porous to the availability of handguns coming across the border. We are spending $92 billion to protect against imagined terrorism, but we are spending very little to beef up our security at the border and to keep these handguns out. Add to that the 22 people who were killed by listeriosis and a number of other people who were killed by tainted meat.

The government appears to have its priorities wrong. It is spending money tilting at imagined ghosts instead of getting at the real problems that make people feel insecure in country.

Could she comment on that?

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to offer my condolences to all families affected by gun violence and all the victims. It is a terrible scourge.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, the security of Canadians and fundamental freedoms are two elements that should be guaranteed by the government. Instead of guaranteeing Canadians' security and freedom, the government is creating a hierarchy in the defence of rights, freedoms and security. Instead of defending Canadians in their neighbourhoods against criminals who may live next door, the Conservatives are spending millions of dollars to protect against potential attacks. That is truly ridiculous. Canadians must be protected at home, in the streets, and not in an abstract way with a bill that will prevent a potential future attack.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak against Bill S-7, a bill designed to violate the civil and human rights of Canadians, a bill to amend the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act to allow a Canadian to be arrested without a warrant, imprisoned without having a fair trial and imprisoned for up to 12 months without even being charged with a criminal offence.

These fundamental changes were brought in by the Liberal government of the time in 2001, immediately after September 11. At that time, it was not a public policy discussion; it was a crisis management tool. Some of the provisions of the bill expired in February 2007 and, at that time, the NDP led the opposition to the renewal of these clauses and opposed the extension of the provisions. We were very proud to stand for human rights. It is unfortunate to see that through the Senate this bill is now back in front of us.

I remind people that there is a lot to learn from history. Maher Arar, a Canadian, was arrested without a warrant and was imprisoned without a fair trial. He was never charged. There was never a criminal offence. He did not do anything wrong. It was during that unfortunate period that he was not only sent to be tortured, but he was imprisoned in a coffin-like box for almost a year and eventually freed. During the O'Connor commission inquiry, there was a great deal of talk about the kinds of human rights violations against Maher Arar.

What we have in front of us is a bill that unfortunately would take away a tremendous amount of rights from an individual. We can have a secure country without having to violate the civil and human rights of individuals. We do not have to give up those rights.

The provisions in the amendments of the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act had been deleted since February 2007. The police from that time to now never saw the need to use any of the provisions. Also, no investigations needed to use them.

Many things have occurred, as my colleagues have talked about, such as the case of the Toronto 18 and the more recent case involving four people from the Toronto region, the bomb situation. In none of those situations did the police have to use any of these provisions. People did not have to be put in jail without charges or arrested without a warrant.

In many ways we actually do not need to do anything because police investigations have successfully dismantled terrorist plots all of those times. Why are we particularly concerned? It is because we have seen instances where some sectors of the community, especially the Muslim community, have been subjected to some of the unfortunate discriminatory measures.

The executive director of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ihsaan Gardee, talked about arresting people without any charges or warrants and stated that these kinds of measures posed a significant risk to the abuse of the powers conferred to the state. For an example, he said the ability to detain a person for 72 hours, compromising civil liberties when faced with a potential danger which has not yet happened, only dissolves the boundaries between civil rights and concrete national security concerns.

He went on to say that the council believes that the provisions already contained in the Criminal Code are more than enough to allow the policing authorities and courts to prevent terrorism-related offences before they are committed. He said that according to article 495, a person detained for reasonable motives must appear before a judge who can impose the same conditions as the proposed anti-terrorism measures. He then said that the judge can even refuse bail if he or she believe that the liberation of the person concerned constitutes a danger to the public.

In his opinion, the experience of the last 10 years has shown that Canada's Muslim communities would be disproportionately affected by the abandonment of civil liberties. It is even less clear how the distinction would be made in practice between acts linked to terrorism and other criminal acts. For example, the recent fire bomb attack incident in Ottawa against a Royal Bank branch before the G20 summit was treated as a criminal act of arson and no charges were laid under the anti-terrorism provision, et cetera.

The president of the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association of Toronto, Ziyaad Mia, and Nathalie Des Rosiers, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said that, in their opinions, the bill should not move forward, that it is unnecessary, that it does not offer any solutions and that there are substantial problems.

A very renowned lawyer, Paul Copeland, who is actually in the Order of Canada now, said that the provisions being examined or that were being debating would unnecessarily change the legal landscape in Canada. He said that we must not adopt them and that, in his opinion, they were not necessary. This man who has practised criminal law for at least 30 years. He went on to say that other provisions of the code provide various mechanisms for dealing with such individuals.

The Canadian Islamic Congress said that removing people's rights was problematic because some people may have legitimate concerns about themselves but know that if they speak out their family members overseas may suffer persecution. We have heard from many legal experts who have said that we are already very well protected under the Criminal Code. If we were not, how were the police able to solve a lot of the problems before they occurred.

They talked about having close working relationships with communities. Good policing means community based policing. When various activists or people who are very engaged in their communities hear of problems or notice suspicious things, if they trust the police because of a close working relationships with them, they very likely will talk to the police and deal with the problem before it happens. That kind of good, community based policing is what ultimately led to destroying the terrorism plot.

I also want to talk about security at the border. I have noticed there has been a recent massive layoff of people who keep our borders secure. It is not just the Canadian Border Service Agency that has suffered layoffs. As a result of the Conservative government cutting back millions of dollars to CATSA, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, we have seen massive layoffs of airport screeners. When we go through the security gate at airports, these are the people who help screen people to ensure they are not carrying objects that are dangerous and keep both our airlines and air travellers safe. A few months ago, 300 people were laid off in Toronto and a few hundred have just received their notice in the last few days. Therefore, we will have fewer people in the biggest and busiest airport in Canada.

The government says that it does not have enough money, which is why it has to lay off people who keep us safe and secure. However, the government has continued to charge significant fees for the air travellers security charge, which increased in April 2010. If individuals come on an international flight from other countries, they will be charged $25.91. For a domestic round trip it is close to $15. In this year alone the federal government has taken in $658 million in revenue from these so-called air travellers security funds. The government is actually making money from these fees to keep us safe but it is not putting that money into border airport screeners.

On one hand, we are losing jobs at a time when we need to create jobs. On the other hand, we have a bill before us that is supposed to keep us secure but, in actuality, as all the legal experts have said, the bill is not necessary because the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act already have the provisions.

The other concern with the bill is that it could be invoked to target individuals participating in activities, such as acts of protest or of dissent, which have nothing to do with a reasonable definition of terrorism.

I do not need me to remind members about what happened at the G20 Summit in Toronto. There were a series of human rights violations. People were arrested and some of them were not allowed to speak to lawyers. They were put into a detainment area where their human rights were violated. In some cases, women had to go to the washroom in public and they were humiliated. There were assaults that led to different charges against the police.

Various inquiries and studies have shown that sometimes, if the state feels it has the power to dominate, people's human rights can be violated, as we saw, unfortunately, during the G20 Summit protests in Toronto. In that case, it was partially because the Conservative government did not give the City of Toronto and the police enough time to prepare for security measures. The summit was imposed on the city even though the mayor at the time felt that having that kind of event in downtown Toronto was a huge problem. Unfortunately, the Conservative government did not listen to those concerns.

There are provisions in the bill that could be invoked to target individuals who want to express their dissent to existing policies, and there are other problematic areas.

For example, the institute released a report claiming that the various branches of government involved in the fight against terrorism in Canada received $19 billion more than what they would have normally received, or $69 billion with inflation. However, Bill S-7 is not clear on the financial costs to reactivate these measures. It is not clear how much it would cost taxpayers. This is at a time when CBSA officers are being laid-off. These measures expired four years ago. Why is this necessary since nothing much has changed from 2001?

I also want to mention some very serious studies that I would encourage my colleagues who are supporting the bill to read. An in-depth study presented to the Canadian Human Rights Commission talked about why this anti-terrorism bill was unnecessary. It quoted many legal experts from when it was Bill C-36. Reports from the Department of Justice also state the problems with the bill.

I urge my colleagues on the opposite side to not support Bill S-7, an act to amend the Criminal Code.

The House resumed from October 17 consideration of the motion that Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act. I want to state at the outset that New Democrats will be opposing the bill.

Since 2001, we have had an opportunity to revise the bill, which was adopted in reaction to a particular event that sent people into a state of panic. We have learned that there is actually no evidence to support such legislation. When these provisions expired in 2007, we found that there had been no investigative hearing and no situation that required a recognizance with conditions. Since 2007, the investigative hearing has only been used once as part of the Air India inquiry, but that led to no conclusive results. I am going to talk more about that later.

Bill S-7 has four objectives. The first is to amend the Criminal Code to authorize investigative hearings and authorize the imposition of the recognizance with conditions or preventative arrest. Second is to amend the Canada Evidence Act to allow judges to order the public disclosure of potentially sensitive information on a trial or an accused, once the appeal period has ended. The third is to amend the Criminal Code to create new offences for those who have left the country or tried to leave the country to commit a terrorist act, and finally, to amend the security of information to increase maximum sentences incurred for harbouring a person who committed or intended to commit a terrorist act.

I am going to focus on the investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions. I want to give some context here. New Democrats oppose the bill because it is an ineffective way of combatting terrorism and because it is an unnecessary and inappropriate infringement on Canadians' civil liberties. New Democrats believe that Bill S-7 violates the most basic civil liberties and human rights, specifically the right to remain silent and the right not to be imprisoned without first having a fair trial.

According to these principles, the power of the state should never be used against an individual to force a person to testify against himself or herself. However, the Supreme Court recognized the constitutionality of hearings. We believe that the Criminal Code already contains the necessary provisions for investigating those who are involved in criminal activity and for detaining anyone who may present an immediate threat to Canadians.

We believe that terrorism should not be fought with legislative measures, but rather with intelligence efforts and appropriate police action. In that context one must ensure that the intelligence services and the police forces have the appropriate resources to do their jobs.

I want to quote from Denis Barrette, a spokesperson from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, at the review by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on former Bill C-17, which was an earlier version of Bill S-7. Mr. Barrette said:

—the provisions dealing with investigative hearings and preventative arrests, which are intended to impose recognizances with conditions, are both dangerous and misleading. Debate in Parliament on these issues must draw on a rational and enlightened review of the anti-terrorism law. As we know, that legislation was rushed through Parliament after 9/11 in a climate of fear and under very considerable pressure from the United States....

At this point in time, what is the real objective need for these two provisions? From the time of their introduction in 2001 until their repeal in 2007, the only time they were used was in relation to the Air India case which, as you all know turned out, sadly, to be a total fiasco.

Since 2007, police investigations have succeeded in dismantling terrorist conspiracies using neither one of the provisions we are talking about today. Furthermore, since 2001—in other words, in the last 10 years—none of the investigations that resulted in charges or convictions required the use of these extraordinary powers, whether we're talking about the Khawaja affair, the Toronto 18 or, more recently, the four individuals in the Toronto region....

We know as well that these provisions could, as we see it, be abused. I am thinking here of the Air India case. We believe that Canadians will be better served and better protected under the usual provisions of the Criminal Code, rather than others that are completely unnecessary. Reliance on arbitrary powers and a lower standard of evidence can never replace good, effective police work. On the contrary, these powers open the door to a denial of justice and a greater probability that the reputation of innocent individuals...will be tarnished.

There are a number of concerns that have been raised with particular aspects of the legislation. It is important to note that sometimes it also gives Canadians a false sense of security. Again, what we need is appropriate resources to ensure that these activities are monitored and prosecuted where appropriate.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has a quote from the Supreme Court of Canada on national security from 2002.

The Supreme Court stated:

On the one hand stands the manifest evil of terrorism and the random and arbitrary taking of innocent lives, rippling out in an ever-widening spiral of loss and fear. Governments, expressing the will of the governed, need the legal tools to...meet this challenge.

It goes on to say, however:

On the other hand stands the need to ensure that those legal tools do not undermine values that are fundamental to our democratic society — liberty, the rule of law, and the principles of fundamental justice — values that lie at the heart of the Canadian constitutional order and the international instruments that Canada has signed. In the end, it would be a Pyrrhic victory if terrorism were defeated at the cost of sacrificing our commitment to those values. Parliament’s challenge is to draft laws that effectively combat terrorism and conform to the requirements of our Constitution and our international commitments.

Again, I think it is important that we balance the safety of Canadians and the need for Canada to play its role in combatting terrorism, domestically and internationally, with those civil liberty rights.

In an op-ed referring to Canada and 9/11, which was originally published on September 6, 2011, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association stated:

Prior to the attacks, we demonstrated a high level of commitment to certain core values -- rule of law, due process, equality, habeas corpus, presumption of innocence, and the absolute prohibition against torture. These values lay at the heart of our Constitutional and international law obligations.

We knew, from contemporary history, that the absence of such legal protections resulted in societies where exceptional measures became the norm. Such societies could devolve into accepting presumptions of guilt, secret trials, secret evidence, extrajudicial execution, arbitrary detention, torture, even ethnic cleansing and massacres. To prevent such devolution, Canadians knew that any incursion into civil liberties must be legally and demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society; unjustifiable incursions must be remedied.

It goes on to do an analysis about whether or not we, in Canada, can make that same claim today, and I will only read the sections that are actually applicable to this act. It states:

Our national security actions since 9/11 require our attention:

It talks about a number of things, including Afghan detainees and using immigrant and administrative processes and counter-terror initiatives.

However, the piece that I want to highlight is:

Canada seeks to re-introduce post 9/11 amendments to our Criminal Code that will enable interrogation and preventive detention without criminal charge. Civil liberties concerns include the undermining of due process, fair trial, and lower evidentiary thresholds to trigger proceedings.

