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.

Opposition Motion—Terrorism

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for bringing up Bill C-10 on victims of terrorism. He and I saw again this past weekend Maureen Basnicki, who was a victim of terrorism. Her husband died in 9/11. She lives in Collingwood, and she has no recourse against those criminals. She is one of the inspirations behind Bill C-10. We brought in Bill S-7 to allow more government tools and more tools for the RCMP and border services so we could get the job done.

What we see from the Liberals is Bill C-75, which would take joining a terrorist organization down to a fine rather than an indictable offence.

Public Safety

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the government has indicated it is considering new legislation with new powers for law enforcement. Can the minister confirm whether the existing tools that were passed by the House as part of Bill S-7, the Combating Terrorism Act, have been employed in any of the RCMP's 60-plus active national security investigations?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness recently made reference to the 90 individuals who pose a potential threat to Canada's security.

Taking that into consideration, have preventative detention measures—as permitted under the Anti-terrorism Act and renewed by the House in Bill S-7—been taken in recent weeks?

Opposition Motion—2013 Spring Report of the Auditor General of Canada

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Northumberland—Quinte West.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to respond to the motion moved by the hon. member opposite regarding chapter 8 of the Auditor General's report on public security and anti-terrorism, the PSAT initiative. I have reviewed the NDP motion, I have read the Auditor General's report and I have heard the AG's testimony on this chapter. After all this, I must reject the premise of the NDP motion.

The Auditor General and his office had full access to all documentation from the PSAT initiative and they were left with a specific conclusion: that the reporting process was not as exhaustive as it should have been. However, the AG said that he “did not find anything that gave cause for concern that the money was used in any way that should it should not have been”.

The government takes Canada's national security very seriously. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we have been actively involved in protecting our citizens.

Recently, our government introduced and passed Bill S-7, the combatting terrorism act. This bill proposed to create new substantive offences that would make it illegal to leave or to attempt to leave Canada to knowingly participate in or contribute to any activity of a terrorist group for the purpose of enhancing the ability of any terrorist group to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity, knowingly 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. Our government has been unwavering in its commitment to protect Canadians and support the global fight against terrorism. That is why we work closely with international partners to combat terrorism and its perpetrators.

The proposed new offences would send a strong deterrent message, strengthening the hand of law enforcement to mitigate threats and increase the penalties for this type of conduct. Putting in place safeguards to protect Canadians as they go about their lives in safety and security is not a new focus for this government. That is why the public security and anti-terrorism initiative was put in place to fund measures to enhance the security of Canadians. This initiative involved funding allocated to departments and agencies government-wide to implement a variety of anti-terrorism measures. These measures focus on air security, emergency preparedness and military deployment, intelligence and policing, screening of entrants to Canada, border security and facilitation, and border infrastructure.

Funding for the public security and anti-terrorism initiative rolled out before the end of 2001. It has been scrutinized by parliamentarians according to the proper procedures for examining and reporting on the spending of taxpayer money. As members know, each department must table in its public accounts each item of spending. This is a legal obligation, and that is exactly what has been done.

Moreover, the Auditor General has found nothing in his examination of the spending on this initiative to suggest anything that was done improperly. All the funds are accounted for in public documents presented to Parliament, including the public accounts. There is no indication that any dollars are missing, misappropriated or misspent. The process that departments follow for reporting to Parliament and to Canadians on their spending and results were respected for every year of the initiative.

For its part, the TBS established an annual reporting framework to monitor the implementation of these initiatives. Key components of this annual reporting approach included: funding allocations; progress indicators; emerging issues; challenges and risks; horizontal issues such as capacity, interoperability and partnerships; and audit and evaluation information.

When submissions related to PSAT funding were considered, approval was provided based on two conditions.

One condition was that existing and established reporting and evaluation requirements were respected, and that funding was used for public security uses.

The intent of this condition was to ensure that departments complied with reporting requirements and evaluated security programs to confirm that the implementation of the initiatives was creating the right results.

The second condition helped ensure that funding was used for security purposes while providing the flexibility to reallocate funds if necessary to respond to evolving risks.

Canadians can be assured that government funding tagged for security initiatives was used for that purpose. This was among the conditions for the PSAT funding, and deputy ministers attested that the funding would be used for security-related purposes. Members do not have to take my word for it. The Auditor General of Canada has said that his office, “didn’t find anything that gave [them] cause for concern that the money...was used in any way that it should not have been”.

I do not think the Auditor General could be any clearer than that.

What is more, the Auditor General's audit acknowledges that deputy heads, as departmental accounting officers, are responsible for accounting and reporting their spending through the Public Accounts of Canada. These reporting requirements are in addition to the internal reporting requirement imposed under PSAT.

The Auditor General has been clear that departments had an internal control and due diligence process in place to ensure spending was conducted according to the rules.

The prime concern since September 11, 2001, has been the security and protection of Canadians. We have no more fundamental duty than to protect the personal safety of our citizens and defend against threats to our national security. This has been our objective with regard to this spending. So far, we have been remarkably successful, transparent and accountable to the citizens of this country.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue the debate on today’s opposition motion from the NDP. Pursuant to the rules of the House, time is allocated and there will be a vote after the two-day debate.

Tomorrow we will resume the third reading debate on Bill S-9, the Nuclear Terrorism Act. As I mentioned on Monday, I am optimistic that we will pass that important bill this week.

Should we have extra time on Friday, we will take up Bill C-48, the Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, at report stage and third reading.

When we come back from constituency week, I am keen to see the House make a number of accomplishments for Canadians. Allow me to make it clear to the House what the government's priorities are.

Our government will continue to focus on jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. In doing that, we will be working on reforming the temporary foreign worker program to put the interests of Canadians first; implementing tax credits for Canadians who donate to charity and parents who adopt; extending tax credits for Canadians who take care of loved ones in their homes; supporting veterans and their families by improving the balance for determining veterans' benefits; moving closer to equality for Canadians living on reserves through better standards for drinking water, which my friend apparently objects to; giving women on reserves the rights and protections that other Canadian women have had for decades, something to which he also objects; and keeping our streets and communities safer by making real improvements to the witness protection program. We will of course do more.

Before we rise for the summer, we will tackle the bills currently listed on the order paper, as well as any new bills which might get introduced. After Victoria Day, we will give priority consideration to bills that have already been considered by House committees.

For instance, we will look at Bill C-48, which I just mentioned, Bill C-51, the Safer Witnesses Act, Bill C-52, the Fair Rail Freight Service Act, and Bill S-2, the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, which I understand could be reported back soon.

I look forward also to getting back from committee and passing Bill C-60, , the economic action plan 2013 act, no. 1; Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act; and Bill C-21, the political loans accountability act.

We have, of course, recently passed Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act, and Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act. Hopefully, tomorrow we will pass Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act.

Finally, we will also work toward second reading of several bills including Bill C-12, the safeguarding Canadians' personal information act; Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act; Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act; Bill C-56, the combating counterfeit products act; Bill C-57, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act; Bill C-61, the offshore health and safety act; Bill S-6, the first nations elections act; Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act; Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act; Bill S-13, the port state measures agreement implementation act; Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act; Bill S-15, the expansion and conservation of Canada’s national parks act, which establishes Sable Island National Park; and Bill S-17, the tax conventions implementation act, 2013.

I believe and I think most Canadians who send us here expect us to do work and they want to see us vote on these things and get things done. These are constructive measures to help all Canadians and they certainly expect us to do our job and actually get to votes on these matters.

I hope we will be able to make up enough time to take up all of these important bills when we come back, so Canadians can benefit from many parliamentary accomplishments by the members of Parliament they have sent here this spring.

Before taking my seat, let me formally designate, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4)(a), Tuesday, May 21, as the day appointed for the consideration in a committee of the whole of all votes under Natural Resources in the main estimates for the final year ending March 31, 2014. This would be the second of two such evenings following on tonight's proceedings.

Opposition Motion—2013 Spring Report of the Auditor General of Canada

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time.

I would like to begin by explaining to taxpayers why I have a black eye. We were playing soccer yesterday, and although our wonderful pages are kind enough to bring us water here in the House, on the soccer field, things are quite different. Seriously, though, we had a lot of fun.

I would also ask the House to go easy on me today, because I am a little shaken up. I just learned today that a childhood friend of mine committed suicide. His name was Jean-Maxime Leroux. Mourning his loss are his two children, his family and friends. He will be sadly missed.

Now I would like to move on to the motion currently before the House. It has to do with the $3.1 billion that the government seems to have lost. According to the government, however, that money was not lost; it simply does not know where it is.

That is a huge amount. In fact, $3.1 billion would be enough to build the new Champlain Bridge in my riding. What is really unfortunate is the partisan rhetoric that the government continues to spew. I do not like using such strong words in the House, because it affects how people perceive us. However, everyone sees how partisan this is. When the government loses track of $3.1 billion, questions need to be asked.

The government often quotes the Auditor General, but it does so selectively. What the Auditor General said was that they did not find anything to suggest that the money was used inappropriately and that it is important for Canadians to understand how that money was spent, because the government did not report it properly. Again, this $3.1 billion was for anti-terrorism efforts.

The government does not know if the money was misspent. It does not know if this is the sponsorship scandal all over again. It does not know if the money was misused the way the President of the Treasury Board misused money on gazebos. Nobody knows where this money went and therein lies the problem.

The Conservatives are saying that it is in the public accounts, but even the Auditor General cannot figure out what this money was spent on. When we asked the government to point to where and when exactly this money was spent, it could not. Unfortunately, the answer we got was that it has no idea.

The purpose of the motion is to call on the government to be more transparent and to hand over the documents. Why are we asking for the documents? We want to ensure that the money was spent wisely.

The government says that it gave all the documents to the Auditor General, but this is the same government that was found in contempt of Parliament, which was a first in the history of Canada. The Conservative government was found in contempt of Parliament for failing to do what Parliament asked it to do, which was to provide documents on the F-35s.

Despite the fact that the government's handling of the F-35 file was a real fiasco, he has the audacity to say that the NDP is incapable of running the government. I would like to remind the government that, according to the provinces, all political parties and the federal department's research, the NDP is the party that has the smallest deficit and that is the best manager of public money. The government should take lessons from the NDP. Instead of making empty promises and boasting about being the best manager, it should look in the mirror. It might see that it has a black eye like the one I am sporting this morning.

It really has set a bad example. It has spent $113 million in pointless advertising. Furthermore, Canadians are tired of seeing the ads. We have to wonder: Is this money well spent? The government does not know what has happened to the $3.1 billion. That money could have been used for other things.

We agree that fighting terrorism is important. However, we take exception to how the government fights terrorism, and particularly Bill S-7, which we oppose. This bill goes too far in that it attacks the rights and fundamental freedoms of Canadians by undermining the charter. Unfortunately, the Liberals supported it.

The events of September 11 were very serious. Nevertheless, we should have learned that Canada is safe. In order to ensure our safety, we have to better manage money earmarked for the protection of Canadians. Instead, the Conservatives are cutting funding for border services that keep us safe. That is difficult to understand.

In closing, we must remember that this government is a poor manager of public funds.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I really do appreciate the opportunity to stand today to speak to this opposition motion, especially being in the House over the last few hours and hearing its members stand and, time after time, deliberately mislead the Canadian public and deliberately twist the words of the Auditor General, a highly respected man and office in this country. It is very disturbing. It is troubling. As my own colleague just said, I think it is clear that the opposition is in a panic mode because it has no ideas for the Canadian public. It certainly has no ideas that would benefit Canadians economically and so, instead, the members are actually attacking, indirectly and directly, the very integrity of the Auditor General by twisting his words. I am very pleased that I can stand today to speak against the motion.

As we know, the opposition is calling into question the government's accounting for the money used to fight terrorism both at home and abroad. The fund it is referring to is funding for Canada's public security and anti-terrorism initiative, also known as PSAT. This is a very important initiative, something we have taken seriously, which was proven again last week when we debated Bill S-7, a bill that gives law enforcement the ability to stop terrorism, intercept terrorism and stop individuals from leaving the country to engage in terrorist activity, which is a real threat to Canadians.

That party voted against it, and again today it is using its opposition day, instead of doing something constructive for the country, to twist and mishandle the words of the Auditor General. Shame on it.

We have indicated that all the funds in question have been accounted for in the public accounts, and those are available to Parliament. That is what the Auditor General said, as well.

What is more, there is no indication that any money is missing or that any money has been poorly used or wasted. These are not our words but the Auditor General's. Shame on the opposition for misusing and twisting the Auditor General's words.

Thank goodness. Do members know what I am so grateful for today? The Canadian public is smart. Canadians are intelligent. They know a distortion when they see it. They are not buying that. I think it has even been indicated by all of our offices that we are getting support from our constituents. Thank goodness the Canadian public is smart and does not buy this kind of nonsense.

As I said, these are the conclusions of the Auditor General. He gave the government a clean bill of health in the accounting for these expenses. In fact, he just confirmed, at committee, that the anti-terrorism funding he was reviewing was purely an internal government reporting process.

My hon. colleague from across the way mocked the term “horizontal”, so let me read the words. I guess he is laughing at the Auditor General because the Auditor General said, in his testimony to the committee:

What we were looking for—Again—

And these are his words:

—this was a very large initiative. This was a horizontal initiative.

Again, those are not our words. That is not our description. That is the description of the Auditor General.

We understand that the priority of Canadians and our priorities are aligned together. We understand that there is no more fundamental duty than to protect the personal safety of our citizens and defend against threats to our national security. That is why we did things like introduce and pass Bill S-7 to greater protect Canadians. Again, the opposition voted against it.

This objective to protect Canadians with regard to spending on anti-terrorism measures has been successful. We work with other countries to prevent terrorist acts, to monitor developments in unstable nations and to take appropriate actions to deny and respond to the threats faced by peace-loving people.

Over the past few years, we have witnessed many severe changes in several countries in North Africa, Asia and the Middle East, changes that had an impact upon the stability of many of these countries. We are seeing that terrorism remains a problem in countries like Afghanistan, Algeria and Iraq. We take this very seriously.

