Bill C-13 (Historical)

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to provide, most notably, for
(a) a new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images as well as complementary amendments to authorize the removal of such images from the Internet and the recovery of expenses incurred to obtain the removal of such images, the forfeiture of property used in the commission of the offence, a recognizance order to be issued to prevent the distribution of such images and the restriction of the use of a computer or the Internet by a convicted offender;
(b) the power to make preservation demands and orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence;
(c) new production orders to compel the production of data relating to the transmission of communications and the location of transactions, individuals or things;
(d) a warrant that will extend the current investigative power for data associated with telephones to transmission data relating to all means of telecommunications;
(e) warrants that will enable the tracking of transactions, individuals and things and that are subject to legal thresholds appropriate to the interests at stake; and
(f) a streamlined process of obtaining warrants and orders related to an authorization to intercept private communications by ensuring that those warrants and orders can be issued by a judge who issues the authorization and by specifying that all documents relating to a request for a related warrant or order are automatically subject to the same rules respecting confidentiality as the request for authorization.
The enactment amends the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that the spouse is a competent and compellable witness for the prosecution with respect to the new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images.
It also amends the Competition Act to make applicable, for the purpose of enforcing certain provisions of that Act, the new provisions being added to the Criminal Code respecting demands and orders for the preservation of computer data and orders for the production of documents relating to the transmission of communications or financial data. It also modernizes the provisions of the Act relating to electronic evidence and provides for more effective enforcement in a technologically advanced environment.
Lastly, it amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to make some of the new investigative powers being added to the Criminal Code available to Canadian authorities executing incoming requests for assistance and to allow the Commissioner of Competition to execute search warrants under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act

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

Mr. Speaker, as usual, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands takes a reasonable approach to these matters.

I would point out that when Bill C-13 was introduced, on this side we offered exactly what the member suggested. We told the government we were prepared to take out those urgent matters dealing with cyberbullying, have them in a separate bill, and pass them expeditiously through the House. It rejected that approach to doing so. Therefore, while I take seriously that the government wants this action to happen, I remain concerned that at each turn there is more and more delay on things that could have been done much earlier in the House.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on the tireless work he does on behalf of transgendered people.

I feel it is important to mention during this debate that the NDP has tabled bullying prevention measures. I would like to mention the initiative of my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, who introduced Bill C-540, as well as the work done by my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, who moved Motion No. 385 to create a national bullying prevention strategy.

We asked the Conservatives to work with us but, unfortunately, they played petty politics with this very important issue.

As my colleague mentioned, the government often uses its bills to impose measures that have nothing to do with the bill's objective. We have seen the same thing with omnibus bills.

Could my colleague explain the link between cyberbullying and the fact that this bill includes a two-year sentence for stealing cable signals?

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

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

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

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

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, who spoke so well, talks about the privilege of speaking here today. I have to say I do feel privileged as well on this issue, especially with respect to the comments regarding the LGBTQ community. My riding of Burnaby—Douglas was home to the great Svend Robinson, who was the first openly gay MP, and Bill Siksay, who was the tireless champion of the LGBTQ community. Now I have the privilege of sitting beside my friend, who is our critic for this area and who I would say is probably the foremost champion of LGBTQ community issues in the House. I thank him for his work. I was struck by his comments about the absence of transgender rights in this bill and was wondering if he cared to comment on that more and what we should do to fix that in committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his kind comments. It is a privilege to share a desk with him here in the House of Commons. I get the benefit of his very sharp sense of humour, which does not always appear through the microphones.

I thank him for his kind words. Like all members of the NDP caucus, he has been a firm supporter of LGBTQ rights, and I am very proud to be the spokesperson for our party. It is the only party that has a spokesperson for LGBTQ rights in the House of Commons.

I guess that I am feeling charitable today. I am going to say that I hope that the omission of gender identity from the additions to the hate crimes section was inadvertent. Sometimes, we make Machiavellian conclusions about what is happening in the House when they are not really deserved. I am just not sure.

