Bill C-44 (Historical)

Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act

An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other Acts

This enactment amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to give greater protection to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s human sources. Also, so as to enable the Service to more effectively investigate threats to the security of Canada, the enactment clarifies the scope of the Service’s mandate and confirms the jurisdiction of the Federal Court to issue warrants that have effect outside Canada. In addition, it makes a consequential amendment to the Access to Information Act.
The enactment also amends the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act to allow for the coming into force of provisions relating to the revocation of Canadian citizenship on a different day than the day on which certain other provisions of that Act come into force.

Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act

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

Mr. Speaker, what we created with Bill C-44 is a strong piece of legislation that needed all its elements to do the tasks we set out for it. The opposition proposed amendments, but in general the amendments would have eroded the ability of this piece of legislation to take on the responsibilities it needed in responding to the court decisions.

I note that there are complementary pieces of legislation. The member talked about some gaps and some additional needs; I welcome her response, and I also look forward to the support that I hope we get from the NDP on Bill C-51.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on what legal opinion did my colleague base her assurance that creating two classes of citizens—based on whether they have dual citizenship or not—for something as serious as revoking Canadian citizenship would not be considered by the courts to be inconsistent with the charter?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not have the benefit of being a lawyer, as I believe my colleague on the other side is. The Minister of Justice has a number of lawyers within the justice department and all legislation that we bring forward has had a full analysis in terms of the protection of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech.

Since the Conservatives keep referring to the murder in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu committed on October 20, 2014, can my colleague explain how, to her knowledge, a change in the way CSIS operates would have prevented the act committed by a person who was being tracked and assessed by the RCMP, which found that this person was no longer a threat to the public?

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

Mr. Speaker, I find it strange how the NDP cannot look at the definition of terrorism and call a spade a spade in what happened in both events in Canada last October.

More important, lone wolf attacks are difficult to prevent and our law enforcement agencies need modern tools to do the job that we want them to do with respect to protecting us.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.

I am speaking today to Bill C-44, a terrorism bill. However, before I get into the more technical aspects of my speech, I want to talk a bit about the threat of terrorism in Canada.

I have heard my colleagues across the way describe the events of last fall as being one of the most egregious terrorism acts that we have seen in Canada, but I do not think it actually deserves that title. The most egregious act of terrorism that occurred in Canada was Air India in 1985. It was a very tragic occurrence. CSIS at the time was tracking the terrorists, and we did not have very good oversight over CSIS and its operations then. For many years, Parliament was unable to get to the bottom of it, and required quite extensive action on the part of government to do that. What we saw in 1985 was a large act of terrorism, in which hundreds of people were killed. That is, in my mind, the primary event of terrorism in Canada in the time I have been here.

We have seen other acts of terrorism. We have seen it in the Alberta gas fields, where people have blown up gas wells on numerous occasions. We have seen acts of terrorism on the west coast against hydroelectric facilities. Terrorism has shown up in Canada quite often over the course of our lifetimes.

Only today do we see this kind of knee-jerk reaction to incidents for which we have much difficulty understanding as pure terrorism, because the individuals involved had mental and social issues. They may well have been influenced by ideology from one ethnic group or the other, but they were not driven or coerced by that. They acted on their own and in some ways acted haphazardly and in a way that suggested they were simply emotional outbursts. To me, that is not the same type of thing as a carefully planned and executed destruction of an airliner, killing hundreds of people. That is truly a definition of, if not terrorism, the relative degree of importance of the acts that take place.

It is unfortunate that in the events we have seen in the last few months, we now will make decisions about the way we run Canada that we did not choose to make in 1985 or at other times when we were faced with acts that we could justifiably call terrorism. Therefore, why are we doing it now? Why are we taking these actions now? What is the larger threat that we see and perceive that will curtail more human rights and the basic freedoms we have in Canada, those that we have worked very hard to maintain? What are we doing?