Indeed, part of our efforts to combat terrorism includes strengthening our laws to deter terrorist-related activity within our borders and to support Canadians who fall victim to these acts.

That is why, just to reiterate, we passed the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. This legislation allows victims of terrorism to sue listed foreign states for committing an act of terrorism or for supporting listed entities under the Criminal Code. That is also why we list terrorist entities under the Criminal Code: to send a strong message that Canada will not condone terrorist activity.

That is why it is so disappointing to see the NDP vote against the great bill we just passed last week to combat terrorism. Again, the NDP members are too busy trying to spread mistruths and mislead the Canadian public, which is really shameful on their part.

While terrorist threats may seem to take place far away from Canadian shores, we know we cannot be complacent in the belief that we are immune here at home. We know terrorism is a threat and remains a threat, even here in Canada.

We must be ready to counter threats like these through investments in public security and anti-terrorism measures and other actions. As members know, one of the greatest threats facing democratic nations today is the threat posed by homegrown violent extremists, individuals who seek to harm others in pursuit of overtly political, religious or ideological objectives.

There is real concern that new and evolving conflicts in the world might lure youth to engage in violent extremist activities at home and abroad. Canada, like all nations, has a responsibility to guard against its citizens travelling to areas of turmoil and participating in terrorist acts. That is why our government sought passage of the Combating Terrorism Act, the bill I just referred to, which makes it a criminal offence to leave Canada for the purposes of participating in or facilitating terrorist activity.

We must actively work to prevent individuals from being recruited overseas to learn a terrorist trade and possibly return to Canada or elsewhere to commit further acts of violence. We passed this bill. Again, it is beyond belief and beyond reason that the opposition did not support this initiative. Again, seeing what they are doing today, I guess it is clear that the opposition members are so out of touch with Canadians and what Canadians believe to be important that they spend their time on this kind of nonsense.

To move forward on both combatting terrorism and countering violent extremism, we also launched Canada's counter-terrorism strategy. The strategy is composed of four elements, to prevent, detect, deny and respond to terrorist threats. It sets out a clear approach for Canada to address terrorism with a focus on building community resilience.

We appreciate so much the input from communities across this country that want to see this kind of resilience built into the fabric of their communities. They want to see their young people growing up in Canada, being strong and successful, having families and jobs and not being radicalized by extreme groups. We appreciate so much their help in the work we are doing here in Canada.

A resilient society challenges and rejects the ideas and values associated with violent extremism, and works together to mitigate the impact of terrorist attacks. The success of our strategy relies on collaboration with Canada's international partners, security intelligence and law enforcement agencies, as well as all levels of government, industry stakeholders, civil society and, as I mentioned, communities throughout Canada.

International co-operation on counter-terrorism initiatives is a key component of Canada's counter-terrorism strategy. Since 2005, the counter-terrorism capacity-building program has provided training, funding, equipment and technical and legal assistance to other states. We can see how many great initiatives are going forward in this strategy.

We want to make them capable of preventing and responding to terrorist activities in accordance with international counter-terrorism standards and obligations. We also promote international co-operation in forums such as the G8 Roma-Lyon Group, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forums and of course the Global Counterterrorism Forum, just to name a few.

Here in Canada, much of our work focuses on research, community outreach, training and awareness, as well as engagement with key stakeholders.

As members can see, we are working hard to protect Canadians. We believe that is the job of a responsible government, which is what we are. The opposition members, on the other hand, are trying to manufacture a scandal, a crisis that just does not exist. I would encourage them to respect the words and the office of the Auditor General and get back to the priorities of Canadians, if they can.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will share my time with the hon. member for Nickel Belt.

We are talking about $3.1 billion in a $12.9 billion budget.

Government representatives are saying that there was an emergency in 2001, that there was a real terrorist threat. It never went away. Canada could be attacked and be unable to respond. That justified allocating a budget. The government decided that Canada needed to spend $12.9 billion to protect itself.

Now $3.1 billion is missing. Where did it go? There is no way of knowing. That is a pretty big deal.

The Auditor General said that there is no explanation for the $3.1 billion difference between the funds allocated to the departments and agencies and the reported expenditures. In other words, nobody knows what happened to that money.

Fortunately, we have been told that the money has not been diverted to a Swiss bank account by a corrupt public servant or minister. We have that assurance, at least. Still, it is not so bad because, given what is going on in the Senate, we could say that it has rubbed off on the ministers.

Needs were identified. What became of them? It is like cyberthreats. No one knows what happened to the $750 million.

The problem with the cyberthreat file is that, 10 years after the money was spent, we were blatantly told that our computer systems are not protected from a cyberattack. That is fairly serious.

That is the real problem: there is no accountability. The government chooses to spend money or not. Funds get reassigned, but we are never told whether the critical mission was accomplished. That is the whole problem with this government.

If this $3.1 billion was spent so Canada could be protected from an act of terrorism, that is good, because that is what should have been done. However, we do not have that information. We do not have that guarantee. We were quite simply told that $3.1 billion was missing. We demand to know what happened.

How can we right a situation if the extent of the problem or its very nature are being kept from us? To find a solution, we need to know the exact nature of the problem. That is what we are asking. That is exactly what is at the heart of this motion: we want to know. We do not want relevant information kept from us anymore.

The best part is that in 2010, this government decided to abolish the reporting process. The Auditor General clearly states that that is where their audit stopped. The government did not fix the problem. It got rid of the method for finding out about the problem.

Sweeping things under the rug will not make them disappear. Sooner or later, it will start to get cluttered under there.

In theory, it takes $3.1 billion to keep Canada safe. However, this same government introduced Bill S-7, saying that Canada needs to be protected from terrorism.

What will we use to fight terrorism? The Conservatives have cut public safety spending by $687 million. That must make the terrorists happy. I imagine that representatives and lawyers for the mafia and organized crime are thanking their lucky stars and hoping that this government never gets voted out of power. The election of the Conservative Party is the best thing that ever happened to the mafia.

They have slashed $143 million from the border services budget.

Right now, border posts all along Quebec's border are empty. Fraudsters and people smuggling in illegal immigrants are being asked to pick up the telephone and say they are crossing the border. Life is grand. This government is making every effort to be reckless. It says it will protect Canada and then it asks terrorists to turn themselves in. Well done.

In Granby and Bromont, the RCMP is helping people who crossed the border illegally and claim to be political refugees. That is fine. The problem is that there are some people who do not report to the RCMP. There are some who come straight across the border. Who are those people? We do not know and there is no way we can know, because the Conservatives have cut positions: 626 full-time positions, including 325 front-line police officers and 100 positions directly related to the intelligence directorate. They have cut 19 sniffer dog units that searched for drugs and explosives. That means that they have eliminated, from airports and border crossings, our system to protect against bombs and against terrorists who blow up airplanes. In theory, that should make us safer.

Meanwhile, the government does not know where the $3.1 billion that was supposed to be used to combat terrorism has gone. When I say that the work is not being done, I mean it is really not being done. Another very serious issue is the $195 million in cuts to the RCMP. That is the icing on the cake. It is really no longer able to do the job.

What is more, with regard to search and rescue and aviation safety, we are being told that if a plane ever crashes somewhere as a result of an act of terrorism, if a boat is ever in difficulty or there is a highjacking at sea, the Royal Canadian Air Force does not have the planes or helicopters to intervene, to protect and save the victims of an act of terrorism or any other accident. They no longer have the means to do so.

The $3.1 billion has gone missing. It would have been useful to look at any threats against Canada and use the money to counter those threats, yet that was not done. However, we may have an idea of where that $3.1 billion went.

The G8 and G20 summit expenses raised many questions. Today, the same minister is under scrutiny for the disappearance of $3.1 billion. It that money buried under a gazebo in his riding? It might be worthwhile to go and dig there. We might strike it rich.

Let us not forget that the $50 billion he spent on sidewalks, gazebos and public restrooms was supposed to have been spent on securing our borders. That money was allocated to border protection infrastructure. In order to get re-elected, the Conservatives took $50 million to assure the President of the Treasury Board's friends that they would all get small contracts, that they would all get a little treat. It does not make any sense at all.

It was important to point out that, under the Conservative government, that money was used for purposes other than those for which it was intended. That is clearly what happened in the President of the Treasury Board's case.

The President of the Treasury Board obviously has the makings of a future senator. This seems to be a Conservative government trademark.

This motion calls for something to be done about the $3.1 billion. Is Canada safer from terrorism than it was, when only $9.7 billion of the $12.9 billion allocated for this purpose was spent?

The government has not answered this important question. The loss of this $3.1 billion therefore demands some accountability. That is what Canada needs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to this motion.

When I began my parliamentary career, I myself was on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, where I had the opportunity to see various reports by the Auditor General, read the public accounts and see how the process works. That puts me in an even more interesting and beneficial position because I can see just how much of a mistake, a monumental oversight, losing $3.1 billion is. We are talking about billions of dollars here. It makes absolutely no sense.

To begin with, I would just like to say that this is interesting because we are talking about a very large amount of money. However, day after day, we are on the receiving end of somewhat personal attacks by government MPs. They make up stories about this or that and create myths. They say that tax rates will increase because of the New Democratic Party's tax and spend plan. They can call it what they want, but it is this government, and not the NDP, that is mismanaging things and hurting Canadians by increasing their taxes. It is this government that, once again, lost $3.1 billion. I cannot say it enough.

Today, when they get up during question period and say the same things yet again, you will note the irony in their attacks. Their government is in absolutely no position to criticize others about how they spend and manage taxpayers' money. It is quite disgraceful.

What we are seeing today is also a question of ministerial accountability. Each day, the leader of the official opposition, the member for Outremont, has been raising this matter. The members for Welland and Pierrefonds—Dollard, who also serve on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, are also asking about the $3.1 billion. The Prime Minister and the President of the Treasury Board disdainfully reply that they just have to look in the public accounts, that it is all there. That is simply not true; it is not in the public accounts.

I would like to know if the President of the Treasury Board is going to go see the Auditor General and tell him that if he forgot to check something, he just needs to look in the public accounts because it is all in there. He needs to have a bit more respect than that for the Auditor General, his expertise and the work he does, work he was appointed to do. He is perfectly capable of saying whether or not the money is in the public accounts, and that is not the case today.

I would like to thank the member for Pontiac for moving such an important motion, which is asking the government and the House to require that the necessary documents be provided to parliamentarians and the Auditor General so that they can do their work. The member for Pontiac mentioned the Auditor General's quote, which the government is repeating over and over again. It is just the opening of the quote. A teacher would not be too happy if a student were to use only part of a quote in a paper.

I cannot imagine that taxpayers and the Auditor General are too happy that only part of a quote is being used. We have to look at the entire quote to understand what is being said, which is that there is no indication that the money was misspent—on things like gazebos, something the G8 fund was used for—but the fact remains that the money cannot be found. This is by definition a scandal, a disgrace and a very serious problem.

The Auditor General said that the money does not seem to have been spent on anything illegal or inappropriate, but he does say in no uncertain terms that the money is nowhere to be found. He does not know what this money was spent on, which is a very serious problem. The President of the Treasury Board needs to live up to his ministerial responsibilities and submit the documents, not only to the Auditor General, but also to parliamentarians, so that we can exercise diligence and identify the problems.

The funny thing is that this is not a new problem. The Conservative government is not alone in this. This problem started under the Liberals.

We saw this in 2004, when Sheila Fraser issued her report. She is a well-respected auditor general who did an incredible job, including uncovering the sponsorship scandal. I will save that topic for another day, but it was the same kind of mismanagement of taxpayers' money that we are seeing today. Ms. Fraser's 2004 report showed that there were serious structural problems with regard to how spending on the public security and anti-terrorism initiative was being reported and that the Treasury Board Secretariat needed to make some serious improvements.

Nine years later, no improvements have been made and the problem still has not been resolved. This $3.1 billion is gone without a trace. That is a lot of money. What is more, when the Auditor General and his assistant appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, they said that instead of improving the way it accounts for money, the government seems to have stopped counting money altogether. New ways of reporting this money are being proposed for next year, but what do we do in the meantime?

Considering the level of government spending we are talking about, if we spend an entire fiscal year without any mechanism in place or without making any improvements, we will be sucked into a black hole devoid of transparency, ethics and accountability. It is irresponsible.

Yesterday, when the hon. member for Pontiac asked the government a question, I heard the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages jeering. He said that it had only been a year, which is not very long. He was wondering why we were whining. The government has spent that year making billions of dollars in expenditures without knowing where taxpayers' money is actually going. That is shameful and unacceptable.

The public security and anti-terrorism initiative began in 2001 following the September 11 attacks, which is understandable because we were trying to improve public safety by implementing anti-terrorism measures. This is still a relevant issue. Think of the debate surrounding Bill S-7, which seeks to implement new anti-terrorism measures. I gave a speech about this bill about two weeks ago. In it, I mentioned that it is unfortunate that the government is making cuts to public safety resources. I also indicated that, rather than giving more resources to the men and women who protect us, for example RCMP officers, the government decided to make cuts and introduce a bill that violates our civil liberties.

I am asking myself a serious question today. Before making fundamental changes to issues related to civil liberties, should the government not stop making cuts and ensure that the money that is already being invested in this regard has been well spent? We are talking about significant amounts of money. Today, there is a $3.1 billion hole in the Public Accounts of Canada. This money is lost or missing.

On behalf of the taxpayers in my riding and all ridings, since we are here for them, I am calling on the government to take responsibility and start doing some real work to stand up for taxpayers and make sure that their money is well spent. The government must tell us where that $3.1 billion went and give the relevant documents to parliamentarians and the Auditor General.

I hope that they will support this motion and finally take responsibility. It is the least they can do.

Public Safety

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, once again, the opposition is completely wrong. They think if they keep repeating an inaccurate statement that it will stick. It is not true. In fact, our government has increased front-line border officers by 26% since we came into office.

As well, we are giving not only front-line officers at the border but those around the country the tools they need, whether it is to enhance RCMP accountability so that it can be modernized and have more funds or when, the other day, we supported and passed Bill S-7, which gives law enforcement the ability to fight terrorist activity. The NDP voted against every one of those initiatives.

