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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to some extent to participate in the debate at this particular time, at the report stage.

I want to start by commending my colleagues, our justice critic and other members of the justice and human rights committee, who have worked so hard on Bill C-13 and introduced 37 amendments at the committee stage to try to take away some of the more onerous portions of this particular bill so that it would not, for example, spend the rest of its life in court being challenged constitutionally. It has taken a fair bit of effort and energy, I know, and patience on their part to do what they have done. I want them to know how much I appreciate it.

I want to, also, remind members that back on October 17, 11 months ago almost, I rose on a point of order to say that I was concerned about the issue that had been raised in my private member's bill, Bill C-540, making it a criminal offence to distribute non-consensual intimate images. While I had heard from the government in the throne speech and from utterances of the then minister of justice that he supported this in principle, I was concerned that the issue would get bundled up in a major piece of legislation, a controversial piece of legislation, and that it may get delayed or lost.

I sought unanimous consent at that particular time to consider Bill C-540 deemed read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I did so because everyone in the House, of all parties, to a person, said that they supported the idea of holding people to account, changing the Criminal Code to ensure that the non-consensual distribution of intimate images was a crime and that people were going to be held accountable. I then moved a motion to say, let us move this to committee right now. This is a serious situation. It's affecting families. It is affecting lives across the country. Let us deal with it now. There is a will here. Let us find the way.

Unfortunately, that was turned down by the government.

It is interesting. The government then brought in Bill C-13, the initial portions of which dealt with the same issue that my private member's bill did, a little more thoroughly, of course, but it dealt with it. However, then the government did exactly what I and many of us were afraid of. It tacked on a great deal of what was in the former bill, Bill C-30, which it had to yank off the table two years ago because it was so soundly repudiated by privacy experts and others from across the country. The government attached it to the back of the cyberbullying bill.

When it introduced the bill, it did so in the company of the parents of people who had committed suicide, who had taken their lives as a result of cyberbullying, and it said, “We're here to deal with this”. It did not talk about the other parts of it.

Of course, there was great hope in those families and by advocates across the country that the government was going to move forward on this. Lo and behold, as is too often the case with the Conservatives, we got involved in a very controversial debate. We began to learn more about what was really in the bill, and advocates and privacy experts from across the country began to raise concerns.

Even one of the parents, who stood with the minister when the bill was introduced, said at committee that even though she wanted the Criminal Code to be changed to make the non-consensual distribution of intimate images a crime and that there should be consequences, she could not abide what else was in the bill, the outrageous and invasive parts of the bills that would allow for information on the Internet to be more accessible to authorities.

As was talked about in the recent Spencer case, the Supreme Court said it was about barring Internet service providers from disclosing names and addresses. It said that Canadians have the right to be anonymous on the Internet.

Here we have a bill that has been cloaked as an attempt to deal with the heartbreak and anguish experienced by families across the country as a result of their loved ones being bullied mercilessly through the Internet. It is a bill that has been identified as being meant to deal with that, yet in fact it is much more.

I had the opportunity to talk today with another parent. I explained to that parent what had happened, how things have progressed, the concerns that we have with the bill. I explained that the NDP would not be supporting this legislation.

He knew this anyway, because of work we had done in the past, the support I have provided, and the things we were doing together with other people to build awareness and to try to deal with this scourge of teen suicide. He understands my commitment. He, too, is shaken by the infringement on privacy provisions that are part of this bill. I am not going to tell the House that he gave me a pass, but he understands my concerns. He appreciates that I have tried to work, and will continue to work, with him and others to deal with this problem.

The point is that we are here. It has been a year and a half since I introduced the private member's bill, and it is another year and a half into this serious problem. We have still not dealt with it.

I get discouraged sometimes in this House when it seems that we cannot get from one point to the other without creating all kinds of controversy and hard feelings, bitterness and division.

Right now, as we speak, there are people in communities who are helping to build awareness of why cyberbullying is wrong. They are coming up with strategies to identify when teenagers and others are beginning to experience feelings of depression and suicide.

One of the parents I spoke to said that the most gratifying thing that happens as he goes across the country talking to junior and high school students is when the 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds come up to him. They are saying there is a problem and that this is what they are doing about it. The students are telling him what they are doing because they recognize it.

This is what is happening in communities across the country. People are recognizing that they have to step up and do something, because unfortunately governments are not up to the task.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned the Spencer decision of the Supreme Court in his speech. Perhaps he did not have an opportunity to hear the speech I made earlier, but I will just quickly restate my position, which is that the provision in Bill C-13 that he refers to says that where a person is not prohibited by law from sharing information with police authorities, they will not incur any civil or criminal liability.

The Spencer decision of the Supreme Court said that in specific circumstances where telecom companies, which is one small part of information that might be provided to law enforcement authorities in cases like this, do that voluntarily, going forward, that will not be permissible by law. Therefore, this provision of Bill C-13 simply upholds the decision of the Supreme Court in Spencer. In other words, it has clarified the law, and the provision specifically says it is things that are not prohibited by law from being disclosed. What was previously disclosed voluntarily in that specific situation can no longer be voluntarily disclosed without prior judicial authorization.