With the latest bill, we would increase the powers of Canada's spy agency. We are offering it up as another international body to engage in espionage and spy on other countries. We have created this situation in the law. Clause 8 of the bill calls for enabling “the Service to investigate, within or outside Canada, a threat to the security of Canada or to perform its duties and functions under section 16”. The important words are “outside Canada“. Now we will give our intelligence service more latitude to pursue its objectives outside of Canada.

Section 21 of the act asks that we also give the agency the ability to act without regard to any other law, in other words, any other law of another country. We are asking our intelligence service to open up the opportunity to spy on other countries, to disregard the laws that other countries might have toward their citizens and pursue our intelligence system in that regard. We are taking a step to a more confrontational approach to other nations based on one single perceived threat of ISIL, or al Qaeda, or those foreign agencies that we see as being the prime international threat to the stability of the world right now.

We are on a fairly slippery slope and this is simply the first piece of legislation that the government is coming forward with, and we are going to see some more. We were given public notice of another bill today, and I have not had the opportunity to review it. However, certainly we are moving in that direction. It is something that we have to take very seriously. It is not simple. It is not simply to jump on the bandwagon and let us go after increased surveillance abilities our intelligence service overseas. Within Canada we will see our intelligence service taking other kinds of actions which would not have been permitted in the past.

Is the threat of that significance why we need to move in that direction? I would argue that after the larger incident of terrorism that occurred in 1985, we made some changes to our airport security system. We did some things to help reduce that threat. We did not really provide that same coordination within the country that perhaps was required. I think we are all in favour of greater coordination between our protective services. However, at that time, we did not see the need to give our intelligence service these types of powers to take out of the country, yet we have seen incidents far less serious than that which are now driving us in that direction. Why? Is it simply by politics?

That is a concern that we all have on this side of the House, that we are moving ahead with restrictions of the rights and privileges of Canadians based on the political necessity of creating this threat in the Canadian political process. It is unfortunate that we would then choose to change our laws, laws that have been in place for a long time.

In some ways, politics is important in terms of our international relationships. When we see a Canadian foreign minister abroad being pelted with eggs and shoes, that is an unusual occurrence for Canada. Perhaps we should look at the politics of what we are doing rather than simply looking at ways that we can intervene militarily. We have moved away from a Canadian position of enlightened centralism into one that picks sides. That is the greatest threat to Canadian security in this day and age.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I want to better understand what the member said. In his speech, he said that he was uncertain whether ISIL, or ISIS, was a real threat to Canadians, both at home and abroad. He was also arguing about the degree to which an event or a terrorist act should cause us to strengthen our security services.

I wonder if the member could clearly identify for me at what level of death, destruction, and terror does he suggest that Canada should begin to strengthen its laws. Would it be if 300 people died, or one person, or 50 people?

Specifically, since he is suggesting that the attack on Ottawa and the death of Corporal Cirillo do not necessitate this and that Air India was not at a level he believed warranted our strengthening the laws, what level of terror, death, and destruction does this member and his party believe would warrant the Government of Canada reviewing and strengthening the security laws and apparatus?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, to put a number on it in that regard is really difficult.

However, what I was trying to point out was that after the Air India incident, in which 300 people were killed, we did certain things. Most of them dealt with the physical security of our airports. We tried to better coordinate the agencies engaged in dealing with terrorist incidents within our country. We took some actions there; we did not change the law. We took actions within the services that we provide to Canadians to protect them to ensure that we did manage to maintain the same level of personal liberties and freedoms through that time.

Now, we are in a different time and we have had a number of deaths. They were terribly unfortunate and no one wants to see any of this happen, but, of course, it is part of any society that these things do happen. Now, as a result, are we going to make these changes? Now, are we now going to reduce these freedoms? Now, will we send out our intelligence agency to play a larger role in the international community? I do not find that appropriate.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is about the oversight of CSIS. Bill C-44 would give significant new powers to CSIS, yet significant new oversight is not proposed.