The Conservative and Liberal Parties of Canada

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, last Wednesday, we witnessed a sad spectacle in the House. Once again, the Liberals and the Conservatives joined forces to recycle an old, ineffective Liberal bill that attacks people's basic rights. Bill S-7 will not keep Canadians safer. It uses fear as an excuse to impose excessive measures, such as detention without charge and secret interrogations.

These measures conflict with Canadian values and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is strange. Many members of the old parties like to go on about the merits of the charter, but when the time comes to stand up for it, they just sit around doing nothing, and that is when they have the nerve to show up in the House to vote.

Blue or red, they are all one and the same. They vote the same way on Bill S-7 and the trade agreement with China, and they will soon vote the same way on climate change. Canadians deserve better. The only progressive alternative for 2015 is the NDP.

Respecting Families of Murdered and Brutalized Persons Act

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-478, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (increasing parole ineligibility).

I would first like to thank my colleague, the member for Gatineau and our justice critic. She has done an excellent job as our critic, as always. It is a pleasure and honour to work with her on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

We heard from the bill's sponsor. I understand his position. We are all moved by crimes when we hear what the families of victims must go through or when we must relive these situations, even if it is only at a trial.

I cannot imagine the feelings and emotions these families must experience. I can understand why the bill's sponsor wants to prevent victims from having to attend parole hearings.

Bill C-478 would increase the term for life imprisonment without parole from 25 years to 40 years in the case of offenders who are convicted of three crimes: the abduction, sexual assault and murder of one victim.

As my colleague mentioned, it is not clear whether this bill is consistent with the charter.

The bill's sponsor mentioned that the Department of Justice had been consulted. However, we recently learned from department employees that the department does not always check to see whether bills are consistent with the charter. There is a problem there. We have some doubts about what this bill does and whether it is consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

My colleague from Gatineau said it was very surprising to see the Liberals support this bill, especially when we see what kind of impact it could have.

We have been seeing a shift in the Liberals for a while now. The Liberals supported Bill S-7 and now they are supporting this bill.

Again, I understand my colleague's intent. I know how much everyone wants to avoid making the families suffer.

However, Steve Sullivan, the first ombudsman for victims of crime, said that this bill was all smoke and mirrors. If someone is accused of first degree murder, the Crown generally does not bother to deal with less serious offences. When Mr. Olson was found guilty of murdering 11 children, the Crown did not bother with charges of kidnapping or sexual assault, even though he obviously also committed those crimes.

The Crown would have had to prove each crime and could have used that to encourage a plea bargain, but it always depends on the judge's willingness to give more than 25 years, which he thinks is unlikely. He does not think that many judges would sentence a criminal to life with prison with no chance of parole for 40 years. Judges simply would not do that. If someone is sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole after 25 years, this already takes into account that if the person represents a danger or a risk, they will not be granted parole. He thinks that this is a false promise, despite good intentions. The measure would be used at most a few times a year, but would change nothing for the families of victims.

That is where our concern lies. We understand the sponsor's intention, but he himself said that judges are not bound by the change and do not have to increase the ineligibility period to 40 years.

Our concern is about the law. Members have mentioned the charter, but we also need to talk about our obligations with regard to international law. Canada signed the Rome statute. Paragraph 110(3) of the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court states that life in prison is the maximum sentence, but that it must be reviewed after 25 years. That applies to all serious crimes.

I can understand why my colleague wanted to mention certain crimes. However, what international law dictates and what Canada decided to apply is a maximum of 25 years for all crimes. Can one crime be considered more or less serious than another? These are crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes. These crimes are very serious.

Our role is not really to say which crimes are most serious. Our role is to define the law. That is why I am really very surprised that our Liberal colleagues supported this bill. Once again, I understand the intention. However, this seems to be a trend with the Conservatives. They claim that they are introducing bills because they want to try to fix a problem. However, they fail to consider Canada's obligations with respect to our legal system and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A former Department of Justice employee made this very clear. He said that the government no longer looks into that. This means that opportunities to determine whether a government bill conflicts with the charter are reduced, if not virtually eliminated.

Members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights asked for a review of the existing system to ensure compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Conservatives voted against that, so we were not able to carry out such a study. As a result, we have no certainty on that point.

The trend is getting worse. We know that the bill's sponsor had the support of the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister. This is yet another trend with private members' bills. We know that this government's policy is to attack law and order by adding more and more offences. Obviously, their main goal is to put more and more people behind bars and build bigger and bigger prisons.

In this case, I understand that our colleague is genuinely trying to protect families. He wants to protect people from having to listen to all the details of a crime again during parole hearings. Unfortunately, as we have said, this bill does not solve the problem. Not only does it not solve the problem, it conflicts with our obligations and violates the integrity of our legal system. This is about Canada's obligation to respect certain basic rights, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our obligations in terms of international law.

We also wonder whether this will open doors, whether it will once again come before the courts. Taxpayers will again have to assume even higher legal fees. All this will go before the Supreme Court, as has happened often already. Since the Conservatives came to power, we have seen an increase in legal fees. Not just in challenges by the provinces, but also from the Supreme Court with respect to the compatibility and constitutionality of certain Conservative bills.

Once again, we support the idea behind this bill. Why not look at another option, such as changing the way hearings are held? Why not try to see what we can do to ensure that families do not need to relive these cases? We do understand the intention, which is to avoid trauma every time families have to attend the hearing. However, even my colleague knows that his bill will not prevent families from having to come back every two years to hear it again. Nothing guarantees that.

There was mention of the very serious case of Clifford Olson. He murdered 11 people between the ages of 9 and 18. Let us look at the facts, though. In the case of Clifford Olson, it does not make a big difference. After spending 25 years in prison, he applied for parole in 2006 for the first time. That application was rejected, and so was his second application, made in 2008. The third application, made in 2010, was also rejected, because the court deemed that he was still a danger to society after 30 years in jail. He died in jail in 2011.

I understand the good intentions of the bill's sponsor. However, the NDP will oppose this bill at second reading. We believe that it is a political move made without considering the rule of law or examining what has to be done to comply with the fundamental rights protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will not keep members in suspense. I will therefore say from the outset that the NDP cannot support Bill C-478 for a number of reasons.

I agree with the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake that this bill deals with horrific, unspeakable crimes. I could add a number of others to the list that are just as horrific and unspeakable. I am thinking about the parents of a murder victim. Under the terms of the act, I should say someone who was “only” murdered, because all three offences were not committed. Kidnapping and murder would not be enough for this type of thing, nor would rape and murder. The three offences are required.

From the get-go, my colleague's bill is problematic. However, there are even more fundamental problems than this.

I just heard the hon. member for Winnipeg North express his support for the bill and congratulate its author for allowing the courts to retain their discretionary authority. The problem is that I am not convinced that this is a matter of discretion under section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Rome statute. It is a matter of the period of time someone is required to wait before they have the right to appear before the parole board. That is the problem.

Technically, according to the Rome statute, which Canada signed, all the countries agree that people are freed even after being given a life sentence in cases of genocide, war crimes, mutilation, rape and murder. Their eligibility for parole is reviewed after 25 years.

I am concerned about ensuring that, when we introduce and pass legislation, we are not passing something that inherently goes against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or about which there are serious doubts. Sometimes, I give the benefit of the doubt to the government or to bills that come in through the back door, meaning bills that are introduced by government backbenchers. That is the strategy that is often used. The government hopes to make serious changes to the Criminal Code with this type of provision. That is still quite a leap.

Take for example a jury that makes recommendations to a judge in an absolutely appalling case similar to that of Paul Bernardo. I have no doubt that a jury of peers would sentence the accused to life in prison with the maximum number of years before he was able to appear before the parole board, because the case was so appalling to anyone who followed it.

That person is going to die in prison and will never be released. However, being able to review the person's case is part of our system. At some point, there may be an exceptional case where the individual will not be seen as a dangerous offender. It is important to understand that the Clifford Olsons and Bernardos—especially Bernardo—will not have to appear before the board every two years.

It is absolutely horrible for victims to have to relive the events. I have spoken to a lot of victims when the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has studied various bills. Neither this bill nor any of the bills introduced by the government gives victims the slightest comfort, except for maybe a brief moment when the bill is passed and they tell themselves that someone has thought about them. The next day, they go back to thinking about their child who was mutilated, raped and murdered.

People tell us that if the justice system was designed to be more respectful of victims' rights and if crown attorneys were to speak with victims when they are in court—and with the parents, in those cases—to explain what is happening, that would already be more respectful.

Using this bill to suggest to victims that they will not have to go before the parole board every two years is just misleading and makes them believe something that is not true. It is like telling people that, with Bill S-7, we are all safer now. That creates a false sense of security, a false sense of something that does not exist. We do not play those games in the NDP. We think these issues are much too serious to spread falsehoods.

As I started to say, imagine a situation where a jury suggests to a judge to have an offender serve 40 years before he is eligible to go before the parole board. Then, imagine that the judge decides to support that recommendation, regardless of the jury's reasons. Obviously, that would be challenged. It would probably go straight to the Supreme Court of Canada, because there may be completely different sentences for a crime that is probably similar, even with the wording in question.

We must remember that the Conservatives have a goal, one that was set when they arrived in government, that they are pursuing today and that will ultimately result in a victims' charter, which I am anxious to see. I thought we had identified victims' needs. However, it seems that the minister needs to hold further consultations. The Conservatives consult instead of taking action. That is their style at present. That said, this is a major and complex problem.

Once again, section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that we cannot impose “cruel and unusual treatment or punishment”. I will be told that the crime itself is cruel. I completely agree. None of us would rise and say that kidnapping, raping and murdering a child is not horrible or despicable enough to warrant being punished. However, the perpetrator is already punished with a life sentence. The Bernardos of this world will never leave jail. The Conservatives should stop implying that we are not tough enough on this type of crime. We are.

In this case, we are talking about the right to appear before a board. I have spoken with a number of human rights experts such as legal scholars, criminologists, criminal lawyers, crown attorneys and defence attorneys. They have told me that there is a risk.

Take the case of Clifford Olson, which involved kidnapping, rape and murder. Did the crown attorney have to prove the rape and kidnapping? No. He put all his efforts into proving the murder and he sought the life sentence for the offence of murder.

What this means is that this bill will change what happens in courts of law. That is why I asked my colleague the question. He says that he has spoken to people at the justice department. I do not doubt him, but I would like to hear from them.

We will be voting against this bill, with the support of the Liberals, which surprises me. The Liberal Party justice critic is a human rights expert, so I was really surprised to hear that. That said, they are changing everything on this issue.

I cannot wait to hear from someone from the justice department tell us that he or she seriously doubts that this will pass the tests. Should we leave it up to the courts to decide whether these people should be incarcerated and whether there is any doubt? If, like the individual wrote on their website, the goal is to prevent victims and their families from having to go before the parole board, it would have been much better to find ways so that these people—in cases like Bernardo, Olsen and other such cases—do not have to do so, or have the choice, unless the offender is very close to being released, or unless it would be dangerous to release him. Much like my colleague, I am 95% or almost 100% sure that they will not be released. It is therefore quite possible that victims and their families would not have to attend.

I will listen to the rest of the debate, but I can say that this bill definitely does not meet the criteria. Indeed, a major change in how these cases are dealt with in court and—

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it was Harold Macmillan who once said, “Events, my dear friend, events”. That is the great variable.

As we know, we have had many events and we were delighted that we were able to get Bill S-7 approved by this House this past week, in response to events.

Today, we will continue with debate on the NDP's opposition day motion.

It being Victims Week, we will follow up on this week's passage of Bill S-7, the combatting terrorism act, with debate tomorrow on Bill C-54, the not criminally responsible reform act, at second reading.

Insofar as the government's agenda, there is actually a very significant cornerstone to that agenda; that is, of course, our economic action plan. Earlier this week, the House adopted a ways and means motion to allow for a bill implementing measures from economic action plan 2013. Our top priority is creating jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity, so if a bill following on the ways and means motion were to be introduced before Wednesday, we would give that bill priority consideration for debate Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of next week.

In the interim, on Monday, we will return to the report stage debate on Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice and the support of Canada act. It is my hope that this debate will conclude on Monday so that we can have the third reading debate on that bill on Tuesday.

If we have the opportunity next week, we will continue the second reading debate of the not criminally responsible reform act. This is an important bill and I would hope that it will get to committee without delay.

The government will also give consideration to Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act at second reading; Bill C-52, the fair rail freight service act at report stage and third reading; Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act at third reading; and finally, Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act.

Justice

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it seems that spring has sprung and love is in the air as last night we witnessed the two old-line parties caught in each other's warm embrace once again.

When the final vote for Bill S-7 came up, it was Liberal, Tory, same old story as the Liberals and Conservatives were seen voting hand-in-hand.

Together they voted through a law that allows secret hearings and incarcerations of up to one year without charge and conviction, provisions that have proven unnecessary in the past and provisions that represent a clear violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a piece of paper that some parties in this place should understand better.

We recognize that these springtime smells can be intoxicating, but that is no excuse for shirking one's responsibility to uphold both the letter and spirit of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, even when it takes political courage to do so.

Canadians deserve a party that will fight to protect the sanctity of the charter in all circumstances and they will have a chance to choose that change when they vote NDP in the federal election of 2015.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. Before we resume debate, I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

April 25, 2013

Mr. Speaker:

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bill listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 25th day of April, 2013, at 12:45pm.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Wallace

Secretary to the Governor General

The schedule indicates the bill assented to was Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act—Chapter 9.

Opposition Motion—Climate Change

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to reassure my colleague. The Liberal Party is where it is right now for a number of reasons. Since their new leader was elected, we have seen them getting a little closer to the Conservatives. Why not say so and tell everyone? Just yesterday, the Liberals supported Bill S-7, which violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as we will surely see in the courts before long.

There was talk about FIPA. Once again, the Liberals and Conservatives both gave their support. The same thing will happen again with this motion; the Liberals and Conservatives will be united. Therefore, it is becoming clearer and clearer for Canadians that these two parties are one and the same.