If we were going to amend that section and the House has already pronounced twice on the issue, it would seem to be obvious then that gender identity should have gone into clause 12 of Bill C-13. When we get to committee, we will certainly be suggesting that it be dealt with at the committee stage.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my turn to thank my colleague for the work he is doing on bullying and to also thank my colleagues from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord and Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. They are part of a group of MPs who have worked very hard on this issue over the past few years.

The specific question I have is about one of the subjects the member alluded to during his speech, namely the fact that new technologies sometimes make bullying harder on young people. Bullying used to happen in the schoolyard and, once students were out of the yard, there were far fewer ways to connect with young people than there are today.

Why is it important that we, as legislators, adjust our laws to these new technologies, which make it possible to engage in other types of bullying?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member's question reminded me of my own experience, which was of course back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in elementary school. I lived in a rural area, and the bus ride home was hell for me because I was perceived, even at that age, to be insufficiently masculine. As a result, I faced severe bullying on the school bus each and every day. I have to say that I did not face it in the classroom at school and, of course, I did not face it at home. I was literally terrorized by the bus ride every day, and my parents had a hard time understanding why I begged them to drive me to school and begged my grandparents to take me to school. I never wanted to ride the bus.

However, for me, it was a very short period of the day when I was subjected to it. Once I was home, either at my parents' home or my grandparents' home, where I spent a lot of time, I was safe from that bullying. That is the big difference now. Technology has brought that bullying into peoples' homes. It has made it not just a short period of the day, but something that people have to live with and deal with constantly.

Additionally, the anonymity that is sometimes provided by the Internet gives people licence to be even meaner, more vindictive, and more prejudiced than they might otherwise be if their names and faces were assigned to the comments that they are making.

Technology has expanded the time and the places in which individuals are subject to bullying, and it has expanded the intensity of that bullying. It is time to recognize the difference. It is not the bullying that took place when I was a kid. This is something new that is much more pervasive and much more intense.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-13, the protecting Canadians from online crime act.

I would like to first set out a bit of context in terms of where we have come from. Members might be aware that it was 25 years ago when the first test was done on the World Wide Web. We have to look at how far we have come in 25 years.

Facebook, a powerful tool, was introduced in 2004. I might be dating myself a bit, but I remember going to my first tutorial to learn about the World Wide Web, and it was very complicated. There were DOS commands and giant computers. Now we have the ability to take a picture with something the size of our palm and distribute it immediately around the world. That is an absolutely incredible change over a relatively short 25 years.

Before I go into the details of the bill and why it is so important, I need to reflect on the fact that this tool in some ways has been fabulous for Canadians and people around the world. I remember a colleague telling me how his grandmother in Argentina every night read a book over Skype to put his child to bed.

We have the ability to pay our bills by email. We have the ability to interact immediately with family around the world. It is much easier to keep those connections we treasure and value.

As politicians we have seen the dark side of the Internet. Anyone who has a Twitter account or a Facebook account regularly sees some of the very vicious comments that come in through those forums. As my colleague across the aisle just said, these comments are often anonymous and vicious. As politicians, we deal with that, but that is nothing compared to really overstepping the bounds and the issues some children and adults have had to deal with.

A quick Google search on cyberbullying immediately brings up hundreds of names. There is Ryan's story, Bronagh's story, and Megan's story. Look at Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd. Just recently we heard the she allegedly fell victim to someone on the other side of the world.

Times have changed incredibly, and we need to change with the times.

This legislation proposes changes to the Criminal Code, the Competition Act, and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. The bill would create a law to address the behaviour that can occur in cases of cyberbullying. This new offence would be called non-consensual distribution of intimate images. Investigative powers need to be updated to ensure that they are in line with the modern technology I just talked about, where in one minute, something as small as one's hand reaches across the world.

I would like to expand a bit on the amendments to the Criminal Code and highlight how they are designed to ensure appropriate privacy protection in the face of the new technology. It is a difficult balancing act, because we need to ensure that privacy is protected while providing the tools to tackle these horrendous issues.