These concerns are being raised on a number of fronts about the lack of due process.

Later on in its article, it acknowledges that:

...Canada has not taken the extreme legislative or administrative measures seen in other countries, including the United States, following 9/11.

However, it goes on to state:

But we have not always got it right. And when we fail to take timely action to provide accountability, transparency, and redress, we risk morphing from a state anchored on the rule of law and democratic guarantees, to a state that condones illegal actions and disregards human dignity.

Terrorists have little regard for human dignity, human life, human rights, or the rule of law. We cannot effectively fight terrorism and protect our national security if we operate from a paradigm that also disregards these objectives. If, as Canadians, we no longer shrink from the injustices of wrongful conviction; torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; racial profiling; arbitrary detention; impunity; then what exactly are we protecting?

I think that is a very good question, one that we need to ask ourselves as parliamentarians and as Canadians. I think that most Canadians would want to continue saying that we in Canada do protect those civil liberties, that right to due process.

I want to put into context where the Conservative government has missed an opportunity because the review of the Anti-terrorism Act was conducted over a number of years. Someone who did the analysis on it pointed out that the review that was supposed to happen at three years became the three-year review.

In 2007, the subcommittee on the review of the Anti-terrorism Act submitted a report. I want to quote from the minority report that was put forward by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh. I do not have time to read the whole report but many Canadians probably have not read that report and I just want to highlight a couple of the points that come back to the challenges we are facing with this bill before us.

In that report, the members noted:

Terrorism cannot be fought with legislation; it must be fought through the efforts of intelligence services combined with appropriate police action.

There is no act of terrorism that is not already a criminal offence punishable by the most stringent penalties under the Criminal Code. This is obviously the case for pre-meditated, cold-blooded murders; however, it is also true of the destruction of major infrastructures.

Moreover, when judges exercise their discretion during sentencing, they will consider the terrorists’ motive as an aggravating factor. They will find that the potential for rehabilitation is very low, that the risk of recidivism is very high and that deterrence and denunciation are grounds for stiffer sentencing. This is what they have always done in the past and there is no reason to think they will do differently in the future.

We must also consider that, when it comes to terrorism, deterrence has limitations. First, it will have very little impact on someone considering a suicide bombing. Second, those who decide to join a terrorist group generally believe that they are taking part in an historic movement that will have a triumphant outcome in the near future and that will see them emerge as heroes.

Therefore, one cannot expect that new legislation will provide the tools needed to effectively fight terrorism.

Legislation can, however, be amended if police do not seem to have the legal means needed to deal with the new threat of terrorism.

Consequently we must ensure that the proposed measure does not unduly disturb the balance that must exist between respect for the values of fairness, justice and respect for human rights, which are characteristic of our societies, while also ensuring better protection for Canadians and for the entire world community.

This is an important point. We have had the Supreme Court point this out and we have had civil liberties organizations point this out. It is the continuing need to balance the right to protect Canadians in terms of due process with our role domestically and on the world stage.

This dissenting report goes on to say that the Criminal Code already contains this solid arsenal of provisions for combatting terrorism. The Anti-terrorism Act has simply added two more that no police force has yet seen the need to use. Further in the report, it states:

But the ATA is also dangerous, because it is a frontal attack on a number of fundamental principles that underpin our system of law, the system that distinguishes us most sharply from the ideology motivating the terrorists who confront us.

The report continues:

The Civil Liberties Union and the Canadian Association of University Teachers drew up a long list of such principles, including: the presumption of innocence; the right to privacy and to be secure against searches and any kind of invasion of privacy; the right not to be stopped, questioned, arrested or detained based on mere suspicion or on racial, religious or ethnic profiling; the right of every individual to a public, just and fair trial, and the right to appeal; the right to make full answer and defence; the right to be secure against arbitrary imprisonment and torture; the right to bail while awaiting trial, and to have the validity of detention reviewed by way of habeas corpus; the right of asylum; the right to information and to freedom of the press.

We must also learn from our overreactions in the past when faced with danger. As the danger recedes, we feel obligated to compensate the innocent victims of useless measures taken out of fright.

Not only did these measures do nothing to increase our security, but we devoted a great deal of energy to them that could have been better employed in fighting the real danger more effectively.

Sadly, Canada does have a history of reacting to something that ended up not being a threat to Canadians' security at all. The report cites:

One example is the way we treated Canadians of Japanese origin during the Second World War. In 1942, 22,000 people of Japanese origin were arrested and detained, and their property confiscated. 75% of them had been born in Canada. And yet, government documents finally made public in 1970 revealed that both the Department of National Defence and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were convinced that Japanese-Canadians in no way threatened the country’s security.

I want to repeat that. It states, “...in no way threatened the country's security”. As a result of that, of course, the federal government eventually made an official apology and some financial restitution and put some money toward creating educational, social and cultural programs and activities.

However, it is an example of a response to a frightening world situation that unjustly penalized many Canadians.

During the First World War, some 5,000 Ukrainians were interned and 80,000 others were required to report regularly to the police. A number were forced to endure harsh living and working conditions and more than a hundred died during their internment.

There are other examples of how Canada has behaved in a way that many of us would argue did not respect due process and the liberties that many men and women in this country have fought so hard for.

Later in the report, it states:

Respect for our values is an important element in the war against terrorism. At the plenary closing session of the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security in Madrid on March 10, 2005, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan declared once again, “[T]errorism is a threat to all states, to all peoples.” He added,

[Terrorism] is a direct attack on the core values the United Nations stands for: the rule of law; the protection of civilians; mutual respect between people of different faiths and cultures; and peaceful resolution of conflicts.

But he then went on to say,

[T]errorism is in itself a direct attack on human rights and the rule of law. If we sacrifice them in our response, we will be handing victory to the terrorists… I regret to say that international human rights experts, including those of the UN system, are unanimous in finding that many measures which States are currently adopting to counter terrorism infringe on human rights and fundamental freedoms… Upholding human rights is not merely compatible with successful counter-terrorism strategy. It is an essential element.

In the conclusion of the report, one of the things that was recommended was a parliamentary oversight committee. This report was back in 2007. It states:

Canada is unique among western nations in its lack of a Security oversight committee. Over the course of the review we heard testimony from individuals and organizations who stressed the importance of creating a mechanism for overseeing disparate national security activities. In 2004 an Interim Committee of Parliamentarians on National Security was set up to make recommendations to the government of the day, it presented a report to Parliament in April of 2005 and on November 24, 2005, the government tabled a bill (C-81) to establish a National Security Committee of Parliamentarians.

This dissenting report goes on to say:

We would support recommendation 58 in the majority report. We would, however, further strengthen the recommendation to ensure that any Committee has authority to oversee all security agencies. In the examination of the Air India tragedy and the events surrounding the deportation and torture of Maher Arar, to cite but two examples, we have seen and heard of too many problems created when information is improperly shared or withheld from one agency to another.

The National Security Committee must in addition to providing a review function, be empowered to oversee current polices and conduct to ensure their adequacies. We have throughout the course of the review heard that vast amounts of information are deemed of national security interest and therefore inaccessible to the public or judiciary. Therefore, the proposed National Security Committee must be able to examine this information and where appropriate provide a graduated scale for the release of previously classified information.

Of course, over the years we have increasingly seen a government that withholds information. This is not part of this bill, but we recently we saw a very public feud between the government and the Parliamentary Budget Officer because of the government's refusal to release information and there were threats of court action in order to get information that the Parliamentary Budget Officer needs to do his job.

The same can be said to be true of many of the government departments. One almost needs a full battery of people working on access to information and analysis of the different ways this information is presented because when information is available, it is not presented in such a way that it is easily understandable and many times there are huge difficulties even accessing information which should rightfully be available to parliamentarians in order for them to do due diligence in doing their jobs.

This minority report went on to make a couple of recommendations. I will not read them all, but it states in part:

While the purpose of the ATA review was to examine the existing legislation and, while we cannot write an entirely new law, we would recommend that the existing ATA be terminated. However, if a new law were to be drafted, the following considerations should guide the process:

That new legislation seek to provide the utmost protection to, and not oppression of, our citizens;

That the new legislation be guided by the spirit and principles of the Charter;

That new legislation would prohibit “evidence” garnered from torture domestic or international, in our courts or tribunal;

That there be an absolute ban on sending people back to their country of origin or any other country where there is a reasonable risk of torture or death.

The reason I raised that report from 2007 in the context of the legislation that is now before us, Bill S-7, is that we can see that Bill S-7 largely disregards some of the recommendations that were made, principally around due process. We have a re-introduction of the clauses that were sunsetted around preventative detention and investigative hearings.

It is on those grounds that the New Democrats will be opposing the legislation.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been consultations concerning the provisions of the second budget bill dealing with members' pensions. I hope to receive the unanimous consent of the House for the following motion. It is a slightly edited version of what was proposed by the Liberal House leader yesterday.

I move that the House recognize that the provisions of Bill C-45 dealing with members' pensions should be enacted as quickly as possible and passed without further debate; that Bill C-45, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures, be divided into two bills: Bill C-45, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures; and Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act; and that Bill C-46 be composed of: (a) clauses 475 to 553 of Bill C-45 as it is presently composed; (b) a clause inserted before all of the other clauses to provide that this act may be cited as the pension reform act and; (c) a clause inserted after all of the other clauses to provide this act comes into force or is deemed to have come into force on January 1, 2013; that Bill C-46 be deemed to have been read the second time and deemed referred to committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read the third time and passed; that Bill C-45 be composed of the remaining clauses; that Bill C-45 retain the status on the order paper that it had prior the adoption of this order; that the law clerk and parliamentary counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary; and that Bill C-45 and Bill C-46 be reprinted.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Does the hon. Minister of State have the unanimous consent of this House for this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan for her very comprehensive overview of Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act. She has given us a very good history on why this bill is so problematic.

I was actually in the House in 2001 when the original anti-terrorism bill was passed. It is correct that there were the sunset clauses concerning preventative arrest and interrogation. Those were put in because they were such serious elements in that bill. That bill was rushed through. I really appreciate the comments the member made today about why this bill should not be supported.

One of the concerns that we in the NDP have is that every response by the Conservative government is a legislative response, such as new legislation, new clauses to the Criminal Code, as opposed to relying on what we believe is the Criminal Code that already has existing provisions and the fact that we should also be relying on and supporting resources for intelligence efforts and appropriate police action, not a new legislative agenda.

I wonder if the member might comment on that in terms of where we are now with this bill and the fact that we do not actually need new clauses, that the existing Criminal Code is sufficient, and that we should be supporting intelligence resources and law enforcement action as something that is more appropriate to this situation.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one does question why those clauses are back in the legislation because we have known since the review of the act was put in place that there are measures in the Criminal Code to deal with some of these matters. Except in one botched case with the Air India inquiry, these measures have not been used. We do wonder what the government's intention is by reinserting these two clauses in this legislation. Is it to cover its lack of inaction in terms of providing adequate resources to police and intelligence forces in order for them to do their job?

I did point out that we sometimes indicate to Canadians that we are passing legislation that will keep them safe but then we do not put resources into it to ensure that the people who are responsible for enacting the legislation are able to do their job. Arguably, this case is another example of the kind of smoke and mirrors that the Conservatives have become very good at when it comes to passing legislation but not putting the resources in place.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's excellent speech included reference to quite a few members of the community who articulated clear positions.

I, myself, do not see how it makes sense to reintroduce provisions into legislation that have basically proven ineffective because they have never been used. What does my colleague think the government is trying to achieve by reintroducing such harsh provisions into our legislation, f measures that have never been used since the legislation was created?

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Paul Copeland, a lawyer with the Law Union of Ontario, said, “First of all, I would like to make a comment with respect to the Air India case because it is the only time when provisions of the anti-terrorism law were invoked, and the circumstances surrounding it were quite strange. We characterize this episode as a fiasco and this description seems perfectly appropriate to me. In my opinion, the provisions that you are examining here in committee will unnecessarily change our legal landscape in Canada. We must not adopt them, and in my opinion, they are not necessary. Other provisions of the code provide various mechanisms for dealing with such individuals”.

It is a good question and one that we would hope the government is prepared to answer. What is the government's motivation? Many witnesses from across this country have talked about the fact that those particular measures, preventative detention and investigative hearings, either have not been used or, when they have been used, they have been used to no particular effect. Why is the government continuing with this kind of agenda?

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

Mr. Speaker, the question I have is about the general taking of civil liberties by the government. This is not the first occasion we have seen civil liberties being attacked and they are being attacked by the other side. In this particular case, we have the right to habeas corpus and the right to investigative hearings suddenly being thrown back on us as though this is the most important thing facing Canadians, and I doubt that most Canadians will believe that.

I wonder if my colleague could comment about the civil liberties aspect of this and how this is just another symbol of a government that does not seem to care a whole lot about civil liberties.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to put this into a broader context. This is an analysis from “The Impact of Post-Enactment Review on Anti-Terrorism Laws: Four Jurisdictions Compared”, from February 15, 2012.

I mentioned the review process that took place, and now we have a piece of legislation that disregards all of the concerns that were raised around civil liberties. There is a bit of a context, and what the review says is that:

Governments seem all too vulnerable to the pressure to react to terrorist violence with fresh legislation and they frequently try to ensure that the legislation is given as little opportunity as possible to impede the swiftness of that response. The fact that legislators are at a distinct disadvantage in this scenario from the outset due to their very limited access to security intelligence assessments means that the deliberation over the government's measures hardly ever occurs on an even playing field.