I would also like to say that there will be other elections and that they will probably have a maximum of 30 or 35 members in the next 20 years.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, given the good news that we have concluded debate on the final stage of Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act, and given my statement Friday regarding the rescheduling of business, I would like to officially designate tomorrow and Thursday as allotted days.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a brief statement respecting business of the House for the next week.

As I said at the start of question period, leadership requires decisive and serious action in response to serious threats of terrorism. To give members of this House an opportunity to express their views on the appropriate way to respond to terrorist violence, on Monday and Tuesday the House will debate Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act.

This bill is at its final stage in Parliament, and I call upon all members of this place to pass this bill. We do not need further study. We need action.

As a result, the original government business that was scheduled for those days will be rescheduled to a later date.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we will continue with the report stage debate on Bill C-15, the Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, until 4 o'clock.

At 4 o'clock, my friend, the hon. Minister of Finance, will unveil economic action plan 2013, this year’s federal budget.

Of course, we will have to wait until that speech—which will not be much longer, I can assure the opposition House leader—to find out all of the important measures our government is putting forward to support jobs and growth for all Canadians, workers, families and the job-creating businesses that make all their lives better with the over 950,000 net new jobs we have created so far with, I am sure, more to come.

In the meantime, I can tell hon. members with certainty that with that objective of job creation in mind, economic action plan 2013 will not contain the NDP's risky proposals to hurt our economy and job creation. It will not include, for example, a tax hike on Canadian job creators, the one that was advocated by the leader of the NDP when he was on his visit to Washington arguing against Canadian jobs, a tax hike that Canadian manufacturers and exporters have said would cost 200,000 Canadian jobs off the top just in their sector.

The budget will not include the over $56 billion in reckless past NDP spending proposals and, of course, our economic action plan will not include the NDP's signature initiative, its $21 billion carbon tax, a concept that has already been rejected by Canadians. We will undoubtedly hear about these differences in priorities over the course of the four days of the budget debate, which our rules provide. Those days will be tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Finally, on Thursday, March 28, we shall start third reading of Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act, before question period. After question period, we will resume the third reading debate on Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, our focus as a government is on an agenda that puts at the forefront job creation, economic growth and long-term prosperity, with a very clear focus on making our streets and communities safer. With regard to that clear agenda, we have several items to propose for the time ahead.

Today we will continue the third reading debate on Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act. That is a cornerstone in making our communities safer. After that, we will return to second reading debate on Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act.

Tomorrow we will finish the second reading debate on Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012, again resulting in a more stable and secure economy.

After we return from our constituency week on Monday, March 18, the House will consider Bill C-55, the response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Tse act, at report stage and third reading now that it has been reported back from committee. This is an important justice measure. I must remind the House that this legislation responds to a Supreme Court decision that takes effect over the Easter adjournment, so it is very important that we be able to pass it here and get it to the Senate for it to deal with before that time.

Once the House deals with Bill C-55, it could then consider Bills S-9 and S-12, if they are still held up in the House; Bill C-15, the Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, at report stage and third reading, since that bill has now been reported back from committee; and Bill S-7, the Combating Terrorism Act, at third reading.

All these bills are necessary and important for Canadians' safety.

Wednesday, March 20, shall be the seventh and final allotted day. As a result, the House will then consider the usual supply motions and appropriation bills that evening. We will give priority to debating Bills C-15 and S-12 on Thursday and Friday, March 21 and 22.

I hope that makes clear the agenda that the opposition House leader has apparently been unable to perceive of the government, our clear agenda of delivering on job creation, economic growth, long-term prosperity and safe and secure communities for all Canadians.

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I would actually like to begin where I was going to conclude with my speech, after hearing the, frankly, rather arrogant question coming from the parliamentary secretary.

We all know what the government does in committee time after time after time. Any amendment, however well framed, is voted down by the majority. There is almost a zero per cent passage rate of NDP, Liberal or independent members' amendments in committee in this Parliament, so to pretend that the fact of the writing of a few amendments by the opposition in this process would have made an iota of difference is the height of arrogance.

I would also like the House to know that in this context, most of the opposition witnesses were in the last two days, the majority on the last day. The majority on the committee voted to make sure that the amendments from the opposition came in three and a half hours after the session. Can we imagine, in the context of a complex bill like this, putting together well-crafted amendments when put up against an artificial deadline like that? This is the behaviour of the government in that committee. Committees do not function in any kind of straightforward or good-faith legislative manner.

I would like to address how far Bill C-42 diverges from and does not respect the recommendations from Justice O'Connor and the Arar commission for a proper review mechanism for the RCMP. Most of the other interventions have talked about other areas of the bill and other issues, but I would like to talk about how the bill does take a small step in the direction of the Arar commission recommendations, but ultimately stops far short. This is consistent with how the government has truly resisted appropriate oversight mechanisms for any body that deals with policing or security matters.

For example, in another bill that is before the House now, Bill S-7, Combating Terrorism Act, Conservatives have stoutly resisted any form of serious oversight or monitoring. In my speech on that bill, I will go into some detail on that. In each case, the NDP has proposed more than a dozen carefully considered amendments that would help make good on the Arar commission's exhaustive second report on a review mechanism, yet every one was voted down or ruled out of order.

This is consistent with the general approach of the government to the Arar commission. I had the fortune to be in the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security when the Minister of Public Safety appeared to defend the report called “Building Resilience against Terrorism”, and I asked him what the government's intention is with respect to the recommendations on a review mechanism coming out of the Arar commission report. It was absolutely clear from his response that the government has no interest in that report or using it as any kind of a reference point, baseline or road map. Bill C-42 has made that completely clear.

I will proceed as follows. I will provide a short overview of what the Arar commission did recommend by way of review mechanisms, and then I will look at how Bill C-42 on at least four points does not take those recommendations at all seriously.

The report I am referring to from the Arar commission is called “A New Review Mechanism for the RCMP's National Security Activities”. Before proposing the exact mechanisms, Justice O'Connor, who is of the Ontario court of appeal, outlined reasons for the inadequacy of existing accountability and review mechanisms for the RCMP's national security activity. In general, he pointed out that there has been an evolution and a deepening of the RCMP national security role, despite the fact that CSIS itself was peeled off from the RCMP at some point. Obviously in the post-2001 climate, we know that to be true and why that is true. He emphasized three elements.

First of all, there has been enhanced and deepened information-sharing with other countries and among federal, provincial and municipal agencies, and increased integration and national security policing. We know that information-sharing was at the heart of what happened to Mr. Arar.

Second, he talked about comparative and other Canadian experience with both policing and security intelligence review that led him to conclude that there was the “inability of a complaint-based approach to provide a firm foundation for ensuring that the often secret national security activities respect the law and rights and freedoms”.

Third, he said that the existing Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP has encountered “difficulties in obtaining access to information from the RCMP”. We will see that this is the understatement of the century when we look at some of the testimony.

For the information of the parliamentary secretary, I did read the blues and I did consider the testimony of various witnesses, including Mr. Kennedy, the former head of the CPC, whose testimony is irrefutable. The government did everything it could in committee to try to underplay and deflect the impact of that testimony.

Justice O'Connor recommended a number of features that the new review mechanism would have.

First, it must be authorized to conduct self-initiated reviews in the same way and to the same extent as SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee that oversees CSIS. He talked about the need for these reviews not just at the time when activities were deepening, but in the context in which national security activities by definition were conducted in secret and received little by way of judicial scrutiny or other independent scrutiny. He emphasized how a self-initiated review had to be linked to the criterion of independence from the RCMP and the government in the right of access to information and to initiate those reviews.

The second feature that he felt would be important was that the body had to have investigative powers similar to those that public bodies had under the Inquiries Act. He emphasized a few things. Some of them are in the bill, such as the right to subpoena documents and compel testimony. Also, the review body has to have the right to decide what information is necessary and not have barriers put in front of it in making that decision or accessing the information.

Third, he stated:

—the review mechanism must not be hampered by jurisdictional boundaries. It must be able to follow the trail wherever it leads, to ensure full and effective investigation or review of the RCMP's national security activities.

With those principles in mind he went on to recommend a new independent complaints and national security review agency for the RCMP that would replace the CPC and would also take on the role he recommended for overseeing the Canadian Border Services Agency, the CBSA.

He went on to talk about the need for coordination across the various bodies, this new body he recommended, the existing SIRC, Security Intelligence Review Committee, and the commissioner for the CSE, the Commissioner for the Canadian Security Establishment, who also has broader and wider powers than what is found recommended in Bill C-42.

What is in Bill C-42 that falls far short of these recommendations?

The first major problem is that Bill C-42 does not give the new review body uninhibited access to information that the body deems necessary and relevant. In committee the Conservatives tried to avoid acknowledging that the bill would give the power to the RCMP commissioner to prevent examination and review of a broad range of privileged information. From lots of experience, we know how various bodies, including the RCMP, have abused the claim of privilege.

Mr. Kennedy, the former head of the CPC, noted in testimony before the committee, the findings of former Supreme Court Judge John Major in the Air India inquiry, who experienced first-hand the abuse of privilege by the RCMP.

Mr. Kennedy stated:

—with reference to the privilege. Justice Major, whom I talked to, was scathing in terms of his comments that the RCMP over-claimed privilege, concealed information from him, and in some case a witness who wanted to testify, they claimed they needed the information for investigative purposes which wasn't true.

The second major problem is that the RCMP commissioner can force the chair of the new recommended body, the CRCC, to suspend an investigation by means of a simple request in a letter on the grounds that it would compromise an ongoing investigation. Mr. Kennedy commented how this completely gutted the credibility of this body in the eyes of the public. It completely undermines any sense of independence of the body.

The third major problem is that the bill is largely void of timeframes within which the RCMP must respond to requests and findings of this new review body. As Mr. Kennedy said:

Inordinate and unjustifiable delay was the hallmark of the RCMP during the four-plus years that I was chair of the Commission for Public Complaints...

There was one fourth major problem, but perhaps a question will elicit that.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue debating third reading of Bill C-42, the enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police accountability act, a bill that would give the RCMP the tools it needs to strengthen accountability and enhance public trust. I am puzzled why the NDP is putting up member after member to delay and block bringing accountability to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The New Democrats should let the bill come to a final vote so that these much-needed reforms can be put in place. In fact, the RCMP commissioner, Robert Paulson, was in front of the committee yesterday, and he called for swift passage of the bill.

If the New Democrats heed the commissioner's advice and allow the debate to conclude, we will be able to start third reading of Bill S-7, the combatting terrorism act, and help keep Canadians safe that way.

Tomorrow, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-54, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act. This bill proposes to put public safety as the first and paramount consideration in the process of dealing with accused persons found to be not criminally responsible. It accomplishes this change without affecting the treatment these individuals receive.

The debate on Bill C-54 will continue next Thursday and—if necessary—on Friday. Monday, we will consider Bill C-47, the Northern Jobs and Growth Act, at report stage and third reading. We will continue that debate on Wednesday.

Tuesday, March 5, shall be the sixth allotted day, which will go to the New Democrats.

Finally, I hope that the opposition will support our hard-working approach to business so that we could also consider second reading of Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012; the second reading of Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act; and report stage and third reading of Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act.

In addition, in response to what I will take to be an invitation from the oppostion House leader, I would like unanimous consent to propose the following motion. I hope the opposition will not block it.

I move that, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-7, an act respecting the selection of senators and amending the Constitution Act, 1867 in respect of Senate term limits, be deemed to have been read the second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read the third time and passed.

Unanimous consent for this would show that they really do care about Senate reform.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the implicit offer of assistance from the House Leader of the Official Opposition.

I look forward to discussions with him later on the possibility of moving forward both Senate reform and Bill C-12 on a unanimous consent basis straight to committee. I would be happy to do that with him.

This afternoon we will continue debating the Liberal opposition day motion. Tomorrow we will hopefully finish second reading of Bill C-48, the Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, a measure supported by all three parties. After that we will turn to third reading of Bill C-42, the Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act; third reading of Bill S-7, the Combating Terrorism Act; and second reading of Bill S-12, the Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act.

When we return from our constituency week on Monday, February 25, we will start second reading of Bill C-55, the Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act. This bill needs to be passed by mid-April before the Supreme Court ruling takes effect, which would render the important powers available to police ineffective.

After Bill C-55, we will consider Friday's unfinished business.

Tuesday, February 26, shall be the fifth allotted day, which will go to the Official Opposition, and it will therefore choose the subject of debate.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we will continue debating the bills I have already listed.

Additionally, Bill C-47, Northern Jobs and Growth Act, was reported back from committee yesterday, and I anticipate Bill S-9, Nuclear Terrorism Act, will be reported back soon. So we could also call these bills at report stage and third reading, if we have extra time next week.

Finally, on Friday, March 1, the House will start the second reading debate on Bill C-54, Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act. The Prime Minister announced this bill last week as part of our efforts to ensure we have a justice system that puts the rights of victims first.

Safer Witnesses Act

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise to speak to this bill today. I have found the debate and all the preparatory work that we have done in my office in advance of me speaking today very interesting.

Many of the impressions we have about witness protection come from south of the border. We have watched American television and American crime shows for so long that we are very familiar with the concept of witness protection. Most Canadians probably think the system in Canada is as robust, well-developed and tightly coordinated as it appears to be in the United States through those representations we have seen on television.

I was very curious to discover that the program was not that old. I thought I would do a little rundown of the history of the program in Canada, just to give some background to the debate.

At the federal level, the witness protection program only began in 1984 as a series of internal RCMP guidelines and policies. It was designed at a time when the fight against drug trafficking had become a major priority. Its intent was to encourage the co-operation of witnesses who could provide information on organized crime. We can see that the witness protection program is tightly associated with the rise or further expansion of organized crime, specifically in relation to the drug trade.

There were protective measures for those who co-operated with law enforcement in the provinces. Some provinces and municipalities, including British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec already had their own witness protection programs that provided a variety of protection measures, such as relocation for the duration of a trial, for example. However, admission to the federal witness protection program, which is run by the RCMP today, was, and still is, an extreme measure only used in the most severe cases.

The first legislative basis for the witness protection program came with the passing of Bill C-13, Witness Protection Program Act in 1996. The bill sought to strengthen the program by including a clear definition of admission criteria for witnesses and a more public and accountable structure for the management of the program. It provided clearer lines of authority than existed in the program prior to the legislation, which, as I mentioned, was essentially a policy, making the witness protection program the clear responsibility of the RCMP commissioner.