However, there are other things that can be. It is a general rule of law that people have a right to co-operate with the police, and we wish them to do so in order to keep our citizens safe.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-13, which has already been debated for three hours today and has just come back from the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

A lot of hard work has been done on this bill. I am thinking, in particular, of the many witnesses who appeared before the committee. I am happy to hear that good work was done in committee.

However, the results of that work are perhaps not quite what we on this side of the House expected. Unfortunately, the amendments that were made to this bill were not sufficient for us to be able to support it at report stage.

I must first say that this bill may be a rather sensitive subject for some people. It may hit close to home and be a sensitive subject for some people because it involves bullying and there is often mention of the unfortunate incidents that were reported in the media. It is vital that we remember the importance of the work we are doing as parliamentarians to try to address this issue, which sometimes has tragic consequences. Bullying is a problem in our society that has evolved over the past few decades. Obviously, the Internet is one of the elements that has changed the problem of bullying. It is becoming easier to bully someone online today because we can easily access the Internet with our cell phones and computers.

This problem has evolved and has become quite a significant issue for our youth and also for adults. As parliamentarians, we must discuss this problem and try to solve it, even though there is no magic solution. We have to consider the underlying causes. My colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île often talks about the underlying causes. Furthermore, we must not believe that the solution to the problem is to create a Criminal Code offence and that all of a sudden there will be no more bullying. It is never that simple. It is therefore important to discuss this problem and other ways of dealing with it.

We were also somewhat disappointed with the process that led to the drafting of this bill. Members will remember that Bill C-30 was also introduced in the first session of the 41st Parliament and that there was significant opposition to that bill from civil society and the different political parties. It is unfortunate that Bill C-13 contains some of what was widely rejected in Bill C-30. I am talking about the provisions concerning the electronic surveillance of Canadians.

My impression is that the government is taking Bill C-13 and the issue of bullying—which is a very important and sensitive issue—and integrating certain parts of Bill C-30, which was very controversial, as I said. It was abandoned by the Conservatives after the uproar that followed its introduction. It is sad that they are using this tactic and are trying to do indirectly what they said they would not do. It was abandoned. It is disappointing to see that it is now being included in Bill C-13.

This issue could have been settled quickly, or at least more quickly. I do not think that we are going to solve the problem of bullying overnight. However, we could have at least moved in the right direction.

The hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour introduced a worthwhile bill. Unfortunately, it did not receive the Conservatives' support. However, one part of his bill did find its way into the Conservatives' current bill. I find that somewhat curious.

If I understand correctly, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice seems to have an explanation. He says that it is all well and good to add an offence to the Criminal Code, but it is also important to grant investigative powers to the police.

I do not remember when exactly during the process of studying the bill this happened—it may have been the day after it was introduced—but the Spencer decision provided some clarification. Unfortunately, the bill did not change, even in light of the decision, which defined the limits that can be placed on electronic surveillance and the amount of personal information Internet service providers can share about Canadians.

I believe that the government should have complied with the Spencer decision, but that is not the case, unfortunately. That is the main reason we are opposing this bill.

I would like to clarify the court's decision in Spencer, which had to do with providers sharing information. The decision clearly established that Canadians had the right to online anonymity and that the police had to get a warrant to find out Internet users' identity.

However, Bill C-13 creates a new policy that allows access to personal information with or without a warrant. This opens the door to obtaining personal information without a warrant even though the Spencer decision said the opposite. It said that a warrant was absolutely necessary to get personal information about a Canadian citizen on the Internet.

Internet service providers have access to that information. They can find that information and share it with law enforcement to investigate bullying cases, for example. The Spencer decision set boundaries for getting information by requiring a warrant. However, Bill C-13 opens the door to getting personal information without a warrant.

All of this is unfolding in an era when people have growing concerns about electronic surveillance because the government is monitoring our actions more and more. Not long ago, groups met peacefully to talk about issues or met in the streets to demonstrate. We know that the government, which has thousands of employees who monitor Canadians, would watch what such groups were doing during those completely peaceful meetings and demonstrations that could not have given anyone any reason to believe there was a threat to Canada's security.

This is unfolding in an era when people feel that the government is collecting more and more information about Canadians. We also have to set clearer boundaries about how this information is obtained and about Canadians' right to privacy.

I would be pleased to answer my colleagues' questions.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House for the second time to speak to Bill C-13, which addresses cyberbullying.

When the government announced Bill C-13 to combat cyberbullying, everyone thought it was a good idea. Perhaps the government had finally come up with a good idea. Everyone here knows that cyberbullying is taking a heavy toll on our youth. The people who work on the front lines—psychoeducators who work in high schools, street outreach workers and everyone else who works with youth—know how bullying can destroy lives, individuals and families. Some cases have made headlines, including the case of young Rehtaeh Parsons. Unfortunately, we know just how far cyberbullying can go. It can lead to suicide. No one in the House would say that we can remain indifferent about an issue as important as cyberbullying.

In the first speech I gave on Bill C-13, I emphasized the need to take action on the ground. I could even draw a parallel with the speech I just gave this morning on Bill C-36. The Conservatives often think they can use justice to solve all the problems inherent in a given situation. In the case of prostitution, for instance, inherent problems include poverty, exclusion and mental illness. The same is true when it comes to bullying. Some of the factors involved in bullying cannot be addressed through criminalization.