In fact, I remember that when I was finance critic, in one of the many omnibus budget bills the Conservative government brought forward, one of the provisions was to eliminate the position of inspector general, the person charged with full-time oversight of CSIS. We heard expert testimony—ironically at the finance committee, even though it was a national security issue—from the person who had been in charge of setting up the machinery of CSIS when it was first created. The witness warned the government not to remove that position because it was the government's eyes and ears on CSIS. The witness said it was the only way the government could prevent the people charged with securing and protecting the public, people who had unique powers, from not exceeding their powers.

Would the member comment on the lack of oversight of CSIS, especially now that the government wants to increase the powers of CSIS?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am very much in favour of greater oversight of these bodies by Parliament in a fashion that would provide us with quicker answers than we received in regard to the Air India incident. That showed me how important it is to interact continually with the intelligence agency to understand what it is doing, why it is doing what it is doing, where its shortfalls are, and how the agency can be improved. Without that, I think there is extreme danger to Canadian values because it simply does not give the intelligence agency the opportunity to look carefully at what it is doing and to ensure it is doing things according to every law we have in place now. I think that goes without saying.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is the second time I have spoken in the course of this debate, since I spoke at second reading of Bill C-44. If members would like to know more about my feelings on this bill, they can have a look at my other speech.

I would also like to thank my colleague from Alfred-Pellan for the work she has done on this issue. She made an excellent speech this morning. Anyone watching at home should watch my colleague's speech if they want more information.

Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other Acts essentially makes three substantive changes with regard to CSIS.

First, it clarifies the legal authority of CSIS to conduct security intelligence operations abroad to respond to threats from outside Canada.

Second, it confirms the jurisdiction of the Federal Court to issue warrants that have effect outside Canada.

Third, it provides for protection of identity for CSIS human intelligence sources in judicial proceedings.

The NDP does not deny that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act is in need of some changes. We do not deny that the world has changed in recent decades and that Canada's commitments abroad have also changed. The realities we face have changed. Naturally, we need to amend this act so that CSIS can act abroad in a way that is adapted to today's realities.

That is why we voted in favour of this bill at second reading. We had hoped to work with the government to improve this bill and make amendments, because even at second reading we saw some huge flaws in the bill. We had a lot of concerns about the bill, especially with respect to protections, civilian oversight of CSIS and the fact that the government does not give CSIS adequate resources.

I would like to point out that the NDP participated in the committee's study in order to improve this bill so that it would meet Canadians' criteria for civilian oversight.

We moved several amendments in committee but, unfortunately, even though we wanted to work in good faith with the government, it rejected all our amendments without even studying them. That is truly deplorable.

The amendments we proposed addressed the concerns expressed by witnesses and experts who appeared before the committee. With respect to warrants for overseas covert actions, we moved an amendment that would require the director, and not an employee designated by the minister, to make the application in every case. It is simply a question of transparency.

I know that all Canadians want CSIS to be as transparent as possible. The purpose of our amendment was to ensure that covert activities do not become routine. We wanted the director to be accountable.

I listened to the debate very carefully today, and the Conservative government has still not explained why it rejected this amendment, which would have resulted in more transparency and accountability.

Additionally, we put forward an amendment to delete the following from clause 8(2):

Without regard to any other law, including that of any foreign state,...

It is important that we remove this part of the bill because we wanted to remove any contradiction with international law and the explicit granting of power to Canadian courts to authorize illegal activity in other states. Canadian activities must comply with international law. Unfortunately, the government also rejected this amendment without consideration for the opinions of experts.

We also proposed another amendment to add specific accountability for the use of warrants to authorize activities of CSIS abroad to the CSIS director. We would like the director to submit an annual report to the Security Intelligence Review Committee specifying the disposition of all such warrant applications and the activities carried out under the warrants.

In my opinion, this is simply about accountability. That is why MPs are elected. It is our job in this place to ensure that there is accountability. The committees are an important mechanism for ensuring that the government is accountable to Canadians. That is why we moved this amendment, which once again was rejected by the Conservative government.

Lastly, in order to prevent possible abuse regarding surveillance warrants, we asked the government to accept one of our amendments, which was about clarifying exactly when a foreign surveillance warrant was necessary. That is very important.