According to 2008 data, there were approximately 1,000 protectees in witness protection program; 700 managed by the RCMP and 300 by other law enforcement agencies. About 30% of these protectees had not themselves acted as witnesses, interestingly, but were in the program because of their relationship to a witness.

Under the Witness Protection Program Act, the commissioner is required to conduct an annual report, outlining statistics about the program, without disclosing details that could compromise its integrity or the identity of protected witnesses.

The 2011-12 annual report showed that of 108 individuals considered for admission to the witness protection program during that period, 30 were accepted, which surprises me. I thought the rate of acceptance would be higher. Twenty-six of the thirty came from RCMP investigations, while four were admitted on behalf of other Canadian law enforcement agencies. The total cost of the program, including RCMP and public servant compensation, totalled $9.1 million.

Under the current Witness Protection Program Act, the RCMP is responsible for making all decisions related to admission and all potential protectees must be recommended by either a law enforcement agency, namely the RCMP, or a provincial or municipal force.

Individuals are admitted to the program based on a number of considerations outlined in the legislation such as: the nature of the risk to the security of the witness; the likelihood of the witness being able to adjust to the program; the cost of maintaining the witness in the program; and whether alternative methods of protecting the witness are available. Once it has been determined that the witness protection program is the best option, a protection agreement is be signed between the RCMP and the protectee, outlining the obligations of both parties. Admission to the program involves a total identity change and relocation. Therefore, when individuals are admitted to the program, it is assumed that they will remain lifelong protectees.

However, protection can be terminated by the RCMP if the conditions of the protection agreement are not met, such as, for example, if the protectee commits a crime, associates with gang members or uses drugs. Protectees can also choose to terminate their protection voluntarily. In either case, their families continue to be protected. It cannot be stressed enough that admission to the witness protection program is the last resort.

There have been some controversies in recent years surrounding the program. In 2008 the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security conducted a review of the federal witness protection program. A few years later, an entire chapter of the Air India inquiry conducted by Commissioner John Major focused on the need for adapting the witness protection program to terrorism cases. Essentially, this bill would update a system that began before the advent of terrorism or before terrorism became an issue in our country and on our continent. This is why it is important that we update the program to take account of these new realities.

Under Bill C-51, recommendations for admission to the program could also be made by federal departments, agencies or services. Bill C-51 would make it possible for federal agencies or services other than the RCMP that might be involved in national security, national defence or public safety to make recommendations for admitting individuals to the program. However, under Bill C-51, the power to determine whether a witness should be admitted to the program and the type of protection to be provided would remain with the RCMP commissioner. This very important change would address the urgent need for the protection of witnesses involved in the investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences.

The need for organizations such as CSIS to be able to offer protection to witnesses was made abundantly clear during the investigation into the 1985 Air India bombing, as outlined in Commissioner Major's 2010 report. The report highlighted the issues surrounding the reluctance of witnesses in the Air India inquiry to co-operate with CSIS investigators who, under the Witness Protection Program Act, could not offer them adequate protection. This bill obviously comes from a recommendation from that inquiry, which is significant in the history of our country and has spurred many changes to public security legislation.

The other interesting aspect of this bill is that it would provide for better coordination with police forces other than the RCMP. This seems to be a recurring theme in the area of public safety, namely the idea that it is becoming more and more important in this complex world in which we live and in this complex reality, that police forces across the spectrum work closely with each other. That has not always been the case, but there is a recognition today that more and more this is part of the need to create a seamless web of national and public security in Canada.

Clause 11 of Bill C-51 states that the Governor-in-Council may, by regulation, add to the schedule of the bill a provincial or municipal program that facilitates the protection of witnesses. Once it is listed in the schedule, this program will become a designated program. By becoming a designated program, it means the federal government can better coordinate the activities of federal departments and agencies whose co-operation is required to provide the protectee, for example, with the proper papers, a new identity and so on. This is a very important part of updating our witness protection regime in Canada and making it much more efficient and effective.

Bill C-51, interestingly, would also extend the period of time during which the commissioner might grant emergency protection to a witness who had not been admitted to the witness protection program. Therefore, there are cases where it is obviously important to provide some kind of interim protection to a witness and by virtue of the bill, the commissioner will be able to offer longer interim protection. Under the current provisions of the Witness Protection Program Act, emergency protection may be granted for no more than 90 days, but Bill C-51 would allow for an extension of that time period by another 90 days, bringing the total time of interim coverage to 180 days.

This is a good bill but there are some issues in it that have not been properly addressed and I would like to outline a couple of those.

Both the Air India inquiry and the 2008 House of Commons committee report on the subject of witness protection recommended that decisions relating to the admission of witnesses to the program and the resolution of disputes arising between protectees and the RCMP be handled by an independent body. In other words, the objective was to provide a third-party view to resolve any disputes between these two parties. In the Air India inquiry, this was envisioned to be in the form of a new position, a national security witness protection coordinator, whose mandate would include assessing the risks to potential protectees, who would work with relevant partners to provide the best form of protection based on the situation and to resolve disputes between the protectee and the program, as I mentioned earlier.

The 2008 committee report recommended that this body be an independent office within the Department of Justice, consisting of a multidisciplinary team that could include police officers, crown attorneys and criminologists. In other words, as in many areas of public policy or many areas of life today, we are moving toward a more holistic approach to issues, which allows us to deal with the many sides of a particular situation using many different kinds of specialists. This office within the Department of Justice, as I mentioned, would have a multidisciplinary team.

Another of the recommendations in the 2008 House of Commons committee report was that potential candidates for admission to the witness protection plan be offered the aid of legal counsel during the negotiation of the admission and the signing of the protection contract. This recommendation arose from testimony about the powerlessness of many prospective protectees when it comes to negotiating their protection agreement. Protection agreements have a huge impact on the lives of protectees or their families and, at present, are negotiated between the RCMP, which has years of experience in such negotiations, and protectees who are unfamiliar with the process and may not understand the implications and scope of the document they are signing. The House of Commons committee therefore felt that the presence of a lawyer would help ensure that negotiations are more fair and equitable.

These are two reasonable recommendations that fit within the widely accepted view that people need support when they are dealing with such complicated issues. One can just imagine the stress that someone contemplating going into the witness protection program would feel. He or she may not be thinking clearly about the issue, may not be familiar with that side of police work because of their always being on the other side of the police-criminal divide. It would seem to me that having the person negotiate without support would leave him or her somewhat helpless, and that is not the Canadian way. We believe in counter-balancing situations so that things are not entirely one-sided. In that perspective, this recommendation makes a fair amount of sense.

Like the NDP we will be supporting the bill. It is really a housekeeping matter in some ways and it would help build another defence against the threat of terrorism. The witness protection program in its current form has provided an effective tool to fight organized crime but it has not been updated to take into consideration cases involving terrorist threats. There is other legislation before the House today, Bill S-7, that is also meant to update our defences against terrorism. This bill connects very well and very logically with that other initiative and with the general vigilance that we are exhibiting in our society to make sure that our communities are safe and secure.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Yes, I have a plan, Mr. Speaker.

This afternoon, we will continue today's NDP opposition day.

Tomorrow, we should finish the second reading debate on Bill C-52, Fair Rail Freight Service Act. Then, we will resume the second reading debate on Bill C-48, Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012.

Before question period on Monday and Tuesday, the House will debate third reading of Bill C-42, Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act. After question period those days, we will turn to second reading of Bill C-51, Safer Witnesses Act.

On Wednesday, we will debate second reading of Bill S-12, the incorporation by reference in regulations act. I do not expect that this bill, which responds to views of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, would need a lot of House time. I hope we can deal with it quickly. We could then turn to report stage and possible third reading of Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act.

Next Thursday shall be the fourth allotted day, which I understand will see the Liberals choosing our topic of debate.

On Friday, we will resume any unfinished debates on the bills we just mentioned, or we could also consider dealing with any of the many bills dealing with aboriginal issues. That being raised as a concern, we have Bill S-2 dealing with matrimonial property; we have another bill dealing with safe water for first nations; and we have another bill dealing with fair elections for first nations. On all of these bills we would welcome the support of the official opposition. We have not had that to date, but if we do, we can deal with them very quickly on that day. I would be delighted to do that. I will await with interest the response from the NDP.

Public Safety and National Security

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in relation to Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendment.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking everyone involved in supporting us as members of Parliament in Tuesday’s voting. Despite all of the amendments at committee and in the House, the balance of the government’s 2012 economic action plan will become law shortly.

This afternoon, the House will resume consideration of second reading of Bill C-15, the Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act. Once that has concluded, we will turn to report stage of Bill C-37, the Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act, Bill C-42, the Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, and Bill C-43, the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act.

We will continue working on these bills tomorrow.

Monday shall be the seventh allotted day, which goes to the New Democrats. This gives the official opposition one last opportunity before the new year to lay out its plans and schemes for a $21.5 billion job-killing carbon tax that will raise the price of everything.

For the rest of the week, I hope to advance a lot of legislation that continues to sit on the order paper. In addition to the bills I mentioned already, we will also consider Bill C-48, the technical tax amendments act, 2012; Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act; Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act; Bill S-6, the first nations elections act; Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act; Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act; Bill C-17, the Air Canada and its associates act; and Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act, once that bill has been reported back from committee next week, which I anticipate.

Nuclear Terrorism Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that back in 2001 it was obviously a very serious issue, not only at that time but even prior to the whole 9/11 incident. There was already a great deal of discussion about terrorism. At the time, Chrétien was the prime minister of Canada and played a role in trying to heighten the importance of getting some form of treaty signed through the United Nations. The Liberal Party has always been very supportive of the United Nations.

The resolution that the member is specifically referring to was back in 2001. It required member states to adopt certain anti-terrorism legislation and policies, including those to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist acts, freeze the financial resources available to terrorist organizations, suppress the supply of weapons to organizations, as well as deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support or commit terrorist acts. It also called on the member states to become party to and fully implement the relevant international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism, as soon as possible.

Some of those items are fairly recent in terms of enactment in Canada's own Criminal Code. I believe even Bill S-7 might have attempted to deal with some of this. There is no doubt that the government has been negligent in not addressing some of those dated resolutions that were passed years ago.

Therefore, we could be doing more. Maybe we should be having a thorough review on those resolutions dealing with terrorism that have been passed, or those agreements that have been signed off, to see what more Canada could do, through the House of Commons, to ensure that we are not only signing agreements but actually implementing—

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I will first wish my former Liberal counterpart, the hon. member for Westmount—Ville-Marie, well on his newest mission.

Yesterday was probably an auspicious day for the former astronaut to launch a Liberal leadership campaign. A member of my staff has told me that November 28 was Red Planet Day. While the member's ideas and proposals will no doubt be well suited for the red party, it is yet to be determined whether they will actually be better suited for Mars or for Earth. We will wait and see.

The hon. member for Papineau might want to be aware of the House leader bump. My first NDP counterpart after the election now resides in Stornoway. Meanwhile, I want to welcome and congratulate the new Liberal House leader, the hon. member for Beauséjour. I look forward to continuing the very positive relationship that I enjoyed working together with his predecessor. I genuinely and sincerely wish his predecessor the best of luck.

I am sure that the new House leader will be keen to hear that we will resume the report stage debate on Bill C-45, the jobs and growth act, 2012, this afternoon.

After almost 4,600 votes in the House and committee on our 2012 economic action plan, I am pleased to say that we are in the home stretch of implementing our budget for this year.

Canadians will soon see important measures such the hiring credit for small business extended, greater tax relief for investing in clean energy, and strengthened registered disability savings plan rules.

To the great chagrin of the New Democrats no doubt, Canadians will still not see within that budget a $21.5 billion job killing carbon tax or the $6 billion GST tax grab that I know they wish to see implemented. It does not matter how many hundreds of amendments they put forward, we simply will not accede to their tax and spend initiatives.

The House will consider Bill C-45 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

We will resume second reading debate on Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act, tomorrow. We will get back to second reading of Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act, if we have time.

On Thursday and Friday next week, we will work through a number of bills before the House, including: Bill C-43, the faster removal of foreign criminals act, which was reported back from committee this morning; Bill C-37, the increasing offenders' accountability for victims act; Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act, should it be reported back from committee; and the other bills I have mentioned, if we have not had a chance to wrap up those debates.

Finally, for the benefit of the House and particularly committees meeting on the supplementary estimates, I am planning for the last supply day of this fall to be on Monday, December 10. I expect that I will get back to the House next week at some point to designate that date formally.

Nuclear Terrorism Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand in support of the bill and to start today's discussion of Bill S-9.

I will be splitting my time with the fantastic member of Parliament from Nanaimo—Cowichan. Notwithstanding the fact that I was instructed to use those precise terms, I happily stand by them.

We are back to amending the Criminal Code but this time for a good cause. Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act, would amend the Criminal Code in order to implement the criminal law requirements of two international counterterrorism treaties, the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, as amended in 2005, and the 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.

The nuclear terrorism act introduces four new indictable offences into part 2 of the Criminal Code, making it illegal to possess, use or dispose of nuclear or radioactive material or a nuclear or radioactive device, or commit an act against a nuclear facility or its operations, with the intent to cause death, serious bodily harm or substantial damage to property or the environment; to use or alter nuclear or radioactive material or a nuclear or radioactive device, or commit an act against a nuclear facility or its operation, with the intent to compel a person, government or international organization to do or refrain from doing anything; to commit an indictable offence under federal law for the purpose of obtaining nuclear or radioactive material, a nuclear or radioactive device, or access or control of a nuclear facility; and to threaten or commit to do any of the above.

In addition, the bill introduces into the code other amendments that are incidental to these four offences but are nonetheless important. It introduces a new section into the code to ensure individuals who, when outside of Canada, commit or attempt to commit these offences may be prosecuted in Canada. It amends the wiretap provisions found in the code to ensure that they apply to the new offences. It also amends the code to make four new offences primary designated offences for the purposes of DNA warrants and collection orders.