The provisions of Bill C-13, which makes it an offence to distribute intimate images, are a good start. In fact, the bill fits in with the bill introduced by my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, which aims to prevent the kinds of situations that unfortunately led to the suicides of several young Canadians over the past few years.

Upon closer examination of the bill, one can see that it refers to various subjects ranging from cyberbullying to terrorism, banking information, telemarketing and theft of a telecommunication service.

Most of the provisions have very little if anything to do with cyberbullying. This bill is similar to the Conservatives' previous Bill C-30, which allowed access to Canadians' personal information.

The parliamentary secretary said that it was debated extensively and thoroughly examined in committee. That is all wonderful, except that all the experts agree that the study should have been even more thorough when it comes to the provisions regarding access to information. That is why we asked that the bill be split. Unfortunately, because we ran out of time, the provisions on cyberbullying were not examined much, if at all. We focused on the access to information provisions.

This issue is very important for our young people, and I find it extremely unfortunate that the debate is centred around access to information. That has nothing to do with our young students or the young girl who is being bullied by her classmates or receiving hateful messages on Facebook.

Access to information will have no impact on this girl, or perhaps it will, unfortunately, if the government wants access to her private information, which would be too bad. This is not going to help young people who need their government to work for them and do something about this.

A number of experts said that Bill C-13, together with Bill S-4, might have extremely significant repercussions on access to our private information, including access without a warrant.

I also asked a number of questions about an oversight mechanism. I would like to point out that the Conservatives refused to adopt such a mechanism. My colleague from Gatineau proposed an amendment requiring the department to report to Parliament on the use of this type of power. I would like to note that section 184.4 of the Criminal Code has already been struck down by the Supreme Court, not because the mechanism allowed information obtained without a warrant to be shared, but because application of that section did not include any oversight mechanism or notification mechanism. According to the Supreme Court, the rights of people being wiretapped were intrinsically violated because they did not know they were being tapped. At the end of the day, without an oversight mechanism, we are giving the police and the government power without accountability. We can agree that we are giving nearly absolute power to the minister and police officers to access Canadians' information.

The Supreme Court was clear. I have not even touched on the Supreme Court's recent decision in Spencer, which reiterates that telecommunications companies do not have the right to turn Canadians' private information over without a warrant. It is a violation and it is unconstitutional because there is no oversight mechanism.

I made a comparison with section 188, which was not struck down by the Supreme Court. That section allows for warrantless wiretaps, but it includes an oversight mechanism. The department is therefore obliged to report to Parliament on warrantless wiretapping.

According to the Supreme Court, this is clearly unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the Conservatives refused to adopt our amendments on creating such a reporting mechanism, which is too bad. We can already see that part of the bill will likely be challenged in court or even deemed unconstitutional.

Who will be the main victims of that challenge? My colleague from Gatineau told us several times. The main victims of the Conservatives' incompetence at drafting bills and studying issues thoroughly are the victims of bullying. The main victims will not be parliamentarians, lawyers or judges. No, the main victims will be victims of bullying, who unfortunately will have to wait for a legal challenge—which could take years and could go all the way to the Supreme Court—before justice is served.

I would like to underline the fact that when the Minister of Justice held his press conference, he said that Bill C-13 only legislated on a specific issue, namely cyberbullying. I know of several articles that quoted him as saying that this was not an omnibus bill and that its only purpose was to legislate on cyberbullying.

However, this bill contains a clause that gives not only peace officers, but also public officers access to these powers. Several experts wondered who would have access to these powers. Who would have access to Canadians' information? Would it be only the police, and only in specific situations, or would it be public officers from Revenue Canada in other situations?

This bill is so badly written that, unfortunately, the main victims who will be denied justice will be victims of bullying. Is that really what the Conservative government wants?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, a hard-working member, whom I know is stellar in his service to his constituents. He does amazing work here in the House as well.

This bill is all about politics. It is about playing politics. We have parts of a bill that the current government said would never come forward again, and elements of that bill in Bill C-13 right now that are from Bill C-30. This bill, or kernels of it, originated with the NDP, as I said, by my hard-working colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.If this bill were separated, we could have passed it months ago. That concerns me. However, once again, the Conservatives would rather bury things that get into invasion of privacy.

Even the mother, in one of our most tragic deaths, says that this bill goes too far.

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

Mr. Speaker, it was clear to me that when the member called for the separation of Bill C-13 into two parts, one of which is the criminal sanction against the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, that she had not read the report of the CCSO, Cybercrime Working Group, dated June 2013, called “Cyberbullying and Non-consensual Distribution of Intimate Images”.

These are experts from every province and territory of Canada. They are the expert legal advisors who advise the provincial and territorial ministers of justice. The member has probably heard, if she has been here for the duration of this debate today, what the experts recommended in recommendation number 4. However, nobody is addressing what investigative powers that are recommended by the experts the government should enact in the Criminal Code.

Which of these provisions does the member disagree with? She is saying to separate it and to pass the non-consensual distribution of images part, which would not give the police any power to investigate anything. It would not stop anything from happening, the next Amanda Todd or Rehtaeh Parsons or Jamie Hubley, and the list of victims goes on.