This is a concern not only for Canadians, but for citizens of the United States and other countries who are worried about the extent of surveillance and activities of organizations like CSIS.

If the investigative activity was supposed to take place in Canada and required a warrant under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or if the activity violated international law or the laws of the country where it was to take place, the Federal Court of Canada would have to issue a warrant for that activity to take place outside of Canada.

We examined this bill very carefully and, unfortunately, we cannot support it as it stands, because our amendments were not accepted.

I would also like to explain to the House the criteria we use to assess all legislative measures intended to combat threats to public safety.

Our analysis is based on three criteria. The first criterion is enhanced civilian oversight. It is absolutely crucial that enhanced civilian oversight accompany any new powers for CSIS. The second criterion is the protection of civil liberties. Having spoken with my constituents in Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, I know that they are very worried about this. They strongly believe that civil liberties must be protected. Yes, we need to increase security measures, but not at the expense of civil liberties. This is an important criterion. The third criterion we use to assess public safety legislation has to do with adequate resources. We know that the Conservative government continues to cut resources in terms of funding and personnel. CSIS can definitely be given the tools it needs to do its job.

However, if CSIS does not have the resources and staff it needs, this whole exercise is pointless, and the agency will not be able to properly tackle the problem of terrorism.

Some cuts have been made. The Conservatives have cut as much as $600 million and $87.9 million from our public safety agencies. There have been cuts everywhere.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

She mentioned something that I believe is critical to democracy. When a power is granted, there must be control over it. We need a balanced approach between security and the ability to make sure that there are no abuses once that power is granted.

I would like my colleague to comment further on the need for a balance between granting powers to ensure security and the ability to ensure that there are no abuses of those powers.

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

Mr. Speaker, that is actually a concern that many of the witnesses raised in committee. We have to take a close look at that issue. During the committee's study, the Conservative government prevented officers of Parliament, such as the Privacy Commissioner, whose job is to protect Canadians' privacy, from appearing before the committee. He was unable to appear before the committee to express his concerns about Bill C-44, and I find that deplorable.

This also shows the Conservative government's contempt for officers of Parliament and the people who are responsible for protecting Canadians and their privacy. The government also refused to accept their submission. It acted in bad faith at the committee stage. Unfortunately, the government did not take a balanced approach, and the bill does not contain enough measures to protect Canadians' privacy.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Minister of State (Social Development)]

Mr. Speaker, of course all of the laws we have introduced, and this bill specifically, balance the rights and privacy of Canadian citizens. They also do something that Canadians have asked us to do, which is a full commitment and full responsibility of any government, and that is to protect citizens from threats, whether from abroad or direct threats right here on Canadian soil.

Although the New Democrats in one sense talk about protecting Canadians, when it comes to supporting strong legislation like the bill we are introducing today, they will not support it with their votes.

How dire would the situation have to be and under what circumstance would the New Democrats support giving our law enforcement the tools they need to fight threats, whether at home or abroad? What would they see as warranting this kind of protection for Canadians?

We believe it is warranted and warranted now. We need it. It is disappointing that they will not support it. Under what circumstances would they support this kind of legislation?

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

Mr. Speaker, frankly, I find the question by the hon. parliamentary secretary insulting. The government's rhetoric on how many deaths there would need to be before we would act, frankly, enrages me. They seem to suggest that we did not deeply grieve the events that happened in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.

This rhetoric is extremely problematic. The government is presenting legislation that is not balanced. It does not protect the private life of Canadians and it does not actually ensure civilian surveillance of our security organizations. The government bill is completely problematic and yet at the same time the Conservative members are accusing us of being complicit with terrorists. That is completely inappropriate rhetoric for this kind of debate.

In closing, I would like to quote Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien, who expressed serious concerns over this bill. He said:

It is understandable that the government would want to consider boosting the powers of law-enforcement and national security agencies to address potential gaps.

But any new tools should be accompanied by a beefed-up role for the watchdogs who keep an eye on spies and police.

The NDP agrees with Privacy Commissioner Therrien.