This is a review that took a look at a number of different jurisdictions and talked about Canada's lack of ability to actually review the effectiveness of its legislations and problems with that review process.

When this original piece of legislation, Bill C-36, was first enacted, it was in response to a very horrific incident that took many lives. Therefore, the government of the day reacted swiftly, but with an omnibus bill that did not allow the kind of oversight that is required on very serious measures that start to infringe on Canadians' civil liberties.

We then had the review process that gave the Conservative government of the day an opportunity to bring forward a piece of legislation that reflected these concerns from Canadians. However, once again, there was disregard for those concerns that had been raised around due process and civil liberties. Why is it that the Conservatives are continuing to disregard the concerns that are raised around due process and civil liberties?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to go back to that same point that my hon. colleague just ended on. We know these provisions were created right after September 11, 2001. In February of 2007, these provisions came up for review. They were brought to the House, were voted on and rejected by the duly elected officials of the House of the day. Is this another example of the government not having the ability to respect decisions that are made by elected officials in the House?

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. What we saw happening in minority governments, where members were expressing the will of the people, has now been disregarded. The Conservatives will often talk about having a strong stable majority, but the reality is that they got 39.8% of the vote. That is hardly a majority of Canadians who are reflecting their point of view.

One of the things the report says about fixing the deficiencies in parliamentary review of anti-terrorism laws is, “Anti-terrorism provisions are too radical to be left unscrutinized. Independent reporting may also serve to galvanize more regular and transparent policy thinking within executive governments, as it appears to have done in the United Kingdom.”

The government often touts that it is a leader in transparency and accountability. If that were actually the case, then there would be the kind of reporting and oversight that is very important for this kind of legislation.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am wondering whether the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan could provide the source of that report that she is quoting from? I just want see how those comments might be leaning.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

It is not really a point of order, but the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan may wish to respond.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are two reports. The first is the IRPP's Choices, “Fixing the Deficiencies in Parliamentary Review of Anti-Terrorism Laws: Lessons From the United Kingdom and Australia”. The other report is from the Journal of Legislative Studies entitled “The Impact of Post-Enactment Review on Anti-Terrorism Laws: Four Jurisdictions Compared”. This is the version of the record that was first published on February 15, 2012.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

We talked a few seconds ago about transparency and accountability. However, I think that the bill is yet another example of smoke and mirrors. It is intended to deflect Canadians from the things that are really important toward things that are not pressing or urgent. It is intended to scare and strike fear into the hearts of Canadians. Apparently, the Conservative government intends to govern this country through fear.

The bill would reintroduce measures that all parties agreed in 2007 should disappear, and they did. Those measures were severe incursions into civil liberties. As it turned out, the measures never were necessary to be used to combat any kind of terrorism that went on this country, and that is both for the terrorism we heard about and the threats I am sure the public did not hear about because the police were able to find it and stop it before it happened.

Why is this being reintroduced now? Why is the bill the single most important thing facing Canadians now and on the top of the agenda for the Conservative government to carry forward? I think the answer is because it would deflect Canadians from thinking about some of the more serious problems that are going on.

Apparently, the anti-terrorism bill turned out to be unnecessary in 2007, but the Conservatives are introducing it anyway. NDP members will not be supporting the bill, as we believe it is an unnecessary incursion into civil liberties.

I believe the government is perhaps being a little two-faced on the whole notion of civil liberties. Members will recall the rancour and rhetoric over the gun registry. During the past several months of the Conservative's term in office, the use of a gun registry was a huge incursion into a person's individual private right to own a firearm, which is, of course, an American right and not a Canadian one. Nevertheless, the Conservative government was saying we had to protect civil liberties. However, here it is saying that it wants to diminish civil liberties. I do not think it should go unnoticed that the government is two-faced about this.

As a union representative in my previous life, I often had to be on guard against employers and others who were attempting to create incursions into civil liberties under the guise of protecting their investments and public safety, and their profits ultimately. For example, although it was ruled by the Supreme Court to be in violation of Canadian law, employers often wanted to have the right to test the urine, saliva and blood of their employees. It was for no apparent reason but just because they wanted to. Unlike the United States, the courts in this country have determined that it is an unreasonable incursion into our civil liberties; yet, employers keep trying to do it. They keep trying to find ways to get around these laws.

One has to wonder what would happen if, as a result of these pressures by employers, insurance companies started to take these kinds of incursions into our civil liberties. I fear that if the insurance companies looking after our health and well-being were able to accomplish these civil liberty incursions, they would be able to refuse to insure people on the basis of something they discovered as a result of a saliva test or blood test that took place long before. We have to be ever vigilant against that.

On this side of the House, we are ever vigilant against incursions of our civil liberties. However, the Conservative government believes that it needs to rule through a climate of fear. It needs to create a sense of fear in the public of Canada so that Canadians will be cowed into being appreciative of the few good things the government might happen to do. If there is anything the government has proven over the past year and half, it is that it is single-mindedly using a law and order agenda as its entire raison d'être.

There is no reason that this particular piece of legislation should be top of mind. There are far more important things that we should be doing and that we should be afraid of. However, the government would rather distract us with threats that there are imminent terrorist attacks and we must therefore change the law to allow the forces of justice in this country to have access to things that it turns out they do not need.

We believe that as a result of the application of the original Anti-terrorism Act in 2001, that $92 billion has been spent, over and above what would normally have been spent, to combat terrorism in this country. Is that a just way of spending our money? I do not think anybody would be able to tell. However, if what we are doing is creating this climate of removal of civil liberties and spending money to do it, then we must be vigilant against that, and in turn perhaps save some taxpayer dollars.

The government wants us to be afraid of terrorism, economic turmoil in other countries and environmental groups, but it forgets that Canadians are afraid of more important things that are closer to home. We should be afraid of carbon dioxide emissions and what that is doing to the planet. The government has apparently turned a blind eye to that. It has decided that there will not be a reaction from the government to implement the Kyoto Accord, or any other method of restricting the use of CO₂ emissions to change our climate.

The other thing that is alarming Canadians is the ever-escalating price of energy, particularly in the east part of the country, and the imbalance that is created between the government's determination to ship our energy supply to other countries while starving other parts of the country of energy. We do not have a national energy strategy from the government. We do not have a security of energy, and people are starting to feel it. The government is clearly reacting in a way that is not in keeping with what Canadians are fearing.

There is a twisting of democracy going on. Canadians should be afraid of that. With the implementation of time limits, of prorogation, and with these giant omnibus bills that are coming forward to Parliament, we have a twisting of the democratic process, in such a way that Canadians ought to be afraid. The government would rather distract them with talk of terrorism than to actually get at the real problems that face Canadians.

It is also an example of the weird priorities of the government. We are the only ones talking about this because the government has not put up any speakers on this particular act. The government appears to think this is the most important thing facing Canadians. However, in terms of public safety, there are more important things that are closer to home that we should be talking about.

In my riding, there are gun crimes almost every month. In Toronto, six Somali youth were killed by handguns. We are not doing anything to combat the proliferation of handguns into our cities in this country. We would do something to take away some civil liberties and combat terrorism, but that is not what is killing people in this country. Handguns are killing people in this country, and certainly in the city of Toronto.

We also have the spectre of tainted meat. People are more afraid of tainted meat right now than they are of terrorism. Yet, the government's response is to say Canadians should pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, that things will be fine and this company will resurrect itself.

We have the very real problem of jobs. There are not enough jobs to go around. There is only one job for every five people who are unemployed, and we have no indication from the government of any strategy to deal with that, other than to suggest that more temporary foreign workers are necessary. We now have something like 300,000 temporary foreign workers who have come into this country.

The people in my riding are more afraid of losing their jobs than they are of terrorism. Yet the government's approach has been to bring forward an anti-terrorist bill as the most important measure that needs to be faced by Canadians and the most important fear that Canadians should have.

Therefore, the NDP will be rejecting the bill on the basis of the lack of accountability, transparency and the incursion into civil liberties that is going on in the bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member and concur with many of his thoughts, especially when he talked about the issue of priorities and the fact that there were many other things with which we could deal.

I must admit that I am a little surprised. He made reference to the omnibus bill, saying that it should have been broken down. I thought it was interesting that just yesterday the Liberal Party suggested that the omnibus bill in fact be broken down and the pension portion be taken out, yet the New Democrats said no to that. He made reference to priorities for the government. We would have thought that would be a priority for the NDP also, as opposed to wanting to protect our pensions possibly. Who knows?

Why did the NDP say no to allowing the omnibus bill to broken down to take out the pension issue? I agree with him that maybe the government is using this bill as a diversion. Would the member mind answering that specific question? Why did the NDP say no?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not privy to the conversations that went on behind the scenes on that, but I am aware that the omnibus bill is yet another example of the twisting of democracy by the government, creating systems of enormity that force the members on this side to vote against their consciences, even though there are things they may agree with in the bill.

The Prime Minister himself has expressed reservations about the use of omnibus bills as a method of getting many pieces of legislation done at the same time that have a wide variety of topics that need to be studied by different committees. Instead, this one will be studied by the finance committee. It is wrong, it should stop and we should watch out for it, as should Canadians.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague for his brilliant speech, in which he pointed out that the NDP supports the fight against terrorism and that Bill S-7 gives Canadians a false sense of security.

The bill does not provide police and intelligence services with the resources they need. We have the legal tools needed—in international treaties and the Criminal Code, for instance—to combat illegal terrorism activities.

What stood out for me was when my distinguished colleague said that the Conservative Party had spent $92 billion and had therefore poorly managed this project. Furthermore, in terms of people's quality of life, it completely ignored any notion of respecting human rights.

This bill acts as a smoke screen and avoids talking about the real problems. As for quality of life, Canadians care a great deal about their health and safety. Canadians want a national energy strategy and a national transit strategy. These are priorities and they would help tackle the real problems that the Conservative government refuses to talk about.

My questions, therefore, are as follows: will Bill S-7 take away the freedom of expression of Canadians who wish to demonstrate or engage in acts of dissent that have nothing to do with terrorism? Will it eventually lead to social profiling or labeling someone an environmental extremist for asserting their rights?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member has hit the nail on the head. This bill is a diversion. It is really not the most important thing facing Canadians. The most important things facing Canadians now are the economy, jobs and the ecology. Those things the Conservative government has refused to talk about or introduce matters dealing with those things and, instead, is giving us increased penalties for terrorism. I doubt there are terrorists who would read the bill and say, “I'd better not do that because the penalty went up”. It does not work that way. Increasing jail sentences for certain terrorist-related offences is not a deterrent. It does not stop terrorists from doing their jobs.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to debate Bill S-7, which originated in the Senate. I have a question. Why did it originate in the Senate and not in the House of Commons? The Senate is less democratically elected than the House of Commons. It is very important that it is the representatives of the public, not the people appointed by the Prime Minister, who debate these important bills.

Bill S-7 has four main objectives, which I will summarize here. First, it amends the Criminal Code in order to provide for investigative hearings and to allow for the imposition of a recognizance with conditions—the so-called preventive arrest; second, it amends the Canada Evidence Act to allow judges to order the public disclosure of potentially sensitive information about a trial or an accused once the appeal period has expired; third, it amends the Criminal Code to create new offences of leaving or attempting to leave Canada to commit a terrorist act; and fourth, it amends the Security of Information Act to increase the maximum penalty for harbouring a person who has committed or is likely to commit a terrorist act.

Again, the government is cracking down on imaginary terrorists. In 2001, the Chrétien government had similar provisions passed in the House. None of those provisions have been in effect since December 31, 2006. Since then, given the very small number of terrorist acts or presumed terrorists acts in Canada, the laws that were in effect between 2001 and 2006 have not been necessary.

Why was this bill introduced in the Senate? What motivated the government to introduce it? Let us not forget that it was the government that introduced this bill in the Senate. It was not a senator who did this on his or her own initiative. It was truly the government that introduced it and that is telling us that it is important.

What is motivating the government? What exactly should we be cracking down on? This bill will have serious repercussions for human rights in Canada. Canada has always been a world leader when it comes to human rights. They are enshrined in our Constitution.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine has about two minutes before question period will start and then he will have about four minutes after question period to conclude his remarks.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief.

I will be voting against the bill under consideration today, essentially because it will violate rights entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We must not take away basic human rights in Canada unless there are real, substantial, indisputable reasons to so do. There must be fundamental criteria to justify trampling on human rights. Quite frankly, I have not heard any in our debate on this bill. Furthermore, the Senate said quite the opposite.

We do not see why this bill should proceed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine has five minutes.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will resume where we left off before question period today.

The bill before us today could violate the fundamental rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is why I am opposed to the bill.

With respect to investigative hearings, the bill would allow for someone who is charged to be required to attend an examination and present evidence. This is certainly not a court in the traditional sense. The answers given during such a hearing cannot be used against the individual. However, the individual must attend and answer questions.

It is not standard practice for a judge to examine the so-called accused. This goes against Canada's legal principles. The judge must not play this role. Why would we create such a situation and force the judge to do so?

We must avoid violating the fundamental principles of justice. That is exactly why we insist that the judge remain neutral. But this bill would have the judge play the role of prosecutor. That goes completely against legal principles that have existed for hundreds of years.

I would also like to talk about recognizance with conditions. We are talking about preventive detention, without any charges. In other words, a person can be detained for up to one year without ever being charged. Once again, we need to really ask ourselves whether we live in a free and democratic society. Can someone really be detained for one year without any charges? Frankly, this is an outrage that violates the fundamental rights upheld in this country. It is completely unacceptable. In a free and democratic society, I would like to think that any reasonable judge would ignore this legislation.