In order to enable the police to help people, they need things such as the data preservation demands and orders. Does the member agree or disagree with that? They need new warrants and production orders for the transmission of data. Does she agree or disagree with that, yes or no?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to rise and speak on a motion that I believe to be critical, so it saddens me that I will have to speak against it. It is Bill C-13, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

Let me give a bit of perspective. In that regard, I want to congratulate my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, who introduced Bill C-540 in 2013, following the tragic death of Amanda Todd and other victims of cyberbullying, including Rehtaeh Parsons. These deaths moved the nation. I would say that the feelings across the country were palpable. It did not matter whether one lived on the west coast, on the Prairies, or on the east coast; families right across Canada lived the pain that those families went through.

The bill put forward by my colleague was a fairly reasonable one. As members know, at that time the Conservatives introduced legislation as well, Bill C-30. Bill C-30 was from the minister of the day, who is no longer in the House. There was a huge, almost unprecedented reaction to that bill, especially through social media. Just to remind us all, Bill C-30 was called the “protecting children from Internet predators act”. That bill was rejected not only by the NDP, based on what was included in it, but also by privacy advocates and the public. That reaction forced the Conservative Party to back away from it.

I can remember some of the rhetoric from that time when it backed away from that legislation, which was ill thought out and an absolute invasion of privacy. At that time, I can remember hearing commitment from the government side that any attempts to modernize the Criminal Code would not contain the measures contained in Bill C-30. Now here we are on Bill C-13.

There are parts of this legislation that the official opposition heartily and happily supports. On more than one occasion we have suggested to the government that if it is serious about taking action on cyberbullying, it should separate the bill. We offered to expedite it through the House. It would have been law already.

However, once again I find the party sitting across from this side playing games with a very sensitive issue, producing a bill that has some good parts to it that we want to support but then throwing in parts that it knows will make it difficult for us to support the bill.

The NDP is never scared of hard work, whether it comes to standing up to speak on issues in the House and taking up allocated time spots, and normally filling in even for the government side because it does not take up all its speaking slots, or when it comes to committee work. In order to make this bill palatable and make it go through the House, the opposition put forward 37 amendments. They were all reasonable amendments that would have added some balance to the bill.

What is shocking is that the government did the same as it has done on bill after bill. It was its way or no way. It rejected every single one of those amendments.

The Canadian Bar Association came to present as well. I am not talking about a radical group here. I am talking about lawyers. The Canadian Bar Association expressed the same concerns as the NDP and other witnesses. It put forward 19 possible amendments to the bill, but not one of those amendments was taken into consideration.

Once again, the Conservatives are trying to bury things in a bill so they can get their agenda through, but at the same time they are trying to bury some legislation that is absolutely needed.

I have been a teacher all of my life. I am also a mother and a grandmother. The world has changed for our children. They are spending more time on the Internet or attached to their cell phones, although many of us are guilty of that too. They are socializing differently as well.

We have to look at modernizing the way we see bullying. It is no longer just about bullying in the playground, where a child is bullied physically or verbally, face-to-face. Cyberbullying allows for a certain amount of anonymity. We have seen the tragic results of that kind of bullying. We have seen its impact on young people.

It is upsetting for me today to speak against a bill that contains a component that I support. I would urge my colleagues across the way to take a second and consider that we could have the cyberbullying component in the bill turned into legislation quickly. We need to get off the ideological idea that we cannot have a simple bill that deals with one issue. We have to get off the ideological idea that other stuff has to be thrown in to get the ideological agenda done. It also gives those members an opportunity to stand up later and say that the NDP voted against this.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend did not make that case very clearly at the time the justice committee was choosing witnesses to appear before the committee. However, I will point out that as a result of the Spencer decision, telecom providers have changed their practices, as is appropriate. They are applying the law, which is what the provisions of Bill C-13 do: they say that it is when “not prohibited by law”. If the Supreme Court has decided it is prohibited by law to release the information, then that would now be the law.

The telecom providers will have an opportunity to speak to that matter at the Senate hearings, I assume in a very few weeks. There is no way that the government can operate by waiting for the many cases that may be percolating through the court system on any given issue before moving forward. What the courts do is clarify, and that is what they have done in this case. In our view, they have not changed the application of Bill C-13 at all.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments and questions by my colleague from the justice committee. She will know that the Spencer decision had been mooted in the lower courts and that everyone was quite well aware of those arguments. I think everyone on the Justice committee at the time that this bill was studied was aware of the arguments that were put before the Supreme Court.

The opposition seems to have a position that the government should wait for the courts to make decisions in cases. There are dozens of cases before the courts of this land at any given time, but what our government needs to do and intends to do is rebalance our justice legislation between the rights of the accused and the rights of the victims in order to restore people's faith in the justice system. We think Bill C-13 does that with respect to cyberbullying. We are implementing the recommendations of the cybercrime working group, and the member will know that those provisions are very necessary in order to allow the legal authorities to investigate such crimes and prevent these crimes from happening again in the future.

We need to move quickly. The member has called for a split of the bill. She will know that virtually every expert who was called by the opposition appeared before the committee, that these issues were significantly debated, and they will be debated again when the Senate debates the bill.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I recognize a lot of things other members of the Conservative benches have already said on this topic.