There are a few areas I would like to talk about. I will start with preservation orders and demands and updates to the tracking warrant provisions, which are essential tools to ensure that effective investigations are conducted in Canada when the police are faced with crimes involving technology.

What is this new preservation order? The preservation order would create new powers, to be used in both Criminal Code and Competition Act contraventions. The goal of these two new provisions is to ensure that volatile computer data will not be deleted before the police have time to get a warrant or court order to collect it for investigations.

The need for these tools is obvious. Not only is computer data easily deleted but it can also easily be lost through carelessness or just in day-to-day business practice.

A preservation order or demand would legally require a person to keep the computer data that is vital to an investigation long enough for the police to seek the judicial warrants and orders necessary to obtain the information. This tool would ensure that the police could get the investigation under way without the loss of really important evidence.

People may have concerns about the impact of these amendments on a person's right to a reasonable expectation of privacy. They might have heard about Europe's data retention regime and worry that our legislation is going to import that to Canada. That is not what Bill C-13 is doing.

Data retention would allow the collection of a range of data for all telephone and Internet service subscribers for a defined period of time, regardless of whether or not the data was connected with the investigation.

Bill C-13 does not provide for data retention. It provides for data preservation, and that is a very important fact. It would require that specified computer data in connection with a specific investigation and specific people be preserved for a limited period of time.

It is important to understand that this data would not be turned over to the police unless they first obtained a judicial warrant or court order for that disclosure. Also, any of the data that was preserved and whose presentation was not otherwise required for regular business purposes would have to be destroyed as soon as it was no longer needed for the investigation. This would protect the privacy of Canadians. This would also ensure that the regime created in this bill did not inadvertently result in the kind of data retention I have just described.

As members can see, the data preservation scheme the government is proposing is actually quite constrained in its focus and has been designed as a stop-gap measure so that the judicial warrants and the court order police obtain subsequent to access to the evidence are not rendered useless. Again, it is a really important intermittent tool.

Another change Bill C-13 proposes is updating the Criminal Code's existing tracking warrant provision. Of course, this warrant was created in the early 1990s. Police could obtain and use this warrant to track people, cars, or objects. Again, as I described earlier, so much has changed in tracking technology since then and in the accuracy of this tracking technology. The continuity with which it can track things has also improved.

Because of the improvements, the existing tracking warrant is outdated, and its privacy safeguards no longer reflect the reality of modern tracking technology, which could allow for greater privacy invasions than before. This is an important thing we thought we had to tackle.

Bill C-13 proposes to heighten privacy protections for the most invasive uses of tracking technology. This legislation would do this by creating a dual threshold for tracking warrants.The police would be able to get the first kind of tracking warrant the way they have always been able to get one for the less invasive type of tracking: prove to the judge or the justice that they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the warrant will assist in the investigation of an offence. The police would use this warrant to track objects, vehicles, and transactions.

However, for the more invasive technique of tracking a person using a device usually worn or carried by the person, such as a cell phone, the police would have to get a second type of warrant, which would provide for greater privacy protection than the first.

Bill C-13 would provide that to get such a warrant, the police would have to prove to the judge that they had reasonable grounds to believe that the use of a tracking warrant would assist in the investigation of the offence.

Legally, this is a tougher standard to meet, and as a result, it would provide more privacy protection than the first type of warrant, which is about tracking objects. This is an important distinction, as it reflects a higher level of protection, commensurate with the more intrusive potential of tracking persons, which is reflected in the second type of tracking warrant. It was designed to very carefully meet that difficult balance in terms of giving the police tools in the modern day that ensure that there are appropriate safeguards in place.

To bring things to a conclusion, I talked about two specific measures. Canadians have understandably been outraged by the crimes committed through the use of the Internet, including massive fraud and horribly cruel incidents of cyberbullying. I believe that Bill C-13 is both a necessary and balanced response. It would enable law enforcement to have tools to respond to these criminal activities. I encourage all members in this House to support Bill C-13.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Conservative colleague for mentioning the names of some of the young people who, in the time since we were elected in 2011, unfortunately took their own lives to end the pain caused by bullying.