Finally, it amends the double jeopardy rule in Canada such that, notwithstanding the fact that a person may have been previously tried and convicted for these new offences outside Canada, the rule against double jeopardy would not apply when the foreign trial did not meet certain basic Canadian legal standards. In that case, a Canadian court may try the person again for the same offence of which he or she was convicted by a foreign court.

For a long time now, but particularly in the post-cold war era, it has been well understood that with the proliferation of nuclear weaponry and nuclear power generation around the world, a new and heightened regime of nuclear safety and security must be developed. A scenario in which nuclear weapons or materials fall into the hands of terrorists has prompted many to focus on the development of such a regime or framework. It is clearly understood that such a regime must be international in scope and must be grounded in the deep and good faith co-operation of states around the world. That regime needs to be put in place with considerable urgency.

This understanding forms the basis of the two aforementioned conventions that await Canada's ratification. The first of these, the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, dates back to 1980. Its importance is signified by the fact that it stands, still, as the only internationally legally binding undertaking in the protection of nuclear material.

In July of 2005, a diplomatic conference was convened to strengthen the provisions of the convention by doing a number of things, including expanding international co-operation between and among states with respect to rapid measures to locate and recover stolen or smuggled nuclear material, mitigate any radiological consequences, such as sabotage, and prevent and combat related offences.

With respect to the other convention, in 1996 an ad hoc committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations was mandated by the General Assembly to develop an international convention for the suppression of terrorist bombings, and subsequent to that, the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. This later convention was adopted by the General Assembly in April 2005. This convention on nuclear terrorism imposes an obligation on state parties to render the offences set out in the convention as criminal offences under national laws and to establish jurisdiction, both territorial and extraterritorial, over the offences set out in the convention.

Both of these conventions await ratification by Canada, which is first dependent on the codification of the offence provisions of these conventions into Canadian criminal law.

We on this side of the House recognize the need and urgency to put in place a regime to counter nuclear terrorism. Moreover, New Democrats are committed to multilateral diplomacy and international co-operation, especially in areas of great common concern such as nuclear terrorism. Thus, we need to work with other leading countries that are moving forward toward ratifying these conventions.

We also believe that since Canada has agreed to be legally bound by these conventions, it is important to fulfill our international obligations. For these reasons we will vote in favour of the bill at second reading in order to further study it at committee. However, a few concerns need to be set out first.

The first has to do with the origin of the bill. I would urge those who embrace the anachronistic and undemocratic institution of the Senate on the grounds of tradition to employ the Senate in the traditional way, that being as the chamber of sober second thought and not as the place of origin of legislation. It is for those of us in the chamber who, for better or worse, were sent here by Canadians to do that work.

Second, as with so much legislation that the government puts forward through whichever chamber, we must be careful that we do not overreach in the name of anti-terrorism. On this point, our experiences with the Liberals' Anti-terrorism Act and the government's recent Bill S-7 are instructive. The provisions of that act and that bill run contrary to the fundamental principles, rights and liberties enshrined in Canadian law.

Moreover, perhaps more importantly, we have found that 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 and that the offending provisions have proven over the course of time to constitute an unnecessary, ineffective infringement.

I would note that this issue arose in the course of the bill's study in the Senate. No doubt the intention of the drafters at the Department of Justice was to adhere as closely as possible to the terms of the convention. However, it has been suggested that some of the new Criminal Code offences are broader in scope than the offences found in the individual international agreements. We must be sure that the overreach of these new sections will not result in undue criminalization or go against the Canadian Charter of Rights.

I anticipate that the justice committee will play a very valuable role in ensuring that the lessons of previous anti-terrorism legislation are applied to Bill S-9.

Last, I come to what I believe is a very important point in this discussion, that being the matter of delay. The implementation of the bill or some amended version thereof is a prerequisite for the ratification of both international conventions. Both of these conventions set out in their respective preambles the urgency with which the international community must act to implement a regime to control nuclear weapons and materials and to ensure they are not accessible for terrorist purposes.

For example, the preamble to the convention on nuclear terrorism talks about the deep concern of the parties to this convention of the worldwide escalation of acts of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and that acts of nuclear terrorism may result in the gravest consequences and may pose a threat to international peace and security. It also notes that existing multilateral legal provisions do not adequately address those attacks and that the “urgent need to enhance international cooperation between States” for these purposes needs to be moved forward.

Therefore, the question sitting out there is this. Why has it taken the legislation so long to get to the House for debate when both conventions have been open for ratification since 2005?

While there are other laggards in the international community, it is our expectation that Canada show leadership on issues such as these.

Public Safety

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

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.

As we are in the midst of debating Bill S-7 in this House, I am pleased to present a petition with respect to the report and recommendations of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security of the House of Commons of 2009, concerning the cases of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muyyed Nurredin.

The petition calls on the House of Commons to demand that the Prime Minister act immediately on those recommendations and bring a much-needed measure of justice and closure to these cases.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, just to clarify, I would have been quite happy to have consented to the motion had the member not included in it a provision for an additional opposition day. Had the member decided to conclude that NDP was prepared, since its subject for today was food safety, to make the balance of the day the debate on Bill S-11 and then have it proceed to committee, we would have been quite delighted to consent.

In terms of his suggestions on the budget bill, I am looking forward to meeting with him and discussing with him what opportunities might exist there further.

Earlier today, the Minister of Finance introduced Bill C-45, the Jobs and Growth Act, 2012.

This important piece of legislation will bolster Canada’s economy and help improve communities with initiatives that build a strong economy and create jobs, support families and communities, promote clean energy and enhance neutrality of the tax system, and respect taxpayers’ dollars.

We will start second reading debate of Bill C-45 on Wednesday—once honourable members have had a chance to review the bill and discuss it at next week’s caucus meetings. The debate will continue on Thursday and Friday.

I genuinely hope all members will take advantage of the budget bill study week that is available to review the valuable measures that are set out as the second half of our legislative arm of our comprehensive economic action plan 2012. One highlight of the study week will be a briefing arranged by the minister for all hon. members on Monday evening. I hope many MPs can attend, and certainly more than the paltry attendance of opposition members that appeared this spring for the briefing on Bill C-38.

I look forward to a vigorous policy debate on the economy and not on procedural games.

I turn now to the business of the House leading up to Wednesday.

This afternoon we will see the conclusion of the NDP's opposition day. Regrettably, I was personally disappointed that the official opposition did not answer my call last week to lay out the details of its $21.5 billion carbon tax and how it would raise the price of gas, groceries and electricity. Though, I was encouraged that this week in question period the New Democrats actually did acknowledge the subject and raised it.

Tomorrow and Monday will see us resume second reading of Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act. I understand we should finish that debate sometime on Monday, at which that time we will then turn to Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act; Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act; and Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act.

On Tuesday, we will debate the second reading of Bill S-11, the safe food for Canadians act, unless we find some other approach that would allow us to move on a more urgent basis. Since we did not get unanimous consent to move it forward quickly, we are hopeful there will be some other approach that can be agreed upon to move quickly with it. We hope that if we do debate it that day, we will be able to deal with it quickly and then spend the balance of that day debating Bill C-15 and Bill C-12, the safeguarding Canadians' personal information act.

Nuclear Terrorism Act

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

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague pointed out and I just realized, unfortunately, since this morning only NDP members have been defending Bills S-7 and S-9, which have already been studied in the Senate. That does not surprise me. Each time, the Conservative government has washed its hands of these matters, and it has done the same with health concerns.

However, I am not surprised by how they have handled these two bills. They have let representatives appointed to the Senate do the work of members elected by Canadians to represent them in the House of Commons.

That being said, I listened carefully to my colleagues' speeches. Concerns were raised in the Senate, especially about the sentences. They say that there are no mandatory minimum sentences in Bill S-9. Can my colleague talk about that?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I feel fortunate because it is now my turn. I am tempted to pick up where the previous speakers left, namely the members for Toronto—Danforth and for Lac-Saint-Louis. The latter told the former that he should resort to political rants. I almost feel like doing just that because I see a problem. It is not the first time, because several justice bills are brought forward. You are aware of that because at one point you were our justice critic. Now, we are faced with the same scenario. A parliamentary secretary introduces a bill and then we hear nothing more from the government side.

We lack information regarding bills. Indeed, the bill is all we have. Again, all hon. members should read it, because it is fascinating. For some, this may be a relaxing exercise that will help them get to sleep, given how dry the document is. This legislation is not easy reading stuff. It is not what the member for Lac-Saint-Louis called a bill that is introduced following a big news story. It is not always easy to understand.

If these stages are followed in the House—and you know that Mr. Speaker, because you have been here a long time, probably longer than many of us—it is because they are all important. There is the first reading stage, when the minister introduces his bill. That is usually done quickly. This is followed by the second reading, which begins with a speech in which the government must explain its intentions. We ask some questions, but we do not always get answers. Then it is over, because there is nothing but silence from the other side, when we could already have an idea of where the government is headed with its legislation, what it is contemplating and whether it has considered all the issues. As the member for Toronto—Danforth pointed out, when listening to the parliamentary secretary, we got the impression that, maybe, something had been omitted. I am not imputing motives to her, but it is as though the government does not realize that it has been amended in the Senate. A rather important substantive amendment was made, but the government has not said much about it.

When we asked why it took the Conservative government so long to introduce Bill S-9, which does not present any problem—and we asked that question a number of times—we were told that it was part of our international commitments. And to quote the member for Toronto—Danforth, it may not even go far enough. We will see at committee stage. I am not sure I share this opinion. In any case we will see in committee, “but why five years”? Is it because, as the member for Lac-Saint-Louis suggested, the government thinks this legislation is not sexy enough—if I may use that expression—because it does not make headlines, because it will not be mentioned on the 11 p.m. news bulletin? I agree, but these are extremely important measures which seriously affect people's safety, and that is again the case here.

What is Bill S-9? This legislation was introduced in the Senate on March 27, 2012. If hon. members listened to my speech this morning on Bill S-7—at the beginning of the debate at second reading—they know that I am absolutely, and always will be, opposed to the introduction of a bill in the Senate first. In this House, we have elected members who represent the population. If a government wants to propose measures, it should introduce them in the House first. I realize that, sometimes, it may be practical because it seems that the other place has time to conduct studies. However, since we will have to do those studies in any case, I have a serious problem with that. Is that problem serious enough to prevent me from supporting the bill? It has to do more with the form. I am making a substantive criticism of the form, but Bill S-9 must fundamentally be approved by this House so that it can at least be referred to a committee.

We have various concerns regarding Bill S-9. The member for Toronto—Danforth presented a number of those concerns but I want to go back to some of them.

Bill S-9 amends the Criminal Code to implement the criminal law requirements contained in two international treaties to combat terrorism, namely the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, the CPPNM, which was amended in 2005, and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, the ICSANT, signed in 2005.

As one can see, that is not necessarily an easy process. That is basically what the bill does. It simply allows us to join these treaties.

The bill on nuclear terrorism includes 10 clauses that create four new offences under part II of the Criminal Code.

It will make it illegal to: possess, use or dispose of nuclear or radioactive material or a nuclear or radioactive device, or commit an act against a nuclear facility or its operations, with the intent to cause death, serious bodily harm or substantial damage to property or the environment; use or alter nuclear or radioactive material or a nuclear or radioactive device, or commit an act against a nuclear facility or its operation, with the intent to compel a person, government or international organization to do or refrain from doing anything; commit an indictable offence under federal law for the purpose of obtaining nuclear or radioactive material, a nuclear or radioactive device, or access or control of a nuclear facility; and threaten to commit any of the other three offences.

The bill seeks to introduce into the Criminal Code other amendments that are incidental to these four offences, but are nonetheless significant.

The bill also introduces definitions of certain terms used in the description of the new offences including, as the parliamentary secretary indicated, a definition of “environment,” “nuclear facility,” “nuclear material,” “radioactive material and device,” and the amendment to the definition of “terrorist activity.”

It will not be easy. The committee that will examine this bill will have to carry out several studies in order for everybody to properly understand the scope of the amendments being introduced.

The bill would also introduce a new section in the Criminal Code in order to ensure that individuals who commit or attempt to commit one of these offences while abroad can be prosecuted in Canada.

I am sure that members of the House have already heard about the concept of double jeopardy, which means being accused a second time for a crime for which the individual has already been found guilty or innocent.

A clause has been added under which it would be impossible to prevent the Canadian government from filing an indictment against a person found guilty abroad when that person is on Canadian soil.

The bill has a number of implications that will certainly need to be reviewed in committee.

The bill also amends the provisions in the Criminal Code—and this too is extremely important—concerning wiretapping so that it applies to the new offences. The bill will also amend the Criminal Code in order that the four new offences be considered primary designated offences for the purposes of DNA warrants and collection orders. It would also modify the Canadian rule concerning double jeopardy, as I stated earlier.

I should add, as background, so that people understand—because it is not always clear—that the bill meets Canada's international obligations under the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. In my opinion, this is the cornerstone of the bill.

Concerns have been raised, but before speaking about this, it is important to remind members that Canada has not ratified either the CPPNM or the amended version of the ICSANT. This is explained by the fact that no legislation is in place criminalizing the offences contained in the CPPNM or those presented in the amended version of the ICSANT.

Canada will not be a party to the international treaties until Bill S-9 has been adopted. I think that this is extremely important. This is probably why all the parties in the House will support Bill S-9 so that it can be sent to committee as quickly as possible.

Here are some concerns raised during the review of the bill by the Senate committee. First, there was the issue of excessive scope. The intention of the Department of Justice was to adhere as closely as possible to the convention's provisions. The member for Toronto—Danforth made the point very well. Some of the new Criminal Code offences are even broader in scope than the offences included in the international agreements. Therefore, we will have to ensure that the excessive scope of these new clauses is not going to trigger undue criminalization and does not violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

There is also the issue of sentences. I was very pleased to see, at last, the Conservatives introduce a bill that does not include minimum sentences. This means we can take a serious look at their legislation without having a problem from the outset, even when we agree with all the rest. However, the maximum sentences that may be imposed for one of the four new offences are heavy. Three of the four offences may result in a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. This meets the requirements of the ICSANT and of the CPPNM, which provide that member countries must impose sentences in line with the serious nature of these offences.