I am particularly interested in a few issues, which I touched upon earlier with previous speakers. The article was rather interesting. I sometimes meet people who fight their whole lives to get their message across.

I would like to share another quote from the article entitled, “Why anti-‘revenge porn’ pioneer doesn’t like Canada’s cyberbullying law”, written by Anna Mehler Paperny and published today on Global News.

Mary Anne Franks is one of those people who travels all over the world defending the rights of people who are attacked after their images are shared on the Internet.

Here is what she said:

But Franks’ more serious objections have to do with the bill’s contents: “It seems like a way to get Canadians to accept a greater intrusion on the part of government and police into their personal lives and using revenge porn as a pretext for doing that, which is incredibly upsetting. … We don’t want to use a legitimate recognition of harmful behaviour as a pretext for violating people’s civil rights.”

I would like to hear what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice thinks about Ms. Franks' rather harsh criticism of the Conservatives' legislation. Did they receive any legal opinions regarding the Spencer decision that the opposition and official opposition benches would have an interest in seeing? It would be interesting to see what kind of information they have that we do not, aside from comments that this decision tears Bill C-13 apart.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to participate in today's very important debate on Bill C-13, the protecting Canadians from online crime act.

Bill C-13 would provide a strong criminal justice response to the problem of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying, much like bullying in general, is a very complex social phenomenon that requires the attention of all segments of society. Most bullying behaviour is not a criminal behaviour and should be dealt with outside of the criminal justice system. However, we know that the reach of the Internet, the speed at which information can be shared, and the ability to act anonymously have made cyberbullying a serious concern.

This problem cannot be fixed simply by enacting a new law that would adequately cover all instances of this behaviour, but that does not mean that the criminal law cannot be strengthened in this area. This is why Bill C-13 provides a targeted response within the government's broader commitment to address the issue of bullying and cyberbullying.

If passed into the law, the proposed Criminal Code amendments would create a new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images with accompanying complementary amendments. The second main purpose of Bill C-13 is to provide the police with tools to give them the ability to address all crimes committed via the Internet or that involve electronic evidence.

Let me state the obvious here. All of the elements of Bill C-13 logically go together. Police will be able to more effectively and efficiently investigate the proposed new offence and other crimes committed via the Internet or that involve electronic evidence with the proposed legally authorized tools.

Absent the new production and preservation orders proposed in Bill C-13, there would be no tool in the Criminal Code to enable the preservation and ensure that important evidence is not deleted. There would be no tool designed for production of specific subsets of tracking data and transmission data, nor would there be a tool to assist in tracing a communication by using one order with multiple providers. Without these tools, law enforcement's ability to protect Canadians from online crime and cyberbullying would be seriously hampered.

I would like to focus my remarks today on a specific provision included in Bill C-13, proposed subsection 487.0195(2) of the Criminal Code, which would provide immunity from civil and criminal liability to persons who voluntarily assist police. In a nutshell, proposed subsection 487.0195(2) would amend existing subsection 487.014(2) of the Criminal Code, which was enacted in 2004 with the creation of production orders in the Criminal Code. Subsection 487.014(2) was designed to clarify that the new production orders were not intended to preclude ongoing voluntary assistance where such assistance was not precluded by law and to reconfirm existing legal principles that such assistance would not create any liability, either civil or criminal.

When new authorities such as production orders are created in law, the result can be that common law authorities are displaced. This was not the intent when production orders were introduced into the Criminal Code in 2004, nor is it the intent with respect to the updates to production orders and the new preservation authorities proposed in Bill C-13.

The ability of the public to voluntarily assist police is essential to effective policing and a core component of ensuring public safety. Police may request information on a voluntary basis in many situations, including general policing duties that may not relate directly to investigating a crime, such as requesting information so they can contact family members when there is an accident.

However, I want to be clear. Bill C-13 would not create a new authority for voluntary assistance. It would simply clarify that any existing authority for voluntary assistance continues to be in place where not prohibited by law. It would also not create a new protection from civil or criminal liability but reconfirms the existing protection. This provision simply reconfirms existing legal principles that if an entity is legally permitted to turn over data to the police, then that entity will not be subject to civil or criminal liability for doing so. If an entity is prohibited by law from disclosing information, for example, by legislation or by contract, then immunity will not be available.

The minor revisions to existing subsection 487.014(2) that are proposed in Bill C-13 are primarily to make the provision more transparent and understandable by specifying that the protections from civil and criminal liability that are currently provided in section 25 of the Criminal Code, which deals with the protection of persons acting under authority, apply not only in the context of the current production orders but also in the context of the new production orders proposed in Bill C-13. The proposed amendments would also reflect the addition of preservation demands and orders to the Criminal Code.

This existing provision, which did not receive any attention when it was first enacted in 2004, attracted considerable criticism in the media and during committee hearings on Bill C-13. Indeed, this provision was wrongly reported as providing police with warrantless access to personal information and has been inaccurately described as a means of opening the floodgates of data between the private sector and the police.

In addition, some have also called for the deletion of this provision as a result of their interpretation of the June 2014 unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Spencer.