Unfortunately, a bill that is simply nonsense and unconstitutional is being introduced in the House. This is a waste of our time and an insult to Canadians.

We already have legislative measures to deal with terrorist activities in Canada. I invite the members of the House to read the Criminal Code, which includes many items already dedicated to the matter, including for instance, section 83 onward.

Once again, I will ask the same question I asked earlier this morning: what has changed in Canada to justify this crackdown regarding charges of terrorism?

Parts of the Criminal Code already deal with this issue. The government is creating new parts that, in my opinion, will be inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Why not start with prevention?

Again, the government's approach is to deal with things after the fact. However, prevention would help avoid a situation or circumstances in which terrorism could threaten Canada.

In its 2012 budget, the Government of Canada cut $688 million from Public Safety Canada's budget, or 10% of its budget, which affected 1,300 Canada Border Services Agency officers. In total, 1,300 jobs were lost.

Again, it is a matter of prevention. In this case, prevention eliminates the need to get tough later.

That being said, there is no evidence of there ever having been any need to invoke our country's anti-terrorism laws. There have been very few opportunities to invoke our anti-terrorism laws that are currently in the Criminal Code, let alone the laws that were quickly passed following the events of September 11, 2001, which were in effect from 2001 to 2006. We do not need these laws because we already have all the tools we need. In the same breath, the Conservatives insist on cutting budgets and thereby putting the Canadian public at risk.

Why not focus on prevention? I would truly like to understand the Conservatives. Often, they come up with bills for the optics of it all, when in reality they are making such extensive budget cuts that it is becoming impossible to protect the Canadian public. Let them introduce a meaningful bill that truly addresses the problem instead of this farce from the Senate.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have had an opportunity to get a better understanding of the bill. The most significant changes in it are the increased penalties and fines and so forth. This is not going to prevent terrorist acts. Some would-be terrorist is not going to stop participating in or committing a terrorist act because the fine has substantially increased.

Given the fact that we have a limited amount of time to debate a wide variety of issues and the government has now brought forward another huge omnibus bill that needs to be debated, could the member tell us whether he believes the government's priorities are right when it comes to dealing with the legislative agenda of the House.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Winnipeg North for his question.

In my opinion, the government is not on the right track. Once again, the government wants to crack down. The Conservatives are introducing bills in the House to solve problems that, frankly, do not actually seem to exist.

I would like to remind members that when this bill was debated in the Senate before it arrived in the House, the testimony showed that there were no examples of actual cases where this legislation could have been used. Let us think about the Toronto 18. In that case, the measures already set out in the Criminal Code were more than sufficient to deal with the situation, this dreaded risk of terrorism.

Since then, we have seen that the existing and available laws in this country are completely sufficient. Is the government on the right track with Bill S-7?

It seems that the government is selling a product to Canadians. It is trying to lead Canadians to believe that they should be afraid, that they should hide and that only the Government of Canada can defend them. That is not the case.

We already have before us all the tools we need—tools that were debated in minority parliaments and agreed upon by all the parties across Canada. It is really unfortunate to be in a position where a single party is trying to run everything, because that leads to absurd measures such as Bill S-7, which, in my opinion, is unconstitutional.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague from Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine a fundamental question about practices in this Parliament. We have two Houses in this Parliament. This substantive legislation would change laws that will affect civil liberties and human rights in this country.

Could my hon. colleague explain to me why the government felt that the bill should be introduced in the unelected House, the House that is full of government appointees, its friends, rather than the House that has representatives from across the country who were duly elected by Canadians?

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine has 50 seconds.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief.

I thank the member for Scarborough—Rouge River for the excellent job she does. She works very hard for her constituents. I think we should applaud her for everything she has done since being elected.

It is true that introducing a bill in the Senate means introducing it in a chamber that is full of unelected people who, in my opinion, do not adequately represent the Canadian people.

Bills, especially ones that are so fundamental they change an accused's right to defend himself, should be the prerogative of this country's elected members, who are able to debate, make amendments, testify and invite witnesses.

The Senate should not be the chamber to introduce this kind of bill. That is undemocratic. The Senate does not really have a place in a modern state like Canada. The Conservative government should be ashamed of trying to bypass the House of Commons. The debate should be held here.

If this bill passes second reading, it will be sent to committee. This bill should have been sent to the House of Commons committee from the beginning. That is where the debates should be held. Canada's elected members should debate this fundamental bill. I would like—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The hon. member was out of time two or three minutes ago.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.

Today I rise alongside my colleagues, to speak against Bill S-7, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act. The bill goes against the values of Canadians. It infringes upon civil liberties and human rights, a repeated theme among the actions of the government, I must add. It has measures that have been proven to be unnecessary and ineffective.

I would like to be clear. The New Democratic Party believes that it must seriously address the issue of terrorism. Keeping Canadians safe is of the utmost priority. However, we also must ensure respect for our rights and freedoms. The provisions in the bill fail to balance our need for security and our basic fundamental rights. Both are equally important to Canadians and espouse Canadian values.

Bill S-7 is the most recent iteration and measure of a series of anti-terrorism laws that began with Bill C-36, tabled in 2001. The Anti-Terrorism Act, tabled in 2001, was enacted to update Canadian legislation and respond to international standards, specifically the requirements of the United Nations, as well as to actually present a legislative response to the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

The provisions of the act remain in place today, except for two of the troubling provisions: the investigative hearings and the recognizance with conditions. The bill was adopted in response to a horrific event on September 11, 2001, which we all know too well. It left people in a state of panic and fear.

The excessive provisions in the act expired four years ago. A sunset clause was rightly added to these provisions back in 2001, with certain provisions to expire in 2007. This was following concerns that were raised during the legislative process in 2001 that these measures, without any precedent in Canada, could have been used inappropriately.

In order to extend these provisions, both Houses of Parliament must adopt a resolution to that effect. In February of 2007, when they expired, such a resolution was rejected by the House of Commons, with a vote of 159 to 124, because the controversial provisions had not even been used. We now have learned that there is no empirical evidence to support such legislation. When the provisions expired in 2007, there had been no investigative hearing and no situations that required a recognizance with conditions. Actually, I must add that the investigative hearing has been used once since it was created in 2001, as part of the Air India inquiry, but that led to no conclusive results.

New Democrats oppose the bill because it is ineffective in combatting terrorism. In a parliamentary review of the bill, committees heard over and over from stakeholders and experts that the current Canadian legislation was sufficient. It begs the question, why is the government choosing to ignore experts? We all know this will not be the first time that the government chooses to ignore experts in the field and writes erroneous legislation based on its own ideology.

The committee heard that the Criminal Code has sufficient provisions to investigate those involved in criminal activity and detaining anyone who might be an immediate threat to Canadians. In a 2011 review by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Bill C-17, the former version of Bill S-7, a spokesperson for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said that between 2007 and today, police investigations have successfully dismantled terrorist plots without having to resort to any of the provisions discussed here. Also, even since 2001, or for 10 years, among the investigations leading to accusations or convictions, none required the use of these extraordinary powers, including the Khawaja case, the Toronto 18 case, or more recently, the case involving four people from the Toronto region.

In addition to the fact that the bill will be ineffective in combatting terrorism, I want to stress the point that Bill S-7 stomps on basic civil liberties and human rights.

Our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is fundamental to Canada and to Canadians. We cherish the charter. Yet over and over again, we see legislation from the government that tramples upon Canadian values.

What is even more alarming is that, as experts have indicated, this infringement on rights and freedoms is completely unnecessary and utterly ineffective. Yet, the government goes ahead anyway.

A spokesperson from the International Civil Liberals Monitoring Group said the use of arbitrary power and “a lower level of evidence” cannot replace the properly carried out work of the police. “On the contrary, these powers open the door to a denial of justice” and the substantial likelihood of ruining the reputation of innocent individuals, as was the case for Mr. Arar.

These kinds of decisions reveal a government that does not respect Canadians or Canadian values. We believe on this side of the House that Bill S-7 violates the most basic civil liberties and human rights, specifically the right to remain silent, the right to not incriminate oneself and the right to not be imprisoned without first having a fair trial.

Experts have warned that Bill S-7 would make it punishable by imprisonment for up to 12 months, or impose strict conditions on the release of individuals who have never been charged with a criminal offence. We believe this goes against the core values of our Canadian justice system.

Moreover, the provisions in the bill could be used to target individuals participating in activities, such as active protest, dissent, which has absolutely nothing to do with the reasonable definition of terrorism.

Canadians take their rights and responsibilities to protest to heart and use them to make their voices heard. The arbitrary nature of the provisions in the bill could certainly lead to an abuse of power, and we have seen that happen many times by the government.

Canadians would not be better protected by legislation that infringes upon their rights and freedoms, but rather they will be better protected with intelligence efforts and appropriate police action.

Canadians are tired of seeing actions and legislation that show such a lack of respect for our Canadian values. Let me conclude by reminding the members opposite that actions and legislation that show such a lack of respect for Canadian values creates a disconnect between policy-makers and the needs of the people they represent.

The Criminal Code contains all of the provisions necessary to fight terrorism. Yet here we are, discussing a bill that shamefully infringes on our civil liberties and human rights.

Sadly, the bill is yet another example of the government missing the mark on writing sound legislation. The bill, as it stands, has no balance between the need for security and the protection of the fundamental rights of Canadians. Therefore, I cannot support the bill.

As many experts in the field have said, it is quite unnecessary and full of holes. It introduces concepts that are foreign to our Canadian values and it risks causing many more problems than those that it actually solves.

Canadians expect the government to prioritize tangible job creation in our communities across the country, measurable environment protection and real action for community safety, not the infringement of our basic human rights and freedoms.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her excellent speech. She touched on some extremely important points in this bill.

I noted several of the things she said, including her comment about the lack of respect the Conservatives have for Canadians by introducing a bill that will violate our fundamental rights.

Can the hon. member elaborate on the fundamental rights that are being totally violated with Bill S-7?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are many Canadian values and rights that are being violated with this bill. I outlined a few in my speech earlier, and they are the right to remain silent and the right to not imprison or convict oneself. Recognizance with conditions actually requires people to pledge that they understand there is something wrong in their cases, before they even have an opportunity to have a trial or appear before a judge. That is not a Canadian value. In Canada, our justice system says that one is innocent until proven guilty. The recognizance with conditions says a person agrees that he or she may have done something. If people want to get out on bail, they would be signing something saying they may have done something. That is really not how we act in Canada.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of ethnic communities in my colleague's riding. Many communities fear that this will lead to racial profiling.

I would like to know whether any of the communities in her riding have commented on this bill.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to recognition and understanding of some of the other ridings in the country, she is very right. She is bang on when she says there is an extremely high population of newer immigrants in my riding, and we are already concerned. Before Bill S-7 was introduced, we were already concerned about racial profiling. If we look at our prison populations, we see mostly racialized youth being detained.

We know racial profiling is a serious concern for many organizations and members in the community, and when we look at some of these bills, it seems it is an underhanded way of achieving some of the goals the government was not able to achieve in previous Parliaments. Now that the government has the majority of seats in the House, it wants to push anything and everything through that it could not achieve before.

We know that the House voted down the special provisions that were not needed and not used from 2001 to 2007 when they were in effect. The investigative hearing was used once, and the recognizance of conditions was never used.

Officers and legal experts in this country are saying they are not necessary, yet the government, of course, says it is very necessary for the protection of Canadians. I am going to side with the experts on this and not the government.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill S-7 today because it is a bill that comes to us from that wonderful other place. That other place is the gift that keeps on giving. This is one of those rare and special opportunities to see the senators at work during their very, very long mandate. We might forget they exist sometimes. Alas, Eppur si muove, and yet it moves, as Galileo said.

I would like read the title of Bill S-7 to put things into context. The title is: An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act. Behind this rather banal title lies a series of measures that seek to amend our anti-terrorism laws. All these changes originate in the panic that followed the events of September 11, 2001, and for good reason. The west woke up one morning with a very real threat at its doorstep. Our American neighbours were hit hard, and we all came to realize that the North American fortress might be much more vulnerable than we ever thought.

Since then, we have been trying as best we can to balance our fear, our lack of understanding and our ability to defend ourselves. It is quite normal to want to protect one's country against terrorism. It is also quite normal to want to help one's neighbour and closest ally. In spite of their great expertise, Americans have had to face terrorism in the worst possible way: their country was attacked and their citizens killed without warning.

However, Canada has little experience with terrorism. Our country has practically never been attacked by a foreign power, other than the United States, and it is probably not a top target for anyone. That does not mean that we must not be prudent. Just the same, I want to remind everyone that the threat, although possible, is really a perceived threat.

For Canadians, acts of violence and terror over the years have amounted to the occasional shooting, except for the Air India incident in 1987. The destruction of the Air India Boeing by a bomb off the coast of Ireland was a brutal wake-up call for our security services. It is a shameful tragedy that laid bare our weaknesses. One year later, there was the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie. Air safety is no longer what it used to be before that.

Shootings in Canada—I am thinking of École Polytechnique and Dawson College—are not acts of terrorism. We were all shocked and alarmed by these horrific incidents, but they were isolated attacks and not politically motivated. To prevent these desperate acts of violence, we created the long gun registry, which the Conservatives are trying to abolish as quickly as possible. Bill S-7 would not have prevented these isolated acts of terror that took place in Canada on a number of occasions.

I lived in a country where terrorism is an everyday threat. People always have to be on their guard in Moscow. Before getting onto the subway, they glance suspiciously at the other passengers. In very busy public places, people are always gripped by the fear that something could happen. There are often serious attacks in Russia.

