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.

Motions in Amendment

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour for his work on the issue of cyberbullying. I know he cares about it quite deeply. I also thank him for the bill he brought before the House.

He will know, because he has studied this issue quite extensively, about the recommendation of the cybercrime working group, which is a group of experts in the law that report to the federal-provincial-territorial ministers of justice. It recommended that in order to address cyberbullying, we needed to provide police authorities with some additional powers for investigation. They include data preservation demands and orders, new production orders to trace specified communications, like we had in the Amanda Todd case, and new warrants and production orders for transmission data. I would like to assure him that nothing in Bill C-13 allows for new warrantless release of information.

Could he tell us if he disagrees with the recommendations that are contained in Bill C-13? Perhaps he could tell us why he thought his bill would work without them.

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

Mr. Speaker, there was a huge number of concerns raised about the authorities overreaching as it related to provisions within the bill. Those concerns were brought to the committee and the NDP members of the committee introduced a number of amendments to try to deal with things like changing reasonable grounds to suspect, to reasonable grounds to believe, specifying the meaning of police office to police officers and removing public officers.

The point is that we need to implement and enforce the law, but we also need to ensure that there is some control over how that is done, that there is transparency and that people need know there are limits to their authority.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on the member's comments in regard to some of the work he has done. I recognize that he had a private member's bill, which I suspect received a considerable amount of support from all sides of the House. I know my colleague from Vancouver also had a bill on the floor in anticipation that we would want to try to deal with cyberbullying. Through the advancement of the Internet, there has been a great deal of abuse. There was an expectation that Parliament would work together, build on consensus and get something done relatively quickly.

Does the member believe the government has lost some of that goodwill from members to try to act as quickly as possible on dealing with some of the concerns that many of our constituents share and want to see action by the federal government?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any question that the government has lost its way on this and many other issues. Conservatives appear not to hear very well when people raise concerns. For example, my colleague, the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, introduced a bill calling for a national strategy against bullying that unfortunately did not get support from government members.

That is the kind of opportunity we have to provide the leadership Canadians are looking for on this and a whole host of other issues.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

We are out of time for the five-minute period for questions and comments. I know this is a question that is not without its complexities, but I see there is a lot of interest in questions and comments. Members might keep their comments and interventions succinct so more members may participate.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in opposition to Bill C-13, and I think that is unfortunate.

Like many MPs, I had high hopes when the issue of cyberbullying first came before the House. I had high hopes that we would recognize the urgency with which we needed to respond to cyberbullying and the risk of suicides, especially when we were faced with the unfortunate examples of Rehtaeh Parsons in Nova Scotia and Amanda Todd in B.C. taking their own lives.

In fact, we did respond relatively quickly. The member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour introduced a private member's bill in June 2013. It was a simple bill that did not include a lot of extraneous material. It was a simple bill that would have made it an offence to produce or distribute intimate images of an individual without that person's consent.

Unfortunately, despite attempts to get unanimous consent to move the bill forward, the government said that it had to do a lot more study and think a lot more about what it wanted to present in a government bill. When that bill finally got before us in November 2013, nearly a year ago, as usual with the Conservative government we found a far broader bill than was necessary. It is a bill that includes many issues that have little or nothing to do with cyberbullying, including restrictions on telemarketing, theft of telecommunication services, provisions on terrorist financing, and bank financial disclosures.

What we have before us now is a bill with a much broader scope and one that includes bringing back many aspects of the Conservatives' previous Bill C-30, which was widely rejected by public opinion and especially by privacy advocates.

As someone who worked closely with the criminal justice system for more than two decades before coming here, I have some very serious concerns about the government's attempt to expand access to personal information, both with and without a warrant, that remains in Bill C-13

I am very concerned about the new and low bar for grounds for getting a warrant to get personal information. I see no justification for lowering the grounds for a warrant from “reasonable grounds to believe”, to this new category of reasonable suspicion. For that reason, of course, we proposed an amendment to delete this clause entirely from the bill.

In fact, I believe, despite the speeches we have heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, that the Spencer case this summer brings into question the constitutionality of many provisions of Bill C-13. This was an important ruling banning Internet service providers from disclosing names, addresses, and phone numbers of customers voluntarily to the authorities.

The bill would also create a worrying new category of those entitled to our personal information. It has expanded from the well-defined, in law, concept of peace officers, and we know who they are, to this unclear new concept of “public officers”. Does this mean tax officials? Who does this mean are public officers?