I wish first to confirm what the government has stated all along, a view supported by the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R. v. Spencer: that proposed subsection 487.0195(2) does not create any new search and seizure powers. Second, the proposed section continues to be required for those who continue to voluntarily assist the police where not prohibited by law. Those words are very specifically spelled out in the proposed legislation.

Specifically, the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Spencer said in paragraph 73 of the decision that the existing voluntary disclosure and immunity provision is “...a declaratory provision that confirms the existing common law powers of police officers to make enquiries”, as indicated by the fact that the section begins with the phrase “for greater certainty”. The decision makes it clear that Bill C-13 does not, and never did, create new police powers to access telecommunications data without a judicial warrant.

In R. v. Spencer, the court expanded the privacy protections afforded to information related to an Internet protocol, or IP, address in certain circumstances, thereby taking this information out of the realm of information that can be provided voluntarily. However, the court did not suggest that voluntary disclosures were now impermissible. Rather, it held that voluntary assistance could still be provided in exigent circumstances, or pursuant to a reasonable law, or where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. This clearly leaves scope for permissible voluntary assistance and provision of information without judicial pre-authorization.

Since the R. v. Spencer decision still allows for voluntary assistance to police in those circumstances, the clarification and the protection from immunity contained an existing subsection 487.014(2) and proposed subsection 487.0195(2) are still needed.

Bill C-13 was thoroughly examined by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. The committee amended the bill to require a parliamentary review of proposed sections 487.011 to 487.02 of the Criminal Code—i.e., the new preservation demands and orders, the updated production order scheme, and the assistance order provision—seven years after these provisions come into force.

I agree with this amendment and said so at the justice committee. Given the highly technical nature of these reforms, I believe that a parliamentary review would be helpful to assess if the reforms have achieved their intended impacts. This amendment may also serve to alleviate some concerns expressed by privacy advocates, as it provides a future opportunity for inquiry into the privacy impacts of the legislation.

In summary. Bill C-13 was strengthened at committee and deserves to be passed into law in the form in which it was reported back to the House. I urge all hon. members to make this possible by ensuring the swift passage of the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned that the government likes to wrap itself in the testimony of victims, as if there is something inappropriate about telling Canadians about the stories of victims that have led to this specific bill. Then he goes on to extensively quote from the testimony of Ms. Todd, which is terrific. I think people have a right to know what was said in committee.

I wonder if the member heard that Ms. Todd met with the Minister of Justice following her appearance at the justice committee and then did a subsequent CBC Radio interview about two or three days later. I wonder if the member heard that interview and what she said then. Maybe he could quote from that next time he has an opportunity. If he has not had a chance to hear that interview, I would be happy to provide him with a transcript. He would find that after speaking with the Minister of Justice, Ms. Todd understood why many of these investigative powers are necessary in order to prevent the kind of thing that happened to her daughter from happening again.

The member also did not mention what Glen Canning or Allan Hubley said about Bill C-13 or why they think these investigative powers are critical to ensure that what happened to their children does not happen to other children.

I would like the member to tell us if there are any parts of recommendation 4 from the Cybercrime Working Group report of June 2013 that he disagrees with. That group of experts said that those recommendations were necessary in addition to the criminal offence of distributing an intimate image to ensure that these types of crimes can be properly investigated and prevented. Perhaps the member could tell us about that.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise at report stage of Bill C-13.

Bill C-13 does three things. It responds to a need to protect victims from the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. That is something on which I think we all agree. However, it is an omnibus bill that also expands police powers.

The third thing it does, in furtherance of the expansion of police powers, is provide immunity to telephone companies and Internet service providers for the non-consensual, secret, warrantless, but lawful, disclosure of subscriber information.

What I will do today is talk about each of those three aspects of the bill and also about the Spencer decision, which has very much changed the landscape, and where we ought to go as a result of the Spencer decision.

The first aspect of the bill is truly non-controversial, and it is somewhat troubling that we are still here talking about it, and that is the parts of the bill that are there to protect the Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todds of the world. It is the part of the bill that is there to criminalize the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.

The opposition parties have offered to fast-track these provisions by splitting the bill, and it is somewhat troubling that we are here today, ten months after the bill was introduced, and that these measures have not been brought into law. There is a willingness within the House to bring them into law forthwith.

The reason for that is that we have an omnibus bill that has bundled in an expansion of police powers. We have an omnibus bill that has revived the Vic Toews e-snooping provisions, and it is troubling that these provisions have been included and wrapped in the flag of the victims of some terrible crimes.

I would like, for the benefit of the House, to share the testimony of Carol Todd, the mother of Amanda Todd, on May 13, to give a sense of how she feels about this omnibus legislation. She testified before our committee:

Bill C-13's cyberbullying provisions are needed for my wish to come true as a mother of a cyberbullying victim. While I applaud the efforts of all of you in crafting the sextortion, revenge porn, and cyberbullying sections of Bill C-13, I am concerned about some of the other unrelated provisions that have been added to the bill in the name of Amanda, Rehtaeh, and all the children lost to cyberbullying attacks.