Simply sending a parcel through the Russian postal service is quite an undertaking. People have to wrap their parcel in front of the postal worker, who then seals the package with special tape. It can easily take 30 minutes. It is a simple act of everyday life that has become very complicated by the fear of fear. I am not criticizing the Russians; they manage this situation the best they can within their means.

No matter what anybody says, Canada has never known such a climate of fear. Although some members of this House like to describe certain current political parties in Quebec as extremist, I would like to remind everyone that Québec solidaire has nothing to do with the Front de libération du Québec. Really, people can rest easy.

We could also talk about domestic terrorism, which is a much more insidious threat, because no one wants to imagine that it is possible. Two years ago, who could have predicted a terrorist attack right in the middle of Oslo, Norway, the most peaceful, most prosperous, most educated and nicest country in the world? No one could have.

What does Bill S-7 propose to combat terrorism and better protect Canadians? I would not say nothing at all, but almost nothing. The original aim of the Anti-terrorism Act was to update Canadian laws to meet international standards, particularly UN requirements, and to provide a legislative response to the events of September 11, 2001.

Since 2001, we have had an opportunity to review that legislation, which was passed in response to a specific event that threw people into a state of panic. We have since learned that there is actually nothing to justify such a law. When those provisions expired in 2007, there had never been any investigative hearing required or any situation that called for recognizance with conditions.

Canada's Anti-terrorism Act was brought in line with similar legislation passed by our traditional allies. Furthermore, the Criminal Code contains plenty of provisions to deal with such matters efficiently and quickly, and without violating anyone's basic human rights.

Bill S-7 would also take away fundamental civil rights. We understand that the threat of terrorism is elusive, unpredictable and can easily escape our vigilance. But we must not become completely paranoid. As I said earlier, although it is always possible, Canada is not a target for anyone.

The whole spirit of Bill S-7 is much more about the need to protect the United States. It is as though we were implicitly accepting that Canada itself is not threatened, but could be used as a conduit. We are afraid of being a waiting room for the United States, where jihadists come to prepare their bombs. Is that it? We have to wonder whether this is simply a request from the United States, as was the case in 2001, but I doubt it. It is definitely no longer 2001, and the United States has turned a page and is no longer putting the same kind of pressure on Canada.

So why insist on bringing back clauses that expired in 2007? Why the urgency? Why is the Senate sending us this uninspired legislation that is 10 years old? What are we to make of this unforeseen development?

I can think of two explanations. First, this bill has come to Parliament to distract Canadians from the government's paltry legislative agenda. The government also has to show that it uses its Senate caucus from time to time. If it is going to serve us legislative leftovers, it might as well send them out from the Senate kitchen. Canadians do not know where the senators are coming from. Maybe they are stuck in some kind of parliamentary twilight zone. The senators have nothing to worry about because they are not accountable to the Canadian public and will not have to answer to voters in three years. We might as well say they are accountable only to God himself.

The other possible explanation is that the Conservative government wants to get rid of these sunset clauses once and for all, since they are no longer applicable because they were never used. I think that the government does not even want them and is debating Bill S-7 without really believing in it. I cannot wait to see the results of the vote at second reading, because I think that Bill S-7 is nothing more than an attempt to show that the senators do work. That is too bad; there were bills from the other place that were much more relevant and substantial. The Senate is filled with talented, intelligent, accomplished people. It is time to make use of them.

One of the things that bothers me the most about this Senate bill is that this is not the first time we have debated this issue. Witnesses have come and told us in no uncertain terms that some provisions of this bill create glaring problems. The legislation that is being introduced again has never been used and may never be. People explained that to us in great detail. Clearly, no one is thrilled about these provisions. They are not of interest to anyone and do not serve anyone. In fact, they create more problems than they solve, which is somewhat counterproductive.

I have also lived in a country where the police had too much arbitrary authority and where almost anyone could be arrested anywhere, at any time and for any reason. There are not 75 different ways to become a police state. The first step is to give too much discretionary power to security services on the pretext of all sorts of potential and invented threats. We must not take that step.

Why start compromising our civil liberties now, 11 years after the events of September 11, when the days of the war on terrorism started by President Bush are pretty much over? Why?

I would like to quote one of the witnesses, Ihsaan Gardee, the executive director of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations. He said:

Some legal commentators have argued that there is a narrow gap within the Canadian context in which preventive detention has utility. However, there are significant risks associated with overreaching state powers, such as the ability to detain someone for up to 72 hours. To jeopardize civil liberties for a potential yet unrealized circumstance pushes the boundaries between civil rights and concrete national security concerns.

In other words, it is like getting on a train when we do not know exactly where it is going to take us. We have never acted this way in this country. We will not do it now, and we will never do it. We are more intelligent than that, and if ever there are threats that need to be dealt with, I am convinced that our existing laws will be sufficient to get the job done.

In conclusion, I would like to remind the hon. members that this bill is a rather sad collection of provisions that do not amount to much of anything. These issues have already been debated. The bill goes against what everyone agreed upon and is extremely disappointing. I have the right to expect that, when the other chamber thinks it is appropriate to send a bill to the House of Commons, it will make the effort to suggest relevant solutions. That is not the case here, and I am very disappointed.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to thank my colleague for her very rational, fact-based arguments about the bill and why we should be opposing it.

I want to tell her that I was in Parliament in 2001, when the original anti-terrorism bill, Bill C-36, was basically rushed through Parliament. There was very little examination and the one thing we were able to do was to get those sunset clauses included so that there would be a review on the two key issues of interrogation and preventative detention. This is what is coming back to us now, after so many years of various attempts to have this legislation come back.

I am very glad that she has given an overview of what this legislation is about.

I guess the thing that really bothers me is that what we see from the Conservative government is a pattern, that for every problem it defines, and it is not necessarily a problem, the only answer it can come up with is some new piece of criminal legislation. This is exactly what is happening here.

We know, for example, that the sunsetted clauses were only used once. It really begs the question as to why these provisions are needed. I think it is probably more important that we provide support to law enforcement agencies for enforcement, for intelligence gathering, rather than saying, “Well, the answer is another new law”.

I wonder if the member would comment on that.

I liked her analogy that we are getting on a train with no idea where it is going. I think she was right on when she said that.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Vancouver East for her question. It had not occurred to me, but yes, she was here in 2001 when this legislation was first passed and she therefore has a unique perspective to offer.

I completely agree with her regarding the fact that there is something really twisted about how the Conservatives always seem to find new ways to bring the Criminal Code into every piece of legislation. Their response to any situation that arises is always to introduce a new bill that creates another offence, when in fact, many other things could be done. Other measures could be much more useful and effective than this kind of legislation.

I would like to say a huge thank you for all of her hard work on this matter.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for her excellent speech.

Following from the previous question, I would like to ask a supplementary to that.

We know that the government is introducing provisions that have already been voted down by the House in 2007 and that these provisions were introduced just after September 11, 2001.

The government's response to everything is, “Let's change the Criminal Code and add something else”. We know that it writes legislation for anything that is happening in the country, saying, “Let's change the Criminal Code”.

Is this because the government thinks that there are more criminals in this country than there are good-quality Canadian citizens? I do not understand. We should be writing legislation and making policy for the norm in the country, for the majority of the people in the country, not for the exceptions. We know that these provisions were not used when they were put into place.

Would my colleague please comment?

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River for her question, because I know she really understands these issues. As we can see from her question, she has a good grasp of a big part of the problem.

These provisions have never been used, as the member just said and as I said in my speech, and yet the Conservatives want to reintroduce them. This is simply paranoia. Instead of looking at what can really be done to improve the lives of Canadians, the Conservatives are imagining catastrophic scenarios in which nasty criminals pose a serious threat, when that is not at all the case.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege today to speak against the legislation.

Bill S-7 would amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act. These are weighty matters when we are talking about the security of the country. Opposing the bill is not a position that we take lightly. Whenever we move legislation and develop new statutes, we always need to carefully weigh whether they are effective tools. If they are effective tools, we need to know how they will be used and what the costs will be? I would argue that this legislation would not be an effective tool to either stop or deter actions of terrorism.

Elements of the legislation, which are being brought back after the sunset clause expired, were brought in at a time when the world was gripped with the incident on 9/11. I do not think I need to ask if people remember where they were on that particular date. We all remember where we were as we watched with horror that whole scene play out before us.

In response to the terrible act of terrorism that occurred on that day, there was a quick reaction around the globe to look for a quick fix, that one thing that would fix it and ensure such an event would never occur again. However, we know from our history that there is no magic pill.

When these particular clauses were in effect, the ones that have now expired and the government is trying to bring back, they were only invoked once and that was during the Air India investigation. I do not think anyone would disagree when that was characterized as being one of our biggest fiascos. We have statutes, laws and systems in place to tackle the issues that this legislation purports to tackle.

What we need to look at is the broader scourge of terrorism. If there is no magic pill, what are some of the effective tools that we should be utilizing? Intelligence would be one of them and enforcement would be another. The government should be looking at investing in these areas and ensuring that enforcement has the resources it needs in order to utilize the tools it has right now.

We must oppose the bill because it would be so ineffective at combatting terrorism. It also would unnecessarily infringe on our civil liberties, which we value. We live in a country where we have a parliamentary democracy, we live by the rule of law and we value our freedoms. Bill S-7 would violate one of the most basic civil liberties and human rights, specifically, the right to remain silent and the right not to be imprisoned without first having a fair trial. We need take time to reflect on that because, when we start moving away from those Canadian values, we need to ask ourselves what we are putting at risk.

The Criminal Code currently contains all the necessary provisions for investigating those who are engaged in criminal activity and law enforcement has the ability to detain anyone who may present an immediate threat to Canadians. We can look at this and ask why we are debating this in the House today. I would say that we are debating it in the House today because the government is trying to deflect from its lack of action on key issues that are very important to Canadians and important to the security of our communities. It is a way to distract from the massive changes that are being made to our immigration policies. It is a way to distract from the fact that many Canadians are without work. It is a way to distract from the budget, or, I should say, the telephone book, that will be before the House in the next few days.

We have all this talk about terrorism. After 9/11, it was not a good time to be joking about terrorism, but the world was engaged in trying to find out where Osama bin Laden was. I can remember wondering where we were looking. I will always remember something that was said to me by a dear friend of mine. She said that he was probably sitting in a New York cafe drinking lattes, wearing an Armani suit, while everybody else was running around.

At that time, there was this fear around the globe, and I would say especially in North America and Europe. We were looking for ways to take control of terrorism. the one thing we have learned over the years is that this is a scourge that is not that easy to take on. Terrorists do not go around wearing signs saying that they are terrorists and that they should be picked up and taken in for questioning.

When we create new legislation, we need to create legislation that will be effective, useful and do what it purports to do. There is no way that this legislation would achieve what it claims to achieve. There is definitely a huge imbalance in this bill between security and the basic rights that we value as Canadians.

I wish I could get the opposition to focus on tackling some of the real issues facing communities around the country. I will talk a little bit about my riding of Newton—North Delta. We are very concerned about the safety of our communities in Surrey and North Delta. One of the reasons we are really concerned is that we are very worried about the high level of gun violence we have seen over the last number of years.

What we are looking for is some action, some support, some strategies and some commitment of resources to combat that kind of gun violence that is taking place on our streets and having an impact on our youth in a huge way. I do not have enough fingers on both my hands to count the number of young people we have lost due to gun violence.

When it comes to gun violence, all we get is the government saying that it will do away with the gun registry. That really did not help to tackle that problem. Then we hear about firmer sentences. I want to remind everyone that the U.S. has what I would consider one of the firmest sentences, and that is the death penalty. I am so pleased that we do not have that. It has the death penalty and, despite that, gun violence and violent crime have not declined. It also has the highest level of people in prisons. That also has not led to crime or gun violence being reduced.

What is it that we as government should be looking at? I think it is time for all levels of government to invest in a serious way in education. It is time we take seriously that we need to tackle the issues that drive our youth toward violence, the drug trade and gang activity. We need to tackle issues such as poverty, homelessness, mental illness and economic insecurity, that feeling of not belonging. There are so many things we need to tackle and yet what do we have in front of us?

We have a bill in front of us that actually attacks two of our most valued basic rights: the right not to be imprisoned without first having a fair trial and the right to remain silent. In a way, those measures would do absolutely nothing to tackle terrorism. If we are really talking about the security of the nation, we should look at our communities across Canada and ask ourselves what we can do to tackle the root causes of our young and not so young getting engaged in a world of crime and being enticed by that kind of lifestyle.

Our focus should be fully on that issue but I see very little of that from across the way. We hear a lot about more prisons, higher sentences and sentences for minor infractions, almost as if sending people to prison and punishing people will solve our problems.

One of the things I have learned as a teacher is that positive reinforcement and preventive measures are far better tools and much cheaper, meaning not so hard on us emotionally or financially, than going down the punitive road, especially with legislation that will do nothing, but on paper it will give the PMO another opportunity to write speaking notes to say that the government is tackling terrorism.

Our legislation should not be there just for the purpose of giving the PMO an opportunity to make more speaking notes, especially when the legislation will not achieve the results it purports it is trying to tackle. Instead, we need to ask parliamentarians to start tackling the facts that tell the federal government that we need a national strategy on affordable housing. We need to seriously tackle the child poverty rate in this country. Some people will ask what that has to do with safety and security. I cannot imagine anything more critical to our safety and security than ensuring our children are fed, housed and educated. That is what we are all about.