These days, many cases of cyberbullying do not involve the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. What does the member's government propose in Bill C-13 for those particular cases of bullying?

I read this voluminous, 75-page bill and I did not see any measures for protecting our young people from cyberbullying that does not involve the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.

Can my Conservative colleague elaborate on that?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, a crime is a crime, regardless of whether or not it is on the Internet.

More importantly, we have talked about the distribution of non-consensual intimate images and the ability to remove them. He should talk about the issues we looked at in terms of some of the people. For a good majority of them, the issues are around the distribution of intimate images. We are taking an approach that is going to give police the investigative and legislative tools to truly tackle this issue.

Of course, we need to continue to do the very important work, outside of a legislative process, that is focused on education and making sure that Canadians are aware of this issue. Anything this big requires a multi-pronged approach.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague was rather sanctimonious as she spoke at length about bullying, which of course is the matter at hand today.

I wonder why the Conservatives voted against the bill introduced by our colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, which would have filled the gaps in the current legislation. It seems that part of his bill is included among the other measures in this bill. Why did the Conservatives refuse to work with us when they had a very fine opportunity to do so in the House? Today, the government is introducing more or less the same thing. Why did they refuse to work with us?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is typical of the fundamental difference between the NDP and the Conservatives. The NDP regularly wants to have national discussions that go on and on, whereas our government is a government of action. We are a government of giving the police the tools they need. We are a government that will see that criminals receive the criminal sentences that should rightfully be coming their way.

Again, we are a government of action, not a government of continuing to talk and talk about issues.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as is the case for the vast majority of my colleagues in the House, the subject of cyberbullying and bullying in general is something I am deeply concerned about. This issue is so important to me that I decided that my one and only bill to be debated and voted on in the House would be about bullying. That is why, almost two years ago, I introduced a national bullying prevention strategy. The Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois voted overwhelmingly against it.

Ten minutes is not a lot of time for me to say everything I want to say about this. Before I begin my speech, I would like to respond to my Conservative colleague who has just finished her speech and answers. The parliamentary secretary talked about how proactive her Conservative government is when it comes to dealing with bullying. That is a lie. It is not true. This is 2014 and we are debating Bill C-13.

In 2011, 15-year-old Jenna Bowers-Bryanton took her own life. She lived in Truro, Nova Scotia. When the media reported the news, Jenna's parents, family and friends spoke about what this young woman had gone through. They said that she had been bullied via social media. She was receiving vicious messages and comments from anonymous sources. In these messages, she was even told that she should kill herself.

According to her parents, Courtney Brown, another Nova Scotian, was bullied via Facebook in 2011. She too committed suicide when she could no longer deal with the situation. These are two cases of young Canadian women who, in 2011, were victims of Internet bullying, which is called cyberbullying. The Conservative government, which was in power at the time, did nothing.

Meanwhile, the opposition introduced two bills. We are proactive in the NDP. I spoke about how my initiative to implement a national bullying prevention strategy was defeated. The bill introduced by my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour focused strictly on closing loopholes in Canadian legislation to prevent the distribution of intimate images without consent. The Conservatives voted against this measure twice.

I therefore do not believe the Conservative member when she says that her government is proactive. That is not true. This debate has been very emotional for me. I was talking about this earlier with my parliamentary assistant, Steve Slepchik. We sent some messages back and forth about how sad we felt when preparing my speech, which is still somewhat off the cuff. We researched the number of young people who had committed suicide as a result of bullying since we were elected in 2011. Some took their own lives as a result of cyberbullying. Others were bullied at school. We in the House of Commons know the difference, and we know that bullying in schools falls more under provincial jurisdiction. However, we also know that telecommunications fall under federal jurisdiction, and that is why the federal government must play its role in that regard, a role that goes beyond the measure this government has proposed.

I would also like to remind members that the NDP is in favour of this bill since it is quite similar to a bill that we ourselves proposed. What is more, when it comes to cyberbullying, we agree with the part of this 75-page brick that closes the loophole with regard to the distribution of intimate images without consent. However, cyberbullying has a much larger scope than that.