I don't want to see our children victimized again by losing privacy rights. I am troubled by some of these provisions condoning the sharing of privacy information of Canadians without proper legal process. We are Canadians with strong civil rights and values. A warrant should be required before any Canadian's personal information is turned over to anyone, including government authorities.

We should be holding our telecommunications companies and Internet providers responsible for mishandling our private and personal information. We should not have to choose between our privacy and our safety. We should not have to sacrifice our children's privacy rights to make them safe from cyberbullying, sextortion, and revenge pornography.

Later in her testimony she said:

On my own behalf, I have one request. If there is any way we can separate these controversial provisions from the law designed to help other Canadians avoid the pain experienced by Rehtaeh and my Amanda, I would support that process. This would allow the bill to be free of controversy and to permit a thoughtful and careful review of the privacy-related provisions that have received broad opposition.

I do not want my privacy invaded. I do not want young people's privacy compromised. I do not want personal information being exploited without a protection order that would support individuals. I do not want any Canadian hurt in my daughter's name. I want her legacy to continue to promote hope, celebrate our differences, and give strength to other young people everywhere.

That is Carol Todd, the mother of Amanda Todd, urging us to do the right thing, expedite the passage of those provisions that deal specifically with cyberbullying and take our time to get it right on the others.

With respect to the online surveillance provisions in the bill, this is the latest installment of a prolonged and concerted campaign by the Conservatives to play big brother.

In 2007, Stockwell Day launched an online consultation process with respect to the mandatory disclosure of customers' names and information. After it was exposed, he promised not to authorize warrantless access. That promise was broken in 2009, when the Conservative government brought in a bill, the first bill that was introduced. It had 13 identifiers that mandated warrantless disclosure of subscriber information. An election derailed that effort. At that time the Minister of Public Safety was the present government House leader.

The Vic Toews' version was then introduced, and it narrowed the identifiers from 13 down to six. We know what happened to the Vic Toews' version after the outburst against the member for Lac-Saint-Louis that one is either with us or with the child pornographers. Due to the outrage around the e-snooping provisions in the Vic Toews' bill, there was a promise by the next justice minister to not reintroduce those provisions. However, 37 of the 47 provisions of the Vic Toews' bill are in this bill.

What the government has done, however, in the bill is that it has kept out the most offensive aspects of the Vic Toews' bill dealing with warrantless disclosure, but it has come at it through the back door. Instead of mandating warrantless disclosure, what it has done is made voluntary disclosure easier by giving immunity to those who co-operate with police. Another bill that is going through the other place takes this one step further. It expands the audience. It expands the circumstances and the parties who may receive this voluntary warrantless disclosure.

The testimony on May 6 before the committee was quite telling. We had an expert in privacy law from Halifax, a fellow by the name of David Fraser, comment on this immunity that is being offered to telephone companies.

He said:

...I would touch very briefly on the issue of service provider immunity that's touched on within this statute. I find this to be gravely problematic. I think it's a very cleverly crafted provision. We're told that this is simply for greater certainty, but it goes beyond that. Everything we know suggests otherwise.

It says that you will not be liable for handing over any data that you're not prohibited by law from handing over, and if you do so you're civilly immune. Now, only the criminal law and other regulations create prohibitions against handing over information, but you can hand over information when you're not legally prohibited and still incur civil liability. Civil liability is there for a reason. I may not be legally prohibited from accidentally driving my car into yours, but if I do that, you're entitled to damages from that. I should be paying for the harm that is caused.

The immunity provisions are very problematic because the government is trying to do indirectly what it cannot do directly. This was pronounced upon by the Supreme Court of Canada in the recent Spencer decision. Here is what the government argued to the Supreme Court of Canada:

...does a person enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy in subscriber information? Put another way, should the police have to get judicial authorization to determine the physical address of an internet connection and the subscriber's name before they apply for judicial authorization to search that physical address?

The answer to those questions must be “no”....

That is what the government said. The court rejected that argument. The court found a privacy interest in that information and that the charter had been breached in the circumstances. That changes the landscape. That changes the debate. We need to split the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to speak today to Bill C-13. It is a sad moment because this bill contains all the flaws it had at first reading.

I want to also put on the record that I regret the Speaker's decision. I understand the Speaker's reasoning, but I would have fully supported the request by the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca for that amendment to be selected. That is an important issue of gender identity and ending discrimination, and I think it is a shame that we missed the opportunity today to have that amendment before the House of Commons.

The point was well made just moments ago by my hon. colleague from Charlottetown that it is a terrible shame that the bill was not divided. There is no doubt that easy passage would have created a bill that genuinely dealt with cyberbullying and did not, once again, resurface efforts at what is called “lawful access” but which is generally known in common parlance as Internet snooping by the state into the private lives of Canadians.

There are many troubling aspects on the Internet snooping or lawful access part of the bill that has bedevilled the part that we all would want to support to genuinely deal with cyberbullying. Therefore, my comments will be in relation to those portions that should have been split out, dealt with separately, and not brought forward as though there is nothing wrong with them. Those are the sections that relate to so-called lawful access.

Those sections that deal with the release of private information and private communications of Canadians under much less stringent circumstances than in the past, contrary to what the Minister of Justice said just moments ago, is very worrying. Had it not been worrying, we would not have seen such strong statements from various of our privacy commissioners, our former federal privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, and the Ontario privacy commissioner, Commissioner Cavoukian.