It does not matter where we have come from, what we value as Canadians right across this country is living in safe communities. However, we also know that punitive measures do not necessarily achieve safe communities. As a teacher, I realize and recognize, and I am sure others do as well, the value of putting money into preventative measures.

For the youth in our cities who are struggling, let us invest some money into some prevention programs. A lot of those community programs that used to keep our kids off the street and used to help them develop the skills to integrate into society and to be productive members of our communities have been cut. The funding to those programs is gone.

This is just so it looks as if we are doing something. We are spending hours debating this piece of legislation, while people in our communities are asking us what we are doing to tackle the issues that are hurting them right there at home.

Over the last number of years, when the Liberals were in power, my community saw a task force on gang violence. It led nowhere. People getting together just to talk is not going to solve the problem. We need the funding to put action and programs into place. I appeal to my colleagues across the way to take a look at the security of our communities and work together to develop strategies and action plans. Then, let us apply the resources so that our communities can feel safe and we can tackle this disconnect that our youth are feeling and therefore being enticed into drug-related gangs that do a lot of harm in our communities. It would probably take a lot less money than some of the measures purported in the bill, which would actually lead to no change at all and would probably hardly ever be used.

To put somebody in prison for a year, I believe, the cost is now over $80,000. Yet right across this country, we are not willing to spend more than $8,000, $9,000, $10,000 or for some about $12,000 a year to educate our children. We have to look at investment in education but also investment in the early years, because we know how important those years are to young people as they proceed through life.

We should also talk about other areas we could be investing in. I was quite taken aback when I read some of the staggering figures in here. The Rideau Institute released a report that said that the various branches of government that are involved in the fight against terrorism in Canada received $92 billion more than they would have normally received. That is quite a staggering figure. Obviously, money is not the issue here. It is about where we want to allocate our resources. If we really want to tackle security for our communities, let us deal with issues that can make a real difference.

Let us not fake it with a bill that purports to bring back a couple of clauses that were used only once, which was a disaster, and have not really been missed. The police and intelligence officers already have the resources and statutes they need to keep us safe and secure. Instead, let us look at how we can support the structures we have and how we can invest in prevention and rehabilitation programs. One thing I have learned is that when looking at rehabilitation, hitting somebody on the head is not how to get them to reform their ways. It usually takes a lot more than that and that is where we have to make our investment, because our children deserve nothing less.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member opposite clearly knows there is a difference between combatting terrorism, which is worldwide, and trying to prevent it from coming to Canada or occurring in Canada, and fighting domestic crime in our streets. The member somehow equates them as being one and the same. Of course, they are not.

She talked about providing more education programs for our youth and investing more money in education, but there is one thing I never heard her say, unfortunately, and maybe it is because she does not think that parents have a responsibility to give good guidance to their children. I think the NDP believes that the government should bring up our kids and not their parents. She knows that the household environment that kids are brought up in is led by the parents. If the parents are not responsible and do not provide a meaningful household environment to bring their kids up in, the children are going to look elsewhere for comfort. It may be a street gang or they may quit school early because they are not being encouraged by their parents to stay in school.

Simply throwing money at the problem and not getting to the root of the problem of irresponsible parents is not an answer, as New Democrats would have us believe.

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

Mr. Speaker, introducing a bill that reintroduces clauses that were never used and add no value is also not a way to tackle serious terrorism issues. I understand the difference and I find it outrageous, standing here as a mother, a grandmother and a teacher who has dealt with hundreds, if not thousands, of students during my career, to hear a parliamentarian put the blame squarely on families when children get into difficulties.

I believe that raising a child is the job of the whole village or community. Parents absolutely play a critical role, but not every parent has the resources, skills or tools to spend time with their children. Not every parent has affordable housing. Not every parent has an income that allows them to feed their children. Not every parent in this country has the luxury of spending more time with their children, because they have to work two or three jobs in order to make ends meet.

I would say that this is a societal problem and we, as a society, have to address it. Parents play a critical role but so do governments. Let us not blame the very people who are the victims and tell them to fix it themselves.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge right upfront that Bill S-7 does make some changes. It is important to note that it does create some additional offences that would help in certain situations. For example, where there is planning to commit a terrorist attack outside of Canada, our law enforcement agencies would have a little more to go on to potentially prevent a terrorist attack in another country by individuals who might be attempting to leave Canada to commit that offence. I suspect the vast majority of the public would not question the validity and need to have those offences brought into the legislation.

I believe it was a Conservative senator who talked about the bill as being a deterrent. This type of thing I have a difficult time with. This is yet another piece of legislation that the government has brought in and has said that it will be a deterrent.

I would ask my colleague to provide comment on this type of legislation not deterring or preventing someone from committing a crime. It would not cause a person to think twice in terms of committing a terrorist attack. It might enable the police to act or be better equipped to act, but it would not prevent one from committing an attack.

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope my colleague can see the wisdom in opposing this legislation. After all, he is from a party that introduced the charter, which gives us many of our rights.

To respond to the member's question, there is very little in the bill that would deter terrorists. We have learned, both domestically and internationally, that it would be simplistic to think that changing a few lines in legislation in Parliament would make a terrorist think twice. We just have to think about the acts of terrorism that have horrified us. These people are willing to not only risk their lives, but give up their lives. They are not going to be deterred by the fact that they can be questioned.

However, the bill does attack our basic Canadian rights, our right to freedom of speech and our right to not be imprisoned without a fair trial.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her wonderful speech. I agree with her that Bill S-7 creates a false sense of security.

The NDP supports the fight against terrorism. However, if I understand correctly, the government is not investing the necessary resources in our police forces, intelligence agencies, and so on. This bill will thus only serve to camouflage the Conservatives' inaction and pull the wool over Canadians' eyes. What is more, this bill does not respect human rights.

I am a criminologist by training, and I must say that I found it refreshing to hear talk of things like prevention, enhancing Canadians' quality of life, strengthening the social fabric, working on the dropout rate, and investing in education, social services, affordable housing. I liked that.

I would like the hon. member to talk about the real problems that are of concern to Canadians, whether it be the economy, ethics or the environment, In her opinion, what are the real problems that are of concern to Canadians?

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

Mr. Speaker, we can sit here and keep debating Bill S-7 and make very little difference, if any, in people's lives and we can keep saying that we have now tackled terrorism, when we know this is not going tackle terrorism, or we could be dealing with issues that really matter to Canadians.

I have had the privilege of travelling across the country and going to different communities. As much as people are concerned about a huge number of issues, there are some basic issues that they get down to. They care about having a universal health care system that is functional and that meets their needs. They care about having an economy that is sustainable and that grows decent paying jobs here instead of sending our resources overseas or instead of bringing in temporary foreign workers to whom we pay a lot less without making those jobs available to Canadians.

They also care very deeply about education. They are very concerned about our youth. I do not know if it is because I am teacher and that is why they always talk to me about education, but wherever I go, people always to talk about what we will do to invest in our children. The best way to invest in our children is through education and developing preventive programs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my speech by thanking my NDP colleagues who have given excellent speeches before me today about Bill S-7.

I was not very familiar with this bill and so I took the time to do some in-depth research yesterday in order to better understand its objective. I spent some time learning about the UN counter-terrorism committee and researched its activities. We are a member of this committee and work a great deal with it. On its Internet site, I found the Technical Guide to the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1373, adopted in 2001 following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. This guide was prepared by the counter-terrorism committee executive directorate. It is an extremely interesting and substantial document that contains a number of suggestions for member countries on how to effectively fight terrorism throughout the world.

I examined the most effective means of fighting terrorism. I am repeating this term because it stands out the most in this document.

In reviewing chapter 2, I was struck by two points which I found to be very important and which the government has unfortunately not addressed. I am referring to section 2 on eliminating the supply of weapons to terrorists and section 10 on effective border controls. My colleague from Brome—Missisquoi will probably agree with me that we currently have a serious problem with border control.

This week there was a very serious incident in British Columbia during which a border services officer was shot at our border. That is very serious. In Brome—Missisquoi, Compton—Stanstead and Montreal's entire south shore, which borders the United States, there have been reports of many illegal crossings lately. I heard that last night, 11 people crossed this border illegally. This is a rather glaring problem that could be very serious for our national security. Refugees enter our country. We are here to welcome them and we must treat them in accordance with the international treaties we have signed.

There is something that worries me more—my colleagues have talked about this at length—and that is the smuggling of drugs, tobacco products and illegal firearms. This is very serious. Like many of my colleagues, I have met with border services officers, including those near Sherbrooke. They told me things that are extremely difficult to hear. They told me that they do not have time to search everyone and that they have to work quite quickly sometimes because they are understaffed and do not have enough resources to do their jobs properly.

That is sad to hear. We are currently debating a bill to combat terrorism when, according to the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee's technical guide, we have other problems that require our immediate attention. If our border is porous, then we face a very serious threat of terrorism.

I would suggest to the government across the way that it re-examine its priorities and address the existing problem with our border security. That is my first point. A number of my colleagues could elaborate on what is happening on the ground.

The government across the way cut the border services' budget by $146 million. That is extremely serious for our national security. The union said that 260 front-line jobs would be cut in Quebec alone. That is extremely serious because it has a direct impact on our national security and our fight against terrorism.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The hon. member will have about 15 minutes to finish her speech when debate resumes.

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from October 19 consideration of the motion that Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I was interrupted the last time we were in the House because the time allocated to this bill ran out. I will therefore continue my speech.

I took the time to review the content of Bill S-7 and the text of our international agreements, as I mentioned the last time I rose to comment on Bill S-7.

As I pointed out then, I delved deeper into our stance on terrorism, particularly at the international level, and into the international agreements that Canada signed or agreed to in principle. I believe it was important to do that in order to get to the heart of the issue of terrorism and examine what has and has not been done about it.

I looked at the Counter-Terrorism Committee and what it was introducing. The members of that committee have a very interesting guide called the “Technical Guide to the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001)”. The resolution was unanimously adopted by the United Nations on September 28, 2001, if I am not mistaken, following the attacks on September 11, 2001. The events required an immediate response and an international consensus, and that is what was achieved.

It is interesting to note how quickly it was adopted, and unanimously at that, by all the countries represented at the United Nations, including Canada. I looked at chapter 2 of that technical guide, a chapter that deals with two very interesting points. The second point talks about eliminating the supply of weapons to terrorists and point number 10 talks about effective border controls.

I began by exploring the issue of effective border controls, an extremely important aspect of combatting terrorism. It is interesting that we are talking about these things now. On the weekend, some of my colleagues and I went to the Canada-U.S. border at Stanstead, which is about a two-hour drive south of Montreal. I learned some very surprising things, along with my colleagues, the member for Compton—Stanstead, the member for Brome—Missisquoi and the member for Sherbrooke, who is also affected by this, since his riding is only 30 minutes away.

Many surrounding communities are affected. Unfortunately, Stanstead is known as a porous border crossing. In 2006-07, there were about 42 illegal entries. This number has gone up every year. By August of this year, there had been over 300 illegal entries at that border crossing. This is a growing problem.

I know the mayor of Stanstead has tried to mitigate the problem in several ways, for instance, by closing Church Street to traffic. Unfortunately, this only moved the problem elsewhere. People are going around the barriers, simply not stopping at all at the border and continuing straight ahead.

People caught recently were mostly refugee claimants. There are international treaties to deal with such cases. Canada welcomes immigrants, and the case of every individual who claims refugee status must be examined.

I completely agree that we must examine the case of every refugee claimant. However, what I found troubling—although oddly enough, a Conservative senator said yesterday that it was not all that troubling—is the fact that the people who entered the country illegally then phoned the police when they reached Magog. They phoned the police to inform them that they had arrived and to ask them to come and get them. As soon as they cross into Canada, they are the ones who contact the police. Honestly, I find that a little troubling.

Why have we not caught these people ourselves, questioned them ourselves or discovered that they have crossed the border?

These illegal immigrants are the ones who contact us to inform us that they are here and are claiming refugee status. That is troubling.

The Conservative senator believes that this is not troubling and that they are simply people claiming refugee status. I agree that we must examine refugee status claims. The NDP filed access to information requests and discovered that human trafficking was taking place through Stanstead. That is very serious. It seems that clandestine networks are being set up, especially at this border crossing. This is a very serious problem that we must deal with.

What is the connection to terrorism? Those people are able to cross the border, reach Magog and then telephone police to announce their presence without anyone going after them or trying to stop them. However, if people enter Canada illegally, not to claim refugee status but to illegally transport weapons, drugs or tobacco, for instance, they will not call the police to inform them of their whereabouts and ask to be arrested. They will probably continue on their way in a truck carrying weapons. They will not stop.

The fact that the government is not taking action in this regard is of serious concern. What is even more worrisome is that the Conservatives are boasting about attacking the problem of terrorism through Bill S-7 when, in the last budget, they cut funding for Canada's border services by over $140 million.

In Quebec, the border services officers' union indicated that 260 jobs were in jeopardy, which means that 260 people would have received a notice telling them that they were going to lose their jobs. For all of Canada, that number was 1,351. That is a lot of staff when other more practical solutions could have been found.

This measure is completely unrealistic, and the government should be increasing the staff when our country is facing such problems. Officers could be mobile so that they could leave their posts to pursue people who cross the border in this manner.

The Government of Canada website clearly indicates that “[The Government of] Canada supports action by the Security Council on international terrorism.” I think that we should focus more on effective border control than on passing a bill that, as we can see, will clearly not make a very big difference when it comes to terrorism.

The second thing that I found interesting in this technical guide is the proposal to eliminate the supply of weapons to terrorists. I considered this issue a little more carefully and wondered exactly what was being referred to in this chapter. I therefore checked the exact definitions that are found on page 16 of the technical guide against terrorism, where it talks a little bit about arms brokering. It says:

(iii) With respect to brokering: regulate brokers and sellers of SALW...