The Senate brought an amendment regarding the development of a nuclear or radioactive device, which is prohibited by the ICSANT, but which was not in the original proposed amendments to the Criminal Code. I am very pleased that the Senate amended this part of the bill and that the amendment was unanimously adopted. It was an oversight. However, because of this kind of oversight, when I see that a bill—which has gone through so many stages at the justice department, through so many supposedly experts and which was approved by the minister before being introduced—contains such a glaring error, I worry about other oversights in this legislation. It is the lawyer in me that always makes me worry about that.

It goes without saying that we will take a close look at this bill in committee. We are not going to give the Conservatives a blank cheque because if they made such a serious mistake, they may have made other ones. We will see about that during the committee stage of Bill S-9.

It is important to understand some facts and numbers. The term “nuclear” usually sounds scary to people. Between 1993 and 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency identified close to 2,000 incidents related to the use, transportation and unauthorized possession of nuclear and radioactive material. That information was provided by the director general, Non-Proliferation and Security Threat Reduction, at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.

Canada ratified the CPPNM in 1980. That convention promotes the development of measures related to prevention, detection and the imposition of penalties for crimes related to nuclear material. The CPPNM was adopted under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA. There are many acronyms here.

The message I want to share with the House is this: we believe that we need to take a serious look at nuclear safety and that we need to meet our international obligations in order to co-operate better with other countries as regards strategies used to fight nuclear terrorism. There is no question about that.

I used to ask, again and again, why we were talking about five years. But I get the impression the Prime Minister really felt some pressure during his recent trips abroad: action was needed because relatively few countries have ratified the treaties.

In that context, since Canada usually enjoys a rather enviable reputation worldwide, if we can finally meet our international treaty obligations and pass a bill that makes sense, it may encourage other countries to do the same. At least, I hope it will.

Finally, we fully intend to foster multilateral diplomacy and international co-operation, obviously, especially in areas where we share common concerns, including nuclear terrorism. We must work with the leading countries that are in the process of ratifying these treaties. Since we have agreed to be legally bound by the treaties, it is important that we fulfill our international obligations. We cannot officially ratify the treaties until we have implemented national legislation. As we believe in co-operation and in the importance of this bill, we will support it at second reading so the committee can review it more thoroughly.

When it comes to nuclear issues, we have to be careful. Using less uranium would probably reduce risks. At committee, we will have a chance to bring forward some points about new technologies used to create isotopes. Members of the House will remember the isotope crisis. We have to be careful when we talk about burying nuclear waste. Will transporting nuclear waste be considered an act of terrorism? We also need to be careful when it comes to the methods used to bury nuclear waste.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to return to a question I asked earlier when we started the debate on Bill S-7. The hon. member made a very interesting suggestion about the need for a parliamentary committee that would have access to more information on the state of threats, specifically terrorist threats, to the country. I could well assume that would include elements related to Bill S-9 as well, with specific focus on the state of protection of nuclear facilities, radioactive material and so on.

I wonder if the member sees that connection and whether he could elaborate or offer some thoughts on how such a committee could actually assist, at least the understanding of Parliament, on the whole question of nuclear terrorism.

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

Mr. Speaker, I cannot say anything other than it remains a bit of a mystery. The member's fundamental point is correct. We do not need Bill S-7. The government is choosing to bring them together, but we do not need Bill S-7 to bring forward Bill S-9. Bill S-9 is indeed extremely important, but it is also quite technical and it is not facing any resistance in the House. It would not have faced any resistance in a minority government.

The best I can imagine is that Canada has been reminded of the fact that its ratifications are outstanding for these two instruments and that it had better get its house in order. The Prime Minister had to make a recommitment to ratifying the instruments recently in Korea and somewhere along the line the system clicked into gear, even though that should have happened four to five years ago.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I asked the parliamentary secretary a question a little earlier, and her answer surprised me. She said that it took five years for the government to introduce Bill S-9 and that it did not need Bill S-7 in order to comply with the international treaties that it had signed.

I would like to hear from my colleague about this. How does he explain this time frame, when we are being told here that the bill is so necessary and so important it must be passed quickly? This is certainly something that we are going to hear on a regular basis from witnesses suggested by the Conservative members.

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

Mr. Speaker, I regret I will not be able to add a lot to the excellent answers given earlier today by my colleague from Gatineau, because that deals mostly with Bill S-7, but the member is correct to ask the question simply because the government is presenting the two bills as a package.

The reason we are very concerned about these provisions dealing with recognizance and potential detention, if one actually refused to accept the conditions or breaches the conditions, is precisely that the standard is much lower than it would be for any other kind of process in terms of criminal prosecution. The basic concern is that it is a much lower threshold. I do not have the historical experience the member has drawn on in the case of Chile to know how easily in some countries and some times and some contexts a system like this could be abused.

Regretfully in the Chilean context, at least for a large part, probably no system at all was needed for the abuse to occur because there was no rule of law respected. What we would experience here would be a kind of slippage. The concern would be that this kind of provision would be used in a way that slowly would become wider and wider than anyone thought it should be from the beginning.

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

Mr. Speaker, the points are extremely well put. I had not been aware of that passage from Senator Dallaire.

In general, my point, and the point Senator Dallaire made in some frustration and that the member echoed, is that there is a certain kind of almost archaic tradition that governs many affairs in the House, but some things are not traditions that we need to keep. They are long past their usefulness in ages when we had less complex bills. For example, with respect to treaties, the fact is, and this may be an erroneous statistic, something in the region of 50% of statutes have some connection to an underlying international instrument or treaty. Therefore, the complexity we are dealing with is not just amending Canadian laws but also looking at background treaties and we do not get any kind of guidance that allows us to do our job. We spend too much time actually getting up to speed as opposed to engaging in the critical task that we should be as legislators.

Therefore, the point from Senator Dallaire about the 2010 report not leaving him all that much wiser is another instance of how parliamentarians can be frustrated by not having enough basis on which to make a decision. I would refer to an intervention from my colleague from the Liberal Party earlier in the debate on Bill S-7 when he made almost the same point with respect to parliamentarians' knowledge around terrorism and its incidence and whether we actually did not need a specific process in Parliament for a certain number of parliamentarians to be informed in ways that none of us were at the moment.

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

Mr. Speaker, the nuclear terrorism act, currently in the form of Bill S-9, would amend the Criminal Code to align our law with obligations under two international agreements, as the parliamentary secretary has so ably outlined. One is ICSANT, the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism of 2005, and an amendment to another treaty in 2005, the Convention for the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials.

In broad terms, those two instruments, along with the underlying Convention for the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials, deal with the protection of radioactive material, nuclear material and nuclear facilities, and the protection from nuclear or radioactive devices.

The creation of criminal law offences is one aspect of the protection scheme, alongside ensuring there is a broad, in essence, kind of universal jurisdiction to prosecute for most aspects of these offences.

The present bill, Bill S-9, is overdue if one looks at the dates of the two instruments, both 2005, although this delay is mitigated by the fact that Canada is not yet bound to either instrument because it has not yet ratified. We have signed but that is not the same thing as ratification. The passage of Bill S-9 will put us in a position to be in compliance and, thus, to ratify.

However, why we have left this combined ratification and implementation for so long does remain a mystery to me, despite the answer just given by the parliamentary secretary. This is not a controversial bill from any side of the House and I cannot imagine a minority Parliament would have held it up.

As I have already indicated, the NDP very much supports the bill going to committee. We will vote for it at second reading and we expect to do so at third reading. Overall, we are completely behind the bill as a necessary measure as part of Canada's international co-operation against threats related to nuclear terrorism of various forms.

In a world of heightened technological sophistication that increases the ability to steal material, attack installations, make radioactive devices and so on, it is impossible to overstate the importance of such co-operation and, indeed, Canada's role in that co-operation.

We wish to see this bill become law as rapidly as possible. At the same time, we also emphasize that some close technical scrutiny of the bill in committee is still called for to ensure that it has been drafted in the best way to fulfill our obligations under these two treaties so that we can then go on and not be in non-compliance once we ratify.

It may be that some slight amendments will be needed in committee. I say this for three reasons.

The first reason is that there was what seems to have been a major omission in the government's bill that went to the Senate before coming to us. What was that omission? I referred to it in my question just now to the parliamentary secretary. Whereas ICSANT's article 2(1)(a) includes the offence of making a radioactive device, Bill S-9, in its original form before the Senate, did not include this activity despite mentioning every other conceivable form of activity that also was in the two treaties: possession, use, transport, export, import, alteration and disposal.

The Senate caught this omission, assisted, no doubt, by an alert Library of Parliament preliminary summary of the bill, and the mistake has been rectified in what we now have coming from the Senate.

However, and this is my main point, the situation does give one reason to pause and ask a question. If something as significant as making a radioactive device, which appears clearly in the text of the relevant treaty, was missed, has anything else been overlooked, or has there been some other slippage in the tightness or the accuracy of the drafting of this bill? The committee needs to ensure this is not the case.

The second reason there may be a need for amendments following directly on from the just asked question is that the committee may need to consider amendments in that there is some reason to believe that parts of Bill S-9 have been drafted in terms that are not just more general in their phraseology than the specific treaty articles they are meant to implement but are broader in the sense of criminalization of more than is required by the treaties.

I will, in a moment, outline where this may be a problem in Bill S-9, but a prior problem may be that the Minister of Justice and officials before the Senate committee do not appear to agree that there are any such aspects of over-breadth. The reason this is a problem is that such denial makes it impossible to go to the next stage of analysis, which is to ask whether over-breadth in relation to what is strictly required by the treaties is actually of any real concern.

If the treaties permit state parties to go further in what they criminalize, and the treaties probably do permit this, then it becomes a matter of sound public policy discussion as to whether we do wish to go further. However, if the government denies that Bill S-9 does go further, we cannot even have that discussion.

The third reason we may need to entertain a small amendment or two in committee is that there may, and I emphasize the word “may”, be under-breadth in terms of the coverage of one aspect of Bill S-9 offences. Now I may have misread the corresponding treaty provisions in relation to the sections of Bill S-9 in question, but one reading of them is that Bill S-9 may not go as far as required in one respect. If this is the case, then our legislation would put us in non-compliance after ratification. I will identify this possible glitch in a moment.

I will now proceed with a bit more detail on these points to illustrate why it is that we may have to pay some close attention in committee.

First, on the issue of potential over-breadth, and I do apologize to everyone listening that this will be as technical as it is starting to sound. In particular, with respect to proposed sections 82.3 and 82.4, article 2 of ICSANT is rather inelegant in expressing the need for specific intent on top of general intent for some of the offences mentioned. It talks about any person intentionally possessing, using, making a device and so on with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury or with the intent to cause substantial property damage or harm to the environment.

The first point to note is that this double use of intentionality does cause a certain degree of inelegance. Bill S-9 does not repeat that. It uses simpler language, for the most part going straight to the specific intent formulations. This seems wise.

However, the problem that then appears on one reading of proposed sections 82.3 and 82.4 is that the specific intent formulations of the ICSANT treaty regarding use or damage to a nuclear facility are not reproduced in Bill S-9. Instead, proposed sections 82.3 and 82.4 of the bill merely assume a general intent standard. This is because, and again this is a very technical point, in proposed sections 82.3 and 82.4 the acts listed after the words “or who commits” are cut off from the specific intent references earlier in the provision.

In a similar vein, the amendment to the CPPNM treaty on acts directed against nuclear facilities also has a specific intent requirement that Bill S-9 does appear to omit.

Here is another point about over-breadth that I will simply state as a very clear problem, as there is no doubt or debate about this one. The references to crimes of threat in Bill S-9 go further than necessary under the treaties. This is very helpfully laid out in the very well put together legislative summary provided by the Library of Parliament.

Finally, there is a provision in Bill S-9 that talks about committing an indictable offence with intent to obtain material or a device versus the treaty provisions, which actually list the specific other forms of offence that are attached to this search for intent to obtain material or a radioactive device.

We have created a much broader tacking-on of this notion of committing any indictable offence as opposed to the offences specifically listed in the treaties: theft, robbery, embezzlement, fraudulent obtaining and so on.

All of this is as dry as the hon. member for Gatineau promised it would be. However, I did want to get this on the record so that it helps us at the committee stage to ask whether this is a correct reading, and if so, what needs to be done about it.

There is something quite significant however about the fact that if there is over-breadth in any respect, there is a multiplier effect that occurs throughout Bill S-9. That is because a number of other provisions tack themselves onto the offences. Four of them in particular are worth mentioning. One is the extraterritorial scope of the offences. The second is that they enter into the definition of terrorist activity, which is thereby broadened. The third is that the electronic surveillance provisions of the Criminal Code would be kicked in by the offence definitions, as are fourthly, the DNA sample provision of the Criminal Code.

The issue is not that these offences are simply more broadly worded in and of themselves, which may strike people as a slightly semantic issue. It is how one multiplies the potential significance of that across all of the other provisions I have just listed. It is what I call an amplification effect.

I mentioned that there is possibly an odd twist here. There may be one instance of narrowing our treaty obligations in Bill S-9 in such a way that might mean that Bill S-9 does not go far enough and, thus, may put us in breach of the treaty.

The new CPPNM amendment in article 7(1)(d) criminalizes “the intentional commission of...an act which constitutes the carrying, sending, or moving of nuclear material into or out of a State without lawful authority”. Yet proposed section 82.3 of Bill S-9 would make the import and export offence subject to the specific intent portions of that section, which are not in Article 7(1)(d) of the treaty amendment. This could possibly be a misreading of the treaty amendment on my part or of what is intended by Bill S-9, but there does appear to be the possibility that we have under-inclusion in that respect.

All of this adds up to the fact that the committee will need to pay some attention to whether or not this legislation has been drafted as well and as tightly as needed, particularly in light of the fact that in asking questions of the parliamentary secretary just now, the responses that came back were fairly general. It is not at all clear that the government has its head around these problems, despite the warning of some of these questions being asked in the Senate.