In committee we proposed 37 different amendments to try to narrow the scope of the bill. As my colleague for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour so eloquently put it a few moments ago, we were trying to make sure that this bill did not spend the rest of its life being challenged in court. Unfortunately, we did not see any of those amendments adopted, and I do not think we will see our amendments adopted at report stage.

I want to return to one surprising inclusion in Bill C-13 that I was happy to see there. For whatever reason, the government decided to reopen the hate crime section of the Criminal Code in clause 12 of Bill C-13. There is some connection there with cyberbullying and cyberbullying's relation to an escalation into hate crimes.

I think perhaps there was a justification, but I was very surprised to see that when the government listed the new identifiable groups to receive protection, it added national origin, sex, age, and mental or physical disability, while what was left out was gender identity.

The House of Commons had already agreed, in a vote on my private member's bill, Bill C-279, on March 20, 2013, by a margin of 149 to 137, with support from all parties, to include protection on the basis of gender identity. Therefore, there was a deliberate omission from this list of new protected grounds of something that we had already decided in the full House.

This is why earlier today I proposed an amendment to clause 12, which I had already placed in the justice committee. I was optimistic that we would be allowed to debate this bill again. I proposed this amendment in committee to try to correct what I felt was an error in the drafting of Bill C-13. It should have included gender identity, precisely for the reason I cited: we had already voted on this provision here in the full House of Commons.

I was very optimistic in committee. After all, two of the five government members in the justice committee had voted for my private member's bill. Therefore, I expected when I proposed the amendment it would pass in committee by a vote of 6 to 3 in favour, because that is how those members had previously voted on the very same provision in Bill C-279. However, at the last minute, one Conservative changed his vote and one member was substituted out of committee. Hence, my amendment was defeated 5 to 4.

This is why I placed my amendment on the order paper again and asked the Speaker to take the unusual step of allowing it to be put before the full House again. The Speaker ruled that my amendment did not meet the test set out in our rules, which would have allowed it to come before the House today as part of this debate.

The problem, of course, is not the Speaker's ruling. It is instead that the government, which always posed as neutral on the provisions of my private member's bill, has found a way of using a government bill to undo the decision that had already been taken in the House on Bill C-279 to provide protection against hate crimes to transgender Canadians. This shows a fundamental disrespect for the will of the majority as already expressed in the House. Therefore, when it comes to respecting the rights of transgender Canadians, it turns out the government is not as neutral as it was pretending to be. This perhaps explains what has happened to the same provision we could have been talking about today, over in the Senate in Bill C-279.

The second problem we have in achieving protection against hate crimes for transgender Canadians is, of course, the Senate. The bill has been before the Senate two different times. The first time was in the spring of 2011. It was approved by the House of Commons and sent to the Senate, which failed to act at all before the election was called. Therefore, that provision died before the Senate.

As I mentioned earlier, Bill C-279 passed the House of Commons on March 20, 2013, a year and a half ago. It has been in the Senate for a year and a half. I know they only meet three days a week, but there are still plenty of sitting days for them to deal with this. In fact, in 2013, it did pass second reading. In other words, it received approval in principle. Now we have the House of Commons saying that what we were supposed to be dealing with in the bill to be true and the Senate, in principle, agreeing. It was sent to the human rights committee, which held hearings and approved Bill C-279 without amendment and returned it to the full floor of the Senate, where a third reading and final vote was not called. The House prorogued and that bill started over.

Here again is where the supposed neutrality of the government on protecting transgender Canadians against hate crimes comes into question. The bill could have been expedited through the Senate, as it had already been through all the stages there. Even simpler, the bill could have been sent back to the human rights committee, and since it had already held hearings and dealt with the bill, it could have been returned quickly to the floor of the Senate. Instead, the government leadership in the Senate sent the bill to a different committee, the legal and constitutional affairs committee. This is an interesting choice. This not only meant that the committee would have to hold new hearings, but it is the busiest committee in the Senate, with the government's crime agenda. It means this committee will have to deal with bills like the one we have before us today, Bill C-13; Bill C-36, dealing with sex work; and Bill C-2, dealing with safe injection sites. It will have to deal with all of those before it ever gets to a private member's bill.

Again, the fig leaf of neutrality claimed by the government is looking a little withered, since decisions on where the bill is going and its timing are made by the government leadership in the Senate. It is beginning to look a lot like the government intends to let Bill C-279 die in the Senate once again.