We are talking here about small arms and light weapons, and the point just before that says:

(ii) With respect to possession: set rules and regulations governing civilian acquisition, possession, transportation, licensing of dealers, record-keeping, and tracing of the various categories of SALW, and rules requiring the reporting of lost or stolen SALW...

That made my hair stand on end. Last year, the firearms registry was abolished here in the House. We fought against it on this side. My colleague from Gatineau and I fought tooth and nail to save the registry. Quebec recently won a court case regarding the data from Quebec, which will not be destroyed. I have also heard that the government will unfortunately appeal that decision.

The Conservatives will not give up. I cannot believe it. This government proudly adopted a resolution condemning the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, and it has since supported the anti-terrorism measures taken by the Security Council.

This guide calls for tracing or a firearms registry. But what did the government do the first chance it got as a majority government? It abolished the registry.

That is not a good way of doing things. It is demagogic to think that it can introduce a nice little bill coming from the Senate that will not change much at the end of the day, when we already had practical solutions.

The firearms registry may not have been perfect, but it was a tool that could be used. We could have improved it so that it would be more robust, more relevant, more interactive and less expensive. The parties here could have come to a consensus. We missed out on a great opportunity to work together on this. What is more, the government has signed agreements with other countries, but it does not even honour these commitments. It is very disappointing to see this.

Also—and I have often mentioned this in the House—I am a hunter and I come from a family of hunters. We had no objection to registering our guns. In fact, we feel safer. Many people I know and many members of my family find that it is safer and that it makes sense to register guns. Personally, I completely agree with the United Nations resolutions. I find it sad that those resolutions are not being honoured here.

Why not deal with the real problem? I think it is sad that with this bill, the government is missing an excellent opportunity to work with the other parties. This bill will make unnecessary amendments to the Anti-terrorism Act. In fact, many experts, including the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association, Mr. Copeland of the Law Union of Ontario, the Canadian Islamic Congress and plenty of other individuals, agree with us that the measures in Bill S-7 are not necessary.

I agree that we must take all threats of terrorism seriously. Members on this side of the House feel that we must do anything but take these threats lightly. Indeed, we must tackle terrorism more efficiently, but unfortunately, with Bill S-7, I do not see how we can tackle international terrorism efficiently. I find that terribly sad.

I would like my colleagues opposite to consider the fact that our very own land borders are becoming porous. We have serious problems at borders in many of our communities, not just in Quebec. I would suggest that the government talk to Canada Border Services Agency officers to see what the people on the ground think of the situation.

As for gun control, as noted in the Special Senate Committee on Anti-terrorism's technical guide, it is time to deal with this issue, not to turn a blind eye to it. We have to do this because it is extremely important.

As an expectant mother, I am very worried that the government is not taking this issue seriously enough. I am extremely disappointed that the government is turning terrorism into an extremely political issue. The government should focus on national security, it has to honour our international agreements, and it is really missing an excellent opportunity to work with all parties in the House.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague. I especially appreciated the link she made between some of this government's decisions, which do not always seem to make sense.

We are debating the issue of terrorism. Bill S-7 was introduced in the Senate and touches on certain basic rights. At the same time, we also talked about the elimination of the firearms registry. For the international community, as my colleague put it so well, gun control is a very important aspect of this because, as we know, the two are often connected.

I do not know if she talked about this, because I missed the beginning of her speech on Bill S-7, which she began here in the House the other day. One particular aspect of this bill really struck me. Several experts have said that everything we need already exists in the Criminal Code. It has been at least four years since this government has made any serious attempt to change the terrorism provisions the way Bill S-7 does, and this does not appear to have had much impact on the hunt for terrorists. I wonder what my colleague's thoughts are on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to thank my colleague from Gatineau for her very wise and interesting comments on this matter.

Indeed, the Conservative government has never before tried to legislate against terrorism as it is now with Bill S-7. As my colleague pointed out, the Criminal Code already covers all of this. Most experts agree that there is no need to initiate all of this or stir things up to change anything, since we already have the standards and legislation we need.

I have to wonder about the government's real motives for amending the Criminal Code and the Anti-terrorism Act. That is one of the big questions I have right now. Once again, I invite the government to reread the technical guides used by the counter-terrorism committee to determine whether the government knows the basics and what laws are needed.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues, I have questions about this bill. Security seems to be an important focus of the Conservatives' agenda but, when we look at where their priorities lie, we see that that is not true, at least not in Stanstead, which unfortunately is known as a sieve. It is not very pleasant. The fact that we are unable to post a sufficient number of staff at the border crossing at Stanstead prevents us from maintaining good relations with the United States. This is a very simple measure, but it seems that when it comes to taking real action that does not require very much effort—just a specific measure that produces results—the government introduces a bill that focuses on terrorism when that is clearly not the priority.

This morning, I would prefer it if the government talked about Stanstead and said that it would react by adding staff at that location. Instead, it is making cuts across the country, and we have seen the harm that this has done. What is more, from what the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said, we do not get the impression that the cuts are being made in a serious and effective way.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Québec, who has raised some very important points in today's debate.

All members of the House, no matter what their affiliation, agree that national security is extremely important. We must protect our country and our people. No one is opposed to showing goodwill, but what I find unfortunate are the means used by the other side to achieve its objectives.

The Minister of Public Safety constantly says that the government is tough on crime. Allowing people to cross the border illegally is not being tough on crime. Double-bunking inmates in our prisons and making inmate populations and our employees vulnerable is not being tough on crime. Abolishing the gun registry is not being tough on crime. The government is not taking the action needed to prove to the international community that we are ready to defend ourselves and to tackle terrorism effectively. On the weekend we saw that there are problems at our borders, and the government is missing out on a really good opportunity.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the member talk about the anti-terrorism legislation. I see the member going all over the map. She refers to some technical things from the United Nations. I had the privilege of sitting on the special committee on anti-terrorism after the 2006 election when we had to deal with the sunset clauses. I think the member also leads people to believe there are cutbacks at Canadian border services. Actually the number of officers has been increased under this government by some 25-plus per cent. The member also infers that there is something internationally illegal or something wrong with this legislation.

What the member does not say is that the Supreme Court has upheld similar legislation. What the member does not say is that countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa have all initiated legislation along this line.

What is it about Canada that we would not want to be with our partners, fighting terrorism that we see on the news is rampant throughout the world?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite for his question. He also works very hard on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. It is interesting to have different viewpoints on an issue as important as our national security. We do not always agree, but it is very important to have this debate today and to bring different ideas to the fore.

I would like to go back to many things my colleague just said. It is very important that I make it clear that I am not attacking the existing Anti-terrorism Act. However, I find it very intriguing that Bill S-7 is being brought forward. Our existing legislation is sufficient, and all the provisions we need are already in the Criminal Code.

I will come back to the increase in the number of border agents. I am glad that my colleague mentioned that in the House, since that gives me the opportunity to talk about it. In some places, part-time staff were hired to work at night to improve things, but the hours have still been cut at border crossings. So this changes absolutely nothing. Furthermore, there will be over $140 million in budget cuts to border services. In Quebec alone, 260 border agents received notice that they would lose their jobs, and there were another 1,351 in the rest of Canada. This has yet to happen. When these positions disappear, what happens in the coming years will be catastrophic.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is curious that, over the course of the government's anti-terrorism regime since the occurrence on September 11, outside commentators have pegged the amount of money Canadians have spent at $92 billion.

One wonders how much these new measures are going to cost and why the government has not tabled those numbers.

I would like my colleague to comment on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Davenport for his very interesting question.

Once again, this goes back to what the member for Gatineau said earlier. The government must answer these questions and tell us what is going on. It must also tell us why it introduced Bill S-7 in the Senate. Why does it want to change laws that are working very well? Why is it eliminating things that are essential to our security?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, I will just let hon. members know that we have had more than five hours' debate since the first round on the bill that is before the House.

Accordingly, all the interventions from this point on will have the maximum of ten minutes for speeches and, of course, the five minutes for questions and comments.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on Bill S-7, which proposes to do a number of things in amending the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act, but I want to focus on just two things that this bill proposes to do, the two that I believe are the most significant. These are the reintroduction of the provisions for investigatory hearings and the reintroduction of preventive detention in national security cases, also known as recognizance with conditions.

Regrettably, Bill S-7 places measures before the House that the House had already wisely sunsetted in February of 2007 during the 39th Parliament by a vote of 159 to 124, a decisive vote. These measures were wisely rejected again by opposition parties when reintroduced by the Conservatives in 2009 in the 40th Parliament. Of course, these two measures were part of the package passed quickly in the aftermath of 9/11 when Canada's new Anti-terrorism Act was adopted by the House of Commons on November 28, 2001, and received royal assent on December 18, 2001, just over two months after the terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York.

Even in that climate of intense fear and even panic over national security, such was the concern about the two measures for investigatory hearings and preventive detention that a sunset clause was inserted so that these provisions would expire in five years. Yes, there was a climate of fear and panic that all of us remember well. I have personal reasons for recalling that day and its aftermath very clearly. My mother was flying from Washington, D.C., to Seattle that day, and a friend of my partner was flying from Boston to New York.

Fortunately, we located my mother safe on the ground in Denver, but my partner had to tell his friend's parents that their son had not been so lucky. He had to tell them we had confirmed their son was on the flight from Boston. He who had been late for everything in his life managed to catch that flight, unfortunately. We had to tell them that his body would never be recovered to be returned home to them in Indonesia as his was the second flight to hit the twin towers that day. My family remembers that day, but as residents of Vancouver Island we also remember that fear and panic can do harm, as well as responding emotionally to these kinds of issues.

Canadian history itself tells us a climate of fear and panic, no matter how real the threat, can all too easily lead to great injustice when governments act too hastily. I want to reflect a bit today on what happened to Japanese Canadians at the outbreak of World War II, action taken in a climate of panic also in the name of national security. I am going to offer my comments on Japanese Canadians as a kind of cautionary tale that relates very directly to the kind of measures we are asked to consider adopting in Bill S-7.

Much of what I will say here is based on the work of Ann Sunahara, her 2005 book titled The Politics of Racism. She has very interesting things to tell us about decision making with regard to the deportation of Japanese Canadians, because she was the first author to have access to government documents from that period after the expiry of the 30-year secrecy rule for these documents. In her book, Sunahara clearly demonstrates that government actions ordering the internment of more than 20,000 Japanese Canadians and the confiscation and sale of their property were based on nothing but fear and panic, often stemming from overt racism and ultimately facilitated by the latent racism against Japanese Canadians present throughout Canada at that time.

Again, it is a cautionary tale when we see members of the Canadian community today, especially Muslim Canadians, often targeted by anti-terrorism measures and the fear and panic that terrorism tends to cause.

Of the 23,000 Japanese Canadians in 1941, less than one-third were Japanese nationals. The rest were either native-born Canadians, some 13,500, or naturalized British subjects, some 3,650. Therefore, two-thirds of Japanese Canadians at that time should have enjoyed exactly the same rights as any other Canadian. Yet even Japanese Canadians born in Canada were denied the right to vote, denied the right to practise most professions and discriminated against in many ways. The so-called gentleman's agreement between Canada and Japan in 1907 had limited immigration from Japan to Canada to 400 per year, and in 1928 that number was revised downward to 150 per year.

Given this climate of latent or overt racism against Japanese Canadians, it is perhaps not all that surprising that after the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in early December 1941, the Canadian cabinet adopted an order in council under the War Measures Act on January 14, 1942, ordering confiscation and sale of the Japanese Canadian fishing fleet and removal from the coast of all male Japanese nationals. Cabinet said explicitly this was for reasons of national security and to prevent sabotage or collaboration with a possible Japanese landing force.

In taking this action, Prime Minister King was following the lead of the United States and giving in to demands from B.C. provincial and federal politicians who continued to demand the removal of all Japanese Canadians from the coast: men, women and children.

On January 23, 1943, as a solution to the problem of how to pay for the internment of Japanese Canadians, and as a way to prevent their eventual return to the coast, the Canadian cabinet passed an order in council, again under the War Measures Act, that granted the custodian of enemy property the right to dispose of Japanese Canadian property in his care without the owner's consent.

What is important about these two things? What is the lesson they have brought today? At that time, cabinet did all of this against the advice of senior public servants and military officers. They did this, according to Sunahara, against the advice of the RCMP commissioner, the deputy minister of defence, the deputy minister of labour, the deputy minister of fisheries and the vice chief of the general staff of the Canadian military.

The actions against the Japanese were opposed, publicly and consistently, only by 28 CCF MPs, the predecessors of the NDP here in the House, to be joined in 1943 by a few Liberal senators after the disposition order was made.

The deportation of Japanese Canadians from the coast is often justified after the fact by selectively pointing to the U.S. experience, citing a similar experience for the removal of Japanese Americans from the U.S. Pacific mainland. However, relying on the U.S. mainland experience ignores the other U.S. experience and the awkward fact that in the U.S. territory of Hawaii there was no legal action taken against Japanese Americans. This is an area in which Japanese Americans were definitely on the front lines in the Pacific war, but where they constituted 32% of the population and so the economic impacts of internment would have been too difficult.

In Canada, at the end of the war, Prime Minister King was eventually forced to admit in the House that not only had not a single Japanese Canadian ever been convicted of sabotage or aiding the enemy, none had ever even been charged with these offences. Yet cabinet still refused to rescind the restrictions imposed by the order in council and did not end the exclusion of Japanese Canadians from the B.C. coast until 1949, again citing national security as the justification.