I have another example, and it always makes me sad when I talk about it. Todd Loik, a youth from North Battleford, Saskatchewan, also took his own life at the age of 15. He was being taunted and teased online, but it was much more than that. He was threatened and bullied on Facebook, until the night he decided to take his own life because he could not take it anymore. Even his mother, who read with great sorrow the Facebook messages to her son, called them disgusting.

She even said that he received these insults on his cell phone and home computer.

The cyberbullying of young people in Canada and around the world is more than just the distribution of intimate photos without consent. Passing Bill C-13 and giving it royal assent will not give the Conservatives—who boast about enforcing law and order, but actually do very little about it—bragging rights about having done something to set limits on and curtail cyberbullying in Canada. The distribution of intimate photos without consent is just one aspect of cyberbullying.

Youth suicide is covered extensively by the media, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Parliamentarians in every Canadian province and territory have admitted that they were victims of bullying. I am one of them. We have to do something. We must adopt a national bullying prevention strategy that will give parents more tools.

In Canada, parents who know that their child is a victim of bullying or cyberbullying do not have the tools to deal with it. The government can use the means at its disposal to inform the Canadian public and to provide parents with documentation that will help them do their job and defend and equip their children.

The Conservatives' approach would simply have us criminalize cyberbullying instead of preventing it. Unfortunately, bullying leaves scars. When a young person is the victim of bullying over the course of months or years, the harm has been done, even if the bully is punished. However, the victim is sometimes no longer even alive when the bully is punished. Is that fair? I do not think so. The families and loved ones of bullying victims, even those who do not resort to suicide, are left with scars.

I would not want any young person in Canada to be the victim of bullying, but bullying most often involves young people. It could be a matter of carelessness or cruelty on the part of these darling angels who are not aware of how much their actions can hurt others. Some young people imitate their parents or loved ones. When they see their parents saying negative things about a colleague or being mean-spirited, the children absorb this information and emulate this kind of behaviour at school, on the bus or on the Internet.

I wish we could pass legislation requiring Canadians, teens and children to show love for one another, so that we can put an end to bullying and cyberbullying, but I know that is unrealistic.

However, it is not too late to take action, and the government must not rest on its laurels. After it passes Bill C-13, it must move forward and impose further controls on cyberbullying. We need to work on prevention.

For example, the committee should look at meaningful measures to ensure that a teen who is bullied via text message, Facebook, Twitter or email can access a government-run website to complain. The teen could take a screenshot and indicate where the bullying took place, so that the police can investigate it. By working with Internet service providers, we could track down the bully and send an email warning to the owner of the IP address, which is likely the parents. That way, the parents could do their job and talk to their child about what they have done.

Those are some concrete ways to combat cyberbullying that the NDP would like to work on.

I thank my colleagues for taking all of this into consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to ask a question of my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, who gave a heartfelt speech. I know he has worked very hard on this issue. He has travelled across Canada to speak with young people and try to raise as much awareness as possible regarding this phenomenon and the repercussions it can have. I am convinced that he would have visited every school in Canada if he could have done so. However, that is unfortunately not possible, which brings me to my question.

What more can we do, besides what the government is proposing? As we have heard, the government is suggesting one very specific measure, one that had already been proposed earlier in this Parliament.

What more can we do besides tackling the very serious problem of sharing photos without the person's consent? What other measures can we take to ensure that this problem is taken into account and resolved once and for all?

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Sherbrooke for the question.

The government needs to listen to the opposition members, even if it does not agree with them, and it needs to listen to the Senate. I feel this is an odd thing for me to say. However, about two years ago, the Senate published a report on cyberbullying. As we know, the Senate has a Conservative majority. The report's first recommendation was to create a national bullying prevention strategy.

The report was published shortly after the government rejected my motion. When I read that report, I realized that even the Conservative senators wanted a national bullying prevention strategy, just as I had proposed to the Conservative members in the House. It really saddens me that the government voted against it for partisan reasons. Perhaps it needs to reread the Senate's report. It is a good report.