I would like to say a few words about parliamentary democracy as it relates to this legislation. One might assume that I am referring to the fact that the bill started in the Senate, the unelected, second chamber of our Parliament. In fact, that is not my immediate concern. A much more real concern and affront to this chamber is that Bill S-7, on which debate started earlier today, first went to the Senate.

Having listened to myself for the last 10 minutes, Bill S-9 is very technical in nature. It may well be the kind of bill that can fruitfully be started in the Senate so that the House benefits from some preliminary cleaning up and does not have to allocate undue time to studying the bill. The fact that the Senate caught the omission of the making a device offence may actually prove my point, in part.

My immediate democracy concern does not relate to the Senate. Rather, it relates to the methods we use in Parliament to implement treaties and statutes. Again, I am not referring here to the mess that many in this room know exists with respect to the lack of consistency in the way that statutes are drafted to accomplish implementation of a treaty.

By one count in a law journal article I read some time ago, there are well over a dozen methods employed, ranging from verbatim reproduction of treaty text to very general language that does not even hint at there being an underlying treaty motivating the legislative change. While this is an important issue and while it does bear directly on how Bill S-9 may be over-broad in parts, I will leave that for another day.

Therefore, I turn to what my concern actually is.

What I want to discuss is much more procedural in nature. The way in which bills are introduced, presented and reported from stage to stage is close to a travesty when it comes to the twin goals of transparency and accountability. Parliament, and thereby the Canadian public, must be given every opportunity and tool to be able to understand precisely what is in a bill and how that content relates, in this context, to an underlying treaty or another international instrument such as a Security Council resolution.

However, that is not what happens here in Canada. Treaty-implementing bills almost always get plunked onto Parliament's desk with nothing resembling an overview, let alone a road map, from the government of how a statute's provisions line up with related treaty provisions. Parliamentarians end up reading a bill as if they have a jigsaw puzzle to solve. They track down the related treaty and then try to connect the dots between the treaty and the statute with absolutely no help from the government by way of a commentary that could easily provide explanatory charts showing side-by-side text so that Parliament's role of scrutinizing critically and effectively can be facilitated.

Instead, valuable energy is wasted at the preliminary stage of understanding what is going on in the relationship between the statute and the treaty text. As some members will be aware, I am speaking as someone who was not only a law professor in a previous life but has been an international law scholar for over 20 years. Therefore, if there is anyone in a position to put the jigsaw puzzle together it would be someone with my background. However, even I find it very frustrating.

More importantly, I find it undemocratic. Why? Anything that makes legislative details needlessly inaccessible gets in the way of clear and focused analysis and debate, both by and among parliamentarians, and in terms of how journalists and the public in general will have difficulty grasping analysis and debate if there are no well-presented documents that make the subject of analysis and debate reasonably easy to follow. At multiple levels, democratic scrutiny is undermined and the distance between Parliament and society is exacerbated.

Without dwelling further on the details of an ideal system of clear and transparent presentation of treaty-implementing bills, which this bill lacks, at minimum the government must be required to include alongside a bill a document that does at least the following three things.

First, the document should show the text of the treaty and statute in a side-by-side comparison that makes clear what the statute is intended to implement.

Second, the document should explain and justify the method of implementation that has been chosen. For example, if general language is used or if a treaty text is reproduced nearly but not entirely in verbatim form from the treaty, we need to know why that decision was made.

Finally, the document should provide a clear account of what is not in the implementing bill by reason of the fact that either Canadian law may already cover off the area, the treaty provisions in question may only operate on the international plain or the matter must be dealt with by a provincial legislature.

In order to appreciate that this is not simply a cranky protest, all we have to do is to consider what everyone knows about how inaccessible even basic bills are when presented to Parliament in terms of how well we can understand the underlying statute that is being amended. We also can refer to budget bills that do not come anywhere close to meeting OECD transparency guidelines.

In this immediate context, my main point is to draw attention to one problem we have with a very procedural dimension of accountability in this Parliament, which is not alone in the way we deal with legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, one of the proposed methods is to have concurrent prosecutorial authorities for the attorney general of Canada, as well as the provinces and territories which are the ones, under our constitution, that generally administer the law. They are the ones applying what terrorism offences exist now. That is one of the ways we will be dealing with this.

This is where we are sort of partnering Bill S-7 and Bill S-9 together. We are taking steps to bring this together now in order to deal with it effectively and in a timely way. That is the understanding on the concurrent jurisdiction.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by addressing Bill S-11, the food safety bill. It was introduced by this government in the Senate to bring about changes that would strengthen our food safety system further following the implementation of the 57 recommendations of the Weatherill report, which further strengthened our system.

I believe the comments, to which the member referred, by the Conservative caucus were not about the NDP obstructing the bill in the Senate but rather about statements that had been made by NDP members previously following the introduction of the bill that the NDP would oppose the bill. Of course, the issue we are looking forward to is having it pass successfully in the Senate. We hope that people will see the urgency more clearly, that we will get the support of the Liberals and that we will see its rapid passage here in the House. We would be delighted if we had support to do that very quickly from the NDP and other parties.

Now for the business ahead of us.

This afternoon, we will continue our safe streets and communities week with second reading debate on Bill C-43, Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act.

In last year's election, the Conservative Party promised to put a stop to foreign criminals relying on endless appeals in order to delay their removal. This bill follows through on our commitment to Canadians.

We will resume debate tomorrow, when I am optimistic, based on discussions, that debate will end—and, then, we will have concluded the first three weeks of our hard-working, productive and orderly fall sitting.

On our constituency week, I hope all members of Parliament and staff in this place will have an opportunity relax. Many of our pages will have their first opportunity to go home since they started the year here. I hope on our return we will all be ready to be productive and work hard because we have much to do.

On Monday, October 15, before question period, the House will start the second reading of Bill S-7, the combating terrorism act. We will also debate this bill on Wednesday and Friday of that week. This, of course, is designed to continue to make Canada and, in fact, the whole world, a safer place.

After question period on October 15, we will kick-off debate on Bill S-9, the nuclear terrorism act, which shares the same objectives. It would implement Canada's international obligations under the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.

Tuesday, October 16, shall be the fifth allotted day, which will see the House debate a Liberal motion. We eagerly await the content of that motion.

Thursday, October 18, shall be the sixth allotted day when we will consider the New Democratic proposal.

It is my personal hope that having given the NDP three chances already this fall to articulate to the House and to all Canadians how it will implement its $21.5 billion job killing carbon tax that it will finally choose this as its subject for debate. I hope the NDP members will seize that opportunity and let Canadians know once and for all the fine details of their scheme to raise the price of gas, groceries, electricity and winter heat.

Should we have additional time that week upon our return, or even this week if we move quickly, the House will also consider second reading of Bill C-37, the increasing offenders' accountability for victims act; Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act; Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act; and Bill S-8, the safe drinking water for first nations act.

Of course, I am always open to suggestions from the opposition. If they are willing to accelerate any of those bills for quick passage, I will call them.

Finally, I wish everyone here a happy Thanksgiving. I hope that everyone has a productive and hard-working week working with their constituents.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 27, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12 midnight, commencing on Monday, June 11, 2012, and concluding on Friday, June 22, 2012, but not including Friday, June 15, 2012.

Today I rise to make the case for the government's motion to extend the working hours of this House until midnight for the next two weeks. This is of course a motion made in the context of the Standing Orders, which expressly provide for such a motion to be made on this particular day once a year.

Over the past year, our government's top priority has remained creating jobs and economic growth.

Job creation and economic growth have remained important priorities for our government.

Under the government's economic action plan, Canada's deficits and taxes are going down; investments in education, skills training, and research and innovation are going up; and excessive red tape and regulations are being eliminated.

As the global economic recovery remains fragile, especially in Europe, Canadians want their government to focus on what matters most: jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity. This is what our Conservative government has been doing.

On March 29, the Minister of Finance delivered economic action plan 2012, a comprehensive budget that coupled our low-tax policy with new actions to promote jobs and economic growth.

The 2012 budget proposed measures aimed at putting our finances in order, increasing innovation and creating suitable and applicable legislation in the area of resource development in order to promote a good, stable investment climate.

The budget was debated for four days and was adopted by the House on April 4. The Minister of Finance then introduced Bill C-38, Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, the 2012 budget implementation bill. The debate at second reading of Bill C-38 was the longest debate on a budget implementation bill in at least two decades, and probably the longest ever.

On May 14, after seven days of debate, Bill C-38 was passed at second reading.

The bill has also undergone extensive study in committee. The Standing Committee on Finance held in-depth hearings on the bill. The committee also created a special subcommittee for detailed examination of the bill's responsible resource development provisions. All told, this was the longest committee study of any budget implementation bill for at least the last two decades, and probably ever.

We need to pass Bill C-38 to implement the urgent provisions of economic action plan 2012. In addition to our economic measures, our government has brought forward and passed bills that keep the commitments we made to Canadians in the last election.

In a productive, hard-working and orderly way, we fulfilled long-standing commitments to give marketing freedom to western Canadian grain farmers, to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, and to improve our democracy by moving every province closer to the principle of representation by population in the House of Commons.

However, in the past year our efforts to focus on the priorities of Canadians have been met with nothing but delay and obstruction tactics by the opposition. In some cases, opposition stalling and delaying tactics have meant that important bills are still not yet law. That is indeed regrettable.

In the case of Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act, a bill that will help to create good, high-paying jobs in Canada's creative and high-tech sectors, this House has debated the bill on 10 days. We heard 79 speeches on it before it was even sent to committee. This is, of course, on top of similar debate that occurred in previous Parliaments on similar bills.

It is important for us to get on with it and pass this bill for the sake of those sectors of our economy, to ensure that Canada remains competitive in a very dynamic, changing high-tech sector in the world, so that we can have Canadian jobs and Canadian leadership in that sector.

Bill C-24 is the bill to implement the Canada-Panama free trade agreement. It has also been the subject of numerous days of debate, in fact dozens and dozens of speeches in the House, and it has not even made it to committee yet.

Bill C-23 is the Canada-Jordan economic growth and prosperity act. It also implements another important job-creating free trade agreement.

All three of these bills have actually been before this place longer than for just the last year. As I indicated, they were originally introduced in previous Parliaments. Even then, they were supported by a majority of members of this House and were adopted and sent to committee. However, they are still not law.

We are here to work hard for Canadians. Adopting today's motion would give the House sufficient time to make progress on each of these bills prior to the summer recess. Adopting today's motion would also give us time to pass Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plans act. It is a much-needed piece of legislation that would give Canadians in small businesses and self-employed workers yet another option to help support them in saving for their retirement. Our government is committed to giving Canadians as many options as possible to secure their retirement and to have that income security our seniors need. This is another example of how we can work to give them those options.

In addition to these bills that have been obstructed, opposed or delayed one way or another by the opposition, there are numerous bills that potentially have support from the opposition side but still have not yet come to a vote. By adding hours to each working day in the House over the next two weeks, we would allow time for these bills to come before members of Parliament for a vote. These include: Bill C-12, safeguarding Canadians' personal information act; and Bill C-15, strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act. I might add, that bill is long overdue as our military justice system is in need of these proposed changes. It has been looking for them for some time. It is a fairly small and discrete bill and taking so long to pass this House is not a testament to our productivity and efficiency. I hope we will be able to proceed with that.

Bill C-27 is the first nations financial transparency act, another step forward in accountability. Bill C-28 is the financial literacy leader act. At a time when we are concerned about people's financial circumstances, not just countries' but individuals', this is a positive step forward to help people improve their financial literacy so all Canadians can face a more secure financial future. Bill C-36 is the protecting Canada's seniors act which aims to prevent elder abuse. Does it not make sense that we move forward on that to provide Canadian seniors the protection they need from those very heinous crimes and offences which have become increasingly common in news reports in recent years?

Bill C-37 is the increasing offenders' accountability for victims act. This is another major step forward for readjusting our justice system which has been seen by most Canadians as being for too long concerned only about the rights and privileges of the criminals who are appearing in it, with insufficient consideration for the needs of victims and the impact of those criminal acts on them. We want to see a rebalancing of the system and that is why Bill C-37 is so important.

Of course, we have bills that have already been through the Senate, and are waiting on us to deal with them. Bill S-2, which deals with matrimonial real property, which would give fairness and equality to women on reserve, long overdue in this country. Let us get on with it and give first nations women the real property rights they deserve. Then there is Bill S-6, first nations electoral reform, a provision we want to see in place to advance democracy. Bill S-8 is the safe drinking water for first nations act; and Bill S-7 is the combatting terrorism act.

As members can see, there is plenty more work for this House to do. As members of Parliament, the least we can do is put in a bit of overtime and get these important measures passed.

In conclusion, Canada's economic strength, our advantage in these uncertain times, and our stability also depend on political stability and strong leadership. Across the world, political gridlock and indecision have led to economic uncertainty and they continue to threaten the world economy. That is not what Canadians want for their government. Our government is taking action to manage the country's business in a productive, hard-working and orderly fashion. That is why all members need to work together in a time of global economic uncertainty to advance the important bills I have identified, before we adjourn for the summer.

I call on all members to support today's motion to extend the working hours of this House by a few hours for the next two weeks. For the members opposite, not only do I hope for their support in this motion, I also hope I can count on them to put the interests of Canadians first and work with this government to pass the important bills that remain before us.

Message from the Senate

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bill to which the concurrence of the House is desired: S-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act.

Senate Reform Act

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if “smokescreen” is the proper word. It certainly is a subterfuge of some sort because I think it is part of a continued attempt to legitimize the work of the other place. We have seen the government use it in the past.

It is using it now in having introduced Bill S-7 in the Senate, a justice bill aimed at amending the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and other legislation to provide extraordinary powers to the Federal Court. That is legislation that died because of a sunset clause five years ago, but the government now wants to bring it back, not here but in the Senate. I think the whole idea here is to make the Senate more legitimate and maybe that will extend the government's power beyond when it is defeated.

Maybe that is part of the scheme. I am not a conspiracy theorist but I do see elements of that in this current legislation, with its nine-year terms and more and more appointments to be made by the Prime Minister, who received less than 40% in the last election and who is seeing if he can extend his power by making the Senate more powerful. That is very dangerous.