The final obstacle to achieving protection for transgender Canadians against hate crimes, and I think the real reason gender identity was omitted from the new groups protected in the hate crimes section 12 of Bill C-13, is the failure to recognize not just the fundamental justice of providing equal rights to transgender Canadians, but the failure to recognize both the urgency and the inevitability of doing so.

Transgender Canadians remain the group most discriminated against in Canada. They remain the group most likely to be subject to hate crimes and most disturbingly, they remain the group most likely to be subject to violence when it comes to hate crimes. All transgender Canadians are looking for is the recognition of the same rights that other Canadians already enjoy. We are missing a chance here in Bill C-13 to provide equal protection against hate crimes to transgender Canadians.

There was a time when other Canadians did not enjoy the equality they do today. There were provisions in our law that seem incredible now. There was a time when Asian Canadians could not vote or practise the professions. There was a time when I, as a gay man, could have been jailed for my sexual orientation, fired from my job, or evicted from my housing. Now, fortunately, that time has passed.

I am disappointed, then, that we are missing a chance today to move forward to the time when we look back and cannot imagine that transgendered Canadians did not enjoy the same rights and protections as all other Canadians. I know that day will come, and I will continue to work to make sure it is sooner rather than later.

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

Mr. Speaker, the justice committee heard from a number of family members of victims of cyberbullying, including Allan Hubley, the father of Jamie Hubley. I do not know if the member had an opportunity to review the testimony before the justice committee, but I will quote Mr. Allan Hubley. He stated, “When we were younger, you always knew who your bully was. You could do something about it. Now, up until the time this legislation gets enacted, they can hide behind that.” Mr. Hubley continued, “Not only does it start to take the mask off of them, but through this legislation there are serious consequences for their actions.”

Bill C-13 introduces a number of measures to take the mask off the perpetrator, such as production orders that allow for the disclosure of certain information. I wonder if the member opposite could explain why he is opposed to judicially authorized measures that will help unmask those that exploit others online, such as Jamie Hubley.

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

Mr. Speaker, if that were actually being done, I might be supporting this bill, but many other things have been packed into the bill, things that I think are questionable. This is why I have lost my optimism. I thought the House of Commons could act to do something effective in cyberbullying, but I do not think this bill is it. I think it will spend its life before the courts, and I do not think we will accomplish the goal we set out to accomplish.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca for his speech. He highlighted the hypocrisy demonstrated by this government when it comes to defending the rights of the transgendered community. I wonder if he could elaborate a bit on this issue and talk to us a little more about what is missing from Bill C-13.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question and for her devotion to equality in this country, which I have seen many times in the House.

I would say that any bill that deals with cyberbullying but ignores the rights of transgendered Canadians misses the group that is bullied more often than any other group in this entire country, both in daily life, in physical presence, and online. That is why I made that a focus of my speech today.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice raises a tragic example, but I wonder if he is familiar with the literally hundreds of examples of violence against people in the transgendered community every year in this country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I said earlier in part of my speech at report stage that I was dismayed that we were not able to have a debate on the specific amendment he brought forward, because the discrimination persists. When we are talking about cyberbullying, we ought to identify those groups that are significantly marginalized and underprotected in a whole range of our laws.

This is not so much a question as a comment to thank the member for his leadership on this issue. I hope his private member's bill on a related matter passes through the Senate soon. Perhaps the member wants to use any remaining time to further explore what ought to be done in this bill but is not being done.

As the member will know, for many reasons I have to vote against this bill. I do so with regret, because I would like to have us act on cyberbullying.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, my neighbour, for her support for equality for transgendered Canadians.

Half of my private members' bill, Bill C-279, is identical to the changes that are being made in this bill on behalf of women and those who are discriminated against on the basis of national origin or mental or physical disability. Again, I want to go back to the fact that someone deliberately omitted gender identity from that list. I think it exposes the government on this issue, in that it has not been neutral but has instead been an obstacle to achieving full equality for all Canadians.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great humility that I rise in the House today, especially after hearing those of my colleagues who are legal experts debate Bill C-13. I would like to contribute based on my own personal experience.

I was a teacher for many years. I was lucky enough to teach many classes and work with many students. As an educator, I realize that in this modern world, education and information play a very important role. These days, young people need to adapt to a society that is quickly evolving. From my teaching days, I remember how students sometimes spoke to one another, how boys and girls talked. Sometimes it was troubling, because I found that the language they used often mimicked what they heard in the media, on TV and perhaps all around them, even on the street. It always troubled me to hear such language spoken between boys and girls. I taught for many years and then I did something else. However, that memory stayed with me.