I have devoted most of my speech today to this dark period and this dark piece of Canadian history, one which took us nearly 40 years to come to terms with. Not until 1988 did Canada officially apologize and offer some compensation both to surviving internees and in the form of support for the National Association of Japanese Canadians. Obviously, this came far too late for most of those who suffered injustice.

In Esquimalt, where I live, we are only now restoring the Takata Gardens, the oldest Japanese gardens in North America, where the Takata family had operated a very successful tea house before being dispossessed for reasons of national security. This is a powerful local reminder to Esquimalt residents that injustice caused by fear and panic has costs for all Canadians, not just those who are the direct victims.

I see the experience of Japanese Canadians in World War II as a cautionary tale for all members in the House as we contemplate Bill S-7, a bill the government insists is necessary for national security. It is a cautionary tale that tells us of the sometimes ugly consequences of letting fear rule over rationality.

The provisions that we are talking about restoring here were never used in the five years they were in place. Some will cite the Air India inquiry where an application to hold an investigatory hearing was approved but challenged in court, and that hearing was ultimately never held as the sunset clause came into effect in the meantime. Therefore, we are left with no concrete example where an investigatory hearing was actually used. Yet in the 10 years since the Anti-terrorism Act was passed, the government has managed to get terrorism convictions for Momin Khawaja, Zakaria Amara, Saad Khalid and Saad Gaya of the so-called Toronto 18.

Therefore, I would ask this. Has our security been more at risk in the last five years since these provisions were allowed to expire? Does the government have any examples to show us when these powers could have been used?

Instead, I look back to the Japanese Canadian experience and we see the obvious contradiction of having fought a war for freedom and democracy and against racism, while at the same time treating a portion of our own citizens so unjustly.

Can we not see now the risk of a new contradiction? In the struggle to protect freedom, human rights and rule of law, we risk trampling the fundamental rights that are the basis of our democratic and legal system: the right to freedom from detention without charge and the right to protection against self-incrimination.

We also risk the unfair treatment of Muslim Canadians. Though perhaps not as severe as the deportation of Japanese Canadians in World War II, this constitutes a potential blot on our human rights record, which I know all in the House would like to avoid.

Let us not repeat the past but rather learn from it. Let us not stampede to trample rights because of our fears for national security. I urge all members of the House to reject the false security offered by Bill S-7 with its all too likely consequences of weakening our rights and the principles that are the foundation of our justice system.

We know that the best response to threats to our national security is to be found in giving resources to law enforcement and security agencies so they can do their jobs, while working within our system of rule of law and respecting those very rights that give meaning to the question for national security.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca will have five minutes for questions and comments when the House next returns to business on this issue, the motion that is before the House.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-7, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

When this matter was last before the House, the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca had completed his remarks but had not done questions and comments. Therefore, we have five minutes of questions and comments.

The hon. member for Gatineau.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, our public safety critic, who is doing a great job on Bill S-7. The Conservative government is describing this bill as extremely important to public safety, with an angle related to terrorism.

I would like to ask my colleague a question that I like to ask almost everyone, since I have yet to receive a satisfactory response, before this bill is sent to committee. It has to do with how long it took this government to introduce a bill—and not even in this House, but as I said in my speech, in the Senate—a bill that, according to the government, is fundamental to the safety and security of Canadians. Yet this government took years to bring it before this House.

Does my colleague believe that the exisiting provisions in the Criminal Code are adequate?

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

Mr. Speaker, we have many contradictory messages going back and forth from the government. It says that it is extremely urgent but took forever to get it back before the House.

The other contradictory message that is very important, which I did not mention in my remarks, is the message it sends when the two main measures in the bill, preventive detention and investigatory hearings, were not used by the police and prosecutors for the entire five years it was in force. If these are such wonderful tools that are so necessary, why were they not used by police and prosecutors?

I will be very interested, when we actually get this bill to one committee or another, to hear what the police and prosecutors might have to say about this issue. For me, it seems quite obvious that we have had convictions for terrorism in the 10 years since the Anti-Terrorism Act was adopted and these did not use preventive detention or investigatory hearings. Obviously, the provisions of existing legislation were adequate for those cases.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to ask a question of my colleague who gave a speech a little earlier.

Earlier, we had some discussion on whether the Conservatives were being a bit paradoxical—I do not think that is the right word, but it is the first one that comes to mind—in their tough on crime agenda. There are several measures and budget cuts that suggest the opposite.

The bill from the Senate is a bit of a smokescreen in the fight against crime. The bill does not really contain concrete measures. There are many other things that could be done.

Could he mention some other measures that the Conservatives did not implement but should have implemented instead of debating this bill today?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a very important point, which was also addressed by the member for Alfred-Pellan in her speech. The government does say that we need to do more in this area but it then cuts the public safety budget by 10%. It takes more than just putting a bunch of words on a piece of paper. It takes more that just some speeches or answers to questions in the House of Commons. It takes resources to be given to those people who actually do the hard work of investigating terrorism, the law enforcement agencies.

The government likes to say that since 2006 the budgets have increased. Yes, they have increased but then they have decreased. The government likes to take credit for when it increases the budgets but it fails to acknowledge that in the last budget it made some very serious cuts to funding for national security matters.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand today in the House to speak against Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act. The genealogy of Bill S-7 takes us back to Bill C-36, the Anti-terrorism Act, which was tabled by the Liberal government in 2001. The original intent of the Anti-terrorism Act was to provide the Canadian legislative response to the events of September 11, 2001, 9/11 as we now know it.

There is no question that day should not and indeed cannot be forgotten. The images of passenger planes flying into those iconic towers repeat themselves over and over again in news, television and film, and undoubtedly in the mind as the memories of the many who were personally impacted by that act of terror.

I note with sadness that my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca and his partner have such memories to bear.

As these images repeat themselves, we witness the deaths of nearly 3,000 innocents, including 24 Canadians over and over again. That day we awoke to a new kind of threat and a new level of threat. Most importantly, we awoke to a new and profound sense of vulnerability, so we responded.

Several provisions of Bill C-36 became permanently enshrined in other legislation such as the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act, the Criminal Code and the Access to Information Act. However, several parts of the Anti-terrorism Act had sunset clauses expiring in February 2007. These provisions concerned investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions or preventive arrest provisions.

These measures were largely without precedence in Canadian law and for good reason. We believe that these provisions run contrary to fundamental principles, rights and liberties enshrined in Canadian law. The rights and liberties violated include the right to remain silent and the right not to be imprisoned without first having a fair trial. We believe that these are important restrictions on the authority of the state because in their absence there is not sufficient protection of an individual's freedom.

As per the terms of the Anti-terrorism Act, these provisions, in order to be extended, had to be adopted by way of resolution by both Houses of Parliament. However, the resolution was defeated soundly, 159:124 in this House, and these controversial provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act sunsetted.

We know that the efforts did not end there. Similar bills were proposed in 2008, 2009 and 2010 in the forms of Bill S-3, Bill C-19 and Bill C-17 respectively. It seems this is an annual, or almost annual rite. Now they are back.

Time has passed in the interim, a decade roughly since Bill C-36 was brought before the House, and time has been instructive. Since the passage of the Anti-terrorism Act, the recognizance with conditions or preventive arrest provision has never been used. The investigative hearing provision has been used once in the Air India case. Many consider that exercise to have had no positive effect, in fact quite the opposite.

Paul Copeland, a highly experienced and respected lawyer representing the Law Union of Ontario, speaking about this sole experience with the investigative hearing provision, said to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in 2010 that the Law Union characterized this episode “as a fiasco, and I think that's an appropriate description”. He went on to say about all the provisions examined:

The provisions you are looking at here, in my submission, change the Canadian legal landscape.... They should not be passed, and in my view they are not needed. There are other provisions of the code that allow for various ways of dealing with these people.

This seems to be the nub of the issue. Without such extreme provisions, without changing the legal landscape of Canada, without breaching the rights and civil liberties of Canadian citizens, we have successfully protected the safety and security of Canada and Canadians from terrorist attack. These provisions have proven over the course of time to constitute an unnecessary and ineffective infringement.

As the former NDP justice critic said in the House in 2010:

When facing a crisis, we as political leaders feel that we have to do something even when all the evidence shows that the structures we have, the strength of our society, the strength of our laws, are enough to deal with it. We passed legislation in early 2002 to deal with terrorism when we panicked. We have learned in the last eight years that there was no need for that legislation.

The only thing to add to that summation is that in the past decade we have learned that we did not need this act.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. As Denis Barrette, spokesperson for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, noted before the standing committee on Bill C-17 in 2011:

Since 2007, police investigations have succeeded in dismantling terrorist conspiracies using neither one of the provisions we are talking about today.

He concluded:

We believe that Canadians will be better served and better protected under the usual provisions of the Criminal Code, rather than others that are completely unnecessary. Reliance on arbitrary powers and a lower standard of evidence can never replace good, effective police work. On the contrary, these powers open the door to a denial of justice and a greater probability that the reputation of innocent individuals...will be tarnished.

We have borne witness to that in this country.

While these provisions have proven to have no effect on the fight against terror, they have had a profound social impact on Canada and many Canadians. On the eve of 9/11 this year, I showed a film at my local review theatre, the Fox in the Beach. The film is called Change Your Name Ousama. It was produced and directed by local filmmaker Fuad Chowdhury and focuses on a community in my riding of Beaches—East York called Crescent Town. Crescent Town is a very densely populated and diverse community, which is largely made up of Bangladeshi Canadians, most of whom are Muslim.

The film is not a point of view film. It was made for television and screened at the Montreal film festival. It includes significant interview footage, for example, of the assistant director of CSIS. It also includes footage of our Prime Minister in a fairly recent CBC interview telling Canadians that the major threat to Canada is still Islamicism. The film also tells the story of what it feels like to be one of about a million Muslim Canadians living in a political climate where their religion has been held to be a threat to the security of their country.

It is noted in the film by a University of Toronto academic that governments, through their actions, have the power to create stigmas and to marginalize communities. Of this we need, in this place, to be very mindful and sensitive. This is where the film gets its title. It was the advice, amidst the political fallout of 9/11, of a Muslim leader of Crescent Town to members of his community, “Change your name Ousama. Shave your beard. Do not wear your kufi”. In essence, “change or disguise your identity”.

Motivated as they have been, bills such as that introduced in 2001 by the Liberals and its partial reprisal today in the form of Bill S-7 have had that impact. They have left so many across this country and in my riding feeling like they have something to apologize for, as if the onus rests on them to demonstrate somehow that they are not terrorists.

Herein lies a great tragedy. In Bill S-7, as with Bill C-36 before it, we have before us a bill that contradicts not just the legal heritage of this country but a fundamental social and political heritage that takes us back decades at least, a heritage of which we should be proud and protective. The heritage I speak of is the opportunity to maintain and exercise one's culture and religion in Canada freely and still be and feel fully Canadian. This social and political heritage is one that has made us a great place, a place where so many around the world long to come to live.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his dissertation and intervention in this debate. He referenced one of the communities in his riding.

This anti-terrorism legislation, which was enacted after September 11, 2001, has by some estimations cost Canadian taxpayers about $92 billion.

My colleague will know that for the folks in Crescent Town and other communities in Toronto who try to get government subsidies and grants to do community projects, every single dime and nickel of that has to be accounted for and the government puts onerous systems in place to guarantee that. Yet here we have a piece of legislation that comes with no price tag at all.

I wonder if my colleague would comment on the juxtaposition of those two realities.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is a contradiction here that one cannot ignore. The community of Crescent Town is what we call in Toronto a priority community. It is a place that has been designated as having structural poverty and is in need of extra intervention, yet that intervention does not come easily.

As my colleague notes, the social services that these communities rely on, such as settlement services for recent immigrants, have been cut and are very difficult to come by. We have a federal government that has become absent from cities in this country and does not support them. The policing that this community needs to deal with crime is not available when it needs it.

We note too, in terms of the contradictions here, that there have been a number of cuts on the security front. On the front line of border crossings, 325 jobs have been cut. These are very important jobs for the safety and security of these communities because they stop the import of guns into the community and the forms of violence that follow, which are so prevalent.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's argument that we were all in shock during the events of September 11, 2001, rang true for me. Another NDP colleague was saying in his speech the other day that this was one event that we will all remember. We will all remember where we were at that exact moment and what we were doing.

I remember that I was trying to interview someone on the radio who must have thought that I was the world's most impolite person because she was talking to me, but I was no longer listening. I was too mesmerized by the image on the screen in front of me, the image of that plane hitting one of the towers.

Obviously, we are all a bit thin-skinned when it comes to the issue of terrorism, but we must still find that perfect balance between protecting the public and ensuring that people's fundamental rights are not violated because of a very dramatic moment in time. I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We have time for one answer.

The hon. member for Beaches—East York.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Gatineau for her leadership and wisdom on this particular issue.

What is interesting is that if it were only so complicated, what we would need to do here would be to find a balance between national security and our rights and freedoms and the protection of civil liberties. However, what history has shown us over the last decade, which is a long time to have a look at this question, is that these provisions that were brought forward in Bill C-36, and now are being reprised in Bill S-7, were fundamentally ineffective and unnecessary. Therefore, it is not really a matter of finding the balance here.

What we have found is that our current laws, criminal justice system and security arrangements have been sufficient to protect Canadians from acts of terrorism in this country.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those in favour will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the vote be deferred until tomorrow at the end of government orders.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Accordingly the recorded division stands deferred until tomorrow at the end of government orders.