Many privacy experts have spoken out and said the bill would, as have so many other bills that have been put forward by the Conservative administration, violate our charter rights, certainly violate our privacy rights. The Canadian Bar Association and the Criminal Lawyers' Association have spoken out strongly, saying sections of the bill, with modest changes, could be made acceptable. However, those changes were all shot down in committee.

This is a case where, as the member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands and as leader of the Green Party, I was invited—I suppose that is the right term, “coerced” might be the one that comes to mind more often—by the new process that applies to members in my position, those with fewer than 12 members in the party in the House or independents, with 48 hours notice to come before various different committees. I brought forward a dozen or so amendments on Bill C-13 to the committee on this issue to try to deal with those sections where we would now ask for deletions. We would like to see the bill improved even now at report stage. Unfortunately, all my arguments were shot down and all the amendments were defeated.

In short form, I will cover the basic themes of what we find. Of course, some of themes have been well touched on by the hon. member for Gatineau in her quite strong explanation of what is wrong with the bill.

The provisions that allow for the telecom companies' voluntary disclosure of private information to be held harmless against any subsequent prosecutions are unnecessary. In fact, we now have the Spencer decision, which has been referenced as well this afternoon, that makes it clear that the bill is out of step with the Supreme Court. We do not need to make it easier for telecom companies to voluntarily turn information over without a warrant and without some of the protections that we used to see in other descriptions of when such information could be turned over.

The fact that we can see various levels of public officials asking for such information is worrying, in and of itself. The fact that they can do it voluntarily and be immune from prosecution is a further worry that we will have significantly more invasions of privacy in the guise of doing something about cyberbullying.

The second area of concern is the lack of accountability and oversight. We used to require that the police have reason to suspect. Now it is a watered-down provision.

We need to have more oversight when we are dealing with issues of privacy. In this Internet age, we are more aware than ever that the private information of Canadians, the kinds of things that we used to keep in our homes under lock and key, that a stranger would have to knock down the doors and rifle through our cabinets to get, now through technological breakthroughs and the Internet is easily accessible by the state through the simple process of pressuring a telecom to release the information to us. This is a significant threat to privacy rights in Canada.

Should this bill pass as currently before us? If it does, it would be a significant violation. It would inevitably lead to violations of the privacy rights of Canadians.

The other piece that has been widely criticized in this bill is the scope of public officers who can have access to this information. It has become too broad.

Justin Ling, who has a good sense of humour, had an opinion piece in the National Post on May 4, 2014. I know it was something of a spoof, but it was certainly a telling way to make the point that the list of public officers who would have unprecedented access to the private information of Canadians would extend to the current mayor of Toronto. Now, while he certainly is dealing with a personal tragedy in his life, and we hope nothing but the best for his health and recovery, the point was made that we do not want to have the private information of Canadians so widely accessible to such a broad group of individuals. Of course, it would also include CSEC, the Communications Security Establishment Canada. It would also include CSIS, as well as public officers of all kinds, including mayors.

This is not the kind of oversight, accountability, and control Canadians would come to expect when the apparatus of the state decides to reduce the tests and lower the threshold for having access to the private information of Canadians.

We will certainly have debate on this. In know that the hon. member who is now the Minister of Justice will have defences and will say that it absolutely does not reduce privacy rights. Why then do so many privacy commissioners think it does? If it does not intrude on civil liberties, then why do the major law organizations and legal scholars in this country say that it does?

There are a lot of members of Parliament on the other side of this place who describe themselves, in their own conversations, as libertarians. They distrust the state. They distrust government reaching into their private lives. I ask them this: How have they gotten so far from a distrust of the state to a cult of Big Brother? I am wondering how it happened that we have moved from a nanny state to a Big Brother state. If the government wants this information about Canadians, those of us on this side of the House who want to defend privacy rights, as a former minister, Vic Toews, said in this place, somehow “...stand with us or with the child pornographers”. Are we to continue to hear that when we stand for the privacy rights of Canadians, we do not care enough about ending cyberbullying?

It is not too late, still, to split this bill and allow us on the opposition benches to strongly support the measures that will protect the vulnerable from cyberbullying, but please, let us draw the line at letting Big Brother have more access to private information. This bill goes too far, and they know it.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will answer quickly. In any case, I think that my Liberal colleague knows the answer to that. A good lawyer does not ask a question unless he knows the answer.

We are not spending enough time on the issue of violating privacy, which is the bulk of Bill C-13, and too much time on the issue of the distribution of images, which could have changed quickly. Once again, it goes without saying that the bill could be split.

Once again, it is very unfortunate that this is not a possibility. I think it is wrong to play politics at the expense of victims. I always say that there is nothing worse than dragging victims to a press conference to try to give everyone the impression that they are being supported. Then it is truly sad to see their expectations deflate when they are faced with the inadequate reality.

In this context, we know that the government wants to pass Bill C-13 as quickly as possible in order to hold other press conferences. However, this has also opened the eyes of the victims and their parents. Like Amanda Todd's mother, they have realized that this bill may not do exactly what the government claims it will do. We need to further consider and analyze the provisions.