In our society, social media and the Internet play a very important role in our lives and in the lives of young people. Unlike me, my nieces and nephews have never known a world without the Internet. Protecting privacy was very important in the past. My nieces and nephews were raised in a world in which the Internet plays a very important role. They were born with the Internet, much like I was born with television. We sometimes forget that when we are in our offices or in our rooms in front of a computer, as soon as we connect to the Internet, we are no longer in the privacy of our own space. We are in a public place. We are on display for everyone to see.

That is why my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord proposed a bullying prevention strategy, as a means of increasing awareness about bullying, including cyberbullying.

We need to keep in mind that the Internet is an absolutely terrific tool for sharing information, but it can be used maliciously. On the one hand, it can be an extraordinary information tool, but on the other hand, it can be a very powerful tool for bullying. As such, it must be used very carefully. To me, education and prevention are very important. We have to know how to use a tool as powerful as the Internet, how to protect ourselves against cyberbullying, what means we can use to do so, and what resources are available if we fall victim to cyberbullying.

By providing information to young girls, young boys, women, the marginalized, and even those who are being bullied, by providing them with the tools to protect themselves and a safe place where they can be protected from these attacks, we are giving them the power to combat bullying and violence. Of course, often awareness, information and education are not enough. However, it is very important that we start with this approach as much as possible.

It is not easy to talk about bullying because it affects not only us as humans and our emotions, but also memories and things that have happened to us. I have to admit that it is not always easy to talk about it.

I am also the chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. We recently studied the issue of eating disorders. As part of this study, we spoke about the impact of social media and the Internet. The way in which body image is projected—especially for women—is very interesting, as is the way that the Internet and social media put an incredible amount of pressure on girls and women, when it comes to that body image. There is work to be done when it comes to the media, social media and the Internet. At the end of the day, what can we do to bring this body image more in line with reality?

As many of my colleagues have mentioned, the current title of the bill is unfortunately misleading. The bill is called the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act. As it has done with many of its bills, the government has included a number of elements in this bill that go far beyond the issue of cybercrime. I want to stress that we are now not only talking about peace officers, but also public officers, which the bill describes as someone “who is appointed or designated to administer or enforce a federal or provincial law”.

I find these excesses troubling. Once again, I want to congratulate our new justice critic and all the members of the official opposition on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. They presented perfectly reasonable amendments to address the excesses in Bill C-13. For example, the amendments dealt with changing the wording of “reasonable grounds to suspect” to “reasonable grounds to believe”; establishing that the term “peace officer” applies to police officers; and removing the worrisome term of “public officer”, which is poorly defined and could, once again, lead to spillover. They also proposed including a clause to require that the minister report to the House to indicate how many request and orders were submitted, and to include a certain clause.

I want to once again express my support for my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca regarding the importance of including a clause on gender equality, in order to protect transgendered people from cyberbullying.

A great many troubling things have been added to this bill, and they have no business being there. That is why the official opposition cannot support this bill.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I have young children who range from 2 years old to 17 years old, so I understand some of the concerns that the member opposite has, particularly around protecting our youth.

However, it seems that the NDP continue on different tracks, and it is quite confusing to this side. We have the member for Sherbrooke who said, “Do not change the Criminal Code. That will not do it. We will get the best results if we give the authorities more funding to deal with these kinds of things.”

Then we have the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour saying, “If my private members' bill were passed, it would put provisions in the Criminal Code, and then everything would be fine.”

Then we hear from other members who say, “We can put it in the Criminal Code, but whatever you do, do not give the authorities the ability to go to a judge and lawfully be able to ask for information so that we can not just charge someone with an offence under the Criminal Code but we can actually get a conviction.”

I think the NDP continues to put out different messages. Would the member please enlighten us as to the reason they continue to not support provisions in the Criminal Code, and the investigative tools that are required to successfully convict?

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board for his question. The message is very clear: in this Parliament, government bills are introduced and they are sent to committee to be studied for a very good reason. It is to ensure that we review a bill once more to ensure that there are no problems, that an in-depth study is conducted and that amendments are made if necessary.

The official opposition always has a clear message. We study bills carefully and we propose amendments. We regret that the government rejects completely reasonable amendments that would improve a bill.